Demon Hunter Leveling and Fresh 70 Guide (2024)

Last updated on Apr 10, 2024 at 09:00by Deadset31 comments

The purpose of the beginner Demon Hunter guide is to provide you with a buildand item recommendations that will reliably carry you from leveling, through thepre-Torment difficulties and get you into low Torment farming, without requiringspecific legendary or set bonuses. The guide also includes a section for SeasonalDemon Hunters, explaining how best to take advantage of the free set fromHaedrig's Gifts.

Choose the Demon Hunter in Diablo 3 if you enjoy destroying your enemy fromafar, alternating piercing arrows with massive explosive barrages. Wonders bothmechanical and supernatural stand by your side, as powers of shadow itselfenvelop and protect you. Mastering your hatred for demons through disciplinealone, you are the ultimate sharpshooter of the game.

Your progression on a given character always start with leveling to 70. Tohelp you with that, we have a beginner leveling build that you can access usingthe link below.

After reaching Level 70, the easiest way to start gearing up and progressing towardsthe end-game is by using the set given by the Haedrig's Gifts. Haedrig's Giftsare cache-like rewards that drop 2 pieces of a fixed class-specific set aftercompleting chapters II, III, and IV of the Seasonal Journey. Havinga full 6-piece set bonus available to you will skyrocket your character's power wellin the mid-to-high Torments. This makes the early portion of the Seasonal Journey yourfirst priority upon reaching Level 70.

This Season, Demon Hunters will find the Unhallowed Essence set in theirHaedrig's Gifts. We have an early progression build for this set, which you canfind by clicking the link below.

While you get a fixed free set at the start of every Season, it is notunreasonable to assume you will attain other sets in quick succession. If youare interested in switching around your playstyle, take a look at the beginnerpoints for other sets below, and note to which endgame builds they point youafter.

To learn how to gear up quickly and approach a character's progression ingeneral, check out our Beginner Seasonal Guide.It includes advice and tactics related to gambling Blood Shards, doingBounties, Regular, Greater and ChallengeRifts, and using Kanai's Cube for easyupgrades.

Certain items can be targeted through the completion of bounties or bosskills. The following is a list of such items, in order of importance for theclass.

• Ring of Royal Grandeur is a legendary from Act I caches that reducesthe number of set items required for set bonuses by one. While it might not beimmediately useful, obtaining powerful bonuses (such as the 4- and 6-piece setbonuses of any set) as early as possible for a huge spike in character power isan opportunity you should not pass up. Doing bounties will be inevitable forcrafting materials anyway, so optimize your farming time and get this ring assoon as possible.
• Avarice Band is an Act III cache legendary ring that extends yourpickup radius by up to 30 yards as you pick up gold. This unassuming bonus hasthe potential to turn in the strongest source of defense duringnormal rifts due to its synergy with Boon of the Hoarder and Goldwrap. Their powers combined, they canrender your character practically invulnerable even in the highest of Tormentdifficulties.
• Reaper's Wraps are meant to assist classes and builds with resourcemanagement problems — and Hatred is often something fledgling Demon Huntersstruggle with. These bracers restore up to 30% of your Hatred reserves when youget healed by a health globe, capped at once every 2 seconds. This is an easytrigger if you keep an eye on the battlefield, especially if you are used to Blood Vengeance. Note that these bracers are craftable, and the plan fortheir creation drops when you kill the Act V boss Malthael on anydifficulty.
• Pride's Fall is a helm obtained through Act III cache bounties, whoselegendary effect reduces resource costs by 30% after not taking damage for 5seconds. Demon Hunters fight at a high range most of the time, making Pride's Fall an attractive bounty item.
• Illusory Boots are an Act II cache legendary item that removes enemycollision — a staple of support builds inGreater Rifts, as their precisepositioning for party-wide buffs and enemy disables dictates the course ofGreater Rift progress. Demon Hunters have decent support character potential,with several party-wide damage buffs and plenty of damage reduction to add tothe group, making Illusory Boots reasonably attractive to the class.
• Gloves of Worship are an Act II cache legendary that extends theduration of Shrines to 10 minutes, a very decent farming effect that is usuallystored in Kanai's Cube. The combined power of Empowered Shrines (doubledresource gain, halved cooldowns), Frenzied Shrines (25% Attack Speed) andFleeting Shrines (25% increase to Movement Speed and 20 yard pickup radius),often refreshing before their 10-minute duration, is a huge buff during normalrifts. Demon Hunters are among the classes that can benefit from Gloves of Worship, as the armor Cube slots of their preferred farmingspecs are flexible enough to fit the item in.
• Envious Blade is an Act II cache dagger with one of the most powerfulspeedfarming bonuses in the game — a guaranteed Critical Hit againstenemies at full health. A well equipped character using this dagger can oneshotentire screens of enemies in a suitable farming difficulty. Since Demon Hunterscan not dual wield melee weapons and their weapon slots are frequently taken bymore important legendaries, Envious Blade is not considered a cachepriority.

The majority of the gear will be found by random chance as you farm normally,by killing monsters, opening chests, gambling at Kadala and upgrading rare itemsat the Cube. While the list below is not exhaustive, these are some of thepieces to seek, spend blood shards on, or upgrade yellows for — in orderof priority:

• Sets: While the seasonal journey will reward you with a complete setthrough Haedrig's Gifts, gambling for armor set pieces still makes sense —to improve lackluster pieces, or complete class sets other than the gifted one.The Demon Hunter sets are:
  • Gears of Dreadlands: Dystopian Goggles, Mechanical Pauldrons, Gas Powered Automail Forearm, Galvanized Vest, Cold Cathode Trousers and Antique Vintage Boots;
  • Unhallowed Essence: Accursed Visage, Unsanctified Shoulders, Fiendish Grips, Cage of the Hellborn, Unholy Plates and Hell Walkers;
  • Embodiment of theMarauder: Marauder's Visage, Marauder's Spines, Marauder's Gloves, Marauder's Carapace, Marauder's Encasem*ntand Marauder's Treads;
  • The Shadow's Mantle: The Shadow's Mask, The Shadow's Burden, The Shadow's Grasp, The Shadow's Bane, The Shadow's Coil and The Shadow's Heels;
  • Natalya's Vengeance: Natalya's Sight, Natalya's Touch, Natalya's Embrace, Natalya's Leggings, Natalya's Bloody Footprints, Natalya's Reflection and Natalya's Slayer;
  • Danetta's Hatred: Danetta's Revenge and Danetta's Spite.
• The weapon is by far the most impactful item on your damage output, puttinga priority on the weapon slot as the first to obtain an ancient item for. Due toits higher Blood Shard cost (75 for weapons vs. 25 for armor pieces andoff-hands), you should delay weapon gambling — avoiding it at the start ofcharacter progression and only considering it when you start perfecting yourgear. If you simply need a specific weapon, you will get a much better deal withthe Upgrade Rare recipe in Kanai's Cube. The Hope of Cain recipe (1 rare item,25 Death's Breaths, 50 of white, blue and yellow crafting materials) will onlyproduce the type of item you put in (i.e. hand crossbows), cutting out all otherweapons from the RNG pool that you would have to deal with through regulargambling at Kadala. Bows, One- and Two-Handed Crossbows are the DemonHunter-specific weapons you can easily target through upgrading rares, withvaluable and build-defining pieces such as Yang's Recurve, Odyssey's End, Manticore, Wojahnni Assaulter, Dawn, Valla's Bequest and Fortress Ballista. Demon Hunters also have twodedicated daggers, Lord Greenstone's Fan and Karlei's Point, and canbenefit from the cooldown-resetting In-geom.
• Jewelry has a huge influence on your DPS, but similarly to weapons it isexpensive to gamble (50 shards for rings, 100 for amulets). When searching forspecific jewelry rolls, you should consider upgrading rares instead. All threejewelry sets can be utilized by Demon Hunters, in order of importance: theBastions of Will set, Focus and Restraint, the Endless Walkset, The Compass Rose and The Traveler's Pledge, and the Legacy ofNightmares set, Litany of the Undaunted and The Wailing Host. Otherbuild-specific Demon Hunter jewelry includes Elusive Ring, Convention of Elements, Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac and Squirt's Necklace.
• Quivers are almost equally important to their weapon companions, and it isrecommended to gamble for them even early on due to their low Blood Shard price.Powerful and build altering off-hands include Dead Man's Legacy, Bombardier's Rucksack, Holy Point Shot, The Ninth Cirri Satcheland Sin Seekers.
• Demon Hunters pursue several legendary belts, each adding considerableprotection or damage to its respective build. Some are dedicated Demon Hunterlegendaries like Zoey's Secret, Hellcat Waistguard, Hunter's Wrath, Chain of Shadows and Crashing Rain. Othersare cross-class legendaries that get picked up either for endgame orspeedfarming, like The Witching Hour and Goldwrap. Being anothercheap gamble slot, you can invest a reasonable amount of Blood Shards into beltsearly on.
• There are two Demon Hunter-specific bracers Wraps of Clarity and Trag'Oul Coils, but only the former is sought after in the currentmetagame. You can also gain significant value from speedrun staples like Nemesis Bracers and Warzechian Armguards, so the slot can begambled on with moderation.
• Most remaining armor slots only have one or two desirable items for DemonHunters. In the long run, you will want to find Aquila Cuirass, Shi Mizu's Haori and Cindercoat (chest pieces); Leoric's Crownand Visage of Gunes (helms); Depth Diggers and Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan (pants); Mantle of Channeling (shoulders); Stone Gauntlets (gloves).

The table below is meant to point you in a general correct direction and isby no means indicative of the exact rolls you want to go for. They can varygreatly from build to build and it is always preferable to refer to ourexact guide page. If you simply use the rolls below however, and roll for skilldamage on the applicable pieces:

• Chakram, Impale, Rapid Fire, Elemental Arrow, Strafe, Cluster Arrow, Multishot on helms and boots;
• Fan of Knives, Companion, Spike Trap, Sentry, Rain of Vengeance on shoulders and chest;
• Hungering Arrow, Bolas, Entangling Shot, Grenade, Evasive Fire on belt and pants.

Wherever it says 'Elemental damage', match it to the rune of your damagingskill of choice. You will come out with a functional spec, and probably not toofar off from what we would recommend in a dedicated build!

Your armor and weapon sockets should be taken up by the highest tier Emeraldgems you can afford at the time, while the helm is best filled by a Diamond gemfor a boost to Cooldown Reduction. When you stumble upon jewelry with goodprimary stats and a socket, you should start dabbling into Legendary Gems.The Legendary Gems to consider for Demon Hunters are, in order of importance:

• Bane of the Trapped — staple multiplicative damage increase. Youwill be proccing this gem either through its own level 25 ability, a slow (formelee builds), or by skill effects such as Thrill of the Hunt or Sentry Polar Station.
• Bane of the Stricken — almost mandatory gem for Greater Riftprogression, as it is designed to whittle down the scaling health numbers ofmonsters with a percentage-based increase on successive attacks.
• Boon of the Hoarder — synergizing with other farming mainstayslike Avarice Band and Goldwrap, this gem will not only keep yourich, but also sped up and safe during normal rift farming.
• Bane of the Powerful — the speedfarm counterpart to Bane of the Stricken, Bane of the Powerful offers a solid overalldamage and survivability increase as long as your killing speed does not fallbehind the timer of the gem.
• Situational gems — Zei's Stone of Vengeance is a multiplicativedamage increase to long range builds. Taeguk is a great addition to achanneling Demon Hunter, which you will be by using anything Strafe- or Rapid Fire-related.

Kanai's Cube choices are highly build- and content-specific, making themhard to summarize. Generally speaking, Demon Hunters should store the powersof the following items in the Cube as soon as they have the materialsavailable: Dawn, Valla's Bequest, Manticore, Wojahnni Assaulter, Odyssey's End, Yang's Recurve, Karlei's Point, Lord Greenstone's Fan, In-geom, Aquila Cuirass, Cindercoat, Visage of Gunes, The Cloak of the Garwulf, Zoey's Secret, Convention of Elements, Avarice Band and Ring of Royal Grandeur.

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.

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.