a question on claw masterys ar bonus.

[Zarfen]

a question on claw masterys ar bonus.

I am about to make an assasin, and I am leaning towards a phoenix striker. Now, I will play totally untwinked, and have very limited gear, so AR will be a problem, so I will probably end up maxing claw mastery, to the question:
Does the ar bonus from CM increase the AR of kicks? Since kicking seems to be better than normal attack for unleashing your charge ups.
If it doesn't, I will stay with unleashing my charge up with normal attack, since I wont get good enough gear, and I am not too interested in maxing kicks.

Thanks for your time.

edit: is not that I would refuse to use kicks as a finisher, if it proves to be much better, and keep in mind I am untwinked, ie not trading or begging items either =)

 

[stephan]

AFAICT it doesn't affect your kicking. I assume you are going for a C/S build so you can't use dragon claw. The charges themselves give an AR bonus to your finishing move (normal attack included)too, though. Maxing CM is probably the last thing you want to do.

The best thing you can hope for is finding a claw with fool's and/or piercing affixes.

 

[ilkori]

Dragon Claw is a great way to finish if you don't want to use the normal attack. It also gets the Claw Mastery bonus. It's really only worth one point, though.

 

[Zarfen]

Woops, I didnt think of dragon claw.
I am going C/C. I assume I should use DC then, but I would still rather put points into cm right? so my charge up skills also get more ar?

 

[mephiztophelez]

Woops, I didnt think of dragon claw.
I am going C/C. I assume I should use DC then, but I would still rather put points into cm right? so my charge up skills also get more ar?

my $0.02

untwinked, a phoenix-striker is one of the more powerful builds available.

as an example, members at the barons bazaar recently held a competition: how far can you go in ONLY your starting gear. so katar & buckler for a 'sin. there were a few other proviso's, like no summon necro's for example (that would just be too easy). the winner, at the end of the competition period, was a phoenix-striker in act one hell. oh yeah, this was all done in hardcore, that 'sin, afaik, is still alive.

a handful of points in claw mastery, say 3-4, will probably pay a huge dividend. i wouldn't advise pumping it as that will weaken your phoenix strike & synergies. i rekon a beefy death sentry is probably your best friend.

d-claw is a nice finisher, and opens up weapon-block saving points in dex. ergo higher vit. downside of wep-block remains: it don't work, at all, while you walk or run.

being your playing purist, can i commend the Strength runeword (Amn+Tir) too you. its cheap enough that you can just make it again and again, with a little NM countess running, if you happen to find a nicer base claw. 20 str, some life leech and crushing blow is nice to throw in the mix as your building up and releasing charges.

have fun.

 

[Zarfen]

my $0.02

untwinked, a phoenix-striker is one of the more powerful builds available.

as an example, members at the barons bazaar recently held a competition: how far can you go in ONLY your starting gear. so katar & buckler for a 'sin. there were a few other proviso's, like no summon necro's for example (that would just be too easy). the winner, at the end of the competition period, was a phoenix-striker in act one hell. oh yeah, this was all done in hardcore, that 'sin, afaik, is still alive.

a handful of points in claw mastery, say 3-4, will probably pay a huge dividend. i wouldn't advise pumping it as that will weaken your phoenix strike & synergies. i rekon a beefy death sentry is probably your best friend.

d-claw is a nice finisher, and opens up weapon-block saving points in dex. ergo higher vit. downside of wep-block remains: it don't work, at all, while you walk or run.

being your playing purist, can i commend the Strength runeword (Amn+Tir) too you. its cheap enough that you can just make it again and again, with a little NM countess running, if you happen to find a nicer base claw. 20 str, some life leech and crushing blow is nice to throw in the mix as your building up and releasing charges.

have fun.

This, my friend, was a nice/helpful post. I am also, as I mentioned, untwinked, and I will also play HC. I will also not mp in any way.

I was playing a bit with the build, and 20 in phoenix is set, since she will be a phoenix striker. But then I don't really know. At least one in cm, mindblast, fade, shadow master and Dsentry, Along with all preq' and one in all finishing moves (I want the telekick)
I am thinking to pump up at least one synergy, and I am leanign towards thunder claw, since LI damage often is a steady source of dmg, and since all three charges are released if you have a 3 charged up attack, I will always deal my synergysed LI dmg whenever I charged my charges at least 2 'blobs', excuse the messy sentence. Fire have too many immuned for my taste, and cold, I heard it to be weak.
That would make 2 maxed skills = 40 points + all preq's and one pointers, as for the 40 other (I usually calculate my characters with 4 maxable skills, that seems like a rather realistic goal), so I have 2 more = another 40 points to use.
My options are atm these:
Another PS synergy, probably fire, or maybe 10 in both.
maxed shadow, I dont like this idea very much, but I might need a tank in hell, other than my merc.
Maxed Dsentry, now, this I like, CE is definitly the sh*t, but is it worth maxing? and even though it's LI damage will such rather hard, I find myself having a rather lightning based 'sin, and I dont want to become too much single element.
What do you'll think?

 

[stephan]

I am thinking to pump up at least one synergy, and I am leanign towards thunder claw, since LI damage often is a steady source of dmg, and since all three charges are released if you have a 3 charged up attack, I will always deal my synergysed LI dmg whenever I charged my charges at least 2 'blobs', excuse the messy sentence.

This is only true for the charge-ups on the left side of the tree. Phoenix will only do one element at a time. For lightning you need two charges, three will only release the ice comets. A different approach would be using (since you are C/C) CoT as attack and phoenix as the synergy. CoT's charges do stack and give a good amount of damage.

Another PS synergy, probably fire, or maybe 10 in both.

FoF synergy works very well for spamming meteors on bosses. You can do about 2 meteors per second when they get going.

Maxed Dsentry, now, this I like, CE is definitly the sh*t, but is it worth maxing?

It certainly is. Death Sentry is sort of a synergy to itself. Larger CE range means killing more monsters, which mean getting more corpes, which means killing more monsters.

Basically all your other skills should be put into service of providing corpses for DS. DS is not a supporting skill, it is your main skill!

 

[Zarfen]

Oh, I didn't know that, never used phoenix strike, only the other ones.
What should I do then? Continue with the plan of going phoenix, or go something else? if I go for only CoT I will have very little chanve of dealing with LI's.. maybe ps can do that, but I still dont like it
Maybe if I got PS, 10 in each of its synergy's, or 10 in fire/thunder (could go 20 in each as well, but hmmm) Maybe I could use CoT as main charge up, and PS and a backup?, or I dont know :/
20 DS it is then, I do love a large radius CE :wink3:
But how to do with the Matrial arts? hmm, desicions desicions.

 

[ilkori]

The standard build is 20 in FoF, CoT and Phoenix, then 1 point in all the "1-pt wonders." There is a guide by skygoneblue (guide sticky) which lays out a lot of the basics.