Claws of Thunder Assassin Guide

Claws of Thunder* is your Primary Charge-up Skill (main source of damage). It is a Lightning Charge-up Skill that grants up to 3 Charges. Charge 1 adds Lightning Damage to your attack, Charge 2 is an AoE Nova, and Charge 3 is an AoE Lightning attack that releases Charged Bolts in all directions.

Blades of Ice* is your Secondary Charge-up Skill (secondary source of damage). It is a Cold Charge-up Skill that grants up to 3 Charges. Charge 1 adds Cold Damage to your attack, Charge 2 makes the Cold Damage from Charge 1 AoE damage, and Charge 3 adds a Freezing effect to your attacks.

Dragon Talon* is your Primary Finishing Move. It Kicks a target multiple times in rapid succession, dealing Physical Damage to them (number of times based on Skill Level). On the Claws of Thunder Assassin, this ability is used to detonate your Claws of Thunder and Blades of Ice Charges. Charging up Tiger Strike makes Dragon Talon stronger as well.

Dragon Claw* is a Secondary Finishing Move. It is a dual-claw attack that expends 2 charges. On the Claws of Thunder Assassin, this ability is used to more rapidly recover from detonating Claws of Thunder and Blades of Ice Charges than otherwise by using Dragon Talon. However, because this Finisher deals less damage, it is often more effective on Low Player Counts. It naturally grants Attack Rating, but always hits if you have multiple Charges.

Death Sentry* is an Optional Damage Skill that uses Corpse Explosion which causes nearby corpses to explode for a 50/50 mix of 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.

Phoenix Strike* is an Optional Damage Skill. It gains up to 3 Charge orbs from successful melee hits. Charge 1 drops a Fiery Meteor, Charge 2 gives a Chain Lightning effect dealing Lightning Damage, and charge 3 releases a circular patterned Cold Damage attack that Freezes Monsters. Unlike with Claws of Thunder or Blades of Ice, Dragon Talon or Dragon Claw only detonates a single Phoenix Strike effect based on the number of Charges. You can choose which Phoenix Strike Charge to use and how; however, It is usually most effective to use Charge 2 of Phoenix Strike (Chain Lightning) on this build for increased AoE.

* Increased Attack Speed Skills (IAS)

Tiger Strike* is a Physical Damage Charge-up Skill that grants up to 3 Charges with successful strikes. Each Charge adds progressively higher Physical Damage to your Finishing Moves. On the Claws of Thunder Assassin, building up 3 Charges of Tiger Strike mainly helps with the Life and Mana Leech from Cobra Strike.

Cobra Strike* is a Charge-up Skill that grants up to 3 Charges with successful strikes. Each Charge adds progressively higher Life and Mana Leech bonuses to your Finishing Moves.

d2planner-skill]Claw Mastery[/d2planner-skill]* passively provides Attack Rating, additional Damage, and Critical Strike Chance when wielding Claw Weapons.

Weapon Block* passively provides a Chance to Block when dual-wielding Claw Weapons.

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

Burst of Speed* provides you with a massive Movement Speed and Attack Speed buff. This increases your mobility, your Tiger Strike, Cobra Strike, Claws of Thunder, Blades of Ice, and Dragon Claw Attack Speed, and the rate at which you lay Death Sentry Traps.

Dragon Flight* is a Finishing Move that Teleports you and your Mercenary to a target and attempts a Kick attack. It naturally grants Attack Rating, but always hits if you have any Charges. This Skill is great for mobility as a pseudo Teleport on a Starter or Budget setup (see Build Variants).

Shadow Warrior* summons a mini-Assassin that mimics your Skills on your Right-Click. On this build it mostly serves as a damage sponge and distraction.

Mind Blast* briefly 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* temporarily Blinds enemies around the Assassin. This drastically decreases their aggro range and their Defense. It is an incredibly useful Skill to use when facing dangerous ranged enemies such as Burning Souls and Dark Archers.

* Increased Attack Speed Skills (IAS)
* 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) Preferably use Runic Talon or Feral Claw Base Claws (Weapon Speed Modifier of -30 or -20) on your Main-Hand along with Burst of Speed for Charging-up Claws of Thunder and your other Charge-up Skills. This enables you to Charge them up as fast as possible.
2) A Suwayyah Base Claw on the Claws of Thunder Assassin Main-Hand slows Dragon Talon enough for all of your Claws of Thunder Novas to hit (see "Next Hit Delay" under Mechanics)
3) Wizardspike is used for the Faster Cast Rate it provides on Weapon-Swap if Barbarian-granted Battle Orders is available. Stormshield on the Off-Hand Swap can provide Chance to Block and Damage Reduction. With Wizardspike and Spirit Monarch it is possible to achieve the 174% Faster Cast Rate Breakpoint on your Weapon-Swap.
4) Only use Naj's Puzzler or a Staff of Teleportation on Weapon-Swap for Teleport Charges before acquiring Enigma.
5) Use a Lower Resist Charge Wand on Weapon-Swap to deal additional damage against Bosses and break Lightning Immunity before acquiring an Infinity on the Mercenary.

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.

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

Act 1

Act 2

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

Infinity, Might

Use a Desert Mercenary with Might Aura to deal with enemies that are Immune to your main damage source. Equip him with Infinity to reduce enemy Resistances and Defense with its Conviction Aura, drastically boosting damage and Chance to Hit. This Aura is also capable of breaking monster Immunities, including Lightning.

Mercenary Gear Options

Your Mercenary needs maximum Resistances, Life Leech, a high damage Weapon, and high Defense and/or Damage Reduction to stay alive reliably. Cannot Be Frozen is also a great stat for maintaining Mercenary DPS and leech. Ethereal gear is preferred since it doesn't lose durability. Gear Options at each Gear Level perform equally well in different situations; choose based on Farming Spots and/or personal preference.

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

• Before each Magic Find/Experience run, cast Burst of Speed and Shadow Warrior on your Weapon-Swap with more + to Skills. Refresh Re-summon your Shadow if it dies.
• Use Dragon Flight to jump directly into Elite Packs. Dragon Flight is a great source of mobility before acquiring Enigma.
• Attack with Claws of Thunder to gain Charges that enable you to discharge Lightning Damage AoE abilities (Charge 2 - Nova, Charge 3 Charged Bolt).
• Attack with Blades of Ice to gain Charges that enable you to discharge Area of Effect (AoE) Cold Damage.
• Optional: Attack with Cobra Strike to gain Charges that provide you with significant Life and Mana Leech.
• Optional: Attack with Tiger Strike to gain Charges that provide you with a significant Physical damage bonus. Maintaining these Charges significantly improves your Life and Mana sustain from Cobra Strike.
• Upon reaching 3 Charges (max) of all of your desired Charge-up Skills, cast Fade and use either Dragon Talon or Dragon Claw against Elites or Bosses. If not using Mosaics, recharge Claws of Thunder at minimum before using these Finishers again.
• Dual-wielding Mosaics enables you to perpetually and simultaneously maintain the 3 Charge maximum for Cobra Strike, Tiger Strike, Blades of Ice, and Claws of Thunder, so long as you continue to use Dragon Talon or Dragon Claw within a certain time frame.
• A maxed out Dragon Talon is much better at dealing with mobs in High Player Count games (/Players5-8 in Single Player), whereas a maxed out Dragon Claw is much more responsive for the quick killing of Elite monsters in Low Player Count (/Players1-3).

High Monster Density

• Lead with 1-3 Death Sentry Traps prior to using your Martial abilities. When there are corpses, the Corpse Explosions produced by Death Sentry deal significant damage to surrounding mobs in a large Area of Effect. It is especially effective in High Player Count games.
• Optional: Obtain 2 Charges of Phoenix Strike in addition to your other Martial abilities for improved performance against ultra-high monster density. It is not always efficient do this, however, as it increases the time you have to spend charging up abilities and does not add too much damage on this build.

Optional Utility

• Cast Cloak of Shadows to temporarily Blind dangerous ranged enemies as needed (Dark Archers, Burning Souls, etc.).
• You can also use Mind Blast to Stun and Convert nearby threats.
• Strategically re-summoning Shadow Warrior in front of scary mobs is an effective survival tactic.

Immunities

• For Lightning Immune Monsters: Crack of the Heavens sets all Immune to Lightning monsters to 95% Lightning Resistance, allowing any sources of -x% to Enemy Lightning Resistance (including Lower Resist or the Conviction Aura from Infinity) to take full effect.
• Before acquiring Infinity on the Mercenary, use a Lower Resist Charge Wand on Weapon-Swap to reduce monster Lightning Resistance and to break most Lightning Immunity.
• Blades of Ice destroys Lightning Immune monsters with its AoE Cold Damage.
• Dragon Talon or Dragon Claw with fully-charged Tiger Strike can also comfortably deal with monsters that are Immune to Lightning.

Late-Game

• Before each Magic Find/Experience run, first cast Battle Command 2 times and then Battle Orders once using Call to Arms.
• Use Enigma Teleport to travel to your Farming Spot and between Elite Packs. "Telestomp" Elite Packs into a follow-up Dragon Talon or Dragon Claw.

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.

Faster Cast Rate (FCR)

Faster Cast Rate speeds up your casting animation for spells. Aim for at least the 102% FCR Breakpoint on the Standard Build for Enigma Teleport casting speed. Note: FCR only controls the animation speed of the Character, and not any internal Cooldowns spells have.

Increased Attack Speed (IAS)

Increased Attack Speed speeds up your attack animations. Weapon bases have different IAS breakpoints. Values for recommended weapon options provided below. Consult the d2planner for other bases.
Note: Optimal IAS Breakpoints depend on whether you are using Fade and Dragon Talon, or Burst of Speed when building up Charges or using Dragon Claw.

Mosaic Suwayyah Main-Hand (Dragon Talon + Fade)

Mosaic Runic Talons Main-Hand (Building up Charges or using Dragon Claw with Burst of Speed)

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery increases survivability. Aim for the 27% FHR Breakpoint on the Standard Build.

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.

The Claws of Thunder Assassin can become Hardcore viable with key changes to Gear. Review the changes below before building this character in Hardcore, as some of these changes differ significantly from the Standard Build.

Gear Changes

• Damage Reduction: There are several gear options for achieving a high amount of % Damage Reduction on a Hardcore Claws of Thunder Assassin. Verdungo's Hearty Cord and Enigma used together with Fade is optimal for dual-wielding Mosaics and maintaining maximum DPS. Crown of Ages is a strong option as well.
• Stacking Resistances: Stack your Fire/Lightning/Cold Resistances beyond the default maximum values of 75 each (175 total in Hell). Stacking 85 additional Resistances in Hell completely negates the Conviction Aura of any Elite Boss or the Oblivion Knight's Lower Resist Curse. Beware of encountering both at the same time! Consider the primary damage type(s) of the monsters in the area you want to farm. Crown of Ages is an excellent Helmet option for Resistances. Chains of Honor is a possible Body Armor option if you are willing to forgo Enigma. Um Runes socketed into gear, Jewelry, Charms, and Boots are also ideal sources of Resistances.
• Faster Hit Recovery: Achieve a decent Faster Hit Recovery Breakpoint with your Boots, Belt, Charms, and potentially Crown of Ages.
• Lightning Absorb: Equip Thundergod's Vigor when farming or Teleporting through an area where Burning Souls are able to spawn such as Worldstone Keep/Throne of Destruction.
  
  See the "Hardcore" Build Variant below for additional suggestions and visuals.

You might be overwhelmed with the pure Area of Effect (AoE) you seem to get when Claws of Thunder charges are going off at the speed of almost 8 kicks per second with 2x Mosaics equipped. Be aware that not all the damage you "see" on the screen actually applies due to Next Hit Delay.

The 2nd and 3rd charge of Claws of Thunder applies a 4 Frame (0.12s) Next Hit Delay. Until the NHD runs out, no other NHD-projectiles deal damage to mobs. Instead, they simply pass through the target affected. This means a decent portion of your Claws of Thunder damage goes to waste if you are not using 4 Frame Dragon Talon. A Suwayyah Claw Base in your main-hand is optimal for this reason.

All that being said - It is still best to have all charges up to deal as much AoE damage as possible!

Death Sentry is in the unique situation in which it 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.

• 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 Shadow Warrior or Shadow Master travel with you.
• Summons in large quantities can become “stuck” in position after Teleporting. Move/walk 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.
• Teleport casting speed is affected by the Faster Cast Rate Breakpoint that you achieve with your gear.