The curse of Chaos

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Ever since 1.10 came out I wanted to make a Whirlwinding Assassin using
a Chaos claw. But at the same time, I was convinced that I would never
be able to get a hand on a legit OHM rune. So I stopped thinking about
it during the first ladder season. But with the second season, I had
some luck with hellforge rune drops early on and begun to plan for mule
hellforge rushes.

After two or three rushing sessions (I have access to up to five D2
installations which allowes me to rush 3 mules along with the questing
Smiter and a high level helper), I finally had collected enough ISTs,
MALs and GULs to cube up an OHM. But I still needed a three socket elite
claw with nice skills. After endless hell cow and baal runs without
finding a usefull sleeve I checked the indiablo.de trade forums and
traded a 3 socket Suwayyah with +2 Dragon Flight/+3 Death Sentry for an
UM rune.

In the meantime, I had leveled Chaotia to 57 thus having everything
ready to start the chaos. I got only 292% ed - low end, but the range is
only 290-340 (I hate variable stats on rune words, especially on high
end rune words).

Now I had to get the feeling for a new skill (well I had played WW Barbs
before, but still) at lvl 57 in mid Nightmare. In Hardcore mode of
course. With the most valuable item I ever had. Strange feeling . To
my surprise, it worked better than I had dreamed of, given the fact that
slvl 1 Whirlwind gives -50% damage. So Chaotia made her way to the
remaining quests of Nightmare with ease and grew old enough for her
final equipment:

Chaos claw
Upgraded Bartucs with ed jewel
UMed Guillaumes face
Duress wire fleece
Gore riders
Crafted dual leech hit power gloves
String of Ears
Raven Frost
Rare 7% ll 5% ml ring
21ish Mara's
2 +3 Shadow Skill claws on weapon switch

Of course, a Fury claw would perform better and is strongly recommended
by the guide on diabloii.net, but how the heck should someone ever find
or cube a JAH? (Well I found one in the old days of massive hell cowing)
Another option would be a Jade Talon, but the resists part is covered by
a high level Fade and a few charms. Speaking of skill points, here is
what I was heading for:

Max Fade
Max Claw Mastery
Max Venom
Enough points in Shadow Master to cast at slvl 17
15 points with skills in Weapon Block for 55% blocking
1 point in both Mind Blast and Cloak of Shadows
A few points in Blade Shield
Martial Arts skill tree: nada lol

After a short sneak into Hell and some resists charm tweaking I decided
to skip the boring NM Baal run leveling sessions but to start with Hell
right away, solo with one of my other high level chars sitting in the
game with looting enabled.

More to come ...

---
Hannes

 

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If you want to read the guide I based my build apon, search for 'PvM
Shredsin' in the thread found here:
http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=126543&page=2&pp=10
Lots of usefull info about Assassin builds in this thread BTW.

Instead of giving a detailed report about the way of Chaotia through
Hell (the end was reached about one month ago, I had not planed to write
a report at all and have only a few screenshots to help my memory) I
just want to discuss the pros and cons a bit.

First of all (and most important), I had a lot of fun playing this char.
It's a melee char (with Death Trap support though), you can (and have
to) use the defensive abilities (Mind Blast, Cloak of Shadows) resulting
in more than just a point and click game experiance, you use a multi
target attack and don't have to target every single critter. And this is
a surprisingly strong build. I soloed her to Guardian, so this build
must be strong .

Even though she had only about 1000 hit points at the beginning of Hell,
I soon found out that it was possible to rush into the battles without
too much precaution. She has 32% Damage Reduction (20% from Fade, 12%
from String of Ears), she is moving while attacking causing most ranged
attacks to miss, she has 55% chance to block attacks *while attacking*,
she blocks attacks with Weapon Blocks that can't be blocked with a
shield. 8% mana leech were enough to keep the blue bubble filled and
keep the WW going (except against skelletons, physical immunes and mana
burners of course, where she had to drink blue potions). Did I mention
that I was surprised how durable that build is?

So how to deal a good amount of damage when Whirlwind at slvl 3 has -34%
dmg bonus? Well this penalty isn't as bad as it looks in the first
place, because it is just substracted from the other damage modifiers:
Claw Mastery +131%
Str Bonus 0.75*152/100= +114%
Dex Bonus 0.75*152/100= +114%
WW Bonus -34%
So it's still +325% in total, not too bad. Nearly 700 physical damage on
average from both claws. Add 216-471 magical dmg from Chaos claw,
690-710 from slvl 29 Venom and the cold damage from Duress, Ravenfrost
and a bunch of charms and the numbers begin to look nice. But of course,
the key modifier (as with most other melee chars in 1.10) is Crushing
Blow. She has no less than 75%. Enough said. I don't think I have to
mention how usefull Death Trap is even at low levels.

The downside of this build is that it is very item dependend. You need
an OHM and pretty much all of the other equipment Chaotia is using, or
even more expensive stuff. A 'cheap' variant of this build does not exists.

So what incidents during Chaotias travel through Hell did I keep in
mind? Most of it was smooth going. Areas with lots of PIs or unleechable
skeletons are definitely not the favorit areas of Chaotia. In the few
maps where Oblivion Knights can spawn (Chaos Sanctuary, Worldstone Keep
III), I had to switch to Blade Fury to avoid IM death. Fighting the
Ancients was easier than expected (it required a few days until I was in
the right mood for that though) using my standard 'lure then to the
upper corner' approach. Oh and the fight with Lister was a tough one.
Stoneskin, thus PI, extra strong, spectral hitting. I nearly gave up the
fight because he healed himself at about the same rate as Chaotia could
hurt him with Venom. But she finally made it as she made it to Guardian
shortly thereafter.

Oops no word about her merc. I decided that an Act 2 Holy Freeze desert
warrior is the best choice, expecially if you have an ethereal Obediance
Thresher you can equip him with.

---
Hannes

PS: If you can ever get a hand on an OHM rune, try this. So much fun .

 

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> First of all (and most important), I had a lot of fun playing this char.
> It's a melee char (with Death Trap support though), you can (and have

congrats on that char : D
i'd like to try, but i wont spend all my runes to make an ohm...for now.

> III), I had to switch to Blade Fury to avoid IM death. Fighting the
> Ancients was easier than expected (it required a few days until I was in
> the right mood for that though) using my standard 'lure then to the
> upper corner' approach. Oh and the fight with Lister was a tough one.

you mentioned that ancients tactics in some of your previous posts already.
how exactly do you do that ? i couldnt seperate the ancients yet.
maybe with help of teleport ?
i dont take them solo, except with a skellimancer. i'm usually blaming the
dialup lag i'm suffering from, but that's not all im afraid.

> Oops no word about her merc. I decided that an Act 2 Holy Freeze desert
> warrior is the best choice, expecially if you have an ethereal Obediance
> Thresher you can equip him with.

yes, those rock
stefan

 

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Stefan Roth schrieb:
>>First of all (and most important), I had a lot of fun playing this char.
>>It's a melee char (with Death Trap support though), you can (and have
>
> congrats on that char : D
> i'd like to try, but i wont spend all my runes to make an ohm...for now.

I could borrow you the claw as I don't play her anymore anyway. Just
promise me to play only in private games with loot on .

>>III), I had to switch to Blade Fury to avoid IM death. Fighting the
>>Ancients was easier than expected (it required a few days until I was in
>>the right mood for that though) using my standard 'lure then to the
>>upper corner' approach. Oh and the fight with Lister was a tough one.
>
> you mentioned that ancients tactics in some of your previous posts already.
> how exactly do you do that ? i couldnt seperate the ancients yet.
> maybe with help of teleport ?

Nah, all three at once. The separating trick only worked once with
teleporting around. But the corner is less dangerous because you can
hide behind a pillar - the stupid thrower nails the pillar with axes if
your are standing in the right position.

> i dont take them solo, except with a skellimancer. i'm usually blaming the
> dialup lag i'm suffering from, but that's not all im afraid.

But it sure makes a huge difference.

---
Hannes

 

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"Hannes Brunner" <bruhan12@web.de> wrote in message
news:d48422$k01$01$1@news.t-online.com...
> Stefan Roth schrieb:
> >>First of all (and most important), I had a lot of fun playing this char.
> >>It's a melee char (with Death Trap support though), you can (and have
> >
> > congrats on that char : D
> > i'd like to try, but i wont spend all my runes to make an ohm...for now.
>
> I could borrow you the claw as I don't play her anymore anyway. Just
> promise me to play only in private games with loot on .

hehe no thanks.
i still have bad conscience about that prudence armor from babebridou, which
disappeard with my necro in a lag death.
i mean, even loot wouldnt help there. i only discovered the next day that he
was dead, got no deeds message.

> Nah, all three at once. The separating trick only worked once with
> teleporting around. But the corner is less dangerous because you can
> hide behind a pillar - the stupid thrower nails the pillar with axes if
> your are standing in the right position.

good, i'm gonna try that.

> > i dont take them solo, except with a skellimancer. i'm usually blaming
the
> > dialup lag i'm suffering from, but that's not all im afraid.
>
> But it sure makes a huge difference.

my first pally this season died there....oh...i was so sure he would never
die.
his outfit wasnt too bad. he had
HoZ, Vampire Gaze, String of Ears, Gris armor, heavens light sceptre...well,
he was ok i think.
he was at full resi, 15k defense, about 1400 life.

but the ancients made short work with him, BANG-DEAD...the fight lasted only
10 seconds i remember.

the extra fast guys misuse that lag i have that combined with AD and i
run
Stefan