Diablo III Demon Hunter build - Inferno guide

Demon hunting has never been such a profitable business. With the Lords of Hell returning, plenty of their minions are walking the earth just waiting to become demonic pin cushions. Inferno is a tough nut to crack though, and maybe you’ll need a little extra help. This guide is here to do just that.

Below is a build for the Demon Hunter that takes advantage of critical hits. By increasing not only your chances to land critical hits, but the damage those crits do, you'll soon find your arrows packing a much larger punch. Please keep in mind that this build is making the assumption you are playing solo.

Note that this is a build for version 1.0.3 and it’s likely things can change in future patches.

Recommended Active Skills

Left Click - Evasive Fire – This skill is going to be your main attack.  This may seem a little weird because it’s a Hatred skill, which aren’t usually good for the primary attack button. The reason we suggest using Evasive Fire is for the backflip. When an enemy gets too close, hit this and you’ll backflip from harm’s way for a cheap 4 Discipline. This skill is extremely useful for cheap get aways. It’s a get out of jail free card that you don't even have to activate. Add in the Covering Fire rune and now you’re doing a small AoE shot, dealing 125 percent weapon damage to all targets hit.

Right Click – Impale – Tossing a small knife at your enemies may not seem like a powerful attack but at 250 percent weapon damage, this little knife goes a long way. For our build we chose the Grievous Wounds rune. This causes critical hits, dealt with Impale, to do an extra 100 percent damage. This will cause Impale to do massive amounts of damage to any target hit.

Vault – Everyone needs that one quick move to get away from enemies. Here is the Demon Hunter’s ticket out of trouble. For only 8 Discipline you can move quite a ways away. Add in the Tumble rune and now you can follow it up with a second Vault for half the Discipline cost. Also, thanks to our passive skill Tactical Advantage, you gain a movement speed increase for 2 seconds after each Vault. All this adds up to make for one amazing skill.

Preparation – This skill by itself is quite useful. Although it has a large cooldown, it offers an instant refill of all your Discipline. Now add in the Battle Scars rune and it will also heal you for 60 percent of your health. As a Demon Hunter, you aren't going to take the hits very well. This skill can help make up for that and keep you in the fray a little bit longer.

Companion – The Bat Companion rune is the important one here. With it set you will increase your Hatred regeneration by 3 per second. This can be very useful during long haul fights and kiting where you are constantly trying to output damage while avoiding being hit. Having your Hatred coming in faster will allow you to keep the arrows flying and keep the enemies at bay longer.

Spike Trap – This trap is going to be one of your biggest sources of damage. Doing 275 percent weapon damage to targets that walk over it, Spike Trap is one of the strongest Demon Hunter skills. Couple it with the Scatter rune and now you can toss down 3 traps at one time. The only thing to keep in mind is that the traps have a 1.2 second arming time before they become active.

Passive Skills

Tactical Advantage – Since we plan to use both Evasive Fire and Vault, this skill is very useful. Every time you Vault or do a backflip you gain 60 percent to your movement speed for 2 seconds. It may not seem like a long time but it is very useful. You can string together Vaults long enough to run across the screen 3 or 4 times over. This can get you far away from any danger that might come up unexpectedly.

Archery – Archery is an all-round amazing skill. It can add 3 different enhancements, but for the purpose of our build we are going to focus on the Hand Crossbow. As long as you have a Hand Crossbow as your weapon you will gain a 10 percent chance to land a critical hit. This bonus is very useful in making our build and can go a long way towards turning nearly every one of your shots into a critical hit.

Steady Aim – As long as you have no enemies within 10 yards of you, this skill increases your damage by 20 percent. This is a huge bonus and since you are a ranged character, it is very unlikely anything will be close enough to you to ruin the bonus.

Companion

The Scoundrel is the man of choice when you are by yourself. Since we are looking to build a critical hit Demon Hunter, there is no better choice than this guy. He gives a passive increase to your Critical Hit Chance and has the added bonus of being a ranged character himself so he will stick back with you instead of rushing into the herd of enemies you are trying to kite and kill. His gear should be similar to yours. High amounts of dexterity and vitality are best for him and he should be equipped with crossbows that rival your own in power.

Crippling Shot – This attack has a fast cooldown, 6 seconds, as well as being able to slow the enemy that it hits for 3 seconds. That means half the time you are fighting an enemy he will be slowed. It is a very useful low level skill.

Vanish – Companions need health too and Vanish is a great way to ensure your Scoundrel doesn't run out. When taking severe damage he will disappear into a cloud and heal for 15,000 health. Reappearing 5 seconds later he will be ready to dive back into battle with you. The only bad thing about this skill is there’s a 30 second cooldown, which means he simply can't spam this to stay alive.

Multishot – This simple passive skill turns the Scoundrels single fire shots into 3 bolts of power. It’s a great way to boost his base DPS. It doesn't offer any other advantages but you are now tripling the amount of arrows he fires, which is always a good thing.

Anatomy – Here is the big reason we want the Scoundrel by our side. He offers a passive 3 percent increase to your Critical Hit Chance. It may not seem like much but combine it with the 10 percent you gain from the Archery passive skill and you now have a 13 percent increase before you even begin gearing up. That is a significant increase and will yield great results.