This skill is actually useful, something I did not know. Is Overpenetration with PE better than fire in all forms except for bosses? I dont know but feels like fire is good when being tanky except for the healing part PE provides with.
The fire rune for impale causes another 500% weapon damage over 2 seconds. The main limitation of the fire rune is that you’re limited to hitting at most 3 enemies per throw. With lightning / ricochet you can hit 9, with overpenetration you can hit as many as are in a straight line so it’s possible to be more than 9 if you’re killing elites with a circle of trash around them.
Essentially with fire you’re going from 75,000% to 75,500% damage but losing out on a huge amount of area damage / hatred regen. That’s not a good trade-off for a damage boost of under 1%, especially as it means you’d leave even more trash alive than lightning / cold would so you need to find more elites to spawn the guardian.
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What MB said.
Also note that the physical rune ONLY applies to 4 set piece of shadows set, not 6 piece, so it’s worthless too.
ricochet and overpenetration runes are where it’s at with shadow impale, nothing else competes. ricochet is obviously better with hatred management, but cold does have the potential to do more damage given that it can hit more than 9 targets potentially. Combining cold impale and stacked AD can make a large difference, especially when there’s very good mob density. Herding mobs around an elite pack and proccing AD within a 10 yard radius can be devastating.
As I said in your other thread, I still think BoTP is a better option than PE. The time that you might gain from PE having slightly more DPS on higher GRs is lost by being more fragile and dying imho. A good DH shouldn’t be dying.
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Well I tried with fire and elites go down so much quicker and boss took like 25 seconds. Now I think the 500% fire goes with the 6k dmg on set.
Hatred is hard to maintain when in distance with the enemy, so I uppd my resistance and upped boar companion, with 91% armor I can tank the elites no matter how many monsters there is and it goes slightly faster. The real problem is aiming them knives could go into any1 so I prepped with AD.
You’re imaging it. The 500% applies ONLY to weapon damage (base weapon damage) and nothing else. I played with fire in s16 and it was certainly no better than cold or lightning, both of which I have extensive experience with. I killed a 104 boss (blighter, who has a fair few HP imho) the other night in six seconds lol (power circle and COE cycle hit and a condi pylon though).
I need some proof if a blizzard worker could write if its using the first 6000% increased damage (cuz it says while holding melee weapon ALL dmg is increased by 6000%) on knife burn and if its a yes, what else dont benefit from 6000% dmg? impale only? This is very confusing…
edit: imagine a 2 piece set of shadows that increases all dmg by 6000%. Impale gains it most likely to do that damage then there is the burn in the fire rune since it is the same skill.
trust me, the 500% fire is the weapon dmg only…
Then how come it is used by some DH and a while ago long time actually an asian server guy pushed new grift record with fire impale… I am pretty sure that the 6000% bonus applies to the burn unless it had been nerfed. I am actually going to try this in a lower grift maybe 100 solo were I cant oneshot one to see how fire rolls.
Then this might be a placebo but I am running a lot better with fire and stricken than overpenetration and PE as long as I can tank long enough.
edit: omfg you was right the 500% is nothing more than a fart, it must have been an illussion when I tried it I swear enemy hp keept going down a quarter of an inch. I heard it is stacking but that cannot help so much seriously why do some recommend fire impale for elite killers? I can stack like 3 fires before they burn out for a whopping 1500% dmg so can 76 500% really help, it is less than a percent ;’( ? I am better off with the physical rune then at least getting 300% x my base dmg.
Blizz should do something about this. Maybe letting fire go for 6000% but not letting it stack or something…
it has nothing to do with the “fire” aspect. impale basically does the same dmg (or very, very close to) no matter what rune you use.
physical - the 500% CHD bonus ONLY applies to the 4 set shadow NOT 6 piece. It fires 3 daggers.
Fire - you get a tiny fire dmg bonus on top of normal impale dmg, but as you may have realised, the fire dmg is SFA.
cold - it’s benefit is that in theory, it can fire off more daggers than ANY other impale rune, it’s limits dictated by mob density. The draw back is that quite often, mob density is poor and you get less than 9 mob monsters hit by daggers, so get less hatred return. When it does hit >= 9 monsters, and is coupled with stacked AD, it can be very useful and will do the most dmg of any impale rune imho. The stars kinda have to align for that to happen though…it does happen, but not super frequently to make it that much better than lightning rune imho…
lightning rune - hits 9 monsters. Can do extra dmg with stacked AD, but being limited to a maximum of 9, will potentially be inferior to cold rune.
I prefer lightning to cold for the simple reason that aquila’s only works if above 90-95 hatred resource. Cold, being worse with hatred management, will quite often see you dip below that cut off point, and thus, taking more damage.
Some mobs, you’ll wanna hit from a distance, rather than close up in their face (arcane for example). Lightning is superior in those circumstances imho.
Unless you are pushing very high GRs (120+), go with powerful over stricken. I really do recommend gogok/powerful/trapped - gogok gives you dodge and some DR, plus helps with vengeance CDR, plus attack speed bonus. Powerful gives you dmg bonus (admittedly, potentially not as much as zei or stricken) plus DR (from elites). This is very welcome when pushing higher GRs imho. Paragon can, and does mask some toughness issues (which is why players with higher paragon can and do push higher than those with lower paragons, more on that later on in my reply).
The asian guy probably had exceptionally good gear, combined with high augments, high lgems and high paragon and exceptional skill combined with massive GR fishing for that perfect rift. Fire rune had nothing to do with it.
impale can crit on each dagger (so in theory, 9 daggers with lightning can all be criticals). Remember that AD affects ONLY 10 yards around the monster that procced AD. That’s why AD and great mob density work very well together.
Paragon really does make a difference (there’s an excellent thread about this on the US DH forums). Last season, DPS wise, I could do a 121 @ p1200, but - my toughness from such low paragon was crap and I kept dying a lot, losing NG (I’m on console) and going back to 50% dmg because of it, plus the loss of time penalty from dying. If I’d been p1600, no issue on the toughness (and recovery) aspects. It’s why the game is broken as it stands. Paragon MUST be removed from the game in full, or limited to p800 etc.
I’ve been playing impale s6 exclusively since s13 (top 35 in s13 [with 20 cheaters ahead of me, so in reality top 15), 12th in s14, 12th in s15 and crap since the 2.6 changes to impale which favour groups heavily cos of the paragon/toughness issues). I used to be able to make up for a lack of paragon with skill, but now, with the 2.6 impale changes, I cannot. Paragon wins every single time and it’s very frustrating to be limited because of an artificial mechanic rather than my player skill. Note, I’m on PS4, so you won’t see a blizzard profile for me.
glhf!
If only someone had said this a week ago… 
it’s not even better than less than a percent. The 3 daggers vs 9 daggers is a complete deal breaker no matter what fire adds to the equation. Then there’s the hatred management as you and I have bother said…
edit: if they fixed what is a bug with the physical rune and made it apply to the 6 piece set…and perhaps dropped the number of daggers to 3 or 5 etc, that might help make another rune worthwhile…
Time and time again, lightning and cold have proven to be the best impale runes. Period.
It is actually more than 1% in hind sight. The fire dmg stacks and with 2.5 AS it will be something around 4 burns after one second. I find the overpenetration runes other knifes than the 3 first ones a bit gay, it is only good for proccing PE but enemies have to stand correctly for it to work GTO.
as I have said, I much prefer powerful to PE as a legendary gem. And lightning and cold will trump the fire rune every time imho. I base that statement on extensive experience with the build. Fire can work, don’t get me wrong. But, the stars need to align imho…
Fire work’s fine if you just BK solo push lightning is the best!
a maximum of 3 daggers…hatred management…nah.
Remember to add Bane of the Stricken to the mix and Ricochet becomes even stronger.
I respectfully disagree. Stricken does nothing unless you are pushing extremely high on the LBs (125+). That’s the top 20 or so players globally…so highly unlikely it’s helpful or a great choice to the OP.
A far better option is bane of the powerful - DPS AND DR unlike stricken or pain enhancer.
True, at very high pushes, when combined with cold dmg (overpenetration) and stacked AD, stricken or pain enhancer are better options, but ONLY slightly better. And, unless you have mega paragon (p2500+) you’ll experience toughness issues with 125+.
As it stands, impale s6 is incredibly unbalanced now - solo players are pretty much screwed out of of vying for top spots on the LBs due to lower paragon than group players running solo runs with mega paragon advantages…toughness is an issue when pushing 122/123 and above with lower paragons. Pre 2.6 patch it was nowhere near as advantageous to high paragon group players and solo players like myself could push higher on the LBs. Not anymore.
It sucks being beaten on the LBs by players with less skill but more paragon…the game should be about skill, not paragon farming. Blizzard, sadly, doesn’t understand how to balance its games and continuously keeps screwing solo players big time…
I’ve finished s19, got my seasonal journey rewards and have moved on. Screw pushing LBs, it’s a complete waste of time for solo players. It’s fine by me, plenty of other games to play, and other things to do in my life and Blizzard can lose a player spending time playing their game unless they opt to listen and fix the myriad issues…which is highly unlikely. Note: I won’t be buying D4 unless they resolve the solo vs group issues that plague D3…I’d rather keep my money than reward a company that doesn’t listen.
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