D3 S28 Demon Hunter Fresh Level 70 Guide | 2.7.5

This season’s “theme” is the Follower buff + emanate items. I’m guessing it will be a permanent addition from after this season.

This mainly affects farming speed. While the follower buff skills make them more relevant in tryharding GR’s, it is by no means game-breaking.

Essentially, this season unlocks
NEW HEIGHTS FOR SPEEDFARMING

I highly recommend checking out our Follower Guide (Builds, Item, Skills etc).

Craft a Reaper’s Wraps ASAP. For this build, more than most, resource generation will be an issue. Plans drop from any Torment Malthael, and you should get the bounty mats soon enough.

WEAPON: Craft or find a “2H” Crossbow (Not a hand crossbow). The stats you want are DEX VIT LpH or Socket (Purple gem for LpH, Red for DMG+, Green for CHD+). Avoid any other stat for now. You also want a good Quiver, which can roll a variety of stats to help cover your bases.

DH is an DEX Class – meaning you get free ARMOR from all the DEX on your gear. This results in a huge lack of ALL RESISTS. So, in your reroll strategy REMOVE ALL ARMOR ROLLS as they’re pretty much USELESS – and replace them with ALL RESISTS. ALLRES is your best defensive stat by a LARGE MARGIN. Socket Diamonds to get ALLRES!

SELF HEALING: Life per Hit is integral for your early game survival. Having a roll or two is always nice. Note that I often recommend using Leech passive which grants a decent amount of LpH, having it on your gear early on helps, too.

GEMS: For body pieces you’ll want Diamonds for ALLRES. Helm may vary (Topaz for resource cost reduction, Amethyst for Life%, Diamond for Cooldown Reduction) depending on your needs. Early game, nothing beats Topaz IMO.

Rings and Amulet: You NEED sockets on these to prep for legendary gems. Get any stat on these that you feel you’re missing. Feeling soft? Get defenses. Need DPS? Crit and mainstat. Feel free to roll “random helpful stats” on these for now, instead of the usual endgame CHC/CHD/MAINSTAT.

The above notes are most important.
Anything below this chunk is useful, but not critical.
(UE Seasonal journey isn’t too difficult)

Belt: Is a huge source of defense. DEX > VIT > RES > Life%. You’ll be surprised how a single item can give you a whole load of toughness. Note that primary skill percent rolls here, too. Sad.

Quiver: Anything with DEX VIT, and any other “passable” stat.

Arms, Boots, Head, Shoulder? You’ll get them for free easily, so you don’t really need to get temporary yellows here.

Elemental% can be found on Bracers and Amulets. You ideally want it on both. Fire% is what you’re going for here as it’s the element you want later on.

Skill% can be found on Boots and Helm. Multishot% should almost always be on boots. Having it on Helm comes at a huge cost to minus a huge chunk of VIT, so you might wanna hold onto that.

Chest / Legs: DEX VIT ALLRES Sockets (3/2). Life% isn’t bad either. Don’t try too hard here since you’ll be replacing them once you get your 6pc set.

Getting the “correct” stats beats getting the “perfect” stats for now. REMOVE USELESS STATS and get any USEFUL STAT for massive gains in power.

Remove useless stats

• Life Regeneration – garbage.
• Attack Speed – it usually an endgame tune-up stat.
• Excessive Resource Cost Reduction – Is a crutch, and only niche builds need it.
• Excessive Cooldown Reduction – Only useful for an endgame “need”.
• 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.
• Life per Hit – Great early game sustainability.
• CRIT Stats (CHC / CHD) – More for endgame, but I’d take this over garbage stats.

You’ll get “bonus” healing and resource generation from Templar, so make sure you drag him along. Get a pet out, too, to collect those coins to upgrade the NPCs in town

For clarity this box contains info and builds if you currently have 0 pcs of the UE free set, going for 2 (you don’t have any Haedrigs gift bag, going for the first).

My favorite “el basic” DH build kinda looks like UE already right? This build feels pretty good already with zero items.

If you have a powerful legendary – edit the build to accommodate it if needed.

*Pressing Shift+J (PC) opens up your Seasonal Journey tracker!*

The entries in these early chapters are dead easy. The build above gives you a good balance of offense, defense and speed built in to help you breeze through this as mindlessly as possible.

Hard Mode on for Chapters 1 & 2. Clear through all the entries on Hard. Just up the difficulty to complete one Neph on Expert.

Don’t forget to level up all the NPCs in town. Completing your weekly Challenge Rift will help you get resources to do this easily, if you haven’t already.

When you’re done here, get your first free set from your mail, and proceed onward.

For clarity this box contains builds and info if you currently have 2 pcs of the UE free set, going for 4 (you have the first Haedrigs gift bag, going for the second).

No change to build. The 2pc set bonus of UE is pretty unexciting. It only makes our generators make more Hatred and a little bit of Discipline. If you want to change something up, my suggestion would be Companion – Bat, as you might overflow on resource now?

If you have a powerful legendary – edit the build to accomodate it if needed.

*Pressing Shift+J (PC) opens up your Seasonal Journey tracker!*

Difficulty: Although there are entries here that need to be finished on Master, you can still complete the bounty cache, if you haven’t already, on Hard. For the bounty, try to do the whole five acts as you’ll need to do this down the line anyway.

These entries are still on the easy side, so we can be a little lax with our build making as little sacrifices as possible to retain good DPS, Speed and some thought to defense. When you’re done with this chapter, collect your 2nd set of free set and let’s finish the next chapter for the remaining free gear!

No changes! Yep. As unexciting as it seems, the build doesn’t need to change at all. The only thing you need to remember is to activate the 4pc UE set bonus by distancing yourself from enemies every few seconds. Don’t worry you don’t need to stay far always, it triggers the moment you’re out of range and you gain the buff for a set duration.

Upgrade a Rare to Legendary w/ Kanai’s Cube: You got 2 choices here. You can start the hunt for Yangs Recurve by upgrading 2h Bows. Alternatively, more experienced demon hunters might choose to craft a 1h Dagger for either Karleis or Greenstones – this trivializes the rest of the journey if you’re feeling RNG was being particularly bad to you.

Complete a Torment I Rift: This will be the minimum level you should be farming at should you need to do it. Increase if you can easily obliterate a rift. There’s also a “Kill a Torment II Boss” entry here which should be easy.

Complete any other odds and ends that you can, before proceeding to Torment IV.

(build template in the Torment II tab)

In Torment IV things get real. For many of the free sets, this place is the breakpoint wether your build needs help or not. And for S23 and UE, it’s not that bad…

• Kill Odeg – Keywarden in ACT I, Fields of Misery.
• Kill Sokahr – Keywarden in ACT II, Dahlgur Oasis.
• Kill Xah’Rith – Keywarden in ACT III, Stonefort.
• Kill Nekarat – Keywarden in ACT IV, Gardens of Hope 2nd Tier.
• Kill Specific Boss – Check your journal to see who it is this season.
• Keywardens maps have a key icon next to the waypoint. Purple arrows point you to their location after a short while once you’re in their respective map.

For the boss and all Keywardens – STRAIGHT UP RUSH TO THEM!
Ignore ALL TRASH and just beeline! Get it done ASAP!

You’ll really notice the if you’ve neglected your temporary yellow gear and rerolls. Hopefully you have powerful legendary to carry you (and even if you do), you will notice if you’ve neglected your gear. Refer to the very top setting up tab if you need help.

Either way, this is a good time to take a closer look at your items and get as many powerups and rerolls stated in the setting up tab above.

NO BUILD CHANGES. If you’re worried about DPS, slot in Custom Engineering passive. The passive you might want to remove is Leech (dangerous if your self-healing sucks), or Blood Vengeance (If you’re confident in your resource management).

You should have an idea of how strong you are given the drops (or lack thereof) you’ve gotten. Be practical and don’t be afraid to shore up your build a little. If you feel a little weak – Do 4 quick Nephs, then do 4 GR10+.

The “ultimate” challenge gating you to getting your full six piece free set! The difficulty varies wildly on your class and seasonal set. As someone who has cleared with EVERY SINGLE SET AND CLASS WITHOUT ANY OTHER LEGENDARY OR TAKING ANY PYLONS – let me tell you, they’re not all created equal.

Arranged loosely by how I would try to get them:

As implied, these are the items that are core, or important, to your build. I talk more about how to obtain these later on – remember to keep these in mind always.

At the very bottom of this guide, you can preview what a good base template build is for items / skills / passives to get an idea what you’re going for.

While looked down on for many seasons, Bounties are actually amazing in the early game these days – why?

Great items and recipes for your follower to improve farming! Recipes for Sage’s Bounty and Cain’s Destiny. As well as bounty specific value items like Gloves of Worship.

Ring of Royal Grandeur is an ACT I only bounty item, and is CORE to UE’s build to accommodate the Crimson 3pc set bonus.

Avarice Band is always welcome for speedfarming. Its an ACT III bounty item.

While some builds may not need RoRG, everyone would definitely want Sage to help out with Deaths Breath so doing a few bounties are a good idea.