Dragon Tail Assassin Build Skills for Diablo 2 Resurrected

1. 1 point to all prerequisites
2. 20 points to Dragon Tail — Main Damage Skill/Finisher, required
3. 20 points to Tiger Strike — Charge Up Skill, required
4. 20 points to Cobra Strike — Charge Up Skill, required
5. 20 points to Blades of Ice — Charge Up Skill, required
6. 1 point to Dragon Flight — Useful for teleporting and repositioning Mercenary, required
7. 1 point to Cloak of Shadows — Useful for crowd control, required
8. 1 point to Mind Blast — Useful for crowd control, required
9. 1 point to Burst of Speed — Buffs movement and attack speed, required
10. 1 point to Fade — Buffs damage reduction and Resistances, required
11. 1 point to Weapon Block — If running two claws, make sure to place a single point into this skill, optional

Tiger Strike and all of the previous Charge-up Skills now only use a single charge per Finisher move, creating a lot more damage for this build overall and a unique playstyle where the Player gets to decide if they wish to burn all Charges at once or only one at a time before rebuilding back to maximum Charges. With Mosaic no Charge gets consumed allowing for the player to continue through areas without stopping.

Dragon Tail is the finisher of choice for its explosive kick with added Fire Damage. For single target damage on monsters the Crushing Blow and Physical Damage from the build helps take care of large HP pools.

The following section discusses how many attribute points should be allocated to each of the primary stats.

Enough for gear — For a Martial Arts Assassin using a Spirit or Phoenix Monarch, this will be 156 Strength as that is usually the highest Strength requirement for commonly used gear. If choosing to use another shield or claws with lower Strength requirements, then just adjust your Strength to that value. This number always changes based on the gear you are using, though, so make sure to always double check the requirements for each piece of gear you have as well as how much Strength each piece will provide once equipped.

Enough for Gear — Dexterity is great for increasing Block Chance, but if you are not planning on investing points to max that out, it is often not worth taking any additional Dexterity, as the return on Attack Rating and Defense is very low.

Everything else into Vitality — 250+ Vitality. Every excess attribute point should be allocated to Vitality, as long as you can meet the Strength requirements of your items by the time you wish to equip them. If trying to achieve maximum chance to block, you can allocate your attribute points to a mix of Vitality and Dexterity while leveling to maximise your survivability. An approximate 5:3 ratio of Vitality to Dexterity should keep both your Life and chance to blockat a reasonable level until you reach your Dexterity target.

Nothing — Allocating attribute points to Energy in a final build is universally considered sub-par for almost every character due to the widespread availability of Mana Potions. While leveling, if you find yourself struggling with Mana you can allocate a few points to Energy that you can then remove with a respec later on.