Looking for Input: Creating a Diablo 3 Demon Hunter

[Nathanael91]

Hey there people, I don't know if everyone has seen the new demon hunter class for diablo 3, but yesterday when I found out you can dual wield hand crossbows I decided to try and make one in D&D 4e.

Since I'm not a very experienced player I was hoping for some input from more experienced players.

Here's the page by the way: Diablo III -

Things I'd like to see this character do:
1. Logicaly it's a ranged class, so a lot of ranged weapon attacks would be lovely, specificly making the most out of dual wielding ranged weapons
2. If it's possible I would love to have some non-daily acces to a trap-like or engineer-like abilities (grenades, traps etc) this might be possible via alchemy, what do you think?

Things we already know about the Demon Hunter in D&D:

1. It has to be a Drow, they were practicly built for this
2. It has to have acces to rogue only feats, the Sneak of Shadows multiclass feat seems the most appropriate for this, as the rogue isn't all that awesome at range (or is it?)

EDIT: A warforged with an armbow component would also work, infact, by the looks of it it would work even better.... Drow gives d8 damage and high critical, armbow gives like... that times 6 at the level cap
EDIT2: And by the looks of it, correct me if I'm wrong, with the armbow component you could dual wield any crossbow... though a mainhand crossbow and offhand hand crossbow probably works better

 

[MrMyth]

On a complete tangent, I recall a friend created a 3.5 character that was a Drow who dual-wielded hand crossbows, designed after the Gun Kata of Equilabrium. (I think he was called "Drow Yun-Fat"...)

Anyway, as for your actual question! Rogue actually can be perfectly decent at range, though doesn't do much with dual-wielding. I think there are a few ways to approach this, with the main downside being that most options for dual-wielding are focused on melee rather than ranged.

Let's look at elements of the Demon Hunter and how to best represent them in-game:

Dual-Wielding Crossbows: Pretty easy to just carry two hand crossbows, but how to actually get an in-game benefit out of it? I don't know if there are any powers that let you fire both at once. However, picking up rogue or ranger powers that let you fire multiple times in a round can allow you the use of both.

Traps: One good approach is to just use consumables for this - there are some that can be handy for this (Blast Patch, Clockwork Bombs, etc.) The Hermetic Saboteur, a Wizard Paragon Path, gives some trap-based powers, and both wizards and artificers have some powers that can create trap-like effects.

Explosives: Options here again include either using various consumables or magic items that create explosions (Alchemist's Fire, Necklace of Fireballs, etc), or go with a class that can do so and reflavor powers as appropriate. Wizard and Artificer, again, both offer some good options.

Shadow Magic: Well, the assassin is the obvious choice here for Shadow powers. On the other hand, if you were already looking at some arcane options for traps, there are various wizard powers which might provide appropriate effects. And of course, if a drow, you have some shadow powers already built in.

Conclusion: One build could include a Drow Rogue with a fondness for consumable items, and some multiclassing to Assassin or Warlock for shadow magic. Another could be a Drow Rogue or Ranger who is a multiclass or hybrid Wizard or Artificer.

In terms of making as effective a character as possible... hard to go wrong with just lots of shooting as a rogue/ranger. Especially when combining Ruthless Hunter and Two-Fisted Shooter - lots of attacks can mean lots of crits, and your weapon is both High Crit and gives free attacks every time you crit.

 

[Nathanael91]

Thanks a lot, your post has been very helpfull I've already created a level 11 build in the character builder, and I'm going to use your tips to perfect it tomorrow.

I've also looked into hermetic saboteur, and in my opinion you lose way too much. First off you would lose acces to using rogue as a multiclass feat, which greatly complexifies the building process. And well, you only get 1 daily and 2 encounter powers back for that, since all the hermetic saboteur passives are wizard only.

EDIT: Ow yeah, and just so we're clear about that, what would be better for this build looking purely at the hand crossbows, the drow feat+racial proficiency or the warforged enchants?

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

Just going by your description of the class I'd build him like this:

====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
Demon Hunter, level 11
Drow, Ranger|Rogue, Hermetic Saboteur
Hybrid Ranger: Hybrid Ranger Fortitude
Hybrid Talent: Rogue Combat Talent
Rogue Combat Talent: Sharpshooter Talent (Hybrid)
Sharpshooter Talent (Hybrid): Sharpshooter Talent (Crossbow)
Darkfire: Darkfire Intelligence
Background: Recent Life - Demon-Hunter

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 11, Con 14, Dex 19, Int 19, Wis 15, Cha 11.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 10, Con 13, Dex 14, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 8.


AC: 24 Fort: 20 Reflex: 23 Will: 19
HP: 76 Surges: 8 Surge Value: 19

TRAINED SKILLS
Nature +12, Athletics +10, Dungeoneering +12, Perception +12, Stealth +16, Thievery +14, Arcana +14

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +9, Bluff +5, Diplomacy +5, Endurance +7, Heal +7, History +9, Insight +7, Intimidate +7, Religion +9, Streetwise +5

FEATS
Learned Spellcaster: Alchemist
Level 1: Learned Spellcaster [Wizard multiclass]
Level 2: Two-Fisted Shooter
Level 4: Ruthless Hunter
Level 6: Hybrid Talent
Level 8: Crossbow Expertise [Note: This is not in the Character Builder yet]
Level 10: Corellon's Wrath Style
Level 11: Merciless Killer

POWERS
Hybrid at-will 1: Twin Strike
Hybrid at-will 1: Preparatory Shot
Hybrid encounter 1: Two-Fanged Strike
Hybrid daily 1: Blinding Barrage
Hybrid utility 2: Arcane Senses
Hybrid encounter 3: Fleeting Spirit Strike
Hybrid daily 5: Spitting-Cobra Stance
Hybrid utility 6: Fleeting Ghost
Hybrid encounter 7: Snap Shot
Hybrid daily 9: Attacks on the Run
Hybrid utility 10: Agile Escape

ITEMS
Magic Drowmesh +3, Cape of the Mountebank +2, Demonbane Hand Crossbow +2, Demonslayer Hand Crossbow +2, Demonbane Rapier +2
5.400 gp
====== Copy to Clipboard and Press the Import Button on the Summary Tab ======

I'd ask the DM if you could take the Crossbow Caster feat and simply replace all instances of "artificer" with "wizard", instead of taking Hybrid Talent or Merciless Killer. Otherwise you're lacking a magic implement for your paragon path powers and you also need to swap between hand crossbow and implement.

 

[I'm A Banana]

No joke: try an Alchemist subclass (with the multiclass feats). That should really help you go for the "tools of the trade" feel that the DH has going on.

Other stuff can probably be covered with rogue or ranger ranged-attack stuff.

 

[Nathanael91]

Thanks for your input everyone, I'm going to use all of your suggestions to try and make a demon hunter

Ow yeah, and I solved the race question at work today, it's totally drow with double fisted shooter a Viscous or perfect hunter hand crossbow is much much much better than an armbow hand crossbow, not to mention the high critical and d8 damage.

About the alchemist subclass, I can't find the multiclass feat for it, is it 3.5 or so?

EDIT: Ah, found it, the alchemical savant, a paragon path for people who have alchemy. Hellz yeah, that's going to be the DH paragon path. I didn't find any interesting ones anyway, the best one I could find was the cloaked sniper for +5 range, but this is perfect. Now I just need to check how compattible the artificier is with the DH and I can start doing some serious building

EDIT2: Hmm... I'm not a big fan of the artificier in this build, at least not as a hybrid. I like the idea of ranged weapon based spells, but it's much too leader-ish for the demon hunter.

 

[Nathanael91]

Hey all, just checking in during the building process life is hard right now

I'm currently deciding on two different builds:

1: Ranger with rogue multiclass feat
+Just about every ranged attack is Dex+Wisdom based
+A lot of multi target ranged attacks, allowing for more critical hits
+Fading Strike is a lot better than Preparatory Shot

2: Ranger | Rogue hybrid
+Acces to a lot of awesome rogue utility and the occasional ranged attack that's better than a ranger one
+Multiclassing is still open to take a few powers from another class
+A second paragon path to choose from other than the alchemy one (full hybrid)
+More versitile playing style because of having both Sneak Attack (hybrid) and Hunter's Quarry (hybrid)

Does anyone have some inspiring words to help me choose?

Also, I don't think there's an at will ranged basic attack other than ranged basic attack, or is there?

 

[Nathanael91]

Hmmm... the Ranger | Rogue hybrid with basic assassin multiclassing looks very very sexy... the assassin gives some very nice non-melee weapon powers in all three catagories that give a very nice demon hunter feel.

Also, the epic slayer destiny fits the design really well, and you can use the Killer's Judgement + Perfect Killer to permanently apply 4 shrouds to a target without breaking any official multiclass rules

EDIT: By the way, is there any rule against adding shroud damage on top of backstab/quarry damage?

EDIT2: About alchemy, it's noted that you can modify some alchemy items, yet there's only one item that you can actually modify... is there something I don't know about here? are they planning to do more with this?

 

[Nathanael91]

Hey there, just thought you'd might like to know (or people who want to use this thread for future reference) That I've decided on a

Ranger | Seeker with Sneak of Shadows feat for rogue multiclassing, I'll probably also take the lvl 16 utility for high crit chance via multiclassing