Shadow Impale Demon Hunter Skills and Runes
On this page, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing Shadow Impale Demon Hunter in Diablo 3. Updated for patch 2.6.10 and Season 22.
Active Skills |
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Passive Skills |
Rotation
The Shadow Impale playstyle is quite different from other Demon Hunter builds,
almost exclusively pursuing Elite enemies to take advantage of its massive single
target potential, and skipping many disadvantageous trash fights. When in need of
immediate crowd control, or simply to move through the rift at an efficient pace,
do not forget to pre-cast Impale — this will make
Vault
free for 2 seconds with the power of
Chain of Shadows. When you come across
an elite that you consider killable, focus it down with carefully positioned
Impale spam to maximize the
Holy Point Shot shotgun effect and your
Endless Walk set benefits. Position and manage your resources with the cycles of
Convention of Elements and the damage increase of
Wolf Companion in
mind, as the two buffs active at the same time make up your big burst window.
Shadow Power needs to be activated only once per run, but you will have
to manually reapply your other two defensive buffs —
Vengeance and
Fan of Knives
Bladed Armor — as soon as they are off cooldown.
Skills and Runes
Impale is the primary damage dealer of the build, augmented by the
Shadow set 6-piece bonus to inflict
massively boosted damage on the first target hit, resulting in the signature
assassination playstyle. While other rune choices (such as the cold
Overpenetration) are viable, the lightning rune
Ricochet
is generally preferred for its consistency (bouncing daggers vs narrow lined
shots), as well as its additional hits proccing the unique property of
Karlei's Point dagger, ensuring resource stability.
The swiss knife Companion skill takes on a role of a damage buff by
taking the
Wolf Companion rune, providing you with a sizable
multiplicative damage increase. While the
Wolf Companion buff sports a
generous 10-second uptime, this build runs a moderate amount of Cooldown
Reduction on gear — so try to reserve the
Companion active for key
moments (preferably your chosen
Convention of Elements cycle).
During solo GR pushes Vault is quite necessary in order to find,
navigate or simply skip fights; as for the rune, you can either go with the
cheap
Tumble (saving yourself some
Chain of Shadows interplay when
inconvenient), or with the crowd control of
Rattling Roll. Always keep in
mind the power of the
Chain of Shadows belt (see this build's gear page for more information), allowing you to
negate the Discipline cost of
Vault for a 2-second window after using
Impale, allowing you to cover significant ground for free.
Unsurprisingly, Shadow Power is a major part of a Shadow set playstyle,
as the 4-piece set bonus grants you the effects of all the runes and makes the
skill last forever. This makes the rune choice purely cosmetic, since they
produce differently colored wings. You should activate
Shadow Power
immediately upon entering the rift to passively enjoy its damage reduction
bonuses, movement speed increase, and increased Life per Hit that notably scales
with your Life on Kill from gear. Remember that the benefits of
Night Bane
will still only apply for the listed 5 seconds, so you can use
Shadow Power as a situational 8 Discipline active skill to proc
Bane of the Trapped,
Cull the Weak and
Numbing Traps.
The class staple Vengeance reinforces dominance in yet another build,
favored by Impale Demon Hunters for the 50% damage reduction of the
Dark Heart rune. Its crowd control immunization properties will also allow
you to run the strong protection of
Stone Gauntlets in the Cube, while
negating the item's considerable downsides. Note that early on in character
progression, as you are still getting used to the build, you can run the
Seethe rune in this slot and use
Visage of Gunes in the Cube. This
will allow you to manage your resources more freely, while still retaining the
considerable protection necessary for endgame content.
You can adjust your final active skill slot according to content. In solo
Greater Rift pushes, consider taking
Fan of Knives for the toughness boost of
Bladed Armor — you
can make it permanent with a minor CDR investment, and it offers perfect synergy
with
Numbing Traps and
Cull the Weak. Another strong, but
considerably glassier option for high-end GR pushing is
Marked for Death
Contagion for cheap source of extra damage versus afflicted
enemies. Last but not least, you can introduce a generator to the build —
i.e.
Grenade
Cold Grenade for an easy
Cull the Weak proc — so
you can use a more offense-oriented jewelry combo like
Focus and
Restraint during GR speed farming.
This concludes the overview of the Active Skills, now let us look through the Passives.
Passives
Demon Hunters are notoriously frail, and the Shadow Hunter playstyle has the
odds stacked against it with its daredevil dive in, dive out gameplay.
Unsurprisingly, Awareness comes with the highest recommendation,
serving as a cheat death on a standard 60-second cooldown.
Cull the Weak is taken in both solo and group GR progression for the 20%
multiplicative damage increase against Slowed or Chilled enemies. In groups, said
crowd control will be applied by support party members. When soloing, it needs to
be applied passively in point blank range from the 15-yard
Bane of the Trapped slow, and active use of
Fan of Knives and
Shadow Power.
While you solo push and farm, Ambush will be a great addition against
single target, higher health enemies like Champions and Rift Guardians. Its 40%
bonus damage against the first 25% of the target health pool is multiplicative in
nature, allowing you to chew through the first quarter of the fight very
efficiently.
Your final passive slot will vary according to content. In solo GR progression,
it is recommended you take Numbing Traps for the consistent 25% damage
reduction from surrounding enemies. During GR speed farm, you would take
Tactical Advantage in this slot for the speed boost.
Changelog
- 18 Nov. 2020: No changes required for Season 22.
- 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: Changed default run for Vault.
- 23 Aug. 2019: Reviewed for Season 18.
- 16 May 2019: Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
- 17 Jan. 2019: Updated for Season 16.
More Demon Hunter Guides
Builds from Other Classes
Farming Guides
This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.
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