[2.3] Cool DH Builds that didn't work (Season 4 Edition)

Hey everyone,

here are a couple random builds I want to share. Since the season is almost over I decided to come out with some of my ZEcret stuff I held back for a while, parts of it being more or less relevant for pushing and the rest being just some for fun stuff you might find interesting to try out, especially when you look for new challenges or just casually play the game. I’m not going into all the little details of every single item or anything, it’s just something I’ve put together from some of my old footage and memory and maybe it might inspire a couple new ideas for someone. Enjoy!

1) Invoker Thorns DH

By far my most advanced creation that I kept hidden away for a long time, I felt I’d start off with this one. With the introduction of the Kanai’s Cube the possibilities for outside the box builds seemed incredible, and after long hours spent theorycrafting and calculating, finally this build was created. It revolves around the synergy of N6 + Invoker 4 + Hack + Ball Lightning to dish out insane thorns damage. With perfect rolls you could expect to spread 0.5-2b damage per monster per second to everything on the screen, quickly amounting to huge numbers if you have a pack of monsters around you. Since there is no need for any damage stats whatsoever, you could run an incredibly tanky setup and actually proc thorns when monsters hit you as well, fill the remaining slots with attack speed and use Stricken to kill the boss (probably Perendi / Hamelin / Saxtris would be required for high end clears). I expected the build to be a hidden champion I’d push with off stream in the last 2 days of the season to get an unexpected rank 1 no one could compete with, but the continuous success of N6 pushing into the 70s prompted me to trash the build, all my items (I was around 80% done with gg ancient rolls) and my recorded footage (I just emulated some for this video) of it. Nevertheless, it was still a really fun thing to test and play around with. Unfortunately, this build is incredibly difficult to gear for (complicated by the fact that crusaders are pretty much extinct in torments) and will no longer be available come patch 2.4. Also, I think that Pain Enhancer instead of Bane of the Trapped would have been a better choice (both for overall dps and RG due to Stricken snapshot).

D3 planner link: www.d3planner.com/654381435
Expected power level: Tier 68-72

2) N6 Helltrapper Wizard Style

Another fun variation for solo pushing, I was inspired by my clan mate Avoid’s solo Wizard videos and the Vyr’s playstyle. I wanted to build around the Ancient Parthan defenders and combined high mobility with high but stationary damage, using Anathema for the nuke as well as dropping Smoke Screen and Strafe for Vault and Fan of Knives (also known as “The Helltrapper build” from season 3). You use Sentry – Chains of Torment for more N2 procs and Spike Traps – Echoing Blast to proc the bracers, however that didn’t turn out so well toughness wise and made me run more than shoot. It was very exciting to try out something else for solo, but got bored of it very quickly because it also failed to convey the epicness of using a skill like Archon. On top of that it requires insane fishing because you need several packs of monsters on the screen at all times so that you can move around and freeze monsters that do not have CC immunity yet. I scrapped the idea pretty quickly, but it still had some potential.

D3 planner link: www.d3planner.com/779087943
Expected power level: Tier 63-68

3) Marauder 4 Elements

More of a fun build than anything, this was a little creation I came up with by trying to make use of all cycles of Convention of Elements while also making my sentries shoot on every attack. There were some more synergies in the build such as using Ballistics for two different spells (MS – Arsenal, CA – Maelstrom) and the alternating nature of generator + spender to make sure you have Focus and Restraint up. Quite obviously this build wouldn’t work out for a couple of reasons, most importantly the facts that you would not regenerate enough resources even with Yang’s Recurve and Pride’s Fall / Hexing Pants, that M6 is just terrible in comparison to other sets and that we just don’t have enough skill slots. You could drop Spines + Chakram and run Bolas – Thunderball with a Yang’s Recurve to alleviate the resource problem a little. It still provides a fun experience for those trying to become a master of the elements.

D3 planner link: www.d3planner.com/933995154
Expected power level: Tier 58-63

4) UE Buriza Duo Gen

Buriza is one of my favorite weapons and every season I come up with a couple of builds for it, only to get disappointed shortly afterwards. This was no exception, as the only instance where Buriza actually worked for me was in season 2 when we were pushing 4man with 1 DH + 1 Wiz, using the incredible synergy of the weapon, Mortal Enemy and the pre-nerf Immolation Arrow. Especially during season 3 many have discussed the feasibility of Hungering Arrow builds with the Unhallowed Essence set; I think that’s that pretty cool idea, but HA alone wouldn’t quite work out. Why not include some other synergistic stuff when we already have so much additive damage from Depth Diggers and Simplicities Strength? In the end it didn’t matter anyway, as Buriza builds never quite came to be due to a simple fact that destroys them all from the get-go: the internal cooldown of the weapon. If you hit the target faster than once every 32 frames (between 1.875 and 1.935 attacks per second), you will not pierce on every attack anymore. It becomes even worse when you try to combine this with things like Strafe, and just generally Buriza could spark many interesting builds if it wasn’t for the ICD. Nevertheless, the build has a nice fantasy. Even though Imminent Doom is 35% stronger than the other Bola runes, we can’t really use it because it has a 2sec delay, which will screw over the CoE cycle. The lightning rune also lets you weave in a couple Multishots to reapply the Restraint buff. Physical Multishot will be used to unload the hatred and deal with AoE situations.

D3 planner link: www.d3planner.com/694454808
Expected power level: Tier 60-65

5) Leonine Anathema RoV

The build that I used in the beginning of the season for my solo clears, it came out quite successful and exciting at the same time. The initial idea was to combine Leonine with Natalya to make use of the strongest RoV rune: Anathema. Because Bolas – Freezing Strike only regenerate 3 hatred, proper resource management was key to its success (meaning you had to stop Strafing and start stutter stepping once in a while). Another important aspect was appropriate monster pulling, as the Leonine’s AoE effect has a certain limit, and Anathema only hits monsters in a very small radius. All in all I think that this build is way more consistent than the standard lightning version because we don’t necessarily require insane density to be successful, and especially on nonseason you can kill the rift guardian around twice as fast. It’s almost as strong as the regular lightning builds, but falls off a little due to the heavy fishing towards the end of the season, which favor the standard version more than this. Feel free to check out my earlier videos from this season for full runs (I’ve cleared Tier 66 on both nonseason and season with it).

D3 planner link: www.d3planner.com/295740054
Expected power level: Tier 70-72

6) 2man Support Pull + Globe DH

A support DH I intended to use together with a Witch Doctor, specialized in pulling and spawning globes via the Solanium + Ball Lightning combo. I put the build together and realized I have pretty much gg gear for it, but never came to play it in a party. WD just turned out too weak in comparison to the then-upcoming SC Monks, and this is where the story ended. Later I came up with another setup using M4 + UE4 for incredible tankiness and utility, and Rondal’s Locket for pickup radius to gather the globes. Would have been cool to make a high ranking in groups with it, as its playstyle greatly differs from anything we know as a DH.

D3 planner link: www.d3planner.com/354135151
Expected power level: Unknown

7) 4man Support Proc + XP DH

A little bit like the 2man Support DH, this one was intended to be used in conjunction with SC Monks after their ascendance to the dps throne. Unlike the other version, this one has seen some actual playtesting and didn’t even work out that badly, but it just didn’t make the cut for those groups seeking maximum efficiency. The fact that we can proc SC quite well and wear XP gear at the same time could make up for the disadvantages of DH a little bit, but the overall group buffs we can bring are abysmal, even more so because SC Monks have really high additive damage boosts already. In one of the tests we did early in the season we were able to clear tier 69 with only applying SC and spamming Ball Lightning in around 10 minutes, with no one in the group (including SC Monk) doing anything else. This shows that there was quite some potential, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough as most didn’t want to drop the Barbarian from the group and the Crusader just turned out stronger for buffing and proccing.

D3 planner link: www.d3planner.com/658957838
Expected power level: 2-3 Tiers below Sup Crus


That’s it for now, I hope you enjoyed the little read and / or the video and if you’re playing a DH, maybe you can use some of these ideas to create something of your own. I could show a couple more but unfortunately some of the are going to be relevant for patch 2.4, so I can’t just give them away like that. Never forget that with enough creativity, there is always room for improvement and even in a game like Diablo 3 we still have many choices if you just look for them.

Cheers