Shadow Impale Demon Hunter BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

Last updated on Jan 08, 2024 at 09:00 by Deadset 72 comments

Below, we detail the items and gems that you should use for your Shadow Impale Demon Hunter in Diablo 3 and why. We also list your paragon points and Kanai's Cube items. Updated for Patch 2.7.7 and Season 30.

1.

Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives

The build incorporates the complete Shadow's Mantle set bonuses, taking five of the six available Shadow set pieces, and then adding two pieces of the craftable Aughild's Authority set — Aughild's Search Aughild's Search and one more of your choosing, according to your weakest Shadow set roll (either Aughild's Power Aughild's Power, Aughild's Rule Aughild's Rule, or Aughild's Spike Aughild's Spike). You will attain the complete set bonuses of this two-set amalgamation via Ring of Royal Grandeur Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube. The BiS roll for The Shadow's Grasp The Shadow's Grasp includes double Crit stats alongside Dexterity and Attack Speed. Full Toughness stats are preferred on The Shadow's Bane The Shadow's Bane and The Shadow's Coil The Shadow's Coil. Area Damage and CDR rolls are greatly desired on The Shadow's Burden The Shadow's Burden. Seek out additional Impale % bonus on both The Shadow's Mask The Shadow's Mask and The Shadow's Heels The Shadow's Heels.

Not skipping on any of the pieces required to obtain the 6 piece set bonus of The Shadow's Mantle opens a powerful offensive combo in the jewelry: the Endless Walk set, The Compass Rose The Compass Rose ring and The Traveler's Pledge The Traveler's Pledge amulet. This 2.4 rework adds a unique mechanic that slowly increases your damage by up to a 100% if you remain stationary, and drains it away and increases your damage reduction while moving. This dynamic fits the Shadow DH playstyle, as you alternate between Vault Vault bursts of movement with periods of stationary Impale Impale spam (see this build's skills page for more information).

Your other ring slot will be taken by Convention of Elements Convention of Elements, whose rotation of elemental bonuses you will have to keep under close scrutiny. Once the sequence reaches the appropriate element, you will enjoy a significant increase to your damage — so try to adopt a strategy of drawing monster attention during the off cycles, and major Impale Impale spam during your strongest cycle. A safer alternative for the slot is the Elusive Ring Elusive Ring, a Patch 2.4 addition that reduces incoming damage by 60% after casting a mobility skill — a vital bonus you will easily keep up by Vault Vaulting at least once every 8 seconds.

Helpfully named after the set it fits, the Chain of Shadows Chain of Shadows belt adds a powerful mobility tool for solo GR progress and speed farming: free Vault Vaulting for 2 seconds after using Impale Impale. This power single-handedly allows you to cross great distances, while ignoring the limitations of your Discipline pool.

Reworked into a definite best-in-slot for Impale builds in Patch 2.5, the Holy Point Shot Holy Point Shot quiver is a mandatory piece that practically triples your damage output, along with a smattering of Impale Impale skill damage on top. An ideal roll would include your preferred elemental damage and Impale % alongside the usual high Dexterity, Attack Speed and Crit Chance.

The best-in-slot weapon for the build is the Impale-specific Karlei's Point Karlei's Point dagger; where it lacks in flashy damage bonuses, it more than makes up with a Hatred-refunding effect that cements your resource management despite the costly (and otherwise unsustainable) main spender of the build. An ideal roll would feature Attack Speed alongside high Damage range, Damage % and Dexterity.

1.1.

Alterations During Solo GR Farming

When you are solo speed farming Greater Rifts, you can make certain gear alterations to make your time easier and more efficient:

  • The Endless Walk set will be too defensive for speedier content, so you should move the Convention of Elements Convention of Elements to the cube and equip the all-out offense Bastions of Will set — Focus Focus and Restraint Restraint. Notice that this set requires the use of a generator skill, and as we recommend in the Skills page, Grenade Grenade Cold Grenade Cold Grenade will be a great candidate for your adjustable 6th slot. Finish off the jewelry with the Shrine lengthening powers of The Flavor of Time The Flavor of Time.
  • Dropping the RoRG necessitates that you equip the full 6 pieces of the Shadow set and lose the Aughild's bonuses; in order to make up your defense losses and make the most of your included generator skill, simply take Wraps of Clarity Wraps of Clarity as your bracer.
1.2.

Desired Stats, Breakpoints and Other Notes

Rolls-wise, this Impale Impale-centric playstyle takes good advantage of Skill and Area Damage affixes. You will be trying to reach at least a 37% CDR breakpoint for permanent uptime of Vengeance Vengeance, attainable from Paragon points, Flawless Royal Diamond Flawless Royal Diamond in the helm, a fully stacked Gogok of Swiftness Gogok of Swiftness gem, and 1 other item with a max CDR roll, distributed as you see fit (i.e. on shoulders). However you will do well to bump up your CDR past the 40% barrier (with one more CDR roll on gear), in order to reach permanent uptime of the 40% armor buff from Fan of Knives Fan of Knives Bladed Armor Bladed Armor.

For Defense stats, aim for a life pool between 500-600k; dropping as much as you can for offense as you grow accustomed to the build. You will mostly sustain through Life per Hit on gear, with one high roll in your setup (i.e. bracer).

All augmentations on gear should be done with your main stat, Dexterity.

Note that the stat suggestions below portray an ideally rolled item with stats listed in relative order of importance. The first four of them are main stats, and the latter two — secondary stats. If your item lacks and is unable to be rerolled into the primary stats outlined below, especially for a stat higher on the list, strongly consider its replacement. Perfecting Secondary stats is mostly a case of hyper-optimization and is not a case for discarding an item, except where noted.

Slot Pieces Stat Priority
Head
  1. Dexterity
  2. Socket
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Impale %
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Shoulders
  1. Dexterity
  2. Area Damage %
  3. Cooldown Reduction
  4. All Resistance or Vitality
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
  6. Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Torso
  1. Dexterity
  2. Vitality
  3. 3 Sockets
  4. Elite Damage Reduction
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Wrists
  1. Dexterity
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Cold Damage %
  4. Life per Hit or Vitality
  5. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
  6. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Hands
  1. Dexterity (replaced by Area Damage at High Paragons)
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Critical Hit Damage
  4. Attack Speed
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Waist
  1. Dexterity
  2. Vitality
  3. All Resistance
  4. Life %
  5. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
  6. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Legs
  1. Dexterity
  2. 2 Sockets
  3. Vitality
  4. All Resistance
  5. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
  6. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Feet
  1. Dexterity
  2. Vitality
  3. All Resistance
  4. Impale Damage %
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
  6. Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Ring #1
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Critical Hit Damage
  4. Area Damage or Attack Speed
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Ring #2
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Critical Hit Damage
  4. Area Damage or Attack Speed
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Amulet
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Cold Damage %
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Weapon
  1. Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift Ramaladni's Gift)
  2. High Weapon Damage
  3. Dexterity
  4. Damage %
  5. Increased Attack Speed
  6. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Off-hand
  1. Dexterity
  2. Crit Chance
  3. Cold Damage %
  4. Impale Damage %
  5. Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)

To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two very useful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide to help you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear and a Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.

1.3.

Altar of Rites

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

Altar of Rites Planner

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

2.

Paragon Points

In the Core section, max out Movement Speed to the 25% cap (normally this is done by dumping the first 50 Core Paragon points into Movement Speed, but if your boots have an imperfect roll with Movement Speed as a stat that you cannot replace, adjust the necessary point investment accordingly by simply subtracting your roll from the 25% max.) After that dump as much as you comfortably can into Dexterity, but feel free to invest into Vitality if you feel yourself lacking in toughness, or Maximum Hatred if you want to play around with a bigger resource pool.

In the Offense section, max out Cooldown Reduction, Attack Speed, Crit Damage and Crit Chance in that order. In Defense, prioritize All Resistance, then Life %, then Armor, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, build up Area Damage and Life on Hit first, then finish off with Resource Cost Reduction and Globe Radius.

Slot Paragon Points
Core
  1. Movement Speed up to 25% cap
  2. Dexterity
  3. Maximum Hatred (up to personal preference)
  4. Vitality
Offense
  1. Cooldown Reduction
  2. Attack Speed
  3. Critical Hit Damage
  4. Critical Hit Chance
Defense
  1. All Resistance
  2. Life %
  3. Armor
  4. Life Regeneration
Utility
  1. Area Damage
  2. Life on Hit
  3. Resource Cost Reduction
  4. Globe Radius
3.

Gems

Bane of the Trapped Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. The gem procs itself with its level 25 property when in melee range, where Shadow DHs mostly fight; it can otherwise be triggered by an activation of Shadow Power Shadow Power Night Bane Night Bane in mid range, or through a follower's Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker.

Gogok of Swiftness Gogok of Swiftness is one of your socketed staples, indirectly providing you with more damage and survivability by increasing Cooldown Reduction for essential breakpoints, Attack Speed for faster Impale output, as well as scaling Dodge chance.

Bane of the Powerful Bane of the Powerful's duration scales very well with levels, and having a low uptime on a decently leveled gem is a telling sign that the rift is unfavorable for a solo Impale DH anyway (winding layout, lacking density, insufficient or overly dangerous elites). The gem's default 20% damage increase has been reworked into multiplicative, and the level 25 bonus now increases AND reduces elite damage by 15%, making it a well-rounded choice for the build. For extremely high end pushing however, you will need to gamble on high density rifts where the scaling Attack Speed prowesss of Pain Enhancer Pain Enhancer triumphs over your other options with the sheer number of Impale Impales you will output per second.

When it comes to gear gems, you will start out progression by slotting the highest available level of Emeralds in the chest and pants sockets. Ideally, these will all be Flawless Royal Emerald Flawless Royal Emeralds as soon as possible. As you grow in Paragon (bulking up Dexterity in the Core section) and aim for higher tier and more dangerous GRs, you will transition those gems into the defensive Flawless Royal Diamond Flawless Royal Diamond. There is no specific breakpoint where you do that; the rule of thumb is to make the change as soon as you feel the lack of toughness impede your progress. Since you are chasing a specific CDR breakpoint, slot a Flawless Royal Diamond Flawless Royal Diamond in your helm. In your weapon, use a Flawless Royal Emerald Flawless Royal Emerald for the Crit Damage boost.

3.1.

Season 30 Soul Shards

In Season 30, your helm and weapon sockets will be taken over by the supremely powerful Soul Shards. For this variant, we recommend the following:

  • HelmSliver of Terror with "Your Attack Speed and Critical Hit Chance are increased by 5% for each skill on cooldown" as its Rank 3 power. For optimization benefits, aim for Dexterity or Melee/Ranged Damage Reduction on its Rank 2 roll.
  • WeaponEssence of Anguish with "When you kill an enemy, you deal damage done by the death blow to all enemies within 25 yards" as its Rank 3 power. For optimization benefits, aim for Cold (or Fire) Skills % Increase or Weapon Damage Increase on its Rank 2 roll. Note that Essence of Anguish requires dealing Poison damage to trigger its Base Power; in this build, you accomplish this either by re-rolling the weapon damage range (the two numbers displayed just under the big total DPS number; the first Primary stat roll of any weapon) of your own weapon to Poison, or doing the same to your Follower's weapon.
Slot Gems
Jewelry
Helm
Torso and Pants
Weapon

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

4.

Kanai's Cube

A cubed Dawn Dawn reduces Vengeance Vengeance's cooldown by the maximum 65%, allowing for permanent uptime with a modest investment into Cooldown Reduction — an opportunity you cannot pass up with Vengeance Vengeance's damage, resource and protection bonuses.

Stone Gauntlets Stone Gauntlets are one of the most effective protective pieces in the game, bumping your armor by 50% at a significant (and stacking) mobility penalty — one which you will completely negate with the crowd control immunization aspect of Vengeance Vengeance. Note that if you are running a more beginner-friendly version of this build, you can swap this slot out for Visage of Gunes Visage of Gunes to attain the Dark Heart Dark Heart rune of Vengeance Vengeance for free, and use the Seethe Seethe rune on your bar to make resource management more care-free.

In the Shadow's Mantle / Aughild mixture, you will need a Ring of Royal Grandeur Ring of Royal Grandeur: a cache legendary ring from Act I bounties, to tie the three sets together. The ability to run with one full 6-piece set bonus and an additional 3-piece bonus, dodging the undesirable guaranteed stats on the Grandeur by cubing its power, is a tremendous boost to the build.

The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Please refer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.

5.

Follower

The recommended follower for this build during solo GR progression is the Enchantress due to her cooldown reduction buff from Prophetic Harmony Prophetic Harmony, as well as the Focused Mind Focused Mind attack speed buff.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our Follower Guide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear of your follower.

6.

Legendary Potion

The preferred potion for this build is Bottomless Potion of the Leech Bottomless Potion of the Leech due to its Life per Hit bonuses, which synergize perfectly for the high attack speed and sustain-through-attacks playstyle of the build.

7.

Changelog

  • 08 Jan. 2024: Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 13 Sep. 2023: Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
  • 22 Feb. 2023: Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
  • 26 Aug. 2022: Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
  • 13 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
  • 09 Dec. 2021: Guide revised and added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 21 Jul. 2021: No changes required for Season 24.
  • 01 Apr. 2021: Added follower recommendation.
  • 18 Nov. 2020: Added S22 Cube recommendation.
  • 06 Jul. 2020: Reverted guide recommendation back to the lightning version of the build; included additional clarifications for variant playstyles of the build.
  • 30 Jun. 2020: No changes required for Season 21.
  • 12 Mar. 2020: No changes necessary for Season 20.
  • 21 Nov. 2019: Added 2 pieces of Aughild's set. Replaced Kanai's Cube jewelry recommendation to Ring of Royal Grandeur as a result. Expanded the stat priorities, paragon points, and gems sections. Added a potion section.
  • 23 Aug. 2019: Reviewed for Season 18.
  • 16 May 2019: Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
  • 17 Jan. 2019: Added suggestions for the baseline Ring of Royal Grandeur for Seasonal characters.
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