Whirlwind Assassin Guide

Whirlwind* is your main Damage Skill. The Character spins around, "phases" through monsters, and deals damage to everything around them. While active, you cannot consume Potions or change anything in your Inventory.

Venom* adds powerful Poison Damage to your attacks. This Damage over Time (DOT) deals with Physical Immune monsters for us.

Death Sentry* is used as a secondary damage source in all versions. Its damage comes from casting Corpse Explosion on slain monsters.

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

Fade* provides you with a massive boost in Damage Reduction %, All Resistances, and Curse length reduction.

Mindblast* stuns your enemies in a small squared-shaped 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 their Defense.

Weapon Block* provides an alternative way to block attacks when dual-wielding Claws.

Claw Mastery* increases your damage, Critical Strike chance and Attack Rating when using Claws.

* 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 review the recommended Items and more easily identify the Most Important Stats on them.

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

Gear/Base Notes: Any Items with specialized or niche uses have a superscript that refer to a Note listed here.
1) This is the build enabling item that cannot be replaced. Feral Claw is the best base, but other claws can be an option too. +1x% Enhanced Damage is desirable as a Superior Mod.
2) Only used in full Natalya's Odium setup!
3) Only used in combination with the other Angelic Jewelry piece.

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 Variant.

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

Your Mercenary can serve an incredibly important role to the overall success of your build. Whether it’s serving as a front line tank, bringing a pivotal Aura to your arsenal, or employing Physical Damage to kill monsters with an Immunity to your skillset.

Act 2 Desert Mercenary

Reaper’s Toll, Might

We recommend the Might Aura version, as it provides us with a significant damage boost to our Physical Damage attacks.
The Reaper’s Toll has a 33% Chance to cast Decrepify on striking, which slows your enemies down as well as increase any Physical Damage dealt to them. Decrepify can also break some Physical Immunities (Immunities Resource).

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.

The Mercenary is hard to keep alive until you have the minimum gear recommended in this guide. To help survive various scenarios, 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. So keep that in mind and decide if the Mercenary is currently worth the cost.

General

• Buff yourself with Burst of Speed and proceed to your farming location of choice.
• Switch the buff to Fade and approach your targets.

Density Clearing

• Pull together enemies to create density for your Death Sentry Traps.
• Lay down 2-3 Death Sentry Traps before jumping into battle. They are the key ingredient for blowing up big monster groups.
• Engage the mobs with Whirlwind. Ideally you just spin through the middle dealing as much damage as possible, but there are scenarios you need to be careful in:
  • When faced with Mana Burn or high damage melee attacking monsters, use Whirlwind on the edge of the density.
  • When faced with numerous ranged enemies, use Cloak of Shadows to blind them or Mindblast to convert some of them. This decreases the damage you take during Whirlwind. Remember - You cannot use Potions while spinning!

Boss Farming

• When engaging bosses, use Whirlwind in small triangles around them. This gives you moments to use your Potions if necessary. The main goal is to reduce the time “spinning into the void” (Not hitting anything of importance).

Immunities

• When you are fighting in the recommended farming spots, you won't face many Physical Immune monsters. Death Sentry's Corpse Explosion deals 50% Fire Damage and can dispose of any you encounter.
• Chaos also provides you with some Magic Damage and you gain Poison Damage from Venom.
• Your Mercenary uses The Reaper's Toll which has a chance for Decrepify on hit, which often removes the Physical Immunity.

Late Game

• Cast Battle Command twice and [/d2planner-skill]Battle Orders[/d2planner-skill] in your Weapon Swap before engaging in combat. Refresh these buffs as soon as they run out.
• Use Teleport in your Weapon Swap. Your damage setup does not have any Faster Cast Rate, which feels terrible.

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) is not required for this build, but early breakpoints can be utilized. Note: FCR only controls the animation speed of the Character, and not any internal Cooldowns spells have.

Increased Attack Speed (IAS)

Increased Attack Speed (IAS) speeds up your attack animations. Weapon bases have different IAS breakpoints. Values for recommended weapon options provided below. Consult the d2planner for other bases. You reach the highest Breakpoint of every Claw with the recommended gear.

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR) increases survivability. Aim for at least the 27% FHR Breakpoint.

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 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 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.

• Base amount of available shots is 5, which can be increased by putting Skill Points into Fire Blast. Every 3rd Skill Point, Death Sentry gains +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 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.