Unhallowed Essence Grenades Demon Hunter Speed Farming Variation

The Unhallowed Essence Grenades Demon Hunter deals with regular Rift farming decently all the way through the highest Torments, making it a viable build for the task. We have solo speed GR rankings and solo speed T16 rankings if you want to know more about which builds are best for speed farming.

Within the limited scope of regular difficulties, the necessary damage and toughness to triumph over the enemy is significantly smaller. Thus, your best course of action is to improve utility and speed.

Active Skills
Grenade Cluster Grenades Shadow Power Shadow Glide 1 Vengeance Dark Heart 2 Vault Tumble 3 Companion Wolf Companion 4 Preparation Invigoration
Passive Skills
Grenadier Blood Vengeance Ambush Tactical Advantage

When you are speed farming regular rifts, parts of your playstyle will adapt to the lowered challenge and focus more on speed and utility.

In the place of the protection-oriented Fan of Knives Bladed Armor, the farming build takes the speed buff of Shadow Power Shadow Glide, and dives headfirst into the fray. The basics of the build are still the same — destroying the monsters with Grenade Cluster Grenades, while under the permanent protection of Vengeance Dark Heart. Vault will interplay with Tactical Advantage to allow you unparalleled movement speed. You will keep your resources in check with a mixture of Avarice Band-augmented pickup radius and its interaction with Blood Vengeance, and the worn Danetta's Hatred set.

Parts of the skill and passive selection will overlap with the base Greater Rift progression build, but others will have to change according to the task at hand. Ability to cross over great distances faster and more efficiently take precedence.

• Your DPS skill of choice remains Grenade Cluster Grenades, due to its superior damage dealing potential.
• A swap from Boar Companion to Wolf Companion is preferred during Torment farming.
• Vault is still a necessary addition, perhaps even more so during speed farming. Your best rune option to cross great distances is the cheap Tumble.
• Vengeance Dark Heart is an omnipresent self-buff in all versions of the build; so is Preparation Invigoration in an Unhallowed Essence set build.
• Fan of Knives Bladed Armor will be a defensive overkill in regular rifts, and is best replaced by the short movespeed buffs of Shadow Power Shadow Glide.
• During speed farming Cull the Weak, Numbing Traps and Awareness lose their progression-oriented luster, since Torment difficulties are limited in challenge. They are better replaced by utility and speed-oriented picks such as Tactical Advantage, Ambush and Blood Vengeance. Grenadier is universally useful in a Grenades build.

During Torment farm it is recommended to swap away from the Endless Walk set, as it promotes a static fighting style unfit for normal rifts; use the more offensive combo of Avarice Band and a The Flavor of Time. Avarice Band's pickup radius bonus is an incredible boon during speedfarming, as it benefits not only your movement speed through a socketed Boon of the Hoarder, but also negates downtime picking up progression orbs and gold. While any well-rolled amulet can fulfill the role for Torments, Squirt's Necklace brings an additional damage multiplier to the table, helping you with one-shotting enemies even more easily.

The tactical and timing-oriented nature of Convention of Elements should also give way to the convenience of the permanent damage increase from a Fire-rolled Stone of Jordan.

In speed farm, it is advisable to abandon the damage reduction from the Wraps of Clarity in favor of Warzechian Armguards, for the environment destruction speed buffs that are easily provided by the AoE of this build. The former favorites, the elite spawning Nemesis Bracers, are still very valuable, but they can now be equipped on the follower while still getting their bonus via the Emanate mechanics. You should still equip them in groups, where you cannot have a follower with you. The Nemesis Bracers value comes from the additional loot — not to mention progression — coming from the extra elite spawns. They let you finish standard rifts that much faster, and acquire the coveted GR keys in greater amounts.

Lastly, you should switch away from the toughness and utility-oriented weapon setup described above, and equip the Danetta set — Danetta's Revenge and Danetta's Spite instead. This hand crossbow duo provides unparalleled mobility by making Tumble a Hatred spender instead of Discipline, which is vital for normal rifts, and especially bounties.

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.

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

Bane of the Trapped and Simplicity's Strength both still bring excellent damage multiplication value to the build in speed farming.

In normal rifts, the third gem slot should be taken by Boon of the Hoarder. This high utility gem feeds you practically infinite gold and gives you a massive short-term speed boost while picking it up, automated via Avarice Band.

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

During speed farming, the extra damage from Echoing Fury will be redundant, and you will do better to cube a Dawn for the myriad bonuses of the permanent Vengeance form.

In order to maintain the valuable generator attack bonuses in the build, you will have to retain the progression setup in the armor Cube slot — either Hellcat Waistguard or Hunter's Wrath, depending on your worse rolled item. The same goes for Ring of Royal Grandeur in the jewelry slot, as it allows you to keep Depth Diggers alongside the Unhallowed Essence set bonuses.

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.

The recommended follower for this build during standard rift farming for keys is the Enchantress due to her numerous utility bonuses, allowing you to smooth out your speed runs even further.

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.

The preferred potion for this build is Bottomless Potion of the Leech due to its Life per Hit bonuses, which synergize perfectly for the high attack speed and sustain-through-attacks playstyle of the build.

This Season revives the Pandemonium Kill Streak buff from Season 19. Each stack grants a bonus to movement speed and damage, capping at +50% movement speed and +100% damage at 1000 kills. Hitting specific kill thresholds unleashes powerful effects. Read more in our dedicated Season of the Eternal Conflict Mechanics Guide!

While speedfarming sees limited use from this theme, Greater Rift pushing benefits significantly. Effects like Geysers (150), Meteors (400), and Angels (500) can clear elites and Rift Guardians instantly. Players may reset streaks after 150 kills to repeatedly trigger Geysers or push for 500+ kills near boss fights, often using Nemesis Bracers to spawn extra enemies.

Because the most potent effects (Geysers, Meteors, Angels) can obliterate Rift Guardians instantly up to GR150, players can retool builds for efficiency and comfort. Here’s how:

Since you can rely on killstreak procs to clear the Rift Guardian, Bane of the Stricken can be safely omitted in favor of:

• Another generic damage-scaling legendary gem ( Bane of the Trapped for builds with any form of crowd control and/or melee range, Zei's Stone of Vengeance for far ranged builds, Taeguk for channeling builds, Simplicity's Strength for primary attack-focused builds, Enforcer for pet-oriented builds, etc.)
• A survivability-oriented legendary gem ( Esoteric Alteration, Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard), or additional utility ( Gogok of Swiftness for CDR-reliant builds, Pain Enhancer for attack speed-heavy builds, or Wreath of Lightning for extra movement speed).

Adjust your equipment to items that favor durability, health sustain, and ease of movement. Consider adjusting non-essential skills for the build to ones that pull, reposition, or otherwise displace enemies to facilitate large pulls of enemy packs. In more concrete terms, this means:

• For general Demon Hunter survivability, staple cross-class options like Unity (combined with the same ring on the follower plus a follower immortality token), and the Endless Walk set ( The Traveler's Pledge and The Compass Rose) offer a valuable balance between extra toughness and damage. Elusive Ring is also a strong class-specific contender, granting up to 60% damage reduction after using a mobility skill — something Demon Hunters do constantly.
• For additional defense, cross-class standouts like Unity (used with follower and immortality relic for them), and the Endless Walk set ( The Traveler's Pledge and The Compass Rose) are top picks, balancing damage reduction during movement with stationary damage scaling.
• Situational items that can bolster your defenses include Wraps of Clarity (providing a significant damage reduction after casting a primary, resource-generating skill), Aquila Cuirass (perfect for builds with minimal resource spending like LoD Rapid Fire), or Stone Gauntlets (their downside mitigated by wearing Ice Climbers, or Altar of Rites CC-immunity node), and even niche inclusions like Zoey's Secret (pet-based mitigation).
• Utility items like Nemesis Bracers are essential as more elites mean more killstreak maintenance and faster progression. When soloing, they should be equipped by your follower; in groups, at least one party member should commit to wearing them. Edge cases will see the inclusion of Warzechian Armguards or Krelm's Buff Belt (more speed for easier scouting and pulls), Strongarm Bracers (extra damage vs. displaced enemies), and even Lacuni Prowlers for straight attack speed. To facilitate large pulls, consider using a Follower equipped with The Ess of Johan, a proc-based analogue to an enemy-pulling skill (albeit outside your control).
• From a skill and passive perspective, always slot at least one movement tool: Vault Tumble or Smoke Screen Displacement are popular options, and Shadow set-based builds get Shadow Power Shadow Glide for free. Passive-wise, prioritize Ambush — against low total HP trash enemies, the extra damage to healthy targets can result in some quick killstreak stacks right at the start of a fight. A cheat death coming from Awareness can also be very handy for killstreak upkeep during risky, daring pulls.