LLD101

[Knarl]

So I was in a game with my necro, and a lvl 25 asn hostiled me, so I figured I would just stand still and spear her. She was a kicker. By the time I killed her, she had fought through my armor and took off half of my life...which got me thinking.

If a lvl 25 kicker can take half of my life standing still, a 29 or 30 kicker would potentially give me a run for my money. And I find that very interesting, and it is making me want to try out a kicker for the first time ever.

But as I was brainstorming gear and skills, I realized I know jack-squat about kickers. I looked at the 10-page kicker thread, and got through 4 pages before I couldn't take it anymore.

Some things that have come to my mind while thinking about this build:

-Should kickers be allowed lvl 30? They get upped goblin toes, upped twitch, upped bloodfists, +2 claws I guess, etc...It doesn't seem very overpowered and it opens up some nice gear choices. I'd like to hear some opinions of experienced kickers on this one.

-Dual claw or claw + whitstans? With lvl 21 (slvl 19 + soj + p crown) wpn block, you get 58% blocking. Is that enough against other melee? Again, I'd like opinions on what the more viable route is from ppl who have tried it, and which claws are ideal for either setup (not necessarily the best of the best, but something actually attainable by shopping or finding within my lifetime)

-If I do go dual claw w/ wpn block, I will not be able to put many pts into dragon talon, and would only have 3 kicks and ~58% block for both melee and casters. With whitstans, I would have 4-5 kicks, 75% block, but no block against casters.

-If lvl 30 becomes allowed, shadow master would be a nice meat shield against casters and to take the first couple hits from a zealot and to provide a block animation or two against other ppl. Lvl 3 has 488 life, so it could take at least 1-2 hits from most ppl.

-Fade or BoS? I would imagine this would depend on the weapon I use...a shaeled one for fade and a +skills/etc... one for Bos?


So far, I am very tentatively thinking about this skill setup (lvl 30):

1 CM
1 BoS (Do I need more?)
19 wpn block
1 warrior
1 master
10 Talon (3 kicks)

That's exactly 33 points...it's missing flight, so I would need a claw with +flight on it, and no option for fade if it is a good idea to use it.

Or, a non-wpn block setup (lvl 30):

1 CM
1+ BoS or Fade
1 Wpn block, 1 warrior, 1 master
20 talon
1 in claw, tail, flight
Have 5 points left for BoS/Fade I suppose.


Ugh, I'm so confused about what to do. Jerkazoid, SAVE ME!!!!!!

[Jerkazoid]

both sokker and i (as well as fantasy) have dueled with our 29 kickers alot,, never could we defeat a necro worth dueling. 30 wouldnt help much, and 31 would begin to bend the idea of "low" we have brought this up before, but likley this will start all over again now.

**ONly amplify dmg has allowed me to ever take out a decent necro**

This 25 kicker took off half your life because she had crushing blow, (goblin toes)
the dmg was likely worthless (100-200) dont be too impressed

she saved about 80-90 stats by using gob toes, and twitch, had likely a full rubied, vit boosted, 1000 life build, (and decent claw/claw block perhaps?)

but

she would NEVER have killed you in a normal duel. and who was this? [is there anything about the duel that proves my assumptions wrong?]

ill make this blunt and quick as i can

unless they went 31 and some Mindblast was allowed, decent 30 necros will have nothing to fear other then kickers being a slight nuisance/killing practice

Or if amp charges could be allowed (FAT CHANCE!)

1) you would never make a 50% blockign zealot or barb,, so it is the same with kickers vs melee.
50% blocking means you have given your opponent nearly 100% more hits

2) you would never make a 3 hit or 4 hit zealot, so it is the same with kickers.

3)a shadow is a good idea vs all except other kickers.

4) fade is back up, rarely do i use it. (only on higher level cold sorces or Foh pallies) i choose my killing speed over the extra resisatance it gives.

5) The Hand scythe (lvl 30) is the first claw capable of getting +skill Staff mods. it its speed will require more bos/ias

6) 10 sol runes allow opponents to be immune to 90-100% of lld kick dmg



please read the kicker post,, vudoo, Meitou, and I went thorugh and explored most of the options u would ever think of doing.

Lets see what mei says ... never made a 30, but he has,, and good from what others say

[Fantasy]

My 29 kicker has alternate gear vs casters like sorc/necro where i'll switch to 2 claws with decent points into weapon block. U dont need much since it diminish quite fast with more points into it.

I use a pair of rare war boots with 30 frw, 10fhr, 5 dex, and 2 more resists and it works out for me. Not sure about the cb route though, I havent tried it yet. Also my claw is just a shopped one with +1 sin skills with 2 sockets (2 eths). i got back up claws for dual-claw setup as well.

And yes, I've killed lvl 80 noobish necro with trang's before, but it's just because they didnt have fhr and were not properly built for dueling. With pro-lld, any lvl 30 necro can take kicker any day of the week. The dmg w/o cb is just not enough, especially with a fast runner/caster like necro.

Kicker is a fun build, you should try it out. And I think it's good at lvl 29, so we don't have to renew any rule here.

[Jerkazoid]

im not against teh idea of alowing level 30 though.

but i would have to completely rebuild.. i would probably use upped goblins. need +2 gloves and a circlet. as well as a bitchen +2 hand scythe with 30ias and +2-3 bos (if that exists)

[SoaringSquirrel]

each point you put into fade is 1% dr when you cast it, so it'd be interesting to use a 15% string along with maxed fade while hitting thehighest bp in ias vs melee as well as casters. it might give you the edge you need from your low damage vs melee.. just a thought.

[Phyre]

I believe the +2 skill tabs become available at 30, so it could help. Here is what I used prior to going from 30 to 35 with my kicker:

Peasant Crown (pruby)
Skins of the Vipermagi (pruby)
String
Rare War Boots
+2 MA 10% ias rare gloves with res
1 Angelic ring, 1 Soj
Angelic ammy
Strength Blade Talon/Rhyme Grim
+2 Shadow skills 5% ctc Amp Shaeled rare claw/+2 Shadow skill Blade Talon

With this setup, you get a 46% chance to block with your when using the dual claws that I also use for prebuffing BoS.

As was said by Jerkazoid, going for anything less than 75% block is suicide.

When I was 30, I stood very little chance against real lld necros. Pubby necros weren't overly difficult unless they used Decrep. Then it was pretty much over unless they were very poorly built. At 35 for the addition of Guilaume's Face, I can kill just about any pubby White necro with relative ease and I still haven't remade to make use of Shadow Master.

As for the Fade vs BoS thing, I've never found myself using Fade as it makes me too slow. You'd definately need to pack on alot more IAS to make that effective.

[Belarathon]

On my necro I have fought many kickers, they can always at least damage you, cause they all have crushing blow and/or open wounds out the wazoo, so it will always see liek they have high damage, but they can never kill. I think level 30 for kickers, and all melee assassin at that, sounds fair to me. Level 30 kicker I say will still not beat a necro, possibly if they can get 50% crushing and have a lucky amp cast from ctc at the start o duel and hit everytime with 40%+ claw block. 35 necro can beat necros, but I would definetly not suggest upping the kicker level to 35. It seems fair just because it gives kickers a chance to viably run with all the hardcore zealers and def barb, druids etc. And gives them a much better chance at necros, causing the necro to use skill instead of just tank and shoot like its some sort of newb. It's sad to know that a perfectly built build with all the most useful items fo that build can be tanked like nothing even happened from another build, but still, 35 is definetly too high to up it to, but 30, by all means.

[meitou]

if vs necro I would suggest lvl 30, uped gobline toe, Strength Bandistock, Rattlecage. Don't expect to win vs good ones though.

[Suntara]

I spent most of the summer dueling with suntara, my lvl 25/29/34 kicker. After all that i wouldnt recomend making one. Great vs. casters, i dont think i ever had trouble with any once i got all my resist gear in order. But any equal skill/item melle will still kill u, same with bone necs. At 34 i had 60% crushing so i would almost kill u in a couple seconds. But after that my 350-600 dmg never seemed to do the job vs. anyone. A bone nec who knew to just recast bone armor became unkillable and good melles would just out last me.

[SoaringSquirrel]

well, you will need a lot more ias, but vs the jewel dependent melees there's not much other choice than loading up on dr and making up for the ias somewhere else, since these are chars with uninterruptable attack doing 2-3 times your damage, so one of the few advantages you can get your hands on is 20% or even 35% more dr (for people who use death's belt/gloves) than your opponent. maybe you could go to level 31 for ias jewels and still use ik gloves/belt and then twitchthroe instead of rattlecage and fervor jewel that as well as your helm, which could the3n be rockstopper for another 10% dr. or maybe stick with your standard equipment but fervor jewel the rattlecage and triple fervor jewel an artisan's death mask of balance.

[Belarathon]

31 is plain too high though :/ i would think lld should always stay 30 and under till the end of time even if it does cancel out some builds from being effective

[SoaringSquirrel]

well, i'm just talking about making a char with a vague idea of around what level she should be. if you didn't like the 31 idea then you could always multishael a 3 os claw or 6 os weapon to hit the ias bp and use the standard gear elsewhere then, though that might compromise your cb/kb.