[Patch 2.1.2] Lightning DH Guide + Gameplay Video (Tier 47)
Jan 19, 2015 17:39:46 GMT 1
Post by wudijo on Jan 19, 2015 17:39:46 GMT 1
[Preface]
Hey everyone,
I present you my recently updated guide on the lightning Demon Hunter for clearing high greater rifts in solo. In patch 2.1.2 Blizzard decided to nerf this build because of its broken mechanics; now it has become a lot harder to gear and prepare for, to fish for a good rift as well as to execute a correct play style of this build, however it is still possible to do so and might still potentially be one of the strongest solo and group builds (it is, however, much more in line with other builds right now).
After my world first tier 45 clear back in September 2014, the lightning build quickly became popular and was used extensively by everyone on top of the leaderboards. After the nerfs to DH survivability in 2.1.2, many people believed this build to be dead - but it isn't.
Previously, this build involved the use of the old Nightstalker passive (Your critical hits have a chance to restore 1 discipline) in conjunction with the Meticulous Bolts quiver, which makes your Elemental Arrow - Ball Lightning travel at slower speeds, allowing to permanently stay in smoke screen and deal tremendous amounts of damage. Even after I had conceived and successfully played this build for the first time in Tier 45, I wouldn't have imagined that it would go several tiers higher than my wildest dreams. This build was so broken that Blizzard decided to nerf it out of existence, as a variation of it reached up to Tier 55 in solo and even higher in group play.
For anyone who might be out of touch with the news about this build, gameplay and guides of the old build [Patch 2.1] in action can be found on my Twitch and Youtube channel, as well as my old thread on Diablofans. I also managed to pull of a worldwide Rank 1 DH on the hardcore leaderboards prior to patch 2.1.2 with it.
[The idea of the build]
Now, let's get to the build. Since this build excels at dealing huge AoE damage, you are required to have a lot of monsters on the screen, at best to keep pushing forward endlessly. As of patch 2.1.2, smoke screen has a 3 second cooldown and nightstalker no longer regenerates discipline, which provides a significant challenge in order to achieve permanent invulnerability. The idea is to use a lot of cooldown and resource cost reduction to pull it off and try to fight big, valuable monsters en masse to quickly progress through the rift.
[Gearing]
The item requirements are tremendously high, as you will need to achieve higher than 50% CDR permanently. You are required to have perfect CDR rolls on at least 4 items, best case shoulders, gloves, weapon and quiver, use the Gogok of Swiftness gem, full paragon CDR and a diamand gem in the helm. This will put you at ~52-53% cooldown reduction including Gogok, which is barely enough to stay in smoke screen permanently with a good internet connection. You can still use one more item (ring) until you feel comfortable with the build. You will also want to have as much RCR as possible, making a Pride's Fall and full paragon mandatory, as well as RCR rolls on shoulders and if possible on a 5 primary ring and maybe on your weapon.
Aside from that, you use the general M6 + RoRG setup, the Meticulous Bolts (the travel speed speed roll is the most important part - the slower, the better). Helltrapper is no longer a viable option, because it cannot spawn additional sentries anymore, making room for other weapons, the best being a well-rolled and difficult-to-get ancient Calamity. Kridershot is a good options as well. With the new density changes in greater rifts, a SoJ is no longer necessary, because there are a lot less elite packs than before inside the rifts.
In Tier 40-50, it is possible to survive one or two hits if you have some toughness, so it might be a good idea to stack some of it or even use Perfectionist as a 5th passive. When pushing beyond that, I recommend to go back to zero toughness and just use a full glass cannon playstyle, just as before 2.1.2.
As for the gems, the best combination are Taeguk, Bane of the Trapped and Gogok of Swiftness. The latter is required for the CDR value, Taeguk should always be refreshed when it is about to fall off, and Bane of the Trapped should be enabled via Sentry - Polar Station. In group play, Zei's and Bane of the Powerful might be good options as well.
[Playstyle]
The idea is to keep pushing and pull more and more monsters which you can damage using the huge AoE radius of Ball Lightning, while hiding in smoke screen indefinitely. Unfortunately, without the additional discipline regeneration via Nightstalker, true permanent invulnerability is no longer achievable without dropping a lot of mandatory damage stats on your items, so you will eventually run out of discipline before you can start spamming smoke screen anew. Your main source of discipline is Preparation - Focused Mind, which at ~52% CDR can be used every ~21-22 seconds, leaving about 6 seconds downtime of the increased regeneration. You will need to find a safe spot about twice every minute because you will have downtime on your smoke screen. Also, if you only have easy trash monsters or easy elite packs chasing you, you should try to keep the smoke screen down whenever you can in order to regenerate some more discipline for the times when you really need it. Unlike before, every single point of discipline is precious, and you cannot afford to waste any of them. Additionally, when trying to chain smoke screen, it is important to only hit the button once just when the cooldown is up, spamming the button results in a delay which will kill you.
This build excels at fighting slow-moving and big-size monsters, such as Golgors, Maggot Broods, etc, as the Ball Lightning will deal more damage to them due to their increased hit box. Like this, you can progress very rapidly true the rifts if you get the proper enemy type, because those monsters typically are the most rewarding as well. Smaller monsters or groups of small monsters should be skipped if possible, as well as any yellow elites and reflect packs that you can't kill safely.
[Related Links]
Diablofans build section (including detailed overview of itemization)
Diablofans discussion thread
[Gameplay Video]
Hey everyone,
I present you my recently updated guide on the lightning Demon Hunter for clearing high greater rifts in solo. In patch 2.1.2 Blizzard decided to nerf this build because of its broken mechanics; now it has become a lot harder to gear and prepare for, to fish for a good rift as well as to execute a correct play style of this build, however it is still possible to do so and might still potentially be one of the strongest solo and group builds (it is, however, much more in line with other builds right now).
After my world first tier 45 clear back in September 2014, the lightning build quickly became popular and was used extensively by everyone on top of the leaderboards. After the nerfs to DH survivability in 2.1.2, many people believed this build to be dead - but it isn't.
Previously, this build involved the use of the old Nightstalker passive (Your critical hits have a chance to restore 1 discipline) in conjunction with the Meticulous Bolts quiver, which makes your Elemental Arrow - Ball Lightning travel at slower speeds, allowing to permanently stay in smoke screen and deal tremendous amounts of damage. Even after I had conceived and successfully played this build for the first time in Tier 45, I wouldn't have imagined that it would go several tiers higher than my wildest dreams. This build was so broken that Blizzard decided to nerf it out of existence, as a variation of it reached up to Tier 55 in solo and even higher in group play.
For anyone who might be out of touch with the news about this build, gameplay and guides of the old build [Patch 2.1] in action can be found on my Twitch and Youtube channel, as well as my old thread on Diablofans. I also managed to pull of a worldwide Rank 1 DH on the hardcore leaderboards prior to patch 2.1.2 with it.
[The idea of the build]
Now, let's get to the build. Since this build excels at dealing huge AoE damage, you are required to have a lot of monsters on the screen, at best to keep pushing forward endlessly. As of patch 2.1.2, smoke screen has a 3 second cooldown and nightstalker no longer regenerates discipline, which provides a significant challenge in order to achieve permanent invulnerability. The idea is to use a lot of cooldown and resource cost reduction to pull it off and try to fight big, valuable monsters en masse to quickly progress through the rift.
[Gearing]
The item requirements are tremendously high, as you will need to achieve higher than 50% CDR permanently. You are required to have perfect CDR rolls on at least 4 items, best case shoulders, gloves, weapon and quiver, use the Gogok of Swiftness gem, full paragon CDR and a diamand gem in the helm. This will put you at ~52-53% cooldown reduction including Gogok, which is barely enough to stay in smoke screen permanently with a good internet connection. You can still use one more item (ring) until you feel comfortable with the build. You will also want to have as much RCR as possible, making a Pride's Fall and full paragon mandatory, as well as RCR rolls on shoulders and if possible on a 5 primary ring and maybe on your weapon.
Aside from that, you use the general M6 + RoRG setup, the Meticulous Bolts (the travel speed speed roll is the most important part - the slower, the better). Helltrapper is no longer a viable option, because it cannot spawn additional sentries anymore, making room for other weapons, the best being a well-rolled and difficult-to-get ancient Calamity. Kridershot is a good options as well. With the new density changes in greater rifts, a SoJ is no longer necessary, because there are a lot less elite packs than before inside the rifts.
In Tier 40-50, it is possible to survive one or two hits if you have some toughness, so it might be a good idea to stack some of it or even use Perfectionist as a 5th passive. When pushing beyond that, I recommend to go back to zero toughness and just use a full glass cannon playstyle, just as before 2.1.2.
As for the gems, the best combination are Taeguk, Bane of the Trapped and Gogok of Swiftness. The latter is required for the CDR value, Taeguk should always be refreshed when it is about to fall off, and Bane of the Trapped should be enabled via Sentry - Polar Station. In group play, Zei's and Bane of the Powerful might be good options as well.
[Playstyle]
The idea is to keep pushing and pull more and more monsters which you can damage using the huge AoE radius of Ball Lightning, while hiding in smoke screen indefinitely. Unfortunately, without the additional discipline regeneration via Nightstalker, true permanent invulnerability is no longer achievable without dropping a lot of mandatory damage stats on your items, so you will eventually run out of discipline before you can start spamming smoke screen anew. Your main source of discipline is Preparation - Focused Mind, which at ~52% CDR can be used every ~21-22 seconds, leaving about 6 seconds downtime of the increased regeneration. You will need to find a safe spot about twice every minute because you will have downtime on your smoke screen. Also, if you only have easy trash monsters or easy elite packs chasing you, you should try to keep the smoke screen down whenever you can in order to regenerate some more discipline for the times when you really need it. Unlike before, every single point of discipline is precious, and you cannot afford to waste any of them. Additionally, when trying to chain smoke screen, it is important to only hit the button once just when the cooldown is up, spamming the button results in a delay which will kill you.
This build excels at fighting slow-moving and big-size monsters, such as Golgors, Maggot Broods, etc, as the Ball Lightning will deal more damage to them due to their increased hit box. Like this, you can progress very rapidly true the rifts if you get the proper enemy type, because those monsters typically are the most rewarding as well. Smaller monsters or groups of small monsters should be skipped if possible, as well as any yellow elites and reflect packs that you can't kill safely.
[Related Links]
Diablofans build section (including detailed overview of itemization)
Diablofans discussion thread
[Gameplay Video]