I was looking through a bunch of melee builds/kickers. A bunch of them max out Death Sentry, I was wondering why? Without the synergies it doesn’t do much Lit damage thus the main reason is for the Corpse Explosion side of it. That is covered by adding points to Fire Blast.
Is there any good reason to add more than 1 point to DS for non-trapper builds?
Radius…Ok so I can see some points…but Max?
Well, death sentry is a synergy for Light sentry. So a build like kicksin that uses lightning sentry maxes death sentry to make lightning sentry viable AND DS radius combined (but definitely not for buffing DS lightning damage).
But, I also agree i never maxed it. Disclaimer: I haven’t leveled up an assassin to that point yet in D2R. But back in the day in classic D2, I mained uber-killer kicksins. I was one of those guys who got paid to run other people’s key accounts into organs and torches.
And I found a smaller amount in DS or even 1 point was all that I needed. In more than one build, I put the freed up points into shadow master. Because an independently re-positionable super-tanky decoy was far more useful in hell than a slightly faster clear speed.
maxed death sentry helps you clear trash.
generally build is:
20 dragon talon
20 venom
20 death sentry
20 light sentry
final points into charged bolt sentry, usually like 10-15 cuz you spend so much on pre-reqs with this build.
Of course you know all this already, but it makes it a solo-able build. can maf, do all the things. if ALL you wanna do is kill ubers you dont needd to max either trap.
Light sentry without full synergies does negligible damage in Hell.
I run something similar to great success though.
20 Dragon Talon
20 Venom
20 Death Sentry
10 Fade
15+ Fire Blast (end game dump to get extra value out of each Death Sentry, could put these into utility skills instead if you wish).
I also get 1 point in the entirety of the Shadow Discipline tree and 1 point in Blade Shield and its pre-reqs.
Why? Cause Shadow Master/Cloak/Mind Blast are amazing one point wonders as what’s hard with this build is surviving large packs of enemies and these 3 abilities allow you to keep them under control while you set up your kills to activate Death Sentry’s Corpse Explosions.
Blade Shield is also underrated as a one point wonder because it procs both mana and lifeleech making your life incredibly easier vs mana burn mobs and once you have dracs the auto leech you get from it + life tap is insane.
the corpse explosion feature of death sentry has a longer range at higher levels. also if you max it out it does about 500 damage which is enough to kill one trash, which is enough to start corpse exploding…