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I'm trying to build a Fast and Furious style Assassin; but I need Strength to get the best armours, Dex doesn't cover as much AC as Armour can, but I still need it for my claw-weapons. Magic is needed for things like dragon claw, and if I wan't to live I need Vitality.

At the moment the main skills I have are: 1 Dragon claw, 2 Claw mastery, 4 weapon Block, 2 Burst of speed, 1 cloak of shadow. My stats are: 41, 40, 39, 40

Craig, I'm not sure what a Fast and Furious built is, but some general advice:

Any subclass Assassin should have 0 points in Energy - mana should be gained from items and you should use mana steal to keep the blue ball filled. Do you plan to use dual claws or claw and shield? For most types of Assassin, maxing Tiger strike is the most important since that increase you damage much more than Claw mastery does.

Fast and furious is attacking lots.

I was planing on using two claw weapons, and I'll try to get some more vampire(or is it leech) equipment! Thatnks

Originally posted by craig
Fast and furious is attacking lots.

I was planing on using two claw weapons, and I'll try to get some more vampire(or is it leech) equipment! Thatnks

you want weapons with "of the Bat" postfix (or bettter, this is the most elementary form of the "blue bulb" leachings)

anyways...I would help you but I don't have LOD and hance can't do much to your avail

That ok, I think I might be better off with this info, any more'd be grand.

@craig:
Actually you should aim for not putting anything in either vitality or energy, getting both mana and life steal to keep you going (well, maybe a few points on vitality). Keep strength and dexterity about even, since strength adds damage and dexterity adds attack rating (if I remember correctly; it's been a while since I played my Assassin). As for martial arts skills, I dont quite remember, but whatever gives you good attack rating (prio one) and good damage is recommended. Claw mastery is pretty good overall and applies to all charge ups, so if you don't use Tiger strike all the time it's useful - especially if you're low on draining and use Cobra strike to compensate. Also, later in the game you need to use the elemental charge ups, and the Attack rating gets more and more important since missing your target gets really B.A.D. on hell difficulty. I also like having a Shadow master around as a buffer when things get rough - which it will. Assassin can be pretty tough to play on hell difficulty.

Forgot to say I don't like the charge ups; too much micro organisation for a game like Diablo.

@Craig: It's going to be very difficult to play without the charge-up skills, but if you really don't want to, I recommend that you build a hybrid traps/martial arts Assassin. You must also use Mind Blast and your minion the Shadow Master, otherwise you have no means for crowd control. You could choose either Wake of Inferno or Death Sentry as you main trap. However, without using the charge-ups, you miss the bread-and-butter skill Tiger strike, Cobra strike that allows you to leach life and mana, and most of all Phonix Strike, the best attack for Hell difficulty.

You might want to max out Dragon Tail if you are not going to use the charge up skills. You will need +to life and mana items and tons of leach, since you can't use Cobra strike to leach. You would want to put points in Claw Mastery and Dragon claw, and you should put about 10 points in Weapon block if you don't use a shield - not more, since the returns dimish quickly at higher levels.

I hate micromanagement in all games, and especially in games like D2, but I must say I never found the charge ups too much of this to use, they are very simple and straight forward once you get used to it

Oh I'm not going totally tea-total on them, I new once i read Dragons tail I was going to get it. I could also get some of the others, if it takes life and mana I'm there.

I must confess that I out of curiosity for all the new stuff that LOD adds just baught the expansion I'm running through with an assasin and have reached level 9 and just killed the countess I can't see that I'll ever but ANY points into mana as I only so far have run out of mana when battling Mana stealing monsters and bosses...... and as yet I don't have any mana stealing items that i can use, I do how ever have an Katana(?) which grants me 1 mana / kill.... Burning firsts work great so far with a combination of Dragon's Claw

You'll need some later the mana costs get higher, in later levels

I can't say I agree..... I'm now lvl 25 and going strong for Horazon's Journal. I'm having almost no mana problems except when battling skeletons. Cobra strike at lvl 6 gives me a very high mana steal and life steal so I can keep full globes all the time and use the cold/lightning charge ups to make some extra damage to speed up killings abit..... I've just recently invested my first point in the trap tree so maybe that's the reason why I don't run out of mana, Dragon Claw/tail/flight are not THAT expensive and can easily be recovered with a blow of a fully charged cobra strike I'll see later if I need more mana as I get more involved into traps, but as I'lll maily use Pheonix strike at higher levels I don't think it will be any trouble.....

BTW is Wake of Inferno any good? that's the trap I'm aiming at getting and putting a few points into......

@Garaz: Craig will need +mana/energy or mana regen items becasue he doesn't want to use the charge-up skills, which means he cannot benefit from Cobra strike but has to rely only on leaching, which makes it very difficult to use traps. For your build, I agree with you that you won't need to put any points in energy, nor use items except leaching - however, at higher levels and if you traps a lot, life gets considerably easier with some points in energy.

Wake of Inferno is a good trap, you should max out either that one or Lightning Sentry or Death Sentry. WoI do more damage than LS, but LS has a longer range and is better at hitting moving targets. DS does lightning damage like LS, but with considerbly less damage. Instead, if there are corpses on the ground, it blows off a Corpse Explosion, and radius and damage increases for every point you put in it. Some people favour DS, personally I favour LS if I play an MA (martial arts) ass whos primary skills are in the MA tree. For instance, you can choose to max out LS or WoI and put only a few poits in DS, since DS does not need to be maxed to be very efficient.

The thing with DS is that you need to "waste" 3 more skill points to get access to it. This is why I think WoI seems so nice bc I only need that throwing fire bomb and Wake of Fire(I think it's called). And since I'm only going to klill Bhall with my Asn, I don't have the skill points to waste on just one skill..... Everything should go to PS and SM after lvl 30, and just a couple of points into WoI

Sounds good @Garaz, PS is always the first skill I max out, SM I have never maxed, I just put a point there when I think she's dying too fast. For an MA ass, it's unnecessary to use more than 1 trap, I usually use LS. Later on, it's a also good to put points in TS to increase you damage.

because cheating is unfair, unethical and just plain booring as you then don't have any challenges at all left. The fun thing about playing D2 is creating new chars and see how they develop....

Ok to clarify i am going to take the really good things like Cobra strike, but not the 300% damage stuff cos that is to little for having to hit 3 time and most things are dead by then. I might take the good traps, but I'm aimiung to specialize in the Martial Arts.

I don't like cheating.

@Azzilla: Cheating makes the game totally boring IMO, since the challenges in the games become too easy. Also I agree with Garazdawi that experimenting with new character builds and see how they work in different situations, is the most fun part of the game.

@Craig: Are you going to use Phonex Strike? You really should, it's the best Martial arts skill for an Ass at higher levels!

but if you go on the battle net
then sometimes it is good to
have a kick ass cheated character.

here's an avatar for you diablo fans