PvP WW/Kick/Stun Assassin ---- v. 2.0

[Speederländer]

PvP WW/Kick/Stun Assassin Guide

INTRODUCTION

This build combines all of the best aspects of the PvP assassin kicker and the PvP assassin ww builds in a solid dueling framework. It uses teleport for its primary movement with tactical use of dragon flight in on-screen situations. It uses stun supplied by level 1 traps and level 40+ mindblast.

Most of this guide is about tactics and strategy. Items are items and we all know how important they are. I assume the people I duel have good items. Once we are on this semi-level playing field, we can focus on technique. Good items are critical but you can't simply spend your way to winning with this dueler.

This guide assumes you have familiarity with assassins. If you have never played a ww sin before or a kicker or at least a trapper, don’t start here. You’ll become frustrated. Play the more common variants first. Get good at kickers, then try WW, then try trapping some. That will get you the basics for making this build work for you. Note, I’m not posting all the hit recovery, fast cast rate or ias charts. If you’ve never had to look them up before or you don’t know that trapping is tied to ias and mindblast is tied to fast cast rate, then this isn’t the guide you should be looking at.

This is the best PvP assassin type you can play for 1 vs. 1 duels when you are decked out. It’s better 1 on 1 than a trapper, though a trapper is better in a team. This assassin style is better than a pure “ghost” ww variant.

Note: This build is not cheap. Further, it is very complex to play and hard to master, especially with timing of attacks and hotkey use. I will provide cheap(er) alternatives to expensive equipment whenever possible, but the use of high level rune words, certain equipment, and decent charms is a must. There is no way around it. You also won't be "owning" a week after you make your assassin. I've played this build over two ladders now, always improving it. If you aren't willing to put in the time practicing and getting better, and losing in the beginning, you'll quit in frustration. Heck, I even quit myself a few times. Finally, this is not a good build if you’re on dial-up.

I consider this the single most demanding PvP build you can play. I’ve played just about every style of dueler out there at one time or another going back to the beta. Nothing has come close, in my mind, to the complexity of making this build function well. As a result, I find it endlessly interesting and fun. Much more so than playing a trapper or a bone nec or a smiter or a ww barb or any type of sorc.


BUILD GOALS (what we MUST accomplish)

1. 7/3/3/3 kick speed with 4 kicks (after battle command from CTA) (Or 3 kicks, see below)
2. Final breakpoint whirlwind speed of 4 frames
3. 9 frame trap laying speed
4. 65 fast-cast breakpoint for teleport and mindblast
5. High open wounds when need demands
6. Massive venom damage, within constraints of equipment
7. Largely a vitality build, to the extent possible.
8. 60% claw block
9. Max resistance in hell AFTER the Anya quest
10. 86 FHR BP when needed w/o loss of other important stats
11. 50% physical damage reduction
12. Enough mana to allow fairly continuous teleport, trapping, mindblasting, and whirlwinding
13. Enough attack rating to hit well.

These goals help us to define equipment as well as skill and stat point distribution.

Note on mana:
My assassin has anywhere from 775 to 850 mana, depending on my set-up. This is plenty for 98% of my duels. Most people, however, will not have the mana levels I get.

I recommend using mana pots. This recommendation will annoy some people, people who feel that there is an imaginary set of rules binding all people who do PvP. These advocates of the mystical “Diablo-Force-that-Binds-Us-All” will claim that using mana pots is “BM”. Yet they will be unable to point to the official "rule" which lays out exactly why mana pots should be off-limits, or indeed where any such rules even exist at all. In fact, when pressed, every one of them will have their own personal definition of “BM”, with few actually agreeing across the board. “BM” is arbitrary folks, and depends entirely on the perspective of the person trying to enforce it.

If you play in a league, and the league bans mana pots, then don’t use them. I don’t advocate breaking any rules or cheating in any way. However, 99% of the dueling in 1.10 occurs in pubs now. And in pubs, almost everyone uses mana pots. Indeed, certain builds like wind druids REQUIRE mana pots. I assume that everyone uses them. It just makes things easier. If you are dueling a defensive necro who teleports continuously and spams bone spirit for 3 minutes, you can bet your behind he’s potting like mad. Dueling a windy? They are mana potting. Dueling a BvC barb? Mana please. If I were to complain, it would be pointless and make me look like an amateur.

NOTE: I do NOT advocate using life pots or rejuvs. About the only universal rules that people SORT of agree on are with respect to life potting, NKing and guarding. Even these rules aren’t universal, as there are plenty of clans that play “BM” among themselves because they seem to enjoy it. I’m not here to judge anyone. My personal policy is not to life pot or rejuv. When I duel people who do, I either ask them to unhostile or assume that anything goes and behave accordingly. If someone keeps life potting on you, just MB them while they are dueling other people and eventually they will unhostile you.

I carry mana pots but rarely if ever have to use them. My build does NOT require mana pots. But you had better be prepared to shell out for charms if you don’t want to use them.

I say again: This build does NOT require mana pots.

[Speederländer]

SKILLS

The skill set pretty well establishes itself:

Dragon Talon – enough points to get talon to level 23 with battle command from CTA (or 17 if you prefer 3 kick sequences, see below)
Claw Mastery – 20
Venom – 20
Mindblast – 20
Fade – enough points to get 50% physical damage reduction with equipment and battle command
Weapon block – enough to get 60% block with equipment and battle command (don’t waste points trying to get higher than 60% block)
Shadow Master – 1
Dragon Flight – 1 (with remainder of points going here after other skills are set)
Wake of Fire – 1
Lightning Sentry – 1
Blade Shield – 1 (Optional. Do everything in your power to get this as a mod on your chaos claw, the claw you will wear most often.)

In order to get all these skills, you will have to be in the low to mid 90’s for character level.

NOTE: You MUST get to character level 90 to get the best OW breakpoint. Also, the higher your level, the better you hit and the harder you are to be hit. Leveling to 94 or 95 is very much worth it if you know your build is finalized. It’s also easy to do given the large number of bots running endless Baal runs. Find a run, and stick with it while you watch TV or study or whatever.


EQUIPMENT

Helm: Crown of Ages – Yes, it can be expensive, but if you get a 1 socket with mediocre DR and res, you can get by. You need this helm for the combo of FHR, res, damage reduction, and (potentially) 2 sockets. You need to upgrade this to as close to perfect as you can afford. You spend a lot of stat points to be able to wear this. Don’t let them go to waste.
Socketing: For the poor, use a pair of 15 ias jewels with the best res mod you can swing. For the more well-off, use a pair of 15 ias/15 res all jewels.

Armor: Enigma – This is the only possible armor for this build. Get the highest defense you can, while still being able to equip w/o spending ANY strength points just for the enigma itself. I use an archon plate.

Belt: Arachnid mesh – Again, this is the only possible belt for this build.

Boots: Shadow Dancers

Rings:
Ring 1 – Raven frost (built in, can’t take it off)
Ring 2 – Fast cast ring with mana, attack rating, resist all. Stats like str are pointless. You need to be able to take the ring off and switch it for a wisp, angelic, etc. Dex can be OK as a substitute for AR, but just don’t build it into your assassin.

Ammy:
Fast cast ammy with 15to 20 fast cast. Look for assassin skills and resist all as your two primary mods after the FCR. Stats, again, don’t help much since you cannot build them in. Mana is good. AR boost is good. Etc.

Gloves: Trangs gloves

Charms:
10x shadow skill GCs with life
9x life/mana sc
1x anni

Claws (I keep one of each, wearing 2 at any one time):
1. Chaos Runic Talon (Get venom, mindblast mods first, then go for dragon flight or bladeshield)
2. Fury Runic Talon (Get venom, mindblast mods first, then go for dragon flight or bladeshield)
3. Jade Talon with 15 ias jewel (You need the 15 ias jewel to get the 4 frame break on ww with the Jade. Try to get 15 ias/15 res all or 15 ias/30 light res for the jewel)
4. Fools mod rare fast claw. Socket with UM or IAS depending on whether you need to get the last WW breakpoint or open wounds.
5. Ethereal upped Zod’ed Bartucs (optional)

Do NOT get claws with skills you can’t do without like weapon block. If you have weapon block on your fury and you designed around those WB points, and you change the fury for a fools mod claw, you are screwed. Always go for Venom first, then mindblast. After that I prefer one claw with as much to dragon flight as possible and one claw with blade shield.

Also in Stash:
2x shadow skill w/FHR
1x fhr sc with mana or attack rating

Angelic ring and ammy
Dwarf star ring
Wisp ring
T’Gods belt
Demonlimb
9% or 10% OW belt with big life mod and other good stats (resistance, etc.)
1.08 Valk Wing or Griffons Diadem (if on ladder). Socket the Valk as you need FHR or res or cannot be frozen with either shael, UM, or Cham. Socket the Griffon’s with a 15 ias jewel (maybe with dex for a little more AR). The ias on the griffon is needed to get the kick/trap breakpoints.
Extra fastcast ring with 20 dex (magic ring only, can’t get this in a rare)
Cold gear (see below) for auto-aiming blizzard sorcs (optional)


Note on Equipment:
I consider the CoA/Dancer combo to be superior to .08 Valk. People are free to disagree. I can tell you, however, that the overall stats from my set-up outweigh those from any Valk combo. In any event, my set-up is universal. It can be played on or off-ladder. A Valk build does not allow this.

I can present a strong argument about how the CoA/dancers is superior to the valk option and will do so in later revisions if people are confused or disagree.

ATTRIBUTE POINTS:
You will have just enough strength to wear the CoA. WAIT until the highest possible level to put the last points into strength. Your enigma will keep giving you str as you level up. I waited until I was level 92 on my final build before I had the str to wear it.
You will have 115 dexterity with items. Enough for the runic talons. Be careful to equip all strength items first, i.e. shadow dancers, in order to get the dex boost.
Everything else goes to vitality.
My assassin sports anywhere from 3600 life to 4000 life, depending on which equipment I am wearing. My typical life is 3800 in standard gear.
Don’t pump dex for attack rating.

NOTES ON POISON DAMAGE
Poison (i.e. venom in our case) has several features that make it very desirable for our assassin.

First: the double application bug/feature
When +%skill mods are applied, they act once when venom is cast, and then again when it is applied.

Example:
Level 45 venom = 1260 average damage over .4 seconds
When cast with trangs gloves, this becomes: 1260 x 1.25 = 1575 over .4 sec.
When you attack someone, the trangs bonus acts AGAIN on this new total yielding: 1968 over .4 sec.
So the bonus actually acts on itself. Nice for us.

Second: The hidden hell PLR penalty.
There is a -100% poison length reduction penalty in hell. I am NOT talking about the -100% to your resistance! That is a different penalty. I assume dueling is happening in hell. So all poison sources act on you at their full strength for twice the listed period.

Going back to our example:
1968 venom damage or .4 seconds becomes 3937 over .8 seconds.

That is just a LOT of damage over .8 seconds folks. After the PvP penalty, it's 656 over .8 seconds (basically per application). Combine this with your physical damage, magic damage from chaos, and open wounds, and it's really nice damage. When you kick, you basically have your target continuously poisoned at the rate of 820 pvp poison damage per second.

Further, this poison damage goes through bone armor and energy shield directly. Very few people care too much about poison. There aren’t many people who use it in mass quantities anymore except poison jav zons and poison nova necs. Therefore, it is the most commonly neglected resistance. Though not always...

I don't pre-buff poison. Some people do. If you want to keep +3 shadow/+3 venom claws with 2 psn facets each, a +3 shadow helm with 2 facets, +3 shadow ammy, and 2 SOJs, go for it. I think it's a huge pain. Try to get strength on the ammy and helm. I had an ammy with +3 shadow and 29 str last ladder and a helm with like 20 str or something so I could equip bramble for pre-buff while still keeping my str investment intact from the enigma. And after all that effort to get all that stuff, I'll bet I pre-buffed like 3 times over the course of the season. You can kill just fine w/o pre-buffing. Once I go out, I don’t like to come back to town except for healing after a duel or to put on AR equipment for melee or a jade for stacked res. If you pre-buff, you also have to carefully watch your durations, as you can’t just recast venom out in the field every minute or so. You have to wait until you return to town. Personally, I like to cast venom every time I cast battle orders. This way there is no fear of it running out.

[Speederländer]

GENERAL STRATEGY AND TECHNIQUE GUIDE

This isn’t comprehensive. This isn’t a class-by-class strategy breakdown. The class-by-class is later in the guide. This is meant to be a GENERAL record of several techniques that work, as well as ideas I’ve been working on for a long time with my assassin.

These points are somewhat random and are not meant to be complete. Words are no substitute for lots and LOTS of practice:

1. Never run, always teleport.
Claw block is your best friend. It blocks almost every attack in the game, including fireball, bonespirit, bone spear, orb, etc. HOWEVER, claw block drops to ZERO when you run. Some people will claim this is not true. They are wrong. It has been extensively tested. Over and over and over. If you tele, your block is always at max. Run, and it’s zero. Only run when you have to. Also, you sometimes have to run to desync out of traps.

2. Play to the south:
Try to keep your opponent north of you. You have more screen to work with. More visible area is more tactical advantage.

3. Play the diagonals.
This ties into #2. Keep your opponent (as much as you can) to the northern diagonals. This further increases your advantage. You will notice good trappers, for example, always trying to get screen advantage for trap laying this way.

Do it right, especially trapping the upper diagonals, and you will be accused of scrolling or auto-aiming your traps by those who don't understand.

4. Hotkeys
Hotkeys are EVERYTHING. I am not going overboard. People who have their skills all along the f# buttons are not playing correctly at all. Your hotkeys should be toggled between just as fast as a professional typist hits their keys. In order for this to be the case, your hot keys must be organized close together and logically. If you do this right, you will be accused of cheating. I can move between skills so fast it seems continuous to the people I duel.

This is my set-up. I’m right-handed and toggle the hotkeys with my left-hand.

Primary hotkeys:
S - mindblast
D - wake of fire/lightning sentry
W – teleport
F – dragonflight
Q – shadow master
A - whirlwind

Secondary hotkeys:
R – cloak
Z – battle command
X – battle orders
C – venom
V – fade
B – blade shield
F4 – BoS (so I don’t screw up and undo fade, BoS is moved out of the way)

Play with middle finger on the “S” button, index finger on the “D” button. The index finger can toggle “F” for flight, the middle finger can toggle “W” for tele.
With this set-up I can instantly go from MB to wake to tele to flight or tele to WW with little to no delay.

All hotkeys are on the right mouse button. Dragon Talon is permanently on the left-click mouse button.

5. Teleport replacing DF when target goes OFF-SCREEN.
In 1.09 flight extended for over 2 screens away with name-lock. Now Blizzard, in their wisdom, has ruined this. But with teleport from enigma we can get it back. The problem is that now you can overshoot. The key is to quickly toggle tele and back to MB (or wake). You want one tele right on top of your target, when kicking, for example.

5.5. DF vs. Tele and vice versa
DF only when your target is within half a screen. Use tele to get close. Flight is messed up with 1.10. It’s buggy, misfires and is heavily interruptible. It can’t be depended on from any serious distance. This is why tele is absolutely critical for anti-caster variants.
DF is most useable against bowazons for staying on top of runners, though it can be very good at delivering open wounds to a variety of targets. It is also very good with the previously discussed minion stacking. DF is your close-range super accurate teleport. I actually use DF much more than I did in the past (since I'm getting accustomed to its bugs), but it is not viable without teleport as a half-screen closer.

6. Mindblast name-lock to hotkey flash teleport/WW
Get mindblast name-lock, while still pressing the right mouse button hotkey teleport. An instant after the teleport animation begins, hotkey WW. You will exit on top of your opponent doing whirlwind. This is the most useful single attack you have against running targets. This is very hard to time right. Often you toggle WW too fast and end up canceling your teleport and doing ww in place.
You have to learn to instantly re-center the cursor as the teleport ends in order to do small, triangular whirls. It is easy to end up whirling long using this technique. Long whirls usually get you killed. This skill takes lots and lots of practice.

7. Minion stacking
Minion stacking with your master is a lifesaver. Always try to tele with your shadow out. If your shadow dies, get in the habit of ALWAYS recasting (if safe to do so). Always have your shadow out for when you tele or DF on top of your target.

8. WoF/MB vs. LS/MB
Use wake of fire combined with mindblast to stunlock your target. If you don’t understand this, try it and you will understand.
Wake + MB absolutely dominated in 1.09 but 1.10 brought with it a .16 second nextdelay nerf. As a result, it’s easier to escape. Characters with good FHR, lots of life, and skill can escape. Slippery targets may require different techniques, such as heavier DF and OW dependence.
Against melee generally use LS + MB for better stunning. Melee will tend to desync out of wake, so auto-target LS is better. Use wake exclusively against java zons, however, to trigger endless evade for an easy kill.

9. Shadow master mindblast technique and MB swirly duration.
This is a key technique. The SM/MB technique will allow you to MB opponents 2+ screens away. The SM is not constrained by the same limits as you are with having to get name-lock for MB. My SM constantly MBs opponents 2 to 3 screens away.
It has been the observation of both myself and others that when you max out MB, she seems to mindblast a LOT. My shadow master mindblasts everything in range all the time, so much so that I can’t use her on baal runs when I’m leveling. She just converts everything. When you tele, you constrain her to not being able to do much of anything but MB and occasionally dragonflight.
Your master will mindblast FOR YOU most of the time (though not all) while you tele. This allows you to drop traps to trip up and lock up your target and/or get in good position for a strategic dragonflight. It’s really and truly incredible how cool it all comes together.
High level mindblast also impacts the length of time the swirlies remain over the target's head. You want this duration maximized to improve stun chances.

NOTE: This is NOT meant to free you from MBing. It only reduces the load.

You will CONSTANTLY be accused of using auto-aim. Welcome to the club.

10. Maintaining stunlock and number of kicks
Once you have a target locked, the most likely way to lose that lock is while kicking (or whirlwinding). Therefore it is key to trap and MB between kick sequences unless you are in a life-or-death tanking situation.
To this end, there is a strong argument for limiting your number of kicks to 3. There is a misfire that occurs when you have longer kick sequences. This misfire makes proper and continuous trapping more difficult than it should be when executing kick sequences.
4 kicks is also reasonable. I prefer 3 kicks now, however. Go no more than 4 kicks in any event

11. Circle your target.
Circle your target and spiral in to them. This allows the master to MB and confuses your target. Trap while closing in. This is obviously more applicable to targets standing still, spamming an attack, etc. Fast teleporters won't allow any type of spiral attack to develop.

12. Always have traps out.
Self-explanatory. More traps = higher probablility of a mindblasted target hitting one and getting tripped up.

13. Keep your eyes open.
When your target hits a trap and gets tripped up, you have only a second or two to get to them and reinforce the stunlock and attack. If they get caught and you don't see it, you missed an opportunity to (if nothing else) deliver OW. More likely you missed a chance to end the duel and kill them.

14. Know when NOT to chase
Don’t chase defensive bone necs or orb sorcs. They WILL wear you down. If you are SURE you can get them, then give chase. Otherwise, make them come to you. These runners are more likely faster than you and hit harder than you if it’s a direct hit.

15. Know when NOT to tank. Know when to break off the attack.
If I die to a druid and, to a lesser extent to a bone nec, it’s often because I made a bad decision to tank. Always be ready to run and regroup. A druid or nec with good FHR can sometimes out-tank you if their life is high enough.

16. Hit and run open wounds.
Know when to play defensive. This doesn’t mean you run away after hitting and inflicting open wounds, it means you hit and stay close, not getting hit yourself. Basically, you chase but don’t engage, looking for an opportunity to inflict open wounds via DF or a quick kick sequence. Make them THINK you are after them. MB and drop traps, but only close for kicks and/or get in a good DF when necessary, i.e. when OW has run its course. Obviously this is for VERY VERY hard duels and especially for those cases where you are very low on life.

17. Use your minimap, anticipate their minimap.
If they see you on their minimap, they know where you are and where you are coming from. If you are going to come at them, exit their minimap and come at them from a different angle. This minimizes spammed bonespirit and the like. Also, watch out for necro IBS.
Make SURE your minimap is set to FULL SCREEN!! Do not use the smaller map up at the corner of your screen.

18. Play fast and aggressive. It's better to be all over your target and make them play defensive than to be defensive yourself and allow them to get the initiative. FAST FAST FAST!!! You need to be all over them from start to finish except in special cases like hyper-defensive teeth spamming necros, high defense hammer pallys, hyper-defensive orb sorcs, etc. For these guys, you need to allow them to come to you and to make a mistake.

19. Watch out for the shadow master DF cast bug.
When you cast SM, the skill is on a timer. You can’t cast it again for several seconds. This timer also starts on dragon flight, meaning you can’t flight either until the SM timer runs out. This has screwed me a few times in the past when I really needed to DF and the skill was red because the SM timer hadn’t expired.

20. Let the SM finish off 1 life opponents if you are also low on life.
You will often be in dueling situation where your opponent has just 1 life, usually due to you open wounds. If you are also low in life and they hit hard, then make sure your shadow master is out and tele in their vicinity. The master will mindblast them or DF them for the kill, saving you from having to get dangerously close.

21. Public dueling common sense (if you do pub dueling)
Get clear of the town entrance. You need room to move and maneuver.
Pick your fights, don’t hostile everyone in the room. You don’t do well when people team you. Try to keep you duels 1 vs. 1 unless you know you can handle multiples.

22. Lag hurts you more than most.
Out of all the character types I’ve played, lag seems to hurt fast-cast ww-sins and kick-sins more than most others. You require a bit more time to kill and you need a lot of accuracy in movement. When in ww, you are vulnerable to lag, esp. if you come out and just stand there for a second.

23. You aren’t very good on a team.
It’s just a fact. You shine in 1 vs. 1 dueling. You simply take too long to kill to be a good team dueler. You can help your team by stunning, but you are not at your best. Diablo 2 team dueling is all about massive damage really fast. It’s in the 1 vs. 1 stuff that good movement and the like come into play.

24. Terrain
Use the terrain. Terrain is very important and rarely exploited. When dueling barbs, stay in the bogs. This means they have to get around obstacles. They can’t easily desync WW you by whirling long. It also protects you from straight-line charge attacks by pallies if you are pounding them with mindblast. Be careful though. If a smiter gets you against a bog and starts smiting, you are dead. Likewise, it can mess up your whirlwinds and trip you up.

[Speederländer]

GENERAL MATCH-UP NOTES

When you duel, kicks are better vs. some, ww is better vs. others. Obviously, I made a hybrid so there must be a reason.

Kicks are more accurate than WW and have better hit recovery inducing potential in that they are faster. Kicks tend to work better against most casters than WW. WW, however, is always superior in melee, allows more effective hit and run vs. certain duelers, including some casters like hammer pallies, and gives you defense in many situations. It also provides an uninterruptible escape vs. stun situations.

I usually go (rough numbers):
Sorcs - pure kick with high OW (fury, jade)
Wind druids - 80% kick, 20% ww (chaos, fury)
All pallys – 95% ww (chaos + fury or jade dep. on pally type)
Necros - 80% kick with high OW, 20% ww (chaos + fury) Also, I will go a fastcast set-up with an ethereal Bartucs off-hand against really good necs. This gets me the 102 breakpoint for teleport.
Trappers - 80% ww, 20% kick (chaos + fury)
All other melee besides pallys - pure ww (chaos + fury)
Bow zons - 60% kick, 40% ww (chaos, fury)
CS zons - pure kick (chaos, jade)

All these numbers are ballpark and vary dep. on the match-up. You may very well alter them. Each person has their own style.

With kicks, I never ever overshoot. I never get annoying ww lock. I never have to worry about sloppiness. Anyone who is a pure ww who claims they have perfect triangle ww's whenever they want with solid accuracy is fibbing. Over the course of multiple ww's you will make the occasional sloppy ww. And that occasional bad ww is often the spot where you either die or lose the most life. I have yet to see anyone with perfectly accurate ww's every single time on demand.

WW is a great killing skill. But assassins have a shorter range weapon than barbs. As a result, our triangle ww's have to be TIGHTER. Against really fast teleporters, you're going to come up short.

Over and over I tele onto a good dueler with ww only to have them be gone simply because their cast rate is just a fraction faster. Over and over, good fhr chars can escape from WoF/MB lock because their fhr allows them a window in the wake nextdelay.

The faster the teleporter, and the better their fhr, the more I tend to kick. Unless it's a pally, in which case ww-away either just by ww'ing literally away from them (vs. smiters) or via MB name-lock hotkey flash (vs. hammers, FoH, etc.) is the best route.

Further, no matter how good you are at ww, you WILL overshoot over the course of a duel. And by overshoot, I mean be in ww for just an extra second or two. That's not a lot, but it IS long enough for any blizz sorc (for example) worth anything, to one-hit kill you if they see it happen.

Kicks simply tend to be superior against fast teleporters.

NOTE: WW sins are NOT ww barbs. We can't use the technique of desyncing across the screen with our ww. We move too slowly and our range is too short. What works for barbs does not work for assassins, unless your opponent really has no skill or just lags a lot.

[Speederländer]

CLASS VARIANT STRATEGY BREAKDOWN

STANDARD BONE NECROS
Every bone nec isn’t created equal. There are sub-categories within this class-variant. These include:
--Standard bone necs who are well-built and have good fhr and fcr
--Bone necs that use minions (but who are still primarily bone based)
--Defensive bone necs that spam teeth as they always fall back and away from you.

Any one necro can exhibit all these behaviors at one time or another, depending on circumstances. Let’s consider them one at a time.

Standard bone nec technique:
I assume the necro target is good. I assume they have the best possible FHR, max fast-cast, and marrow synergized bone skills. Good necros are the most enjoyable duel in my opinion. It’s very hard, yet very possible to do well. The necro will hit for massive damage when they connect, whether it’s via spear or bone spirit. Here is a list of tactics for dealing with standard bone necs:

1. Use BoS, not Fade. This is self-explanatory. Don’t use fade unless the nec has an army. BoS allows you better movement to close small distances, overcomes the problem of clay golem slow, and helps overcome getting decreped.
2. Always tele, never run. Your block drops to zero, or close to it, when you run. When you tele it’s 60%+. Never run unless it’s for short distances.
3. Your OW will go through their bone armor, as will your venom.
4. Don’t tank unless you have the 86 FHR break. Most people assume that all you need is high enough life. In your case that’s not true. Your life should be between 3K and 4K. You can’t tank a good nec without good FHR. This FHR allows you to maintain a rapid attack, keeping the nec in recovery animation himself. You attack faster, but this fast attack won’t get you anywhere if you are in recovery. Once the nec gets a sequence of spears going, you will probably die if you are trying to tank (assuming the nec is good and well-built).
5. Go for the wake/mb lock to the extent possible. Some necs are very slippery and don’t seem to remain locked up well. Your OW will be key in these cases. Don’t be afraid to DF even when lots of bone spirits are in the air. You will pass them up, get a hit, and then tele away.
6. When the nec escapes wake/MB lock, it’s often because they ran out of it, desyncing from the wake. Use DF to get in a parting shot and deliver/reset OW. Usually their goal is to escape and regroup. This is a good time to try tanking if possible. Don’t trap, allow your master to MB if she’s out.
7. Don’t approach the necro in a straight line!! They will see you on their minimap and spam bone spirit. By the time you close, you’ll have 20 of them flying around. Get off their minimap and approach from a different direction than they last saw you. Get to them fast but take a parabolic path. If the necro is spamming spirits or spears, spiral in. The nec will be slightly behind you 90% or more of the time as you move in, if you are fast and accurate.
8. Beware of IBS. This is a quick way to lose massive life. If you go off the necro minimap, move from your location. Any good necro will be spamming BS in your direction with the hope of creating IBS.
9. ALWAYS have your shadow master out. She will mindblast for you, confuse the necro and give you critical minion stacking. If your master dies, get her back up IMMEDIATELY! Don’t do anything without your master deployed. Get in this habit early.
10. Be hyper aggressive at all times. Get all over the necro from the first second of the duel and never let up.

BONE NECS WITH MINIONS
This type of nec hides behind a small army and still has substantial bone skill damage, along with all the other issues and difficulties associated with necros. BUT, they are actually easier to kill. Why? They are a bigger target! This is where you will mindblast almost as much as your master. The necro is easily hit with mindblast, just aim for that big pack that’s jumping around your screen. With practice you’ll rarely if ever miss.
So, use these technique variations:

1. MB the pack yourself if possible. The shadow will do it, but so can you.
2. Get those traps out! You’ll lock up the necro AND all his minions.
3. The key is to find the necro amid his minions. This can be hard. But you can do it. You have to CLICK mindblast once the necro and his minions are locked up. Don’t spam it by holding down the mouse button. You click in order to discern different targets. Once you find the nec, initiate DF without unclicking the mouse button. Commence kicking but do NOT forget to keep deploying traps and mindblasting. You have to keep the minions (and the nec) locked up.
4. If the necro has a merc, kill it! These guys can hit harder than the nec up close. But they usually die with a single kick sequence. If you are kicking the necro and you see his merc, use one talon click and take him out.
5. Use fade, not BoS. You need the DR/res as the necro’s minions can actually hit hard as well as giving him heavy minion stacking.
6. Don’t be afraid to break off the attack! If you are kicking the necro and he’s locked up but his minions and/or merc is free, they will rapidly kill you. Be ready to break off. If they are on top of you, stun won’t save you. Get clear and try again. Usually after you lock them once, the necro will become defensive. Defensive bone necs with minion packs begin to fall under the next category.
7. I will often actually play 1.09 trapper style, setting a trap field semi-circle and waiting for the nec and his minions to come to me. Usually they want to tele on top of you much like a windy. Use this to your advantage. Get a trap or two under you as well. The instant they tele to your position tele one click away and MB them. It's often an easy lock this way.
8. Use cloak of shadow to blind the minions

DEFENSIVE BONE NECS
The hardest duel besides ww barbs
The most annoying tactic a nec can take is always staying off-screen and spamming teeth/spirit as they go. A 3K+ life bone nec with good FC and FHR using this tactic can easily beat you if you aren’t careful and pretty good yourself. I consider a GOOD bone nec playing semi-defensively to be the hardest duel in the game.

Try to get a 50-50 win ratio vs. the best bone necs out there. You won't "dominate" them, but with skill, they won't dominate you either.

Your build takes a lot more skill to get wins with than a bone nec. It is also much more subject to lag and hiccups in the game. Bone necs have it easy. If they have the best possible equipment, they simply need to learn a few solid defensive techniques against you. You, however, have to CATCH them and not die. You have to kill them through all their defenses and countless spammed 800 PvP damage bone spirits. You have an uphill battle because they won't easily allow you to even get on their screen. Play carefully and assume it's your hardest duel.

I occasionally jump up to the 102 fcr breakpoint in order to stay on their screen. Put on the valk and the eth bartucs off-hand. Use another caster ring (with 20 dex) if needed. You really don't need cannot be frozen mod, but if there are several opponents or if the nec has a merc with cold damage, use a valk socketed with a cham. Make sure you have SOLID FHR, in the 86 range.

Things to do:

1. Don’t play their game!!! It’s no fun (and deadly) to chase someone who is both faster and harder hitting than you all over the blood moor while they chip away at your life. Find an area that offers good terrain and stay in it. Drop a solid trap field and make them stay in your general area if they want to duel you.
2. Your SM will mindblast from over 2 screens away. You will need this in spades. Always have the master out.
3. You will usually have one chance at most to capitalize on a mistake by the nec. If he momentarily gets tripped up in a trap, you have to know it and you have close immediately! Don’t miss an opportunity.
4. Don't be afraid to take damage. Your going to get hit, a lot, by teeth. Ignore this as much as possible unless your life is getting critical. You'll simply have to take hits to get in hits yourself.
5. Use chaos on your main hand. You want to take them down fast if you lock them up. The magic damage helps and the CtC effects help to stun. Trying to win with repeated OW applications against a good nec is difficult. If you want to go the WO route, then equip your fury as primary. You can then go either chaos off-hand or eth bartucs off-hand (but no ww at then in case you need it.). I recommend always having ww if you need it for this duel. Even though I kick most of the time, I have found ww useful in numerous instances.

POISON NOVA NECS
Generally easy. Careful about lower resist. Your fade will reduce its duration to a few seconds, but avoid the necro during those few seconds if possible.
Wear a jade and possibly a snake cord (I have yet to wear a snakecord even though I have it).
Use chaos on your primary for chance-to-cast stun bonus and good magic damage boost. You want to kill them fast. They are likely to get off one nova while you are kicking them, meaning you had better do it right the first time.
Lock them up with wake/MB and keep your distance. Don’t DF or tele in until you are SURE they are locked down. Don’t be afraid to play aggressive with only 1 life. Use kick to kill. If you overshoot a WW or get sloppy, they’ll escape and nova you on their way out.
If you have trouble with poison necs, it’s probably from being scared of that nova. They aren’t that bad.

FIREBALL SORCS
Most of the time, this is an easy duel. Put on jade off-hand, fury primary hand.
Don’t bother trapping unless they are good. Use teleport to get on their screen and dragonflight to deliver OW (if they are a runner) and to get in a quick kick sequence for the kill.
Be careful. The 200 fast cast rate sorcs WILL tank your kicks IF they can get those fireballs going. They can lock you down if they can get a stream of fireballs hitting you. Be prepared to break off and regroup.
If the sorc is good, don’t use talon. Just dragon flight with OW until they are at 1 life. Then either kill with DF or let your shadow master kill her as you tele around.
If you try to trap them, use wake of fire. 99% of these sorcs have absolute crap FHR and are easily locked up. The real trick is catching them though.
Remember, if you land DF, they are paused for a second. This gives you time to initiate dragon talon. I kill 70% of FB sorcs this way, 25% with the DF/OW technique and the remaining 5% with actual trapping
The FB sorc has to stop to shoot their fireballs. This is what allows you to stay with them. The good ones will even try to aim a little as you chase them around.
Watch your mana. If you aren’t using mana pots, lure them close and then explode after them.
Always have your shadow master up for minion stack.
I will go many duels vs. FB sorcs and never take a point of damage due to minion stack and claw block.
You shouldn’t need a dwarf to win this duel.
Tele off her corpse immediately when you kill her as she is likely to cast meteor on dying.

FROZEN ORB SORCS
Orb sorcs are runners. They want to keep you off their screen and chip away at you. You will likely never catch them in a trap/mb combo. Use the same DF/OW technique that I outlined for the FB sorc. If you have a few jades with jewels, use the one with a 30 cold res/15 ias jewel.
Be careful. A good defensive orb sorc is actually hard to kill. Their large AoE attack means they can mindlessly drop orbs w/o any need to aim, concentrating on keeping distance between you and her.
Play defensive yourself. DON’T CHASE THEM! If you chase after them, you are giving them what they want. Make them come after you. They are FASTER than you. Set up trap fields and play 1.09 style, using tele only when it is tactically advantageous.

LIGHTNING SORCS
Easy duel. Same as fireball sorcs on tactics. Careful though as the light can hurt a lot if they have good lower res. Light takes time to cast making your job easy. Make sure to circle them as you approach. If you come in on a straight line, she’ll kill you.

BLIZZARD SORCS
Can be hard. A good blizzard sorc can one-hit-kill you. This adds a degree of randomness to your duels. Accidentally tele into a blizzard and the duel is over. Don’t bother with absorb since the first shard of blizzard ignores it anyway. I’ve died to a single blizzard with 3700 life. Tele carefully and try to trap them. Make sure you have all five wakes firing and that she hasn’t/can’t cast blizzard herself before you tele on top of her. Tele off immediately when you kill her since she is likely to cast blizzard on dying.
Beyond this, DF her but don’t talon. You can try WW, but if she survives it she will blizzard you before you can tele away. If you try to DF she WILL get a blizzard off.
Most blizzard sorcs have no skill and are relatively easy. They think they are good because they have this overpowered skill.
BUT there are a few good ones floating around with both equipment and skill and they are a very hard duel.

Special note: auto-aiming blizzard sorcs.
They are the unskilled slime of bnet. Use a 6 socket phase with an UM and 5x 30 to 40 cold res jewels (get a couple with ias) and a 4 thul shield. That’s about 300 cold res right there. Add in 50 to 60 on your CoA, 67 or so from fade, 16 or so from an anni, maybe 20 on an ammy, and you are sitting in the neighborhood of 450 to 460 cold res. If you need a bit more, keep some 10% or 11% scs in your stash and trade out some life/mana scs. If you can get 500 total cold res you’re golden.

[Speederländer]

WIND DRUIDS
I always go about 80% kick vs. windies. The faster attack speed of the kicks, combined with WoF stun locks up all but the best of them. I will use the ww to kill the sage and to whirl away if they pounce on me and try to stun me with tornados before I have traps up.

Procedure is:
1. Lock them down with wake (letting the SM MB from 2 to 3 screens away).
2. MB-tele-WW hotkey flash for one quick triangular WW. This takes out the oak and any mercs.
3. DF on them to re-establish SM minion stack.
4. Initiate sequence of Kick(7/3/3) - kick(7/3/3) - trap (use WoF only) - trap - MB /repeat

If the Druid actually has good FHR, they may start to tank you, which means you execute this once, and then tele out. Good FHR means more hit and run. I find kicks to be more conducive to this because of their accuracy and the fact that you never "overshoot" or get a messed up WW namelock that ends with you whirling halfway across the bloodmoor.

The best druids will recognize your technique after a while and start to behave like hammer pallies, teleporting around and dropping tornadoes at random. They don’t let you get stunlock and if you chase them, they will kill you by leaving tornadoes in your path. Play 1.09 trapper style in this case. Find a good spot, lay out a trap field, and let them come to you. Often they will get sick of the duel and try to pounce you. Make sure you have the stun swirlies on them and initiate kicks. You may to use limited lightning sentry as a trap if they are very fast and hard to pin down.

Note: If the druid teles right on top of you and you are sitting in a trap field, you should never lose. And the ironic thing is that 90% of druids do just this. And the even more ironic thing is that after dying 10 times in a row, they will keep doing it. It’s like you have a “Commit Suicide Here” sign on you. They just can’t understand how their precious technique can fail them and they just keep pouncing on you over and over and over...

Don’t get me wrong. The very best druids can keep you to 50% if they are having a good night. But there are VERY few druids this good. You should go 70% to 80% or better vs. normal good druids.

TRAPPERS
Always have max light res. Obviously. Also make sure your fire res is maxed. Some of the better ones will recognize the facility of using fireblast. Don’t let them catch you off-guard with it.

NOTE: You only need max res with lightning sentry (either 75 or 85 with T'gods). For those of you who DON'T know, facets don't work with sentry. Facets DO work with fireblast, however. But who cares? There's maybe 1 fireblast sin per realm that uses fire facets and they can be killed by simple whirls.

Try to get max light res without using Jade. Since they don't lower your res with facets, you don't need to stack. This lets you wear the fury, which is far superior to the jade for killing high life trappers.

You have to choose between 65 FC or absorb. You can go either a T’Gods or a wisp if you use absorb. Ignore all crying. There is nothing wrong with one element of absorb on a ww-sin. However, there are 3 reasons to NOT wear absorb:
1. It’s good practice for the really hard duels.
2. They don’t have the excuse and you don’t have to listen to their whining.
3. 65 FC is really nice and is almost equivalent to absorb in its value for winning through stunlock.

Most tournaments allow one element of absorb. Practice w/o any absorb and trappers start to seem easy with it. Do the same vs. all other classes where absorb would be appropriate. Try to win w/o it regularly.

Trapper Type 1: claw-claw
subtype A: no fast cast or low fast cast, focus on massive damage only. Lots of life.
Medium to hard to duel, depending on trapper skill.
Take advantage of their low cast rate. This is a significant tactical advantage. Use wake of fire, and try to position them on the corner of your screen. Always have the master out to draw off her traps. If you can lock the trapper down with wake and MB, stand there and pump it for a few seconds to let their sentries die out. Make sure you have your master out, then DF or tele on top of them. Do triangular whirls or kick as you like. If they are not able to get traps out, I prefer to kick. Smaller chance of overshooting them with a whirl and giving them a chance to lay traps or run.

subtype B: 65 FC and 2 trap claws. Lots of life.
Medium to hard to duel, depending on trapper skill.
Fought much the same way as the subtype A duel except your advantage lies more with better FHR than better cast rate. Make sure you have 86 FHR. They probably will NOT have this recovery. This means you will stun better. But not a lot better since their traps will hurt so much.

Trapper Type 2: 102 FC, hoto/shield
Medium to hard to duel, depending on trapper skill.
They outclass you on MB cast rate, they tele faster than you and they possibly use BoS instead of fade, meaning they run faster as well. They will also likely have the 86 FHR break. Their trap damage is lower than the first two variants. Play the corners. Never get on their screen. You need them to run away from their trap field. Trap the corners and get them to move. Cast SM at your screen corners simultaneous to casting traps. This draws off their traps and often gets them to move to a new spot to set up a new trap field. Use drive by whirls. Don’t do the triangular whirls unless you catch them w/o traps up. You want to wear them down and get them to make a mistake. Be careful of wake/MB lock. They will often desync out of it. Before you know what happened, you have 5 sentries ripping you apart and the tide has turned. You must be aware of any mistake they make. Often times kicking is very effective if traps aren’t up.
Use wake as your main trap. Wake will stun them very well with only a single trap firing. The same cannot be said of sentry. If you see they are in wake stunlock, reinforce it instantly. Pound them with traps and MB. If you see their life going down with MB in any significant way at all, kill them with it. Just keep them trapped and don’t stop with MB until they are dead. If they desync out of the traps, tele/WW flash them for a drive-by while they are running.
You must have 86 FHR on this duel. People with less experience will claim that you don’t need FHR since you can WW out of their traps. Sorry, but that’s just wrong. If they see your FHR is poor, they will stay all over you. You will end up having to whirl across the entire blood moor and still not get clear. I know, because that’s what I do when I trap. You have to tele clear the first chance you get if things are going bad. Always know when to break off.

Special note: Trapper with a conviction merc.
This duel sucks. Usually I’ll just ask them to unhostile. If you have to fight them, you must kill the merc. Ignore the assassin and kill the merc. Conviction is your ***, literally. If you get flashed with conviction while getting hit with traps, you will be dead in slightly under 1 second, 4K life notwithstanding. And trappers that use conviction mercs have a tendency to be the same variety that say “eZ” after killing you and trap your corpse.

[Speederländer]

FIST OF HEAVENS PALLY
Easy to hard.
Put on the Jade with the 30 light res jewel if you have one. Put on a T’Gods.
If these guys use charge, they can be very hard indeed. Charge makes getting a good WW very hard. I find that mindblast is my best weapon. Focus on executing WWs when they exit your screen. Be careful though, as you will teleport to a zone without traps...
Always have the master out to take random FoH hits. Always have traps out. Always. If your traps run out and the pally is any good, you’re going to die. The pally will try to flash you with conviction. Don’t be afraid to get off his screen if you see the ugly green glow. Move around a lot.
Look for any chance to MB/tele/WW flash him.
Always pump them with mindblast. I have actually killed defensive charging pallys with mindblast.

HAMMER PALLY
Medium to pretty hard.
The high defense versions of these guys are potentially very hard. Your whirlwinds rarely if ever hit and they can charge out of any stunlock.
Here’s what you do:
1. Always have LS traps up.
2. Always have the master up and MB the pally every opportunity you get.
3. They have to pause briefly to get hammers going. WW flash them at that point. Don’t do triangles. Just do a pass and get out. Place more traps and MB again. Rinse and repeat. Pay attention to how well your WWs are hitting. If they are not, then the pally probably has too high a defense. You will need to either equip the fools claw (not the angelics!....you need fast cast) or you need to fouc on mindblast.
4. Kill them with mindblast. I have killed many hammer pallies with midblast. My assassin sports level 45 MB and it never fails to inflict real damage. Hammers rarely have significant DR. Use this point.
5. If their defense is low, you can risk a tele on them when stunlocked briefly and try a quick kick sequence. Be careful and only do it if their defense allows it.

Remember: Mindblast is your friend.

SMITER/CHARGERS
Put the fools claw on primary slot and put on the angelic ammy and ring. These alone should get you to about 19K AR. I also wear my OW belt for this matchup. Fast cast is pointless and they will often charge you dead when you try to cast.
Whirl away and when you have distance between you and the pally, MB them once and get a couple traps out. This will keep them aggressive.
Many of them will try to shift smite. Don’t whirl through them under any circumstances. Spam MB when they shift smite. Try to keep terrain features between you and the pally when spamming to prevent quick and easy charges on his part.
A good pally of this type CAN kill you when you whirl away. They are able to get in smites anyway. Don’t whirl in circles and don’t change direction when they are near.
Be careful not to take long whirls. They will tele or charge in front of you and shift smite. Teleport especially means you need to take short whirls unless they are dogging you from behind, doing walking smites with max block and defiance on.
Sometimes, changes of direction will catch them, other times it will allow them to get hits in. It takes experience to figure out when to change direction when whirling away. It’s more art than science.
Do NOT use your shadow master. They can lifetap it.
Watch out for lifetap. Exile is the single most annoying runeword in the history of runewords. I have lost duels to smiters when they were down to less than 100 life and tapped it all back. Make sure you don’t try to hover their name to check their life. You’ll probably get charged.
Don’t MB them unless they are moving away from you.
You can sometimes MB them continuously if they are shift-smiting because they got tired of hitting your whirl-away. Watch it however, as the good ones will lull you into MBing an instant too long and charge you dead before you know what hit you.

AURADINS
Well built auradins CAN be very hard, actually. They will charge around the edges of your screen, not allowing you to get hits at all. Lucky for you most of them have no skill (a few do have skill though, and are dangerous because of this fact). I won’t go into whether or not this a reflection of the type of people this build attracts.

Killing them:
1. Put the jade on off-hand and the chaos on primary. Put on a dwarf or T’Gods depending on whether the aura is fire or shock. Make sure you have lots of res.
2. High level MB is required.
3. 65 fastcast is required. You have to pound them with MB.
4. Use lightning sentry to stun, not wake.
5. When they retreat, MB them and then, from the MB namelock, hotkey-flash tele+WW to get in a free ww hit. Lay traps the INSTANT you exit ww. Rinse and repeat.
6. Many of them will charge/smite as well, since their auras add a decent amount of damage and they may also have grief. Make sure to whirl away and be careful they don't fake you out in order to flash you with conviction.
7. Keep the SM out to take any FoH hits, etc. and cause a little confusion. If they lifetap, be careful with the SM. They can tap the master and get a big life boost.
8. Don't be afraid to teleport out of range and regroup if things aren't going well.

Dangerous Auradin variant: Zeal or Smite
Be REALLY careful with these guys. If you whirl through them, they can tear you apart. Always whirl away and keep those traps out. Make sure that they always have MB swirlies on them.

BOWAZONS
Easy duel most of time.
Circle the zon as you approach. DF them when on screen and kick to death. If they are a fast runner, get MB name-lock and flash tele/WW. Since they are running it’s basically an auto-hit.
Use sentry as needed for stun. Careful about the occasional uber fast shooter with faith, knockback and an inventory full of damage charms. They can kill you if you are sloppy. But ONLY if you’re sloppy.
Always keep the master out for minon stack.

JAVA ZONS
Easy duel.
You don’t need a jade or a T’gods. Just lay down wake of fire, MB them once and kick to death. Wake will trigger endless evade. Your kicks will trigger dodge when evade doesn’t trigger, and the mindblast will ensure they are stunned the remainder of the time. Don’t let your traps run out!! Did you lose any life at all? If so, you made a mistake.

PLAGUEZON
Funny, I consider this to be POTENTIALLY the hardest zon build to fight (IF they are good). They can suck your life with a single hit like a nova nec, but they are much harder to catch and lock up. You don't see many of them either so it's hard to get repeatable techniques against them.
Your best bet is to do drive-by WW shots. Don't do triangular WWs. They WILL hit you with poison. Plus that means they are standing still and have max block along with their dodge. Hit them on the run.
These zons are runners. They will desync out of all your traps. Use lightning sentry because it will help pause them occasionally. When they aren't close enough to hit you with poison, pound them with MB. If you get them in MB name-lock from far enough away, you might be able to kill them with it, or at least force them to be aggressive and make mistakes.

BRAMBLE WW-SINS
Medium to easy duel, occasionally medium hard if they are tricked out and skilled.
Stun the crap out of them with sentry and mindblast. They don’t have tele, you do. Get mindblast namelock and tele/WW flash them. Your attack is a lot less interruptible than theirs. Slap on some poison length reduction if it’s allowed and/or you have it. A simple 25% makes all the difference. Ignore any and all crying about PLR. Nats armor (which has 75% PLR) was the most common ww-sin armor for a long time and no one cried then.

Don’t forget to cast cloak of shadows.

A pure bramble sin wants more than anything to just be able to whirl me. Unless they directly ask me not to trap and not to MB and not to use tele I rarely give them a chance to get close enough or have an uninterrupted dragon flight at me. I, however, am able to WW at will due to MB namelock. Because I fequently tele on them from off-screen, they aren't aware that a WW is coming. In 1.09, DF reached for about 2.5 screens. It was one of the best assassin skills. But no longer. Now it's on-screen only. This is a huge tactical disadvantage for assassins with no tele and only DF.
It's also important to time your WW right. You can see the dragon flight animation as it's beginning since it's a slow 24 frame beast. As a result, if you are on your toes you can be whirling away when they come out on top of you.

Your mindblast can inflict some real damage here if you can get them just slightly off your screen. They won’t be able to DF you and you can pump MB and traps. It’s evil but it works like a charm.

Take advantage of their POOR mobility.

You almost feel sorry for them after a few duels. Almost.

WW BARBS
Your only nearly impossible duel.
You can beat ww barbs. I do it all the time. But they suck.
A good ww barb will take you down 9 times out of 10 or better.
Your only real chance is to get sentry trap fields up and make sure they are always MB’d. When they are off your screen, and you have name-lock, tele/WW flash them or pump MB. If you are lucky, they won’t be whirling and you may get in a solid hit.
You can either wear the fools claw and angelics for 19K AR or say screw it and go for fast cast and the fury. Fast cast means your only hope is the hit them with WW when they are running and to wear them down with OW and mindblast. Either option has its good and bad points.
You have a better chance vs. dual wielding barbs than vs. sword/shield. If its sword shield and they are good, just pack a belt of mana pots and try to MB them to death. It’s long, boring and will drive a lot of barbs absolutely apoplectic. But you might, if you’re lucky, pull out a win.

NOTE: When fighting good BvC barbs, make sure to set your movement to WALK, not run. Otherwise they will give you a taste of your own medicine and slam you when on the run. Always tele anyway (good technique), and this won’t be an issue....

[Speederländer]

This guide is almost complete.

I still need to add:
1. IAS discussion
2. Claw equiping order information
3. A few class specific strategy sections
4. Links to important information references
5. A little re-formatting for clarity
6. Maybe a couple other minor things that are not occuring to me atm.

['22'Souljah]

Special note: auto-aiming blizzard sorcs.
They are the unskilled slime of bnet. Use a 6 socket phase with an UM and 5x 30 to 40 cold res jewels (get a couple with ias) and a 4 thul shield. That’s about 300 cold res right there. Add in 50 to 60 on your CoA, 67 or so from fade, 16 or so from an anni, maybe 20 on an ammy, and you are sitting in the neighborhood of 450 to 460 cold res. If you need a bit more, keep some 10% or 11% scs in your stash and trade out some life/mana scs. If you can get 500 total cold res you’re golden.
too much effort just chug 20 thawing potions

[Speederländer]

too much effort just chug 20 thawing potions

Won't always do it man. Unless they stack and I haven't been aware of this fact.

['22'Souljah]

Won't always do it man. Unless they stack and I haven't been aware of this fact.
When ms little blizzie starts trash talking don't forget that thawings each add 50 cold resist with 10 max cold resist. They last for 10 seconds each but you can stack them by using a lot before the duel then the durations will add up.
-taken from my ghost guide

trust me it works i did it vs a 16k dmg aa blizz sorc before ^_^

[Naliworld]

Wow, looking good, Speed. :) Can't wait for the final version.

Just one question: Why not Upgraded Gores? For non-ladder players unable to get hold of either, which rares should they look out for(i.e. what mods take priority?)?

[morotsjos]

When ms little blizzie starts trash talking don't forget that thawings each add 50 cold resist with 10 max cold resist. They last for 10 seconds each but you can stack them by using a lot before the duel then the durations will add up.
-taken from my ghost guide

trust me it works i did it vs a 16k dmg aa blizz sorc before ^_^
An extra 50 res isn't nearly enough to negate cold mastery.

[fredsta54]

This guide is almost complete.

I still need to add:
1. IAS discussion
2. Claw equiping order information
3. A few class specific strategy sections
4. Links to important information references
5. A little re-formatting for clarity
6. Maybe a couple other minor things that are not occuring to me atm.

even though its not your build, this is copied directly from forums.battle.net

[Speederländer]

even though its not your build, this is copied directly from forums.battle.net

I'm Apokalyptik on the battle.net forums. So, yes, It's all mine. Careful about making accusations without knowing all the facts bud.

[morotsjos]

even though its not your build, this is copied directly from forums.battle.net
Please dont post crap like this without being 100% certain. Speederländers account is Apokalyptik -> he's the author of the battle.net-guide too.

Edit: haw haw, too late ^^

[Speederländer]

Wow, looking good, Speed. :) Can't wait for the final version.

Just one question: Why not Upgraded Gores? For non-ladder players unable to get hold of either, which rares should they look out for(i.e. what mods take priority?)?

Thanks! I'll include an expanded item section. That was mostly a first pass on the items. Basically, every single stat or characteristic can be turned into life. It all comes down to balancing life vs. these needed attributes. I'll go into that. Gores are possible, though I feel that the 2 shadow skills, 30 FHR, and 25 dex of the dancers is better. You already have the str to wear the dancers since you are wearing a CoA, so that isn't a concern. I feel you almost have to make up the FHR, mostly likely in charms. The OW on gores is nice, but not high enough to outweigh the dancers, and the deadly on the gores is also too small. I like the "all-stat" bonus of +2 (or +1 depending on your pair) that the dancers gives. People CAN wear gores. As long as you meet the basic build requirements. It's just going to be more costly, IMO, from a performance point of view.

One positive benefit of wearing gores is that you can switch boots out. You can put on hotspurs, for instance, something I cannot do and sometimes wish I could.

[Speederländer]

Since I can't edit the guide on this forum, I will edit and update the version on the battle.net forums here:

http://www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?fn=d2-skills&t=167279&p=1&tmp=1#new167279

Once it is final, I will repost the finished guide again on the diabloii.net forums.

I need to figure out the dii.net formatting markup stuff.

[TheKing]

gore are useless, you will not need cb for caster, no ds for kicks and 10% ow is too lil... if you are non-ladder go for a rare tri-rez/fhr/frw/stats kick boots!


PS: one of the best guides ever!!! GG Speederländer!!!

[Speederländer]

Additional General Dueling Notes:

25. Personalized Techniques and Individuals vs. "Classes"
Don't confuse "individuals" for classes. What I mean is this: You may do very well generally against trappers, for example. But every now and then, a trapper comes along who just doesn't fit the existing molds. You will probably lose to this person initially, even over several duels or sessions. I find, when someone has an original playing style and they are good, I have to duel them on multiple occassions in order to get a feel for the best techniques to use against them. In time, you don't lose so much, and the edge goes to you and your build. What works against 95% of the trappers out there, including the good ones, may not work against this guy. Don't think that suddenly you aren't so good against trappers (or whoever it may be). Use this new, difficult duel to generally get better and improve your technique. I would rather duel someone who tends to beat me than someone I always beat. If I'm getting slapped around, it means I have to be creative and figure out new tactics.

[Speederländer]

26. Occasionally play WITHOUT using teleport
Duel some (practice bouts only) without using teleport at all. This is good practice for those times you run out of mana. It also forces you to learn to trap 1.09 style, which is good technique. There are certain duels against fast, defensive casters where you want to do the stationary trap field technique or the walking trap field technique that was common in 1.09. This also helps you get a feel for the limits of dragon flight.

[Speederländer]

27. Learn to walk your traps
This is classic 1.09 trapper dueling style (see #3). Good 1.09 trappers learned to herd their opponents by always trapping toward them, preferably at the corners of your screen. Don’t get in the 1.10 habit of hiding in your trap field and letting people get the initiative on you). Defensive trappers are the kind of trapper that loses to me. Because I herd THEM. Offensive trappers are all over you, either by walking their traps toward you or teleporting at you and trapping like mad. Walking your traps allows you to play defensively, but with an offensive element. This is critical when you are dueling other trappers. Obviously, this isn’t applicable to anyone teleporting like mad, in which case you simply have a stationary trap field (assuming defensive play on your part).

[soc]

Ridiculously detailed.

You might have mentioned this in the guide (I started skimming towards the end), but how exactly do you plan on, for example 80% ww, 20% kick vs. someone? At what time do you call for the ww and at what time do you utilize the kick? Or do you just ww 8 times then kick 2 times :P

Thanks
Soc

[Speederländer]

28. Get a 200 FCR Sorc to tele around you to practice MB name-lock – CRITICAL TECHNIQUE
This is very important. You must develop your name-lock skill for MB. You often only get one or two chances to get it in some duels. Get someone with a 200 fast cast rate sorc and:
1. Tele around you with you standing still. Try to get name-lock with MB.
2. Chase them, trying to get name-lock. Have them play defensively, spamming some low damage fireballs occasionally or something. They shouldn’t just run away in straight line all the time, as this isn’t a true representation of what would happen in a duel.
3. Try doing this with trapping as well, especially with you standing still and using a stationary trap field.
4. Don’t use your SM for ANY of this.

[Speederländer]

Ridiculously detailed.

You might have mentioned this in the guide (I started skimming towards the end), but how exactly do you plan on, for example 80% ww, 20% kick vs. someone? At what time do you call for the ww and at what time do you utilize the kick? Or do you just ww 8 times then kick 2 times :P

Thanks
Soc

I don't think about it, as to ww or kick. I merely play it by ear and go with habit. The numbers I posted are simply my recall of how my duels go. The idea was to give people an idea of how this is actually a REAL hybrid, not just a kicker with an occassional ww, or a ww with an occasional kick.

In some duels, 200 fcr fireball sorcs, for example, I wear the fury and jade, so it's 100% kick. In some duels, smiter, for example, I never kick at all. And against a bowazon, I will kick and ww, just as I will against the better wind druids. Bad windies can be beaten with kick only. Good windies require something more.

Also, it's hard to talk about good technique without lots and lots of detail. Most guides have just a few words on each class match-up in their strat section, while focusing hugely on items, skills and stats. I feel this is a mistake. If you are making a dueling guide, strategy should always be the primary focus. I'm trying to be different in this way, by putting into words the abstract and automatic techniques that many of the better duelers use.

['22'Souljah]

An extra 50 res isn't nearly enough to negate cold mastery.
that's not how it works if you use more than one it's not only the duration that adds up the resist do also
so if a person used 10 thawings he would have an extra 500 cold resist for 50 seconds
this is very simple to test so if you doubt me go find a blizzard sorc

[morotsjos]

that's not how it works if you use more than one it's not only the duration that adds up the resist do also
so if a person used 10 thawings he would have an extra 500 cold resist for 50 seconds
this is very simple to test so if you doubt me go find a blizzard sorc
Nono, only the duration adds up, nothing else. The duration is 30 seconds/potion btw, not 5.

[Weltkriegpally]

curious. you mention a lot of basic paladin variants, but almost all good paladin players will use charge, one point or not (even at one point, its often very potent). A solid v/t wasn't mentioned (or even a non solid). what happens when you combine the charger/smiter with the foh guy? I am just curious about this. What about a zealot with good dr that also has resists? i reallize that you gave the paladin a lot of leeway when you rated most of his variants as hard, but it has been my experience that there are exile paladins (zealots/smiters), teleporting hammerdins, and then there are good paladin duelers. aside from that, I really can't comment on the other classes. I don't play them enough (besides druids/barbs), and that is something you didn't mention either...a shapeshifting druid. a bear would probably be pretty easy for ww (although not necessarily), but a wolf could tear you apart. Have you dueled any good ones?

--welt

[Bigrob]

my question is, is there a good way to against hammerdin? their hammer seems to hurt too much.

how do u achieve 65fcr with max dr? trang + spider + 15+fcr ammy +10fcr ring = 65fcr. No place for dungo.

but anyway, gg guide.

[Speederländer]

my question is, is there a good way to against hammerdin? their hammer seems to hurt too much.
Thought I laid out a decent strat to start with...

how do u achieve 65fcr with max dr? trang + spider + 15+fcr ammy +10fcr ring = 65fcr. No place for dungo.
Every point of fade = 1 DR
15 DR on CoA + 8 DR on enigma + a few points in fade boosted by about +20 skills on equipment = 50 DR.

but anyway, gg guide.
Thanks!

[Bigrob]

Thought I laid out a decent strat to start with...

maybe u should do a little improvement on this part. :D

on the blizz sorc part, i find out that is hard to stack cold resist in hell. U bascially need like 450+ to against any decent blizz sorcs. Any other gear suggestion?

[Speederländer]

curious. you mention a lot of basic paladin variants, but almost all good paladin players will use charge, one point or not (even at one point, its often very potent).
I think I talk about charge several times.

A solid v/t wasn't mentioned (or even a non solid). what happens when you combine the charger/smiter with the foh guy? I am just curious about this. What about a zealot with good dr that also has resists? i reallize that you gave the paladin a lot of leeway when you rated most of his variants as hard, but it has been my experience that there are exile paladins (zealots/smiters), teleporting hammerdins, and then there are good paladin duelers. aside from that, I really can't comment on the other classes.
The guide isn't done. There are variants to add yet. V/t is one of them.
Perhaps the better way to talk about pallys is to provide strategy for EACH type of attack separately and let people pick and choose depending on the type of pally. The problem with providing info on each build type is that are about 20 of them.

I don't play them enough (besides druids/barbs), and that is something you didn't mention either...a shapeshifting druid. a bear would probably be pretty easy for ww (although not necessarily), but a wolf could tear you apart. Have you dueled any good ones?
I've never lost to a wolf, at least not when I was going 1 vs 1. Maybe they were good, maybe not, but between massive stun and whirl away they certainly don't tear me apart. I actually had more trouble with one bear in particular than I ever have with any wolves, but stunning them half to death is critical in both cases. Since I didn't check the bear's equipment or what he was doing, I can't really comment on it. That was the only bear to give me any trouble at all. I assume he was totally tricked out.

[Speederländer]

maybe u should do a little improvement on this part. :D

on the blizz sorc part, i find out that is hard to stack cold resist in hell. U bascially need like 450+ to against any decent blizz sorcs. Any other gear suggestion?

Phase with 5 30 cold res jewels = 150 CR
4 thul shield = 140 CR
Fade = approx 68 CR
Decent Coa with jewel as I outlined in my guide = 55+ CR
Trangs gloves = 30 CR
Anni = 16+ CR (assuming a half decent one)
My FC ring happens to have 11 res all (you can get FC with big cold res) = 11
My ammy has 18 res all = 18 CR

Total = 488 right there

Add cold pot for another 50.

HOWEVER!

This comment by '22'Souljah

that's not how it works if you use more than one it's not only the duration that adds up the resist do also
so if a person used 10 thawings he would have an extra 500 cold resist for 50 seconds
this is very simple to test so if you doubt me go find a blizzard sorc

Makes me think maybe none of that is needed. I need to test the stackability of cold pots.

[Bigrob]

Phase with 5 30 cold res jewels = 150 CR
4 thul shield = 140 CR
Fade = approx 68 CR
Decent Coa with jewel as I outlined in my guide = 55+ CR
Trangs gloves = 30 CR
Anni = 16+ CR (assuming a half decent one)
My FC ring happens to have 11 res all (you can get FC with big cold res) = 11
My ammy has 18 res all = 18 CR

Total = 488 right there

Add cold pot for another 50.

HOWEVER!

This comment by '22'Souljah



Makes me think maybe none of that is needed. I need to test the stackability of cold pots.

wow, never knew that thawt pot actually add cold resist temporary.

But i would rather stack cuz i dont want to drink 10 cold pots everytime when i face blizz sorc.

[Speederländer]

wow, never knew that thawt pot actually add cold resist temporary.

But i would rather stack cuz i dont want to drink 10 cold pots everytime when i face blizz sorc.

Actually, in my guide I don't advocate stacking unless they are auto-aiming (or being a jerk...). Blizzard is hard to get hits with generally. This helps offset its heavy damage. I provide a technique for dealing with that problem. Stacking is for situations of really nasty behavior. Mostly.

[Bigrob]

Actually, in my guide I don't advocate stacking unless they are auto-aiming (or being a jerk...). Blizzard is hard to get hits with generally. This helps offset its heavy damage. I provide a technique for dealing with that problem. Stacking is for situations of really nasty behavior. Mostly.

i heard that there is a bug report on blizz. If u stand still and ppl blizz u by mouse-click on u, u wont get hit. I have tested countlessly and it seems to be this way. But the problem is if u cant move then u cant kill them either.

[Speederländer]

i heard that there is a bug report on blizz. If u stand still and ppl blizz u by mouse-click on u, u wont get hit. I have tested countlessly and it seems to be this way. But the problem is if u cant move then u cant kill them either.

That's interesting. If you have a chance ask in the sorc forum. If it's the case, I'll look into putting it in the guide.

Seems unlikely though. I don't recall being immune just by standing there...

[Netzuke]

I have a question for you, speed. Can you post your damage with this build? You mention things in the guide which seem to drop people fast. Could you maybe post your damage on the following...

Kick
Normal Melee
WW
DF with chargeups

[Speederländer]

I have a question for you, speed. Can you post your damage with this build? You mention things in the guide which seem to drop people fast. Could you maybe post your damage on the following...

Kick
Normal Melee
WW
DF with chargeups

When I get on-line, I'll check it. But a couple comments...

1. Why would normal melee be an attack damage of interest? My guide doesn't ever discuss using such an attack.
2. My guide does not involve charge ups. Indeed, if you look at the skills, there isn't a single charge-up there. There are NO charge-ups useful in a PvP situation.

Off the top of my head, my listed kick max is like 1K or so, maybe a tad less, forget the min. Add to that lvl 46 venom (and whatever other sources may contribute, like magic damage on chaos) and you have the damage.
My WW damage is also pretty standard. Physical is lower, because I use runics, but the real damage comes from venom, followed by physical, magic and OW. Take a typical WW, subtract some physical damage, add on lvl 46 venom boosted by trangs and you have my damage.

[Purester]

Hey speed I have a question: does poison damage from charms (ei 25 poison dmg over 5 seconds) affect venom dmg? Does it make it stronger or weaker?

[Speederländer]

Hey speed I have a question: does poison damage from charms (ei 25 poison dmg over 5 seconds) affect venom dmg? Does it make it stronger or weaker?

Poison damage from charms gets reduced to the point of uselessness with venom. It's duration is reduced to .4 seconds with a corresponding relative reduction in absolute damage.

[Purester]

Hey thanks speed. I got another question, wat are your base str and dex? Oh and how much are shadowdancers worth these days on ladder?

[Oniko]

Speedlander,

Great guide -- as I am working on my 2nd PvP kicker/ww, I've found myself gravitating some of the concepts you outline. The other content of your guide is exactly what I've been looking for, and I appreciate your time and effort. You can expect some more questions from me as I finish assembling her gear and get some dueling time in.

In the meantime, here's one question:

GENERAL MATCH-UP NOTES
Also, I will go a fastcast set-up with an ethereal Bartucs off-hand against really good necs. This gets me the 102 breakpoint for teleport.

You mention in your guide that one of the raven frosts is "built-in" and never comes off.

My question is, how do you achieve the 102 bp without taking the frosty off?

20 from Trangs
20 from Arach
20 (let's assume) from Amulet
25 from Griffon
10 from FCR ring

= 95% FCR.

Assuming you use the 20 dex/10 FCR ring you mentioned in your guide, what's your source of CBF?

[Speederländer]

Speedlander,

Great guide -- as I am working on my 2nd PvP kicker/ww, I've found myself gravitating some of the concepts you outline. The other content of your guide is exactly what I've been looking for, and I appreciate your time and effort. You can expect some more questions from me as I finish assembling her gear and get some dueling time in.

In the meantime, here's one question:



You mention in your guide that one of the raven frosts is "built-in" and never comes off.

My question is, how do you achieve the 102 bp without taking the frosty off?

20 from Trangs
20 from Arach
20 (let's assume) from Amulet
25 from Griffon
10 from FCR ring

= 95% FCR.

Assuming you use the 20 dex/10 FCR ring you mentioned in your guide, what's your source of CBF?

Use the 20 dex, 10 FCR ring in place of the raven (that's why I mention it). If it's a bone nec, I don't need CNB unless they have a merc with cold damage (very rare). So, as long as it's 1 vs. 1, you can hit 102 FC and ignore CBF when dueling necs. I never go 102 in team or ffa situation (since I lack CBF).

[Oniko]

Use the 20 dex, 10 FCR ring in place of the raven (that's why I mention it). If it's a bone nec, I don't need CNB unless they have a merc with cold damage (very rare). So, as long as it's 1 vs. 1, you can hit 102 FC and ignore CBF when dueling necs. I never go 102 in team or ffa situation (since I lack CBF).

Gotcha -- thanks!

[Zangeif]

I don't have time to read it all right now but I'm sure it's good since you know what you're talking about. I just don't understand why you don't choose .08 valk, is it just because you want to be different? Or maybe it's because you're ladder?

.08 valk is a MUST if you are on USEast because stormhide blows any crafted fcr amulet out of the water. Even if your realm doesn't have a godly dupe, it helps to be able to switch in angelics and still hit 65 fcr, so I would still suggest the valk. Look at the stats you get from a raven, .08 valk and stormhide and compare to a coa, 15-20 fcr amulet (most will be crappy) and a good fcr ring, its not even close.

[Speederländer]

I don't have time to read it all right now but I'm sure it's good since you know what you're talking about. I just don't understand why you don't choose .08 valk, is it just because you want to be different? Or maybe it's because you're ladder?

.08 valk is a MUST if you are on USEast because stormhide blows any crafted fcr amulet out of the water. Even if your realm doesn't have a godly dupe, it helps to be able to switch in angelics and still hit 65 fcr, so I would still suggest the valk. Look at the stats you get from a raven, .08 valk and stormhide and compare to a coa, 15-20 fcr amulet (most will be crappy) and a good fcr ring, its not even close.

But it IS close.

First, yes I am on ladder. So that has an impact. But I've played ladder and non-ladder with this type of character.

I can't create a guide built around a USEast non-ladder duped ammy (stormhide). I'm sure that ammy is great. I'm sure that with an .08 valk, it's awesome. But then it ceases to be a guide, really, other than the strategy sections. Also, valks are almost universally unpermed (at least they are on west) and are 99.5% dupes. I can't recommend as a primary item of equipment something that could vanish any game.

Here's the thing. I feel that the CoA/dancers/FCR ammy combo is pretty bloody good. I get this stat list:

+1 all skills
+2 shadow skills
60 FHR (30 on each, boot and helm)
+25 dex
30 res all
2 open sockets (which get 15 ias/15 res all jewels)
Including my recommended sockets gets us:
30 ias
another 30 res all for 60 res all total.
PLUS: whatever stats I get on my FCR ammy, which should include at least:
+1 sin skills (if not +2)
15 to 20 FCR
Some amount of res all (if you can get a decent one)
Other useful stats (PLR, etc.).

Now, I know you can put together combos with a valk and specific ammys and such that are pretty impressive. But it will NOT blow that list of stats out of the water. It's just too solid. It also has the bonus of being universal. This can be constructed in any realm, ladder or non.

I'm pulling lvl 46 venom and lvl 46 mindblast with my current assassin. Along with 65 FC, max res without the jade and w/o Anya, 3600 to 4K life dep on equipment, etc. I cannot see a combo with a valk that is going to greatly help me out, other than the occasional 102 FCR equipment change I list in my guide vs. good bone necs. Unless, I take the extra step of recommending hacked small charms with 70 mana and making up the res then with 20/5's. Which, I have no personal problem with. Hell, every rune out there is duped. But I can't put that in a guide. Those charms are not universally available and some people have a real problem with them. Likely, this guide would never get officially posted, which is my ultimate goal.

The primary bonus, IMO, with a valk, is the greater ease with which I can achieve 102 FC. Along with being able to hit the 65 BP in some situations where I wear a T'Gods, for example. That's it. But a valk pre-supposes a HUGE loss of stacked res against any FoH pally (or anyone else).

Finally, there is a reason I started this guide with a list of Desired Goals. This allows people to directly break from any item I recommend. As long as you meet the goals and breaks I have listed, then you're set. Personally, I would prefer to not list ANY gear, other than duel specific gear chages, and allow people to create their own combos. As long as they can hit the marks, then great. My focus on this guide was the strategy. Because honestly, I feel that even with substandard gear, a good dueler, using the strats I've outlined can have good success. So many guides have like 10 pages on equipment and skills and such. I tried to do the exact opposite. I wanted to get all these techniques down somewhere permanently before I called it quits, finally, for once and for all. Which isn't that far off. I think I delayed last time because I still wanted to get this guide out, a guide which is in some small part a response to the non-strategy guides which are so prevalent.

[Speederländer]

Gotcha -- thanks!

Keep in mind that I RARELY go 102 FCR (haven't had to more than once or twice). You should be able to beat them with 65. The only times 102 FCR looks good are when they are hyper-defensive (but still skilled), they use auto-aim, etc. It's only in extreme circumstances. Try to make it work w/o having to mess with it.

I mention the 102 FCR gear switch to provide you with options.

[Speederländer]

Nali, I still have some things to do (most of which are listed) but what big items do you feel need to be addressed yet given the goals I've laid out with this guide?

I want to format it nicely but I don't know the formatting here. Are there some examples I can pull mark-up from?

[Speederländer]

NOTE TO SELF:

Add discussion of attack rating and acceptiblity of lower AR generally as long as high AR gear is available. Include general discussion of attacks vs. moving targets.

[Naliworld]

Nali, I still have some things to do (most of which are listed) but what big items do you feel need to be addressed yet given the goals I've laid out with this guide?

I want to format it nicely but I don't know the formatting here. Are there some examples I can pull mark-up from?

Just a few additions, IMO:
1) A complete rundown of your current Ghost with possible future alterations (unless you have some secret tricks you'd rather like to keep ;)) - may seem redundant, but it's helpful for quick comparisons
2) A little more elaboration on choice of skills(especially the order in which the skills should be maxed, for optimal levelling). Also, would it be a good idea to divert the remaining points after the core skills are maxed from DF to SM(especially since you already have Teleport)? Or is 1 SM all you need?
3) A short section on why you chose 'Enigma' instead of 'Bramble' or other armors. :p
4) For those who prefer to skim, you could rank each matchup's difficulty on a scale or 1-10(1 being a duel you could win with both your eyes closed, 10 being a duel that's completely and utterly impossible)

For a formatting guide, refer here (http://forums.diabloii.net/misc.php?do=bbcode).

PS. Once you're done, feel free to start a new thread and I'll sticky it. Or, if you prefer to keep all user comments in one thread, I can edit in the new version over the first post in this thread(send it to me via email in profile).

Excellent work, Speed. :thumbsup:

[Zangeif]

You include the stats from Shadow Dancers with your CoA+fcr ammy stats. You can wear Dancers with a .08 valk too, I think since you are a kick/ww hybrid it's worth the str investment for extra kick damage. I never said Dancers were bad.

.08 valk + Stormhide does blow CoA+decent fcr ammy out of the water, expecially since you can wear angelics when needed, and you can wear a raven or absorb ring instead of the fcr ring when you don't need angelics.

[Speederländer]

You include the stats from Shadow Dancers with your CoA+fcr ammy stats. You can wear Dancers with a .08 valk too, I think since you are a kick/ww hybrid it's worth the str investment for extra kick damage. I never said Dancers were bad.

.08 valk + Stormhide does blow CoA+decent fcr ammy out of the water, expecially since you can wear angelics when needed, and you can wear a raven or absorb ring instead of the fcr ring when you don't need angelics.

Valk:
30 FHR --> already have with CoA
30 fast run --> of minimal importance.
30 fast cast --> I admit, its nicest feature and nothing to dismiss lightly
30 IAS --> I have the 30 ias automatically with my sockets on the CoA

CoA has that valk doesn't:
+1 all skills --> gives damage, AR, life (via BO), and saves skills
30 res all --> Obviously good
another 30 res all --> from my recommended sockets
15% physical damage reduced --> This is NECESSARY to make my build work. It saves you 15 pts in fade, most of which end up in talon.

Stormhide ammy stats:
+2 assassin skills --> I personally have a 20 FCR ammy with +2 sin skills. With effort and good shopping, this is a wash.
+20 strength --> Useless. You say yourself that you want to be able to take the ammy off for angelics. You can't build around the str and the damage increment is negligible.
+17 dex --> While this gives a nice AR boost, you still can't design around it. You MIGHT be able to design around 10 dex, since it has that much in common with the angelics, but then you can only ever switch for angelics.
+59 life --> This is certainly nice, but the huge res gain on my CoA is worth at least this life, even if it is boosted by BO.
+58 mana --> Again nice, but I don't run out of mana anyway 98% of the time. Further, everyone mana pots anyway and we all know it.
+20 all res --> Very nice, but I have a FC with +10 all res and another with +18 all res. This stat can be matched (or at least approached pretty closely) with careful shopping. By going your route with this ammy, I lose the up to 60 res all off my CoA + the res off my FCR ammy.

And I don't even mention directly that you can get a FCR ammy with with a series of nice stats as well.

In your valk, you can grab 15 res all with an UM or a jewel, and possibly some stats, like 9 dex or str. Which helps make up a bit for your combo's shortcomings. Or, you could do a BER to get 8% DR.

I say again, the nicest point about the valk is that it allows you to maintain 65 FC when wearing a T'Gods or angelic. BUT, when my match-ups require either of these, I don't need the 65 FCR break all that much anyway. It would be nice to have, but not the end of the world. If I wear a T'gods, this means I need res (vs. FoH or whatever) as well. This means that big stacking is probably more important to me than 1 frame of cast rate.

I consider the CoA/FCR ammy/Dancers to be something of a set, which is why I originally included the dancers. The idea is that the str to wear the CoA is a given, and cannot be used as an argument against it, esp. with the +25 dex from the dancers to help offset the stat loss. In any event, you are using the dancers as well, so there was no need for me to mention them after all.

Look, I'm willing to give your helm/ammy combo credit for being decent. But it by no means blows my recommended combo out of the water. Not even close. As long as you shop a nice FCR ammy, I'm at least as good as your combo and better most of the time, IMO. If you think your combo is significantly better, I ask you to tell me what stat(s) make it so. Obviously the 30 FCR is nice, but what else? The 20 str is no real help. The dex, likewise is of minimal assistance. The res of your set-up is crushed by the combo of a good CoA+FCR ammy. Our FHR's are equal unless you shael your valk, which means you REALLY have lower res. Etc. Etc.

If you disagree, I am curious as to how you compare your stats to mine. Do you feel that the physical damage gained from 20 str on the stormhide is a huge big deal? Do you think that the res on my combo is largely useless? I'm just not sure where you are coming from when you say that a valk/stormhide crushes my CoA/FCR ammy.

Finally, I'm not posting a ghost ww guide.
I've been posting bits and pieces of this guide since ladder 1 began, before anyone heard of the name "ghost" attached to a ww-sin. I just happened to be doing it, at that time, with a pure kicker rather than ww assassin. This build is a ww/kick HYBRID and, with that fact in mind, how are you going to get all the needed skill points w/o the 15 DR from the CoA? You miss this key point. Unless you are willing to NOT have max DR, what will you do? There aren't enough to go around. You could BER your valk, foregoing res at all, and settle on the 3 kick sequence instead of 4, but you still have to level into the mid to high 90's to make it happen (which I recommend anyway so maybe that's not a big issue to people). But, you lock everyone into 3 kicks, some of whom may not like that few. It's very often hard enough to convince people that 4 is good enough.

[Zangeif]

Here's my comparison of the non fcr stats. I will convert everything I can into life.

Jeweled CoA
+1 skills
30 fhr
60 res all
30 IAS

A GOOD fcr amulet with 15+ will be a plain +2 assassin, I'll take your example of a 18 res all which is EXTREMELY hard to find.

+2 sin
18 res all

Jeweled Valk
30 ias
37 fhr - the 7 extra fhr brings you to 86 fhr breakpoint, saving you ~40 life as you don't need to use a fhr GC anymore.
15 res all
30 frw
CoA requires 7 more str than dancers - 21 life

Stormhide:
+2 sin
20 str, you CAN design around it as you can take off Shadow dancers for melee battles where you would want to lose angelics. - 60 life
10 dex - I don't know why you would ever want to switch your amulet for anything but angelics. 30 life
59 life
58 mana - not useless for most and I assume you are using some mana/life scs, this allows you to replace with 20/5s.
20 res all

Your setup:
+1 skill
43 res all

My setup
210 life pre BO
58 mana - will probably mean more res instead of more mana as you can use 20/5s instead of life/mana scs now, but I'm not sure
30 frw
Fliexibility to use angelics, and absorb rings/TGods.

[Zangeif]

Oh inreasponse to the part in bold, I always switch in verdungos vs. melee anyway. That's only 5 DR away from CoA.

[shadowwolfkb317]

hey apokalyptik wats up. i was wondering, fade gives %DR? cuz it says in the skill set up to add to fade to get up to 50%DR.....

[Speederländer]

Oh inreasponse to the part in bold, I always switch in verdungos vs. melee anyway. That's only 5 DR away from CoA.

I'll reply to the longer one later tonight when I have a little time. Quick response to this one:

I would never want my assassin to have to run to town for an equipment change unless I absolutely have to. Your belt almost forces the issue. Most duels are in public games. Therefore you need to be able to deal with NOT running to town between every duel. Further, you are then forced to chose when dueling most good pallys these days. On ladder with grief, almost every pally out there has a solid physical attack in addition to their FoH or hammers or whatever. What do you protect against then when you don't have enough DR to cover max when wearing a T'Gods?

Also, you never responded to my earlier point as to why I would make a guide built around the stormhide, an ammy unique to USEast non-ladder? In addition to the fact that I play neither East or non-ladder atm, there is the issue of my guide applying only to the tiny minority of people able to get your recommended equipment if I follow your advice.

[Speederländer]

Jeweled Valk
30 ias
37 fhr - the 7 extra fhr brings you to 86 fhr breakpoint, saving you ~40 life as you don't need to use a fhr GC anymore.
15 res all
30 frw
CoA requires 7 more str than dancers - 21 life



First, that 40 life only applies to a few select situations. Vs. Casters or anyone with an elemental attack/res lowering I wear the jade. I also have a tendency to wear it against zons and trappers as well. Hence, the 86 FHR mark is hit easily. Vs. melee, I am almost exclusively ww. So, the 86 FHR mark is of much less significance. So that particular life gain is not necessarily straight-forward at all.

Stormhide:
+2 sin
20 str, you CAN design around it as you can take off Shadow dancers for melee battles where you would want to lose angelics. - 60 life
So you don't build in the 25 dex on the dancers where I do. I get 25 stat points = 75 life.
Further, you are forced to do more complex equipment changes and combos for melee vs. casters. Other than a claw switch or the very occasional angelic switch, I am not. In the long run this really is a big deal. So you lose life vs. my set-up here and you are forced to do all these equipment changes. Keep in mind, with a decent fools claw, you easily hit 10K+ AR. This means that angelics are only occasionally needed.

10 dex - I don't know why you would ever want to switch your amulet for anything but angelics. 30 life
Some people like the option of being able to wear a rising sun or caster ammy or the like. By building in the 10 dex, you make this impossible. On a ladder or on any realm other than Europe, your 30 life doesn't apply.

59 life
Ok.

58 mana - not useless for most and I assume you are using some mana/life scs, this allows you to replace with 20/5s.
Depends on your other equipment. You have to use 20/5's just to get your res. I do not since I have a good deal more than you on standard equipment. Further, I get a small mana boost from my higher battle orders and all of the FCR ammies I have used have ALL had +mana, on average in the range of 20 or so. This means your 58 mana is actually not so high afterall compared to my set-up.



20 res all
Ok.

Your setup:
+1 skill
+1 skill =
.04 life multipier yielding approximately 70 to 80 life with BO.
I also get a small but certainly not insignificant mana boost.
Not to mention the extra damage from venom and claw mastery. As well as the higher mindblast, the saved skill points on weapon block, fade, talon, etc.

43 res all
Which is a BIG deal. I have 43 extra res over you at all times, no equipment changes needed. That's the difference between getting one-hit killed by many of the better sorcs or FoH pallys.

My setup
210 life pre BO
As shown above, you don't actually have a 210 pre-BO life advantage. The strength bonus you claim means you lose your 25 pts of dex on the dancers. I gain a post BO life gain from the +1 skills. The dex life gain is questionable, as I point out above. Your hit recovery life gain only happens infrequently.

58 mana - will probably mean more res instead of more mana as you can use 20/5s instead of life/mana scs now, but I'm not sure
Discussed above.

30 frw
Fairly useless stat. I tele 98% of the time. When I do run, the extra 30 frw ain't making the difference between me winning or losing.

Fliexibility to use angelics, and absorb rings/TGods.
Which I already have, even though I may have to drop a frame. Absorb w/o stacked res (except vs. a trapper) is often NOT enough. I'll take my lost frame and stacked res with absorb over your non-stacked res and absorb.


Finally, a quick return to your use of verdungos vs. melee. It just ends up being another issue forcing you to do frequent changes, making you less able to do ffas or team duels (when you are already challenged), and making you do poorly vs. many pallys, esp. the new grief powered pally casters.
And that 5 DR you mention just missing by wearing a verdungoes, still means you are in potential trouble with skill points.

So, do you pull a bit more life than I do? Sure. But you have less overall res, you have to do frequent and complex equipment changes, you have even more trouble in complex situations (teams, ffas, pubbies) than your typical sin of this style.

After all this, I remain NOT seeing how your USEast non-ladder only set-up crushes my set-up. It is slightly better in SOME situations but at a cost that many people, including myself may not want to pay. And last but not least is the fact that your deal IS USEast non-ladder only. I've mentioned this several times now. I can't make a guide built around a stormhide. I never in my guide say NOT to use anything. I would prefer to give NO specific equipment advice, other than duel specific change-outs but I am forced to. My preference is to just give the build goals and let people come up with their own combos. But alas, it isn't to be. If you like your deal, then great. Go with it. I don't say not to do it. I just disagree when you say that it crushes my current primary equipment recommendation. Because it doesn't.

[Speederländer]

I'll be away from the comp this weekend, so I can't reply (after tonight) to any questions or comments until Monday night.

[Speederländer]

hey apokalyptik wats up. i was wondering, fade gives %DR? cuz it says in the skill set up to add to fade to get up to 50%DR.....

1 fade = 1% DR

[shadowwolfkb317]

1 fade = 1% DR
omg u serious? i didnt know!!!!!!!!!!!

[Speederländer]

omg u serious? i didnt know!!!!!!!!!!!

Knowledge is power.

[Zangeif]

I guess its not as much better as I thought but I still can't see using the CoA. I didn't want to bring the last ring up because it complicates everything a lot more, but obviously having the ability to go 2 x raven as your standard pubby setup, and having the ability to switch in a wisp or dwarf star helps a lot too.

I guess the resists are more important than I thought since you aren't using soul shanks with this build. Yoou could still hit 75 + stacked with 9 x 20/5 though.

[Speederländer]

I guess its not as much better as I thought but I still can't see using the CoA. I didn't want to bring the last ring up because it complicates everything a lot more, but obviously having the ability to go 2 x raven as your standard pubby setup, and having the ability to switch in a wisp or dwarf star helps a lot too.
I do have the ability to wear these rings, I just lose a cast frame. Which is a plus that using a valk has over me. I will say however that I almost never have to. I rarely need to switch rings.
Also, the skill issue with the DR still remains high on the concern list. Wearing a verdungo and only having 50 DR (35 or so otherwise) when doing so is a patchwork solution.

I guess the resists are more important than I thought since you aren't using soul shanks with this build. You could still hit 75 + stacked with 9 x 20/5 though.
I have to use some form of myrmiddon greaves for the kicking. The only res you REALLY need to stack heavily (i.e. more than perhaps 30 over max), occassionally, is light (from FoH/conviction). If you are going to stack cold (vs. blizz) then you have to do big gear changes as well, which I outline in my guide. If I'm stacking light, I will wear life/light res scs and get up to 11% LR at a pop. Also, I have a separate CoA and socketed jade for those special situations (with light res sockets). I use them almost never, though, and so far I doubt I'll even mention it in my guide. There is only one dueler I faced that could not be beaten w/o big stacking and that was a v/t pally whom I only see about 4 am in certain TW PK games. Heck, I'm not even sure if the guy is legit. So, I won't recommend equipment due to one hard duel, especially since I don't know what the guy uses. He never comes to town.

[Speederländer]

General note:
This guide is built with the philosophy of doing as FEW equipment changes as possible. When I do a dueling game, I want to put on my primary equipment for that game and be able to do well w/o having to run to my stash for new equipment every time I duel someone different. Other than the occassional AR gear switch or T'Gods, I have tried to minimize required changes. Almost all of the people who duel end up doing mostly public games, since there just aren't any big private groups left. In a public game, you can have ffas, teams, and people who just jump you when you are weak after dueling someone else. You also have random traps and hits from people not even trying to hit you. If you are equiped to "duel melee", then some jerk sorc is going to swing through and kill you due to low res, etc. If you are equiped with all your res gear and some pally decides to take a swipe, you want full DR. Having to run to your stash to switch equipment on a per duel basis is both unrealistic and, in the end, pretty fricken annoying. It's just like people saying they will pre-buff their venom with bramble, 3/3 claws, shadow ammy, etc. After a couple times it just gets stupid. For a tourney, if it's allowed, then do it for sure. Otherwise, yuck. I want to be in a dueling game, kill a sorc, pop over and wax that necro that was observing, avoid (or kill) the smiter trying to slap me when I'm almost dead, and then still take out the annoying zon who hit me with a multishot 2 minutes ago. All without switching anything.

I'm not saying you won't do changes. Just that you won't do them all that often.

[shadowwolfkb317]

ok can someone else help answer this question for me?
for this build, will i mess it up using suwayyahs or other claws besides runic talons and feral claws for speed?

[Groovehawg]

ok can someone else help answer this question for me?
for this build, will i mess it up using suwayyahs or other claws besides runic talons and feral claws for speed?


You won't hit the talon breakpoints with suwayyahs, so your kick speed will suffer...as will your trap-laying speed. Runic talons are a must. Yeah....it'd mess the build up.

['22'Souljah]

just a random question what's tw stand for?

[shadowwolfkb317]

You won't hit the talon breakpoints with suwayyahs, so your kick speed will suffer...as will your trap-laying speed. Runic talons are a must. Yeah....it'd mess the build up.
even feral is ok?

[Groovehawg]

even feral is ok?

With this build, I think you'd always want runics. Speed really is key here, and sometimes the only way you're going to hit talon breakpoints when using a Jade Talon off-hand (againsts sorcs and the like) is to pair it with a runic fury. Ferals are just too slow (actually, the damn Jade Talon's too slow).

[Davie.]

One flaw imo this guide has (not build) is that it does not recommend merciless nking or give instructions on how to do so with minimal effort ie. like Blobs's guide =). If you want I can collaborate with you on this ^^.

[Oniko]

Speedlander,

I have a couple requests:

I'm wondering if you could discuss the IAS breakpoints for this build. I finally got a CoA (a 12/28/2) which I socketed with matched 15 ias/5 res jewels. All that's left is a couple of Shadow Lifers, and a good FCR ring : )

I will say that getting to the 9 frame Trap-laying breakpoint made all the difference in the world when dueling charging paladins, and generally making my assassin less vulnerable when laying traps. However, that breakpoint is achieved (assuming 35+ IAS on your main runic talons, ie chaos or fury) with only 15 IAS. Your build recommends 30 IAS. Could you discuss this a bit please?

The second request I have would be a general list of which traps you use versus any given character. For example, I found, as your guide outlines, that using WoF instead of LS is the difference between life and death when dueling CS zons.

Finally, a common build you see on east is the E-Carap/E-Valor/CoA/Grief/Exile Paladin. It's a build that's so common that I'd love to hear some additional specific strategies you have against those builds.

Ever since I started playing Diablo, I've been an assassin enthusiast, with a level 94 PvM Tiger/Tail/Talon martial artist, and more recently a PvM trapsin. My PvP kicksin has yielded some of the most intense and fun playing I think this game has to offer, due to the intense focus, concentration, and micromanagement it requires in order to do well, so I thank you again for this guide.

Cheers

[Speederländer]

Speedlander,

I have a couple requests:

I'll be posting an updated guide in the next few days that will answer most of your questions I think. It won't be the final formatted guide but it will have the final revision on the information, barring a few minor fixes if anyone points out problems. This update incorporates several major changes, fixes, revamps and additions including some IAS discussion, additional class strategies, etc. It should help a lot.

I'm now officially retired from Diablo for good (don't even have the disks anymore) so this is my last major contribution on the subject.

['22'Souljah]

I'm now officially retired from Diablo for good (don't even have the disks anymore)
why and how?

[LoVePlAyBoY]

wow

i'm utterlly blown away at 5 years since the games came that there still dedicated players like this

Props~~~

very detailed guide i learned alot from this guide

in terms of speaking of Guide writing this is Top 5 for sure.

[Speederländer]

why and how?

Because it ended up being an unhealthy influence in my life. I've quit at least a dozen or more times in the last 5 years. This one is for good. I've neglected too many things for the sake of this game. It's my personality, I just can never do anything "a little bit". I'm too obsessive/compulsive. Time for a permanent change. I'll still post here because it's fun to comment, but my Diablo playing days are over, at least until Diablo 3 comes out or a second expansion is released.

[Speederländer]

wow

i'm utterlly blown away at 5 years since the games came that there still dedicated players like this

Props~~~

very detailed guide i learned alot from this guide

in terms of speaking of Guide writing this is Top 5 for sure.

Thank you very much. The final version will actually be a good deal better, IMO. Many improvements and updates. Fixed a few mistakes too.