A question regarding phoenix strike

Assassin
1

Phoenix strike get synergies from each of the other elemental strikes the assassin have, and every build i came across max all of them, so its 80 points there and then some other stuff. My question is : When you use the charge up skills you usually hit with the same one all the time, in the case of phoenix its most likely lightning because its the highest dps, and sometimes frost because either you misscliked or you needed CC. You almost never uses fire, so all the fire synergies do nothing. I was thinking about a Phoenix assassin and instead of fire go for max venom. It seens pretty obvious but i haven’t found anything about it so its make me wounder if it would be bad somehow.

Or if you like fire just replace one of the other 2 for venom. Point is, you never use all 3 and venom is almost passive so it looks like a good ideia.

2

Poison in pve trash. The highest DPS has meteorites, it is used on bosses. Lightning for groups of enemies.
I’ve been running around with this kind of build, it just doesn’t make sense. There is kicksin, kicksin kills everyone.

1 Like
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I wouldn’t do it. The reason I recommended venom for the WW pvm spec was because you’re only trying to take down 1 or 2 enemies quickly and death sentry does the rest. For the phoenix sin, you want to max out all your elements, especially fire. Venom is just there because we have extra skill points, its not important at all, you could completely forgo it if you wanted.

The meteor is actually extremely powerful and does have the potential to deal way more damage than lightening. The reason lightening is used as the primary attack is because of how far out it reaches, compared to meteor’s AoE, and with infinity there are very few immunities to it. Lightening covers almost the entire screen when released, allowing you to deal dmg to most monsters on the screen. Meteor is much better to use when there’s only a small dense pack standing together, or versus bosses/elites packs. It can also be useful vs things like cows/rangers; you can stand in roughly the same place stacking an insane amount of meteors as the enemies keep coming towards you.

Each of the burning fires from meteor last for 20-30 seconds, depending on PS’s skill level, and collectively they deal just as much dmg as the meteor impact, but you can stack multiples of them for insane amounts of dmg. Referencing my other post; we can drop up to 1.79 meteors per second, when played frame perfect. Without infinity you can get up to ~5k dmg with meteor, and we’ll say it burns for 25 seconds:

~25 second burn duration
~1.79 meteors per second
~5k dmg on impact
~5k burn dmg per second

Potential # of meteor’s stacked in 25 seconds:
= burn duration * meteors per second
= 25 * 1.79
= 44.75

~44 meteors burning per second at once, after 25 seconds of attacking and stacking

Dmg of meteors burning per second and impacts:
= (Stacked meteors * burn dmg per second) + (meteors per second * impact dmg)
= (44 * 5,000) + (1.79 * 5,000)
= 220,000 + 8,950
= 228,950

~228,950 dmg per second is being dealt, after frame perfect attacking for more than 25 seconds.

It actually goes a little “deeper” than that too, because the skill’s tooltip is misleading. The value it shows on the skill tooltip is actually when 3 fires are burning at once on an enemy. So if your skill’s tooltip says 5k burn dmg, its actually 1,666 burn dmg for each flame. Each flame is ‘size 2’ and each meteor releases 18 fires. Monsters in the game are considered either size 2, or 3, and depending on their size they will be affected by more or less pillars of fires, varying the amount of dmg each take per second. Size 2 can be affected by up to 3-6 flames at once, depending on where it stands in the fire. Size 3 will take damage from 5-7 flames at once, and this is just from 1 meteor. So if we go back to our math from above:

~44 meteors stacked
~5k burn dmg on tooltip
size 2 = 3 → 6 flames, avg 4.5 flames affecting them
size 3 = 5 → 7 flames, avg 6 flames affecting them

actual dmg per flame:
= tooltip / 3 flames
= 5,000 / 3
= 1,666 per flame

Each flame is dealing ~1,666 dmg per second

Flame dmg per second with respect to stacked meteors:
= dmg per flame * stacked meteors
= 1,666 * 44
= 73,304 stacked flame dmg per second

After 25 seconds of attacking we’ll have 44 meteors stacked resulting in ~73,304 dmg per flame.

Vs Size 2:
= avg flames * flame dmg per second
= 4.5 * 73,304
= 329,868

~329,868 burn dmg per second is dealt to size 2 monsters after you’ve stacked 44 meteors over 25 seconds.

Vs Size 3:
= avg flames * flame dmg per second
= 6 * 73,304
= 439,824

~439,824 burn dmg per second is dealt to a size 3 monster, after you’ve stacked 44 meteors over 25 seconds.

Odds are you aren’t going to be able to stack 44 meteors very often, if ever, things will die well before that and playing frame perfect is impossible, but in theory this is how much dmg output per second you can get from meteor, without resistance/infinity taken into consideration. With infinity, it would result in x1.85→x2 dmg in the best case scenario. The meteor is an extremely powerful component to phoenix strike and should be utilized as much as possible, when appropriate.

References:
us. forums.blizzard .com/en/d2r/t/martial-arts-phoenix-sin-guide/63992
www. theamazonbasin .com/wiki/index.php?title=Phoenix_Strike
www. theamazonbasin .com/wiki/index.php?title=Size
d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/ed0106ca#4

3 Likes
4

You outlined nicely Fire and Lit, what are your thoughts about not investing in Cold and then adding those points elsewhere? Ideally you don’t face something that is both fire and lit immune, but when it happens you can Mind Blast them and take them down slowly with the merc. This is the same I do on my trapper and it’s rare that I have to deal with one.

With those extra 20 pts you can potentially get more pts into claw mastery or get DS? Just looking for options.

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This is the reply to that question in my other thread, highlighting how I like to play my phoenix sin:

You also don’t quite have 20 skills leftover, just to unlock all the skills required to play the spec, you’re looking at 19 prerequisite and 1 skill wonders after maxing PS and it’s synergies. So really you’re consuming 99 skill points to finish this spec, requiring a lvl of 88 after all skill quests a complete. So really you only have 2 to 11 more skill points to place, if you’re willing to grind to 99. You could skip the cold portion of PS, like you mentioned, but I don’t think it’s worth skipping.

and I wouldn’t max out claw mastery, when playing the phoenix sin your physical damage really isn’t important. The Chaos Orb still deals decent dmg, it just takes to long to build up to it for it to be used often. You’re better off releasing a different element if you can, but if you have to rely on cold, it’ll do the trick for sure if its maxed out. It’s still strong, releasing 32 ice bolts dealing 2.6k dmg each, unfortunately unlike a sorc’s orb, monsters can only be hit by 1-2 bolts at a time.

And you could possibly incorporate DS, but I found it to be a bit of pain to micro manage, you’re already doing enough with phoenix strike, and they cost a ton of mana with consideration to how I like to play it. The way I play the spec relies on potions and natural mana regen for resource management, as phoenix strike+normal attack has a very low cost ratio. DS would also have a very low radius and charge count, due to the lack of available extra skills. That could easily offset that with a 4%+ ML ring, instead of BK. You could definitely add it in, but I think you deal enough dmg and aoe with phoenix strike, and you’re already micro managing a ton, I don’t think it’d be worth it, but I’ll try it out again for a little while. I don’t think I’ve given it a fair enough chance, maybe forgoing venom and going for DS would be worth while.

1 Like
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lol, I just realized I did the math wrong for the meteors. I shouldn’t have divided the 25 seconds of burning by the meteors per second, it should have been multiplied, resulting in way more dmg.

editing original post now

1 Like
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Hey! its been a while but thank you for the help, it is being very fun. I made that post about the WW passive assassin, i think what i really wanted was the phoenix one, i just didnt knew about it.

I have another question. What do you use as a ‘‘charge releaser’’? I see a lot of people like kicks, and some guides say dragon claw. I have been using dragon claw and i was thinking of not even getting the other 2 and just save the points. Even though they do have teleport.

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WW Sin is frustrating in PvM IMO. You’ll be constantly repairing your claws and it just doesn’t do as much damage as a Barb. It’s really more of a PvP build.

I think most people just use basic attack as their Phoenix Strike finisher. All your damage is elemental so I think you gain very little from most of the finishers. You still want Dragon Tail just for the utility though

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Heyo, and yeah dude. The spec is a lot of fun, its great to have a melee spec that actually deals aoe and I originally though managing the charge and releases would be tedious but its actually fun if you’re looking for a more engaging spec than something like the Trap sin.

referencing my guide:

This is how I personally like to play the Phoenix Sin:

3 Likes
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That is perfect! Thanks :smiley: one more question,if its not too much lol. I have been using Treachery with dual bartucs. Treachery gives venom level 15 on strike ( chance of ) and bartucs gives me +6 all skills. Does that mean i get a level 21 venom? And is that the exactly same as if i just had 21 points in venom and were using it? Given that venom has no synergies.

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ask away, never to many questions.

Unfortunately no, proc’d skills (like fade and venom on treachery) don’t benefit from synergies or +skills. If using treachery, you can definitely skip putting hard points into venom, and because of the 45% IAS, you only need an extra 5% IAS to obtain max aps, even under holy freeze/decrepify. It’s a solid item if you can make up for the loss in all res.

Oh, and you’ll want Dragon Flight, it allows you to reposition the merc. It’s extremely important to be able to control where he is so you can benefit from his conviction aura, or whatever benefits you might be getting from him (decrep from reapers, holy freeze, his dmg and tankiness in general, etc)

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I have seen your build is full max vita, which is great because the assassin gets a lot of life per level.

I was thinking, is there a way to socket my bartucs with ‘‘ignore targets defense’’ or something along those lines? Or at high levels i will just hit with no problems? At the moment my hit rate is actually decent, considering i am only level 70 and i also have a torch already for level 75. So, i assume around level 85-90 i will hit pretty well in hell. But you can never hit too much

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You could definitely slap a Jah rune into your claw for ITD, but that’s pretty expensive, and not necessary. If you can afford a Jah rune, just make infinity, it’ll polish off your missing Attack Rating

As you level up, its definitely a bit of an issue, but can me managable, once you get to lvl 90, most of the time you’ll be sitting at around 80-85% attack rating, without infinity. Once you have conviction going, you’ll be much closer to 95%. If you wanted you could drop vitality for more dext and attack rating, but it doesn’t really add that much.

If you take my nonladder full vita build, but switch it to 2000hp after BO, I go from 82% AR to 86% with phoenix strike. It’s not worth it imo, the biggest thing to fix Attack Rating is definitely reducing defense, preferably from infinity

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I didn’t even knew it was JAH rune that gave ignore ed, i just thought about it while writing. Oh yeah that is totally, 100% not happening. If i find a jah i will do something else with it. I think i will put spare points in claw mastery, as this build ends up having a few of them, and then i don’t know. With treachery do you still recommend socketing AS on the bartucs? If i get a COH it will take a while so treachery might the choice for the time being. Ah also do you up your bartucs?

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I think it’s worth socketing them with shael/ias jewels. Getting your aps culled by Decrepify sucks.
put all res jewels in your claws

I do not personally up my Bartucs, you can save about 30-40 points for your dext/str by keeping them as greater claws. You could up them, but I’d rather the extra vitality than an extra like 100 physical dps. It’s not worth it imo.

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missed this part.

Don’t forget you can also wear Vipermagi or Naj’s Chest piece. Both provide 1 to all skills, all resistance, and a variety of other mods. You can also socket them for an ias jewel to help obtain that 50% IAS, or UM for more resistances.

Vipermagi will provide some extra FCR, which is useful for casting mind blast, and possibly higher all res, depending on how it rolls.
and
Naj’s provides, 25 all res, 65 life which is equal to ~21 vit, and 45% dmg to mana which will remove all mana issues. It’s also a fair bit cheaper to trade for.

Treachery is good and definitely useable, but the fade proc is really annoying, and I really like to stack all resistances on the chest piece. It’s the easiest slot to obtain a good chunk of AR, you get decent other bonuses with it, and the socket is really versatile.

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I love +to all skills so treachery is kind of hard to replace. However, treachery is also kind of a pain in the A$$ because it triggers fade and replaces the burst, and also it triggers venom which screws with regular poison. I have been lucky to find 3 100 psn small charms and some 377 psn large charms, they work wounders but not with venom. Resistence is indeed a problem atm, i might do that.