Season 25 Shadow Starter Guide

This isn’t a leveling guide. This is for after you’ve reached level 70 through your own play or having had a power level. There’re several leveling guides on YouTube and what not if that’s what you’re looking for.

For a more in-depth guide about what your build should look like when completed see this thread by DiEoxiDe here.

Here, I’ll be laying out some substitute items you can use while you’re hunting the standard items for the Shadow Set.

You can get a Karlei’s Point or Lord Greenstone’s Fan incredibly easy through the cube so I’m going to assume you probably have one or the other equipped and the other might be in the cube.

Shadow is one of the easier sets to build toward but in the beginning, you still might have trouble getting a specific item. Or something might be out of grasp for a bit.

Off-hands

Shields and Quivers

You might have trouble getting a Holy Point Shot with good stats, so equipping another quiver that you’ve crafted or looted might be necessary at first or might be looking for some extra defense if you don’t have a Dawn.

Emimei’s Duffel

It gives a boost to bola’s and can be combined with Leonine’s in the cube for an ability to pull mobs together for an Impale throw or unleashing a Fan of Knives.

Archfiend Arrows

And easy to craft quiver is good. One with guaranteed Increased Elite Damage and crit chance is even better.

Hallowed Protector or Wall of Man Shield

Don’t knock it. In the early game, a shield comes in real handy when you’re constantly in melee range. A shield can mimic Fortress Ballista with its block chance and stats like Reduce damage from elites. Additionally, you can transmog your dagger into a spear and go all Game of Thrones Unsullied on the demon hordes. Not bad for a fantasy trope. Wall of Man even comes with a legendary power that’ll give you a 10% defense boost 30% of the time.

Additionally, you might have come across a Storm Shield and its higher block chance and reduced incoming melee damage is a great boon in the early game.

Shields can also come with a reduce elite damage affix. Really helpful in the early game.

Looking good: Check
Practical: Check

That’s a pretty good start. Of course, you’ll probably replace this with an HPS as soon as you can, but in the meantime, there’s nothing wrong with having a little fun with the gearing process.

Jewelry

Maybe you’re having trouble with getting an Endless Walk Set or Bastions of Will or Elusive Ring.

Good replacements in the early game are…

Justice Lantern

Especially if you’re going with a shield. You get an increased Block Chance and a defense boost of up to 55% of your block chance. Not bad to start with.

Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac

A guaranteed attack speed roll is pretty good, add to that guaranteed crit chance and cooldown or resource reduction and getting good uptime on Vengence is well within reach. Having one of the Soul Shards that reduce cooldowns as one of their effects will help this even more.

If it’s one of the Jewelry sets, you’re having trouble getting perhaps you’ve received an Elusive Ring with its up to 60% damage reduction when using Vault, Shadow Power, or Smoke Screen or Convention of Elements with damage multiplier that equates to 50% improved damage. Definitely equip them if you have them. Combined with Squirt’s and Molten Wildebeast’s Gizzard and you should have pretty good uptime on your Squirt’s, especially with Elusive. Even just a little shield will be pretty powerful with an Elusive Ring in the Early Game.

Belts

There’re three options here.

Captain Crimson’s

If you can assemble a Captain Crimson’s through the belt and pants or boots with Ring of Royal Grandeur, go for it. Gives you pretty good resource reduction for vaulting, a defense boost and a damage boost, all crucial in the early game. It can really help your shield if you’re leveling a Gizzard because you got it before a Bane of the Trapped or Zei’s.

Hunter’s Wrath

If you’re running with an Emimei’s because you haven’t got an HPS yet, the extra damage and attack speed of your bolas is very handy.

Chain of Shadow

Free vaults when I use Impale, you say? Why yes, I will have one of those. lol

Bracers

Strong Arm Bracers
Extra Damage when I vault with Rattling Roll. Awesome Sauce.

Lacuni Prowlers
Free guaranteed attack speed roll is very useful with the Shadow Set. Daggers are a bit faster than Bows and Two-Handed Crossbows but slower than 1 handed crossbows so stacking increased attack speed can be helpful in the early game and even some in the late game.

Wraps of Clarity
Defense boost when I use a Primary. Hell, I’ll take it especially if I don’t have a Holy Point Shot yet and am running around with an Emimei’s.

Aughild’s

Though using Aughild’s isn’t the best option early, if you’re planning to be using Aughild’s later in the season, crafting some early in the season isn’t a waste of time. Aughild’s defense boost against white creatures and elites is great for Shadow. And the damage increase to elites is a stat you’re looking for when using Shadow because it’s so good against single targets.

Cube Options

Visage of Gunes

If you’ve got a Dawn, the having the defense of Vengeance Dark Heart while using Vengeance Seethe is very useful when you’re struggling with keeping Hatred up.

Aquila

If you’ve got no trouble keeping hatred up, this item in the cube is a great defense boost.

Illusionary Boots

Not the best option, they can be helpful in situations where you’re trapped by waller or surrounded by enemies and using vault isn’t an option because you don’t have Chain of Shadows or vault not being on your bar.

Fortress Ballista

The 30% Life Shield is a straight buff to your defense that you get for just attacking. If using a Squirt’s Necklace, Fortress Ballista can help keep the necklace’s buff up and is really useful if you haven’t got a Dawn yet.

Blood Shard Spending Strategy

You’ll probably want to start out with Quiver’s for that necessary HPS. Once you get one with the right Elemental Damage, you can move on for the time being.

Then, if you’re choosing not to go with Crimson’s you’ll want a Chain of Shadows. Or even if you are going with CC3, a CoS in the cube is a get if you’re forgoing Aquila. So, belts it is.

Periodically you’ll be crafting rare daggers upgrading them in the cube. So hopefully it won’t take long to get a really good ancient Karlei’s or even a Primal.

You’ll probably be going jewelry next. Some say it isn’t worth it to gamble jewelry but getting a handful of rares through Kadala and upgrading either rings or amulets in the cube should net either Bastions of Will, Endless Walk, or one of the rings or amulets I mentioned in the Jewelry Section.

All in all, even without the standard build, you should be doing GR 80’s, 90’s or even 100’s with the new Shadow Set almost right out of the gate and you’ll be well on your way to get the standard set up pretty early. But perhaps, you’re one of those fellas that enjoy messing around with the gearing process and prolonging it a bit because something looks cool or fills some sort of fantasy you indulge in, like me.

Point is, Have fun with it! And as always, Happy Hunting!

This has been a message from your friendly neighborhood Verdantian Death Dancer.

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Thanks for the tips!  

A few minor typos. (Maybe not worth editing).

Look like? Be like?

see this thread by DiEoxidE here.

or

see DiEoxidE’s thread here.

Karlei’s Point

Emimei’s Duffel

Zei’s

Emimei’s

Emimei’s

Aquila

Karlei’s

Blizzard Entertainment doesn’t seem to follow the standard (English) spelling rule of: i before e except after c.  


These tips will be especially helpful for someone like me, who rarely plays The Shadow’s Set.
And, Good Hunting to you as well !  



Asᴋ ɴᴏᴛ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜʀ ɢʀᴏᴜᴘ ᴄᴀɴ ᴅᴏ ꜰᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ
- ᴀsᴋ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ ᴅᴏ ꜰᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜʀ ɢʀᴏᴜᴘ

I do not hide from my enemies.
I do not run from my foes.
I seek them out; I hunt them down;
and then they’re quickly disposed.

~ 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑢𝑠𝑜𝑒

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Thanks for helping me clean up the post grammatically. Really appreciate that.

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I have typically found these items very hard to find at the start of the season:

  1. TP ammy. I typically get 10 odd Duncraig’s before one drops…

  2. HPS quiver - another hard one to find. It’s also the quiver with the lowest drop rate chance, which backs my experience. You’ve got twice as much chance of getting any other quiver than this one. And with a pool of 12 quivers…it’s HARD, unless you are super lucky.

  3. Karleis - my experiences getting this dagger via rare upgrade, aren’t good over many seasons. I have typically had at least 5 LGFs before a Karleis has dropped. This has been a consistent problem for me. I would say that I am unlucky, but to be consistently unlucky since s15?

  4. elusive ring - not as hard as the first 3 items, but still doesn’t drop easily.

  5. Chain of shadows - probably harder than any of the other items mentioned above. At least, from my personal experiences over many seasons playing this build. I’ll typically get every other belt 4-5x over before this baby drops. And it’s a real pain cos no mobility on a s6 impale build usually results in death. Not fun when playing HC! I refuse to even consider pushing until I have this.

  6. compass rose - a bit easier to get than TP ammy, but not by much.

I have found the set pieces not super hard to get, but the build is squishy without these ancillary pieces imho. Without HPS quiver, you are losing a lot of damage, and hatred expenditure is pretty bad, making this a bad build as a starting build imho. Yes, it can push high early on (and peters out as the other character builds get rounded out and more paragon added, etc), but you have to be lucky to get everything drop.

I play solo, perhaps group players get more RNG tenderness from the game? AFAIK, group play ONLY adds to XP and gold drop rates…not gear drop rates. Correct me if I am wrong?

Karlei’s is super easy at least. The other things is a matter of a combination of rifts, grifts, bounties, gambling, crafting, upgrading, reforging.

You’re right. I play solo too - apart from split bounties (which is mandatory in my opinion), the bounties you have to do in season journey I usually do solo though.

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yeah, but getting those DB! 4 seasons since s14 I’ve had to do 9 upgrades of rare daggers before a karleis dropped - yes - 8 LGFs in a row. I’m probably the unluckiest player playing the game LOL. Anyway, I prefer LGF for levelling - levelling DH is bad at any time, it’s truly HORRID as a solo player on consoles, much worse than the PC version of the game (NG mechanic and consoles get FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR less XP on massacre bonuses than the PC version of the game).

I do everything solo. It’s not that I don’t have friends on console, I do, but I generally like playing solo. I can do what I want, how and when without someone else in the group whinging. most of my friends list have actually quit the game anyway…nothing new and bored. This season I’m aiming to just do the season journey and seasonal challenges. Will lose out on the latter because I refuse to do the master 8 set dungeons conquest out of principle and of course, the game in under an hour is IMPOSSIBLE as a solo player. Way to favour groups Blizzard! So that’s 40 points I won’t get on the challenges LB sadly and it’ll drop me probably 50 positions on the LBs for that :frowning: finished rank 9 this season, solo, did curses on SC and HC, solo (curses is MUCH harder to do on consoles than PC - it’s dead easy on PC).

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It’s almost worth it getting a cheap pc just for playing Diablo :smiley:
This season seems to be so good - and better than S24 - that it’s worth it to try and see if getting to, or close to, 150 solo is something to aim for… even for a casual player.

Nah, I’ll never get a GR150 mate - even with FB wizard MI (shields variant) my best has been a GR130 @ just under p2800, albeit in 7 minutes, so could probably clear a GR135.

I just put together a quick test setup for m6 MS and did a GR100 in 5.5 minutes - 2 adria maps and the 3rd level was festering, but forgot to put nem bracers on my follower, so lost probably a minute there. Seems underwhelming dps wise. I must be doing something wrong - Raxx cleared a GR137 with a minute to spare @ just under p1400 (no augments). I’d say it’s on par with s6 impale. I had problems getting GOD HA to work too, just couldn’t get it to go above GR105 (no augments, just under p2800) and very, very fragile. As far as I can tell, I’m playing these builds right, but just can’t get any potential out of them. shrugs.

I love s6 impale’s play style, but when it’s weaker than GOD HA and m6 MS it’s just not worth the angst of being low on the LBs, not cos I’m a crappy player, but because the builds are balanced and performing equally.

I’ve done a little testing with Marauder. No augments and just a couple of ancients. It’ll take a while to get used to the playstyle, and learn to stay back a little and let the sentries do the work, especially when we have been used to GoD for so long. Raxx is crazy skilled. I watched him using the DieOxide variant of multishot (Squirts, Zodiac and CoE) and I tried the same - it’s not too bad, to say the least. Bear in mind that level 1 soul shards in helmet and weapon alone is already a boost in power and toughness (see: maxroll soul shards chapter) way more than the traditional diamond and emerald.

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Yeah, these are all true. The gearing process isn’t easy for a lot of items but what I was trying to say with this thread is at first, you’re not looking for well rolled items but just standby’s that you can use for a while until a better rolled item comes along.

Like, getting an HPS with all the right stats is really hard but when you’re just starting out, you’re only looking one with one maybe two of the right stats and it doesn’t necessarily have to have a high Impale modifier. Something like that is much easier to come by.

But you could look all season and not come up with a really well rolled HPS. This is true.

Anyway, you’re right, mileage varies from player to player which is why I threw in so many crafted items because they’re much much easier to get when you’re starting out.

That’s what I was trying to say - I typically find it difficult to just get a HPS quiver, any HPS quiver at the start of the season. 2 seasons I gambled 22000+ blood shards before getting One. Not a drop from a rift or GR. Upgrading rare items weren’t netting me the quiver either.

I’ve never had that happen with that particular item but I have had a season when I was good month in before a Dawn dropped and couldn’t get one through upgrades either.

Typically, though I do have seasons where one item or another plays hard to get with me. lol So I feel your pain.

It’s one of the reasons I started making this kind of “guide”. I’ve got one about GoD too somewhere on here.

It gets real frustratin’ when something refuses to drop, and I’ve had to make do with a subpar item just to get over the hump.

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Yeah. Extremely tough luck! (Or complete lack thereof).
In season 25 we also need luck in upgrading soul shards; the second and third levels have three or four different possibilities each…

preaching to the choir! Frustrating - but, RNG is fickle.

yeah, I’m dreading the shards RNG. s24 ethereals weren’t nice to me - didn’t get a windforce drop until about 4 days before season’s end (so worthless in reality). Didn’t get an oculus drop for my wizard. Had a wizardspike, but no vitality made it squishy. The 1 handed staff dropped, but I really disliked playing with it. RNG…the curse of all D3 players LOL!

Good luck both of you in s25. I have other hobbies, so will probably just do season journey/challenges LB (week or so) and then resume my other hobbies.

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SC character did alright, all the gear in under 24 hours. HC, 3 days…10k blood shards on belts, still no chain of shadows. Compass rose nowhere to be found. It just makes it frustrating cos impale is so expensive and if you’re too low a rift/GR, you are constantly out of hatred, even though you can easily do the damage. Having to fuss around and farm lower tier rifts/GRs cos of fickle RNG is just not enjoyable. I remember data mining for 2.6 patch drop rates showed that chain of shadows had half the chance of the other belts dropping for a DH. When you’ve had 4 or 5 of every other belt :frowning:

Same is true of many if the items for this build. While impale has been my build since it first appeared, I have played many of the other dps build of various class and this always seemed the most frustrating to gear up.

This season I am barely even seeing the core set drop too - thankfully it was the season gift set else the season would have had to have been abandoned its been that bad. As for the other sets, well been getting loads of them and lots of good ancients too (and the weapon and other gear). Kind of sad having to salvage them all for the souls to fight against blizzard’s seeming utter determination to stop me from playing this build at all.

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Well, the consolation is you will eventually have a load of lvl 3 shards that you can use to augment whatever crappy ancient you end up with (+625 dex, or even 625 int s I have seen quite alot of DHs doing) to at least progress. While they are not fast in coming in and levelling them, it soon got to the point where I had a stack of useless rolled ones at lvl 3 and I had been holding off using them on the crappy gear I had.

Eventually frustration with bad drops, kadala and useless reforges got the better of me so now if its ancient and even slightly useable, it get 625 dex slapped on it and made useable :slight_smile:

At least the puzzle ring are helping to supply the augment gems…

yes, me too. I get 5 ore 6 of every other DH set for every single shadow set piece that drops. I get 4-5 LGFs for every karleis point that drops. It is plain obvious that Blizzard is using tiered RNG and locking out certain sets by making them deliberately MUCH harder to find. Shadows mantle set pieces have been like this for several seasons, probably since s19. I get 8-10 duncraig set ammys for every TP ammy. That has been like that since s18. I played some FB wizard in seasons 23/24 and TP ammys were much more frequently dropped. Night and day difference.

Blizzard should be transparent and release their drop rates imho.

I did some testing over the weekend and I can guarantee that the primal drop on your first GR70 clear is fixed. The results were rather eye opening and very disappointing imho.

Yes, my SC character has 5 augments already, in the first week and a bit. I haven’t played with the SC character in over a week, have dropped way down the rankings (was in the top 10). With that said, I have done a GR121 in 7 mins @ p700. So plenty of mileage to go and if I decide to push, I’ll definitely go up the rankings, albeit with the massive paragon advantage that group players have, I will go only so far.

Well, the base shadows mantle drops being gated behind tiered RNG is making it much harder to get ancients of said shadows gear…if casinos did fixing like this, they’d be shut down.

I can prove your whole post wrong just by posting that I’ve found 5 Traveler’s Pledges and not a single Duncraig’s this season.

But seriously, this thread isn’t a place to vent your frustrations with RNG or to post wild conspiracy theories that boil down to confirmation bias.

If you want to do that, then take it to General Discussion where more people will just tell you you’re full of it, just don’t do it here.

So, 8 seasons straight, 4 characters each season (32 characters in total) have all exhibited the same RNG habits with regards to TP ammy/duncraig. Note: 2 characters HC and 2 characters SC (impale and UE MS, I don’t use the armoury, I don’t trust it).

My comment is relevant, since this guide is talking about gearing, and I have experienced consistent issues with gearing on certain items (typically TP ammy, dawn and chain of shadows). Even shadows set pieces drop much less frequently than ANY other DH set. And again, this is noted since s18, across 4 characters per seasons.