Fire Blast* is the primary Damage Skill of this build. It deals Fire Damage in an area around the projectile when it lands.

Lightning Sentry* is the secondary Damage Skill of this build. The Assassin lays a Trap that shoots a piercing Lightning Bolt in the direction of its closest target, dealing Lightning Damage to every monster in its path. You can have a total of 5 Traps active at a time.

Death Sentry* complements the damage of Fire Blast by using Corpse Explosion, which causes nearby corpses to explode and deal Fire and Physical Damage.

* Increased Attack Speed Skills (IAS)

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

Mindblast* stuns enemies in a small square 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* can be a real lifesaver. For a period of time, the area around the Assassin becomes extremely dark and blinds enemies. This drastically decreases their aggro range and Defense.

Shadow Master* randomly uses Skills (even those unallocated by your Character) from the Assassin's Skill Tree. Warning: The Shadow Master shares your limit of 5 active Traps and can replace your own traps with weaker ones.

Teleport* relocates you to any available space at your cursor, crossing over any gaps or walls. It can be used to travel long distances quickly and reposition during combat.

* Faster Cast Rate Skills (FCR)

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) Claws are used for dual wielding. Using fade to cap out your Resistances requires you to add 2 Shael Runes to reach the highest Trap laying speed.

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.

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.

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 Conviction Aura, drastically boosting damage.

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.

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.

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) speeds up your casting animation for spells. Aim for at least the 102% FCR Breakpoint. Note: FCR only controls the animation speed of the Character, and not any internal Cooldowns spells have.

This build relies solely on Increased Attack Speed (IAS) from Burst of Speed for faster attack and trap setting animations.

Faster Block Rate (FBR) increases survivability. Aim for at least the 32% FBR Breakpoint on Hardcore.

For all Hardcore gameplay, your primary concern 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 can become Hardcore viable with key changes to the Skills, Stat Point allocation, and items. Review the changes below before building this character, as they may differ significantly from the normal build.

Death Sentry uniquely combines 2 Skills, (Lightning Sentry and Corpse Explosion). Death Sentry has a maximum attack count, which means that a Death Sentry with a maximum of 7 Shots can use, for example, 5 x Lightning and 2x Corpse Explosion.

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

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