The Wolf and Lamb
This assassin guide will allow you to play with your prey, in 2 very different manners. While most hybrid guides tend to lose some strength through their diversity, this one will try to maximize the potential of both caster and melee forms.
Skill points :
20 claw mastery
20 venom
20 shadow master
15 mind blast (you will have 10sec stun duration in caster form)
10+ blade shield
1+ fade (even with a single point, you will reach 50% DR in melee form)
1 wake of fire (only used to trigger stuns from MB)
Stats :
enough str for glitched gear
enough dex to reach max block in melee form (low dex required due to gear switch)
all vita
The Lamb - a.k.a. Caster form
Concept : The Lamb is a coward, a tricky one. You will often start your first duel in this form, abusing of your 174fcr to escape any potential menace with very fast flurries of teleport, MB, WoF triggering stuns and locking your opponent away with psychic hammer so that they can’t ever reach you.
You might think that all of this results in doing close to no damage, and you are right.
But a lvl 59 shadow master has 10x his lvl in dex and str (590!) - which means his kicks and melee attacks can deliver quite a lot of damage - and also he has half of his lvl +1 to all skills - which means lvl 31 to all traps (also applying all synergies beyond level 20). All his gear have a good chance of bonus skills, on amy, both claws and helm, which can make his lightning traps vary from 8k to 14k damage.
As you seem invisible, uncatchable to your ennemies, your shadow will get rid of them silently.
Gear :
Hoto 40@ (you could also use a wiz or suicide branch and a 10fcr amy instead for a cheaper version)
Spirit mon 35fcr
19fcr +2sin crafted amy -> bonus for res, str, life, mana, regen, etc is nice
Enigma MP
20fcr +2sin rare circ -> bonus for 2os, res, str, life, mana, regen, etc, socket with 15@/20life jewels
Arach
Magefist /or Trangs
2x 10fcr rings -> bonus for res, str, life, mana, regen, etc is nice
Boots of choice : have a pair of high light/cold res, a pair of hotspur, eth treks or shadowdancer vs non-elemental
The Wolf - a.k.a. Melee form
Concept : The Wolf is the exact opposite of what your opponent is expecting from your last duel. It is an unstoppable hunger, a desire for blood. As your opponent has only one thing in head : trying to reach you faster before you start playing like The Lamb with his patience - you will show him your true nature.
Wait for him… bait him… as soon as he reach his goal, he will regret instantly.
With 8k life, 50% DR, max block, 86 fhr, 65% FBR, 6.25 attacks/sec with high amounts of poison/OW/CB/ar, the life bar of a well built melee dueler will disappear faster than yours in most matchups.
*Spoilers alert : This is not actually a wolf, but a bear. Some might think its a reference to Kindred in LoL, but it is just a wink to the famous fable of Aesop. ( plus the werebear in D2 really looks like a wolf haha )
Gear :
Fury Runic Talons 15%/3ar (you don’t really need bonus skills on claw)
Storm shield Jah’d (even if you lost most of your +skills from the caster setup, you will reach 50%DR with 1 point in fade)
Guardian Angel Shael’d (combined with SS, you’ll get exactly 65% FBR, the breakpoint needed in bear form)
Angelic ring and amy + Raven Frost
Guillaume’s helm Jah’d
IK gloves + belt + boots (all 3 together give very high bonus to ar, dex, fhr, res, ias and the str you lost from enigma)
For both forms, here’s your inventory :
9x shadow/45life gcs
10x 20life/5@ scs
torch + anni
Weapon swap : cta + spirit mon
Prebuff :
Demonlimb (ar boost for The Wolf)
Beast (well, you need to cast this last to transform)
+3 SD amy
+3 SD circ with 2 psn facets
2x +3 SD claws with bonus to shadow master / venom with 2 psn facets
Bramble + Trang gloves (venom boost for The Wolf)
+2 Shadow Dancers
For a potential total of +105% psn dmg with lvl 59 Shadow Discipline skills
*You don’t really need to prebuff all this in caster form since you don’t care about your venom and attack rating.
It can be a nice few bonus skills for your shadow and you can enchant him also.
Final notes :
Although this guide is not a top tier competitive build, you might be very surprised by the potential of both forms.
It can be built very cheaply - The Wolf has ultra cheap gear if you look at it, and The Lamb can also be very good using a wiz and 10fcr amy - just reduce the quality of your inventory and forget the prebuffs.
With perfect gear/inventory/prebuffs, using your head to know which setups to use VS which opponents, you'll find a way to abuse just about any top tier PvP builds.
For exemple, a BvC might be able to catch and kill The Lamb. But using The Wolf, you'll have more life, defence, ar and damage than him, and to compare his 12.5 attacks/sec against your 75% block and 50%DR, VS your 6.25 attacks/sec (+1 from blade shield) against his 0% block and low %DR, you win easily.
Then of course a werebear would have no chance to win vs say a smiter, or any caster that he wouldn't be able to catch... but that's the beauty of this : The weakness of one form is the strength of the other one!
This post was edited by SinsOfTheSun on Oct 12 2017 01:17pm