INTRODUCTION
During the Expansion beta, I spent most of the final week or so (when I was playing at all) on a pure-traps assassin. I got to check out all the traps thoroughly except for Blade Shield. The traps asn (ASN = short for Assassin, henceforth) was a lot of fun, a ranged alternative to the sorceress. In fact, the Druid and Asn were built the way the Sorceress SHOULD have been: grouped by skill TYPE, not element. Both the Druid and Assassin are fighter-mage hybrid classes, and can lean either way if you choose to specialize. The druid's spells are fire, physical, and cold, with melee elemental skills with poison and fire. The asn's spells are fire, physical, and lightning, plus the special skills of Psychic Hammer and Mind Blast. Her melee options include all the elements.
The traps assassin is a mage-specialist from a fighter-mage class. She is all mage, to put it bluntly. Yet her passive options set her apart from the sorceress. She has a teleport-as-attack option, but it only works if there is a valid target, so you can't use that for magely maneuvering. There's no energy shield, warmth, or telekinesis, no elemental masteries, but there are options like Burst of Speed and Fade, and there is a minion available, with your choice of stick-shift and automatic models. (The Shadow Warrior casts the skills you have active, while the Master runs her own show and can even employ skills you don't have).
During the beta, I specialized in Blade Sentinel, then backed it with Lightning Sentry and Wake of Inferno. I used nothing but Traps Tree skills, played entirely alone (single player style), and did not use any mercenaries. Blade Sentinel was a lot of fun, but sadly it is too weak to be considered anything but variant material. I may revisit that skill someday, but for my new asn, it would be Blade Fury for her physical option.
I have read on the Lurker Lounge that Blade Shield employs your claw weapon, acting as reflective attacks on opponents who strike at you, or perhaps even those who just get too close. If true, that skill may not be the waste that it looks like at first glance, but even if so, it would only be suitable as support for a martial artist, as a traps-only asn will be built like a mage with high energy and low or no dex, and she won't likely have any claws worth considering for this skill.
Fire Blast is a good level one skill: fun for an underpowered character. Same with Sentinel. Shock Web suffers from the lack of updates to enemy health bars, due to changes made to reduce bandwidth on Realms and Open Multiplayer. That that affects single player too is unfortunate. Shock Web is variant material: the skill itself looks OK, if weak, but it's hard as Hell to see what you are doing with it, so it looks suckier than it is. Charged Bolt Sentry is also weak. In fact, I think it's a little too weak for a level 12 skill. I'd like to see the number of bolts it fires increase with skill levels. Wake of Fire is weak, but it firest SO QUICKLY and over a wide area, that a stack of five traps can do a lot for you and works out better in-game than you'd expect on paper. In fact, this skill is strong enough that you can use slvl 1 (and lots of mana) to carry you through all the way to clvl 24 and stronger traps, if you like. An asn specializing in Charged Bolt Sentry and Wake of Fire might be good for some extra challenge.
Venus Fly is no variant. I'm playing her to become the most effective Traps Assassin I can make in single player. Thus, I'm going for what I see is the strongest build: prereqs only for the first half of the tree, skip Blade Shield entirely, and work the other four skills. No passives, no minion, no support at first, and no merc after Normal Difficulty (I'll use one there to level more quickly, instead of suffering through the lean times with all slvl 1 skills). I may eventually get some modest Burst of Speed and/or Fade, particularly if I end up with +skills to all instead of +traps. Lightning Sentry and Wake of Inferno will be used for STRONG attacks in two elements, with support from Blade Fury and a modest Death Sentry, for physical attacks. Blade Fury might be a viable primary alternative, if not for the global physical resist in Hell, leaving no foes against which the skill would be fully effective. So it goes.
One Pass Full Clear, straight to the end, if I can manage it. She'll be parked at the end of Act Four in Normal, awaiting patch 1.09 to fix dire problems with the item economy, before proceeding. (All my new characters will be put on hold at that point, pending the 1.09 patch).
I have already played some with Venus Fly, and already learned some interesting bits. The first installment of her adventures is coming soon.
- Sirian
| Venus Fly's Page | Normal Difficulty | Expansion Page |