The Shadow's MantleImpale is a classic for Demon Hunter, allowing since its redesign in Season 5 for a melee playstyle similar to Assassin in Diablo II. It used to be the Rift Guardian Killer of choice in Season 10 and remained a solid starter choice the Seasons following for its consistency and easy gearing.
Fast, easy to build, easy to learn, it can help you get started early on and help you push quite high without too much effort involved.
Focused on heavy single-target damage through the combination of Impale and the (6) Bonus providing 120,000% extra Weapon Damage to the skill for the first enemy hit, it allows you to dish out devastating damage. Point, click & kill is the philosophy of the set, and it's very effective at searching and destroying the right targets—especially Elites.
Depending on the chosen rune, this set also includes 40,000% extra Weapon Damage for subsequent hits of Impale Ricochet and Overpenetration or another 120,000% extra Weapon Damage for the DoT effect of Chemical Burn, either greatly buffing the set's AoE or single target DPS potential. This rework has also made mobile ranged playstyles competitive with the old-school stationary facetank builds that traditionally dominated the set's leaderboards, offering a variety of choices in how to play it.
Along with that goes the (4) Bonus giving Shadow Power all runes and infinite duration. While the rune Gloom provides less damage reduction than other typical set bonuses, this is still a solid layer of protection through immense values of Life per Hit you get on top.
During Season 27, this build had a significantly different playstyle similar to the GoD DH thanks to Sanctified Powers with Sanctified Strafe and a mechanical change to Strafe allowing it to be used with Melee Weapons. The same setup now returns and catapults this build near the top of all builds in the game, enabling a satisfying spin 2 win playstyle while benefitting from supporting effects such as Mantle of Channeling and Taeguk.
Simple mechanics ✔ Strong season starter ✔ Unique melee playstyle ✔ Good single target damage ✔
❌ Close range ❌ Low AoE damage ❌ Positioning is important ❌ Inconsistent damage reduction
Core Setup
Core Item Build
Items
The Shadow's Mantleset provides huge damage bonuses: x61 through the (2) Bonus and x161 through the (6) Bonus, for a total of x9,821 damage with your Impale (against the first enemy hit only). This damage is doubled with Impale Chemical Burn or 1/3 of it is applied to other targets hit by Impale Ricochet and Overpenetration.
Due to the (2) Bonus, you are required to use a Melee Weapon, which will be Karlei's Point. This item gives you effectively infinite Hatred in most scenarios on top of a 375% separate damage multiplier.
Holy Point Shot is another key item, providing a 100% separate damage multiplier and 2 additional knives to Impale, effectively tripling your damage when you stand close enough to the target's hitbox to hit it with all of your knives. Additional knives will be thrown in a small cone-shape in front of you.
Dawn is a staple cubed Weapon for Demon Hunters, in order to get a permanent Vengeance uptime without having to care too much about Cooldown Reduction.
Season 34 Sanctified Items
Originated from Season 27, Angelic Crucibles are new consumables that drop anywhere once you're Level 70. Using them on items reforges them into Sanctified Items with Primal Ancient stats, and adds one of three new unique Class Powers listed below. For full details on how they work, check out this Seasonal Guide by Chewingnom!
Let's look at our Class Powers and see how they apply to our build:
The best power for us is the Sanctified Strafe because it allows us to play this build similar to a GoD DH: Spin to Win! This massively increases damage output because of the high frequency of attacks while allowing us to move at all times.
The Sanctified Vengeance power technically does something but not much as we use this skill infrequently and it has a low impact, so go for the one listed above.
The Sanctified Cluster Arrow power doesn't help us, so go for the one at the top.
Since you can only equip one of them, choosing the right item to craft it on matters! Great candidates are Weapons, Offhands, Jewelry or any item with an important multiplier. With that in mind, we recommend Sanctifying one of the following items:
Karlei's Point
Holy Point Shot
Squirt's Necklace
Global Stat Priorities
The most important for almost any Demon Hunter build is reaching permanent Vengeance uptime. This is achievable through the 65% Cooldown Reduction effect provided by Dawn (Cubed) and having 37% Cooldown Reduction. What you will always use is the Flawless Royal Diamond in your Helmet, 10% from Paragon Points. Additional sources are Gogok of Swiftness, Captain Crimson's Trimmings and a roll on your shoulders if necessary.
Impale Attack Speed Breakpoints
There are two competing variations of the build, one using Cold and another using Fire. The Fire rune Chemical Burn applies the first-hit bonus twice (on impact & 2sec burn), effectively doubling single target damage. The Cold rune Overpenetration allows for some AoE damage.
Pay extra attention to Life per Kill as a Secondary Affix on your gear. Shadow Power Blood Moon turns 50% of that into Life per Hit. By stacking Life per Kill you can boost your sustain without sacrificing any important stats. This is why we want to use Bottomless Potion of Mutilation, as you can snapshot it (see Mechanics).
Apart from that, you want to stack damage stats wherever possible, especially Critical Hit Chance & Damage, Elemental Damage, Impale Damage and lastly Area Damage. The rest goes to defense, especially All Resistance on Pants, Boots, Belt, Shoulders. We can add up some Vitality rolls and Elite Damage Reduction on Chest. Physical Resistance is also extremely useful, as you generally stand very close to your enemies and most of the incoming damage will be of that type. Because of that, you should always use Flawless Royal Diamond in your Chest and Pants sockets.
Assembling the Build
1. Do the Challenge Rift for the materials to cubeLegendary Powers. You can complete this once a week for additional resources and we always update the guide for you!
2. Gather the full The Shadow's Mantle set. Each piece can be gambled from Kadala for Bloodshards. Do not salvage any duplicate pieces you find! Instead convert them to another part of the set with Recipe 4 in Kanai's Cube. If you have extra materials you can use Recipe 3 to craft the remaining pieces, but this is expensive and not recommended for new players.
Create a level 1 Witch Doctor and upgrade Maces to get Echoing Fury
Anything from the Gamble list in Step 3 that you haven't already acquired.
5. Do Bounties to acquire several important items for this build:
Act 1: Ring of Royal Grandeur
Act 2: Gloves of Worship
Act 3: Avarice Band
Act 4: Can drop any bounty item from any act
Bounty Turn In: Recipes for Sage's Journey, Cain's Destiny, Aughild's Authority, Captain Crimson's Trimmings and Guardian's Jeopardy
6. Use Primordial Ashes in Kanai's Cube with the new Curiosity of Lorath Nahr recipe to obtain a free Crafted Primal Ancient. Since you can only equip one of them, choosing the right item to focus matters! Great candidates are Weapons, Offhands, Jewelry or any item with an important multiplier. With that in mind, we recommend getting one of the following items:
1. Sockets Flawless Royal Diamond 2. Dexterity 3. Vitality 4. All Resistance 5. Elite Damage Reduction 6. Life %
Pants
The Shadow's Coil Captain Crimson's Thrust (Crafted)
1. Dexterity 2. Sockets Flawless Royal Diamond 3. Vitality 4. All Resistance
Boots
The Shadow's Heels Captain Crimson's Waders (Crafted)
1. Impale Damage 2. Dexterity 3. All Resistance 4. Vitality
Ring 1
The Compass Rose Focus Ring of Royal Grandeur (A1 Bounties, Cubed)
1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Damage 3. Critical Hit Chance 4. Average Damage 5. Area Damage
Ring 2
Elusive Ring Convention of Elements Restraint Avarice Band (A3 Bounties)
1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Critical Hit Damage 4. Average Damage 5. Area Damage
Bracers
Aughild's Search (Crafted) Wraps of Clarity Warzechian Armguards Nemesis Bracers
1. Elemental Damage 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Dexterity 4. Vitality 5. All Resistance
Amulet
Squirt's Necklace
1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Damage 3. Elemental Damage 4. Critical Hit Chance
Belt
Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle (Crafted) Guardian's Case (Crafted) Goldwrap
1. Dexterity 2. Vitality 3. All Resistance 4. Life %
Potion
Bottomless Potion of Mutilation
To snapshot the increased Life per Kill with Shadow Power for permanently increased healing
Gems
Bane of the Trapped provides us with a 60% separate damage multiplier for close range combat.
Taeguk adds up to 80% additive damage and 20% armor, easy to keep up with Strafe.
Esoteric Alteration provides massive amounts of toughness if needed, especially for stationary setups with Endless Walk.
Bane of the Stricken is used as RGK or for Cold solo push variants.
Zei's Stone of Vengeance, Bane of the Powerful or Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard (to protect Squirt's Necklace buff) can be used in speedfarm and even some push variants variants.
Boon of the Hoarder is great for extra Gold and Movement Speed in T16 Rifts.
Skills
Impale on the skill as our main damage dealer. Karlei's Point gives a huge damage boost and infinite Hatred.
Strafe is needed to activate Sanctified Strafe and spin 2 win. In pushing, the chosen rune is Rocket Storm to slightly improve the output, in farming Drifting Shadow for more speed.
Shadow Power grants tons of defense, utility and healing.
Vengeance along with Dawn and the necessary Cooldown Reduction provides a permanent x1.4 damage and most of the time also x2 toughness boost (through the Dark Heart rune).
Smoke Screen protects us while spinning and can activate buffs like Tactical Advantage.
The last skill slot varies from version to version. Most of the time we use a generator to activate Bastions of Will, but other options include Preparation Focused Mind or Companion Bat Companion.
Passives
Cull the Weak is the strongest Demon Hunter damage passive.
Awareness helps you out in tough times and saves you a death.
Ambush is another generic DPS passive that works in every build.
Steady Aim and Thrill of the Hunt are used for the mobile ranged versions of the build.
Other options can include Numbing Traps, Tactical Advantage, Blood Vengeance for most purposes like farming or pushing. As an Rift Guardian Killer (RGK) in groups, you should also choose Single Out.
Paragon Points
Core
Offensive
Defensive
Utility
1. Movement Speed
1. Cooldown Reduction
1. All Resistance
1. Area Damage2
2. Dexterity
2. Critical Hit Damage
2. Armor
2. Life per Hit
3. Vitality1
3. Critical Hit Chance
3. Life %
3. Pickup Radius
4. Maximum Hatred
4. Attack Speed
4. Life Regeneration
4. Resource Cost Reduction
1 Add a bit of Vitality if you feel too squishy (a total of 800,000 Life is recommended in Solo Push, 600,000 Life otherwise). 2 Avoid any source of Area Damage for RGK variants as this is useless and it can lag the game.
Altar of Rites
The Altar of Rites is a tree that grants tremendous powers to your entire account in exchange for sacrifices. It requires you to farm Bounties, kill the Ubers, craft the Staff of Herding, and more. Completing all 26 of these tasks, along with sacrificing 6 Primal Ancients grants you extra Damage, Defense, Quality of Life, Increased Drops and 3 Potion Super Powers. Read the full guides on Unlocking the Altar and the Altar Mechanics by Raxxanterax and Chewingnom to learn everything about this fantastic mechanic!
Note: The suggested path assumes you are playing Solo and used the Challenge Rift Cache to help you level up.
Optimal Path
Node 2: Choose Anointed to gain a full set of 70 yellows from level 18-70!
Node 6: Rush to gain double Bounties to help unlock other Nodes in the Altar.
Nodes 7-14: These are the last Nodes you can gain until the Challenge Rift resets. Take at least 1 Node at the bottom of each path to unlock all 3 Potion Super Powers. Pick up the Mirror Node at the top for a colossal 41% extra XP all season. Remember to unlock Father once you clear GR70 solo and have your first Primal!
Nodes 15-26: Pick up the final Quality of Life, Damage, and Defense Nodes (in that order) to finish the Altar.
Potion Super Powers: Take Father first, then Mother, and finally Mortal.
Disclaimer: The Mortal and Mother Potions require you to salvage 2 and 3 Primals respectively. Unlock them as soon as you have those materials as they don't cost a point!
Recommended Altar Path Use the Scroll Bar to see Altar Progression
Notable Build Changes
Compared to the nonseason version of the build, you can run with Smoke Screen instead of Vault after you unlock Revelation. This also removes the need for Chain of Shadows in some setups so we run with Captain Crimson's Trimmings.
Follower
Patch 2.7.0 revamped the follower system giving all 3 hirelings new powers and the emanate system. The first thing you should do is read our complete follower guide and remember the key takeaways:
The emanation system allows followers to share certain legendary and set powers with you. The most important ones are: The Flavor of Time, Nemesis Bracers, Avarice Band, Sage’s Journey and Cain’s Destiny. Click the guide above for the full list.
Follower’s powers are based on their main stat (maxed at 25,000, but they have a 2.5x multiplier so you only need 10,000). This means we stack Intelligence on the Enchantress, Dexterity on the Scoundrel and Strength on the Templar.
Guardian's Jeopardy(2) Bonus works for followers by improving their inherent stat multiplier from x2.5 to x3.5, making it slightly easier to hit the 25,000 main stat threshold if needed.
Followers share 20% of their Experience, Magic and Gold Find stats with you.
Legendary gems do not work on followers, except Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard.
Enforcer can be equipped on the player to keep followers alive even without an immortality relic. The 90% damage reduction counts for them, too.
Cooldown Reduction does not work for any follower skill except the Templar’s Heal.
Followers never deal significant damage; you’re on your own to clear the content.
Select Follower
Speed GR Enchantress
T16 Enchantress
For T16 we recommend this Enchantress setup because she is the only follower that gives Cooldown Reduction, allowing you to spam your abilities more. Since this is T16 content, she’ll stay alive with Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard and use Hand of the Prophet to gain all skills. This will give us Cooldown Reduction, Elemental Damage, Reduced Damage from Ranged Attacks, Armor, Attack Speed, and a Cheat Death. Stat Priorities:Since we do not have the immortality focus, we need to stack survivability on our Enchantress.
Intelligence > Vitality > Life % > Armor > All Resistance > Life Per Hit > Attack Speed.
Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For extra Elites, Death’s Breaths and In-geom procs.
Avarice Band: For the insane pickup radius.
Ring of Royal Grandeur: To complete our sets.
Gloves of Worship: For 10 Minute Shrine Buffs.
Sage’s Journey: For double Death’s Breaths.
Cain’s Destiny: For 25% more Greater Rift Keystones.
Speed GR Enchantress
For speed Greater Rifts we recommend this Enchantress setup because she is the only follower that gives Cooldown Reduction, allowing you to spam your abilities more. Since this is speed content, she’ll stay alive with Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard and use Hand of the Prophet to gain all skills. This will give us Cooldown Reduction, Elemental Damage, Reduced Damage from Ranged Attacks, Armor, Attack Speed, and a Cheat Death.
Stat Priorities:Since we do not have the immortality focus, we need to stack survivability on our Enchantress.
Intelligence > Vitality > Life % > Armor > All Resistance > Life Per Hit > Attack Speed.
Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For more progression from Elites.
Oculus Ring: For 85% increased damage.
Ice Climbers: To make your follower immune to Freeze and Immobilize effects.
Hellfire Ring, Leoric's Crown and Cain's Destiny: For more Experience and Attack Speed.
GR Pushing Enchantress
For Greater Rift Pushing we recommend this Enchantress setup for the Slow from Temporal Pulse, Cooldown Reduction from Prophetic Harmony, Damage Reduction and Armor from Powered Shield, and the Attack Speed from Focused Mind.
Stat Priorities:Since we have the immortality relic, we do not need to stack survivability on our Enchantress.
Intelligence> Attack Speed. Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Gloves of Worship: For 10 Minute Shrine Buffs.
Nemesis Bracers: For more progression from Elites.
Oculus Ring: For 85% increased damage.
Unity: For 50% damage reduction if you're also wearing one.
Ice Climbers: To make your follower immune to Freeze and Immobilize effects.
Mempo of Twilight and Cain's Destiny: For more Attack Speed.
Gameplay
The build is overall fairly easy to play once you understand the core concept. Most of the damage dealt is done to the first enemy hit of each knife. This puts a large focus on your and your target's positioning, you generally want to single out valuable targets and elites while ignoring small trash. Use one Impale at the start of a run and keep up Vengeance at all times. Then hold down Strafe and activate your Bastions of Will with your generator every 5 seconds and spin 2 win!
Whenever you enter a game or start a Greater Rift, make sure to activate Shadow Power once to receive the effects. Then, after you took some damage, activate Bottomless Potion of Mutilation and press Shadow Power again to snapshot the effect. The same applies after a death or in case you press the skill without the potion up for whatever reason. Keep your Vengeance up at all times (cast once every 20 seconds). If you are using Chain of Shadows, make sure to throw knives after every 4-5 uses of Vault to not run out of Discipline.
Gameplay Cold Rune - Impale Overpenetration: Focus more on gathering large packs of monsters to profit from the AoE part of The Shadow's Mantle (6) Bonus. Fire Rune - Impale Chemical Burn: Focus more on hunting yellow elites to profit from your double damage to single targets. Lightning Rune - Impale Ricochet: An in-between of the two above that combines a good mix of AoE and single target.
Hardcore
The build is overall quite tanky and a popular choice among Hardcore players. Additionally, you have permanent immunity to Crowd Control effects and high mobility to get out of dangerous situations with ease when you have to. Don't forget to replace Ambush with Awareness, if it isn't already included in the build.
Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!
Variants
Nephalem Rifts
GR Speeds
GR Solo Push
GR Group RGK
Shadow Impale Solo T16
The Shadow's Mantle is typically not really a very competitive Torment farming build, due to it's limited AoE coverage and way too high damage. However, thanks to the sanctified items, it's a pretty solid option in this season.
Concept The idea here is to stack lots of movement speed while still being able to kill most big enemies quickly as you are passing by. To achieve this, we use the whole arsenal: Rechel's Ring of Larceny + Pandemonium Loop and lots of extra movement speed & resources from Tactical Advantage and Blood Vengeance.
Gameplay Spin 2 win, hunt Elites and kill everything in your path. This setup is very straightforward and you don't need to worry about anything other than activating Vengeance from time to time.
Setups While farming in groups, replace Warzechian Armguards and Pandemonium Loop with Nemesis Bracers and Avarice Band.
Shadow Impale Solo Speeds
Concept In GR speedruns, Lightning, Cold and Fire variations are possible, depending on how much you want to focus on single target vs. AoE damage. In addition, we aim for lots of mobility and resource generation with Tactical Advantage and Blood Vengeance to active Smoke Screen frequently.
Gameplay Keep up your buffs with one generator cast every 5 seconds, otherwise just spin 2 win and faceroll your cooldowns to get all buffs permanently.
Setups For an even faster but less consistent setup, you can equip In-Geom and cube the dagger, then switch to Smoke Screen Vanishing Powder. This also allows you to swap Blood Vengeance for more damage or speed.
At low Paragon (2000 or less), you can also run with Guardian's Jeopardy instead of Captain Crimson's Trimmings for similar damage output but better survivability.
If you don't want to worry about the small shield gained from Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard or can keep up Squirt's Necklace reliably without it, replace it with Bane of the Powerful.
Shadow Impale Solo Push (Stationary Cold Setup)
Concept In pushing, we play with Cold to benefit better from area damage. The playstyle remains largely the same, but with a bigger focus on moving around the map to make large pulls.
Gameplay Make sure to keep up the buffs from Bastions of Will by using your generator every 5 seconds and stay out of harm's way as much as you can. Try to gather large packs with multiple elite packs, AoE them down with your knives.
Setups At high enough Paragon, you can switch Bane of the Stricken to Zei's Stone of Vengeance for even more damage. This is only reasonable if you can kill the boss on GR150 in less than 2-3 minutes.
If you struggle to survive, you can replace Ambush with Perfectionist.
At low Paragon (2000 or less), you can also run with Guardian's Jeopardy instead of Captain Crimson's Trimmings for similar damage output but better survivability.
Shadow Impale RGK
In the sanctified season, this is one of the best Rift Guardian Killers (RGK) in the game. The only viable choice here is the Fire rune, which effectively doubles your single-target damage.
Concept As a RGK, you just need to get to the boss somehow, and then kill it, but you can also help contribute some damage throughout the run to take down elites a little faster. We optimize this setup for most Boss DPS possible, which will leave you quite squishy and helpless, especially during high tier pushing.
To achieve this, we add lots of DPS items at the cost of utility, such as Squirt's Necklace, Aughild's Authority set and The Witching Hour. Also, we have to include Bane of the Stricken, it's the most important gem for a RGK.
Gameplay It can be very difficult to reach the Rift Guardian without dying, so you have to be careful with your movement and defensive abilities in order to not run out of Discipline.
You need to stay at least 10 yards away from the boss to activate Steady Aim. At the same time, you don't want to be much farther away than that to hit with all three knives. To get a good feel of how far away 10 yards actually is, you can play UE Multishot DH and pay attention to your (4) Bonus buff. It refreshes every 0.5 seconds, if there is no enemy within 10 yards of you—the same condition as Steady Aim.
Setups At low Paragon (2000 or less), you can also run with Guardian's Jeopardy instead of Aughild's Authority for similar damage output but better survivability.
At high Paragon (4000 or more) you eventually get to the point where you can finish GR150 bosses in a single Vengeance rotation. At this point, Dawn becomes useless and you can equip Sunkeeper instead, using the dagger in the cube to deal even more damage thanks to the added elite damage and higher damage per hit.
Video Guide
Mechanics
Karlei's Point
Hatred will only return starting on the second hit.
Impale Ricochet can give you Hatred back on the first attack (due to bounces).
Impale
With The Shadow's Mantle, the first enemy hit will take massive damage and other targets of Impale Ricochet or Overpenetration take 1/3 of that amount.
Chemical Burn doubles your damage done against single-targets because the 2sec burn DoT applies the set's extra damage, too.
Grievous Wounds adds extra Critical Hit Damage but is about 30-40% worse than Chemical Burn in any realistic scenario.
The extra knives from Holy Point Shot spread out in a cone-shape, so standing close to the target is necessary to hit with all of them at once.
Chain of Shadows
Provides a buff for 2 seconds to vault freely after using Impale.
Make sure to use Impale often enough while moving, so that you don't run out of Discipline.
Shadow Power
Use once to get the buff, it will stay on permanently thanks to The Shadow's Mantle (4) Bonus.
Activating it again will only apply the Slow from Night Bane.
Life per Kill from Bottomless Potion of Mutilation can be snapshot during its effect, as long as you don't use Shadow Power again without it. This will increase your healing overall and is very useful, especially for pushing.
The snapshot has to be done again on death or when the skill is used without the potion up.
Summary
Reach the necessary Cooldown Reduction for permanent Vengeance (37% including active Gogok of Swiftness).
Choose to play either a stationary or mobile version using Fire or Cold damage.
Stand close to your target, only the first enemy hit takes the big damage.
Make sure to use Shadow Power at least once at the start of a run, preferably right after pressing your Bottomless Potion of Mutilation.
Hunt down Elites and juicy trash mobs to progress, ignore small, stray enemies.
We hope you enjoyed this guide! Shadow Impale is an ideal beginner build, and if you're not familiar with it yet, just hop in and try it out!
Credits
Written by Northwar & wudijo Contributions by Chewingnom Updates by wudijo
