My First Assasin

[Xena1985]

My First Assasin

Hi making an assi for the first time ever and need some help deciding skills merc and equipment since i am n00b at assasin feel free to bash my planned char.

tiger strike 20
dragon tail- 20
shadow master - 15
death sentry - 20 edit : ( I simply love corpse explosion and find it usefull so this is pretty much untouchable in my plans)
fire blast - 8 2 extra charges for DS
1 in pre reqs rely on + to skills to get claw mastery burst of speed to acceptable leves

merc question : might or HF ??

equipment 2 weapons and rely on + skills for weapon block or 1 and rely on Storm shield which i hope to soon aquire

weapon ?? i have 2 bartucs jade talon and shadow killer which 2 to use ?? assuming 2 weapons (nat's claw is out of my price range )

helm : guillans

rest : have no idea

also this is SP trading for items on SP forum i have a good MF Poisonmancer so getting mid-high end gear is np but no leet stuff or runewords plz

 

[onedevildog]

I'm still learning the assassin myself, so I'm not giving any expert advice here.

My recommendation would be to only put three points in Fire Blast. That gets you one extra shot with Death Sentry without using too many skill points.

Shadow Master can probably be a few points less as well, especially if you go with 2x Bartucs. The only reason I can see to add more to Shadow Master would be if you need her to have more life (course I have 20 pts in my Shadow Master :innocent: ).

Wouldn't know where to tell you to put extra points, though I'm thinking Phoenix Strike and/or Claws of Thunder.

For weapons, you could go with 2x Bartucs, or 2x claws with IAS and massive damage bonuses. Or, you could go with something special like Grief and a shield (Stormshield or Spirit runeword maybe). I like the 2x Bartucs idea myself, but I don't know if that's the most effective setup.

For armor, I think you would do well with Duress runeword, which is very effective, and is pretty cheaply made compared to Fortitude, Enigma, etc.

For merc, I personally prefer the Holy Freeze merc, unless you can afford a Doom polearm. If you can afford Doom, then I'd probably go with Might.

Not much help I suppose, but there's my initial thoughts (for whatever that's worth ).

 

[Xena1985]

any help is better than none but we will see how this thread develops however i dont know wether too use 2 bartucs 1 definitly for the LL skills stats ect but jade talon has mass resists and also shadow killer has better damage than both of them not to mention the 15mana/kill which would give me infinite mana for casting DS with 0 points invested in energy

also forgot to add in first post how should stats look ?? i was thinking
STR - enough for equipment NRG- we all know that 1
but the dex and life i am not sure how these should look like more dex or more life ?? i need to be able to connect in hell but survival is a priority i want to make this 1 hardcore although i am not sure

also because this is single player trading on forum i am not sure how my + skills will look like but somewhere between 5 and 10 end game maras ammy is rare on those forums last i looked not too expensive for me but hard to get a hold of some1 willing to trade time to give the ol' necro a workout 87 poisonmancer

and as for FB your right i thought it was evry 4 but if its evry 3 the question is 6 or 9

 

[Naliworld]

Actually, I would suggest keeping DEX to a minimum(since you're C/C), and putting your points in an even split between STR and VIT(ideally, enough VIT to survive, all the excess goes into STR for extra Kick damage).

For your second claw, a Jade Talon is tempting, but a second Bartuc helps a ton with DTail damage, what with the +40 stats and +3 MA skills. If you can make up for the resists elsewhere, I would stick with the Bartucs.

To throw in a few other equipment suggestions:

Armor: 'Chains of Honor' ideally ('LionHeart' on a budget) - both armors have +skills/stats, which means more DTail damage. I'm not so keen on CB/OW/CtC mods, as you'll only be hitting at 7 frames/attack, which IMO isn't quick enough to trigger ancillary effects often (as compared to DTalon's 3 frames/attack). Of course, YMMV.

Helm: Keeping with the +skill/stat theme, Harlequin Crest (even better if you can get a nice +2 rare circlet, though)

 

[onedevildog]

I hope we can keep this thread going, 'cause I want to make sure I'm on track with a few things.

Tiger Strike is an attack with weapon right? Whereas Dragon Tail is an attack by kicking, meaning the weapon only influences attack speed and the boots determine the damage? How does DTail then work with TS? Are the TS charges based on the weapon, then the DTail finisher works off the boots?

A concern for me is Grief, which is my favorite Barb weapon, and practically my favorite weapon period. For my weapons allocations, I was thinking 2x Bartucs with Grief and Phoenix (or other nice shield) on switch for a TS/DTail build, but I read +damage on Grief doesn't work with kicks. If that's the case, would the Grief add to the TS charges, then be released by the DTail, or would the Grief be ineffective all around?

My last question(s) is about skill point allocation; I know there's pleny of options. It seems from comments I've seen that many skip traps with the martial arts build, but like Xena1985, I just enjoy using Death Sentry too much to pass it up. With five (or more) points in traps, and at least 48 pts in martial arts (max TS/DTail; one in rest of tree), plus 10 to open al the shadow disciplines, that takes up 63 skill points. I've never gotten past 90, and usually wind up in mid to upper 80's, so I work off the premise I'll get about 100 skill points. So, I've got 37 skill points to plan for.

I was originally thinking about having Phoenix Strike for backup, but then was thinking maybe Claws of Thunder. Or perhaps split between the two and synergize... But this leaves me with nothing to boost Shadow Master, Fade, Burst of Speed, or Death Sentry, depending on which skills are emphasized. If I push Phoenix Strike (or Claws of Thunder) to 20, Shadow Master to 10, leave Fade and Cloak of Shadows alone, that leaves me nine pts for use in Burst of Speed and Death Sentry. Does this sound viable? And, am I better off putting all pts into either Phoenix Strike or Claws of Thunder, or would a 10/10 split be worthwhile?

I think my build will probably look something like this:
Tiger Strike 20
Dragon Tail 20
Phoenix Strike 20
Shadow Master 10
Death Sentry 5
Burst of Speed 5
pre-reqs get 1 each


Thanks!

 

[Xena1985]

I do have the harlequin crest as well it is a good helm no doubts there, but can anything really make up for the loss of CB ?? it simply dominates bosses and stronger monsters. I have seen this is action my HF merc @ level 87 has guillans face and can kill hell mephisto (players = 3) without dieing as long as I decrep him. seeing how good this is on a merc I can't help but wonder how good this will be with an extra 1500% dmg from TS. Help me decidce please because the HC has the 10% - physical resist and alot of life/mana
Also what are your thoughts on shadow killer, it has more damage than bartucs and 15 mana per kill would make it easy to spam DS i think.
another issue you all recommend + to skills as gear choices but how can i get maximum resistance i need 75 fire and lighting
cold and poison are not really an issue as long as they are positive

You all seem to suggest that 2 weapons are better than one so i guess i will be using 2 weapons so a very high dex is not needed however i still need to hit stuff how high do you recommend dex on the order of 100 ?? less ?? more ?? with rest being split for str and vit

thx for all the feedback

edit: oh 1 more thing I saw Chains of Honor man sweet but i play single player but having created about 10 level 80+ chars over the years i have yet to see a ber rune ;-) and unfortunatly trading for runes is not allowed on the SP forum would tal rashas set armor be good?? skin of the viper and duriels' shell are alternatives