Lightning assa viable????

[moogbaa]

Hi there guys,

i have started a trap assa and was wondering if a pure lightning assa is a good idea??
i could use wake of inferno, but that means less dam on the lightning :scratch:

20 - shocking web
20 - charged bolt senrty
20 - lightning senty
20 - deth sentry
the rest into my shadow

is this a dumb setup?? (ive never played a trapper befor :uhhuh: )

[Relativity]

There are other types of assasssin than the lightning trapper?? WHAT?!????

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Yes, DS is Phys/Fire dmg so immunes = joke so long as your merc can get 1 body.

Oh, and you want point in Mindblast and 1 in fade as well

[CreLuSioN]

There are other types of assasssin than the lightning trapper?? WHAT?!????

:lol: so true

[Tool_Master]

I've got a lvl 93 asn at the moment and she is a pure light trapsin so I can say that they are very effective killing machines.
The only trouble that may arise with immunes is if there are no corpses around to be exploded but usually this isn't a problem because my merc/shadow (lvl 35 woot) can take most if not all light immunes I come up against.

[Vectom]

i have started a trap assa and was wondering if a pure lightning assa is a good idea??
I'd say that it's actually the only good idea :D Go for it :thumbsup:

[moogbaa]

thx for all the advice guys but i have 1 more question :uhhuh:

does death sentry do enough lightning dam on its own in hell, or should i use a few lightning sentrys and 1 or 2 death sentrys ???

[Tool_Master]

Well light sentry has 3 synergies whereas death sentry only has one synergy. That being said, I generally cast light sentry first and when several corpses start appearing i set 2-3 ds out and that usually takes care of the rest. Oh, and if you want to speed up killing even more then throw in a few shock webs for good measure.

[moogbaa]

thx for the advice tool :thumbsup:

[eurymone]

I'd suggest not maxing the last synergy, and putting some points into fade. Remember it gives you pdr - 1% each point. So even maxing it is a good idea, and gives you far more flexibility when you don't have to worry about resistances. If you add some pdr equip - you can reach 50% pdr on hell. Also - use cloak of shadows for ranged attacks, as these kind of attacks are probably the most dangerous threat to you. To stop all the missiles is really a wonderful help, solo or in a party. Personally I dont use mind blast, mostly because my shadow uses it so often :)
All these suggestions will make a gameplay a bit safer, but it's your choice whether you want max dam or more safety

[Tool_Master]

I'd suggest not maxing the last synergy, and putting some points into fade. Remember it gives you pdr - 1% each point. So even maxing it is a good idea, and gives you far more flexibility when you don't have to worry about resistances. If you add some pdr equip - you can reach 50% pdr on hell. Also - use cloak of shadows for ranged attacks, as these kind of attacks are probably the most dangerous threat to you. To stop all the missiles is really a wonderful help, solo or in a party. Personally I dont use mind blast, mostly because my shadow uses it so often :)
All these suggestions will make a gameplay a bit safer, but it's your choice whether you want max dam or more safety

I agree with your points on cloak and also because it can give u a nice defensive boost as well as lowering enemy defence which can be helpful to your party. I use mind blast mainly on monsters that can't be converted (OK, minions of destruction etc) just to keep stunned while ls keeps zapping them.
However, I would only recommend really putting 1 point into fade, and only going to a max of 5 points. Any other points invested in this are not very useful as there are some diminishing returns after level 5. The reason for only using a max of 5 points is also because if your can shop some shadow claws (+3 to shadow disciplines) and use them to pre-buff your shadow, fade,etc. Or if you get really lucky you could find a some like mine; +3 shadow disciplines, +3 fade, +2 shadow master. Using these claws and other +skills from items, it is not hard to reach +10-15 skills even with lesser gear.
Then again, this is just my playing style but it works for me.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

20 points in it is still 20% DR though is it's selling point. If I were to build a sin purely for baals (HAH! That'll never happen) I'd definitely take it over shadow, as shadow = no thx in the throne anyways.
If you're planning on MFing the shadow is definitely the better choice.
If you're doing Baals + MF, probably better to go with all the synergies as more damage is more coolness.
If you're doing pure MF you don't really need the extra bit of LS damage as lower dmg LS will still make bodies hit the ground fast in single player games, and once bodies hit the ground DS should be coming out to finish them off equally fast. I'd still take the damage over the DR personally, but maxing fade over CBS would be a viable choice.

@prebuffing, sure you could prebuff fade, but you wouldn't be able to keep an LR wand on switch then (or you'd be running to your stash every 4 minutes or so to switch it up)
Which reminds me.
Keep an LR wand on switch, LR can break like 90% of the LIs in hell.
Also, I'm fairly sure you can't prebuff your shadow...or at least you can't prebuff necro minions, including golems, so I don't see why you could a shadow.

@mindblast
BEST SKILL EVER.
Spam it until 1 monster in a pack you don't want to deal with is converted, then run past the pack. Simple as that. I did countless CS runs with my sin doing that, you can run to the throne doing that, spamming mindblast on pindle's friends tends to make your traps target pindle (or Eldritch/Shenk) when all his friends are converted making those runs faster. Some will try and say "oh, it's no good for baals" but they're wrong, most good barbs go through portals spamming howl, I always went through portals spamming MB, saved my life once or twice I think.
MINDBLAST R TEH PWNZ ALL~~

@safety vs dmg...
Here's some achievable numbers:
10k LS dmg
2000 life
50% weapon block
50% DR
75/85/75/75 resist (obviously with +20 light absorb)
86% FHR (4 frame hit recovery)
I see no reason to have to choose -.-
(of course those numbers are with fairly high end gear, but not stupidly high runes)

[CreLuSioN]

People are so inlove with the necro his dim vision for gloams etc, but why dont i see mroe assas use gloack of shadow? My kicker got it and hmmm it owns in pvm.

[eurymone]

Mouse, would you reveal the skill points allocation and gear for this godly build? Looks great. As you said, it's all about what you'd like to do with your assa. Running around in hell with 200-300 mf all the time can be great, so it's worth to sacrifice some killing power imo.
I've some doubts about LR - shopping for such wand is really easy, but the charges are most probably level 1 LR. This gives -34% of enemy LR, if i remember correctly. Most of the light immunes on hell have about 100-130 resistance, some even in act 1. When I play with my team, we need both necro's curse on significant level +max conviction from a pally to break all the immunities. This wand is mostly a help against non immunes - but correct me if I'm wrong.

[skunkbelly]

Just one note on Mind Blast... I don't tend to get it myself, because my shadow pretty reliably casts it like crazy. However, the above noted "spam upon entering TP" *does* sound like a great idea.

Also, Cloak of Shadows is awesome... but just one point. Your plus skills will do the rest, and at higher levels, it can be annoying... you can't recast it while it's in effect, so if new monsters enter the scene (i.e., that next pack in the Throne), they don't suffer from it, and you have to wait.

Can't stress the value of Fade enough, for hardcore play.

OK, now my question: has anyone tried to do a fire-trapper? If so, which skill would you go with? Seems like a crazy idea, of course... but I like those :D This would be mostly untwinked, of course, to make it even sillier.

[Mal]

I have built a few trapsins for MF and they are very good for HC play as they are a safe build, I would say second only to skellemancers in terms of safety. I always put 3 in fade and claw block to begin, because the saved pts let me build up shadow master and death sentry to 5 while pumping light sentry, then all pts go into LS. I recomend 1 in cloak and mind blast, and a strong shadow master, I think lvl 17 is the breakpoint. I think I like to max LS>DS>SM in that order, but I usually end up putting pts in SM before DS is maxxed. You can level this gal up nicely in NM by joining full games and running Shenk/Eldrich, and you get drops, as opposed to Baal runs. This char is also tops for travincall runs, lots o goodies there, and xp too. Have fun!

[CreLuSioN]

i love bos i will never use fade on assa its just not stylish

[HCTwinJava]

I'm fairly sure you can't prebuff your shadow...or at least you can't prebuff necro minions, including golems, so I don't see why you could a shadow.


I'm fairly sure that I can do both: prebuff asn shadows & necro minions of all types.

My choice: all my asns at high lvls prebuff shadows once and only once per game, while none of my necros prebuff minions (is there a reason for a necro to do that?).




@mindblast
BEST SKILL EVER.


If you use it, surely A best skill. If you don't use it, also surely one of the worst skills in the game.

My choice: for a very long time my asns had used MB, until not very long ago they completely stopped using it. Why? it's a useless skill for PvM.

For a PURE, PvM trapper only: except for a few very special situations, MB will *definitely* slow down your trapper in regular game play on the HELL difficulty!




Can't stress the value of Fade enough, for hardcore play.


This is an extremely valuable skill to most asns, but not to all.
Any PvM asn putting more than 1 pt in it is wasting skills.



OK, now my question: has anyone tried to do a fire-trapper?

Hell, act1, by the cold plains wp, a pack of CI spear women: nearly 10 min passed and I wasn't able to drop any of those beautiful ghost women with fully synergized WoF and WoI. Wish some could have done better than I did.

[STINGER]

Mindblast IMo is not replaced by any amount of PDR, absorb, life...etc.

If you have the intention of running public Baals Mindblast is the best skilll you have, and your Shadow is also very valuable. You can easily unsummon the Shadow once the minions spawn. It is much nicer entering a TP with Merc, Shadow, you and Mindblast than entering with just you and a merc that is for the most part an idiot! I can pretty much garuntee when you enter a bad TP not only you but your shadow will be spamming Mindblast.

Mindblast is the only way to enter TPs from ppl you dont know well and stairwells. I am damn happy to be the first on from lvl 3 to Throne as i know damn good and well my Mindblast will do what I need.

I cant firmly comment on prebuff of minions, but I do know that wiht my Necro last season if I switch to my Skullcollecter which was less skills than my Shield/wand a skelly and sevearl of my revives would die. Now this doesnt mean that the remaining ones arent still a the "casted" lvl but the numbers casted would not remain during the switch.


All out light is not a must, but it is nice. Loosing a few points for other things doesnt hurt your killing speed much at all. My 96 Sin last season had a lvl 20 Wake as well as some extra in Fire Blast for extra DS CEs, and she also had max Master and I beleive i added a couple points to Fade early when I didnt have +skills or the gear for Hell resisits. My lvl 20 Wake was not devistating, but if needed i could focus all 5 traps and take care of things even in 8 players. I didnt use it much so I dont really recommend it, but my sin quested solo and last season I felt I needed it.

Mind blast is also very handy for killing nasty bosses, uniques and not just lidster and others. i use telekenisis the same as I use MB for immunes so my poor merc can kill safer. An uberly gear merc may never need Telek or MB help, but one who doesnt have excellent gear can really be very effective if you use your 1 point wonder like MB to constatly blast them against the wall and stunnign them from attacking.

Mind Blast is very viable, and IMO irreplaceable in PvM.

[NeoHydragen]

OK, now my question: has anyone tried to do a fire-trapper? If so, which skill would you go with? Seems like a crazy idea, of course... but I like those :D This would be mostly untwinked, of course, to make it even sillier.

Slightly OT:
Yes, Last season I took one untwinked on day1 and charged to number1 sin in time, shortly thereafter baals became boring, and I died in the frozen cellar at level92.

In recently building a light trapper, I found that I don't like it. With the mediocre gear that I have, I achieve the same high end damage and very much lower minumum damage. However, WoI is bugged and doesn't deliver it's full damage (apparantly, I never noticed, I just thought 4k was too little to kill in hell)

A decent skill allocation for a fire trapper looks like this:
20FB
20WoI
20DS
20Shadow (insert that magic number if you prefer)
1-6Fade (depending on gear, I've never needed more than 6 hard points)
Leftovers in WoF (Can be subsituted for Claw Block if you go that way, damage will suffer however)
Don't forget the 1 point wonders, Mind Blast, Cloak of Shadows

[MachineOfaDream]

Ok, I've been a very succcessful long-lived ASN player the last two seasons. I only ever died once as a trapper and it was this season when I had MF gear on her instead of safety gear and i was still exceptionally poor. I finished last season #2 on the ASN ladder and I'm #1 right now. This char is very viable. I do solo hell baals all the time no prob. It takes me a little while cause I have no MH, but I am rarely in danger. Conviction gloams aren't even an issue. With Conviction on me I am still maxed; fade is an awesome skill. The assassin also has the best blocking in the game if you do it right. Here are my beliefs and pointers. I won't come back here to debate any of this as I know my girl is super durable and very powerful and useful.

-Max all the lightning traps.

-Split the remaining points between fade and claw block. These are two of the best skills for safety in the whole game.

-Some may say you're wasting points with claw blocking, but first of all it needs no dex to modify it. With the right gear you'll get it to a set 60-61% and it blocks really quickly and can block magic attacks like doll explosions and bone spirits. Most importantly, using dual claws allows you to potentially make up for any skills "wasted" because you can get so many skills on claws. It may take a long time, but it's nice once you get a pair that's +2 all skills and +3 lightning sentry.

-You don't need points in fire traps to kill immunes. You can usually make use of the CE on the Death Sentry, and the level 1 fire bomb with +skills actually will kill gloams in hell with no extra points in it. Maybe not in an 8 player game, but last season at +20 all skills I could take down gloams no prob with it. This season it's slower but still kills. Everyone should be able to handle making a beefy merc, too. Anyway, as said before, if you pay attention to resists and use fade, gloams should be a joke...

-The shadow master is horrible. It does as it pleases and converts monsters all the time. I hate that skill and I would not stand for my shadow using it. Conversion is annoying and can mess you up big time. How nice is it when you're trying to CE some monsters and half of them don't die cause they were converted at the time? The master is a no-no in baal runs for this reason, and if you are powerful enough, completely unneccessary anywhere else. The shadow warrior is much better. The warrior can be coaxed into doing what YOU want it to, and with only 1 point in it it will successfull tank nearly anything in the game if you know how to coax it into fading. Tip: Cast it with monsters in the area and have fade set. It will 90% of the time just cast fade right away. I put one into warrior.

-A requirment for the warrior is cloack of shadows. This is an amazing skill and should be used all the time. You can only cast it once every 20 seconds, so keep that in mind. It blinds all enemies on screen, basically. Gloams will stop shooting and so will witches. Exceptionally good for baal runs. The ASN a great char to crash throne TPs because of this skill and because you could block it if the TP had dolls blowing up on it. Doesn't mean you shouldn't have BO on you though..

-Consider putting an LR wand on switch. It could take away the immunities of gloams and help you solo baal.

-lightning damage items are a waste on the trapper. Go for +skills to get more damage. I'm 99% sure that the traps don't actually benefit from them either, despite what the display says. The display puts what the damage would be if your ASN could shoot the chain lightning. The trap counts as a minion, and all those bonuses vanish on the actual trap.

-I would use +all skill over +traps because fade and blocking are sooo important to being as safe as possible. You could do just fine with only +traps, but if you're doing things like hell baal runs, I wouldn't compromise my safety.

-fade has a hidden +1% dmg reduction for every point it has. This is not a synergy so it's not just for every point you put in it as far as I know. I've never seen any evidence to believe the contrary, wheras with the +dmg issue, people have told me they tested it on open games using +999% dmg facets...

-Shock web is a good skill. Toss it onto the minion spawn point along with the traps. It's also great on bosses. Most normal enemies will be too fast for it to be worthwhile, though.

-Don't pump energy. No more than 100 in str. Even less in dex. Your gear should give you enough str/dex/mana. You may be chugging pots early on, but it's much worse to regret wasting points later on.

-Fast cast does nothing for the ASN. How fast you throw traps is affected by IAS. Claws are always pretty fast, unless you use a war fist. Try to make sure your fastest claw is the one throwing. It's not a big deal at all, though...

That's all I can think of. As for cheap gear to stick on her if you're poor, use the disciple set , 2 bartuc's (or buy +2 claws in shop) and Raven/Dwarf rings.

Hope this helps...

[MoUsE_WiZ]

You may have finished #2 last season, but YOUR name doesn't have an asterix next to it on the immortalization page -.-

[MachineOfaDream]

You may have finished #2 last season, but YOUR name doesn't have an asterix next to it on the immortalization page -.-

Heh, I didn't even know they got that up finally... Thanks for telling me. :-)

[SLs-Tai]

my personal favorite assn build for soloing is a combo trapper (did an almost entirely lightning version that went far)

::Maxed::
Light Sent
Death Sent
Shock Web
Fire Blast

1 in all shadow skills cept venom,
1 in all fire traps and charged bolt sentry
added more bos as was needed for throw speed

basic strategy was totoss down 2-3 light sentries, a couple death sentries and then a shock web or 2 under monsters (can have some pretty good dmg, and doesnt replace a trap alrdy set), then spam fire blast like noones business with my bos and ias claws, i was tossing approximately 2 fire blasts a second at 1350-1500 dmg a pop with ~1200 dmg shock web per second underneath monsters not to mention my traps going off.

estimated it at one point that i was probably doing ~12-13k dmg a second depending on the ratio of death sentries to light sentries (thats assuming death sentry fires light stead of ce-ing) also on a side note if all 5 i set were ls, i could push 15-17k a second if they all fired. i just prefer the speed of death sentry.

ill take 10k light dmg and 3k fire dmg a second not including merc/shadow/mind blast most days of the week.

and btw the points in the fire traps were for andariel or large packs of lightning immunes, with +skills, my lvl 1 WoI was doing ~500 dmg if i remember correctly, so 5 of those and fire blast made for decent immunity breaking

fire blast has syns with every trap used, and gives extra shots to ds, and dmg to shock web and the fire traps

cheers
-tai