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 24, the Demon Hunter free set is: Natalya’s Vengeance.
Without further ado, let’s get into it.
Fresh 70: The first step – setting up!
The very first step of your journey! Here, I discuss items, rerolls, and basic advice to keep in mind during your ascent.
Craft a Reaper’s Wraps ASAP. DH, more than most, struggle with resource generation early on. Plans drop from any Torment Malthael. Get some bounty mats to make it!
You have to ALWAYS BE AWARE of how your FOLLOWER can greatly affect farming speed! S23 introduced the “full build” and emanate system – keeping items important for your Follower Farming Build is high priority!
0pc Natalya’s free set – getting the 2pc
2pc Natalya’s free set – getting the 4pc
4pc Natalya’s free set – getting the 6pc
For clarity the next boxes contains builds and info if you currently have 4pcs of the Natalya’s free set, going for 6 (you have the first+second Haedrig’s gift bag, going for the third). This segment is further divided into three parts – Torment II, Torment IV, and GR20.
Torment II seasonal journey entries
Torment IV seasonal journey entries
4pc Natalya’s free set GR20
S24 Fresh 70 Demon Hunter 6pc Natalya’s
S24 F7resh 70 DH Natalya’s 6pc Build | |
Skill | Rune |
Evasive Fire |
Focus (Hardened)
|
Strafe | Drifting Shadow |
Companion (Open) | Boar (Bat) |
Smoke Screen |
Displacement (Any rune)
|
Preparation (Vengeance) | Punishment (Seethe) |
Rain of Vengeance | Shade |
Passives | |
Blood Vengeance | Numbing Traps |
Leech | Ambush |
Our default build has options that prefer DEFENSE over RESOURCE GENERATION (Example, Companion Boar over Bat). If you feel you need more resources, switch some of them over. All of the passives are NON-CORE – flex into whatever you need. Use Vengeance once you get Dawn.
FROM HERE OUR GOAL IS TO GAIN POWER FAST. The next logical steps are Legendary Gems, and being mindful of the good items you need to find.
Ignore non RoV power-ups. Rain of Vengeance is your main source of damage.
Don’t get baited into buffing up Strafe or something.
Important notes right now:
- Crafted Reapers Wraps is godly this early on.
- Diamonds and chest/legs for ALLRES, Helm gem is not really set… Personally I’d go Amethyst until you need the CDR from Diamond.
- Low effort rerolls – remove trash stats and get decent ones. No need to tryhard, but a little care goes a long way. Keep in mind the important rerolls I mentioned at the start of this guide.
- Follower build and items – MASSIVE Farming speed gains for almost no effort.
Okay, congrats on the 6pc, but your journey has just begun!
You can easily transition into a GoD based speed build after
you’ve completed this guide. Nat’s is a good start!
Powering Up: Legendary Gems
Your next step after getting your 6pc is Legendary Gems. Why? LGems are a huge power spike relying on very little RNG. Simply spam Neph -> GR until you get the three gems you need and power them up to 25.
Taeguk is your best gem hands down. Keeping it active is a bit of a hassle, but the reward is huge. You can a considerable amount of both damage and toughness from a single gem! Invest it in as much as you can after you 25 the other gems.
Bane of the Powerful is good and easy to “max out”. Get it to level 25 and you’ve got a decent gem you can use for a long time!
I recommend a defensive gem for now: Esoteric Alteration or Moratorium. The latter is better for the early game, and can be used for Augments in your seasonal journey!
Bane of the Stricken – is the go to LATE GAME DPS Gem of choice. Its main use is shortening your Rift Guardian time (and helping out vs yellow elites).
Esoteric Alteration – is probably the best defensive gem in the game, and is worth having a strong one around.
Boon of the Hoarder – is used in many speedfarming builds alongside Avarice Band.
Again, Legendary Gems are a massive priority given their NON-RNG powerspike. Just having three useful gems at 25 will allow you farm a few torment levels higher.
Powering Up: Important Items & how to get them
Of course, any build will need a couple (or more than a couple) items to round out. Here, I list down what items you’re looking for, and how best to get them using various currencies and means.
I’m going to push you towards a Crafted Item heavy “Aughilds Crimsons Natalya” setup that isn’t optimal for tryharding, but is easy to setup and powerful for speedfarming. Also, lots of crafted means less crying about RNG. Check the full build preview way down.
Spending currencies (Blood Shards, Deaths Breath):
Spending Blood Shards
Here’s advice on how to spend your blood shards with Kadala, roughly in order of importance.
Belts for Crashing Rain. This is the single most valuable thing you can get from Blood Shards, and it gives a ridiculous amount of DPS.
Strangely – THAT’S IT! You can try for other fillers like Shoulder (Mantle of Channeling).
You can also go for items for other builds, or improve on your badly rolled set pieces.
Done with the above and fillers? Fish for Rings and, if truly desperate, amulets.
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.
Upgrade 1h Crossbows for Dawn. The strafe legendaries aren’t useful, mind you – but Fortress Ballista definitely is.
There’s really nothing else you want. Either find better rolls or ancients for Nats, Dawn, and Fortress which are all 1h Crossbows. (You can try looking for other build items, too)
Rings and Amulets are also viable for fishing with DB’s if you’ve got nothing else you want. You really want that Squirts Necklace and Elusive Ring!
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.
You REALLY WANT Elusive Ring before you get Squirts Necklace. Once you have this pair alongside Fortress Ballista – it’s going to be painfully easy to keep that double damage buff up.
Your third ring (after RoRG, discussed below) can be anything really. I suggest Unity, but Zodiac can work…
Typically you’ll just find these as you grind, as they can be difficult to obtain with currency…
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.
This is just a list of your “all-around” items that may or may not be mentioned previously. While I do not take set-specifics in this tab, it serves as a seasonal reminder (and helpful general list for newbies) on what’s “generally good”.
Reapers Wraps: A Crafted legendary whose plans drop from any Torment Malthael (and is oft mentioned in our Fresh 70 guides), any NON-RNG boost to power (in this case, resource generation) is welcome. MOST builds can benefit from an early reapers.
Nemesis Bracers: An absolute monster for increasing rift clear speed (and a little extra deaths breaths!), newer players might not value this as highly – try it out and you’ll be surprised.
Unity: Used alongside another Unity on your follower (Plus their unique “Cannot Die” relic) essentially halving all damage you take for one ring slot, that’s usable for any character. Not bad.
Obisidian Ring of the Zodiac: Core on many builds, but usable for any build that spends resource. It’s a unique source of “in-combat” CDR that would give you 100% uptime on skills you couldn’t otherwise achieve. It’s pretty crazy.
Focus+Restraint: If you can trigger both halves of the set bonus, and don’t mind losing defenses from rings – this is will “more than double” your DPS.
Travellers Pledge + Compass Rose: Another accessory set, this one is more suited for “elite killer” builds that like to travel in between packs, and face-tanking builds that tend to stay still while DPSing. It’s not very universal, but it can reasonably benefit any character.
Convention of Elements: Literally any character can use this ring. It’s a titanic boost in DPS (especially for builds that have tons of short-duration buffs… LINE THEM UP!).
Ring of Royal Grandeur: -1 set item requirements to help you fit random core or filler legendaries to help your build out. While absolutely necessary on some builds, most builds can benefit from this using “generic” legendaries for a temporary power boost (IE Aquilla Cuirass).
Avarice Band + Boon of the Hoarder (+Goldwrap) the gold farming speedy holy trinity. While you don’t really need all three all the time, this combo allows you to speed through and survive ANY difficulty (careful, this doesn’t improve DPS!).
You also need specific items for the farming follower build, which again, has a huge impact on your farming speed.
Natalya’s Full Build Template Preview
Note that this is a very unorthodox Nats setup. It’s geared for mid-game and farming while being super easy to setup and farm for (and with).
S24 Fresh L70 DH Natalya’s 6pc Build Template | ||||
Head | Natalya | Skill | Rune | |
Shoulder | Aughilds | Evasive Fire |
Focus / Hardened
|
|
Chest | Natalya | Strafe | Drifting Shadow | |
Arms | Natalya | Companion (Open) | Boar | |
Legs | Natalya | Smoke Screen |
Displacement / Lingering Fog
|
|
Boots | Cpt Crimson | Rain of Vengeance |
Shade (feel free to try others)
|
|
Belt | Cpt Crimson | Vengeance | Seethe | |
Bracer | Aughilds | Passives | ||
Amulet | Squirts Necklace | Ambush | ||
Ring | Elusive Ring | Leech | ||
Ring | Unity | (Open) Hot Pursuit / any | ||
Weapon | Natalya | Awareness (Flex) | ||
Offhand | Dawn / Fortress | — | ||
Kanai’s Cube | Legendary Gems | |||
Fortress Ballista / Dawn | Taeguk | |||
Crashing Rain | Bane of the Powerful (Flex slot) | |||
Ring of Royal Grandeur | Esoteric Alteration (Bane of the Trapped) |
The above is the baseline template for a fully functional 6pc Natalya’s. It’s not heavily optimized for pushing GR, but more of a speedy farming slant. It’s a great place to be in, as you adjust the build to your needs!
Season 24: Ethereals and YOU? What do!?
I can’t go through every detail given the focus of this guide (Fresh 70). Best general advice? If it has a legendary power you want – then it’s “ALWAYS” AN UPGRADE. Does it convert your 2H into a 1H? GODLY UPGRADE. Rolling a good passive is simply icing on the cake!
Now, specifically for us, hmm…
Doomslinger with either Dawn or Fortress Ballista passive is SICK. Utterly broken.
The 2H Crossbow Ethereals can be a bit of a bummer. You can use it, but you’re gonna need ot edit your build. You will use this and cube either a Fortress or Dawn (you want both effects). You can’t use the Natalya weapon, so you need to drop a (or both) crafted item to fit in Nats boots. From there, add whatever to round out your build.
On the other hand, if the legendary power doesn’t match… it’s gonna be hard to justify using it.
Bridging to the End-game
So you skipped a whole chunk of the powering up phase with the free set. Now what? Like I always say, “Speedfarming first before pushing GR’s”. So, convert what you have NOW to be as speedfarmy as possible, first.
Demon Hunter Best Speedfarming Builds
Newer DH? Check out these speedfarming resources:
- Follower Guide (Builds, FAQ, Tips etc)
- Demon Hunter Speedfarming Builds & Primer
- D3 Speedfarming with any Class!
Other Demon Hunter Guides:
- Demon Hunter Leveling Guide
- Embodiment of the Marauder | Marauder Set Dungeon
- Natalya’s Vengeance | Natalya’s Set Dungeon
- The Shadow’s Mantle | Shadow’s Mantle Set Dungeon
- Unhallowed Essence | UE Set Dungeon
- Demon Hunter Support Builds
Check out our D3 Guide Directory for more D3 info.
Not all of these links are updated to S24 yet!
But, they will serve as a decent resource nonetheless in the meantime
Well, good luck with your Fresh 70 Demon Hunter! Natalya’s isn’t the best free set, but it can definitely clear the seasonal journey – and serve as a solid starting point! Hopefully our guide helped you gain power quickly. HF out there!
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.
Hi, the 1H mace. I cannot use with the 1H bow. Any suggestions. Thanks and great guide for new players like me.
1H Mace can only be used with a non-ranged offhand.
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?!
keywardens should be killed on T4 and Urzael on T2
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!
thank you for bringing it to my attention. i must have accidentally deleted one tiny code. fixed it!
When will the season 11 guide be put up?
Great guides every other season 🙂
the leveling and fresh 70 at least are updated. but just in case i will refresh those pages.
try clearing your cache too. that should solve it
Nice build and a great guide. Just one question…. How would you spread the paragon points?
Thanks! Core – Move Speed, Prime Stat, Vit, Resource; Offense – CHC, CHD, CdR, Attack Speed; Defense – ResAll, Life, Armor, Regen; Utility – LoH, AD, RCR, Gold
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
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.
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 ?
You put karlei in the slot 1 and a quiver in the slot 2, while you put the dawn in the weapon slot of the kanai’s cube.
How do you have Vault, Companion, and Preparation all at the same time? They’re all in the same skill slot.
use elective skills, you can change it in settings
Tks. I just recently returned to D3 after a couple years hiatus, and completely forgot about that. =)
You can use any skill in any ‘slot’ you want. Turn on elective skills in game options…
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.
Correct. It has been renamed!!! Fixing
really helpful for a just starting out player! thanks
Great guide, helped a lot.. thanks!
great guides/site
Thank you 🙂