Introduction
In Season 21, the Gears of Dreadlands Set was added to the game. At the same time many Generator-related items were buffed or reworked in order to make the new set playable.
However, Demon Hunter already had a Generator set — Unhallowed Essence. So for every successful GoD build there's another UE build lurking in the shadows. This is one of them, the long lost brother of GoD Hungering Arrow DH.
The build focuses on Hungering Arrow to deal damage, however, since there's no Strafe, it plays nothing like the GoD HA build. It's best to describe this build as a cross between GoD HA and UE Multishot. From the former we take all the items (minus the set), and from the latter—skills and playstyle.
The UE HA build isn't the best at anything but it has strong damage output to push high on the solo leaderboards. In particular, it has a shot at beating Multishot on the Unhallowed Essence leaderboard, where the two builds are head-to-head rivals. In Patch 2.7.5 (Season 28), the set also got a tremendous buff of around +9 GR tiers, making it a lot better than before.
Great mobility ✔
Strong season starter ✔
Rewards good gameplay ✔
Great single target damage ✔
❌ Very squishy
❌ Difficult to play
❌ Sensitive to fishing
❌ Terrible at speedfarming
Core Setup
Items
- Unhallowed Essence set provides huge damage bonuses: x1.6 through the (4) Bonus, and up to x1462 through the (6) Bonus, for a total of x2339 damage with your Hungering Arrow. The set gives you 60% damage reduction and plenty of Discipline, which lets you spam Vault.
- Bastions of Will provide 125% increased damage.
- The Ninth Cirri Satchel is the key item of the build, adding 100% pierce chance to Hungering Arrow as well as an up to 600% multiplicative damage increase.
- Hunter's Wrath is another high-value DPS item, providing a 30% Attack Speed bonus to your Primaries as well as another 200% multiplicative damage bonus.
- Dawn helps you reach permanent Vengeance uptime.
- Depth Diggers provide another 100% damage increase to Hungering Arrow.
- Wraps of Clarity reduce incoming damage by 50%.
- Convention of Elements provides up to 200% increased damage during the Cold cycle. Another option in this slot is Elusive Ring, use it if you cannot survive otherwise.
- Echoing Fury in the cube provides up to 75% increased Attack Speed. Alternatively you can cube Fortress Ballista for more defense.
Season 31 Forbidden Archives
For the duration of Season 31, the slots in Kanai’s Cube that allow you to equip three additional Legendary Powers will not be restricted to their usual categories. While normally a player can equip one power each from the Weapon, Armor, and Jewelry categories, Season 31 players can mix and match between all three! This might allow you to run two Weapon powers with one Armor power. Or perhaps you might choose to run three Amulet powers instead.
Unfortunately, this build cannot really make a good use of this Season Theme because the choices offered to Demon Hunters aren't very impactful. This build already uses all of the most important damage multipliers and can't gain any noticeable power from swapping cube slots around. The following adjustments were made compared to the nonseason version:
Removed:
- Echoing Fury
- Wraps of Clarity
Added:
- Ring of Royal Grandeur
- Guardian's Jeopardy
Global Stat Priorities
The most important for almost any DH build is reaching permanent Vengeance uptime. This is achievable through the 65% Cooldown Reduction effect provided by Dawn and having 37% Cooldown Reduction on your characte. If your Dawn has less than 64-63% on the legendary affix, you should consider adding a 4th Cooldown item to make up for it, as any lower will leave you with a significant gap.
Maximum Discipline is the best damage stat you can have, which is a secondary roll on Hand Crossbows, Quivers and Cloaks. Make sure you get as much as possible, but don't worry too much about one or two missing points.
Other than that, you want to stack damage stats wherever possible, especially Critical Hit Chance & Damage, Damage Range, Cold Damage, Hungering Arrow Damage, and lastly Area Damage (typically in this priority). For your defensive stats you just need to focus on increasing the raw toughness value. Since your Recovery is mostly based on percentage of your maximum life due to Simplicity's Strength, there's no reason to prioritize mitigation over health. You should always use Flawless Royal Diamond in your Chest and Pants sockets.
Variants
The Ninth Cirri Satchel nerf in Season 23 made this build completely horrible when it comes to farming or group play, so there are no other variants. The only use this build has is pushing Unhallowed Essence Leaderboards, where it can compete with UE Multishot DH.
If you don't like playing with Squirt's Necklace, you can also replace this amulet with The Ess of Johan.
Video Guide
Mechanics
Summary
- Reach the necessary Cooldown Reduction for permanent Vengeance (37% with a perfect Dawn).
- Keep up buffs (Multishot Wind Chill, Bastions of Will) at all times.
- Keep your Discipline high as it directly scales your damage output.
- Avoid wasting your time on single enemies or elites that don't die — your strength is AoE dps.
Unhallowed Essence Demon Hunter is always lurking in the shadows, watching...
Credits
Written by Northwar
Contributions & updates by wudijo
