Diablo III Demon Hunter Post Nerf Inferno Rain of Vengeance Build submitted by irecu.I have cleared up to and including most of ACT 3 on INFERNO difficulty]
(Cleared elites solo and Belial(2-man with barb) post last nights patch.
Firstly, I would like to address those people who are complaining about the nerf. Yes your cookie cutter build is gone but you had to know it was coming and here's some reasons why it was the right thing to do.
1. Inferno is supposed to be hard. Being able to clear it in 2 weeks with poor gear is obviously unreasonable.
2. Smokescreen is not intended to have such a large up-time and in doing so it was a very low skill build. (it was essentially exploiting an overpowered ability)
3. SS/prep was terribly boring and unsatisfying. Now we can have some fun and experiment.
4. If you're the type of player who will abuse an overpowered spec but not put in the hard yards to clear content, you don't deserve to clear inferno.
For those people complaining that the nerf was too hard: Due to you being nerfed, your spec is no longer overpowered and as such, you are in a much too high act for your skill, spec and most importantly gear. Go back down an act or two and farm some gear for a little while, practice and refine a spec, it will do wonders. I myself have dropped back to Act 2 to farm and improve my character.
All hope is not lost however...
Here is the spec that I have been working on the last few hours:
The Build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#biXVlY!cYe!aZZbbb
It is not perfect, nor applicable to all situations.
This is my farming build, for bosses I may or may not swap to Nether Tentacles depending on the boss (had it for belial) and Marked for Death. Swap in Archery if i find a good bow. The build doesn't have huge aoe but if you kite properly it will all die easily enough.
For those complaining about dying too easily in act 2. This build throws out enough CC and damage that you can kite fairly effectively and can avoid most uneccesary damage. That being said, I think there will be a small number of mob sets and positions/environments that will be too hard and I am willing to live with a rare reset/call a friend.
Caltrops (I prefer the name Cow Traps): Are your new SS. Combined with the Torturous Ground glyph, these will be bread and butter. For only 6 Discipline, they are less than half the cost of SS. provide 2/3 of the duration. They are an extremely effective counter to teleport/fast.
Rain of Vengeance (Stampede): This is an extremely successful CC. Operating outside of hatred and discipline, it can be used as a full 10 second CC on elite mobs and AOE packs. It does large damage and is extremely useful for kiting.
Screaming Skull: This is very underused for how good it is. Understandably it has a lower DPS than other secondaries, but the CC is extremely useful against elites and other forms of trash. It is very reliable, causes the enemy to run away for easier kiting, is aoe(in a line), puts out good dps/hatred. The main reason I picked this up was it is a good counter to fast/illusions and just solid in general.
Smokescreen - Immunity is STILL invaluable for dodging damage. also used for positioning (hence run speed rune)
Thrill of the Hunt - Not necessary, but I feel the CC is more useful than the dps to me at the moment.
Steady aim - With high CC; slow, stun and fear, the mobs will be very slow to get to you, giving you plenty of time to deal damage before they even reach you. Cow traps will almost always keep them out of the range (they have a radius of 12). This is essentially a free 20% damage (when you're within 10 yards you should be kiting not fighting).
Sharpshooter - Personal DPS choice as I'm using a 2h Xbow. Would swap for archery with a bow. might try culling and test the difference.
For those who are curious, my stats are as following
pre-nerf
8khp 33kdps (+culling)
post nerf
28khp 30kdps
Without Sharpshooter - running 970 dps weapon and 1500 dexterity.
(dps stayed high as I was able to make better use of passives and swap out discipline and crit gear)
I will be aiming to improve my survivability and will probably use Gloom for boss fights
