Blade Assassin Guide

Blade Fury* launches a stream of constant blade projectiles that deal a fraction of your Weapon's Damage as Physical Damage after a short wind up.

Blade Sentinel* summons a Trap that deals a fraction of your Weapon's Damage as Physical Damage as it patrols back and forth from you and the targeted location.

Blade Shield* casts a shield that deals a fraction of your Weapon's Damage as Physical Damage to enemies in proximity of the Assassin.

Venom* adds a Poison Damage Buff to your attacks and Blade Trap Skills.

Death Sentry* uses Corpse Explosion which causes nearby corpses to explode for Fire and Physical Damage. If there are no bodies to target, it fires off a weak Lightning bolt if it’s close enough to a target.

* Increased Attack Speed Skills (IAS)
* Faster Cast Rate Skills (FCR)

Burst of Speed* provides you with a massive movement speed and Attack Speed buff. This increases your mobility and the rate at which you lay your Traps.

Dragon Flight* teleports you on top of a targeted enemy followed by kicking it. Allowing you to move quickly.

Mindblast* stuns your enemies in a small squared shape area around your cursor and has a % chance to convert enemies hit. Converted enemies fight alongside you for a short period of time.

Cloak of Shadows* Blinds enemies around the Assassin. This drastically decreases their aggro range and their Defense. Incredibly useful in dangerous Areas with large amounts of ranged monsters.

Weapon Block* provides a Chance to Block attacks when dual-wielding Claws.

Shadow Master* summons another Assassin that randomly uses Skills from the entire Assassin Skill Tree.

Fade* provides you with a large amount of +xx All Resistance, Damage Reduction, and Curse Duration Reduction when cast. Each Soft Point grants 1% Damage Reduction. (Soft Points include + Skills from gear and buffs)

* Faster Cast Rate Skills (FCR)
* Skills that do NOT utilize either FCR or IAS

While every Stat in the Desirable Stats column is useful for this build, we highlighted the Priority Stats in Teal so you can easily identify the Most Important Stats on them.

Hover over any Item to see a pop-out with the full Item description.

Gear/Base Notes: Any Items with specialized or niche uses have a superscript that refers here.
1) These Claws ideally have low requirements. Runic Talons and Feral Claws are the best.
2) Angelic Halo and Angelic Wings are great for boosting your Attack Rating significantly. You can even add another ⁣Angelic Halo to stack even more Attack Rating!
3) Death's Hand and Death's Guard together grant Cannot Be Frozen, +30% IAS, and +15 All Resistances.
4) Hsarus' Iron Stay and Hsarus' Iron Heel are great for boosting your Attack Rating in the early game.

The areas below are efficient farming locations that make use of the build’s strengths. Other farming spots might not be as effective due to immunities or bad layouts. These areas are strong without a Sunder Charm.

Anything that has a ✔ in the "Starter" column can be farmed with the Starter Variant.

Act 1

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

Your Mercenary serves an incredibly important role to the overall success of your build. They can be a front line tank, provide a pivotal Aura, and/or deal Physical Damage to kill enemies with Immunity to your Skill set.

Act 2 Desert Mercenary

Reaper’s Toll, Blessed Aim

Use a Desert Mercenary with Blessed Aim Aura to significantly boost your Attack Rating.
Equip him with The Reaper’s Toll for a 33% Chance to cast Decrepify on striking, slowing down and increasing Physical Damage dealt to enemies. Decrepify can even break some Physical Immunities.

Gear Progression

The Mercenary is hard to keep alive until you have the minimum gear recommended in this guide. Remember you can drag Healing Potions onto the portrait, or shift + 1/2/3/4 to directly feed them a Healing Potion from your Belt. The Mercenary also gains bonus Resistances from Thawing Potions and Antidote Potions.

If your Mercenary dies in battle, you can revive them from any of the Mercenary NPCs in each Act. This does come with an increasing cost, capping at 50,000 Gold. Keep that in mind and decide if the Mercenary is currently worth the cost.

General

• Start your runs by switching to the Weapon Swap with the most +x to Skills and Cast Fade, Blade Shield, Shadow Master and Venom.
• Shadow Master acts as a meat shield and uses random Skills from the Assassin's Skill Tree. Resummon it whenever it dies or as a decoy to get out of scary situations.
• Use Blade Furys with supplemental Blade Sentinel to clear out the first few enemies. When there are corpses, cast 1-2 Death Sentrys to help clear out density.
• Utilize Dragon Flight on enemy targets for mobility, similar to Teleport.
• If you get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of enemies, you can use Mindblast to Stun and Convert the closest monsters to redirect aggro. Lead with Cloak of Shadows to Blind every enemy within its radius and stop their ranged attacks.

Immunities

• Use a Mercenary with The Reaper's Toll for Decrepify to break Physical Immunes, increase your DPS and apply a powerful Slow effect.
• Use Blade Fury to proc Amplify Damage from Atma's Scarab, breaking Physical Immunity and increasing DPS.
• Bone Break breaks ALL Physical Immune monsters and brings them to 95% resistance. Pair this with a source of Amplify Damage or Decrepify.

Late-Game

• Start your runs by buffing yourself with Battle Command 2 times then Battle Orders from Call to Arms.
• Switch to the Weapon Swap with the most +x to Skills and Cast Fade, Blade Shield, Shadow Master and Venom.

Breakpoints in Diablo 2 are the minimum values required to reduce the frames of an action. Below are the important breakpoints considered for this build. For more information on the mechanics involved, check out our in-depth Resource: Breakpoints.

Increased Attack Speed (IAS)

This build relies solely on Increased Attack Speed from Burst of Speed using Weapons with a Weapon Speed Modifier of -20 / -30. Consult the D2planner for breakpoints with IAS on gear and/or different bases.

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR) increases survivability. Aim for at least the 48% FHR Breakpoint.

For all Hardcore gameplay, your primary focus is increasing your Resistances, Damage Reduction, Chance to Block and Maximum Life. This can mean sacrificing overall power level for a more secure playstyle.

This build is Hardcore viable. If you are unaccustomed to this playstyle, we recommend trying this build on Softcore to gain experience on how to successfully pilot it.

Death Sentry is in the unique situation, in which in combines 2 Skills (Lightning Sentry and Corpse Explosion). Both Skill effects have certain conditions in which they occur and use up remaining shots from the maximum shot count. This means that a Death Sentry with a maximum of 7 Shots can use, for example, 5 x Lightning and 2x Corpse Explosion).

• Base amount of available shots is 5, which can be increased by putting Skill Points into Fire Blast. Every 3rd Skill Point, Death Sentry gain +1 shot to a maximum of 11 (with Fire Blast Base Skill Level 18).

The Lightning Sentry part will only be used, if there are no corpses in the sentries' awareness range (10 2/3 yards).

• The lightning beam behaves exactly as Lightning Sentry:
  • Monsters are pierced.
  • Travels in a straight line.
  • Every monster on the travel path takes Lightning Damage.
• Death Sentry shoots at a rate of 31 Frames per cast (Every 1.24 seconds) before they expire. This rate cannot be influenced.

The Corpse Explosion is used when there are corpses within its Awareness Range (10 2/3 yards) with the following mechanics:

• Death Sentry shoots at a rate of 31 Frames per cast (Every 1.24 seconds) before they expire. This rate cannot be influenced.
• The Corpse Explosion is weaker than its Necromancer counterpart, dealing only 40 - 80% of the monster's regular base Life.
• Damage does not increase with higher player count.
• Its damage is split into 50% Physical Damage and 50% Fire Damage.
• When the corpse's Monster Level > Character Level the damage is multiplied by Character Level / Monster Level.
• Within the Area of Effect, the damage is always afflicted. It cannot be blocked by any means.

• Cannot be active together with Fade
• If cast a second time, the second instance always overwrites the initial buff, even if it is a lower Skill Level at the second cast.
• The 3 variables (Duration, +% Walk/Run Speed and +xx% Increased Attack Speed) scale with the Skill Level (slvl).
• Duration = (12 * slvl) + 108
  Example slvl 10: Duration = (12 * 10) +108 = 228 seconds

• Teleport instantly moves you to a selected square on the visible screen in which you can stand. The game tries to to place you within a small radius around your cursor even if it would be impeded normally.
• Teleport is not obstructed by walls or other impediments but can fail if your cursor is not completely passed those impediments when cast. Your Mercenary and Minions are teleported with you, Traps do not.
• Certain Minions in large quantities can become “stuck” in position after teleporting. Move away from that position to give them the chance to spread out.
• You can “extend” the visible screen by opening UI-windows like the Inventory or the Character screen. Continuously cast Teleport and drag your mouse to the edge of your screen.
• The Mana cost of Teleport decreases with additional Skill Levels down to 1 Mana per cast.
• You can use “ESC” to open the menu in single player to pause the game after a Teleport to determine if you are safe.