Assassin guide?

can someone post a good assassin guide i dont care what kind of assassin eg trap...melee as long as it is legit. i just want one that owns alot of ppl.

1. Choose the Claw

When planning your assassin out, it is important to know first which claw you plan on using for this assassin. The commonly used Bartuc's Cut-throat adds quite a bit of Dexterity and Strength, along with AR and is extremely easy to achieve maximum attack speed (7 frames) with. Then, there is the Cruel claw, which can be much stronger than a Bartuc's Cut Throat, but is often much more difficult to achieve max frames with, and also does not come with innate +skills, +AR%, +dual stats; which can greatly effect the gear that you choose to use.

1A. Bartuc's

When using Bartuc's, you will normally only require a base level 2 Burst of Speed [BoS], which can conserve a lot of skill points. You also get a Strength and Dexterity bonus of 20/20, which can thusly lower the amount of base Strength and Dexterity points you allocate, leaving you with more points to put into vitality. Bartuc's also adds some +skills (which add ED and AR to your attacks via skill bonuses), and also has an innate +20% AR. Generally when assassin's use Bartucs, they focus more on life bonuses and AR, rather than damage. Bartuc's also allows you to use different styles of gear for when dueling other classes and when resistances are important.

1B. Cruel Claw

When using a Cruel claw, you will normally require a lot more levels in BoS (Anywhere from 16 points with mods, to 10 points with mods, and a lowest possible of 3 points with mods. However, if you use 3 points you will require a lot of gear sacrifices to achieve max frames). Cruel claws will also require more base stat points in both Strength and Dexterity than Bartucs, and you will commonly end up with less life and (potentially) less AR, but will be able to achieve a much higher damage rating depending on the quality of the Cruel you find.

1C. Shadow Claws

One thing that should be noted about obtaining max FPS with a cruel claw, however, is the possible use of Shadow Claws. Shadow claws are magical claws that have the magical prefix of "shadow" which add +3 to assassin's shadow discipline skills. When using two of these claws in your secondary weapon switch, you receive a +6 skill levels bonus to BoS, and are then able to cast BoS with a +6 level curve, and then switch back to your normal weapon/shield combo and retain the benefits granted from the shadow claws. Shadow claws also help to boost your shadow master's level prior to casting, and just like with BoS, the bonuses will remain active for the duration of the spell even after you have removed the claws or switched weapons.

For more on IAS and BoS and reaching maximum attack speeds (7fps); Fuzzbox has provided us with an easy to use chart located here.

If for some reason you need to calculate the IAS/BoS levels yourself, you can go here.

If you need to get the base speeds for some of the elite claws, you can go here.

2. Skills

Being an MA sin, you will not be adding more than 1 point to any of the skill sin the Trap skill tree, however, it is common practice to place at least a few points in this tree in order to use Death Sentry against monsters, and Wake of Fire against other players (though, not for damage). If for some reason you add more than 1 point base to any of the trap skills, you are technically no longer a pure Martial Artist -- you have become a hybrid assassin.

For those wishing to create their own builds, I recommend Chippy Dip's page for planning out characters. The page can be found here.

2A. Stunner Assassin

This is the common MA (Martial Art) Assassin setup. Some assassins tend to max out Dragon Flight, though it is the consensus of many veteran assassins that DF is not a good investment for more than 1 point, though it still extremely useful as a PvP skill at level 1 when used properly.

Max :
Tiger Strike (20)

Claw Mastery (20)
Shadow Master (20)
Mind Blast (20)

Points needed :
Cobra Strike (1)
Burst of Speed (6) [See note below about BoS]
Mind blast (1)
Death Sentry (1)
Wake of Fire (1)

Pre-requisites (11)
101 points total.

This build can be completed with all skills at their above levels by clvl 90, after all skill quests have been completed.

NOTE: When using Bartucs, you will only require a base level 2 BoS in order to achieve maximum frame rate without the use of Shadow Claws. When using a Cruel Scissors Suwayyah, or Cruel Suwayyah, you will need ether level 16 BoS with 30% IAS. Level 10 BoS with 40% IAS. Level 3 BoS with 70% IAS.

It is recommended to max Mind Blast last, and concentrate mainly on your Claw Mastery and Tiger Strike skills. The object of this build is to use your base level 1 traps in conjunction with high level mind blast to "stun-lock" your opponents. Traps, while in PvM, will not re-stun monsters continuously that are effected by mind blast. However, other players that are hit by mind blast will perform a stun animation after almost ANY type or amount of damage hits them. Once mind blast hits a target, the target will display white flashy swirlie "stun" animations above their head. During this time while the "stun duration" is active, a trap (regardless of damage) will cause the target to perform a "hit recovery animation", which will interrupt all movements and almost all forms attacks (not those that are uninterruptible, such as a Barb's Whirlwind). The reason why Mind Blast is maxed is because there is a duration timer on the amount of time that the "swirlie" animations remain active on a target. And the duration of the "stun" will start at 2 second and gain .2 seconds per skill level (or 1 second for every 5 points). Be mindful though, raising the skill level does not effect the amount of time a player is "stuck" in their hit recovery animation in any way. Raising the skill level only makes the timer last longer, and thusly a player will have the swirlies on their head for a longer period of time.

2B. Elementalist Stunner

Some assassins choose to use Claws of Thunder rather than Tiger Strike. More about CoT can be viewed below.

Max :
Claws of Thunder (20)

Claw Mastery (20)
Shadow Master (20)

Points needed :
Cobra Strike (1)
Burst of Speed (11) [See note below on BoS]
Mind blast (15)
Death Sentry (1)
Wake of Fire (1)

Pre-requisites (13)
101 points total.

This build can be completed by character level 90 with all skills at their above levels.

NOTE: This build is not recommended to be used by a Cruel Claw assassin, as it would require a level 19 BoS and 80% IAS, or level 14 BoS with 90% IAS. However for the Bartuc's sin, this build requires a level 11 BoS with 30% IAS (base level 9).

This build utilizes the skill Claws of Thunder (CoT) rather than Tiger Strike. Claws of Thunder is a highly effective martial art skill that grants the user uninterruptability. It is the opinion of some assassins that the elemental claw attacks (Fists of Fire [FoF], CoT, Blades of Ice [BoI] -- the three on the left hand side of the martial tree) were meant only to be used while dual wielding claws. The reason is because they are uninterruptible (like dragon claw), they swing both claws instead of one while C/C (like DC), they receive a speed penalty when attacking (which occurs when using Dragon Claw [DC]/CoT/FoF/BoI), and possibly based on information they have either obtained from Blizzard or from the MPQ files. Regardless, some assassins choose to use this skill versus other classes, because in regards to other assassin's it is generally considered not a fair skill, but against other classes it can be very useful and seen as relatively fair. The reason why Burst of Speed (BoS) requires a much higher level than in the other builds, is because (as was stated) there is a speed penalty that your frame rate receives when using an elemental claw skill. Claws of thunder is mostly chosen over Fists of Fire and Blades of Ice because it has a much higher damage out-put than the other two skills, and a much larger Attack Rating (AR) bonus. The general strategy of this build often resembles the stunner and the assassin will commonly raise MB in order to stun, then use the claw skill against immobilized opponents.

NOTE: Elemental skills are generally banned from use in Sin vs. Sin duels, though they can be effective vs. other classes.

3. Choose your Armor

3A. Cookie-Cutter Bartuc's

This is the basic setup for an assassin that wishes to duel other classes and be viable for duels outside the Assassin (sin) vs. sin dueling community. Common builds used by most assassins dueling in either public games or against other character classes normally resemble this setup, with small variations depending on gear and playing style.

A Storm Shield (SSh) will require 133 Strength to ware when it is socketed with -15% requirements. Without the -15% requirements, it will require 156 Strength to equip. The object of this build is to get as much natural Strength and Dexterity from items as possible, in order to lower their base stats and poor as much excess points into Vitality as possible.

Gear

Weapon : Bartuc's cut-throat [U. Greater talons] (preferably ethereal with zod)
Helm : Vampiregaze [U. Grim helm] (Can be socketed with Jah, Shael, Um, or ED%/Max damage jewel)
Armor : Shaftstop [U. Mesh armor] (See helm socket placement)
Shield : Stormshield [U. Monarch] (Um, 40% ED/15Max damage, 40ED%/-15% jewel, 40ED%/15%IAS jewel)

Belt : Thungergod's Vigor [U. War belt]
Boots : Imp Shanks [R. Rare boots] (+18 strength, resistance, FHR, other mods)
Gloves : Immortal King's Forge [S. War gauntlets]
Ring 1 : Raven Spiral [Rare Ring, dual leech, resistance, dexterity, and other mods - non duped]
Ring 2 : Raven Frost [U. Ring - non duped]
Amulet : Mara's Kaleidoscope [U Amulet]

Stats Base

Strength : Min. 67 (+83 Strength from mods = 150) Max. 73 (+mods = 156)
Dexterity : Min. 90 (+78 Dexterity from mods = 168) Max. 144 (+mods = 222)
Vitality : Remaining points (+25 from mods)
Energy: None

SSh. (Storm Shield) has a +30 Strength bonus, but is not applied until after you equip it, therefore the bonus does not count. If we did count it, you could potentially body pop. You'll notice that the different between minimum and maximum base Strength mods is the difference of only 6 points (18 life in terms of Vitality). For this reason, it is not entirely necessary for you to add a -% requirement jewel into your Storm Shield and may wish to instead add an ED/Max damage or ED/IAS jewel. This gear set is not suited for particularly high damage, and is suited mainly for resistances and life, thusly it is not ideal to use this in Sin vs. Sin matches, but instead vs. other classes.

The reason why these Dexterity figures are done like this is because of your effective shield blocking with SSh, which is directly related to Dexterity. Storm can be worn at the lowest possible level of 73.

So, in order to get max blocking with Storm at clvl 73 you need approximately 168 Dexterity with mods to achieve 75% blocking.

However, as you level you will usually need to distribute about 2 points into dexterity per clvl from level 73 and up.

The amount of dexterity you require for max blocking on a clvl 99 sin is 222 with mods. For more information on blocking, you can go to Spirea's.

The reason Energy is left at base is because there is not much need for mana while you are pure MA. The great thing about this build is that the Assassin gains 3 life points for every vitality point, and with this setup can achieve anywhere from 1,500 life to over 2,000 life depending on charms and runes.

3B. Ideal Armor with Cruel Claw

This build may be far more expensive, but it is good to keep it in mind because it is much more highly effective vs. melee classes and in sin vs. sin duels than the regular Cookie-cutter build.

Gear

Weapon : Cruel Scissors Suwayyah of Evisceration [or quickness] (Socket this with Zod if it is ethereal. Second socket should receive either a ED%/IAS jewel or Shael rune -- if quickness is second mod, you may wish to consider ED/max)
Helm : Vampiregaze [U. Grim helm] (socketed with Ber rune)
Armor : 160/60max damage [Archon Plate (preferably of the whale)] (Can be socketed with four 40%ed/15max jewels, or replace one with a Cham rune or 40%ED/15%IAS jewel)

Belt : String of Ears [U. Demonhide Sash]
Gloves : Rares or Crafted gloves recommended (Should come with 3% life leech, 20% IAS, and other mods)
Ring 1 : Raven Frost [U. Ring Non duped] (replace this with rare or crafted if you use Cham in armor)
Ring 2 : 11% life leech ring (Crafted ring with mods)

See above outline for all un-mentioned items.

The key to this build is to obtain 75% damage reduction (DR) without using Shaft Stop (SSt). Socketing a version 1.09 Vampiregaze with a Ber rune is common practice. As an alternative, if you can get a version 1.08 vampire gaze, it will come with 25% DR which is enough to cap you out in PvP without the use of a Ber rune.

Stats Base

Strength : Min. 123 (+10 strength from mods = 133) -- Max. 146 (+mods = 156)
Dexterity : Min. 110 (+58 Dexterity from mods = 168) Max. 164 (+mods = 222)
Vitality : Remaining points (+10 from mods)
Energy: None

Some assassins opt to add a Ber into their vampire gazes and swap their Thundergod's Vigor with String of Ears (15% DR). This allows them to change their armor at will. Some assassin's will use 4 socketed armor with ED%/Max damage jewels (potentially either 4 of them, or 3 of them with cham) this is most commonly done with Archon Plate, and sometimes "Jewelers Archon Plate of the Whale". Some assassin's use Arkaine's Valor [U. Balrog Skin], in order to gain it's benefits of vitality, +skills, and 30% FHR. Another alternative to Balrog and ed/max is to use the runeword "Lionheart", which grants massive stat bonuses, resistance bonus, and other mods including a small damage bonus. The Lionheart armor grants more life than valor because you are able to lower your base STR and DEXTERITY by a substantial amount, however it grants far less damage than either valor or ed/max. If you use Lionheart, you will gain 25 strength and 15 dexterity, thusly you can add 40 more points into vitality and less points into strength/dexterity. The dexterity listed above is based under the assumption that the primary ring is Raven Frost. If you opt to use Cham in your armor, you may need to adjust your dexterity when switching this ring for another life leech ring (by 20 points, normally).

These alternatives are generally better in the long run for sin vs. sin duels, however are also much more expensive and not recommended to be used vs. elemental damage users, such as sorceresses. You should also keep in mind that when using a Cruel Claw you will need to adjust for the IAS requirements, and may not be able to use IK's gloves (you may need 20% IAS gloves) thusly losing 20 strength and 20 dexterity. If you do plan on using a Cruel Claw, note that it is possible to use ED%/IAS% jewels rather than ED%/max damage jewels (however, it is not recommended). Obviously sacrificing a lot of vitality in order to obtain damage, however the damage out-put can increase quite substantially. This build often also requires a few more points in BoS as it normally would, depending on what mods your claw has, and what you socket into it.

1. With "of Quickness" and cat's eye, you can use a level 10 BoS. 2. With "of Quickness", cat's eye, and 20% IAS in your gloves, you can use a level 5 BoS. 3. With "of Quickness", cat's eye, 20% IAS in your gloves, and ED/IAS jewel in your claw you can use a level 3 BoS.
--
1. With "of Evisceration", cat's eye, and an ED/IAS jewel in you claw, you will need a level 13 BoS. 2. With "of Evisceration", cat's eye, and 20% IAS gloves, you will need a level 10 BoS. 3. With "of Evisceration", cat's eye, ED/IAS jewel in your claw and another ED/IAS jewel in your armor, you can use a level 7 BoS. 4. With "of Evisceration", cat's eye, 20% IAS gloves, and 2 ED/IAS jewels (one in armor and one in claw), you can use a level 3 BoS.

Again, for more information on IAS/BoS, you can view Fuzzbox's IAS tables

4. Important Assassin Information

4.A Hit Recovery
The hit recovery speeds for the assassin are as follows :
0% Faster hit recovery : 6 frames
20% Faster hit recovery : 5 frames
63% Faster hit recovery : 4 frames
200% Faster hit recovery : 3 frames

It is common for assassin's to try and achieve a 4 frame hit recovery speed. Most assassin's that use Bartuc's have the benefit for 30% FHR (faster hit recovery) from the claw itself. Players will have to decide on how to achieve the extra 33% in order to get that 4 frame break point (BP). They will often use small charms of balance that add 5% FHR, or grand charms that commonly have another prefix bonus along with the suffix that grants 12% FHR. There is also the possibility of a Shael rune in armor/helm which grants 20% FHR per rune. Imp Shanks come with 20% FHR. Wearing Arkaines Valor will grant the wearer an innate bonus of 30% FHR. Blood Fists are also popular gloves to use because they grant the user an IAS bonus along with the 30% FHR bonus. Rockstopper is a popular assassin helm because it adds 10% P-DR (physical damage reduction), multiple resistances, and 30% FHR with other mods.

4B. Block Speeds

Block speed - Frames per block
-10% - 4 frame blocking
-05% - 4 frame blocking
00% - 3 frame blocking
05% - 3 frame blocking
10% - 3 frame blocking
15% - 3 frame blocking
20% - 3 frame blocking
25% - 3 frame blocking
30% - 3 frame blocking
35% - 2 frame blocking
40% - 2 frame blocking
45% - 2 frame blocking
50% - 2 frame blocking
55% - 2 frame blocking
60% - 2 frame blocking
65% - 2 frame blocking
70% - 2 frame blocking
75% - 2 frame blocking

(Note from author : This chart is by no means correct)

It is the consensus of most veteran assassins that Storm Shield does not require a Shael rune in order to obtain the next BP in block speed because it comes with an innate 35% FBR (faster block rate) bonus. However, some argue that it does make a difference in the speed of which an assassin will block while using Storm Shield. Some argue that regardless of the speed, it is still better to socket the storm with either resistances or damage modifiers, rather than block speeds. It is up to the user to decide what works best for you.

4C. Mind Blast

Mind Blast (MB) starts at a 2 second stun duration and causes physical damage. MB gains .2 seconds of stun duration per level, and will literally be doubled in duration by level 11, and tripled in duration by level 21 (gaining 1 second for every 5 points). MB works similarly to the Paladin's Smite skill, which activates a "stun duration" on the targets head. Monsters will be temporarily immobilized by this skill, however it effects players somewhat differently. On players, MB causes a "stun duration" which takes the appearance of little white flashy "swirlies" above the player-target head, while these "swirlies" are activated on a player-target, the target will be forced to perform a "stun animation" sequence (which is what a hit-recovery frame is), which is what occurs when the player receives a large amount of damage, whenever the target is hit by ANY amount of damage from ANY source so long as the "swirlies" are still active. This means, that when a player is hit for any amount of damage while under the effects of MB, they will automatically perform a hit recovery animation which will interrupt any and all movements/attacks that are not un-interruptible. Uninterruptible attacks, such as a barbarian's whirlwind skill are not effected by stun (hit recovery) while being used.

The level of MB does not affect the amount of frames a player will perform during the hit recovery animation, it only effects the "duration" that the "swirlies" will be active on a player. The hit recovery frames a player performs is only affected by the player's own personal FHR speed.

4D. Dragon Flight

Dragon Flight (DF) is an extremely useful skill to use while in PvP. It automatically teleports the assassin to a targeted object with a kick (like the sorceress' teleport skill, but targetable only on hostile targets). This skill, however, is not a very powerful one, and even when maxed will do negligible damage. The amount of damage that a maxed DF does uncharged (without Tiger Strike [TS] charges) is about 1/4th to 1/3rd of the damage you would normally do with a single uncharged claw attack (meaning it's weaker than a regular claw attack). When a max DF is fully charged with a max TS (3 charges of Tiger Strike), it still only does about the same amount of damage as a normal uncharged claw attack would do (meaning it's 1/3rd as strong as a fully-charged normal claw attack). It is the consensus of most veteran assassins that DF should not be maxed because when releasing TS with a normal claw attack, you will almost always do far more damage than releasing the TS charges with any level of DF. Still DF is very useful as a teleportation skill and is mainly used to close the distance between the assassin and a target, it is also used to much success in conjunction with Shadow Master (SM) because the SM will automatically teleport with the assassin when she performs a DF.

However, DF is bugged and it should be noted as to what type of bugs occur when using it. For one thing, targets that are moving fast in a southward direction (running south) will usually not be hit by DF, this is due to a bug in the programming. DF will also auto-target minions and monsters, thusly when an assassin targets a player that is standing next to a minion or monster, DF will often automatically select the minion or monster rather than the target that the assassin is selecting -- this is not a bug, but rather the way that DF is programmed. In example, if an assassin targets an amazon that has either a Decoy or Valkyrie cast near herself, then the assassin will almost always auto-target the Decoy or Valkyrie with DF rather than the amazon.

Dragon Flight when used in conjunction with SM is bugged in another separate way as well; when the assassin uses DF, the SM will automatically be teleported along with the assassin and land in the exact location that the assassin lands. However, this is a stacking/priority bug that occurs when this does, and ranged (projectile) attacks that auto-target such as the amazon's Guided Arrow skill and the necromancers Bone Spirit skill will pass directly through both the assassin and the shadow (hitting neither), so long as both the SM and the assassin stay in the same location on top of one another. For this reason, amazon's and necromancers will often not cast their minions when dueling Trap-based assassins because the assassin can (and usually will) intentionally target the minion in order to force the minion and the SM to stand stationary and duel one another, while the assassin is able to also stand still and cast MB/Traps at the opponent while purposely taking advantage of the stacking/priority bug and avoid all auto-targeting projectiles (though, non-autotarget skills such as the amazon's Multi Shot or the sorceress's nova skill will still hit).

4E. Claw Mastery

Claw Mastery (CM) is bugged in two different ways. The first is that CM calculates the damage and attack rating (AR) bonus incorrectly (or perhaps differently) than what is displayed on the skill screen. What actually occurs is that the actual damage bonus is modified to match the listed AR bonus of that level (meaning you actually receive a 10% damage bonus, if your listed AR bonus is 10%, rather than the listed 4% damage per level). It is also bugged in a way that it allows the assassin to always cause Critical Strike with every attack while using a claw-class weapon (effectively granting the assassin 100% critical strike while wielding a claw). For this reason, assassin's that use claws have no reason to use the Deadly Strike special modifier, because deadly strike and critical strike do not stack or combine in any way, and critical strike will over-ride the effects of deadly strike (meaning critical strike will cause you to do 2x physical damage, but deadly strike will not further increase that damage in any way). Some veteran assassin users believe that this is actually not a bug at all, and Blizzard intended for the assassin to always have critical strike, however it is not known whether this is true or not.

4F. Burst of Speed

Burst of Speed (BoS) is also currently bugged. However, unlike other bugs, this one reacts very differently. The bug has been fixed on battle.net with a server-side patch, however the bug still remains active in the Diablo2 coding (mpq) on your own system. Like CM, BoS calculates the bonuses incorrectly, and will add attack speed at a rate of the Run/Walk (r/w) bonus +5. In other words, a Level 9 BoS displays that it adds 51% r/w bonus and 44% Attack Speed bonus, however, client side the bug makes it so that you actually receive a 51% r/w bonus and a 56% attack speed bonus (51% +5). As explained before, though, this bug occurs only client-side (on your own computer, and not b.net) and not on the battle.net server. Thusly, while playing on battle.net your assassin may appear to be attacking much faster than it actually is server-side (on the battle.net server) and in the eyes of other players. So, it is important to keep this in mind, and to calculate your BoS/IAS rates the correct way without using the BoS bug calculation, because while on your computer you may appear to be attacking very fast, you are actually attacking much slower.

4G. Elemental Attacks

Elemental Attacks are the three skills that are on the left side of the Martial Art (MA) skill tree, and are Fists of Fire, Claws of Thunder, and Blades of Ice (FoF, CoT, and BoI respectively). There are a few bugs that occur when using these skills due to the way that they are programmed. First, these skills were meant to only be used while dual-wielding claw class weapons, the same way that Weapon Block and Dragon Claw (WB and DC respectively) are. When you equip two claw-class weapons and use any of the three elementals, you will see the assassin swing both claws at once rather than just one. Because of this, they also receive a speed penalty the same way that DC does. Also, they receive an uninterruptability (cannot be stunned) feature that is also present when using DC. However, unlike DC, these elemental skills are actually active for use while the assassin is wielding only one claw. When using the elementals wielding one claw and a shield. The assassin will perform a "thrust" motion during elemental attacks rather than a "swing" motion which is seen when using TS, Cobra Strike (CS), or Phoenix Strike (PS), which also supports the idea that these attacks were not meant to be used while equipped C/S (claw/shield).

Many assassin users find the use of these skills to be bad-mannered (BM) in assassin vs. assassin duels due to the uninterruptability feature, which negates the use of FHR, however many other assassins argue that these skills are still very useful and almost necessary when dueling against other classes aside from the assassin.

Secondly, there is another bug that occurs with FoF and BoI due to the way that they are programmed. The second and third charges of both FoF and BoI activate what is called a "splash damage" (SD) feature that will cause damage to any target within the Area of Effect (AoE). However, when releasing the charges to these skills at charge numbers 2 or 3, your claw does not actually connect with the target at all, instead only the SD hits the target, along with any other targets within the AoE. The reason why they appear to do your claw damage when releasing them is because your claw damage is actually calculated into the SD, meaning any targets within the AoE, including the target that the skill was released on, will be hit by both your claw damage and the added elemental damage from the skill itself. Because of this, it is possible to use both FoF and BoI at the same time and cause your claw damage to be released twice at the same time along with the SD. In other words, your claw damage, elemental damage from gear/charms, and the added elemental damage from the individual skills will hit any target within the AoE twice, rather than once.

There is also another bug connected with this, where it actually occurs when releasing the skills with a kick. Unlike when releasing with a claw, the kick will actually hit the target, however the SD will still release your claw damage and elemental damage to all targets in the AoE. For this reason, some assassins put only 1 point in FoF and BoI in order to take advantage of this bug in PvM. They charge 2 or 3 charges of both skills and release the skills with a level 1 kick skill (such as dragon talon or dragon flight), and the result is their claw and elemental damage hitting all targets twice in the AoE, such as a small group of cows. It should also be noticed that while the release does actually calculate AR (meaning the release can miss), the SD however does not. This means while the actual release will sometimes miss, the SD will always hit no matter what, so long as the target is within the AoE. Elemental attacks receive a +25 EIAS speed penalty when used (regardless of whether you're C/S or C/C), and thusly should be used when calculating specific BoS/IAS equations and tailoring your build.

For a more in depth look at Assassins, or if you have any questions not covered/answered in this guide, please refer to the Assassin FAQ.

5. In-Depth Strategies

For specific questions concerning Player vs. Player (PvP) in general, please refer to the PvP FAQ.

The assassin, being one of the characters that was introduced to Diablo2 only after the expansion was released, is a relatively new character class even though the expansion set has been out for some time now. New builds and strategies are emerging every day, and we are constantly finding out new information about the assassin and the way the game works all the time. That said, this strategy section is by no means final, but the intent of it is to help you get a good idea on how to use your assassin, and to convey a few good tip's that most veterans use.

5A. Basic Strategies

Your primary skills will be Tiger Strike (TS or Tiger) and Cobra Strike (CS or Cobra). Think of those two skills as an input/output type interface, or perhaps if you'd prefer; a yin-yang type balance. Your Tiger will be used to cause a very large jolt of physical damage, usually about 3 to 4 times the amount you would normally do with a regular claw attack. Thusly, it is an output of life, causing damage. Conversely, your Cobra will be the input skill that will cause a huge surge of life to be returned to the assassin (along with mana at charges #2 and #3). In other words, your Cobra will be there to keep you alive and your Tiger will be there to make sure your opponents die.

Shadow Master is probably one of the very best (if not the best) minion skill in D2X. They can not be leeched from (meaning life leech mods from gear and skills do not work when attacking a Shadow), have the second highest damage output than any other minion, use nearly all of the assassin's skills at their own skill level divided by 2 + 1 (meaning a level 20 shadow will use it's own skills at level 11), and more importantly they are relatively intelligent. Your shadow master should be cast and remain active at all times, if it for some reason dies you should always immediately re-cast it, as they provide crucial protection, distractions, and can provide amazingly good damage support. However, your main goal in any duel will be to use Mind Blast (MB) effectively with low level traps.

The advantage to low level traps is that even high level traps can be easily absorbed, and return quite a bit of life when they are absorbed, however if they are level 1 they can still be absorbed, but will be returning far less life than they would had they been maxed. The great thing about Mind Blast is that it does not matter how much damage your traps are doing, or even if they are doing any at all! Yes, that is correct, if another player is effected by Mind Blast, then even traps that are being totally absorbed (literally healing another player) will still stun the player (forcing hit recovery animations). Thusly, your main goal will be to use MB in order to activate the stun duration on an opponent immediately followed by an array of different traps depending on the situation in order to "stun-lock" your opponent. While the opponent is locked down in very fast consecutive hit recovery breaks, they are completely immobile most of the time, and will constantly have their attacks and movements interrupted, thereby allowing the assassin ample time to charge and release their killing arts on the hapless target.

5B. Amazon

Amazons (zon's) come in three basic breeds, they are : Javazon, Hybrid, and Bowazon. The titles are pretty self explanatory, and is similar to the assassin where the bowazon is ranged, javazon is melee, and hybrid is one that uses skills from both trees.

Javazon: The javazon will commonly come in two different forms, they normally either were Stormshield or the set shield "Whistan's Guard". But, they are the same basic type of fighter, which is a physical tank.

Javazon's will often have very large amounts of dexterity allocated, granting them maximum block potential, very high defense, above average AR, and considerable damage. If that wasn't bad enough, they also usually come with a few more tricks up their sleeve called Dodge, Evade, and Avoid. These skills give chances to ignore melee or ranged attacks while standing still, running, or attacking. Because of this, a normal attack will usually only have a 25% chance of getting past their shields, after that there is only around a 50% chance that the attack will not be dodged (giving you only a 12% chance of successfully hitting them, assuming your attack rating does not fail the to-hit check), and assuming your own attack is not interrupted by a hit recovery or block break.

Their primary skill is commonly Jab, which strikes 3 times in rapid succession, and is more importantly uninterruptible. Because it strikes at you three times fast, it will often cause your own attack to be interrupted by either a block or a hit recovery break, which is why some assassins choose to use elemental attacks (in order to gain their own uninterruptability) against these lightning-fast characters, and due to the fact that their attack is uninterruptible, your Mind Blast will not be as effective against them (since during their attack animations, they can not be interrupted by hit-recovery breaks/stunned). Your goal here will be to bite the bullet and attempt to go head to head with them, because while MB+traps can sometimes be effective in-between their attacks, it is usually not very useful. Instead, it is recommended to primarily use your Shadow to absorb some of the amazon's hits (Jab auto-targets, and your Shadow will sometimes be able to take a third of the strikes away from the amazon's jab that is directed at you).

You will also be using Cobra Strike and Tiger Strike as much as possible. Because these characters are very difficult to hit, it is recommended to try and release charges on them at the soonest possible moment, so that you can gain some sort of foot-hold or upper hand against the amazon. During the course of this battle, it is not uncommon for the assassin to lose charges because they were attempting to get 3 charges before they released, and often the timer will run out on them before they get the next successful hit on the amazon.

Bowazon: Bowazons usually come in three different breeds depending on the bow they have chosen to use. There are the slow bows, such as Buriza Do-Kanyon, which is very damaging and has 100% chance to pierce target. There are very strong bows, and slightly faster than the Buriza, such as Windforce, and then there are medium damage bows that fire very rapidly but don't pack quite the same punch as the other two, and often don't pierce quite as much.

Bowazons will usually take advantage of two different skills in order to deal damage, those are Multi Shot (MS) and Guided Arrow (GA). The best part about dueling a bowazon is that they do not come with a shield, instead they have the skills dodge/evade/avoid to protect them, which are skills similar to the assassin's Weapon Block skill. Therefore, they have less of a chance to ignore attacks, and also they will commonly have less damage reduction, leaving them very vulnerable to both physical and in some cases even elemental attacks.

Amazons also tend to love casting Decoy and Valkyrie in order to protect themselves further. While this is a good tactic, providing a meat shield, it can also work against the amazon when they are dueling assassins. As described above, there is a bug with Dragon Flight [DF], which allows the assassin to be invulnerable to auto-targeting projectiles, such as GA. A good tactic to use against these types of amazons is to purposely DF into either the amazon herself, or her minion, in order to stack you and your Shadow together, enabling the bug and affording you some protection from the amazon's GA's. Doing so will allow you to cast MB+traps at the amazon while under the safe protection of your Shadow. Once the amazon is stun locked, you are able to cast DF once again and begin your barrage of claw attacks directly on the amazon. Some amazons are aware of this bug with DF, and do not cast minions, in this situation, you are still able to take advantage of the bug by DF'ing directly into the amazon herself, and so long as your Shadow is directly ontop of you, all GAs that are currently tracking you, or new GAs that the amazon fires, will pass through you.

The amazon will often immediately run away from the assassin, however, and this is your time to make use of your [SHIFT] key. You should, while holding shift (so as not to move out of place), begin to cast your MB and traps at the amazon, and then immediately cast DF once again in order to get in close. Be aware of your SM's position though, because if it moves, then the GA's will begin tracking normally. Sometimes when the amazon has particularly low DR, and your SM has a particular high slvl, you will get lucky and the SM will use DC against the amazon and kill her in a single swing.

When advancing on an amazon, you should take advantage of your speed, and move in towards her in a spiral fashion (the amazon being the center of the spiral, and you being the outside ring), because in doing this, you will be able to move closer to the amazon while avoiding GA's. If you were to advance in a direct approach, you will most assuredly be pounded by GAs or MSs that will not be as easily avoided had you taken a different route.

Another thing that should be noted about bowazons is that they commonly use quite a bit of r/w, and are therefore able to easily avoid your slow moving, short-ranged Wake of Fire [WoF] traps, due to this it is often better to use LS to initially "catch" the amazon a few times with MB+LS, then once you are able to advance on the amazon, start sticking her with WoF in order to keep her in place.

During this duel is when a low level DF will actually work to your advantage, because it is very difficult to charge Tigers off an amazon, it is crucial that you make every charge count, and if you were to have a high level DF, then the charges could potentially be "wasted" if you used DF to release the charges. However, by having a low level DF, the chances are that it will miss its mark and you will not release your charges, but will still be right next to the amazon fully charged and ready to release with your claw (which is usually 3 to 4 times stronger charged with TS than a max DF is).

Hybrid: Good luck. Hehe, seriously. These zon's are no laughing matter, as they have both the advantage of ranged attacks with extreme damage, and the safety of a shield AND dodges AND physical damage reduction. Your goal here will be to get as close to the amazon as possible and force the other player to go head-to-head rather than the touch-and-go game that most bowazon's play. Once you have them head to head with you, treat them as you would a javazon. One good tip to use here, however, is to "fake out" the amazon once you get a few charges. After you have at least 2 charges, you can run from battle, the amazon will often not pursue you and will instead switch to a bow and start flinging GA's at you. This is a perfect time to quick switch to DF and fly at the amazon full force when their guard is down and release your Tiger ASAP.

5C. Assassin

As with Amazons, the assassin will have three basic builds, they are : Martial, Hybrid, Trap.

Martial: This will be the true test of your skill, as you are going head-to-head with another assassin. In sin vs. sin duels, you will need to use all of your skills to the best of your ability. Start out by getting close to your opponent and forcing them to either go head-to-head with you or run away. If they are running, they are not attacking, and thus you are able to start casting MB+traps on them and stun them. If they go head-to-head, you will need to get your charges built and released first, because often if you come second in line, you are the one that is going to die first. Use your shadow to your advantage, and make it occupy your opponents shadow and/or start adding passive damage to your opponent. If for some reason you do come out second in line, then you best run! It is common practice in sin vs. sin duels to retreat from battle temporarily in order to drain the opponents charge-timer. This tactic will also allow you to recoil and start casting traps+MB in hopes of stun-locking your opponent. Just keep in mind that your opponent is capable of doing the same things you are able to do, and they will often run away from your charges in order to make sure you never get a chance to release them. Because of this, it is often a guessing game as to when you should/shouldn't release your charges.

Hybrid: Hybrid assassins are usually more adept at the stunning game, as they come equipped with more mana and sometimes with weapon switches that give them bonuses to skills and faster casting. Thus, it is important for you not to try and out-cast this breed of sin, rather you must try and force the opponent to go head-to-head. Being that you are a pure-breed, you will have a better chance of winning in a melee duel, but be wary of their charges, because even though they are suited up differently than you they are still able to pack quite a punch.

Trapper: Trappers will be much the same as you, only their traps will actually be causing damage. They also will have the advantage of faster cast and sometimes much more life than you. Because of this, you should not try and out-cast this sin, and just as you would an amazon, you need to get as close to these characters as soon as possible. The one thing that varies between a trapper and an amazon is that you should not try and use traps against them at all, as they will usually be able to out-trap you. Instead, just use your shadow and MB to the best of your ability. MB is still useful outside of the MB+trap combo, because pretty much any damage that is inflicted on the target will cause additional stun, and this can be useful when fighting trap sin's since your shadow, or even your kick from DF will sometimes get a lucky hit off, and buy you some time to get a claw strike in here-and-there. This is another situation where a low level DF is actually a benefit, because every charge counts in this duel, and if you were to have a high level DF the possibility of accidentally "wasting"/releasing charges on the trapper with DF would be detrimental, as a fully charged normal attack would do far more damage than max DF.

5D. Barbarian

There's usually only two types of Barbs, because Barb's can easily max both Whirl Wind (WW) and Berserk (zerk), and that's a typical barbarian (Barb). The other type of barb is a Thrower.

Barb: Do not attempt to engage the barbarian in a head-to-head match, as you will almost always lose. Instead you will need to use MB+WoF in order to stunlock the barb, and hopefully you will be able to get a lucky claw strike in here-and-there, but if for any reason the barb is able to break free of the lock, you must retreat immediately, as they can easily punish any melee assassin. Another useful trick to use is to hug the wall or move up against the parameter of the area your are fighting the barb. This tactic will make it difficult for the barb to WW effectively, and also force the barb to either WW directly through you or away from you, because when a barb WW's directly into a wall, it will usually interrupt the WW.

Thrower: Sometimes you'll occasionally find a throw barb, and they should generally be treated as sort of a amazon/trapsin cross, since they are ranged, but their projectiles will not auto-target you.

Authors note: My only solid advice to you here is to find a different duel, unfortunately.

5E. Druid

Druids come in two different forms : Werewolf and Werebear.

Werewolf: Werewolf druids can pretty much be treated as though they were javazons with a few minor differences. The first is that they swing 5 times in rapid succession rather than 3 times. The second is that their minions are something that you will need to pay much more attention to, as they can be both very deadly and very useful. Unlike the SM, the druids' Bear minion is a target that you can leech life from. This can be very useful when you are low on life against the druid, as you are able to get a quick-fix by releasing Cobra charges on one. However, the minions are not to be messed with, as the druid's bear is often much stronger than the assassin's SM and will usually cause stun durations on you when it connects with a successful attack. Because of this, it is very important to kill these as quickly as possible.

Their ravens are also something that you should be aware of, as even though they do not do any sort of real damage, they will often cause you to block, which will lock up your shield and interrupt your attacks during a duel with the druid. Ravens, however, move very slow, and you are able to reposition yourself by temporarily retreating from battle, and the ravens will follow, but rather slowly, giving you time to commence battle with the druid uninterrupted.

The last and most important detail about the druid is that unlike the amazon's jab, their attack is interruptible if you catch them in the right time frame. In other words, your MB+WoF stunlock will be very useful here. The druid will still be able to attack and defend himself, but not nearly as well as a javazon can. Not only that, but druids have one of the slowest hit recovery and block speeds in the game (next to the necromancer and sorceress). The primary except to the rule of killing off druid minions is to be wary of the Oak Sage. The other minions that the druid will commonly cast should be dealt with immediately, however Oak Sage is a different story because of the mechanics it uses when giving life bonuses to the druid. If you kill the Sage, it gives the druid an opportunity to take advantage of the way Sage operates, and use a re-cast trick that makes them heal almost instantly to the life they were at before ever being hurt. Druid are not supposed to use this trick in manner games, however sometimes it is unavoidable.

Werebear: These are quite deadly if you are not cautious as pretty much any and all of their attacks will stun you, even their minion (Maul and Grizzly "Bear"). Your primary goal here will be to take advantage of their very slow hit recoveries and block speeds by attempting to stunlock them and eliminate any and all minions they have summoned. Often, their minions will cause you more trouble than the druid itself. The most important thing to remember in this battle is not to get pinned down near a wall, you have to keep yourself on open ground and use the druid's minions to leech from as often as possible (killing the minion in the process).

5F. Necromancer

There's usually only one type of necromancer (Necro), and that's an evil one.

Necro: 9 times out of 10, an MA assassin will lose this match. However it is not impossible to win. You must always be moving in a battle with a necromancer. If you stop moving for even the briefest of moments, even to sneeze, you will probably find yourself turned into a gooey pile of ectoplasm.

They have two basic attacks and normally use a minion, these attacks are Poison Nova (PN) and Bone Spirit (BS). BS is much like the amazon's GA skill with a few differences. Unlike the amazon's GA skill, BS actually moves quite slow and is easy to outrun. PN acts somewhat like the sorceress' Nova skill, except it actually is much larger (covering the whole screen when standing next to a necro that casts it) and a bit slower. However, there are two key things that help when dueling a necromancer. The first is that just like GA, the assassin can take advantage of the DF bug and ignore both PN and BS. The second thing to remember is that necromancers have the absolute slowest block rates in the game, and they also have the second slowest hit recovery rates (next to the druid). Thusly, the tactic of using the DF bug comes in handy here, as you are able to buy some time under the protection of your Shadow to attempt to stunlock these opponents. The problem is however, that commonly, necromancers are much like assassins and move exceptionally fast, making it hard to even hit them with any traps at all. Because of this, it is recommended to use LS until you hit them with one or two bolts, while they are recovering from the LS bolts, you should be immediately casting WoF in order to attempt to stunlock them. If miraculously you somehow manage to stun the necro with a stray WoF, then by all means cast more! One WoF trap is usually not enough to keep a necromancer locked down, and it usually takes 3-5 WoF traps hitting the necromancer all at once to actually keep them pinned to the ground.

Never let the necromancer get very far away from you, and never pay much attention to the necromancer's minions, because if you do either of these things you will often end up giving the necromancer ample time to set about 50 bone spirits on your trail (which will mean instant death if they catch up with you). As before, this is yet another situation where max DF would actually be detrimental to your strategy.

Authors note: Even though you will lose these matches more often than not, duels with necromancers can be extremely fun for the assassin, and very good practice.

5G. Paladin

There are four basic builds for the Paladin. They are : Zealot, Charge-a-din, Vindicator (Smite Paladin), and Templar (FoH Paladin).

Zealot: See Werewolf Druid. You'll be using the same basic strategy against them as you would a druid, except that you need not worry about minions in this case. However, it should be noted that even though the Zealot's attacks are interruptible, it is often not very easy to keep these characters pinned in stun-lock, this is because the paladin's hit recovery frames are the fastest in the game. This breed of paladin in particular will usually be able to break free of your traps with a certain level of ease, though during head-to-head combat, they will constantly be getting their attacks interrupted if you lay your traps and keep the MB going giving you the upper hand.

Chargadin: See Werebear Druid. Same basic strategy. Avoid being hit at all costs. You won't need to worry about minions at all. Make sure you lock them before trying to advance on them. The primary difference that should be noted is that a chargadin will be able to move very quickly with charge, and may be somewhat more difficult to avoid, but once you get a good understanding of how charge actually works, it's pretty simple to strafe across paladins and avoid being hit. It just takes a bit of practice.

Vindicator: See Werebear Druid. Same basic strategy. Avoid being hit at all costs. You won't need to worry about minions at all. Make sure you lock them before trying to advance on them. The primary difference between a werebear and a smiter is that a vindicator will also come with an evil aura called Holy Freeze, which slows all targets down by about 50% within full screen radius. These paladins can be very difficult to topple, and you will need to play a mongoose-cobra game with them, making absolutely sure they don't actually get a chance to smite you before you are able to stunlock them.

Templar: FoH stands for Fist of the Heavens, which is a lightning based attack that auto-targets and has a particularly long cast delay. See Necromancer. You can pretty much treat these like weaker versions of necromancers. While their conviction aura and FoH are quite deadly when combined, you should never have to worry about actually being hit by FoH because your shadow will 9 times out of 10 take the hit for you. Just keep using DF to keep your shadow close to you, and it will almost always take the FoH hit. And unlike the necromancers Lower resist skill, or the sorceress' cold mastery; conviction does not lower your resistances by a %, instead it lowers it by a number, so it is actually pretty easy to compensate for by wearing 4 socketed armor with multiple Ort runes and a 3 socketed helm with multiple Ort runes, along with a Tgods belt, of course. Since the FoH'ers attack will be mainly lightning damage, you need not concern yourself with physical damage reduction or any other sort of resistance at all.

5H. Sorceress

There are two basic breeds of sorceress' with three subclasses. These are : Full DR sorceress, Tweaker Sorceress. The subclasses are : Cold, Fire, and Lightning.

DR Sorceress: These witches of Zann Esu are about as hard to actually damage as a hybrid amazon. They come packed with full damage reduction (hence the name), and commonly over 50% Energy Shield, which coverts physical damage from life into damage to their mana supply, making the physical damage you deal about half as effective on them as any other character. They also come with full blocking and fast casting, along with loads of mana and life, making them extremely difficult to actually hit. Fortunately, there is a silver lining to this dark little cloud, and that is the fact that sorceresses have THE slowest hit recovery rates in the game, and also have the second slowest block rate (next to the shifted druid). This makes them easy prey for stun-locking, however the problem with that is actually getting them into stun is usually the trick. Often there's a catch even if you do somehow succeed in locking them, and that is the fact that they sometimes were the Oculus (occy), which has the innate ability to automatically (and instantly) teleport its wearer to a random location within sight range (kind of like the phase skill from D1). Occy sorceresses are therefore sometimes tricky to actually keep pinned down because even if you are absolutely sure you have them locked down, they can still sometimes get saved by their occy. And as if that wasn't bad enough, it gets worse. Even if you do manage to get them locked, they are by no means helpless, as their Thunderstorm skill will usually still be active and still steadily send bolts of doom from the sky to fry your sin. For this reason, it is advised to most assassin's to forget about DR and blocking, instead concentrate on absorb and resistances.

You should consider using Tgods belt if you're not already, and scrap the Stormshield for something with better resistances (like a 4x perfect diamond shield). Also make sure that you have a 7fps attack rate when dueling them, as sometimes if they have particularly slow blocking and hit recoveries, you are able to lock them simply by clawing at them. In order to get them in a lock, you should use both LS and WoF evenly and spread them around you in a small circle. Normally, a sorceress will be able to out-teleport a WoF trap, but it is important to have a few of them down in case one of your LS's does actually hit. If it does, the next thing that will hit is a slow-moving WoF wave that will put the sorceress in another hit recovery animation, buying you some time to lay more traps, cast another MB, and move in for the strike. Always keep your SM active against these, and try to keep them as close to you as possible, as they will provide you will some minor protection.

Tweaker: This is another match that the MA assassin is predominately at a very large disadvantage.

Tweaker sorceresses are the ones that wear as much faster casting, +skills, and FHR as possible with the intention of making extremely fast drive-bys with their lightning fast teleportation and extremely powerful elemental skills. In order to duel these sorceresses, you just have to keep in mind that they are actually pretty vulnerable, which is why they never stand still for more than a split second. They will most always be able to cast much faster than you, and they can recover from MB quite a bit faster than they normally would (as a DR sorceress). Thus, trying to stun lock them is pretty much useless. More often than not, they will be able to teleport in between traps without the second one hitting in time to catch them and lock them. They will also be able to teleport nearly instantly away if you cast MB on them (meaning if you cast MB and it hits them, by the time you cast DF they will be in mid-teleport).

The only real way to beat them is to wait for them to do a drive-by attack, because they will need to pause for a moment and aim their skill at you, rather than just teleporting continuously. While they are aiming, you have a brief second of time to make your move, which will probably have to be DF. Sometimes you will get lucky and your SM will be able to kill them for you when you DF, however this is not always the case. Some adept tweaker sorceresses are so skilled at teleporting and dropping attacks on the fly that they are able to teleport away from your DF before you even begin the kick animation. This is probably the one and only situation where it might actually be desirable to have a max DF, because getting any hit at all on these sprites of doom is difficult in on itself, so you pretty much would want to take what you can get, however maxing DF is not recommended unless you intend to duel against tweaker sorceresses exclusively (since against almost all other classes a max DF would be more detrimental than it is useful).

6. Charm Selection

Your initial task with charms is to make sure that you will have maximum resistances (res) in the difficulty you are dueling in. In order to max your res, you will need to find "Shimmering" charms, a magical charm prefix that adds prismatic resistances, or charms that have resistances to a specific house of element (which usually can be double the amount of resistances than a "shimmering" modifier, but only to one element).

Your next task will be to make sure you are at (or above) 63% faster hit recovery (FHR). A lot of the time you will already have nearly enough FHR from gear modifiers such as what is seen on Bartucs, Arkaines Valor, or Blood Fist (each of these add 30%). However, when using a cruel claw and ed/max armor, you will often come up short on FHR and require some charms with FHR mods on them called "of balance" charms and are most common on small charms with 5% FHR, or grand charms with 12% FHR.

The rest of your inventory space should ideally be reserved for life and damage. You should be aiming mainly for maximum damage charms rather than elemental damage charms, because the assassin will benefit from physical damage increases more-so than elemental for a few reasons, they are : critical strike doubled the physical damage increase, physical damage = leech = more life returned, physical damage can not be absorbed or resisted past 75% (where as elementals can), and using excessive poison is usually considered BM. With that said, it is usually wise to have no more than 300 poison damage in charms when dueling in legit duels, however some private clans and tournaments restrict the maximum amount of poison you are allowed to 200. Even so, it is wise to have at least a little poison damage in your inventory to help negate your opponents life leech just a little.

Now, "ideally" you would have your inventory filled with max/ar/life charms (like sharp charm of vita), most commonly seen as +3 max damage / 20 AR / +20 life, however these are quite rare and very expensive to buy on the market. Usually it depends on what claw you use as far as charm selection goes, because a cruel claw setup with generally leave your life rating very low, and most assassin's find they need more vita than damage while wielding a cruel, where as Bartuc users find their life to be healthy enough and usually spend more space in their inventory on damage.

Skill charms are usually not recommended for the MA assassin, though they can help to boost your damage and AR slightly, as well as give a bonus to the leech from your Cobra, however the damage increase involved with skill charms is usually not quite as large as you would get with small charms with physical damage.

Another thing that should be noted about selecting your charms is your AR. Grand charms can have a maximum prefix bonus of +49-76 AR, while large charms come with a max of +21-48 attack rating, and small charms come with a maximum of +10-20 AR. It is the consensus of most veteran assassins that an assassin should try and aim for about 10k to 15k AR in order to keep a reasonable to-hit rate against most classes. For this reason, it is important to balance out your gear, skills, and charm accordingly in order to get a decent to-hit rate (AR).

Lastly, the damage bonus and life should be closely considered as well. Some comparison is needed in order to determine which types are right for you. Small charms are able to have a maximum of +3 max damage, +20 AR, and +20 life (fine small charm of vita). Large charms are able to achieve a maximum of +6 max damage, +48 AR, and +35 life (sharp large charm of vita). Grand charms are able to receive a maximum bonus of +10 maximum damage, +76 AR, and potentially +45 life (sharp grand charm of vita). When comparing these charms, we see that 3 of the small charms gives : 9 max, 60 AR, 60 life. A large charm and small charm together give: 9 max, 48 AR, 55 life. The grand charm is giving 10 max, 76 AR, and most commonly only 40 life (though they can reach 45). Because of this, you gain more life with small charms than you would gain using a combination of large and small, or a single grand; the only sacrifice is the loss of 1 max damage and 16 AR (maxing small charms better).

It is a common misconception that grand charms are able to achieve a +50 life bonus, however this is not possible because the monster's level would have to be > than 109, which is not possible (no monster in the game can go above level 99). Grand charms that have a bonus of 45 life can only spawn from monsters that have a level > 90, meaning normal hell monsters can not drop them, only boss packs, super uniques, and act bosses in hell mode will have a level > 90.

7. Credits

Thanks to :

Assassin FAQ
Chippy Dip's
DiabloII.Net
Fuzzbox's IAS
Oneko's
PvP FAQ
Spirea's

chronik thx for giving him a guide that i can only guess will help but i wouldn't even bother looking at that part about fbr-

first off someone would have to have corresponding chart with base block speeds on all shield types
and the chart is not correct dont even look at it for those who are interested in fbr-

dam this should be sticked i think it is an awesome guide thank you.

this guide is going to be stickyfied, i will post it.

no more need for this i'll let it slip away because of sticky