Fire Blast Assassin Guide

Fire Blast* is the primary Damage Skill of this build. It deals Fire Damage in an area around the projectile when it lands.

Lightning Sentry* is the secondary Damage Skill of this build. The Assassin lays 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.

Death Sentry* complements the damage of Fire Blast by using Corpse Explosion, which causes nearby corpses to explode and deal Fire and Physical Damage.

* Increased Attack Speed Skills (IAS)

Burst of Speed* provides a massive movement speed and Attack Speed buff. This increases your mobility and the rate you lay Traps.

Mindblast* stuns enemies in a small square 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 Defense.

Shadow Master* randomly uses Skills (even those unallocated by your Character) from the Assassin's Skill Tree. Warning: The Shadow Master shares your limit of 5 active Traps and can replace your own traps with weaker ones.

Teleport* relocates you to any available space at your cursor, crossing over any gaps or walls. It can be used to travel long distances quickly and reposition during combat.

* Faster Cast Rate Skills (FCR)

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) Claws are used for dual wielding. Using fade to cap out your Resistances requires you to add 2 Shael Runes to reach the highest Trap laying speed.

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 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.

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. 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

• Buff yourself with Burst of Speed at the start of your farming runs and summon your Shadow Warrior or Shadow Master if you opted into them.

Elite Hunting

• Get to your farming location and start looking for Elite Groups. Target the boss with Fire Blast and see them evaporate. Rinse and repeat until you have killed all Elite Groups in the area.
• Use Cloak of Shadows against high damage ranged enemies to render them harmless.
• Convert/Stun fast melee enemies with Mind Blast before they overwhelm you. Snipe the Boss with Fire Blast and continue to the next pack.

Density Farming

• Use Death Sentry for supplemental damage. This Skill causes collateral damage to enemies, increasing the item drops. They are especially powerful in high density areas like The Secret Cow Level.

Immunities

• Immunities should not be a problem for this build in general. Infinity breaks most of them in the recommended farming locations. Use Lightning Sentry against any remaining Immune to Fire boss monster. Position the Mercenary close to your targets to apply Conviction Aura.
• Bosses which are Immune to Fire and Immune to Lightning can be killed by the Corpse Explosion of your Death Sentry or by your Mercenary. Prioritize killing the minions, to create bodies for your Trap to target.
• Immune to Fire monsters are reduced to 95% Fire Resist when using Flame Rift. Compined with sources of -x% Enemy Fire Resistance you can get past all of them.

Late-Game

• Cast Battle Command twice and Battle Orders in your Weapon Swap before engaging in combat. Refresh these buffs as soon as they run out.
• Use Teleport to quickly get from place to place.

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 102% 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.

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery is not required for survivability in this build, but early breakpoints can be utilized.

Faster Block Rate (FBR)

Faster Block Rate (FBR) increases survivability. Aim for at least the 32% FBR Breakpoint on Hardcore.

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 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

• Allocate enough Dexterity to reach 75% Chance to Block.

Skill Point Changes

• A Skill Point into Shadow Warrior / Shadow Master adds a meat shield to protect your Fire Blast Assassin.

Item Changes

• We only switch the Shield from Phoenix Monarch to Stormshield Monarch for % Damage Reduction and Chance to Block.

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.