Shadow Master

Summon a powerful shadow of yourself to fight by your side.

Shadow Master is the last summon of the Shadow Disciplines tree (level 30, requires Shadow Warrior). It calls one shadow (petmax 1) that, unlike the Warrior, can use any Assassin skill, including skills the Assassin has no points in. Its numbers are the Warrior's with better resistances and better gear: +40 attack rating and +10 strength and dexterity a level, a diminishing resistance curve that reaches 76% at level 20 and caps at 90, and an item level of 24 plus 3 a level.

The numbers

• Mana is 70 ÷ 2 = 35 at level 1 and half a mana more a level (manashift 7, lvlmana 1): 44.5 at level 20, 49.5 at level 30. It can be cast in town (InTown 1).
• Resistances are dm34, a diminishing curve from Param3 (5%) toward Param4 (90%), the same for fire, cold, lightning and poison (passivestat1–4): 17% at level 1, 47% at level 5, 62% at level 10, 76% at level 20, 82% at level 30. The Basin's page gives the 1.10-era formula on level − 1, which yields 5% at level 1 and 75% at level 20; the current table's values are the ones above, one level ahead.
• Attack rating is lvl*par2 with Param2 = 40: +800 at level 20 through the shadow's tohit stat. The Basin's older page prints +90 a level.
• Strength and dexterity are lvl*10 each (aurastat2–3): +200 of each at level 20, which the Basin's table matches.
• Life is the tooltip's type-13 line (lvl-1)*par1 with Param1 = 15: +15% life per level above the first, +285% at level 20. The evaluator does not print this line as a column.
• Casting delay is localdelay 15 frames, 0.6 seconds, at every level; the Basin's page says this is the D2R value, the 1.10-era delay being a global 6 seconds.
• Item level is Param5 (24) plus Param6 (3) a level, 81 at level 20, which the Basin says picks her gear: a Suwayyah, War Fist or Scissors Suwayyah in the right hand and a Battle Cestus, Runic Talons or Scissors Suwayyah in the left, plus helm, body armor, gloves, rings and an amulet, magic from level 6 and rare from level 11.

Unlike the Warrior's row there is no skill_armor_percent stat here, so the Master has no +% defense line. Every line reads lvl, so +skills from items count.

How it works

The shadow is a summon of pet type "shadowwarrior", one at a time. The Basin's page says she cannot exist alongside a Shadow Warrior: summoning either dispels the other. She uses Assassin skills, even those the Assassin has not invested in, and the level of a skill she uses is the greater of 1 and [Assassin's level in that skill ÷ 2] + [Shadow Master's level ÷ 3], read when she uses it. Skill levels she has used are stored and provide synergy bonuses to skills she uses afterwards, with no cap at 20; the level stored is the most recent one.

The row's five item_pierce passive calcs read the Assassin's sundering stats, so her Monster Physical Immunity is Sundered, fire, lightning, cold and poison sunders are applied to the shadow, as the Basin's page says of D2R.

With the Assassin at 0 points in a skill, the Master's copy is [0 ÷ 2] + [20 ÷ 3] = level 6 at Shadow Master 20: she can use everything, but only what the Assassin also invests in gets strong.

The Basin gives her base figures that the repo's bank does not hold: 376 life, 2 damage regeneration, 5% critical hit, 40% damage resist, −50% chill effectiveness, 0% drain effectiveness, a 15-frame AI delay between attacks, and a 14-frame normal attack at 0 IAS that Fanaticism and Increased Attack Speed on her own weapons shorten. It adds that resist +% from her items and from Fade can make her immune to all four elements without showing it. See Attack Rating for what the + attack rating does and Resistances and Immunities for the resistance line.

Synergies and +skills

No synergies: there is no dsc3 line and no synergy calc on the row, and Shadow Master feeds no other skill. All of her stats read lvl, so a +skill is worth a hard point; the Basin says +1–3 Shadow Master can spawn on exceptional and elite claws of item level 36 and up. The resistance curve flattens (76% at 20, 82% at 30), so levels past 20 mostly buy attack rating, life, attributes and item level.

Against players

A pet's hit on a player is cut to 17% of its value (difficultylevels.txt PlayerDamagePercentVSPlayer) before resistances, like the Assassin's own, see Player versus Player. The Basin's page says nothing else specific about players.

Build notes

• Level 20 is +800 attack rating, +200 strength and dexterity, +285% life and 76% to all resistances on item level 81 gear, for 44.5 mana.
• Every third level in Shadow Master is a level in each skill she uses; every two of the Assassin's own levels in a skill is another.
• The Master trades the Warrior's +% defense for resistances that keep growing past 75 and far better equipment.
• One shadow only, and never alongside a Shadow Warrior.