Some General Skill Advice

[Aldeth the Foppish Idiot]

Some General Skill Advice

I'm a long time D2 player, but I never got into playing the assassin. For my next character I want to give it a try, and I'm hoping for some general advice on where to start here. From previous characters, I have some gear to go with. I have two copies of Bartuc's although neither one is perfect. One has perfect LL but imperfect +ed%, while the other has perfect +ed% but only 7% LL. I also have a Firelizards. I also held onto a magical claw - it was elite but I forget the exact type that was a cruel elite claw of evisceration - really high damage on that one. I also have several pieces of natalya's set - well just two really - the boots and helm, so I'm missing the two pieces that are the hardest to get. I also have various twinking gear from other characters that can be made available to the assassin.

So while I have some decent starting equipment, I'm clueless as to how to play an assassin. I've read through some strategy guides in the stickies, and I guess I should be primarily focusing on the martial arts skills, with a dabbling in the shadow disciplines, and maybe one trap skill.

Here come the questions:

1. It seems like the benefits of using two claws would only be for the additional +skills or for using dragon claw, as it appears from a dry run I did yesterday that the assassin actually only attacks with one weapon. Because of it's limited use, it would initially appear like I'm better off going with a shield and using some other finishing move involving feet.

2. Of the charge up skills, it seems like two really stand out over all the others - tiger strike for it's high physical damage, and phoenix strike to deal whatever kind of elemental damage you'd like. From the stickies I've read, both seem to come highly recommended - is it worth maxing both of them? Cobra Strike also has an obvious use, but it seems like the leech is so good that even level 1 should be good enough.

3. For finishing moves, none of them really knock my socks off. Dragon Flight seems to be of limited use, especially given it's higher casting cost. Dragon Tail also has a relatively high mana requirement, and it seems as if knockback is the last thing you'd want to do with a melee character. Dragon Claw is attractive for it's low mana cost and decent damage, but only works with two claws. Finally, Dragon Talon has very low damage. Would normal attack be the better finishing move, especially with my lower mana at early levels? Is it worth maxing ANY of the finishing moves?

4. Is it possible to mix and match charge up skills, provided I don't go over three? For example, could I theoretically hit twice with TS and then once with Phoenix Stike and get a physical damage boost on top of a meteor, or is this just wishful thinking?

5. On the shadow masteries tree, two skills seem of particular use - claw mastery and shadow master. It seems like both of them deserve a healthy investment of skill points. I definitely see the usefulness of burst of speed and fade, but even at skill level one the duration seems decent enough that you can get by with just a point, and rely on some +skills to take you the rest of the way.

6. Given that I already listed 4 skills that I really like and plan on investing serious points into, is it advisable to forego the trap branch or is this a very bad idea?

 

[PrkChopXpress]

1
c/c vs c/s is an ongoing debate and really just comes down to personal preference. For a trapper, it's an easier question (they shouldn't be in melee so the possibility of an additional +6 to your two most used skills is usually too much to pass up). But for a melee sin, there are good arguments for both. Besides the +skills and other useful mods, you need dual claw if you want to use Weapon Block (just remember that it drops down to 0% if you're walking or running). I personally prefer c/s.

2 & 3
CS is definitely a 1pt wonder. Same thing with DFlight (it's used for it's teleport not it's damage).

As for the charge-ups, PS really needs two synergies maxed (FoF and CoT) to be effective. So if you want PS, you need to invest alot of points into it. Check out the Nat's Phoenix Striker guide. It's built around Nat's set, but all the principals are still the same regardless of gear.

If you want TS, you really need to pair it with maxed DTail. The damage from DTail is multiplicative (not additive like with most skills) with the damage from TS, so it's really the only choice if you want to go that route (it's also my personal favorite build).

DTalon isn't used for it's physical damage, it's used because of it's speed to deliver stuff like CB, OW, and Venom. DTalon is used as the main attack without any charge-ups (it's much better to land a whole bunch of kicks than to waste time charging up).

4
It's not only possible to mix charge-ups, but there also isn't any limit (afaik). You're limited to 3 charges of a particular skill, but not by the number of different skills. I'll routinely have 3 TS charges and 3 CS charges at the same time. I think the only practical limit is that the charges only last for 7 seconds from the last time you land a strike with that particular skill, so it's difficult to charge more that 2 or 3 skills at the same time just because they start to disappear.

5
BoS and Fade are indeed very useful as 1pt wonders (although if you want to go the Fade route, pumping a few more in it isn't a bad idea). Also, it is almost mandatory for any sin to put 1pt into CoS and MB. The combination of those two skills is probably the most effective form of crowd control in the game. You never (except for an Ubers build) want to put more pts into CoS because you can't recast it once it's been cast. You have to wait for it to run out, so more duration can be annoying. Claw Mastery looks better than it really is. A TS/DTail sin is already getting huge amounts of ED and AR, so the benefit of CM is negligible. A DTalon (kicker) sin doesn't use their claws, so CM is completely pointless. Really, the only reason to put a few points into it is on a Phoenix Striker for the AR if you find it difficult to hit stuff. And it's still never a good idea to put more than a couple points into it, and it's probably easier to deal with through gear anyway.

6
You could forgo the traps tree (and some people just do it for stylistic reasons), but Death Sentry is really too good to pass up even as a 1pt wonder. The lightning dmg isn't really doing anything, but the CE is incredibly helpful. And throwing 2 more pts into FB (for the additional shot from each of the 5 sentries) and a couple more in DS (for the increased CE range) is never a bad idea.

 

[mongerman]

Hey Aldeth a fellow SP forumer! *waves*

1. Personal preference. [edit] due to my misconception]

2. Never used them, so cant comment

3. Dtalon, as detailed in stickies, can be used to solo ubers. Hopefully that gives you an idea about its potential.

4. Again, no idea.

5. I believe 1 point + skills from items is enough.

6. Traps are actually my fav tree. I'm a set and forget kind of guy.

Anyway, feel free to pm me. I have some low-mid lvl equipment if you need it.

 

[PrkChopXpress]

1. If you're going the max block route, keep in mind double claws maintain 50% block rate at all times, even if you're running.

Absolutely, 100% wrong. Weapon block drops down to Zero% when you run or walk. The only time it's effective is if you are standing still, teleporting, or WWing. That's it.

If you want to use Weapon Block, you better get used to shift-attacking.

 

[Aldeth the Foppish Idiot]

OK, this changes my perspective a bit.

1. Given that I'm already looking into a bunch of different skills and a ton of prerequisities, I'm probably much better off going c/s as that freezes up having to dump points into weapon block.

2. I can't really decide right now between PS and TS. However, given the necessary synergies involved here, it definitely appears that it's an either/or decision - I certainly can't properly invest in both.

One more question regarding PS - can meteor damage stack? For example, if I land a meteor, and then another one hits while the first one is still burning, do I get the residual fire damage from both?

3. It definitely appears that DTalon will be my finishing move if I go with PS, while DTail would be the skill of choice with TS. The thing I don't get though is why people would use DTalon (or any other finishing move) without the chargeups. It seems like the whole point of a finishing move is to deliver the chargeups. Certainly you damage ratio is higher if you alternate between PS and Dtalon to release meteors than just Dtalon alone, right?

4. Definitely cool. It's even worth mixing in a little CS at times then too.

5. I'm shocked that Claw Mastery isn't so great - I figured that would be a mandatory investment - just like all Barbs pick a mastery. Although it does free up skill points.

6. I'm OK with a smallish investment in the trap tree. I wouldn't want to spend more than about 10 points, but I can swing a small amount.

 

[PrkChopXpress]

Sounds like you've at least got a good starting point in your decision making process. Just a couple more things to think about:

You could max PS and just one of it's synergies (probably FoF), if you only plan on using it for PIs. The downfall of a TS/DTail build is that the fire dmg from DTail is calculated from the physical damage you actually do. So if you run into a PI, TS will do zero damage and therefore DTail will also do zero damage. PS and a synergy is one of the possible solutions to PIs.

And the reason you'd synergize PS with FoF instead of CoT is because the ground fire dmg from the meteors do indeed stack. So you just land a single PS and then drop a meteor, rinse and repeat.

PS is usually unleashed with either a normal attack or a 1pt DClaw (if you're c/c). Since the gear choices for a Phoenix Striker are completely different than the gear choices for a Kicker, DTalon isn't a good idea. The reason you don't use charge-ups with DTalon is because the idea is that you land a whole lot of kicks really quickly (7/3/3/3 fpa) which deliver CB, OW, and Venom dmg really quickly. A PS build doesn't take advantage of any of those dmg sources, which make DTalon not very useful. And worse, it'll leave you stuck in a 15 frame kick sequence that isn't really dealing all that much damage. If you want PS in a c/s build, just use a normal attack as the finisher. If you want PS in a c/c build, use DClaw (1pt wonder) because it'll give you 2 chances to release the charges (note: DClaw released the charges with the first claw that lands, not both claws).

The reason Claw Mastery isn't all that great is because an Assassin rarely uses her claws for the damage. Besides a Phoenix Striker using it for the AR, the only other build would be a DClaw based build (or possibly a Chaos build, but I don't have any experience with a WWer) but DClaw sins pretty rare because they're one of the least effective builds.

10pts is about what I'd suggest. Any more and it starts taking away from your other skills and at that point you might as well just shift your focus to traps.

 

[stephan]

1. It seems like the benefits of using two claws would only be for the additional +skills or for using dragon claw, as it appears from a dry run I did yesterday that the assassin actually only attacks with one weapon. Because of it's limited use, it would initially appear like I'm better off going with a shield and using some other finishing move involving feet.

It depends a little on what you want. The elemental charge-ups and Dragon Claw do attack with both claws and for the elemental charge-ups dual claw is pretty much mandatory as the attack speed with one claw is horrid.

2. Of the charge up skills, it seems like two really stand out over all the others - tiger strike for it's high physical damage, and phoenix strike to deal whatever kind of elemental damage you'd like. From the stickies I've read, both seem to come highly recommended - is it worth maxing both of them? Cobra Strike also has an obvious use, but it seems like the leech is so good that even level 1 should be good enough.

Phoenix strike is not any better than the elemental charge-ups and Tiger Strike seems to work best with a big two hander or together with a maxed DTail and a nice pair of elite boots.

3. For finishing moves, none of them really knock my socks off. Dragon Flight seems to be of limited use, especially given it's higher casting cost. Dragon Tail also has a relatively high mana requirement, and it seems as if knockback is the last thing you'd want to do with a melee character. Dragon Claw is attractive for it's low mana cost and decent damage, but only works with two claws. Finally, Dragon Talon has very low damage. Would normal attack be the better finishing move, especially with my lower mana at early levels? Is it worth maxing ANY of the finishing moves?

First of all, Dragon Talon carries a knockback effect too (on the last kick).

Is it worth it to max them? Not for a PS/elemental charge up build, but on their own a DTalon/Trap hybrid and a TS/Dtail build easily beat a phoenix striker in killing speed.

IMO Dragon Claw or Normal Attack is the prefered finishing move for PS builds.

4. Is it possible to mix and match charge up skills, provided I don't go over three? For example, could I theoretically hit twice with TS and then once with Phoenix Stike and get a physical damage boost on top of a meteor, or is this just wishful thinking?

The limit is not three charge-ups. You can have as many as you want, but they will disappear after a while if you don't use a finishing move (I believe they last 9 seconds).

6. Given that I already listed 4 skills that I really like and plan on investing serious points into, is it advisable to forego the trap branch or is this a very bad idea?

Blade Fury is a 1-point wonder if you have a nice weapon for it and DS is a must.

 

[Aldeth the Foppish Idiot]

OK - I guess I'll go with TS/DTail as it seems like that's a lot easier skill point wise. With two synergies to PS that will severely limit my choices of where to place additional skill points. There seems to be quite a bit of one-point wonders here, and along with some rerequisities, I won't realisitically be able to work on PS and a synergy until I'm well into the 60s as it is. Plus, TS is a level one skill, which would suggest that it will make life so much easier in the early going as I can start pumping it from the get-go.

Any suggestions of skill placement here? I guess my plan would be to pick up all the prerequisities and one point wonders as they become available, and alternate between TS and DTail until both are maxed. Then onto PS and finally a synergy? Good plan?

 

[midevillw]

point distrobution sugestions?

here is my 2 cents worth
your first point should go into your claw mastery (only one nessacary)

second into ts you can then start to use the absolute bare bones fo what your build will b by charging ts then finishing with a normal atack

third into dragon talon so that you can charg than use a finisher

forth again into ts (unless you are planning to use cos and mb in which case place it into psychc hammer)

fith hold this skill point (assuming that you have done the den for the skill pont bu now so that u will receve this one at clvl 5)

sixth now you can use the lvl5 skillpoint and place it into dclaw and your lvl 6 skillpoint into bos both of which are clvl 6 required

for the future continue to build ts until clvl 10 (clvl 12 with points from izzy)save the points and use at clvl 12 to get dragon tail, cos, and wb (you need both of these to obtain your shadows).