Builds

[AJ]

So what would you all think are the best ways to go about building an assassin? Any guidelines you'd think someone should follow? Basic ideas?

Best to stick with claws? Should they go traps?

[Moser]

Probably the most commonly built assassin is the trap assassin. It is porobably the easiest because all you have to do is set up a trap here and there and let shit run into it. Only disadvantage, when you make it to Nightmare or Hell, your kindda screwed, because to be powerful enought to kill stuff you can only max either the fire, or lightning traps.. and once you run into an immune, you might have a tough time.

If your more of the patient person and really like to take the time.. then your best bet would be to make a martial arts assassin, because they pack a decent punch. Only disadvantage, there would most likely be alot of fast skill switching and micro management.

If you did only claws, it would be a good idea to max out Venom (which at lvl 20 does 425-445 over .4 seconds.) Claw Mastry (which at lvl 20 does 111% damage, 220% attack rating, and a 21% chance at a critical strike.) Fade ( lvl 20 reduces curse durationg by 82%, resist all 64%, and lasts for 348 seconds) would also be nice to max. Finally, you might also want a little help thats why either Shadow Master or Shadow Warrior would be nice to max.. You might also invest a few points into burst of speed. Only disadvantage about this, nothing gives bonuses to anything else.

But since i am lazy i would go with the Trap assassin, but i think the martial arts would be the strongest. :)

[GrassDragon]

My favorite Assassin is the Kicker. 20 in Tiger Strike and 20 in Dragon Tail is the basic build. Dual claw usually.

The idea is to get three charges of TS (+1440% dmg) and then use the DT finisher (+240%). The bonuses from the two skills multiply eachother, meaning you end up with close to 36 times your base kick damage. DT changes half the damage to fire, leaves the other half physical, and spreads it over an area with knockback. Put on a nice pair of boots and you're doing some serious damage.

[Neo]

I would suggest only 1 into Claw Mastery, even for a Claw Asn.

Trappers are easier to build, but can run into problems with Immunes. But just use your Shadow Master to divert damage and run away ^^.

-Neo

[Moser]

Holy Crap! I take back all i said about martial arts assassins being hard and needing alot of micro management. I made one the other day and boy does she kick ass! :) But a very good build is to max fists of fire, claws of thunder, blades of ice, and phoenix strike. I'd max all those because they all give a bonus to phoenix strike. Once you have maxed them all, you can use phoenix strike as your secondary attack and kick major butt.. even if you run into an immune you will most likely walk away because strike one does fire damage, strike two does lightning, and strike three does cold.

But as with every build there is a disadvantage. With this one it is one that isn't very bad.. simply this: when you charge upand then go to use your main attack, it will take a few swings to actually hit them (even with your attack rating up, it will still do this.)

Also, when you build an assassin to this guide, you will need to spread your stat points around pretty evenly so you can use some of the higher level claws and such. You won't need to put much points into energy, just get an item that helps regenerate mana and you will be fine. On the other hand you will need to pump up your vitality since this sort of assassin is all close combat and gets hit quite a bit.

-kM

[Geno]

Holy Crap! I take back all i said about martial arts assassins being hard and needing alot of micro management. I made one the other day and boy does she kick ass! :) But a very good build is to max fists of fire, claws of thunder, blades of ice, and phoenix strike. I'd max all those because they all give a bonus to phoenix strike. Once you have maxed them all, you can use phoenix strike as your secondary attack and kick major butt.. even if you run into an immune you will most likely walk away because strike one does fire damage, strike two does lightning, and strike three does cold.

But as with every build there is a disadvantage. With this one it is one that isn't very bad.. simply this: when you charge upand then go to use your main attack, it will take a few swings to actually hit them (even with your attack rating up, it will still do this.)

Also, when you build an assassin to this guide, you will need to spread your stat points around pretty evenly so you can use some of the higher level claws and such. You won't need to put much points into energy, just get an item that helps regenerate mana and you will be fine. On the other hand you will need to pump up your vitality since this sort of assassin is all close combat and gets hit quite a bit.

-kM

The trick to that build? Use a finisher. That should add on a bit of AR for you, and you'll take things down with less tries at it ;)

~Larry "Geno" Meyers

P.S. It doesn't have to be maxed. Just enough to kick up the AR.

[Moser]

Ah, thank you. I would have never thought of that.. heheh.

-kM

[GrassDragon]

I don't think you've played that build through Hell yet (or maybe not even Nightmare). Elemental resistances are so high in Hell, and even in NM, that a build based on elem damage only is gonna be really hard to play. Another disadvantage of this build is leech. You can't really use leech because a very small percentage of the damage is physical. Living in Hell is hard with no leech and damage that is highly resisted by everyone.

[Moser]

I think it would do pretty good in hell or nightmare. Phoenix Strike does fire, lightning, and cold damage.. depending on which strike it is on.. So why wouldn't i do good, unless you find a tri-resist.. which won't happen, i will always have some sort of damage to kill them with.. even then there is always normal attacks.. just put a few into tiger strike or which ever it is and you will do more damage.. but i may be wrong. Either way, there is only one way for me to find out. O_o

-kM

[GrassDragon]

If you were to max FoF, BoI, CoT, and PS (which doesn't leave many points for anything else):

Phoneix Strike does:
AR Bonus: +148%
Charge 1: 1074-1230 for the meteor and
951-993/sec for the explosion
Charge 2: 3-2664 for chain lightning
Charge 3: 468-528 for chaos ice bolt

In hell, every creature is immune to at least 1 element, and highly resistant to the others. Example:

Warped One (Fallen) from act 1:
In Hell, 75% res all, and 1116-3237 life.

Undead Flayer from act 3:
In Hell, 33% Fire resist, 75% Cold resist, 0% Lightning resist, and 2789-6008 life.

Hell Spawn (Enslaved) from act 5:
In Hell, 115% Fire resist, 33% Cold resist, 15% Lightning, and 4294-7152

For the fallen, which is resitant to all, you can use fire if you think you can corral them (keep them on top of the flames) or lightning if your feeling lucky. You would do, on average, 288 fire and another 243/sec while it's in the flames, or 333 lightning. Your looking at 3-10 hits to kill one, less if you can use the AoE effects of the skills to hit more than one.

For the Flayer and Hell Spawn, you would try and use lightning (it has the least amount of res to that, but you could only choose lightning if you knew beforehand that it was least resistant to it, and it might be hard to memorize all of the resistances of all of the monsters for every difficulty in the game. anyways...). Your talking about 3-6 hits for the flayer and 4-7 for the Hell Spawn, with lightning.

In summary, characters that use only elemental damage for their attacks are going to be in big trouble in Hell (maybe even a little bit of a tough time in NM). They may be awesome in Norm (low resistant monsters and high dmg early on), but as soon as you graduate to the next difficulty level (and subsequently the next one) it's going to be MUCH harder, resistances are just too high.

If I'm completely missing something that is so obvious to everyone else, please tell me :p

[Moser]

Ah, your probably right, now that i think about it a little more. But i am already to level 30, no turning back now. So, if that wouldn't work well in hell what build would you go?
BTW- Karma for you for putting up a good last post and good arguement. :)

-kM

[GrassDragon]

My favorite build (as I said in a post above) would be the Kicker. 20 in TS, 20 in DTail, a few in Burst of Speed, 1 in Cobra Strike, 1 in Claw Mastery, maybe one in Cloak of Shadows if you're having AR problems. A few in BoI or CoT would'nt hurt, just to spread your damage types from fire and physical, but if you run into a FI/PI you should be running anyway, not using a low level secondary skill. If you go dual claw, a few in Weapon Block would help. Fade is always useful, especially if your dual-wielding, but remember you can't use Fade and Burst of Speed at the same time. Cobra Strike is really your friend here. If your running low on leech, just charge CS up with your TS, and when you kick you'll be leeching a LOT of health and mana back. Only 1 in CS is needed though, 80% life and mana is more than enough, you could get by with only 2 charges before the finisher if you do it more often or rely more on potions. An Act 2 Holy Freeze merc would probably be best here, to keep the monster in groups so you can get the most with one kick.

[GiaDragoness]

Well, I honestly dont know. I have an assasin myself, and she is mainly martian arts with blade sentinal (shes level 21 or so) and she kicks some major ass. I had a freind who had a pure martial arts assasin and he got his ass wasted an awfull lot. By level 22 or so, at tal rasha's chamber, he just gave up and turned her into a mule charicter. Seems kinda odd. Oh, by the way, I beleive Burst of Speed, Venom, and Fade, you can only use one at a time.

:smash: Smashy Smashy! :smash:

[GrassDragon]

Oh, by the way, I beleive Burst of Speed, Venom, and Fade, you can only use one at a time.

You can use BoS and Venom, or Fade and Venom at the same time, just not Fade and BoS. I think this is because Venom is a damage modifying "activated aura" and BoS and Fade are status modifying activated auras.