Patch 2.4 Martial Arts Skills - Concerns and Suggestions

Assassin
4

I know what you’re trying to say, and I some what agree, but you’re way over exaggerating it imo. It can be an issue at first, but it’s just part of learning how to play the spec efficiently:

watch the first 20 seconds of my video guide, I launch 4 meteors in rapid succession without issue, no wrong element. Same thing with Lightning Storm right after, I launch 3 storms, killing all enemies and end with 2 charges left, and on Normal Attack ready to release another storm. And right after that I take on infector with constant frozen orbs and not a single incorrect element release.

this can be an issue, and I did run into it while refining my Phoenix Sin’s play style, but there is an easy answer to that. Use your charge and release skill on the same click, and just switch between skills. Having the charge and release skill on the same click will interrupt accidental charge attempts, reducing how often you accidentally release the wrong charge. You can hold the mouse button down if you want, but clicking can help you develop a rhythm to control your charge up and release skills. Its part of the fun with the charge and release skills imo.

Also, this is a unique issue to Phoenix Strike only. All of the other elemental martial art skills don’t change elements when stacking to a higher or lower count of charges. I’d hate to see this mechanic gutted because of one skill having a higher ceiling requirement for precision.

Releasing the wrong element will be a reality of the spec, but that’s just part of how it plays. Learning how to properly control and release your elements, allows you to actually improve how well you can play the spec and can be rewarding. No 2 people will be of the exact same skill level with the phoenix sin and odds are someone new to the spec will be much worse than some with experience playing it. And that’s how it should be for some specs, imo.

Overall, I disagree, I ran into the issues you brought up, but with a bit of effort and thought it was possible to over come them. And for me, the things you’re complaining about are exactly why I like the martial arts skills. You don’t just mindlessly hold down Lightnign Fury or lightning and win, which can be fun too. You actually have to manage your skills and think about how you’re engaging enemies more. I wouldn’t want them to change charge and release mechanics

5

You use charge up skills on LMB and finishing moves on RMB.
MA is a finesse build that should have A LOT of AOE damage since you are tanking mobs.
Dragon Tail should just be straight fire AOE damage.
Charge 3 on FoF BoI CoT should also be AOE damage, so you can pair it with Dragon Tail.

1 Like
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I was considering cloak of shadows. I would be nice if they increased the ‘radius’ or did something else to make it effect a bigger area or make it re-castable sooner. Quite a few time I will use it, kill everything that was effected by the ‘dim vision’ part of the skill. I then move along find another group that is not effected by the ‘dim vision’ part but my current cloak is still in effect so I can cast it and thus I can not shut the new group down.

3 Likes
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I like dragon tail the way it is personally

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Ideas:

add a “slows target” effect to blade shield?

Reduce cool down of cloak of shadows

Scrap blade sentinel and replace it with an aoe slow skill like the demon hunter’s “caltrops” from diablo 3

I feel like the MA sin / hybrid sin has a unique capability to break free from the “spam my main skill”
Mindset that plagues 90% of d2 meta builds by improving the crowd control and positional components that it has.

Improve firelizard’s talons because we all love fire traps. Maybe add -enemy fire res so we can go wake of inferno / tiger strike + dragon tail?

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I think one of the big changes I’d love to see is add elemental % DMG increases to MA skills. I get why they don’t effect traps, but not being able to use any facet is really annoying when i want to build a MA Sin. I know you can increase venoms DMG with poison facet, so why not the MA skills?

Correction: % ELE DMG doesn’t seem to add to Phoenix but does add to other. I’m wanting it to be added to Phoenix

1 Like
11

I have played the martial arts Assassin during the weekend till level 80++,
mainly to prepare myselve for the patch and to get used to the playstyle.
So far in the past “the dragon talon assassin” or hybrid around that one was my preferred class and build always.

My experience (before patch)
COT (Lightning) is superior compared with Phoenix. This is mainly due to the fact that COT triggers all 3 charge effects at the same point in time compared to phoenix, which triggers exactly one effect, which is also hard to control.
After a while COT became my main attach, while Phoenix was my choice for the light immunes only (no infinity on merc).

The intended patch change to consume just one charge sounds great, but I need to play and test it. However I am wondering, if it would not make sense for Phonix to trigger all lower charges (similar to COT) as well.
Currently Phoneix feels so cumbersome and week compared to COT.

Example:
3 Charge ==> 2 Charge and triggers Ice , Lightning, Fire
2 Charge ==> 1 Charge and triggers Lightning, Fire
1 Charge ==> 0 Charge and triggers Fire

12

That wouldn’t help much because of next delay unfortunately, I mentioned it in point 2. Having all 3 spend together would just cause massive overlap, and Next Delay would make them cancel out each others damage. If they’d remove the next delay on Chaos Lightning and Frozen Orb it would work, but removing next delay would also buff CL and FO to the point they probably wouldn’t need to all release together imo. Their dmg would go through the roof without next delay, and maybe that’s what’s needed.

Also check out my guide on the phoenix sin, and maybe even try downloading the single player char to give it a try. Phoenix Sin can be a little cumbersome at first, but using Quick Cast Skills, and Normal Attack can help to make very fluid and consistent feeling gameplay.

I also used to use Claws of Thunder, it’s definitely my 2nd fav MA skill. Pair it with Tiger Strike and Dragon Tail and you get some insane hits. The knockback from the Dragon Tail can also allow a monster to be hit by all 3 charges, where typically they’d be immune to the charged bolts because of Next Delay. Also Tiger Strike + Dragon Tail in the current form can deal 50k dmg per kick, and now with it not spending all 3 charges, thats gonna be some serious fire power.
d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/kw0106gc

13

Tiger Strike and Dragon Tail is an alternative, which I liked a lot before they introduced immunity. Unfortunately this combination is week against both physical and fire immun monsters … .

This time I focused on the dual wield elemental charge options around Phoenix and the alternatives and synergies, with either the dragon claw finisher or the dragon flight.

Playing through the hell content in solo worked pretty well with COT and Phoenix, but phoenix felt still clunky although the freeze effect is cool … .

14

good call, never considered that. The damage potential just seems so juicy

I’m hoping to get a video guide up soon about it, good use of mind blast, QCS, and hotkey assignment, and charge release skill choice can help a lot with this. It’s taken like 3 years of refining this spec for it finally really feel smooth and come together. I’m excited to experience these new changes, being able to use all the different elements at 1.79 aps is gonna fun.

Edit: finally got a chance to play the PTR. I really like the new changes for phoenix strike. I did a players 7 solo chaos run in ~6 minutes, but with that said. I will admit, it almost feels more clunky when trying to release lightning storm, but at least over stacking still results in a release lightning storm eventually. I’m going to have to mess around with dragon claw now, as much as it was 6 frames, guaranteed hit chance sounds really nice.

15

I’m hearing Dragon Talon will release all three charges with one kick once you get the kicks to 3. Dragon Claw is releasing 2 charges. Anyone confirm this?

Work can’t end soon enough…I want to play!

16

Dragon claw was definitely releasing two charges at a time. I confirmed that, not sure if intended? If I’m not mistaken it’s a mistake?

17

I can’t imagine it being a good thing, if your trying to control the release of a specific charge and DC drops two or DT drops them all…well I can see good and bad on each side.

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What is the point of releasing two charges at once in Dragon Claw? These have a “next delay (0.16 seconds)”.

1 Like
19

So you might be happy with the change, I just tried a bunch of finishers in the test environment. After trying with the each finisher i liked Dragon Talon the best because it triggered all 3 levels at once, for everything. I had Phoenix, BoT, BoI, and FoF on and all 3 levels trigged with the DT. i only had 1 point (with + skills got 3 kicks), so looks like each kick will trigger a level. Hopefully this was intended and they keep it because it will really make it viable.

20

With some testing in ACT1 hell, I have to admit I like the behavior. It was surprising, but seems somehow logical :slight_smile: .

For the tests below I was using 2 claws in the first round.

Dragon Talon :
This triggers up to 3 effects, depending on the skill level of talon and the corresponding number of kicks (level 12 = 3kicks).
The combination of dragon talon and phoenix sounds promising, especially as this can be combined with crushing blow (e.g. with guli head, shoes) and enriches the kicksin playstlye. Definitly something to look into it.

Dragon Claw :
This triggers 2 effects, which seems to be logical as I had 2 claws in my hands, each hitting. I love the combination of ice and lightning, which is very close to what I have asked for in my post above.

Dragon Flight:
This triggers 1 effect, which is one kick.

Each trigger consumes one charge. I switched to COT(Lightning) and it bahaved in a similar manner. This is different on the live server.

From the combinations above dragon claw is my favorite choice for phoenix, which feels stronger and much more flexible than COT now.

However the good old kickse with Dragon Talon with Azure and Stormshield in combination with Phoenix is my preferred and personal choice, as there is absolut nothing she cant kill in a solo game. With 3 elements coming with phoenix she has decent AOE with crazy single target damage.

21

What do you guys think of having charge up skills passively give you 1 charge every 3 or 6 seconds? I find that in group play because MA assassin’s dmg is back loaded, mobs are often dead before I get to release my charges and I end up loosing my unused charges travelling to the next mob. It makes group play awkward. Passively gaining some charges can help front load some of that damage at the beginning of the fight and because it’s on a longer timer it will still be more efficient to charge up normally if your in a prolonged fight. So it won’t really change the style of gameplay much but just makes it smoother and lessens the demand on APM. It would Let MA sins compete with skills like lightning fury.

22

I don’t really agree personally. I have a tiger strike/dragon tail/death sentry assassin and it’s super fun. It’s not an amazing build, but I have a blast playing it and I do reasonably well in hell difficulty.

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It’s still fun. physical and fire immunes are a challenge, but that’s kinda the point of hell difficulty imho. With the changes to traps, you can spec into lightening fury to get 3 elements on your assassin if that’s the concern.

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Check also this post for my MA Assassin feedback: