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This is how I play a WWsin for Player vs Monsters, it’s very different than a PvP WWsin.
To Answer your question about traps. No, it’s not viable to play without the Death Sentry trap, but you can rely on your Shadow Warrior to cast them for you, maintaining that passive game play you desire. Death Sentry provides Corpse Explosion which gives you much needed AoE. WW allows you to hit 1 monster twice, or 2 monsters at a time, but its not true AoE, it’s not nearly enough to provide decent clear speeds. You don’t need to use the Lightening Sentry, or worry about the Death Sentry’s lightening damage, it’s just there for Corpse Explosion.
Basically, what we’re doing in this spec is using WW+Venom to quickly knock down a monster or two and letting death sentries go to town, as we keep spinning. To help achieve this, we’re also going to be using a Might Merc with Reapers Toll for Decrepify. Decrepify will boost your physical damage, allow you to break physical immunes, but it also increase’s the physical portion of your Death Sentries Corpse Explosion.
Stats:
Strength - Enough to hold gear
Vitality - 1250-1500 hp before BO
Dext - Max possible
Energy - none
The reason we only get 1250-1500 hp is that we want to max out our Dext for more Attack Rating and more Damage. We are quite active and mobile with WW, and when combined with Blade Shield, it allows us to steal a lot of HP back, further helping us stay alive. So we don’t need a massive life pool, imo. Dexterity is also a damage modifier for our WW damage, so stacking 300 dext is essentially the same as wearing Fortitude for its 300% damage. It’s also nice that not only do we get dmg from it, we also get a ton of attack rating, which we need because our AR is quite low with WW without the dext.
Skills:
Active: Whirlwind, Death Sentry
Utility: Dragon Flight, Venom, Burst of Speed, Blade Shield, Shadow Warrior, Mind Blast
Passive: Claw Mastery, Fire Blast for Death Sentry, Weapon Block
Order to Max out Skills:
- 1 point into everything needed to unlock all required skills
- Then max in this order: Venom, Death Sentry, Claw Mastery, 18 skills into Fire Blast
- Dump remaining points into Blade Shield, Mind Blast, or Shadow Warrior. It’s up to you
Level 84, and all skill quests completed, is needed to unlock and max out all required skills.
Active:
Whirlwind - Chaos Claw
To unlock WW on the assassin, we’re going to need to make at least 1x Chaos claw. When playing PvM, I personally like to make 2x of them, but some people like to make Fury as well. I think Fury is better for PvP, and prefer 2x Chaos for PvM because it hits hard, has nice extra mods on it, and can get us an extra point into WW. With that said, the most important skill imo is +3 to Death Sentry, both your claws should have this no matter what. If you can also get either +1 Dragon Flight, or +1 Blade Shield, on them as well, that would be nice, but not necessary.
Do not make this runeword in superior base items! There is a bug that cause the repair cost to be x10 of what it should be. Just a few points of durability loss will costs millions to repair, instead of thousands. A fully damaged sup item will cost billions to repair and might not be possible to do, you’ll need to use your cube. Imo it’s not worth it for PvM, PvP it definitely is
There is also a bug where you will be frozen in place while using WW if you level up, hard to avoid but do your best to not spin while leveling up. The only way to get out of it that I’ve found, is to leave game.
Now that we have WW, we will try to spin in tight small triangles, this will maximize damage. We will also use it to move around the map safely, and disengage packs to put up death sentries if needed . Your main goal is to focus down just a couple monsters for your Death Sentries, so be conscious of that and try and focus on a few monsters at a time.
Death Sentry
This will be our main source of AoE, through Corpse Explosion, after we knock down a couple enemies. CE deals half fire and physical damage, and when maxed out can cover almost the entire screen when it explodes a body. It doesn’t scale the best in higher player counts, but it’s still extremely powerful nonetheless. We will supplement the damage of our death sentries by having our Merc curse monsters with Decrepify, providing 50% more dmg to the physical half of death sentry.
Utility Skills and Passive Skills:
Dragon Flight -
This will be used to control our merc and make sure that he’s fighting who we want and cursing monsters with Decepify. When using this skill, aim for a monster on the edge of the pack. If you accidentally telekick to deep into a crowd it can be dangerous, your Shadow will almost certainly die, and you merc might be in a tight spot. Try not to use this to much as a defensive skill either, to get out of packs, its just there to control the merc. Use WW to get out of being surrounded, although it leaves your merc and shadow stuck in there. So once you’re free with WW, use DF again to tele them and get them out of there.
Venom -
This will be one of our main sources of damage, to compliment our physical damage from whirlwind. You’ll also want to wear Trang’s Gloves for the +25% Poison Skill Damage on them. This will apply to your venom when you cast it, and also apply when you strike an enemy, allowing you to utilize the bonus twice.
Claw Mastery -
Claw Mastery is extremely useful for this spec, it provides a ton of attack rating, crit chance and damage, we’ll definitely want this maxed out.
Fire Blast - only put 18 points into it
We’re not going to actually use this skill actively, but we will use it to give our Death Sentries more charges so they can explode more corpses. Every 3 base skill points into FB will give the DS an extra charge. +skills from gear does not give extra charges, it has to be hard points. 18 points is considered maxed out, since we won’t get an extra charge for DS if we put the extra 2 points in.
Burst of speed -
we want to attack fast and run fast, and Fade isn’t necessary. BoS is much more valuable and required to negate HF and Decrep, so we’ll use this over Fade
Using BoS with whirlwind will make you immune to Decrepify and Holy Freeze’s attack slowing affect while using WW. Only the movement speed potion affects you
Blade Shield -
the damage output for this skill isn’t very important, but what it does provide is a ton of life and mana leech when you whirlwind through enemies. It can be extremely helpful for offsetting WW’s mana cost, definitely worth the 4 points to unlock. Your secondary ring will want to have at least 4% Mana Steal on it, it’s the best slot to obtain ML from.
for this to work, you need at least 4%+ Life or Mana steal. BS reduces your LL and ML by 1/4, rounded down. So: 3 LL / 4 = 0.75, rounded down, = 0% LL. It requires at least 4% so that you achieve 1% after reduction
Weapon Block -
You’ll definitely want 1 point into weapon block. This skill actually works while using WW, so it provides a lot of much need defense while spinning through mobs.
Shadow Warrior -
I like to use the Warrior over the Master with this spec because of the fact she uses the skills you have active. Unfortunately, she can’t use WW, but if you have Death Sentry active, she will place them for you, saving you some mana. She also is a decent meat shield, but the fact she can place DS for free, and while you’re busy WW, makes her extremely valuable. I like to dump my remaining points into her to make her as sturdy as possible, but she will die a lot regardless. At level 19 she will have 75 All Resists, which can help with her survivability.
Mind Blast - optional skill
Not as necessary for the WWsin, because you can just spin out of any tight corners, but still extremely useful if you find yourself getting overwhelmed. It’s always great to beef up your meat shield with some converted monsters and provide some distractions. Your Shadow can also cast this skill when its active.
Merc:
Type - Nightmare Offensive Act 2 Merc
Helm - Ghuillame’s Face / Kira’s Guardian / Vampgaze / Andy’s
Chest - Fortitude / Treachery / Duriel’s Shell / Gladiator’s Bane
Weapon - Eth Reapers Toll / Reaper’s Toll
You’ll want any helm here really, you get a ton of life steal from Reaper’s Toll, so anything will do. I personally really like gface because it provides him a ton of crushing blow, and some more deadly strike to compliment the deadly strike on Reaper’s Toll. It also has some Faster Hit Recovery, which is always nice. I put Kira’s as runners up because the cannot be frozen is amazing for him, we really need his decrepify, so the faster he attacks the better.
For the armor, once again, anything will do, treachery is great to make him hit really fast, procing Decrepify more, but fortitude is always welcome for its insane damage if you can afford it. Duriel’s or Gladiator’s Bane are also good options to once again obtain Cannot Be Frozen. Duriel’s has all resists and some nice life on it, where GB comes with some FHR and physical damage reduction.
The most important piece, which I’ve talked about a lot so far is Reaper’s Toll. This item is a must for this spec to function well. You can use Dragon Flight to make sure he’s always active and fighting who you want, and that Decrepify curse is invaluable. As discussed prior, it will: break physical immunities, give your WW 50% more dmg, and increase the physical portion of DS’ CE by 50%. It will also reduce your enemies attack speed and dmg, helping you survive more. It’s also a powerful weapon in general, giving the merc a lot of damage and survivability. It’s a must overall; ethereal is amazing, but not required, any will do.
Gameplay:
Hotkeys:
Left Click:
HK1 = WW
HK2 = Dragon Flight
Right Click:
HK3 = Death Sentry
HK4 = Mind Blast
HK5 = Battle Command
HK6 = Battle Orders
HK7 = Blade Shield
HK8 = Burst of Speed
HK9 = Venom
HK10 = Shadow Warrior
I like to always have Death Sentry active on my right click, this way it will be an available skill for the Shadow Warrior to cast. Make sure all your buffs are always active and to engage do the following:
- Drop Death Sentries near the pack of monsters; You always want at least 1 DS up at all times, hopefully your shadow takes care of that
- Telekick onto your target so your merc will proc Decrepify on them
- Spin in tight triangles to maximize dmg, or short straight lines to take less damage, but you won’t deal as much at the same time
- Focus down just 1 or 2 monters so your DS can use Corpse Explosion. Fighting monsters your Merc is can be really good too, because he deals a lot of dmg himself, helping get those first few corpses going
- Disengage from the pack of monsters if you don’t have DS active and there are corpses on the ground. Or don’t and wait for the shadow, just make sure she’s always alive and has BO