The Ninja is back

[Raziel]

Hi all. I'll try and be brief; this is the culmination of a lot of research, some of which i've posted at the Amazon Basin. I'm absolutely stunned nobody has seen how incredible this all is in combination, though a lot of people have hit on different aspects here and there on various forums. (edit: my apologies; I guess I should have posted this in the Armory!)

What is a ninja build?

A ninja build is an Assassin who strikes not with claws or traps but from the shadows. This assassin is built around the skills usually percieved to be "Ninja-like".

No wait. Who am I kidding? The goal of this build is to abuse the living heck of out Crushing Blow. Nothing more, nothing less.

Here's a fully equipped character ready to go:

http://www22.brinkster.com/craziel/kicktest.d2s (Note: Rattlecage is slightly buggy on this char)

Kicktest: level 99 "ninja" build. Not ideal, but the power is easily seen. Yes, it was Shadowmastered up. If this is a problem for you, move on. I consider it "proof of concept".

Note: You may need to allocate 1 point into Dragon Flight. I don't think I did that on that character version. She also doesn't have a Mercenary purchased, and next to no money. Oh well!

Suggested Equipment

Entire Orphan's Call set, including Guilliame's Face
Rattlecage
Goblin Toe light plated boots
Angelic Rings + Amulet
Any weapon socketed with "Crescent Moon". (Switch weapon: The Fetid Sprinkler)

NONE of these items has a level requirement above 50. Most of them fall below 40. This character reaches her end game long before she reaches any sort of "high" level.

With this equipment, the following abilities are granted:

85% Crushing Blow (Guilliame's + RattleCage + Goblin Toe)
50% Hit Causes Monster To Flee (RattleCage)
25% Open Wounds ("Crescent Moon")
Chance to cast level Static Field on striking ("Crescent Moon")
Chance to cast Chain Lightning on striking ("Crescent Moon")

Skills

In essense, the build focusses on the following abilities:

Blade Fury (1 point)
1 point is all you will ever need, for reasons I will state below.

Dragon Talon (20 points)
Four kicks. Notice there's no chargeup? You'll see why later.

Cloak of Shadows (1-20 points)
The ultimate crowd control spell and the core of this build. Lasts forever. After a while, the duration gets to be a PITA as it cannot be recast (by you) until the original has worn off. So 20 points might be overkill.

Venom (1-20 points)
We now know Venom keeps poison duration at 0.4 seconds. So this might be a one point wonder when you can stack on poison charms.

Fade (8 points)
Hits a nice breakpoint: 50% resist all.

Mind Blast (8 points)
Again, a nice breakpoint: 30% chance to convert. An additional 12 skill points only adds 6% more :( This is a 'backup' skill - if Blade Fury, CoS and Dragon Tail don't get rid of the problem for you, use Mind Blast to either divide and conquer or just give yourself enough time to run like hell.

Dragon Flight (1 point)
A great combo move. You'll see why later.

So what's the point?

The point is simple. Apply Crushing Blow as many times as possible as fast as possible. Against > 1 monster, employ Cloak of Shadows, and under cover of dark rush up and kick it. In my experience most things are either dead or well on their way after just ONE Talon - in Hell difficulty!!

This character can, with careful play, work her way through Act 5 Hell with only the equipment and skills listed above. Her greatest difficulty quite naturally comes from Physically Immune monsters who are also immune to the effects of Chain Lightning, Venom and Static Field. With those I suggest you either party or put something on the weapon switch to remove the Immune to Physical problem (The Fetid Sprinkler does just fine with Decrepify, IIRC.)

Anything not physically immune is basically dead meat. It is quite frankly laughable how fast you can eliminate monsters with Dragon Talon. But that's not all. If the flee irritates you, use Dragon Flight to close the gap and follow up with a Dragon Talon (yes, the latter can be done right after the former, for FIVE yes FIVE kicks in quick succession). And each kick is almost certainly applying Crushing Blow (and Static Field, and Chain Lightning, and Venom, and... you get the idea?).

If you're not comfortable rushing things and kicking them, even under cover of darkness, there's always Blade Fury. Since Crushing Blow, Venom, Hit Causes Monster To Flee and Chance To Cast [spell] On Striking are imparted to the thrown blades, the Assassin can land a flurry of blows that both kills monsters (through Crushing Blow combined with Venom) and weakens and thins out huge hordes via Static Field, Chain Lightning and Hit Causes Monster To Flee.

Weapon damage is meaningless. Traps are meaningless. Martial Arts - beyond speedy multiple kicks - are meaningless. It's all about "Crescent Moon", Blade Fury, Dragon Talon and Cloak of Shadows. Attack with skill, from the deepest shadow, for it is your ally.

The character listed above for download happens to be wielding a three socketed axe that I bought from Farah IN NORMAL, ACT 2. I put the "Crescent Moon" runes in it myself. You might also notice that she has a whole bunch of unallocated skill and stat points. *yawn*

Don't worry. This is not simply a hacked up level 99 char. I am currently in the process of playing my third assassin through Normal difficulty, maxing strength and Dragon Talon as I go, with the intent to have 115 strength by the time I can find a Guilliame's. By far, the hardest part of this build will be collecting the equipment. But once you have it you're good to go into Hell.

The best part of this character is that unlike everything else, Crushing Blow scales up with monster life. No matter how many hitpoints Blizzard sees fit to give a Quill Rat in hell, Crushing Blow WILL take off 1/4 of it (or 1/10 with a ranged attack). Although there appears to be a dramatic nerfing of Crushing Blow in /players 8, it is still possible to kill in Hell - it simply takes a bit more time and patience.

I guess i'll leave off here, and let you all ponder what i've written and take a look at the build. There's plenty of ways it can be shoehorned into other builds (such as trapper, if you want to forgo kicking, or a martial artist). If nothing else this character makes the most awesome supporting player i've ever seen, easily capable of owning anything not Physically Immune as long as she can get a good sequence of Blade Fury / Dragon Talon on it. Combined with a Fire/Cold sorceress... :D

It's not unusual at all for me to stand there and wait for monsters to walk into range of my kicks. Here's some images to help prove my point:

1. Me versus Snow Drifter champions. The one on the floor died in one kick; guess what i'm in the process of doing to the next one?

http://www22.brinkster.com/craziel/img/drifter.jpg (drag n drop)

2. Thresh Socket before Dragon Talon. My SM was at level 1 and died in 1 hit.

http://www22.brinkster.com/craziel/img/thresh1.jpg (drag n drop)

3. Thresh Socket after ONE Dragon Talon kick sequence. Note: /Players 1, Hell.

http://www22.brinkster.com/craziel/img/thresh2.jpg (drag n drop)

[ImpressiveOne]

I'm sure the build is very effective once you get all the correct equipment which is very hard IMO. This would be a nice build if you could twink to it :)

[Raziel]

You'd be surprised - Dragon Talon does alright in /players 8 Normal, provided you pump it and Strength early. It's a great boss killer, but at my low level, costs too much for me to use it that often.

[Occhidiangela]

Even without "perfect" equipment, some "Blood" crafts can make this work, albeit not as efficiently.

Other comment: a level 99 character attacking with Blade Fury will almost auto hit due to help from mlvl/clvl curve.

Blade Fury uses AR, so at lower levels, there will be some misses with Blade Fury, but then again, Cloak crowd control and some kicks should make up for that. :)

Caveat: in public games on bnet, the Cloak of Shadow will irritate many players. Expect to be either yelled at of Hostiled if you cast Cloak alot in PUbbies.

[Raziel]

^ Angelic helps with AR, and "Crescent Moon" comes with the ITD modifier.

[Winter]

Well, i gave your test character a try and am back to report.

Firstly, it's a neat idea. Definately "proof-of-concept" there. However, Crushing Blow gear is kinda tough to come by (i've only ever seen one Orphan's hat of goodness drop and i LOVE Orphan's Call) so it's probably a better realm character or a "second" character (one MF character picks stuff up and feeds it to your gear-heavy builds). The Blade Fury thing is pretty neat, is there any way we can get it to pierce, perhaps? I'm definately going to have to look into investing a point into it on my bootysin.

You left out the Anya resist all quest quest reward (though you marked the quest as complete) so with Fade you're going to be at -20 resist all to start with, which is much safer (assuming you can at least push them into positives).

I think the CB/SF+Dragon Talon is amazing, though. Watching big monsters getting one-hitted is a nice feeling. I think that you only want one point into CoS though, the extra duration means its a pain in the butt. I wish Blizzard would fix CoS to follow you or something, but fat chance of that happening. As far as i'm concerned, the duration increase is a nerf.

Although Fade is fairly important due to the power of elemental attacks in 1.1, i miss Burst of Speed letting me run around and be really fast. It might be possible to skip out on Fade and go with BoS if you've got some heavy duty gear (heck, other characters don't even get fade! ^.~) but i'm not sure at this point. You aren't really a ninja unless you can run around really really fast ^.^

Finally, you're going to want to invest in rune upgrades on your Goblin Toe. I picked up a pair of Ethereal Scarabshell boots and my damage with Dragon Talon pretty much doubled. I know CB is the main killer for this build, but doubling your physical attack lets you deal the "killing blow" earlier in your kick sequence. Goblin Toe getting upgraded twice would put it at the second highest boot damage in the game, not a bad deal as far as i'm concerned. You'd have to invest in some strength in order to put them on, but that's ok- i think you put too many point in Energy, actually. But i always like running 0 energy builds on my non-casters.

[Occhidiangela]

IIRC, you can get back about 10% of the Crushing blow with that.

Fade does more than resists: it also shortens curse duration, which is VERY handy in hell diff, what with the longer curse durations.

With fast enough boots and a charm or two, I'd say you can scoot quickly enough to keep Fade up.

When Chilled, you can always switch to BoS, if you have a few +skills items you should be OK so far as speed goes. :)

[Raziel]

Winter: I left out the Anya quests AND all the additional skill and stat point quests :(

That's what you get for hacking up a test character quickly. And yes, upgrading Goblin Toe to mirrored boots would be awesome. :-)

Question - When you say CB/SF + DTalon.. what's SF?

There are ways to make far better characters, with much better equipment. Part of my build is to shoot for very low level equipment. But if, for example, you wielded BloodTree Stump on one hand (50% CB, +25 Strength) you could toss away Guilliame's AND Rattlecage and still have 75% CB as long as you stick to Goblin Toe boots. But then "Crescent Moon" becomes a switch weapon, and it's sooo much better as a primary weapon :(

Heck, my level 15 'sin picked up Crushflange (33% CB) and it's very sweet all on it's own.

[Winter]

Question - When you say CB/SF + DTalon.. what's SF?

Crushing Blow, Static Field, Dragon Talon.

There are ways to make far better characters, with much better equipment.  Part of my build is to shoot for very low level equipment.  But if, for example, you wielded BloodTree Stump on one hand (50% CB, +25 Strength) you could toss away Guilliame's AND Rattlecage and still have 75% CB as long as you stick to Goblin Toe boots.  But then "Crescent Moon" becomes a switch weapon, and it's sooo much better as a primary weapon :(

I wouldn't go Bloodtree. I think Crescent Moon is the best for this (or any similar) build. Squeezing yourself up to 100% CB might be nice, but i'm not so sure it's worth the cost.

With fast enough boots and a charm or two, I'd say you can scoot quickly enough to keep Fade up.

One of the problems with this is that Goblin Toe is a vital part of the build. You could switch GT out for Gore Riders (i think that's the one... the 15% CB excep unique) but that's a 10% loss. Is that what you suggested with your first line?

Fade does more than resists: it also shortens curse duration, which is VERY handy in hell diff, what with the longer curse durations.

I'm not saying Fade isn't worth using (i think it really, really is- elemental attacks are just too powerful in 1.1 to not have some sort of strategy against them) but that i wish i had BoS. In my build i'm sinking some points into BoS as well as Fade. BoS is for general use, Fade is for when i run into something ugly like a Gloam boss pack.

When Chilled, you can always switch to BoS, if you have a few +skills items you should be OK so far as speed goes.

The only time i end up chilled where i don't want Fade active (to prevent more cold damage) is for Holy Freeze-type bosses.

Finally, i think this style build needs Ravenfrost or something like that. Getting bogged down with chill is too dangerous when you're tring to avoid direct confrontation.

[Raziel]

An awesome weapon just dropped for me ;)

The Cranium Basher (Unique Thunder Maul)
+200-240% Enhanced Damage
Adds 20 Min & Max damage
+25 to Strength
20% Increased Attack Speed
Indestructible
All Resistances +25
75% Chance of Crushing Blow
4% Chance to cast level 1 Amplify Damage on striking

The fact that it requires 253 Strength and NO Dex is actually a bonus when you're also kicking. Still excessive though ;) Hopefully the clvl has come down from 87 in 1.10.

It's fun for a "proof of concept" but totally unrealistic otherwise. "Crescent Moon" is still the ultimate with only one exception: any weapon with a chance to cast Amplify Damage on striking can strip off Physical Immune. I'll give the Thunder Maul a whirl in hell.

[Winter]

Amp Damage can spawn on lots of weapons. I bet it can spawn on claws. Pick one up in normal mode and then carry it into Hell and put it on a weapon switch. It might just be enough to kill off most PIs in Hell.

As far as Cranium Basher, it's a neat idea, that's for sure! I think i'd rather take a 33-50 (doesn't the Black runeword give 40% Crushing Blow? *checkcheck* Yep, not only that but it has knockback and 15% enhanced damage too! You can stick it in a mace (though finding 3 socket maces is not my idea of fun) and use a res-all shield (or Whitstan's, or whatever) too. Black might be a better choice for a Blade Fury abuser rather than your Ninja build, though. The Strength (Amn+Tir in melee, easy to get!) runeword is nice too. 25% Crushing Blow, 7% Lifesteal, +2 mana/kill, +20 Strength (nice for the booties), +10 Vit (+30 life is always nice). Quite a deal, if you ask me. The 1.10 runeword Beast is nice, but it's harder to assemble and requires a 5 socket axe/mace/scepter, so that's a bit trickier if you want to 1-hand it. Stats are:

Level 9 Fanaticism Aura When Equipped
+40% Increased Attack Speed
+240-270% Enhanced Damage (varies)
20% Chance of Crushing Blow
25% Chance of Open Wounds
+3 To Werebear
+3 To Lycanthropy
Prevent Monster Heal
+25-40 To Strength (varies)
+10 To Energy
+2 To Mana After Each Kill
Level 13 Summon Grizzly (5 Charges)

Other new 1.10 runewords with crushing blow include:

Eternity, requires another 5 socket melee weapon though:

Indestructible
+276% Enhanced Damage
+9 To Minimum Damage
7% Life Stolen Per Hit
20% Chance of Crushing Blow
Hit Blinds Target
Slows Target By 33%
Replenish Mana 16%
Cannot Be Frozen
30% Better Chance Of Getting Magic Items
Level 8 Revive (88 Charges)

Famine requires 4 socket axes/hammers but gives 331-850 damage in varied elements. Good for taking apart PIs, and that extra elemental damage does transfer over to your kicks (1324-3400 if all 4 kicks hit with 0 monster resist). No CB, though.

Kingslayer also has CB, but it doesn't look that great.

[Dagni]

As far as proof of concept goes, the Cranium Basher might give much more accurate results than the Guilliame's, Rattlecage, and Goblin Toe setup. Because, from this thread here, it sounds like the three CB items setup will result in three times as many Crushing Blows as ought to be triggered. Whereas Cranium Basher by itself should work normally.

- Dagni

[whyBish]

Yup, I'm in early NM with my dragon talon build. The main 'problem' for this build is not damage, but how to build secondary damage options (i.e. build venom or DS after maxing talon) + when to put points into fade/shadow.

I'm aiming for 118 str to allow 3rd best elite boots (personally can't rely on CB dropping, but amn-tir would be nice since it gives leech also).

The great thing about this build is that weapon does not matter (for talon, BF only uses the claw in right(?) hand). I was using a dual leech wand with an amp damage axe switch through most of normal. In fact, I really don't need CB yet since AMP + kick damage is already plenty more than any char I can remember playing (melee).

I think going high def (def merc) is a good idea with the talon build since you are pumping str, for damage it seems to pay off, and since you need to be close to use talon it makes sense to have some sort of protection. The alternatives would be to use a claw class weapon (dual leech katar with amp being perfect) for blades of ice, or to use blade shield+ some effect (but duration sux without pumping)

[Raziel]

As far as proof of concept goes, the Cranium Basher might give much more accurate results than the Guilliame's, Rattlecage, and Goblin Toe setup. Because, from this thread here, it sounds like the three CB items setup will result in three times as many Crushing Blows as ought to be triggered. Whereas Cranium Basher by itself should work normally.

- Dagni

Tested it late last night - it and Goblin Toe basically crushed with EVERY blade thrown by Blade fury.

But the Amplify Damage duration totally sucks in Hell. The weapon removes immunities from monsters - for 0.001 seconds :( I was able to get Crushing Blows on a Frenzytaur (PI) in the Crystalline Passage, something i've never been able to do before. That was wierd because even when Amp'ed i'm sure that the PI flag didn't come off from beneath their health bar. I think if you land a CB at the same time as you land an Amp, the CB works dispite physical immunity??

Can someone tell me what sort of PDR Frenzytaurs (Blood Moon clan?) have in Hell Act 5 /players 1?

[Brista]

Can someone tell me what sort of PDR Frenzytaurs (Blood Moon clan?) have in Hell Act 5 /players 1?

From levels.txt the creature type from the Crystalline Passage is bloodlord3

bloodlord 3 has 100% resist physical in Hell

[pbrain]

Tested it late last night - it and Goblin Toe basically crushed with EVERY blade thrown by Blade fury.

I think Dagni meant for you to test Cranium Basher on it's own since multiple sources of crushing blow are stacking in an odd, buggy, and powerful way in the beta (follow the link he gave). Essentially with goblin toe+the Basher you'd be getting 2 crushing blows each hit, which is probably not what's intended.

Assuming this is fixed, the Basher by itself is probably a reasonable test with Dragon Talon. How does it do in low to medium player count games? It might not be such a reasonable test with Blade Fury though, that high of a damage weapon combined with 75% CB probably won't be readily attainable for most.

[Ice]

It probably won't be easy as well since dragon talon damage is not very little as well and kicks 4 times. Taking off any boots the assassin is wearing may help a bit but the multi-attack feature of dragon talons would make it difficult to measure.

A cheap and possible test could be using a strength or black in some normal weapon and go hit some monsters in hell or late NM. % is very small, but when it hits, the damage should be able to be easily measured.

[Dagni]

Well, I'm not really suggesting that anyone test for the bug, specifically. I got the impression from the other thread that the bug does exist.

Rather, I suggest the Cranium Basher be used by itself (that is, no other CB items) to see whether the CB bug is a large part of why this build is doing so well. So the test, then, is simply to use Cranium Basher and see if monsters still die in one Talon, for example. A simple comparison between the two different setups (with vs. without multiple CB items), should give an idea of how much the bug is influencing the character's damage output and kill speed.

- Dagni

[Raziel]

Ok just got back from testing in Act 1 Hell versus Fallen, Quill rats and Zombies. Both tests done without Venom activated (obviously).

With 1 75% CB item on (Cranium Basher): Progress was good. The weapon damage undoubtedly helped Blade Fury a lot though. But I did see diminishing returns on Fallen life which suggests that Crushing Blow was doing the work, not Blade Fury's physical damage. There where times when the blade would hit but the life bar wouldn't move, suggesting a fail to Crush. Very rare though. Takes 2-3 blades to kill a Fallen. First one hurts it down to half, second to a quarter, third pretty much kills it.

With no CB items on at all (wielded a white Flanged Mace): Progress sucked. Monster health bars barely moved. Blade Fury damage was less than 50.

With two 60% total CB items on (Guilliame's Face + Goblin Toe): Much slower progress. Again, weapon damage MAY have played a part, but I saw a lot more "crush misses" (ie, blade hits that seemed to do no damage). It's pure murder trying to do the den without the Cranium Basher wielded. You can't finish off anything - all these fallen running back and forth with tiny slivers of life, ARGH. I started using Dragon Tail, still without wielding a weapon, and it was much better - I could actually kill fallen. So the physical damage has to come in useful for getting the finishing blow. I did NOT see the life bar drop any faster with two items - it appeared that a successful Blade Fury hit took off the same amount of life bar as it did when I was wielding Cranium Basher and no other gear. And believe me, I threw a LOT of blades.

With full gear on (Guilliame's + Goblin Toe + Stormlash + Rattlecage) and Venom: Like night and day. Destroying things in 2 blades, or one full kick sequence.

It looks like CB takes half the life bar though. That can't be right.

[Dagni]

It looks like CB takes half the life bar though. That can't be right.

Do you mean that was happening with all of those setups, or just with that last one?

Edit: Oh, and the "crush misses" may have been actual misses. Blade Fury does depend on AR, I believe.

- Dagni