General Gameplay Direct link to this section
All AR builds revolve around managing your Reaver's Glaive usage and soul generation, as well as the traditional bust-window setup and payoff of Demon Hunter.
We're playing around our Fury of the Aldrachi damage, as well as Ragefire and Eye Beam. To do this, we'll want to always empower our Blade Dance second. After that, we'll use all of our Immolation Auras with Thrill of the Fight up. This is because the first hit of IA is the hardest, and the Ragefire explosion isn't affected by damage amps. Then we'll cast Eye Beam and continue with our rotation.
Opener Direct link to this section
Openers in M+ aren't really a thing since cooldowns will always be rolling from pack to pack. When going into a new pack, you should always keep one Reaver's Glaive available to start by marking a target in the new pack. Your 'opener' will look like this:
- Reaver's Glaive the pack (after your tank has aggro please)
- Chaos Strike the priority or highest health target
- Blade Dance to gain your Thrill of the Fight buff
- Immolation Aura until you run our of charges
- Eye Beam
Afterwards, you continue with your normal rotation. This 'opener' will also be what your 20 second burst window looks like.
Rotation Direct link to this section
Your number one priority is to keep your soul generators on cooldown, but preferably while not in meta. This includes:
- Chaos Nova, especially on large packs
- Sigil of Flame
- Sigil of Spite
- The Hunt, which gives a full Reaver's Glaive rather than spawning souls.
Sigil of Misery can also spawn a soul if a target is affected by the fear, but it's one soul on a 1.5 minute cooldown at the cost of a pretty powerful stop.
Similarly, you'll be casting Blade Dance on cooldown and never capping on Immolation Aura charges.
Glaive Pooling Direct link to this section
In M+, generally you'll have a lot of souls and can pool them for difficult packs. You can read more about pooling glaives in the spell interactions page. When spending our pooled glaives, we'll do the following:
- Spend the first glaive as you normally would in the Opener section
- Throw your next Reaver's Glaive while you still have Thrill of the Fight up
- Chaos Strike
- Vengeful Retreat and Blade Dance the pack, buffing your Fury of the Aldrachi with Initiative AND Thrill of the Fight
- Throw your next Reaver's Glaive and repeat.
The aim is to have every cast of Blade Dance give Fury of the Aldrachi and be buffed by Thrill of the Fight.
Meta Usage Direct link to this section
We pretty much want to cast Metamorphosis on cooldown. You should ensure that both Blade Dance and Eye Beam are on cooldown first (and you've spent your Inner Demon proc) before casting.