Demon Hunter Bolas Build with Gears of Dreadlands (2024)

The changes made to items in Patch 2.6.9 offer Demon Hunters another viablebuild path for Gears ofDreadlands specs — one based around Bolas. Thisoft-overlooked DH primary offers strong pulling utility that can produce bothan excellent standard rift farming build, as well as a Greater Rift pushingoffshoot. We generally recommended that you use the build for farming andspeeds, but will provide the necessary adjustments if you would like to pushwith it as well.

Active Skills
Bolas Bitter PillStrafe Drifting Shadow1Shadow Power Shadow Glide2Smoke Screen Displacement3Preparation Focused Mind4Vengeance Dark Heart
Passive Skills
AwarenessAmbushBlood VengeanceTactical Advantage

The GoD Bolas build has a rotation that is all but identical to themain Hungering Arrow build. You will strive to cap your Momentum stacksas soon as possible with Bolas shots, and keep Vengeanceactive at all times. You will spend the vast majority of time spinning throughrifts with Strafe, interweaving a manual Bolas as necessary tokeep up relevant buffs. The remainder of your skill selection augments yourutility needs; you will pop Smoke Screen and Shadow Powerliberally throughout the rift, and counterbalance their Discipline resourcecosts with Preparation.

Your main damage dealer will come in the form of Bolas, taken withthe Bitter Pill rune in speed farming for the Discipline regeneration— the more Discipline you have available, the more you can speedyourself up with Smoke Screen Displacement and Shadow Power Shadow Glide. If you choose to take this build to GRprogression, simply swap the rune slot to Imminent Doom for itssuperior damage potential.

Of course, in order to trigger the 4-piece set bonus and maintain the buildmechanic altogether, you will have to use Strafe. The preferred runeis Drifting Shadow, as unimpeded movement speed is a crucial part ofthe agile combat style of Demon Hunters. In very high GR progression, you canalso dabble in the rune Rocket Storm.

Vengeance Dark Heart is an omnipresent self-buff in all versions ofthe build, and the sole reason you will be striving to reach at least 37%cooldown reduction for its permanent uptime.

During speed farming, Smoke Screen Displacement and Shadow Power Shadow Glide will trade turns speeding you up throughout therift; chain their effects for maximum synergy with the Tactical Advantage passive. If you alter this build for progression,take the Lingering Fog rune on Smoke Screen instead for theadditional safety, and swap out Shadow Power for the additional damageboost from Companion Wolf Companion.

Both during speed farming as well as progression, you will have to offsetyour Discipline costs from the Smoke Screen spam, and no other toolwill do this better than the massive, over-time regeneration bonus of Preparation Focused Mind.

As far as passive selection goes, you will keep Ambush from thebase build for its massive upfront burst potential. It is also advisable touse Awareness to prevent any mishaps; overconfidence is an easypitfall when you start to comfortably trample the content, but the DH remainsa rather glassy and burst-prone class. The remainder of your passives willease your farming considerably. Tactical Advantage offers a nice speedboost whenever you pop Smoke Screen or Shadow Power. Blood Vengeance will not only expand your Hatred pool, but also enablesa Reaper's Wraps-like effect that replenishes both Hatred and Disciplinewhen picking up health globes. If you choose to take this build to GRprogression, swap out Blood Vengeance and Tactical Advantage for Cull the Weak and Numbing Traps.

You will still be taking advantage of the full 6-piece set bonuses of Gears of Dreadlands. You willeither take all six pieces (if you intend to progress with Bolas into GRs), orequip five of the six pieces that you would in progression, but wear Depth Diggers instead of Cold Cathode Trousers (if you stick tostandard rift farming). Wearing Depth Diggers allows you to run anotherspeed run-synergistic power in the armor slot of the Cube, as discussed below.Of course, that necessitates that you complete the GoD powers by cubing a Ring of Royal Grandeur.

Since this is a purely Bolas-oriented setup, your weapon andoffhand are going to be the dedicated legendaries Leonine Bow of Hashirand Emimei's Duffel. They both increase Bolas damage and addtheir unique angle of utility to the build — the bow adds a sizable,24-yard radius pull, while the quiver makes the delayed detonations of the Bolas instantaneous.

If you push with Bolas, you will have to use Wraps of Clarityfor their massive protection bonuses. When speed farming however, theirdefensive utility will be quite the overkill; the slot is best taken by autility legendary instead. Either wearing Nemesis Bracers and cubing Warzechian Armguards or vice versa will speed up your clears with morefrequent elites and environment destruction speed boosts.

It should be noted that your jewelry during progression and early farmingcan still be the Bastions of Will set ( Focus and Restraint); however, once you perfect your character and no longerwant for burst, you should use utility-focused jewelry instead. A combinationof Avarice Band and a Lightning damage Stone of Jordan is a nicealteration. The union of Avarice Band with Boon of the Hoarderwill greatly improve your speed, as well as feed into your gold reserve forthe costly GR empowerments. The Lightning SoJ will simply be a consistent,care-free damage increase as you farm.

Note that the elemental roll recommendations above, as well as the ones inthe table below, assume you will be using the Bolas variant for speed farming.If you opt to push into GRs with Bolas Imminent Doom, simply swap thoseelemental rolls into Fire.

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

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

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary PotionPowers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separateresource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Setitems of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, andin 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 Powersin our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

Similarly to the main GoD build, the Bolas alteration takes Taeguk, Simplicity's Strength and Boon of the Hoarder during farming.Naturally, if the build is taken into Greater Rifts, you will substitute thelatter with Bane of the Stricken.

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

Dawn is nearly unavoidable in its inclusion, as it almost singlehandedly allows you permanent uptime of the valuable Vengeancecooldown, and requires only a modest CDR investment (37% or higher) on yourpart.

If you choose to progress in GRs with Bolas, Depth Diggers areunavoidable in the armor Cube slot due to optimal distribution of jewelry andother key pieces in the setup. During farming however, Depth Diggersare moved from a cubed to a worn item, this allows you to run a synergisticbracer in this slot; simply equip your better roll between Nemesis Bracers (for the additional elite spawns at shrines and pylons)and Warzechian Armguards (for the increase of speed from the frequentenvironment destruction of Strafe), and cube the weaker.

With Depth Diggers equipped, you will need to maintain the valuable6-piece bonus of Gears of Dreadlands set via a Ring of Royal Grandeur inthe Cube jewelry slot. During GR progression, this slot will be taken with thecyclical elemental damage increase of Convention of Elements.

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

The recommended follower for this build during standard rift farming forkeys is the Enchantress due to her numerous utility bonuses,allowing you to smooth out your speed runs even further.

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

The preferred potion for this build is Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid,which will allow you to break through movement-impeding Elite affixes —generally a problem for builds that move based on channeling effects.