Wake of Fire Assassin Guide

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.

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

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 Conviction Aura, drastically boosting damage.

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

• Cast Burst of Speed and run to the farming location of your choice. Keep it up at all times!
• If you skilled into Shadow Master summon it whenever it drops. It acts as a meat shield and uses random Skills from the Assassin's Skill Tree. Alternatively, you can summon it as a decoy to get out of scary situations.

For High Density farming:

• Use Fire Blast after casting up to 5 Wake of Fire Traps spread out to maximize the attack's surface area. As soon as the first enemies are dead, cast 1-2 Death Sentrys for their Corpse Explosion.
• If you get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of enemies, you can use Mindblast to Stun and convert the closest monsters to redirect aggro. Against ranged monsters, lead with Cloak of Shadows which Blinds every enemy in range and stops their ranged attacks.

For Single Target farming:

• Cast 5 Wake of Fire Traps on top of your target. Creating a minimal distance between your Traps and the monster leads to a higher chance to hit the monster when it moves around.
• Add Fire Blast to provide additional damage.

Quick note for Baal Waves:

• Cast 4 Wake of Fire Traps spread around the position in which the waves spawn and 1 Death Sentry far enough away, so it doesn't use its Lightning Skill. The 4 Wake of Fire Traps can target down monsters from the waves and Death Sentry starts casting Corpse Explosion right away.

Immunities

• Before you have access to Infinity you rely on Lower Resist from your Wand of Lower Resistance to break some monster Immunities or deal additional damage to tanky targets.
• Utilize Lightning Sentry for Fire Immune/Resistant monsters when applicable.
• Death Sentry deals Fire AND Physical Damage use this to aid you in dealing with immune monsters.
• Flame Rift breaks ALL Fire Immune monsters and brings them to 95% resistance. Pair this with a source of Lower Resist and Conviction.

Late-Game

• Start your runs by buffing yourself with Battle Command 2 times and afterward with Battle Orders from Call to Arms.
• Switch to the Weapon Swap with the most +x to Skills for Burst of Speed and cast it.
• Get your Mercenary’s conviction Aura from Infinity to be in range to maximize damage output from your Traps.
• Min-Max: Lay your Wake of Fire traps with your main Weapon Swap and switch to your Secondary with Gemmed Crystal Sword, and Phoenix Monarch to maximize your damage output.

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 (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.

Increased Attack Speed (IAS)

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)

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.

Stat Point Changes

• Put enough Stat Points into Dexterity to reach 75% Chance to Block.

Skill Point Changes

• Allocate points into Fade rather than Burst of Speed. It's used to tank up for combat situations.

Item Changes

• Equip a Stormshield with an Eld Rune for maximum Chance to Block and Reduced Damage by x%.
• Hit +65% Faster Cast Rate with Magefist, Arachnid Mesh, a +20% Faster Cast Rare Circlet, and a +10% Faster Cast Rate Amulet or Ring.
• Use Heart of the Oak Flail instead to reach the Breakpoint at +102% Faster Cast Rate, if you don’t have the recommended BIS Claws.

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.