LoD Rapid Fire Demon Hunter BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

Since the build is based on the Legacy of Dreams power, you have some flexibility in the items you choose to slot across your gear, provided they are ideally of Ancient quality, have the appropriate stats, and do not form any other set bonuses (meaning you can temporarily run individual set pieces, if necessary).

The Legacy of Dreams power allows you to run any legendary item combination while not losing out on the damage amplification and reduction associated with the traditional 6-piece sets. You can obtain this power in two ways; the older way is equipping the two rings — The Wailing Host and Litany of the Undaunted — as your only active set bonus. The newer (and more powerful, since it also opens your ring slots for legendary jewelry) method is the Legacy of Dreams legendary gem.

In a setup with Legacy of Dreams, you will be wearing your two best rolled rings and cubing the third between Convention of Elements, Unity, and Elusive Ring. Both Unity and Elusive Ring provide damage reduction through different conditions. Unity will cut incoming damage in half when paired with another on the follower, along with an immortality relic for them (i.e. Enchanting Favor). Elusive Ring is another massive damage reduction source, as long as you remember to use Shadow Power or Smoke Screen at least once every 8 seconds (see this build's skills page for more information). Convention of Elements simply provides a massive damage increase during the Fire cycle of its rotation.

You have two viable options for the amulet slot; either using Squirt's Necklace for an additional damage multiplier, or a Hellfire Amulet of Dexterity for a synergistic fifth passive like Awareness, Archery or Tactical Advantage. The former favorite The Flavor of Time should now be slotted on your follower, and its power will be transferred to your character via the Emanate mechanics.

Most of your armor slots can be roughly split into three categories: Fire elemental damage items, Rapid Fire-boosting damage items and Utility items.

• Cindercoat, Magefist and Blackthorne's Jousting Mail are able to bring up to 20% Fire elemental damage each, greatly amplifying your main damage dealer. While Magefist is a straightforward elemental DPS item, Cindercoat also brings Resource Cost Reduction value to the build, which brings the initial activation cost of Rapid Fire down and allows you to maintain a stable Hatred reserve. Blackthorne's Jousting Mail provide an elemental damage increase, which is fairly unique for the slot — as long as it does not form its set bonus with another Blackthorne item, thus breaking the LoD bonus, this will be your best-in-slot item.
• To maximize the damage of Rapid Fire, you will be using both Mantle of Channeling and Hellcat Waistguard. The inclusion of Mantle of Channeling is pretty self-explanatory, since your main damage dealer is a channeled skill, and you can use every boost of damage and toughness you can get. Hellcat Waistguard is more mechanically complex; it has an unlisted 50% chance to proc, irrespective of the skill used or unique affix rolled. The belt increases the number of times grenades "bounce" and deal damage, counting the initial impact as the first bounce (and thus increasing your burst from the get-go). Notably, the final burst is 800% of the base damage, which somewhat lessens the impact of worse (less bounces) belts, and can even make them preferable for speedfarming to reduce the time between a shot and the final burst. This is especially important considering that grenades are very likely to bounce outside of a fight, or even outright disappear upon collision with a wall or a similar object. Nevertheless, for endgame pushing you will be looking for ideal circumstances — open area rifts, where the perfect 5-bounce Hellcat Waistguard will shine.
• You will round out your items with some utility extras. Exclusive to the Act 2 bounty cache, Illusory Boots will bring vital mobility to the build, which is rather slow and immobile compared to DH standards; the removal of enemy collision that these boots provide will be indispensable when positioning for optimal damage. You have some flexibility in your wrist slot; the general recommendation are the Lacuni Prowlers for their unique Attack Speed bonus.

The ideal weapon for the build is the one-handed crossbow Dawn — with Vengeance being a universally desired buff, reducing its cooldown up to 65% and achieving permanent uptime through gear is an opportunity you cannot pass lightly. Its companion will be the dedicated Rapid Fire quiver Sin Seekers, which has been reworked to include a massive skill damage buff on top of its longtime legendary power, the removal of the skill's channeling cost.

In Season 33 it is recommended that you stay with the Legacy of Nightmares set — The Wailing Host and Litany of the Undaunted — as this will allow you to slot an additional legendary gem over Legacy of Dreams, and you will still keep the important ring powers with the 4th Cube slot.

For Offense stats, try to obtain Rapid Fire % bonus at least on the boots; your fourth primary helm roll can be dedicated to Life per Hit simply for the sustain needs of the build. Get Fire elemental damage on both the amulet and wrists (maximum of 40%), Crit Chance and Crit Damage within a 1:10 ratio (ideally over 50% and 500%, respectively), and Area Damage of 100%+. You will also be striving to reach a 37% CDR breakpoint for permanent uptime of Vengeance, attainable from Paragon points, Flawless Royal Diamond in the helm and 3 other items with max CDR rolls, distributed as you see fit (i.e. on shoulders, gloves, and one ring).

For Defense stats, aim for a life pool between 500-600k; dropping as much as you can for offense as you grow accustomed to the build. You will mostly sustain through Life per Hit on gear, with one high roll in your setup (i.e. bracer).

All augmentations on gear should be done with your main stat, Dexterity.

Note that the stat suggestions below portray an ideally rolled item with stats listed in relative order of importance. The first four of them are main stats, and the latter two — secondary stats. If your item lacks and is unable to be rerolled into the primary stats outlined below, especially for a stat higher on the list, strongly consider its replacement. Perfecting Secondary stats is mostly a case of hyper-optimization and is not a case for discarding an item, except where noted.

To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two very useful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide to help you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear and a Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

In the Core section, max out Movement Speed to the 25% cap. Normally this is done by dumping the first 50 Core Paragon points into Movement Speed, but if your boots have an imperfect roll with Movement Speed as a stat that you cannot replace, adjust the necessary point investment accordingly by simply subtracting your roll from the 25% max. After that dump as much as you comfortably can into Dexterity, but feel free to invest into Vitality if you feel yourself lacking in toughness, or Maximum Hatred if you want to play around with a bigger resource pool.

In the Offense section, max out Cooldown Reduction, Crit Damage, Crit Chance, and Attack Speed in that order. In Defense, prioritize All Resistance, then Life %, then Armor, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, build up Area Damage and Life on Hit first, then finish off with Resource Cost Reduction and Globe Radius.

Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. The gem will be procced by itself due to its level 25 property (AoE slow in close range around you), fitting the melee playstyle of this build perfectly. Note that if you swap away from a Fan of Knives Bladed Armor — Numbing Traps synergy setup (i.e. you opt for a Shadow Power, Smoke Screen and Caltrops variation), you have a strong argument to alter this gem slot to Pain Enhancer.

Introduced in Season 4, Bane of the Stricken occupies a firm spot in your jewelry sockets during highest end progression. Building up your damage multiplicatively in prolonged fights and with a level 25 bonus specifically targeting Rift Guardians, this gem is designed to assist AoE heavy builds in 1v1 combat.

Your final slot is best occupied by the Legacy of Dreams legendary gem, which provides a scaling bonus for each legendary item equipped, as long as you have no set bonuses equipped. This bonus is multiplied for Ancient or Primal quality items, and when the gem is maxed out, it matches the Legacy of Nightmares ( The Wailing Host and Litany of the Undaunted rings) set bonus. This potent bonus allows you to play around with all your gear slots for synergistic legendary powers at the cost of a gem slot. In the older LoN setup, this socket would be occupied by Pain Enhancer. This will also be the preferred gem during Season 33.

When it comes to gear gems, you will start out progression by slotting the highest available level of Emeralds in the chest and pants sockets. Ideally, these will all be Flawless Royal Emeralds as soon as possible. As you grow in Paragon (bulking up Dexterity in the Core section) and aim for higher tier and more dangerous GRs, you will transition those gems into the defensive Flawless Royal Diamond. There is no specific breakpoint where you do that; the rule of thumb is to make the change as soon as you feel the lack of toughness impede your progress. Since you are chasing a specific CDR breakpoint, slot a Flawless Royal Diamond in your helm. In your weapon, use a Flawless Royal Emerald for the Crit Damage boost.

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

Tucked away in the Cube, Wojahnni Assaulter is a cornerstone piece of Rapid Fire builds due to its scaling damage as you channel the skill.

Stone Gauntlets are one of the most effective protective pieces in the game, bumping your armor by 50% at a significant (and stacking) mobility penalty — one which you will completely negate with the crowd control immunization aspect of Vengeance.

Your jewelry Cube slot is best filled by Elusive Ring, which greatly reduces incoming damage as long as you remember to use Shadow Power at least once every 8 seconds; in a facetanking build like the LoD Rapid Fire DH, this comes almost naturally from gameplay.

In Season 33, you will be able to slot Convention of Elements in the 4th Kanai opening and maintain both vital jewelry powers alongside Elusive Ring.

The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Please refer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.

The recommended follower for this build during solo GR progression is the Enchantress, due to her cooldown reduction- and increased attack speed bonuses, both of which are helpful to the needs of an attack speed- and CDR-heavy build such as this one.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our Follower Guide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear of your follower.

The preferred potion for this build is Bottomless Potion of the Leech due to its Life per Hit bonuses, which synergize perfectly for the high attack speed and sustain-through-attacks playstyle of the build.