Diablo 3 Demon Hunter Rakanoth Boss Strategy submitted by seipa.
I ran with templar because of his stun and awesome hatred regen aura. We run in and let the templar stun him for his first attack, and it's at this point it's crucial for you to do massive damage to Rakanoth.
I believe I shaved off at least 50% of his health before the templar died and Rakanoth turned to me. At this point I smoke screened and just ran to the left whereas the boss just stood there clueless.
Smoke screen wears off and adds spawn. I tapped smokescreen again to counter charge and start aligning myself so that the adds are between me and the boss (so that the ball lightning hit both the boss and the adds).
Mind you, I have seen certain demon hunters ignore the adds and burn Rakanoth down, but if you don't have the required DPS, you really have to deal with those adds.
Once the third (or was it second?) smoke screen is off you need to be paying attention to Rakanoth's animation and/or sound. I think he makes a distinctive sound when he charges. The adds should've been dealt with and you should be standing with Rakanoth left.
At this point, continue burning him down while watching carefully for his animation whether he's going to charge/cast discs/spawn adds.
He actually managed to spawn a second set of adds on my kill but luckily my templar woke up and stunned the boss, I smokescreened and took him down from 25% to nothing.
Some non-specific boss battle tips I could give you while I'm at it:
1. Have low ping. Believe me, I've tried Rakanoth several times. The previous day I tried him about 10 times before crashing my head to the table and ripping my face off. I have a hideous setup where my ping might skyrocket into the 1000ms and a few timeouts. It can ruin a good bossfight to nothing. Usually I lie around 300ms, but on that particular day I had 50ms which helps immensely if you want to time your smokescreen perfectly.
2. Know his animations. It plays a role on when you want to press the button tied to smoke screen. If it's a charge, you want to press it when he's midways through his casting (if you have good ping as mention above). If it's shooting discs you can just avoid those by running away. If it's adds you might want to wait until the adds have fully spawned before smoke screening.
3. Be aware on how you gear. Not really worth a bullet point in itself, but I'm mentioning it anyways. I think a lot of demon hunters feel the same way that there's no point in stacking vitality among your dexterity gear. The infamous quote "You're only going to get one shot anyways" so stack that dexterity!
Not only does it increase your damage but it also gives you something that is worth more than vitality, in my opinion. Namely, dodge. I have 1900 dexterity at the moment and it has saved me from an odd number of deaths. Even teleport charges from Rakanoth! I'm currently resting at 12k HP for anyone curious.
