The Seven Deadly Sins: Assassin Seven Pack

PhineasB

PhineasB

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I'm 4-5 characters short of completing the Murios project (10,000 levels), and I've enjoyed Septs as a way to push new characters forward. But this time I decided to switch it up and go with seven builds of my top two favorite character class, the Assassin. I have a few builds that I've wanted to revisit or make for the first time (Dragon Tail).

Themes make it more interesting, even with slight restrictions on gear, so we went with each character named after one of the deadly sins, and needing to equip an item that links to her name. That's the only rule, except as per my usual, all characters will full clear A85 areas and complete all quests in Hell, and I'm not going to be too strict with the gear. Envy is in A3 Hell, Lust is in A5 NM, and Wrath has just started, having taken out the Countess. I haven't really thought through all the gear in depth, so I will give an overview of thoughts on gear when I make the first progress post for each character.

Below is each character, with build and "themed" item noted:
  • Envy: Last Wish Lighting Dancer, with HHG socketed with 2 IAS jewels and a jewel of envy (Matriarch, lvl 84, finished 7/29/25)
  • Lust: PStriker w Crescent Moon and Harlequin's Crestand Infinity Merc (Matriarch, lvl 85, finished 8/31/25)
    • Yeah, a bit of a stretch, but there are Harlequin romance novels, so close enough.
  • Wrath: TS/DT with HoJ and Phoenix Shield with A1 Wrath Merc (Matriarch, lvl 84, finished 11/27/25)
    • Wrath runeword was obvious, and this is a different take on TS/DT than I've seen, so hopefully it works.
  • Greed: Rift Phoenix Shield kicker and Wealth armor (and in general packing on MF and GF) with Infinity Merc (Matriarch, lvl 85, finished 12/25/25)
  • Pride: Aggressin with Pride merc (A5 Normal, lvl 31, 12/25/25)
  • Sloth: Mang's pure PStriker with Infinity merc
    • A stretch here, but the attack speed is slow, so it feels slothful
  • Gluttony: Dual 2/3 claw trapper
    • The biggest stretch, but the carnage should be epic, so I'm thinking she's ravenous for slaughter and will keep feasting for the playthrough
 
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This is so fun!

Perhaps have "green" looking items for Envy?

I really think you should use Pride and Wrath yourself (well the Assassin), blade fury, blade sentinel, dragon talon, dragon tail, dragon flight does not use durability (blade shield does) so they work with Eth weapons.

For Gluttony, you could play around with "life stolen per hit" theme, having that stat on basically all possible gear slots!

Lust: Passion runeword comes to mind, perhaps a Zeal-assassin? (But you have already made such)
 
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drmalawi said:
This is so fun!

Perhaps have "green" looking items for Envy?

I really think you should use Pride and Wrath yourself (well the Assassin), blade fury, blade sentinel, dragon talon, dragon tail, dragon flight does not use durability (blade shield does) so they work with Eth weapons.

For Gluttony, you could play around with "life stolen per hit" theme, having that stat on basically all possible gear slots!

Lust: Passion runeword comes to mind, perhaps a Zeal-assassin? (But you have already made such)
Click to expand...
Ha, I forgot about Passion. That could have been interesting, going with Vengeance perhaps. One rebuild I've had in mind was the CM Pstriker, which allows 8-frame attack with Fade. I had planned to use fire-faceted Monarch (Spirit is probably net-better for skills, FHR, and resists, so we'll see). I didn't have a lot of room to swap other characters given rebuilds I wanted to try (Rift kicker, Mang's Pstriker, and dual 2/3 trapper being others), but I could have swapped for Envy given how disappointing the Last Wish approach has been (blind target!).

I'll play around with Wrath and Passion self-wield. But I think for Wrath probably sticking with current because I've been interested in the -eFR approach. Pride is definitely doable though (probably BF, but the 3/8 penalty looms, and I'm already doing two DT, and I don't have patience for Dflight main). Thanks for the ideas!
 
I've finished two characters, with Mat post for Envy finally finished and Mat post for Lust coming this weekend. Wrath is now moving through Normal, so I'll plan to do an update post when she hits Hell and then upon completion, which I am hoping to accomplish prior to MFO starting next month!
 
Wrath, HoJ & Phoenix Wielding TS/DTtail Sin with A1 'Wrath' Cold Rogue, Level 74, Act 1 Hell
Champion.jpg
Wrath is equipped with end-game gear, and cleared the Den to get a feel for Hell. I stayed on p8 for that, but am going to drop to p5 to keep things moving, and likely will drop to p3 for the later Acts. She started off with standard Envy Gear, then equipped damage jewels at lvl 12 and has been TS since then, adding DTail in A5 Normal when I equipped Silkweave boots. I added a backpack full of Skillers at lvl 42 along with War Traveler, before swapping in Gores. Bartuc's was the initial weapon, until my Small Crescent Oath came online at lvl 49.

We then made her own HoJ and Wrath for the Rogue, equipped in A5 NM along with the Phoenix shield:
HoJ Base.jpgHoJ.jpgWrath.jpg
Concept: Use 'Wrath' and make a TS/DTail build. Decrep should aid the DTail build, and -eFR from sword and shield should help DTail's fire area damage. With only 25 additional IAS, she is max speed for TS, allowing for maxed Fade. I doubt she's going to be tank-y, but at least a little sturdier with damage reduction and boosted resists. I added some AR to help cth with TS, which is still a little low, but HoJ ignores defense for regular monsters, so I think it should work. Guillame's for crushing blow and deadly strike, and Highlord's for the IAS (with gloves hitting max attack speed) and deadly strike.

Current gear is below:
- HoJ PB / Phoenix (383% ED)
- Swtich: CtA / Spirit
- CoH Archon Plate
- Guillame's (14@ jewel w cold damage)
- Shadow Dancer
- 2/20 MA gloves with 3% ll, strength, 25 LR
- Rare Belt with 24 FHR, 19 strength, 36 life, 15 Cr, 16 LR
- Highlord's
- 250/19 Ravenfrost x2
- Backback: 8 MA Skillers (with life, FRW, 1 with FHR), SCs focused on AR & FHR

With fade active, resists are 67% for fire and poison, 75% for cold, and 80% for lightning, hitting the 86 FHR breakpoint and ~1670 life with BO. Corpsefire rolled breakable PI, and he was easily navigated on p8, so a good first test. I worried the blind target would be an issue in overwriting decrep, but I think it's workable.

Merc:
- Wrath Shadow Bow
- eth Fortitude
- eth Crown of Theives w +min damage jewel of fervor
 
Wrath, HoJ & Phoenix Wielding TS/DTtail Sin with A1 'Wrath' Cold Rogue, Level 81, Act 4 Hell
"No plan survives first contact." As a novice with DTail as a main skill, there were a couple aspects of the build / gear combo that I thought would work, but had some doubts in the back of my mind. The first was one noted above:
PhineasB said:
I worried the blind target would be an issue in overwriting decrep, but I think it's workable.
Click to expand...
With higher life enemies, including with latent physical resists, mixed in with the many FIs in Hell, it became a bit of a drag. It was still workable, meaning I could have stuck with it, but Decrep was rarely active on a target that helped (with Life Tap proc on Wrath, plus the Sin's blind target on anything she hit to charge up TS). That defeated the point of the Wrath bow, so I reassessed.

Another issue: mana burn. With no mana leech, she couldn't charge if hit by a mana burn boss pack or ghosts, and often got swarmed. Although she was able to just whack her way out of trouble in A1 Hell, it was going to be dicey in later acts (especially with latent PIs). And she has no defense, and is melee, so she gets hit regularly. Additionally, whacking away isn't what the build goal was.

So at the end of A1 (downgrading to p5 early on as noted in prior post), we assessed gear. The -eFR from HoJ doesn't really seem to add that much. The DTail fire splash doesn't impact FIs (which HoJ doesn't break), and it does a lot of raw fire damage on non-FIs in the splash zone. Although lowering fire resists a little helps that damage domain, the downsides noted above outweighed, especially with relatively low physical damage for the hits with TS / leeching on HoJ. Which led to the tried and true Grief, which also hits another IAS breakpoint, needing only 20% on gear, allowing Mara's to swap in for Highlord's to max resists with Fade.

For mana leech, I looked at a mana leech ring for one of the Raven's, but cth was still pretty low on DTail. Guillame's was the other candidate to swap out, as the crusing blow wasn't essential (and Deadly Strike doesn't translate to kicks). I looked at Assassin circlets, with a couple +1 skill options with mana leech. But I went with Vamp Gaze instead, thinking the DR% would be handy given the hand-to-hand combat style.

Acts 2 and 3 were smooth and definitely more enjoyable with the gear swaps. But the final aspect of the original gear that gave me a nagging worry started to become a drag: the cool down from Firestorm proc from Phoenix interrupts the attack rhythm with TS. The +damage % is nice, but it's marginal in the context of DTail with fully charged TS, especially when the Firestorm proc resulted in me hitting with only one or two TS charge sometimes. And Grief's +damage isn't impacted by +damage %. So I am also going to play around with Stormshield (with Phoenix on CtA switch because the redemption is nice to have available).

Updated gear:
- Grief PB / Phoenix (383% ED) [likely to change]
- Swtich: CtA / Spirit
- CoH Archon Plate
- Vamp Gaze (14@ jewel w 7 FHR)
- Shadow Dancer
- 2/20 MA gloves with 3% ll, strength, 25 LR
- Rare Belt with 24 FHR, 19 strength, 36 life, 15 Cr, 16 LR
- Mara's 29@
- 250/19 Ravenfrost x2
- Backback: 8 MA Skillers (with life, FRW, 1 with FHR), SCs focused on AR & FHR

With fade active, resists are maxed for all, with 86 FHR breakpoint and ~1800 life with BO.

Merc:
- Wrath Shadow Bow
- eth Fortitude
- eth Crown of Theives w +min damage jewel of fervor
 
Wrath, TS/DTtail Sin with A1 'Wrath' Cold Rogue, Level 84, Mat
Mat.jpg
Wrath made her way through A4 and A5 and took down Baal. Before starting into A4, we made the switch to Stormshield on main, with Phoenix on CtA switch. She stayed at p3 until Ancients, when I finally went down to p1 because the FIs were getting a bit tedious. Hell HF was Io, and Hephasto was breakable PI:
H A4 PI Hephasto.jpg
We had a fun welcome to A5, with Foothills swarming with archers and quill rats, and so making much more use of CoS than I had to date:
H A5 Archers.jpg
The merc met her first death from Vipers in taking down Nihl (when still at p3), and another death in WSK to witches and the swarming zealots with healing summoners from A3. But otherwise, she died way less than I expected. Hoping to get Mat post up this weekend, and I think Greed will maybe make it to Hell by weekend's end also.
 
PhineasB said:
Wrath, TS/DTtail Sin with A1 'Wrath' Cold Rogue, Level 84, Mat
View attachment 93651
Wrath made her way through A4 and A5 and took down Baal. Before starting into A4, we made the switch to Stormshield on main, with Phoenix on CtA switch. She stayed at p3 until Ancients, when I finally went down to p1 because the FIs were getting a bit tedious. Hell HF was Io, and Hephasto was breakable PI:
View attachment 93652
We had a fun welcome to A5, with Foothills swarming with archers and quill rats, and so making much more use of CoS than I had to date:
View attachment 93653
The merc met her first death from Vipers in taking down Nihl (when still at p3), and another death in WSK to witches and the swarming zealots with healing summoners from A3. But otherwise, she died way less than I expected. Hoping to get Mat post up this weekend, and I think Greed will maybe make it to Hell by weekend's end also.
Click to expand...
Wow, nice.
 
PhineasB said:
I'm 4-5 characters short of completing the Murios project (10,000 levels), and I've enjoyed Septs as a way to push new characters forward. But this time I decided to switch it up and go with seven builds of my top two favorite character class, the Assassin. I have a few builds that I've wanted to revisit or make for the first time (Dragon Tail).

Themes make it more interesting, even with slight restrictions on gear, so we went with each character named after one of the deadly sins, and needing to equip an item that links to her name. That's the only rule, except as per my usual, all characters will full clear A85 areas and complete all quests in Hell, and I'm not going to be too strict with the gear. Envy is in A3 Hell, Lust is in A5 NM, and Wrath has just started, having taken out the Countess. I haven't really thought through all the gear in depth, so I will give an overview of thoughts on gear when I make the first progress post for each character.

Below is each character, with build and "themed" item noted:
  • Envy: Last Wish Lighting Dancer, with HHG socketed with 2 IAS jewels and a jewel of envy (Matriarch, lvl 84, finished 7/29/25)
  • Lust: PStriker w Crescent Moon and Harlequin's Crestand Infinity Merc (Matriarch, lvl 85, finished 8/31/25)
    • Yeah, a bit of a stretch, but there are Harlequin romance novels, so close enough.
  • Wrath: TS/DT with HoJ and Phoenix Shield with A1 Wrath Merc (Matriarch, lvl 84, finished 11/27/25)
    • Wrath runeword was obvious, and this is a different take on TS/DT than I've seen, so hopefully it works.
  • Greed: Rift Phoenix Shield kicker and Wealth armor (and in general packing on MF and GF) with Infinity Merc
  • Pride: Aggressin with Pride merc
  • Sloth: Mang's pure PStriker with Infinity merc
    • A stretch here, but the attack speed is slow, so it feels slothful
  • Gluttony: Dual 2/3 claw trapper
    • The biggest stretch, but the carnage should be epic, so I'm thinking she's ravenous for slaughter and will keep feasting for the playthrough
      Some choices look very atmospheric: Envy with Last Wish, you can feel envy for someone else's drop, Greed with Wealth and MF/GF, just gold on your feet, Pride with Pride-merk also sounds as much as possible in the theme. I had this once when I was making a completely experimental set, and in order not to burn out, I just switched my mind to light trifles in the evening. I also read reviews of slots, and then I came across material edit: ad link removed and it really helped to relax after hard farming sessions. So I understand your motivation to do something thematic, not just to break monsters, but also to keep interest. I think this will be one of those sets that you will want to go through to the end just for the sake of pleasure, and not just to tick the box in Murios. I'm waiting for your updates, it sounds very cool.
Click to expand...
This is exactly the case when the set itself starts telling mini-stories, even before you start the progress posts.(y)
 
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Greed, Rift / Phoenix Shield Kicker with A2 Might Merc with Infinity, Level 72, Act 1 Hell
Screenshot001.jpg
Greed is end-game equipped, with a pass through the Den of Evil at p5. I think she will drop to p3 for the Hell playthrough to keep things from being tedious. She was standard twinking, envy -> damage jewel gear -> hurty 2-hander -> equipping Rift at lvl 53 and switching to kicker, adding other end-game gear as it became available. She ran with War Traveler, then up'ed War Traveler, until up'ed Gores were available at lvl 72 after taking down Baal and still needing to clean up Nihl in NM. She got a fancy Wealth Mage Plate just for herself.

Concept: Rift kicker, with some extra kick damage and fire damage from Phoenix, with Infinity to try to maximize elemental damage. My Rift-adin was fun, so this has been on the to-do list as a different take on that playthrough. The theme calls for pumping gold find and MF (within reason), but I went with Guillame's for crushing blow and deadly strike, rather than Shako for MF, and Gores rather than up'ed War Traveler. Even so, she's respectable 161 MF and 572 GF.

Current gear is below:
- Rfit War Scepter / Phoenix (371% ED)
- Swtich: CtA / Spirit
- Wealth MP
- Guillame's (15@ jewel w FHR)
- Up'ed Gores
- 20 IAS Blood Gloves with 10% CB and 21% MF
- SoE
- 29@ Mara's
- 250/19 Ravenfrost; Rare ring (3 ml, 16 strength, 26 life, 19 CR, 8@)
- Backback: Gheeds, Shimmering GCs with life, Steel GCs and SCs with life and FHR, resist / vita SCs, 2 arcing SCs of vita

Resists are >70% for fire, cold, lightning, and 65% for poison, hitting the 48 FHR breakpoint and > 2000 life with BO. We'll see how the lower FHR breakpoint works; I may swap in FHR SCs for vita affix if she's too fragile.

Merc:
- eth Infinity Thresher
- eth Fortitude
- eth Vamp Gaze w +scintillating jewel of bliss
 
Greed, Rift / Phoenix Shield Kicker with A2 Might Merc with Infinity, Level 85, Matriarch
Screenshot014.jpg
Merry Christmas SPF! Greed reached Mat, pretty smooth playthrough. But she was definitely more in the glass canon category, so thank goodness for CoS, and her damage definitely tapered off in A4 and particularly A5. I'll put more gameplay notes in the Mat write up that I hope to complete this weekend.

One death and another NDE to overlapping Conviction aura Gloam boss with Might, first in the Steppes (death) and then in WSK2 (NDE). WSK3 also had a nasty quad pack of PI Witches (3) with Hags, with Might, Fanatacism, and HF auras. The merc didn't like it :LOL:

Pride is in A5 Normal, so hoping to get her end-game equipped this weekend.
 
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