I might miss some things, so if you wish read all the replies and someone might tell me I'm missing something and I'll post it somewhere in this thread

Table of Contents
-Introduction
-Stat Placement
-Skill Placement
-Gear and Equipment
-Overall tactics
-Tactics to specific builds
-My Hybrid (WatchMeGetOwned)

Introduction
-opening statement
-Pros
-Cons
This is a different approach to the default ww/ls hybrid. This build allows the player to melee more as the traps do not generally kill as fast as the lightning sentry does. This build has many upsides and downsides in comparison to a typical hybrid sin-

Pros-
-Wake of Fire (wof) has a wider attack range, thus allowing you to hit your target easier even if they run, or allowing you to hit multiple targets in the line of fire.
-Wof has a higher minimum damage
-Very good against casters just as an ls hybrid is
-You get more chances to Melee as the traps do not kill as fast
-Hybrid sins are typically seen as LS, wof will be a surprise
-Wof stuns very nicely
-Wof can have a magnificantly pattern if stacked or spread out correctly
-Claws will be relatively cheaper

Cons-
-Generally weak aginst melees, these include smiters, whirlwin barbarians/sins, and etc, as in comparison to ls sins, the traps can take out the melees from afar and do decent damage
-Lower maximum damage
-Claws may be harder to find

Stat Placement
This section varies upon what gear you can get, how patient you are, and what side gear you want to use

Strength-Base as possible, deatils about this in the Gear and Equipents section
Dexterity-Keep as base as possible, you may need to put a few here to use the higher claws
Vitality-Everything else here
Mana-Base, if you really feel you want some, then put some here. Take note this is a build that will use Mana Potions
(I only feel it's Bad mannered for an es sorc to use mana potions. if you feel negative about mana potions, bmanas or more energy from your gear is an option)

Skill Placement
This section also varies upon what gearyou have, what skills you get from your claws, and how much of what you want/need

Main Skills-

Maximum Wake of Fire (main skill)
Maximum Wake of Inferno (synergy)
Maximum Fire Blast (syngery)

Maximum Claw Mastery (Base Claw Damage)
At Least one physical point in Weapon Block (gives you a fighting chance to block- I suggest you dump points into this afterwards maxing everything )

Other skills- (Try to get these skills from your claws, as much of them as possible, if you cant get them then you'll have to put skill points in them manually)
Mind Blast (must have, either from claws or skill placement-You should put extra points into here if not into Weapon Block or Venom)
Venom (must have, either from claws or skill placement-You should put extra points into here if not into Weapon Block or MindBlast)
Fade (must have, either from claws or skill placement-used against elemental casters)
Burst of Speed (must have, either from claws or skill placement-used against some melees, or non elemental casters)
Blade Shield (very useful for those who come near you, or these can do some damage as you teleport on your opponent)
Dragon Talon (very useful to some casters, or if you need to clear blood moor and dont want to burn mana- this skill does not have any prerequisites, best to put one point into this and get other skills on claws)
Dragon Flight (very useful to do damage as you teleport onto your opponent)
Lightning Sentry (I thought we were making a WoF hybrid!? Well, this allows you to set up "fake" traps to make people think they are avoiding death by avoiding the ls, but they can be running into death with the Wof being places in another area which they might run to. Do not waste a point into this, i just got this by chance. It only works the first few times. Otherwise dont get it unless its like on the only good claw ft)
Shadow Warrior/Master (these can cast mindblast and use martial arts, very helpful)

Gear and Equipment

Break points we can achieve-
42% fcr breap point (fcr ring, trangs, and arachs)
27% fcr breap point (fcr ring, trangs)
27% fhr breap point (shadowdancers)

(Item Type)
(First choice -
Reason/notes)
(Second Choice -
Reason/notes)
(etc)

Helm
Assassin Circlet/Circlet class helm-
Socketed with a 15 res/15 ias, fhr/XX, or any other jewel you find helpful
Ideal (base) stats (you may not have all, but get what u can)
1-2+ All Assassin Skills (some circlets have +1, but the other stats are very godly. Not a must, but VERY, VERY important)
visonary (Very very helpful)
Life
Mana
Strength
Dexterity
Faster Run/Walk
Faster cast Rate
Damage mods
Resistance
Leech

Shako-
Socketed with a 15 res/15 ias, fhr/XX, or any other jewel you find helpful

if you can't find one of the above, just use whatever until you can

Armor
Mageplate/Other Low req Enigma
Only Choice
Some people will equip gear at lv 75 once they can use their torch and anni. This can somtimes require more strength than what you can get, and people will use strength points at lv 75 to use other gear. It is ideal to wait till lvl 90 to get more + strength fro enigma so you spend less stat points

Gloves
Trangs Gloves
Only choice
+poison skill damage (venom)
FCR

Rings
Ring 1- ravenFrost, saves you dexterity, gives cold damage, cannot be frozen, and AR

Ring 2- FCR Ring (lets you get 42% fcr bp with arachs)
ideal mods are-
FCR (duh, u obviously need this)
Dexterity (If you decide to have sorb rings, do not make this be a part of the stats that allow you to wear your gear, because without it you wont be able to equip gear as fast)
Strength (If you decide to have sorb rings, do not make this be a part of the stats that allow you to wear your gear, because without it you wont be able to equip gear as fast)
resistances
leeches
Attack rating

other choices-sorb rings, which go in stash, no other real choices

amulet
Crafted/Rare amulet-
if you are rich enough to get a nice one of these then get it, but i get along with maras
Maras-
any res is good, the higher the better

Belt
Arachnids mesh-
main belt, fcr, skills, slows target
Verdungos-
life, dr, can be a stash item if you choose to duel melee's with it

boots
shadow Dancers-
best choice, + shadow skills, dex, fhr, frw
Gores-
great as a second choice if shadowdancers r hard to find, obvious for the ow/cb/ds
treks-
there are okay, not the best choice tho

claws
these are very important! these will almost never be the same unless you get dupes
1- an elite chaos claw with as much base staff mods as possible, +2-3 to Wof is a must, or if not then use as temp until you can get
2- a fools claw, as much ed, ias, and base staffmods as possible
(socketed with um, or any jewel you like)
(if the claw is not elite, upgrade it using 1 Ort Rune + 1 Amn Rune + 1 Perfect Sapphire + Normal (Basic) Rare Weapon = Exceptional Rare Weapon, and or
1 Fal Rune + 1 Um Rune + 1 Perfect Sapphire + Exceptional Rare Weapon = Elite Rare Weapon)

ideal mods are
150-200+ ed
max/min damage mods
leech
res

If you cant find a nice fools claw, get a nice elite fury claw, with as much staffmods as possible

Switch
cta and spirit/lidless

inventory
Assassin Torch- As high as possible obviously
Annihilus- As high as possible obviously
Horadric Cube (optional. Easy access to mana pots when your belt runs out)
Tp Tome-Get away from Bm's who try to nk you, or if you're in a pvm situation such as baaling and you need
Skiller Charms-A mix of trapper and shadow skillers, use what you feel is nessesary
Small Charms-put these above/under ur gcs to fill in the gaps. Get either lifer res, plain res, lifer mana, or whatever else you want. Dont get poison as they interfer with your venom

Stash
Tgods- well, if you need it to sorb, this is the only sorb i have
nosferatus coil- for melee, too lazy to get a dungos
ort runes- repair my claws if i need to
Super mana pots- this takes up 70% of my stash.


Overall tactics (AH! FINALLY SOMETHING GOOD! LETS SEE HOW THIS NUB USES HIS WOF HYBRID!)

Alrighty. This section will tell you basic stuff, that you probably will find in other hybrid guides. but who cares, these are in my own words and.. yeah

Bo, bc, and prebuff.

Stand outside and wait for your opponent to come directly to you.
You can walk a little and get you on their map for them to chase you.
Lay out traps in their direction as far as you can click
At first sight, lay out a mindblast, and LOCK! then you have two choices-
Trap kill-once your traps die tap from your mindblast hotkey to wof and back. This will ensure they are stunned and damaged.
Melee kill-any time you want, while clicking and holding mindblast, hit the tele hotkey and while still holding the right mouse, once you see the teleport start casting, switch to your ww hotkey and ww. (also you can dflight to your opponent and then ww, doing a bit more dmg)
You can tele away or keep wwing. If the traps are still up just ww as they get stunned by the traps. otherwise tele away and repeat

Issues-
Mindblast lock- just click and hold. you can lock up to two screens away
mindblast can be negated by other players by-
charging away
ww-ing away
keep trying to tele and eventually finding a time to cast it and tele
zons dodging it

Mana-
You have super mana pots and use them

Tips
-If you midnblast lock, and your opponent gets away, but you stil have a lock on them, tap back and forth from wof to mindblast to throw traps on them and stun them.

-If someone teles on you, just ww away. thus saving you some life and doing some damage

-if you get ls from your claws or put one point into it. you can fake people into thinking by running away from the ls they can live.
lay out ls on lets say the left side of you, or just between u and your opponent, and then lay wof's to the empty spots around you.
Heres a diagram-


LEARN YOUR HOTKEYS! here are mine, but you should customize your own to your ease



F1-Battle commands
F2-Battle orders
F3-Fade
F4-Blade shield
F5-Shadow Master
Q-Whirlwind
E-Teleport
R-Dragon Flight
A-Wake of Fire
S-Venom
D-Mindblast
F-Dragon Talon
Z-lightning sentry
X-Blade fury
V-Burst of speed
F12-Town Portal

My left click is always WW, I reset it to ww after each time I die. Although I don't do it, you can put dragon flight on left click. Only use if you can whirlwind effectively with left click.

This is a summary of a duel-
A - Right click, hold - pause - D - Right click, hold - R - Q - Rightclick hold - E - Tele into Town - Enter - O - W - N - E - D - Enter

Also known as-
wake of fire, lay them out, wait for opponent to come, mindblast, click hold, dragon flight, ww and they die, i tele into town and type "owned" (actualy I dont, im a good sport )

Basic Whirlwind Techniques

Why not just whirlwind back and forth?
-In a triangle you have your opponent almost trapped. Even if they walk away you have one more hit than what you would with a sweeping whirlwind.

Some better explanations of techniques can be found here (these are not written by me and all credit shuld be given to Xepo and The Rain for these guides in these links
http://forums.d2jsp.org/index.php?showtopic=6253291 thanks to Xepo
Important information at this URL- Scroll down and you should see a picture with the word "corners" in it. This shows where to lay your traps to get the most length.

http://forums.d2jsp.org/index.php?showtopic=6576498 thanks to The Rain
Important Information at this URL- Scroll down and theres a gif on how to "traplock" It is a simple namelock with mindblast once, tap trap hotkey, tap back to mindblast, tele, and then a whirlwind.

Tactics to Specific Builds

Words to know
ww-whirlwind
sorb- absorb gear
prebuff- this includes all skills you cast prior to dueling. An example is BO.
bo - Battle commands
mb - mindblast
mb lock - mindblast lock
tele - teleport
d flight - dragon flight
wof - wake of fire

Okay, i'll go and list as many chars as I can and how to fend them off (if you can). also I wil include What prebuff and/or gear to change to

My best words to say is: you will just HAVE to outsmart your opponents! If you keep getting killed b4 u can get a lick on them just be a good sport so they dont get cranky on you and nk you or what not.

(These guides are without sorb gear, exception of a thundergods. If you have sorb gear then you may wear it at appropriate times.)

Table of Contents-
Amazon
Assassin
Barbarian
Druid
Necromancer
Paladin
Sorceress

notes:
In all duels, make sure you prebuff venom and bladeshield. If you want get shadow master/warrior.
Fade and arachs is the default for elemental fighters
Burst of speed and arachs is the default for physical/magic fighters
Fade can be used as DR. You choose what you need. This is about what YOU feel is better. DR vs IAS is a touchy subject. Just pick your side. I'm not always right.
Use Burst of speed against a bone mancer or a hammerdin. DR from fade does NOT affect magical.
When i say tele onto your opponent you can Dragon flight aswell. If I say Dragon flight, it means that you need to deal damage whenever you can and should always dragon flight onto them instead of teleing on them.

Active- They are only active while you dont stun them. These you'll have more chance than passive duelers
Passive- A dueler that him/her self does not have to engage in combat. Examples are - trapsin, auradin, etc. If you stun them you will still get hit.

Amazons- amazons are a toughy as they have the dodge/evade/avoid skills. just kill them before they get you down.
-Bowazons- (active)
--Glass Cannon/Other regular guided arrow/strafer/multi arrow bowazon > Burst of speed and Arachs. This ensures you have the 42 fcr bp and your ias is relatively high.
Okay these guys hurt. This is like one of the million times that you will have to go offensive. Because if you don't strike they'll kill you so fast. Tele near them, cast wof's and get a namelock with mindblast. They can dodge so yor stun wont last that long. Lock, dragon flight, and then ww back and forth letting your whirlwind, blade shield, and wof hit them. If they're glass cannon they should die pretty fast.

--Frost Maiden > Fade and Arachs. Resists to compete the Ice and arachs for the fcr to tele
These are bowazons that use Ice bow. You have raven frost to not get frozen by the initial arrows, but the holy freeze can be annoying. Use the same tactics as the glass cannon, but this time get in and ww as fast as you can because the

-Javazons (active)
--CS Zon (non fc) > Fade and arachs. resists and fcr to keep mindblast to stun them.
They aren't bming with fc, so no need to bm them with t-god sorb. Set up your traps, let them get hit, mindblast and d-flight and whirlwind them.

--Farcast CS Zon > Fade and thundergods. Since they use hacks/programs why can't you sorb?
Stay out of their reach and lay traps down near them and tele away. If they get within your sight mindblast once, set a trap, mindblast, d flight/tele , whirlwind. If the trap is stunning them keep a whirlwind triangle until the trap wears off or they die. If they live tele away and repeat.

--Poison Javazon > Fade and arachs/nosferatus
never seen one, but I'll try my best to see how to defeat them. I heard they do very high poison damage so keep fade on. I would just do the same as a cs zon. Get in attack and get out before they can hit you. Watch out for all the poison clouds too. All i can say is, hope you get through it.

-Assassins- (melees are active, trappers are passive)
--Lightning Trapper > Fade and nos
Keep your res and ias up. If they camp lay traps near them while constantly running around. If you get a sight on them, quickly mindblast once, trap one them one or two times, mindblast, dragon flight, and ww. Try a second whirlwind and if the traps do a lot of damage back out. If they dont then keep whirlwinding until he/she dies or teles away

--Fire Trapper > Fade and arachs
Same above as an ls trapper, but some notes are-
If they trap near you, TELE away. Wake of fire has a wide radius and the egde can lick your ankles even if you run.
Keep an open eye, you know these can sometimes be hard to see

--Ls/ww hybrid > fade and arachs
You have a high chance of loosing. If they tele on you immediately whirlwind away. If you want you can put your left click skill on dragon flight so you get a tele-attack if you click near them. See ls trapper and whirlwind assassin. Good luck

--Wof/ww hybrid > fade and arachs
Same as a ls hybrid. Just stay away from traps. Try not to get mindblast locked. I think it's better to try to go melee on these guys. Good luck

--Whirlwind assassin > Burst of speed and nosferos.
You might loose. But try anyways. just stay away and guard with traps. If they d-flight on you ww away.

--KickSin > Not that hard. never faced a real one before though. trap and stun. If they dragon flight just whirlwind away and trap again.

-Barbarian- (active)
--Whirlwind Barb > Burst of Speed and nos
You will die 85% of the time. Good luck! Just trap and try to stay away form them. Mind is almost useless unless they're noobs and cant ww out of it.

--Wc barb > Burst of speed and arachs
Mindblast stun and trap.tele-Whirlwind when they're stunned and rinse and repeat.

--Throwbarb > Burst of speed and arachs
Same as a bowazon. Exception is they can tank more than a bowazon might.

Druid (active)
--Wind druid > fade and arachs
Lay traps and when they get near you mind blast stun. Once stunned tele and whirlwind. Your traps may not do muc damage as they have cyclone sorb, but keep trapping and whirlwinding. If they have summons use it to your advantage - Mindblast a summon and most of the time it'll stun the druid (only after they tele). If they tele on you, jsut whirlwind away.

--Fire druid > fade and arachs
These are pretty easy I guess. They will try to cast volcano and whirlwind at you. Ignore their armageddon. Just trap and find a spot thats clear and not burning your ass. Stun them and trap and stun and tele and whirlwind and repeat until golden brown.

--Any melee druid > fade and nos
Trap, stun dragon flight, whirlwind. Simple enough

-Necromancer- (active)
--Bone Necro > Burst of speed and arachs
run away from spirits. They dont guide that much. Namelock with mindblast and tele and whirlwind. Just do a whirlwind triangle and kill them off. If they tele away repeat again.

--Poison necro > burst of speed and arachs
Avoid their novas, trap, stun, tele and whirlwind. Simple

--Summoner necro (yes these WILL hurt) > fade and nos (nos for life leech woot)
Stack up your traps. If he teles on you you better whirlwind away. This is one of the times i would suggest whirlwinding back and forth instead of a triangle so you can leech off them. If he teles and you mindblast one of his summons, itll stun all of them, including the necro. Stun, trap and kill his summons and then just kill him off.

-Paladin- (active and passive)
--HammerDin > Burst of speed and Arachs
THIS CHAR IS ANTI-HDIN!
set up traps, if they get near mindblast and trap. Dont try to tele on them and melee. The only time you should melee is when you ww-away from them when they tele on you. Trap, stun. Keep those mana pots up and tap back and forth from trap to mindblast.

--Auradin > fade and arachs
what lazy ass makes these. These are bm and if you have sorb then sorb away my friend. You'll most likely die since even if you midnblast them they are passive and their aura still hits you

--Foh > fade and thunder gods
Thunder gods. Simple. They are too lazy so they just click and kill you. ALWAYS TRAP and STUN! They cannot cast a foh if they are in fhr/stun animation. Just kill with traps, if they sorb then d-flight and whirlwind once tele away. then stun and trap again.

--Smiter/zealer > Doesn't matter, you'll most likely loose. Fade and arachs
You'll most likely loose to a well built one. Good luck

--Any smiter/something else hybrid > Same as above

--Hammerdin / Something else hybrid >
Apply your skills with an Hdin to whatever hybrid they are. If they smite or charge just ge away and stun. Play it like they are an hdin.

Sorceress (all these will require fade and arachs)
--Fire
---FCR FB
Stay away from their shots. Namelock when you can and trap and stun and tele and whirlwind. Simple

---Fb / es
Same as above, but try to melee as much as you can to get open wounds.

---Hydra
These do exist, and if they carry an infity you're doomed. Just stun and trap and stay away from hydras. Keep stuning and trapping and melee when you feel it's safe.

--Lightning
---Lightning (non es)
If they jsut stay away, same tactics as a FB sorc just watch their nova and charged bolt if they use it.

---Lightning (ES)
Combine your skills with a lighting sorc and FB es

--Cold (if they es just use your other es tactics)
---Orb
Watch out for the bolts, tele away from the main orb. Namelock whe you can, trap and then tele/whirlwind

---Blizzard
Keep running and laying traps. Catch them during they're cast delay and stun and mindblast. Take it from there

Done! If you have any comments or questions post them or pm me them. If you feel I'm missing anything tell me

(posting my own sin after this)

well done bro ...nice guide...btw i like those tiny videos/pictures u drew for the dueling strates...

i might b making one of these...i cant decide either trap hybrid or fire.

First picture is before any prebuff

note- ~900 trap dmg, no trap gcs. hits about ~1.1k-1.5k with trapper gcs

Second is with Battle commands, Battle orders, Venom, fade, and bladeshield


All my rare gear-


Amulet-
24 resist all Maras

Armor-
1001 def MagePlate enigma

Boots-
2+ shadow disp / 100% ED / 24 dexterity Shadow Dancers

Ring-
20/206 Ravenfrost

Gloves-
73 def Trang Gloves

Belt-
103% ED Arachnids mesh > 16 Super mana potions

Switch-
2/4/4 CTA flail
Spirit monarch

Inventory-
Shadow disp GC
Shadow disp GC / +6 strength
Shadow disp GC / 1+ Max damage
Horadric Cube > 12 Mana potions
Town Portal Tome
34 lifer / 8 resist all Large charm
19/14 assassin Torch
18/10 Annihilus
20 lifer / 5 mana SC
20 lifer / 1 mana SC
20 lifer / 2 mana SC
18 lifer/ 19 Def Sc
17 lifer / 8 mana SC
5 FHR / 7 AR Sc (this is just there)

that leaves 14 squares left. 12 of which are required so that when I die my mana pots go into my inventory not the ground

Stash-

33 x Super mana potions
10x Ort runes
The Rising sun (not meant to be here, cant use it anyways as i need the stats from my maras)
Thudner gods Vigor
Nosferatu's coil

Skill tree-


This post was edited by xIcedShardx on Apr 1 2007 08:51am

slow down ur visualisations.. they are to fast to get the info :>

nice layout tho.

it looks good but u might think about using dooped_tri_res_boots

edititng as we speak



i'd rather go legit

anyways i cant edit them so-


and



This post was edited by xIcedShardx on Apr 1 2007 08:34am

Wow, you put in alot of work for that guide, nice job.

I only have a couple of things that I would change or do differently.

Change the claws - You don't come close to max traplaying speed and if you rely on traps that's pretty much a must I would say.
Max Venom - how else do you wanna kill your opponents? I element is so easy to sorb, especially fast casters won't have a propblem with those traps, as they are slow and have a very low range. You need LS's to catch those kinda chars. I would NOT max Claw mastery, rather put enough points into fade so you get max DR, Weapon block so that you get around 56%-60% block and the rest into MB (Venom maxed ofc.).

Fucking nice job mate , so far one of the best guide ever made , how much time did you waste for it?

very exellent points

venom-true
claw mastery- maybe 1-5 more points
fade-dr, true
weapon block-very much true, i have about 58% block with battle commands
mindblast - yes, the extened stun is very good

also about claws-
only ones i could get, and too lazy to change. i got both of them from a friend for an arachs:bonk:



2 hours last night and 3 hours this morning

This post was edited by xIcedShardx on Apr 1 2007 08:42am