The Legacy of DreamsRapid Fire Demon Hunter first became a real build in Season 17, when two of its key items, Wojahnni Assaulter and Sin Seekers, received tremendous buffs. With none of the Demon Hunter's sets working with Rapid Fire, the combo with Legacy of Nightmares set was a natural choice for this build.
The build was so powerful that it immediately claimed the top spot on solo Demon Hunter leaderboards, destroying the fragile balance we had after Season 12 and Season 16 patches. Instead of 4 different builds (Impale, UE MS, N6M4, and M6 CA) performing within 3 tiers of each other, we suddenly had only one undisputed top dog. And let me tell you, that wasn't a pretty dog. Not by a long shot.
The main problem with Rapid Fire DH comes from Wojahnni Assaulter, which rewards you for channeling Rapid Fire for long periods of time. Sin Seekers further exacerbate this issue by removing Rapid Fire's channeling cost, letting you channel it indefinitely.
On top of that Rapid Fire snapshots your Attack Speed when you start channeling it, giving you extra incentive to never let go of the button. All these factors combined, resulted in a build designed entirely around standing still and holding down one button. Needless to say, such a build doesn't produce very exciting gameplay. Most of the time you just hold Rapid Fire and stare at your buffs and cooldowns, because you need neither move nor aim. At the same time this build outperformed all other DH builds by such a large margin, that you were forced to play it to compete.
Finally, after 4 seasons of Rapid Fire tyranny, Gears of Dreadlands was introduced in Season 21, giving us a superior solo push build in GoD HA Demon Hunter. In Season 27, thanks to Sanctified Powers, a unique build was made possible due to Sanctified Strafe, the LoD StrafeCluster Bombs (see Mechanics).
Embodiment of the Marauder is the DH set designed about Sentries. LoD Rapid Fire however, goes a step further than that. It is the ultimate Sentry build: you become the Sentry.
Very Tanky ✔ A Lot of Explosions ✔ Scales Well with Density ✔ Extremely High Recovery ✔
❌ Extremely Boring ❌ Very Slow and Clunky ❌ Long and Boring Boss Fights ❌ Did I mention it's boring?
Core Setup
Core Item Build
Items
Wojahnni Assaulter is our strongest multiplier, giving 3,000% additive Rapid Fire damage. Unfortunately it also makes all other sources of additive damage (Rapid Fire rolls on gear, Strongarm Bracers, Taeguk, etc.) completely irrelevant.
Sin Seekers increase Rapid Fire damage by 300% and remove its channeling cost.
Hellcat Waistguard is an effective x2.5-5 multiplier (see Mechanics) which works with all Grenade skills including Rapid Fire Bombardment.
Dawn lets us achieve easy 100% Vengeance uptime.
Visage of Gunes gives permanent 50% damage reduction by adding Dark Heart rune to Vengeance.
Stone Gauntlets roughly triple our toughness with no downside due to permanent Vengeance.
Mantle of Channeling is a no-brainer in any channeling build giving 25% damage and damage reduction for free.
Convention of Elements is another separate damage multiplier, giving you triple damage during your Fire cycle.
Pain Enhancer is a staple in this build as we will snapshot the high attack speed in large monster density to keep channeling with increased DPS for a long duration.
Season 33 Shades of the Nephalem
For the duration of Season 33, you gain one extra slot in Kanai’s Cube that allows to choose any Legendary Powers for a total of 4 slots. While normally a player can equip one power each from the Weapon, Armor, and Jewelry categories, now you can add a second of one of these categories! Some builds enjoy major damage buffs while others are able to run completely different setups, for example through otherwise impossible combinations of weapon effects.
In addition, whenever you press a shrine or pylon, you spawn a Shadow Nephalem of your class to assist you for 1 minute. These use various abilities and provide helpful extra damage in the early game and for lower tier Greater Rifts. Learn more in our Season 22 overview.
With the extra cube slot, we have an easy time with toughness and run the Legacy of Nightmares setup by default.
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 roll to make up for it, as any lower will leave you with a significant gap.
Rapid Fire Attack Speed Breakpoints
Attack Speed is largely irrelevant due to the massive boost from Pain Enhancer, only the multiplicative 7% roll on Dawn is important, but even there it's not absolutely necessary.
Aside from that, you want to stack damage stats wherever possible: Critical Hit Chance, Critical Hit Damage, Fire Damage and Area Damage. For your defensive stats you just need to focus on increasing the raw toughness value.
Your recovery is based on a percentage of your HP, hence there is no reason to prioritize mitigation over HP pool. Physical Resistance is also extremely useful, as you will stand directly inside your enemies and most of the incoming damage will be of that type. You should always use Flawless Royal Diamond in your Chest and Pants sockets.
Assembling the Build
1. Do the Challenge Rift for the materials to cubeLegendary Powers. You can complete this once a week for additional resources and we always update the guide for you!
2. This is a Legacy of Nightmares/Legacy of Dreams build and in the latter case its success is heavily dependent on this gem's rank. The first order of business is to equip a(n ancient) Legendary or Set item in every slot to take advantage of its power. Make sure to not have any Set Bonuses equipped or the rings/gem will be nullified and you will deal no damage! Farm speed Greater Rifts (in under 5 minute clears) to find the items and level your gems as high as possible.
Amulets to get Squirt's Necklace and The Ess of Johan
Anything from the Gamble list in Step 3 that you haven't already acquired.
5. Do Bounties to acquire several important items for this build:
Act 3: Boots of Disregard
Act 4: Can drop any bounty item from any act
Bounty Turn In: Recipe for Cain's Destiny (for your follower)
6. Use Primordial Ashes in Kanai's Cube with the new Curiosity of Lorath Nahr recipe to obtain a free Crafted Primal Ancient. Since you can only equip one of them, choosing the right item to focus matters! Great candidates are Weapons, Offhands, Jewelry or any item with an important multiplier. With that in mind, we recommend getting one of the following items:
1. Dexterity 2. Vitality 3. All Resistance 4. Armor 5. Rapid Fire Damage
Ring 1
Convention of Elements Elusive Ring Litany of the Undaunted
1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Critical Hit Damage 4. Area Damage 5. Damage Range
Ring 2
Unity The Wailing Host
1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Critical Hit Damage 4. Area Damage 5. Damage Range 6. Dexterity
Bracers
Lacuni Prowlers
1. Fire Damage 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Dexterity 4. Vitality 5. All Resistance
Amulet
The Ess of Johan Squirt's Necklace
1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Damage 3. Fire Damage 4. Critical Hit Chance
Belt
Hellcat Waistguard
1. Dexterity 2. Vitality 3. Life % 4. All Resistance
Potion
Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid
For breaking walls to pull enemies and increase DPS
Gems
Legacy of Dreams is the centerpiece of any LoD build, providing up to 9,750% damage and 52% damage reduction (with 13 Ancient items).
Pain Enhancer gives us about 100% DPS increase in large pulls, which can also be snapshot so it persists even when the mobs start dying.
Bane of the Stricken is necessary to kill the Rift Guardian.
Bane of the Trapped is used in Legacy of Nightmares version of the build instead of Legacy of Dreams for a separate 1.6x damage multiplier.
Skills
Rapid Fire Bombardment is your main damage skill. Bombardment is the only useable rune because of its AoE nature and synergy with Hellcat Waistguard.
Vengeance Side Cannons provides x1.4 damage, x2 toughness (from Visage of Gunes) and tremendous amounts of healing. In a decently sized pull it takes you less than half a second to go from 1% HP to full.
Smoke Screen is an excellent defensive option for this build, that can also be used to easily activate Elusive Ring.
The last 3 skill slots are open and can be changed for a variety of defensive or offensive buffs. The important requirement here is that the skill can be used while channeling Rapid Fire. That leaves us with a number of choices: Shadow Power Gloom, Wolf Companion or Boar Companion, Caltrops Bait the Trap, Preparation Focused Mind, Fan of Knives Bladed Armor.
Passives
Cull the Weak is the strongest offensive DH passive providing 20% multiplicative damage increase.
Grenadier increases damage by 10% and AoE size by 20%.
Other options include Ambush, Tactical Advantage, Awareness, Single Out and Numbing Traps for extra bit of offense or defense.
Paragon Points
Core
Offensive
Defensive
Utility
1. Movement Speed
1. Cooldown Reduction
1. All Resistance
1. Area Damage
2. Dexterity
2. Critical Hit Damage
2. Life %
2. Resource Cost Reduction
3. Maximum Hatred1
3. Critical Hit Chance
3. Armor
3. Pickup Radius
4. Vitality
4. Attack Speed
4. Life Regeneration
4. Life per Hit
1 When playing with Aquila Cuirass, put enough points to keep it after casting Rapid Fire (2 points for 30% Cindercoat, 38 points for 23% one).
Altar of Rites
The Altar of Rites is a tree that grants tremendous powers to your entire account in exchange for sacrifices. It requires you to farm Bounties, kill the Ubers, craft the Staff of Herding, and more. Completing all 26 of these tasks, along with sacrificing 6 Primal Ancients grants you extra Damage, Defense, Quality of Life, Increased Drops and 3 Potion Super Powers. Read the full guides on Unlocking the Altar and the Altar Mechanics by Raxxanterax and Chewingnom to learn everything about this fantastic mechanic!
Note: The suggested path assumes you are playing Solo and used the Challenge Rift Cache to help you level up.
Optimal Path
Node 2: Choose Anointed to gain a full set of 70 yellows from level 18-70!
Node 6: Rush to gain double Bounties to help unlock other Nodes in the Altar.
Nodes 7-14: These are the last Nodes you can gain until the Challenge Rift resets. Take at least 1 Node at the bottom of each path to unlock all 3 Potion Super Powers. Pick up the Mirror Node at the top for a colossal 41% extra XP all season. Remember to unlock Father once you clear GR70 solo and have your first Primal!
Nodes 15-26: Pick up the final Quality of Life, Damage, and Defense Nodes (in that order) to finish the Altar.
Potion Super Powers: Take Father first, then Mother, and finally Mortal.
Disclaimer: The Mortal and Mother Potions require you to salvage 2 and 3 Primals respectively. Unlock them as soon as you have those materials as they don't cost a point!
Recommended Altar Path Use the Scroll Bar to see Altar Progression
Notable Build Changes
Thanks to Revelation, we don't need Illusory Boots and can use any other boots for the build.
Follower
Patch 2.7.0 revamped the follower system giving all 3 hirelings new powers and the emanate system. The first thing you should do is read our complete follower guide and remember the key takeaways:
The emanation system allows followers to share certain legendary and set powers with you. The most important ones are: The Flavor of Time, Nemesis Bracers, Avarice Band, Sage’s Journey and Cain’s Destiny. Click the guide above for the full list.
Follower’s powers are based on their main stat (maxed at 25,000, but they have a 2.5x multiplier so you only need 10,000). This means we stack Intelligence on the Enchantress, Dexterity on the Scoundrel and Strength on the Templar.
Guardian's Jeopardy(2) Bonus works for followers by improving their inherent stat multiplier from x2.5 to x3.5, making it slightly easier to hit the 25,000 main stat threshold if needed.
Followers share 20% of their Experience, Magic and Gold Find stats with you.
Legendary gems do not work on followers, except Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard.
With Enforcer equipped on the player it's much easier to keep followers alive even without an immortality relic. The 90% damage reduction counts for them, too.
Cooldown Reduction does not work for any follower skill except the Templar’s Heal.
Followers never deal significant damage; you’re on your own to clear the content.
With these in mind, let’s get into our recommendations for this build.
GR Pushing Enchantress
GR Pushing Enchantress
For Greater Rift Pushing we recommend this Enchantress setup for the Slow from Temporal Pulse, Fire Damage from Amplification, Damage Reduction and Armor from Powered Shield, and the Attack Speed from Focused Mind.
Stat Priorities:Since we have the immortality relic, we do not need to stack survivability on our Enchantress.
Intelligence> Attack Speed. Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Gloves of Worship: For 10 Minute Shrine Buffs.
Nemesis Bracers: For more progression from Elites.
Oculus Ring: For 85% increased damage.
Unity: For 50% damage reduction if you're also wearing one.
Ice Climbers: To make your follower immune to Freeze and Immobilize effects.
Mempo of Twilight and Cain's Destiny: For more Attack Speed.
Gameplay
The build is overall very easy to play.
Gather a large group of monsters around your Follower.
Get in the middle of it and shoot Rapid Fire all around you to apply Pain Enhancer DoT to all of the mobs.
Recast Rapid Fire now that you have high Attack Speed. To check whether or not you have the fastest possible breakpoint (4 frames), you can open your inventory and look at your DPS. With some experience you will be able to tell just by looking at the string of grenades coming out of your character.
Don't let go of Rapid Fire button until most of the monsters are dead. Keep up/spam all your buffs (all your other skills). If you see Oculus Ring zone spawn inside the pull, you can move to it, but only do it if you are not on Fire rotation of Convention of Elements!
For optimal DPS you want to start channeling at least 3 seconds before Fire, to get all Wojahnni Assaulter stacks and to get the bounces from Hellcat Waistguard going.
Hardcore
The build is very tanky and is a great choice choice for Hardcore players. You have permanent immunity to Crowd Control effects and incredible sustain. Don't forget to use the Awareness passive at all times! Ambush is usually your weakest offensive passive so if you're not sure what to replace, just drop Ambush.
Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!
Variants
Greater Rift Solo Push
LoD Solo Push
Concept This variant of the build gets outrageous amounts of toughness from Elusive Ring and Shadow Power Gloom. Because of that all the rest of our items, skills and passives are aimed at maximizing damage. Cindercoat, Blackthorne's Jousting Mail and Magefist for Fire damage. Wolf Companion, Ambush and Bait the Trap for damage increase and extra Critical Hit Chance.
Gameplay The gameplay for this build is exactly as described above. In general you will be absolutely untouchable, there's only two things you should worry about: Oppressors and Waller Elites. Oppressors just deal ridiculous damage with their fire breath, Molten explosions and stacked Arcane Lasers don't come anywhere close. If you have many Oppressors around, try to stand next to them to make them use melee attack instead of fire breath.
Waller can also be very dangerous. Most of the time walls do literally nothing because you can walk through them. But sometimes the wall spawns directly on top of you and then it instantly stops your Side Cannons before they can hit any mobs. This completely turns off your healing and from there you have 1-3 seconds until you are dead. You need to notice that there's a wall on top of you and quickly move a step to the side or use the Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid.
For the last few percent of progress, make sure to gather a large pull, so that you have good Rapid Fire snapshot and don't let go of the button until the Rift Guardian is dead. Be careful to not hover any UI elements if the boss is moving a lot!
Be careful when playing with Aquila: while Sin Seekers remove the channeling cost, Rapid Firestill has an initial cost, so you will lose the buff if you restart the channel too often!
Setups Instead of The Ess of Johan you can also run with Squirt's Necklace, which can prove useful at the Rift Guardian or with a Shield Pylon.
If you feel too squishy, you can include both Unity and Elusive ring to and drop Legacy of Nightmares set by replacing Bane of the Trapped with Legacy of Dreams.
Other toughness options for this setup are changing Wolf Companion to Boar Companion, Caltrops to Preparation Focused Mind to get 100% uptime on Gloom, or Ambush to Awareness.
Has an Attack Speed Coefficient of 3.0. The highest possible breakpoint (4 Frames Per Attack) is achieved at 4.0001 sheet APS.
Attack Speed is snapshot at the start of channel. Meaning that if you make a large pull giving you a lot of Pain Enhancer stacks and then start a 4 FPA Rapid Fire, it will continue firing 15 grenades per second even if you reach 100% progression and all monsters despawn.
Hellcat Waistguard
Each grenade you shoot has a 50% chance to start bouncing
A bouncing grenade will deal 150% damage on the first impact, 50% more damage on each consecutive one, and finally 800% damage on the final impact. For the 5 Bounce belt the sequence is 150%, 200%, 250%, 300%, 800%.
Bouncing grenades can proc Area Damage and on-hit effects and have the same proc coefficient as the original skill.
On each bounce the grenade will move 11 yards in a random direction.
Upon hitting the impassable terrain or leaving the map, the grenade will stop bouncing.
Grenade skill bounces one time by default, so even the grenades that didn't proc the bounces from Hellcat Waistguard will deal 150% damage.
The randomness of bounces makes effectiveness of Hellcat Waistguard vary depending on the size of the target and explosion radius. A bigger target is more likely to be hit by multiple bounces and the 800% final bounce. Higher number of bounces will make average spread of grenades wider, however it will always deal more damage on average even to the smallest targets.
That rule is only broken when you are fighting in a tight spot and grenades are likely to stop bouncing before they reach the final 800% bounce.
The above graph was simulated using 100,000 shots with Rapid Fire Bombardment with Grenadier passive (9.6 yd explosion radius). Most targets will have hitbox radius of 1 or 2 yards, but some monsters such as Toxic Lurkers or Punishers, as well as Rift Guardians can be a lot bigger.
Wojahnni Assaulter
Gives 10 stacks for each second spent channeling Rapid Fire, regardless of Attack Speed.
Each stack gives up to 100% additiveRapid Fire damage.
All stacks are immediately lost when you stop channeling.
The damage bonus is fully dynamic. You need to have the buff up when Rapid Fire hits enemies.
Vengeance Side Cannons
Fires two piercing shots (lasers) every time you perform an attack.
This effect has 0.9s/APS internal cooldown (ICD).
Each laser heals you for 3% max HP per enemy hit.
With LoD Rapid Fire, you will typically have about 3-4 APS thanks to Pain Enhancer and each of your lasers will hit about 10 enemies, resulting in more than 200% max HP restored per second.
Summary
Put together the core items and level up the Legacy of Dreams gem.
Reach the necessary Cooldown Reduction for permanent Vengeance (37% with a perfect Dawn).
Apply Pain Enhancer to everything.
Recast Rapid Fire to snapshot the Attack Speed and hold on for dear life.
Activate your defensive and utility skills when necessary.
I played this build in one season, and honestly, that was one season too many. Now it's useless, but it could always make a comeback. You never know...
