Multishot Marauder Demon Hunter Skills and Runes

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Quick Reference
    • 2.1. Skill Setup
  • 3. Builds
    • 3.1. Gear Setup
    • 3.2. Legendary Gems
    • 3.3. Kanai's Cube
  • 4. Role in the Current Meta
  • 5. Reading Further
  • 6. Changelog
• ×Skills and Runes
  • 1. Rotation
  • 2. Skills, Runes and Passives
    • 2.1. On Sentries and Snapshotting
  • 3. Changelog
• +Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
  • 1. Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
  • 2. Paragon Points
  • 3. Gems
  • 4. Kanai's Cube
  • 5. Follower
  • 6. Changelog
• +Speed Farming Variation
  • 1. Speed Farming
  • 2. Adapting Skills
  • 3. Adapting Gear
  • 4. Adapting Gemming
  • 5. Adapting Kanai's Cube
  • 6. Changelog

General Information

Below, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing Multishot Marauder Demon Hunter in Diablo 3. Updated for patch 2.6.1 and Season 15.

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

Active Skills
Evasive Fire Focus Multishot Full Broadside 1 Vengeance Dark Heart 2 Vault Tumble 3 Companion No rune chosen 4 Sentry Polar Station
Passive Skills
Awareness Custom Engineering Cull the Weak Ambush

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, and tying to the snapshot mechanic discussed below. Your basic goal in this playstyle is to lead enemy pulls into your Sentry cluster proximity and clumping them up via The Ess of Johan procs from your attacks, all in range for the sentries' devastation. With your chosen element (physical in our example, but can be done with fire as well) in mind, pay attention to the respective cycle of Convention of Elements as it comes up. Vault into an Oculus Ring proc (if available), and be ready to commence your Multishot barrage — snapshotting your CoE cycle as it comes up. Use your off-cycle period to build up Hatred with Evasive Fire, and protect yourself with Vengeance on cooldown.

2. Skills, Runes and Passives

Similarly to all Marauder-based builds, this variant relies heavily on Sentry; since each turret placed on the battlefield results in more damage by your own spenders (and can be snapshot back to the turrets in turn), this necessitates the use of both Custom Engineering and Bombardier's Rucksack. You should use the cold rune Polar Station, whose chilling effect will guarantee the procs of both Cull the Weak and Bane of the Trapped. Placement-wise, build up clusters of Sentries in key open areas around the map, and draw the attention of straggler packs from all sides prior to the timed CoE-dependent burst.

One of the best supported spenders in the Demon Hunter repertoire, Multishot, will serve as the main damage dealer of the build — with shared duties by the Sentries and your own shots. The massive AoE of this spender makes it deceptively easy to cover the entire battlefield, but you should still try and clump up enemies as best you can with leading shots and The Ess of Johan procs to maximize the benefits of Area Damage. Rune-wise, both the physical Full Broadside (our recommendation) and the fire Arsenal are considered viable options for pushing, with the former scaling slightly better with more masterfully executed pulls.

Vengeance is a near-irreplaceable tool in the Demon Hunter endgame, due to its base damage multiplier and additional damage reduction properties coming from the Dark Heart rune. Note that this Multishot variant cannot run Dawn due to item slot constraints, so perma- Vengeance is impossible and you will need to treat the skill as a strategic cooldown.

With the notable absence of Seethe on Vengeance, you will need to take a strong Hatred-generating skill in your selection. Convenient with its wide-arc reach, Evasive Fire also offers the high regen option Focus, solidifying it as the preferred generator for the slot.

While they do not provide the visible devastation of the turrets, Marauder-based builds are still considered somewhat pet-centric due to the necessary inclusion of Companion. The set will provide you with the effect of all the runes, so you can take advantage of the Bat Companion Hatred restoration, Spider Companion slow, Boar Companion taunt, Ferret Companion health globe grab and Wolf Companion multiplicative damage increase on a regular basis.

Last but not least, you will do well to incorporate a mobility tool during GR progression attempts; the general recommendation for the purpose is Vault, coupled with the gentler Discipline spending of the Tumble rune.

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.

Cull the Weak amplifies your damage against Slowed or Chilled enemies by 20%. This potent multiplicative passive gets triggered by the Sentry Polar Station chill radius and the Spider Companion slows, resulting in a consistent damage increase throughout the run.

Working in unison with your Dead Man's Legacy, the Ambush passive will deliver during the first 25% of the enemy health pool, and the quiver will pick up the carnage from 60% and below. The 40% damage increase is multiplicative in nature, emphasizing its superiority over other options.

Finally, Awareness is the cheat death passive of Demon Hunters — a second shot at the fight on a decent 60-second cooldown, coupled with a brief window of safety and life regeneration when triggered.

2.1. On Sentries and Snapshotting

In order to elevate to its status of a Top Tier pushing build, this Multishot variant relies on a snapshotting mechanic. In Diablo terms, snapshotting is taking a certain buff-dependent value and using it for an extended period of time, well beyond the intended use or duration. In this particular build, M6 Multishot DHs are snapshotting the Marauder 6-piece bonus damage multiplier, and applying it to all current Sentry projectiles. The snapshotting is timed to the Convention of Elements cycles, and can basically be done every other rotation. The snapshot can be replicated by drinking your potion (you must take a hit to be able to), or attaining a Paragon level (and you can purposefully enter a GR close to leveling up in order to do so).

Note that this tactic may be perceived as exploitative by the development team and might not survive future patches. The build remains a High-tier clearing spec even without its abuse.

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.

3. Changelog

• 24 Jun. 2018: Added the guide.