I smiled all over it aswell. Finally after 20 years it is now viable. I tried it in D2 LoD and eventually swapped to kicksin instead because it is too much of a dmg loss charging all over again, and have a burst dmg like every 5 to 8 seconds. A Procsin was or is already better than LoD MA Assa. Also a minus of charging over and over again is the squishiness of assa herself. Before you have all your charges up, you probably were 80% or even more just fresh meat.
Finally! The day that LOD came out I started with a martial arts assasin and was blown away over how good she was at the low levels, 5 hours later I was lvl 28 and could not beat the ancients for the life of me, went to bed and havn't played martial arts since.
@@a.f.331 For single player, you have to use some other build to get to the point where you can create 2 mosaics. Then you respec into this build. 2 Mals and 2 Guls are basically nothing.
I really wanted to make a Hell-viable Dual Claw Assassin some day so this is good news. When I read about the runewords I didn't suspect they'd let those 50% chances on Mosaics stack additively, but here we are. I was sure they'd make it 2 x 50% check.
This build doesn't make the skill tree work well, though. It essentially compromises the entire idea of the ebb and flow between charging and discharging, and replaces it with a unique mechanic that is entirely tied to dual wielding one specific item. Not a great way to make the tree work. I do, however, agree that it looks quite fun and it is most likely what I will be trying this ladder.
Maybe there should be a chance to not consume any charges on the Claw Mastery Skill level with an added % not to consume charges on certain/all Claw Weapons or maybe just on the Unique Claw Weapons. Same like the Ress all on a Paladin Shield, a Claw would either have some +skills or a %chance to not consume charges.
@@viciouscrossbow real talk tho ... this build is worse than any sorc build when it comes to clear speed and worse than a regular kicksin when it comes to bossing. I kinda understand that it can do both to a degree but it straight up is not even close to Sorc in it's current state so it will not change the meta. Some people will play it this season because it is new for sure, but it really is not that good
@@yarlehnowz This build isn't as strong as a fully geared javazon though, so if it's 'way too OP' and needs to be nerfed, then I hope they nerf all the other 'way too OP' builds, or it's pretty dumb to just nerf this imo.
Man... I've been playing dual claw Phoenix Strike assassin since the character was first released. I didn't care that she was off-meta, it was just a fun build to play. To see her grow into this absolute avatar of devastation makes me so happy! Hopefully the nerfs won't slam her into oblivion
Wow, you are a true legend of the Phoenix Strike assassin! I respect your loyalty and creativity for sticking with this off-meta build and making it shine. You have mastered the art of unleashing all the elements with your dual claws and kicking your enemies into oblivion. You are an inspiration for all assassin players out there!
FYI, was watching Ginger Gaming Mentor test Assassin builds with dual Mosaic claws, and the game was freezing when dropping repetitive Meteor charges from Phoenix Strike on Uber Diablo. Not an issue on Hell Players 8, but the extra life of the Uber D-Clone was causing a rediculous amount of meteors to fall and was locking up the game.
Just rolled Mosaic on single player, so I can confirm it works. It seems this time they brought everything related to the new season to single player as well! Which is awesome!!!
Thanks for that confirmation. I have always felt ladder stuff should be available on single player right from the start especially being a single player only player. Theres really no reason not too cause theres nothing to compete against.
Thank christ. it felt so bad having to arbitrarily wait a whole season to get the cool new stuff, just to have to feel the same thing about the next season's stuff when you just want to play single player and not deal with online.
Ginger mentor did some pretty extensive testing - NHD really messed with claws of thunder, especially if you use it with PS chain lightning. Ideal seems to be 3 Blades of Ice, 2PS, 3Cobra/Tiger charges. FoF messes with leech converts phys to fire), so likely want to avoid charges on that too.
I wish they put chance to save charge on some synergy instead of the only rune word. Or just remove charges consuming mechanic completely replacing it with timed duration without any renewal possibility. At least it will not look so broken.
They will almost certainly change how Mosaic works so that you can't get the 100% charges are never consumed effect. That's the part that makes this broken and silly.
why would this get nerfed? It's worse than Cold or Lightning Sorc in terms of clearspeed/speed in general and worse than a regular kicksin when it comes to bossing. This build is literally average idk why they would nerf it especially with it beeing a melee build aka it's bad to begin with
They might not nerf it at all. I suspect this may have something to do with D4 and them pumping assassin's. They're spending a lot of time honing this game, when d4 comes out if they release an assassin DLC, they may be incentivized to make Assassin a fan favorite in this game just to plug it in that game. That and they may be looking to buff just plain every class in some way over time, from the scale of it lately it feels like a lot of classes are just getting reworks and buff's in general, especially mid-level items. Mal / Gul is not too expensive for this build, they likely are trying to make the mid-game more satisfying. But we'll see of course. It's definitely the vampire survivors build though, nailed it.
Interesting thing is that you don't really need high end gear like Enigma. You can use Dragon Flight to teleport around for the most part, and it keeps refreshing your charges as well. For bosses/ubers I suspect Tiger Strike will be instant kill (8 kicks with 3rd charge of tiger strike lvl 40+ along with some crushing blow are hundreds of thousands of dmg). I suspect the charge management, especially for phoenix strike, will be a pain, especially if you overcharge.
i just used 2x mosaic on a cheated level 99 char and cleared p5 baalrun yes its difficult bc u are onehit but from a damage perspective its absolut crazy, means if u have 2x mosaic u can do EVERYTHING
I was thinking about dragon tail during this - it double dips damage, multipliers, giving all the bonus ED to the phys, then converting it to the increased fire, then buffing the fire. Having high level permanent 3 charge tiger strike on a dragon tail with 1000% bonus fire damage - that would be some damage.
Wow, that sounds like a very impressive and fun build. You seem to have a lot of game knowledge and experience with the assassin class. I admire your creativity and strategy for using different skills and gear to optimize your damage and mobility. I’m curious to learn more from you. Thanks for sharing your insights and tips.👍
I'm so hyped!! I've always played as a martial arts assassin even when she was considered a C tier. I definitely feel like I have a good advantage after all these years and trial/error 😉. Super excited to try these new runes and strategies 👌
I admire your passion for playing an unpopular character. You must have a lot of skill and dedication to master her as a martial arts assassin. I’m glad you’re hyped for the new runes and strategies. I hope you have fun and dominate the game!
Inspired by Llama's Hell guided playthrough on a MA assassin, I attempted to finish Hell myself with the same Phoenix strike build. Took me about 3 weeks to finish it with budget items. Because I don't have D2 Resurrected, I did it all in my old 1.13 version where I have none of the new runewords or the charges consume buff to phoenix strike. Just the fact that I finished hell with budget gear and MA assassin in the old version of the game was enough to make me feel proud, since I am not a veteran Diablo 2 player. My items were Smoke Armor, Chromatic circlet with socketed PDiamond, Rhyme shield, a magic 28 fire rest plated belt, a magic 20 frw and poison resist boots, rare gloves with 10 IAS and cold and poison res, angelics amulet and ring. My weapon was malice claw for mobs and strength claw for bosses. My merc was holy freeze with tal's mask, lionheart armor and honor thresher for mobs and strength thresher for bosses. My inventory was full with life or resist charms. It's insane how much of a glass cannon she is. She dies very easily even on level 83 with 1360 health but also deals so much elemental damage that baal went down in 2 minutes. Most of my time in the baal fight was going back to town for potions, despawning his clone or death from festering appendages rather than the actual fight.
Love this build. Its op as hell but as someone who loved playing MA sin all the time. It just wasn't strong enough past p1. Now I can have as much fun as I want telestomping everything with fireworks.
MA assassin FINALLY being viable is amazing. It suddenly looks like it competes strongly for BEST S tier bulid which is a bewildering thought. Not necessarily a bad one though. At least I hope it gets to have this power level for season 3. They can adjust it for season 4 if it proves too dominant. So so happy to see new endgame viable builds. More of this blizzard!!! We build love variety!
MA assassin was able to do P8 without this insanity. Now is just so broken, and this is not even the strongest MA build, dragon Talon + tiger strike will melt ubers even faster, also Cobra Strike, in the other hand tiger strike + dragon tail for 90k splash sustained dmg at 7 frames is ridiculous
OMG, thanks for doing this test, I knew it will be OP. And what do you think about TS? It's cheap x10-20 damage multiplier now. There was old TS + Dragon Tail combination which is already pretty descent, but can go even further now.
when he started to explain the charges on phoenix strike i was like: "Wait dont all charges stack?" And yes. Yes they do. I hope this stays in the game. Its immense fun.
Everything u build to 3 charges except phoenix strike. It all works for claws of fire, claws, of thunder, and claws of ice. Phoenix strike releases the charge it is at so charge 2 is better than charge 3. Hope this makes sense. Basically only phoenix strike you stop early and all other ma charge skills you can charge to 3 no worries.
I was playing Martial arts assassin before i stop playing on ladders1. Might play agin this ladder with this new rune word. Martial sin is more fun to play on consoles tho and the only drawback of it is the repair cost of chaos. I wonder how much is the repair for mosaic ?
The probability should just stack differently (should be two independent trials, so 75% total) - even having a total of 80-90% would work ok, you'd have your fun for a while then after 5-10 insane hits you'd have to recharge... I think that's fair
Reminds me of my critical mass wizard build on D3 way back. Super fun but I can see why it might get out of hand. Granted this is like top tier end game gear. I can see a nerf coming, at least to stacking charges.
Always thought javazon was bs op, so to put other characters up there is refreshing. It’s kinda neat and something fun to try. Also if you play sp it’s harder to get lv 40 skills so it’s not as op
don't forget cobra strike can also be stacked, meaning you're getting an insane amount of life and mana leech. the build is just busted. Im ok with it because the usual builds are as stale as can be.
This is so awesome. Even with the next hit delay on thunder claws and Phoenix strike this build seems to wreck.. now do a tiger strike one and try it with full crushing blow build
Looks fun still Ber less though so can't make the enigma. I'd imagine they could weaken the skill just a little bit how fast can most get to that level? I like to look at things from the solo perspective. Also how does it do in Uber?
How are you running ladder online only mosaics on a character with modded files meant for offline play, like show item level? And you mentioned you have a hacked charm. This is some godly gear, so mosaics are crafted in hero editor or something??
100% percent chance to not use charges is kind of a glitch. It is like 100% resistances or 100% crushing blow. Everything that adds up like this is capped to 75% or 95% so there is no reason for this one to allow 100% chance. But enjoy it as long as it lasts.
It needs to be nerfed. Not into the ground.... I'm fine with it remaining the best spec in the game for season 3. But, I think it needs to be brought down to similar power of Blizz Sorc in S2 which was already crazy strong.
On the flipside: Allowing builds like this to be viable is what set PoE on the course of becoming "run around and blow up the entire screen". It all started with Cast on Crit and Discharge, then it snowballed into the state that it's currently in. I'd rather not have D2R end up like that. You can make a build viable without allowing it to blow up the entire screen.
@@Squatch_11 The issue with Seasons are that you constantly have to add more to change the meta, so the further on seasons go, without actually new zones and content, the more you are either stuck with a game that is boring and always feels the same with no evolving meta, or you end up in a problem like PoE, where seasons upon seasons of new items and/or systems have resulted in absurd amounts of Power Creep. D2 had ladder, but seasons were never even thought of as a way to keep interest in Diablo 2 when it was originally designed. I like to think of D2R as its own "Re-imagining" of D2 in modern era. Thus it feels necessary to me that the game evolves, rather than annoying me.
you can also stack tigerstrike to get just another silly 2000% phys dmg. It may not be much since your boots are probably not made for kicking but will probably still be 1-2k phys dmg on each kick
I guess nothing stopping anyone from doing dedicated kickers. Didn't sound like the boots where critical to the build at all. Not that you'd _need_ it considering the screen is already exploding.
I really hope they don't change this, even if it's just for one season. The assassin has needed some love for awhile -- let it be broken for a bit. Those of us who have played assassins since 2001 will finally feel some vindication.
How do you overcome Inventory management? I just so hate to have to go to town all the time to sell stuff, because I keep hoarding those charms. It puts me off so much, even though I love the game :(
you can start as a trapsin and respec once you can afford to make the claws. trapsin works well as a budget mf char, otherwise you could also farm up some wealth with a sorceress first
So a few notes for those not overly familiar with MA. Fists of Fire will NOT WORK with Cobra Strike. Fists of Fire converts ALL physical to fire damage so you don't get to leech that way. Also Claws of Thunder will NOT STACK with the 2nd charge of Phoenix Strike. Only one will be doing damage due to the Next Hit Delay.
Its a challenging line to walk. If you feel too weak then people get frustrated and quit, if you feel to OP everything feels trivialized, people have fun with it for a bit then get bored and quit.
It's nice that the martial arts assassin has more viability pvm. I'd rather them let her own this patch and nerf next patch like the cold sorc and her reign. I'm probably just going to start barb and rush hustle and see what builds work well.
Yeah, fully agreed. Could you imagine, each character could have a season to reign over. This is the season of the assassin. Maybe next season nerf her and give necromancer a chance to own, like skeletal mages insane power with ability to auto cast skeletal mage from corpses or something.
does Cobra Strikes adds up after you stacked all the other charges ? I can see my assasin stealing mana and live if I use only Cobra strikes but as soon as I stack all the other charges wont steal anymore ,,, even if I cast Cobra as last ... (It's my first time using the assisn so I must do something wrong ;) )
Literally chillin at work listening to this, I took my sunglasses off and immediately after llama says “put your sunglasses on you’re gonna need them” lmao
hi why then I change my boots from Natalya's soul mesh boots to shadow dancer my cobra strike not always gives me life and mana leach? Is it duo to FHR, or kick speed, or I kill too fast? Can you explain? My FHR without Shadow dancer is 0%.
Love the MA-sin, but I kind of wish that they put the new mechanic on the class rather than on a specific runeword because now this is getting closer to diablo 3 where the builds and items are dictating each other. If they would've added it to claw mastery, going up to 50% at a certain level, you could use 1 mosaic and another weapon of choice, now it's just: "playing MA? yepyep, double mosaic or play another build".
And if you play the single player char you cant play that char with a friend it have to be online char and by online char ur mobs will be 1 player only not 8 am i missing smth?
Solution: Mosaic is only preventing to consume 1 Stack per Attack. Therefore you would still be able to keep up 1 skill (Phoenix as an example) and the other stacks would work without Mosaic and be gone after 3 attacks. What do you think?
Without Mosaic it's already like that each finisher hit remove 1 charge. I play MA all the time and the issue is the build up. You build up skills should charge up and use the ability at the same time so the game is about building all charge and rotating to refresh the charges then unleash on bosses. I still love the new Mosaic but it might be too good now I like MA because you cover all immunities and go at a good pace without teleport. Now it might be too fast but I'll enjoy this ladder!
@@7DragonEyes7 Sorry, i think i've expressed myself really bad :D As an example: When you are stacking up 2 different skills (3 stacks/globes of each skill) you need to use 3 Kicks in total to unload both colors, right? And my solution would be: If you are wearing 2x Mosaic the very first stack is gonna decide which skill is going to be "saved" by the new mechanic. When u are beginning to stack Phoenix Strike, this skill should always be unloaded without consuming the stacks until the stacks are running out of time. You could still stack up more than just one skill, but only the very first color is going to be saved by Mosaic and the other colors/spells gonna disappear after using 3 Kicks. Hope this is easier to understand, sorry not a native speaker
@@Njutube Haha yes I get it and I'm also not native (French here) It will be a nightmare to code, I don't know how bad the code is but that would be a hell of a feature to add.
OMG I was thinking about this back in the old days of playing d2, I was craving for a martial artist assassin build that can shred everything with all elements at once...It`s finally real! Too bad i`m not playing this game anymore :(
