This build is my single most effective PvM character....ever, and I don't even use a merc.

At first I wanted to make a trapper, then I decided on a hybrid, here's what she looks like:


I wanted to give her max resists Decent CB, 50% DR, High dual leech, 8K or higher AR, and good trap damage.

In early Hell I went through a number of setups using Guillame's, which I had used in NM, and none of them gave me the res I needed.

So before level 77 (A3 Hell) I was using an Um'd high res Rockstopper with Vipermagi. That didn't work and I wasn't very effective in terms of the kicking half of my char, but I got through with MB and traps and a great Smaster (I wub the smaster). And then I could use Kira's.

Once I had Kiras I could figure out my final setup. I ended up using:

Kiras (Pruby)
SS (Ral)
Wyrmhide Duress
Tgods
Carrion Wind
Raven frost
Bartucs (Amn)
Upped Gores
Soul Drainers (7% ML)
Maras
Switch: Druid's CtA and Sigon's shield
6x Tap GC
2x Martial Arts GC
1 Anni

This gave me max and stacked all res, 7% ML, 27% LL (math could be wrong here), 50% DR (with the Weaken proc), 90% FHR, 43% OW, and 30% CB.

More images:











My typical strategy is too throw a few traps into the next room/area, then run in, CoS the place, and MB the farther away monster groups. At that point I jump into kicking the close ones and recasting the traps, which usually are spent right then. My Smaster and traps makes it so pretty much all paralyzed monsters are taken care of and I proceed to the next area/room.

Until recently, I had trouble with Oblivion Knights, because they throw IM at me and kicking is how I keep health and mana up, so they really had me worried. When combined with Lightning Immune souls I was up shit creek with them until I realized the MB does both stun and paralyze OKs. Now what I do is MB the OK packs and throw my traps all right next to them, that usually takes care of them :)

I don't have a point in Dflight, but if I did the only time I would ever use it would be too Dflight Baal.

Anyways, there's my most effective PvM experiment evar!

It's been loads of fun and I can now confidently say that I can solo absolutely any monster type in any area of the game with ease.

Maybe putting a point in venom to stop monster regen?

Also do you find that many kicks to be irritating? I like to keep my talon at lvl 23 so that I dont have so many, since most monters are dead by that time anyway.

Good assn though!

nice maphack :P
it looks like a good assn... much better than mine anyway *steals cta and runs*

My kick damage is low...I found that my nuber of kicks was just fine.

What kind of kicks do you usually get?

my kickers listed damage is 760-1232
venom adds 595-615
37-133 cold from duress 15-45 cold from ravenfrost
another 300 or so poison from charms
and a bit more random elemental
i have tiamats and fleshripper on switch for bosses so that adds a bit more

hmm, I dont remember off hand, I can check when I get off work this afternoon. I believe my kick dmg was 900-1400ish + 500something venom +all the other charms/duress, etc. I wouldnt suggest investing more than 1 into venom for your build, but if you have an extra point that wont affect your traps much it could get you an extra 200+ per kick which isnt bad at 5 kicks in less than a second :D

Just so you know, venom dramatically lowers the poison damage from charms....

Wow, you've been fast at work Derisive!

Great look at your Assn.!

Do you find your traps kill effectively enough that you don't have to kick much?

the way i figured it worked (though i am probably wrong)
venom=595-615 over .4 seconds.....1487.5-1537.5 damage per second
50 over 4..........................................12.5
50 over 6..........................................8.3333
100 over 5........................................20
and 175 over 6.................................29.1666
.......................................................1577.4999-1607.4999 poison damage per second

.4+4+6+5+6=21.4
21.4/5 poison sources=4.28 seconds

6751.7-6880.1 poison damage over 4.28 seconds...


does venom act differently than the other sources? am i completely wrong about how poison from different sources combines?

Maybe I'll level her again and pop one in Venom. It'd only be at level 4 though.

Anni + Cta + sigs shield + maras = +5 skills = lvl 6 venom

Oops. Forgot about Maras.

Ehhh. That's still only about 135-155 per 0.4 seconds.

yea thats only 750 in all, so it may not be worth it.

That's what I figured.

What about Dflight? When do you use Dflight in PvM?

i use it to jump bosses like shenk who are surrounded...

I never use Dflight to be honest. Since Im usually useing BoS im not worried about running a little.

That's what I figured.

I had a trapper/kicker on SP, but fire > light for PvM.


Upped Um'd Viper, 930 def, 50% all res, +1 skills, and a nice fcr bonus for MB.
Dungo for dr, regen, nice mods all around
shael/shael CoA hits them bps nicely :D not really absolutely necessary, but still nice.
Um SS.
"Black" scourge, though if I were thinking clearly when I built her, it would have been a Stormlash with a jah.
Drac's
Upped gores
dual ravens
cat's eye ammy

perf anni (<3 item editors), 10x shadow gcs with 45 life (lol...), the rest were ar/life scs.


20 Fire blast
20 WoF
1 Blade sentry
1 Blade fury
1 Claw mastery
1 BoS
1 Fade
20 Venom
20 Dtalon
1 Dtail
1 Dclaw
1 Dflight
1 smaster
1 psy hammer
1 mb
1 CoS
and some random assortment of junk I never used like serpent/viper strike(?)

Did okay, CoS / WoF / MB / Dflight / dtalon. Totally raped bosses.

Whereas Baal is hard for me.

what was your dmg for both skills?

I'm curious as well.

The fire damage was something like 500 WoF, but I kept everything CoS'd and mb'd so I had a lot of time to wear things down, and also I used multiple traps. For fire immune, just play like a standard kicker. Poison from venom was around 900 something? I could look it up, I suppose, but it was modified by my gear as I seem to recall. I didn't do any sort of pre cast routine, so it was mostly straight damage and the kicks were pounding off at 1k phys. with damn near 18k ar, which could have been totally unnecessary with the jah'd stormlash. :( Now that I deleted D2, I would have to reinstall just to figure it all out with correct numbers, but that was the general range.

so didnt it take forever to kill things?

btw www.d2items.com/skills.php is the skill calc if you ever wanna run numbers for any skill.

No, it was actually about as fast as my pure Ilkori-style kicker on ladder this season. Most of the gear was styled after the ladder kicker (except this gear was perfect) and I played her much the same. I suppose it was a lot slower than a hammerdin or a zealot or a ww barb, but it was still a lot of fun and progressed fairly well.

What exactly is an ilkori style kicker?

I havent been to his page in forever, but he just wrote the first long guide (correct me if Im wrong) outlining the skeleton build (venom, dtalon) and several hybrids/support skills (dsentry, smaster, traps, etc)

He also did some math showing how gores, guillames, etc were the way to go. Im not giving him credit for inventing the character, but his write up was the first I saw on the forums.

Looks pretty cool to me. I've been toying with the idea of making a PvP fire trapper, but I have yet to devise a build that didn't need more than 96 levels to finish :/ As soon as I work it down to ~85, I'm there.

Mine is never successful in PvP, and I've tried once or twice, because I have no DF. If I had DF I could fair decently.

http://s94360530.onlinehome.us/d2/assassin-kicksin.htm


Trapper/Kicker hybirds are extremely powerfull. I don't understand why more people don't make them!

I have a kicker on east SCladder. I wasted tons of skill points. Oh well...

Basically:
20 Dragon talon
20 Venom
10+ (around 15) in CoS (should have only out 1-5, oh well. It comes in handy but I have to wait for it to end sometimes. It can be annoyong but in areas with lots of enemies it is a handy skill. I can cast it once and slaughter without having to worry about recasting it. 1-5 would have been enough though. But I wanted to experiment)
10+ Shadow Master (when SM get to lvl 17 they are nastiness personified)
1 BoF
9-10 in BoS ( I think it is around 9 because I use a black fail/gimmershred. With the + shadow skill claws I have on switch I should have only put 4-5 points in it)
1 Death Sentry (for the CE)
1 mindblast

Gear:
Gullaimes socketed with um
SS socketed with pdiamond
string of ears
uped gore riders
Durress armor
draculs grasp
2 x raven frost
1 rare +1 assassin skill +8% mana leech ammy (with some other mods)
Gimmershred or Black flail for primary weapon
tons of elemental damage charms
2x +shadow skill claws on switch

With the gimmershred, elemental damage charms, and venom I can kill physical immunes in hell. Easily the most powerfull melee character I have played in 1.10.

Thats way too much. I never put more than a point in this skill. With a kicker You can have Highlords, 10 shadow charms, anni, prebuffing claws (dual bartucs even), plus any number of other items. with highlords and 2 prebuffing bartucs alone you should be fine.

It seems Nucman has forgotten about this thread.

*bandevil* <-- New smiley

Some of that is to costly for me. Shadow charms I would use but I am going for an elemental damage theme and my inventory is full of elemental damage chrams (combined with my gimmershred and venom I can take physical immunes esily). I do have +shadow skills claws on switch. But I got impatient. It took me a while to get the +skill gear needed to hit max IAS with DT and my flail. So I put 9 to get through norm and nm. I could remake it and start form scratch. I still have fun with it and it can still kick the arse of anything in hell difficulty.

hmmm... kick dmg... My kicker does about 145? Oh, wait. She's lvl 15. Can't say, man :)

*batter*

:ph43r:

Recently I haven't been playing with her as much. She's been missed.

where are you in the game with her again?

Done, but she wants to get to 88 in solo Baal runs at some point.