Marauder Cluster Arrow Demon Hunter BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
Below, we detail the items and gems that you should use for your Marauder Cluster Arrow Demon Hunter in Diablo 3 and why. We also list your paragon points and Kanai's Cube items. Updated for Patch 2.7.3 and Season 26.
Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
The build takes advantage of the full 6-piece
Embodiment of the Marauder
bonuses, incorporating five of the six available items and completing the
requirements via a Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube. Stat-wise, the
Marauder set can roll
Cluster Arrow bonuses on the helm and boots, while
Sentry skill % is attainable on the chest and shoulders. The build also
relies heavily on Area Damage procs, Resource Cost Reduction for Hatred
management, and Cooldown Reduction wherever it can spare the stats. This primary
stat-intensive playstyle requires a lot of optimization on gear, and careful
balancing of the main stats you trade off for utility stats based on your
current Paragon level. You will be mixing the Marauder set with the craftable
Captain Crimson's Trimmings set —
Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle and
one more of your choosing, according to your weaker Marauder set piece (either
Captain Crimson's Thrust or
Captain Crimson's Waders). This set
provides CDR as well as RCR bonuses, and then scales your damage dealt and
damage reduced according to both stats, respectively — bringing a massive
boon to the build.
The cubed Ring of Royal Grandeur leaves space for a potent combo in the
jewelry: the Bastions of Will set,
Focus and
Restraint. This
ring set adds an impressive 2.25 independent damage multiplier as long as you
alternate between primary and spender attacks; thus, learn to weave frequent
Evasive Fire shots in your spender spam (see this build's
skills page for more information). Complete
the jewelry with
Squirt's Necklace; this amulet rewards long range and
evasive builds that demolish their enemies from afar by greatly amplifying both
damage dealt and damage taken. This captures the essence of the Marauder
playstyle perfectly.
Created as a direct answer to the excessive frailty of the Demon Hunter class,
the Wraps of Clarity bracer reduces damage taken for several seconds
after using a Hatred Generator. Along with the Bastions of Will set, this item
fortifies the position of
Evasive Fire in the build, and serves as a
constant reminder to alternate your primary and secondary skill.
Extending the utility you get out of the Marauder set bonuses, the
Bombardier's Rucksack lets you have two additional Sentries, and sports an
additional
Cluster Arrow damage bonus specifically for this build variant.
Unlike the
Custom Engineering passive, the quiver's additional charges
are not immediately available, but you will have enough time to drop them in any
significant fight, and the substantial damage increase makes this quiver
mandatory for the build.
While it is Multishot-centric by default, Yang's Recurve also brings a
massive (up to 50%) innate Resource Cost Reduction roll, making it desirable for
Cluster Arrow builds as well. Its other desired stats are high damage
range, high Dexterity, Attack Speed and Area Damage.
Alternate Setups
If you dislike playing without permanent Vengeance, you can drop
Yang's Recurve from the build, wield the
Manticore and cube a
Dawn. At the 37% CDR breakpoint, you can have perfect overlap of
Vengeance.
Another weapon alteration for more damage is to wield Manticore and
cube an
Odyssey's End, altering your generator to
Entangling Shot
to proc the bow's effect. This alteration results in more damage, but requires
careful tracking of its bonuses and timing them to the CoE cycle, resulting in
much more beginner-unfriendly gameplay.
The setup described above — Bastions of Will set plus
Squirt's Necklace for jewelry, and mixing in the Cpt. Crimson set in the
armor pieces — is not the only viable gear split for the build, but is
considered the one with the highest damage potential. You can also alter the
setup to be tankier with the following steps:
- Step 1: Moderate tankiness. Use the Endless Walk set,
The Traveler's Pledge and
The Compass Rose, for a comparable damage bonus and substantially more damage reduction (DR while moving from the jewelry set, and lack of
Squirt's Necklace penalty when damage taken). Pair the Endless Walk set with
Convention of Elements, and try to time your burst with your chosen
Cluster Arrow element.
- Step 2: Drop the Cpt. Crimson from the setup, equip the full 6 Marauder
pieces and wear
Zoey's Secret. In your jewelry, use the Endless Walk set and
Convention of Elements. This allows you to cube both
The Cloak of the Garwulf and an
Elusive Ring for ultimate toughness.
Desired Stats, Breakpoints and Other Notes
Rolls-wise, this Cluster Arrow-centric playstyle takes good advantage of
Skill and Area Damage affixes, as well as a spread of Cooldown and Resource Cost
Reduction. For Offense stats, try to obtain Sentry % bonus on the shoulders,
chest and quiver (maximum of 130%), Fire or Physical elemental damage on the
amulet and wrists (maximum of 40%), Crit Chance and Crit Damage within a 1:10
ratio (ideally over 60% and 450%, respectively), and Area Damage of 100%+.
Cooldown Reduction should be present on as many pieces as you can afford (40%+
is reachable with main- and off-hand, shoulder and glove rolls), and you can
strive for a luxury Resource Cost Reduction roll on your shoulders to complement
the massive innate RCR on your bow.
For Defense stats, aim for a life pool between 500-600k; dropping as much as you can for offense as you grow accustomed to the build. You will mostly sustain through Life per Hit on gear, with one high roll in your setup (i.e. bracer).
All augmentations on gear should be done with your main stat, Dexterity.
Note that the stat suggestions below portray an ideally rolled item with stats listed in relative order of importance. The first four of them are main stats, and the latter two — secondary stats. If your item lacks and is unable to be rerolled into the primary stats outlined below, especially for a stat higher on the list, strongly consider its replacement. Perfecting Secondary stats is mostly a case of hyper-optimization and is not a case for discarding an item, except where noted.
Slot | Pieces | Stat Priority |
---|---|---|
Head |
|
|
Shoulders |
|
|
Torso |
|
|
Wrists |
|
|
Hands |
|
|
Waist |
|
|
Legs |
|
|
Feet |
|
|
Amulet |
|
|
Ring #1 |
|
|
Ring #2 |
|
|
Weapon |
|
|
Off-hand |
|
To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two very useful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide to help you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear and a Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.
Paragon Points
In the Core section, max out Movement Speed to the 25% cap. Normally this is
done by dumping the first 50 Core Paragon points into Movement Speed, but if
your boots have an imperfect roll with Movement Speed as a stat that you cannot
replace, adjust the necessary point investment accordingly by simply subtracting
your roll from the 25% max. Since this is a Marauder setup, remember to spend
Paragon points on Movement Speed only until the 15% boost, as the remaining 10%
for the 25% cap are already passively provided by
Companion
Ferret Companion.
After you take care of Movement Speed, dump as much as you comfortably can into Dexterity, but feel free to invest into Vitality if you feel yourself lacking in toughness. Investing into Max Hatred should not be necessary.
In the Offense section, max out Crit Damage, Crit Chance, Cooldown Reduction and Attack Speed in that order. In Defense, prioritize All Resistance, then Life %, then Armor, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, build up Area Damage and Resource Cost Reduction first, then finish off with Life per Hit and Globe Radius.
Slot | Paragon Points |
---|---|
Core |
|
Offense |
|
Defense |
|
Utility |
|
Gems
Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its
own multiplier in your total damage calculation. The gem will be procced by
Polar Station chills and
Spider Companion slows, as well as your AI
companion, usually armed with
Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker.
Introduced in Season 4, Bane of the Stricken occupies a firm spot in your
jewelry sockets during highest end progression. Building up your damage
multiplicatively in prolonged fights and with a level 25 bonus specifically
targeting Rift Guardians, this gem is designed to assist AoE heavy builds in 1v1
combat.
Cluster Arrow builds fare better than most in that regard, so you
can gamble on the overall bonus of
Bane of the Powerful not only during
speedfarm, but as far into the high tiers as you are willing.
Your final legendary gem slot is more flexible; you can either try to maximize
your damage with smart positioning and the range-based damage multiplication of
Zei's Stone of Vengeance, or use the defensive bulwark of
Esoteric Alteration due to the relatively short fighting range of the
build.
When it comes to gear gems, you will start out progression by slotting the
highest available level of Emeralds in the chest and pants sockets. Ideally, these
will all be Flawless Royal Emeralds as soon as possible. As you grow in
Paragon (bulking up Dexterity in the Core section) and aim for higher tier and
more dangerous GRs, you will transition those gems into the defensive
Flawless Royal Diamond. There is no specific breakpoint where you do that;
the rule of thumb is to make the change as soon as you feel the lack of
toughness impede your progress. The build benefits from at least some cooldown
reduction, so slot a
Flawless Royal Diamond in your helm. In your weapon,
use a
Flawless Royal Emerald for the Crit Damage boost.
Slot | Gems |
---|---|
Jewelry | |
Helm |
|
Torso and Pants |
|
Weapon |
|
For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.
Kanai's Cube
One of the signature vanilla Demon Hunter crossbows, Manticore,
received a facelift in Patch 2.4 to complement Marauder
Cluster Arrow
builds for pushing high GRs. Besides rolling up to 300% additional
Cluster Arrow damage, it offers the unique property of reducing the
skill's resource cost in half — an indispensable bonus with the gluttonous
base 40 Hatred per shot. As previously discussed, you can alter the build to
drop
Yang's Recurve and wield the
Manticore, which lets you cube
Dawn; its power reduces
Vengeance's cooldown by 65%, enabling
permanent uptime at the 37% Cooldown Reduction breakpoint.
Zoey's Secret belt is tailored to the Marauder set bonuses, and offers
a unique source of protection: up to 9% damage reduction for every active
Companion, cutting incoming damage by 63% in the base version of the
build.
In order to mix in the Marauder set with the craftable Captain Crimson set,
you will need a Ring of Royal Grandeur: a cache legendary ring from Act I
bounties, to tie the two set bonuses
together.
The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Please refer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.
Follower
For Greater Rift progression with this build, we recommend the Templar for his essential heal and cheat death abilities. The Templar is a preferable choice due to the lacking sustain in this build, as well as the general squishiness of Demon Hunters in high Greater Rift progression.
For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our Follower Guide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear of your follower.
Legendary Potion
The preferred potions for this build are
Bottomless Potion of Amplification (the highest pure health recovery pot,
as its healing amplification procs itself for 75% health restoration), or
Bottomless Potion of Rejuvenation (for the extra resource recovery proc
when used below half HP — useful in a resource-intensive build such as
this one). Pick whichever you feel helps you out the most.
Changelog
- 13 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 09 Dec. 2021: Guide revised and added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
- 21 Jul. 2021: Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
- 01 Apr. 2021: Minor gearing revision and added follower recommendation.
- 18 Nov. 2020: Added S22 Cube recommendation.
- 30 Jun. 2020: No changes required for Season 21.
- 12 Mar. 2020: No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 21 Nov. 2019: Jewelry update for Season 19. Added more explanations to stat priorities, paragon points, and gems sections. Added a potion section.
- 23 Aug. 2019: Revised item recommendations for Season 18.
- 16 May 2019: Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
- 17 Jan. 2019: Added suggestions for the baseline Ring of Royal Grandeur for Seasonal characters.
More Demon Hunter Guides
Builds from Other Classes
This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.
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