Impale trash killer S25?

Demon Hunter
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As some of you might have seen, the Shadow 6-piece bonus is being buffed to allow extra Impale hits to get a 25000% bonus (the first hits still get the 75000%). What this means is that trash around the intended target will be worth more and the damage scaling in density changes from linear (assuming area damage and negligible secondary hits) to quadratic.

To make sense of this, if you attack 10 targets stacked up with say 100% area damage (in melee range so all 3 daggers hit), the damage (in terms damage without the 6-piece bonus) is about:

Damage (S24) = (3 + (10 - 1)*(0.2*100%))*101 + (3 + (10 - 1)*(0.2*100%))*9 = 528

where the 0.2 comes from the 20% area damage proc rate and the (10 - 1) term comes from the area damage applying to the 9 other targets.

However, in season 25, the damage will scale a lot more:

Damage (S25) = (3 + (10 - 1)*(0.2*100%))*101 + (3 + (10 - 1)*(0.2*100%))*9*34.333= 1968

Which is a rather large boost of almost 4x! If you then stack more targets, the relative buff is even more extreme! For 20 targets, stacked on top of each other, the S24 damage is 816 while the buffed number is 5122.33 (over a 6x boost).

Of course, this assumes every dagger hits all targets stacked exactly on top of each other, using the Overpenetration rune. For solo situations, I think Ricochet will be more desirable in most cases since a pull is not usually available.

Edit: fixed some numbers.

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Hopefully it won’t be a party killer when the pylon spawns a champion with spinners?

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Narrator: It will.

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Maybe for semi-casual pushing, but I think Overpenetration might win out on the high end?

You just need to hit >9 targets with Overpenetration for it to pull ahead of Ricochet. Even in sub-optimal conditions, that should be manageable with enough density.

Ricochet will definitely be better in low density situations with more spread out enemies, but in a really good map with small hitbox enemies that aggro well and don’t move a ton, I think Overpenetration will win out. Each dagger just needs to penetrate 3+ enemies.

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I’ve played WW/Rend Barb for the last few seasons but before that it was a few seasons worth of Shadow/Impale DH. Might be time to shake the dust off my non-seasonal DH and see what it’s like with Overpenetration doing way more damage.

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It’s nice to see the maths demonstrate precisely the quadratic scaling of a piercing impale.

However there’s little doubt in my mind that a reworked Marauders will be a far superior trash killer in groups. Or do you only mean as a solo trash killer?

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Yeah, I’m having trouble between deciding to test Marauder or Impale.

I never got to play the old Marauder when your Sentries fired your spenders automatically because the change happened just before I bought RoS. So that’s the one I’m leaning towards.

But it’s been AGES since I played Impale and that was long before the buff to HPS that added a multiplier.

The thing is, HPS is hard to roll while DML will be a lot easier to come by since you don’t have to have Discipline on it and I believe it comes with a guaranteed Crit Chance roll but I could be wrong about that second part.

So it seems that Marauder will be a lot easier to gear and also have more toughness due to Yang’s and Crimson’s.

So yeah, it might be just Marauder is the way to go as far as my testing is concerned.

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Marauder’s is going to crush it when the PTR launches – if the mechanics are comparable to what we have now, with an additional layer of auto fire, it’ll be easy to pass GR145 solo at paragon 5-6k. Not so much for groups because Multishot with Sentry can cause some serious lag, but for solo – it’ll be pretty nasty. I’m predicting most will exceed GR143+. Personally I am shooting for GR147-150.

There are two ways to compare and predict the before and after:

  • New M6 vs Old M6 At least ~25x more damage (5 sentries doing 5x more damage than the player). Multiplied the benefit of % Sentry from Rucksack and shoulder rolls, and then Enforcer. In my estimation… it’s actually 81x stronger. GR127->GR155 lol.
  • New M6 vs N6M4 11.5x more damage to most skills. The biggest benefit is the extra weapon slot, no more Nat Slayer, which means Multishot really takes the front stage. You can use Rucksack, Yang’s AND DML. To put it into perspective, with crazy fishing… N6M4 Multishot, I can clear GR123-124 solo on non-season right now. I get 11.5x more damage from shifting to M6 and using CoE, CC3 and partial Vengeance. Then… I get to attack in ALL CoE cycles, which is almost double damage 2x… then… I get actually equip Rucksack which is like 2.78x damage. Multiply it all out and I’m sitting at 63.94x otherwise 26GRs. GR123 → GR149.
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I’ll give the new suggested mantle set changes a hard pass. Forced into using overpenetration (cold) and AD, no thank you. I’ll take IAS any day of the week, as it’s guaranteed. AD leaves you stuck with the vagaries of RNG - 20% chance of AD being triggered. Even more so, overpenetration/cold has always been a crap variant of the build from hatred management point of view. This directly affects DR, since poor hatred management means =< 90% hatred, and no aquilas buff.

No thank you.

All Blizzard needed to do was to crunch the numbers and buff them. They didn’t need to do anything fancy. Yet another thing that they have stuffed up.

Next season will be season journey and hasta la vista for me. Especially after the joke season that s24 was for s6 impale players.

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It’s too bad that lag might be a stumbling block for yet another potential TK build. Remains to be tested however so let’s see.

That’s cool that you outlined all the buffs M6 would receive. I did the math myself and came out to a 25 * 1.6 * 2.3 + 1 = 93x or ~29 tier buff. Here:

  • 1.6 is Enforcer
  • 2.3 = 1.0 (base) + 1.0 (% Sentry on Rucksack) + 0.3 (% Sentry on Chest/Shoulders)
  • 1 is added to account for the player’s own damage (not multiplied by Enforcer or %Sentry)

(If the player’s own damage and % Sentry on Chest is disregarded then I also get 86x)

While this buff is awesome, I’m concerned that the playstyle will involve sentries that autocast without requiring the player to manual multishot. Then it’ll be less a multishot than pet build, which is less engaging for me.

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Haven’t hardly touched Marauder’s or Impale since GoD knows when (see what I did there?), so I’m looking forward to dusting them down and seeing what the new numbers and playstyles are like. Hell, the new shards might push these sets (and GoD) to super absurd levels of OPness in seasonal. Looks like Shadow is up for DH starter set this time round too, so gonna be a super fast start (Shadow has followed Natalya’s every time so far).

Season 24 with GoD and ethereals was a blast, hopefully the shards are just as powerful in 25 and we get a couple more competitive builds out of it too. Good times to be a DH regardless!

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Check out this old post:

About a year and half ago, I played CC3A3M4 Multishot and cleared GR110. Subtract out A3, swap in the M6 bonus… I’ll be generous 1.69x → 601x is like 355x more power, otherwise 37GRs… but we know it’s a little more… so… GR147->150 as predicted.

It looks like I was saying the same things back then too about partial Vengeance. Looking forward to seeing how it all pans out on Thursday.

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I don’t know, would it be worth it to drop CoE for ORotZ. I mean for perm Vengeance and more Wolf pops? Seems to me it’d be close to the same damage wise and you’d get more survivability?

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Would be nice if they buffed Sword of Ill Will. Playing Chakram for a change would be refreshing. And since Sentries are going to auto-fire we would not use offhand Spines of Seething Hatred because it is only generating hatred right now.

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Nobody mentioning tasker & theo

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I guess that with Ricochet is a lot easier to calculate the relative benefit, since there the number of hits has a hard cap of 9, three of which are at “initial” damage and six at “subsequent”. I would certainly imagine that with a Ricochet setup, you’ll still be playing as mostly an elite hunter.

So, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m guessing the ideal is to have all 3 of your “initial” daggers hitting the elite in the face, with the “subsequent” ricochets then dealing AD to him.

Right now, that elite would just take 303 (101 per dagger * 3 daggers)

With the buff, he’d take 474.65 (101 * 3) + (34.33 * 5)

And mobs other than the elite, within 10 yards, currently take 60.6 (101 * 3 * 0.2)

With the buff, they would take 101.8 (101 * 3 * 0.2) + (34.33 * 6 * 0.2), with the enemies actually hit by the subsequent daggers taking an additional 34.33 each, or 136.1 total.

So the elite goes from 303 —> 474.65, a 56.6% increase

6 Enemies right around him go from 60.6 —> 136.1, a 124.6% increase

And other enemies within AD range go from 60.6 —> 101.8, a 68.0% increase.

So that’s between 3 and 5 extra GRs of damage, depending on which group of enemies we’re looking at. Maybe about +4 GRs, overall, to the build?

What can Ricochet Impale clear currently?

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There are many approaches to it. For buffing Chakram and EA, I agree, keep the buff on one item, allow Dawn in the cube… maybe you could even run two different skills this way… for the autofiring Sentry.

  • Manticore has nice quality of life with Dawn.
  • Chakram and EA can mimic its damage with buffs to only Augustine and Sword of Seething Hatred.

Both Augustine’s and Sword of Seething Hatred need 3.4x more damage to match Cluster Arrow’s best runes:

CA LfB: 850% + 250% = 1100% * 4 = 44x
Chakram Razor Disk: 380% * 3.45 = 13.11x
EA Frost Arrow: 330% * 3.5 = 13.3x

The most fitting upgrades are:

Augustine’s Panacea: 250% to Slow Ball and 1100% to everything else.
Sword of Seething Hatred: 6.2% damage per point of hatred.

This is necessary to match the power of M6 Cluster Arrow – I really believe Multishot will end up being removed from M6, so we want to balance around CA.

Look at this old post where this set revision concept was born:

Clueso posts awesome ideas too. He wants to resurrect Molten Arrow. Perhaps Kridershot can transform Elemental Arrow by giving it the Molten Arrow rune, which is incompatible with Sentries… just like Hellcat Waistguard is… so Kridershot becomes exclusive to UE6. (Kridershot’s Molten Arrow mod has to do incredible damage though – essentially 40-50x damage)

Kridershot
Elemental Arrow’s Immolation Arrow transforms into Molten Arrow and deals now burns the ground for 5000% weapon damage as fire. Each enemy burned by Molten Arrow increases its weapon damage by an additional 400% for 3 seconds.

Fight a boss 1-on-1 it’s 16x more damage, fight 20 trash pieces and put fire under them, it goes to 40x, fight 30 trash pieces it’s 52x.

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I’ve done GR135 with an area damage setup with around 5700-5800 paragon on non-season.

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So, post buff, Ricochet will be clocking in at maybe 139 or so @5k, maybe 142-143 @10k…

I have to admit, I’m expecting to see Overpenetration outperform that with good maps + mobs, since you can deal significant damage to numerous targets, rather than just 9.

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It is near certainty Overpenetration will outshine Ricochet in thick density. Those little hits for 80-100T in CoE+Oculus may kill small trash every 16 seconds. GR143 trash is meaty with ~3-10Q hp. Yellow elites have 32Q hp – they do take a LONG… TIME… TO… KILL… I feel most players under 5-6k paragon are going to be on the move because staying alive is rough.

I sacrificed a dps gem to survive in GR135 and still died face-to-face against single elites. In GR143, I’m struggling to live with my high defense setup, I already lost 2GRs worth of damage in defense trades. I don’t think any 5-6k paragon player will be able to stand toe-to-toe without using Elusive Ring, which is even more DPS loss, loss of Crimson or Aughild.

Face tanking is the traditional way to play. My initial impression is that The Shadow’s Mantle set doesn’t provide enough defense to let me continue the way I used to play.

Die’s ranged setup is an obvious answer, but I don’t think that will sit well with veteran Impale players who love to stabbing elites in the throat.

They should provide a little DR mitigation in the S4 bonus. Doubling Shadow Power’s 35% DR would do the trick, that’d be 57.75% DR total when activating Shadow Power.

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