matriarch Leona, blade fury assassin
In case you missed it, see this thread by Ceramic Weasel for the scoop on blade fury. Short Version: max the skill (103-105 base damage at slvl 20), and get as much off-weapon ED and deadly strike as possible. ‘Fortitude’ is the single key item (conveniently, I don’t have one). Damage from claw weapons can be buffed somewhat by CM, but the AR bonus doesn’t apply to blade fury.
Name: Leona
Class: Assassin
Level: 82
Naked/Gear
Strength: 173/189
Dexterity: 100/100
Vitality: 156/156
Energy: 25/29
HP: 817
Mana: 153
AR: 1710 / 7353 w/ BA aura
resists:
Fire/cold/lightning/poison: 75/62/75/75 (with fade)
Skills:
20 Blade Fury
20 Death Sentry
20 Venom
18 ==> 20 Shadow Warrior
1 in remaining shadow tree skills
future points will go .. ?? maybe CM
gear:
“mini-(mini-)forti”:
Natalya's Shadow
Loricated Mail
Defense: 644
Durability: 36 of 36
Required Level: 73
Required Strength: 149
Fingerprint: 0x3db9c7b5
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+198 Defense
Poison Resist +25%
Poison Length Reduced by 75%
+2 to Shadow Discipline Skills (Assassin Only)
82 to Life (Based on Char Lvl)
111% Enhanced Damage
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Ruby Jewel
Socketed: Ruby Jewel
Socketed: Ruby Jewel
(make a good merc armor for an andy runner, methinks)
other gear:
Guillame’s face
Schaeffer’s hammer
2x pdiamond Moser’s (totally excessive in retrospect)
Gore rider
Laying of hands
String of ears
rare ammy (15% res all, 22% MF)
nagelring
rare ring (+108 AR, 4% ml)
2x +3 shadow claws on swap for buffing
charms:
fine, sharp, and steel
one shadow skiller
Gheed’s
merc:
blessed aim moron
Guillame’s
Reaper’s toll
eth Duriel’s
notes:
The %ED to demons on LoH was very obvious while playing through the game. The difficulty seemed to be inversely proportional to the number of demons. Act 2 was a terrible slog. A pair of gravepalm gloves would have made it much more tolerable, I think, but mine are ethereal, and I never put them on. Overall she was highly dependent on her merc. Without decrepify from reaper’s toll and the blessed aim aura, she was a slow killer. Safe though. The only real problems she faced were hard-hitting monsters that killed the somewhat-underleveled merc. A cursed Lister was a bit of a problem.
Her kill speed in general was pretty good (/p1 the whole way through hell), I thought, but my standards are relatively low. Death sentry does a lot of the killing during normal questing, of course. It should be noted that, with the exception of Baal, the act bosses all died very fast (silly little demons
). Once separated, the hell ancients were also stupidly easy.
I opted for SW over SM mostly to have some control of the skills the shadow used. Overall, I was happy. She dropped DS pretty regularly, which was nice. She never used mind blast when I didn’t want her to. The SW could even be induced to buff with fade if I had the skill selected when approaching a fight. The shadow doesn’t use BF though, so I guess she was attacking with ‘normal attack’ the whole time. She was a good meat shield, though it took a large investment of skill points.
finds:
shadow skiller of balance
cold skiller
Anya’a quest reward: :surprise:
Loath Scratch
War Fist
One Hand Damage: 215 - 266
Durability: 64 of 64
Required Level: 51
Required Strength: 108
Required Dexterity: 108
Fingerprint: 0x9467876b
Item Level: 81
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
390% Enhanced Damage
+125 to Attack Rating
+7 to Maximum Damage
+4 - 7 cold damage with 4 sec Duration
+1 to Venom (Assassin Only)
Hit Causes Monster to Flee <== 100%!
Level 1 Enchant (11/11 Charges)
HF: hel/pul
future plans:
Pit runner. Wearing stealskull, war travelers, goldwrap, ‘rhyme,’ dual nagelrings, I have to say she isn’t bad. Though I haven’t run the pit before, I think she does ok, even though with a high MF setup it takes her 2-3 hits to kill even the regualr dark stalkers, her overall ability to clear a room is pretty good. Decrep + static field + CE will do that. She can clear “most of” the pit within one cycle of fade (not including running/muling time though), so less than 2 minutes. A highlord’s ammy would, I think, be a nice addition to her MF gear but sadly I don’t have one.
Somebody with fort and a nice eth ‘death’ should give this build a try...
Thanks for reading.
In case you missed it, see this thread by Ceramic Weasel for the scoop on blade fury. Short Version: max the skill (103-105 base damage at slvl 20), and get as much off-weapon ED and deadly strike as possible. ‘Fortitude’ is the single key item (conveniently, I don’t have one). Damage from claw weapons can be buffed somewhat by CM, but the AR bonus doesn’t apply to blade fury.
Name: Leona
Class: Assassin
Level: 82
Naked/Gear
Strength: 173/189
Dexterity: 100/100
Vitality: 156/156
Energy: 25/29
HP: 817
Mana: 153
AR: 1710 / 7353 w/ BA aura
resists:
Fire/cold/lightning/poison: 75/62/75/75 (with fade)
Skills:
20 Blade Fury
20 Death Sentry
20 Venom
18 ==> 20 Shadow Warrior
1 in remaining shadow tree skills
future points will go .. ?? maybe CM
gear:
“mini-(mini-)forti”:
Natalya's Shadow
Loricated Mail
Defense: 644
Durability: 36 of 36
Required Level: 73
Required Strength: 149
Fingerprint: 0x3db9c7b5
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+198 Defense
Poison Resist +25%
Poison Length Reduced by 75%
+2 to Shadow Discipline Skills (Assassin Only)
82 to Life (Based on Char Lvl)
111% Enhanced Damage
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Ruby Jewel
Socketed: Ruby Jewel
Socketed: Ruby Jewel
(make a good merc armor for an andy runner, methinks)
other gear:
Guillame’s face
Schaeffer’s hammer
2x pdiamond Moser’s (totally excessive in retrospect)
Gore rider
Laying of hands
String of ears
rare ammy (15% res all, 22% MF)
nagelring
rare ring (+108 AR, 4% ml)
2x +3 shadow claws on swap for buffing
charms:
fine, sharp, and steel
one shadow skiller
Gheed’s
merc:
blessed aim moron
Guillame’s
Reaper’s toll
eth Duriel’s
notes:
The %ED to demons on LoH was very obvious while playing through the game. The difficulty seemed to be inversely proportional to the number of demons. Act 2 was a terrible slog. A pair of gravepalm gloves would have made it much more tolerable, I think, but mine are ethereal, and I never put them on. Overall she was highly dependent on her merc. Without decrepify from reaper’s toll and the blessed aim aura, she was a slow killer. Safe though. The only real problems she faced were hard-hitting monsters that killed the somewhat-underleveled merc. A cursed Lister was a bit of a problem.
Her kill speed in general was pretty good (/p1 the whole way through hell), I thought, but my standards are relatively low. Death sentry does a lot of the killing during normal questing, of course. It should be noted that, with the exception of Baal, the act bosses all died very fast (silly little demons
). Once separated, the hell ancients were also stupidly easy.I opted for SW over SM mostly to have some control of the skills the shadow used. Overall, I was happy. She dropped DS pretty regularly, which was nice. She never used mind blast when I didn’t want her to. The SW could even be induced to buff with fade if I had the skill selected when approaching a fight. The shadow doesn’t use BF though, so I guess she was attacking with ‘normal attack’ the whole time. She was a good meat shield, though it took a large investment of skill points.
finds:
shadow skiller of balance
cold skiller
Anya’a quest reward: :surprise:
Loath Scratch
War Fist
One Hand Damage: 215 - 266
Durability: 64 of 64
Required Level: 51
Required Strength: 108
Required Dexterity: 108
Fingerprint: 0x9467876b
Item Level: 81
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
390% Enhanced Damage
+125 to Attack Rating
+7 to Maximum Damage
+4 - 7 cold damage with 4 sec Duration
+1 to Venom (Assassin Only)
Hit Causes Monster to Flee <== 100%!
Level 1 Enchant (11/11 Charges)
HF: hel/pul
future plans:
Pit runner. Wearing stealskull, war travelers, goldwrap, ‘rhyme,’ dual nagelrings, I have to say she isn’t bad. Though I haven’t run the pit before, I think she does ok, even though with a high MF setup it takes her 2-3 hits to kill even the regualr dark stalkers, her overall ability to clear a room is pretty good. Decrep + static field + CE will do that.
She can clear “most of” the pit within one cycle of fade (not including running/muling time though), so less than 2 minutes. A highlord’s ammy would, I think, be a nice addition to her MF gear but sadly I don’t have one.Somebody with fort and a nice eth ‘death’ should give this build a try...
Thanks for reading.
Last edited:
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