Kick/Trap Assassin stuck at Hell Ancients

[MightyFlameboy]

Hey guys, I'm playing a Lvl 78 Kick/Trap Assassin and have some difficulties making it past Hell Ancients.

Main skills:
20 DTalon
20 Death Sentry
20 Lightning Sentry
5 Shadow Master
1-5 Fade

Gear:
Jade Talon
Lidless Wall + PDiamond (Weird, I know)
Guilaume's Face
IK Gloves
Nosferatu's Coil
Silks of the Victor (For some reason, I have trouble MF'ing good armor)
Gore Rider upped
Raven's Frost
Manald Heal
Eyes of the Etlich (Can't get a better ammy)

So basically, I have a ton of CB on my gear but I can't get in there sufficiently to get my kicks out. My merc and shadow have problems surviving. At close range, the polearm dude takes a chunk of my life with every hit. The whirlwind guy is dangerous as usual. And the throwing dude disrupts my actions, which is rather irritating.

Traps are essentially useless here, cos' I can't afford the casting time for fear that they come up to me within melee range. Besides there's no corpses, and the lightning damage wouldn't cut it. What strategy do u guys use to defeat them?

[maxicek]

- Make sure you are at /players 1 if you play single player.
- Put out 5 Lightning Sentries in the central area.
- Press the altar and then run left.
- Keep running circles around the summit until you separate them.
- DT them one at a time.
- If another appears when you are working on one, run again to separate them.

Other comments:
- Try levelling up a bit more - 78 is very low.
- No Venom?
- What is your AR?
- What other Armours do you have?
- Shop Anya for a pair of Cunning (+3 traps) claws to use on switch.
- Gamble Amulets
- Your gear selection is "interesting" - why Jade Talon?

[MightyFlameboy]

Hey there, thanks for the neat advice! I'll try that out soon...

Is there any good area to level up at Lvl 78? Leveling up is beginning to crawl at around this level...

I have a point in Venom, with about +7 to skills. My AR is about mid-6k.

As for armor, I just got another Lem rune, and I used it to create a 'Treachery' Great Hauberk.

Honestly, I'm using Jade Talon cos' it's the first (and only) Unique claw I found. But I've grown to like the huge resist boost. I just MF'ed a Bartucs, and so I'm using dual claw now with some points pumped into Weapon Block to bring it up to 51% after boosts.

[SeCKSEgai]

Like max said you're pretty low - while it can be done at 78 you would need better gear for both you and merc and its easier on pure trappers.

Have someone help you with ancients if you're on multiplayer and that will get you passed it and onto baal running for better xp.

If not, just mf in an area you're comfortable solo in to level up, I can't remember the exact level of the ancients but its higher than 78 by at least several levels.

[MightyFlameboy]

I guess I'll lvl up somemore then... At what lvl do u guys attempt Hell Ancients?

Also, what gear would I be looking for? The polearm dude butchers me in 2 critical hits, and the whirlwind dude gets my life down by at least 2/3 if I can't sidestep fast enough.

Skill wise, what do u guys pump after maxing LS, DS, DTalon, and some points in Fade, Weapon Block and Shadow Master? Are there any supplement skills which would help in this fight?

I'd need a TON of defense more. Any suggestions, considering I have a sorc MF'ing comfortably at Hell Meph?

[stephan]

I usually do Ancients around that level.

Use BoS to separate them. Then lay some traps if they are non-LI and use your coward stick (read life tap wand) on the single ancient and start kicking. Going without the merc makes it easier to separate them (if he dies anyway you might as well go without him altogether).

Your points should either go into Venom or an LS synergy.

If you can run Mephisto you must have a Skin of the Vipermagi, no?

[adujar]

Go w/s with SS instead of c/c and you should use something else than Treachery if you want to pump your def, like a Duress or something.

The rest of the points should go into LS-synenergies, otherwise those points are wasted. Your skill allocation and the +7 skills gives a LS-dmg of 3-1808 which isnt even close to be effective in hell.

Normally, I think that if you choose to put points into LS (like you did obviously) you max its synenergies as far as possible, otherwise you skip it and max out DS (for radius) and FB (for maximum hits) and go kicking with venom as an additional source of dmg.

As far as I can see youre a kick/trapper with to many hardpoints in DT. For me personally there are three alternatives involving DT and/or traps:

Pure kicker
20 DT
20 DS
20 FB
20 Venom
1 DF
1 pt wonders + (boosting SM or others)

Hybrid Kick/Trapper
14 DT
3 FB
20 ShockW
16 CBS
20 LS
20 DS
1pt wonders

Pure trapper
3 FB
20 ShockW
20 CBS
20 LS
20 DS
1 pt wonders ++ (10 something in SM or SW)


At lvl 78 you dont have so many skillpoints left to distribute (unless youve saved some?) so the investment in the LS-synenergies may be "too late" anyways but its still your best option according to me.

[DiabloLikesMMA]

You know what, go get 9 p.gems and trade for a Reapers Toll on your merc, it will curse them with decrep and amp, making them super slow and making you like double your damage.

[Akimbo]

You know what, go get 9 p.gems and trade for a Reapers Toll on your merc, it will curse them with decrep and amp, making them super slow and making you like double your damage.

Reapers Toll doesn't cast amp damage -_-.


My advice would be to go wand hunting, find magic/rare wands until you get one with lifetap on it. Get a blessed Aim merc, your ar is rlly low, put the highest damage weapon you can get on him. ( Just make sure it doesn't override lifetap! ) Do you play online? Get someone to help if you do.

[SeCKSEgai]

You should also note that certain mods on the ancients vary - making some spawns more difficult than others (depending on character fighting of course).

For example, I remember helping someone randomly while on my kicker and 2 of them spawned stone skin which would be almost meaningless to a pure trapper but a physical damage based character like my kicker meant for a long fight (well long yes, but fight, not so much).

[MightyFlameboy]

Thanks for all the help, guys.

@stephan: As soon as u mentioned Skin of the Vipermagi, I farmed somemore and got it. Way coincidental lol. But what does Skin of the Vipermagi do for me in this fight?

@adujar: I'm using DS mainly, but also maxed out LS for synergy. I know some people like to cast 4 LS and 1 DS for maximum damage potential, but I'm kinda lazy to swap hotkeys so frequently heh.

Is it worthwhile to dump 2 points in FB for an extra shot in DS? Either that, or I'm looking at Venom to boost my kicking a little. At Lvl 78, I doubt I have many skill points to dump into CBS and SW as pure synergies for DS/LS.

I still have 2-3 spare points left unallocated, if u're wondering.

@DiabloLikesMMA: Hmmm Reaper's Toll sounds neat, but I realised it's ladder-only. I'm playing SP.

@Akimbo: So, the most viable option would be to get a wand with Life Tap? One that casts on striking, or as a stockable spell? Or it doesn't matter which? I'm not too familiar with Life Tap. My necro plays with Decrepify only.

@SeCKSEgai: Yeah, it's irritating to spawn the Ancients with reasonable mods. I spawned one with Extra Strong, Extra Fast, and I think Mana Burn. Gosh, that was unbelievable. I usually avoid Extra Strong, Mana Burn, Conviction Aura. The rest should be manageable by my standards.

[stephan]

Thanks for all the help, guys.

@stephan: As soon as u mentioned Skin of the Vipermagi, I farmed somemore and got it. Way coincidental lol. But what does Skin of the Vipermagi do for me in this fight?
It would give a minimum of 20 more res for one thing. I'ts not really that important for ancients, but it was more a general tip.

@Akimbo: So, the most viable option would be to get a wand with Life Tap? One that casts on striking, or as a stockable spell? Or it doesn't matter which? I'm not too familiar with Life Tap. My necro plays with Decrepify only.
A wand with charges is fine (it lasts more than 20 seconds per charge), but if you have a Dracul's that would be good too of course.

[wizAdept]

@stephan: As soon as u mentioned Skin of the Vipermagi, I farmed somemore and got it. Way coincidental lol. But what does Skin of the Vipermagi do for me in this fight?Not too useful for ancients in specific but good overall. Good resists/mdr keeps you safe, +skill is nice, the 30fcr is really nice. You should make constant use of cloak of shadows against common mobs, blinds them and lets you do whatever you want to them. Use it on every group you come up against. Also fcr is good for mindblast, which can and will get you out of *any* sticky situation.

As a kick/trapper I think you're better off with a treachery or duress build but vipermagi should carry you through for now.

You should really try to get a better weapon/shield. jade talon has nice resists but it offers nothing nice for kicks.
Black is a nice option for a dirt cheap and effective kicking weapon.
Crescent moon pb is a very nice kicking weapon because it will give you static%, idk if an Um rune is out of your budget but it is something to think about.
Stormlash would be the highend weapon of choice.

Lidless is also one of the reasons you are getting beat up so badly. Your blocking ability suffers badly, expect to take lots of damage when you get hit and expect to get hit often by anything swinging at you.
Whitstans shield is a very nice option for a low budget shield, not too difficult to get ahold of and has very high block%. Get one asap if you are still using lidless.
Stormshield would be the high-end option, giving both nice block%/fbr and lots of dr%.

@adujar: I'm using DS mainly, but also maxed out LS for synergy. I know some people like to cast 4 LS and 1 DS for maximum damage potential, but I'm kinda lazy to swap hotkeys so frequently heh. Try using letter hotkeys instead of fkeys if you don't already. It's not uncommon for assassins to want to use all 16 of their hotkey slots. ls/ds/cloak/mindblast/flight/shadow/bladefury and many other skills should be in easy reach at all times. Once you get used to it you don't even think of the hotkeys and should be able to switch to whatever skill you want when you want it.


Is it worthwhile to dump 2 points in FB for an extra shot in DS? Either that, or I'm looking at Venom to boost my kicking a little. At Lvl 78, I doubt I have many skill points to dump into CBS and SW as pure synergies for DS/LS.
If you're using LS for damage you have no room for any skill points because you should use any spare you have to synergize damage as far as you can. Get all the essentials before this of course.


@Akimbo: So, the most viable option would be to get a wand with Life Tap? One that casts on striking, or as a stockable spell? Or it doesn't matter which? I'm not too familiar with Life Tap. My necro plays with Decrepify only.
dracs = immortality against monsters. you will proc (cast) lifetap often with it while using kicks. can also be proc'd with blade fury if you want it from a distance.