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arcanegel
04-02-2007, 09:18
Here's a new assassin guide, based on a character I created for LLD that I have found to be very powerful and fun to play. I'm going to submit it to the strategy compendium, but I figured I'd run it past the forums first.

The LLD speed trapsin

Table of contents:

1.0 introduction
2.0 Intro to the build
2.1 stat distribution
2.2 skill distribution
3.0 equipment
3.1 how to get BoS claw
4.0 tactics
5.0 how to duel other classes
5.1 amazons
5.2 assassins
5.3 barbarians
5.4 druids
5.5 necromancers
5.6 paladins
5.7 sorceresses

1.0 Introduction

Hello all. My name is arcanegel (yes, spelled like that…it’s a combo of arcane and angel…it seemed clever at the time), and although I’m new to the forums I’ve played Diablo for 5 years off and on. After getting sick of the dupes that high level dueling inspires, I migrated to LLD (low level duels), where I found a character build that I’ve found to be perhaps the most powerful, and certainly most fun, in the level 30 bracket: the speed trapsin. This build offers plenty of challenge, but at the same time is relatively easy to play for less experienced duelers, and also conforms to most standards of good manners. So if you want a fun build that can kill most anyone (including higher level characters) with ease, this is the build for you.

Intro to the build:

First, a definition for the character. The main difference between the speed trapsin and the regular trapsin lies in a few critical skill and equipment choices. First off, most trappers use dual claws or a weapon and shield, for maximum skill boosts. This build uses the “insight” runeword in a scythe, which provides VERY fast mana regeneration, allowing for almost limitless trapping and mind blasting, where a regular trapper might run out in a short time in LLD. The other difference is in the choice of burst of speed instead of fade as the primary “aura” that is used in duels. This provides the character with VERY fast trap laying speed and run speed, both of which are critical to the build.
Now, your first question might be, why burst of speed? Most assassins use fade instead. However, lets look at what fade gives us. First, it boosts res. That’s good, but with the right charms you’ll have plenty of res anyway, and there isn’t much else that you’ll need charms for. It also gives %dr. That’s a big help in HLD, where barbs can whirl for 1K+ PvP damage per hit, but in LLD a single “sol” rune in your armor would probably make a bigger difference than the whole aura. Finally, it gives a curse duration reduction. That is the one thing that other items can’t duplicate, but lets look at the curses. Terror, confuse, dim vision, and attract all do nothing in PvP. Amplify damage and life tap shouldn’t be a worry, since we should never be close enough to get hit by a slow necro. Iron maiden and weaken do nothing to a caster. Lower res isn’t much of a problem, since most necros using it are poison and we can easily combat poison with stacked res and duration reduction. The only truly nasty one is decrepify, but even decrepped we’ll likely be faster than the necro, and it has a short duration anyway. And if we are using fade to reduce its duration instead of BoS, we’ll be going about as slow as we would if we were decrepped and BoSed.
Burst of speed, on the other hand, gives us LOTS of run and attack speed. Now you might look at the stats for level 8 BoS and it doesn’t look like all that much. But skill speed boosts and item speed boosts work differently. Without the BoS attack boost (attack speed determines trap laying speed) you would need 89% increased attack speed to hit your 9 frame trapping speed. That is a LOT. And the run speed boosts can NEVER be accomplished with items, no matter how many charms and stuff you use. So BoS is definitely superior for the trapper.

Stat distribution:

Strength: exactly enough for gear, which will be determined by what you get on your charms. Usually 60 is good, so you can wear natalya’s boots after the 5 pt boost from insight.

Dexterity: again, as much as you need, which will depend on how good of a BoS claw you get (discussed later). Either 39 (44 after insight) if you got a good one or 53 (58) if you didn’t.

Vitality: all the rest. You get much more life for point than mana, so if you want a lot of mana the place to get it is in items, where it’s a more fair trade of life for mana.

Energy: none. I had over 300 mana without any points, and without even many good mana charms I can trap constantly.

Skill distribution:

MA tree: none

Shadow tree:

Do everything in your power to get +burst of speed on your off-hand claw (again, that will be discussed later). If you can do that, you’ll only need 1 point in mind blast and 1 in each pre-req. Don’t bother with the shadows, you use a lot of points and they don’t help as much as you might hope. Since you can’t teleport, they’ll fall behind quickly. And worse, your opponent can use them for leeching of pumping up with, say, frenzy. Not worth the points, imo.

Trap tree:

Max (7) in lightning sentry obviously, 1 in death sentry for occasional use with corpses, and the rest into either shock web or charged bolt sentry. I prefer to put them in SW, since that increases the bolt release in CBS. CBS never does much damage, so it really works better as a stunlocker, which more bolts improves. But its not a big deal, pick what you want.

Equipment:

Weapon:

Insight scythe with lvl 17 meditation aura. You might be skeptical about forfeiting block, but the mana regen is so important it will blow your mind. If you haven’t trapped with insight (or possibly phoenix), you haven’t trapped. If you don’t believe me, try it.

Helm:

Either peasant crown or a godly circlet. It would have to be an UNBELIEVABLE circlet to match the skills, run, mana and life boost, and regen on peasant, but if you found one go ahead.

Armor:

Skin of the vipermagi, for sure. The res is awesome, the skills is sweet, and the cast rate is super important for stun-locking. With insight and this you’ll EXACTLY hit the 65% fcr breakpoint. Try to get one with 35 res all.

Belt:

Sadly, we have to use the death’s set belt (death’s guard) for the “cannot be frozen” mod, or we’ll get killed by any ranged character with cold damage. Kind of a waste of the belt, but it’s the easiest place to get that mod.

Gloves:

Bloodfists are definitely the best. The attack speed is just enough to hit the 9-frame breakpoint with BoS, the hit recovery is amazing, and the life boost is great too.

Boots:

Natalya’s soul gives us massive run speed, along with some nice stamina boosts (its hard, but you actually can run out…keep in mind this is LLD), great defense, and some excellent resist. The only comparable boots are sanders, which have lower req’s but lack the res. The good thing about the res on these is that cold and light are the most likely to be lowered at level 30, via cold mastery and conviction with cold sorcs and FoH pallys, respectively.

Amulet:

If you get a +2 BoS claw, you can use a +2 traps rare amulet. Otherwise, get a +1 assassin skills rare amulet. Try to get life, mana, and res mods. Use your judgment as to what mods are useful for the build.

Rings:

2 stone of jordans, no contest. The mana boost is nuts, and these are the only +skill rings at this level.

Weapon switch:

Two claws, one a hand scythe (yes, it MUST be a hand scythe) with +BoS on it and socketed with 1-2 hels. The other should be a +2 shadow skills claw. This swap is for casting BoS.

Charms:

You’ll need a lot of res charms, depending on the res of your vipermagi and boots. Fire and poison need to hit 75 (don’t worry about lower resist, since there aren’t any good poison attacks that are long-ranged with a necro), cold should be at 100 (as in, 75 with 25 stacked), and ditto for light. There’s no reason to go higher on fire and poison, but extra stacked light and cold especially can help against cold sorcs and FoHers. Cold > light, since sorcs have teleport and get close easier. Besides res, try for 20 fhr to hit the 48% breakpoint with bloodfists, and as much life as you can get (15 life small charms work best). Mana is nice too.

How to get the swap claws:

Out of all the gear I had to get, by far the hardest was the BoS claw on switch. By the time I got it, I was ready to offer infinity, enigma, or whatever I could to get one. So to make it simpler for you, I’ve done the research and work to find the best way to get one. You better appreciate it.
First off, you need a magical hand scythe, any kind will do. There are 3 ways to get them. First, you can just find one. This might take a while, but it’s free. Alternately, you can shop for one with nightmare elzix and fara, the only people that have them. Unfortunately, they don’t have them often. Even with a level 87 character, I only found 2 in half an hour. Finally, you can gamble for one. I suggest having at least 500K gold and a level 85+ character to do this. Once you’ve got one, it’s time for step 2.
Now you need to give it the right skill boost. Luckily, the recipe we use is VERY low level and cheap to do in quantity, and you can use it on a single hand scythe as much as you want. Simply get 3 chipped gems and put them in the cube with the claw, and it will get random stats (at item level 25) and 1-2 sockets. If you’re lucky, it’ll have +BoS. If you’re really lucky, it’ll also have 2 sockets. The best claw you can get within reasonable expectations is +2BoS and 2 sockets. Note that getting a claw like that could take a LOT of chipped gems. I probably burned through 100+ of them to get mine, and I still consider my self lucky. If you get a +1BoS 1 socket claw, keep it and craft another claw instead. If you get frustrated, you can use the lesser claw and suffer some minor stat loss.
Once you’ve got you claw, socket it with hels (as many as it will hold) to lower the requirements and equip it. You’ll need 44 dex and str to do this. Then equip the +2 shadow skill claw on the other hand (doesn’t need to be socketed, as long as it’s a low req claw) and you can cast level 8 BoS without putting a single point into it. That hits the breakpoint for 9-frame trapping and saves you 2 skill points.

Tactics:

There are two basic modes to fight in with any given duel, either offensive or defensive. Defensive is usually better, and versus most melee characters you’ll play that way. For sorcs, necros and zons, though, you’ll need to play offense.
For defensive, it’s best to try to stay off the others screen. You can run faster than most anyone, so keep laying traps and running as you go. Unless they zig-zag (which will make them even slower) they’ll take massive lightning damage which will most likely kill them very quickly. For offense, try to spread out your traps to force them into a corner, then mind blast them mercilessly and keep traps up.
Also, keep in mind that your traps can “see” what you can’t. if you see your traps firing at something on the edge of the screen, that’s most likely your opponent. Act accordingly.

Specific anti-class fighting:

Amazons:

Javazon: just dodge their javelins and avoid the clouds of poison. Try to play defense. If you can get 75% poison length reduction on your amulet and max res, they shouldn’t pose much threat

Bowazons: it often works well to stay against a wall, since you can dodge their arrows and send them into the wall, harmlessly. Otherwise their arrows can track you all over the place, which can get annoying. Play defense and keep up plenty of traps in the direction they’re coming from. Your traps tell them where you are. If you can mind-blast lock them, they’re in big trouble.

Assassins:

Kickers: their Dflight is the thing to watch for, try to keep them off-screen as long as possible so they can’t teleport on top of you. They probably aren’t using BoS, so you can outrun them fairly easily. Keep in mind that they also have mind blast…watch out for stunlock.

Other trappers: dodge their trap fire and wait till they run out of mana, while trapping a bit yourself. Then try to corner and kill them. Shouldn’t be hard. Watch for stunlock.

Speed trappers: as far as I know, I’m one of the first. So all I can say is good luck.

Barbarians:

Basically, they won’t be as fast as you no matter what, so just outrun them and trap them to death, using mind blast if possible.

Druids:

Wereworlves/bears: pretty easy, they can’t even run that fast unless they can hit a minion for feral rage. Don’t use a shadow, obviously, and standard tactics. Run, trap, and blast.

Fire: fissure and volcano can both hurt, so make sure you have full res to fire. Try to stay offscreen to avoid getting hit. Luckily, these guys are slow as hell, so it shouldn’t be hard.

Windy: their tornado and twister will never hit you…neither will their hurricane…really, they’re pretty screwed. Mind blast a lot to keep them stunned, and drop a lot of traps so they can’t escape. Their armor is nasty since it can stop trap damage, so make sure you’re hitting them heavily. Worst comes to worst, they won’t regen mana very fast most likely.

Necromancers:

Bone: luckily, bone spells are pretty slow and easily dodged/outrun. And mind blast can easily put them out of commission. Just use standard tactics, and wait until they run out of mana if you have to.

Poison: except for explosion, no poison attacks are ranged in any real way. Make sure you don’t step on any bodies, and this should be a cinch.

Paladins:

Smiters/meleedins: oh god, I hate overplayed pallys. For smiters, try to keep to areas with breaks in the terrain, such as ponds or houses of whatever. Watch where your traps are firing, it can clue you in to the paladin’s real location. Make sure you have some good hit recovery. Good luck.

Hammerdins: hammers aren’t what they are at level 90 at level 30. Also, they can’t teleport, thank god. So pretty much the same tactics as smiters in terms of charge. Try to run up on the map, so their hammers miss if they try to get close and throw. They’ll also run out of mana quickly unless they’re using potions, so just wait, and then drink their pots when you kill them so they cant use them ;)

Sorceresses:

Fire: not too tough, just dodge their fire and stunlock them. Make SURE you have max fire res though.

Cold: STACK COLD RES. If they’re blizz, keep moving constantly, so they can’t hit you easily. For orb, same deal, try to dodge them and mind blast them into lock.

Lightning: make sure you have max res, and dodge their fire is about all I can say. They shouldn’t do as much damage as you do with all your traps firing. I’ve survived for a pretty long while against level 70 light sorcs, which is a grossly unfair duel. Pretty much same tactics as fire sorcs.

That’s the guide. This is the rough draft, so it’s open to suggestion, especially in the last section. Tell me whatcha think!

arcanegel
04-02-2007, 11:10
OK, i just realized I made a few errors, which I'll fix. first, the numbers at the table of contents don't show up in actual body. Also, I forgot to mention about sockets (for helm and vipermagi). I'd use shael and either a really good cold/light res jewel, a psapphire, or sol. Also, as far as charms are concerned, forget about the fhr charms since you've got the shael, and some faster r/w charms work pretty well too. If I think of more I'll add it.

Dethwish
09-02-2007, 04:32
Im doing this guide now, Keep me updated. Thanks

HappyAssassin
09-02-2007, 05:32
This is a very interesting guide. Cool idea, and its lld.

I have a LLD smiter on West L if you feel like a duel some time (lvl 29).

arcanegel
09-02-2007, 10:34
This is a very interesting guide. Cool idea, and its lld.

I have a LLD smiter on West L if you feel like a duel some time (lvl 29).

yeah, that might be a good idea, smiters are definitely this character's biggest weakness. glad other people are trying out the build, I'm having a lot of fun with it. One thing I love about it that I just realized is that between the fcr, fhr, and ias breakpoints, the charater overshoots the fcr by 0%, the ias by 0%, and the fhr by 2%. so basically i exactly hit the breakpoints i need. I just took down a FoH pally and kicker today fairly easily with it, even though I tried to avoid running too much and worked on just MBing and trapping, going for lock.

arcanegel
10-02-2007, 03:14
alright, here's a change I'm going to add to trapper. Instead of dropping all points into shock wave, drop 1 into wake of fire for stunlock.

Dethwish
10-02-2007, 05:23
ugh.. you wernt lien when you said it takes ALOT of chips, i just went through maybe 75 chipped and still havnt got it yet

arcanegel
10-02-2007, 11:37
lol, yeah it's a serious pain. When I got mine, it was after I just did a huge trade for 50 or so chips, and I went through them until i got to the last four, and then finally got it. I'm keeping the last chipped gem as a souvenir :P

Like I said ,though, there's a lot of noobs with chips that come out of the woodwork if you offer pgems. Strangely, when I was making games to trade tal armor for chipped gems no one came, but pgems brought a ton. stupid noobs, lol.

Dethwish
28-02-2007, 05:55
what charms do you use?

I get 100% res all, 50% FHR, 10 Str, and +15% FRW from my charms and still have 30 spaces open. I was thinking of filling the other 30 spots with 15 to life sc's. What do you think of this set up for charms?

Maybe some mana sc's

Arbedark
28-02-2007, 14:17
Sorry to rain on this parade.

But vs ANY LLD who has a single clue of what he's doing. You'll be doing massively sub par damage (even with +3 LS hand scythes).

WoF does better damage at LLD than LS, since you'll get less than 800 max damage with LS which after res and pvp penalty mean you're doing 33.3 damager (MAX) per hit.

After MDR any character can just tank you to oblivion...

PhenixRising
28-02-2007, 21:25
lol, yeah it's a serious pain. When I got mine, it was after I just did a huge trade for 50 or so chips, and I went through them until i got to the last four, and then finally got it. I'm keeping the last chipped gem as a souvenir :P

Like I said ,though, there's a lot of noobs with chips that come out of the woodwork if you offer pgems. Strangely, when I was making games to trade tal armor for chipped gems no one came, but pgems brought a ton. stupid noobs, lol.

It might be that no one collects enough chipped gems to trade for a tals armor unless you were willing to accept 10-15 chipped gems. So I don't know where you get off calling people noobs for trading chipped gems for pgems which are better for the VAST majority of bnet players. Where you getting 10 chipped for a pgem or just a 1 to 1 ratio?

Anyway, if you need chipped gems you can either make a frost zealot to clear out act1 norm or get yourself a holy freeze merc and tele through act1 norm collecting chipped gems as you go.

O are you looking for +2 shadows and + to BoS? Finding +2 shadow claws off Anya isn't all that difficult. If need be socket it and add 2 -15 req jewels. I think that you would need 40 dex to equip the claws.

Silent Shaddow
01-03-2007, 01:41
im going to have to agree with arbe, your doing very little dmg, carring to block, and i think you have agrossly underestimated the difficulties that youll have with chargers/smiters/kickers im pretty dam sure that my kicker would tear you up, even with all traps out, mb (which you wont be able to keep up long) and fast run, i mean do you have some numbers? like whats your final res, life, mana, dmg, (and here i would say blocking...)

i mean you expect to be able to out run people? how? chargers will back off and lock you again, smiters will tank you and keep coming... etc

Arbedark
01-03-2007, 02:28
im going to have to agree with arbe, your doing very little dmg, carring to block, and i think you have agrossly underestimated the difficulties that youll have with chargers/smiters/kickers im pretty dam sure that my kicker would tear you up, even with all traps out, mb (which you wont be able to keep up long) and fast run, i mean do you have some numbers? like whats your final res, life, mana, dmg, (and here i would say blocking...)

i mean you expect to be able to out run people? how? chargers will back off and lock you again, smiters will tank you and keep coming... etc

Yeah, of course I meant 2/3 Handscythes.

I ran the numbers and they're just WAY too low to be effective.

Melee have too much life and casters have too much MDR.

Shadan
03-03-2007, 18:12
Yeah, of course I meant 2/3 Handscythes.

I ran the numbers and they're just WAY too low to be effective.

Melee have too much life and casters have too much MDR.

Does MDR stands for Magic Damage Reduction?

I believe it only affects magic damage, not elemental.

Eilo Rytyj
03-03-2007, 18:34
MDR affects Fire, Cold, Lightning and Magic types of damage.

There are 6 different elements in D2, Poison and Physical are the other two.

Shadan
03-03-2007, 18:39
MDR affects Fire, Cold, Lightning and Magic types of damage.

There are 6 different elements in D2, Poison and Physical are the other two.

:shocked: Didn't know about that. Thanks.