Help with a Low Level Assn build

[mckfroig]

Help with a Low Level Assn build

Hi everyone!

Tommorow a bunch of friends and I are going to reinstall diablo 2, exp and patch it and finish act one untwinked as a party at a lan! We've done this before and it was a great time!

I was hoping to build some sort of assassin this time (last time I was a conc barb) and I'm not exactly sure where to put my skills... I'm looking along the lines of a martial arts sin. Or would a trap assassin be better? I've never played a trapper... but I love playing martial arts!

Furthermore, I'm not sure whether to go with tiger strike/dragon tail or just dragon talon or what! I know in 1.10+ it's all about dragon talon for hell and what not... but what about normal? We're taking these characters to about level 30 with all the quests so we'll have like 34 ish skill points to use.

Could someone please be so kind as to give me an idea of what might be the better build to use and what type of skills would be ideal? Thanks very much in advance!

-Mckfroig

 

[BIGeyedBUG]

If you want to play untwinked and play a useful role in a party, a trapper is by far the easiest. For that, see JRichard's guide in the strat compedium. Whether you'll think it's fun or not I can't tell ya.

Talon builds are indeed powerful, but tough to do untwinked. Tiger/Dtail would be easier, and playing in a party would address some of their weaknesses later in the game. If you haven't already, check out Wildjinn's guide, also in the strat compedium.

 

[mckfroig]

Thanks very much for the advice!

I think i forgot to mention we're just playing through normal... so would some of the fallbacks of these characters you've mentioned affect them too badly in act 5 normal?

Thanks very much for the advice and anymore that might come!

-Mckfroig

 

[BIGeyedBUG]

Neither one of those builds really starts rolling until about level 30 I think. They do have the advantage of being much better later on if you decide you'd like to continue past Normal.

If you're sure Normal's all you want to finish, I'd probably go with something that focuses on level 12 skills at the highest. If you like melee, Fists of Fire is pretty fun early on. You'd basically just pump it, and use a 1 point Dragon Claw to release, as well as 1 point in most of the Shadow skills as you could afford them. You'd want to go dual-claw to get the most out of FoF.

If traps are more your thing, Wake of Fire owns almost everything in Normal. The one thing I'd caution about it is that it seems to be quite graphics-intensive, and it might cause problems for you or other players if they have lousy computers. Charged Bolt Sentry might be a good alternative, but I have a lot less experience with it.

 

[ilkori]

While we're on the subject, I saw a very good Charged Bolt Sentry (CBS) trapper playing in normal the other day. My guess is that the person was making a fully synergized Lit Trapper, but the build is the same.

The other elemental trapper option (as mentioned) would be Wake of Fire (WoF). WoF has a timer that only lets them hit once every little while, so don't lay down lots of WoF traps expecting them to be a ton better.

There are a bunch of skills that work well, including the blade skills. Blade Sentinal destroys Fallen like nobody's business, and can even be used through A3 with "ok" returns. Blade Fury can mop up in 5 player games in A5, if you get a good weapon (ethereal War Hammers are incredible if you're lucky enough to get them). The blade skills only use 1 pt each, so add them to whatever else you are planning on doing.

BeB covered the Fists of Fire build.

Talon works well if you can get some decent boots. You'll be looking for as many elemental charms as you can, and a fast weapon.

With all of these, I end up with dual claws well through the first act, and sometimes further depending on what happens to drop.

 

[Razim]

A talon build is actually very fast and easy to play through Normal untwinked, and with the right boots (which are not hard to find/shop) you'll be able do much more damage early on than all other melee chars of your level. And if you happen to find an amn and a tir on your way you can even make yourself a cheap but surprisingly powerful strength runeword (amn-tir) to get some crushing blow against Diablo and Baal. (you can either shop a 2-socket katar in act 1 Normal or hope you find 2-socket blade talons for a bit more speed)

The build is very straightforward, put a point in Claw Mastery and Burst of Speed and put all your other points into Dragon Talon until it is maxed (18 points is okay too if you want to save some points for other skills). After that you can customize your build with Death Sentry and a Shadow Warrior/Master to help with crowd control. You will watch your AR go through the roof as you put more points into Talon, and your powerful and fast kicks will crush everything in your path as long as you keep wearing the best boots for your level and strength (demonhide and sharkskin boots will probably be the best boots you'll be able to find through normal, but greaves will be able to do the job as well).

As for your stats, I would bring strength to 70 as soon as possible so you can wear greaves. Dex isn't very important imo, I wouldn't raise it higher than 40-50, and all the rest should go to Vitality. You will run into some mana problems at first so you need to buy a lot of mana potions, but once you find something with mana leech on it you will become an unstoppable kicking machine.

So at lvl 30 with 34 skillpoints your build will look something like this:

Stats (before items)

Str: 70-80
Dex: 20-50
Vit: 80-120
Eng: 25 (base)

Skills

Dragon Talon: 18-20
Claw Mastery: 1
Burst of Speed: 1-3
Fade: 0-1 (if you want to try out some Venom on your kicks ^^)
Venom: 0-1
Psychic Hammer: 0-1 (as a prerequisite to SW, SM and Mind Blast)
Cloak of Shadows: 0-1 (same, although this skill can actually be useful)
Mind Blast: 0-1 (not really necessary through normal, but might be fun)
Weapon Block: 0-1
Shadow Warrior: 0-1
Shadow Master: 0-1 (for beginners it's better to take a Master imo)
FB/SW/CBS: 1
Lightning Sentry: 1-4 (if you want to focus more on traps)
Death Sentry: 1-4 (increase for better range)


This is basically how I think a lvl 30 Talon build could look like. With decent resists you can easily solo Diablo and Baal through hardcore using this build, which is exactly what I have done three times already, although I didn't stop after Normal.

 

[Arctickhan]

my EX-girlfriend's tactic:
mindblast- 20(to converse monster and breakin' the guard)
death sentry- 20(to blow up dead monsters onto your face...)
blades of ice- 20 (namelockin' b*tch!you might choose phoenix but she love to see you frozen and sieged by all that monsters but my opinion meteor strike then mb on opponent and push him/her into flames,or choose claws of thunder but its useless when trying to converse monsters but be sure COT powerful then PStrike)
cobra strike-few points (we have a rule;everyone have a right to carry 3 rej pot but this is INSANE!!!)
tiger strike-more than cobra less than boi
dragon flight- 1-20 (to name lock and gain ar)
and of course "chaos" rw claws to flowth over blood...
I know that's a hi-leveled char but plan is pretty good...

 

[ilkori]

I might add that Greaves are not easy to get early game, even though you can use them at level 1 with 70 str. Here's a list of the earliest you can find them:

Gambling: level 27 (via the Arreat Summit)
Shopping: not sure exactly, though I'd guess it's level 26 or so

Monster drop (via ATMA):

• A2: Tal Rasha's Tomb, Preserved Dead, odds 1:7079
• Throughout A3 and beyond (though odds don't get consistently good until A4)

 

[mckfroig]

Thank you guys very much for your help! Unfortunately when we set up the lan in my friend's garage, we didn't end up having any internet so there were no patchs... thus we all played LOD version 1.07. I was a good time and I ended up making a dragon tail / tigerstrike sin... she worked out very well and I ended up as the best tank there with good block (weapon block was about 50%) and massive leech with cobra strike!

I was wondering about some things from 1.07... was your attack damage for kicks based on boots still and did the boots do the same amount of damage they do now? I know that when I swapped out my chain boots for light plated, the damage didn't seem to change in the lcs... but we all know that means nothing.

Thanks very much!

-Mckfroig

 

[BIGeyedBUG]

Boot damage wasn't activated until 1.1.

Glad it worked out well.

 

[mckfroig]

Thanks very much!

I was just wondering what did govern damage of kicks in 1.07 then... was it just strength and dex? It appears that plus damage charms don't work on kicks back then either... I was very surprised when I found a +15 max damage grand charm! But I gave it to a pally who did much more than I could with it.

-Mckfroig

 

[BIGeyedBUG]

I really don't know, but I found this in Kalbear's old guide:

Min = (str + dex -20)/4
Max = (str + dex -20)/3

That might not even be for 1.07, though I suspect it's at least close.

 

[Jerion]

my EX-girlfriend's tactic:
mindblast- 20(to converse monster and breakin' the guard)

Only one point is necessary if you only want to covert. If you don't covert of the first casting, you can always just cast again

death sentry- 20(to blow up dead monsters onto your face...)

Again, only a few points are necessary.

blades of ice- 20 (namelockin' b*tch!you might choose phoenix but she love to see you frozen and sieged by all that monsters but my opinion meteor strike then mb on opponent and push him/her into flames,or choose claws of thunder but its useless when trying to converse monsters but be sure COT powerful then PStrike)[
cobra strike-few points (we have a rule;everyone have a right to carry 3 rej pot but this is INSANE!!!)
tiger strike-more than cobra less than boi
dragon flight- 1-20 (to name lock and gain ar)
and of course "chaos" rw claws to flowth over blood...
I know that's a hi-leveled char but plan is pretty good...

20 points in flight? That's unecessary, and only used for pvp, which this build will be raped in.
Note how he says "low level asassin" and that's he playing untwinked? That means no lvl mid-80 skill planning.