Another 1.11 Kicker and K/T Guide
I've been working on this a while, and thought I should share it. It is still in progress right now, but I'd like some feedback before polishing it off.
Foreword
This is meant to be an all-purpose guide and reference for playing Assassins using the Dragon Talon skill. This includes twink/no twink, hard/softcore, and players 1/8. It is oriented almost entirely towards PvM (player versus monster), with little-to no direct information about PvP (player versus player). Because of the breadth of information covered, it is long, detailed, and complicated. This is not a "Here's the best, use it or die" kind of guide. There are more variants that work with kickers than almost any other build, but certain principles must be followed to ensure success. I have tried to write this guide so that anyone can find what they need. Needless to say, it was a big undertaking. The first section is a basic introduction to the playing and equipment of a standard kicker. Following that is a more in depth explanation including reasons for certain choices. Also in this part is the first mention of the various hybrids that a kicker has. There is a weapon section following this, then technical details, and various appendices including examples, abbreviations, credits, etc. That was a mouthfull, so here is the table of contents:
Table of Contents
General Guide
Mini FAQ
Variants
Strategy
Equipment
<sections to add>
General Technical
Technical SKills
GENERAL GUIDE
List of Abbreviations I use way too much
C/C - Claw/Claw equipment setup - opposed to W/S (Weapon/Shield)
IAS - Increased Attack Speed. Similar but different terms are EIAS and SIAS which are discussed later
PvM - Player vs Monster, i.e. playing the game as it was intended, opposed to PvP (Player vs Player, i.e. dueling)
WW - Whirlwind skill, granted to the assassin by the Chaos Runeword
A few skills:
- BoS (Burst of Speed), MB (Mind Blast), CoS (Cloak of Shadows)
- DS (Death Sentry), BF (Blade Fury), WoF (Wake of Fire)
- DF (Dragon Flight), TS (Tiger Strike)
What is a kicksin?
In short, a kicksin is any assassin that uses Dragon Talon as their primary attack. They are known as anything from kickers to kicksins, taloners, or mage slayers. Kicksins are a very fun build, and one of the most powerful assassin builds. Unlike most D2 classes, assassins tend to take a fair amount of skill to master, and kickers are no exception. There are many hybrids that work with Talon, and all the supporting skills depend on what you want to build the kicksin for. I’ll try to list most of these in the guide section, but new variants are constantly being created.
A kicksin is not to be confused with a Dragon Tail kicker, which is another build and works quite differently.
What is a k/t sin or a Dancer?
Basically, these are fancy names for kicker/trapper hybrids. I suggest playing both a pure trapper and a pure kicker before tackling a hybrid. They are more complicated than a pure kicker or pure trapper, and require better equipment to be good. (A k/t sin is just another name for a Dancer.)
What can a kicksin do?
Kicksins have several roles, but to summarize, they are excellent at taking down a single target. In general they also tend to be a little slower taking down mobs (especially in 4+ player games). Like all assassins, they will use many skills. I would suggest configuring 2-3 half-rows for various skills. I use f1-f8, and an additional 7+ keys for quick skill swapping.
What makes a good Kicksin?
Rule number 1 - survive. Rule number two - kill things. Those are the two rules which guide every character in the game, and kicksins are no exception. There is some grey area between the two (the best defense is a good offense).
Outside of the grey world of technicality, kickers are above all fun. Playing this solo and unrushed may be one of the best experiences you've had playing Diablo. My first kicker was such a blast to play that I went through every quest on my own.
What are my build goals?
Several things go to into having this kicksin to survive. For the most part, this will refer to playing Hell difficulty, since that is the first place kickers run into any kind of opposition. (There is a list of abbreviations later.) This list is so important that I have put the whole thing in bold text.
Minimum PvM Goals
What is the basic skill layout?
Kickers have one of the loosest skill requirements of all the assassin builds, allowing them to be customizable to the preferences of each player. Here is the skeleton setup that most builds rely on.
18-20 Dragon Talon
One-point wonders
The basic "pure" kicker has this setup:
20 Talon
20 Venom
20 Death Sentry
1+ Shadow Master (enough to get lvl 18 with +skills)
2 Mind Blast
3 Fire Blast (extra shot for Death Sentry)
1 in all other 1-point wonders and prereqs
Where do I place my stat points?
Like any other melee build, kickers use enough strength to equip weapons, enough dexterity for maximum shield blocking (or equipping claws if c/c only), with none in energy, and everything else in vitality. Typically this means 156 strength to equip upgraded Goreriders and Stormshield, and about 2 dexterity per level for max blocking (~200 at higher levels).
What is standard gear?
This is a quick list of gear that is considered "standard" for kickers. In fact, this listed gear is somewhere middle of the road for what is out there. Both untwinked and godlike kickers can play this game.
Weapon - Crescent Moon / Fleshripper (upgrade to Stormlash)
Shield - Stormshield
Helm - Guillaume's Face
Armor - Duress
Gloves - Draculs Grasp
Belt - Thundergod's Vigor or Verdungo's / String of Ears
Boots - Upgraded Goreriders
Amulet - Maras (or another resistance amulet)
Ring1 - Ravenfrost
Ring2 - Mana Leech/Resists
Total Stats:
60% Crushing Blow + weapon
decent Open Wounds (multiple hits don't stack, so the exact % isn't important for PvM)
35-50% DR
some resists (to be finished with charms)
What mercenary do I use?
There are three primary mercenaries that stand out as being best suited to working with a kicker. They are: A2 Might, A2 Holy Freeze, and A2 Defiance. Might is an excellent choice if you can survive on your own in Hell, while Holy Freeze helps with crowd control, and Defiance helps your merc and shadow to become semi-powerful tanks. One of the big concerns with using Holy Freeze is shattering corpses. Actually, only about 1/4 of the corpses will actually shatter from the chill, so it will not be a big hinderance. If you are worried about this, then Defiance would be the better defensive choice.
Playing and Strategy
Assassins are a rather fragile class with some of the most powerful offensive skills in the game. Even with maxed resists and blocking one has to be careful. Assassins excell at being stealthy, sneaky, and have a dozen tools to use. Mastering even one of these can typically get one through the game with flying colors. Your final life will be somewhere in the 1100 range +/- 200. Don't tank things. Play smart and work the crowd. Monster artificial 'intelligence' is very agressive and easy to predict.
I usually have a set idea for how I am going to approach any given mob of monsters. My first step is the pre-battle prep, followed by the setup, then the mêlée and mop-up. The pre-battle prep involves casting Fade/BoS, Venom, Shadow, and any other BO/BC/Enchant/etc. This happens before the battle round (sometimes during!), so it isn't tied to any kind of sequence (though Battle Command is usually the best thing to cast first). Setup happens as the mob is approached, but not within fighting range. This is where I cast Cloak of Shadows, Mind Blast a few unwary stragglers, and lay down my Death Sentries (and/or Lightning Sentries if using a k/t build). To close the distance, I use a Dragon Flight (or Teleport) to position myself, the Shadow, and lumpy minion for the best fighting. During the fight I fire off a few rounds of Dragon Talon interspersed with Cloak of Shadows and Mind Blast as needed. Death Sentry usually does a beautiful job of polishing off a large portion of the remaining mob after a few bodies have dropped. (In players1 mode, Death Sentry can clear a mob with two bodies. It will take 8-12 to do the same job in players8 mode.)
As you can see, there are a lot of different skills used in standard combat. In addition to these, there are a few others which have occasional uses, such as Blade Fury, and Town Portal. Nearly every dedicated Assassin player has a different setup, but almost none of them keep their keys on F1-F12. Options > Configure Controls is how to change the buttons to a new key assignment. Here is my typical key setup for a kicker/trapper.
F1 - Talon (left button)
F2 - Normal Attack (left button)
F4 - Shadow
F5 - Town Portal
F6 - Burst of Speed
F7 - Venom
F8 - Fade
E - Mind Blast
A - Cloak of Shadows
S - Lightning Sentry
D - Death Sentry
F - Blade Fury
G - Blade Sentinal (useful for low levels)
V - Dragon Flight
Low Levels
At your lower levels, kickers will excell above any other class for speed and fun. There are a couple secrets to this, and one of the most important is that your final skill is available at level 1. Due to mana costs, it isn't always practical to start using it then, but it is available and potent if you do. Sigon's boots (or other Greaves) and any source of mana leech will give enough mana to sustain you.
Get all of your skills the level they are available. Blade Sentinal even has uses at low levels. There is a leveling section further in the guide if you want to focus on that.
Pause for Effect
At this point, you have enough information to glide through Normal and Nightmare with a twinked kicker. Hell will pose more difficulties and a learning curve, but the suggested equipment will allow you to destroy everything in your path.
Read on if you are still curious, or wish to find something. I suggest taking a look at the Table of Contents for an idea of where to look for specific information.
I've been working on this a while, and thought I should share it. It is still in progress right now, but I'd like some feedback before polishing it off.
Foreword
This is meant to be an all-purpose guide and reference for playing Assassins using the Dragon Talon skill. This includes twink/no twink, hard/softcore, and players 1/8. It is oriented almost entirely towards PvM (player versus monster), with little-to no direct information about PvP (player versus player). Because of the breadth of information covered, it is long, detailed, and complicated. This is not a "Here's the best, use it or die" kind of guide. There are more variants that work with kickers than almost any other build, but certain principles must be followed to ensure success. I have tried to write this guide so that anyone can find what they need. Needless to say, it was a big undertaking. The first section is a basic introduction to the playing and equipment of a standard kicker. Following that is a more in depth explanation including reasons for certain choices. Also in this part is the first mention of the various hybrids that a kicker has. There is a weapon section following this, then technical details, and various appendices including examples, abbreviations, credits, etc. That was a mouthfull, so here is the table of contents:
Table of Contents
General Guide
Mini FAQ
Variants
Strategy
Equipment
<sections to add>
General Technical
Technical SKills
GENERAL GUIDE
List of Abbreviations I use way too much
C/C - Claw/Claw equipment setup - opposed to W/S (Weapon/Shield)
IAS - Increased Attack Speed. Similar but different terms are EIAS and SIAS which are discussed later
PvM - Player vs Monster, i.e. playing the game as it was intended, opposed to PvP (Player vs Player, i.e. dueling)
WW - Whirlwind skill, granted to the assassin by the Chaos Runeword
A few skills:
- BoS (Burst of Speed), MB (Mind Blast), CoS (Cloak of Shadows)
- DS (Death Sentry), BF (Blade Fury), WoF (Wake of Fire)
- DF (Dragon Flight), TS (Tiger Strike)
What is a kicksin?
In short, a kicksin is any assassin that uses Dragon Talon as their primary attack. They are known as anything from kickers to kicksins, taloners, or mage slayers. Kicksins are a very fun build, and one of the most powerful assassin builds. Unlike most D2 classes, assassins tend to take a fair amount of skill to master, and kickers are no exception. There are many hybrids that work with Talon, and all the supporting skills depend on what you want to build the kicksin for. I’ll try to list most of these in the guide section, but new variants are constantly being created.
A kicksin is not to be confused with a Dragon Tail kicker, which is another build and works quite differently.
What is a k/t sin or a Dancer?
Basically, these are fancy names for kicker/trapper hybrids. I suggest playing both a pure trapper and a pure kicker before tackling a hybrid. They are more complicated than a pure kicker or pure trapper, and require better equipment to be good. (A k/t sin is just another name for a Dancer.)
What can a kicksin do?
Kicksins have several roles, but to summarize, they are excellent at taking down a single target. In general they also tend to be a little slower taking down mobs (especially in 4+ player games). Like all assassins, they will use many skills. I would suggest configuring 2-3 half-rows for various skills. I use f1-f8, and an additional 7+ keys for quick skill swapping.
What makes a good Kicksin?
Rule number 1 - survive. Rule number two - kill things. Those are the two rules which guide every character in the game, and kicksins are no exception. There is some grey area between the two (the best defense is a good offense).
Outside of the grey world of technicality, kickers are above all fun. Playing this solo and unrushed may be one of the best experiences you've had playing Diablo. My first kicker was such a blast to play that I went through every quest on my own.
What are my build goals?
Several things go to into having this kicksin to survive. For the most part, this will refer to playing Hell difficulty, since that is the first place kickers run into any kind of opposition. (There is a list of abbreviations later.) This list is so important that I have put the whole thing in bold text.
Minimum PvM Goals
- 3-frame follow-up speed
- 4+ kicks (level 18+)
- 50%+ Crushing Blow
- 75% blocking (or 50% blocking if C/C)
- 65% resistance in Fire/Lit/Cold and 35% physical Damage Resistance
- Meet minimum skill placements
- 48+ FHR
- Crowd Control + Death Sentry
- Strength for gear, Dex for equipment and max blocking, everything else into Vitality
- Elite boots
- Cannot be Frozen
- 1k Max Kick Damage
- 7/3 Attack Speed
- 4+ kicks (level 18+)
- 100% Crushing Blow
- 75% blocking (or 55%+ blocking if C/C)
- 75%+ resistance to all and 50% physical Damage Resistance
- At least one form of absorb for each element
- 86+ FHR
- 20%+ FCR
- Crowd Control + Death Sentry
- Strength for gear, Dex for equipment and max blocking, everything else into Vitality
- Myrmidon Greaves
- Static Field
- Life Tap
- High magic/elemental damage
- Cannot be Frozen
- 1k Max Kick Damage
What is the basic skill layout?
Kickers have one of the loosest skill requirements of all the assassin builds, allowing them to be customizable to the preferences of each player. Here is the skeleton setup that most builds rely on.
18-20 Dragon Talon
One-point wonders
- Martial Arts (Dragon Flight)
- Shadow (BoS/Fade, Venom, Shadow Master, Cloak of Shadows, Mind Blast)
- Traps (Blade Fury, Death Sentry)
- 1 all prereq's
The basic "pure" kicker has this setup:
20 Talon
20 Venom
20 Death Sentry
1+ Shadow Master (enough to get lvl 18 with +skills)
2 Mind Blast
3 Fire Blast (extra shot for Death Sentry)
1 in all other 1-point wonders and prereqs
Where do I place my stat points?
Like any other melee build, kickers use enough strength to equip weapons, enough dexterity for maximum shield blocking (or equipping claws if c/c only), with none in energy, and everything else in vitality. Typically this means 156 strength to equip upgraded Goreriders and Stormshield, and about 2 dexterity per level for max blocking (~200 at higher levels).
What is standard gear?
This is a quick list of gear that is considered "standard" for kickers. In fact, this listed gear is somewhere middle of the road for what is out there. Both untwinked and godlike kickers can play this game.
Weapon - Crescent Moon / Fleshripper (upgrade to Stormlash)
Shield - Stormshield
Helm - Guillaume's Face
Armor - Duress
Gloves - Draculs Grasp
Belt - Thundergod's Vigor or Verdungo's / String of Ears
Boots - Upgraded Goreriders
Amulet - Maras (or another resistance amulet)
Ring1 - Ravenfrost
Ring2 - Mana Leech/Resists
Total Stats:
60% Crushing Blow + weapon
decent Open Wounds (multiple hits don't stack, so the exact % isn't important for PvM)
35-50% DR
some resists (to be finished with charms)
What mercenary do I use?
There are three primary mercenaries that stand out as being best suited to working with a kicker. They are: A2 Might, A2 Holy Freeze, and A2 Defiance. Might is an excellent choice if you can survive on your own in Hell, while Holy Freeze helps with crowd control, and Defiance helps your merc and shadow to become semi-powerful tanks. One of the big concerns with using Holy Freeze is shattering corpses. Actually, only about 1/4 of the corpses will actually shatter from the chill, so it will not be a big hinderance. If you are worried about this, then Defiance would be the better defensive choice.
Playing and Strategy
Assassins are a rather fragile class with some of the most powerful offensive skills in the game. Even with maxed resists and blocking one has to be careful. Assassins excell at being stealthy, sneaky, and have a dozen tools to use. Mastering even one of these can typically get one through the game with flying colors. Your final life will be somewhere in the 1100 range +/- 200. Don't tank things. Play smart and work the crowd. Monster artificial 'intelligence' is very agressive and easy to predict.
I usually have a set idea for how I am going to approach any given mob of monsters. My first step is the pre-battle prep, followed by the setup, then the mêlée and mop-up. The pre-battle prep involves casting Fade/BoS, Venom, Shadow, and any other BO/BC/Enchant/etc. This happens before the battle round (sometimes during!), so it isn't tied to any kind of sequence (though Battle Command is usually the best thing to cast first). Setup happens as the mob is approached, but not within fighting range. This is where I cast Cloak of Shadows, Mind Blast a few unwary stragglers, and lay down my Death Sentries (and/or Lightning Sentries if using a k/t build). To close the distance, I use a Dragon Flight (or Teleport) to position myself, the Shadow, and lumpy minion for the best fighting. During the fight I fire off a few rounds of Dragon Talon interspersed with Cloak of Shadows and Mind Blast as needed. Death Sentry usually does a beautiful job of polishing off a large portion of the remaining mob after a few bodies have dropped. (In players1 mode, Death Sentry can clear a mob with two bodies. It will take 8-12 to do the same job in players8 mode.)
As you can see, there are a lot of different skills used in standard combat. In addition to these, there are a few others which have occasional uses, such as Blade Fury, and Town Portal. Nearly every dedicated Assassin player has a different setup, but almost none of them keep their keys on F1-F12. Options > Configure Controls is how to change the buttons to a new key assignment. Here is my typical key setup for a kicker/trapper.
F1 - Talon (left button)
F2 - Normal Attack (left button)
F4 - Shadow
F5 - Town Portal
F6 - Burst of Speed
F7 - Venom
F8 - Fade
E - Mind Blast
A - Cloak of Shadows
S - Lightning Sentry
D - Death Sentry
F - Blade Fury
G - Blade Sentinal (useful for low levels)
V - Dragon Flight
Low Levels
At your lower levels, kickers will excell above any other class for speed and fun. There are a couple secrets to this, and one of the most important is that your final skill is available at level 1. Due to mana costs, it isn't always practical to start using it then, but it is available and potent if you do. Sigon's boots (or other Greaves) and any source of mana leech will give enough mana to sustain you.
Get all of your skills the level they are available. Blade Sentinal even has uses at low levels. There is a leveling section further in the guide if you want to focus on that.
Pause for Effect
At this point, you have enough information to glide through Normal and Nightmare with a twinked kicker. Hell will pose more difficulties and a learning curve, but the suggested equipment will allow you to destroy everything in your path.
Read on if you are still curious, or wish to find something. I suggest taking a look at the Table of Contents for an idea of where to look for specific information.