GF/MF Tiger Strike Assassin Guide

A gold find and magic find Tiger Strike assassin build, focused on Travincal farming.

Intro

Hi there,

There’s a reason this is the only guide for a GF/MF Tiger Strike Assassin: it simply isn’t better than a GF/MF Barbarian. If that’s what you’re after, you might be better off reading a Barb guide. Still here? Nice — I think I’ve met someone I’ll like!

I tried this build because I love running Travincal, but Barbarian had started to feel repetitive, so I wanted to try something new.

This guide can also lead you to play Tiger Strike in maps. It’s not the best mapper out there, but it gets the job done, and it’s a different way to enjoy the game.

Why Tiger Strike?

• It’s great if you’re on a budget
  • Very high %ed on the skill, so you don’t need a lot of ed on gear
  • It’s easy to reach a good attack speed breakpoint
• It’s not something we usually play
• It doesn’t need a crazy high skill investment to work (hi elemental builds)

Viability

• Can I level as this build: Yes, but it’s pretty slow compared to WoF.
• Early Ladder Viable: Yes, the gear is pretty cheap honestly.
• End Game Solo Viable: Not with this build — it’s 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

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 for Travincal)
• Gaze (best for mapping)
• Guillaume

Armour

• Black Hades (free slots = free mf)
• The Gladiator’s Bane
• Wraithskin (curse resistance is surprisingly useful)
• Guardian Angel (strong defensive option, but expensive)
• Goldskin (strong early game option)
• Shaftstop (strong defensive option)

Amulet

• Metalgrid
• Cat’s eye
• Angelic

Weapon

• Stalker (BiS imo)
• Bartuc (cheap)
• Rare/craft (potentially BiS)
• Natalya’s claw (only if you decide to play the whole set, which is pretty strong)

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. Stack max resists so your merc doesn’t get deleted by fire and lightning 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 blast through act 3 town as fast as possible.
• Get BO from your merc.
• DFlight into the first council member you see. Take them down.
• DFlight into the backline. Take out the rest.
• Grab gold and gear. If you’re feeling lazy, you can save time by using Naj staff on switch.
• Buy orbs or gamble.

Where should I farm before I can clear Hell Travi?

Good question. I’m not sure if this is the most optimal route, 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.

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 barely ever dies, with ~280mf and ~500gf.

I’ll recap my gear here, because I might become rich one day and you’d start thinking it’s required somehow :p

• Character
  • CoT (cold resist corrupted)
  • Black Hades
  • 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. I’m already way too strong to farm Trav comfortably.

Patch notes

S13 Changes

Tiger Strike : melee splash bonus now only applies to Tiger Strike itself

This mostly affects WW-sins, because for us, Tiger Strike was always the goal, not just a tool.

Wraithskin : +25% deadly strike multiplier

This makes it more appealing if you take the DS route, probably using Stalkers.

CoT : life steal increased

A nice simple buff.

Guardian angel : more +skills, less AR

Mostly a good change for us, but the item might be a bit harder to find now.

Soul Drainer : -1%

A welcome nerf, I’m glad the team listened to us (or someone else who agrees).

All sources of critical strike now have a 2x damage multiplier (increased from 1.5x)

Massive buff. This makes 3rd hits potentially massive.

Gladiator’s Bane : +2 to Critical Strike (o-skill) replaced with +8-12% chance of critical strike

In the past, we gained a lot more %chance (since the oskill benefited from all +skills), but the x2 means gaining 12% (reaching ~25% total) is huge. Wearing this armour means gaining around 10% damage overall, which is huge, about the same as 200% ed (since Tiger Strike + Mastery gives a lot of %ed already).

Ciao

Cheers.

Zagdem