Interesting Assassin Fanaticism Strat

[Fandraxx]

Hey everybody,

I've been playing Belzebub on and off for about a month now and building up an assassin. While I tend to agree with other posters that the class needs some help (Translation: it sucks), I've recently discovered a pretty helpful strategy involving Fanaticism and the Maiden's Broach.

Currently at level 30 with a mana of 161, the cost of Fanaticism (4.6 mana), is offset by the mana restored on hit from the Maiden's Broach (around 4.8 mana, based on some really rough math). Basically, you get to use the skill for free as long as you have enough mana to originally cast it (and don't miss). So, if you can match the percentage of mana restored by the broach as you level up and the increasing cost of Fanaticism, then the skill essentially becomes your new basic attack.

Honestly, it doesn't make the class all that much better, but running around with 7 or 8 stacks is better than not having any at all. Sorry if something like this has been discussed already, but I've seen some posts about people scratching their heads about this class, and just thought it wouldn't hurt to share.

[Ugily]

Treat the Assassin as a murder frenzy until you have to retreat from a boss. Throw out stuns and attack with frenzy with the fastest weapon you can find. Health and mana leach are your friend until you can build critical damage bonuses.

Run when you have to and come back to stealth attack.

[Fastynator]

The idea with turning fanaticism into a base attack with mana steal sounds very promissing. However, it sounds more like material for later in the game like Hell difficulty or Nightmare's Terror Domain where high tier equipment can drop and are enhanced even more by stronger magcal attribute effects.

I have an Assassin at Level 33 and I honestly didn't find much use for the 'Fanaticism' skill this early in the game. It's more a mana waste for regular enemies, while bosses killed me and my Golem too fast before 'Fanaticism' reached its full potential.

About the 'Assassin sucks' argumentation:
I got all melee classes (Assassin , Warrior , Barbarian) into late Nightmare and one thing became clear: As paradoxically as it sounds, the early Lvl 30's / Nightmare difficulty is the phase of the game that is dominated by spells. Assassin was the easiest and most fun to play as out the three since a fast casting speed combined with a Lvl 12+ Lightning takes care of almost everything for you. Stealth + Teleport worked in case of elemental immunities. Thanks to Hit and Run, the Assassin defeated bosses both Warrior and especially Barbarian currently are not capable of.
So I disagree with the opinion of the Assassin being bad, at least for Normal and Nightmare difficulty.

[Kahoder]

Sorry, I am playing Belzebub for a while and was lurking the forums. I felt like answering this particuliar post

Yes, the strategy works. I was also initially confused on how to play her, even considered playing her unarmed (Her kick is roughly "fast attack speed" )

I started her fresh, enough strenght for gear, everything else in dexterity, a few points in vitality. Maiden's broach and bramble ring dropped. With King's leoric crown that's 12% life leech and 4% mana leech. My assassin is level 28 with 10 stacks of fanaticism.

As long as she keeps hitting there is enough leech to survive, and fanaticism makes the leech even more potent.

[Fastynator]

Fanaticism grants a benefit of 10% more damage per stack - a relative increase -> Effectiveness increases with higher base damage numbers. So in theory, the ultimate destructive force can be found there when combined with high life and mana steal numbers.

The only problem I see with this method in early game is getting there in the first place. In Nightmare difficulty, every enemy hits you like a truck - somewhere between 100 and 300 HP damage; uniques and bosses even more. So after getting about two stacks (my personal record was five stacks) against anything that is not a lone regular enemy, it is hit recovery stun lock + game over in an eye blink for me.

You need either good defences or high attack damage with even higher attack speed to survive the process of reaching the highest stack number. But none of the equipment I have found in Nightmare is able to cover that, resulting in a big no for melee combat on Nightmare difficulty unless stealth attacks are used.
Should I ever come back to this game, I hope there is equipment in Hell dfficulty to address this issue.

[Kahoder]

To be honest I died a lot trying to figure her out, I still do sometimes.
She's a high risk high reward character in a sense. Sometimes it's just a change of tactics and enemy prioritization that does the trick. Stun lock them before they do.

Her only real downside besides low health is to have your only dexterity based melee character, where dexterity increases AC/Damage/To hit/Critical Chance/Block chance, not viable with a shield as it drops damage Her block speed is also slower than the warrior. Yes, stun lock galore. Ironically, she is better with two hand swords with + X% increased attack speed and Narcosis + Dragon Flight + Maleficient strike gives the best damage increase. She has good tools to take initiative.

[SPAZZ]

I have been building up my Assassin for months now and i am presently at 49 and it will prob take me a month to get to 50 so i can weild the duel set items gear (Viz)...i cannot beat Diablo in Hell with the gear i have' even getting the Max stacks out of it..i hope the (Viz Set) helps me along

[SkyrosX2]

You guys are heros for playing Assassin in this mod...............