Best assassin type to start out completely untwinked?

[Bulgarian]

I realize there are a lot of guides. I really don't know where to start. I have never considered even playing an assassin over the 4 years I've played diablo. I need some recommendations.

Btw, is Naliworld ever on anymore?

[stephan]

Most normal Assassin builds are viable untwinked (a little dependant on what your definition of untwinked is). However, a FB/DS/LS trapper is probably the easiest build.

[Bulgarian]

Untwinked as in ladder reset.

[stephan]

In that case definately the trapper.

[Moritz]

I played a trapper, a K/T and a phoenix/DS untwinked and I found that trapper worked best in terms of survivability (keep distance, ranged attacks) and was easiest to play.

[BIGeyedBUG]

Trapper is easiest by far, and one of the easiest of any class. If you want to go melee, Phoenix Strikers work.

[Master Zap]

Me , I'm making a kicker.

Fade and bos fix the res and ias issues of being untwinked
Kickers only need a good boot type to deal good damage. I'm hoping goblin toes drop for me right off
You can buy claws at all difficulties that works well for the build (+ to skills stuff)
Dragon flight is like enemy assisted teleport!
Maxing Death Sentry for its CE lets you clear mobs fast
Fastest melee attack in the game is great for CTC's and leach
Shadow Master, the best summon in the game! as a meatshield

this type of sin has something for eveything and as a perk you dont see alot em..

[Bulgarian]

Trappers can't handle hell immunes. I was thinking something in the MA tree?

Me , I'm making a kicker.

Fade and bos fix the res and ias issues of being untwinked
Kickers only need a good boot type to deal good damage. I'm hoping goblin toes drop for me right off
You can buy claws at all difficulties that works well for the build (+ to skills stuff)
Dragon flight is like enemy assisted teleport!
Maxing Death Sentry for its CE lets you clear mobs fast
Fastest melee attack in the game is great for CTC's and leach
Shadow Master, the best summon in the game! as a meatshield

this type of sin has something for eveything and as a perk you dont see alot em..

That sounds interesting. Any guides for it?

[Master Zap]

Its not only interesting , it's fun to boot and very effective.

I made a very similar build here on HC that I've even ubered with :)
very capable killing char untwinked and with "godly" items

That char wasnt even made correctly (meaning I put to many points in tiger strike when my chars was new and leveling, doh! and maxed dragon flight when I didnt need too) Those points should have gone into death sentry and venom instead (I only had 5-8 points in it )

20 dragon talon
20 death sentry
15-20 Shadow master
20 venom
1 in fade, bos, mind bomb, cobra strike (insert 1 point wonders and pre-reqs)

Death sentry is getting 1 point as soon as its available then maxing the other skills first :)

[stephan]

Trappers can't handle hell immunes.
That's not true. The only problem would be a FI/LI immune, but your merc and DS can handle those.

Fire Blast really blows LIs out of their socks.

[clairetay]

i would go with a kicker/trap ;p like the monk. its easier to build with starter items & good surivial also. Anything yur traps cant kill, yur kick or blades can ;p & u only need like "black" to get decent cb. real low level equips

[Quentin]

Me , I'm making a kicker.

Fade and bos fix the res and ias issues of being untwinked
Kickers only need a good boot type to deal good damage. I'm hoping goblin toes drop for me right off
You can buy claws at all difficulties that works well for the build (+ to skills stuff)
Dragon flight is like enemy assisted teleport!
Maxing Death Sentry for its CE lets you clear mobs fast
Fastest melee attack in the game is great for CTC's and leach
Shadow Master, the best summon in the game! as a meatshield

this type of sin has something for eveything and as a perk you dont see alot em..
but a kicker needs a lot of CB to be effective, am I right?

[muzzz]

My personal suggestion would be a DTail/trap hybrid. They are almost as item-independent as pure trappers, which in my opinion makes them better for untwinked play than the CB-whoring talon-kickers. Like a trapper, most of your damage comes from +skills. Apart from that, all you need are some elite boots and enough life/resists to be able to get in 7 (3 TS, 3 CS, Dtail) hits without dying. The only semi-hard-to-find mod that this build really loves is CBF.

BTW, 'sins have one major advantage in untwinked play. Treachery. It kicks major buttocks and can easily be assembled from countess runs.

[haloghost]

What's Treachery?

[Rawness]

What's Treachery?

New Assasin ( new and new? one of the more *new* ones ) armor runeword, has some benefitial things like venom/fade ctc. Spares quiet some points, it does also have 45 ias.
Very good armor overall.

[Master Zap]

but a kicker needs a lot of CB to be effective, am I right?

Well it sure helps, after all she's still melee.

Rioxt Keen, Crushflange, Rattle cage, goblin toes,black rw, strength rw, (steel4OW) runewords are all low level common cb items.

I used to use lastwish on my kicker... Don't see myself having that anytime soon when the ladder resets


What's Treachery?
excellent speed armor, I like em on everything but casters, when fade kicks in its like 60 to all res
http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/runewords-111.shtml

Treachery (Assassin) 3 Socket Body Armor Shael + Thul + Lem
5% Chance To Cast Level 15 Fade When Struck
25% Chance To Cast level 15 Venom On Striking
+2 To Assassin Skills
+45% Increased Attack Speed
+20% Faster Hit Recovery
Cold Resist +30%
50% Extra Gold From Monsters

[muzzz]

If you "translate" the stats on fade and venom, you'll be wearing this:

Cold resist +90%
Fire resist +60%
Lightning resist +60%
Poison resist +60%
15% damage reduction
79% curse duration reduction
+305-325 poison damage over 0.4 seconds
+2 assasin skills
+45% Increased attack speed
+20% Faster hit recovery
50% Extra gold from monsters

Pretty much awesome for any build that can afford to get hit a few times to trigger fade.

[Bulgarian]

the untwinked lightning trapper guide doesn't seem to work?

how would the skills be distrubuted?

20 shock
20 cb sentry
20 ls
20 ds - fire blast?

20 dragon talon?

what about venom, bos, fade, shadow master ?

[muzzz]

The basic idea is to choose a trap to "specialize" in, usually either CBS or DS. Max that skill and as many synergies as you can. The CBS route is supposedly better against single, strong monsters like act bosses. But I myself prefer the DS route. The core of a CBS trapper is CBS, SWeb and LS. DS trappers focus on DS, LS and FB.

Most people also aim to get SM to 17 after +skills. 1 point in both CoS and MB as well. Venom isn't really useful for a trapsin, unless you're having trouble against LI's. Points in fade and BoS aren't that useful if you're planning to use Treachery, which I heartily recommend, although 1 in BoS may be worth it for leveling.

[Bulgarian]

I see

well in that case ill pick death sentry

20 DS
20 Fire blast
20 LS

1 bos - doesn't ias help with trap laying?
1 fade

20 venom
20 dragon talon

115 strength
115 dex
rest vit

how does that look?

[Blackllotus]

The basic idea is to choose a trap to "specialize" in, usually either CBS or DS. Max that skill and as many synergies as you can. The CBS route is supposedly better against single, strong monsters like act bosses. But I myself prefer the DS route. The core of a CBS trapper is CBS, SWeb and LS. DS trappers focus on DS, LS and FB.

Most people also aim to get SM to 17 after +skills. 1 point in both CoS and MB as well. Venom isn't really useful for a trapsin, unless you're having trouble against LI's. Points in fade and BoS aren't that useful if you're planning to use Treachery, which I heartily recommend, although 1 in BoS may be worth it for leveling.

Why not lightning sentry?

[Silent Shaddow]

The basic idea is to choose a trap to "specialize" in, usually either CBS or DS. Max that skill and as many synergies as you can. The CBS route is supposedly better against single, strong monsters like act bosses. But I myself prefer the DS route. The core of a CBS trapper is CBS, SWeb and LS. DS trappers focus on DS, LS and FB.

Most people also aim to get SM to 17 after +skills. 1 point in both CoS and MB as well. Venom isn't really useful for a trapsin, unless you're having trouble against LI's. Points in fade and BoS aren't that useful if you're planning to use Treachery, which I heartily recommend, although 1 in BoS may be worth it for leveling.

CBS? Charged Bolt Sentry? What on earth?
where did you copy this from? and if you didnt copy it, what the hell are you on about?

CBS=intermediate skill before getting Lightning Senty, if your leveling a trapper, dump your skills here until lvl 24.

Why treachery for end game gear? if not then why are you suggesting to build in the fade?

IAS does help with trap laying, altho many consider it unimportant as to the nature of traps. Personally i dont like being tied down for the duration if your at 0 IAS whilst laying traps

And above all! A good trap assassin uses BOTH Death Sentry and Lightning Sentry. Death Sentry is used for its ability to CORPSE EXPLODE! not its ability to damage enemies. Lightning snetry is more damaging vs single monsters, but when there is large groups of monsters and corpses are on the ground then deathsentry is the way to go, the fastest killing speed comes from the ability to effectively use both skills.

[kidsmokin]

If you aim your traps right you can hit a Boss with every bolt from CBS, which in the end is more damage than LS provides. If you want to be lazy against bosses and randomly lay 5 traps, yeah, LS is your kind of thing. But you'll be killing bosses faster if you're using CBS.

CBS is definitely useful, just LS is useful in more situations.

You may as well do:

20 LS
20 DS
20 CBS
20 FBlast/SWeb
1+ the usual things all assassins dump at least one point into

FBlast if you want to center on DS more than CBS, and SWeb if you want more to your CBS.

That way you get both of best worlds, relatively.

[Feared]

My skill plan:

20 FB
20 SW
extra points CBS
20 LS
20 DS

1 MB, pre reqs

I think this will work. At first I thought fade/BoS were givens. But then I got to thinking +skill/+sin skill items will be hard to come by. I'll mostly be relying on trap claws.

[Ava]

I wouldn't worry about +skills for BoS/Fade. Just buy 3shadow claws at anya and use those on a switch to prebuff

I'm making a trapper on the new ladder too.

My first goal is this:
FB: 20
SW: 1
CBS: 10 (because I like to be able to kill something before I reach lvl24)
LS: 20
DS: 10
All shadow skills except venom: 1

I'll probably reach that when I'm lvl 64. After that, I'm not sure if I want to put a few more points in SM or WB, or start upping DS and then CBS right away.

What do you think?

[muzzz]

CBS? Charged Bolt Sentry? What on earth?
where did you copy this from? and if you didnt copy it, what the hell are you on about?

CBS=intermediate skill before getting Lightning Senty, if your leveling a trapper, dump your skills here until lvl 24.

Taken from one of the trapper guides in the strategy compendium. I tried finding a google cache link but alas... As kidsmokin said, the idea is that with a little work all bolts can hit a large target such as an act boss. In that case CBS does more damage than LS.

EDIT: found a linky through the Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20050829143305/strategy.diabloii.net/news.php?id=513

Why treachery for end game gear? if not then why are you suggesting to build in the fade?

I was indeed recommending Treachery, and not putting a hard point in fade. There may be armors that are a bit better than Treachery, but it is still a very solid armor. Especially in the case of untwinked play, because it can easily be put together from a few Hell countess runs.

IAS does help with trap laying, altho many consider it unimportant as to the nature of traps. Personally i dont like being tied down for the duration if your at 0 IAS whilst laying traps

And above all! A good trap assassin uses BOTH Death Sentry and Lightning Sentry. Death Sentry is used for its ability to CORPSE EXPLODE! not its ability to damage enemies. Lightning snetry is more damaging vs single monsters, but when there is large groups of monsters and corpses are on the ground then deathsentry is the way to go, the fastest killing speed comes from the ability to effectively use both skills.

Of course a good 'sin uses every skill at her disposal. My comments were geared towards skill planning, not playing style. You simply don't have enough points to maximize both DS and LS unless you're planning a build for level 99.

@Ava: I personally just dumped all my early points in FB. Even on /players8 it worked well enough for me until LS became available that I didn't feel the need for points in CBS.