Diablo III- Skills Article XXXIV: The Demon Hunter, Primary Skills- Hungering Arrow

Hungering Arrow: Fire an enemy-seeking arrow that deals 115% weapon damage and has a 35% chance to pierce its target and select a new one.  Generates 3 Hatred.

Hungering Arrow itself is the least control-ly primary skill available to the Demon Hunter.  If you find yourself on your own a lot, this is probably going to be your Primary Skill of choice, as it lets you deal damage to whatever is nearest to you, even if you’re facing the wrong way.  Because of the nature of bows and crossbows, each individual hit with Hungering Arrow isn’t likely to be all too impressive, but the decently high rate of fire and ability to strike multiple targets regardless of the distance between them makes it an excellent way to make sure you’re killing something.  Most notably, the homing effect of the arrow only prevents it from striking the same target multiple times in a row, and only after the first 'bounce'- a lucky shot against two enemies can bounce back and forth several times.  Despite having the least control utility of the Demon Hunter's four primary skill options, this is the one that is the most overall useful, though it's a narrow competition between this and Entangling Shot- the real difference being that Hungering Arrow is a primary damage skill, where Entangling Shot sets you up to use other skills.

Puncturing Arrow: Fire an enemy-seeking arrow that deals 115% weapon damage and has a 50% chance to pierce its target and select a new one.  Generates 3 Hatred.

Puncturing Arrow is a straightforwards and very desirable option for Hungering Arrow, making it even more useful for handling large numbers of enemies, whether clustered together or not.  That 15% difference in piercing chance often means the change between hitting two targets and hitting seven, so don’t discount the small percentage as a small value.  Given what you’re likely to use Hungering Arrow for, this is likely to be your Hungering Arrow rune for a good while.

Cinder Arrow: Fire an enemy-seeking arrow that deals 115% weapon damage and 35% weapon damage as Fire damage over a three-second duration, and has a 35% chance to pierce its target and select a new one.  Generates 3 Hatred.

Cinder Arrow seems pretty awesome, tacking on a decent amount of Fire damage over time.  However, the Demon Hunter doesn’t want to be using Hungering Arrow for small numbers of targets, and when both the rune before and the rune after Cinder Arrow allow the skill to hit more targets than it would otherwise, it leaves ‘set the arrow on fire’ as a somewhat lacklustre option.  The fact that the fire damage is damage over time only compounds this- while it’s not too bad, given the Demon Hunter can easily stay out of reach for a measly three seconds, that’s three seconds of extra time the enemies are active, and not all opponents need to run up to you to hit you.

Scatter Shot: Fire an enemy-seeking arrow that deals 115% weapon damage and has a 35% chance to pierce its target and select a new one.  If the arrow pierces its first target, it splits into three arrows, but all subsequent arrows from this shot cannot benefit from that effect.  Generates 3 Hatred.

Scatter Shot is a rune that provides a similar end effect to Hungering Arrow- while it triggers less frequently, the effect is more dramatic.  The true difficulty is in saying which rune is a better option for dealing with large numbers of enemies.  A good bit of math is involved in that, and given the way that randomized things work out, it’s virtually certain that some players will be entirely justified by their own experiences in arguing against whichever rune the raw math favors.  Once you have access to Scatter Shot, you should try both it and Puncturing Arrow out and decide for yourself which one you find more appealing.

Devouring Arrow: Fire an enemy-seeking arrow that deals 115% weapon damage and has a 35% chance to pierce its target and select a new one.  Each time this piercing effect triggers, increase the damage of the arrow by 70%.  Generates 3 Hatred.

Devouring Arrow is a curious rune that is unlikely to see widespread use- if only because the 35% chance of piercing is not enough to ensure it’s going to deal large amounts of damage.  The effect is quite useful- to the point that if you can manage to benefit from it much, you may find yourself preferring it to either of the earlier ‘extra hits’ runes- but with the relative unreliability of an unimproved piercing chance, it’s kind of an iffy proposition.  Most Demon Hunters are going to prefer Puncturing Arrow or Scattering Shot.

Spray of Teeth: Fire an enemy-seeking arrow that deals 115% weapon damage and has a 35% chance to pierce its target and select a new one.  If you score a critical hit, a spray of bone erupts from the target, dealing 50% weapon damage to nearby enemies.  Generates 3 Hatred.

Spray of Teeth is the rune for using Hungering Arrow in a critical-hit focused build.  While it’s a very nice effect, and this is the only Primary Skill option that has a special affinity to critical hits, it’s not as likely to see use as Puncturing Arrow and Scatter Shot.  That said, if you can up your critical hit chances far enough, using this rune may turn out to be very worthwhile for handling masses of enemies, if you decide that you don’t want a control-effect Primary Skill or spend a lot of time dungeon delving without any other players along for the ride.