Assa kicker/trapper?

[xyzthorakzyx]

Assa kicker/trapper?

I currently have an assa kicker/trapper lvl 77 in act 4 hell. I am using semi-cheap items and the standard kicker/trapper build as follows:

t-gods
stormshield (p diamond)
upped gore riders
a spirit long sword
raven frost
15 res all ring (need the res)
a 3 trap + 88 life amu
blackhorns face (haven't found guillame's face yet)
draculs grasp (dunno if I should change this maybe)
lionheart in hellforge plate (couldn't find a better armor and I need all the life it gives me).

No expensive charms, just a few sucky +life and +res charms.

Skills:
18 dragon talon after +skills
max death sentry, max lightning sentry, 1 other maxed synergy to lightning sentry.
1 in fade, mind blast, shadow master

My stats are enough str for eq and dex, base energy rest into vit.
Resists are 25/85/75/25 (trying to up the fire resist somehow), I have around 1100 life.

Her merc is a defiance merc, using a crappy rare armor, a crappy set helm and a crappy insight. My merc usually survives rather well but dies if the monsters are to tough.

My standard tactic is to walk everywhere to keep block maxed and use my defence which is at like 5-6k somewhere with defiance and I always use fade on. I lay traps in fron of me all the time to scout (thanks to insight I got mana for this). When a trap starts to shot I put down 5 light sentry and after a while a death sentry. This kills most non LI monsters.

The problem comes with the LI:s however. If they are few I can usually kick them down together with my shadow and merc. If they are many/tough however, I try with mind blast but I still have problems, dunno why really really.

I am thinking about doing the following but I dunno if it would be better:

1. Switch my merc to a holy freeze merc. I just read that holy freeze freezes even those that are cold immune. I haven't tried this howver so I would like to know if this is true or not.
2. Switch my draculs to a pair of crafted gloves with 5 CB and 20 ias.
3. Change the raven frost to something else (dunno what).
4. Equip my merc with something better (his eq kind of sucks) and change my helm to guillames. My wealth kind of limits me here though.
5. More skillpoints in dragon talon to reach 24 or start pumping venom. Alternatively, start pumping fade a bit.
6. I am thinking treachery might be better than lionheart but I feel I need the life/res/phys dam from lionheart mroe than +2 skills from treachery (remember lionheart gives me something like 150 life since it has +str/+dex/+vit and every point in vit is worth 3 life).

Are these good ideas or is there something else I lack?

P.S If anyone is playing on euhcl and has a guillames just laying on a mule máybe you could trade it with me then?

 

[Rekoc]

I wouldnt trade out the dracs...its probably the only thing keeping you alive since you have no other source of life leech.

 

[Silkweed]

From the looks of your gear, you probably aren't hitting very good attack rates with your kicks. If I remember correctly, you should be shooting for a 7 fpa initial kick followed by 3 fpa follow up kicks.

Check the Assassin forum for more details on IAS and frame rates. JRichard's website is also a very handy link. You can find a link to it from the sticky on IAS tables in the Assassin Forum at the top of that thread. For that matter, there are also a couple of decent guides floating around on the subject of kicker/trapper hybrids.

I had a Lightning Dancer (apparently, that's what they're called) for a while last season. Loved her, she was a blast to play. Pretty much everyone will advocate using Dracul's, but as I recall, I ended up needing gloves with IAS in order to make the last breakpoint, and I wanted to use Atma's Amulet instead for Amplify Damage. Oddly enough, I ended up using Atma's Armor as well for that character. Somehow it really worked well on her. Only time I ever ended up using that armor.

Of course, now I'd probably go with something along the lines of Duress in Archon Plate, but Duress didn't exist last year.

The Guillaume's is a definite must. The CB on it is just amazing. The rest of your gear looks pretty standard. The SS and the Gores, for instance. If you haven't already upgraded them, it'll help your damage a lot if you do.

For LI's, cast Cloak of Shadows and spam MB until you get a couple of converts. Baddies should start attacking each other. Focus on picking off one or two around the edges of the pack, and then lay a few Death Sentries. Wash, rinse and repeat, and you should be able to mop up pretty easily. Because of the massive amounts of CB a kicker has, you should be able to make short work of even really hefty bosses, and thanks to SS and Fade, you shouldn't be taking too much damage from them either.

When I played, I put far less emphasis on the traps and far more on the kicking. I could be way off base here, but when I take a look at your gear and read about the way you play, it seems to me like you might prefer playing a pure lightning trapper with Fireblast as a means of handling LI's. I realize you really haven't said all that much, but that's just the reaction I get from it.

 

[Silkweed]

Oh yeah, consider making a "Strength" runeword out of a Scourge, or other -30 WSM weapon. Apparently, the flails have a longer range than the claws, and that carries over to kicking range.

Ideally, you might want to go with "Last Wish" in a Phase Blade, but hell if you can get three Jahs and the other ridiculous runes you need to make it.

 

[Cleglaw_Himself]

How about a Crushflange as a weapon, for the 50% fire resist and 33% crushing blow. You'd lose 2 skills however, but this may not be as bad for your build as it would for pure trapper.

That 25 fire resist is a bit scary especially vs fire skele archers...

For LI's, have a lower resist wand on switch.

Edit: Oh yeah, what about more life leech for your merc to keep him alive longer, e.g. Tal rasha's mask, and Natalya's mask for yourself until you can grab a Guillaume's.

 

[xyzthorakzyx]

Hmm, well, I switched out the helm to natalya's for now, helped a bit, also equipped some life leech on the merc, he died way too much. I just found a 4 sock colossus voulge also to make an insioght in, too bad my merc lacks 12 str to use it...

Well, I am used to playing trappers and I play like a trapper and use the kicks to finish off light immunes and bosses. My trap damage is currently a bit weak and I need faster hit recovery and faster cast rate from spirit so I don't think I can change that.

I'll try getting a LR wand and see how that works. I fear that my traps might not do enough damage for that to work though, maybe amplify damage would be a better choice?

My fire res is 57 now, a bit better. I think I need that guillame's to be able to kill decently, I think that's teh part missing.

About IAS, the question is what part of my equipment I should switch out. If I have problems hitting (I'll check into that) then all I have to do I would guess is put a few more skillpoints in dragon talon since it gives massive AR.

Compared to a trapper using fireblast I have to say I prefer this since it's a bit tougher and kills bosses quicker. I have been thinking about switching to a pure trapper instead though.

Noone answered my 6 questions at the end though (except the draculs question).

 

[PhatTrumpet]

You may already know this, but just to make sure: FCR doesn't affect trap laying speed, weapon speed plus ias does.

1. Holy Freeze sounds like a much better idea than Defiance.
2. If you find that the Life Tap triggers enough for your liking, keep the Draculs. Otherwise, figure out how much ias you need for better kick speed and switch gloves accordingly.
3. You need Raven for the CBF and attack rating.
4. If you get a Guillaume's it should probably be going on yourself. Give your Merc a Tal's Mask or Crown of Thieves.
5. An extra kick is always good.
6. 'Treachery' might be a good idea, but I don't have enough experience with it to say either way. Just keep in mind all the bonuses you'll be losing on 'Lionheart' if you switch.

My impression of this build was - and I claim to be no expert at it - that you really needed to use weapon switching to maximize your effectiveness. I.e. have as much +trapskills with decent ias on your trap laying switch, and then as much CB, ias, and good blocking on your kicking switch.

Kicking switch: 'Black' runeword in a Flail gives you 40%CB with decent speed, and you could keep your Stormshield here since you only really need it while going melee. Try to get your dex high enough where you have a decent chance to block (I'd get the max 75%, but I'm a block fiend).

Trap switch: two Bartucs or Bartuc + Jade Talon. You don't really need all the DR and block SS gives when you're essentially a ranged attacker.

 

[Rekoc]

Nevermind...totaly missed that PT answered this lol.


Anyway. If you don't like dracs find another sorc of LL and switch your gloves to Laying of Hands...Killer damage to demons and 50% fire reses. Can't remember how much IAS on them though.

 

[Greex]

If his merc was holyfreeze then wouldn't death sentry be obsolete?
If not then definitely go Holyfreeze!

Btw, I have a level 25 sin atm that is a hybrid much like yours. She will be using her kicks more then her traps, mainly because I'm tired of all these damn trappers.

Mine will end up using shaftshop, Gillumas (SP?), and black flail. Some people have told me a great shield would be rhyme grim shield (shael+eth)

anyways best of luck to you and when you get her straitened out can you post how she does in hell?

 

[Rekoc]

Yes Greex is right. HF merc would probably shatter most of your kills.

With your setup Greex. I am not sure your even going to have max reses WITH fade on. The only resese I see are from your sheild? Have you thought about that part yet when considering your gear?

 

[PawnOfChaos]

I personally prefer hf mercs on my trappers, whatever the occasional corpse shattering costs me. Slower enemies = traps don't miss = traps hit more = you kill quicker = melee baddies shouldn't reach you = too many equal signs.

I have a pure trapper around somewhere that survived my absence, simple thing to do about LI's is just get a lower res wand (shopping one shouldn't take long). Very few creatures in the game won't die quickly to light traps after you hit em with lr (except those damn oak guys that hang out with hell shenk and sometimes camp the wp with fanat/extra strong boss packs [RIP several eld/shenk runners ><]).

I haven't yet made a real pvm kicker, but even from my pvp experience I know that breakpoints count big, cb is crucial, and, well, that they're just dead sexy.