Spine Attack friking rules

In my 7 games or so as Demon Assassin, I have to say that I love Spine Attack. It gives me a 1.8k nuke at level 10, and a 2.6k nuke at level 15. 

The mana you will need for that either assumes you have to run back to base after each attack, or die after each attack.

Yes, I agree with that. I usually need a Magnus Rod and a Hungarling's so I can cast at 75% cost reduction. It certainly costs me quite a bit of cash. I'm not sure I'll stick with it.

Or serpent blade. But Lifekatana Demon Assasin has no aoe to speak off before level 10!

Lightning, its awesome.

When fully leveled up it does 1150 damage, that alone i think deserves the points.

Yes, i agree it is a very mana intensive skill, but used only for the killing blow it does not hamper you that much. And if you are making a kill with it, then you have the time to btb and regen.

It's my first skill picked and in every build i do with him...i love it.

Lol, one time i was playing against a friend who i was killing, and he started porting, and i couldnt use swap because it was on CD, so i tried to get the last hit and kill off before he ported with tele strike, so i went to the citadel with him, i used it as he ported, so i was right next to where he ported, it was horrible

DaBRUM

Tried a new build. Played over 20 games with DA, 3 against humans, the rest again nightmare AI.

What I learned:
-Early game DA is very squeashy, warping in to damage an enemy is dangeros
-Without BotF I think DA would be so squeasy that it would be useless for the first 7 levels or so... perhaps anklet would help as he is very slow
-Amazing burst damage
-Warp-in attack has avg mana cost and low CD, so you can use it twice in the time you use spine attack. However spine-attack+warp is very damaging
-+15% dodge seems to be the only very useful passive stat.
-Exchanging places with DG has been unnecessary on prison, range is too small

The other DA had too low HP and in the end even rook could not withstand the burst damage of DA.

OMG..Thats better than mine!

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I've found BotS to actually work great with DA.  My strategy was activating BotS, using Warp Strike to get in close, immediately follow with spine attack, then warp area.  This does a ton of damage and your mana is still pretty much full, Warp Strike should cooldown fast enough that even with a slow pursuit you get to Warp Strike one more time in about 2-3 seconds.  If timed right you usually recover enough mana for both the second warp strike and a spine attack, but I found the cool down on spine attack meant too much chasing to use it again. I was playing against some regs and this worked great (it was a little rough at lower levels).  But that was just my experience my first time with DA so take that for what it's worth

I´ve played him only twice, but his damage burst combos are enormous to say the least, atleast

in mid-game and later.

This is a particularly effective combo I tried:

Warp Strike with deadly warp: 1400 dmg 75% of the time

Spine Attack: 1150 dmg

Regular attacks for a few seconds: 1500 dmg (estimated)

HP lost before enemy decides it is a good day to retreat: 4050 hp

Recharged Warp Strike: 1400 dmg 75% of the time

Regular attacks for a few seconds while he is retreating: 750 dmg (estimated)

The buggar is fast, so use Shadow Swap: 0 dmg

Spine Attack is just about recharged: 1150 dmg

Regular attacks for a few seconds while he is retreating: 750 dmg (estimated)

Still alive? Finish it off with a Warp Strike: 1400 dmg 75% of the time

Uberhp god? Regular attacks for a few seconds while he is retreating: 750 dmg (estimated)

HP lost while enemy retreating: 6200 hp

Total damage done approximately at level 15: 10250

I know its an expensive combo manawise, but god dangit its effective. You can keep the dude nailed there

until he is dead as can be.

it depends. if u conserve ur skill usage and only use skills in the most ideal moments then i believe BotS is the best when combined with warp area.

i have done this and havent found myself disadvantaged as of yet (still need to play some really good players first). Although i find myself freeing slots of mana equips and allowing room for other more versatile equips.

I've found hammer slam to be a big problem as DA as he seems to have very low HP and no quick interrupt.

I thought about that one also. Activating Warp Area should avoid a hammer slam by making you invincible for a few seconds.

yeah . use warp area like orb of defiance . 

Don't you mean 15%?  Or are you referring to the passive + the assassin boots?

Game is over way before level 15 never compare anything over level 10 abilities

Nope, tried it doesnt work.

^

what doesn't work ? if what you're saying is to use warp area to prevent being hurt from hammer slam then how does it not work when it says in the skill description that DA would become invincible for a certain period of time ?  

Can someone tell me if a DG passive crit chance will work on your powers?

I've done 1300 ish damage with a spine attack before.

If I am not seeing things, then Spine Strike / Warp Strike / Crit Passive are the skills you favor.

Current Fav build:

1. Spine Attack I

2. Demon Speed I

3. Warp Strike I

4. Spine Attack II

5. Demon Speed II

6. Shadow Swap I

7. Spine Attack III

8. Warp Strike II

9. Warp Strike III

10. Spine Attack IV

11  Warp Strike IV

12. Shadow Swap II

13. Demon Speed III

14. Save

15. Deadly Warp and Shadow Swap III

Start with Banded and Scalemail.  Essence of Magic Favor

Scaled Helm

Unbreakable boots

Nimoth

Vlemish (Sell Scaled)

Hauberk (Sell Scalemail)

Narmoth's Ring (Sell Banded)

Optional: Magnus Rod (Buy large mana pots until you can afford)

I really can't stand how slow he is without Demon Speed II and I don't feel like wasting an item slot for boots of speed when I can stack some hp there to compensate for the loss of Blood.  I like having superior speed on the DA so that he can cover ground and catch up to fleeing demis enough to pull off a swap+warp strike, which is usually GG.

I hate Warp Area.  I'd probably finish off the build with the Dodge talents and the level 15 ability in that tree.  If you're fast enough I think it's possible to pull off a Spine Attack->Swap->Warp Attack combo for free with Essence of Magic.  Or at least you'll get 2/3 free.

Ok my time to post my favourite build

1. Spine Attack I
2. Warp Strike I
3. Save
4. Spine Attack II & Warp Strike II
5. Warp Area I
6. Save
7. Spine Attack III & Warp Strike III
8. Save
9. Still Save
10. Spine Attack IV & Warp Strike IV & Warp Area II

After this just stack the dodge and speed abilities or maybe throw in one crit if you want to

I buy the same items as above as well

Observations

- Warp Area might make you invincible for a brief period but it doesn't make you immune to stuns.  In light of that it's the lamest DA skill, imo

- It will always be worth putting a point into Demon Speed early to get you up to 6.3

- Swap allows you to piggyback on enemy ports to enemy-controlled territory.  Swapping a DG porting home is a bad idea unless you know you can beat the channel because it leaves you at their crystal.  OTOH if they are porting for a gank you could delay until you get the port so you can reverse it.  It's risky, but so worth the replay potential ^^

- Precision + Duellist's Cuirass + Slayer's Wraps = Viable non-artifact Crit Build.   Kinda badass but tricky to make work.  I could see this working with EoM/Serpent and minimal mana items, or BoTF and less health, but either way it's not going to work well before level 10. 

- Renewal is just so sweet.  The CD reduction on Swap alone makes it beautiful, but it's really hard to balance out the mana and health you need if your team isn't covering you constantly. 

- Spike is a great ability not least because it's so subtle

- Warp Strike and Spike both work on buildings

- Warp Strike's blink with a target means that you are almost always safer when enemy grunts/towers are a distance downlane of you, since you can always zip out of danger by targeting one of them
 
- Swap is an interrupt, but like every other interrupt it doesn't work on targets buffed by Shield III

A couple of sweet combos -

1.  DA and 3M Reg - Reg plants 6 mines and moves uplane to prepare 3 more and pull target into melee.  DA stands on mines, swaps with target when he closes.  Mines blow up, Reg immediately plants 3 more

2.  DA and Hammer Rook - DA stands immediately in front of Rook.  Rook ideally waits til target is within Swap range, boulders target.  As soon as boulder is launched DA channels Swap and Rook channels Hammerslam.  Target is pulled directly under Slam

3.  DA and Tower Rook - Tower Rook builds his Deathstar at the enemy gold flag.  DA stands in the middle of it and is basically undetectable to the enemy.  Enemy approaches, DA Swaps him into the Deathstar, Rook Boulders.  (This is as good as it gets for territory control, since any enemy close enough to AoE the towers will get pulled into them and die)

Warp Area is stiuational, and becomes really obnoxious at the last level (haha 1400 and then 8 strikes all around the general) but I don't think it is DA's weakest skill.

eg: You can usually use it on a fleeing general to get right next to the general, you follow the chain of minions and end up hitting the general last.

Or, against ranged DG or Generals, they usually end up fighting next to priests, so you warp area and take out the priests.

Or with EoM you can chain all 3 skills for free so even at level 5 with only 1 DG target, that's still extra damage against the DG that didn't cost any mana.

Also I think by "invincible" they mean you won't die during the animation, but you still take damage as far as I can tell?

I'm considering trying out a build for him based on his passives, so sacrificing his spine attack, which has good damage and speed, but is not very mana-efficient.

1. Warp Strike 1
2. Demon's Speed 1
3. save
4. Warp Strike 2
5. Shadow Swap 1 & Demon's Speed 2
6. Elusiveness 1
7. Elusiveness 2
8. Demon's Speed 3
9. Elusiveness 3
10. Shadow Swap 2
11. Warp Strike 3
13. Warp Strike 4
14. save
15. Assassin's Speed & Deadly Warp
16. Shadow Swap 3
17-20. Precision 1-4.

The reasoning behind this is that you can now focus entirely on getting health/armor and attack damage items, and not buy mana items or use up a slot for Boots of Speed or Wand of Speed.

Not sure if this could work, of course it depends on the other team, against a team or like TB, Sedna, and slam Rook, Elusiveness would not be very useless at all (since tb and sedna get almost all their dps from their spells and slam's rook main damage is slam), so you'd drop it.

Demon Assassin is quite a constast to UB, since wtih DA you want all his abilities just as badly (except Warp Area, that appears to be crap and not worth it), but with UB you have so much leisure since the only abilties that are worth it are spit, and ooze(the best ability in the game), and 1 rank of grasp(best stun in the game), only 1 rank of his disease passive (for the aoe in killing creeps), and 1 in his snare, and all of his atk/move speed line.

On a side note, does anyone know if Warp Area removes debuffs, since it makes you invincible, I'm guessing no, but if it did it could definitely be useful against a spit ub or a reg with shrapnel mines.