A gold find and magic find Tiger Strike assassin build focused on Travincal farming.
Intro
Hi there,
This is the only guide to the gf/mf tiger-sin for a reason: this isn’t better than a gf/mf barbarian. Therefore, you might be better off reading a barb guide.
Still here? Ok, I see I’ve met someone I’ll like!
I tried this because I love running travincal, but playing barb was getting repetitive, so I wanted to try something new.
Why Tiger Strike?
It is good if you’re broke
Very high %ed on skill, meaning you don’t need a lot of ed on gear
It is easy to rich a good attack speed breakpoint
It isn’t something we usually play
It doesn’t require lvl 40ish skill level to work (hi elemental builds)
Viability
Can I level as this build: Yes, but it is pretty slow compared to WoF.
Early Ladder Viable: Yes, pretty cheap gear honestly.
End Game Solo Viable: Not with this build, that is too slow. I sometimes do fortified t1s though, but that’s not optimal.
End Game Group Viable: Not tested.
Hardcore Viable: Not tested.
Uber Trist Viable: Probably not.
Uber Diablo Clone Viable: Probably not.
Then what? Travincal
What does the char look like
Here’s my armory.
What we have here is a cheap, torchless, skillerless character. It clears travincal in seconds and never dies, with ~280mf and ~500gf.
I’ll recap my gear here, because I might become rich one day and you’d start thinking it is required somehow :p
Character
CoT (cold resist corrupted)
High end metalgrid (no corr)
Bartuc (not corrupted)
Jade (not corrupted)
Chance guards (corrupted for gf)
IK belt (corrupted for gf)
War Traveler (corrupted for gf)
Raven frost (corrupted for gf)
Rare ring with dual leech and resists (corrupted for gf)
2 martial arts skillers
Bunch of max/ar charms
Bunch of gf charms
Bunch of mf charms
Bunch of resist charms
Mercenary (Act 5 BO)
Lawbringer eth legend sword
Blackhorn (1 socket)
Duriel shell (max fire res corrupted)
Loh
Rare belt
Infernostride
That’s it. And I’m already far too strong to farm trav comfortably.
Skills
Max Tiger Strike (20 points, no synergy)
Get Dragon Flight unless gear has it (4 pts)
Max Claw and Dagger Mastery
Max Shadow Master
~10pts in BoS
~10pts in Weapon Block
You could run a Venom setup too, it works, but I wanted to go physical :)
Gear
Helm
CoT (best imo)
Gaze
Guillaume
Amulet
Metalgrid
Cat’s eye
Angelic
Weapon
Stalker (BiS imo)
Bartuc (cheap)
Rare/craft
Weapon 2
Jade (resists are nice)
Mage Slayer
Maybe even a shield can work, like Head Hunter’s Glory
Gloves
Chanceguards
M’avina for the CBF early
Anything strong if you’re still struggling (ex: I ran Martial arts/gf gloves earlier, then bartuc, then switched to Chance)
Belt
IK is surprisingly strong if you need resists
Goldwrap obviously
Rare/crafted ones can be good too
Boots
Infernostride
War Traveler
Rings
Angelic ring (if amulet)
Raven (very strong)
Rare/crafted dual leech ring, ideally with max/ar
Charms
Max/Ar
Martial arts skillers work (but I’d rather have flat max/ar)
Resists
gf/mf obviously
You don’t need a torch really
Merc Gear
Get something that breaks physical immunities if you can, unless you have an amp claw instead of bartuc/stalker.
Get bonuses to max resists so your merc doesn’t die from fire and light damage.
That’s it.
Example:
Lawbringer/Gravel of pain (anything with amp)/Death Cleaver/Ethereal Edge
Blackhorn
Duriel shell
Lava
IK belt or String
Infernostride
Sazabi’s set can be pretty good too.
Playstyle
Cast BoS to run through act 3 town as fast as possible.
Get BO from merc.
DFlight into the first council member you see. Kill struff.
DFlight into the backline. Kill stuff.
Grab gold and gear. You can save time using Naj staff on switch if you’re lazy.
Purchase orbs or gamble.
Where should I farm before I can clear Hell Travi?
Good question. I don’t know if that’s optimal or not, but I went:
Nightmare Travi
Pindle + Eldritch (Shenk was too hard, I decided to skip it)
Hell Travi
From my experience, the Bartuc/Jade combo was a huge improvement, so I’d probably start with those alongside Raven Frost and ar gear.