Hello and welcome to our Demon Hunter set: Embodiment of the Marauder guide. Let’s start off by posting the “STANDARD” build of the set.

S9 ushered in the Age of GRENADES via Hellcat Waistguard – this build is for the classic Cluster Arrow setup, i’ll update this very soon.

Demon Hunter: Embodiment of the Marauder
Standard Build | Stat Priority & Re-rolls | Playstyle | Variations | Speedfarming

Marauder: Skills & Items Setup

Embodiment of the Marauder : Standard Build
Items Skills
Helm Marauder’s Visage Evasive Fire Focus
Shoulder Marauder’s Spines Cluster Arrow Maelstrom
Chest Marauder’s Carapace Vault Tumble
Hands Marauder’s Gloves Sentry Polar Station
Legs Marauder’s Encasement Companion Wolf
Feet Marauder’s Treads Vengeance Seethe
Amulet Hellfire Amulet Passives
Bracer Wraps of Clarity Cull the Weak Thrill of the Hunt
Ring Focus Ballistics Custom Engineering
Ring Restraint Kanai’s Cube
Belt Zoey’s Secret Dawn
Weapon Manticore Cloak of the Garwulf
Off-hand Bombardier’s Rucksack Convention of Elements
Legendary Gems
Bane of the Trapped
Zei’s Stone of Vengeance (Esoteric)
Bane of the Stricken
Help! I can't use those skills because they're from the same category! (Turn On Elective Mode)

If you’re not allowed to put two skills on your bar because they’re from the same category – FEAR NOT! This isn’t a bug or a permanent in-game restriction. You simply have to CHECK ON ELECTIVE MODE, via Esc > Options > Gameplay > Elective Mode!

Binding Force Move to Mousewheel up & down is a value change that every player should make IMO. It prevents misclicks and skill misfires, and forces you to move to where otherwise an enemy might be.

Embodiment of the Marauder Stat priority & Re-rolls

Chunky unsightly table of re-rolls right below

CLICK TO REVEAL STAT PRIORITY TABLE
Embodiment of the Marauder Stat Priority & Rerolls
Slot Item 1 2 3 4 5 6
Head Set Item DEX VIT CRIT C.Arrow% RES –
Shoulder Set Item DEX Sentry% CDR RES VIT Life%
Chest Set Item DEX RES Sentry% VIT – –
Glove Set Item DEX CHC CHD VIT CDR RES
Legs Set Item DEX VIT RES – – –
Boots Set Item DEX C.Arrow% VIT RES – –
Belt Zoey’s Secret DEX VIT RES Life% – –
Wrist Wraps of Clarity Cold% DEX CRIT VIT RES LoH
Neck Hellfire Amulet Cold% CHD CHC DEX – –
Ring Focus DEX CHC CHD CDR – –
Ring Restraint DEX CHC CHD CDR – –
Weap Manticore DEX DMG% VIT C.Arrow% CDR RCR
Off B. Rucksack DEX CHC CDR Sentry% AS% VIT

SOCKETS are priority in Helm, Rings, Amulet, Chest (3), Legs (2)

37% CDR for 100% Vengeance up time: The usual basic setup is Offhand 8 + Shoulder 8 + Diamond 12.5 + Paragon 10 – gives around 95%. Another 8% from ring is 100%. Marauder’s can afford to roll CDR on weapon if it comes to that.

Life%: It’s always good to have one Life% rolled somewhere (Belt>Chest>Shoulder).

Keep note some of the sets “hidden properties”

*Manticore HIGH Cluster Arrow%.
**Bombardier’s Rucksacks HIGH Sentry Damage%

Playing the Build

Sentry: Yes, Sentry. Sentries are the core of the essence of the soul of your build. Always have 5 active. No excuses. Cast them on (or below) cliffs, across ravines, make chokepoints with the Slow… “The million ways of Sentry” is something you can only learn via playing. Scenarios exist wherein elites cannot even fight back and you can kill them!

Don’t waste Sentry CD: While walking I cast Sentry at the end of my screen as the third Sentry stack is about to come off cooldown. Big fights? Try to have the whole 5 in the mix! It’s not so complicated – you’ll get it after a few runs.

Companions (and Templar) make great tanks, and can body block whole packs and projectiles! Combined with Polar Station, it makes reaching you extremely hard. This is a core strength of the build and you should be aware of where & what they’re doing.

Missiles that fire off your Cluster Arrow seek guys, there’s a bunch of scenarios where you can abuse this, more of a reminder than anything.

Convention of Elements: Your rotation is Cold – Fire – Lightning – Physical – Cold. So once you’re at Physical – start filling up your Hatred and repositioning! Cold is next!

Companion-Wolf: On the same note, align it with CoE’s cold as much as possible. 10s isn’t short. On it at the end of physical so it’s up for the whole “spam phase”.

Ahhh good ‘ol Wolf. “Hold on to it? Use it?”, the eternal question. It’s best SAVED FOR ELITES, but it doesn’t always work out this way, don’t it? Just use it on large packs, or fat monster types (or any risky situation). “Use on cooldown” is better than “Never used”. Of course, calculated risk use of Wolf will yield some pretty amazing DPS increases.

Variations & Evolutions

Not much wiggle room here. The main evolution for ultra-high GR is Physical Element – the main changes being:

Why recommend Cold, then? For 99% of players, Colds utility and playstyle will allow them to climb much higher GR’s than compared to starting off the build with Physical. It’s EXTREMELY EASY to switch between the two, difference being Necklace and Bracer.

So yeah, Cold first (or Cold forever…) then Physical if you really need DPS.

Legendary Gem

Legendary Gems: Trapped, and Stricken are pretty standard and give a solid increase in DPS, and a welcome armor%.

Esoteric is gaining popularity, and will most likely be your third gem in higher rifts. It’s between this and Zei’s most of the time.

Passives

Passives: Cull the Weak, Ballistics and Custom Engineering are set in stone. Ambush and Awareness being the next best things. Removing Awareness greatly increases your “hoping for a good rift” syndrome.

Thrill of the Hunt is optional on Physical Builds – Polar Station can do most of the slowing. Likewise with Leech, useless for Cold but an option for Physical.

Items

Items: Marauder’s set isn’t the set for expressing creativity…

Belt: Zoey’s Secret is EXTREMELY POWERFUL with Cloak of the Garwulf. While there are a smattering of belts that will increase your offense… it’s way too greedy. Witching Hour comes to mind, for the brave…

Neck: I use Eye of Etlich, if you don’t know, it rolls with a significant -ranged damage%. Hellfire Amulet is decent, but the DH passives are iffy.

Traveler’s Pledge & Compass Rose can be used and you free up one ring (with the cost of Amulet slot, which is loose). It’s a basic Offense for Defense trade-off.

  • Elusive Ring: 60% DR is stronger than unity.
  • Unity: Rolled with Elite Damage, CHC and CHD is pretty damn good.
Skills

Skills: M6’s build is extremely tight. With only ONE truly optional skill… Vault…

Vault-Tumble: You’d have to be a special case of greedy to get rid of this… but let’s talk about it anyway…

Again if you’re somehow HELLBENT on removing Tumble for some kind of DPS gain… Marked for Death-Contagion or Mortal Enemy are the only real choices here. Well, there’s Caltrops-Bait the Trap, too. Again, this is a dangerous road you’re traveling.

Speedfarming? Build changes

You might want to first check out:
D3 Speedfarming (General) | Demon Hunter Speedfarming Guide.

Let’s pretend UE doesn’t exist (or you don’t own a decent set)… Marauder functions just fine as a speedfarming build, although it has some problems…

It’s better for Nephs, since it has mobility problems. Not for bounties? Like I said, Mobility problems and loading screens erase Sentries which can be annoying.

Main changes are:

Passives in: Blood Vengeance, Tactical Advantage
Passives keep: Custom Engineering & Ballistics
Gear: Goldwrap (worn), Boon of the Hoarder, Avarice Band (cube).

Demon Hunter: Embodiment of the Marauder
Standard Build | Stat Priority & Rerolls | Playstyle | Variations | Speedfarming

Other Demon Hunter Guides:

Check our our D3 Guide Directory for more DH and D3 resources!

Hopefully you learned something about the way of the Sentries in our Embodiment of the Marauder build Guide! Good luck pretending to be part of the Jungle Book while doing GR’s!

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3 COMMENTS

  2. Does The Taeguk gem’s text indicates it only triggers on channeled spells. I don’t think any of the skills in this build are “Channeled” and thus I don’t think it would be triggered. I think Strafe and Rapid Fire are the only two DH channeled skills.

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