Shadow Impale Demon Hunter Skills and Runes

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Quick Reference
    • 2.1. Skill Setup
  • 3. Builds
    • 3.1. Gear Setup
    • 3.2. Legendary Gems
    • 3.3. Kanai's Cube
  • 4. Role in the Current Meta
  • 5. Reading Further
  • 6. ChangeLog
• ×Skills and Runes
  • 1. Rotation
  • 2. Skills, Runes and Passives
• +Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
  • 1. Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
  • 2. Paragon Points
  • 3. Gems
  • 4. Kanai's Cube
  • 5. Follower
• +Group Progression Variation
  • 1. Group Progression
  • 2. Adapting Skills
  • 3. Adapting Gear
  • 4. Adapting Gemming
  • 5. Adapting Kanai's Cube
• +Speed Farming Variation
  • 1. Speed Farming
  • 2. Adapting Skills
  • 3. Adapting Gear
  • 4. Adapting Gemming
  • 5. Adapting Kanai's Cube

General Information

Below, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing Shadow Impale Demon Hunter in Diablo 3. Updated for patch 2.6.1 and Season 15.

The other pages of our Shadow Impale Demon Hunter guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

Active Skills
Impale Ricochet Companion Wolf Companion 1 Vengeance Dark Heart 2 Fan of Knives Bladed Armor 3 Vault Rattling Roll 4 Shadow Power Gloom
Passive Skills
Ambush Numbing Traps Cull the Weak Awareness

1. 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 and alternate crowd control plus knockback from Vault Rattling Roll with stationary Impale spam to maximize the Endless Walk set benefits. Position and manage your resources with the Lightning cycle 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.

2. Skills, Runes and Passives

Impale is the primary damage dealer of the build, augmented by the Shadow set 6-piece bonus to deal 50 000% additional 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 the Lightning Convention of Elements cycle).

During solo GR pushes Vault is not only taken as a movement skill, but also as a source of crowd control with Rattling Roll. To sweeten the deal, the knockback of the rune will also trigger the worn Strongarm Bracers. Always keep in mind the power of the Chain of Shadows belt, 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.

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.

This concludes the overview of the Active Skills, now let us look through the 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.

About the Author

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.