dragon claw?

[cakofony]

i'm a lvl 63 assassin
I currently have tiger strike and claw mastery maxed, and quite a few points in dragon tail, and for the most part, that's all I use. I also have 1 pt in a bunch of other stuff like wep block and death sentry. My gear is pretty nice. Should I put points into dragon claw, and maybe max it out? I think it will do a lot more dmg on single people and bosses than dragon tail (which is great for masses of enemies). Also, my dragon tail doesnt do as much dmg now that I have natalya's boots as it did with immortal kings.

[dryzalizer]

No dragon claw for you. Max dragon tail, get a pair of gore riders and upgrade them, then pwn everything by charging up TS and releasing w/DT kick. You should probably be casting CoS (1 pt is enough) when you encounter a group of enemies, you will hit more often that way and lower their defense. Stick to the guide I linked you and use the boots that give you the best kicking damage! (not Nat's). In Hell, you might want to use skill points on something like CoT for physical/fire immunes, but that's up to you and also covered in the guide. Another option would be Reaper's Toll for your merc.

I would also suggest you add further questions to your previous thread about this character rather than starting a new one every time you want to ask something.

[Beamup]

Well, let's compare (take all three skills at level 21 for the numbers to come out nice and round) - this will be a *very* simplified calculation but should illustrate the key idea:

DClaw: +1500% damage on the first hit from TS, plus +150% to each from DClaw. So you get two attacks, one with +1650% and one with +150% - for a grand total of 20x base damage.

DTail: +1500% damage from TS, times +250% from DTail. The kick therefore does 16x damage, and the explosion 40x, for a total of 56x damage.

20x or 56x... hmm, which to take...

Naturally, I've left out a huge amount of stuff (DClaw will use claws/DTail will use boots, different attack speeds, etc.) here but the power of multiplicative bonuses comes through quite nicely.

[cakofony]

Alright, I really like dtail, but I just dont want to feel like I have wasted 20 pts in claw mastery.... (actually, i think that helps a ton with charge up speed/dmg)

[Burn-X]

Is not wasted really, as you said it helps in building up your charges (ITD doesn't work on every monster).

You'll be glad you invested in it when you play in 8 player games thats for sure :)

[cakofony]

got my gore riders :-D
they are 191% enhanced defence.
should I up them?

[Beamup]

Absolutely. The defense isn't that important - it's the damage you want.

[cakofony]

What rune word(s) should I try to get? I have Fal and Um towards chaos on a 3 socket claw, but I dont know if that is any good for my build (does wirlwind help a lot?)

Also, as a lvl 66, where should I be on stats (without gear). I think I am lacking on hp a little bit with 147. I have 119 str, and 119 dex (this is all w/o gear)

[Beamup]

There aren't any *really* good weapon runewords for a build like this, IMO. WW is pretty useless for you, in particular. Your best bet would be good rares with desirable +skills, or uniques (Bartuc's in particular).

For stats, you'll want to be sure you can equip the upped Gore Riders (156 after equipment). STR beyond that is pointless, and you've already overinvested in Dex - the absolute max you should consider for that - as a dual-claw build, anyway - is 118 after equipment (Scissors Suwayyah). Energy, of course, shouldn't get a single point.

[cakofony]

I tried to up my gore riders with "1 Ko Rune + 1 Pul Rune + 1 Perfect Amethyst + Exceptional Rare Armor = Elite Rare Armor" but it didnt work, is that the wrong one?

[Beamup]

Yes, it's the wrong one - as you noted in the formula, that's for *rare* armor. The right one is

1 Ko Rune + 1 Lem Rune + 1 Perfect Diamond + Exceptional Unique Armor = Elite Version of Armor

Ladder-only, BTW.

[cakofony]

nvm, I got it upped! that was the wrong recipe thing.

now the problem is that i have to wait for lvl 72 to use them again XD

[cakofony]

What other armor should I start trying to get?

[dryzalizer]

Chains of Honor (expensive), Fortitude (cheap but good), Lionheart (cheap), or Arkaine's Valor would be my picks. There is also the 'sin-specific Treachery runeword which is pretty good.

[LonghornRob]

What other armor should I start trying to get?

I'm thinking about using Shaftstop on my Sin, at least for a while. Coupled with String of Ears, it's a nice 40-45% damage reduced.

[cakofony]

I got a string of ears, and the sin torch. lvl 75 too!
I have like 10-15 free skill pts, but i cant decide where to put them :-/

[LonghornRob]

I'm personally doing 20DC, 20Venom, 15-20 Claw Mastery, 20SM, ~5-10 Death Sentry.

[cakofony]

Is shadow master really good? I've heard its useful as a tank, but how is its damage? I have a very hard time killing fire immune guys in hell, so I generally avoid fallen as much as possible.... What can I do in order to deal fair damage to these mobs?

[Sass]

Is shadow master really good? I've heard its useful as a tank, but how is its damage? I have a very hard time killing fire immune guys in hell, so I generally avoid fallen as much as possible.... What can I do in order to deal fair damage to these mobs?FI and PI monsters will be pretty bad for a DTailer. PI won't allow for fire anyway, so a secondary method of dmg would help. If you have venom, you could have that applied vs FI, etc when you hit trouble. Also, you have Dclaw and Dtalon if Tail is proving ineffective vs fire. Charge with your Tiger and you can still use Physical to your advantage ^^.

A Shadow Master is good, but also has been called bad because she likes to draw in a crowd. However, when she does, she proceeds to use major crowd control. She has access to any sin move except Shadow Warrior and Shadow Master ofc, so she'll use Cloak, Mind Blast, traps, all prebuffs (unless spawned in battle in which she'll start killing right away), and even uses martial stuff like phoenix strike to freeze / burn / zap all monsters surrounding her.

Pretty useful gal imo.

[Omikron8]

did they fix the dragon claw bug where it only applied chargeup bonuses to ONE of the claw attacks of the finishing move ? i ask this because using claws of thunder in 1.10 i noticed that it only released the chargeup once upon finishing with dragon claw, the same way it was in 1.09

[stephan]

It still only releases once per DC, but I don't consider that to be a bug.

[Omikron8]

the skill description says "adds chargeup bonuses to both claws"

[stephan]

To me that's just Blizzard's obfuscated way of saying that whatever claw hits first will release the charge. There are enough skill descriptions that don't cover correctly what the skill does in the game.

[Beamup]

I also don't think that was ever a bug - just a documentation error. It would have made DClaw grossly overpowered.