Hey guys! In this guide, we talk all about the Demon Hunter set: Unhallowed Essence. Let’s start off by posting the “STANDARD” build of the set.

Demon Hunter: Unhallowed Essence
Standard Build | Stat Priority & Rerolls | Playstyle | Variations | Speedfarming

Unhallowed Essence: Skills & Items Setup

Unhallowed Essence : Standard Build
Items   Skills
Helm Accursed Visage Evasive Fire Focus
Shoulder Unsanctified Shoulders Multishot Arsenal
Chest Cage of the Hellborn Vault Tumble
Hands Fiendish Grips Preparation Invigoration
Legs Unholy Plates Companion Wolf
Feet Hell Walkers Vengeance Seethe
Amulet Hellfire Amulet Passives
Bracer Wraps of Clarity Cull the Weak Thrill of the Hunt
Ring Focus Ballistics  Awareness
Ring Restraint Kanai’s Cube
Belt The Witching Hour Dawn
Weapon Yang’s Recurve Cindercoat or Visage of Gunes
Off-hand Dead man’s Legacy Convention of Elements
                 Legendary Gems
Bane of the Trapped
Zei’s Stone of Vengeance
Bane of the Powerful | 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.

Unhallowed Essence Stat priority & Re-rolls

Chunky unsightly table of re-rolls right below

CLICK TO REVEAL STAT PRIORITY TABLE
Unhallowed Essence Stat Priority & Rerolls
Slot Item 1 2 3 4 5 6
Head Accursed Visage DEX VIT CRIT Mshot% RES –
Shoulder Unsanctified Shoulders DEX VIT CDR RES Life% –
Chest Cage of the Hellborn DEX VIT RES Life% Elite% –
Glove Fiendish Grip DEX CHC CHD VIT CDR RES
Legs Unholy Plates DEX VIT RES – – –
Boots Hell Walkers DEX Mshot% VIT RES – –
Belt Witching Hour DEX CHD% VIT RES AS% Life%
Wrist Wraps of Clarity Fire% DEX CRIT VIT RES LoH
Neck Hellfire Amulet Fire% CHD CHC DEX – –
Ring Focus DEX CHC CHD CDR – –
Ring Restraint DEX CHC CHD CDR – –
Weapon Yang’s Recurve DEX DMG% RCR% VIT CDR AS%
Off Dead Man’s Legacy DEX CHC CDR Mshot% AS% VIT

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

MAX DISCIPLINE (max +12 ea) is very important in Chest, Weapon, Quiver!!! Keep in mind it’s a secondary stat! While the chest is easy to roll for, Yang’s and Dead Man’s with perfect rolls can get annoying…

37% sheet CDR for 100% Vengeance uptime: The usual basic setup is Off-hand 8 + Shoulder 8 + Diamond 12.5 + Paragon 10 – gives around 95%. Another 8% from ring is 100%. (Calculation is not linear)

Life%: It’s always good to have one Life% rolled somewhere (Belt or Shoulder are the only viable spots, given our setup).

Keep note some of the sets “hidden properties”

*Yang’s Recurve rolls with an extremely high Resource cost Reduction.
**Dead man’s Legacy rolls with up to 100% Multishot damage increase!

Playing the Build

Missiles from Multishot and Vengeance seek enemies out, and they’re quite strong. So, don’t stress out if there’s one or two stray guys that aren’t part of Multishot’s cone. Don’t Multishot to the last man standing – sometimes leaving stragglers to missiles can save you a few precious seconds!

Preparation-Invigoration isn’t just there for the passive 20 discipline, man! USE IT TO RESTORE DISCIPLINE! Its active components is too often forgotten by newer DH’s! Discipline is this builds SOURCE OF DAMAGE and MOBILITY so you might find yourself a little low from time to time. This is a critical reminder – USE THE ACTIVE HALF OF THE SKILL!

Convention of Elements: Your rotation is Fire – Lightning – Physical – Cold – Fire. So at COLD – start filling up your Hatred and re-positioning! Because Fire is up next! Keep in mind that Evasive Fire – Focus is COLD so that’s some value right there!

Companion-Wolf: On the same note, align it with CoE’s Fire as much as possible. The duration is quite long so you can pop it as early half of Physical, and you’ll still get it for the entire duration of fire. Although I’d say it’s best to on it at the tail end of cold so you get the whole “spam phase” covered.

Wolf is a sneaky skill… a lot of DH’s hold on to it more often than they need to! Use it often! I mean, even if you just click it on cooldown you’ll have an average DPS increase of 10%. Bottom line is “Brainless use” beats “Overly kept” any day – but of course skilled, calculated Wolf usage yields IMMENSE results.

Variations & Evolutions

More than most sets, Unhallowed Essence build is pretty rigid with few flex slots and variations available. But let’s talk about them anyway.

Legendary Gem

Legendary Gems: Zei’s > Powerful > Trapped 

The above three gems will serve as your gems until the end of time! Stricken will eventually be needed, but you will need to be EXTREMELY high up in the GR’s for it to be worth more than powerful. It

Passives

Passives: Cull the Weak, Thrill of the Hunt and Ballistics are set in stone. Ambush and Awareness are the next 2 best. Awareness is, of course, a “crutch” but can save you up to FIFTEEN deaths in a given GR – which translates into time saved. But due to Hellfire Amulet and people wanting to replace Awareness for a risky increase in DPS – we will be discussing a few more options.

  • Ambush > Steady Aim > Archery are probably the next 3 best DPS passives.
  • Leech surprisingly good, and I’ve been using it instead of awareness to some success. It performs a lot better on some monster comps. RNG gonna RNG, son.

Ambush is relevant in the sense it brings enemies closer to Dead Man’s double-tap range.

Items

Items: I reiterate, UE6 is not the build to express your creativity…

Belt: The Witching Hour provides the best DPS. This thing is RARE. It also comes with minus 1 or 2 defensive stats.

Avoid the “+AS only” belts. They’re not too good, and unlikely to make or break you.

Neck: Hellfire Amulet is great. Another option Eye of Etlich, if you don’t know it rolls with a significant -ranged damage%.

The Traveler’s Pledge & The Compass Rose is a basic “Lose offense gain defense” trade-off (sacrificing Bastions of Will). You free up a ring which can use either –

  • Elusive Ring: 60% DR is stronger than Unity.
  • Unity: Rolled with Elite Damage, CHC and CHD is pretty damn good.
  • Stone of Jordan gives max disc, elemental% and elite damage!!!!

No ring aside from CoE (and if not using FnR… Jordan) that has a meaningful DPS increase.

Skills

Skills: UE’s build is pretty strict! Not much space for evolution here! The only optional skill, really, is Vault and probably Companion (You’d better have good reason to replace either).

Smoke Screen: Can replace Vault! Some DH’s like this… Rune is up to your preference. Displacement, Healing Vapors and Special Recipe seem to be popular.

Shadow Power-Gloom: Extra tankiness, for newer DH’s or ones with terrible defensive rolls. Often replaces Companion (or Vault, if you’re greedy). Provides a huge increase in survivability.

If you’re suicidal, and want to increase your DPS (removing Vault), Marked for Death (any rune) is your only “option”. Maybe for multiplayer?

Speedfarming? Build changes

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

Main Changes:
Items: Goldwrap (Equipped or Cube), Boon of the Hoarder, Avarice Band (Cube)
Passives IN: Blood Vengeance, Tactical Advantage
Passives OUT: Cull the Weak, Awareness

Unhallowed Essence is one of the best farming builds in the game, and it currently resides in a special guide – Demon Hunter: Fastest Speedfarming Build.

Demon Hunter: Unhallowed Essence
Standard Build | Stat Priority & Rerolls | Playstyle | Variations | Speedfarming

Other Demon Hunter Guides:

Check our our D3 Guide Directory for anything else you might need!

Well well! I hope you learned a thing or two about the Unhallowed Essence build! Remember – it’s not just about deez Multishot, it’s about deez Missiles too!

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11 COMMENTS

  1. It’s nice that you have changed the speedbuild for demon hunter to season 21, but can you at least put the season 20 one here. This set up does not even have the captain crimson.

  2. Why not put the cold rune on multi-shot for the slowing to stack damage with Trapped? The way I see it, Ambush gets them down in health, they are slowed and get hit twice under 50%, both of those last hits with full Trapped amplifies. At that point it is worth dropping Ballistics for another DPS passive.
    I’m assuming the main reason is to get your secondary on a different element than your primary for the CoE buff. That and rockets are always great for fast clearing.
    I just feel like what is the point of Trapped if you aren’t using it to its full advantage? With this build, enemies that are within 15 yards (Which is a tiny amount in this game) and enemies hit with you primary are the only ones getting bonus damage from Trapped.
    I’m not at all saying my idea is better and I would love a description of why I am wrong. I’m surely no expert and I assume its mostly for CoE

    • The COLD MS farming build is a viable option. I personally don’t like it over a fire setup (you can easily do both with minimal item changes…. Why? 1) The fire build is just better “overall”. Cold is better for “mid tier torment”, definitely. But the fire can go to higher torments and GR’s. 2) Trapped will trigger off Thrill of the Hunt -> missiles smash em. The very second cold doesn’t finish the job in 1 MS, fire becomes the superior build. 3) Fire has some upsides cold cant compete with. Elites and RG’s fall to fire a bit quicker, to even out clear times. Ultimately, I feel the cold build is best for lower tier content and scales extremely poorly. If I were to recommend ONE build for DH’s to strive for, in terms of multi-purpose farming, it would be fire.

  3. My first attempt at a d3 season.. i play on xbox. I started a day late and followed your guides to the letter. I now find myself in the top 3k and rising but the credit for that belongs to you.

    Not only are guides accurate and easy to follow but the style is excellet too. I will be visiting your patreon site shortly to deliver your well deserved reward!

  5. Thank you for making such a detailed guide! Bonus point for making it easy to parse for newbies like me. Now to finish collecting my UE gear…

  6. Rly appreciate your work 🙂 Your guide are helping like no other source i currently found on the internet. It is complete and accurate and easy to follow (I am rocking diablo 3 right now because of it, THANK!).

    Would you maybe have the time (or maybe a link) to describe a strafe build for demon hunters? I love the speed with such builds and the skill itself and would love to read a recommendation from you :), as their detail is amazing 😀

  7. I just wanted to thank you for taking the time and energy between your IRL responsibilities, and gaming time, to write out this MASSIVELY helpful guide. I haven’t played D3 since vanilla and RMAH days, and I’m able to somewhat competently play DH STRICTLY from following your guide. So THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for your contributions.

    ISe7eNI#1502

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