S6 impale + s25 shards thoughts

Demon Hunter
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Just looking at the maxroll.gg PTR notes for s25:

Sliver of terror (prime evil shard - socketed into helm) seems to be the best option for s6 impale:

Rank 0:

potentially 4 skills on cooldown (shadow power; fan of knives, vengeance & companion)

4* 12.5% DR for 50% DR

75% damage * 4 (skills) for 300% dmg bonus

Rank 1 options:

270-300 flat Damage
130-150% Critical Damage
20-25% Elite Damage
28,000-30,000 Life on Hit
38,000-40,000 Thorns

Which One of these would be the best? I’m leaning towards 130-150% CHD.

Rank 2:

12-15% Attack Speed
25-50% Damage
7-10% Crit Chance
50-75% random Elemental Damage

Random elemental damage (lightning) would be best choice I think. Applies to mobs and elites and RGKs. I’d really have to look at what the break points would be for the IAS increase. Random elemental damage trumps the 25-50% damage. Or, am I missing something? I typically get CHC to around 55% most seasons, so not entirely sure how much DPS buff would be given by another 7-10% CHC.

Rank 3:

lightning (or fire) bonus 50% dmg if >= 3 skills on cooldown. This sounds like the best option to me. Unless I am missing something.

Lesser evil shards - which One (socketed into weapons)?

Remnant of pain - lose 15%chc but if incapicating enemies (i.e. cold dmg) it’s a guaranted CHC. Would cold dmg on karleis point qualify for this?

One final thing, maxroll.gg says for s6 impale:

“This buffs Shadow by approximately 5-7 tiers, and also makes it into a more normal build and less of an elite hunter. As a side effect, all runes except Overpenetration become unplayable.”

I fail to see why this would be the case? Would not ricochet (lightning) rune take advantage of the additional damage to targets beyond the first target? The bonus in my eyes is that this maintains hatred better than the overpenetration rune, meaning Aquila’s cuirass is better able to maintain its damage reduction bonus, given your character better survivability.

What are everyone else’s thoughts?

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You get all the rank 1 options at once. It’s giving you the effect as if you had all 5 gem types socketed. The same applies for helm gems (you get RCR, CDR, XP, gold find, and life%).

Sliver of Terror is a helm shard though, so you get the helm gem effects on it, not the weapon gem effects. You get all 5 weapon gem effects on weapon shards and all 5 helm gem effects on helm shards.

It’s between elemental damage and % damage for basically any build. Most builds benefit more from the elemental damage. The % damage can be better for a build that doesn’t have much/any flat damage (e.g. not dual wield, no flat damage on rings, no mojo/source/phylactery) AND stacks extra elemental damage (e.g. LoD builds). On a DH with a quiver, and assuming you are wielding a weapon + quiver (not dual weield) and don’t have flat damage on rings, 75% elemental damage and 50% damage are equivalent when you have 50% elemental damage baseline (so amulet + bracers + enchantress). If you have more than 50% elemental damage (unlikely outside of LoD builds), then the 50% damage shard should be a bit better. If you have flat damage on rings, then the 75% elemental damage should be a bit better.

You may run into a situation where you use the % damage one for a bit even if it’s not optimal because it could take a while until you manage to get a shard with a high roll on the specific elemental type you need. The difference between the two isn’t huge, so it’s okay to use a % damage one to start until you start optimizing for a high tier push.

No.

‘Incapacitated’ means Frozen/Stunned etc. Slows/chills are not sufficient. And cold damage on a weapon doesn’t apply slows/chills anyway, you need a specific skill that does. But either way, slows/chills don’t count for this shard effect so it doesn’t matter. EDIT: Unless you use it with the secondary shard effect where cold skills can freeze. But I believe it has to be a cold skill for that, cold damage on weapon won’t make it work.

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The first sentence was written before the “buff” to chemical burn. I personally have chemical burn slightly higher than overpenetration by maybe half a GR or so. The difference is so small for the vast majority of players that either route is fine and more of a preference/playstyle.

As far as ricochet is concerned, people don’t believe in it because it’s capped at 9 targets total. In a high GR push, you’ll almost be surrounded/encountering more than 9 targets at a time, which scales better with the other two runes as they’re “uncapped”

What’s not talked about is that in most case scenarios outside of high GR pushing, ricochet preforms just fine and perhaps easier to get the most out of since ricochet automatically bounces to the nearest targets without having to line them up or gather tight density.

For the casual player, ricochet is just fine, and one will be able to meet whatever personal goals they set with it. If you’re a paragon blaster and have your sets on the top end of the LB’s and don’t mind dropping a few hundred keys for that high clear, then chemical burn or overpenetration will outperform ricochet in the best case fished scenarios.

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Ahh, I missed that on the maxroll.gg page, thanks for pointing it out. Even easier then, no choice to make!

That was my gut feeling too. I’ll usually have elemental dmg on ammy, quiver and bracers. Of late I have been going for IAS on rings rather than flat dmg, to get to the next break point, especially with the revamped follower getting Cains 3 set and +8% IAS.

I’m not much of a maths behind the game scenes type of person, I personally think that ruins the game. I saw the same stuff happening with D&D back in the day. it made playing the game a lot less fun for me imho.

I suspected as much, but hey, I can dream, right? LOL. I had hoped it’d be kinda like FB wiz and the elemental exposure passive. But, it was a stretch and a dream on my part.

Saying that though, the maxroll.gg site says “Classes that can’t normally deal Poison damage can still activate this effect by rolling their (or their follower’s) weapon damage range to Poison”. If that is the case, how is that different to me rolling poison on a karleis (actually, I don’t think you can roll poison on a karleis, so scratch that idea). I guess using the follower to proc the shard is the only way.

Not having access to the PTR on consoles really hurts us - we don’t have the same advantage as PC players do to test pre-season stuff.

yes, but you have to line them up…you rarely get 9+ mobs in a nice straight line ready to slice ‘n’ dice…at least, not from my experiences with the game.

The other issue is that console players have far worse mob density than the PC players of the game.

What exactly was changed with chemical burn? AFAIK, the rune was never broken pre s25? Or was it?

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Console is the key here. Maxroll and most content creators are primarily PC focused and are probably not as familiar with console differences. What I stated about each rune applies to PC. Even in less density, I still believe chemical burn is slightly favorable over ricochet as it’s also capable of clearing trash “decently” while being able to kill the RG without stricken (you’ll need stricken for the other 2 runes)

I made a thread/video of my rank 1 clear on PTR using chemical burn and explaining the mechanics. It’s the thread right below this one.

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I’ll have to wait till the patch drops on PS4 before being able to test it.

Yeah, just watched it. Have had it queued up to watch for the past 2 days but concentration issues at my end man. I find it hard to sit down and watch stuff and get very easily distracted. It’s not your content, it’s me. I’m getting worse as I get older.

Interesting build though, no shadow power, no vault and squirts/FR combo. Don’t think I’ll like the changes myself, but will test it out when the patch drops. How did you avoid proccing awareness with those dervishes near the end of the GR? Looked like you were firing at them but not proccing…

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It’s the route that I chose when I did my clear. Main point was to talk about chemical burn mechanics and showcase the rune in action. In my s25 DH guide, I’ll go into detail the many different options/playstyles.

Dervishes and dwellers reflect on the same path you shot from, so as long as you’re not where you were when you shot your projectile, you won’t get hit. Since I was playing this at ranged, I just stutter stepped, which naturally puts me at less risk of being in the same path. Won’t be the same case playing up close of course.

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Ahh, interesting, I thought the reflect [from dervishes] was auto targeting? We can’t stutter step on consoles. Whilst I play melee impale, one does have to learn to kite sometimes and play from a distance. :slight_smile:

Just spent some time getting a new SC NS character to clvl 70. I don’t have any fire based off hand or AD gloves, or a restraint ring, but will easily be able to get that gear via rare upgrades. I’ll have to have another look at your skills on the video, so I can best mimic it for testing purposes. Of course, no PTR on consoles, so no shards and it will obviously be seriously weaker since no s25 changes either. Good practice though and I’ll be able to see if I like the build, etc.

On a different note, since I play HC, I presume that you would make changes to your testing setup to allow for that? If so, what are your thoughts on a HC friendly variant? I play companion ==> boar on HC, diamonds in sockets. Your testing variant lacks elusive ring (big drop in DR) and shadow power (another big drop), neither of which are viable for a HC character.

edit:

Had a quick play (SC) with fire, GR100, p2800, definitely a no goer for me. hatred management is truly horrid. No elusive ring. Fragile as.

I was using FOK and shadow power and smoke screen. Augments on most of my gear (between 110-115), gems also between 110-120.

It doesn’t help that mob density on console is poor vs PC, and we have the stupid NG half dmg mechanic to deal with (half dmg vs PC until we get a kill streak of 10 and get a NG globe drop, after that we match PC dmg output until NG runs out).

I think I shall stick to my usual lightning/ricochet rune.

I am still really not happy with the lesser shard options. None of them really suit shadow impale build imho.

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You don’t mean to say that the attack speed from Cain’s emanates on console?

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as far as I know it does.

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On the Cain’s and Sage’s sets, only the 3-piece bonuses are supposed to emanate. The Attack Speed bonus on Cain’s set is part of the 2-piece bonus, so shouldn’t be emanating. If it is on console, that’s a console-specific bug, as it doesn’t on PC.

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I thought that the 2 and 3 piece set bonuses would emanate? Having only the 3 piece emanate is just illogical, but hey, it is Blizzard…

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Not really, as it’s the 3-piece bonuses which grant extra DBs and GR keys, i.e. it’s to make solo farming more beneficial, not for extra power when solo-pushing GRs.

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I beg to differ. Again, poor design from Blizzard. They do seem to really excel at that!

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Back on the bashing track again, I see? You can get increased attack speed from the enchantress - from one of her skills.
If you use the enforcer gem she is able to survive with the all skills token and if she wears mutilation guard and esoteric (and you can give her items with life on hit, amethyst in helmet and in weapon etc) she’ll survive better.

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yeah I know about the extra IAS from the enchantress. Good tips on the additional stuff though. I rarely use her, kind of a templar fan lol.

edit:

maxroll.gg s6 impale build guide for s25 is suggesting to get poison damage on your karlies point dagger:

https://maxroll.gg/guides/shadow-impale-demon-hunter-guide

" For the Rank 3 power take the 50% increased Poison Damage, which actually applies to all damage done! Hint : Make sure to get a Poison Damage Range on your Weapon so it can proc the shard automatically."

I asked this before in this thread and was told no…so, was I right? Or, is the maxroll page wrong?

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