It’s all go for Assassins as Diablo 2 Resurrected season 3 kicks off, with Martial Arts Elemental Assassin proving to be one of the strongest builds in the classic RPG game thanks to the new Mosaic runeword. Meanwhile, a Diablo 2 Resurrected update has fixed a bug affecting Trap Assassins, with Blizzard updating its recent patch notes to reflect a hotfix for online play that will be applied to offline players at a later date.
The arrival of new Diablo 2 Resurrected runewords in patch 2.6 was always likely to cause some meta shakeups, and it seems so far like Martial Arts Assassins are just as exciting as initially expected. The Mosaic runeword actually got a buff following PTR testing, meaning that each one now applies a 50% chance to not consume charges on finishing moves.
You can therefore run just one to get that bonus, or dual wield for a 100% guaranteed chance to not use your charges. In addition to this, Blizzard made a change so that when finishers are executed in this way, it now refreshes the expiration timer on the stack. That combines into a huge buff for the class, allowing them to spam finishing moves non-stop for huge bursts of damage.
Diablo 2 Resurrected Twitch streamer and YouTuber Alex ‘MrLlamaSC’ Sementelli shows off one such build in action in the video below, initially starting by spamming a steady stream of meteors on top of enemies, followed by floods of lightning with every kick. He then stacks all his finishing moves on top of each other, and can’t hold back a delighted grin. “There’s finally another S-tier build, but oh my god if it is not the Path of Exile Assassin,” he exclaims.
“Put on your sunglasses, everybody – this is S-tier, players: eight [difficulty], Martial Arts Assassin.” MrLlamaSC explains how the charges all continuously refresh, as long as you manage to kick once before the charges go away. Despite playing on the hardest setting, he laughs, “this character’s not even fully maxed out, and she is disgusting.”
If you prefer to play a Trap Diablo 2 Resurrected Assassin build instead, you’ll be pleased to hear that Blizzard has deployed a hotfix resolving an unintended nerf. Trap skills were supposed to benefit from gear that applied negative enemy resistances, but it wasn’t working correctly. Blizzard says “the bug fix went live with patch 2.6 but encountered an unexpected issue,” but a hotfix has now amended it for online play. A fix is coming for offline play “at a later date.”
If you’re yet to jump in, a Blizzard sale is currently offering the chance to get into Diablo at a huge discount. Take a look at the best Diablo 2 Resurrected classes as we head into the new season, along with more of the best old PC games if you just can’t get enough of the classics.