Kicking Hybrid Builds

[Hot Sauce]

Kicking Hybrid Builds

I'm looking to build hybrid kicking assassin, but am at an impass. I don't know which route to take. :undecided:

I've been considering three builds: One is a traditional D/talon trap hybrid with LS and two synergies maxed, as well as Dtalon. But, I also read the warrior monk guide recently and findmyself thinking "Hmmmm... interesting... yes, quite!". Still a third option I have been pondering I'm not even sure is viable- A sin using both Dtalon and TS/Dtail, as well as maxed venom and one point in blade fury (so, like the warrior monk but with TS and Dtail maxed instead of a shadow and extra points in fade and CoS).

So, what do y'all think? Which build would you go with, and why? I just started playing again after about a year, so I don't really have any gear to speak of, so I'm pretty much looking for the cheapest build. I know Dtalon needs CB to be effective, so any suggestions for cheap CB gear other than Goblin Toe?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Oh, yeah, and hello. I'm Hot Sauce. It's very nice to meet you!

 

[muzzz]

A talon/tail hybrid will have trouble finding the right gear, because both skills depend on different mods for damage. Most talon builds depend on CB for damage, while tail depends on boot damage and +skills. Goblin toe, for example, simply isn't an option for a DTailer.

One thing that I'd like to try is combining DTalon with Nightfish's TS 'sin (guide in SC, unfortunately). I think that'd be a nice combo, but only if DTalon is any good with a maul, which I'm not so sure about.

 

[Mahric]

The Shadow Sisters
-------------------

I suggest a dual-claw K/T build with Dragon Talon, Death Sentry, Max Shadow Master and an Act 1 Rogue.

15+ Dragon Talon
Max Death Sentry
Max Lightning Sentry (synergy)
Max Shadow Master
1 BoS
1 Fade
1 CoS
1 DF
1 Blade Fury (vs Iron Maiden)
1 Weapon Block

It's an effective build from the start ... first skill point goes to Claw Mastery, Level 6 in Bos and the rest into Dragon Talon until you get 3 kicks (level 12). Then CoS, WB and SW. You'll want a point in Blade Fury before you reach Act4. From Level 30, put everything into Death Sentry until it is maxed and get DT to optimum level (most people recommend maximizing this, but I usually keep it at level 15 to keep below the 6 kick breakpoint).

Then work maximizing LS and SM i... I prefer LS first, but you could could start with SM or share the points.

I don't recommend Venom in PvM ... plus you get it at later levels if you use Treachery.

Equipment

Heavy Metal Boots cause the most damage ... some form of Crushing Blow is useful, try Strength Claws (AMN+TIR). Other useful runewords are Lore helm/circlet (ORT+SOL) and Stealth armour (TAL+ETH).

IMO, your most important item is a source of mana leech (a Manald Heal ring can carry you through to level 90).

At medium levels, aim for Treachery armour (SHAEL+THUL+LEM), Bartuc's Claws (or Strength and Bartuc's in off hand), Venom Grip Gloves and Gore Rider Boots.

At high levels Treachery is still good, try to upgrade your boots (ladder only) and get Thundergods Belt (vs lightning), Ravenfrost (vs cold) Dracul's Grasp gloves (for Life Tap).

Mercenary : Act 1 Rogue. Your shadow will tank for you, and most of the time you're in the thick of things with your kicking, so her ranged attack is useful. She almost never dies and you can equip her with cool aura bows. Try the Edge runeword (TIR+TAL+AMN) for life leech, +35% IAS and thorns aura for you and your shadow.

This a very versatile build. Death Sentry is a fantastic trap and only has LS as a synergy. You also get a very fast melee attack a great defensive spell (CoS), the best minion in the game, fast running speed, Dragon Flight, and a backup ranged attack (Blade Fury). With a few plus points, you can get Weapon Block to 50% without too much trouble, which blocks both melee and elemental attacks.

Standard tactics : Drop a couple of DS traps and start kicking. Use CoS if you get into trouble, then drop back and let your shadow tank while you drop traps and throw blades. You can deal both physical and lightning damage and the Corpse Explosion deals physical/fire, so you don't often have trouble with resistances.

Use your attacks in combination - lightning traps, corpse explosion, dragon talon, merc and shadow all operate in unison to compensate for your not having a single high damage attack. Give your merc Treachery armour and all three of you can have Fade at the same time.

Beware the Shadow Sisters!

Mahric

 

[Hot Sauce]

Fantastic, the Shadow Sisters build sounds great. Thanks a lot guys.

 

[Ed from Russia]

I'd suggest improving the Shadow Sisters build with Venom:

15 Dragon Talon
10 Shadow Master
20 Death Sentry
20 Venom
15-20 Lightning Sentry (synergy)
1 BoS
1 Fade
1 CoS
1 DF
1 Blade Fury (vs Iron Maiden)
1 Weapon Block

Still only about 95 skill points, but Venom will make Blade Fury and the D-Talon more effective.

 

[Mahric]

Hi Ed,

Ummm .... I deliberately don't use Venom for a few reasons (although some may be mis-informed)

1. Elemental damage is very good with Dragon Talon because it is applied per kick - I use a Dream Tiara (IO+JAH+PUL) and absolutely love it ... but Venom does not work the same way, it is re-applied and reset. The Venom is applies each time you kick (and hit), but DTalon kicks so fast that the venom (even at 0.4sec) does not get to do all it's damage before your next kick.

So by replacing Lightning Sentry with Venom, you reduce the damage dealt by your primary trap in exchange for an indeterminate amount of poison damage.

2. Now that we have Treachery armour, you can have level 15 Venom for free just by wearing the armour. This may not do as much damage as say level 30 Venom, but 15 free points in Venom lets you put your skill points elsewhere. While Treachery is not ultimately the best armour for this build (Fortitude is IMO), it is one of the better mid-level armours and will see you through the game if you can't afford anythnig better. And it's cheap enough that you can make one for your merc as well.

3. I'm not sure if this still holds true. Poison damage use to reduce monster regeneration. Venom alters the duration of all poisin damage reducing it to 0.4 seconds instead of 5-7 seconds ... so it would not be able to prevent regeneration and would prevent poison charms from working. As I say, I'm not sure if this is still the case, but I ususally keep a poison small charm on hand just in case.

4. Venom is a great skill in PvP, but less effective in PvM. This is not really a PvP build ... your primary trap is DS with corpse explosion and your primary kick tries to apply crushing blow. Neither are effective in PvP, but are devastating in PvM.

For PvP you should try a different build, either a pure trapper with fully synergised LS with Mind Blast (and some way to employ Conviction or Lower Resist) ... or a pure kicker with Open Wounds and VERY high Venom.

MAX lightning Sentry for this build, you won't regret it!

Mahric

 

[Silent Shaddow]

Hi Ed,

Ummm .... I deliberately don't use Venom for a few reasons (although some may be mis-informed)

1. Elemental damage is very good with Dragon Talon because it is applied per kick - I use a Dream Tiara (IO+JAH+PUL) and absolutely love it ... but Venom does not work the same way, it is re-applied and reset. The Venom is applies each time you kick (and hit), but DTalon kicks so fast that the venom (even at 0.4sec) does not get to do all it's damage before your next kick.

This Is Wrong, Vemon Works Fine.
what happens is that the damage is applied equally over time, so it doesnt matter if your kicking really fast, the fact that the duration is really fast brings the vemon damage closer to being straight physical damage.

So by replacing Lightning Sentry with Venom, you reduce the damage dealt by your primary trap in exchange for an indeterminate amount of poison damage.

Alot of poison damage actually.

2. Now that we have Treachery armour, you can have level 15 Venom for free just by wearing the armour. This may not do as much damage as say level 30 Venom, but 15 free points in Venom lets you put your skill points elsewhere. While Treachery is not ultimately the best armour for this build (Fortitude is IMO), it is one of the better mid-level armours and will see you through the game if you can't afford anythnig better. And it's cheap enough that you can make one for your merc as well.\

Treachery as an armour for leveling is moot point, this type of character should cruise through normal and nightmare anyways.

3. I'm not sure if this still holds true. Poison damage use to reduce monster regeneration. Venom alters the duration of all poisin damage reducing it to 0.4 seconds instead of 5-7 seconds ... so it would not be able to prevent regeneration and would prevent poison charms from working. As I say, I'm not sure if this is still the case, but I ususally keep a poison small charm on hand just in case.

You keep attacking the same monster till its dead right? so whats the point is missing out on the huge vemon damage? poison damage reduces the monsters regeneration to zero, and then futher to deal the damage.

If you use vemon then do not use poison damage charms as they are completely ineffective at adding damage. the damage is scaled down compared to the duration of the charm to 0.4 seconds and then added to the vemon.

4. Venom is a great skill in PvP, but less effective in PvM. This is not really a PvP build ... your primary trap is DS with corpse explosion and your primary kick tries to apply crushing blow. Neither are effective in PvP, but are devastating in PvM.

Vemon is also a great skill in PvM, and adds a huge amount of damage. You appear to have massively underestimated it. Let me compare lvl 20 vemon to a 290 sc...
SC: 290 over 10 seconds.
lvl 20 Vemon: 435 av poison damage ove 0.4 seconds
=10875 over 10 seconds.


For PvP you should try a different build, either a pure trapper with fully synergised LS with Mind Blast (and some way to employ Conviction or Lower Resist) ... or a pure kicker with Open Wounds and VERY high Venom.

MAX lightning Sentry for this build, you won't regret it!

Lightning sentry is optional on this build really, it will have better damage but really you could just not use it. I find that if i use Lightning sentry to much then I end up playing a Trapsin
Mahric

1001 chars

 

[Mahric]

Oops ...

I'm sure venom does a lot of damage - by "indeterminate" I mean that I have no idea how much damage is done. It cannot (easily) be calculated per kick like other elemental damage, and as you say, it doesn't matter how fast you kick .. whereas with other elemental damage - I often use a Dream helm at higher levels - the faster you kick, the more damage is dealt.

The choice I've made is not between between Venom and poison charms, but rather between Venom and the extra lightning damage that LS gives to Death Sentry. Venom only affects a single target at a time and most creatures fall to one or two kicks anyway, so I've chosen to increase the damage from Death Sentry. The traps operate independently of my kicking and pierce through multiple creatures, weakening them to enhance the effect of the corpse explosion.

The point of this build was not to maximize damage from kicking, but rather to have multiple forces acting together - fast physical damage, maximum lightning damage and corpse explosion from DS, high speed attack (with level 15 Venom) from my Rogue and a some support and tanking from Shadow Master.

I may well have underestimated Venom, but I've tried builds with and without Venom and noticed little difference. I don't doubt that it can increase kick damage significantly, but with a high-speed kick attack with 35%+ crushing blow and (at higher levels) and enhanced damage from Fortitude Armour and sometimes Dream, Venom does not appear to make any difference to general game play.

I do however concede that against single tough targets, like the Uber Three, Venom will prove to be more useful.

Mahric

 

[Mahric]

PS. I have a "Dream" helm with level 15 Holy Shock.

Holy Shock adds 1-648 lightning damage per kick, so if there are 25 frames per second and I'm kicking at 733333, then (assuming each kick connects and the target is not lightning immune) damage would be increased by 6-3888 per second with 3 frames to spare.

Over a period of 10 seconds (250 frames) I should kick 68 times ... 68-44064 additional lightning damage or 22066 average damage, just from wearing a nice hat ... but unlike Venom, it requires that most of your kicks connect with the target.

 

[Silent Shaddow]

ina 733333 is 22 frames, diablo runs at 25 frames per sec, so 22/25=0.88secs for one kick sequence, which means that over that time vemon would have applied twice its read out damage, which in my example would be about 850 damage. However that is very limited vemon damage at just level 20.

Personally i would take the trade off in favour of vemon damage in most cases, my K/t aims at generating corpses and using only death sentry for corpse explotion. That version tries to be independent from the lightning damage for untwinking perpsoses...

P.S imo guil face>your dream

 

[Mahric]

I think it may just be a difference in a playing style ... as we seem to achieve a similar effect by different means. I have no real objection to using Venom and Guilliames Face, but I've tried both and have found a different combination that works better for me.

I have 35% CB from a BER-socketed claw and upped Gore Riders (or Strength Claw, Gores and Venom Grip at mid-range levels) and then get my elemental damage from Dream (or Treachery at mid levels). I have a Guilliames Face in my stash and experiment with it occasionally, but I find that 35% CB is sufficient and since I already have 86% FHR, Guilliames Face doesn't have much else to offer.

With approximately 6 kicks per second, 35% CB should activate at least once, often twice in the first second. After that CB has diminishing returns in terms of physical damage and the the elemental damage from Dream becomes more useful - especially against physical immunes as I'm not using Venom

Guilliames Face :
+120% Enhanced Defense
+30% Faster Hit Recovery
+35% Chance of Crushing Blow
+15% Chance of Deadly Strike
+15 Strength

Dream :
10% Chance To Cast Level 15 Confuse When Struck
Level 15 Holy Shock Aura When Equipped
+20-30% Faster Hit Recovery (varies)
+30% Enhanced Defense
+150-220 Defense (varies)
+10 To Vitality
Increase Maximum Life 5% (Helms Only)
+0.625-61.875 To Mana (Based On Character Level)
All Resistances +5-20 (varies)
12-25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items (varies)

To be fair, I didn't mention Dream in the original "Shadow Sisters" article. I was working on the assumption that Hot Sauce was starting from scratch and probably wouldn't have access to high-end equipment. My advice was to use Treachery for (for level 15 Venom) and then use the skill points to max the Shadow and the Lightning Sentry synergy ... but even with better equipment, this build works perfectly well without Venom.

While a high CB + Venom build will probably be more effective against single high HP targets, I'm fairly sure that 35% crushing blow + Dream + Lighting Sentry (synergy) will clear a room faster and is still effective against the big guys. I still believe this build is close to optimal for what it's trying to achieve ... although I welcome you opinion and am quite enjoying the discussion.

Mahric

 

[Hot Sauce]

What are your thoughts on spending perhaps 2 or 5 extra points in FB for extra shots for DS?

 

[TheBassman]

I think Kingslayer would be a good weapon for this build if you'd decide on making a K/T for the OW%/CB%.

Just a thought.

 

[Mahric]

Bassman - I'm afraid not. Crushing Blow is important, but there are better ways to get it (Guilliames Face plus Gore Riders, or BER rune if you can afford it). OW is good for PvP, but this isn't really a PvP build. Enhanced damage isn't applied to kicks ... and you're forced to use a shield, thus losing your elemental block, and will have to invest points in dexterity to maintain your block percentage. This build advocates a dual claw high vitality approach.

Hot Sauce - my primary build is complete at 91 skill points (level 84 + 8 bonus point from normal and NM), which leaves a few options at higher levels.

Fireblast is not high on my list. The fire damage is not required, so it would only be used to boost the number of Death Sentries. You don't need many active traps for corpse explosion, so the additional trap(s) would really only increase the number of simultaneous lightning attacks. You can recast traps as often as you like and it's even possible that your first trap will be burned out before you get to casting a 6th trap ... I wouldn't bother with this one, it won't make any difference to the build.

The extra points could go to Venom ... or if you already have Venom in your primary build, then to LS or Shadow Master (whichever was sacrificed to get the Venom). My personal choice is to put the additional points into Weapon Block ... you'll need 26 skill points for a 60% block, but depending on your equipment choice and number of Shadow Charms, it should be attainable by around level 90-96!

Mahric

 

[AveSatanasRex]

Bassman - I'm afraid not. Crushing Blow is important, but there are better ways to get it (Guilliames Face plus Gore Riders, or BER rune if you can afford it). OW is good for PvP, but this isn't really a PvP build. Enhanced damage isn't applied to kicks ... and you're forced to use a shield, thus losing your elemental block, and will have to invest points in dexterity to maintain your block percentage. This build advocates a dual claw high vitality approach.

Hot Sauce - my primary build is complete at 91 skill points (level 84 + 8 bonus point from normal and NM), which leaves a few options at higher levels.

Fireblast is not high on my list. The fire damage is not required, so it would only be used to boost the number of Death Sentries. You don't need many active traps for corpse explosion, so the additional trap(s) would really only increase the number of simultaneous lightning attacks. You can recast traps as often as you like and it's even possible that your first trap will be burned out before you get to casting a 6th trap ... I wouldn't bother with this one, it won't make any difference to the build.

The extra points could go to Venom ... or if you already have Venom in your primary build, then to LS or Shadow Master (whichever was sacrificed to get the Venom). My personal choice is to put the additional points into Weapon Block ... you'll need 26 skill points for a 60% block, but depending on your equipment choice and number of Shadow Charms, it should be attainable by around level 90-96!

Mahric

Points in FB = more rounds of CE per trap. So one trap = 6 or 7 CEs instead of 5.

 

[Mahric]

Oops ... my bad.

I've never put more than one point in FB ... but it still makes no difference, you won't need more than 5 CEs per trap (25 from 5 traps). And if you do want more, you can always re-cast.