Slippery when wet

[Bash_]

Okay, so toying around with the skill calculator made me realize one thing: Not only does the DH have a lot of 'GTF out of this situation', skills, the DH also seems to have the sustenance to do so.

Lurking over the runestones and their effects, I decided to make a DH that could work in pvp like this: Never take a hit, be constantly on the move, and never run out of resources. In other words, a battle of attrition, where your endgoal is to come out on top.

Passives:

Honestly, none of the DH passives(other than perfectionist) are a must for this build, though if I had to choose it would be:

Archery: Only worth it if you use a crossbow. 100% extra crit dmg is just extremely strong.

Perfectionist: 20% reduction of dicipline cost. No reason to expand on this one to be honest.

Brooding or sharpshooper. Brooding does not seem that strong in a regular build, but do not forget, your job of not getting hit is something you are very good at. So why not, as this is your only source of healing. Sharpshooper, well, who does not enjoy crits?


Active skills:


Hungering Arrow

Fire a magically imbued arrow that seeks out targets for 115% weapon damage and has a 60% chance to pierce through targets.

- Runed Crimson for an added 160% WD over 5 seconds as fire. Perfect for a hit and run tactician.


Impale
Cost: 40 Hatred

Fire a massive shot to impale a target for 325% weapon damage.

- Runed Indigo, for the stun and knockback, to further augment your role on a team.


Evasive Fire

Generate: 10 Hatred
Cost: 4 Discipline if you backflip

Shoot for 115% of weapon damage. If an enemy is at close range, you will also backflip away 15 yards.

- Runed Golden, to reduce the dicipline cost to 0 and give some alternative elemental damage. To be fair, alabast and obsidian could also be worth it.


Vault
Cost: 10 Discipline

Tumble acrobatically 35 yards.

- Runed Golden, to reduce successive Vaults dicipline cost to 20% (0, if it works additive with Perfectionist)


Smokescreen

Cost: 15 Discipline

Vanish behind a wall of smoke, becoming momentarily invisible for 2 seconds.

- Runed Obsidian, to restore 90! hatred.


Preparation // Marked for death

Honestly, either of these can work depending on where you are actually lacking in resource once this hero plays out.


Preparation
Cooldown: 120 seconds

Instantly restore all Discipline.

Runed Obsidian to slowly restore 60 dicipline over 30 sec, Indigo to increase it by 18 for two minutes or Alabast if you want to roll the dice, and possibly use this skill multiple times.


Marked for death
Cost: 6 Discipline

Marks an enemy. The marked enemy will take 20% additional damage for the next 30 seconds.

- Runed Golden to give yourself a 40% chance to restore 35 hatred. It appears to work with any skill that hits the target. That is 14 hatred restored on average with any skill, possibly increasing the hatred gen of hungering arrow from 5 to 19, or the hatred cost of Impale to 31. Purely speculative, though.


So, what we have here is a DH that is extremely hard to catch, and specializes in keeping enemies at bay while wearing them down with stuns, DOTS and a moderate damage.

Pros:
-Extremely hard to catch for any hero that does not focus on gapclosers
-Does not exhaust her tricks
-Stuns and dots gives her utility and damage while running

Cons:
- Instant gapclosers, like dashing strike can prove difficult to deal with
- Instant spells like Disintegrate can somewhat ignore the DH's tricks
- Not runed for damage
- Not very flexible in terms of role
- Possibly too ignorable.


Thoughts?

[konfeta]

You know that you can cut down on most of the filler text by simply linking the build like this: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...dik!aWe!ZYbbcc

This is probably the most common theme for a DH PvP build that I have seen: Hungering Arrow, Impale, Vault, Smoke Screen. Heavily kiting oriented, good duelist thanks to decent combination of stun and single target damage.

You could complete the cookie cutter by considering Entangling Shot instead of Evasive Fire - you already have 2 escape skills that focus on making you move away, you will probably benefit from something a bit more multiplicative like a 70% slow that lasts 9 seconds.

You will probably squeeze more overall damage out of the Golden rune for Hungering Arrow.

I disagree with the Con and this build is ignorable. You are outputting fairly steady damage and stuns. It might not be as scary as a burst damage Barbarian/Wizard, but letting this sort of build live for a long amount of time is playing to its strength.

[Bash_]

You know that you can cut down on most of the filler text by simply linking the build like this: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...dik!aWe!ZYbbcc

This is probably the most common theme for a DH PvP build that I have seen: Hungering Arrow, Impale, Vault, Smoke Screen. Heavily kiting oriented, good duelist thanks to decent combination of stun and single target damage.

You could complete the cookie cutter by considering Entangling Shot instead of Evasive Fire - you already have 2 escape skills that focus on making you move away, you will probably benefit from something a bit more multiplicative like a 70% slow that lasts 9 seconds.

You will probably squeeze more overall damage out of the Golden rune for Hungering Arrow.

I disagree with the Con and this build is ignorable. You are outputting fairly steady damage and stuns. It might not be as scary as a burst damage Barbarian/Wizard, but letting this sort of build live for a long amount of time is playing to its strength.

I decided on Crimson for Hungering for the sole reason that I did not know that it could piece the same target. If that is the case, then I definitely agree that it would be stronger.

Also, I had seen people experiment with similar builds before, but I had not seen one that focused on maintaining the two ressource bulbs.

[Cevilo]

You know that you can cut down on most of the filler text by simply linking the build like this: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...dik!aWe!ZYbbcc

I agree but it's also nice to be able for them to skill by skill explain why they choose each one. I would post the link then go skill by skill like bash did personally.

[Bash_]

As I do not have access to the beta, some clarification would be nice:

1) Does hungering pierce the same target multiple times like guided arrow did in 1.09? And if not, is the piece range to the next target large enough to consider using a Golden rune still for PVP?

2) While runestones are not applicable in the Beta, perhaps someone can lend me their wisdom as to whether they think that Marked for death, runed golden, works in any skill? If it does, then that is really powerful.

Also, what are the numbers of hatred and dicipline the DH starts with, and has anyone found any items increasing either?

[JumpyMonkey]

1) Does hungering pierce the same target multiple times like guided arrow did in 1.09? And if not, is the piece range to the next target large enough to consider using a Golden rune still for PVP?

Yes, Hungering Arrow will pierce the same target multiple times.

2) While runestones are not applicable in the Beta, perhaps someone can lend me their wisdom as to whether they think that Marked for death, runed golden, works in any skill? If it does, then that is really powerful.

With a built in 1 second cooldown, I believe any attack will trigger it because it doesn't say otherwise.

Also, what are the numbers of hatred and dicipline the DH starts with, and has anyone found any items increasing either?

100 Hatred, 30 Discipline, those numbers don't increase with level. I have only seen items that increase max discipline and not hatred. There are items that increase hatred and discipline regeneration but all the numbers could change with the Demon Hunter update we haven't got yet.

[yovargas]

I think many people underestimate the usefulness of Strafe for this sort of thing. I particularly love Golden Strafe for PvP. Never stop moving, never stop doing damage.

[Bash_]

Thanks Monkey. Then the golden rune for Hungering Arrow is certainly preferrable.

As for Strafe, after pondering over it I would have to say that you may be on to something. If, however, one was to pick strafe, one would probably go for the alabaster one, as that makes a crit from strafe do 400% extra (450% dmg) with any decent amount of crit, that is pretty awesome. Vault and smoke screen should get you out of trouble if they get to close, with your reduced movespeed. But who is to say. If you pick strafe, you may want to combine it with shadowpower (if the IAS works), and put an indigo rune in to offset the slower movementspeed.

[yovargas]

There are a few good rune options for Strafe so I think it depends on how you're set up which you'd prefer. I prefer Golden because at lvl 7 I can run at normal speed while attacking, meaning I can run away at the same speed as the melee folks try to catch me. That sounds so cool to me.

[konfeta]

I prefer Golden because at lvl 7 I can run at normal speed while attacking, meaning I can run away at the same speed as the melee folks try to catch me.

Not to burst your bubble, but...
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...dTfjkP!!accZcb
Things that will be chasing you in melee aren't going to be moving at moving at same speed as you.