Dragon Talon Assassin (Kicksin) Build Skills for Diablo 2 Resurrected

1. 1 point to all prerequisites
2. 20 points to Dragon Talon — Main single-target damage skill, required
3. 20 points to Venom — Big Damage boost, required
4. 1 point to Dragon Flight — Useful for teleporting and repositioning Mercenary, required
5. 1 point to Cloak of Shadows — Useful for crowd control, required
6. 1 point to Mind Blast — Useful for crowd control, required
7. 1 point to Burst of Speed — Buffs movement and attack speed, required
8. 1 point to Fade — Buffs damage reduction and Resistances, required
9. 1+ points to Shadow Warrior — Choose this or Master depending which you prefer; Warrior is better for utility, Master is better for tanking, optional
10. 1+ points to Shadow Master — Choose this or Warrior depending which you prefer, optional
11. 20 points to Death Sentry — Useful for blowing up corpses to prevent them from being revived, optional
12. 20 points to Lightning Sentry — High alternative damage source, optional
13. 1+ points to Charged Bolt Sentry — Synergy for Lightning Sentry and Death Sentry, optional
14. 1+ points to Shock Web — Synergy for Lightning Sentry and Death Sentry, optional
15. 1+ points to Fire Blast — Synergy for Death Sentry, optional

The Kicksin as a hybrid build has a similar playstyle to the Whirlwind Assassin build. If standing behind your Traps and waiting for them to kill things sounds a little boring, you can take up some engage skills with her Martial Arts tree while your Traps do work.

The preferred Martial Arts skill with a hybrid Trapper playstyle would be Dragon Talon. With a good set of high Damage boots (Upped Gore Rider being best-in-slot), some Enhanced Damage, and sufficient Attack Rating, you will be able to solo out individual monsters pretty well with Dragon Talon while your Traps work on dealing area-of-effect Damage. If you do intend to get up into monsters' faces, Cannot Be Frozen is a must-have attribute since her attacks are dependent upon Increased Attack Speed.

The best part about a Kicksin is she is a one-point-wonder for Uberkilling. Similar to the Smiter, though not as easy, with the right gear pieces, she can take on Ubers solo. Dragon Talon is a multi-hit skill of a very quick speed. This allows a constant sustain from Life Tap. With high level Fade, she maintains good sustainability against Ubers. If you do Uber with her, be mindful of Baal. His Minions will steal your Mana, which takes away your ability to sustain from Life Tap. Azurewrath is a good item swap solution against Baal if you do not want to deal with the Mana burn monsters.

As for typical farming play, her playstyle is as simple as casting Traps near monsters. Once you have played all 5, you go in and engage with your Martial Arts skills. You can use your Shadow Discipline Skills to provide yourself safety while doing so.

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

Enough for gear — For a Kicksin using a Spirit Monarch or Stormshield, 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. If you wish to maximise your chance to block, it is possible with Stormshield, but will require over 150 Dexterity total, which you can in your Character Sheet.

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.