Escaping the Inferno

So lets just jump right into it then. Diablo 3 released a little while ago and a ton of people have given up massive amounts of time to climb through Normal, Nightmare and Hell modes to get to the pinacle of Diablo 3's crazyness. 

Inferno

Inferno is basically what Ninja Gaiden's hardest diffuculty was. You will die, you will die a lot. Everything hits really hard and elites have 4 abilities and a health pool that will make you cry. So knowing all of that you will want to continue, here are some steps in the right direction to progressing through Inferno as a Demon Hunter.

1. Think for yourself: honestly, there is no reason for you to need to go and copy anyone from Dara Mactire's builds or anything. Just because they have a certain idea about things doesn't mean it is the best way to do things. 

2. Know you limits. This should go without saying, you are pretty much a glass cannon. You need to know what will kill you, how to survive it and how long you can stay in one spot. 

3. If you find or abuse a "broken" mechanic, chances are it will get nerfed. This comes in response to anyone trying to exploit smoke screen. The theory was that you could keep it up almost forever and nothing would hit you, guess what...it got nerfed and doing this pretty much asks for death.

4. Elective mode is your friend. Seriously, you can have 1 generator and 1 damage ability with 4 survival techniques. Fiddle around and figure out what fits your playstyle best.

5. If you are in a party, know what the other member is running and use that to your advantage. If you know a monk has breath of heaven and you are low, you might want to give him a huge hug.

6. You are gear dependant. This goes without saying, you won't do enough damage of have enough health if you don't have good gear. Your gear wants to have Dexterity and Vitality. Lots of that.

 

The following section is my playstyle and thus will contain my opinions and suggestions. Use this as a starting point, perfect upon it, completely ignore it if you want.

Gear

Gear for demon hunter is easy peasy. You want to stack dexterity and vitality. Everything else is secondary, except attack speed. Attack speed is crucial to the way I play, it will increase your damage output and generation massively.

Weapon wise - I prefer a  single, 2 handed crossbow, why? The crossbow has a very stable damage range, this will allow you to accurately predict you damage output and if you have enough damage to pull something off. Bows have a massive low end - high end disparity and therefore have a less predictable, stable dps range. 

 

Skills

Passive Skills

Steady Aim (level 16) - You will be more than 10 yards out 90% of the time and thus 20% more damage

Archery (level 30) - 50% extra damage on crits from a huge damage weapon will make you a godly damage dealer

Sharpshooter (level 50) - Guaranteed crit on opening shot, +your bonus crit damage will mean you might be one shotting a lot of things.

Also consider:

- Cull The Weak (level 20) - Extra damage to slowed enemies, if you have anyone who is constantly slowing it is better than sharpshooter (ex. Wizard)

- Brooding (level 25) - Early on this is really good, you have great regen, but you will fnd you lifesteal really hard and won't find it effective as much later on

 

Active Skills

*Runes are in order of "most reccomended", no runes are bad there is just better synergy from certain ones

Path A - Non Elective Mode (easy mode)

Primary Shot (Left Mouse) - Hungering Arrow

Why: Great damage and hatred generation, Spray of teeth on crits is nice extra damage

Runes: Spray of Teeth, Devouring Arrow, Cinder Arrow

 

Secondary Shot (Right Mouse) - Elemental Arrow

Why: Low cost, amazing damage and utility. Frost arrow early on lets you kite really hard, Nether tenticles does a lot of damage and keeps you alive with lifesteal

Runes: Nether Tenticles, Frost Arrow, Ball Lightning

 

Defensive (1) - Shadow Power

Why: Panic moment, 20% lifesteal. 100k crit, 20k heal / 50k hit, 10k heal. Active for 3 seconds and with runes allows you to negate 65% of damge done to you.

Runes:  Gloom, Blood Moon, Night Bane

 

Hunting (2) - Marked For Death

Why: 12% increased damage to the target. You virtually can't pass that up and runed it gives you extra hatred which makes it unbelievable.

Runes: Mortal Enemy, Death Toll, Contagion

 

Devices (3) - Sentry OR Fan of Knives

Why: Sentry is awesome and gets better with the right runes. Fan of Knives is equally as awesome and allows you to escape bad sitations and kite

Runes: Guardian Turret, Aid Station, Spitfire Turret      //      Hail of Knives, Fan of Daggers, Retaliate

 

Archery (4) - Rain Of Vengance

Why: Good AoE skill, amazing runes for it.

Runes: Flying Strike, Stampede, Beastly Bombs

 

How to play this buid:

Start by marking a high health target to maximize the amount of hatred that you will regen from hitting him. Proceed to drop your turret, spam Elemental arrow until your marked target dies as well as 90% of everything between you and it. Use hungering arrow to regen hatred if you bottom out. In case of emergency: Shadow Power + Rain of Vengance yourself, this gives you 20% lifesteal, 65% damage reduction (gloom) and the rain of vengance will help you kite by knocking back (stampede) or stunning (flying strike).

 

 

Path B - Elective Mode (Min-Max skills)

*Runes are "best" for the build

Primary Shot (Left Mouse) - Hungering Arrow

Why: Great damage and hatred generation, Spray of teeth on crits is nice extra damage

Rune: Spray of Teeth

 

Secondary Shot (Right Mouse) - Elemental Arrow

Why: Low cost, amazing damage and utility. Frost arrow early on lets you kite really hard, Nether tenticles does a lot of damage and keeps you alive with lifesteal

Rune: Nether Tenticles

 

Defensive (1) - Shadow Power

Why: Panic moment, 20% lifesteal. 100k crit, 20k heal / 50k hit, 10k heal. Active for 3 seconds and with runes allows you to negate 65% of damge done to you.

Rune: Gloom

 

Hunting (2) - Marked For Death

Why: 12% increased damage to the target. You virtually can't pass that up and runed it gives you extra hatred which makes it unbelievable.

Rune: Mortal Enemy

 

Secondary (3) - Impale

Why: Biggest damage output on a single target. Bonus crit damage, which you are guaranteed.

Rune: Grievous Wounds

 

Defensive - Caltrops

Why: Good for kiting, better for 10% extra crit chance

Rune: Bait The Trap

 

How to play this buid:

Mark the kill target and drop a caltrop (to stand in for 10% extra crit chance), use impale (for extra critical damage) on a single target or elemental arrow on multiple targets.

If you are in trouble kite over your caltrops and use shadow power to heal/negate damage. Be mindful of your discipline as you will not be regening a lot and discipline is what you will use on your panic/survival skills.

 

**** SPOILERS BELOW ****

Basic Walkthroughs of the major bosses in acts 1-4

Act I

King Leoric: Easy fight, even solo. Keep him at a distance and keep your mark up. Impale him, elemental arrow his skeleton adds. If you are having trouble with his teleport strike, wait for the give away animation and pop your shadow power to negate the damage. This guy is a cakewalk, very predictable.

The Warden: The easiest, set up on one of the walkways and use elemental arrow to kill the Warden and his adds all at once.

The Butcher: This can even give the most seasoned players trouble. In theory it should be an easy fight but the chains he tosses out can deal 35k+ on Inferno and one shot you. Mark him and dodge his charge (marked by a firey line in front of him after he yells) as well as his meathook (preceeded by a point at who he will hook). Avoid standing on the fire tiles and you should have an easy fight. The chains he throws out deal serious damage and have the tiniest giveaway beforehand so its pretty hard to negate the damage with shadow power, no real solution has been found to this with any build. Good luck

Act II

Magda: Reasonably easy. Avoid her insect swarms and burn her down. She summons adds (+1 add each following summon) AND becomes IMMUNE to damage at 75%, 50% and 25%. The adds are pretty heavy damage dealers so avoid them especially when they wind up. Burn them down with elemental arrows and finish her off.

Zoltun Kulle: This guy can be a real dick. Kill his 2 massive golems and then focus on him. Avoid his meteors(very dodgable) and his slow time (the bubble) and just be persistant. Also keep in mind the tornados do hurt, so don't stand to close to them. 

Belial, Lord of Lies: 3 Phase fight. Phase 1 - kill all the snake adds that spawn in. Phase 2 - burn Belial down to ~20% fast, he will summon snake adds after roughly 30 seconds so try to beat that time. Phase 3 - He will become a huge demon that takes up the entire middle of the area you are fighting. He has 3 go to attacks. First are his melee hits, they come in waves of 3 strikes, all preceeded by glowing green circles on their targeted spot on the ground. Second is his vile breath, not hugely damaging but try to avoid most of it if possible. At 66% and 33% he will do his mortar attack where he will bombard the ground with very high damage meteors, they are again preceeded by green circles on the target spot so dodge these and the fight is reasonably easy.

Act III

Ghom: Just kite him and use elemental arrow to kill the little slime adds he spawns. Piece of cake.

Cydaea: Two phase fight, fight her once to drive her away and kill the first heart. The second time just kill her and try to avoid the spiders she spawns. Nothing really special here

Azmodan: What a guy, pretty reasonable fight if done correctly. Burn Azmodan BUT kill the demonic pillars he summons to prevent adds from spawning. Every once in a while he will shoot a slow moving fireball, just move until it impacts to dodge it. He will also fire a lazer that tracks you, however you are faster than it so just out run the lazer. When he makes the ground turn into demon blood run and stay on non-blood ground, also avoid the falling corpse bits he will summon. Everything he does has a delay so you should have ample time to avoid everything.

Act IV

Izkatu: Can be tricky. Run to one of the corners to funnel all the shadow stalkers and use elemental arrow to kill them off. Once Izkatu shows up burn him as fast as you can. Its really a race between his health and how many shadow fiends you can kill/lifesteal from.

Rakenoth: Juke parallel to him to avoid his ranged attacks and use shadow power to negate his shunpo (teleport strike). You can predict the shunpo by watching Rakenoth's blades, when they glow bright white he will (most likely) teleport.

Izual: Try to keep one of the circular holes between you and him. Avoid the freezing orbs. Izual freezes the entire place at 66% and 33% and will summon Oppressors and Fallen Angels to aid him. Kill them, stay alive, kite Izual. Try to kite him around the circles, as he has a dash that seems to only work on strait lines and it does some pretty serious damage.

Diablo: 3 Phases, Phase 1 - Simply bring diablo to 60%. Avoid the fire he spits and the AoE fire ring when he stomps. He will also raise his hands and summon bone prisons, you can see the darker spots where they will pop up. Do not get caught by these.

Phase 2 - Diablo will exile you to the Realm of Terror where you must kill the Aspect of Diablo as well as a Shadow Clone. Again, just kill the Shadow and Diablo while avoiding bone prisons.

Phase 3 - Diablo again from 60%, he has a new trick however. Chaos lightning is not a joke and it will kill you if you do not dodge it. Same move set otherwise.