- Feb 24, 2004
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Originally posted by NagisaFurukawa on May 17, 2013:
Guardian Shizuru, "Blade Slinger" Aggressin
Shizuru is my second favorite character from Rewrite, my favorite novel of all time. Her build concept pretty much mimics the "Blade Slinger" variant from maxicek's Aggressin guide, ie. a dual wielding melee speed demon (Dragon Claw/Burst of Speed) with moderately viable ranged support (Blade Fury). She personally opted for a high level Venom and Claw Mastery over a high level Death Sentry, but that was more for thematic flavor than actual usefulness.
Also, just as a minor spoiler, Shizuru is from an organization called Guardian, and her job is to look for the "Key" which can destroy the world. Kind of speaks for itself.
------------------------
LCS
Martial Arts
Shadow Disciplines
Traps
Her resists were pretty nice for a Burst of Speed user. Kind of surprised, really.
DC Primary: 'Havoc Scratch'
DC Off-Hand: 'Plague Fist'
BF Primary: 'Strength'
BF Off-Hand: 'Imp Scratch'
Helm: 'Carrion Circlet'
Armor: 'Prudence'
Gloves: Ghoulhide
Belt: Goldwrap (upgraded)
Boots: Goblin Toe (upgraded)
Amulet: 'Raven Scarab'
Ring: 'Skull Master'
Ring: 'Eagle Master'
Charms: Resist/Life/Mana
Act 2 Mercenary (Might):
Weapon 1: 'Amn' Kelpie Snare
Weapon 2: 'Insight' Great Poleaxe
Helm 1: Guillaume's Face
Helm 2: Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Armor: 'Treachery'
There was the idea to make her use all regular Suwayyah, since that fits her theme ever so slightly better, but she never found a two socket Suwayyah for 'Strength'. Most of her gear is pretty self-explanatory. She ended up 1 FCR short of the breakpoint, which thankfully never came back to bite her. The lack of CBF was problematic, but that was at least one part of the reason for including BF in the first place. Armor selection was a bit strange. 'Prudence' isn't something I would normally use, but her ethereal Wire Fleece came out of the cube with only two sockets, and a Mal rune had dropped in Pit not too long before that. Fate, perhaps. It does have a nice balance of defensive mods, though they weren't exactly maximized considering aura selection.
------------------------
Normal: Shizuru abused all her early game one point wonders to no end, and she more or less stopped caring in general once her mercenary got up and running. For her part, she equipped a generic mana leech claw of nothingness for essentially the entire time, mowing things down with a high level Blade Fury. Diablo was actually a pretty big concern for her, if only because of her beloved Lucia's demise, but a slow and steady diet of long ranged attacks took him down without much of a struggle.
Nightmare: A handful of problems began popping up around here. Not so much with safety, of course, but definitely with damage. Her mercenary was sporting a rerolled Partizan with minimal enhanced damage, and her own little claws weren't cutting it at all. Things were just ugly, especially since she hadn't invested in Venom (aside from a +3 claw for her weapon switch) just quite yet. Her attack rating became a bit troubling as well, at least with BF. As she had no remedy for any of these issues, Shizuru eventually settled into the first of her pseudo-farming sessions... if you could call single bonfire NM LK runs farming at all. Her main goal was a mid-tier rune or two, but she mysteriously ran into something much nicer. With all of the gold she was netting, she was also finally able to get a reasonable hat or two for herself and her companion. Viability was restored, though she was a bit unsure how to feel about this. (The exact same damage roll, at that.) Things went pretty smoothly from there on out, albeit still relatively slowly, and she actually ran into a cute little find, which led to a few obligatory Pindle runs, somehow ultimately netting her one of her two end game rings. Ancients gave her a bit of trouble, and it actually got to a point where she was just spamming Mind Blast for some pitiful amount of damage before rerolling them. Just as an aside, Korlic can apparently hit you from here. What's up with that? >_> Her mercenary sadly kicked the bucket shortly after this shot from the second time around, but the battle was thankfully all but over by then.
Hell: Stuff hurts. Even random zombies were winning 1v1 battles against Shizuru's mercenary, so things were obviously a bit rough at the start. As such, the second pseudo-farming session began, though it was mostly just for leveling purposes. Well, that's what she told herself anyway. Here's a look at her claws at the time. Yes. She was also still running 'Stealth' in her armor slot, though that was more than serviceable enough. A few dozen Pit runs later, Shizuru finally felt ready to continue, and she went all in as far as unloaded her stashes for cubing, crafting, and imbuing, netting her virtually all of her final gear changes, aside from this little thing. (Both of her claws for DC are actually imbues.) With all that in tow, the rest of the early stages of Hell were relatively simple. Shizuru's enemies weren't nearly threatening enough for her to do anything other than Dragon Flight around and DC for the most part. There were a handful of somewhat annoying/painful experiences, of course. The later stages of Hell were troubling, and she ran into the full complement of frenzytaurs, souls, dolls, and vipers pretty much as often as the game would allow. DC took a back seat to BF with excessive Mind Blast support, and battles were always pretty much the same, ie. (1) clump things together, (2) Mind Blast to hell and back, (3) toss some lolBF, (4) "remove corpses" with DS. Ancients weren't too bad this time, oddly enough, although it was just 10 minutes or so of running around, waiting for openings, using DF, and letting her mercenary take them down, with maybe a handful of DC/BF connecting in between. Baal and company were probably the easiest part of all, as Mind Blast made sure the waves were shut down by their own master's Decrepify, while Baal himself was easy pickings with Kelpie Snare.
By the way, did I mention she is Key hunter? :badteeth: 1400+ regular keys, and a couple of special ones, before finding that Key of Destruction on the third Nihlathak run. (Naturally, two of the three runs had vipers.)
------------------------
Well, this build worked out okay somehow, but it was more a function of assassin being assassin, as well as landing the appropriate gear, than anything special. Kelpie was the big one, and Guillaume's really kicked things over the top as far as bosskilling potential, ie. the only real issue with assassins.
Dragon Claw is almost serviceable for untwinked. The high AR really helps with applying CB/Venom, which is a nice plus, but the damage from the skill itself is really lacking. The build is certainly exciting, especially if you blindly glide around with Dragon Flight, hoping to jump into things you can actually handle. DF in general was just great, as I'm pretty spoiled by the repositioning aspect of Teleport at this point in my D2 career.
Blade Fury side was useful for playing it safe, but the damage output was horrible without any AR. It was great in the early game, of course. Along with some mana leech, that free 100 damage or so really cleans things out nicely.
Mind Blast still best skill in the game.
Thanks to Key for epic novel Rewrite, IRC crew for great distractions, and victims for actually reading that.
Guardian Shizuru, "Blade Slinger" Aggressin
Shizuru is my second favorite character from Rewrite, my favorite novel of all time. Her build concept pretty much mimics the "Blade Slinger" variant from maxicek's Aggressin guide, ie. a dual wielding melee speed demon (Dragon Claw/Burst of Speed) with moderately viable ranged support (Blade Fury). She personally opted for a high level Venom and Claw Mastery over a high level Death Sentry, but that was more for thematic flavor than actual usefulness.
Also, just as a minor spoiler, Shizuru is from an organization called Guardian, and her job is to look for the "Key" which can destroy the world. Kind of speaks for itself.
------------------------
LCS
Martial Arts
Shadow Disciplines
Traps
Her resists were pretty nice for a Burst of Speed user. Kind of surprised, really.
DC Primary: 'Havoc Scratch'
DC Off-Hand: 'Plague Fist'
BF Primary: 'Strength'
BF Off-Hand: 'Imp Scratch'
Helm: 'Carrion Circlet'
Armor: 'Prudence'
Gloves: Ghoulhide
Belt: Goldwrap (upgraded)
Boots: Goblin Toe (upgraded)
Amulet: 'Raven Scarab'
Ring: 'Skull Master'
Ring: 'Eagle Master'
Charms: Resist/Life/Mana
Act 2 Mercenary (Might):
Weapon 1: 'Amn' Kelpie Snare
Weapon 2: 'Insight' Great Poleaxe
Helm 1: Guillaume's Face
Helm 2: Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Armor: 'Treachery'
There was the idea to make her use all regular Suwayyah, since that fits her theme ever so slightly better, but she never found a two socket Suwayyah for 'Strength'. Most of her gear is pretty self-explanatory. She ended up 1 FCR short of the breakpoint, which thankfully never came back to bite her. The lack of CBF was problematic, but that was at least one part of the reason for including BF in the first place. Armor selection was a bit strange. 'Prudence' isn't something I would normally use, but her ethereal Wire Fleece came out of the cube with only two sockets, and a Mal rune had dropped in Pit not too long before that. Fate, perhaps. It does have a nice balance of defensive mods, though they weren't exactly maximized considering aura selection.
------------------------
Normal: Shizuru abused all her early game one point wonders to no end, and she more or less stopped caring in general once her mercenary got up and running. For her part, she equipped a generic mana leech claw of nothingness for essentially the entire time, mowing things down with a high level Blade Fury. Diablo was actually a pretty big concern for her, if only because of her beloved Lucia's demise, but a slow and steady diet of long ranged attacks took him down without much of a struggle.
Nightmare: A handful of problems began popping up around here. Not so much with safety, of course, but definitely with damage. Her mercenary was sporting a rerolled Partizan with minimal enhanced damage, and her own little claws weren't cutting it at all. Things were just ugly, especially since she hadn't invested in Venom (aside from a +3 claw for her weapon switch) just quite yet. Her attack rating became a bit troubling as well, at least with BF. As she had no remedy for any of these issues, Shizuru eventually settled into the first of her pseudo-farming sessions... if you could call single bonfire NM LK runs farming at all. Her main goal was a mid-tier rune or two, but she mysteriously ran into something much nicer. With all of the gold she was netting, she was also finally able to get a reasonable hat or two for herself and her companion. Viability was restored, though she was a bit unsure how to feel about this. (The exact same damage roll, at that.) Things went pretty smoothly from there on out, albeit still relatively slowly, and she actually ran into a cute little find, which led to a few obligatory Pindle runs, somehow ultimately netting her one of her two end game rings. Ancients gave her a bit of trouble, and it actually got to a point where she was just spamming Mind Blast for some pitiful amount of damage before rerolling them. Just as an aside, Korlic can apparently hit you from here. What's up with that? >_> Her mercenary sadly kicked the bucket shortly after this shot from the second time around, but the battle was thankfully all but over by then.
Hell: Stuff hurts. Even random zombies were winning 1v1 battles against Shizuru's mercenary, so things were obviously a bit rough at the start. As such, the second pseudo-farming session began, though it was mostly just for leveling purposes. Well, that's what she told herself anyway. Here's a look at her claws at the time. Yes. She was also still running 'Stealth' in her armor slot, though that was more than serviceable enough. A few dozen Pit runs later, Shizuru finally felt ready to continue, and she went all in as far as unloaded her stashes for cubing, crafting, and imbuing, netting her virtually all of her final gear changes, aside from this little thing. (Both of her claws for DC are actually imbues.) With all that in tow, the rest of the early stages of Hell were relatively simple. Shizuru's enemies weren't nearly threatening enough for her to do anything other than Dragon Flight around and DC for the most part. There were a handful of somewhat annoying/painful experiences, of course. The later stages of Hell were troubling, and she ran into the full complement of frenzytaurs, souls, dolls, and vipers pretty much as often as the game would allow. DC took a back seat to BF with excessive Mind Blast support, and battles were always pretty much the same, ie. (1) clump things together, (2) Mind Blast to hell and back, (3) toss some lolBF, (4) "remove corpses" with DS. Ancients weren't too bad this time, oddly enough, although it was just 10 minutes or so of running around, waiting for openings, using DF, and letting her mercenary take them down, with maybe a handful of DC/BF connecting in between. Baal and company were probably the easiest part of all, as Mind Blast made sure the waves were shut down by their own master's Decrepify, while Baal himself was easy pickings with Kelpie Snare.
By the way, did I mention she is Key hunter? :badteeth: 1400+ regular keys, and a couple of special ones, before finding that Key of Destruction on the third Nihlathak run. (Naturally, two of the three runs had vipers.)
------------------------
Well, this build worked out okay somehow, but it was more a function of assassin being assassin, as well as landing the appropriate gear, than anything special. Kelpie was the big one, and Guillaume's really kicked things over the top as far as bosskilling potential, ie. the only real issue with assassins.
Dragon Claw is almost serviceable for untwinked. The high AR really helps with applying CB/Venom, which is a nice plus, but the damage from the skill itself is really lacking. The build is certainly exciting, especially if you blindly glide around with Dragon Flight, hoping to jump into things you can actually handle. DF in general was just great, as I'm pretty spoiled by the repositioning aspect of Teleport at this point in my D2 career.
Blade Fury side was useful for playing it safe, but the damage output was horrible without any AR. It was great in the early game, of course. Along with some mana leech, that free 100 damage or so really cleans things out nicely.
Mind Blast still best skill in the game.
Thanks to Key for epic novel Rewrite, IRC crew for great distractions, and victims for actually reading that.