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How to play a Melee Hunter

On the first day I had beta I rapidly went through the game with a number of classes, trying to find the best way to play each. On the second day of beta I decided I would start doing some crazy stuff just for the hell of it. A melee Demon hunter was one such build I tried. Now you might call me crazy, you might consider me a masochist, but I found the melee Demon hunter to be one hell of a fun way to play the beta. So I figured that I will share with you how I was able to beat the beta with a melee Demon hunter, how I approached it, how I armed my class, what abilities I used, and how I played the the melee demon hunter.

First I should go over some of the disadvantages to a melee Demon hunter class. Most abilities are useless since they require to to use a ranged weapon to even work. Only a handful of abilities can be used melee:Caltrops, Vault, Fan of Knives, Grenades, Chakram. You will be doing less damage in general when compared to a ranged Demon hunter. The Demon Hunter is not meant to take damage, even the Wizard can increase armor, but the Demon Hunter has nothing to making him/her self tougher.

Now when I was planing I never used a ranged weapon; I opted to use my fist before I was able to find a melee weapon(really men do not need weapons). Not only that I did not use shared stash, or my black smite to get awesome equipment. Most of my stuff was pick up off the ground, and some was bought form the starting merchants. I wanted to avoid playing with an advantage from past play throughs(this also meant more punching zombies into a second death). Not only that I did not die a single time in my entire play through. Even though Demon Hunters can not take hits, they prove to be very slippery bastards. Mine barely evading death many times.

Equipment

Looking at this I tried to think of how to pull out a working build starting with the equipment. What equipment I used, or what bonuses I was looking for.

Weapon slots: weapon shield combo
Because the Demon Hunter is a fairly fragile class, and the abilities I was going to use do not scale with weapon damage, I went with a shield and sword combo. The shield give the because boost to damage reduction than any other single piece of equipment. Much needed for greater survivability.

Armor: You do not want to try and play this as a brawler, but armor is more import now that with a ranged Demon Hunter. Try to keep your armor value high, even if you must overlook damage. Your abilities will make up for it.

speed: I found this build to require a to of running around, and the biggest threat where those that could run me down. Slowing abilities help a bit but equipment that adds to movement speed is useful. One unique thing about a melee Demon Hunter is the ability to run in and out of combat and keep enemies form even hitting you.

Life regain: If I am already going to jump in and out of combat it would be nice to have some life regain on items in case health globes do not drop, or are hard to get. With life regain on equipment I simple need to escape and wait to get back my life before jumping back in to finish the job.

Magic find: I could leave this out, but decided say it anyway. Magic find helps you get better equipment and as such is always useful to have a little. Try to balance with other stats.

Abilities:

Here is where things get a bit interesting since not only do you have limited abilities, but you have what are considered by some to be the weaker abilities of the class.

Caltrops: Your first none ranged ability. Caltrops slow movement speed, and helps you control the battle. Good way to keep you from getting run down, or surrounded. I stopped using this ability for the most part when I acquired Fan of Knives since I did not see the point to have two slowing abilities. Still this is a good ability to control combat and could have uses.

Fan of Knives: This is a second ability you will get in the game that does not require a range weapon. Matter of fact this ability is better with a melee class than a ranged class(runes might change this). The reason is that as a melee class you should have the added toughness to wade into the middle of a group of enemies. This ability does low damage, but when surround I can hit 5-10 enemies easy; that adds up to a lot of damage, and when used on low HP enemies it tears through them. Also a very spamable ability means this was one of my most used abilities.

Vault: Vault was never a bad ability, but I never found much use for it when going a ranged Demon Hunter. As a melee Hunter I have found a greta deal more respect for this ability. As already stated you want to be able to get out of combat when needed, and be able to move around. This gives you more control over battles. Vault gives you this and more. Not only can you run out of a tough fight, but you can vault through groups of enemies to grab health orbs. I found that slower enemies can be made just about useless since I could just run up, hit them then vault away before they ever have a chance to hit me. Even king Leoric could barely ever touch me as long as I was paying attention to his movements. The biggest weakness of vault is that the ability uses a lot of discipline so I could only use it a few two in a row; if I was not careful I could be left in a world of hurt with no way out(and was a couple times).

Grenades: The last ability I really used much of in my play through. Grenade is a powerful, hatred hungry, ability that can be used form range. Might not be in the spirit of the melee build, but still work with a melee weapon. Grenade is a good way to wear down powerful enemies, and is a lot faster than just hitting them and vaulting away. When all three grenades hit a single target they can do some big damage, and with so careful moving and attack with them you can beat tough enemies not trouble. Use it if you do not mind a less melee class, if you think this violates the pure melee, then don’t. I do not think it is absolutely needed.

In the end I found the melee Demon hunter a very fun way to play. It also offered a challenge and forced me to look at abilities that I had overlooked, seeing many advantages to them I missed. Please leave any comments or question you have about going a melee Demon Hunter or simple point out something you think I got wrong/left out. Also if you want me to do more write-ups on builds, or just share more Diablo 3 info let me know and let me know what you want. I am already planing to do one more write-up on a monk build I found to be very powerful, and fun.

this i like! great work! is it possible to get a gameplay vid?
thanks alot for sharing this, it proves how well blizzard have made this. yay for crazy builds

Balanced set of skills, all contributing their own aspects to the battlefield. I like it. Would you be interested in trying other unorthadox builds (that work)? Maybe a ranged Barbarian or something.

on 3/11/11Quote by stebo88

Balanced set of skills, all contributing their own aspects to the battlefield. I like it. Would you be interested in trying other unorthadox builds (that work)? Maybe a ranged Barbarian or something.

...Stebo, since when have you been able to read minds? Yes I was just thinking about a ranged Barb. today. Also playing around with his "throw weapon" skill, interesting possibilities. Not sure how will it would work, but worth a shot. I am thinking jump, ground pound(jump for movement, and pound for stun), and throw weapon. Might change after testing.

@Mustachio Glade you liked it. As for gameplay. And yes, you can still pull some crazy stuff off. I pick melee Dh because it seemed the least possible, or least supported build of all classes(even Wizard has skills to help with melee, and WD has pets to tank). I can not stream it, but I might still have another option for a video. I will see when D3 come back up.

i see that fan of knives was removed from beta. does this mean your going to try a whole new aproach to a melee demon hunter?

on 14/11/11Quote by Infested Zombie

i see that fan of knives was removed from beta. does this mean your going to try a whole new aproach to a melee demon hunter?

I have been looking, but it is not easy. There are a few big issues I am looking at. No melee equipped abilities until level 3, caltrops used to be a starting ability(Should be level 2 in my mind, we do not need three damage dealing abilities). You lose Fan of Knives, an abilities I used to help deal with crowds as well as slow with hatred. Abilities I would use have been moved up in level(the reason I can not use Fan in beta) meaning I will be lacking those abilities for the early game.

A few things that might help is if Bola or Impale where made so they could be used with a melee weapon. Impale even is just a knife being throw for its animation, I do not see why that needs a bow(beside gameplay> common reason/lore). Both of these are low enough to offer some help. Spread out the abilities that do not need you to use a bow, allowing you to go melee weapons form the start, or early on. I might be able to play around with a higher level DH too see if melee is possible.

Now just so people know why I like a melee armed hunter(Just in case people wonder why I standing for this). First is that this is a restriction of the class since no other class is unable to use their abilities with melee weapons(matter of fact all my other classes usually have some kind of melee weapon since they seem more powerful, or at least abundant in general). The melee hunter had, and still could have, a unique play feel form the other class that I happened to enjoy. She is not a ranged class, but a battle control class, and when played as such is very fun and powerful.

As it stands now, the Wizard by far has the most variation of play(the Barb. could use a few nice touches as well, but at least smashing stuff is always fun).