Diablo III- Skills Article XLIII: The Demon Hunter, Defensive Skills- Smoke Screen

Smoke Screen (14 Discipline): You become invisible for 1 second.

On the surface, this doesn’t seem like all that great of a skill.  1 second is a small number, and being invisible doesn’t make things forget about you, nor does it protect you from area attacks.  Truth is, though, a single second is a surprisingly long time mid-fight, and being invisible can be a tremendous advantage when you need to run or reposition.  You should definitely consider Smoke Screen for your Defensive skill, no matter what you’re doing- everyone loves a ‘dodge’ button.

Displacement (14 Discipline): You become invisible and increase your move speed by 35% for 1 second.

Less obviously than other Demon Hunter runes, this is yet another case of ‘and then I do it even harder’.  Whether you’re running away from enemies or to a position, that movement speed boost is really strong.  You can even use Displacement for traveling purposes to a certain degree, increasing the usefulness of its parent skill.

Lingering Fog (14 Discipline): You become invisible for 1.5 seconds.

If you really really need to evade damage from melee or non-area ranged attackers, Lingering Fog is a perfect skill/rune combination.  One and a half seconds is immense, and if you’re gone that long, a lot of enemies will get hit by your friends (or follower) and be distracted- thus clearing your incoming aggro out quite a bit.  Just don’t fire it and then keep standing where you already were.

Breathe Deep (14 Discipline): You become invisible for 1 second and regenerate 12 Hatred every second you’re invisible.

Yes, the wording is a little odd, but Diablo III counts ticks faster than once per second- so you could as easily say that th is rune regenerates 3 of your Hatred every 1/4 of a second, for instance.  But that’s beside the point.  If you don’t feel like you need any of the other riders for Smoke Screen, or if you just run out of Hatred a lot and grab tons of aggro, this can be a really useful compromise between Smoke Screen and Preparation, should you want your Hunting Skill to be something else (like Vault).  It’s not going to ensure you refill your Hatred meter, but it can be a useful boost when you need it most- and save you some incoming damage as well.

Special Recipe (12 Discipline): You become invisible for 1 second.

A 2-Discipline discount doesn’t seem like much, but keep in mind that your Discipline pool is only about thirty points deep to begin with.  That said, you’re unlikely to need Smoke Screen discounted- if you really need to use it that rapidly, then you have other things to worry about (like critical existence failure, or your inability to inflict death on your enemies at a distance)

Choking Gas (14 Discipline): You become invisible for 1 second.  The spot where you activated this skill generates a small cloud of poisonous damage that deals 70% weapon damage to enemies who enter or pass through it over a 5-second period.

This rune is really just kind of weird.  While the damage isn’t negligible, it’s not amazing either, and the fact that things have to walk through where you vanished from can make it really hard to take advantage of.  A really good hand with tactical movement can turn this into a very useful batch of extra damage, though.