Kicker set-up...

[ogot]

Yesterday I created a kicker at Asia 1, right now she's clvl 30, doing norm baal runs...

Skills:

5 shadow warrior (going to max)
5 dragon tail (going to max)
5 burst of speed
5 pre reqs
9 tiger strike (going to max)


Items:

Crushflange mace - is it true that the crushing blow applies to the whole dragon tail explosion? (picked it up when someone killed Andariel for me, I'm thinking of using a good claw, help here)
Stormguild - some low lvl shield (picked it up in the somewhere I forgot, don't know what to use eventually, help here too)
Sigon armor - (about to switch to Hwanin armor, I lack 2 str to equip it... Maybe Nat armor/Duress eventually?)
Nokozan relic ammy - (will switch to Highlord's... Any other ideas?)
Peasant Crown helm - (will switch to either Nat helm or Vampire Gaze... Help...)
Bladebuckle belt - I'm using it for the 30% faster hit recovery (dunno what to switch to though...)
Rings - will be Ravenfrost / ___dunno, SOJ?___, right now they're two rare rings...
Nat boots - (going to switch to Shadow Dancers when I get to that lvl unless I'll be using full Nat set...)
Venom Grip gloves - I got these for their crushing blow, can I use anything else?

----

Should I use full Nat set or part?

Am I correct in using Shadow Warrior? What other skills should I be getting?


Edit: I forgot where I found the shield...
Edit 2 : Maybe I won't max Burst of Speed... Thanks Obi2Kenobi!
Edit 3 : I'll use Shadow Dancer full Nat-set is not a better idea... Thanks Yogi_Baar!

[Obi2Kenobi]

I'm not so sure you should max BoS. You should get just enough to break an attack breakpoint. This, of course, requires that you know what you will be using as your final weapon, so I feel it's best to just put a few points in there, and then max everything else first.

For your skills, no idea, never made a Martial Artist.

[ogot]

Okay, that's good to know... I'll leave the BoS at 5 or 7, then I'll trouble myself about it after I've maxed all the others...

[Yogi_Baar]

Nat boots - should I stick with these or use Shadow Dancer elite unique boots?

I think the general feeling is that Natalya's boots don't deal enough damage for kickers.

[ogot]

Okay, after 2 hours of researching / playing (don't ask) I've decided on my equipment... Of course, some suggestions or violent reactions regarding some of my mistakes would be greatly appreciated (not too violent, though, lol... :D)


Shaftstop going to switch to Leviathan once I'm able to get it... (for the damage reduction)
Vampire Gaze for Life/Mana Steal (not too sure about this though... Maybe Andy's Visage?)
Bartuc's Cut-throat (It's OK... I need a max speed weapon that can do considerable damage.... Anything on your mind?)
Stormshield of course... Problem for me is acquiring one though...
As for my belt, it's either TGod or String of Ears... Maybe Verdungo, but I probably won't be able to afford it anyway... (I could probably upgrade either one of the exceptional belts, but since I already have the String of Ears, I'm using it...)
Venom Grip for my gloves... I can't find anything else... Either that or Lava Gout...
Raven Frost / SOJ
Highlord's Wrath
Shadow Dancer boots when I can wear them...


Skills are still a problem though... :(

[Caaroid]

So. This is a pvm character, right? (Talon only works in PVM, hence my guessing.)

EQ: you seem to be forgetting resists. If you're one of the people with infinite sillicating of vita scs, disregard this comment. However, unless you have max resists AND Tgod in hell, you WILL die. (Well. Some people don't. I am not that skilled however, and I do.) The equipment you listed there do not seem to take this into account. With this in mind:

SKILLS: Tiger and kick are to be maxed, there is just nothing else to it. That leaves you with approx. 2 skills that you can max. IF I was to make a kicker, I might not go claw/shield at all: I think a claw/claw combo can work better; if you use FADE. Fade gives you 20+ PDR, lots of resists, and makes you immune to the nasty EXP shrines. A dual claw setup also needs ~10 points to claw block, with that and plus skills you are around 50%.

So why double claw?

• It is stylish. Shield is for the wusses!
  <>
  
• It is more versatile. You can go dual barctuc on one switch, granting 80 stats and 8 skills, or switch to a dual jade with 90 resall and 2-4 skills. A dual barctuc setup just pumps your damage through the roof (Yes, I am aware that storm has 30 str in it, but meeh.)
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• You need less dex because of wblock, and stat points are better spent in vit (or for glass cannon assas, str).
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• Weapon block works against nearly all attacks, including incoming elemental attacks.<>
  [st]
  Then again, it all depends on your equipment and on your play style. I am a moderatelly well-off person, having most uniques but lacking serious runes and charms; and for me a max fade dual claw approach turned out to be better than the Stormshield combo (yes, tried both).

[jrichard]

TS/DTailers have an few issues they need to address. They're still a great build, but you need to adjust your build to meet these conditions.

First, they are helped far more by plus skills and strength than anything else when it comes to increasing their damage.

Second, Dtail has a speed penalty. You won't be able to use Fade to make up for resists and PDR unless you have truly (un)godly gear.

Finally, Dtailers have immunity issues. Due to the way the damage is calculated, they are ineffective against physical immunes and their effectiveness is really reduced against fire immunes.

I'll tackle the immunities first. The most commonly used method of dealing with this one is to use phoenix strike with some points into synergies, claws of thunder being the first choice of most players. That means adjusting the build to provide for 20 phoenix and at least 10 claws of thunder.

Next, although i said you would need to use burst of speed instead of fade to get a fast attack speed, don't put anymore pts into burst. It has lousy diminishing returns. Let plus to skills gear raise it for you. Don't forget that you can put two shadow claws on your weapon switch to prebuff BoS. That's six +shadow skills right there.

That brings us to the rest of your gear. From my above statements we need to look for +skills or str, resists and PDR in that order. My favorite Dtailer setup goes like this:

Crown of ages helm - This will provide resists and the majority of the PDR this setup provides. It also has those 2 lovely sockets for making up what lacks in the setup. It's hard to replace this helm, but if you need something more easily obtainable your Nat's set helm or Vampire Gaze will work. The nat's helm will give you the resists while the vamp gaze will bring you leech and PDR. Use whatever fits best into your playstyle.

Chains of honor armor - This one's pretty expensive, but is there a class or build that couldn't list it towards the top of its armor choices? If you can't get this one, a very nice option is a lionheart runeword armor. Even if you have the means to come up with the Chains armor, use a lionheart to bring your assassin up to the level requirement for it.

Dual Bartucs with dual shadow claws on switch - The only option i'd suggest for these would be to use a Jade Talon as a second claw instead of a Bartucs if you are hurting for resists.

IK gloves and belt - Huge str bonus, dex, AR, and 25 IAS. I haven't used anything else on a kicker since I tried this pair out for the first time. They're inexpensive to come up with, also.

Shadow dancer boots - Some prefer upgraded Gore Riders here, but i find more use out of the bonus to dex and the + shadow skills on these boots.

Ravenfrost ring - This one shouldn't need an explanation. :)

Manald heal ring - The only source of mana leech in this setup comes from this ring slot. A nice dual leech ring would work better if you have one.

Mara's ammy - This is better than Highlord's wrath in my opinion. The deadly strike from highlord's won't apply to your kicks and the IAS on the highlord's is really not needed considering you have 25 IAS from the IK set pieces and BoS kicks in more than what you need to bring you up to fastest attack speed.

Enough +shadow skills charms to bring casting of your shadow up to level 18 - I have to say, i generally prefer the Shadow Master rather than the Warrior, but to each his own. At level 18, the shadow master has all of her rare gear and is at a breakpoint for figuring her skill levels

Whatever +martial arts charms you can fit into your inventory after that. The more you can come up with, the better.

If you can come up with the preferred gear listed above you should be able to have max resists in hell, 23% PDR and (depending on the charms you have) around level 35 TS and Dtail.

For stat points, I like to go with very high str. I'll put enough in vitality so that it's at a base level of 150 and enough into dex so that it's at 150 counting gear. Everythingelse i put into str.

Finally (yes, i'm gonna quit ranting soon :) ), that brings us to the skills setup.

20 TS
20 Dtail
20 PS
10 CoT
1 into the usual support skills: mind blast, cloak of shadows, fade, burst of speed, death sentry, and cobra strike.
Enough into your shadow to hit level 18 after charms and shadow claws

Even with your having put more than these levels into some skills already, you should still be able to bring this build about. Extra points you have after filling all of this i would put into CoT.

That concludes this rant, thank you for your patience if you are still reading this. :)

jrichard

[ogot]

jrichard, want me to quote everything you said?

...

Lol. May I just clarify, this is not an insult to your reply.

Okay, your replies are a big help, (although I can also get + all resistances small charms for resistances, and life is not much of a problem so far, somehow, when I charge and release Dragon Tail, my life goes from 2/3 to full... :huh: ). Thanks for the tip on the IK gloves and belt, that helps a lot. Is it possible to get 100% damage reduction? If so, would it be useful?

Caaroid, although your dual claws and weapon block suggestion was my first ever assassin set up, I feel that I can put the points in Weapon Block to some other skill, probably Phoenix Strike... Maybe I can use Guardian Angel to support Stormshield? Anyway, I haven't gotten Stormshield yet, it'll depend on whether I have skills left when I reach clvl 85...

Thanks for the *ahem* "short" replies guys... Maybe 85% damage reduction isn't too good after all, unless I can get max resistances in hell difficult... Right now, my kicker's clvl 49 (my clvl 69 enchantress just finished nightmare and I got caught up in trading the gul rune I got from hell hellforge... so, right now she's clvl 75 instead of my assassin reaching about clvl 65 by now... :()

Additional information would still be appreciated, as I will be reading this thread as long as my assassin isn't clvl 85... Thanks!

[adeyke]

Physical resistance (Damage Reduced by X%) is capped at 50%.

[ogot]

Physical resistance (Damage Reduced by X%) is capped at 50%.

Darn, that statement, although bad news, uncovers a lot for me. It renders my first set-up useless... Ah well...

One of my friends said it was possible to have 95% damage reduction, but who will I believe? Him, or one of the sources of the Arreat Summit? :( Lol, it's obvious...

I'll go tell my friend about this... Thanks adeyke...

[Caaroid]

95% dam red is achievable through ES, although it is of a "different kind".

About GA: I like to put GA on all of my characters. Cheap, gives you "kick-ass"assin (sorry, I need to sleep badly) block and max resists. Actually that's what my clone-killer kicker wears.

About jrichard's suggestions: while I want to point out in advance that I respect your opinion, the gear setup you describe there is unattainable to 95% of the Bnet population. Ok, if we disregard the call for Chains, that drops down to, say, 70%.

My point is, there is absolutelly no need for that gear for a kicker to be efective, so why stress people with that? Besides, I would not trade my +3 ma +27 str amu for a lousy mara :P. (Ok. The IK setup is a near requisite, I agree with that. If only one could upgrade set items/ik boots were myrmidon greaves! Ah well. One can dream...)

[devzero]

To expand a bit on the dammage reduction mechanisms available.

The stats % dammage reduced by, or physical resistance is capped at 50%.
A character using 50% dammage reduction hit by decreptify will have 0% dammage reduce.
A character using 50% dammage reduction hit by amplify dammage will have -50% dammage reduce.

That is the great weaknes of % dammage reduction.

You have a stat called dammage reduced by X. It is not capped. It is not affected by any curses, most monsters deal less than 150 dammage per hit. If you have 130 dammage reduced (0% dammage reduction) and his hit by amplify, then an attack that does 135 dammage, you will take 10 points of dammage. Also Iron Maiden will probably return so much dammage that it will be useless against that (for melee chars only)

Any "extra strong" or aura enchanted bosses will be affected before dammage reduced by X so these can be a pain.

Defense. The best you can achive is 5% chance to be hit. Anything that can kill you in one hit is not affected by this much. Monsters that uses 20 hits to kill you will however be harmless. Again, reduced by curses or blessed aim aura. Some attacks also bypasess defence (lister).

Blocking. Maximum chance is 75%, faster block rate is also involed, to find the breakpoints look here: Faster block rate
Only lister(and company) bypases blocking.

Lastly the sorcs have energy shield. This can give 95% dammage reduction, and is applied before dammage reduced by. This gives protection against all forms of dammage except poison.
Extra strong / might / fanat might give big dammage, but is reduced by % so it will still give good protection.
Mana burn monsters will remove the mana shield very fast.

Assasins have weapon block (works in the same way as shield block).

Amazons have doge/avoid/evade witch works in addition to block.

Some curses or warcries will reduce the dammage output of monsters. Holy freeze and cold dammage will slow down the attack rate of most monsters.

If you add it all upp you can get an amazing amount of protection, usualy you have to max 1-2 of the methods tho, since other equipment and skills will go to elemental protection and dammage.

When you decide what kind of protection you will use, look at its weaknesses and decide how you will deal with that. For example blocking is very good against all except lister. When you deal with lister you can use cold to slow his minions and some sort of % slow in lister himself to keep him from dammaging you. (Holy freeze merc + blackthorns mask + reapers toll should slow them nicely.)

Good luck with the 'sin.

[Darkforce~hw~]

Ok well

U need venom no question u need venom

as for boots well shadow dancers nah upgraded gores if u can get em, the cb is godly.

dual claw works best with this build, Bartucs and jade talon is a good combo.

Fade might be a skill u want to look into dr and res.
highlords no point the ds doesnt work with kicks
might as well use 2 raven frosts or some other nice ring with res and high str/dex
belt verdungos, razortail, or a nof coil.
gloves trangs gloves or dracs
helm COA or shako life dr skills from shako is just nice.

anyways ill get back with more later

[Brista]

If you have 130 dammage reduced (0% dammage reduction) and his hit by amplify, then an attack that does 135 dammage, you will take 10 points of dammage.

This isn't quite right

the 135 damage attack would be figured aginst your new physical resistance of -100% so 270. Less 130 gives 140

Damage reduced by X suffers very badly against Amp

Defense. The best you can achive is 5% chance to be hit. Anything that can kill you in one hit is not affected by this much

Well they are affected if they miss :lol:

Lastly the sorcs have energy shield. This can give 95% dammage reduction, and is applied before dammage reduced by. This gives protection against all forms of dammage except poison

To a limited extent because most of the damage prevented instead is subtracted from your mana. Once you're out of mana the Energy Shield is useless

Assasins have weapon block (works in the same way as shield block).

Except that Weapon Block is not capped at 75% as shield block is, which is very useful

[adeyke]

If you have 130 dammage reduced (0% dammage reduction) and his hit by amplify, then an attack that does 135 dammage, you will take 10 points of dammage.

This isn't quite right

the 135 damage attack would be figured aginst your new physical resistance of -100% so 270. Less 130 gives 140

Damage reduced by X suffers very badly against Amp

Actually, it is right. DR/MDR comes before the resistance. Usually, this is considered a bad thing, since it reduces the effectiveness of DR/MDR if you have high resistance. If you have negative resistance, however, this order is a good thing.

Except that Weapon Block is not capped at 75% as shield block is, which is very useful

Because of its diminishing returns formula, it won't ever reach 75%. At slvl 99 (impossible to reach), it'd still have just 66%. The maximum you can actually reach is lower, but still in the 60s.

[Trobb]

Ogot,

I would recommend against the Shadow warrior. The shadow warrior can only use the skills you have on your hotkeys. This is good for controlling what he casts but is very limiting. The shadow Master is pretty smart and can cast any of the assassin skills...even skills that you haven't put any skill points into. This comes in handy. For instance, your shadow master may cast death sentries which will explode corpses and really clear out the mobs. She also has good strategy. She'll cast mind blast on those nasty packs allowing you (and her) to run in and pick them off. If you want a robot get a warrior...if you want a minion who really is more of a companion get a master!

Trobb

[Munkay]

If you have 130 dammage reduced (0% dammage reduction) and his hit by amplify, then an attack that does 135 dammage, you will take 10 points of damage.

I realize that 130 is most likely a ficticious number used for the sake of an example, but this peaked my interest.

What is the most -x damage reduction possible in expansion? How much -x magic damage reduction is possible? What equipment would this entail? I seem to remember a post about this but the search is coming up empty (if there is one, just send a link and a quick note about my stupidity, I promise I won't cry).

And about the -x% damage, I remember hearing that it was 75%. I now know that was incorrect for 1.10. Was this always capped at 50% or was it different in 1.08, or 1.09?

One last quick erroneous question: Is cyclone armor like a necromancer's bone armor, that is to ask does it take ALL elemental damage until it runs out, or is there a % or number that bypasses it?

-Munk
(not the statistical sharpest number cruncher tool in the shed)

[Minionman]

One last quick erroneous question: Is cyclone armor like a necromancer's bone armor, that is to ask does it take ALL elemental damage until it runs out, or is there a % or number that bypasses it?

Yes, it's like bone armor.

Extra info: Resists don't count for it if you actually put points there for a character.

[morning_wood]

as a kicker you should really focus on mods such as curshing blow, open wounds, IAS, damage reduction, and faster hit recovery. here's my kicker setup:

helm = guillaumes
*with good defense and also offers everything a kicker needs from crushing blow (35%) to faster hit recovery
weapon = stormlash
*crushing blow (33%) and % chances to atcivate tornadoe and static and IAS
shield = storm shield
*high defense, increased % to block, and nice resists
armour = gladiators (CoH would be best but too expensive for me)
*high defense with some minor damage reduction with cannot be frozen
ring 1 = raven frost
*good dex and AR
ring 2 = rare 3/4 dual leech ring
*dual leech with nice resist mods and +str
ammy = atmas/high lords
*% chance to cast amp helps break PI's so you can do damage to them
boots = up'd gores
*10% open wounds and 15% crushing blow

stats wise i have enough str to use storm shield, enough dex (roughly 125 i think) for max block with an assasin, none in energy, and everything else into vitality.

abilities wise 20 into DT, 1 into prereqs to get DF and then only 1 in DF, 4 in BoS (see fade below), 20 venom (though it doesn't show the venom damage in the character screen due to a display bug, it has been tested and proven that venom damage is applied to kicks), 1 fade (you could also max fade if you have enough IAS and put only 1 into BoS but this requires preplanning with good equipment), 1 into cloak of shadows (best disabling spell in the game), 20 into lightning sentry, 20 into death sentry, and rest into shadow master (remember at lvl 18 your minion will be equiped with rare items). this build allows you as a kicker to face single monsters with relative ease or if theres a large pack you can cast cloak of shadows then use lightning sentry to help you get a few corpses and then cast death sentry to help take care of the rest.

kickers with good IAS will have an attack speed second only to strafe so this is why you want to concentrate on crushing blow as much as possible - and also because as far as pure physical damage goes kickers don't produce as much a barbs or palys. good kickers can take out uber d within 3-5 min alone simply due to crushing blow.

as far as mercs go, a good might merc will really help.

here's a list of tested mods that due work with kicks:
Crushing Blow, Open Wounds, Slow Target
Magic, Elemental, and Poison Damage (not displayed on the character screen)
Knockback (Dragon Talon has its own knockback, only works for Dragon Flight)
Life/Mana steal and Life/Mana after kills
%Chance to Cast on Attack/Strike
+% Damage (except from weapon)
+AR (except on your weapon)
+% AR (from anywhere)
Blind, Freeze, Prevent Monster Heal
MF and Gold find

here's a list of tested mods that do not work with kicks:
Deadly/Critical Strike
Enhanced Damage from equipment (if it works it doesn't display on character screen)
+% Damage to Demons/Undead
+ Min / Max damage (so no 3/20/20 charms for kickers)

hope this helps.