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Summary:
Assassin uses Beast and fast single claw with ridiculous gear to cruise through Hell.
Background:
I've long been thinking of Beast and some interesting builds that it opens up, but despite thinking about it for years, I hadn't actually made it. So I finally did that (in a caduceus) and the first character is a 3fpa assassin bear.
A 3fpa bear assassin uses normal attack with runic talons with 100IAS. Such a claw can be obtained in several ways:
1) shop forever for Jeweler's (or Artisan's) Runic Talons of Quickness, fill with 3 Shaels to get 100 IAS.
2) reroll runic talons via the three flawless recipe in 1.10 beta to get a Runic Talons of Quickness with three sockets and possibly a good prefix as well.
In some stash somewhere I have #1 that I shopped a long time ago, but when I found out a few months ago about possibility #2 I tried that and rerolled many. In theory, one could get 3-socketed Cruel Runic Talons of Quickness. I did not have such luck, though I did get some 3-socketed Runic Talons of Quickness, and out of those the best was had the Soldier's prefix (better than nothing.)
I had earlier thought that another way to get 3fpa claws was to craft runic talons in 1.07 and get them socketed there. Crafts get three sockets in 1.07, but that plan did not work since claws can get at most 2 sockets in 1.07. I did spend a lot of crafting supplies on those before I realized the problem, so I also made a 4fpa bear assassin afterward with bigger base damage whose writeup will come soon.
The basic plan: hit things at 3fpa. Crushing blow and ctc Amp are good mods to have when hitting that often, so pretty much I went with a full crushing blow setup and used a 1.07 prismatic Atma's Scarab with ctc Amp. I loaded up on 1.07 damage charms as well. I didn't work it out, but I think those are a better use of space than skillers as the build doesn't benefit much from skills except for the prebuff.
Gear:
The 3fpa claw:
Beast on switch with Sigon's shieldCode:Soldier's Runic Talons of Quickness Runic Talons One Hand Damage: 34 - 63 Durability: 66 of 69 Required Level: 60 Required Strength: 115 Required Dexterity: 115 Fingerprint: 0x9d68e819 Item Level: 30 Version: Expansion 1.10+ +100% Increased Attack Speed 45% Enhanced Damage +72 to Attack Rating +1 to Lightning Sentry (Assassin Only) 3 Sockets (3 used) Socketed: Shael Rune Socketed: Shael Rune Socketed: Shael Rune
Jewelry was a 1.07 prismatic Saracens for the CtC amp, a Raven Frost for the CBF, and a 1.07 big life leech ringCode:Beast Superior Caduceus BerTirUmMalLum One Hand Damage: 141 - 164 Durability: 77 of 77 Required Level: 66 Required Strength: 97 Required Dexterity: 70 Fingerprint: 0x971c08e1 Item Level: 81 Version: Expansion 1.10+ Level 9 Fanaticism Aura When Equipped +40% Increased Attack Speed 282% Enhanced Damage +150% Damage to Undead 20% Chance of Crushing Blow 25% Chance of Open Wounds Prevent Monster Heal +3 to Vengeance (Paladin Only) +2 to Conviction (Paladin Only) +3 to Lycanthropy +3 to Werebear +27 to Strength +10 to Energy +2 to Mana after each Kill Increase Maximum Durability 10% Level 13 Summon Grizzly (5/5 Charges) 5 Sockets (5 used)
Verdungo's belt for DRCode:Saracen's Chance Amulet Required Level: 47 Fingerprint: 0x743d2430 Item Level: 62 Version: Expansion 2% Chance to cast level 5 Iron Maiden when struck 3% Chance to cast level 5 Amplify Damage on striking +10 to Strength +10 to Dexterity All Resistances +26 Lightning Resist +24% Fire Resist +11% Poison Resist +45% Raven Turn Ring Required Level: 32 Fingerprint: 0x511d82f0 Item Level: 48 Version: Expansion +25 to Attack Rating 33% Life stolen per hit +12 to Strength Replenish Life +3 Damage Reduced by 1
The rest of the armor was built around crushing blow:
Duress dusk shround, Goblin Toe boots, Guillaume's hat, and these 1.07 gloves:
Merc: A1 cold merc, with Treachery, Tal Rasha's and a double Shael'd upped WWS. The ctc Amp was helpful.Code:Brimstone Hold Vampirebone Gloves Defense: 87 Durability: 13 of 14 Required Level: 69 Required Strength: 50 Fingerprint: 0x5bcc434 Item Level: 59 Version: Expansion 33% Life stolen per hit 13% Chance of Crushing Blow +33% Enhanced Defense Cold Resist +29% +1 to Light Radius
Charms:
Lots of +dmg and +dmg/ar charms from 1.07:
Spoiler
Merc bow:
Stats and Skills:Code:Witchwild String Diamond Bow Two Hand Damage: 87 - 106 Durability: 39 of 40 Required Level: 61 Required Strength: 89 Required Dexterity: 132 Fingerprint: 0xbce81b59 Item Level: 75 Version: Expansion 1.10+ 2% Chance to cast level 5 Amplify Damage on striking +40% Increased Attack Speed Fires Magic Arrows 165% Enhanced Damage 81% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level) All Resistances +40 Required Level +7 2 Sockets (2 used) Socketed: Shael Rune Socketed: Shael Rune
Name: Pingasut
Class: Assassin
Experience: 761469448
Level: 81
Strength: 102/139
Dexterity: 86/115
Vitality: 237/273
Energy: 25/25
HP: 921/921
Mana: 144/184
Stamina: 466/566
Defense: 21/1742
50 unallocated stat points
Fire: 62/22/-38
Cold: 110/70/10
Lightning: 75/35/-25
Poison: 96/56/-4
MF: 0 Block: 15
GF: 0
FR/W: 0
FHR: 80
IAS: 100
FCR: 0
Skills:
Claw Mastery: 20/20
Fade: 20/20
Shadow Master: 20/20
27 unallocated stat points
LCS:
Attack damage: 223-1842
AR: 3433
Life: 2042
Resists after fade: 47/75/60/75
Gameplay:
Pre-Beast: enchanted Raven Claw and Kuko for quick trip through Normal and most of NM.
Beast was equipped in A4 NM as was most of the end-game gear.
Wow, 3fpa is fast. And with that much damage and leech, things went very smoothly and quickly. I didn't worry about careful play and didn't need to much.
This build is like a physical damage zealot with a couple of nice differences:
1) More control: the attacks are focused on one monster, instead of spread out across a group, so the monsters are thinned out more rapidly.
2) It's faster.
3) It works in bear form! It's kind of a hand swat and it's quite fast.
Using normal attack means that mana burn is not an issue, and neither is having absolutely no mana leech. Although from time to time, she needed a blue potion for transforming back to bear form or for the shadow, it was no problem at all.
There were some nice times where Atma's Scarab triggered IM while fighting OKs, which was a nice turnabout. I think I have a screenshot somewhere.
The Amp was great, and quite noticable in speed of killing when it went off. If her Amp went off, she was right there, and if the rogue triggered amp, it was often somewhere off to the side and so the bear would head over to there for the easier going. That was particularly noticable on physically resistant monsters.
In the spirit of Megara http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...=1#post8169485, I played the Hell Ancients as a /players 8 death-cage match (although this was SC, so the weight was negligble in comparison.) The mods were quite easy: mana burn + EF, mana burn + Stone Skin, mana burn + LI.
Unleechables were a regular issue. She played at player counts in the 5 to 8 range often but would go down for areas where there were a decent number of unleechables, particularly when there were several types of unleechables. As long as there were some leechables nearby, she was fine, as when her red buld faltered, she could bring it right back full if there was something nearby to leech.
One annoyance was the shadow converting monsters, particularly when they were leechables next to unleechables....
One problem with having only a single claw equipped was that from time to time, a white shield or white claw was inadvertently picked up off of the ground from the incessant clicking. For picking up a second claw inadvertently, I couldn't see it as she was in bear form, but I could tell as her attack rate dropped dramatically.
Hell went quickly. Nothing too threatening along the way. I do remember some nasty Throne bosspacks and combos- I had a SSEFES OK bosspack in the Throne, with also Blood Lords and Frenzytaurs around.
The minion waves went quickly although I did do Lister etc. on /players 1. They melted at that player count- I should go and try them again a few times, but now her gear is much in use on my 4fpa bearassin Sitamat whose writeup will come shortly.
Her AR wasn't great and the Inner Sight from the rogue was noticably helpful from time to time.
The LCS listed damage isn't incredible but with high crushing blow and amp active almost all the time, hitting at 3fpa, it really was quite remarkable.
I often play with Treachery and I think it was actually noticeable the improvement from ctc Fade to a full-power Fade with respect to curse duration, even though the reduction isn't that much (83% reduction instead of 79% reduction)
Finds:
Not much, she was moving pretty quickly through the game and often on /players 1 in late game. I did find a Widowmaker. Forge was Hel. One additional ilvl to the Cathan's ilvl grail.
Plans for the future:
I'll experiment more with her after she gets some of the gear back from Sitamat, the 4fpa bearsin whose writeup will shortly follow. I may also roll more 1.10a claws in hopes of a better prefix.
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pharphis
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