Background:

I have tested several hybrid sin builds now on both open and closed Battlenet and I am particularly fond of the Psychic Hammer/Dragon Talon Sin(which will be the Focus of this guide)

I worked with Mr Bilson on a Psychic Hammer/Blade Fury Sin which is also fairly effective. I will not cover that build in this guide but hopefully he will add some insight into dueling strategies etc for it. The gear for both builds should be fairly similar with minor tweaking. Since similar gear is used and only skill allocation and dueling strategies are changed, I keep respec tokens handy in my stash should I want to swap back and forth between builds.

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Note: This is primarily a support char; it can hold its own in 1v1 duels if built right, however don’t expect an op dueler. Additionally, this build requires a fairly large mana pool to be remotely effective
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General Breakpoints/Skill Allocation:

Note: CB set up refers to using CB gloves instead of Bloodfists, both set ups still have crushing blow due to crushflange on switch



I highly recommend skilling Shadow Warrior for this build over pumping remaining points into burst of speed. The extra speed is nice but Shadow Warrior is a very good meat shield and can also serve to determine several other important factors as explained later on.

I chose to invest 6 points into Dragon Talon for 2 reasons
(1) When chasing the third kick often misses anyways, causing a gap between you and your opponent which can mean a change between an offensive to a defensive standpoint
(2) Frankly I ran out of skills to invest. Ideally i would have invested the maximum amount of points into Dragon Talon without it getting to 3 kicks. Since im not using a titan build nor am i using greaves, the additional skills would have just provided me with valuable attack rating and not a significant source of damage.

Personally I always keep Talon on left click (on both Swaps) and all of my other skills hotkeyed on the right click. You cannot assign Psychic hammer to left click. I then configure f1,f2 and f3 to A,S,D respectively. I find this much easier to manage especially since you will need to toggle run/walk frequently



Example of Life mana Ratio




Equipment:

Typically I run two set ups. A 102% faster cast rate set up and a 65% faster cast rate set up with higher life rep. Depending on your play style; you may opt for one or the other in terms of gear choices. I listed 10% faster cast rate on most items as a must for an affix because I swap between both set ups and you need faster cast rate affix on most items to hit the higher of the two break points.

Legend:

Red - Optimal
Green - Decent
Blue - Bare Bones

Circlet:
10% fcr, + mana or + life, + other adds such as + shadow discipline skills, + resistances (fire, cold or lightning), + life rep, 10-20 frw
10% fcr, + mana or + life
10% fcr

Rings:
10% fcr, 30+ mana as well as other mods such as 80+ attack rate, Resistances, Life rep
10% fcr, 30+ mana
10% fcr

Ammy:
10% fcr, + mana or + life, + other adds such as + shadow discipline skills, + resistances (fire, cold or lightning), + life rep
10% fcr, + mana or + life
10% fcr

Belt:
crafted caster belt 7-10% fcr, 10% faster hit recovery
24 faster hit recovery + mana + life belt other mods such as resistances and + life rep ( for 65% faster cast rate set up)
crafted caster belt 7-10% fcr
Lenymo sash

Boots:
Cowking boots.

Gloves:
Bloodfist gloves
10% crushing blow crafted gloves

Weapon:
Crushflange socketed with p amethyst or eth rune
Maelstrom wand

Shield:
Rare 17/30/20/ 2 socket eth/eth or ith/ith
Vulpine boneshield of deflecting 10-12% 2 socket eth/eth or ith/ith
Bone shield of deflecting eth/eth or ith/ith

Charms:
12 faster hit recovery grand charms with 25-33 mana
15 life/4+ mana small charms
20-33 mana grand charm
15 life small charms


Strategy:

I cant use fraps myself so the majority of this video follows David but at the beginning you can sort of see some of my dueling strategies. Note there is 2 bowas on our team in the first match and a bowa and a charger on the opposing team.




Vs Bowas: (102% faster cast rate set up)

Defensive Strategy

Often what I will try to do is start off the same way another bowa would in a zvz matchup. Typically I try to keep my distance and prevent them name locking me. Since I play a bowa frequently I am aware of how much mana they typically have and because arrows do not track very well outside a screen range (unless name locked), I often try to draw out poorly tracked arrows to waste the amazon’s mana. By casting the shadow warrior close to your body, poorly tracked arrows that come near you will hit your summon instead of you. Since your build is heavily mana oriented, you can easily afford to cast a few shadow warriors as meat shields to draw out arrows.

Offensive Strategy

Playing vs a bowa is like a game of cat and mouse.

Assuming your not already name locked by the bowa, the safest place you can be is about a screen away. The problem is you have to name lock the Amazon in order to use psychic hammer which has a range of approx 1.5 screens. Safely getting into range can be fairly tricky and it really requires you to be able to toggle run/walk quickly and efficiently.

To advance on an Amazon, cast your shadow warrior as far in front of you as you can and run towards it. As mentioned before poorly tracked arrows will hit your warrior instead of you as long as the projectile is closer to them. Be prepared to toggle walk for increased blocking percentage because vs. good bowas you could get name locked fairly quickly and you need to be ready for it.

Once you are on the same screen as the Amazon you can now name lock ph, casting your Shadow Warrior near them but not right on top of them (as this would cause your Shadow Warrior to use normal attack instead of Psychic Hammer). A good method is to cast the Shadow Warrior behind them so that you have them surrounded.

O (sin) > X (Zon) < O (Shadow Warrior)

Psychic hammer causes Amazons to dodge a fair amount and if you notice that you are fairly close to the Amazon when they have their bow out caught in stun lock, sometimes I opt to advance on them and swap to my kick side for some quick crushing blow bursts. Because ph is still set up on right click, your warrior should still be able to help you advance on the Amazon by occasionally causing them to dodge and slow down. If the Amazon turns tries to run switch back to Psychic Hammer and name lock them until they are out of range again.

Another trick is to cast the Shadow Warrior out infront of you to the edge of your screen but keep your distance behind. The Warrior will cast psychic hammer if its within a screen of your opponent. If the Warrior casts ph, you know this is the range limit where if you cross; you are likely to get name locked as well. This information should better prepare you for your future advance

This strategy works well vs most lvl 18 Amazons but its NOT Sammich Proof huhuhu

One caution: You Will Not outrun arrows due to diminishing faster run/walk returns. Projectiles travel at 16 meters per second. With faster run walk gear and burst of speed you can run anywhere between 9 and 11 meters per second. Therefore trying to outrun a name locked arrow from a close distance will not end will for you.

A faster run/walk calculator is provided for your reference below:

http://www.baronsbazaar.invisionzone.com/ppr/frw_calc.html


Vs Necros: (65% faster cast rate set up)

Similar strategy as dueling an Amazon; the only difference is you will very rarely use kick and it takes a lot longer to take down the necromancer due to bone armor and dr and mdr. Prepare for a long duel

Vs Chargers: (102% faster cast rate set up)

You can’t play offensive vs. a charger; you will get shooped out of this century.
You can however throw more kicks into the equation when the charger is trying to charge away to line up for another attack (assuming that they don’t also zeal). The crushing blow hits start to add up here.
Also shadow warrior will cast psychic hammer the moment they are on your screen which is a nice bonus because they can indicate which direction the paladin is trying to desynch from. The minimap often lies blatantly.
Vs a charger the placement of your shadow warrior should be tighter towards you and not on the other side of your opponent as in the case with duels vs an amazon. The reason for this is your goal is to push them away and therefore you want the stacked knockback effect going in one direction

(Sin) O > (Shadow) O > < X (Charger)

Fissure Druid: (65% faster cast rate set up)

At best you will likely just halt their life replenish and stun them allowing for your opponent to deal some damage safely.

Vs Throw Barbs: (65% faster cast rate set up)

Use short bursts and of psychic hammer blasts and walk in circles roughly 6 yards away from the barb if they are trying to name lock double throw. If they are not name locking throw it gets very hard to predict where they are trying to throw, especially if they have glitched their javelins.

Random Information:

The physical component of Psychic Hammer can have a benefit from amplify damage.

This post was edited by lld_mayhem on Jun 23 2010 06:48pm

If I can figure out how to do my own fraps vids (since im technology retarded) ill post clear video examples.

ike>

n1 guide ill read more in depth later and give thoughts.

Very neat. Thanks for posting! :S

sexy guide and i hate chub

This post was edited by koez1 on Jun 23 2010 08:06pm

chubtoad 1

can your computer handle frapsing a video?

i have a new laptop. so it probably can.

just torrent a copy of fraps, it isnt hard to set up

Psy hammer tip #1



You dont have to click on a player to target them with psy hammer. In the pic you can see the maximum distance away from something you can click for psy hammer to cast (ignore minimap). Using this you can actually psy hammer outside your screen range by clicking at the boarder of your screen. If someone is out of screen range but within the distance above you will still hit them with psy hammer. This is useful vs anything that doesnt target you from range like fb bone spear throwing spears etc. You can also take advantage of the fact that psy hammer auto hits within this distance to scout for desyncing chargers since it wont cast if there is nothing to hit and when it does it will resync them.

This post was edited by Mr_Bilson on Jun 23 2010 08:29pm

Noob question of the day: Whats a torrent. i told you im technologically retarded