Diablo II: Martial Arts Assassin Skill Layout

A martial arts assassin is a melee fighter who relies mostly on charge up skills and kicks to deal damage to their enemies. Along with these they have several utility skills that provide excellent crowd control of monster packs. The skill setup is as follows:

Tiger Strike - 1
Claw Mastery - 1
Dragon Talon - 1
Psychic Hammer - 1
Burst of Speed - 1

At level six Burst of Speed becomes available, which enables the assassin to move and attack at extremely fast speeds. This skill will be the key to this build, as it will allow charge-ups to be obtained in rapid succession and therefore damage dealt to monster packs released with minimal time in between. Only one hard point here is needed as plus skills from equipment will handle the rest of the needed leveling.

Fists of Fire - 1
Dragon Claw - 1
Tiger Strike - 3
Cobra Strike - 1
Weapon Block - 1
Cloak of Shadows - 1

At level twelve to major skills become available; Cobra Strike and Cloak of Shadows. Cobra Strike allows the character to leech mana and life from monsters at extremely high rates, keeping the bulbs full at all times. Cloak of Shadows is the assassin's main crowd control skill, and should be utilized whenever a pack of monsters is encountered. Only one point is desired in both of these skills, as plus skills from equipment will handle the rest of the leveling needs.

Tiger Strike - 5
Claws of Thunder - 1
Dragon Tail - 1
Fade - 1
Shadow Warrior - 1

At level eighteen Shadow Warrior becomes available, which makes an excellent tank. This will allow the character to attack monsters at the edge of the pack for charge-up purposes before unleashing damage into the heart of the monster's formation.

Tiger Strike - 10
Blades of Ice - 1
Dragon Flight - 1

Dragon Flight is used in special circumstances only to teleport the assassin across the field. Extremely handy to escape from trapped positions and provide some breather room to regroup.

Tiger Strike - 14
Phoenix Strike - 1
Shadow Master - 1

At level thirty the ultimate tank becomes available, Shadow Master. The Shadow Master has the ability to cast their own Crowd Control spells, such as Mind Blast and Cloak of Shadows, which makes survivability for the main character exponentially easier. There is also the down side however, Mind Blast will be cast on a monster the main character is attack fairly often and this can lead to some confusing battles.

Tiger Strike - 20
Phoenix Strike - 20
Dragon Tail - 20

At level sixty-eight all of the main skills are maximized and now a decision must be made, which synergy to Phoenix Strike to dump the remaining points into. Since Dragon Tail provides extra fire damage then Fists of Fire is not really a consideration. Either of the two remaining options (cold/lightning) are viable and helpful, however the decision for me was quite easy. I found it extremely difficult to see how many glowing charge-up balls were floating around the character. Either monsters, barrels, trees or spell effects blocked the view of these charge-up indicators, so whenever they were released it was virtually impossible to tell what element was going to be given. Since lightning is the second of three charge-ups it is harder to force this skill to be released as cold, which is the last charge-up. As a result I suggest Blades of Ice as the synergy to increase.

Blades of Ice - 20

At level eighty-three the character is complete. Not many pieces of equipment are requirements for this character, however items with plus skills are extremely helpful due to the scaling factor of the martial arts skills and the need to increase some of the utility skills that receive only one hard skill point. Along with this a high damage set of boots is needed to provide the bulk of the damage from Tiger Strike and Dragon Tail. Goreriders or Shadow Dancers are the best choices for this.