D3 S28 Demon Hunter Fresh Level 70 Guide | 2.7.5

Well, let’s not beat around the bush. The fourth Kanai’s Cube slot is the ultimate buff here. Sure, the Pylons spawning a certain kind of “shadow clone” is cool and exciting in its own way… But when it comes to pure POWER, a fourth Kanai’s slot is probably the strongest ever buff we’ve had!

It doesn’t really help early on, but as you gather more and more legendary effects it will help you out quite a bit. In the end-game, this is, at the very least, a 20/30% power spike to your character.

REROLLING YELLOW ITEMS IS SUPER LEGIT, CHEAP, AND UNDERRATED.
Nicely rerolled yellows will carry you for a LONG TIME.

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. Socketing Diamonds also gives you 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.

Elemental% can be found on Bracers and Amulets. You ideally want it on both. Cold% is what you’re going for here as it’s the element you want later on. The seasonal journey for Dreadlands isn’t that difficult so you don’t need to rely on an elemental power up for your temporary skills.

Skill% can be found on Legs and Belt (in this case, either Evasive Fire or Hungering Arrow %). While you’ll be using Hunger Arrow later on, for the majority of the journey leading up to 6pc free set, you’ll be using Evasive Fire as a temporary skill. If you have temporary gear to spare roll EF on it, and roll HA on your better pieces down the line.

Chest / Legs: DEX  VIT ALLRES Sockets (3/2). Life% isn’t bad either. Since you typically get these pieces last, you’ll want decent fillers until you get your 6pc set.

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.

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.

GEMS: For body pieces you’ll want Diamonds for ALLRES. Helm may vary (Amethyst for Life%, Topaz for resource cost reduction, Diamond for Cooldown Reduction) depending on your needs. For early game Dreadlands, Amethyst on helm is a good idea.

OTHER SLOTS will be taken over by your free set pieces. No matter how bad they are stat wise, the 4pc bonus will heavily outperform any temporary yellow you can make.

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 Dreadlands free set, going for 2 (you don’t have any Haedrig’s gift bag, going for the first).

A basic, easy to edit build (if you get powerful legendary effects). It relies on the power of Missiles + Ballistics. Not the most powerful build out there, but it’s good enough to be versatile and get you by. Triple Spitfire absolutely carries.

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 Dreadlands free set, going for 4 (you have the first Haedrig’s gift bag, going for the second).

The 2pc bonus essentially makes our Evasive Fire (or Primary Skill of choice) about as strong as our average Hatred spender. It’s a welcome upgrade, but doesn’t really change our build. Triple Spitfire still “carries” us here.

If you have a powerful legendary – edit the build to accommodate 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 Dreadlands’ and let’s finish the next chapter for the remaining free gear!

Massively improves our build. We CAN remove almost all resource crutches. We get a ton of Defense and free shots off of Strafe. No complaints. Build changes quite a bit!

This build will be the baseline for all entries in this tier (Torment II, IV, and GR20). While this build may seem overkill for the Torment II entries, you may as well prep up for the harder parts of this tier.

Upgrade a Rare to Legendary w/ Kanai’s Cube: If you really want power NOW, upgrade a Dagger (if you haven’t done it during your leveling phase), and get either Karlei’s Point or Lord Greenstone’s Fan – thereby turning the rest of the journey to 6pc a joke. Otherwise, upgrade a 1H Crossbow for, hopefully, Dawn.

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 S22 and Dreadlands – it ain’t too bad.
If you have the DB’s, upgrade a dagger, heh.

• 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 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.

Adjust the build accordingly if you need DPS or Toughness (Passives / Skills).

• Fan of Knives / Perfectionist for Toughness.
• Marked for Death / Ambush for DPS.

By now, you can tell if your build needs help or not. Sometimes just getting that Cold% and Evasive Fire% is enough. Another tip is getting Sentry% on Shoulder and Chest. Honestly, it didn’t feel so bad. The build performs very “consistently” since Sentries + missiles deal a massive chunk of your damage (which is brainless).

This semi janky build didn’t seem like it should work – but it did. I cleared many times in my experiments. Overall, your DPS is a problem compared to defense. You can survive for days, but if you don’t have the deeps you won’t consistently clear this.

Ultimately, I did clear this without taking any pylon and having all yellow gear only. My notion is you need the important rerolls, otherwise you could be at risk.

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+.

Having a hard time? *cough* Upgrade a dagger *cough*

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 – let me tell you, they’re not all created equal.

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.

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.