You think you want this, but honestly you don’t.
The impact rune alone would ruin impale, both for melee positioning and for ranged with cc immunity. Anytime you can’t control hard CC with a 100% chance on hit is terrible for pretty much any build.
Also, how would overpenetration and ricochet work? Would each dagger from overpenetration have the ability to ricochet to 2 different targets? All runes would absolutely turn impale into a trash killer, removing a bit of S6’s identity.
Agreed. I already avoid using rattling roll in groups for fear of it builiding up CC immunity and making it harder for supports, but nothing annoys me more as impale when thing get moved around by knockbacks etc while I am trying to kill them. (Some annoying support monks who cannot resist spamming cyclone strike and shuffle everything around every damn second!).
Depends, with a high enough attack speed, I find in the season running over penetration with pain enhancer and the Remnant of Pain shard rolled for 50% freeze is actually pretty good in an ad-hoc group that is lacking support (and can help a bit with over zealous monks who insist on shuffling everything around all the time).
Of course organised groups is different to the utter chaos that is ad-hoc groups.
I dont think that impale is currently strong enough as a single target killer tyo habve a meaningful identity anyway given how many other class build seem to manage AoE skills that appear to do far higher dps to a single target.
I may be more in favour of chemical burn perhaps being changed to splash a burn dot over a large area when it hit a target.
TBH both of the physical rune could do with some rework to make them useful and relevant again.
I cant remember ever using impact. Maybe grevious wounds long before the shadow set when I feeling particularly masochistic regarding hatred use a very long time ago (probably v1 days).
As for S6 set, I agree it needs a significant damage buff, but Im not sure that is really the answer. I think impale runes needs some work to bring in a much better AoE option than current via over-penetration or ricochet (maybe chemical splash above?), and maybe grevious wounds could be changed to be the ultimate single target damage by a significant margin at the cost of only being single target and perhaps with the effect of it passing harmlessly though anything in the way (think elite in middle of a dense pulled pack). As for impact - not sure. I really have never had a use for it. Evasive fire has always filled that role (getting me out of trouble by knocking me back instead of knocking the enemy back) in the dim and distant past. Im not sure there is a place for such any more as there was back in the very early v1 days when act 3 was almost impossible for other than barbs and the rest of us had to kite alot.
I think people underrate the single target potential of chemical burn. With the right setup, you pretty much laugh at RG’s in a normal solo push.
For instance, i just grabbed rank 1 impale again on season with one key, and in that 134 GR, the RG fight only took a whopping 11 seconds to kill with chemical burn, no pylons
Another thing is that chemical burns dot damage procs AD. While it’s great at single target, it’s not bad at clearing trash either, it’s only a little behind cold if you stack enough burn damage in the refreshed 2 second intervals.
I do agree that S6 needs a buff, but I think DMKT nailed it on the head. It honestly only needs a 2pc multiplier buff.
Agreed - its the best we currently have, but that doesnt make it good in the context of classes/builds that seem to manage to do alot better at single target with an AoE skill…
While I agree with the suggested 2p buff, I really do think something else is needed to become the RG killer.
I don’t think it’s fair to compare impale, which is DH’s second strongest build, to other classes extremely OP builds this season such as monk/sader. Everything pales in comparison, so perspective is necessary.
My point is that for the class, chemical burn fits the elite hunter single target identity. All the set needs is a 2pc buff multiplier to see the identity on the forefront.
OK, but quite honestly I am sick of the situation every friggin season where DHs get told to sod off as DPSers. Whether that gets fixed by nerfing other into oblivion or improving impale to be better all round and in particular better for a specific group role I dont much much care.
But every season blizzard screw this up and some damn AoE setup ends up being the best single target DPSer. One season is all we have had (way back) and even then it was marginal.
I’ve been all over the place with this recommendation. A functioning Grievous Wounds rune is a decent freebie, as an alternatibe to raising S2 to 10,000%.
I’d personally like the Gloom rune increased to 60% DR as part of S4.
Chemical Burn is okay and has good identity — but I’d take a high attack speed M6 over an S6 RGK, that is why the base damage needs to be raised by another 3GRs.
then tweak it to make it work 
instead of all runes , how bout just chem trail ? that way people can go cold or lightning runes , just inc the dmg overall , wile buffing the 2 pieces ?
yes i didnt think about the 2 other runes
but players shouldn’t be pidgeon holed into a single rune for impale. That’s bad game design imho. Single target damage is still well below other established RGK builds. I guess if we become a trash killer, yeah, chemical burn is fine. But, imho, it’s a bad way to drive the build.
Interesting read, cheers all.
I was thinking to chime in an idea or two for the more knowledgeable DH players to think about.
Dmkt allready gave the needs in damage buff.
I also agree that Shadow feels squishy and that is were some changes could be helpfull.
So if it would be possible to increase the S4 bonus were would you set it?
what I mean is:
The 4 pcs bonus gives all runes to Shadow power, what about also making them twice as effective?
On that the multiplier could also be 1.25, 1.5 or 1.75, it could also be scaled up by stacks to a max level.
So what do say?
all it needs is the gloom rune to have its DR buffed from the current 35% to say, 60%. Elusive ring should be buffed to 80% DR imho in conjunction with this.
I still firmly believe that the single target damage for s6 impale needs a buff - either via HPS quiver, karleis or the shadows set.
My FB MI wizard from the last 2 seasons could clear GR115 in around 1.5 minutes, without any seasonal buffs (I never got a oculus with the right rolls drop for me sadly) and NO augments. My s25 s6 impale DH is clearing GR115 a bit faster I will admit (typically around 3.5-4.5 minutes; map/mob dependent), but it has 10 augments @ rank 125 and the seasonal buff, which probably adds around 8 GRs.
I stand by my assessment that s6 impale needs a buff for single target. A sizeable one.
Option #1 (cheap and easy)
S2: Increase damage by 10,000% and reduce damage by 35%.
Option #2
S4: Shadow Power gains all runes. Doubles the effectiveness of Gloom.
S6: First enemy hit 125,000%, Subsequent hits 35,000%
Option #3
S4: Shadow Power gains all runes. Doubles the effectiveness of Gloom.
S6: Impale gains the Grievous Wound’s rune.
Option 1 for me sounds like the best candidate.
I wonder if such a change could allow mara/shadow become a thing as a fun build? 
I don’t know if 125000 is too much, 35k subsequent hit sounds good to me. I’d rather them still buff the gloom rune itself, rather than from the set. DH could do with a buff to DR irrespective of whether or not the character uses the shadows mantle set. This would buff GOD HA too.
S2M4 and N6M4 are eclipsed by pure M6, as each sentry is 60,000% from M6 set bonus.
The S2M4 interaction can safely be restored to allow players to compete with S2M4 on the no-set leaderboard.
It is a 3GR buff.
wouldn’t these 2 hybrid builds require a buff to the 2 piece shadow mantle set?
Ah. I suck at D3 math. 3GR is probably not enough imho. To compete with the top RGK builds, it’d need a 5-8 GR buff imho.
Of course, I meant for lower content and for pure fun. Not sure how high the S4M4 with RoRG could reach but T16 should be more than doable.
It is the same increase, dmkt don’t do random 
guessing.
A is a 1.666 increase, just like the increase to 125k%.
as I said, I don’t do d3 math. You shouldn’t have to dig into the maths of a game imho. Not as a player.
If it’s 3GR for both, then 2 set to 10k and 6 piece set to 125k for 6 GRs buff to single targets. That would be just about right imho.
Add the buff from 25 to 35% for secondary targets, buff to gloom to 60% and buff elusive ring to 80% and the build/set would be in a great position imho.
No offense buddy, it was more a tribute to dmkt. As for buffing it that much is an opinion of course not sure if it is too much or just right tbh.
Another way might have been to work in Fan of Knives in some way or another. (Also an old suggestion by dmkt). And having seen how the area damage on kill works on the present shards it might have been a nice AoE solution for Shadows set.
“Each monster hit by Impale release a fan of Knives on death” if the spell gets a buff on S6 as well it might be insane. The thing is that this may sound good on paper, it has to be tested first and some of the dh gurus could envision this and guess if it could a good idea.
To sum it up, I agree with you on an increase to damage and damage reduction would be welcome.
EDIT
I caught my mistake after posting this. Forget the fan of Knives proc on Shadows, maybe if it was placed on the dagger it might be better. Otherwise the set dungeon would be impossible to complete.
what about each monster hit by your FOK takes 10% extra damage for 5 seconds?