Old patch fact: In early LoD(pre 1.10) an assassin could target (by selecting the unsummon skill Afaik) her shadow warrior/master and use dragon flight to teleport right to her position. Nice to pass rivers:p
Guessing the list before watching the video: 0. Similar to paladin cleansing, the Fade aura reduces shrine effect duration. 1. Fade has built in physical damage reduction %, 1% per point. 2. Shadow warrior and shadow master have equipment inventories and as you level them up, they gain access to stronger equipment. Shadow Master can become immune to all elemental damage in hell mode as a result of this. 3. Venom interacts strangely with poison damage from items. It hard caps the poison duration to 0.4 seconds, but poison damage from items will still only deal damage at their proper "rate per second." So if you have a 100 poison damage over 6 seconds charm, it will only deal 6.7 additional poison damage on top of the venom skill as that is how much damage it can do over 0.4 seconds. This makes poison damage from gear useless if you use this skill. 4. Charge-up martial arts skills are only applied on one of Dragon Talon's kicks, rather than the entire burst. 5. The Mind Blast lingering stun effect causes other players to suffer a hit recovery animation from any source of damage, regardless of the amount of damage, as long as it was greater than 0. 6. Shuriken Toss, Blade Sentry, and Blade Shield rely on your attack rating, even though the lying character screen shows no data for chance to hit when using these skills. This makes items with "ignores target defense", "-% enemy defense", and "- enemy defense per hit" very important for these skills, as they use the base attack rating for a normal attack. 7. Lightning Sentry increases in both bolt length as well as detection range with increased skill levels. 8. Even though Dragon Tail lists its damage as fire, it actually deals physical damage for the kick and fire for the explosion. However, the fire explosion damage is based on a percentage of the physical damage dealt on the primary kick. If you deal 0 physical damage to an enemy (physical immune), the fire explosion will also deal 0 damage. However, if you use Dragon Tail on a fire immune monster, you will damage it with the primary kick, and any nearby physical immune enemies will take full damage from the resulting fire explosion. So you can kill phys immunes with the AoE, and fire immunes with the primary kick. 9. Dragon Claw is a terrible skill, never use it. Since they don't mention it in game, that is the hidden feature. It's garbage. The real #9: Shadow Master almost always attacks the last enemy that was targeted by the player.
you got a part of a few :) 0. Only if Fade is active, while Cleansing triggers every refresh, fade only impacts shrines once :) 1. Yup. 2. They do, though I focused on slvls :) 3. Venom is even stranger than that when combined with Poison Dagger or Plague Javelin. (I do like that it's the enchant of poison) 4. this is true, and unfortunate. 5. Yup, though it's not mind blast exclusive, stun on players doesn't immobilize, just forces hit recoveries while swirled (paladins, barbs, and druids can do it too) 6. Yes, and it's mildly irritating lol 7. bolt length/range is increased, though if memory serves awareness range isn't effected :( 8. Weirdly forgot to include this one, It got mixed in with the trimmed bullet points on accident :( (probably subconscious hate on this, since I used to have a lot of fun with Dtail before immunities became so prevalent) 9. You're not kidding there, DClaw is right up there with Impale for me...
@@Alzorath I think I have got close to perfection with the Tiger Strike and Dragon Tail hybrid. Stormlash with a Ber is really nice (best range for a 1 handed weapon, nice for kick range). The AOE lighting with static field is great. I could easily do fast p7 pit and other areas p5. She isn't suited to the Chaos sanctuary due to the Venom Lords and Death Knights. I never use the summons and pump every spare point into the lightning traps. No fade, no venom. Just 1pt BoS, CoS and Dragon Flight (until you get Enigma), max TStrike, DTail, DS, LS and trap synergies. I focus on items with + skills as she is hybrid...so Cham'd Shako, Spirit Shield, +2 caster ammy, Arachs, crafted Blood Gloves (+2 martial arts), Upped Gores, rings of your choice - usually to balance stats/reach break points. Not much DR% but you have cloak and MB if you need it. Since you have 78% CB and so many +skills, you can use 1pt Dtalon and kill ubers with some items swapped out.
@@Biodesmond It's really not that bad, it just takes FAR better gear than kicks do. You can dragon talon things with just a decent pair of boots, but claw takes two really good claws to match that. Claw caps out at 5 hits per second, while talon can hit ~6.5, but that mostly evens out when you account for critical strike, which kicks can't do. The biggest weakness of Dclaw is that it only works with - you guessed it - claws. Two claws, to be specific. Meanwhile, Dtalon works with any weapon and allows you to exploit their bonuses like mad, like rapidfire static field and whatnot. On the flipside, it's actually MUCH better with lower point investment. If you need to pick between 1 point in Dtalon and 1 point in Dclaw, Claw will have its full attack speed already while talon will hit very slowly. And 1 point in Dclaw gets a big bonus from claw mastery, too.
Traps count against the champion/boss pack counter of the area they were summoned in. Meaning if you enter an area and cast several Deathtraps, you will not find any champions or boss packs in that area. This severely hurts the assassin's ability to effectively farm areas like The Pit etc, although it can speed up clearing any area.
I haven't tested this yet (had heard it before, just not confirmed) - if memory serves the theory is that it incriments the boss spawn counter by using specific traps/summons, but not all of them, thus removing a lot of random bosses
@@Alzorath i do not remember which traps it is, but i do remember how it works. Every area has a maximum amount of champion/boss packs that it can spawn and each one of those traps counts as one. You can test it by entering any area, casting a dozen traps and then clearing it. You will find no such packs outside of any ones already spawned as you enter (i think up to 2.5 screens away)
The pit lvl2 is still a valid target as it spawns all the bosspacks (I think 2-3) when you enter it, just reroll maps in singleplayer with a quick access to lvl2.
fixed spawned uniques will still show up judging by the information I can find (haven't had time to test it today) - Pits 1, AT, and Chaos Sanctuary would be the largest risk areas... though it's interesting, in that this can also be abused to make the game easier for you as well. Posts seems to suggest that Charged Bolt Sentry and Lightning Sentry are safe, but shadows are not, though I need to test to confirm - best to treat information online like french fries, and take things with a liberal grain of salt.
I have never really used sins much, but I really want to now. I'm so glad I saw this, I used to think they worked. I even went and verified the facet tip because I was so sure, turns out I am still learning about this epic 20+yr old game.
Some of these might be wrong, Assassin is by far the most confusing character 1. Kicks benefit from crushing blow, but not deadly strike. Also they don't get a damage% from something like armor, but it works with Pheonix. 2. The blades do not benefit from Razortail - like any normal person would expect them to. 3. Phoenix Strike has faster attack speed than elemental claw attacks, even with the same weapon. 4. Venom double dips into poison+damage%, and I think it shortens the duration of other poison.
haven't heard #3 before, might look into it later (that said, I don't play charge-based martial artists, so that may be part of the reason - I get why people love them, and they can do a ton of damage, I just am not a fan of charge juggling, I like simple characters lol)
@@Alzorath Actually it's probably the most underpowered path you can take for various reasons, and it only works if you have 1 point into the death sentry, not to mention that kick by itself is much stronger. The damage on all of her elemental charges is not only low but does not work in a practical sense (like lightning Jab that tends to stack on enemies when thunderclaw does not), we talking like 1-10000 lightning or 2000 cold for phoenix, which is unusable beyond player 1. Another problem is that D2 simply has no good late game claws aside from Chaos runeword, and even then, you would need an extremely rare base to make it somewhat comparable to what other melee classes have - I find it easier to not even use claws when playing the build.
@@Ashleymaul The meteor is very powerful, at least. The duration increases with each level, so a level 30 phoenix meteor does 3000 DPS and lasts for 18 seconds, AND it stacks with itself.
As you level up the shadow warrior, it gets a base +skill to any skill it uses, and it also gets a portion of the points you've invested into the skill itself - so it's possible, with +skills, to get it so the shadow warrior is using level 25 traps, with multiple level 25 synergies (where as you are capped at 20 points from a synergy since it only counts hardpoints - the shadow's skills are all hard points)
It has to be the warrior not master, because u can train the warrior to use all of the traps with your rightmouse button. With a very high lvl warrior faded she can kinda clear the game by herself, unless she gets to baal where the damage is 10x against mercs and minions
Longer weapons means longer kicks...i mean you could barely explain this in physical reality by saying she could counterbalance herself better with larger weapons and thus kick further easier, or hold herself up or propel herself forward lightly using longer weapons behind her...i guess? Hahah. Totally intentional.
I was like if I do not know this I will delete my selffound lvl95 assa (infinity,enigma,chaos,cta...), the range of the weapons with dragon talon was like hmmm... not sure, but I had a kicker and researched this becaus of fleshripper/stormlash, but you just have to dragonflight or teleport into enemies so weapon range adder wont matter. Shadow warrior/master could deserv they own video, you can get sm immune to some elements and they can get weapons with amp damage prox. I played through hell with a gearless assassin and a lvl11 sm could kill hell Madawc who is always lightning immune, I had to summon her like 30 times but still lvl11 is a huge stepup for a shadow master (she gets random rare items), anyway YOU ALMOST GOT ME!
Shadow Warrior / Shadow Master : correct me if I'm wrong. Shadow warrior uses your selected left clic/right clic. If using lightning sentry you have a limit of 5 traps summoned, those summoned by your shadow count towards this limit too. Shadow Master uses every skill you put at least 1 point in ? Is my info obsolete ? I prefered using the warrior but what would be the benifit from using the master instead (appart from the +res making it tankier maybe ?).
Shadow Warrior does indeed use your left/right clicks. Shadow Traps do count against your 5 total. Shadow Master uses every skill in the potential arsenal, doesn't matter if you have points in it (though points in it make it stronger) Shadow Warrior's trap level is based on a formula that is a combination of your Shadow warrior skill level and your actual skill's skill level, making it possible to get skills above level 20 being used by it. It learns these skills when it uses them, and only forgets them when you get rid of the warrior - so you can use all the synergies of a trap, at level 25, then use a level 25 version of the trap itself - and your shadow would use that trap at level 25, with 25 points in synergies, while yours would be limited to your trap's level, with only 20 points in synergies (since synergies only count hard points - the shadow's "hard points" are the level it cast it at). Master is a lot tankier due to various factors, warrior is more a niche use for gimmicks like that :P
1 other fact is that the assassin doesn't need keys to open any locked freeing up 1 spot in your inventory. Small but helps
Beat me to it lol
Thanks , i got a lots of key to throw now 🤣
Old patch fact:
In early LoD(pre 1.10) an assassin could target (by selecting the unsummon skill Afaik) her shadow warrior/master and use dragon flight to teleport right to her position.
Nice to pass rivers:p
I used to do this at mephisto to cross the moat without aggroing the council members in the left/right chambers.
Guessing the list before watching the video:
0. Similar to paladin cleansing, the Fade aura reduces shrine effect duration.
1. Fade has built in physical damage reduction %, 1% per point.
2. Shadow warrior and shadow master have equipment inventories and as you level them up, they gain access to stronger equipment. Shadow Master can become immune to all elemental damage in hell mode as a result of this.
3. Venom interacts strangely with poison damage from items. It hard caps the poison duration to 0.4 seconds, but poison damage from items will still only deal damage at their proper "rate per second." So if you have a 100 poison damage over 6 seconds charm, it will only deal 6.7 additional poison damage on top of the venom skill as that is how much damage it can do over 0.4 seconds. This makes poison damage from gear useless if you use this skill.
4. Charge-up martial arts skills are only applied on one of Dragon Talon's kicks, rather than the entire burst.
5. The Mind Blast lingering stun effect causes other players to suffer a hit recovery animation from any source of damage, regardless of the amount of damage, as long as it was greater than 0.
6. Shuriken Toss, Blade Sentry, and Blade Shield rely on your attack rating, even though the lying character screen shows no data for chance to hit when using these skills. This makes items with "ignores target defense", "-% enemy defense", and "- enemy defense per hit" very important for these skills, as they use the base attack rating for a normal attack.
7. Lightning Sentry increases in both bolt length as well as detection range with increased skill levels.
8. Even though Dragon Tail lists its damage as fire, it actually deals physical damage for the kick and fire for the explosion. However, the fire explosion damage is based on a percentage of the physical damage dealt on the primary kick. If you deal 0 physical damage to an enemy (physical immune), the fire explosion will also deal 0 damage. However, if you use Dragon Tail on a fire immune monster, you will damage it with the primary kick, and any nearby physical immune enemies will take full damage from the resulting fire explosion. So you can kill phys immunes with the AoE, and fire immunes with the primary kick.
9. Dragon Claw is a terrible skill, never use it. Since they don't mention it in game, that is the hidden feature. It's garbage.
The real #9: Shadow Master almost always attacks the last enemy that was targeted by the player.
you got a part of a few :)
0. Only if Fade is active, while Cleansing triggers every refresh, fade only impacts shrines once :)
1. Yup.
2. They do, though I focused on slvls :)
3. Venom is even stranger than that when combined with Poison Dagger or Plague Javelin. (I do like that it's the enchant of poison)
4. this is true, and unfortunate.
5. Yup, though it's not mind blast exclusive, stun on players doesn't immobilize, just forces hit recoveries while swirled (paladins, barbs, and druids can do it too)
6. Yes, and it's mildly irritating lol
7. bolt length/range is increased, though if memory serves awareness range isn't effected :(
8. Weirdly forgot to include this one, It got mixed in with the trimmed bullet points on accident :( (probably subconscious hate on this, since I used to have a lot of fun with Dtail before immunities became so prevalent)
9. You're not kidding there, DClaw is right up there with Impale for me...
@@Alzorath I think I have got close to perfection with the Tiger Strike and Dragon Tail hybrid. Stormlash with a Ber is really nice (best range for a 1 handed weapon, nice for kick range). The AOE lighting with static field is great. I could easily do fast p7 pit and other areas p5. She isn't suited to the Chaos sanctuary due to the Venom Lords and Death Knights. I never use the summons and pump every spare point into the lightning traps.
No fade, no venom. Just 1pt BoS, CoS and Dragon Flight (until you get Enigma), max TStrike, DTail, DS, LS and trap synergies.
I focus on items with + skills as she is hybrid...so Cham'd Shako, Spirit Shield, +2 caster ammy, Arachs, crafted Blood Gloves (+2 martial arts), Upped Gores, rings of your choice - usually to balance stats/reach break points.
Not much DR% but you have cloak and MB if you need it. Since you have 78% CB and so many +skills, you can use 1pt Dtalon and kill ubers with some items swapped out.
Anyone can explain why dragon claw is suck?
@@Biodesmond It's really not that bad, it just takes FAR better gear than kicks do. You can dragon talon things with just a decent pair of boots, but claw takes two really good claws to match that. Claw caps out at 5 hits per second, while talon can hit ~6.5, but that mostly evens out when you account for critical strike, which kicks can't do.
The biggest weakness of Dclaw is that it only works with - you guessed it - claws. Two claws, to be specific. Meanwhile, Dtalon works with any weapon and allows you to exploit their bonuses like mad, like rapidfire static field and whatnot.
On the flipside, it's actually MUCH better with lower point investment. If you need to pick between 1 point in Dtalon and 1 point in Dclaw, Claw will have its full attack speed already while talon will hit very slowly. And 1 point in Dclaw gets a big bonus from claw mastery, too.
Traps count against the champion/boss pack counter of the area they were summoned in.
Meaning if you enter an area and cast several Deathtraps, you will not find any champions or boss packs in that area.
This severely hurts the assassin's ability to effectively farm areas like The Pit etc, although it can speed up clearing any area.
I haven't tested this yet (had heard it before, just not confirmed) - if memory serves the theory is that it incriments the boss spawn counter by using specific traps/summons, but not all of them, thus removing a lot of random bosses
@@Alzorath i do not remember which traps it is, but i do remember how it works.
Every area has a maximum amount of champion/boss packs that it can spawn and each one of those traps counts as one. You can test it by entering any area, casting a dozen traps and then clearing it. You will find no such packs outside of any ones already spawned as you enter (i think up to 2.5 screens away)
The pit lvl2 is still a valid target as it spawns all the bosspacks (I think 2-3) when you enter it, just reroll maps in singleplayer with a quick access to lvl2.
fixed spawned uniques will still show up judging by the information I can find (haven't had time to test it today) - Pits 1, AT, and Chaos Sanctuary would be the largest risk areas... though it's interesting, in that this can also be abused to make the game easier for you as well.
Posts seems to suggest that Charged Bolt Sentry and Lightning Sentry are safe, but shadows are not, though I need to test to confirm - best to treat information online like french fries, and take things with a liberal grain of salt.
@@Alzorath unless i misunderstood what was explained, the Shadow herself doesn't count against the pack number, but she can cast the traps that do.
I have never really used sins much, but I really want to now. I'm so glad I saw this, I used to think they worked. I even went and verified the facet tip because I was so sure, turns out I am still learning about this epic 20+yr old game.
Also Assassin Traps can make elite packs disappear. Making Assassin not ideal for farming
prevents them from spawning by incrementing the counter.
Some of these might be wrong, Assassin is by far the most confusing character
1. Kicks benefit from crushing blow, but not deadly strike. Also they don't get a damage% from something like armor, but it works with Pheonix.
2. The blades do not benefit from Razortail - like any normal person would expect them to.
3. Phoenix Strike has faster attack speed than elemental claw attacks, even with the same weapon.
4. Venom double dips into poison+damage%, and I think it shortens the duration of other poison.
haven't heard #3 before, might look into it later (that said, I don't play charge-based martial artists, so that may be part of the reason - I get why people love them, and they can do a ton of damage, I just am not a fan of charge juggling, I like simple characters lol)
@@Alzorath Actually it's probably the most underpowered path you can take for various reasons, and it only works if you have 1 point into the death sentry, not to mention that kick by itself is much stronger. The damage on all of her elemental charges is not only low but does not work in a practical sense (like lightning Jab that tends to stack on enemies when thunderclaw does not), we talking like 1-10000 lightning or 2000 cold for phoenix, which is unusable beyond player 1. Another problem is that D2 simply has no good late game claws aside from Chaos runeword, and even then, you would need an extremely rare base to make it somewhat comparable to what other melee classes have - I find it easier to not even use claws when playing the build.
@@Ashleymaul The meteor is very powerful, at least. The duration increases with each level, so a level 30 phoenix meteor does 3000 DPS and lasts for 18 seconds, AND it stacks with itself.
These are addicting series
Glad you're enjoying it :)
I don't get the fact about shadow warrior.
If I cast a lvl 25 shadow it would have access to lvl25 spells?
And synergy add up too?
As you level up the shadow warrior, it gets a base +skill to any skill it uses, and it also gets a portion of the points you've invested into the skill itself - so it's possible, with +skills, to get it so the shadow warrior is using level 25 traps, with multiple level 25 synergies (where as you are capped at 20 points from a synergy since it only counts hardpoints - the shadow's skills are all hard points)
@@Alzorath ah nice to know.
I shopped 2 claws from Anya with +6 and +5 SW, so thats a nice boost :>
It has to be the warrior not master, because u can train the warrior to use all of the traps with your rightmouse button.
With a very high lvl warrior faded she can kinda clear the game by herself, unless she gets to baal where the damage is 10x against mercs and minions
Longer weapons means longer kicks...i mean you could barely explain this in physical reality by saying she could counterbalance herself better with larger weapons and thus kick further easier, or hold herself up or propel herself forward lightly using longer weapons behind her...i guess? Hahah. Totally intentional.
Really very useful video, especially when you watch it at 0.75 speed ;)
Thanks brother!
I was like if I do not know this I will delete my selffound lvl95 assa (infinity,enigma,chaos,cta...), the range of the weapons with dragon talon was like hmmm... not sure, but I had a kicker and researched this becaus of fleshripper/stormlash, but you just have to dragonflight or teleport into enemies so weapon range adder wont matter.
Shadow warrior/master could deserv they own video, you can get sm immune to some elements and they can get weapons with amp damage prox. I played through hell with a gearless assassin and a lvl11 sm could kill hell Madawc who is always lightning immune, I had to summon her like 30 times but still lvl11 is a huge stepup for a shadow master (she gets random rare items), anyway YOU ALMOST GOT ME!
Shadow Warrior / Shadow Master : correct me if I'm wrong.
Shadow warrior uses your selected left clic/right clic. If using lightning sentry you have a limit of 5 traps summoned, those summoned by your shadow count towards this limit too.
Shadow Master uses every skill you put at least 1 point in ?
Is my info obsolete ?
I prefered using the warrior but what would be the benifit from using the master instead (appart from the +res making it tankier maybe ?).
Shadow Warrior does indeed use your left/right clicks.
Shadow Traps do count against your 5 total.
Shadow Master uses every skill in the potential arsenal, doesn't matter if you have points in it (though points in it make it stronger)
Shadow Warrior's trap level is based on a formula that is a combination of your Shadow warrior skill level and your actual skill's skill level, making it possible to get skills above level 20 being used by it. It learns these skills when it uses them, and only forgets them when you get rid of the warrior - so you can use all the synergies of a trap, at level 25, then use a level 25 version of the trap itself - and your shadow would use that trap at level 25, with 25 points in synergies, while yours would be limited to your trap's level, with only 20 points in synergies (since synergies only count hard points - the shadow's "hard points" are the level it cast it at).
Master is a lot tankier due to various factors, warrior is more a niche use for gimmicks like that :P
Which one is better??? Shadow warrior or master????
depends on your build (and game version), but "usually" master - the warrior is more of a trick you can pull to create super traps.
Also assassin doesn't need keys to open locked chest.
Wait..FADE reduces the time of an active shrine buff? Wth is this bs
So no druid?
Not yet, no - takes time to make the videos ;)
You sound a bit like Roanoke Gaming
name sounds familiar...
@@Alzorath he does alot of bio analysis on movie and game diseases, virus, and symbiotes.
I hate assassin lol. So clunky