Melee - Phoenix Striker ver. 1.0 - Part 1 - Phoenix-Hawk




Introduction:
While she fights in melee range this is still a skill based character so play her like a melee character but for gear you'd need to mix both the typical skill based characters need of +skill items with melee characters need for speed and protection. There are a number of ways to go with these types of builds depending on what you want to do and what gear you have at your disposal then as different charges have different effect you'll need to get the hang of getting charged to the one you want.



Skills: (110 points)

The Shadow Discipline and Trap skill placements would work around the same area for each build, what really differs each time is the Martial Arts skill placement. Now if you play alone much the trap skills, Death Sentry in particular, would be quite helpful then as for Blade Fury while you could use actual points to get it as these builds tend to be short on skill points and you would only use it now and then I would advise making a Blade Fury set instead which will be discussed later. If you always play in groups though you can skip all the trap skills if you like as your elemental attack skills all can do damage over an area and others in your group may be able to make more use of the corpses.


Shadow Disciplines:
10-20 Claw Mastery
1-3 Burst of Speed
1-5 Weapon Block
1-5 Fade
1-20 Venom
5-10 Shadow Master
1 in the rest


Traps:
0 or 1 Blade Fury
0 or 1 Blade Sentinel
0 or 1 Wake of Fire
0 or 1 Death Sentry
0 or 1 in each of the 4 prerequisite skills



Martial Arts: (Fire & Lightning variant E)
20 Phoenix Strike
20 Fists of Fire
20 Claws of Thunder
1 in the rest

A standard build type, here all your damage is elemental so an item with Lower Resist charges in your second weapon set would be a big help especially when dealing with critters with high fire and lighting resistance. You don't have to be too cautious of charging up here either most of the time as if you make a mistake and charge up too many or one less than you wanted it usually will not be too much of a problem.



Martial Arts: (Fire & Poison variant E)
20 Phoenix Strike
20 Fists of Fire
1 in the rest

You can always stick at least one point into Venom to add to your damage but here you'll be focusing on it more so you'd need to max it. Now it will be fairly easy to just hit that first charge a fire and poison mix is not that great.



Martial Arts: (Lightning & Poison variant E)
20 Phoenix Strike
20 Claws of Thunder
1 in the rest

Harder to manage than the fire and poison mix but will generally be more effective more often. On the down side most of the critters with dual immunities are immune to both poison and lightning. So while most of the time it would be more useful than fire and poison sometimes you'll be pretty much useless.



Martial Arts: (Fire, Lightning & Cold variant E)
20 Phoenix Strike
20 Fists of Fire
20 Claws of Thunder
15-20 Blades of Ice
1 in the rest

The third charge does not do too much damage per ice bolt and you can never be sure if you'll get too many or even any hits on those out a ways from you. Then as far as three damage type mixes go this one is as bad as it gets. If you go this route you will most certainly want an item with Lower Resist charges available to you and then since you're boosting four skills in this skill tree that means you'd need to trim a lot from the other skill trees.



Martial Arts: (Fire & Physical variant K)
20 Phoenix Strike
20 Fists of Fire
20 Dragon Talon
1 in the rest

Here you can either put out some good fire damage or if they are highly resistant to immune to fire kick them with Dragon Talon. A fire and physical damage mix will have about half as many types of critters highly resistant to immune than fire and lighting mix would and getting just that one charge is not too hard. The down side is that you need a good bit of strength to get your kicks doing more damage and to wear better boots, this will be discussed later.



Martial Arts: (Lighting & Physical variant K)
20 Phoenix Strike
20 Claws of Thunder
20 Dragon Talon
1 in the rest

A lightning physical mix is generally even better than a fire physical mix but it's harder to get just two charges so you'd need to be adept at charging to pull this off well.



Martial Arts: (Fire, Lightning & Physical variant K)
20 Phoenix Strike
15-20 Fists of Fire
15-20 Claws of Thunder
20 Dragon Talon
1 in the rest

As far as three damage type mixes go this would be the best one that does not include magic damage so you'd have little problems with resistances and immunities. On the down side with four skills in this tree being boosted that will not leave a lot of points for other skill trees.



Martial Arts: (Fire & Physical variant C)
20 Phoenix Strike
20 Fists of Fire
20 Dragon Claw
1 in the rest

This would be like the type K variant but you'll be using a claw attack for physical damage rather than a kick, the benefits and draw backs of both options will be discussed later.



Martial Arts: (Lightning & Physical variant C)
20 Phoenix Strike
20 Claws of Thunder
20 Dragon Claw
1 in the rest

Again the same as variant K but using a claw attack rather than a kick for physical damage.



Martial Arts: (Fire Lightning & Physical variant C)
20 Phoenix Strike
15-20 Fists of Fire
15-20 Claws of Thunder
20 Dragon Claw
1 in the rest

This type is very hard to pull off well due to the limited skill points you have at your disposal. If you do this and max out Firsts of Fire and Claws of Thunder you would have to skip out on the traps and Shadow Master, should always play in groups and can only put four points into Shadow Discipline skills other than the 20 in Claw Mastery or would need to skimp on Claw Mastery some. If you reduce the number of points going to Firsts of Fire and Claws of Thunder you'll have an easier time with skill point placement and could use her in solo games more easily but it still will not be an easy build to make.



Martial Arts: (Fire & Physical variant T)
20 Phoenix Strike
20 Fists of Fire
20 Tiger Strike
1 in the rest

This would more for a claw and shield build but with this you'll need to charge then release for the physical damage while with the K and C variants you wouldn't. For claw damage skills Dragon Claw would generally be better in standard fights while Tiger Strike just comes in handy for the targets with lots of life so here rather than always charging it all the way you could just charge it to the first or second charge most of the time then charge it to the third for just the stronger targets so you don't waste charges or time. If all you do is fight act bosses and the like though this may be a better build option than those using Dragon Claw for physical damage. Although by using just the one claw you wouldn't really want to charge Fists of Fire due to the attack speed penalty for using one claw with it so you'll just be using Phoenix Strike and Tiger Strike for damage. Dual claw builds could still use these skills then release using Dragon Claw to get the physical damage higher still.



Martial Arts: (Lightning & Physical variant T)
20 Phoenix Strike
20 Claws of Thunder
20 Tiger Strike
1 in the rest

Same as the fire and physical build of the T variant but using the second Phoenix Strike charge instead making getting your charging more difficult.



Martial Arts: (Fire, Lightning & Physical variant T)
20 Phoenix Strike
15-20 Fists of Fire
15-20 Claws of Thunder
20 Tiger Strike
1 in the rest

Just as with the C variant of this three damage type you will have a hard time with your skill placement due to how many are getting put into the Martial Arts tree.




Stats: (505 points)

E, T & C Variant Builds:
Strength: 100-150 (enough for your gear)
Dexterity: 175-225
Vitality: 175-225
Energy: 0


K Variant Builds:
Strength: 175-250
Dexterity: 100-125
Vitality: 175-225
Energy: 0





Dragon Talon, Dragon Claw or Tiger Strike for Physical Damage?:

Generally you'll either use just a normal attack to release elemental damage or just one of these skills for physical damage but for bosses and other stronger targets you could charge then release using one of these two skills to do both elemental and physical damage. One of the advantages of adding a physical attack to a Phoenix Strike build is that it will make Cobra Strike more than just a prerequisite but a very useful leeching skill and leeching items quite useful as builds using just elemental attacks may not be able to do the physical damage needed to make effective use of Cobra Strike and leeching items.


Dragon Talon:
Using Dragon Talon for physical damage is helpful as it has no skills which will passively increase its physical damage so pulls less points from other skills and then at higher skill levels will put out a number of very fast kicks per attack. With a good amount of strength and higher level boots you can do a good bit of damage per kick so each attack will throw out a good chunk of damage plus kicks can generally make use of properties from both claws so each kick could leech both life and mana for instance if you had those properties on your claws. The mass of kicks you could then throw out means many chances for properties like Crushing Blow, Open Wounds, % to cast on attack/strike and other to be applied. Then due to the high attack rating bonus on Dragon Talon even with a low base attack rating you should not have too much trouble getting your kicks to hit. Then as your physical damage is mainly coming from kicks you can use low damage fast claws so it is easier to hit the top speed and even if you are cursed with Iron Maiden as you are not doing too much physical damage with your claws while charging you could keep on charging and releasing without as much concern.

The down side of using Dragon Talon for physical damage is that it needs a good strength investment to get you using the better boots and so each kick does more damage. This means less points will be available to dexterity so for your claws to connect you would need attack rating bonus items and/or claws that use a lower percentage of a target's defence (the Ignore Target's Defence property does not work on anything stronger than regular critters and minions but just using a lower percentage of their defence may) which can be done by socketing in Eth runes. Lower dexterity also means using a shield will be of very limited use as your blocking with a shield will in time be lower than with Weapon Block even at lower skill levels.


Dragon Claw:
When using Dragon Claw for your physical damage this means you'll be getting more use out of Claw Mastery than just the attack rating bonus and you can continue boosting your dexterity once you have enough strength for your gear. This means charging up will be easier and if you wanted you could work around two weapon sets with the Phoenix Strike charge up set using one claw and a shield. Also unlike kicks claw attacks can make use of Critical Strike and Deadly strike so while you won't be hitting as many times per attack as with Dragon Talon some of those claw attacks will have their final damage (after skill, stat and item bonuses) doubled which can help bridge the damage potential gap.

The difficult part comes in the claw choices. With elemental charging you want fast claws with skill bonuses, for physical damage you can use slower claws as the damage potential will make up for the speed difference and skill bonuses while helpful will not be as needed. Now to get this from one weapon set you could use Natalya's Odium (Nat's set) with a Bartuc's Cut-Throat for the fast base claw speed, good damage, skill and stat bonuses plus other helpful properties or a Jade Talon for the modest skill bonuses, good resistance bonuses, modest damage and decent base claw speed. If you don't use Natalya's Odium you could either use two Bartuc's Cut-Throats or one plus a Jade Talon mostly for the resistance boost. Another approach would be to work around two weapon sets, one is aimed at elemental or just Phoenix Strike charging and the other for physical damage. This is helpful in one way but would make using Natalya's Odium problematic unless you had two of the claws.


Tiger Strike:
The builds using this skill would generally be those using a claw and shield since they can't use Dragon Claw but dual claw builds could use this skill rather than focusing on Dragon Claw. Mostly builds using Tiger Strike would be more aimed as boss bashers due to the high damage potential of Tiger Strike and as those would be longer fights but the rest of the time you can either just use Tiger Strike for the attack speed bonus you get over normal attacks on weak critters and then use less than three charges on all the others except the ones with lots of life which you would fully charge on. This would let you scale the damage you do to your needs but requires some charging before hand. Now both Dragon Claw and Tiger Strike have built in attack speed bonuses but I'm not sure if the bonus on one is higher than the other or if they are equal but if one is faster than the other it would be Dragon Claw which is the fastest of the two.

With these as with the ones using Dragon Claw your claw needs would be the main problem area and works out in about the same way so refer to the second paragraph of the above Dragon notes for that info.

Continue to Part II.