Blade Fury Sin Weapon Advice- Of These Two

[-IAreSoHoly-]

Blade Fury Sin Weapon Advice- Of These Two

Edit: ER, of these three.

Which of these two choices would you suggest?

Without a weapon my assassin will have 25% Crushing Blow and no Attack Rating bonuses from items. The three choices are....


Death in an Ethereal Zerker - 20% Bonus to Attack Rating, 50% Crushing Blow

or

Chaos in an Ethereal Feral Claw - With Maxed Claw Mastery.

or

Fury in an Ethereal Feral Claw - Ignore Target Defense, 20% Bonus to Attack Rating, -25% Target Defense, With Maxed Claw Mastery


I'm leaning toward the Death Zerker for the Crushing Blow bonus. But I'm afraid of not having enough attack rating even with the 20% bonus. Should I sacrifice the extra crushing blow and go for the Fury Claw, which has lower damage but nice mods, plus the AR bonus from claw mastery? (With Claw Mastery I'm still guessing that fury's damage will lag behind the Death Zerker. What do you think?)

I won't be dual wielding, I'll be using a shield, if that matters.

So what do you suggest and why?

Thanks for your input.

 

[-IAreSoHoly-]

hmmm..

Ethereal astreon's ward looks decent.... but how expensive is this sucker?

+240-290% Enhanced Damage (varies)
Damage +40-85 (varies)
+50% Damage To Undead
Adds 80-240 Magic Damage
33% Chance of Crushing Blow
Slows Target By 25%
Damage Reduced By 4-7 (varies)
+2-4 To Combat Skills (Paladin Only) (varies)
+10% Increased Attack Speed
150-200% Bonus To Attack Rating

 

[Senshiki]

The best weapon for blade fury is as follows with explainations underneath each mod and why it is useful:

Last Wish
Berserker Axe
1. 6% Chance to Cast Slvl 11 Fade when Struck
Weapon speed is no issue, since Blade Fury is capped at 6 fps. As such, you won't have Burst of Speed on, and the auto-cast fade will give you 50% resist all.
2. 10% Chance to Cast Slvl 18 Life Tap on Striking
What could be better? Niw, rather than having to wear those pesky Drac's, you can slip into Laying of Hands and give your blades 350% damage to demons. Keep in mind, Blade Fury will NOT cast this for some reason, so you will need to kick them or something first.
3. 20% Chance to Cast Slvl 20 Charged Bolt on Attack
Though the least useful, this can help killing speed in normal
4. Slvl 17 Might Aura when Equipped
Another amazing mod. Why yes sir, I will happily take that aura that give me (my merc, my Mind Blast minions AND my party) 200% enhanced damage.
5. +330-375% Enhanced Damage
Blade Fury is based off of weapon speed. This will make that berserker axe at least 79-234 damage.
6. Ignore Target's Defense
Huzzah! A must-have for ninjas! Not to worry about AR now.
7. 60-70% Chance of Crushing Blow
Since blades don't do very high damage, this will be a huge damage modifier, especially versus bosses.
8. Prevent Monster Heal
Probably the only real useless mod, since open wounds and your Venom will prevent any healing. But useful if your Venom duration goes down and OW hasn't hit yet.
9. Hit Blinds Target
Makes minions hit you a lot less. Between casting Cloak of Shadows and this mod, you'll be virtually invisible.
10. 0.5% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items Per Clvl
Extra goodies will drop, of course it's good!

Death's mods are good, but it has uneeded mods (IAS) or mods that could be better (AR vs. ITD). Plus you get an aura, and life tap. Those reasons alone sell me on Last Wish.

Oh and just to make sure, here is my most successful bladesin build:

Max Venom, Shadow Master, Cloak of Shadows, Blade Shield (for the longer duration)
11 in Fade, Rest prerequisites

Vampire Gaze - Um
Chain of Honors (AP)
Last Wish (BA)
Stormshield - P. Diamond
Highlord's Wrath
Laying of Hands
Trang Oul's Girth
Shadow Dancers
Raven Frost
Bul Kathos'

She worked out quite well. Lots of damage, max resist, max physical reduction, near-max block and great other stuff. Good luck.

 

[-IAreSoHoly-]

Nice, thanks!

Thanks for the very detailed post. I did consider Last Wish and knew it'd be a much better option than Death but I had to discount it because of the steep price. Buuuut.... maybe I'll reconsider. Knowing now that ITD is a must for this build really helps me out. Thank you very much.

My build will be as follows.

Giant Skull
Stormshield
T-Gods
Drac's
goreriders
Ravenfrost
Wisp Projector
Rising Sun
Guardian Angel

1 Blade Fury
1 Death Sentry
20 Shadow Master
6 Burst of Speed
20 Cloak of Shadows
20 Fade
20 venom

90% Resists all, Max Damage Reduction %, Awesome Fire, Ice, Lightning Absorb, crushing blow, knockback, deadly strike, blah blah blah. Should be godly when I'm done. If I do get around to getting a Last Wish then I can switch out the Drac's for something cooler.

A nice alternative might be an Ethereal Fleshripper with a Jah in it. I'll have to consider it.

 

[stephan]

I don't see why a BF sin would need that much absorb and res, she rarely gets hit anyway. I'd rather wear things like Duress, LoH/Trangs and Tiamats to increase my damage. Think a little more like a strafe/MS bowazon.

Be careful with 20 points in CoS if you are not going to get a shadow warrior. 20 points might be way more duration than it is worth for the -%def. Also 6 points in BoS is useless if you have 20 in fade. Put more in Death Sentry, a 10 point DS is exponentially better than a 1 point DS. Range does matter.

 

[BAMFSpecialOps]

u only need 1 pnt into CoS, doesnt take long to recast and already has a decent time, and not sure about the lvl 20 fade if usin last wish, it will cast lvl 11 and 20 will be overridden, i would either put 11 hard points in it, that way u always have it active, or not worry about it, and stephan is right, more into death sentry its like CE the range will get bigger which is always helpful

 

[Silent Shaddow]

You dont need last wish, I would advise against it due to price vs effectiveness. you will manage fine with a plain old Death BA, a good way to go. Out of the weapon options that you listed the death is the best imo the big modifier you are looking for is crushing blow....

 

[BAMFSpecialOps]

the warrior-monk guide gives several great options, some very cheap, id check there and see what is available for u.