Spike Traps Demon Hunter BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

Last updated on Oct 22, 2024 at 09:00 by Deadset 10 comments

Below, we detail the items and gems that you should use for your Spike Traps Demon Hunter in Diablo 3 and why. We also list your paragon points and Kanai's Cube items. Updated for Patch 2.7.8 and Season 33.

1.

Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives

The build incorporates a mixture of the Natalya's Vengeance and the craftable Aughild's Authority and Captain Crismon sets, taking five pieces of the main set and two of each of the craftable. You will tie their bonuses together with a Ring of Royal Grandeur Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube to attain their valuable 6- and 3-piece bonuses, respectively. Conveniently, the Natalya set does not have shoulder, bracer, or belt pieces, which constitute tha majority of the craftable sets. Thus, an example distribution would be to take Aughild's Power Aughild's Power and Aughild's Search Aughild's Search for the Aughild set, Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle and Captain Crimson's Thrust Captain Crimson's Thrust for the Cpt. Crimson set, and then Natalya's Sight Natalya's Sight, Natalya's Embrace Natalya's Embrace, Natalya's Touch Natalya's Touch, Natalya's Reflection Natalya's Reflection and Natalya's Bloody Footprints Natalya's Bloody Footprints for the Natalya set; in a setup like this, you will attain all the necessary set bonuses.

With Ring of Royal Grandeur Ring of Royal Grandeur taking up the jewelry slot in the Cube and one of your ring slots necessarily taken by Natalya's Reflection Natalya's Reflection, one of the options to fill out the remaining jewelry slots is an all-out offense combo of Squirt's Necklace Squirt's Necklace and Convention of Elements Convention of Elements. The amulet is a glass cannon staple, greatly multiplying your damage dealt and balancing it out with an increase in damage taken. The ring applies a strong but short-lived elemental damage buff, rotating between the elements available to your chosen class. The 4-second uptime of each elemental buff enforces a deliberate playstyle, where you try your best to detonate your traps during the element matching your chosen Spike Trap Spike Trap rune. An alternative to these highly glass cannon-oriented choices is the Endless Walk set, The Compass Rose The Compass Rose and The Traveler's Pledge The Traveler's Pledge. Their power balances between damage reduction while moving, and increasing damage when standing still — a decent choice for the Natalya trapper build, which ducks and weaves with Smoke Screen Smoke Screen Displacement Displacement in preparation of the fight, and then goes into stationary Spike Trap Spike Trap detonation mode (see this build's skills page for more information).

As your weapon and off-hand, you will wield the combo of Dawn Dawn and The Demon's Demise The Demon's Demise. Dawn Dawn is a Demon Hunter class staple, cutting up to 2/3rds of your Vengeance Vengeance cooldown and allowing for permanent uptime of this valuable buff with a modest investment in Cooldown Reduction (i.e., a perfect 65% roll of its legendary bonus allows you to roll as little as 36.5% Cooldown Reduction on your gear). Needless to say, try to perfect Dawn Dawn's legendary bonus as best you can. The inclusion of your other weapon, The Demon's Demise The Demon's Demise, in this build is quite straightforward. This is a Spike Trap Spike Trap-dedicated legendary item that detonates the traps you have laid out twice, and greatly amplifies their damage.

1.1.

Desired Stats, Breakpoints and Other Notes

For Offense stats, try to obtain Spike Trap % bonus on the shoulders and chest. Get Lightning 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 130%+. Rolls-wise, this build also requires a small investment in Cooldown Reduction for permanent Vengeance Vengeance. Just two rolls — on your Shoulders and Off-Hand, for example — should suffice in most cases, since you gain a sizeable chunk of extra CDR from Paragons, and the Cpt. Crimson set bonus. This should easily bump you up to 40%+ CDR, allowing you to transition from a Flawless Royal Diamond Flawless Royal Diamond in your helm to a Flawless Royal Topaz Flawless Royal Topaz (to ease the strain on your resources).

For Defense stats, aim for a life pool between 700-800k; dropping as much as you can for offense as you grow accustomed to the build. The build struggles a bit with sustain, and you can partially remedy that with a Life per Hit roll on gear (i.e. on the bracer), or optimizing secondary stats for Life per Kill, as well as Pickup Radius and Health Globe Bonus synergy.

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.

Slot Pieces Stat Priority
Head
  1. Dexterity
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Socket
  4. Vitality
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Shoulders
  1. Dexterity (replaced by Resource Cost Reduction at high Paragons)
  2. Spike Trap Damage %
  3. Cooldown Reduction
  4. Area Damage
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
  6. Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Torso
  1. Dexterity
  2. 3 Sockets
  3. Spike Trap Damage %
  4. Vitality or Elite Damage Reduction
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Wrists
  1. Dexterity
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Cold Damage %
  4. Life per Hit or Vitality
  5. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
  6. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Hands
  1. Dexterity
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Critical Hit Damage
  4. Area Damage
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Waist
  1. Dexterity
  2. Vitality
  3. All Resistance
  4. Life %
  5. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
  6. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Legs
  1. Dexterity
  2. 2 Sockets
  3. Vitality
  4. All Resistance
  5. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
  6. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Feet
  1. Dexterity
  2. Vitality
  3. All Resistance
  4. Armor
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
  6. Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Amulet
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Cold Damage %
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Ring #1
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Critical Hit Damage
  4. Average Damage Increase or Area Damage
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Ring #2
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Critical Hit Damage
  4. Average Damage Increase or Area Damage
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Weapon
  1. Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift Ramaladni's Gift)
  2. High Weapon Damage
  3. Dexterity
  4. Area Damage
  5. Cooldown Reduction or Resource Cost Reduction
Off-hand
  1. Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift Ramaladni's Gift)
  2. High Weapon Damage
  3. Dexterity
  4. Area Damage
  5. Cooldown Reduction or Resource Cost Reduction

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.

1.2.

Altar of Rites

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).

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.

2.

Paragon Points

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.

In the Offense section, max out Cooldown Reduction, Crit Chance, Crit Damage, 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 Resource Cost Reduction first, and finish off with Life on Hit and Globe Radius.

Slot Paragon Points
Core
  1. Movement Speed up to 25% cap (see above)
  2. Dexterity
  3. Vitality (up to personal preference)
  4. Maximum Hatred (skip)
Offense
  1. Cooldown Reduction
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Critical Hit Damage
  4. Attack Speed
Defense
  1. All Resistance
  2. Life
  3. Armor
  4. Life Regeneration
Utility
  1. Area Damage
  2. Resource Cost Reduction
  3. Life on Hit
  4. Globe Radius
3.

Gems

Bane of the Trapped Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. You have multiple ways to proc the gem in this build, most notably with the slowing effects from Caltrops Caltrops and Echoing Blast Echoing Blast.

Zei's Stone of Vengeance Zei's Stone of Vengeance is another separate damage multiplier you can add to your overall DPS, with its range-based amplification easily maxing out with the considerable distance you can keep between yourself and the enemy in this CC-heavy build. Its level 25 Stun proc is just icing on the cake, adding another source of safety and Bane of the Trapped Bane of the Trapped procs.

Introduced in Season 4, Bane of the Stricken 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 whittling down the massive RG health pools.

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 Emerald 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 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 will be aiming for permanent Vengeance Vengeance, slot a Flawless Royal Diamond Flawless Royal Diamond in your helm for the extra Cooldown Reduction early on; once you comfortably break over the perma-Vengeance cooldown barrier from gear alone, you should swap the helm gem out for a Flawless Royal Topaz Flawless Royal Topaz for the resource cost reduction. In your weapons, use a Flawless Royal Emerald Flawless Royal Emerald for the Crit Damage boost.

Slot Gems
Jewelry
Helm
Torso and Pants
Weapon

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

4.

Kanai's Cube

With set piece distribution that heavily locks down the itemization of the build, you will be forced to use the Spike Trap Spike Trap-dedicated 2h croossbow Chanon Bolter Chanon Bolter in the weapon slot of the Cube. Its legendary power Taunts enemies to your Spike Trap Spike Traps, luring them to the epicenter of your AoE destruction — but more importantly, provides another massive damage multiplier to your main damage dealer.

Trag'Oul Coils Trag'Oul Coils are another Spike Trap Spike Trap-dedicated legendary, tucked away in the Cube due to the rigid distribution of set pieces in most of your armor slots. Its legendary power greatly speeds up the process of setting up your trap nests, and adds the additional charges of the Scatter Scatter rune for free.

As previously noted, in order to attain the 6-piece bonus of the Natalya set and the 3-piece bonuses of the Aughild and Crimson sets, you will have to use the Act I bounty cache legendary Ring of Royal Grandeur Ring of Royal Grandeur in the jewelry slot of the Cube.

In your 4th Kanai's Cube slot in Season 33, place the Elusive Ring Elusive Ring — will add massive damage reduction bonuses as you apply Shadow Power Shadow Power or Smoke Screen Smoke Screen.

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.

5.

Follower

The recommended follower for this build during solo GR progression is the Templar for his powerful healing and survivability boons.

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.

6.

Legendary Potion

You have two valuable legendary potions in the build; either slot Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid to break up Waller affixes, which potentially ruin both your damage output and escape options, or a Bottomless Potion of the Leech Bottomless Potion of the Leech for the extra life sustain through the temporary Life per Hit bonus.

7.

Changelog

  • 22 Oct. 2024: Added Season 33 advice for 4th Kanai slot.
  • 09 Jul. 2024: Added Season 32 advice for ethereal weapons.
  • 10 Apr. 2024: Added Season 31 advice for the unbound Kanai's Cube slots.
  • 08 Jan. 2024: Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 13 Sep. 2023: Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
  • 22 Feb. 2023: Guide added, as well as Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
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