Build Guide
Theory/Background - (The Why)
Patch 2.6.1 brings 300% to 375% Impale bonus damage to Karlie's Points and raises the 6p bonus of Shadow's Mantle from 40k to 50k. With these 2 buffs, this build should be able to clear approximately 11 tiers higher than prior to this patch. This build is made possible by the Holy Point Shot quiver. With this quiver, impale will throw 3 knives instead of one. Each knife gains the 6p bonus damage from the Shadow Mantle Set. Currently its also possible, if positioned very close to a mob, to land all 3 buffed impales on a single target. So for instance the RG will take 3x the damage from impale than it does w/o the Holy Point Shot if standing very close while attacking it. This will greatly increase the effective damage output for impale. Not only that, all 3 knives will return the amount of hatred that is listed on your Karlei's Point dagger. Now with up to 3x the refunded hatred, it is no longer necessary to have a generator, while staying at near full hatred most of the time. This allows using and taking advantage of the Aquila Cuirass chest in the cube for 2x toughness.
Gearing/Game Play - (The How)
Make sure to have at least 36.7% cdr for permanent Vengeance. The required cdr can be accomplished with cdr rolled on one piece of gear, 15% cdr from the Gogok of Swiftness, a diamond in helm and 10% cdr in paragon. Tactical Advantage passive is desirable to use for speed runs. Use Leech for soloing higher GR's. Numbing Traps can be used to buff group toughness if needed. When pushing high GR's in 4man groups the Single out passive should be used and replace FoK Bladed Armor with Marked for Death (either Contagion or Valley of Death). Nemesis bracers are an excellent alternative to Strongarms and are recommended for speed rifting. For pushing GR's in 4 man's, Lacuni Prowlers can be used for increased attack speed to better stack Stricken. For bounties there is no better choice than the Warzechian Armguards. For pushing high GR's with supports, wear an SOJ and cube the Convention of Elements for more damage, since the with supports the Elusive Ring may not be needed.
The ricochet (lightning) rune of Imaple is best used for lower level content where mobs die quickly such as T13 or speed rifts. The reason for this is that with ricochet there is a chance to have hatred returned on the first cast of impale. The overpenetration (cold) rune for impale is best used for higher level content such as pushing solo GR's when using the Pain Enhancer gem. The reason for this is that overpenetration's piercing impales can apply the PE's bleed to a larger amount of mobs around you. With this increase in the number of bleeding mobs withing 20 yds, your attack speed will be higher. That being said the difference is small. So if you have much better lighting gear than cold, then use ricochet even for pushing solo. In 4man meta group play where the DH is the RG killer, it's less important which rune of impale is used (though all things being equal, cold is better due to the piercing knives' ability to better aggro mobs). Therefore for meta, use the rune of impale that matches the element of the best gear you have.
Try to stack life after kill on chest, belt, pants, jewelry and weapon if possible. Life after kill works beautifully with this build. Shadow Power will add 50% of your life after kill to life on hit, the leech passive adds another 75%. Together you will have 125% of LoK as LoH. This is a huge gain in health recovery, allowing for safe passage while playing very aggressively.
Note that if you play at a game difficulty where you are one shotting mobs, it will result in running out of hatred because there will be no opportunities for hatred refunds from Karlei's Point. Some examples of where you might run into this would be power leveling friends or running fast low level GR's to level gems. In order to mitigate this problem so you don't run out hatred, run Seethe instead of Dark Heart, replace Cull the Weak with Blood Vengeance and replace Aquila Cuirass with Visage of Gunes in the Cube.
Make sure to spam Vengeance, bladed armor and wolf when off cooldown. The constant activation of these skills can be achieved by num locking them. Beyond that, all that is required is to cast impale to attack and vault for mobility. Its really that simple. You do need to make sure to impale every 2 sec in order to have free vaults. I personally use vault actively to stun elites and RG's to interrupt their special attacks. This can be be extremely helpful in surviving nasty fights. Note that while vaulting you enter into a smoke screen like state that renders you invulnerable to incoming damage for the brief time you're traveling from point to point. Make sure to keep the elusive ring buff up at all times. This can be done by vaulting or casting shadow power. If you find yourself placed particularly well, as in next to an elite that you are impaling, casting shadow power to proc the elusive buff is preferable to vaulting if you can face tank well enough to stay in place. Note that this build requires hunting and killing mainly elites, especially for speed runs, but higher GR's will require gathering up and killing large packs of trash also. Just make sure to take advantage of the oculus circles when doing so.
Sand Dwellers (when sanding) and spinning Dervishes will reflect impales which can and will proc/rip not only the DH but the entire party. Please be very careful around these mob types and make sure not to fire into them especially when in a party.
Summary/Wrap Up - (The Results)
The build is very simple to play and a hell of a lot of fun. It gives insane mobility, good damage and high survivability. In fact fully self buffed with all dps gems and nems, its not uncommon to exceed a toughness of 500 mil at low paragon. That's awesome toughness for a dps class with no support. This build can be used to compete for pushing the highest GR's for both solo and group play. For speed farming it is superb. GR 85's are taking under 4 min to clear (with 2 mil+ dps). Normal rifts are fast and fun. Split farming 4man T13 bounties is very efficient. In short the build will do everything you need and want within Diablo 3.
I have thoroughly enjoyed playing and testing out this build and I hope you will find as much enjoyment with it as I have. Please leave a comment below if you have any questions. Please Upvote if you find this guide useful. Thanks.
@Draquewind,
Its early in the season and ofc you have to take the gear you can get. That being said I would try to get shoulders with vitality, pants and chest with AR. It would be better to have %life instead of armor on belt. The compass rose has no dex and low crit damage. It would be nice to have a quiver with either vitality or impale damage. Also be on the lookout for gear with life after kill rolled in the 2nd. I personally prefer ias over % dmg on the weapon due to better recovery and stricken stacking if its used. Overall you're not badly geared for just a few days into the season. Try some of these changes as you can acquire the gear and I think you should be able to clear higher than a GR 81.
I only use tactical advantage for speed rifting or bounties. For pusing solo I tend to use Leech. Numbing Traps is also another options. Good Luck and have fun progressing through the season.
@Mithranlas,
There are 3 viable options to use in that gem slot: Bane of the Powerful, Bane of the stricken and Pain Enhancer. For solo usually BotP or PE can be used. For pushing a party as the RG killer use Stricken as the RG will have a lot of hp and will take too long to kill w/o Stricken. In solo games, the hp of the RG is typically low enough that the RG can be killed in a reasonable amount of time w/o the use of Stricken. For speedier runs where the buff can be easily maintained BotP is best used. I prefer the PE to be used for pushing. There are 2 reasons. First the damage output often exceeds that of BotP, sometimes by a wide margin esp if large packs are aggro'd around you. Second, with the increase in attack speed comes better health recovery through life on hit. I suggest that you try both the BotP and PE for your runs and see which you prefer more. Both are great choices. I hope this helps clarify why I made these gem recommendations. Good luck and have fun in Season 10!
put on reapers wraps or use that blood vengeance passive
Great guide really like the spec. Feel like it is the "Spec of the Season". Bane of the Powerful is the winner over Pain Enhancer by like 1-2 mins on my gr 80ish runs. Obviously only tried a handful of times and rift RNG and stuff but definitely feels superior to me.
For helping out with hatred another option is to use companion bat that helped me out before I got Holy Point Shot.
For group would the damage reduction sentry be viable for group instead of blades armor which is only a personal buff?
Often run without a barb with 2 dh and 1 wiz/wd and a zmonk
@raislander35,
Thanks for commenting, really glad that you're enjoying the build. For bounties I strongly recommend the use of Warzechian Armguards. This alone will greatly increase movement speed. If you want even more then wear a HF amulet, Avarice Band with CoE and or Elusive in the cube. Then wear the Boon of the Hoarder instead of BotP. Place the Gold Wrap in the cube instead of Aquila Cuirass. These changes will give all the toughness you could need for T13 while giving 'Lightning' quickness for all your speed demon hunter needs. Good Luck!
@Enteee189,
For low level content where hatred management is difficult with the standard spec, change dark heart to seethe, cull the weak to blood vengeance and aquila cuirass to visage of gunes. This variant will handle any low level job with ease and will never be starved for hatred. I hope this helps, good luck!
@Idyar_The_Omnipotent,
For low to mid GR's BotP is better than PE in my opinion. It's only when pushing into the higher GR's that I find that PE wins out. For me it just feels smoother to use up high. That being said, BotP is viable to use even in high GR's. My suggestion is to try both and use whichever one feels best for you. Good Luck!
@jagxii,
Absolutely it is viable, in fact it's a fantastic option. I have used it many times in 3man's (shadow dh, bats wd or hammer sader with a support monk). Good question and great insight to point this out for everyone.
What are your thoughts on doing a cold build with Overpenetration instead of lightning and Ricochet. I would think pushing the higher GRs with a lot of density would be easier with that selection because you would be piercing through the entire huge mob instead of hitting 3 at a time.
@wallacegt,
I don't think Overpenetration has any particular advantage over Ricochet in higher GR's. The only advantage that either of these runes have over the other ones is that they give more opportunities for more hatred refunds because it tags more mobs as having been impaled. With 2 daggers thrown per impale cast, either of these 2 runes will work well for this purpose. The only reason to swap to the cold rune would be if you had GG cold gear, then it would be advantageous to run Overpenetration.
@Foensh,
Yes, but only if you are NOT playing HC. In that case, go with whatever passive is most advantageous for what you are doing at the time. Good Luck!
Thanks for the guide BigJohnasty
I have a question, for stat priorities on head/chest/legs/weapon you don't mention sockets and the priorities you list means that there are no room to roll sockets. IE. Legs: Dex, Vit, AR, Armor = all 4 possible main stats .
Does this mean that sockets are not required ??
Cheers
Oh wait I didn't take into account augmentations.
The build is really nice and fun to play with.
I'm playing with the PE yesterday I take GR 70 now I go up looking for the group's and ask them to try between Turet with shild or the nives how good it is.
@Wolfis,
I did not list sockets for weapon/helm/chest/pants because those armor pieces always roll with sockets and weapon should be gifted.
@OrDok85,
For speed runs I would keep using bladed armor. For group GR's that are higher and therefore the fights are longer, guardian turret is an excellent substitute for bladed armor as it will buff the whole party's toughness, not just yours. Have fun and good luck!
Thanks for the tip solo and speed I take bladed armor. I love to see T13 bountys at para 550 yesterday I was the first or second that cleaning all even.
Edit: how many points u spend in Dex at para?
@OrDok85,
Normally I put all my paragon points into dex after obtaining 25% ms. But for pushing I sometimes put some in vitality if my hp is low. Pushing with the assistance of supports can afford you the ability to run with fairly low hp (500k+), but for solo runs or w/o supports I like to have something north of 800k.
Hi, mate. About PE, u lvl up till 25 and stop, or need to rise up like rest two gem?
I clear 75GR with 480 para and no Pledge+Rose) Potential is huge!