Demon Hunter Impressions: Zulu

“The demon hunters. Vengeful harbingers of righteous doom who bring swift judgment and death to the hellish creatures daring enough to trespass on the mortal lands of Sanctuary. Skilled archers, assassins, and trackers, demon hunters are perfectly honed instruments set to scour demons from the world. The fact that every last one of them has a deep and personal motivation to do so only sharpens their deadly purpose.”

Diablo 3’s Demon Hunter is the spiritual offspring of Diablo 2’s Assassin and Amazon classes. Combining the ranged, weapon-based attacks of the Amazon with the Assassin’s traps and acrobatics, the Demon Hunter specializes in tactical ranged combat. In addition to spells like Spike Trap and Rapid Fire, the Demon Hunter employs shadow magic, giving the Demon Hunter a certain level of badassery archer-type classes often lack.

 The showcase video on Blizzard’s Darkness Falls, Heroes Rise website spent much more time showing offensive abilities than defensive ones and therefore didn’t convey the degree to which the class’ defensive abilities are used. During my experience in the beta, defensive Discipline-using spells were used basically every time I was in combat, and without them I quickly found myself in melee. That being said, the Demon Hunter’s offensive and defensive spells created possibilities for strategic play that I thoroughly enjoyed.

As far as the Demon Hunter’s primary skills go, I spent most of the beta using either Hungering Arrow or Entangling Shot.  Hungering Arrow’s proc effect made it particularly cool, since the arrow would jump to other targets, essentially creating a chain lightning effect with arrows. While Hungering Arrow’s primary purpose was to do damage without utility, Entangling Shot was at the other end of the spectrum.

It did rather poor damage, but placed a slow on the primary target and the one closest to it. The rune effect made it even more powerful, causing 4 targets to be slowed. Both spells fulfilled their purpose perfectly, but I found myself using Hungering Arrow in conjunction with Caltrops, since the slow effects from Entangling Shot and Caltrops didn’t stack.

For secondary offensive spells, the Demon Hunter had access to Impale and Rapid Fire. Impale did significant damage, and when runed added a 65% chance to stun the target hit by the spell. This made Impale extremely potent, especially since the rune didn’t sacrifice any damage for the effect. Rapid Fire was a bit more fun to use, since it’s essentially a minigun of arrows. The spell is channeled, though, meaning I spent a lot of time standing still, whereas Impale’s instant cast made it much easier for me to stay on the move.

For defensive spells, I spent most of my time using Caltrops (slow trap) and Vault, which let me jump a pretty great distance. The two spells worked well together, since Caltrops and Vault both have a pretty low Discipline cost. I would lay Caltrops, and when enemies got too close I would jump away and lay another, basically ensuring enemies never caught up to me. I wasn’t particularly excited by Smoke Screen, since when playing solo on Normal difficulty I never needed the invisibility to escape from anything.

My experience with the Demon Hunter definitely exposed me to the synergy between her abilities. The fact that three Caltrops can be placed at once is an example of the tactical choices available to the class, and the Demon Hunter’s damage output was among the highest that I experienced.

I’m not usually interested in ranged classes, but I spent more time playing the Demon Hunter than any other class in the beta. The class seems particularly well suited for people who want to play alone, since her utility allows the Demon Hunter to control more of the battlefield than the other classes, with the exception of certain Witch Doctor abilities. However, the Demon Hunter has slow and control worked into many more of her abilities than the Witch Doctor, giving her many more options in multiple builds. When all my friends are offline, I’ll most likely be playing the Demon Hunter, and who knows if the strategic nature of the class will rope me in more than I expect.