Wake of Fire* is the primary Damage Skill of this build. The Assassin lays down a Trap that shoots a piercing Fire Wave in the direction of its closest target, dealing Fire 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 Wake of Fire by using 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. You can have a total of 5 Traps active at a time.

Fire Blast* deals massive Fire Damage in an area around the projectile when it lands. Use this to supplement your damage while traps are deployed, helping provide those first few bodies for Death Sentry.

Wake of Inferno* lays down a Trap that has high single target damage. Since the Trap’s missile is very slow moving, this is only used on targets that won’t move around a lot. You can have a total of 5 Traps active at a time.

Lightning Sentry* is a secondary Damage Skill of this build. The Assassin lays down 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.

* Increased Attack Speed Skills (IAS)
* Skills that do NOT utilize either FCR or IAS

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.

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* makes the area around the Assassin become extremely dark and Blinds enemies. This drastically decreases their aggro range and their Defense. Incredibly useful in dangerous Areas with large amounts of ranged monsters.

Weapon Block* provides an alternative way to Block attacks when dual-wielding Claws. This is a very strong ability!

Shadow Master* summons another Assassin that randomly uses Skills from the Assassin Skill Tree, even if you don’t put Skill Points into those Skills. The Summon’s Skill level benefits from allocated Skill Points, increasing its damage output.

Fade* provides you with a massive Resistance, Damage Reduction, and Curse Duration Reduction buff. Each Soft Point grants 1% Damage Reduction. (Soft Points include + Skills from gear and buffs)

Teleport* lets you cover large distances over almost any gap and wall on the map when cast. Your Character gets relocated to your cursor in any unoccupied target location on your screen.

* 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. Greater Talons and Greater Claws are the best.
2) Weapon Block requires you to dual wield Claws.

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.

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.

For High Density farming:

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 65% 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 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) 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 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 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).

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: