Build help for my melee assassin

[jdkerr]

I am putting together a hardcore, single pass, full clear, untwinked melee assassin -- with no lvl24 or lvl30 skills (except as synergies). I have never played a melee assassin before, so I need some suggestions for my skill allocation.

I decided to go C/C (though I have a shield on the switch with a stack of javelins at the moment -- I will probably keep it that way for those times I need to keep my distance).

I plan on putting one point in Cobra Strike; I think that is pretty standard. My current thought is to max Tiger Strike, and I originally thought Dragon Claw would be my finishing move. Would Dragon Tail be a better idea? Is the fire damage on it substantial enough to deal with physical immunities? If I don't do Dragon Tail, how should I deal with immunities?

I know that one point is all I should put in Cloak of Shadows. What about Burst of Speed, Claw Mastery, and Weapon Block?

Finally, how do I deal with physical/fire immunities? Is Claws of Thunder a good skill? Is it effective to commit a bunch of points to Charged Bolt Sentry and use that on a regular basis? That could help with crowd control.

How common are physical/fire immunities? I have never played that combination, but it seems that it might be relatively common. How common are physical/lightning immunities? Perhaps I could go physical melee, lightning CB trap.

As you can see, I don't really know what works well and what doesn't. Suggestions are appreciated! :)

[Kijya]

I plan on putting one point in Cobra Strike; I think that is pretty standard. My current thought is to max Tiger Strike, and I originally thought Dragon Claw would be my finishing move. Would Dragon Tail be a better idea? Is the fire damage on it substantial enough to deal with physical immunities? If I don't do Dragon Tail, how should I deal with immunities?Dragon tail cannot do any fire damage to physical immunes (the fire damage it inflicts is biased on how much physical damage you do. No physical = no fire)

That being said Dragon tail will be better against non PI/FI, and dragon claw doesn't really utilize tiger very well (you'd be better of just spaming dragon claw then chargeing up and releasing).

I know that one point is all I should put in Cloak of Shadows. What about Burst of Speed, Claw Mastery, and Weapon Block?Depends on you +skills. I'd say level 10 is fine for block (50%), or you can go for level 16 (56%, after that you'll need more then one skillpoint per percentage).

Claw mastery can be maxed if you have the points and nothing better to spend them in. Not sure how much you should go for.

BoS can usually get by with one or two points, I'd actually plan the char to use fade ... you can precast it with a couple shopped claws if needed later on.

Finally, how do I deal with physical/fire immunities? Is Claws of Thunder a good skill? Is it effective to commit a bunch of points to Charged Bolt Sentry and use that on a regular basis? That could help with crowd control.Yes, CoT is a good skill for lightning damage, you should synergize it with phoenix though. Remember that a PI/LI will be "FI" against Dtail though so there's that thing.

Unsynergized charged bolt sentry will not do enough damage I'm afraid. You could synergize it ... but that'd be drifting away from the "melee assassin" you wanted.

How common are physical/fire immunities? I have never played that combination, but it seems that it might be relatively common. How common are physical/lightning immunities? Perhaps I could go physical melee, lightning CB trap.Fairly common for a dual immune, mostly a fire immune boss with stoneskin mod. You're abound to run into a few of em if you're doing full clears in hell.





You could use CoT, FoF and synergize both those with phoenix. After that you can get by fairly well using Dtalon and some source of crushing blow for the LI/FI. A black flail on switch or a strength claw can do the trick.

That'll give you 3 seperate damage types. For crowd controll you've already got CoS, shadow and PH of course so you should be fine.