Questions regarding Elemental Assassin Build

Assassin
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I have some questions in regards to the Elemental Assassin build that uses maxed out Phoenix Strike as it’s main skill, with it’s synergies maxed out as well (I am following the WoWhead guide for it atm).

The questions I have are that I want to use either the Shadow Warrior or the Shadow Master as well in endgame, like in Hell difficulty. I mostly play by myself on Battle.net but I do go sometimes in parties to level up since more xp is gained if there is more people in a party/group.

I understand the pros and cons of Shadow Warrior and Shadow Master so I will be going with the Shadow Master mainly since it has +resists to all that doesn’t get the penalty from the different difficulties as well as upgrade of gear as there are more points into it. I know that there is a random assortment of skills that the Shadow Master uses compared to the Shadow Warrior only using the skills I have on my left mouse button and right mouse button. I still would like a functioning “minion” in Hell difficulty if I am playing by myself.

The problem I have is that I am not sure what skills to max out. I saw this post on a different forum from a few years back that a person who played a similar build to this:

(https:// forums.d2jsp. org/topic.php?t=76968885&f=87&o=10 … without spaces of course since I can’t post links yet and it’s post #13)

20 Fists of Fire
20 Claws of Thunder
20 Phoenix Strike
20 Shadow Master
1 in Cloak of Shadows / BoS / Fade / Claw Mastery / Weapon Block / Dragon Claw

He basically only maxed out 2 of the 3 synergies for Phoenix Strike and then put 20 points into Shadow Master. What I want to know is whether I will have issues with hitting mobs later on. Do I put only 1 point into Claw Mastery or should I put more points into it? And what order I should max out skills as I am leveling? My assassin is level 45 now I think and I have Phoenix Strike almost maxed out but have 1 point in all the rest of the skills. If anyone else have played this build or a similar build like this before, I would love any advice you guys can give.

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Wow, that’s a lot of info I didn’t know at all. I feel like I should change my build to something else but at the same time I like things that are challenging and not too cookie-cutter. I was reading and I think you edited it afterwards heh. So I am now reading it again.

I didn’t know about the claw mastery attack rating bonus not affecting PS or actually PS not needing attack rating, only the normal attack would require AR.
I think charge 3 for PS is sometimes useful especially where mobs get resurrected by another mob so shattering their corpses would not allow them to get resurrected.
I love that dragon flight is like the assassin’s mini teleport that it makes the merc teleport to you when you use it. Usually I would have to use town portal to get the merc to be near me lol.
I have a Treachery runeword armor that I am cycling through all of my chars at the moment. My amazon is a fendazon so I gave to her for more FHR and IAS as well as the fade proc (which rarely procs I feel since I use decoy a lot, and my valk is always near me, along with my act 2 merc so I don’t get hit a lot). You think that Treachery would be a good starting out armor until I get better later on?
Blade Shield helps in life leeching? That’s crazy lol. So it’s like thorns aura but not really like it in terms of that it can’t life leech like BS can.
I guess I have to drop the whole idea of having a minion that looks like me around me lol. I was hoping to somehow make them be viable later on but I guess they are not unfortunately.
I am going to read that site you linked 'cause the one I use is the Arreat Summit one and I don’t think it is that helpful to me.
Thank you very much for the detailed reply though :smiley:.

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heh, yeah, i have been editing it a lot. I think it should be good to read now.

This is personally my favourite spec in the game. It is a tonnnn of fun and with Infinity it’s actually really good, but not required. I’ve been refining it for almost a year straight and this has been the best setup I’ve come up with for it. It’s a lot of fun to play melee and deal aoe, and using the tele kick to control your merc, and not rely on engima, is a lot of fun.

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Oh yeah definitely heh. I don’t know when I will get Infinitiy though lol. I play mostly solo and rarely trade but I might get lucky down the road and somehow get those runes to make it :smiley:.

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It is a lot haha, but don’t be deterred. It’s a lot to read, but barely anything to manage when actually playing the char. I wouldn’t stray from this spec if you’re enjoying it so far, try my tweaks and recommendations and I bet you’ll enjoy the spec a lot

Maybe I worded this weirdly, I’m just trying to say its useful for the bonus attack rating. The bonus damage, and crit chance it provides isn’t important because we aren’t concerned with our physical damage. It definitely provides extra attack rating for both Phoenix Strike and Normal Attack

treachery definitely works fine, but I personally find the fade proc to be really annoying. Also the chest pieces is our biggest source of all resist. I would recommend using either:
Smoke = Nef+Lum
Naj Chest Piece
Vipermagi

any of those would be best. Treachery is powerful, but yea, it lacks the resistances we need because we can’t utilize it’s fade like other classes can. We need BoS more, and both Fade and BoS can’t be up. Treachery’s fade is amazing for other classes, or if you don’t plan on using it for your sin, but in this case, we don’t want it. I personally use it on my Zon as well, for all the reasons you listed.

Check out the character planner link I provided at the top of my response. I provided builds for all stages of development: Entry Gear, Decent Gear, Good Gear, Perfect Gear, etc

Blade Shield does physical damage, so it works with life/mana leech. It’ll attack once per second, and deals physical damage to everyone stand on top of you. Through that damage, it returns life, so if it hits a lot of monsters at once (because you screwed up and are tightly surrounded) you’ll get a good chunk of life back, hopefully keeping you alive to get out of there.

Not necessarily, IMO they aren’t worth the time cause I play in games with higher player counts. If playing solo they can definitely help out, the Warrior can also deal solid damage, roughly 66% of what you hit for. I just find it super tedious to setup all her synergies, by having her use each skill once, only to have her die. If you just want the meat shield shield, the Master can definitely help with that.

Play how you like, I was just sharing my opinion on the skills :slight_smile:

I’m done updating my post entirely. I also provided a section for which skills to max first.

Have fun dude!

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I apologize for my remarks, I was really upset about this. Thank you very much fixing my post.

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Omg that’s so stupid… Why they delete it??? It was so informative and helpful too. I usually quote when I respond but if my reply is to the poster right above my reply then it doesn’t quote it. Damn it. I do remember most of it I think… or at least more than half. I had the your d2planner link up in another tab as well as the amazonbasin site.

I read your recent reply and you mentioned the Smoke runeword… I actually just made a Smoke runeword chest armor for my fendazon like a few hours ago 'cause I knew that I needed the resists to survive in Hell difficulty (I was having difficulty in Act 1 Hell even though I am lvl 74 now but I am using Stoneraven spear so that is helping out big time along with the Smoke armor once I test out both of them together).
The whole hassle of setting up the Shadow Warrior seems too much for me so I definitely agree with you on that.
How do I check out the stages of development that you mentioned in the character planner? I can’t seem to see the options there or I might be looking at it wrong. Also, I am guessing the section where you mention which skills to max first was in the original reply that got deleted… :angry: Really stupid of them to do that… Maybe you can ask them to restore it but I am not sure if it can be restored on their end.

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At the bottom left you’ll see:
7 - D2R Non-Ladder Gear (7) + ^
Click on the up arrow and it will bring up a list of different gear.

Copy my d2planner skills setup, but:

1 Point into all prerequisites and you’ll want to actively use these 1 point skillers:
Dragon Flight, Claw Mastery, BoS, Weapon Block, Mind Blast, Venom, Blade Shield

Max out in this order: Phoenix Strike, Claws of Thunder, Fist of Fire, Blades of Ice
If you’d like you can max out CoT and FoF at the sametime, by cycling points back and forth. This will help maintain both elements of dmg while you level up, but dumping into CoT first is fine as well.

Dump surplus skills into either Venom, Claw Mastery, or Blade Shield

Level 88 and all skill quests completed is needed to obtain and max out all required skills

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Awesome. Thank you so much :smiley:.

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Gonna double post an apology here. I was heated and upset, thank you to the admin who reinstated my post.

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Ohh awesome. Thanks to the admin as well for restoring your post :smiley:. And I just read it all now and should be able to handle the spec much easily now, thanks to the info.

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i have a question regarding burst of speed, when adding some points in it, it doesn’t seem to add the supposed attack speed rating, when my character sheet is opened and i look at advanced stats, i can’t see the attack speed rating at all

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Daaaamn, thats almost pretty much the build i was looking for a new assassin, thanks! If its not too much to ask i made a topic about a WW assassin, if you could give an opinion on it i would much appreciate

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Attach speed increased by break points, not gradually with ever little bit added. To get faster you need to hit a level, 1 point lower than that level will not increase the speed. There are some IAS breakpoint calculators out there if you want to search for them. Maxroll has it in there too.

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its not what i am asking, when you open the character sheet and look at my advanced stats, i can see, for example +20% attack speed from one item i got on my baby sin, but when i activate burst of speed, wich at the moment is supposed to be adding 39% attack speed, i don’t see it being added up with the first 20% so i am wondering if the bonus attack speed still apply even if i can’t see it

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well, i did some testing, so yeah, i attack faster with burst of speed on but can’t see it on advanced stats so it confused me a bit