Demon Hunter Stats Preview

The Demon Hunter reminds me, and probably a lot of people, of the Hunter in World of Warcraft. They keep their distance from their targets, use crossbows, bows and traps and have practically no melee ability. If you choose to play a Demon Hunter you’re going to want to have at least a general idea of how it plays before you get started. Even though Blizzard has carefully designed the game to allow you to blow through Normal difficulty with just about any class, it’s going to help you make gold and be more proficient with the Demon Hunter to start thinking about this stuff now.

So what is there to know about the Demon Hunter that you don’t know by looking at its name? Let’s take a look first at its unique equipment and then we’ll look at its itemization and stats.

Demon Hunter Equipment

The Demon Hunter is the only class that can use the 1 handed “Hand Crossbows.” These bad ass pieces of gear can be wielded along with quivers by Demon Hunters. The Hand Crossbows have a unique affix of added hatred generation. This will be part of the reason, along with play style, that Demon Hunters will want hand crossbows over their two-handed counterparts the normal crossbow and bows. The top tier Hatred Generation affix will offer the mod +2.68-3.33 Hatred generated per second. I imagine that will be pretty bad ass otherwise Demon Hunters won’t have any reason to use 1h crossbows.

Demon Hunters will also be the only class that can wear cloaks. Cloaks, Quivers and Hand Crossbows all are the only place you’ll find the Hatred Regent affix, which offers Hatred Regeneration per second like I mentioned above. This is really the only unique aspect of them so we will probably see this as one of the most beneficial DH stats available.

Demon Hunter Stats

Honestly the only raw stat that Demon Hunters are going to care about, for damage, will be Dexterity. It will directly increase ranged damage. Vitality is the second stat which Demon Hunters might want to grab, depending on how well Blizzard does balancing the challenge between doing damage and damage mitigation. The rest are completely wasted on Demon Hunters.

Demon Hunter Itemization

The big thing in Diablo 3 itemization isn’t going to be stats, it’s going to be searching for the right combination of random item modifications. These mods come in groups of 2 to 9 different mods per piece of gear which will make it very difficult to find the perfect combination as you progress through the game. Demon Hunters shouldn’t be taking direct damage, so they’ll focus mainly on increasing their damage, crit and potency of their special abilities.

They will look to stats like + Hatred Generation (on 1h CrossBows), + Critical Damage %, + % Weapon Damage, + Min/Max Damage, + Attack Speed, + Attack Speed % and direct + Dexterity.  They may also look to any of the available snares to mitigate damage like + % Chance to Chill/Freeze/Fear/Immobilize/Stun/Knockback on Hit. Of course all classes will look to a combination of either + Gold Find % or + Magic Find % on all of their gear.

So let’s break it down into a little cheat sheet to make this easier to grasp:

Special Equipment Hand Crossbow
Quiver
Cloak
Stats Dexterity – + Demon Hunter Damage
Vitality – + Max Health
Item Mods + Hatred Generation
+ Critical Damage %
+ % Weapon Damage
+ Min/Max Damage
+ Attack Speed
+ Attack Speed %
+ Dexterity
+ Any Demon Hunter Skill

Important: Many of the strategies and tips I share here were originally inspired by the people at the Diablo 3 Gold Secrets Forum. If you're serious about making the big bucks in Diablo 3, or just being the best players, you need to signup ASAP.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>