Gameplay

Key moments (lvl whise) with the Assassin:

• Cold Plains WP - Lvl 2
• Underground Passage - lvl 4
• Forgotten Tower - lvl 5-6 (First lvl Burst of Speed helps out a lot)
• Last Countess run - lvl 10.5 - 11 (Tir, Ral, Tal, Eth must have dropped untill that point for a good run)
• Andariel - lvl 12-13
• Duriel - lvl 17
• Mephisto - close to lvl 20
• Diablo - lvl 20

Next hit Delay:

NHD is an effect some skill have in the game. When a monster gets hit by one of those spells they are imune to other skills with this effect for a certain amount of frames. The amount of frames differs between those skills.

Wake of Fire is the only relevant example for Speedruns. It gives the NHD effect for 4 frames (0.16 secs). To use WoF effectivly in bossfights you should keep up 2 of them and throw Fireblasts in between.

Generall gameplay:

• lvl 2-12: Try always to pull together a few monsters. The more you hit with each fireblast the better.
• lvl 12+: Try to drop the Wake of fire traps and just run past most stuff. Only stop at bossgroups. They have a guaranteed item drop (Can be Money / Gems / Runes / Items) and 4 potions which save shopping trips.
• For stronger enemies such as bossgroups / ancients: Throw out your wake of fire traps and throw fireblasts (if possible) untill the traps expire.
• Ancients: Focus your traps at madawc untill he is dead. After that use the trick I show in this video.
• Fire imunes: Vezir (Act 4 seal) and Colenzo (Wave 1 just before Baal) are the only 2 fire imunes you should kill. Use an act 3 Cold merc for that. LaV calculated the damage output between the lvls. Result: lvl 19 > 17 > 18. So try to avoid a lvl 18 if you can have 17 or 19.