Assassin Diablo 2 Class Guide

 

Assassin’s stalk their pray from the shadows, setting traps and puncing on her enemies to finish them off with martial arts abilities.  She also has the unique ability to be able to dual wield claws, which has to be one of the best looks in the game!  The class is one of two builds introduced in the Diablo 2 expansion Lord of Destruction and a wide variety of builds available to play.

 

Assassins can be played in two distinct ways, either through mastering the art of traps or through mastering martial arts.  The Trapsin is the most popular build for PvM and has huge damage potential through a combination of skills.  Martial Arts assassins are also very viable however have a high skill threshold to master.  The Assassin is a very fun character to play, she takes some time to master and is perhaps not the best option for beginners but once you are comfortable playing her it is worth the wait!  Any Assassin build utilizes shadow disciplines to gain bonuses in the form of attack speed boosts, damage reductions, the ability to block damage with your claws and also the potential to summon a shadow warrior to fight by your side.

 

The following sections will take you through the skill trees available to the Assassin and the most popular builds.

 

Martial Arts

The Assassin has the potential to master a number of martial arts abilities and inflict huge amounts of damage on her enemies.  The skills are generally split into two categories: charge up skills, and finishing skills.  The charge up skills build up stacks for successful hits on enemies, receiving bonuses depending on which skill has been selected such as raw damage increases or the build-up of elemental damage.  All of this charged up damage can be released by using a finishing move, and again there are a number of options available to finish off your enemies.  Most finishing moves are through kicking enemies, but vary whether you want to kick your target multiple times, knock them back or teleport a short distance to the target before finishing them off.

 

Shadow Disciplines

Shadow disciplines is where the Assassin masters the art of hiding in the shadows and stalking her enemies.  The skill that epitomizes the Assassin is Cloak of Shadows which casts a shadow the surrounding enemies, allowing her to sneak around and choose her victim.  Every Assassin build will utilize points in this skill tree, whether that is to increase your attack speed (and therefore laying of traps) or mastering the use of your claws and gaining the ability to block incoming damage.  There is also the ability to summon a Shadow Warrior to fight by your side, casting similar skills and martial arts abilities as the Assassin herself.

 

Traps

Traps are the most popular build for the Assassin, with the Lightning Sentry ability being the go-to option.  The Assassin can lay up to 5 traps at a time, and the Lightning Sentry has the potential to reach over 10k damage per attack and therefore a consistent and high damage output from all 5 traps.  Another excellent skill is Death Sentry which casts the Necromancer’s Corpse Explosion ability on slain monsters, exploding their corpses and dealing damage to surrounding monsters equal to a percentage of their life.  A more niche trap build is going down the fire route, using the Wake of Fire skill.  This skill is extremely strong in the early game and shoots fire in a V shape engulfing enemies in flames.