Claw Assassin

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Lynderika
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Basics : Skill Plans - Gear
Showcase : Videos
D2stats set up





Introduction


Strengths of the build

  • Leveling speed to 115 is top tier. From 115 to 125 it slow down but is still good enough to be comfortable.
  • Among the best and easiest boss killing of the game. Batsrike owns and scale very well forever.
  • Fast as any sins are ; with 90 ms and blink from level 3.
  • Extremely tanky ; we're talking about a build having every sin defensive layer with melee devotion and tanky summons on top. Add some leech and you get a build that really need to be swarmed to die. Claw Sin is absolutely hardcore viable.
  • Can be played as phy, elemental and some hybrids just fine.

Caution

  • 125 Rifts and below can be pretty fast with poison, but it require specific gear that will only be useful for theses low level rifts, so you decide if it's worth the take. Without going poison, Fauzt and Viz Jun are also very slow. Safe, but slow.
  • Scosglen isn't hard, if you don't plan on farming it for too long it's fine, but it still will be slow, and there's nothing you can do about it. High Labs is possible now in 2.5 but still slow.
  • There is a few relics that can be used to help clawsin with the above points, earthquake (with phy weapons), retaliate (for elemental weapons), cherubim, guard tower + fortress, maybe even divine judgement are all better spam options than noctule. But I don't recommand them to be honest, the build does perfectly fine without them up to scosglen/labs, and using them for thoses work, but I recommand much more a respec. Currently caster sin and scorp blades does extremely well endgame, you don't have to suffer.




Mechanics

What is batstrike ?

► Show Spoiler


To shift or not to shift?

Shift clic with both noctule and bat nova works great. It help a lot in melee heavy rifts, especially so if there's invisible enemies. You guessed it ; Sunless Sea, Cow level and duncraig especially make great use of shift clicking. In most other zones I sometime use it, but mostly still prefer to go melee normally. Also note that elemental builds rely on life on melee attack to sustain, and that only proc while hitting a target directly.





Skill plans

What version do I play/is better for what?? HELP

For untwinked start, ladder start, ssf... Let's say just to get started in general, I recommand going with phy much more, and it will be the basis of this guide. Going like this, garenteed drops will carry to level 130 without issues. You won't be able to farm 125+ rifts fast, but you can snipe any bosses just fine and get gear in Duncraig. It's overall the budget thing that work, while also scaling well. For endgame bossing, both phy and ied are good. ied will cap at an higher damage, while on phy it's easier to set up and to stack life.

Elemental is very slightly better for normal and nightmare, but struggle a lot in early hell. With only a craft, pierce, sustain and a few other things will be an issue, so I only recommand starting elemental if you have the full
Witchhunter's Attire
Witchhunter's Attire
(Assassin Claw Set)

Witchhunter's Crucifix
Witchhunter's Faith
Witchhunter's Hood
Witchhunter's Ire

Set Bonus with 2 or more set items:
-10% to Enemy Lightning Resistance
Maximum Block Chance +10%

Set Bonus with 3 or more set items:
50% Chance to cast level 24 Crucify on Melee Attack
+150 Life on Melee Attack

Set Bonus with complete set:
+5 to Assassin Skill Levels
-20% to Enemy Elemental Resistances
+15 to Way of the Gryphon (Assassin Only)
25% to Dexterity
Fire Absorb 3%
Lightning Absorb 3%
Cold Absorb 3%
+150 Life on Melee Attack
2% Reanimate as: Returned Archer

set ready. If you don't, it's much easier to play phy from the start. But in case you do, that set should carry midgame quite well and be very comfortable to play.

Poison is a spec that is only used to farm low level rifts, 125 and below. Fauzt, Viz Jun, Triune and Teganze typically are much faster with poison than any other clawsin spec even with the most endgame gear possible, but poison can't do anything else beside thoses rifts and require
Astrogha's Moon
Astrogha's Moon
(Wyrd Set)

Darkling
Viper Skin
Angel of Death

Set Bonus with 2 or more set items:
Maximum Poison Resist +2%
Poison Resist +75%

Set Bonus with complete set:
-25% to Enemy Poison Resistance
+23 to Amatoxin
Slow Target 5%

set to get started.


Levels 1-115 phy

Image

  • Skill order : 1 Noctule > 1 Blink > 1 Melee devotion > Gyphon until you're level 15 > 1 shadow refuge > 6 Shadow Rush > 1 Perfect Being > 1 Batstrike > Gryphon to 25 > 1 pt Shadow Dancer > 6 Blink & 3 Domain > 4 Purity > Shadow Dancer to 25 > Perfect Being to 25 > 1 Prismatic Cloak > 15 Way of the Raven > Leftovers until lvl 115 to Primstic Cloak. The above show a level 111 tree.
  • The plan here is to take profit of Ways insane damage early on, but after hell without pierce it start being less relevent, so I recommand a respec after 115 to remove Way of the Grypon and instead focus on summoned bats

Levels 115+ Phy
Image

  • I use Doom here but was with way of the raven early on for lvl 115-130. Consider that Raven help a bit clearing, and also add damage to bats in general, and help with phy resistant mobs. Meanwhile, Doom is better for bosses, but is only and only is useful for them. So to conclude, take Doom if you're gonna farm bosses or later on in the game for scosglen+, but keep raven for general gameplay during leveling.
  • Here show a level 132 tree, the next points can be more Prismatic Cloak or more Shadow refuge if you like to have more duration. 2 points Vampiric icon is enough as well, more is just comfier. Also note that this tree is after I got Void Charm, that give teleport skill so points in Domain and the 5 excess in blink I had before were available.
  • I still recommand stats to be mostly all dex, but when in need for more tankyess (For hardcore players, for doing Labs and Samael, also for safer Atanna Khan), vitality points can of course be considered. As long as you keep attack rating high enough it's fine.

Poison

Image
  • Show a level 132 tree. Next points can be either more Shadow Refuge or more Prismtic Cloak. Take note, Dexterity is only needed for attack rating here, so you can invest a bit in vita to get stunned less.

Elemental

Image
  • Show a level 132 tree. Next points will be in endurance then Shadow Refuge


Gear

Leveling (lvl 1-135)

► Physical - Start a new char here


► Elemental


► Poison



Level 140+
► Physical


► Elemental





Walkthrough

I'm too lazy to do full walkthrough and explain each bosses anymore, so I'll just post videos of my progression and you do the work. Ask if you struggle too much somewhere or need general advices.

(lvl 1-58) Normal
(lvl 58-102) Nightmare
(lvl 105) Riftwalker I
(lvl 108) Sunless sea farm
(lvl 110) Torajan Jungle
(lvl 111) Cows farm
(lvl 115) 115 ubers Yes idk which ubers are interesting so I'll just say "hey they're all there" if I knew I could record in one go.
(lvl 118) Tran Athulua farm
(lvl 121) Azmodan, Rift II and 120s
(lvl 121) Duncraig run
(lvl 126) 125s
(lvl 130) Laz
(lvl 130) Atanna Khan
(lvl 130) Riftwalker III
(lvl 130) Void



This line mark the end of ssf gaming !

(lvl 132) Getting started on Fauzt farming with poison
(lvl 132) Doing the same fauzt route with Claw set to compare
(lvl 133) Uldy with the set Clearing edryems is painful, so the slow is, so keep Uldy for when you're stronk. Do it with more levels and sigs than me if you wanna keep it safe and unpainful.
(lvl 136) More poison farming, showing a few places ; Fauzt, Duncraig etc
(lvl 138) Scosglen with claw set
(lvl 140) Samael on low budget phy




D2stats

Here's what I used that have everything needed if you wanna follow the guide

► Show Spoiler
servii
Stygian Watcher
40 | 3
"Currently caster sin" can you elaborate what "caster sin" means, please? I want to try something new. Did you mean oskills, relic or another spell for "caster sin"? Or was it trap build you had in mind? I heard traps are low dmg end game, but never played a trap sin myself.
Thanks in advance!
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Lynderika
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servii wrote:"Currently caster sin" can you elaborate what "caster sin" means, please? I want to try something new. Did you mean oskills, relic or another spell for "caster sin"? Or was it trap build you had in mind? I heard traps are low dmg end game, but never played a trap sin myself.
Thanks in advance!


Hey !
Normal psi sin using shurikens and mind blast works well, with vessels from
Sagittarius
Sagittarius
Cestus (Sacred)

One-Hand Damage: 41 to 43
(Assassin Only)
Required Level: 100
Required Dexterity: 349
Item Level: 120
Dexterity Damage Bonus: (0.13 per Dexterity)%
Vessel of Judgement: +3 Targets
+7 to Assassin Skill Levels
+100% Damage to Vessel of Justice
+100% Damage to Vessel of Retribution
+(50 to 60) to Vessel of Judgement
+(100 to 150) to Energy
+(300 to 400) to Life
Maximum Mana +(20 to 25)%
Physical Resist 5%
Socketed (3)
too.
There's also nice oskills yes, fire caster most noticably, for exemple phoenix wave, and cold caster (avalanche, limpet) are both good. Poison spell oskills can probably be used as well but it won't beat scorp blades anyway. Light oskills are a bit memey

I sold them as things to do labs with instead of claw but it's not like the oskills I quoted do especially well in labs, but now with the new avoid it's probably fine enough.
racerx
Stygian Watcher
41 | 5
Death star is legit farmer up to fauzt on a super budget.

2 craft claws high death star roll.

astro set.

fill in the rest with +sk/-psn gear.

farm/trade everything for the rest of your builds with that ezpz
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Lynderika
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racerx wrote:Death star is legit farmer up to fauzt on a super budget.

2 craft claws high death star roll.

astro set.

fill in the rest with +sk/-psn gear.

farm/trade everything for the rest of your builds with that ezpz


I prefer normal poison clawsin for the sustain, better aoe and easyness to set up but true it works well too
racerx
Stygian Watcher
41 | 5
perma bloodbath. clear the whole width of a lane in fauzt with 1 click. only thing faster might be pwave but at a higher investment.

not trying to hijack your guide tho. just giving the guy an option since he asked about oskill
servii
Stygian Watcher
40 | 3
Thanks both of you for the clarifications!
I tried psisin, it is very good up to 125-130 lvl, later on it gets weaker. Couldn't make it work reliably after 135.
For me, endgame starts after 140-ish lvl (Scosglen&Lab), so any examples of Fauz&Dunc being easily farmed are pointless. At current state of the game, they are late mid game at best.
Checked the guide for Fuppy's Phoenix Assasin and it seems very strong.
Anyway, off to try some new ideas you gave me-LL, Avalanche or poison, just need something new.
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B10H4zarD
Thunder Beetle
50 | 5
Good guide btw, i appreciate the work u put in
DevinJ83
Imp
4 | 0
Started playing again after taking a break. Very easy guide to follow, although i started (up to lvl 20'ish) as poison, just bc I wanted to try out random stuff. I ended up staying w/ Claw, and this guide has made it super easy. Aside from farming a few TU's (the ones suggested wep/armo/helm+RW shield) I have basically walked through the entire game. Was taking SOME damage in A4 norm, then decided to work on my resist. Being res-capped im in NM mode, lvl 70 (as of writing this) and I face-tanked andy/duriel and now mephisto, despite Meph being about 10 lvls higher than me. Very strong and easy for leveling. Not to flex, bc the guide isn't mine. But this seems like a really strong build. Currently the lower half of my equipment is just random blues. Gloves/boots/belt/rings/amulet all random garbage and this build still rips.
Milkshake
Abomination
142 | 17
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Is new noctule just dogshit for clear??