Please give comments on my all-rounder Assassin please...thanks!

[FireEel]

Firstly, hello everyone, I am back from last year. Now that my final exams are over, I can at last concentrate on the oh-so-loving-assassin. I shall be making the standard lighting trappasin but with a few tweaks. She is meant to have no particular areas to specialize in, and she is gonna be a jack-of-all-trades. She must be able to PvM and also PvP. She uses no shield, but instead, 2 claws. I will not be giving her the best items as I most likely, will be unable to afford any, but I shall definitely provide her some decent gear. Do not worry as I understand that Facet jewels and Griffon Eye do not work for traps.

1) Stat Points

Strength - Enough for gear
Dex - Enough for gear
Vita - Rest of my spare points
Energy - I don't really care

2) Skill Points

Maxed Lighting Sentry - This will be my main skill

Maxed Death Sentry - To boost the LS and also to deal with pesky monsters when I need to explode their corpses

Maxed Shadow Master - She may not be able to hit players alot, but I have seen how high-lvl SMs can deliver 1-hit kills to low life players. She is my main tank, absorber of damage, and most valuable asset

Maxed Any Lighting Trap Skill - To boost my LS dmg

5 in Burst of Speed - To increase my trap-casting speed and my overall run/walk speed

5 in Weapon Block - Since I use 2 weapons, I need this to save my life

1 in Mind Blast - To convert pesky monsters and to stunlock players

1 in Dragon Flight - I can't get Enigma, so this will have to do. I will also teleport onto low life players and hopefully, get a good kick. Even if I don't do the job, my SM may

Rest in Pre-Req and other Lighting Trap skills

3) Gear

Helmet
Kira's Guardian - To achieve Cannot Be Frozen and for the wonderful resists
OR Shako - I most likely will not use this but if I find this first, I will

Armor
Nat's Armor - For the boost to Shadow Skills, and 3 sockets, quite cheap too
OR Any other cheap and useful armor I can get my hands on, any recommandations?

Weapon 1
Bartuc - To get +2 Assassin Skill and the incredible boost to strength and dex and 30% FHR

Weapon 2
Any useful claw with +3 Traps and +LS

Glove
Frostburns - Cheap and +40% Mana

Belt
Arachnid Mesh - +1 Skill and other useful stats
OR Any other useful belts I can get my hands on, any recommandations?

Boots
Not Chosen, can't think of other really useful ones

Amulet
Mara's - +2 to Skills and nice resistances

Ring 1
Stone of Jordan - +1 to Skills and good mana+

Ring 2
Not Chosen, can't think of another useful one

Charms
Any useful +resist charms, or +skill charms, or +life charms, anything I find useful

4) Merc

Act 2 Desert Merc - He has Holy Freeze and can do good damage and is a good tank against monsters

5) Questions

a) I tried to read the guide, but I can't understand anything. So exactly how much IAS do I need in my gear to get the fastest trap-casting? I am using Bartuc as main weapon and lvl 5 base BoS.

b) How much Weapon Block is recommanded?

c) Does Weapon Block work when I am running? Does it block against magical missile attacks?

d) What should I socket Nat's Armor with?

e) How high a FHR is recommanded?

f) Besides the ones I listed, are there any affordable and useful armor and belt and boots I could use?

g) Which second ring should I use considering I don't need Cannot Be Frozen?

h) Any other important points I need to take note of?

Thanks for all replies

P.S : Aaron/Death-Shadow11/Kirby, I miss you a lot. Where are you? I return to BattleNet and none of my friends remain

P.P.S : OnionKnight, are you around? I miss you too

P.P.P.S : Larzurk, Chivaz, where are the 2 of you? I miss you 2 too! :hanky:

[ilkori]

Welcome back! Not that you know me, not that I know you, but welcome all the same. Things have changed significantly since you were here last, that much I can tell you for sure.

It seems that dueling in 1.10 has become even more expensive than it was before - if this were my character I would build this to be a pure PvM sort of guy. Then expand to PvP later. I'm no expert, but I'll toss out a few ideas of my own. Before I get started, I would highly recommend jrichard's lightning/death sentry/fire blast trapper (http://e.domaindlx.com/jrichard/d2/ltrapper.htm) build. It is designed for pure PvM and the exact same thing as I figured out independently.

a) How much IAS you need will depend on that second claw. If it is another -30 base speed (like Bartucs) then you will not need any more IAS while using BoS. The IAS Sticky (http://forums.rpgforums.net/showthread.php?t=229326) has the info to figure it out. You need to know the WSM (average of the two base speeds on your claws), level of BoS (at the time of casting, so include +skills), then look up the number in the middle of the 9-frame trap lying chart.

b) If you have no shield, then either 59 or 60% block is recommended. I can't remember the skill levels exactly, but I think it's around level 25.

c) Doesn't work, sorry. It can seem to work sometimes when you are either turning or desynched (lag). I'd suggest reading the FAQ update thread.

d) The ideal armor, imho, would be Chains of Honor with +2 skills, resists, and some Damage Reduction. Sadly, it's rather expensive, so I'd probably go with something else for the time being. For PvP the teleport on Enigma is invaluable. If you have your heart set on Nat's, then resists or FHR may be your best options since Facets don't work with lain traps.

e) 86 FHR (most people say 90 to round it to the even multiple of 5)

f) Affordable Armor: Smoke, Lionheart, Vipermagi, or Skulders (mf).
Affordable Boots: Nat's, Waterwalk, Sandstorm Trek, any rare with resists, FRW, etc.

g) I would probably go with another SoJ for PvM. For PvP you will want to be stunlocking your opponent, and to do that you will need high FCR (around 65 is recommended)

h) You will most likely need a good second form of damage on this character for Hell. Some of the hardest monsters in the game are Lightning immune, giving you a lot of trouble. Your merc should be able to handle most of them (if he is equipped well), but a strong Fire Blast is hard to ignore. A single point in Venom/Blade Fur can also help out, and give you something to do while those traps are working.


Good luck, have fun.

[FireEel]

Oh man.....could any1 kind enough pls give me more advice or tips?

[deadbeater]

I thought you would be talking about an all-rounder assassin.

[lextalionis]

I thought you would be talking about an all-rounder assassin.

I thought the same. I was looking for some wacky build with a few points in Traps, Martial Arts and Shadow Skills.

Are you PvP or PvM? Do you have stuff to trade or are you very poor?

Biggest Advise: Look at all the guides in the Strategy Compendium. That's the only place you'll get much more help than Ilkori gave you. Unless you have more precise questions.

[FireEel]

sorry to mislead u people. When I said all-rounder, I meant any assassin who could pvp and pvm