Hi everyone, I'm coming back here after many months.. and I want to know what you think is the cheapest assassin (melee) build for a completely poor and untwinked ladder character.
Thanks. ^^
Untwinked and Melee don't usually go together very often. It's usually Trapper or Hybrid/Trapper. Any way you look at it, Death Sentry is essential.
So, uh, how much experience do you have with Assassins or playing untwinked? Have you considered making a MF build first (any class)?
Phoenix Striker for sure, if it has to be melee focused and is completely untwinked.Originally Posted by Penumbra Fortress
A Trapper it is. A trapper can do good even with ****ty gears (i've killed some of my mates characters with my no-gear trapper). As for PvM u may run into trouble with lightning immunes, but just drop some fire blast on them
Penumbra Fortress:
When going untwinked and building up for the Ladder, it depends on how far you want to go. If you plan on taking this single, first character, high up the ladder, I would advise you not to. Instead, I would suggest that you start your first character and only shoot for the end of Nightmare as your goal. It takes zero time and is very quick. Leveling to 70 takes two days, with a few runs. However, you can easily use this first character, which is quickly made, to do a few key runs in order to give yourself some items to use along the way for your next assassin, who can be then better equipped and go through hell.
Doing melee, it can be done if you're not leaving Nightmare. I would suggest using her for MF purposes. Some easy runs, at level 60, would involve:
Blades of Ice (very good damage, charge 2 = good game packs of monsters)
It synergies with Phoenix Strike, for more damage. This gives you two attacks, with multiple damage types, but mainly cold damage. Cold damage is great, through nightmare, because not much will be immune or resist it well, that you can run easily. That means, you can hit up the super uniques of Act5 with a blades of ice build, and drop Eldritch and Shenk in a run, turn around, nail Pindle in town. Then go to Act3, plunder the Travical Council and then rush down into the Durance 3 and plunder the Council there (you could go for Meph, but I wouldn't... it would take too long really). You can also easily do Countess runs for various runes.
The idea, is to gather up enough of the lower runes (up to Shael for example) easily, via running these areas in public games, with multiple players. They will drop more often and you will stock up on Gems and Runes. These Gems will trade quickly for items that you want. You'd laugh if you saw what you can buy with a few Pgems (and fast). The runes will help make low runewords (like insight, spirit, obediance, etc) to give yourself a nasty merc. Or make armor/shields, etc for yourself.
So for Melee:
20 Blades of Ice
20 Phoenix Strike
(Physical damage is not neccessary really; just take Max Block and a Merc and with cold damage, you'll rarely need to leech)
With your remaining 27 skill points at level 60 (though you can go to 70 easily in nightmare, giving you 37 skill points); you can fill your pre-reqs and then either (1) max another skill, (2) max a helpful tank like your Shadow, (3) throw some points into Fade (for resists) or into Claw Mastery (for attack rating). Or you can invest into another something more fun, like a complimentary trap (death sentry), etc.
Quick & easy and requires zero gear. Along the way, you can easily find topaz and socketed items, fill them up, use fade and a pdiamond shield (or a rhyme once you find shael) and just magic find those act5 super uniques to your heart's content. Mass up some pgems and get some low items, buy what you need quickly with gems and then make your new assassin with medium gear and go to hell with her
Cheers!
I'm fond of BoI, but CoT and Phoenix2 are more powerful overall in my experience. Also, since you recommend shields, none of the three claw attacks are going to be great options because of their speed penalty. That leaves Phoenix itself, and the power differential between Phoenix2 and 3 is even greater than that between CoT and BoI.Penumbra Fortress:
When going untwinked and building up for the Ladder, it depends on how far you want to go. If you plan on taking this single, first character, high up the ladder, I would advise you not to. Instead, I would suggest that you start your first character and only shoot for the end of Nightmare as your goal. It takes zero time and is very quick. Leveling to 70 takes two days, with a few runs. However, you can easily use this first character, which is quickly made, to do a few key runs in order to give yourself some items to use along the way for your next assassin, who can be then better equipped and go through hell.
Doing melee, it can be done if you're not leaving Nightmare. I would suggest using her for MF purposes. Some easy runs, at level 60, would involve:
Blades of Ice (very good damage, charge 2 = good game packs of monsters)
It synergies with Phoenix Strike, for more damage. This gives you two attacks, with multiple damage types, but mainly cold damage. Cold damage is great, through nightmare, because not much will be immune or resist it well, that you can run easily. That means, you can hit up the super uniques of Act5 with a blades of ice build, and drop Eldritch and Shenk in a run, turn around, nail Pindle in town. Then go to Act3, plunder the Travical Council and then rush down into the Durance 3 and plunder the Council there (you could go for Meph, but I wouldn't... it would take too long really). You can also easily do Countess runs for various runes.
The idea, is to gather up enough of the lower runes (up to Shael for example) easily, via running these areas in public games, with multiple players. They will drop more often and you will stock up on Gems and Runes. These Gems will trade quickly for items that you want. You'd laugh if you saw what you can buy with a few Pgems (and fast). The runes will help make low runewords (like insight, spirit, obediance, etc) to give yourself a nasty merc. Or make armor/shields, etc for yourself.
So for Melee:
20 Blades of Ice
20 Phoenix Strike
(Physical damage is not neccessary really; just take Max Block and a Merc and with cold damage, you'll rarely need to leech)
With your remaining 27 skill points at level 60 (though you can go to 70 easily in nightmare, giving you 37 skill points); you can fill your pre-reqs and then either (1) max another skill, (2) max a helpful tank like your Shadow, (3) throw some points into Fade (for resists) or into Claw Mastery (for attack rating). Or you can invest into another something more fun, like a complimentary trap (death sentry), etc.
Quick & easy and requires zero gear. Along the way, you can easily find topaz and socketed items, fill them up, use fade and a pdiamond shield (or a rhyme once you find shael) and just magic find those act5 super uniques to your heart's content. Mass up some pgems and get some low items, buy what you need quickly with gems and then make your new assassin with medium gear and go to hell with her
Cheers!
For a dual-claw build, both CoT and BoI are workable, but if it's a question of what is easiest, I'd heartily recommend maxing CoT and Phoenix. That gives two different forms of great lightning damage; unsynergized Phoenix1 gives a decent alternate attack and bosskiller through early Hell; and you still get the tactical benefit of Phoenix3's freeze time.
For a claw/shield mf build I'd go the same way though CoT itself won't be effective.
If the focus is on Act Boss killing (especially), the more points you can eventually put into Phoenix1s FoF synergy, the better off you'd be. Even for general purposes though, I'd sooner max fire than ice, especially on a c/s build. Their might be a few exceptions for specialized runners.
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