Mosaic for beginners

Hello,

I’ve played d2 since launch when I was 11. It’s definitely one of my favorite games of all time.

Something I have never really played with was a martial arts assassin, much less the assassin at all.

I have read descriptions and watched videos and still can’t quite wrap my head around how a Mosaic assassin works.

I play SSF offline on Xbox. I have the runes required and have found some decent Claws with +2 to different martial arts finishers.

What I am asking is can someone please break it down for me like I am new to the game? I know Diablo 2 mechanics and gameplay. Any help and basic explanations is greatly appreciated at this point!

Thank you!

1. Attack with a Charge skill, such as Phoenix Strike until you have the amount of charges for the ability you want.
2. Attack with any different Charge ability such as Claws of Thunder until you have the desired amount of charges.
3. Spam your finisher of choice, at least once every 15 seconds on a mob / boss.

Dual Mosaic means you never lose your Charge, so for instance if you go Dragon Talon as your finisher it hits 5 times, each time releasing the effect of the charges you have without expending the Charge. So a single hit will launch 5 chain lightnings if thats the Charge you have for instance. As Dragon Talon is a quickly spammable skill it allows you to "Cast" your charges at a much faster rate than a sorc.

Interesting. Is this one of those things you just kinda need to play around with to get the feel for?

It doesn't feel like anything else I dare say so yes.

Essentially, MA assassins used to be "balanced" (in theory...never really up to snuff) around the fact that you would use their Charge-up skills to build up to 3 charges of said skill and then use the finishers to use up those charges, in turn massively buffing the finisher via said Charge. As charges were used up by finishers, you had to re-build them with the Charge-up skill again. Additionally, charges expire on their own when not used or refreshed.

Mosaic took that whole concept and basically removed the downside all but entirely. You now get your charges up same as before but your finisher then not only doesn't use up those charges anymore (while still receiving the full benefit) but even more so, it refreshes them, meaning they don't even expire on their own anymore. The combination of those two means that not only is each Charge significantly stronger than ever before (since the rebuilding of them is dropped) but you can stack basically every single Charge-up skill at full charges on top of one another as you can refresh everything with a single finisher hit. That part wasn't realistically possible before, due to the expiration of charges.

So basically, MA assassin went from " Charge, Charge, Charge, finisher, Charge, finisher, Charge, finisher, ...." to " Charge everything on first trash pack -> nothing but finisher (1-shot), finisher (1-shot), finisher (1-shot), finisher (1-shot), finisher (1-shot), ... for the remainder of the game" and in doing so went from somewhat underpowered to just blatantly insane and utterly OP.

Still plays very different though because if you wait too long between finishers, your charges still expire so you're basically looking at the only class that has a time factor to it, forcing you to move on quick enough to not fall back to having to re- Charge everything. Given, theoretically e.g. Frenzy has that as well but for Frenzy you just keep using the same attack and hardly notice the re-stacking (except on run speed if next pack is too far) whereas for a Mosaic sin, it really is night and day and actually costs you time, survivability and all that jazz.

I am not clear about MA sin's play style?
is it really 3 charges and then finisher, Charge-finisher until done?
so finisher is supposed to refund charges?
is there a guide on how to play MA sins properly?

Charge up all of your Charge skills on first mob or two. spam finisher all game. done.

2x Mosaic = finisher never uses charges and always refreshes the duration of existing charges.

the only "challenge" to Mosaic play is to keep going fast enough from pack to pack so you never run into the Charge expiration timer. i.e. no breaks allowed. :p

If you take too long building charges initially, you can just build 3, hit a finisher to refresh duration, build another 3, finisher, build another 3 and so on..

Building charges is not a problem but building the right Charge could be sometimes. I mean, for Phoenix Strike.

It is broken as hell - especially with Enigma... only issue at first is not dying but that goes away with gear.

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

the only "challenge" to Mosaic play is to keep going fast enough from pack to pack so you never run into the
Charge expiration timer. i.e. no breaks allowed. :p

And that is why I don't play Mosaic much since the first season. I mean, it's OP AF and a boatload of fun and all that, but it sure can be a bit stressful to constantly need to be on the move. I like taking my time with sorting through loot, especially considering the items-on-screen-limit. Before Mosaic I didn't think D2R needed a loot filter, but post-Mosaic, I do think that it would be a very nice QoL change.

xigua wrote: 2 years ago

only issue at first is not dying but that goes away with gear.

Use Cloak of Shadows + Mind Blast and you can Charge up in Peace vs pretty much any pack of enemies

basicnecromancy wrote: 2 years ago

Building charges is not a problem but building the right Charge could be sometimes. I mean, for Phoenix Strike.

Indeed lol. I always start with Phoenix Strike for this reason Still sometimes "miss" the one I'm going for (yes, I suck ).

ShadowHeart wrote: 2 years ago

...
And that is why I don't play Mosaic much since the first season. I mean, it's OP AF and a boatload of fun and all that, but it sure can be a bit stressful to constantly need to be on the move. I like taking my time with sorting through loot, especially considering the items-on-screen-limit.
...

I actually kind of enjoyed the "chain-kill, no breaks!" part of it. Though despite that, I still prefer the trapper playstyle overall.