Fresh 70 Demon Hunter? If you’re wondering how to proceed and how to get your free set ASAP – look no further. Beating the Seasonal Journey, getting your Haedrig’s Gift, Builds, Items to look for – ITS ALL HERE in our Fresh level 70 DH Guide!

In Season 26, the Demon Hunter free set is: Embodiment of the Marauder.

Season 26 and YOU. How does it affect?

S26’s unique mechanic is the Echoing Nightmare. Here’s how it works

– Beat a Greater Rift Guardian, get a Petrified Scream.
– Transmute the Scream in the cube, and enter an Echoing Nightmare

More difficult as it progresses, progress faster by killing monsters quickly. Rewards on completing an Echoing Nightmare: EXP, Legendary Items, Blood Shards, Gems, and a new Legendary Gem, Whisper of Atonement.

– Whisper of Atonement is used exclusively to augment legendaries, up to L125!

Thank god… this basically removes a huge grind via levelling up gems for augmentation at least up to 125 which is good for 99% of people.

For this guide though, the free set doesn’t matter (but we WILL be able to beat the whole Seasonal Journey, don’t worry), as we’re rushing with LoD. Why? We want to get out of the early and early-mid game, freeing up for us to transition STRAIGHT into high-tier speedfarming or tryhard builds. LoD is the easiest, non free-set reliant way to do this, which you can transition from easily.

Step 1) Initial Build & Getting Legacy of Dreams

Don’t get stressed out, yes, LoD builds might seem a little daunting but let me tell you that it’s a fun and exciting process. Ultimately you need two things right now: The actual LoD gem, and a basic build to get you going.

Generic Starter build (slightly related to our ‘final build’)

Demon Hunter Fresh 70 No Set Build
Skill Rune
Evasive Fire Focus
Multishot Arsenal
Preparation Punishment
Companion Bat
Sentry Spitfire Turret
Vault Tumble
Passives
Ambush Leech
Ballistics

The above build is meant to be in the middle of two things: Easy to edit – that hopefully game-changing legendaries can fit in no matter what. Related to our ‘final build’ – it’s a rough basic version of our “goal”, so it feels more natural as you transition towards it. Have a look down there for the final build preview to see what we’re going for.

Getting Legacy of Dreams ASAP

It’s simple, you need this GEM so get it ASAP.

Get 3 rift keys → Run 3 rifts → Wear three gemstones on your gear.

The first three gems will always be Bane of the Powerful, Legacy of Dreams, and one random one. So thankfully, there’s no RNG there.

Step 2) Easy power-ups. Huge gains for little effort.

You can go all of these things “simultaneously”, basically small tasks here and there that you should keep in mind right now that will greatly increase your power for little to no effort.

Make a Reaper’s Wraps: Speaking of no effort to big returns… Make this ASAP. Plans drop from any Torment Malthael.

What three Legendary gems?

Your next goal should be getting at least L25 on your three most important gems. Just get rift keys and spam GR’s until you get them, and do the absolute minimum level you need to level them up. Get them and level them quickly – do not feel pressured to “maximize” your rift keys by inflating the difficulty.

Legacy of Dreams is mandatory, as mentioned in the basics segment! Level this up as much as you can.

Bane of the Powerful is a cheap investment for an amazing powerup.

Esoteric Alteration for early game defense. If you want more offense check Trapped or Zeis.

Can’t ever go wrong with leveling up a Boon of the Hoarder for speedfarming. (Need a refresher? Basic offensive: Powerful, Trapped. Basic Defensive: Esoteric Alteration, Molten Wildebeests Gizzard)

Legendary Items in ALL SLOTS

LoD gets stronger with each legendary item you have equipped – so get to it! You should aim to get this done “passively” by natural item drops, but you can also craft items if you’re desperate.

Spending Blood Shards is “OK”, but only use Death’s Breath to fill up the slots if you’re absolutely desperate. You’ll get an item for each slot in no time (you can even craft them). Save your resources for finding SPECIFIC items that will greatly boost your power. We talk more about this in the next segment, refinement.

Ancients DOUBLE this bonus, and they’re a welcome boost to consider.

Defense Type & Gems

Demon Hunter / Monk are DEXTERITY classes (they get free Armor from DEX). So, in the face of all this free armor, your prime defensive stats are ALL RESISTS > VIT. So try to reroll ALLRES on your gear if you need defense – it’s your best defensive stat by FAR.

So your gemming strategy (body and legs) should be slotting your best Diamonds, as they give ALLRES.

Basic Rerolls

Since legendaries are a little expensive to reroll EARLY ON, try to make the most by REMOVING GARBAGE STATS, and getting anything “remotely usable”.

Life per Hit is always good early on, but in this case, you’ll be using Leech so it’s not a huge deal.

Multishot% is found in Boots and Helm.

The Element% you want is Fire, found typically in Bracers and Amulet.

Remove useless stats

  • Life Regeneration – garbage for any build.
  • Attack Speed – it usually an endgame tune-up stat.
  • Excess Resource Cost Reduction – Is a crutch, and only niche builds need it.
  • Excess Cooldown Reduction – Only useful for an endgame “need”.
  • Unused skill% – literally USELESS.
  • Armor – Useless for us, take ALLRES instead.

Take better stats

  • DEX VIT– can’t go wrong with these. Your core stats!
  • ALLRES Life% Great defensive stats.
  • Sockets are essentially MANDATORY.
  • Life per Hit – Great early game sustainability.
  • CRIT Stats (CHC / CHD) – More for endgame, but I’d take this over garbage stats.
  • Skill and Elemental% – that you use.

FOLLOWER GEAR!

Do not forget to fully equip your follower for farming. You can start by crafting Sage or Cain’s NOW and worry about the rest later.

Step 3) Refining, Using Resources -> ‘Full Build’

Full Build Preview

So you can easily see what items you’ll need, and you can get an idea of what we’re trying to do here.

S26 Fresh 70 Demon Hunter: early game LoD Multishot speedfarm
Head Visage of Gunes Skill Rune
Shoulder Any / Skeleton King Evasive Fire Focus
Chest Cindercoat Multishot Arsenal
Arms Archew / Magefist / Stone Vault Tumble
Legs Blackthorns Jousting Mail Companion Boar / Bat
Boots Ice Climbers Preparation Punishment
Belt Goldwrap / Hunter’s Wrath Vengeance Seethe
Bracer Reaper’s / Clarity Passives
Amulet Hellfire / Any Ballistics
Ring Zodiac / Unity / Any Leech
Ring Elusive Ring Ambush
Weapon Yang’s Recurve Blood Vengeance / Open
Offhand Deadman’s Legacy —
Kanai’s Cube Legendary Gems
Dawn Legacy of Dreams
Goldwrap / Any of the options above Bane of the Powerful / Zeis
Unity / Elusive / CoE / Any Esoteric Alteration / Hoarder

Get CORE ITEMS asap. The heart of your build

The absolute core of your build are these:

Yangs Recurve – use Death’s Breath. Deadmans Legacy – use Blood Shards.

To a lesser extent: Dawn, which uses DB’s as well. Cindercoat is pseudo-core too.

Spending Blood Shards and Death’s Breath

Blood ShardsDeaths BreathRings, amulets

Here’s advice on how to spend your blood shards with Kadala, roughly in order of importance:

  • Cindercoat – Chest
  • Deadmans Legacy – Quiver
  • Goldwrap – Belt
  • Wraps of Clarity / Nemesis – Bracer
  • Visage of Gunes – Head

You can look for the other ‘unimportant’ things in the build preview after these (IE Ice Climbers, Gloves etc)

Here’s advice on how to get your weapons from Deaths Breath rare item upgrades (Kanai’s Cube Recipe: 25x Deaths Breath convert a rare into random legendary of same type), roughly in order of importance:

2H Bow for Yang’s Recurve. This is a build in a box. Massive RCR, and a huge boost to Multishot power is just… It’s got a reputation for being one of the most powerful singular items and it’s well deserved. Get it first and fast.

1H Crossbow for Dawn. Still pretty good for 100% Vengeance uptime.

Quiver for Deadmans Legacy if you just cant get it from shards.

Nothing else is really WORTH spending DB’s for, and would rather spend to try and get jewelry you might not have yet.

Rings and Amulets are tough to get from either BS or DB’s (due to the large amount of possible outcomes), but if you’re done getting your core items from these currencies – and you haven’t got your core accessories, it’s a viable way to spend them. Typically you’ll just find these as you grind – then use currency if you’re desperate. Anyway, if I had to rank the importance of your rings and ammys…

Elusive Ring is a godlike defensive buff for DH’s which is almost thoughtless to add in any DH build.

Unity is a decent defensive option, but you need the follower immortality relic, and another Unity for the follower!

There’s not much else… Zodiac is fluff for this build…

As an aside – Ring of Royal Grandeur and Avarice Band are BOUNTY ONLY rings (respectively ACT I and III), which DO NOT APPEAR FROM any other source. They, like any other bounty item, DO NOT DROP from monsters, gambling, upgrades or any other source outside of their respective BOUNTY CACHE.

Follower Gear odds and ends

More of a reminder than anything, once you start farming you will be running into those little bonuses for your follower farming build. Keep an eye out!

Summary & Outro

Welp, that’s about it. I’m liking these seasonal bonuses that remove the augmentation grind – makes the game a lot more humane. From here, you can easily do the Seasonal Journey if that’s your thing, or transition into literally any other build you like – the it’s exactly what the S26 fresh 70 LoD builds for each class are made for.

GL out there and check out our D3 Guide Directory if you need anything else!

27 COMMENTS

  1. You keep mentioning to get the dagger, yet you never really provide any info on how to use it. Mentioning it all the time and saying how easy the game is after getting the dagger is extremely annoying, because i got the dagger and i can’t figure out what to do. Guide BTW..

    • Each dagger modifies one skill. Either you got Impale, or Fan of Knives. Simply edit your build to include one of these.

      Impale dagger – change your spender to Impale.

      Fan of Knives – remove any utility skill to include FoK.

      The daggers aren’t multi-item or build specific, they only need a single skill to be added to the build.

      The skill of editing your build is something you’ll gain as you play more, as it’s impossible to account for every kind of item you will get. I will add this to the write0up, though as you’re absolutely correct in the sense others may be confused on how to use these daggers, as straightforward as it may be.

  2. Hi, the 1H mace. I cannot use with the 1H bow. Any suggestions. Thanks and great guide for new players like me.

  3. So i have killed the Keywarden over and over and have killed Urzael over and over im not getting any credit in the season jerny at all im on the right difficulty and everything. wtf?!

  4. Is there something missing(/wrong) in “Items to look for” (” [/su_tabs] “)? Usually there’s Blood Shards, Death’s Breath and classic section. Cheers for the guides anyway!

  7. I was lucky to find “Thunderfury…” leg sword early in season, so when I extracted its Kanai power, it became a nice step to making Impale more anti-group oriented than before 🙂 that lightning damage

  8. Holy wow. I stalled at Expert level because I didn’t understand the 2 set bonus. I went from weakling to god in a few steps by reading this. I owe you one.

  9. Hi, I’m getting piece 3 and 4 from “The Shadow Mantle” set. I’m using 1H sword in weapon slot 1 and slot 2 (off-hand), I can’t use anything (because all 1H). Since we need Karlei’s Point and Dawn later on. We should able to use dagger or sword/crossbow (both 1H) together. Why I can’t do it now. Did I overlook something ?

  11. Meticulous Bolts is no longer in game, it has been replaced by Augustine’s Panacea. Other than that great site and great guides, I am feeling a sudden urge to remake sevral of my toons when ever I see the guides here.

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