Oddities in Assassin Dragon Talon kick

[Crystalion]

*Goes to pull the Serpent Lord off the Amazon and stick it on the bootysin* :D

I'd assumed it goes without saying, but upon reflection I decided I should mention, what with the new start-at-zero ladder coming up, that if you or your friends find the unique normal Axe of Fechmar your bootysin definitely wants it.

It is a sucky 2h axe in all respects expect for "freezes target + 3" which is amazing if you put it on a weapon switch and use it for:

1) when slumming (monsters lvl way < your level) to find items or rush someone, spamming Blade Fury
2) when warping in with Dragon Flight (weapon switch, rt click, weapon switch) vs. non-freeze immunes
3) when (assuming they fix the fury/zeal/talon v1.10 bug) going toe to toe one on one vs. non-freeze immune with talon

Heres a summary, lifted from Amazon Basin (AS has it also, in different form)...

The chance of freezing (melee) is: CHANCE = 50 + 5(AL + 4B - DL)
The chance of freezing (ranged) is: CHANCE = [20 + 5(AL + 4B - DL)] /3 (note the differences, in yellow).
AL = attacker level
DL = defender level
B = freeze bonus from item (default is 1)

For both melee and ranged, freeze length = [(CHANCE - [random number between 1-100]) * 2] + 25 frames
for a minimum length of 25 frames (1 second) and a maximum length of 250 frames (10 seconds)

So, for convenience, assuming the formulae are correct, upon hitting "with" Fechmar vs. clvl==mlvl:

kick: 110% chance (certainty) of freezing for roughly 2 to 10 seconds, unformly distributed, reduced by difficulty
blade fury: ~27% chance (per blade hitting) for freezing for roughly 1 to 3 seconds, mostly near 1, reduced by difficulty

That later doesn't seem so impressive, which is why option #1 is slumming--so let's look at clvl ~= mlvl + 14:

blade fury: 50% chance (per blade hitting) for freezing for roughly 1 second, half the time, 1 to 5 seconds the other half of the time, unformly distributed, reduced by difficulty

Naturally a Multishot or Strafe Bowazon slums more effectively than this Axe of Fechmar Assassin trick *if* she has a Buriza (also +3). I rather think the axe drops more often and that people consider it a piece of junk and would be happy to just give it to an Assassin if they knew it had any value whatsoever.

Certainly, in melee, if you are using CoS to isolate the battles and warp in with a freezing Flight the monster might be Taloned to death before it thaws. :)

If you were nutso enough to upgrade this Axe to Elite and put a Cham (+3) into it things look interesting (please, don't try this at home--a Buriza is a much better item to pull this stunt on--I'd hate to see you blow a Cham rune for real). For example, the minimum freeze time jumps, upon hitting "with" Fechmar vs. clvl==mlvl:

kick: 170% chance (certainty) of freezing for roughly 7 to 14 seconds, unformly distributed, reduced by difficulty

If a monster reduced this duration by substantial (~30 to 70%) cold resist (I think thats how it used to work) then this is still a long time, in hell, without lowering their resist in some way.

Back in D2 Classic my zealot had great fun with Freezing (Iceblink) after having used knockback/blind/poison successfully (Cleglaws, Coif of Glory, Hellplague) so this Talon idea might work for you or it might be a useless toy.

Grab yourself an Axe and have some fun as a Fech'ing Bootysin ;)