Dealing with +reflect elites?

[lanceuppercut]

As a HC DH in A1/Inferno, I've switched to a 1k+ DPS xbow and my build as a result do a bit more damage, both regular and critical, so I'm now often see highish (for me at least) yellow numbers flash up especially from my impale/overpenetration strikes which is what I'd normally use to mow elites down from distance, which is all well good but something I've not yet encountered and I'm sure I will at some point is +reflect elites..

Is there a formula to work with, if given the DPS you do and the armour/resists you have (out of interest which one resists reflect?), it will display the amount of life you're likely to lose?

I can only see 4 options to counter +reflect:
1) Go full LoH build, costly and them some!
2) Have a separate high LoH weapon, not as costly as a full LoH respec but opening the inventory to swap the weapon doesn't agree with me in the heat of a battle in case I mess things up and in HC, I only get to mess up once.. And by the time I'm close enough for the mouseover to display their affixes, I've more than likely already been spotted/engaged by them so no time to retreat to safety and change.
3) Drop Caltops/TG for SP/Gloom but my thinking is that TG is a bit too useful for countering elites in general and especially +fast, in order to buy a bit of time to run or kite, whereas SP would be there to specifically counter +reflect and that doesn't seem like a good tradeoff.
4) Drop Preperation/Battle Scars for SP/Gloom, whilst I don't use Prep often (as I have Nat's set) but in the occasional instances when I do, it's going to be because I need that extra buffer of an additional instant health restore in case potions are on cooldown, if I vault away, by the time an enemy has caught up I will have regenerated that discipline already.

If I'm standing still, I can release 5 impales before a SP wears off and because the projectile moves so fast, there is less chance of SP wearing off before it hits.

Leaning towards #4 at the moment as the only downside is I don't restore discipline instantly anymore, I'm seeing +700 or so when spamming EF:CF and +2000 when impaling things, don't think I can get anywhere near that with LoH..

[deya]

Best way to deal with reflect damage is simply up your defenses. Armor and All Res will lower the reflect damage to bearable numbers.

[lanceuppercut]

I'm sitting on the 304 all res (that's the minimum, others are higher) and 3223 armour at the moment --what "type" of damage is reflected damage?

[Virility]

I'm sitting on the 304 all res (that's the minimum, others are higher) and 3223 armour at the moment --what "type" of damage is reflected damage?

It is the damage you do to the target. Damage reduction will come from your armor and your respective resist(elemental damage from your bow)-you know this already, life on hit and your hit point pool will give you the "buffer" so the target dies before you do. Keeping sp/gloom up as you attack is the "life leech" along with your 3 sec of invulnerability-more resist/armor will make you more invulnerable.

I believe you are the first person to notice that a background discipline regen rate of 2/sec for the Nat's set bonus is not overpowered. Dh's with this set bonus are bow tanking with sp/gloom. I understand you play HC and that you play a different game than I do playing softcore.

[lanceuppercut]

It is the damage you do to the target. Damage reduction will come from your armor and your respective resist(elemental damage from your bow)..

You learn something new everyday! So as my xbow has no elemental modifiers, does that mean it's physical resist that i need to stock up on in order to reduce reflected damage??

I believe you are the first person to notice that a background discipline regen rate of 2/sec for the Nat's set bonus is not overpowered. Dh's with this set bonus are bow tanking with sp/gloom. I understand you play HC and that you play a different game than I do playing softcore.

I'm glad the 2/sec regen wasn't taken back to 0.42 (which is worthless) because it's nowhere near overpowered, granted it's strong but it's not the be all and end all DH skill as my DEX/VIT have taken a hit to accomodate the set.

I'd never attempt a SP/gloom tank in HC mode, don't have the balls for something like that when having to rely on discipline to be available, I use the extra regen as means of survival, breaking CC, dropping caltrops and extra mobility by way of tumbling practically everywhere.

[Dethklok]

20% damage is reflected; however, all damage mitigation is applied normally to that damage. Armor, resists (not sure which element), skill-based damage reduction, etc. If the monster's damage is bugged to ignore resistance, reflected damage is also ignores resistance.

Item counters: life on hit, armor, resistance, reduced damage from elites
Demon Hunter Skill counters:

• Shadow Power-Gloom: An instant hard counter; the 20% life leech is reduced to 4% by Inferno, but the 20% reflection is reduced to 7%, then normally easily reduced below 4% by armor/resists. This is by far the safest route from a Hardcore perspective.
• Entangling Shot-Bounty Hunter: This doesn't do a lot of damage per hit, and the 6% life leech is reduced to 1.2%, so you won't completely negate Reflects Damage but the pain will go down signicantly.
• Numbing Traps: You can use this with Caltrops (but not Jagged Spikes, you can't stop its DoT) to lure monsters into an area where they reflect less damage (and are snared to boot).
• Tactical Advantage: If you continue to use Impale (or anything else that can do lots of damage to multiple targets), eventually you're going to hit a bunch of Reflects Damage monsters in one hit; it probably won't instakill you, but it probably will cripple you and catch you off guard; it's also pretty easy to start a second attack before the first one's effect registers, leaving you very close to death. You'll still need to use the other counters to actually take the monster on later, but you will probably need escape skills to get away, heal up, and take the encounter fresh and prepared. In other words: it really helps to be able to run away really, really fast.

[lanceuppercut]

tried rolling with SP/Gloom, was all well and good until I hit across a more sustained battle where I ran into problems, specifically +jailer/frozen/shielding.

all the way through that fight i was thinking damn i wish i had prep available to keep enough discipline available for a SS, true it'll only take me but a few secs to regen 14 disc with nat's gear but not something i'd like to wait out esp if i've been vortex'd in.

gone back to prep for now as i can simply vault away from reflect damage packs

[galzohar]

I don't think anyone meant to drop prep for gloom. Rather drop marked for death...

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...YgV!YXe!cYZbYc

[Dethklok]

I don't think anyone meant to drop prep for gloom. Rather drop marked for death...

Prep (99% of gear setups) > Gloom > Prep (with 4-piece Nat's) > Marked For Death

With Nat's I recommend Gloom, Special Recipe, Tumble, and open slot. For my open, I use Bat Companion because I love me some Multishot, and it gives me enough hatred regen to put Frost Arrow on my left-click; however, Caltrops is a more fool-proof snare against things that Frost Arrow can't touch.

The thing about dropping Prep is you can't spam SS as much as you used to when you had Prep, because SS is one ability that Nat's regen actually can't keep up with, and with Prep gone your max Discipline pool is much smaller. You'll need to lean on either Gloom or Vault in most situations where you used to SS; Nat's is great at supporting both of those abilities. You can't go totally glass-cannon; like a Wizard using Force Armor, you want to grab just enough defense where you aren't killed too fast when you have Gloom up. Generally speaking, you SS only to break CC on Jailer or Nightmarish (or Frozen if you Vaulted poorly), so Special Recipe is the rune to go for here.

[Kaerion]

try smoke screening before throwing your impales. repeat when disc is up.