*********************************************************************** Diablo II: Lord of Destruction (D2X) Assassin Guide v1.1 by iLuvMomo (Lee Kian Chong) dated: 2/08/2K1 based on: Diablo II: LOD patch v1.08 email: helsmley@yahoo.com *********************************************************************** This FAQ is written using Wordpad with Courier New (Western) Size 10 font. 1234567890 .......... If the dots are align you are set. ************ Legal Stuff ************ Diablo II, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, Assassin and all other characters mentioned in this FAQ is the property and creation of Blizzard Entertainment. This is an unlicensed FAQ which is written and to be distributed free of charge in is unaltered state, even with typo, grammatical errors as well as the occasional incorrect fact. This FAQ belongs to the author, Lee Kian Chong. If you wish to distribute this FAQ or have this published on your webpage, please get written permission (through e-mail or otherwise). Please give credit where credit is due. ******** Contents ******** What's New Here? Why Assassin? Benefits of playing Assassin Double Claw vs Claw and Shield? What kind of Assassin? Hotkey Mania Charge Up? Finishing? Plan Ahead Skill Overview General FAQ Build Tree My Assassin Rig Dream Rig On Multiplayer Websites of Interest Download This! Credits Conclusion *************** What's new here? *************** FAQ v1.1 I think this update is long overdue. When I released v1.0, it was really a rush job. At that time, there were 2 other Assassin FAQs already out (though I began work on this since day 1 I got D2X) Fearing that there would be a flood of Assassin FAQs, and CJayC would not want to publish this, I quickly finished an FAQ which had more errors and a missing information than the moon has holes that I had to immediately begin work on correcting it. The update would have came out much MUCH earlier had I not spent 10 hours a day playing D2X addictively (both online and testing out skills) I also received loads of emails of critism and praise (even more than all the emails I received for my TTT FAQs) and as such am working hard to improve this FAQ and make it one of the best Assassin FAQs around. Here is a laundry list of the changes made in the new revision of the FAQ. - added the 'Plan Ahead' section - added Skill stats from Calvin Schneider's FAQ - added 'My Assassin Rig' Section - added 'Dream Rig' Section - added 'General FAQ' section - added a 'Content' Section - added a 'On Multiplayer' Section - added a 'Websites of interest' Section - added a 'Download This!' Section - added Build tree for Claw and Shield Assassin - added Build tree for Heavy Weapon Assassin - added some info submitted in by Nicholas Vu - added the all important 'Credits' section - renamed 'My Assassin' section to 'Build Tree' - updated discussion on dual claw vs claw and shield - updated 'What kind of Assassin?' section - updated info on skills discussion e.g. WOI, Psychic Blast - updated 'My Assassin' section after completing Hell mode - corrected a few typos here and there. v1.1 of the Guide is written based on Diablo II: Lord Of Destruction patch v1.08 and is tested both on single player and multiplayer mode (battle.net as well as TCP/IP game) ************* Why Assassin? ************* Why not? I must admit that the main reason why I chose to play as an Assassin was because she was a new character in the expansion. I wasn't bothered about continuing my level 60+ sorceress seeing as how so many spells in the 1.08 patch got nerfed badly. Besides I found that playing as my ice sorceress was extremely boring... what else do you actually do but run around and cast blizzard after blizzard after... well you get my point. I had no idea whatsoever about the Assassin's game play but thought "what the heck?" So I gave her a try and found her to be quite interesting to play with. First off, she changes the boring gameplay of Barbarian, Paladins and Jabazons (amazons who use the Jab attack) of continuos clicking to a more satisfying combo attack. The Assassin gets charge up skills and finishing moves to be used which deals quite some damage and will put some of the toughest bosses down in a few hits. **************************** Benefits of playing Assassin **************************** - Two handed fighting style (on Barbarian is the other character out of a total of 7 characters who also can use two handed fighting style) - Lockpicking, being a thief class, the Assassin benefits from not needing to carry keys around. She can open all locked chests. - Balanced for Single player mode. She has it all, physical attacks and magical attacks (traps) to deal with all kinds of creatures especially those pesky creatures in Hell mode with Physical Immune (PI) - Interesting and refreshing gameplay... no more just click click click click. Helps keep your interest so that you can achieve Lvl99. - Very quick with claws, and even quicker with burst of speed and a certain claw.... - Temporary physical immunity with Fade, which helps a lot in Nightmare and Hell mode, especially if you aren't fortunate enough to get your hands on resistant items. - Tiger Strike + Claw Mastery + Venom means thousands of points damage which easily helps overcome the pesky 50% Physical Immunity in Hell mode. - mana and life leech move available so she can look for one less criteria in her weapons. Mana leech is very versatile since you can sacrifice a lot of points of energy for your assasin and still end up with an endless supply of mana when you want to cast traps. - fun to play and very versatile (able to adapt to all situations quickly) - she is the jack of all trades, master of some (lol!) The Assassin has a few traits from the other classes, notably spells like meteor and chain lightning (sorceress), dual wield, claw mastery (barbarian), corspe explosion death sentry (necromancer) and Shadow Warrior/ Mas- ter (Amazon) ************ Starting Off ************ Your Assassin starts off one claw, one buckler, a few minor potions and a base stat of: Str - 20 Dex - 20 Vit - 20 Ene - 25 Hit Points - 50 Stamina - 95 Mana - 25 On character level up she gains these bonuses: Life +2 Stamina +1 Mana +1.5 For every skill point she invests she also gains these bonuses: 1 Vitality Point gives +3 Life 1 Vitality Point gives +1.5 Stamina 1 Energy Point gives +1.5 Mana ******************************** Double Claw vs Claw and Shield? ******************************** This is usually a hot debate for Assasins. I will give a pro-con debate from the Double Claw perspective. Pros: - this is assasin with dual wielding ala barbarian - claws are assasin only weapons, and can have +1-3 to special skills, as well as +1-2 to Assasin skills at higher Clvl. This helps a lot if you have 2 claws instead of 1. - some double claw only skills e.g. Dragon Claw, Weapon Block - Using a lot of skills will give you more bang for your buck if your mana if you use double claw (e.g. Venom) - Highest damage possible Cons: - Using 2 claws means you will be lowering your defense. While this is exceptable in Normal mode, the damage you will be taking will add up to quite a lot in Nightmare/Hell mode. *pro rebutal* But with since the claws are very fast attack, most of the time you will be hitting your opponent before he hits you. Moreover, with those exceptional/ elite set and unique items especially armor, your defense alone can get quite high without double claws? *con response* And what if you are facing a boss whom is very hard to hit? And it would be higher with a shield! *pro rebutal* Its stupid to say that dual wield Assassin is lousy. Its the same like saying Dual wield Barbarian sucks. *con response* Barbarian has frenzy, whirlwind... uber skills which even in v1.08 after nerfing is still very powerful. Assassin's Dragon Claw can't even be considered an uber skill. - Do you really need the Weapon Block skill? Shields give you a good blocking percentage and can get as high as 75% (though that shield is very very hard to find) With a shield you need to even spend points on getting your weapon block skill to a respectable level. Thats 5 big points at least (more if you are in Nightmare or Hell mode) which could have been used for other skills like WOI. - Why use dragon claw when you have other skills you can put points into? Surely dragon claw can be offset by other higher level skills. *pro rebutal* Take a look at the other FINISHING move skills. There are 4 of them. Dragon Kick has a very low + to damage. Dragon Tail is a whopping 10 mana and the additional damage is fire damage. At Nightmare/Hell mode, creatures more than likely have fire resistance. If you are going to rely on this move alone then you are going to be very sorry. Dragon flight while useful is 15 mana per use AND has a short lag time after each teleport. *con response* Dragon kick at lvl 20 has higher + to damage than Dragon Claw at lvl 20. With so many skill points savedby not putting into Weapon block, you can easily pump this skill to a decent level. Moreover, this is a kick attack so your weapon durability will last longer. If your enemy is resistant to fire attacks, then just use poison claw. *pro rebutal* Weapon durability doesn't really matter much since you can always repair the weapon. Besides, the Dragon Claw is the most damaging finishing move possible (since it is both stat and equipment dependent) among all at the lowest mana cost. *con response* Being equipment dependent, needless to say that to do a lot of damage, you need equipment with high damage, which needless to say are hard to obtain. Even elite items do a base damage of up to 40+. You need to get lucky and hope that during your imbue/ crafting of item a good damage mod appears. Also the only weapon doing 100+ damage is Natalya's Mark which is a Set of an elite item, thus making it next to impossible to find. - using a shield enables you to up your resistance. In Normal and even Nightmare mode, resistance doesn't seem to be a problem, but that certainly changes in Hell mode *pro rebutal* There are loads of charms which offer resistance. Also lets not forget Amulets, rings, boots, armor, gauntlets. Certainly leaving out ONE field is acceptable. Completing Natalya's Odium Set gives you an additional +50% bonus above the inherent bonuses of the items themselves. *con response* But technically shields offer you the most possible resistance. A triple perfect diamond shield gives you almost +60 to resistance. That leaves one less criteria to search for in your other equipment. *pro rebutal* Wrong. The constriction ring offers +100 resistance. *con response* ... at the price of -10 Life drain....and only at lvl95 Nicholas Vu had some things to comment on with Claw & Shield Strategy: " Just wanted to give my opinion on the "claw and shield" Assassin. I think that she is *very* good. Basically, if you are going to play this type of Assassin, you will definately need to rely upon high levels of Tiger Claw and her kick Finishing Moves a lot - especially Dragon Tail. The problem with claws is their low min-max damage range:- they do not fully take advantage of Tiger Claw. To maximize Tiger Claw's bonuses, you A) need to use a heavy weapon (like a Maul or something) or B) use the Assassin's kick Finishing Moves. My Assasin is lvl 25 with roughly 80-90 in STR and DEX (after item bonuses). Using a slvl15 Tiger Claw and a slvl1 Dragon Tail, my Assassin can easily do 400-500 damage! That's enough to drop most uniques in 1 hit (except the Extra Strong type). " In conclusion, I'd suggest trying both styles out and figuring which style you prefer. Best yet, have both styles equiped since there is of course the 2 weapon set system in Diablo II. Personally though, I prefer the double claw style over the claw and shield combo. It is common belief that Claw and Shield is a necessity when playing Nightmare or Hell mode. Well all I can say is, my Assassin is living well and Healthy in Nightmare mode using double Claws. She may find some areas tougher than others, but with proper use of her skills, I could breeze through most of Nightmare without dying much. ********************* What Kind of Assasin? ********************* Basically there are a few variants for the Assassin Class. There is the Dual Claw Assassin, Claw and Shield Assassin and *gasp* Powerful Heavy Weapon Assassin. For the first play through, I played as a Dual Claw assassin. I must admit she is the weakest of all the variants. The second time I created a Claw and Shield Assassin, she was pretty strong and quick but did not do as much damage as that of the Heavey Weapon Assassin. So basically here are the general play idea of the various Assassins. Dual Claw Assassin ------------------ She will be somewhat like a dual wield barbarian except that she doesn't have such skills like Frenzy and Whirlwind (which makes the barb such a beast) She will spend a lot of points on Claw Mastery and Weapon Block generally, while maxing out Tiger Strike. Therefore she does not have much skills to spend on other skills. IMO the best way to tackle PI monsters in Hell for this Assassin class is to go Death sentry and Venom. She can potentially do a lot of damage if she gets a good claw with 100+ damage and Deadly strike (by means of socketing a rune or otherwise) though those claws are hard to find. IMO this type of Assassin is too equipment dependent and probably the weakest. This is a good challenge for experienced players though. Claw and Shield Assassin ------------------------ This is the most popular kind of Assassin. Sacrificing the use of a second claw, she gains the automatic benefits of weapon blocking (which supersedes that of weapon block when maxed) resistance bonuses at the cost of a little more attack. As such she will save a lot of skill points that would otherwise have to be put in Weapon Block and Fade. The down side is that she will have to use a kick finishing move, and for that to do great damage, a lot of points on Dex and Str has to be spent to do insane damage. Players who do not know how to balance between pumping the two stats and adding points into vitality will soon find out in Hell mode their wrongs when they get killed in a single hit by the Moon Lords. To tackle monsters in Hell mode with PI, the Claw and Shield Assassin has a wide choice with the abundance of skill points available. She could go Venom, Phoenix Strike or my favourite, Wall of Inferno, all of which are very strong, with Death Sentry as a backup. Moreover, she can max out her other skills (Tiger, Claw Mastery, Shadow Master) before the Dual Claw Assassin Can. Heavy Weapon Assassin --------------------- (thanks to Kyle Summers, Nicholas Vu for giving me this idea) One major beef about the Assassin is she doesn't do much damage with her weapons. Even the elite claw does a maximum of 47 damage (if im not mistaken) which even with slvl20 Claw mastery isn't a lot. Therefore, a dual Claw assassin though quick isn't really effective damage wise AFTER slvl20 Tiger and slvl20 Claw Mastery is added in. A 100+ damage Claw with both Tiger and Claw maxed would do somewhere around 2880 damage. So why not make full use of her Tiger Strike charge up and use a heavy weapon (e.g. Maul, Lance, Axe)??? The idea is to pump up Burst of Speed and Tiger strike as quickly as humanly possible and forgoing all other skills early on. Burst of speed will help negate the slow attack speed of heavy weapons while Tiger strike at slvl20 will just magnify how powerful she is. So technically if you get a weapon which does 500 physical damage, she will be able to do 7200 damage on a charged up slvl20 Tiger before other bonuses are added in! To tackle monsters in Hell with PI, she can use WoI, Death Sentry or Phoenix strike (no Venom though). Since she does not need points in so many skills, she can max out any two of these skills really quickly and make Hell PI a cakewalk. Also, since she does not need to toggle between finishing moves, this makes her less of a hotkey workout. ************ Hotkey Mania ************ Playing an Assasin requires more skill, strategy and finess than playing a mindless character like a whirldwind barbarian. With so many useful charge up skills and finishing moves as well as those skills which temporarily boost your character, you will have a nightmare if you do not assign hotkeys. Even the preset hotkeys (F1-F12) is pretty hard to use since they are located quite "far" away from your Alt, Ctrl and no. Keys. What I did was reassign most of my keyboard hotkeys. Basically I relied on 3 charge up Attack, 3 finishing moves and 4 shadow skills. Therefore I mapped the keys as follow Q - Charge Up Attack 1 W - Charge Up Attack 2 E - Charge Up Attack 3 R - Normal Attack A - Shadow Skill 1 S - Shadow Skill 2 D - Shadow Skill 3 F - Trap Z - Finishing Move 1 X - Finishing Move 2 C - Shadow Skill 4 F1 - Shadow Skill 5 Basically the charge up attacks were assigned to my left mouse button (since I would be clicking that the most) and the other skills were assigned to the right moust button. So by level 30 after obtaining all possible skills it was something like: - Q - Cobra Strike W - Phoenix Strike E - Tiger Strike R - Normal Attack A - Fade S - Burst of Speed D - Venom F - Death Sentry Z - Double Claw X - Dragon Flight C - Cloak of Shadows F1 - Shadow Master So what about the other hotkeys? Well most of them weren't very important (when compared to your combat hotkeys), So I just reassigned them to the F5-F8 keys. As you can see I put Shadow Master as F1. Why? Because I wasn't going to cast a her very often. It'd be pointless of me to put the Shadow Master on say Z key and having to reach further away to change to Double Claw. In essence, at higher levels, you won't have that much time to change with monsters pounding relentlessly on you. Of course this is my preference, and you can (and should) come up with a set of hotkeys which suits your style. Whatever it is though, hotkeys ARE a necessity to playing an Assasin to her fullest potential, unless of course you prefer to use the same skill over and over again (and get killed in the process) ********************* Charge Up? Finishing? ********************* As said before, playing an assasin is quite complex with those charge up and finishing moves. Let me break down all the details to you in a Q & A format. Most of the information was taken from www.diabloii.net Q: Whats Charge Up And Finishing move? A: Basically a Charge Up move is when you store charges when a move succesfully connects. When you hit your opponent with a charge up move you will see a glowing orb surrounding your character. A finishing move on the other hand will cause all the charges surrounding your character to be used up. You will see a flash according to the colour of the glowing orb if you succesfully use a charge with a finishing move. Q: How many charges can I store? A: You can store a maximum of 3 for each charge-up skill. You can stack the charges with other charge-up skills however for a potential of 18 total charges. For example, you hit your opponent 3 times with Tiger Strike and obtain 3 white orbs. You then switch to Cobra Strike and hit your enemy 3 more times. You should see 3 white orbs as well as 3 green orbs circiling your character. Q: How long does each charge last? A: It last for 8 seconds (give or take) if your character does not attack an enemy. However if you continue hitting an enemy with a charge-up skill (of the same or different kind) the orbs will last indefinitely until you stop for 8 seconds or use a finishing move. Remember however that even if you can hit your opponent more than 3 times using the same charge up skills, you can only store a maximum of 3 orbs. Q: Can I use Chargeup Skills if I don't use claws? A: Definitely. However you won't be able to use the full selection. There are two charge up skills which require claws that is Blades of Ice and Claws of Thunder. Q: Can I use finishing move if I don't use double claws? A: Yes. In fact you can use a finishing move even if you don't use claws. However, you are limited to only 3 finishing moves. You can't use Dragon claw if you choose not to use double claw. Q: Tiger strike gives +Attack % bonus. Does that mean I gain the attack bonus for the finishing move? A: Yes, well at least it is in v1.08 which I am currently writing on. So technically you could stack all your attack bonuses for your charge up skills and watch your attack rating go up. Q: Dragon claw states it is a double claw attack where you hit your opponent seperately with two claws. How does the damage modifier apply? A: The modifier only applies to the FIRST hit. You only do normal damage for the 2nd hit, unless of course the first hit missed. The same applies for Dragon Kick since you get up to 3 kicks, only the first kick applies. Therefore it is wise to have the most powerful weapon assigned to your first attack if you plan to use Dragon Claw. Q: How much damage does a kick do? A: Look at your boots... LOL. Actually, the damage each kick does is dependent on your Character's Str and Dex Rating. Minimum Damage: (Str/4)+(Dex/4) Maximum Damage: (Str/3)+(Dex/3) For example, BladeDagger has a Str and Dex Score of 60. She will do a minimum of 30 points of damage and a maximum of 40 before damage modifiers are added in. If you are planning to go the sword & claw route, it would be wise for you to pump up on your character's Str and Dex. Q: Which is the best Charge-up and Finishing move? A: There is no "best" move in the game. Each move complements each other. However for the record, my favourite charge-up move is cobra strike and fave finishing is Double Claw. Even if they are my favourite attacks, however, I still use ther other charge ups and finishers all the time to complement these moves. ********** Plan Ahead ********** There is nothing worse than playing Diablo II and have your character reach Level 30 only to realise that you have put points in the wrong skills and thus render your Assassin completely useless even before she reaches Nightmare mode. Putting 20 points into a skill like Psychic hammer and none into something like say Death sentry will only cause your Assassin to be undeveloped and unplayable. But that does not stop there. Some people create characters with skills which are sufficient to overcome normal mode. But once they enter Nightmare/Hell mode they have a lot of problems. Here are some things you need to remember. In Nightmare mode, each enemy gains more HP, attack rating, defense and power. In general they are much tougher, hit harder and can be harder to hit. Their Skill goes up by +3. Resistance of each monster increases. Also Monsters in Nightmare start to gain regeneration. Uniques in Nightmare gain 1 extra special ability other than their fixed special ability. In hell mode, and in Diablo II: LOD, all monsters will gain a 50% physical immunity bonus. Almost all monsters will be immune to one type of elemental damage. Not to mention they are much tougher etc. Also remember that your resistance drops in each mode. Pick skills with Nightmare and Hell mode in mind ------------------------------------------------ With that in mind, it is vital that a player creates his Assassin with these facts in mind. For example, with a good player will consider the 50% physical immunity of the monsters in Hell mode, and thus will invest at least a few points (if not more) in Venom. This can be overcome (at least in v1.08) by stocking up charms which add poison damage. Equipment affects your skill point distribution ----------------------------------------------- It could be stupid if you put 20 points into venom if you have loads of charms and weapons which add poison damage. (say a military pick with 6 perfect emeralds socketed to it) Save a few points! Put that into other skills. In an extreme case, say if you want to go claw and shield route, it would be ABSOLUTELY stupid of you if you are going to put 20 points into Dragon claw, a skill which require the use of double claw. If you are unsure of putting skill points into a certain skill, it would be wise of you to obtain a claw which has +1-3 points in a certain skill. Of course, in some cases, such claws are rare, so be on a look out for them. Not sure whether Phoenix Strike is your cup of tea? Get a Claw with +2 in Phoenix strike and see for yourself. Be diverse... don't concentrate on one skill only ------------------------------------------------- When v1.08 was released, and elemental immunity was introdued, a lot of sorceress players complained that the sorceress had been nerfed badly. Was it such a case? IMO, no! Sorceress is still one of the most badass class around. In fact it is the other classes which relied a lot on physical attacks (barbarians, amazons) who suffered more because of the 50% physical immunity. So why such comments? Many sorceress focused solely on one skill (ice being very common) Sure they were very powerful in pre v1.08, but they found that their sorceress had been totally shafted with the introduction of elemental immunity. The lesson here is do NOT concentrate on any one skill solely. For example, Tiger strike is very good (+1440% damage on C3 at Slvl20) but putting 20 points into that early on and none into Venom will cause you loads of headaches if you face a Unique with Physical Immunity if you don't have any poison damage items. That does not mean you should specialize in a skill. Skills like Tiger strike, Claw Mastery and Shadow Master is worth pumping 20 points into. Do not waste skill points!!!! ----------------------------- This is the worse thing a Diablo II player can do. Lets say you just reached level 5 and have one point in all Level 1 skills. What do you do with the new skill? Put that into Psychic hammer? I always tell my friends, if you have skill points and don't know where to put them to, save it! Put the skill into a higher level skill. If your Assassin is cruising in the game and you are able to save 5 skill points, its OKAY! There are better skills which require a higher level (e.g. Weapon Block, Venom, Death Sentry), so don't waste your skill points on low level skills which will prolly become useless later on. Note though that Tiger Strike is by far the best level 1 skill because it is used a lot. Put skill points as necessary. Put no. of points according to your stats ----------------------------------------- Sounds stupid... but some skills increase in mana casting cost with additional skill points. If your Assassin has a low mana rating, find the comfortable skill level which gives your mana its bang of its buck without your mana depleting itself too quickly and leaving you unable to use other skills. Be certain what path you want to play.. and do so ------------------------------------------------- I have this friend (my housemate) of mine, who played as a paladin. He did not understand the skill system in Diablo II initially. As such, he put 1 point into every one of the 30 skills available. Needless to say, his paladin was very weak even at Level 52 in Nightmare mode. When you start a new game, the first thing you do is bring up the Skill tree and have a good look at it. Look at all the skills, have a general idea of what they do, and then have a rough idea of what kind of game you want to play. Do you want to play a corspe explosion type of Assasin? If so, you might not want to invest too heavily on Blades of Ice, a skill which freezes your enemy and probably shatter them. That would leave you with no corpse to trap your enemy with. Or, maybe you want to focus purely on melee and group damage with Dragon Tail. In such a case, items with loads of ice damage would help a lot. Do not follow your friends! Be creative! ---------------------------------------- I remember, when Diablo II was released, there were loads of necromancer FAQ writers who COMPLETELY dissed Poison Dagger and Poison Explosion. The same could be said about Blessed Hammer for Paladin of which some even called it the worst skill available. Yet, with a lil experimentation, people soon discovered how effective a Poison Dagger Necromancer was and how powerful Blessed Hammer+ Concentration combo (nerfed in v1.08) was. I might tell you here in this FAQ that Psychic Hammer is a worthless skill, but if you think otherwise, don't be afraid to try and prove me wrong! Experiment, experiment, experiment. I can tell you how good Death Sentry is, but you might not be good at playing around with traps but are much better with melee attacks. Don't let my suggestions control you. My FAQ should used mainly as a guideline from which you improve on. *************** Skills Overview *************** I have a policy when writing an FAQ not to grade skills. The reason is because even if I find a skill totally useless, it is because I don't know how to use it correctly. Point in case, Paladin's Blessed Hammer. I once thought that skill was sucky and I was right to have that opinion... until of course someone came up with the idea of Hammerdins where Blessed Hammer + Concentration made Paladins a force to be reckon with (unfortunately for Hammerdins, the combo got shafted).Moreover, it is very hard to grade skills, considering that there are so many variants of the Assassin. Dragon Claw is a good example. It may be very good for a dual claw Assassin by useless for a claw Shield Assassin. Anyways I will try my best to give my opinion of a certain skill and should you disagree, well thats fine because its just that... my opinion! Martial Arts ------------ Tiger Strike Type: Charge Up Skill Required Level: 1 Mana: 1 Level Attack +% C1 Damage +% C2 Damage +% C3 Damage +% 1 40 100 200 300 2 50 120 240 360 3 60 140 280 420 4 70 160 320 480 5 80 180 360 540 6 90 200 400 600 7 100 220 440 660 8 110 240 480 720 9 120 260 520 780 10 130 280 560 840 11 140 300 600 900 12 150 320 640 960 13 160 340 680 1020 14 170 360 720 1080 15 180 380 760 1140 16 190 400 800 1200 17 200 420 840 1260 18 210 440 880 1320 19 220 460 920 1380 20 230 480 960 1440 Comments: This IMO, is one of the Assassins' best skill... especially since it is a Level 1 skill! For the cost of ONE measly Mana, you can charge up your weapon up to 3 times. At level 1, 3 charges will nett you +300% damage... very useful when you are fighting bosses early on. Later when you reach Nightmare and Hell mode, you will want this up to Level 20 ASAP. Why? Just look at the damage mods man! At level 20, it gives you +1440% extra damage. AND not to mention all this comes with a complementary + AR. +1440% extra damage is INSANE! Currently my Level 50 Assasin does an average of 100 points damage per hit. Now charge up tiger strike and you will be doing something like 1500 points for your finishing move, and thats without adding in all those elemental damage bonuses. This is a must for assasins in taking down enemies with loads of HP so that you can use corspe explosion cheese tactics. Please note that the Tiger strike bonus applies only to BASE damage. Therefore if you stack your character up with charms which add elemental damage or use a skill (e.g. Venom) the damage will be added onto to your total base damage after modification. This can be confusing to a beginner at first. The drawback? The name of this skill is gay! Tiger strike? What is this a zoo? Surely a name like Assassination would have been so cool... Fist of Fire Type: Charge Up Skill Required Level: 1 Mana: 2 Level Attack +% Fire Damage (on all charges) 1 50 6-10 2 60 11-15 3 70 16-20 4 80 21-25 5 90 26-30 6 100 31-35 7 110 36-40 8 120 41-45 9 130 51-55 10 140 61-65 11 150 71-75 12 160 81-85 13 170 91-95 14 180 101-105 15 190 111-115 16 200 121-125 17 210 141-145 18 220 161-165 19 230 181-185 20 240 200-205 Comments: Put one point into this skill, and save the rest for later. This skill is okay.... for early goings (level 1 to 6) More hits increase the fire explosion radius, but thats besides the point. To get the damage up to even a respectable level you need to pump something like 10 points or so... and thats only useful in normal mode. By Nightmare mode this skill is totally eclipsed. Not to mention the fact that other skills would then be so much more stronger. By the way, I never used this skill at all. I just put it as a prerequisite to other skills. Cobra Strike Type: Charge Up Skill Prerequisite: Tiger Strike Required Level: 12 Mana: 2 Level Attack +% C1 Life Steal % C2 Life/Mana % C3 Life/Mana +% 1 60 40 40 80 2 75 45 45 90 3 90 50 50 100 4 105 55 55 110 5 120 60 60 120 6 135 65 65 130 7 150 70 70 140 8 165 75 75 150 9 180 80 80 160 10 195 85 85 170 11 210 90 90 180 12 225 95 95 190 13 240 100 100 200 14 255 105 105 210 15 270 110 110 220 16 285 115 115 230 17 300 120 120 240 18 315 125 125 250 19 330 130 130 260 20 345 135 135 270 Comments: This is an excellent skill for the assasin. This is the main reason why you can skimp on Energy points for the Assasin's game. FYI, my Assasin had only 40 points allocated for Energy, and thats very little considering she is a Level 50 Assasin. I use this mainly to leech back huge amounts of mana after casting 5 death sentry's which is quite a mana drain needless to say. Also its very useful against bosses who are hard hitting since a fully charged up skill will help leech back all the life you lost. Remember that the life leeched increases instantly like using a Rejuvenation potion, and not over time like using a Health Potion. This is something bear in mind, as you might want to use a health potion, but your enemy hits you before your health can reach a safe level. I put only ONE point (which is all you need really) and it still has stayed useful right now in Nightmare mode. Please remember that some creatures like Skeletons (other Undead too) cannot be leeched for health or Mana. Oh... and you get some +AR% too! Claws of Thunder Type: Charge Up skill Prerequisite: Fist of Fire, Claw Weapon Required Level: 18 Mana: 4 Level Attack +% C1 Lightning Dam C2 Nova Dam. C3 Charged bolt Dam. 1 80 1-80 1-20 1-40 2 95 11-90 1-35 1-60 3 110 21-100 1-50 1-80 4 125 31-110 1-65 1-100 5 140 41-120 1-80 1-120 6 155 51-130 1-95 1-140 7 170 61-140 1-110 1-160 8 185 71-150 1-125 1-180 9 200 91-170 1-150 1-220 10 215 111-190 1-175 1-260 11 230 131-210 1-200 1-300 12 245 151-230 1-225 1-240 13 260 171-250 1-250 1-380 14 270 191-270 1-275 1-420 15 290 211-290 1-300 1-460 16 305 231-310 1-325 1-500 17 320 261-340 1-360 1-460 18 335 291-370 1-395 1-620 19 350 321-400 1-430 1-680 20 365 351-430 1-465 1-740 Comments: I put only one point in this skill. The damage done is respectable, but if you charge up this move more than once, then the lightning damage done will be 1-x (x is maximum damage) Big gamble here. It would be quite useful if not for a better skill later on.... Blades of Ice Type: Charge Up Skill Prerequisite: Fist of Fire, Claws of Thunder, Claw Weapon Required Level: 24 Mana: 3 Level Attack +% C1 Cold Dam. C3 Freeze Duration (sec) 1 80 15-35 4 2 95 23-43 4.4 3 110 31-51 4.8 4 125 39-59 5.2 5 140 47-67 5.6 6 155 55-75 6 7 170 63-83 6.4 8 185 71-91 6.8 9 200 81-101 7.2 10 215 91-111 7.6 11 230 101-121 8 12 245 111-131 8.4 13 260 121-141 8.8 14 270 131-151 9.2 15 290 141-161 9.6 16 305 151-171 10 17 320 171-191 10.4 18 335 191-211 10.8 19 350 211-231 11.2 20 365 231-251 11.6 Comments: This skill is very useful indeed. You obviously want to charge this skill up 3 times for the freezing effect (your opponents can't move, and you get a free hit) Increasing the skill points allocated for this would not only increase your +AR% and Cold damage, but also the freeze Radius. Very important! If you think that Ice is the way for your style (and more importantly if you do NOT want to go the Death Sentry Route), then pump this skill up since to charge cost one less mana point, but if you want a more versatile move then wait somemore.... Phoenix Strike Type: Charge Up Skill Prerequisite: Fist of Fire, Claws of Thunder, Blades of Ice, Tiger strike, Cobra Strike Required Level: 30 Mana: 4 Level Attack +% C1 Meter Dam. C2 Chain Light. Dam. C3 Ice Bolt Dam. 1 70 20-40 1-40 16-32 2 85 30-50 1-51 20-36 3 100 40-60 1-62 24-40 4 115 50-70 1-73 28-44 5 130 60-80 1-84 32-48 6 145 70-90 1-95 36-52 7 160 80-100 1-106 40-56 8 172 90-110 1-117 44-60 9 190 110-130 1-134 52-68 10 205 130-150 1-151 60-76 11 220 150-170 1-168 68-84 12 235 170-190 1-185 76-92 13 250 190-210 1-202 84-100 14 265 210-230 1-219 92-108 15 280 230-250 1-236 100-116 16 295 250-270 1-253 108-124 17 310 280-300 1-278 120-136 18 325 310-330 1-303 132-148 19 340 340-360 1-328 144-160 20 355 370-390 1-353 156-172 Comment: This is the Assasin's most versatile charge up Skill. For the price of ONE skill point, you can dish out fire, lightning or ice damage. This is great but has some drawbacks in some cases. First, the meteor (first charge) is pretty useless unless fighting huge swarms of enemies in a tight corridor. If you played a sorceress I'm sure you'd know by now that the meteor takes forever and a day to land, by which time your opponent would have ran or teleported away. Second, the damage done by the Chain Lightning could have been better.. 1-x damage is horrible as always you could easily do 1 damage.. which is a LOT, and even at skill level 20, you will only be doing 300+ damage which is an average of around 150. Not very good compared to Claws of Thunder. Lastly the Chaos Bolts cast may or may not hit a target even if they are in close. This can be vital at times when fighting swarms of enemy (especially in Nightmare mode) where that freeze could easily mean life or death. That compared to Blades of Ice which freezes EVERYTHING in the freeze radius. (well not bosses or uniques though) The beauty of this skill though is when you go to Hell mode. With creatures having 50% PI and Elemental Resistance this skill will help tremendously since you have all 3 elementals to play around with. Meteor in particular does 370-390 damage at Slvl 20 which is awesome and of significant amount even in Hell mode. If you only stick with one elemental skill (ie Blades of Ice and Venom) you could be left high and dry in some areas especially if your tactics are based on Death Sentry/ Corspe Explosion. Moreover, some creatures may be resistant to two types of elements and thus, having all elements covered, will leave you prepared for any challenge ahead. However, this skill is a very welcome addition for the Assasin's already congested skill lists and proves very versatile in a lot of situations since you don't need to change from one skill to another. The main thing though when you are going to use this skill is to either to max it out or NOT put any skill points in it. Dragon Talon Type: Finishing Move Required Level; 1 Mana: 6 Level Kicks Kick Damage +% Attack +% 1 1 0 40 2 1 7 52 3 1 14 64 4 1 21 75 5 1 28 88 6 2 35 100 7 2 42 112 8 2 49 124 9 2 56 136 10 2 63 148 11 2 70 160 12 3 77 172 13 3 84 184 14 3 91 196 15 3 98 208 16 3 105 220 17 3 112 232 18 3 119 244 19 3 126 256 20 3 133 268 Comments: One point is all you need. This costs too much mana, and does too little damage early on to be of use. Of course, if you actually bother to pump it up to at least Skill Level 12, then you get 3 kicks, and a good damage modifier... but with that kind of skill points, I'd rather invest it in Claw Mastery or Weapon Block. Dragon Claw Type: Finishing Move Prerequisite: Dragon Talon Required level: 6 Mana: 2 Level Damage +% Attack +% 1 50 50 2 55 60 3 60 70 4 65 80 5 70 90 6 72 100 7 80 110 8 85 120 9 90 130 10 95 140 11 100 150 12 105 160 13 110 170 14 115 180 15 120 190 16 125 200 17 130 210 18 135 220 19 140 230 20 145 240 Comments: If you are going dual claw, than this IMO is the best finishing move. With a low mana cost, and doing decent damage, this is my favourite move. If you find a good weapon with high damage, then this is the ONLY finishing move which would be of good use. Why? Kick damage depends too much on Str and Dex. So lets say my Level 50 Assasin has Str and Dex of 115 he would be doing a MAXIMUM of 78 damage. If I get a good weapon with Str bonus I could easily do an AVERAGE of 100 base damage. Thats a big difference... if you add Tiger Strike Bonus into it. The down side of it though is that it requires double claw, and thus you will have to invest a lot of points into Weapon block and might not be able to get this skill up to scratch later on. Just to note however, my Level 60 Assasin is Surviving pretty well in Nightmare with only 2 skill points allocated to this move (but there is of course skill bonuses from my equipment) Dragon Tail Type: Finishing Move Prerequisite: Dragon Talon, Dragon Claw Required level: 18 Mana: 10 Level Fire Damage +% Attack +% 1 50 40 2 60 47 3 70 54 4 80 61 5 90 68 6 100 75 7 110 82 8 120 89 9 130 96 10 140 103 11 150 110 12 160 117 13 170 124 14 180 131 15 190 138 16 200 145 17 210 152 18 220 159 19 230 166 20 240 173 Comments: Choke! Gasp! 10 mana! Thats a lot. Fortunately Dragon tail is a area hitting move, which means it damages all enemies around. If you do not go dual claw then this is THE move you should use. If you choose dual claw then you might still want to keep one point in this kill if only for the knockback properties, which is a lifesaver against swarms of enemies. Adding points into this increases the damage done (fire damage however) and +AR%. The drawbacks are of course in Hell mode should your enemies have fire immunity (which unfortunately are a lot) then this move will be very weak since you will only be doing BASE physical damage. Nicholas Vu has more to add: "There is a really interesting bug in v1.08 where the Tiger Claw bonuses also apply to the area-of-effect fire blast of Dragon Tail. That means that in a fight, I can run straight for the Unique with 3 charge levels of Tiger Claw, nail him with Dragon Tail and kill all of his minions in the process in just one kick! Needless to say, this skill is probably going to get nerfed real bad in the next patch..." ???Did You Realise??? That if you have a high enough Burst of Speed/ Attack Rate boost score and press Dragon Tail fast enough, the Assassin looks like she is doing Chun-Li's (of Street Fighter II fame) Infinite Kick. Dragon Flight Type: Finsihing move Prerequisite: Dragon Talon, Dragon Claw, Dragon Tail Required Level: 24 Mana: 15 Level Attack +% Kick Damage +% 1 100 100 2 120 125 3 140 150 4 160 175 5 180 200 6 200 225 7 220 250 8 240 275 9 260 300 10 280 325 11 300 350 12 320 375 13 340 400 14 360 425 15 380 450 16 400 475 17 420 500 18 440 525 19 460 550 20 480 575 Comments: I seldom regard this as a proper finishing move on its own but rather as a tool, and a very useful one indeed. The benefits of this move is too great not to be used even if it is costs a hefty 15 mana. This move as the description read is a teleport and finishes off with a kick. It might not be apparent to you but when you reach Act 5 with those teleporting imps, this will be your best friend since you can catch up with them teleporting around. Also, it is great say in the Arcane Santuary (Act 2, Quest 5) with those pesky Ghoul Lords always hiding behind the Goat men (as I call them) casting 10001 firewalls. Very useful for breaching their defence (while your shadow/shadow master) holds them up especially in Nightmare mode. Also in the Flayer Jungle, where you meet those Shamans, the Teleport Kick can be used to kill them even before he has the chance to blow fire (and cut your life down by half) There also some good examples how this move can be used to your positional advantage. In Act IV when facing Diablo for example, if you should teleport back to town (maybe to get some potions, or get a breather) Diablo may cast Bone Prison around your Town Portal. While normally it would be easy to knock the Bone prison down, Imagine if Diablo is waiting at hand with his nasty Lightning attack! With Dragon Flight you can just teleport attack Diablo or the Bone Wall, and in both cases, you will be free from your entrapment. The teleport feature also adds a lot of mobility as you can save a lot of time, moving across platforms, which can be vital if you just touched an Experience shrine. Be WARNED though, that sometimes, you may teleport to a part of a map which may otherwise be inaccesible, and if no other creatures are at hand, you might be stuck there. This happened to me a few times especially in Act 5. I would suggest casting a Town portal, entering and exiting. If this doesn't free you, then unfortunately you have no other choice but to save and exit. However, as a proper finishing move though, I give it a thumbs down, because while it is useful and has good +AR% and +damage bonus even at level 1, the 2 sec casting lag can be a killer. As I understand, Blizzard created the 2 sec casting lag to reduce the bandwidth load. Imagine 8 Assasins teleporting around at will on the same map! What if you are down on health, but have 3 globes of Cobra strike just waiting to leech back some health? Health potions are too slow, and just at that time you don't have full rejuvanation potions at hand. Even if you have an exceptional AR score, Dragon Flight may MISS and as such you could be killed because of that (if you are hardcore, then too bad for you) The maximum to hit an enemy is of cours 95% and lets not forget that some enemies have the Evade skill of the Amazon (the Night Slinger in Act 2 being a good example) Unfortunately, the lag of 2 seconds is too great to make Dragon Flight your permanent Assassin Finishing move. That is why Hotkey-ing is so important, and more still, the investment in at least 2 types of finishing moves. Someone mailed in some useful information about Dragon flight: (I lost your email so if you would e mail me, I will give you credit for this) Dragon flight is very useful especially when fighting Baal, and as I have tested, this works really well even in Hell mode. You can run off screen (so Baal can't see you) and attack those tentacles (festering something) of his to build up your charges, then teleport in to hit him hard. This works very well since you can avoid some of Baal's more potent attacks like his Ice Arrow and Flame attack. Additionally, Dragon flight can be used to attack him when he attempts his Ice Arrow attack, evading the arrow in the process. Baal will usually try this attack after teleporting away. Shadow Disciplines ------------------ Claw Mastery Type: Passive Skill Required level: 1 Level Attack +% Damage +% 1 30 35 2 40 39 3 50 43 4 60 47 5 70 51 6 80 55 7 90 59 8 100 63 9 110 67 10 120 71 11 130 75 12 140 79 13 150 93 14 160 97 15 170 91 16 180 95 17 190 99 18 200 103 19 210 107 20 220 111 Comments: I really... really... like this skill... You can tell because by level 40 I already had like 16 points in this skill. Since I was playing through the game my first time as an Assasin (without prior knowledge of ANYTHING bout Assasin) I decided that my safest bet was to invest points in passive skills when I was in doubt (ala Barbarian). In truth, you prolly won't need that many points in this skill... at first. But when you reach Nightmare and Hell difficulty, and considering that Assasin's Claws does puny damage (well compared to elite weapons of say the Barbarian) the damage modifier is a must. Remember, this damage modifier and AR modifier is added to every hit... not your charge up hit only or your finishing move. EVERYTHING that hits with a claw. (sorry Kicks... no damage mods though) This is the main reason WHY I went double claw... to benefit fully from this skill. By hell mode, have this skill at level 20. If you don't plan on investing any points on this, then choose Necromancer instead. Psychic Hammer Type: Offensive skill Required level: 1 Mana: Increases as Skill Points Increases Level Mana Damage 1 4 2-5 2 4.2 3-6 3 4.5 4-7 4 4.7 5-8 5 5. 6-9 6 5.2 7-10 7 5.5 8-11 8 5.7 9-12 9 6 10-13 10 6.2 12-15 11 6.5 13-16 12 6.7 15-18 13 7 16-19 14 7.2 18-21 15 7.5 19-22 16 7.7 21-24 17 8 23-26 18 8.2 25-28 19 8.5 27-30 20 8.7 29-32 Comments: Urh? What is this move? Well... its useful because you can put one point into it and then get other skills later. Come on.... at Level 20 you will be doing something so pathetic like.... 29-32 damage... for 8.7 mana! Geez! Even a trap does more damage! Burst of Speed Type: Boost-up Skill Required Level: 1 Mana: 10 Level Attack Speed +% Walk/Run Speed +% Duration (sec) 1 21 23 120 2 27 29 132 3 31 34 144 4 34 39 156 5 37 42 168 6 41 45 180 7 42 47 192 8 44 49 204 9 44 51 216 10 45 52 228 11 46 54 240 12 47 55 252 13 49 56 264 14 50 57 276 15 51 57 288 16 51 59 300 17 51 59 312 18 52 60 324 19 52 60 336 20 52 61 348 Comments: This skill is extremely useful... have at least 2-3 points in this and for the best skill point investment put around 7-8. You thought the Assassin's Claws hit very fast already eh? Well think again! This boosts her skills tremendously and should be recharged the second it runs off. The additional run/walk speed boost is just icing on the cake and helps offset the run/walk speed which has been nerfed in Diablo II v1.08. Cloak of Shadows Type: Enemy affecting Skill Required Level: 12 Prerequisite Skills: Psychic Hammer Mana: 13 Range: 20 yards Duration: 8 secs Level Enemy Defense -% 1 21 2 27 3 31 4 34 5 37 6 39 7 41 8 42 9 44 10 45 11 46 12 47 13 48 14 49 15 50 16 51 17 51 18 51 19 52 20 52 Comments: This is one of the most overlooked skill and is darn effective even if you put ONE skill point into it. Forget the -def% for your enemy... even though that is the benefit if you increase the number of skill points for this, the BEST thing about this skill is that it blinds ALL your enemies within the 20 yard range (except for Uniques, Champions and Bosses of course). Why is this useful? You only got to go into the flayer jungle where all those pigmy boys start pelting you with their blowpipes before you know why this skill is one of the best. Being blinded, your enemy won't be able to see you at all. That means pigmy boys won't be able to see you, pelt you with bullets and run away. No... you can simply run up to him at your leisure and beat the hell out of him before he even knew what had happened. It works very well especially with a huge group of enemies.... but by the time you actually need this skill badly, you will already have Death sentry and all you actually need to do is take out the fattest enemy or two around. With Tiger Strike and a full 8 secs, I'm sure your enemies won't be able to stand for long... Weapon Block Type: Passive Skill Required level: 12 Prerequisite Skill: Claw Mastery Level Chance to Block +% 1 26 2 32 3 36 4 39 5 42 6 44 7 46 8 47 9 49 10 50 11 51 12 52 13 53 14 54 15 55 16 56 17 56 18 56 19 57 20 57 Comments: Basically if you play double claw assasin and don't put any points into this skill you should consider quitting diablo 2 for good. I love playing a double claw assasin (more attacks, better finishing move) and as such the Weapon Block is a bread and butter skill. I spent LOADS of points early on in normal mode on this skill to get it up to Slvl 10 (50% blocking) of course the higher is better. Defense rating only helps in soaking up damage, but with weapon block you totally AVOID being hit at all. Thats a whole load useful. With an average of 50% blocking, thats every other hit you avoid. Currently in Nightmare I have it a SLvl 15 which offers 55% blocking. Put as many points as possible.... by Hell mode this skill has to reach SLvl20 before factoring any other items with skill bonuses. Fade Type: Boost-up Skill Required level: 18 Prerequisite Skill: Claw Mastery, Burst of Speed Level Curse Length -% Resist All +% Duration (Sec) 1 47 19 120 2 53 27 132 3 58 33 144 4 62 38 156 5 65 42 168 6 67 45 180 7 69 47 192 8 71 50 204 9 73 52 216 10 74 54 228 11 75 56 240 12 76 57 252 13 77 58 264 14 78 60 276 15 79 60 288 16 80 62 300 17 80 62 312 18 81 63 324 19 81 63 336 20 82 64 348 Comments: This skill does two things, give you temporary resists all and reduces your curse length. The duration of this skill increases with the addition of skill points as well as the resist all and reduction of curse length bonuses. This skill does help a bit if you are not lucky enough to get the proper resist element like say an Amulet with 25% to resist all to offset the resist penalties in Nightmare and Hell mode (especially since the Horadric Cube recipe to create said amulet is currently disabled) Still, the curse length time reduction isn't all that useful, and the loss of speed (when you are not using Burst of Speed) really hurts a lot. Put one point in this skill only as that should be sufficient. Shadow Warrior Type: Summon Ally Required level: 18 Prerequisite Skill: Claw Master, Weapon Block, Psychic Hammer Mana: Increases with addition of skill points Level Mana Life Attack Rating +% 1 27 124 0 2 29 138 15 3 31 153 30 4 33 168 45 5 35 183 60 6 37 198 75 7 39 213 90 8 41 228 105 9 43 243 120 10 45 257 135 11 47 272 150 12 49 287 165 13 51 302 180 14 53 317 195 15 55 332 210 16 57 347 225 17 59 362 240 18 61 376 255 19 63 391 270 20 65 406 285 Comments: I put one point in it and never used it. Use Shadow master instead as it is more useful later on. Mind Blast Type: Enemy affecting Skill Required level: 24 Prerequisite Skill: Pyschic Hammer, Cloak of Shadows, Mana: 15 Duration: 6-10 secs Level Damage Chance to Convert % 1 10-20 18 2 12-22 21 3 14-24 24 4 16-26 26 5 18-28 27 6 20-30 28 7 22-32 29 8 24-34 30 9 29-39 31 10 34-44 32 11 39-49 32 12 44-54 33 13 59-59 33 14 54-64 34 15 59-69 34 16 64-74 35 17 72-82 35 18 80-90 35 19 88-98 35 20 96-106 36 Comments: This skill does a bit of damage to your enemy (increases with SLvl) and also has a small chance of converting them. I don't see why this skill would be useful. Firstly, most of the enemies you can covert can easily be killed without much hassles. Second, the duration lasts too short to be of much use. I'd say save your skill point for your Shadow Master, since she will be able to use this skill (without you even having any points in this skill) but even then it can be more of a hindrance than of a help. Nicholas Vu has more: On another note, I am not sure if you know this, but Psychic Blast (lvl 24 skill) also stuns enemies briefly (it says 8-10 seconds, but I am sure that it's more like 4-5 seconds) and it is an area-of-effect spell. Also to add more. I have experimented with this skill a bit and realised that any mindcontrolled creatures after returning to hostile are in a weakened state and can be easily killed by one hit, no matter if their life bar is full or not. Take this into consideration if you are having difficulty fighting some monsters. This skill is great if you are going Heavy Weapon route as you will most likely not spend any points on Dragon Tail. As such this skill will help you a lot when taking out groups of monsters who are very quick like the flayers. Venom Type: Boost-Up Skill Required Level: 30 Prerequisite Skill: Claw Mastery, Burst of Speed, Fade Mana: 12 Level Poison Damage (2 Sec) Weapon Poisoned (Sec) 1 37-75 120 2 50-90 124 3 62-103 128 4 75-115 132 5 87-128 136 6 100-140 140 7 112-153 144 8 125-165 148 9 143-184 152 10 162-203 156 11 181-221 160 12 200-240 164 13 218-259 168 14 237-278 172 15 256-296 176 16 275-315 180 17 300-340 184 18 325-365 188 19 350-390 192 20 375-415 196 Comments: Put skill points in this skill as needed. I'd say at least 6 points in this skill by the time you reach Hell because of those pesky Physical Immune enemies. Note that in v1.08 all poison damage (from Charms, poison weapons and this skill) is STACKABLE which means you could do possibly over 1000 points of damage if you have the right equiptment. It would also be advisable to have a Elite Claw type weapon socketed with Perfect Emeralds to help boost up your poison damage. This skill, like Fade, is non stackable with other Boost Up skills, so use this skill only when needed, otherwise stick with Boost of Speed. IMPORTANT NOTE: In patch v1.09 which is soon to be released, it is said that one of the changes going to be made is to make poison damage from charms, weapons and skills (Venom in the Assassin's Case) non stacakable. In other words, poison damage will be nerfed since it is considered too powerful in v1.08 (1000++ points?!?) In any case, I will update you on this once the final and official word from blizzard is out. Shadow Master Type: Summon Ally Required Level: 30 Prerequisite Skill: Claw Mastery, Weapon Block, Psychic Hammer, Cloak of Shadows, Shadow Warrior Mana: 40 Level Life Attack Rating +% 1 188 0 2 216 12 3 244 30 4 272 45 5 300 60 6 329 75 7 357 90 8 385 105 9 413 120 10 441 135 11 470 150 12 498 165 13 526 180 14 554 195 15 582 210 16 611 225 17 639 240 18 667 255 19 695 270 20 723 285 Comments: If you need an ally this is where you should put your skill points into. Not only does it have a FIXED mana cost (unlike Shadow Warrior which reahces an abominable cost at higher levels) but your ally has more HP (per Slvl) compared to a Shadow Warrior of the same SLvl. The summon resists and attack rating bonuses are just all icing on the cake, but what makes the Shadow Master real strong is the fact that she has ALL Assasin Skills available, even those that you do not have any skill points in Yet. How can this be useful? Well it simply means you won't need to spend points on certain skills which you don't need (or don't need yet) For example, I never needed to use much traps during Normal mode (which was my first 40 levels) and did not put a point into any of the Trap skills till reached Level 35 so the trap setting of my shadow master came as a welcome (albeit not necessary) boost for my Assasin. Whats more, you can keep casting the Shadow master as long as you have mana, compared to hiring a Mercenary which quickly gets expensive at high levels to ressurrect. Great Cannon Fodder Late On since she can have thousand over points of HP! Another thing worth noting is that if you are going dual claw, then your shadow Master will look almost exactly like you. Great if there is a PK'er around. Traps ----- Traps IMO, aren't worthwhile for the first 30 levels or so and in fact you don't even need to put ANY points in any trap skills whatsoever and STILL get to defeat Normal mode completely. However, the high level traps in particular make everything oh so worthwhile and is DEFINITELY a worthy addition to the Assasin's arsenal in Nightmare mode onwards. IMPORTANT NOTE: Be warned that you can only set up to a maximum of 5 traps at one time. After that if you cast a 6th trap the 1st will disappear. Blizzard has reasons for this - to reduce the information on server and thus reduce lag. Fire Blast Required level: 1 Mana: Increases with SLvl Level Mana Fire Damage 1 3 3-4 2 3.1 5-6 3 3.2 7-8 4 3.3 9-10 5 3.5 11-12 6 3.6 13-14 7 3.7 15-16 8 3.8 17-18 9 4 21-22 10 4.1 25-26 11 4.2 29-30 12 4.3. 33-34 13 4.5 37-38 14 4.6 41-42 15 4.7 45-46 16 4.8 49-50 17 5 54-55 18 5.1 59-60 19 5.2 64-65 20 5.3 69-70 Comments: Useful for the first act or so but save your skill points for other traps. I never went the Fire route. Shock Web Prerequisite Skill: Fire Blast Required level: 6 Mana: 6 Level Spikes Lightning Damage 1 6 5-6 2 6 6-7 3 6 7-8 4 6 8-9 5 7 9-10 6 7 10-11 7 7 11-12 8 7 12-13 9 8 14-15 10 8 17-18 11 8 19-20 12 8 22-23 13 9 24-25 14 9 27-28 15 9 29-30 16 9 32-33 17 10 35-36 18 10 39-40 19 10 42-43 20 10 46-47 Comments: Like Fire Blast, almost obsolete by 2nd Act. Put one point just as a prerequisite for more powerful traps and save the rest up. Blade Sentinel Required level: 6 Mana: 7 Level Damage 1 6-10 2 9-13 3 12-16 4 15-19 5 18-22 6 21-25 7 24-28 8 27-31 9 31-35 10 35-39 11 39-43 12 43-47 13 47-51 14 51-55 15 55-59 16 59-63 17 64-68 18 69-73 19 75-78 20 79-83 Comments: This does decent damage, and would prove useful early on, but even at SLvl 20 79-83 damage is too little to prove useful especially in Hell mode. One point is all you need if you need the later skills. Charged Bolt Sentry Required level: 12 Prerequisite: Fire Blast, Shock Web No. of shots: 5 Mana: 13 Level Damage 1 1-7 2 2-8 3 4-10 4 5-11 5 7-13 6 8-14 7 10-16 8 11-17 9 13-19 10 15-21 11 17-23 12 19-25 13 21-27 14 23-29 15 25-31 16 27-33 17 30-36 18 33-39 19 36-42 20 39-45 Comments: This does decent damage, and is good early on, but really the damage even when maxed out is PATHETIC. I mean at Slvl 20 this does something like 39-45 damage per shot... which isn't much..... not to mention not ALL the shots will hit. You won't need more than one skill point in this... Wake of Fire Required Level: 12 Prerequisite: Fire Blast No. of shots: 5 Mana: 20 Level Fire Damage 1 5-10 2 7-12 3 9-14 4 11-16 5 13-18 6 15-20 7 17-22 8 19-24 9 22-27 10 25-30 11 28-33 12 31-36 13 34-39 14 37-42 15 40-45 16 43-48 17 47-52 18 51-56 19 55-60 20 59-64 Comments: Basically this trap sprays fire in a triangle/arrow head shape ala Baal's Ice Arrow if anyone knows. The damage isn't too high, but what can be expected from a level 12 skill? Again, if you want to go for Wake of Inferno, then just put one point here. No point spending more points in this. Blade Fury Required level: 18 Prerequisite: Fire Blast, Blade sentinel, Wake of fire Min. Mana: 3 Level Mana/Blade Damage/Blade 1 1 8-10 2 1 11-13 3 2 14-16 4 2 17-19 5 3 20-22 6 3 23-25 7 3 26-28 8 4 29-31 9 4 34-36 10 5 39-41 11 5 44-46 12 5 49-51 13 6 54-56 14 6 59-61 15 7 64-66 16 7 69-76 17 7 77-79 18 8 86-87 19 8 93-95 20 8 101-103 Comment: Ninja's are Japanese Assassins... and as such they learned how to throw shurikens. IMO, this is an OK skill again in Normal mode, but in the long run it just proves too mana intensive at higher levels doing too little damage to be effective. Whats worst, the damage dealt is PHYSICAL not magical (bug?) which makes this skill even more worthless in Hell mode. If you need long range attacks, get a bow, get some arrows and just shoot. Lightning Sentry Required level: 24 Prerequisite: Fire Blast, Shock Web, Charged Bolt Sentry Mana: 20 No. of Bolts: 10 Level Lightning Damage 1 10-20 2 15-25 3 20-35 4 25-35 5 30-40 6 35-45 7 40-50 8 45-55 9 52-62 10 59-69 11 66-76 12 73-83 13 80-90 14 87-97 15 94-104 16 101-111 17 111-121 18 121-131 19 131-141 20 141-151 Comments: Again like other traps this can be useful early on but is totally obsolete by the time it reaches Nightmare mode due to its low damage and the increase vitality of your enemy. Save skill points the Uber skill. Wake of Inferno Required level: 24 Prerequisite: Fire Blast, Wake of Fire Mana: 20 No. of Blasts: 10 Level Fire dam/sec 1 8-21 2 16-29 3 24-37 4 32-45 5 40-53 6 48-61 7 56-69 8 63-77 9 73-86 10 83-96 11 92-105 12 102-115 13 112-125 14 121-134 15 131-144 16 140-154 17 153-166 18 166-178 19 177-190 20 189-203 Comments: While at Level 20 this does 189-203 damage PER BLAST which VERY good... you can't afford 20 skill points on this skill alone if you are going the dual claw path. 20 mana is a lot... not to mention the range is poor. You NEED those precious points for Weapon block, and sadly 10 points to WOI just won't cut it. However if you do max out WOI, 203 damage per blast is insane.... and if you stack 5 traps together that would be around 1000+ damage max you are doing each time it hits. Don't think many creatures will be able to survive that kind of onslaught especially if all 10 blasts hit. If you plan to max WOI, make sure to max out Shadow Master since she will make a very good cannon fodder and bait for for the trap to connect. Death Sentry Required level: 30 Prerequisite: Fire Blast, Shock Web, Charged Bolt Sentry, Lightning sentry Mana: 20 No. of Bolts: 5 Level Lightning Damage Corpse Explosion Radius yds. 1 20-30 3.3 2 24-34 3.6 3 28-38 4 4 32-42 4.3 5 36-46 4.6 6 40-50 5 7 44-54 5.3 8 48-58 5.6 9 53-63 6 10 58-68 6.3 11 63-73 6.6 12 68-78 7 13 73-83 7.3 14 78-88 7.6 15 83-93 8 16 88-97 8.3 17 96-106 8.6 18 104-114 9 19 112-122 9.3 20 120-130 9.6 Comments: Question! What makes the Necromancer the badass overpowered creep that he was in v1.0 Diablo II? Corspe explosion of course! And now.... the Assassin gets to enjoy some of the benefits of the Assasin, with some added bonuses to it. Death Sentry IMO, is the best trap skill and in fact one of THE BEST skill for the Assassin. Corspe Explosion here alone does 40-80% of the corspe life. And for the cost of 20 measely mana you also get the additional benefit of shooting lightning bolts should NO corpse be available. So what makes it so good? Corpse explosion of course! But wait.. for the necromancer, he can only make ONE corpse explode at a time, but if you have a fast cast rate and quick fingers (and enough mana) you can set up to a maximum of 5 traps, and cost 5 corpses to explode at one time. 5 corpses!!! That is MORE than enough to kill all the enemies of the same type. Having trouble with those pesky maggots in Hell mode spawning those baby maggots before their eggs can even cool? No problemo... kill a few maggots.. set 2-3 traps and watch the chain reaction... baby maggots kill more baby maggots... more baby maggots kill big fat mother maggot. So how many points do you put in this? 20? Not if you were me, I invested in this skill putting just 2 point in it (though admittedly I have the additional bonuses from my equipment which give +3) Thats good enough.. increasing it further increases the lightning damage and range, but the radius should be good enough with 5-6 points invested to see huge chain reactions, and the lightning damage is almost worthless in Hell mode. Blade of Shields Required Level: 30 Prerequisites: Fire Blast, blade Sentinel, Wake of Fire, Blade Fury Mana: 27 and increases with Slvl Level Mana Duration (sec) Damage 1 27 20 1-30 2 29 24 6-35 3 31 28 11-40 4 33 32 16-45 5 35 36 21-50 6 37 40 26-55 7 39 44 31-60 8 41 48 36-65 9 43 52 42-71 10 45 56 48-77 11 47 60 54-83 12 49 64 60-89 13 51 68 66-95 14 53 72 72-101 15 55 76 78-107 16 57 80 84-113 17 59 84 91-120 18 61 88 98-127 19 63 92 105-134 20 65 96 112-141 Comments: It works somewhat like Iron maiden or thorns only that your enemy does NOT need to hit you with this skill to deal any damage. Frankly though even though seems useful, I never put any skill points into it. Any comments and suggestions would be welcome. ******************************* General FAQ (contains Spoilers) ******************************* If you have any questions, email them to me and I will post them in the General FAQ section. On Items -------- Q: I have been gambling for hours... and yet I haven't got one unique or Set item. A: Too bad.. in v1.08 they disabled getting Uniques and Set Items when you gamble. Fortunately though, they are planning to enable this feature once more in v1.09 due to popular demand. (more like fan complaint to me) Q: How does +% to Find Magical Item help me obtain Set and Unique items? A: At least in v1.08, Find Magical Item directly affects your score to obtain a Set or Unique Item. So if you have 200% then, your chances to obtain a Set or Unique Item is 200%. Unfortunately Blizzard decided to nerf this skill to use only a small percentage of your Find Magical Item score. On Monster Fights ----------------- Q: Whats Physical Immunity? A: Basically monsters are immune to any physical attacks, for example Tiger Strike for your assassin which uses a physical weapon. In D2X, all monsters gain 50% PI in Hell mode. Also some Uniques get PI as their random mod. Certain species of monsters have total PI in Hell mode (e.g. Wraiths). Q: So how does an assassin damage a Physical Immune creature? A: Use elemental damage... phoenix strike, Venom, Blades of Ice, Fist of Fire, all traps etc are considered elemental attacks. Also you could go for magical damage (corpse explosion for example) Q: What monsters can I NOT leech from? A: Mainly Undead, for example the Skeleton Archers in Act 2. Q: I'm having trouble fighting Frozen Scrouges. They freeze me and then their Moon Lord Friends move in for the kill. A: Frozen Scrouges freezing breath can be a big headache, but if you are well prepared with an item with "Cannot be Frozen" they and their friends are cake. Such items are like Death's Guard (Set Sash) or the Unique Basinet, among others. On Boss Fights -------------- Q: What strategy do you use to fight Andariel? A: Cobra Strike x3- Tiger Strikex3 and then finish with a suitable finishing move (in my case Tiger Strike) Drink potions as needed. Q: I'm having problems defeating the Summoner. A: The summoner can get pretty difficult once you reach Nightmare or Hell mode when you do not have a good resistance score (especially to Cold) I suggest you draw his minions (Ghoul Lords, Hell Clan) out one by one until he is left defenseless.... after that teleport in with Dragon Flight and kill him... he doesn't have much HP. Q: How do you defeat worm boy (Duriel?) A: Same tactics.... Cobra Strike x3- Tiger Strike x3 and have a good resistance to cold and a fast attack rate. Since the freeze effect is due to Aura enchancement, items with "Cannot be Frozen" will not work. Q: What do you do against Mephisto? A: Mephisto is prolly one of the easiest bosses (next to Baal) if you have the right equipment (namely elemental charms) A decent score in Lightning Resist (best is 75%) and Poison (not that important but you don't want it in the -ve's) should do it. Just run up to him and work your way with Cobra Strike x3- Tiger Strike x3 and finishing move. Occasionally Mephisto will try to strike you with his physical attack which does loads of damage, but if you are in close, he will more likely try his Poison Nova attack. Besides, if you have a good Weapon Block Skill (50% or over) he will more than miss quite often. Q: Hephastus is almost impossible to beat in Nightmare/Hell mode! A: NO he isn't. A lot of people have problems beating him because they do not have a high Vitality score and/or a good defense score. Moreover, more than likely, one of the skills Hephastus has is Amplify damage which mean he could probably kill you in ONE hit. So What do you do? Well... use negative tactics! Summon a Shadow master. Have the shadow master engage in combat. When hephastus starts attacking her, run in and hit him 1-3 times with Cobra strike. Be ware because after hitting him a few times, he will turn and attack you instead. Run away and let him reengage with your shadow master. She should be pretty hurt by now (life bar is yellow or probably red) Hit him with Tiger strike 1-3 times and use a finishing move! Repeat your tactics by summoning another Shadow Master. It is vital therefore to hit Cobra strike first because you need to leech enough mana at least to summon the next Shadow Master. Q: I'm really having problems with Diablo... I have died like.. 10 times trying to kill him. A: Yup a lot of Assassins in particular have problems trying to beat Diablo. IMO he is one of the hardest boss as far as the Assassin goes. First you will definitely NEED to have full resistance to Fire and Lightning since those attacks of his will drain a lot of your life away. Second, you should be of a suitably high level before trying to tackle him. I would suggest Level 35 for Normal mode and Level 60 for Nightmare. I'm sure you could beat him even with a lower level, but that would be challenging, and you could risk dying a few times (bad if you are Hardcore) I would suggest loading up on health potions. Go for Tiger Strike x3 finishing move instead of Cobrax3, Tigerx3 because Diablo has a good evade score and will prove very hard (and fustrating) to hit. If you don't want to run around building up levels, the other option for you is to party with other characters (e.g. Sorceress, Barbarian) who have an easier time fighting him. Of course.. partying may also mean sharing the loot. Q: My AR% says that I have a 95% chance of Hitting Diablo and yet a lot of my attacks miss. Is this a bug or is the game just cheating? A: You have forgotten that you have a 95% chance of succesfully hitting Diablo. However, there are other skills in the game (example Amazon's Evade) which will totally evade your attack even if you succesfully score a hit, thus making it miss completely. Obviously Diablo has a very high Evade score. Q: How do you defeat that Necromancer guy (Nihlathak) in Halls of Anguish? A: The trick to defeating him is to NOT stand under any corpse which he can then exploit with corspe explosion. I suggest you draw his minions out a few at a time, kill them and explode their corpse Using death sentry. Once his minions are all dead, you can move in and for the kill. He may summon a minion while fighting you. If so, attack the minion to half his life (charging up Tiger x3), cast Death sentry, and then finishing the minion off. If done right, your Death sentry should be able to explode the corspe before he can cast corspe explosion. Should he teleport away, track him down quickly with Dragon Flight. Q: The Ancients (at Arreat Summit) are impossible to beat! A: No they are not! You are probably at a too low level to face them. Take them down one at a time.... start with the axe thrower, then to the leap guy and finally whirlwind guy. Take them down from the weakest to the strongest. You may want to hire some one to take some of your damage, as well as summon a shadow master. I suggest level 38 for Normal and level 65-68 for Nightmare. Also remember that the enchantments on all the ancients are RANDOM. So if say your character is weak agaist Lightning and two of them are Lightning enchanted, just cast a town portal, exit and re-enter to reset them. You have to beat them in ONE fight (no casting of TP to Q: How do you beat Baal? A: IMO, Baal is one of the EASIEST boss around.... at least for the Assassin. All you need to do is NOT give him space for his Cold Arrow attack. That attack does loads of damage, and pushes you back. When he moves away... teleport in and hit him. If you stay on him, he is as good as dead. Q: Am I seeing double? There are TWO Baals!! A: No, you are not seeing double. Baal can make a copy of himself, much like the Assassin or Amazon can with Shadow Master or Valkyrie. Remember that if you kill the REAL Baal, the copy will disappear. ********** Build Tree ********** Example of a Dual Claw Assassin ------------------------------- This example is based on my prototype assassin I first played and tested the Assassin Class. Admittedly she is not the best. She is at Level 60 (IIRC) when I wrote this section. Name: Kaycee Stats (after bonuses from equipment): Strength - 152 Dexteirity - 138 Vitality - 74 Energy - 43 So what makes her great? Look at her high Strength and Dex scores. Then think of her attack rating and damage. Does that mean ANYTHING to you? She has a BASE attack rating of 3000+ including equipment using Cobra Strike. No that does not include any charge up with Charge-Up skills.. with that factored in she reaches around 5000 average (not all skills used). She does insane damage of up to 300+ points of damage with all the poison and +damage charms stacked up. 300 points on ONE CLAW that is... not 2. And thats not even considering tiger strike bonuses for her finishing move! (Claw base maximum damage is 54 btw) Choke... add Tiger Strike at Level 20 with 3 charges... Choke.. and Venom and you can imagine the damage... choke... dealt out on the finishing move. So how did I get to that? Analysing My skill Point Distribution Level 2: Tiger Strike Level 3: Claw Mastery Akara Reward: Dragon Talon Level 4: Save (1) Level 5: Save (2) Level 6: Burst of Speed, Dragon Claw, Save (1) Level 7: Save (2) Level 8: Save (3) Level 9: Claw Mastery Level 10: Save (4) Level 11: Claw Mastery Level 12: Weapon Block, Pyschic Hammer, Cloak of Shadows, Cobra Strike, Save (1) Level 13: Tiger Strike Level 14: Save (2) Level 15: Save (3) Level 16: Save (4) Book of Skills: Tiger Strike Level 17: Save (5) Level 18: Dragon Tail, Fade, Shadow Warrior, Save (3) Level 19: Weapon Block Level 20: Weapon Block Level 21: Weapon Block Level 22: Weapon Block Level 23: Weapon Block Level 24: Fist of Fire, Claws of Thunder, Blades of Ice, Phoenix Strike Level 25: Dragon Flight Level 26: Save (1) Level 27: Save (2) Tyrael Reward: Save (3) Level 28: Save (4) Level 29: Claw Mastery Level 30: Shadow Master, Venom, Save (3) Level 31: Save (4) Level 32: Fire Blast, Shock Web, Charged Bolt Sentry, Lightning Bolt Sentry, Death Sentry From there on, everything else went into Pumping up my Character's Tiger Strike, Claw Mastery and Weapon Block until she had 16 in Claw Mastery, 10 in Weapon Block and 15 in Tiger Strike before adding in Skill Bonuses from Equipment. With added bonuses, Claw Mastery is at SLvl 21, Weapon Block at Slvl 16 and Tiger Strike too at SLvl 20. I would say... she is one badass character. So basically by end game, she should have:- 20 Claw Mastery 20 Tiger strike 10 Weapon Block 20 Shadow Master 10 Venom (more if needed)/ Phoenix Strike/ Blade of Ice which leaves around 20 more points for misc skills which you can invest according to your likes. Overall this assassin will be a slower killing machine in Hell mode, against PI monsters because of the reliance of Poison damage. However, she is still perfectly able to complete hell mode. Example of a Claw & Shield Assassin ----------------------------------- The most important thing about Claw & Shield Assassin is that you do not have to worry about spending points on Weapon Block which leaves many more options open. However, you will be relying on kick damage as your main finishing move, and for that to be effective, a lot of points must be pumped into your strenght and dexteirity. The idea is to put as many points in there, without getting yourself killed in a single hit (or two) by strong monsters in Hell mode. Here is a basic build tree: Level 2: Tiger Strike Level 3: Claw Mastery Akara Reward: Dragon Talon Level 4: Tiger Strike Level 5: Save Level 6: Burst of Speed, Dragon Claw Level 7: Tiger Strike Level 8: Claw Mastery Level 9: Tiger Strike Level 10: Save Level 11: Save Level 12: Pyschic Hammer, Cloak of Shadows, Cobra Strike Level 13: Tiger Strike Level 14: Tiger Strike Level 15: Tiger Strike Level 16: Save Book of Skills: Save Level 17: Save Level 18: Dragon Tail, Fade, Shadow Warrior, Weapon Block Level 19: Tiger Strike Level 20: Save Level 21: Save Level 22: Save Level 23: Save Level 24: Fist of Fire, Claws of Thunder, Blades of Ice, Phoenix Strike Level 25: Dragon Flight Level 26: Tiger Strike Level 27: Tiger Strike Tyrael Reward: Claw Mastery Level 28: Claw Mastery Level 29: Save Level 30: Shadow Master Level 31: Save Level 32: Fire Blast, Wake of Fire, Wake of Inferno So even By level 19 or so, you should have more than enough points to crush most of your enemies. Later on, spend points as necessary on Claw mastery, Shadow Master and Wake of Inferno. Therefore by end game, you should have something like: 20 Tiger Strike 20 Claw Mastery 20 Wake of Inferno 20 Shadow Master Which leaves around 20+ points for misc skills to invest in. This assassin is really balanced in the sense that Tiger Strike + Dragon Tail can easily take down Elemental immune creatures, while Wake of Inferno will eat away at PI creatures. Overall this Assassin will have an easy time even in Hell mode. Example of a Heavy Weapon Assassin ---------------------------------- One word DAMAGE. You will want to pump a lot of skill points early on into your Str so that she can get to use those heavy weapons early on. Dexteirity and Vitality play a secondary role though you should not skimp on either. Since she does not even use much mana (finishing move is basically a normal attack) no points should be spent on Mana early on (add more as you enter Hell for trap casting) Here is a basic build tree for a Heavy Weapon Assassin. Level 2: Tiger Strike Level 3: Tiger Strike Akara Reward: Tiger Strike Level 4: Tiger Strike Level 5: Save Level 6: Claw Mastery, Burst of Speed level 7: Burst of Speed Level 8: Burst of Speed Level 9: Burst of Speed Level 10: Burst of Speed Level 11: Burst of Speed Level 12: Burst of Speed Levek 13: Burst of Speed Level 14: Cobra Strike Level 15: Tiger Strike Level 16: Tiger Strike Book of Skills: Tiger Strike Level 17: Tiger Strike Level 18: Tiger Strike Level 19: Tiger Strike Level 20: Tiger Strike Level 21: Tiger Strike Level 22: Tiger Strike Level 23: Tiger Strike Level 24: Tiger Strike Level 25: Tiger Strike Level 26: Save Level 27: Save Tyrael Reward: Save Level 28: Save Level 29: Save Level 30: Psychic Hammer, Weapon Block, Cloak of Shadows, Shadow Warrior, Shadow Master, Mind blast As you can see, the general idea here is to pump up Burst of speed first early on to at least 8 points for a huge increase in attack speed. Subsequent points will then be placed into Tiger strike until she is Slvl16 or so. Therefore by the time you defead Diablo, you would be able to Summon a Shadow Warrior and use Mind blast. Later, when you gain further levels in the expansion area, continue pumping up Tiger Strike until the maximum and then either Death Sentry or Wall of Inferno. Assuming you enter Hell mode at Lvl 70, you should have Tiger and WOI already maxed out with a healthy dose of points in Shadow Master and Burst of Speed. Gameplan -------- But all power is for naught if you don't have a game plan. So what did I do? - Basically Normal mode is a walk in a park (at least for me) All I needed was Cobra strike x3 and then finish off with one of the finishing moves (toggled between dragon flight and dragon claw) and any if not all the enemies could be beaten. This of course with a burst of speed boost factor. - For Uniques, I used the Cobra Strike x3 - Tiger Strike x3 combo and boosted my character using venom. I had pretty good equiptment to boost my resistance so fade was not used much here. When Enemies were swarming me in Normal mode, I just used Phoenix strike charged 2 or 3 times depending on their type of resistance and let go to drop many at once. - I had no trouble with bosses in Normal mode (Mephisto, Baal) was particularly easy, but Diablo was rather challenging (though not impossible to beat even if I did die ONCE) This is mainly due to me hanging around levelling up. - Enter Nightmare mode, with enemies gaining more health and partial physical immunity, loads more points were invested in Claw Mastery and Tiger strike. Now the basic combo is Cobra x3 - Tiger x3 and then finish off with a finishing move. That combined with Death Sentry made short work of all the enemies. - Uniques were tougher now with resistance of some kind (some even having physical Immune!!) and as such I had to make full use of what I had (Venom, Traps) as well as Fade due to the Resistance penalty to get it to Maximum (especially vs Lightning attacks) Still they were not too difficult to do away with especially since their minions themselves do quite some damage with Corspe Explosion. - Bosses were rather challenging. Mephisto was still a walk in the park due to the high resistance I had (by then), but Diablo Had me sceaming and cursing non stop. Baal was okay. He can be really tough, but as long as I kept in close to him, he wasn't much of a match. - Hell mode. Monsters with 50% PI really gets on my nerves. They take eons to kill... and the Uniques take even longer. One thing for sure is to load up on Full Rejuvenation potion. Trust me, you won't want anything less than that. I must say that I found much difficulty late on against the physical immune monsters, even with loads of poison and elemental damage stacked up. - Bosses. IMO, other than Diablo, most of the bosses were again very easy when well prepared. Baal was a walk in the park though his minions of destruction posed some threat (though with a little patience, that is easily over come) So there it is..... my Assassin all the way completed at Level 74. **************** My Assassin Rig **************** When my Assassin defeated Baal in Hell mode this is what she had on her. Remember she is level 74. Headgear -------- Natalya's Totem (Set Grim Helm) Defense: 195-260 (mine was 220) Durability: 40 Req Str: 58 Req Lvl: 59 Properties: +135 Def +25 Dex +10 Str +10% Resistance to All -3 Magical Damage taken Comments: On its own this Helm is Great with a hefty bonus to my Dex (which boosts my AR somewhat) and Strenght. The 10% Resistance to all is wonderful especially with the huge penalty in Hell mode. Armor ----- Natalya's Shadow (Set Loricated Mail) Defense: 540-646 (mine was 640) Durability: 36 Req Str: 149 Req Lvl: 73 Type: Heavy Armor Properties: +150 Def +1 Life per Clvl (+74 for me) +2 to Shadow Disciplines -75% Poison Duration +25% Poison Resistance Comments: Not the greatest armor around, but the +2 to Shadow Disciplines is nice. Could use a better piece of armor especially since the defense is rather low. Weapon ------ Bartuc's Cutthroat (Unique Greater Talons) Damage: 28-47 (avg. 37.5) Durability: 69 Req Str: 79 Req Dex: 79 Attack Speed: Very Fast Attack (Assassin Only) Properties: +35% enchanced Damage 25% Deadly Strike 35% Target Defense Hit Blinds Target +2 to Assassin Skill Levels +25 to Mana +10 to Dex 50% Increased Attack Speed +1 to Shadow Disciplines Comments: IMO one of the best Assassin Claw available (discounting rare claws) 25% Deadly Strike is very good and much improved in D2X. +2 to Assassin Skills AND +1 to Shadow Disciplines makes up a lot for the lack of elemental Damage to it. Not to mention the greatly increased attack speed that at times when Burst of Speed runs out you won't even notice that much loss in speed. Great if you pair this up with Venom. The other bonuses like Blinds target, mana, dex bonuse and 35% Target Def. is just icing on what is already a very good cake. I used one of my quest sockets and socketed this with a perfect emerald to add some Poison damage to my attack. Be sure to stack up on poison damage. Shield ------ Moser's Blessed Circle (Unique Round Shield) Defense: 141-165 (mine was 147) Chance to Block: 55% Durability: 255 Req Str: 53 Req Lvl: 31 Properties: +25% Resist All +25% Chance to Block Fastest Hit Recovery +200% Enchanced Defense Socketed (2) Comments: I Shifted back and forth between this and Tiamat's Rebuke. This was my main shield after all in Hell you will be needing all the bonuses to elemental damage that you can find. The inherent bonus of 25% Resist All was significantly boosted with the addition of 2 Perfect Diamonds socketed to it. The Chance to block was decent enough (55%) though not the best and Fastest Hit Recovery is always good. Gloves ------ Lava Gout (Unique Battle Gauntlets) Defense: 89-97 (mine was 91) Durability: 18 Req Str: 88 Req Lvl: 42 Properties: +50 Defense 2% Chance to cast slvl10 Enchant Half Freeze Duration Adds 10-20 Fire Damage +20% Increased Attack Speed Fire Resist +24% Comments: The main draw of this glove is the enchanced Attack speed. The combo of this glove and bartuc's CT made the use of Burst of Speed at times redundant. Fire resistance is of course very important (considering the number of enemies using Fire spells) and was very welcome. Boots ----- Natalya's Soul (Set Mesh Boots) Defense: 112-119 (Mine was 119) Durability: 66 Req Str: 65 Req Lvl: 25 Properties: +75 Defense 40% Faster Run Walk Heal Stamina Plus at 0.25% per Clvl +15% Ligtning Resist +15% Cold Resist Comments: I was very lucky to find this early on in Nightmare mode. This has 40% Faster Run Walk which when boosted with Burst of Speed makes the Assassin fly across the screen. Again the Elemental Resistance was a welcome bonus. Amulet ------ Telling of Beads (Set Amulet) Req Lvl: 30 Properties: +1 to All Skill Lvls +35% Poison Resist +18% Cold Resist Attacker Takes damage of 8-10 Comments: Initially I was using Eye of Elitch (which was carried over from my now defunct D2 Sorceress) I opted for this instead of Eye of Elitch because of the additional resistance. Ring ---- Dwarf Star (Unique Ring) Req Lvl: 45 Properties: -15 to Magic Damage +15% Stamina Regneration +70% More Gold from Monsters +25 Stamina +40 Life Comments: A ring I could certainly do without. None of the bonuses here seemed significant enough to me. I would gladly trade this ring off for an SoJ or Bul-Kathos Wedding Band. Dread Loop (Rare Ring) Req Lvl: 16 Properties: 4% Life Stolen Per hit +6% Lightning Resistance +24% Fire Resistance +15 Attack Rating +10 to Energy Comments: A free gift from Ormus as early as Normal Act III and have been using this since mainly for the bonuses to resistance. Overall comments: I also received partial set bonuses for Natalya's Odium. Nothing significant from that. If you noticed I had a lack of elemental damage in my equipment but this was easily sorted out with the stacks of poison charms and high slvl of Venom. Overall a good character with LOADS of nice stuff (was very lucky and went item fishing for long periods of time in multiplayer) Should I get lucky and find Natalya's Mark I would probably equip that with Cutthroat and go Dual claw style. ********** Dream Rig ********** Well.... if you had access to ALL the items in Diablo II world, how would you suit up your Assassin so that she would be invincible (or near invincible at least) Here is my dream rig for Both a fighter and Item Hunter. If you have any good suggestions for both classes, let me know. Fighter Rig ----------- The idea of the fighter rig is that the Assassin should be at her most powerful when fighting. All the items stated here are legit items and not hacked unlike those +7 to skill stuff floating around on open battle.net games. 1)Helm: Harlequin Crest (Unique Shako) 2)Armor: Arkaine's Valor (Unique Balrog's Skin) OR Rare Sacred Armor w/ mods to defense and requirements 3)Amulet: Rare Amulet w/ +2 to Assassin Skills with Resistance to all. 4)Gloves: Crafted Deadly Glove w/ Deadly Strike, Crushing Blow and random mods to skill OR Lavagout (Unique Battle Gauntlets) 5)Boots: Gorerider (Unique War Boots) 6)Belt: Crafted Mithril Coil w/ Open Wounds OR Immortal King's Detail (Set War Belt) for max Space and +Res. 7)Rings: Constriction Ring (Unique Ring) and Bul-Kathos Wedding Band (Unique Ring) Comments: Most of the stuff are really hard to get. Both Harlequin Crest and Arkaine's Valor are Unique Elite items so hope to get them in Hell mode after killing Diablo or Baal. Both give +2 to all skills which is more than completing Natalya Odium set which gives a +3 set bonus. Moreover, Arkaine's Valor can have more than 1500+ Def which is more than double that of Natalya's Shadow. Socket Harlequin Crest with an Um rune to gain some resistance. Your best bet to gain a Rare Amulet is to gamble for it and you can only do so at lvl 85 and above. Also hope to get a good life regeneration bonus. The crafted gloves is not as easy to get as it sounds since you have to look for an Um rune which is quite rare. Also you have to get lucky and hope that you get a +2 to Martial Arts mod. For Heavy Weapon Assassins, you could also go for the Lava Gout as it provides increased attack speed. Gorerider should be the easiest to look for since it is a Unique Exceptional of an item. For belts I prefer the less space Mithril Coil with Open Wounds bonus. Open wounds is much improved in D2X. Moreover Dol Rune isn't very rare. Again hope for good mods. For rings, Contriction Ring will raise your elemental resistance by a good 15% though at the expense of some life. Therefore items with random mods to life regeneration is required. Constriction ring can only be worn by a lvl 95 and above character. The second ring is Bul-Kathos Wedding band which isn't so hard to get and gives a +1 to all skills bonus. Alternatively, you may choose to wear 2 Bul-Kathos Wedding bands for a +2 to all skills bonus. a) For Claw and Shield Claw: Bartuc's Cutthroat (Unique Greater Talon) OR Natalya's Mark (Set Scissors Suwayyah) OR Rare/Crafted Runic Talons w/ +2 to Ass skills, inc. damage OR Socketed (3) Runic Talons w/ +2 to Ass skills and other mods. Shield: Stormshield (Unique Aegis) OR Tiamat's Rebuke (Unique Dragon Shield) Comments: My preference would be for Bartuc's Cutthroat because of the increased Attack rate. Teamed with Venom it makes the low damage somewhat tolerable. Add to that the bonuses to skill and deadly strike. Additionally socket that with a perfect emerald for poison damage, Ber rune for Crushing Blow or Lo rune for deadly strike. For shields, Stormshield is the best with a 74% chance of blocking! It offers a great Cold resist and decent Lightning resist. Be sure to socket this with an Um rune for an additional 22% resist to all. Tiamat Rebuke is a good secondary shield if you need additional elemental damage to deal with those pesky PI monsteres. b) For Dual Claw Claw: Bartuc's Cutthroat (Unique Greater Talon) OR Natalya's Mark (Set Scissors Suwayyah) OR Rare/Crafted Runic Talons w/ +2 to Ass skills, inc. damage OR Socketed (3) Runic Talons w/ +2 to Ass skills and other mods Runeword 'Fury' Runic Talons/ Scissors Suwayyah Comments: Bartuc's Cutthroat would be a no brainer unless you get really lucky when gambling (or if Blizzard introduces even more deadly Runeword combos in the upcoming patches) Again socket this with either a Perfect Emerald, Ber or Lo rune. Runeword 'Fury' Runic Talons/ Scissors Suwayyah is a great alternative with the 209 enchanced damage, increased attack speed as well as other great properties like deadly strike, open wounds etc. Too bad you can't put +5 frenzy to good use. The Second Claw is a bit tricky. If you get lucky then a Rare Runic Talons with +2 to Assassin Skills and increased damage would get the pick. However Natalya's Mark isn't as hard to obtain, has insane damage (that of a claw), has 300% additional damage to undead and demons (basically that means almost ALL the monsters) and more importantly ignore's target's defense. No matter what, the second item should also be socketed (preferably with a Lo rune for Deadly strike) c) For Heavy Weapon Weapon: Hell Slayer (Unique Decapitator) OR The Cranium Basher (Unique Thunder Maul) Runeword 'Fury' Thunder Maul/Decapitator/War Pike The idea is pretty straight forward here... Get the item with the most damage. Among the Uniques, Hell slayer has the most damage and gives a bonus to your vitality of 2 per skill level for a maximum of 198 at level 99!! That will make any Assassin a tank. The damage however is dependent on Clvl too however, though by the time you are able to use it you will be doing something like 510 damage. Socket this baby with a Lo rune for Deadly Strike and sickening damage. The cranium Basher is also a good choice. It also has a really high maximum damage of 509 which although not as high as Hell Slayer is pretty good. Moreover it has a 60% chance of Crushing blow and 4% chance of casting Amplify damage when hit. Therefore, if you socketed it with a Lo rune for Deadly strike, and Amplify damage kicks in you could 4X damage. Sick! Unfortunately the required level for this is really high (84) and you both weapons are incredibly hard to find. You could also go for a Runeword 'Fury' elite Item, the most damaging one being the best. The runes are pretty rare (Jo and Gul) Too bad you aren't a barbarian or the +5 to frenzy would have helped a lot. The stats are just awesome.... 209 enchanced Damage, Open wounds, Deadly Strike, Freeze target on hit, prevent monster heal... the list just goes on. This is my top pick.... now if only the peops of blizzard would be kind enough to create a Runeword with +5 to Tiger strike.... Item fisher Rig --------------- The main purpose of an item fisher is to go around hunting for items. In D2, a person who had 300% MF was considered a veteran at hunting for good items. But with the introduction of so many goodies in D2X, you can get your Assassin's MF up to 1000% WITHOUT hacking. Generally this is not recommended for the Assassin. Btw I got this info off Blizzards site. 1)Helm (max 85%): Magic Circlet of Luck (35%), Socketed w/ 2 Ist runes (50%) or 2 Perfect Topaz (48%) 2)Armor (max 113%): Tal Rasha's Guardianship (88%) , Socketed w/ 1 Ist Rune (25%) or 1 Perfect Topaz (24%) 3a)Dual Weapon (max 180%) Two Socketed (3) Claw Class Weapon, socketed w/ 3 Ist Rune (90%) b)Weapon and Shield (max 280%) Socketed (6) Weapon e.g. Rune Sword, Socketed w/ 6 Ist Rune (180%) Socketed (4) Shield, socketed w/ 4 Ist Runes (75%) 4)Belt (max 30%) Unique Gold Wrap (30%) Tal Rasha's Fine Spun Cloth (15%) ** ** Combined with Tal Rasha's Guardianship and Tal Rasha's Adjucation (Armor) you will receive an addiotional +65% MF. So Belt and Amulet would give a +80% MF which is equal to Goldwrap and 50% Amulet combo. 5) Gloves (max 34%) Rare Magic Find Gloves (34% and can only be found via trading for Pre v1.08 items) 6)Boots (max 45%) Unique War Traveler (45%) 7)Amulets (max 50%) Magic Fortuitous Amulet of Luck (50%) 8)Rings (max 200%) Two Constriction Rings (200%) 9)Charms (max 280%) 7% Small Charms. 40 of them is the maximum, though you would have to drop the charms to pick up items. 30 is the most ideal no. (210%) Total +MF% from your items = max 1117% *NOTE* Ist rune gives +30% bonus on weapons and +25% bonus on helms, armors and shields. Also, you can give your mercenary MF items, thus raising the MF value even higher. Remember however that the higher MF value from your mercenaries' item will only be used IF the mercenary makes a kill A maximum of +378% can be placed on your mercenary. This works out as:- Helm (85%)+ Armor (113%)+ Weapon (180%)= 378% Therefore, the highest achievable MF score would be +1495% !!! ************** On Multiplayer ************** Any experienced player on battle.net will tell you that the #1 killer of good players is lag. Therefore it is vital that you play with a good connection and during off peak hours where there is not so much server load. There is no point playing with 1000 other people at the same time, if the action is jerkier than Quake III running on a P200 MMX. Some good tips to remember when playing on battle.net - try to team up with other players of your same level for adventure and experience runs. - Make friends! It is much safer to journey around with the same people that you know well. Also, if you have friends of a higher level, they might help you open up WP faster (allowing you to go to certain areas to gain more exp) For example, a Level 99 Barbarian can help a level 60 Assassin to complete the important quests in Hell mode. The Assassin can then visit the other areas at her leisure, and working out which area is best for levelling up. - share items. If you have a shield you don't want, ask the members of your party whether they want it before selling it off. There is a better likelihood that your partners will share with your their items that they don't want - if you see a class specific item which you can't use, give it to someone who can. By doing so, your friends will also return the favour. - if lag hits in and your character can't hit any enemies for a good 5 secs, it is wise to save and exit. The next thing you know you could be dead. - Another sign that the lag is very high is black walls forming around your character. - There is a programme out there (which is realm friendly) which will automatically save and exit for you when your health reaches a certain level. A good programme to download, since it prevents your character from losing needless experience (especially in Hell) when enemies unfairly kills you during lag. - PK if you must, but remember, that you are not the toughest SOB around. If you PK someone, remember that you could be PK'ed by the friend of the person you PK'ed. On Open player game - HACKERS. Be very aware of them. Be suspicious when someone invites you to join your group, especially if they are high levelled. A lot of players do so to find out which area you are. Then using a maphack, they can easily run up to you, announce PK (using another hack) and have you dead before you can quit. - some hackers are quite friendly on the other hand, and will help you out especially against other ruthless hackers. Again, try to keep on their good side. - There are loads of hack items afloat. If you want to play a legit game, it is best to create a game like "Act 1 No Hack" so that people will at least know you are not trying to play a hacked game. Some sample hack items are the Hacked lightsaber, +7 to all skills charms and many others. If you think an item is too good to be true, it usually is. - there is a popular mod around, which causes most items dropped to be either Rare or Unique item. If you want/do not want to play in such a game, you should not join games with the title "Unique/Rare Item" ********************* Websites of Interest ******************** 1) www.diabloii.net This is my favourite site. They have been upgrading their site lately, and as such some of the info may seem incorrect. What I like about this site though is that they post nice fat articles of interest like the ones on cheating, PK'ing etc. 2) www.battle.net The place for the most accurate and up to date information on not only Diablo II, but also Starcraft, Warcraft and other Blizzard games. 3) www.diabloworld.com If you are a hack freak or simply just hate playing fair, this is the best place around to download hacks, mods and other stuff. Purist may want to take a look too as there are some 'Realm Friendly' mods available here too. 4) www.dcemulation.com/diablo2/ Has a small database of mods and hacks (all of which can also be found at diabloworld.com) However for the hardcore hackers, there are also hacked item files as well as a whole list of items for download. 5) www.planetdiablo.com/phrozenkeep/ When things get boring, pop over to this site which contains a lot of mods, plug-ins etc. User created campaigns can be downloaded here if you are a player who is afraid to get yourself killed by lag on Battle.net. 6) www.geocities.com/helsmley/ This is my homepage, and really run down (haven't had time to update it for eons now since I have been busy FAQ writing) No D2X info here, just some normal stuff about my friends, and pics of me and my buds. *************** Download This! *************** After dying for the 129061295th time on Act 1 Normal mode, you feel ready to rip off your hair and use the D2X Cd as a coaster. Don't! There are a lot of programmes out there to help you out, some of which are Realm friendly, and some which are blatant hacks. All the below programmes can be downloaded from diabloworld.com unless stated otherwise. Realm friendly (Legit stuff) ---------------------------- 1) No CD v1.08 by dARWIn This programme allows you to play D2X straight from your hard drive without the use of a CD. I love this programme since it allows me to turn off the music in Diablo II (which is nothing special) and listen to my favourite CD's. Unfortunately this programme can (and has been) abused by a lot of people who use this to play copied CD's. Did I find it Useful?: Yes. D2 Music gets boring very fast (especially if you play it 16 hours a day like me) 2) Windows Key Disabler by Jeff Slade [Download this at www.diabloii.net.] Any body who knows even a little about computers will know that ALT + TAB will minimise your programme and bring you back to windows. Now imagine you are in a middle of a battle.net game and Arkaine's Valor drops. You press TAB to turn off the automap and ALT to point out the item... unfortunately...you were still holding TAB and then... you go back to windows. The next thing you know, Arkaine's Valor is gone. This is a must-have programmes as it could mean life and death (for hardcore characters) Did I find it Useful?: Yes (extremely) 3) Life Watcher by Obeah (Metalslave) Solutions This is a must have especially for hardcore characters. When your life drops below a fix value, the programme will automatically kick in to save and exit for you. A potential lifesaver! Did I find it Useful?: Average (don't play hardcore) 4) Maphack v3.5 by Mousepad This shows the full automap, changes the colours here and there and other changes. The full automap feature can be a boon or a curse depending on how you see it. The colour of hostile players has been changed to differentiate between them and neutral players. Did I find it Useful?: Not very (don't like full automap feature) 5) Mana Refresher v1.2 and Instant Healer v1.3 by Clever Devs You can set the program to automatically use a potion when either your mana or life drops below a value of 75%,50% or 25%. I would say this is an okay program though it may sometimes unnecessarily use a potion when you have things under control (especially with Assassin's Cobra Strike) Did I find it Useful?: No 6) Item Grabber v3.1 by Hello2k1 The program will automatically grab potions, runes, gold etc. when they drop on the ground. While this is okay, I can't imagine my whole inventory filled up with bolts and arrows 10 seconds after I empty it. Did I find it useful?: No Hacks/Mods/Plug-ins ------------------- 1) Jamella's Diablo II Hero Editor 4.0 Beta 8 by Jamella If you need a edit programme this is it. While there a few bugs here and there which should be ironed out, this program works like a dream. You can edit almost anything you can think off from the amount of gold to the undies that you wear (well not quite... but you can edit and import your equipment) I used this program to test out skills with a dummy character from slvl 1 to slvl 20. Has a backup save feature included too to prevent unwanted mishaps. Did I find this Useful?: Yes. Easy to use and helped me a lot instead of having to create loads of dummy characters. 2)Unique Drops Mod by bloodfix Basically this programme will cause all the items dropped to be Uniques or Rare when a Unique item of that kind is not available. Soon you will be sick of seeing Unique items, yet for the short term players who want to see (and try out) all the uniques without the hassle of having a high +MF%, this programme is a boon. But what about sets? ...yeah.. maybe they will create a Set Drop Mod soon. A few open battle.net games play with this mod, and since this is considered cheating, you should be wary of the games you join. Some people have complaint of problems uninstalling this programme after use. Note: There are other variants of this mod around, but this was the version I tested. Did I find this Useful?: No. I gain more satisfaction when I legally obtain an unique/rare than cheating. 3) 32 Player Exp Mod by Nefarius This programme simulates a 32 player game so that you can gain experience at a very high rate. I used this programme at first to create experimental characters until I got sick and used Jamella's Hero Editor. Not only does this programme multiply all the experience you earn by 32 times but removes some of the changes in D2X like the 50% PI in Hell mode. Did I find this Useful?: Ok. I could gain levels really quickly but there is less satisfaction reaching lvl99. 4) Rune Words by Jaime Wold [Download this from www.planetdiablo.com/phrozenkeep/] This programme enables all the rune word combos available now on Realm play. If you are those who play open battle.net games and single player only, then this plug-in is a must have. I would not have consider this programme a cheat if not for the treasureclassex which makes high level runes easier to come by. Did I find this Useful?: Not many useful runeword combos for Assassin class so far. So not very. 5) Stash Kit by Fusman & Phalzy [Download this from www.planetdiablo.com/phrozenkeep/] Who thinks that you have enough stash space raise up your hands please? This programme will increase your stash, horadric cube and inventory space. Great for people who love hoarding up on good looking items. Did I find this Useful?: Did not use this programme ******** Credits ******** I thank God, my Creator and savior for without Him I would not be here, on this earth writing this FAQ. Thanks to the Father for granting me the wisdom and intelligence to write this FAQ. I would further like to thank the following people/parties: 1) Calvin Schneider I borrowed (actually just cut and pasted) his skill tree for the Assassin. Loads of thanks to him for his hard work in typing the skill tree out. I'm sure you spent loads of time on that. 2) Nicholas Vu For various comments pertaining to the FAQ. 3) Blizzard For making such a wonderful game, even though PI sucks big time. 4) Loads of people Who read my FAQ, sent in words of praises or cristiscm which ultimately well help me improve on my FAQ. Thanks for having the time to read my FAQ in the first place. 5) Folks at diabloii.net For keeping a wonderful site open, with loads of information (As well as the random issues on cheating etc.) One of the best non official diablo websites around. ********** Conclusion ********** Well this is the end I guess.I would like to thank you for your time for reading this FAQ. Any comments, and discussions will be entertained though I do not want any spam Mail. I know that I am human and WILL make mistakes, so if I do, do not flame me or anything kay? I'm after all, just another Diablo II player. Also since I am an A level student who wil be sitting for my exams come this November I naturally do not have that much time on my hand and will not be able to give a quick reply to all mails. I however can guarantee that all mails will be read and responded too ASAP. Thanks for reading my FAQ again and God Bless. - Kian Chong