The same question I faced last time, in the end I choose to maintain All Res, Armor and HP and pump my DPS. Works pretty fine right now as I can kill things faster, even if I constantly use my lower-DPS MagFind set.. altho at one point, I increased my AllRes again from ~300 to ~450 (whilst maintaining / improving DPS and HP)

Ah, my "rather comfortable" is more like its do-able. Sure it's slower than my farming rate right now, and more deaths as well. But the death rate was way better than my previous glass-cannon build (having problems even with white ranged mobs, 1 hit = die). I moved on slowly from being able to survive, dishing out damages slowly. There are troublesome packs as well with low DPS and average survival ability. Like those that you mentioned, Reflect Damage is fine tho as I can take hits, and just Gloom my HP back with Cluster Bombs when I need them. However there are still packs that I used to skip back then, namely the Hulking Phasebeast.

I can take them down with my current stats, BUT will still face problems occasionally especially when the affixes are something like Hulking Phasebeast: Fast Teleporter Firechain <insert something here>

1. Yes. Definitely helps me live longer with that 10k hp and 500 all res.

2. Yes. Evading is a must but unforeseen situations happens, always. Be it a latency issues, retarded hitboxes, unavoidable projectiles, stuck, suck in kiting, etc. The extra survival does help.

1 hit KO? Doesn't occur to me that often compared to when I was glass cannon. Except super hard hitting packs or bosses, nothing one shot me now and even better with gloom.

The best part is? It can be easily achieved with only e0pk HP and 350 allres, though the more the better.

Yes glass cannon is still a viable choice for some, but not all. If you prefer glass cannon, by all means go ahead but that doesn't make it superior than balanced dh, or vice versa.

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Added on July 20, 2012, 11:46 amI agree with this, boots with these perfect stats are really expensive.. until now I couldn't find an upgrade without compromising my ms (24x dex, 8x vit, 4x fire resistance (lulz) and 12% ms)

This post has been edited by polarzbearz: Jul 20 2012, 11:46 AM

It's possible. My friend's tank DH can tank packs easily, with deaths to certain packs like Arcane Sentry.

With Shadow, I bet it'll be even more do-able. In his case, he didn't use Shadow as he's running out of skill slot (MotD:ME + CA:LfB spams)

69k dps w/o SS should be able to go thru even act 3 at a breeze. I can already solo act 3 with 40k dps w/o SS (skip packs like hulking phasebeast, and with few deaths for some elites).

What's your AR, HP and armor?

This post has been edited by polarzbearz: Aug 10 2012, 08:07 PM

I can clear act 3 with around 3k armor, 350 AR, 35k HP and at least 40k dps w/o SS. So I think Act 2 will be roughly around these numbers as well.

This post has been edited by polarzbearz: Aug 12 2012, 11:09 PM

I don't think you'll need to switch to full-tank mode. Your DPS is decent enough at 50k w/o SS, but could be better. Upgrade your bow to 9xx DPS w/ cdmg + socket, and I believe you'll hit AT LEAST 55k DPS w/o SS, which is decent to farm Act 3. Then, you can start stacking SOME allRes (300~350) with around 30k~35k HP, you'll be good enough in Act 3 already.

Before I had my gears that I use now, I used to struggle as well but managed to farm act 3 with minimal death, occasionally skipping some packs (say, Hulking Phasebeasts) with ~30k HP, ~350 AllRes, ~40k DPS w/o SS running the Lightning Ball / Nightstalker build with high crit chance.

Heck, even currently when I run my semi-full MF gear (with ridiculously low DPS) I can survive good enough to farm @ Act 3. So, I think your gears are decent enough with minor upgrades to them.

Here's mine for references if you are interested (currently using semi-MF gears): http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Jishiny...35/hero/5902600

This post has been edited by polarzbearz: Aug 16 2012, 03:06 PM

70k DPS w/o SS. Pretty decent IMO. Just need to stack at least 300 AllRes to roll thru act 3 without getting one-shot by everything (might die to heavy hitters still).

So, if I were you, I will first start with some minor gear upgrades: Shoulder and Bracers. Get those with +DEX +VIT +AllRes (and +CritChance for bracers). 80dex/80vit/4.5critchance/50allres are pretty cheap to come by for bracers with the current market, both piece should come under 2mil or even cheaper if lucky.

After that I'll upgrade belt and pants as well, same reason: stacking allres / vit while trying to reduce dex losses. You can upgrade your quiver too if you have more $ to spend. As for the weapon, no need for upgrade yet since 1.0.4 is coming soon and I'm sure that there'll be more higher-DPS w/ cdmg+socket bow by that time.

As for the skill build, you might be needing to fit-in Shadow Power: Gloom somewhere in between for HP regenerations (Gloom, then Cluster bomb = usually insta-full-heals for me) or going against Reflect Damage packs. Pop gloom before cluster bombs, not after, as it'll not work. And the passive skill Grenadier, I have tried it last time but I feel that the -10 hatred cost are not that useful as compared to many others, such as Night Stalker (to regen disc by spamming Lightning Ball); or Tactical Advantage (to kite easily and thus reducing the time needed to shutterstep (shot, shot, SS and run, shot, shot, shot, etc). There's once that I tried Cull of the Weak + Scoundrel cold bow combination, not that bad as well but I prefer TA currently with my MF set, since I cant really take much hits.

And for your primary skill, I'd say that the Spray of Teeth is not really a useful rune. Try Devouring Arrow instead, since there's maths formula posted somewhere in US D3 Forum (I lost the link), that SoT is only useful when you have >86% crit chance. So stick with either Puncturing or Devouring (I prefer devouring for burst).

And finally, as these are purely my opinions based on my DH experience, there might be some mistakes; or opinions that not many will agree upon, so feel free to tweak it and suit it to your needs (I remembered that I tweaked other's build to suit my gameplay and after that, managed to roll Act 3 with minimal deaths (0 to 3 per map) last time.

Anyway as a side note, I don't think our gears differs that much, except a little all res. So I'm pretty sure you can roll Act 3 safe enough once you have some AllRes and prevents one-shotting (I don't think that normal white mobs will one shot you now, but I'm not sure since I have been running 300Res minimum for quite some time)

Edit2: For the Gloom, maybe you can replace caltrops with it. To top-up with the mob-slowing-ability, equip your Scoundrel with a Cold Bow + Multishot = free slowing.

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Added on August 16, 2012, 3:17 pm179% MF with scoundrel. Occasionally switch two pieces (gloves and amulet, adding 15% and 29%) if I'm on the mood, but I hate switching so I usually run with these MF only.

This post has been edited by polarzbearz: Aug 16 2012, 03:25 PM

Don't worry, I was as frustrated as you are feeling right now last time. But the problem was mainly my skill build (Was running ~350 AllRes ~35k HP ~40k DPS) and keep dying @ Act 3, after the nerf to NT.

Until I stumble upon some thread @ d3 forums, tried to mix-and-match my skill build with the OP's post and bang! The problem was really my skillbuild and not my equipments.

This post has been edited by polarzbearz: Aug 16 2012, 03:32 PM

And don't forget chests too

That's a good start. But don't do mistakes like I do last time, where I get a little.. c0cky and went to tank mobs (of course I died) when I'm supposed to be kiting instead.

That 80dex 50AR socketed w/ 4.5 CC should be good enough. I'm using that stats too, since can't afford higher dex w/ AR, socket, CC 4.5 yet.

As for your gloves, I think you can ditch AR from there (since getting AllInOnes are expensive). Compensate the AR from other parts, since glove is one of the items that boost our DPS by a lot. Get one with at least 150 DEX, 8.5CritChance, 25CritDamage, VIT / AR is a bonus.

You can use mine as a reference: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Jishiny...35/hero/5902600, tho it might get updated anytime and become some lame nat sets that I use to farm achievement points lol

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Added on August 17, 2012, 7:15 pmYou can keep first to save up for more budgets, if you want. But you'll lose two parts for you to stack up at least 80~100 AR

Edit: By the way, I noticed that you are using the wrong rune for Shadow Power. Use the one that -65% incoming damage (Gloom), good to tank for a bit when SP is up.

This post has been edited by polarzbearz: Aug 17 2012, 07:26 PM

You clear until inferno without skipping quests?

For me all my sub chars, ask friend WP me to boss fight of each act only. Haha.

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Added on August 18, 2012, 4:34 amNot bad with the high rate & damage to compensate the loss of dex.

This post has been edited by polarzbearz: Aug 18 2012, 04:34 AM

By using your theory, yes, the minimum damage will be higher, but you'll lose out a lot on max potential damage (without crits, or etc)

Why?

This post has been edited by polarzbearz: Aug 20 2012, 02:58 PM

Procs as in x% to freeze/stun/etc; or everything including LoH?

I kind of expect this kinda nerf will hit, but this is much worse than my expectations (my guess was, they will lower the co-efficient from 0.66 to 0.33 or something like that).

They totally eliminated jagged spike, and halved everything else (gas grenades, and shuriken cloud)

"Working as intended" by Blizzard, using their crappy logic like:

"Oh, build diversity is good.. blah blah blah"
-right, here we'll nerf range classes tanking ability since they aren't meant to tank at all-