SisterSalvation: a mini-build guide to the staff assassin

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A little while back I found a ribcracker and I was looking for a build to
make use of its potential. For those that are not familiar with the Mean
Blue Staff, here are the stats:


Ribcracker Quarterstaff:
Two-Hand Damage: (54-62) To (143-169) (98.5-115.5 Avg)
Required Level: 31
Required Strength: 25
Durability: 130
Base Weapon Speed: [0]
+200-300% Enhanced Damage(varies)
Adds 30-65 Damage
+50% Damage To Undead
50% Chance Of Crushing Blow
50% Increased Attack Speed
50% Faster Hit Recovery
+100% Enhanced Defense
+100 Defense
+15 To Dexterity

Mine is 248% ED which makes for 58-155 damage. I plan on upgrading the
staff to use as an end-game weapon and it should do 291-437, which seems
respectable.

A lot of people have reported successes with shapeshifting druids using a
ribcracker, and some others have mentionned Staffadins. There's also
staffarians, staff-wielding barbarians. I never liked playing
shapeshifters, so that's out of the equation. A staff-wielding paladin
would basically be a regular fanatical zealot build and I already have a
couple of those off-ladder, and I'm not a huge fan of barbarians so what
was left? Why not make a staff-wielding assassin? After all, a lot of
martial arts use staves, so what could be done here?

SisterSalvation was thus born. Since she's using a staff she can't use
any of the dual claw skills, so I decided to skip the elemental MA skills
entirely. The Plan for level 99 (yeah right!) is as follows:

20 Dragon Talon
20 Tiger Strike
20 Dragon Tail
20 Venom
5 Burst of speed
1 Dragon Flight
1 Mind Blast
1 Blade Fury
1 Death Sentry
1 (and all left-over points) Shadow Master
and all the prereqs.

With 1 in Shadow Master that's a whopping total of 104 points, so it's a
long-run build.

The different options are as follows:

Kick with dragon talon and get ungodly speed applying tons of crushing
blow and taking down bosses faster than any other char I've played so far
(and she's only got 12 in DTalon so far, so only 3 kicks but they blur
into one!)

Charge up with Tiger Strike (getting crushing blow hits along the way)
and release with Dragon Tail for major fire splash damage and crowd-
knockback (with just 2-3 points in TS and 5 in DTail, I get about 2350
dam using IK boots).

Use venom and Blade Fury to kill from a distance, getting tons of
crushing blow hits and keeping the venom steadily applied. So far with 12
in venom and Trang Oul's gloves, I'm doing 306-331 damage per .4 seconds,
which translates into 765-827.5 per second.

In all of the above scenarios, I have 5 death sentries up ready to start
a chain reaction as soon as a corpse hits the ground. Since I only have
one point and my equipement is currently low on +skills (only +1 assassin
skills) I only have a range of 3.6 yards for the corpse explosion but
it's still effective and will only become more so with more + skills as
she levels along.

So far she's wearing a +1 assasin skills circlet which I'm looking to
replace with a +3 MA circlet, and a nondescript rare amu with a little of
everything which I'm thinking could be replaced with a +3 MA amu. She's
wearing heavenly garb at the moment, for the resists and looks (the blue
goes very well with the ribcracker when venom's not on, and still looks
good when the stick's green) and the lack of better armor with both
resists and + skills. In time I'll probably find something better.

She's headed towards around 200 str, 150-175 dex and the rest into vit.
The strenght is needed to wear the heavy boots and adds to both the
damage formula for the kicks and the damage of the boots (1.2
multiplier).

I'm thinking that some +3 Shadow with +3 to both or either of Venom and
Shadow Master would do well on switch.

So far it's smooth sailing into nightmare, the only problem I found was
when i first got to act 2 where I'd kill myself killing beetles because
of low lightning resists and attacking too aggressively with kicks. Since
beetles release sparks every x time they're hit and when they die,
kicking them at break-neck speeds with Dragon Talon was releasing tons of
sparks on my head and the resulting corpse explosions would take out the
remaining beetles whose sparks would in turn take out the rest of my
life. A couple of deaths later I was furying away from a distance and
enjoying a much safer and only slightly slower travel through the desert.

So far she kills bosses much faster than any other character I've played
before. I think she could make a great clone killer when she gets to
hell!

*-) K.os
--
"He imagined for a moment his itinerary connecting up all the dots in the
sky like a child's numbered dots puzzle. He hoped that from some vantage
point in the Universe it might be seen to spell a very, very rude word" -
D. N. Adams
 
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On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 19:37:51 +0000, K.os wrote:

> A little while back I found a ribcracker and I was looking for a build to
> make use of its potential. For those that are not familiar with the Mean
> Blue Staff, here are the stats:
>
>
> Ribcracker Quarterstaff:
> Two-Hand Damage: (54-62) To (143-169) (98.5-115.5 Avg)
> Required Level: 31
> Required Strength: 25
> Durability: 130
> Base Weapon Speed: [0]
> +200-300% Enhanced Damage(varies)
> Adds 30-65 Damage
> +50% Damage To Undead
> 50% Chance Of Crushing Blow
> 50% Increased Attack Speed
> 50% Faster Hit Recovery
> +100% Enhanced Defense
> +100 Defense
> +15 To Dexterity
>
> Mine is 248% ED which makes for 58-155 damage. I plan on upgrading the
> staff to use as an end-game weapon and it should do 291-437, which seems
> respectable.
>
> A lot of people have reported successes with shapeshifting druids using a
> ribcracker, and some others have mentionned Staffadins. There's also
> staffarians, staff-wielding barbarians. I never liked playing
> shapeshifters, so that's out of the equation. A staff-wielding paladin
> would basically be a regular fanatical zealot build and I already have a
> couple of those off-ladder, and I'm not a huge fan of barbarians so what
> was left? Why not make a staff-wielding assassin? After all, a lot of
> martial arts use staves, so what could be done here?
>
> SisterSalvation was thus born. Since she's using a staff she can't use
> any of the dual claw skills, so I decided to skip the elemental MA skills
> entirely. The Plan for level 99 (yeah right!) is as follows:
>
> 20 Dragon Talon
> 20 Tiger Strike
> 20 Dragon Tail
> 20 Venom
> 5 Burst of speed
> 1 Dragon Flight
> 1 Mind Blast
> 1 Blade Fury
> 1 Death Sentry
> 1 (and all left-over points) Shadow Master
> and all the prereqs.

Not to be a wet blanket, but one enter this enterprise
noting a couple of things:

1) The only MA finisher that will take advantage of the
non-crushing blow physical damage of your staff is the normal attack.
2) The physical damage from using a 2h weapon with BF is
reduced by half.
3) Crushing blow from BF is treated like CB from a bow (it
takes 1/8 current life against normal monsters and 1/16
from bosses and champions).
4) If using BoS and decent plus skills you hit max
attack speed with most weapons, however resists
and damage reduction are obviously a big concern with
a staff. With a very fast staff such as you have you might
consider using Fade instead and still could hit max attack
speed with some other IAS.
5) AR is an issue with BF. If not using a BA merc then
one might consider either an ITD weapon (wouldn't help
against bosses) or a weapon like Heaven's Light stuffed
with eths in the sockets that takes down monster defense.
6) Crushing blow is very important to the build but,
one can get 33-40% CB on 1h (weapons without using
Ber runes) and CB from other items such as Guillaume's
Face, Gore Riders, Duress, etc.
7) High level DS ends up doing the majority of monster
killing on hell level with every Assy build I've tried
it with.
 
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K.os schrieb:

<sniped usefull stuff>

Sounds quite interesting to me. And like a big challenge to do this in
Hardcore (no blocking, hard to get resists to a decent level).

Two major questions: How to deal with physical immunities and how to get
a decent attack rating in Blade Fury mode?

---
Hannes
 
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In a parallel universe, Anti-Hannes Brunner said exactly the opposite of:

> K.os schrieb:
>
> <sniped usefull stuff>
>
> Sounds quite interesting to me. And like a big challenge to do this in
> Hardcore (no blocking, hard to get resists to a decent level).
>
> Two major questions: How to deal with physical immunities and how to
get
> a decent attack rating in Blade Fury mode?

Venom for non-Poison Immune PIs, with 5 death sentries to blow up
corpses. Charging TS and releasing DTail on a non-PI (if any are near)
would also be an option. Using some weapon with ctc amplify damage should
also do the trick, but I haven't tried yet (got a vile husk I could try
this with).

As far a decent AR with BF, I'm hoping that gear, dex and charms will be
enough. If that isn't the case I'll probably try a Blessed Aim merc.

*-) K.os
--
"He imagined for a moment his itinerary connecting up all the dots in the
sky like a child's numbered dots puzzle. He hoped that from some vantage
point in the Universe it might be seen to spell a very, very rude word" -
D. N. Adams
 
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Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2 (More info?)

In a parallel universe, Anti-Last2Know said exactly the opposite of:

[snip]

> Not to be a wet blanket, but one enter this enterprise
> noting a couple of things:
>
> 1) The only MA finisher that will take advantage of the
> non-crushing blow physical damage of your staff is the normal attack.

That was already noted. The staff is mainly for crushing blow, charging
up TS and looking nice.

> 2) The physical damage from using a 2h weapon with BF is
> reduced by half.

Also noted. I guess I should have mentionned it.

> 3) Crushing blow from BF is treated like CB from a bow (it
> takes 1/8 current life against normal monsters and 1/16
> from bosses and champions).

Again, already noted. She also uses Dragon Talon, which is a melee attack
and gets full benefit from crushing blow. It's safe so far except in so
case as noted in my previous post, the leech keeps everything filled most
time and most of the kicks connect.

> 4) If using BoS and decent plus skills you hit max
> attack speed with most weapons, however resists
> and damage reduction are obviously a big concern with
> a staff. With a very fast staff such as you have you might
> consider using Fade instead and still could hit max attack
> speed with some other IAS.

That is something I should look into when I have a better idea of my
endgame gear. So far I only have one point in both BoS and Fade and it
might be a while before I add more. I'm maxxing venom and then I'll start
putting more points in TS to give it a better AR and of course better
results.

> 5) AR is an issue with BF. If not using a BA merc then
> one might consider either an ITD weapon (wouldn't help
> against bosses) or a weapon like Heaven's Light stuffed
> with eths in the sockets that takes down monster defense.
> 6) Crushing blow is very important to the build but,
> one can get 33-40% CB on 1h (weapons without using
> Ber runes) and CB from other items such as Guillaume's
> Face, Gore Riders, Duress, etc.

I might go with BA merc if necessary when I hit hell. So far I'm using a
might dude and he's doing good so far.

I know that there are other weapons that would be better for a BF
assassin. However, this was more of an exercise in seeing what kind of
build I could do to use the Ribcracker in a more original way than making
the usual fury druid/zeal paladin. Another use that could have been
interesting would have been an Enchantress, but I feel more comfortable
having a shadow master, Mind Blast and Cloak of Shadows than with the
sorc skills. That is merely my opinion and I'll gladly admit to a pro-
assassin bias. :)


> 7) High level DS ends up doing the majority of monster
> killing on hell level with every Assy build I've tried
> it with.

I only recently did a trapper after a couple of years of playing PS
assassins, and saw the awesome power of DS. For this build I'm only
putting one point there as there are not enough skill points to do all
that I want to do with this particular char if I give her more in DS.

I now regularly give my MA-only assassins a +DS claw for switch. (Much as
I try to give all my non-MA assassins a Dragon Flight claw for switch) My
trapper has level 21 DS (with +11 skills) and it covers almost all of the
screen so it's pretty efficient. Actually, that's where my other points
are going with my trapper. Once I max it I can expect a range of over 13
yards so that should be the whole screen! :)

You do bring up valid points in your post, though. It's just that the
whole point of this character is to run around with a Ribcracker so I
can't really change the weapon without declaring the project a failure!
:p

*-) K.os
--
"He imagined for a moment his itinerary connecting up all the dots in the
sky like a child's numbered dots puzzle. He hoped that from some vantage
point in the Universe it might be seen to spell a very, very rude word" -
D. N. Adams
 
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On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 22:01:45 +0000, K.os wrote:

> In a parallel universe, Anti-Last2Know said exactly the opposite of:
>
> [snip]
>
>> Not to be a wet blanket, but one enter this enterprise
>> noting a couple of things:
>>
>> 1) The only MA finisher that will take advantage of the
>> non-crushing blow physical damage of your staff is the normal attack.
>
> That was already noted. The staff is mainly for crushing blow, charging
> up TS and looking nice.

Ok, I mainly responded because you mentioned upgrading the ribcracker,
and also how smooth the sailing is on NM. It widely accepted that Talon
is relatively overpowered on norm and NM and only loses a bit of steam
when monster life gets very high on hell level because of the relatively
modest physical damage possible with boots/kicks compared to the higher
powered physical weapons, skills, and modifiers. I'm glad you realize
that the task gets tougher and that ribcracker is not the ideal kicking or
BF weapon. Also, the calcs I have seen show avg. damage over time being
higher with just Talon compared to TS charge-up with Talon. Of course
that could change with a high enough damage weapon, but I'm not sure
where the cut off is.



>> 4) If using BoS and decent plus skills you hit max
>> attack speed with most weapons, however resists
>> and damage reduction are obviously a big concern with
>> a staff. With a very fast staff such as you have you might
>> consider using Fade instead and still could hit max attack
>> speed with some other IAS.
>
> That is something I should look into when I have a better idea of my
> endgame gear. So far I only have one point in both BoS and Fade and it
> might be a while before I add more. I'm maxxing venom and then I'll start
> putting more points in TS to give it a better AR and of course better
> results.

Another point to mention is that the damage from Venom and Talon
is theoretically lessened if you connect every time because the
listed interval of 0.4 sec for venom is more than the time between
kicks.


> I know that there are other weapons that would be better for a BF
> assassin. However, this was more of an exercise in seeing what kind of
> build I could do to use the Ribcracker in a more original way than making
> the usual fury druid/zeal paladin. Another use that could have been
> interesting would have been an Enchantress, but I feel more comfortable
> having a shadow master, Mind Blast and Cloak of Shadows than with the
> sorc skills. That is merely my opinion and I'll gladly admit to a pro-
> assassin bias. :)

I like Assassins also and wish it was possible to use more skill
points. My current fav solution to PIs is to Talon with
Gimmershred. I'm currently doing a build that uses this uber
weapon with Talon and BF, and will max DS (may only have about +2
skills from gear so I will put a bunch of real points in MB), but I
would also like to try a version of your build that maxes the TS, DTail
combo as well (at the expense of DS). I'd probably use Dual Bartucs for
that build and just keep the Gimmers on switch. To me it seems like
it is worth getting Venom to a level that keeps it active, but
not worth putting 20 pts. in unless they are left over, since the
elemental damage possible from kicking with the right gear will be
much higher.


> You do bring up valid points in your post, though. It's just that the
> whole point of this character is to run around with a Ribcracker so I
> can't really change the weapon without declaring the project a failure!
> :p

Glad to hear you know what you are doing. Maybe you want to
keep a Razorswitch on switch for those areas with a lot of elemental
attacks and IM like Chaos Sanctuary. :)