Natalya Rain of Vengeance Demon Hunter

[Deadset 108]

Heya! The alterations you listed (Calamity / Fulminator) are indeed the ones I would recommend if you dislike the Lord Greenstone gameplay dynamic, although I find Greenstone's to do higher damage overall.

 

Make a point to get F&R soon! That's a big damage multiplier you're missing there. If you prefer to keep the Zodiac effect (can't blame you - I like it too, just not optimal for high end dps), I would run F&R equipped and Zodiac cubed.

 

I don't think you'll get much out of the Mara 2 piece bonus, compared to the cost of a Cube jewelry slot.

 

Keep in mind that in the upcoming Patch 2.4.1 Taeguk's stacks fall off even quicker (Blizz is trying to make it a dedicated, non-stop channel gem), so you might lose them while Vault's animation goes off. It reinforces the place of SS in the build.

[MrEsImaganerium 0]

Love this build. Thanks for the RButton hold + Stand and hit Evasive Fire for hatred.

Ramaladni's Gift not mentioned in guide for Dawn/2nd weapon. Assumed Crit Damage Emerald there.

Season 8 soon...

T.

[Valks 2,375]

On 10/20/2016 at 5:04 AM, MrEsImaganerium said:

Love this build.

Glad to hear you enjoy using it! Sorry that I didn't get back to you sooner, but it looks like Deadset got it all updated in time for the release!

[Guest RPO]

First of all, l love your guides. This is fantastic resource for D3 players.

Having played in S8 with this build (P400 right now), I would like to comment that this build as is described here needs some tweaks in my opinion.

First, though minor, on the dawn you really want a socket after CDR. That's 120% CHD the build needs.

The really important thing, and I think that's where this build could be improved, is that Rain of Vengeance should ABSOLUTELY make use of the Seethe rune, cubing the Visage of Runes to get the dark heart rune. The build otherwise struggles to maintain hatred for long when strafing. Aquila's defense is useless after 1-1.5 second of strafing, and the hexing pants are good but you will struggle to maintain hatred, which means you can't take full advantage of the damage bonus...and you lose 20% damage when not strafing because you ran out of hatred.

In my opinion, cubing the Aquila and using seethe transforms this build. One can strafe pretty much all day long, taking full advantage of the 10 stacks of the Taeguk.

 

[Valks 2,375]

7 hours ago, Guest RPO said:

First, though minor, on the dawn you really want a socket after CDR. That's 120% CHD the build needs.

Tagging @Deadset to take a look. 

[Guest RPO]

17 hours ago, Guest RPO said:

I meant cubing the Visage and choosing the seethe rune. Sorry for the confusion.

 

Cubing the Aquila and using seethe transforms this build. One can strafe pretty much all day long, taking full advantage of the 10 stacks of the Taeguk.

 

[Guest RPO]

17 hours ago, Guest RPO said:

In my opinion, cubing the Aquila and using seethe transforms this build. One can strafe pretty much all day long, taking full advantage of the 10 stacks of the Taeguk.

 

Let's see if I get this right...What I meant to say was that in my opinion, cubing the Visage and using Seethe transforms this build.

[Deadset 108]

Heya!

The socket is not listed as a priority on your offhand weapon in the guide due to the mechanics of Rain of Vengeance and the Crashing Rain belt, which only take your mainhand damage into account. Your offhand will only come into play for Strafe damage, which is a negligible part of your total damage. It is noted in the gearing section that Natalya builds use offhands as "stat sticks", focusing on utility stats instead (CDR, Area Damage, Elite %...)

Seethe is more convenient and can be made to work the way you describe it, but you will be dropping a bunch of Damage Reduction. Aquila can be kept up with regular punctuating shots of Evasive Fire. It's no coincidence that the gear section begins with mentioning Rain of Vengeance-to-Evasive Fire ratios, as (in the ideal case) you have to punctuate every Rain of Vengeance cast with 2 Evasive Fires.

It's awkward to describe the gameplay over text, I recommend taking a look at this gameplay footage by wudijo: 

Even though it is quite dated, you can see that Strafe is never held down for over a second without being punctuated with an Evasive Fire shot.

[Guest Smash Factory]

So the guide states that you'll be using a cubed dawn, then lists dawn as the secondary wep and says use greenstones fan for stacks.
 Maybe I'm missing the part where you explain what you meant...

[Deadset 108]

You're not, thanks for the catch! It should state "worn Dawn", not "cubed", I'll fix it asap. :) The proper split is Natalya Weapon and Dawn in your hands, and Lord Greenstone's cubed.

[Wildfire393 0]

Hellcat Waistguard

• Grenades have a chance to bounce 3-5 times, dealing an additional 50% damage on each bounce
• This bonus is increased to 800% on the final bounce
• The following skills are affected by this power:
  • Cluster Arrow – Dazzling Arrow, Cluster Bombs, Loaded for Bear, and No Rune
  • Rain of Vengeance – Anathema
  • Strafe – Demolition
  • Rapid Fire – Bombardment

This is currently in the PTR for 2.4.3. What are your thoughts on this over Crashing Rain, using Anathema instead of Shade?

By my calculation, Shade + Crashing Rain should be doing 2800% + 4000%, while Anathema is going to do 5800%, and when bouncing, will do 8700% per bounce with a final hit of 52,000%.

I guess it's going to depend on the consistency of it all, but it seems like that could be a considerable damage boost to the build. Could also run Crashing Rain in the Cube, though that would necessitate dropping Aquilla's.

Edit: Decided to download the PTR client and try it myself. It's definitely a "chance" of triggering off of each individual grenade. Looks like somewhere between 1:3 and 1:5 grenades get the bounce effect. This means Anathema gets several bouncing grenades on most casts. The catch here is that the radius of damage is much smaller, but the bouncing grenades extend that slightly. The radius appears pretty close to that of Fan of Knives, and the damage is pretty tremendous. The other catch is that the elemental damage will no longer match that of FoN, meaning your damage gear will be split.
On the other hand, you can also utilize Grenade as your hatred generator and the grenades rune of Strafe, both of which deal better damage than you're getting out of Strafe with the normal build, especially when the belt kicks in.

Definitely going to need more experimentation, but I think there's something to this.

The other thing to try out with Hellcat Waistguard is a Legacy of Nightmares Strafe build - K'Mar Tenclip + Valla's Bequest means a lot of base damage.

Edited November 13, 2016 by Wildfire393

[Valks 2,375]

On 11/12/2016 at 6:27 PM, Wildfire393 said:

This is currently in the PTR for 2.4.3. What are your thoughts on this over Crashing Rain, using Anathema instead of Shade?

Going to tag @Deadset to take a look at this, since I'm not well versed enough to help, unfortunately!

[Guest Kabuh]

That's why you need Gunes - so you coul have both Seethe and DR reduction.

Aquilla gives you nothing - cuz its a spender set, which means that most of the time you gonna be less than 90% mana and vulnerable.

If you trully want to def up - you probably gonna take traveler's set with either elusive ring(when teaming up) or double-unity(when solo)

[KittySkin 0]

On 3/12/2016 at 11:16 PM, Guest Kabuh said:

That's why you need Gunes - so you coul have both Seethe and DR reduction.

Aquilla gives you nothing - cuz its a spender set, which means that most of the time you gonna be less than 90% mana and vulnerable.

If you trully want to def up - you probably gonna take traveler's set with either elusive ring(when teaming up) or double-unity(when solo)

As a quick note, you don't need guns. You in fact manually take Dark Hearth as Vengeance rune AND Aquila's in cube in order to get more hard to kill (since you fight and dive at really close dinstance and every bit of survivavility it's incredible usefull). If you're having problems keeping up with hatred, I suggest to hold force stand button and while strafing, just smash left click, the character will use evasive fire, return to strafe, use EF, return to strafe, and the EF get's used as close to CD as possible this way, once you get used to it, it's easy to keep up with this.

On 12/11/2016 at 3:27 PM, Wildfire393 said:

Hellcat Waistguard

• Grenades have a chance to bounce 3-5 times, dealing an additional 50% damage on each bounce
• This bonus is increased to 800% on the final bounce
• The following skills are affected by this power:
  • Cluster Arrow – Dazzling Arrow, Cluster Bombs, Loaded for Bear, and No Rune
  • Rain of Vengeance – Anathema
  • Strafe – Demolition
  • Rapid Fire – Bombardment

This is currently in the PTR for 2.4.3. What are your thoughts on this over Crashing Rain, using Anathema instead of Shade?

By my calculation, Shade + Crashing Rain should be doing 2800% + 4000%, while Anathema is going to do 5800%, and when bouncing, will do 8700% per bounce with a final hit of 52,000%.

I guess it's going to depend on the consistency of it all, but it seems like that could be a considerable damage boost to the build. Could also run Crashing Rain in the Cube, though that would necessitate dropping Aquilla's.

Edit: Decided to download the PTR client and try it myself. It's definitely a "chance" of triggering off of each individual grenade. Looks like somewhere between 1:3 and 1:5 grenades get the bounce effect. This means Anathema gets several bouncing grenades on most casts. The catch here is that the radius of damage is much smaller, but the bouncing grenades extend that slightly. The radius appears pretty close to that of Fan of Knives, and the damage is pretty tremendous. The other catch is that the elemental damage will no longer match that of FoN, meaning your damage gear will be split.
On the other hand, you can also utilize Grenade as your hatred generator and the grenades rune of Strafe, both of which deal better damage than you're getting out of Strafe with the normal build, especially when the belt kicks in.

Definitely going to need more experimentation, but I think there's something to this.

The other thing to try out with Hellcat Waistguard is a Legacy of Nightmares Strafe build - K'Mar Tenclip + Valla's Bequest means a lot of base damage.

Answering your question, I have tested our current build vs heavy grenades build (strafe with grenades rune and anathema on ROV), using calamity and wolf companion. Grenades seems to perform a bit better with this waist, but you need to be more close to the enemies in order to keep them as clustered as possibe in order to maximize your grenades damage.

[Guest fsbfg]

why not choose simplicity;s strength?

• Increase the damage of primary skills by 25.00%(+0.50%/Level).
• Hits with primary abilities heal you for 4% of your maximum health. (Requires Rank 25)

It will greatly increase the demage and heal per hit 

[Valks 2,375]

16 hours ago, Guest fsbfg said:

why not choose simplicity;s strength?

• Increase the damage of primary skills by 25.00%(+0.50%/Level).
• Hits with primary abilities heal you for 4% of your maximum health. (Requires Rank 25)

It will greatly increase the demage and heal per hit 

Because Strafe and RoV aren't primary skills, so get 0 benefit from the gem.

[Valks 2,375]

Thanks for helping to answer the questions above Kitty :)

[Guest fsbfg]

Could you add some recommendation for the augment of ancient items?

This thing in the cube cost so much that I'm afraid of making a waste.

[Valks 2,375]

2 hours ago, Guest fsbfg said:

Could you add some recommendation for the augment of ancient items?

This thing in the cube cost so much that I'm afraid of making a waste.

I'm not sure what you mean by recommendation for it? You are simply pushing your main stat slightly with useless gems that you have upgraded while farming. Never use a gem you might have a use for.

[Guest Luinarth]

hi everyone,

i have a question about a variation of Natalya's build I'm currently seeing on top of demon hunter solo EU non-seasonal ladder.

Probably it's a kind of "visualization bug", but I see equipped Lord Greenstone's fan together with Natalya's Slayer. This allows benefitting from Natalya 6 and Shadow 2 bonuses at the same time... I intended that dual wielding for DH was only allowed with 2 1-hand crossbows. Am I wrong?

Thanks in advance for your help

[Valks 2,375]

On 2/10/2017 at 5:10 PM, Guest Luinarth said:

Probably it's a kind of "visualization bug", but I see equipped Lord Greenstone's fan together with Natalya's Slayer. This allows benefitting from Natalya 6 and Shadow 2 bonuses at the same time... I intended that dual wielding for DH was only allowed with 2 1-hand crossbows. Am I wrong?

It was a bug, yeah. You can't equip a 1h-xbow and dagger at the same time.

[Guest Lazy]

Hey, thanks for the build. =]

I actually run an alternative of the grenade variant using an Ancient Kmar Tenclip as my other one-handed crossbow, freeing up Strafe to use another rune (Demolition). My Dawn is cubed as opposed to in-hand. It's been working extremely well up to GR 65 thus far, but I have yet to put it to the test in GR 70+. Thoughts?

[Guest EndarkeN]

22 hours ago, Guest Lazy said:

Hey, thanks for the build. =]

I actually run an alternative of the grenade variant using an Ancient Kmar Tenclip as my other one-handed crossbow, freeing up Strafe to use another rune (Demolition). My Dawn is cubed as opposed to in-hand. It's been working extremely well up to GR 65 thus far, but I have yet to put it to the test in GR 70+. Thoughts?

I'm not one of the moderators nor did I write the guide, but I'll try to answer anyway.

Strafe is not the damage dealer in the build; it is just there to reset Rain of Vengeance (the actual damage dealer) and to benefit from Mantle of Channeling and Taeguk. As you start pushing towards the higher GRs, the loss of Fortress Ballista will greatly reduce your survivability, which is paramount to maintaining Shi-Mizu's Haori. The 100% crit chance probably more than offsets the damage from Strafe anyway.

However, if you do want to use Strafe: Demolition, Valla's Bequest is probably a better weapon to use than K'mar Tenclip because the piercing effect actually improves your damage, though it trades away the mobility of Drifting Shadow.

[Guest CacadorDeToros]

Hey, @Deadset! Really enjoy this build. Only notable difference that I use for my speed farming is I use a RoRG with two pieces of Sages to make this a DB-farming power house :)

[Valks 2,375]

On 4/26/2017 at 9:43 AM, Guest CacadorDeToros said:

Hey, @Deadset! Really enjoy this build. Only notable difference that I use for my speed farming is I use a RoRG with two pieces of Sages to make this a DB-farming power house :)

A great swap! Glad to hear that it's working so well :)