Note: I will use my first ever post here to post my Assassin DFlight Build. It isn't very good, but I hope it will give an insight to the DFlight Assassin... thank you
Flight of the Dragon - The Assassin.
The Assassins who train in the art of Flight of the Dragon, are able to move quicker then the eye can follow, in one quick burst, often so fast that monsters in the path to her desired location do not affect her speed, she simply passes though them, at the end of her burst, she lauches a powerful kick, releasing a puloral of special effects, the mark of the Tiger on her kicks gives her increased attack power. The Phoenix giving her the ability to strike down her foes with meteors, rain down frozen shards of death upon the unlucky foe, or to electrify her very surrondings with her kick. The Mark of the Cobra also allows her to steal health and spirital enegegy known as Mana from the foe in the very same kick. An Assassin who has mastered the Flight of the Dragon Martial Arts, can release all these effects in one kick to devastate the enemies in the blink of an eye.
What does this mean to you? You, yourself, can master the art of the Flight of the Dragon by following this guide. And maybe, you, will see yourself an par with the deadly Assassins of the Flight of the Dragon.
Skill Point Layout:
As you can pretty much tell from the story, you will be using 4 main skills. Dragon Flight, Tiger Strike, Phoenix Strike and Cobra Strike. To maxise the full effect of Dragon Flight takes only 61 main skill points. (not including preceps) Wait, I hear you say, your gonna be using 4 skills, surely that's 80 points, right? Wrong... Cobra Strike is a one point wonder and will easily provide you with the Mana and Health leech you really need. You wanna max out the other 3, while putting one point on Cobra Strike. If you really want more points in this, skill adders will help this out. You will be using other skills, but not as important. Let's see why we want these skills.
Starting with our Finisher, and Main Attack Skill, Dragon Flight.
Dragon Flight
Casting Delay: 1 Second
Required Level: 24
Prerequisites: Dragon Talon [1], Dragon Claw [6], Dragon Tail [18]
Skill Point Allocation: 20
Dragon Flight at level 20 does 480% to attack rating, and a massive 575% to Kick Damage. This combined with Tiger Strike makes a deadly kick. However, one major con with Dragon Flight is it's terrible terrible crowd control abilities! However, you have one skill to reverse this almost completly! Phoenix Strike! The 1 second casting rate can put you in serious trouble if you fail to kill all the enemies in one kick. But generally, you should have little trouble with good defense and health, plus if you really need to, you can always go into Dragon Talon and kick for mana or health leech quickly. Max this skill.
Tiger Strike
Required Level: 1
Prerequisites: None
Skill Point Allocation: 20
You didn't just ask me why did you? No? Good. In my opinion, NO MARTIAL ARTS BUILD SHOULD BE WITHOUT THIS SKILL! My word, it's charge 3 damage at level 20 is demonic, at 1440%! Add that to your Dragon Flight's ED%+ and your normal kick damage, and you have a serious killer. Almost guranteed to kill the unlucky foe you decide to trigger your effects on in one shot! Maxed out as soon as possible.
Phoenix Strike
Required Level: 30
Prerequisites: Tiger Strike [1], Fists of Fire [6], Cobra Strike [12], Claws of Thunder [18], Blades of Ice [24]
Skill Point Allocation: 20
This is your main crowd clear effect, and the damage is not just for fireworks. I've noticed that sometimes, it is possible for more then one part of the Phoenix Strike affect to hit the enemy more then once. Without this skill, you will NOT be able to handle crowds, simple as that, you will NOT! With this, and you have serious crowd clear. Use Charge 1 (Meteor) on monsters that are bunched together and are most likely gonna stay bunched together. Use Charge 2 (Chain Lighting) in most situations where the monster is not Lighting Immume. And Charge 3 (Chaos Bolt) for some breathing space, sometimes the difference between your enemies being frozen and not can save your life! The damage aspect of Charge 3 is pathetic, but that crowd control is helpful.
Cobra Strike
Required Level: 12
Prerequisites: Tiger Strike [1]
Skill Point Allocation: 1
1 is enough for all Martial Arts builds in my opinion. The 80% Leech to both Health and Mana is easily enough to replenish your mana and life bulb is 1 to 2 Fully Charged Cobra Strike Attacks. This is a great 1 point wonder, and that is you really need it at, 1 point.
The following skills are from the Shadow Skill Tree. And no skill here is mandatory. Though recommended...
Some choices are here for you here. The first one being the Shadow Warrior, or the Shadow Master, both are great!
Shadow Warrior
Casting Delay: 6 Seconds
Required Level: 18
Prerequisites: Claw Mastery [1], Psychic Hammer [1], Weapon Block [12], Cloak of Shadows [12]
Skill Point Allocation: 1 or 20
If your going to use this skill, put 20 points into it. This gives you complete controll over your minion, and can provide good results. For example... if you do this, you will basically have good crowd control and crowd clear at the same time:
1.) Switch to Tiger Strike, hit the enemies for your charges, and wait for Shadow to Charge her Tiger.
2.) Switch to Phoenix Strike, hit the enemy TWICE, for the Chain Lighting and let your Shadow hit 3 times, for Chaos Ice Bolts.
3.) Switch to Cobra Strike, for the Mana and Health leech
4.) Switch to Dragon Flight and strike the enemy. I am not actually sure if the Warrior does actually use Dragon Flight, if she does, great, if not. Then put Dragon Flight on the right button, and normal attack on left, your Warrior will then hit the enemy, releasing Chaos Ice Bolts to freeze your enemy. (Crowd Controll) Now, you hit the enemy, releasing Chain Lighting. (Crowd Clear)
Or any other stragegy you can think of...
OR...
Shadow Master
Casting Delay: 6 Seconds
Required Level: 30
Prerequisites: Claw Mastery [1], Psychic Hammer [1], Weapon Block [12], Cloak of Shadows [12], Shadow Warrior [18]
Skill Point Allocation: 0 or 20
If you want to worry less about controlling your minion, and just concentrate on your own kick-ass, then the Shadow Master is the way to go, she will use her own attacks. Including Blade Sheild, Burst of Speed, Fade(?) and sometimes, will even drop down traps that can help... it really is your own choice...
The next two skills are again, personal choice.
Burst of Speed, and Fade.
Burst of Speed
Required Level: 6
Prerequisites: Claw Mastery [1]
Skill Point Allocation: 1 or 5
You will have to choose what you want more, Speed to run away from the enemies if you don't kill all with a Dragon Flight, or more resists to withstand enemy attacks. If it's Speed you want, put five in Burst of Speed, it can save you in picky situations. You cannot have both Burst of Speed and Fade on at the same time. 5 points here in OK, for me, anyway.
Fade
Required Level: 18
Prerequisites: Claw Mastery [1], Burst of Speed [6]
Skill Point Allocation: 0 or 5
HOWEVER... if you want more resists, here is where you wanna go. Level 5 here is OK, again... providing you with 50% (capped) Physical Resistance, and 42% to all resists. You may wanna pump this up to 10, at the expense of another skills, but that is up to you.
You will not be totally adhorning the Traps Tree, there is one trap here that will help. You are most certainly gonna kill the enemy you Dragon Flight, or not the rest... the following trap capitalizes on it, do you need to ask it's name? No? Good... it's Death Sentry!
Death Sentry
Required Level: 30
Prerequisites: Fire Blast [1], Shock Web [6], Charged Bolt Sentry [12], Lightning Sentry [24]
Skill Point Allocation: 0 or 5
You don't need to have this skill, but it can save your life, setting out 5 traps will give you 25 corspe explosion shots from Death Sentries. You will NOT be counting on this trap for it's lighting damage, but it's Corspe Explosions. At level 5, I find the radius of Corspe Explosion to be OK. Any more points here will be a waste.
To finish off, a quick summary of the skill layout:
20 to Dragon Flight
20 to Tiger Strike
20 to Phoenix Strike
1 to Cobra Strike
20 to Shadow Warrior OR Shadow Master
5 to Burst of Speed OR Fade.
5 to Death Sentry (optional)
What about stats?
Strength: Enough for gear. It is recommended you know what gear your aiming for before starting the Assassin
Dex: If your gonna use a claw (or any other weapon) and a sheild, enough for 75% block, or double claw, enough to wear the claws. Attack Rating is not really important as Dragon Flight will easily provide this.
Vitality: Every thing else goes here. As a Dragon Flight Assassin and a Martial Artist, your gonna get up close and personal with the enemy, and therefore, you may be hurt alot, the ability to take this damage comes in handy
Energy: With the wonders of Cobra Strike, the need for Energy dininishes completly. Leave it at base.
What equipment is good to use? I'm sorry to tell you this, but I've never been good at planning equipment or nothing like that, I can't really tell you what to get. A few mods I can recommend would be:
- Open Wounds: This will stop Enemy Regeneration.
- Something that gives you magical damage to your kicks. Physical Immumes might be hard to fight, as Dragon Flight is Physical.
- Skill adders come in handy, especially for the skills you may want to be better, but can't invest the points in. Like Burst of Speed or Fade.
Some good stragegy to use when using a Dragon Flight Assassin would be the following:
- Always charge up Tiger Strike, Phoenix Strike and Cobra Strike before lanuching into a kick.
- Try and pick a spot that will allow moves like Phoenix Strike to hit more enemies and that will also allow you to escape easily if the need arises.
- When facing Boss Monster packs, always charge up on his minions, then Dragon Flight the leader. It will make the battle much easier. And LED Monsters will only release their charges once, and your Dragon Flight will more then likely, kill the monster.
- In Act Bosses, try to lure the boss onto your minion or merc, charge up on the boss or minions around, then move away and turn and dragon flight them. Hitting them with 80k+ damage is nice, easily with Phoenix Strike and Cobra Strike.
- Some skills that may not seem useful, might save your life in certain situations. The Precep Dragon Talon is useful when you need Quick Mana Leech from a monster. Dragon Tail is useful for giving you some breathing space with knockback, whislt releasing Phoenix Strikes and whatnot. In short, use all of your skills wisely, even those which are not nessararily your main attack.
- Use Phoenix Strike wisely, do NOT charge up 2 charges (Chain Lighting) on Lighting Immumes, it will be useless, and in the worse sitations, can get you killed.
- Do not be afraid to run when that 1 second cast delay sets in, that one second gives you good time and reason to get out from the middle of an enemy pack, charge up again, run out and lanuch another Dragon Flight
- Death Sentry is a great enemy detector. Place a trap someplace ahead and if it attacks, there is a monster around. It is also useful if your Phoenix Strike does not finish off all the enemies, Death Sentry's Corspe Explosion will finish off the enemies for you.
- NEVER USE DRAGON FLIGHT WHISLT ON IRON MAIDEN! YOU WILL KILL YOURSELF! This will make places like Chaos Sanctary hell-like. Switch to a lower level kick or normal attack to help you out here. Turn off Tiger Strike and use Phoenix Strike/Normal Attack only till the pack is finished.
That is all from me, I hope this guide helps you out. Critique is welcome, but please try not to slander me to much. I am only human.
Flight of the Dragon - The Assassin.
The Assassins who train in the art of Flight of the Dragon, are able to move quicker then the eye can follow, in one quick burst, often so fast that monsters in the path to her desired location do not affect her speed, she simply passes though them, at the end of her burst, she lauches a powerful kick, releasing a puloral of special effects, the mark of the Tiger on her kicks gives her increased attack power. The Phoenix giving her the ability to strike down her foes with meteors, rain down frozen shards of death upon the unlucky foe, or to electrify her very surrondings with her kick. The Mark of the Cobra also allows her to steal health and spirital enegegy known as Mana from the foe in the very same kick. An Assassin who has mastered the Flight of the Dragon Martial Arts, can release all these effects in one kick to devastate the enemies in the blink of an eye.
What does this mean to you? You, yourself, can master the art of the Flight of the Dragon by following this guide. And maybe, you, will see yourself an par with the deadly Assassins of the Flight of the Dragon.
Skill Point Layout:
As you can pretty much tell from the story, you will be using 4 main skills. Dragon Flight, Tiger Strike, Phoenix Strike and Cobra Strike. To maxise the full effect of Dragon Flight takes only 61 main skill points. (not including preceps) Wait, I hear you say, your gonna be using 4 skills, surely that's 80 points, right? Wrong... Cobra Strike is a one point wonder and will easily provide you with the Mana and Health leech you really need. You wanna max out the other 3, while putting one point on Cobra Strike. If you really want more points in this, skill adders will help this out. You will be using other skills, but not as important. Let's see why we want these skills.
Starting with our Finisher, and Main Attack Skill, Dragon Flight.
Dragon Flight
Casting Delay: 1 Second
Required Level: 24
Prerequisites: Dragon Talon [1], Dragon Claw [6], Dragon Tail [18]
Skill Point Allocation: 20
Dragon Flight at level 20 does 480% to attack rating, and a massive 575% to Kick Damage. This combined with Tiger Strike makes a deadly kick. However, one major con with Dragon Flight is it's terrible terrible crowd control abilities! However, you have one skill to reverse this almost completly! Phoenix Strike! The 1 second casting rate can put you in serious trouble if you fail to kill all the enemies in one kick. But generally, you should have little trouble with good defense and health, plus if you really need to, you can always go into Dragon Talon and kick for mana or health leech quickly. Max this skill.
Tiger Strike
Required Level: 1
Prerequisites: None
Skill Point Allocation: 20
You didn't just ask me why did you? No? Good. In my opinion, NO MARTIAL ARTS BUILD SHOULD BE WITHOUT THIS SKILL! My word, it's charge 3 damage at level 20 is demonic, at 1440%! Add that to your Dragon Flight's ED%+ and your normal kick damage, and you have a serious killer. Almost guranteed to kill the unlucky foe you decide to trigger your effects on in one shot! Maxed out as soon as possible.
Phoenix Strike
Required Level: 30
Prerequisites: Tiger Strike [1], Fists of Fire [6], Cobra Strike [12], Claws of Thunder [18], Blades of Ice [24]
Skill Point Allocation: 20
This is your main crowd clear effect, and the damage is not just for fireworks. I've noticed that sometimes, it is possible for more then one part of the Phoenix Strike affect to hit the enemy more then once. Without this skill, you will NOT be able to handle crowds, simple as that, you will NOT! With this, and you have serious crowd clear. Use Charge 1 (Meteor) on monsters that are bunched together and are most likely gonna stay bunched together. Use Charge 2 (Chain Lighting) in most situations where the monster is not Lighting Immume. And Charge 3 (Chaos Bolt) for some breathing space, sometimes the difference between your enemies being frozen and not can save your life! The damage aspect of Charge 3 is pathetic, but that crowd control is helpful.
Cobra Strike
Required Level: 12
Prerequisites: Tiger Strike [1]
Skill Point Allocation: 1
1 is enough for all Martial Arts builds in my opinion. The 80% Leech to both Health and Mana is easily enough to replenish your mana and life bulb is 1 to 2 Fully Charged Cobra Strike Attacks. This is a great 1 point wonder, and that is you really need it at, 1 point.
The following skills are from the Shadow Skill Tree. And no skill here is mandatory. Though recommended...
Some choices are here for you here. The first one being the Shadow Warrior, or the Shadow Master, both are great!
Shadow Warrior
Casting Delay: 6 Seconds
Required Level: 18
Prerequisites: Claw Mastery [1], Psychic Hammer [1], Weapon Block [12], Cloak of Shadows [12]
Skill Point Allocation: 1 or 20
If your going to use this skill, put 20 points into it. This gives you complete controll over your minion, and can provide good results. For example... if you do this, you will basically have good crowd control and crowd clear at the same time:
1.) Switch to Tiger Strike, hit the enemies for your charges, and wait for Shadow to Charge her Tiger.
2.) Switch to Phoenix Strike, hit the enemy TWICE, for the Chain Lighting and let your Shadow hit 3 times, for Chaos Ice Bolts.
3.) Switch to Cobra Strike, for the Mana and Health leech
4.) Switch to Dragon Flight and strike the enemy. I am not actually sure if the Warrior does actually use Dragon Flight, if she does, great, if not. Then put Dragon Flight on the right button, and normal attack on left, your Warrior will then hit the enemy, releasing Chaos Ice Bolts to freeze your enemy. (Crowd Controll) Now, you hit the enemy, releasing Chain Lighting. (Crowd Clear)
Or any other stragegy you can think of...
OR...
Shadow Master
Casting Delay: 6 Seconds
Required Level: 30
Prerequisites: Claw Mastery [1], Psychic Hammer [1], Weapon Block [12], Cloak of Shadows [12], Shadow Warrior [18]
Skill Point Allocation: 0 or 20
If you want to worry less about controlling your minion, and just concentrate on your own kick-ass, then the Shadow Master is the way to go, she will use her own attacks. Including Blade Sheild, Burst of Speed, Fade(?) and sometimes, will even drop down traps that can help... it really is your own choice...
The next two skills are again, personal choice.
Burst of Speed, and Fade.
Burst of Speed
Required Level: 6
Prerequisites: Claw Mastery [1]
Skill Point Allocation: 1 or 5
You will have to choose what you want more, Speed to run away from the enemies if you don't kill all with a Dragon Flight, or more resists to withstand enemy attacks. If it's Speed you want, put five in Burst of Speed, it can save you in picky situations. You cannot have both Burst of Speed and Fade on at the same time. 5 points here in OK, for me, anyway.
Fade
Required Level: 18
Prerequisites: Claw Mastery [1], Burst of Speed [6]
Skill Point Allocation: 0 or 5
HOWEVER... if you want more resists, here is where you wanna go. Level 5 here is OK, again... providing you with 50% (capped) Physical Resistance, and 42% to all resists. You may wanna pump this up to 10, at the expense of another skills, but that is up to you.
You will not be totally adhorning the Traps Tree, there is one trap here that will help. You are most certainly gonna kill the enemy you Dragon Flight, or not the rest... the following trap capitalizes on it, do you need to ask it's name? No? Good... it's Death Sentry!
Death Sentry
Required Level: 30
Prerequisites: Fire Blast [1], Shock Web [6], Charged Bolt Sentry [12], Lightning Sentry [24]
Skill Point Allocation: 0 or 5
You don't need to have this skill, but it can save your life, setting out 5 traps will give you 25 corspe explosion shots from Death Sentries. You will NOT be counting on this trap for it's lighting damage, but it's Corspe Explosions. At level 5, I find the radius of Corspe Explosion to be OK. Any more points here will be a waste.
To finish off, a quick summary of the skill layout:
20 to Dragon Flight
20 to Tiger Strike
20 to Phoenix Strike
1 to Cobra Strike
20 to Shadow Warrior OR Shadow Master
5 to Burst of Speed OR Fade.
5 to Death Sentry (optional)
What about stats?
Strength: Enough for gear. It is recommended you know what gear your aiming for before starting the Assassin
Dex: If your gonna use a claw (or any other weapon) and a sheild, enough for 75% block, or double claw, enough to wear the claws. Attack Rating is not really important as Dragon Flight will easily provide this.
Vitality: Every thing else goes here. As a Dragon Flight Assassin and a Martial Artist, your gonna get up close and personal with the enemy, and therefore, you may be hurt alot, the ability to take this damage comes in handy
Energy: With the wonders of Cobra Strike, the need for Energy dininishes completly. Leave it at base.
What equipment is good to use? I'm sorry to tell you this, but I've never been good at planning equipment or nothing like that, I can't really tell you what to get. A few mods I can recommend would be:
- Open Wounds: This will stop Enemy Regeneration.
- Something that gives you magical damage to your kicks. Physical Immumes might be hard to fight, as Dragon Flight is Physical.
- Skill adders come in handy, especially for the skills you may want to be better, but can't invest the points in. Like Burst of Speed or Fade.
Some good stragegy to use when using a Dragon Flight Assassin would be the following:
- Always charge up Tiger Strike, Phoenix Strike and Cobra Strike before lanuching into a kick.
- Try and pick a spot that will allow moves like Phoenix Strike to hit more enemies and that will also allow you to escape easily if the need arises.
- When facing Boss Monster packs, always charge up on his minions, then Dragon Flight the leader. It will make the battle much easier. And LED Monsters will only release their charges once, and your Dragon Flight will more then likely, kill the monster.
- In Act Bosses, try to lure the boss onto your minion or merc, charge up on the boss or minions around, then move away and turn and dragon flight them. Hitting them with 80k+ damage is nice, easily with Phoenix Strike and Cobra Strike.
- Some skills that may not seem useful, might save your life in certain situations. The Precep Dragon Talon is useful when you need Quick Mana Leech from a monster. Dragon Tail is useful for giving you some breathing space with knockback, whislt releasing Phoenix Strikes and whatnot. In short, use all of your skills wisely, even those which are not nessararily your main attack.
- Use Phoenix Strike wisely, do NOT charge up 2 charges (Chain Lighting) on Lighting Immumes, it will be useless, and in the worse sitations, can get you killed.
- Do not be afraid to run when that 1 second cast delay sets in, that one second gives you good time and reason to get out from the middle of an enemy pack, charge up again, run out and lanuch another Dragon Flight
- Death Sentry is a great enemy detector. Place a trap someplace ahead and if it attacks, there is a monster around. It is also useful if your Phoenix Strike does not finish off all the enemies, Death Sentry's Corspe Explosion will finish off the enemies for you.
- NEVER USE DRAGON FLIGHT WHISLT ON IRON MAIDEN! YOU WILL KILL YOURSELF! This will make places like Chaos Sanctary hell-like. Switch to a lower level kick or normal attack to help you out here. Turn off Tiger Strike and use Phoenix Strike/Normal Attack only till the pack is finished.
That is all from me, I hope this guide helps you out. Critique is welcome, but please try not to slander me to much. I am only human.
