Currently I'm lvl 35 and 2400 Attack rating, my dmg fluctuates given my weapons so not leaving that here.
Simply put:
Left: Soul rend
1-Gaseous blast
2-Ring of Fire
3-Acidic Blight
4-1h or 2h speed (To be replaced on the patch with Cleave augmentation) this cool down is just too slow to be effective.
5-(Ward of choice) Or SMACKDOWN! OR mental prowness.
6-Roo
7-BMI
8-Gym Freak
R:Cleave/HollyRoller

--STATS--
Keep The STR high, Dex to about 3/2 compared to str depending on weapon... as you know.. were constantly getting more as we lvl. Usually nothing in End or Int, leave that to gear bonuses.
--Armor bonuses
#1 Defense rating OR strength
#1 Critical chance OR dex(2handers)
#1 Mana leech
#2 Resist
#3 Health leech if your lacking the Endurance with the armor ya got, but make sure of speed weapons.

Reasons for this build: (Yes i noted the three #1's on purpose)
#1 Where this build fits- ANY
#2 Your Left click is your primary damager anyway, that's obvious. Be sure if you have a choice in the type of dmg included to attacks, include divine because of this.
#3 AOE or AREA OF EFFECT, this is quite obvious.... plenty of fodder monsters out there.
#4 Speed(Roo) is critical to this build dish it out and keep going with your mana leech, and with just a minimal 500 mp at lvl 35 and 2 or 3% mana leech, you'll have no problem keeping your skills going at it with speed 1 handers.
#5 The Poison cloud and Ring of Fire will keep a enemy from the regeneration auto heal at the very least (speaking HDoL)
#6 BMI and Gym freak... you'll need the endurance, if your a game player, you know what i mean by assassin build.
#7 Hybrid #1... AreaOfEffect spells.
#8 The flexability of slot 5 leaves you to include something extra given the situation, so here's the hybrid #2
Mental prowess (1 on 1 (boss) situations where your primary concern is damage (for SoulRend) on left click and hitting that spacebar for heals)
Element of a Ward - if you need to tank of course or your faced with a lot of damage from magic ranged monsters.
SMACKDOWN! & RightClick: Holly Roller- lets you help your group attack those pesky ranged runners use in conjunction with Holly Roller in Right click to keep em on the ground not moving while melee can take care of the rest.
#9 Cleave: YOUR PRIMARY AOE skill, with augmentation coming, even better. at my current lvl its 75% of my current attack with added attack rating, with your critical gear, it does critical to most surrounding you at about the same damage as a normal blow of yours with the skill maxed I believe is 100% but not sure yet. Most boss lackeys you can off with this skill by the time your finished with the boss himself with your other skills going as well.

Notes:
NEVER NEVER, underestimate Acidic Blight... 35% (my current lvl) less armor to enemies is such a help to not only you, but every other melee character in your group, ASK FOR IT when grouping if they have an interchangable slot, which most do. When used and timed correctly insane feels like formidable (and with the the skill your know it is at later levels!)

Mythics I've found very useful: Tormentor, Headsplitter (both 1 handers with everything you need for this build)
The Gavel (2hnder 101% crit chance among 5% mana steal.. handles all your problems)

Well, I guess it's a bit of a spoiler, but I'd rather have two of me out there then just one.

Myself currently how's it going:
I'm currently using Headsplitter with a dagger with 33 agil & 41% crit chance. both combined gives nearly 90%, with other gear, I think about 200% Critical. with the speed of my weapons I"m seeing that near guanteed at green lvl monsters. yellow about 50% and Red about every 2-5 seconds depending on high Armored mobs. My critical(s) are about 2000+ and on both weapons. I do have The Gavel but the speed is so horrendously slow it gimps the character, though the critical is better damage at 4000+. DPS is key here and i'm talking 2000+ every 1/2 second compared to the Gavel's 1.5 second swing. Now, what I do miss is the 5% mana leach from the Gavel, and i'm back to using Mana potions again till I find another peice of mana leech gear, which isn't bad, the most demanding thing of mana is Ring of Fire. but I get away with it with Gaseous Blast carrying the slack, not to mention having longer effect, I might end up replacing ROF with Shadow lighting given better a better mana leech pieces.

If you build one of me, let me know how you like it. I'm proud of my work.

"May the blood spill at your feet and heads roll in your wake" DracMorair - World 1 primarly (for the grouping of course)

looks like a intresting and well thought out build welldone man

August 31st update:
I now have 7% health & 2% mana leech with my pieces of armor. My armor and weapons give almost pure strength and "Respec"ing to 3 str 2 agil 1 end, I put a bit into endurance to keep 5k health, and the rest into agility.
I can solo insane Rotgut at level 40, HDoL I can face quite well if I'm not up against healers. And PVP at my level is awesome!
I've replaced a few skills current build is such i'm a barbarian now, I'm no longer using Ring of Fire, the upgrade made it impossible with my health and my need for speed and the 7% speed sacrifice with mental prowess.
Current:
L:SoulRend
1-Gaseous blast
2-Acidic Blight
3-IceBolt
4-1hnd speed
5-Awsome Cleavage
6-Roo
7-BMI
8-Gym Freak
R:Cleave/HollyRoller

Reasons for it all now:
Left: Primary 1n1 damager
1: Gaseous blast: Cheap AOE to compliment Cleave
2: Acidic blight: right now 40% less armor on mobs and pvp alike.
3: Ice Bolt: Cheap but effective way to slow enemies by 40% for those particuarlly hard hitting mobs or players.
4: 1nd speed: Well, as a speed freak that has the leech i do every 110 seconds isn't a bad trade off for an extra 25% speed.
5: Awesome Cleavage: The patch makes cleave awesome of course. I average the randomesss of the skill about a smack down around me every 5 seconds with the extra damage attached to the original cleave. And the stun last a good 5 seconds giving CRUTIAL time to finish off what your killing, let alone the cooldown for the next cleave.
6-8: basics, speed, HP and and more HP.
R: Cleave (love it!). Holly roller switch if you faced with a lot of fast high powered ranged mobs that you cant get cleave smackdown on.

Your changeable slot.. #3. Ice bolt can be replaced with a Elemental ward of your choice should you need it. Also can put back Ring of Fire if you have enough mana leech.. 2% is nice but not enough. But about lvl 40 you really dont need a Ward with most equipment giving you 100+ in most resistances.

im doing this build for fun hehe let u know what i figure

Thanks, good luck!

Update... #3, Ice bolt (for PVP and 1n1 bosses to slow), replace with Unnerving shout for groups of mobs.

think butcher is my main left at mo cant see soul benefits enough how about u

going for the critical isn't bad but agility can do the same.

One more thing on butcher... its 100% blow at lvl 50 I think... may be worth it for the stun factor 1n1 in PVP. other then that... soul rend for any type of mob... most are shadow mobs anyway.

Updates!Sept 05.
Level 45 now & Given my gear I reshaped to a Arcane destoryer. I had enough leech to make it worth while and now I'm a brutish battlemage.
L: Shadow lighting R: Cleave
1- Ring of fire
2- Acidic blast
3- Swivel Action
4- Bookworm
5- Mental Prowess
6- Gym Freak
7- Way of The Roo
8- Awsome Cleavage

Finally a battlmage with 3500 Health & 4600 MP. Health leech helps with the lower endurance.. if you find yourself dead alot increase endurance and take it out of str or dex.
I can afford the speed loss with Mental prowess because there atleast Freak fast weapons. my damge is 1200 max with my str gear. Defence is at an even 6002. Would like a bit more mana leech with Gavel or Tormentor weaponry but hard to find really so been looking for equips that have the same.
This build is pretty strait forward. AOE damage with passives that make it work. The interchangable is the Swivel action for the speed... at lvl 45 its officially more then 50% of the cool down time which makes it extremely useful. The speed of the build with roo and swivel makes it extremly effective damager.

Side note: I've noticed this thread as its progressed it does have some "options" if you choose to use the skill set in any of them to your own best fit. Enjoy folks.

Notes on the conclusion of this update:
I Tried L:butcher, was good for ranged mobs but couldn't make it effective in Mass ranged mobs so it was gimped. I finally repseced to give me mana and with 2% mana steal and the speed I find that I only need maybe 1 or two mana pots per group in HDoL solo normal lvl 45, making it very efficient. I did try the mana shield lower lvl. I might try later again when i have a MILLION gold to spend on it but I was drained to quick of mana. I may be better at the upgrade with 40% of damage going to mana. I'll let ya know.

Hey Drac, I've been sort of following your first "Templar" build as a guideline for my Figher. I'm currently level 12, and was wondering whether I should use a 1-hander or 2-hander. The reason I ask is because I want to decide now so that I only have to invest gold into one of the Swivel skills. I'm not super rich.

And also, in your first post, you were saying to keep your Dexterity 50% higher than your Strength? Just clarifying. My STR and DEX are about equal right now.

Also, I haven't found any mana leech items yet, so I have to use Bookworm and possibly put a few points into Int to manage. Is that okay for now?

Thanks.

Edited by TheEveningNinja (09/06/07 12:07 AM)

So I just joined the game lvl 12 Fighter, But I kind of want to be like a rogue / Assassin type character after playing a MS warrior on wow I'm just sick of watching a weapon swing in 3 seconds. So I wan't the fast medium to high dmg swings.

All in all I just created the new character I kind of would like a basic display of information about how to create an Assassin, not to much detail a basic retard explantion.

Yeah think you got it and the stat respec I like to keep given new items all the time is 3st 2 dex and 1 int. And take from them for endurance if you really need it, depends on the gear you want to wear as a battle mage. warrior or mage. I do warrior for defense and usually leech comes with that.

I'm back by popular demand. I'm back after 2 months on hiatus. Time to update my thread.

Level 55 now
Using Tormentor and Shazam as my armor the rest of my gear is centered around critical hit & shadow damage.
Tormentor gives 3% mana leech.
10k Health & Mana through my stats. about 2500 Attack rating
Left: Soul Rend (4000 dmg)Right: Shadow Lighting 2300 x 5
1: Ring of Fire
2: Gas Blast
3: Mana shield
4: Roo (Chunk #2 giving me 100% more Attack rating as well)
5: Gym Freak
6: BookWorm
7: Mental Prowess
8: Improved Shadow Lighting

AFter my hiatus and the somewhat minor patches. It totally changed how I played. Soul Rend 4000 dmg is very nice. Mana shield works if you keep a balance between 2 parts HP and 3 Parts MP. Less HP if you have better armor. But I have about 65% Melee reflection gear which is really fun and the extra bonus I get to my shadow lighting through intelligence and mage gear helps. I've did go complete mage in this trial here but couldn't survive long enough and my melee damage and gear was totally ignored in HDOL so I balanced my breast plate, weapons & jewlry for my magic gear and left the rest for melee. I abandoned Cleave because one Rend does so much more dmg for 1n1 & I dont have to keep cleave augmentation in my skill bar if I want the enemies to hit me with melee dmg reflect gear. This also lets me wear benificial mage gear so I take more dmg = more dmg to enemy... took some heavy tweaking on my part to survive anything and give back 2500 dmg with the shadow queen hitting me for 5000.

At this point I'm looking for new gear as always. Again Area of Effect being the main thing here. keeping just 4 actives helps. If I found some decent Rainbow one handers I'd probably switch up a bit, but not much. Though I'm currently looking for another Tormentor or The Gavel. Till we meet again folks! Feel free to leave suggestions or have me try out something... I've been thinking about using the RB weapon Demon Sniper for a ranger mage build... but I think range is cowardly hehe. Though basicly your top RB weapons are tormentor/Gavel/DemonSniper and any gear that gives mana leech (JUST mana leech with the mana shield Shadow damage, divine damage, Critical hit, and my stats:
Final epeced stats:
300 Int (For skill damage)
250 End (Could afford less to boost Strength if I didn't have melee dmg reflect )
225 agi (Because you cant Soul rend if you cant hit the target)
100 str gives 4150 Defence and I hit 1k max both weapons at .53 & .43. Critical hits around 2500 and about 1 every second.

Drac, I'm interested to try the mage/fighter hybrid.

I'm level 30 and an all fighter (STR) and fighter gear character. Any suggestions on what type of gear to try and gather before looking at the cost of a) respeccing and b) training up the necessary (and assumed expensive) mage skills necessary?

Also, any suggestions on basic play style for a newb at this hybrid at my level?

Thanks!

First the term is BattleMage.
Second, retraining isn't hard on the pocketbook till your lvl 40.
Third and answer to all your questions... Read through all the post try them out, theres tips throughout them all.

I have read through, albeit quickly, the posts. What I was hoping you'd care to share is what you've learned. Your specs/skills/gear seem to have changed pretty dramatically from what you were doing when you were my level (30), so looking back are there things you'd do differently?

Actually no, this game is all about finding new equipment and working around it rather then dismissing it. Trial and Error gives another aspect to this game that gives, rather then takes from the game. You level up pretty quickly too which always leaves you looking for new gear. Around lvl 30 -40 I was constantly killing the Ice Chieftan for the set of gear I wanted till I outgrew him completely. Then moved on to Rotgut then HDOL. Only thing I really regret is a hole in the game... HDoL hold more apeal to me then Muntant Mez or Shadow Queeen.... the only reason I go there is to level up & complete quest for king coins for this upcoming chunk and mythic vendors.
So tip to you all with this reply; find what works, I'm just giving you some basic strategies on how to do just that.

Got very lucky in the past few lvls I felt obligated to give you my build way early for these couple of items. Not to mention a prime example of item/skill working based around weapons, this bubble gum build is easy to work with.

Got all of these same day:

Axi om
Primaries: ... 71% critical & 61% Ranged reflect, 2% divine dmg and 2% Slash dmg.
Sl ayer
Primaries: 449 health 289 Attack rating, 4% melee dmg
Supplementary gear for my BMage: 3% Mana & Health Leech, 66% critical. Jewlry: 41% Melee and my 2 other rainbow pieces give blend of differnt stats and a 4% shadow dmg among other things of course.
L: Soul Rend (4000 dmg)
R: Shadow Lighting (2500 dmg x 5)
1: Cleave (3000 x 8) Cheep AoE vs ROF)
2: Gas Blast (3600 x 12)
3: Acid Blight (50% less defense on enemy 6/10)
4: Blue Screen of Life
5: 1h Swivel Action (if Miss alot go melee mastery but..)
6: Way of the Roo (35% speed at current rank... Chunk#2 giving this 100% more attack rating as well)
7: Book Worm
8: Mental Prowess.

Style is in the the title; Venom BattleMage. 3 AOE skill and plenty of 1n1 hitting power( weapons make this very easy.)
Total stats:
194 str
122 dex
225 end
360 int
Defense: 6591
2151 Attack Rating
Weapons break down:
293 1432 .50
556 1667 .67

Oh and if your wondering about my damage per second.. let see 1 second for each skill. Averaging total all skills if used is about 100,000 dealt out in all surrounding enemies over 5 seconds. Acidic blast included as one second. Most of it healed with that rapid [censored] HDoL regeneration. Though do the math if you don't believe me.

And finally check out my new thread:
Player guide for beginner and expert



Edited by DracMorair7 (12/08/07 01:22 AM)

Found I was spamming man pots to much, switched the Slayer back to Tormentor. Giving 6% mana leech a bit more critical addition, rather have critical hits Damage/Sec then the extra slash damage from the Axiom.

Is this something you are still actively working on? Looks good, going to try to follow best I can. Looked your character up, looks like you made some changes.