It all began one day when my melee druid was getting owned in a public dueling game by all of the casters, regardless of their gear. After about my twentieth death I became irate and started to curse all casters to hell because I rejoined the same duel game with my hammer pally and schooled the whole game. This did not make me feel any better because in order to beat the very people I had just cursed I had to sink to their level.
This experience inspired me to come up with a character that would own all casters. Once I learned that claw block could block most common caster attacks I instantly decided to make an assassin. After going to my favorite message forum
www.zelaron.com and talking with some people the possibilities of melee assassins I decided upon making a kicker. After dueling a while with my basic dual bartuc kicker I came upon a lot of really nice equipment because some guy was quitting and gave me a ton of elite and expensive gear. I traded some of the stuff for a chaos claw, a few days latter I saw my first bow assassin using a widow maker and shooting guided arrows very fast. I figured that since the skills needed weren't too much different from what I had that I might as well pick one up. So now my assassin can shoot guided arrows, WW, kick insanely fast, block most attacks, and can teleport with dragon flight. This makes me very versatile.
Martial Arts Skills
Max dragon talon
This skill is a must have for any kicker to do damage insanely quick. A side note about dtalon is that it gets an additional kick for each six skill points. This sounds great but it is currently bugged like zeal where if the first attack misses then all of the rest of the kicks will not hit. So I suggest that you not reach level 36 dtalon because I at one point did and I lost more duels because I had to stand there and wait for the other 6 kicks to miss, leaving me completely vulnerable.
Dragon Flight: 1 point
Dragon flight is the most useful skill in your arsenal. Dflight is used to teleport you right next to your opponent and after teleporting either WW or dtalon your opponents to death.
Dragon Claw: 1 point prerequisite
Dragon Tail: 1 point prerequisite
Shadow Discipline Skills
Max venom
This is where a lot of your damage with any of your attack. Venom does not stack but since it is over .4 seconds this rarely becomes an issue. Venom is poison damage so it can be reduced if your opponent uses poison resist.
Max Weapon blocking
Weapon blocking is the whole reason I started this assassin. This skill will save your life when it blocks hammers that would normally kill you in one hit. While dual claws is not best for melee duels, because with weapon blocking you have about 60% chance to block instead of 75%. I tend to just not worry about switching to a shield because more often than not there will be some asshole that brings a caster into a melee game and starts owning so I just go out of town and kill them.
Burst of Speed: 1+ points
If you plan on using gear with decent + skills then you only need 1 point unless you are using slow claws for kicking, because BoS does not affect WW speed. It does however make you shoot arrows faster, and I use it because I personally like to run fast. I have 5 hard skill points into it because it is a great low level skill to use while leveling up. So how many points you put into it depends on your playing style.
Claw Mastery: 1+ left over points
Claw mastery is a good skill if you WW a lot because you will be getting all benefits of enhanced damage, bonus attack rating, and critical strike. On the other hand if you use dtalon most of the time as I do then you only receive the attack rating bonus which is easily made up in charms. So I am putting my leftover points into this because I don't really have anything else to put them into.
Mind Blast: 1 point
This skill is used with WoF to almost completely immobilize your opponents.
Shadow Warrior: 1 point
I rarely use my shadow warrior, but she does serve a purpose. If you are dueling an arrogant teleporter or a hammerdin who teleports right beside you summon a warrior then make a circle of WoF traps around you then set your right click button to mind blast so that you can attack while your warrior casts mind blast occasionally. The warrior does not often cast mind blast but when she does it helps tremendously.
Shadow Master: 1 point
What can I say shadow masters have a little more life and can use all assassin skills. Their main purpose is to take damage away from you. I am often told that people mistake my master for me.
Cloak of Shadows: 1 point
This skill is used to basically increase your chances of hitting a melee opponent while lowering their chances of hitting you. This skill can be used against most people but I usually only find a need to use it if they person is a barb or is a pally with high level holy shield or with an exile shield.
Fade: 1 point prerequisite
Psychic Hammer: 1 point prerequisite
Trap Skills
Fire Blast: 1 point prerequisite
Blade Sentinel: 1 point prerequisite
Blade Fury: 1 point
I do not often find myself using this skill since I have a bow to shoot guided arrows. About the only time I still use this skill is for humiliation purposes. Not a bad skill if you cannot get a bow I suggest and you can block while shooting blade furies. They are fairly effective against maul barbs that teleport because you can block compared to using a bow.
Blade Shield: 1 point
This is a nice 1 point wonder because it is more or less a passive because once you cast it you are free to attack and while you are either kicking or WW blade shield has a chance to hit. Side note about blade shield is that it carries some of the poison damage of venom.
Wake of Fire: 1 point
This skill is either going to be your best friend or your worst enemy. While using this skill I have only lost a few duels. If you ever played a trap assassin in 1.09 you already know the power of this skill. If you are new to assassins then you are in for a treat. An explanation of using this skill will be in the strategy section under stun lock.
Other Skills
Whirl Wind: granted by chaos rune word claw
This skill is used often while attacking pallies or people that have minions such as druids that have summons, or summoning necros. This is useful when dueling pallies because they cannot stop your ww once you begin. So I often dflight to a pally and ww through them. Or if a pally has me charge locked I ww back toward and through them. A very important thing to note is that you need a claw with good speed as your second claw for ww. Ill go over some options in the gear section. Another thing that you should be aware of is that you probably will have low ar so to fix this problem if I know I will be using ww a lot I use an angelic ammy and two angelic rings.
Guided Arrow: granted by widow maker bow
This is a great skill to have on an assassin. Guided arrows allow you to stay out of harms way while hurling your great poison damage on a semi homing missile. I use guided arrow as a way to attack infect those tough opponents with my poison damage and weaken them before they ever get to me. To my amazement I can actually kill some decent bowazons if I shoot a few guided arrows then weapon switch to my claws and go in and kick them to death. Only real problem with using a bow is that you lose your ability to block. So I usually just shoot as my opponent approaches or as they try to spam fireballs or bone attacks my way I just shoot guided arrows back and then go in for the kill once I hit them. Another great bonus with using guided arrows is that if you are facing some character that has godly fcr and you cannot land a dflight because they just teleport around and you cannot hit them then guided arrows are here to save the day. Usually you can pick up on a patter that a person uses while teleporting so you can anticipate where they are going to teleport so I just shoot a line of guided arrows right through the spot where they will tele and if one hits them then they are pretty much screwed because usually people who can tele uber fast sacrifice a lot of resist and your psn will take them to one life then all you have to do is hit them with another guided arrow.
Gear-Armor
I realize that not everyone can afford to have the best gear or all of the gear that I suggest so I will list some alternatives, but I cannot give any kind of description of how well they will or will not work. There are some items that are essential to this build and I will let you know which ones they are. If you have any suggestions of better gear just reply here or send me a pm.
Helm: there are a lot of helms that will work for this build. I personally use a Shako with a 5/5 psn facet for just a little more venom damage. Reason I use the Shako is because it gives +2 all skills, decent life and mana boosts, and it is fairly cheap. Other viable helms would probably be Andys Visage, Delirium, and a Crown of Ages.
Amulet: I use a good resist Maras Kaleidoscope; for 2 all skills, small stat bonus, and good resist. I keep an Angelic set ammy in my stash to put on when I know that I will be doing a lot of wwing for the nice partial set AR bonus with the rings. Other good amulets would be Metal Grid for resist and AR. You could even get a decent rare or crafted +2 assassin skill ammy.
Rings: I use a soj and a rare ring with some AR and resist. Other good rings would be a raven frost for a decent AR boost, and cannot be frozen if you do not use the same belt as me. I keep two angelic rings in my stash for the AR bonus when I need it.
Belt: I use a trangs belt for cannot be frozen and good mana/life boost. Other good belts would be arachnids mesh for more skills or a Verdungo's Hearty Cord, or maybe even a string of ears.
Gloves: this is an item that there can be no compromise on. You must find a pair of 1.10 trangs gloves for the 25% bonus to your poison damage. Lucky for you they are fairly inexpensive.
Armor: I use Chains of Honor for the 65 all resist, damage reduction, and 2 all skill. Other possible armors would be Skins of the Viper Magi for 1 to skill and some resist. If you feel that you are good in your resist and that you are rich enough I think that Bramble rune word armor would probably be the best armor for this build but I am yet to get one.
Boots: this is another item that cannot be neglected if you play ladder then you can get a pair of upped gore riders like I use. If you play non ladder you will have to try and trade or gamble for a decent pair of Myrmidon Greaves that have some decent mods like resist or something. These boots are needed because they are where your physical kick damage comes from.
Gear-Weapons
Weapon set # 1: two claws for kicking/wwing. If you have a chaos and can ww I suggest using a fire lizard as your second claw because it has enough base speed to reach the max ww breaking point and decent fire damage. Other claws to use with your chaos would be a shaeled bartuc, a fury claw or if you can afford it another chaos would be great because chaos has a good bit of magic damage. If you cannot afford that the minimum gear that I suggest would be two bartucs because kick damage is based on str and dex and bartucs have a bonus of 20 to both. Not only do the stats help but bartucs also have a nice skill bonuses +2 assassin and +1 martial arts. This comes in handy when casting venom, blade shield, and for getting a decent weapon block. Another good cheap claw would be a Jade Talon if you need a resist boost. IMPORTANT NOTE if is important to make sure that you put your chaos on as your right weapon and that you put it on last so that it is made your primary weapon when figuring dtalon damage, because the magic damage, open wounds, and other mods will only be applied if chaos is your main claw.
Weapon set#2: widow maker for shooting guided arrows. This may be disheartening to all of you non ladder people but just think that once the ladder ends you will be able to get one of these. While I havent tried it out yet there maybe a temporary alternative for non ladder people in the form of a Kuko. What I a thinking is that if you get a demon limb and enchant your self then put on a Kuko then you will shoot exploding arrows and doing your poison damage and fire damage. And the bonus AR from enchant should help you hit some people.
Weapon set#3: this is where I put my Call to Arms to Battle command/order myself. I use a CtA and a lidless wall for +1 more to skills. After writing this guide I am thinking about getting a demon limb and putting it here to so that I can enchant my self, to do even more damage and have higher AR. Ill let you guys know how it turns out.
This is all that I can think of to put in this guide for right now, I plan on adding a strategy section on dueling different classes as well as a section on how/when to use certain strategies or skills. Keep in mind that this is my first attempt to write a guide and that I have written most of it in my free time which is usually about 12:00am. I would like to know what you guys think so just post your feed back here about revisions that I need to make or feel free to ask me questions and ill try to get back to you. I would especially like to know what you guys think about the lay out because I wasnt really sure how to set it up
no wwsin has ever killed him
Linear Mode
