Marauder Cluster Arrow Demon Hunter Skills and Runes

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Video Guide
  • 3. Quick Reference
    • 3.1. Skill Setup
  • 4. Builds
    • 4.1. Gear Setup
    • 4.2. Legendary Gems
    • 4.3. Kanai's Cube
  • 5. Role in the Current Meta
  • 6. Reading Further
  • 7. ChangeLog
• ×Skills and Runes
  • 1. Rotation
  • 2. Skills, Runes and Passives
• +Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
  • 1. Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
  • 2. Paragon Points
  • 3. Gems
  • 4. Kanai's Cube
  • 5. Follower
• +Rockets-based Progression Build Variation
  • 1. Cluster Arrow Rockets Progression Build
  • 2. Adapting Skills
  • 3. Adapting Gear
  • 4. Adapting Gemming
  • 5. Adapting Kanai's Cube
• +Speed Farming Variation
  • 1. SpeedFarming
  • 2. Adapting Skills
  • 3. Adapting Gear
  • 4. Adapting Gemming
  • 5. Adapting Kanai's Cube

General Information

Below, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing Marauder Cluster Arrow Demon Hunter in Diablo 3. Updated for patch 2.6.1 and Season 14.

The other pages of our Marauder Cluster Arrow Demon Hunter guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

Active Skills
Evasive Fire Hardened Cluster Arrow Cluster Bombs 1 Vengeance Seethe 2 Vault Tumble 3 Companion No rune chosen 4 Sentry Polar Station
Passive Skills
Steady Aim Custom Engineering Cull the Weak Grenadier

1. Rotation

Sentries are a key part of the build, mimicking the shots of your selected Hatred spender when you fire. Sentries also directly reflect your damage delivery, adding more damage to your skills per Sentry dropped. Your overall strategy with the Marauder set is to drop your initial three charges of Sentry in key positions to cover the battlefield and proc the chill effect, and then start kiting with devastating Cluster Arrow shots, dropping the additional two Sentries from Bombardier's Rucksack as the cooldown comes up. You will maintain Hatred through your permanent Vengeance Seethe form, assisted by regular Evasive Fire shots and pops of the Companion active. If there is anything left standing after the initial barrage, reposition smartly with Vault and begin the cycle anew.

2. Skills, Runes and Passives

Sentry is the signature charge-based skill of the build; since each Sentry in the field translates into more damage dealt by your own spenders, this mandates the use of both Custom Engineering as a passive and Bombardier's Rucksack as a quiver. To synergize with Cull the Weak passive and Bane of the Trapped legendary gem, as well as to provide additional safety in Greater Rifts, you will be using the cold rune Polar Station. Try to drop one of the turrets directly on top of the enemy, and spread the other two of the initial charges to cover the battlefield in the chilling effect. If the fight is prolonged, continue the strategy with your Bombardier's Rucksack charges, but always strive to have one turret on top of the biggest threat.

As dictated by the 4-piece bonus of Marauders, turrets will only fire spenders when you do — cutting down the number of spenders you can afford on your skill bar while still managing your Hatred. For Greater Rift purposes Cluster Arrow shines among the competition in the DPS race, and offers three distinct rune choices for pushing leaderboards. With the Hellcat Waistguard changes in Patch 2.4.3, Cluster Bombs is arguably your strongest and riskiest choice; releasing a mid range, slow volley of devastating grenades.

With its troublesome cost of 40 hatred per shot, Cluster Arrow is an expensive beast to maintain. Two resource-related skills are incorporated into the build to aid in the struggles of Hatred management.

• First up, we have Vengeance. Marauder Demon Hunters achieve permanent uptime of this skill through a cubed Dawn and a modest amount of Cooldown Reduction. This potent 40% damage buff will also increase Hatred regeneration to 10 per second from the Seethe rune, and depending on your Cube choices for the armor slot can reduce incoming damage in half via Visage of Gunes.
• The second option is to pop the active effect of the Companion skill, which triggers the Hatred restoration of the Bat Companion. Keep in mind however, that the Marauder set puts all the companions at your side for the small price of the skill slot. The active pop also nets you the Spider Companion slow, the Boar Companion taunt, the Ferret Companion health globe grab and the Wolf Companion multiplicative damage increase. Thus, treat your Companion activation not only as a source of Hatred, but also a damage and safety spike.

While the protection of the Boar Companion taunt is nice, it is also temporary. Occupying the enemy for merely five seconds, and only those in a 20-yard radius around you, it will not be enough to keep you in one piece. For emergency situations, you will be taking a repositioning tool in the form of Vault — a reliable displacement skill that can take you great distances cheaply with the Tumble rune.

Finally, a generator also works its way into the build. The mid range Cluster Bombs build will do best with a tanky primary skill like Evasive Fire Hardened.

This concludes the overview of the Active Skills, now let us look through the Passives.

Custom Engineering is the dream passive of the Marauder playstyle, doubling the duration of your Sentries and increasing their maximum number and initial charges to three. While their numbers will swell even further with the Bombardier's Rucksack, the ability to skyrocket your damage at the start of every major battle is too good to pass up — especially since transitioning between Rift levels resets your Sentry count, opening up a temporary weakness window in the build.

Grenadier is your go-to passive for Cluster Bombs, bringing a 10% multiplicative damage boost and increasing the explosion radius by 20%.

Steady Aim completes the offensive trio of passives, boosting your damage with a 20% multiplicative increase (a change as of Patch 2.4.1) as long as you maintain the generously low requirement of 10 yards between yourself and the enemy.

You have a decision making point for your final passive slot. As arguably the safest of the Demon Hunter sets, Marauder can get away with using a fourth offensive passive in the form of Cull the Weak, amplifying your damage against Slowed or Chilled enemies by 20%. This potent multiplicative passive gets triggered by the Sentry Polar Station and the Spider Companion, so make sure to always have one turret covering the enemy in its Chill radius. If you like having a cheat death at your disposal (preferable for the short range Cluster Bombs setup), Awareness is a free life on a decent 60-second cooldown, coupled with a brief window of safety and life regeneration when triggered.

About the Author

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.