WIND DRUIDS
Easy to medium hard duel, usually pretty easy.

Procedures:

• I always go about 80% kick vs. windies. The faster attack speed of the kicks, combined with MB/WoF, stun locks up all but the best of them.

• Lock them down with wake (letting the SM MB from 2 to 3 screens away).

• MB-tele-WW hotkey flash for a quick triangular WW. This takes out the oak and most mercs. Either way, kill that oak if you can.

• DF on them to re-establish SM minion stack.

• Initiate sequence of Kick(7/3/3) - kick(7/3/3) - trap (use WoF only) - trap - MB /repeat

If the Druid actually has good FHR, they may be able to tank you, which means you execute this once, and then tele out. Good FHR on the druid means more hit and run for you. I find kicks to be more conducive to this because of their accuracy and the fact that you never "overshoot" or get a messed up WW namelock that ends with you whirling halfway across the bloodmoor.

The best druids will recognize your technique after a while and start to behave like hammer pallies, teleporting around and dropping tornadoes in your general direction. They don’t let you get stunlock and if you chase them, they will kill you by leaving tornadoes in your path. This is a much harder duel if they are also equipped well. Play 1.09 trapper style in this case. Find a good spot, lay out a trap field, and let them come to you. Often they will get sick of the duel and try to pounce you. Make sure you have the stun swirlies on them and initiate kicks. You may have to use limited lightning sentry as a trap if they are very fast and hard to pin down.

Note: If the druid teleports right on top of you and you are sitting in a trap field, you should never lose. Mind blast once on top of yourself and initiate kicks. And the ironic thing is that 90% of druids do just this. And the even more ironic thing is that after dying 10 times in a row, they will keep doing it. It’s like you have a “Commit Suicide Here” sign on you when you sit still for a moment. I think partly that the reason for this is the short range on tornado. Most druids only know one way to kill you and they can’t break from that spamming mindset.

Don’t get me wrong. The very best druids can keep you to 50% if they are having a good night. But there are VERY few druids this good. You should go 70% to 80% or better vs. normal good druids.

TRAPPERS
Easy to hard. Usually easy/moderate.

General trapper procedures:

• Always have max light res. Obviously. Also make sure your fire res is maxed. Some of the better ones will recognize the facility of using fireblast. Don’t let them catch you off-guard with it.

• You only need max res with lightning sentry (either 75 or 85 with T'gods). For those of you who DON'T know, facets don't work with sentry. Facets DO work with fireblast, however. But who cares? There's maybe 1 fireblast sin per realm that uses fire facets and they can be killed by simple whirls.

• Try to get max light res without using Jade. Since they don't lower your res with facets, you don't need to stack. This lets you wear the fury, which is superior to the jade for killing high life trappers.

• You have to choose between 65 FC or absorb. You can go either a T’Gods or a wisp if you use absorb. Ignore all complaining (unless they are being cool and ask nicely, then do whatever seems appropriate). There is nothing wrong with one element of absorb on a ww-sin, PERIOD. If you are off-ladder and have a valk, try to get 65 FC with a valk and t’gods. Wear a Jade and not a fury in that case as your res will be too low w/o the CoA.

Most tournaments allow one element of absorb. Practice w/o any absorb and trappers start to seem easy with it. Do the same vs. all other classes where absorb would be appropriate. Try to win w/o it regularly. Don’t let anyone tell you that one absorb item is “BM” or unfair or whatever. It’s not. They just want you to be as easy a kill as possible.

Trapper Type 1: claw-claw
subtype A: No fast cast or low fast cast, focus on massive damage only. Lots of life.
Medium to hard to duel, depending on trapper skill.

Procedures:

• Take advantage of their low cast rate. This is a significant tactical advantage.

• Use wake of fire, and try to position them on the corner of your screen.

• Always have the master out to draw off her traps.

• If you can lock the trapper down with wake and MB, stand there and pump it for a few seconds to let their sentries die out. This is critical!! Let their sentries die out! Make sure you have your master out, then DF or tele on top of them. Do triangular whirls or kick as you like.

• If they are not able to get traps out (or only have a couple traps up), I prefer to kick. Smaller chance of overshooting them with a whirl and giving them a chance to lay traps or run.

subtype B: 65 FC and 2 trap claws. Lots of life.
Medium to hard to duel, depending on trapper skill.

Procedures:

• This is fought much the same way as the subtype A duel except your advantage lies more with better FHR than better cast rate.

• Make sure you have 86 FHR. They probably will NOT have this recovery. This means you will stun better. But not a lot better since their traps will hurt so much.

• Be REALLY careful not to get locked in a trap/MB pump combo.

Trapper Type 2: 102 FC, hoto/shield
Medium to hard to duel, depending on trapper skill. They outclass you on MB cast rate, they tele faster than you and they possibly use BoS instead of fade, meaning they run faster as well. They will also likely have the 86 FHR break. Their trap damage is lower than the first two variants.

Procedures:

• Play the corners. Never get on their screen.

• You need them to run away from their trap field. Trap the corners and get them to move.

• Cast SM at your screen corners simultaneous to casting traps. This draws off their traps and often gets them to move to a new spot to set up a new trap field.

• Use drive-by whirls. Don’t do the triangular whirls unless you catch them w/o traps up and/or you’re good at it.

• You want to wear them down and get them to make a mistake.

• Be careful of wake/MB lock. They will often desync out of it. Before you know what happened, you have 5 sentries ripping you apart, you’re being pounded by 102 FC mindblast, and the tide has turned. You must be aware of any mistake they make.

• Often times kicking is very effective if traps aren’t up.

• Use wake as your main trap. Wake will stun them very well with only a single trap firing. The same cannot be said of sentry.

• If you see they are in wake stunlock, reinforce it instantly. Pound them with traps and MB.

• If you see their life going down with MB in any significant way at all, kill them with it. Just keep them trapped and don’t stop with MB until they are dead. If you have name-lock, you can lay traps on them and MB them from off your screen.

• If they desync out of the traps, tele/WW flash them for a drive-by while they are running.

• You must have 86 FHR on this duel. People with less experience will claim that you don’t need FHR since you can WW out of their traps. That is wrong. If they see your FHR is poor (which is easy to see), they will stay all over you. You will end up having to whirl across the entire blood moor and still not get clear. I know, because that’s what I do when I trap.

• You have to tele clear the first chance you get if things are going bad. Always know when to break off.

First Special Note: “Evade” Trappers
Some trappers, among the better ones, are very good at being hard to catch. They teleport very fast, keep their master up at all times for minion stack, and always stay in range of their trap field while staying OFF YOUR SCREEN. They have good FHR and know when to run out of traps, making locking them hard. While you try like crazy to get name-lock for MB or ww or whatever, their traps are cutting you up.

Procedures:

• You need to take a very defensive stance against these guys. They are playing defensive against you, always hiding in their traps and rarely if ever going offensive.

• Be patient and work toward them. Walk your traps and always cast your SM ahead of you. You need to get them out of their trap field.

• Try to keep their traps at your upper screen corners. This may allow you to get name-lock on the trapper w/o all their traps targeting you simultaneously.

• Pay attention to the damage they are causing. If only one trap is hitting you, you can often ignore it.

• Be prepared to really pump MB and WoF if you do succeed in locking them up. TRY to hold them long enough for some of their sentries to run out. Then you can tele or DF in and ww or kick. I would recommend kicking at that point.

Second Special Note: Trapper with a conviction merc
This duel sucks. Usually I’ll just ask them to unhostile. If you have to fight them, you MUST kill the merc. Ignore the assassin and kill the merc. Conviction is your ***, literally. If you get flashed with conviction while getting hit with traps, you will be dead in slightly under 1 second, 4K life notwithstanding. And trappers that use conviction mercs have a tendency to be the same variety that say “eZ” after killing you while trapping your corpse. Don't get me wrong, I'd use conviction, or at least have it available, if I were a trapper probably myself (but I'd be friendly about it).

General Trapper note:
Trapper duels are LONG duels, if the trapper is good. If the duel goes fast, it probably means you died or the trapper had poor life. It's all about playing the corners, getting positional advantage, etc. This is one of the few duels where I am really careful about teleporting and spend a lot of time running, just outside of trap range.

SMITER/CHARGERS
Easy to medium hard duel.

Procedures:

• This is obviously a pure WW duel.

• Put the fools claw on your primary slot (and put on the angelic ammy and ring if you think you need them). This should get you to about 11K/19K AR. Knockback on this claw is a very nice-to-have here.

• I sometimes wear an OW belt for this matchup.

• Fast cast is relatively pointless and they will often charge you dead when you try to cast. You can beat many smiters without any equipment changes, especially the ones who run or charge at your whirl away.

• Be careful if/when you teleport as the good ones will be able to hit you with charge as you exit since your cast is so slow.

• Whirl away, and when you have distance between you and the pally, MB them ONCE and get a couple traps out. This will keep them aggressive.

• Never trap or MB if they are close and able to charge you.

• Many of them will try to shift smite. Don’t whirl through them under any circumstances.

• Spam MB and drop traps when they shift smite.

• Try to keep terrain features between you and the pally when spamming to prevent quick and easy charges on his part.

• A good pally of this type CAN kill you when you whirl away. They are able to get in smites anyway. Whirl-away is NOT immunity to smite for assassins, as some people will claim. Don’t whirl in circles and don’t change direction when they are near.

• Be very careful not to take long whirls (but also not whirls so short you run out of mana too quickly). They will tele or charge in front of you and shift smite. Teleport on the pally especially means you need to take short whirls unless they are dogging you from behind, doing walking smites with max block and defiance on.

• Sometimes small changes of whirlwind direction on your part (especially if you have KB on your fool’s claw) will catch them, other times it will allow them to get hits in. It takes experience to figure out when to change direction when whirling away. It’s more art than science. Try small zig-zags in your whirls, especially when it appears they are trying to approach you or if they are really dogging you with walking shift smites.

• Do NOT use your shadow master!! They can lifetap it.

• Watch out for lifetap. Exile is the single most annoying runeword in the history of runewords. I have lost duels to smiters when they were down to less than 100 life and tapped it all back. Make sure you don’t try to hover their name to check their life (which is very tempting late in the duel). You’ll probably get charged.

• Don’t MB them unless they are moving away from you. They'll get in a free hit otherwise.

• You can sometimes MB them continuously if they are shift-smiting because they got tired of hitting your whirl-away. Watch it however, as the good ones will lull you into MBing an instant too long and charge you dead before you know what hit you.


FIST OF HEAVENS PALLY
Easy to hard duel, big variation. If these guys use charge well as a primary means of movement, they can be very hard indeed. Charge can make getting a good WW very hard.

Procedures:

• Put on the Jade with the 15 ias/30 light res jewel if you have one. Put on a T’Gods.

• I find that mindblast is often my best weapon.

• Focus on executing WW hotkey flash when they exit your screen. Be careful though, as you will teleport to a zone without traps...

• Traps and mindblast interfere with their ability to get off FoH hits. Traps are critical to winning this duel. Always use lighting sentry.

• Always have the master out to take random FoH hits and to create confusion.

• ALWAYS have traps out and the MB swirlies going. Always. If your traps run out and the pally is any good, you’re going to die.

• The pally will try to flash you with conviction. Don’t be afraid to get off his screen if you see the ugly green glow.

• Move around a lot but not out of trap range if the pally is near.

• Look for any chance at all to MB/tele/WW flash him.

• Always pump them with mind blast when you have a chance, especially as they run all over the place with charge. I have actually killed defensive charging pallys with mind blast.

FIST of HEAVENS PALLY with SMITE and CHARGE
Medium to very hard duel. Usually, the pally won’t have the proper equipment to make this approach really deadly. But the ones who do and who are skilled are really hard. They force you to go res/absorb but also have a powerful smite attack. The most dangerous, IMO, are the ones who focus more on the smite. You don’t dare get very offensive because they will smite you, likely triggering lifetap in the process. But if you stand off, they will flash you with conviction and FoH you. If you keep your SM out to draw off the FoH, they can tap it. If you try to spam MB, they will desync charge you. They likely have upwards of 4K life, making MB less useful anyway. This is all-around a very hard duel when the pally is good.

Procedures:

• First, you need to nullify their elemental attack. Don’t feel bad. You have to negate their ranged advantage with that FoH. They still have a nasty physical attack as well so they remain plenty dangerous. Stack light res and put on a t’gods. Replace some life/mana scs with life/light res scs if necessary. Once you kill their light attack, they become a smiter/charger, mostly.

• Always keep traps up and just MB them occasionally, so they stay stunned. W/o those swirlies, your traps mean nothing.

• With FoH off the table, they have to close with you. They may still try to flash you with conviction, because it’s unlikely you will completely negate it. Whirl away is your friend once you remove their ranged attack.

• If they have high defense on top of everything else, and set their movement to walk with good use of charge to avoid any type of stunlock, it’s going to be a hard battle. You can’t wear your fools claw or your angelics because your resistance (and cast rate if angelics) will suffer too much. If you are wealthy, consider getting a CoA with a pair of 15 ias/30 light res jewels. This, combined with several light res scs MAY allow you to forego the jade talon for the fools claw. I haven’t tried this yet, but I think you would be forced to wear a wisp (along with the t’gods) to make up for the lost stacked res.

• If they trigger lifetap, whirl away in a straight line until the curse duration runs out (unless they teleport in front of you). Don’t allow them to leech all their life back. Doing turns while tapped makes hitting you easier for the pally (but again, this is a “feel” thing, sometimes quick turns can help you win).

Keep in mind, there are only a tiny fraction of duelers this good with their pallys. Most of this pally type will be beatable with standard techniques. It’s just that this variety may offer a major challenge if played and designed well. This is one of the few battles you will have where a big equipment change may be required, right down to switching out charms.

NOTE: My hardest series of duels yet was with a pally of this type. But no other pally has come close to the difficulty of that one individual. The potential exists for this match-up to be very very hard. But it’s pretty rare.

HAMMER PALLY
Medium to pretty hard. The high defense versions of these guys are potentially very hard. Your whirlwinds rarely if ever hit and they can charge out of any stunlock.

Procedures:

• Always have LS traps up.

• Always have the master up and MB the pally every opportunity you get. The traps plus MB stun means it is hard to tele right on top of you and spam hammers. The stun will interrupt them.

• They have to pause briefly to get hammers going. WW flash them at that point. Don’t do triangles. Just do a pass and get out. Place more traps and MB again. Rinse and repeat. Pay attention to how well your WWs are hitting. If they are not, then the pally probably has too high a defense. You will need to either equip the fools claw (not the angelics!....you need fast cast) or you need to focus on mind blast.

• Hurt or even kill them with mind blast. I have killed many hammer pallies with mind blast. My assassin sported level 48 MB (up to lvl 50 now with hellfire) and it never failed to inflict SIGNIFICANT damage. Hammer pallys rarely have significant DR. Use this point to your advantage.

• If their defense is low, you can risk a tele on them when stunlocked briefly and try a quick kick sequence. Be careful and only do it if their defense allows it. I actually rarely if ever try to kick hammer pallys.

Remember: Mind blast is your friend.

AURADINS
Well built auradins CAN be very hard, actually (barring heavy absorb). They will charge around the edges of your screen, not allowing you to get hits at all. Lucky for you most of them have no skill (a few do have skill though, and are dangerous because of this fact). I won’t go into whether or not this a reflection of the type of people this build attracts.

Killing them:
• Put the jade on off-hand and the chaos on primary (equipping the chaos first of course...). Put on a dwarf or T’Gods depending on whether the aura is fire or shock. Make sure you have lots of res.

• High level MB is required.

• 65 fastcast is required. You have to pound them with MB.

• Use lightning sentry to stun, not wake.

• When they retreat, MB them and then, from the MB namelock, hotkey flash tele/WW to get in a free ww hit. Lay traps the INSTANT you exit ww. Rinse and repeat.

• Many of them will charge/smite as well, since their auras add a decent amount of damage, and they may also have grief. Make sure to whirl away and be careful they don't fake you out in order to flash you with conviction.

• Keep the SM out to take any FoH hits, etc. and cause a little confusion. If they lifetap, be careful with the SM. They can tap the master and get a big life boost.

• Don't be afraid to teleport out of range and regroup if things aren't going well.

Potentially Dangerous Auradin Variant: Zeal or Smite
Be REALLY careful with these guys. If you whirl through them, they can tear you apart, even with your absorb. Always whirl away and keep those traps out. Make sure that they always have MB swirlies on them.

BOWAZONS
Easy duel.

Procedures:

• Spiral in to the zon as you approach.

• DF them when on screen and kick to death.

• Always keep the master out for minion stack.

• If they are a fast runner, get MB name-lock and flash tele/WW. Since they are running it’s basically an auto-hit (unless they dodge it).

• Use sentry as needed for stun. They desync out of wake too easily so don't use it.

• Careful about the occasional uber fast shooter with faith, knockback and an inventory full of damage charms. They can kill you if you are sloppy. But ONLY if you’re sloppy.

Your most likely mode of dying in this duel is to get crappy terrain and get hung up in it while the zon spams GAs.

JAVA ZONS
Easy duel.

Procedures:

• You usually don’t need a jade or a T’gods. Just lay down wake of fire, MB them once and kick to death. Wake will trigger endless evade. Your kicks will trigger dodge when evade doesn’t trigger, and the mindblast will ensure they are stunned the remainder of the time.

• Don’t let your traps run out!!

• Did you lose any life at all once you had them locked in WoF? If so, you probably made a mistake.

PLAGUEZON
Funny, I consider this to be POTENTIALLY the hardest zon build to fight (IF they are good). They can suck your life with a single hit like a nova nec, but they are much harder to catch and lock up. You don't see many of them either so it's hard to get repeatable techniques against them.

Procedures:

• Your best bet is to do drive-by WW shots with the occasional kick sequence if you can get a stun sequence running.

• Don't do triangular WWs. They WILL hit you with poison if you mess one up. Plus that means they are standing still and have max block along with their dodge.

• Hit them on the run. Don't do long whirls!!

• These zons are runners. They will desync out of your traps much of the time. Use lightning sentry because it will help pause them occasionally, switching the wake if you feel it will be useful in a given situation.

• When they aren't close enough to hit you with poison, pound them with MB.

• If you get them in MB name-lock from far enough away, you might be able to kill them with it, or at least force them to be aggressive and make mistakes.

• If their FHR seems low or they aren’t as skilled, WoF may get you the win.

BRAMBLE WW-SINS
Easy to medium duel, occasionally medium hard if they are tricked out and skilled.


Procedures:

• Stun the crap out of them with sentry and mind blast.

• They don’t have tele, you do. They also run slower than you do.

• Get mind blast namelock and tele/WW flash them.

• Your tele is a lot less interruptible than their dragon flight.

• Slap on some poison length reduction if it’s allowed and/or you have it. A simple 25% makes all the difference. Ignore any and all crying about PLR. Nats armor (which has 75% PLR) was the most common ww-sin armor for a long time and no one cried then. As you get better you won’t really need that PLR however.

• Don’t forget to cast cloak of shadows. You both have lower defense to begin with so its effect is better here than against a barb or pally with high defense.

• A pure bramble sin wants more than anything to just be able to whirl me. Unless they directly ask me not to trap and not to MB and not to use teleport, I rarely give them a chance to get close enough or have an uninterrupted dragon flight at me. I, however, am able to WW at will (from off their screen!) due to MB namelock and enigma. Because I frequently tele on them from off-screen, they aren't aware that a WW is coming.

• In 1.09, DF reached for about 2.5 screens. It was one of the best assassin skills. But no longer. Now it's on-screen only. This is a huge tactical disadvantage for assassins with no tele and only DF.

• It's important to time your WW right. You can see the dragon flight animation as it's beginning since it's a slow 24 frame beast. As a result, if you are on your toes, you can be whirling away when they come out on top of you.

• Your mind blast can inflict some real damage here if you can get them just slightly off your screen. They won’t be able to DF you and you can pump MB and traps. It’s evil but it works like a charm. Level 48 to 50 mindblast (or even a bit lower) will quickly drain life if they are off your screen and trying to slowly run or WW into DF range.

• Take advantage of their POOR mobility. Keep them off your screen!!!

WW BARBS
Your only nearly impossible duel. You CAN beat ww barbs. I do it all the time. But the ones I beat are of questionable ability or equipment or connection or all of the above. A good ww barb will take you down 9 times out of 10 or better. A really good ww barb isn't beatable at all.

Procedures:

• Your only real chance is to get sentry trap fields up and make sure they are always MB’d. When they are off your screen, and you have name-lock, tele/WW flash them or pump MB. If you are lucky, they won’t be whirling and you may get in a solid hit. You may also get ripped up if you tele into a whirlwind. This is a real gamble.

• You can either wear the fools claw and angelics for 19K AR or say screw it and go for fast cast. Fast cast means you want to hit them with WW when they are running and to wear them down with OW and mind blast. Either option has its good and bad points.

• You have a better chance vs. dual wielding barbs than vs. sword/shield. If its sword shield and they are good, just pack a belt of mana pots and try to MB them to death. It’s long, boring and will drive a lot of barbs absolutely apoplectic. But you might, if you’re very very lucky, pull out a win. The odds are not in your favor though. It also ceases to be much fun pretty quick.

• When fighting good BvC barbs, make sure to set your movement to WALK, not run. Otherwise they will give you a taste of your own medicine and slam you when on the run. Always tele anyway (good technique), and this won’t be an issue.

• Good BvC barbs are FAST. Further, they will flash you with holy freeze from dual dooms on switch. Be prepared for this.

• Go play in the vicinity of a bunch of bogs to limit long whirls and desync by the barb.

Don’t feel bad because you can’t beat barbs. You can kill a broader slice of good duelers more efficiently than they can. They can kill anyone, it’s true. But if you play well, your overall win record should be as good as or better than any barb, even the better BvC types.

Alternate technique vs. Barbs

• Don’t trap at all. Barbs can desync more when you trap.

• If you are fast, you could try to go no traps and just use MB, quick drive-by whirls, and teleing clear of any barb whirls.

• The key here is to watch for the barb to tele (if they have it). You tele to the side when you see them start the animation. (This is really bloody hard, in case you haven’t tried it before.) They will come out of their tele in WW if they are any good. You then lock them with MB and spam it for the length of their whirl (better hope they whirl long...). If they have good whirl control, this probably won’t work.

• Try a quick MB-tele-WW flash if they aren’t whirling and then tele clear immediately.

• If they don’t have enigma, just pay attention and don’t get caught by long whirls that desync. This is a long process no matter what you do.

• Finally, you could consider pre-buffing venom vs. good barbs. I don’t do it because I think you will die anyway and it just becomes a huge pain. If I were a barb I wouldn’t want to stand in town waiting for some assassin to do a major equipment change/pre-buff between each duel. Play what you have and let the chips fall where they may.

Credits
Maxus – For writing the trapper guide that got me started on trappers.

Skoal Bandit – One of the best duelers I’ve ever played. Demonstrated a very high level of skill in dueling. Also a funny guy.

Valoren – For running one of the largest and best dueling groups on any realm, Gimmeitam, which provided endless hours of dueling practice vs. the best people on USWest.

Chuck – For some of the funniest 1.09 public dueling and hardcore PKing I’ve ever had as well as always being available for practice. And also for lots of free stuff and endless rushes to try new builds.

Ilkori – For providing huge amounts of technical information and feedback on ideas as well as feedback on the details of this guide.

Koda – Came up with the WW version of the ghost assassin. First to call it a ghost (as far as I know).

jrichard – For providing most of the technical details (especially on kicks) that made fine tuning of this build possible.

Naliworld – For making the assassin forum on diabloii.net a great place to post and work out ideas and for lots of helpful feedback on this guide.

Everyone who gave me feedback on the earlier versions of this guide.

Speederländer (me) – Came up with the kick version of the ghost assassin (fast cast anti-caster kicker) and wrote this guide for a hybrid assassin combining the best of all types.

Gyrl – My final (retired) assassin on *Apokalyptik that allowed me to pull together all of the ideas presented here.

END

Note:

This guide is posted on diabloii.net under the same name I use here and on the blizzard skill and guides forum under my bnet account name *Apokalyptik.

most well written guide ive ever seen
amazing strat
i didnt have time to read it all b/c i have to goto work but when i get home ill read thur it

my god this has to be the longest and most detailed guide i've ever seen lol, i haven't read all of it yet either, but i shall finish it eventually

heavier armor can slow you down?

This post was edited by asdfdf on Aug 18 2005 12:11pm

oops i posted in the middle of your guide