Strafe (15 Hatred per second): Shoot at randomly selected nearby enemies at your firing rate for 120% of your weapon damage while moving at 65% of your movement speed.
Strafe is essentially the ranged equivalent of the Barbarian’s Whirlwind skill. Being a ranged equivalent, it’s generally a bit more expensive- starting at full Hatred, you can only keep it going for about seven or eight seconds normally- but it’s certainly a powerful contender for your Archery skill slot. The main point of it is, of course, to keep you moving so you can get out of trouble while killing things at the same time. It’s a very different sort of effect from your Secondary skills, though you’ll likely use it in similar situations, because it’s not a line of damage (even if Chakram’s ‘line’ is squiggly). Very useful when you’re mostly surrounded, or want to keep shooting while getting out of the way of a pending effect- particularly any of Belial’s attacks or the Freezing effect from a champion or rare monster.
Equilibrium (15 Hatred per second): Shoot at randomly selected nearby enemies at 120% of your usual attack rate for 120% of your weapon damage while moving at 65% of your movement speed.
As with most Demon Hunter skills, the first rune for this is very simple- do it harder. In this case, by upping your firing rate. Not a lot to say about it, but it’s certainly worthwhile.
Drifting Shadow (15 Hatred per second): Shoot at randomly selected nearby enemies at your firing rate for 120% of your weapon damage while moving at 100% of your movement speed.
This, of course, is the other way to ‘do it even harder’- rather than increasing the damage, it grants you your full movement speed, making Strafe an even better tool for escaping dogpiles. It’s a pity that Strafe, unlike Whirlwind, doesn’t let you walk -through- mobs, but then, you shouldn’t be waiting until you’re completely surrounded anyways.
Stinging Steel (15 Hatred per second): Throw knives at randomly selected nearby enemies at your firing rate for 120% of your weapon damage while moving at 65% of your movement speed. Any knives that critically hit deal 100% extra damage.
This is essentially Equilibrium for critical-hit pumpers- Strafe harder by making things die extra-much. Like the first two Strafe runes, there’s not a lot to say, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad by any stretch of the imagination.
Rocket Storm (15 Hatred per second): Shoot at randomly selected nearby enemies at your firing rate for 120% of your weapon damage and launch rockets at your firing rate for 60% weapon damage as Fire damage while moving at 65% of your movement speed.
Do you like rockets? Then this is your favorite form of Strafe Better. The damage is much nicer than most rocket-firing runes, and comes as a very welcome increase to Strafe even if you don’t use rockets as much, probably beating out Equilibrium for damage improvement.
Demolition (15 Hatred per second): Launch bouncy grenades that damage enemies within 8 yards at your firing rate for 144% of your weapon damage while moving at 65% of your movement speed.
Demolition turns Strafe into a very effective punishment skill to stop enemies who follow you too closely. This can be an extremely useful rune for soloing, especially if you haven’t got a Templar along with you- or in parties if you either need to protect your allies or your allies can keep the enemies corralled near them. It’s considerably less strong against individuals, unlike the other Strafe forms which don’t actually care how many enemies are near you, so if you prefer this you should probably switch out of it when you go to face a boss, and pick up a different rune.
