I saw a lot of Demon Hunters who doesn't know how to play the class at it's highest potential, so I decided to make a guide on how to be the most efficient on low MP levels with low budget and low-mid MP levels with higher budget.
The main skill of this build is the passive called "Vengeance", we'll use this to maintain discipline and kill elites faster by gaining hatred from the health globe they drop.


Skills:

1. Hatred "generator":
These skills doesn't really generate hatred compared to the hatred generation from passive, the only advantage of this skill is that it doesn't cost hatred, with the right gear, we don't really need to use this skills, it can be changed to anything else, but it's good against goblins and finishing the elites if they managed to stay alive after we spent our hatred.
Choices(personal preference):
Hungering Arrow - Spray of Teeth: Best single target damage skill.
Anything else.

2. Low hatred cost, high aoe skill:
To be able to clear large pack of mobs, we need a spammable skill because they don't always leave health globes to regenerate our hatred and there is a larger delay on big hatred spenders.
Choices(personal preference):
Multishot - Fire at Will: Instant damage, high aoe.
Lightning Arrow - Ball Lightning: A small delay on dmg, higher aoe.

3. High hatred cost, small aoe, high damage skill:
To kill elites as fast as possible, we need to use one skill that has a really high damage.
Choices(depending on gear and a little bit personal preference):
Spike Trap - Echoing Blast: This is the best damage/hatred skill, it's the best choice if you want to do the highest MP you can with your gear, the only disadvantage is the 1.2 seconds arming time
Spike Trap - Scatter: This is the highest aoe skill, it's good against elites that run away or in narrow corridors, where you can place all 3 traps on each other.
Cluster Arrow - Cluster Bombs: This requires a more dps because you can't let the elites reach you, since you can't shoot all of them if they surround you and taking time to position is loss of dps. You also need some practice with the aiming but you can kill elites faster with it on low MP than with Spike Trap. (Shorter delay between cast and damage.)
Cluster Arrow - Loaded for Bear: This requires the most dps, since it's the lowest damage/hatred. The positive aspect of it that it doesn't require any aiming because it's an instant damage.

4. Health regenerating skill:
You can only fight against reflects damage elites if you have this skill.
Choice:
Shadow Power - Gloom: It's the only viable skill for this purpose, the reduced incoming damage helps to stay alive while the spike trap arms. You mostly want to use it against elites, you can get health back from health globes against trash mobs. (With really low budget, you will need to use it against trash mobs too.)

5. Hatred regenerating skill:
You need this to maintain your hatred against trash mobs if you don't get enough health globes, you can run out of hatred without it. It's a 1 time cast, you only need to recast it after joining game or if you die.
Choice:
Companion - Bat Companion: There is no other skill that give +3 hatred/sec.

6. Mobility/Defensive skill:
It's important to get good mobility on a ranged character, since it's one of the core stats for defense. And of course it speeds up farming.
Vault - Tumble: You can get out of almost any situation with it, it can break roots and you can get away of freezing before the ice balls explode. It gives bonus movementspeed with the Tactical Advantage passive.
Preparation - Battle Scars/Invigoration: If you play with a really low budget, you might need to use this (especially in HC). If you can kill most elite packs without running out of discipline, than Vault is a better defensive skill.


Passives:

1. The core passive:
Vengeance: This regenerates your discipline (More defense with Shadow Power, more mobility with Vault) and your hatred (More damage->even more regeneration). In addition, it also increases your base hatred.

2. High damage skill boosting passive:
Custom Engineering: You will be able to place 5 traps from 150 hatred, instead of placing 3 then waiting till they explode. (Or 2 set spike traps if you use the scatter rune)
Granadier: Lowers the cost of Cluster Arrow, so you will be able to shoot 4 arrows instead of 3 if you have some hatred cost reduction on gear.

3. Mobility/Defensive passive:
Tactical Advantage: Use this if you are using Vault, it boosts your speed by a lot.
Perfectionist: Use this if you are need preparation, it boosts your defense and lowers the disciline cost on Shadow Power.


About stats:

EHP:
Vitality, %Life: You need around 35k hp to comfortably farm act3 MP0-1.
All resist: You need around 350 resists to comfortably farm act3 MP0-1.
Armor: You need around 3500 armor to comfortably farm act3 MP0-1. (You will more or less have it without +armor on any item)
You can get more defense (especially for higher MP), but in most cases, higher damage gives you more survivability. (More life from life steal, faster health globes->more dmg->even more life from life steal.)

Damage:
Dexterity, Critical Hit Chance, Critical Hit damage, Average Damage: These are the stats that makes you hit hard, you want to get them as high as possible.
Attack speed: This doesn't increase your damage too much, only get it if you don't lose other stats. (You won't be able to place more traps or shoot more cluster arrows and the hatred regen from the hatred regenerating skill is really small compared to the Vengeance and even the passive hatred regen)

Others:
Movement Speed: You need at least 12% on your boots and 12% somewhere else if your budget is not super low. Maximum is 25%, so don't get more
Pickup Radius: Get it on at least 1 or 2 items, it helps you collect health globes to regenerate hatred and discipline.
Max Discipline: Getting 9-10 on 1 item (quiver or cloak) is really important, you will have a larger buffer to use Vault and Shadow Power.
LoH, Life regen: These doesn't really help.
Life steal:
If you have low damage, every bit of +dmg helps, so you probably shouldn't get it (and it doesn't heals that much with lower damage).
If you have really high damage, you have +%dmg and 2 socket Manticore, so there is no place to get it.
If you have medicore damage (about 120k-250k), then it can be useful on mid MPs (MP3-6, depending on your damage), so you don't need Shadow Power against trash mobs, and don't need to use it against elites 100% of the time. Less discipline spent on Shadow Power=more discipline to spend on Vault. It's completely a personal preference if you get it or not, you'll have 5-7% less damage for the same price, so it's your choice if you want to kill a little faster or Vault a lot more.
Hatred Regen: You will most likely have it on Dead Man's Legacy, it's not a must to get on gear.

Skill bonuses:
Cloak:
Spike Trap: This is the only useful skill bonus on a cloak, you should always want to get it.
Quiver:
Hungering Arrow: You won't really use this skill, so it's not that good.
Multishot: Increased Critical Hit Chance only helps in longer fights, you want to kill trash packs in 1-2 shot on lower MP and 3-4 shot on mid MP, so it's not useful.
Elemental Arrow: It's good but really expensive, get it if you want and have the budget.
Cluster Arrow: It's also useful and you can find some cheap quivers with high Cluster Arrow bonus.


Gearing:

You need a 2-Handed Crossbow to get the highest possible damage/hit.
It's the best to get all your not-offensive stats on quiver + boots + pants + belt + chest + shoulders + bracers without using vitality gems, so you can go for maximum damage on other pieces.
Legendaries:
Manticore: Almost noone picks up rare crossbows anymore, so you probably won't find a good one that's better than a cheap Manticore.
Dead Man's Legacy: Almost noone picks up rare quivers anymore, it's really easy to get one with max discipline.
Hellfire Ring: You need it if you want to level up as fast as possible.
Sets:
Inna: Pants are the best place to get movementspeed. Belt gives you a lot of dps if you get it with the set bonus.
Natalya: The cloak is a musthave item for almost any budget. If you have the cloak, you have to get at least 1 more item for the set bonus. The ideal is to get 3 pieces, or you can even go for 4 piece set bonus.

good guide, nice lil bit about the legs/sets too.

t4t
my dh just dinged to 60 today and I'll be checking your guide while building her

This post was edited by Berkay560 on Mar 2 2013 07:48am

i rather go like this for best speed possible:

tactical advantage/nightstalker/vengeance

skills:

bola shot/volatile explosions - great aoe and since you are on mp0-1 you will 1-shot shitloads with 1 bola for the occasional low globe periods
strafe/demolition - auto aim, high aoe and synergy with tactical advantage - the movement speed works while strafing

vault/tumble - you will want to vault shitloads, so every 2nd vault cost half = 1.5 more vaults for all of your disc
companion/bat - you rather not use bola, it slows you down, so bat is the way to go
shadow power/gloom - doesn't need explanation ^^
chakram/shuriken cloud - does 2 things: more dps while you circle elites and it makes you able to walk through doors (speeding up the run in 2 ways)

other needs for this build

10+ pickup rad.
3.5k armor, 300/400AR, 30k life

suggestion:
big red gem in helm and hellfire for insane xp

Maybe show diffrent builds @ different mp's

at the moment im using this.



the rares are crafted items.

with the manticore you have to know that you first need to look for a high dex, high chd and average damage roll instead of going for a 1000 dps 2s int manti. but with the new rubies you can go faster for a 2socketed manti ( i think)

and ofcourse the andarials isnt perfect. A mempo would be great but i dont have half a bill to spend on one.
this is a great build for high monster powers.

the mark of death can be swapped for other skills like twin chakrams or the defense bubble turret. depends if i go solo or in a team and on what mp i'm farming

I use this set up to farm on mp10 in parties and it works great

maybe this bola isnt perfect because it stuns and in parties with a cm wiz you allready got a stun. But when you get seperated from the group it becomes pretty usefull.

This post was edited by leftylouis on Mar 20 2013 07:44am

Well built guide!

no nightstalker in this build?

guess this is ok for up to mp5 i wouldnt advise people to run without nightstalker in higher mps. eg. this build will not be able to do mp10 ubers solo, an it will struggle in the high mps as health globes arent as frequent.


unless ofc you are running legacy nats.

This post was edited by jackherer on Mar 20 2013 08:38am

vengeance for low mp and nightstalker for high mp

he made it clear its a low mp build

This post was edited by karliejai on Mar 21 2013 02:04am

yeah, this guide is only for farming white mobs+elites (balanced for xp, rare/legendary, DE farming) on the highest possible MP that is fast with your gear. (after the xp boost, you don't get much more xp on lower MPs)
higher MP=enemies have more life and same amount of health globes -> so if you can't use Vengeance to maintain discipline+get hatred, the slowing effect of higher life will double=not really worth it to farm that high MP

I tested different MPs to see what skill bonuses are good/must with my skills and gear: (about 200-240k dps with all setups)

"Vengeance is mine" variations:

MP1, 50 discipline, 14 yard pickup radius, -5 cluster arrow cost: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#aidgPh!Zgb!cabYcZ
quiver: cluster arrow bonus is almost must, so you can shoot 4 cluster arrows from full hatred (you can 2-3 shot elite packs with enough dps though)
cloak: doesn't matter

MP4-6, 40 max discipline, 7 yard pickup radius, 14% spike trap bonus: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#aidgQh!ZUb!cabYaZ
quiver: elemental arrow bonus would be really great for me, since killing white mobs slow me down the most (couldn't find a good deal yet, I'm regularly searching for one with good stats for cheap)
cloak: spike trap bonus is really good but it won't boost you as much in solo as elemental arrow bonus on quiver (it doesn't matter that much if 4 or 5 traps would kill the elite pack since you will always place 5 traps from full hatred and 1 more when you get back some hatred and mostly the delay will limit your killing speed), if you are playing coop with someone who can clear trash mobs fast, then this is obviously more important

Other builds(pickup radius is not must with these):

MP10 normal+elites, 50 max discipline, 7 yard pickup radius, 23% spike trap bonus, 26% bonus vs elites: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#aQdgkh!eUX!cabYaZ
quiver: hungering arrow (or the hatred generator you use) is usefull but not as much as spike trap bonus on cloak
cloak: spike trap is a must
SoJ: spike trap is a must

MP10 coop uber, better against ubers version, 60 max discipline, 7 yard pickup radius, -9 cluster arrow cost, 28% bonus vs elites: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#aPdgRh!egX!YYbYYZ
quiver: cluster arrow is a must (planning on finding dex/vit quiver for cheap, max discipline on cloak+SoJ seems enough)
cloak: doesn't matter or hatred generator if you are using grenades (this would actually make sense if you are familiar with the proper way of using grenades because of higher hatred regen)
SoJ: cluster arrow is a must

Mp10 coop uber, better against elites version, 50 max discipline, 7 yard pickup radius, 23% spike trap bonus, 26% bonus vs elites: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#aQdgRh!eUX!YabYYZ
quiver: hatred generator is best
cloak: spike trap is a must
SoJ: spike trap is a must

with a CM wizard, both MP10 uber builds are about equally good

didn't have time(and since coop is better because you get 4 rings from 3 IMs, I won't really test it) to test solo MP10 NV5+uber builds but there are two possible routes to take: tank a lot of shit (like skaleton king's insane swinging) and take only spike traps as big dmg skill or kite a little against ubers and tank elites and take both spike traps and cluster bombs

my opinion about helms:
I like Mempo with pickup radius, so I have time to get some pickup radius on other gear (preferably crafted shoulders or bracers) until I get crit Mempo.
I don't like Andy, only 1 random mod
I think Natalya is also good for the 4 set bonus and you can get 2 from crit/all res/pickup radius but although the fear seems a bit scary, but I haven't thought about it before I got my pickup Mempo, so that Helm will stay until I get crit Mempo (I already have decent pickup shoulders but will craft more becuse it could be 10 times better, not like my bracers where I don't have pickup but other stats are beast)

Edit: built a DH on US servers for 100k gold(+I need to find 5 green+1red gem), here are the items with price: http://s1041.photobucket.com/user/cyberbeni/library/100k%20gold%20DH (just put a space where you see %20 because d2jsp leaves out them for some reason)
(will upload final stats to the same place after I reached lvl60)
defense is mostly ok on other pieces to change pants+belt for inna (couldn't buy those with staying under 100k spent)

This post was edited by Cyberbeni on Mar 21 2013 08:27am

o wow!!

gets the eggson seal of approval

my female demon hunters will hunts demons using these techniques

What an accolade! What more can you ask for than approval from the great DH player Eggson men

This post was edited by jackherer on Mar 21 2013 08:47am