Death's Toll
PASSIVE - Hitting an enemy with a Basic Attack restores 8 Health and 4 Mana. Basic Attacks that hit all enemies in melee range restore 4 Health and 2 Mana on every enemy after the first.
Y10 Spiked Gauntlet
Healing Potion
This consumable heals 250 Health over 25 seconds.
Healing Potion
This consumable heals 250 Health over 25 seconds.
Multi Potion
This consumable heals 125 Health and 75 Mana over 25 seconds.
Multi Potion
This consumable heals 125 Health and 75 Mana over 25 seconds.
Death's toll seems to be the best starter for hunters along side leather cowl, however with the passive from cupid's 3 the attack speed isn't needed from cowl, as well as death's toll having better upgrades at level 20.
Spiked gauntlet gives you a little extra power and lifesteal to help you sustain the early game better, as well as getting you closer to Devo's gauntlet sooner.
Ninja Tabi
Y10 Evolved Devourer's Gauntlet
Odysseus' Bow
PASSIVE - Every fourth Basic Attack triggers a chain lightning, damaging the target and up to 4 nearby enemies for 15 damage +60% of your total Basic Attack Power.
Qin's Sais
PASSIVE - On Basic Attack hits, deal Physical Damage equal to 1.5% of the target's maximum Health. If the target has over 2250 Health, the bonus damage scales up. This effect reaches a maximum of 6% of the targets Maximum Health at 2750 Health.
Titan's Bane
PASSIVE - Your first ability cast gains 20% Physical Penetration. This can only occur once every 5 seconds.
Death's Embrace
PASSIVE - Hitting an enemy with a Basic Attack restores 1.4% of your Health, 2% of your Mana and reduces your active non-Ultimate Cooldowns by 0.33s. Basic Attacks that deal damage in an AoE restore less health (75% for Melee Attacks, 50% for Ranged Attacks) for each enemy hit after the first and only count once for the Cooldown reduction effect.
Whether to buy boots or gauntlet first personally depends on how well the early game has gone, if you're ahead or stalemating against the enemy, i'd buy devo's first to allow you to start stacking ASAP, however if you're behind having boots before your enemy will give you a small powerspike and more survivability until you can get the rest of the build going. I prefer devo's over transendance as it provides much needed sustain.
Odysseus's bow provides a huge early game powerspike as well as helping even more with clear and team fights with it's passive. The low cost of the item compared to the stats it gives is just too good to pass up on nearly all hunter builds. I prefer this over executioner as later in the build we will be building Titan's bane, and executioner reduces the value of titan's bane 99% of the time, as for Qin's, the cost difference is usually the defining factor for which i buy first, usually being Obow, although if i have enough gold to buy Qins i would recommend picking up that as your Heart bomb should be full clearing archers at this point.
Qins will help you shred the enemy tanks a bit better as well as just increasing your DPS with power and attack speed, almost a necessity in every game with most teams having multiple tanks and the strength of health items right now.
Titan's bane provides a good mix of flat and percent penetration to really round out the build and pump up your damage.
Finally, Death's Embrace is the better of the 2 starter upgrades for this build, providing massive amounts of sustain and a lot of power to keep you alive in team fights.
Berserker's Shield
PASSIVE - While below 60% Health you become Berserk for 5s. While Berserk, you gain 5% Damage Mitigation and 20% Attack Speed. This effect can only occur once every 15 seconds.
While this build has fallen out of favour with the latest patch, skipping your devo's gauntlet's to rush berserkers shield can still be strong against a hunter warrior combo, or if you're finding that the enemy physicals are causing you issues.
Heart bomb is your only non-ultimate damaging ability so maxing this first provides you with great wave clear and poke, as well as slowing the enemy hit and stunning the area around them if you have stacked your passive.
After that i like to max Flutter. Flutter is not only a great engage/disengage team for you AND your team with the increased movement speed trail, it also grants you passive attack speed to increase your DPS as you put points into it.
Share the love isn't a great ability but it can come in handy early game to keep you healthy or keep your mana sustained. I max this last as the other 2 non ultimate abilities are just better, since each heart heals less than a health potion until max rank (Before the power scaling), even with your passive fully stacked. In game try to place the hearts by a wall for a quick burst of healing as 2 of the hearts will land on top of each other, or at least a lot closer than they normally would.
Finally Cupid's ultimate, Fields of Love, is a large AOE slow and cripple, which detonates dealing massive damage and mesmerizing any enemies caught in it for 1.5 seconds, or 3 seconds if your passive is stacked. This ultimate can completely turn fights in your favour if you manage to mesmerize the enemy carries, or better yet the whole team. The only downside is as it is a mesmerize, hitting the enemy with anything after the detonation will end the mesmerize, however if you and your team play it smart this is a great way to set up some big combos such as Poseidon or Zeus ult.
For levelling order i like to prioritise Cupid's 4, then 1, then 3, then 2. Putting points into your ult increases it's damage, and with 100% scaling it will hit the enemies hard. Then i prioritise Heart bomb as it is your primary source of damage after auto-attacks as well as being strong wave clear, poke and CC. I then max Flutter for the increased attack speed and shorter cooldown to help you escape when the fight doesn't go your way, and lastly Share the love is an OK source of sustain but it's really not worth putting points into it over any other ability as they will help you out much more.