Dune Dervish - Instakills me all the time!

Demon Hunter
1

I hope someone can help me here. I am a dedicated DH player with Paragon 2500+ and very experienced with the DH Impale build. I often run high GRs (100 - 130) with some friends online. I hardly ever die, and often throw myself right into the middle of huge mobs and I dont die. But, as soon as there is a Dune Dervish on screen, i have to retreat because experience has taught me that they always one shot me as soon as they “spin”. I have noticed over the past few months that even if they are nowhere near me, they somehow kill me and the death message says “Amaranth was slain” - it doesnt tell me what exactly killed me, just that I was slain. It never says that a DD killed me. But i have seen it so many times and the only common thing is the DD on screen. There are also times where I did not notice the DD until it was too late and it killed me.

It is my strong opinion that the Dune Dervish is somehow bugged to insta-kill me because I can survive almost any other mob type but a single DD comes along and kills me easily.

This is very frustrating because often before I run some GRs with my friends, i will search for 10 XP pools and stack them so that I can push my paragons higher faster because I know that I dont die (often) in GRs (expect for the DD).

Does anyone know why this is a problem or is it just me? Have a look at my build if you want and you will see i have quite a lot of primals and mid-high level augments - there really is no reason i should be so squishy against a Dune Dervish.

I look forward to your comments.

2

Dune Dervish and Sand Dweller type monsters have the special ability to “Reflect Projectile” (don’t confuse with Reflect Damage).

When Dune Dervish spins (or Sand Dweller put up its energy shield), it reflects projectile in random direction. You (and your group teammates) may get hit by your own projectile. You will take 100% damage of your own projectile.

Impale is a projectile. As the damage of your impale is much much higher than your toughness, you get 1-shot. In this case, the game will just tell you that “you were slain” without “by yourself” or “by your DH teammate”.

It is not a bug. Learn how to deal with these types of monsters.

1 Like
3

Thanks for your reply. I appreciate it…

I did not know that the DD reflects my projectiles. How would I know this? Is there a glossary somewhere on this site that tells you what and how each enemy behaves in the game? You cant tell me to “learn how to deal with these type of monsters” because how am I going to overcome an enemy which reflects my own daggers are me which do way more damage than my toughness can handle?

4

By skipping them.

1 Like
5

I learnt these from the forum. :slight_smile:

You may search the internet. Although many are outdated, many information is still valid.
https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Dune_Dervish
https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Sand_Dweller

These are the only two monster types that reflect projectiles.

Some other monsters have “Slow Projectile” (time bubble); you can see the impale moving slowly inside the bubble.

6

Generally, the problem an Impale DH has with Sand Dwellers isn’t the reflect, it’s their sand aura which for some reason is especially deadly. I don’t recall dying from a reflect on these ones, but I’ve certainly learned that I need to take them out from range due to the aura.

7

Not a problem for me. I play UE; both MS and rocket aren’t projectiles. And, I keep social distance.

The diablo wiki said, homing missile (e.g. Hungering Arrow) won’t be reflected. That is a good news as I’ll use the new set with HA in next season.

8

I cannot skip them when the rest of my group has stopped to fight them - especially when they are with some other elite packs we are fighting :rofl:

9

Problem is reflect because they are reflecting while sand aura is active. If you attack from range you avoid reflected projectiles.

10

Actually, if you just stand next to one as an Impale DH, without throwing any knives (so nothing is reflected), the sand aura itself will kill you.

11

My health pool is 1,070,*** :upside_down_face:

12

Let’s use my Impale DH - Thwang - as an example.

In town, without activating anything, she has 44,378 armour which is 92.69% damage reduction.

Activating Fan of Knives / Bladed Armor increases that to 58,579 armour which is 94.36% damage reduction.

Now, let’s assume she’s running around, to get the full damage mitigation from the Endless Walk jewellery set, which is 50% mitigation.

She has an Aquila Cuirass in the cube and, assuming she has 90% hatred, that’s another 50% damage mitigation.

Her lightning resistance is 1523 which is 81.31%. This is relevant as she’s using Impale / Ricochet as her rune choice.

In GRs, I’ll regularly see her doing hits / crits in the 50 trillion range. That’s 50,000,000,000,000 damage. So what happens when that’s reflected back at the hero?

Armour mitigation
94.36% mitigation means 5.64% of the damage gets through…
50,000,000,000,000 * 0.0564 = 2,820,000,000,000‬

Endless Walk mitigation
50% mitigation means 50% of the damage gets through…
2,820,000,000,000‬ * 0.50 = 1,410,000,000,000‬

Aquila Cuirass mitigation
50% mitigation means 50% of the damage gets through…
1,410,000,000,000‬ * 0.50 = 705,000,000,000‬

Lightning Resistance mitigation
81.31% mitigation means 18.69% of the damage gets through…
705,000,000,000‬ * 0.1869 = 131,764,500,000‬

This is why your DH’s 1.1 million HP pool is completely irrelevant, as you’d need almost 132 billion HP to survive each reflected knife.

Skip them.

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14

I agree totally… there was one time when I was running a regular rift with goldwrap and a few hundred billion toughness from all the gold I’d collected as armour.

For some reason, I didn’t manage to one-shot a dune dervish before it started spinning, and I was shocked that my cheat-death still proc’ed

15

There is that boss that drops infernal machines in ACT II (can’t remember the name) which has a similar effect if i am not mistaken. I lost too many reflexion pools becuase of him :slight_smile:

16

That’s because the Act II Keywarden is a unique Dune Dervish.

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