Another quick question about assassin equipment/skills

[diablo loves donutz]

Hi guys, well so for I gotta admit it, my ninja assassin is the most fun char I've ever played with on SP. I'm only level 30 in Act5 and I keep killing shenk and eld over and over cause I love the rares I keep getting. But to my question, So I hit 30 and now I've got my venom and shadow master (who I love more than my merc lol), but my question is about venom. I was thrilled when I realized you could use venom and BoS at the same time because I assumed you couldn't (The no fade and BoS threw me off), but then I read up on how venom takes any +poison damage and reduces it to only 0.4. I'm a little concerned now and I have a little dilemma, so I thought I'd ask the assassin guru's, you guys, about it.

My right handed claw gives +1 to shadow skills along with a few other minor mods, so I'll definently be using that one. But my problem lies in the other claw. One option I have is the claw I've been using since Act3, a wrist blade with only 5 to 15 damage, but it gives 10 IAS, other minor mods, and 2 sockets in which I placed 2 tal runes so I got 175 psn damage/5seconds. It was pretty sweet for the time being, but after reading about venom, isn't that psn damage useless because then technically it's only doing 14 psn damage(175psn/5sec=35psn damage per sec, x 0.4 =14)?

My other claw, which shenk gladly gave to me, is a wrist spike with 18-43 damage, 10 IAS, and some other minor mods.

Now with my venom on the damage with my shadow skill claw and that "TalTal" claw, it says 173-219 for my Tiger strike, while with the shadow claw and wrist spike I only do 69-158 damage. But isn't the damage on the poison claw sort of hidden now because of the venom? I'm still confused because how come when I pop venom on, I never see a change in my damage?


If anyone has had a problem with this or knows how to fix it, I would greatly appreciate it. Btw, the guy who posted on my other thread, I will be trying to get blade shield, because after watching my shadow master prebuff with everything, including BS, I was honestly very jealous.

Thanks again guys

-Donutz


Edit:Well guys I did a little testing after posting this and I might of already solved my problem. I messed around and keep moving claws and what not, and somehow came up with that wrist spike and that shadow skill claw and the damage showed 145-254. So I guess I should go with this setup right?

[Kijya]

Venom does indeed lessen the duration of most other poison sources, however you dont want an enemy to survive for 5 seconds, do you? Venom will be your best bet for poison damage, finding charms and other stuff that would make it less usefull takes far to much time. Here (http://www.diabloii.net/strategy/x-articles/taopoison.shtml)'s a long, but worthwile, read on how poison works, might be a bit outdated but should still cover most aspects.

Don't bother with the taltal claw, the higher damage claw will do you more good. If you really don't mind some extra time before something dies, then I reccomend running countess (act 1 quest 4, at the bottom of the tower found in black march) for the runes Ith, el and Eth. Then make a malice claw of them. It will give you 100% open wounds which will do 340 damage over 8 seconds with a level 30 character (damage is baised on character level, here's a link (http://strategy.diabloii.net/news.php?id=551#Open%20Wounds)). Downside being some lifedrain, but lifeleach or regen will easily counter that. Tal+Eth armour runeword called Stealth is also pretty usefull in the beginning.


@bladesheild: hehe told you its' for style :wink3:

[diablo loves donutz]

thanks again. yea, I've known about stealth and malice for a while, I've always used them on sp cuz they're so easy to get from countess, but I'm a little confused about the malice. I pretty much always used it for my merc's weapon(Until i could find something better) and I had thought about making one into a claw, it's just I thought it wouldn't compare, damage wise, to the rare wrist spike I was using. Not to mention, I would of chosen a strength, amn+tir, overr a malice for the crushing blow, LL, damage, strength, vit, and that 2 mana a kill, cause I sorta of switched what I thought were better gloves, but turned out they were my only item with mana leech and i need some badly now. I will take what you said though, and I'm sure I'll be able to figure things through some tests, they always give a better understanding. Oh, and don't worry about me minding to do countess runs, as soon as I get to the marsh, I spend probably an hour just splurging off the countess. Thanx again kijya.

-Donutz