Ziacle
13-04-2004, 14:47
My first two characters were bow-a-zons, they both got to hell a2 and got creamed. I could kill things, but it was so slow, it was almost pointless. Well, I made some other characters and eventually went back to the bowazon, starting again from scratch, a little wiser this time.
After playing with a few builds on paper, I came up with this, and so far its working quite well.
General Info:
What the hell-a-bow-a-zon can and cant do:
MFing: Compared to sorcs and hammerdins not very well. With expensive gear, you can get your MF to around 200% without sacrificing kililng power, anything over that, and your going to kill stuff slower. The bigest problem is no shield, and no MF on weapon. However, compared to other classes you can MF fairly well. Your advantage is that unlike most sorcs, you can MF solo anywhere, pits, pindle, meph, you name it. And you can do runs fairly quickly.
Rushing: With enigma + mana items you can rush people eaisly through nm, and with some paitence even hell:
Exp Runs:
Baal:
This is where you shine. In baal runs you do very well, out damaging anyone excpet for the sorc (in terms of total damage). Plus you can do somethign that no other class can. You can freze (not slow) the entire wave of mobs indefinitaly, wile everyone else kills them. Trust me, after doing this on some nm runs, people will be quickly adding you to the friends list.
Cows: Again, you can quickly kill here thanks to your amazing crowd damagers. Wile freezing enitre heards of cows is possible, its a bit ahrsder, often requires lots of kiting.
Other Areas: Abbout average with other classes:
PvP: I dont pvp much, but when I do, I usually win aginst evenaly matched/equipped oppenents. The ones I have problems with are necros (zon seeking bone spriti, which is unevadable) and chare-a-dins. However other classes I can simply GA to death.
-----Skills---------
To kill quickly in hell you need a few things.
1. Multiple damage types, for a amazon, this means physical and elemental. The two types need to be enough damage to quickly kill mobs that are immune to one or the other
2. Ways to kill groups of enemies quickly. Taking out mobs one by one is too slow, and oftent isnt viable.
3. Ways to avoid taking hits. Unless your a barbian or a leech zealot, you wont be able to take very many hits in hell, either physical or elemental.
With this in mind, I came up with this skill template. It is designed for the end-game, and may offer some problems wile leveling up.
Guided Arrow: (20) This will be one of your two main sources of damage. It's the only skill that offers a damage increase in %, (I dont count strafe because the % is so low after you subtract the 20%). Why is % good? because unless you specialize in elemental only, the added set damage of elemental attacks isnt very much at high levels. As you bow gets better, the damage that GA adds will go up as well. Also, GA will always hit for full damage, no matter what the targets deffense is, it can hit around corners, even at mobs off screen.
Multi-Shot (10-20) depending on your +skill items, you want multi to be around 15. This will be your second damage dealing skill. Altho all arrows loose 20% of there damage they make up for this by the number of targets they hit. I like mult over straff because A. Its deals damage to multiple targets much quicker, B. Pierces, meaning that the same arrow can hit more that one mob, and that one mob will get hit by more than one arrow. Anoter nice benifit is that your arrows will fly off screen, you can scout ahead, retreat without attracting the mobs attention and kill it with multi, without it ever coming after you. Beware, too many arrows can be a waste, especially if you dont have a lot of mana leech. If you dont hit enough stuff you wont get enough mana back.
Strafe (1 + items) In your end game you should be getting anywhere from +3 to +12 skills from items. This will be plenty for strafe, as it reaches the max number of targets early on. Strafe is only used when thers a lot of mobs around but there not in packs. Or where you get surrounded. The flayer jungle is a perfect place for this.
Freezing Arrow (10-15+skills) This is going to be your secondary attack for physical immunes, and for mobs that have tons of HP and you dont want them to get close. FA will freeze a all mobs in a 3 yard radious of where it hits, combine with pierce, it can freeze an entire group of mobs. A good strategy is to freeze with FA, then fire off three rounds of multi, re-freeze with FA and repeat.
Ice arrow (1): Ice arrow can be used as an altertintive to FA when you up aginst physical immune, mana draining mobs (rare but they do happen). or physical immune, non-leech mobs (like skeletons). The mana cost of ice arrow is much much lower then that of FA so you can fire off a lot more. Another intresting fact about ice arrow is that it converts a portion of your physical damage to ice damage, wile FA simply adds on extra freezing damage.
Exploding arrow(0-1): If you really want to be able to be absolutely sure you can kill everythign in the game put one point here, otherwise dont bother. With 1 point you will be able to slowly kill any CI+PI mobs (very very rare, and never on a boss).
PASSIVE/MAGIC:
Evasion:
There are three evasion skills Dodge, Avoid, and Evade.
For these skills, I cant say exactaly how many points to put into them because I dont know the percent coralation.
Dodge: (enogh to get 35% wtih +skills) Avoid Meelee attacks wile standing still. This one is the least useful in the end game because if a mob is meeleeing you, it wont matter how high this skill is, your going to die. A few misses will rarly mean the difference between death and escape.
Avoid: (enough to get 45-50% with + skills, probally around 6-7 actual points) This one is more useful, as one of the biggest threats to your zon will be from other archers. Since you have to stand still to shoot them, and if you can shoot them, they can shoot you. Unfortantaly, this does not effect any magic bolt type spells.
Evade: Avoids ranged and meelee attacks wile MOVING: (enoguh to get 35%) this one isnt too useful, as the game is quircky on how it calcualts you moving or not. For many attacks it seems that your character will stop before getting hit. Usually when your moving, you can avoid attacks anyways, but a few points are helpful for thoes emergency escapes.
Bow Passive Skills:
Critical Strike: (70% wtih + skills) This is an awsome skill but has diminsihg returns that are very steep. I would suggest putting about 5 points to start, and then putting excess points into after you ahve your other skills. Keep in mind tho, this will only doulbe your physical damage, and not any elmemntal.
Penetrate (1): This is a great spend and forget skill. It passively adds to your attack rating. However, going back to your main attacks, you dont need a very high attack rating. GA will always hit, no matter how low your AR is. FA, the freezing effect will always hit, altho the physical portion is dependent on AR. Multi: Muilt is dependent on AR but with soo many arrows it doesnt matter that they all hit, as long as some do. Also, your going to have a fairly high dex (to equip the best bows) and this will up your AR on its own. With + skill sitems you wont need to worry about hitting thigns.
Pierce (0, 1, 10, 100%)This is one of the most important skills. It gives your arrow a chance to pierce through a target and hit the one behind it. Its not limited to one target either, one arrow can keep pierceing until it flies off the screen. This skill alone will allow you to deal with groups better than almost any other class. By the time you reach hell you need this to be 100% with items. This skill depends on the bow your going to use. Wile it is possible to use a buriza (which gives 100% pierce) for the entire game, you will kill so slow with it in hell that you will be almost forced to upgrade. Several items (belts mostly) will give you an increase to this. Theres a cheap belt that gives a 33% chance, which means the skill must take up the other 60%. This can be done with around 8 skill points.
Pets:
Decoy: (1). Useful for scouting ahead, and for pulling things off your merc in emergencies. Seems to have a built in taunt ability. You will never need more than 1 point tho, as it cant move, cant attack, and dies really really fast.
Valkyre (1-20): This is open for debate. Without question, you will need some points into it. Your valk is your life. Without it, you have no chance of surviving hell. At high levels, your valk can even do enough damage to make a difference in your kill rate. I would suggest putting 20 points here. You need your valk to have enough life to be able to tank bosses like anderial, diable, and baal. Now your valk will never be able to last long agionst these act bosses but a high skill will allow it to last long enough that you can fire off 6-7 arrows, then recast your valk and repeat.
Other:
Innser Sight (1) only a prereq, useful for lighint up mobs in darker areas, or invisible mobs like the ghosts.
Slow Missle (1): Good 1 pointer, slows missles down enough that you can move out of the way.
Summary:
Guided arrow (20)
Multi Shot (10)
Strafe (1)
Freezing Arr. (15)
Ice Arrow (1)
Dodge (3)
Avoud (6)
Evade (3)
Critcal Stike (13)
Penetrate (1)
Pierce (12)
Decoy (1)
Valkyre (20)
TOTAL (106)
Available points (111)
Now, realisticy you wont be able to get to level 99. A good goal to set is level 90 which would give you 102 points. As far as skill progression. I would alterniate GA and Valk in sets of threes, like this,
Level: GA
Level: Valk
Level: Somethign else
Level: GA
Level: Valk
Level: Something else,
The exception to this is that you will want to put one point into a skill asap, and youll want to have at least 10-15 total (with + skills) into FA before you hit hell.
Stratigies: This setup can kill most monsters, abeit more slowly than other classes. However, this is made up by the fact that this is one of the most versitle setup's available. There is no type of monster you cant hanle, and you are not stuck doing the same thign over and over (like a zealot, hammerdin, frozen orb sorc, ect). You will have three main attacks, and will often use then in conjunction with each other. Plus you will have a pet/tank and a merc. Out of all the classes Ive played, this is the most versitle and fun.
Your main strategy for late game is the placing of your valk. Everythign will come down to this. Your valk tanks, you stay back and shoot. Unfortanaly its never this simple.
A good stragegy is called kiting (termed from EQ), this wowrks mainly on act bosses and other super uniques. What you will do is place your valk near boss, move away and fire some arrows, As soon as the valk dies (will be quick) you run farther back, place the valk again, and then shoot some more. you can repeat this by running around in big circles around the boss.
Another strtegy is called scout shooting. This is done by very carfully getting into visual range of a mob, but not being close enough that it starts to come after you. Then, keeping your aiming pointer directly alligned with the mob, move back a little bit, and fire some arrows (prefabaly multi). If your not in visual range of the mob, it wont come after you, but the arrows will still hit and kill it.
Advanced scout shooting: This doesnt work very well in 1.10 but in certin instences it can be very helpful. Guided arrow and timing are the key. Setup: Have GA on right mouse button. Have bow equiped on primary weapons, and nothing equiped on secondary weapons. Have secondary weapons active.
Ok this is kind of hard to explain. First you get into targatable range of the mob without it coming after you. Then with your empty weapon slot active you r-click on the mob with guided arrow. Of course you wont fire anything because you dont have your bow equipped. Wile holding down the right mouse button, move out of visual range of the mob. Once your out, hit the button to swap your weapons. If done correctaly, you will have the mob targeted, be outside visual range, and shooting guided arrows at it, the mob will have no way of responding. This is very tricky to get to work properly, as you will often loose target lock when you move away. One area that it seens to work every time on tho is the keeper in the arcane sanctuary.
Troubles: Hell of course
1. Mana Burn: You dont generally have a lot of mana, and if you get hit by a mana burn mob, you usually loose it all. This is very problematic as even if you refil with a potion, your attacks are intrupted. Since all of your attacks use some ammount of mana. this can be a real problem. The worst is when its on a ranged attack
2. Freeze/Slow: By the time you reach hell you will have to have somethign that gives you "Cannot be frozen" but you will still be vunrable to the slow curses, best thing to do for these is to let your valk/merc kill (seems to be immune) or run around until you get a different curse.
THE NUMBER ONE BOWAZON TROUBLE:
Duriel!!! Duriel (a2 boss) is the bane of all bowazons. The tight space prevents us from moving around, so we cant kite. The size and speed of duriel preven us from positiong ourselvs so that he goes after our valk instead of us. Even if we do manage to cast a valk, and se goes after it, there wont be enough time after the valk to recast before he comes after us. And even if miracles, of miracles we recast our valk before the old one dies, duriel will usually not target the new one and STILL come after us. Also, duriel frezzes with every hit, making us shoot aganoizly slow. My level 92 bowazon has trouble killing NM duriel.
There are two solutions to this. One is of course to have someone (pallys are great) help you. Wile this isnt hard to do at all (takes about 2 minutes of asking in chat) it makes you not 100% self sufficent.
Option 2: Put one skil point into jab, get a javilan and a shield. With + skill items, jab will give 5 quick hits, that will still be quick even wile frozen. Witht his + a descent shield, + life leech, you can tank duriel somewhat. It will take a very long time to kill him, but you will eventually kill. One point for a skill that will only be used to kill one mob???? sounds crazy but its the only way that I know of.
The final option (only viable at higher levels) is to get tons of life charms, a good 2 handed weapon, cant be frozen item, and just try and tank, tping when low on health.
EQUIPMENT: Im not going into much detail on equip, as I dont remember what half of its called, instead I'll focus on mods you need:
General:
Good Mods:
Cannot be frozen: This is crucial in hell, ravenfrost rings are good fir it.
Rest in peace : This is much more useful than it first appears, there are many mobs in the game that get ressurected, this will stop them.
Knockback: This can be helpful if you have a high damaging bow, but if you have a weaker quick bow, its usually more of a hinderance, as the mob will often be pused past the edge of the screen, which makes your valk go after it, which makes your valk attract friends you may not want yet
Leech: Mana is more important than life, altho if your like me and hate constantaly picking up, TPing for potions, both are good. At lower levels it will be usless but as you level up and get better damage you wont need too much of it. 15% life / 15% mana is probally the lowest youll want. IF you can get life up to about 25-30% you can refill your entire health bar in one volly of multi shot. Same goes for mana, wile you dont need as much of it for mana, you have to have enough that you will get back plenty for your arrows.
Bows: Thers not a whole lot out there, progression should be somethign like this.
Lycander's Aim:
Burista:
Upograded burista:
(forgot the name of this one, its new in 1.10)
Windforce
BOTD Colosial X-Bow, or maby BOTD Hydra.
If you do go for botd (very very expensive) Id suggest putting it on a colosal x-bow. The botd will give it a 60% ias, and if can get another 50% ias or so, you can get it down to 9 frames. If you want to go faster with less IAS get a botd hydra, altho the damage on it is going to be less than an upgraded burista even with 415 (pefect) ED. The dmg for a botd is actualyl less than a WF, but the mods make up for it. Duel leech, and some other nice effects. Unfortantaly, the cool looking effect (poison nova) is completely uselss, as it goes off from you, and not from where the arrow hits.
Armor:
Mavianns (sp?) is some of the best zon armor available. +2 skills and 1200 deffense
CoH -- this is the ideal armor seign as without it, theres almost no way to get max resists.
Enigma -- With enigma + some mana items, you will be able to rush people in nm and hell, it wont be as quick as a pally/sorc but it will be more realible.
LEVELING:
1-6: join 8 player games and kill stuff outside of A1, if someone leaves, find a new 8 player game. Takes about 6-7 minutes
6-10: Go through as many of the areas in A1 as you can, gathering WP's. As soon as you hit 10, get with a group and go kill andy.
10-15: Do 8 player sewer runs (if its too hard, go level in a1 catacacombs for a bit). 3 sewer runs should get you to 15.
15-20: Arcanse sanctury, emptying it out completely (all 4 directions) should get you 4-5 levels. again 8 player game
20-24: Cow runs, these can be a pain to find, but try to get a high level mass killer to run some games (sorcc, teeth necro, other amazon). 3-4 runs should get you to 24
24: Get rushed to A5 and have rusher kill ancients, this will automatacaly give you exacly one level:
25-43: Get into a baal run game, prefabaly one where the sorc is teleporting to baal. Shouldnt take more than an hour or two.
43: Get rushed through A5 NM.
44-75: Baal runs, should take a few hours. NM baal runs are much better than normal runs, no bots, better orginization, longer commitment.
75: Hit hell ( I wouldnt suggest going to hell any sonner unless you ahve a lot of good gear). As I challnge, with all of my characters, I take the time to do all of the hell quests my self, with only minimal WP support from others (the only think I let them do is give me WP's). I feel this is the untlmate test, if I can survive a4/a5 and solo diablo, Ive made a good character.
75-90: Exp from questiong, this is a good time to go back to all the acts and get all your bonuses:
Act 1:
Den of evil: Free skill point
Cain: Free ID'ing
Act 2:
Sewers - Kill radement for a free skill point
Act 3:
Golden bird: 20 life points
Kalim's Will: Complete the flail to give to one of your meelee alts. The completely flail has no requirements to use, and has awosme damage for a lvl 1. It will kill most mobs in one hit, allthe way into A2
Act 4:
Izual: 2 Free skill points
Act 5:
Anya: +10 to all resists. (Do normal + NM BEOFRE you enter hell, it will help alot)
Also, if you plan on helping people or rushing, I always go throu and get all the WP's even the ones I wont need. That way I can always help someone with anything.
Anyways, I hope this guide makes it to the guides section or at least a sticky.
Please leave any feedback and have fun:
After playing with a few builds on paper, I came up with this, and so far its working quite well.
General Info:
What the hell-a-bow-a-zon can and cant do:
MFing: Compared to sorcs and hammerdins not very well. With expensive gear, you can get your MF to around 200% without sacrificing kililng power, anything over that, and your going to kill stuff slower. The bigest problem is no shield, and no MF on weapon. However, compared to other classes you can MF fairly well. Your advantage is that unlike most sorcs, you can MF solo anywhere, pits, pindle, meph, you name it. And you can do runs fairly quickly.
Rushing: With enigma + mana items you can rush people eaisly through nm, and with some paitence even hell:
Exp Runs:
Baal:
This is where you shine. In baal runs you do very well, out damaging anyone excpet for the sorc (in terms of total damage). Plus you can do somethign that no other class can. You can freze (not slow) the entire wave of mobs indefinitaly, wile everyone else kills them. Trust me, after doing this on some nm runs, people will be quickly adding you to the friends list.
Cows: Again, you can quickly kill here thanks to your amazing crowd damagers. Wile freezing enitre heards of cows is possible, its a bit ahrsder, often requires lots of kiting.
Other Areas: Abbout average with other classes:
PvP: I dont pvp much, but when I do, I usually win aginst evenaly matched/equipped oppenents. The ones I have problems with are necros (zon seeking bone spriti, which is unevadable) and chare-a-dins. However other classes I can simply GA to death.
-----Skills---------
To kill quickly in hell you need a few things.
1. Multiple damage types, for a amazon, this means physical and elemental. The two types need to be enough damage to quickly kill mobs that are immune to one or the other
2. Ways to kill groups of enemies quickly. Taking out mobs one by one is too slow, and oftent isnt viable.
3. Ways to avoid taking hits. Unless your a barbian or a leech zealot, you wont be able to take very many hits in hell, either physical or elemental.
With this in mind, I came up with this skill template. It is designed for the end-game, and may offer some problems wile leveling up.
Guided Arrow: (20) This will be one of your two main sources of damage. It's the only skill that offers a damage increase in %, (I dont count strafe because the % is so low after you subtract the 20%). Why is % good? because unless you specialize in elemental only, the added set damage of elemental attacks isnt very much at high levels. As you bow gets better, the damage that GA adds will go up as well. Also, GA will always hit for full damage, no matter what the targets deffense is, it can hit around corners, even at mobs off screen.
Multi-Shot (10-20) depending on your +skill items, you want multi to be around 15. This will be your second damage dealing skill. Altho all arrows loose 20% of there damage they make up for this by the number of targets they hit. I like mult over straff because A. Its deals damage to multiple targets much quicker, B. Pierces, meaning that the same arrow can hit more that one mob, and that one mob will get hit by more than one arrow. Anoter nice benifit is that your arrows will fly off screen, you can scout ahead, retreat without attracting the mobs attention and kill it with multi, without it ever coming after you. Beware, too many arrows can be a waste, especially if you dont have a lot of mana leech. If you dont hit enough stuff you wont get enough mana back.
Strafe (1 + items) In your end game you should be getting anywhere from +3 to +12 skills from items. This will be plenty for strafe, as it reaches the max number of targets early on. Strafe is only used when thers a lot of mobs around but there not in packs. Or where you get surrounded. The flayer jungle is a perfect place for this.
Freezing Arrow (10-15+skills) This is going to be your secondary attack for physical immunes, and for mobs that have tons of HP and you dont want them to get close. FA will freeze a all mobs in a 3 yard radious of where it hits, combine with pierce, it can freeze an entire group of mobs. A good strategy is to freeze with FA, then fire off three rounds of multi, re-freeze with FA and repeat.
Ice arrow (1): Ice arrow can be used as an altertintive to FA when you up aginst physical immune, mana draining mobs (rare but they do happen). or physical immune, non-leech mobs (like skeletons). The mana cost of ice arrow is much much lower then that of FA so you can fire off a lot more. Another intresting fact about ice arrow is that it converts a portion of your physical damage to ice damage, wile FA simply adds on extra freezing damage.
Exploding arrow(0-1): If you really want to be able to be absolutely sure you can kill everythign in the game put one point here, otherwise dont bother. With 1 point you will be able to slowly kill any CI+PI mobs (very very rare, and never on a boss).
PASSIVE/MAGIC:
Evasion:
There are three evasion skills Dodge, Avoid, and Evade.
For these skills, I cant say exactaly how many points to put into them because I dont know the percent coralation.
Dodge: (enogh to get 35% wtih +skills) Avoid Meelee attacks wile standing still. This one is the least useful in the end game because if a mob is meeleeing you, it wont matter how high this skill is, your going to die. A few misses will rarly mean the difference between death and escape.
Avoid: (enough to get 45-50% with + skills, probally around 6-7 actual points) This one is more useful, as one of the biggest threats to your zon will be from other archers. Since you have to stand still to shoot them, and if you can shoot them, they can shoot you. Unfortantaly, this does not effect any magic bolt type spells.
Evade: Avoids ranged and meelee attacks wile MOVING: (enoguh to get 35%) this one isnt too useful, as the game is quircky on how it calcualts you moving or not. For many attacks it seems that your character will stop before getting hit. Usually when your moving, you can avoid attacks anyways, but a few points are helpful for thoes emergency escapes.
Bow Passive Skills:
Critical Strike: (70% wtih + skills) This is an awsome skill but has diminsihg returns that are very steep. I would suggest putting about 5 points to start, and then putting excess points into after you ahve your other skills. Keep in mind tho, this will only doulbe your physical damage, and not any elmemntal.
Penetrate (1): This is a great spend and forget skill. It passively adds to your attack rating. However, going back to your main attacks, you dont need a very high attack rating. GA will always hit, no matter how low your AR is. FA, the freezing effect will always hit, altho the physical portion is dependent on AR. Multi: Muilt is dependent on AR but with soo many arrows it doesnt matter that they all hit, as long as some do. Also, your going to have a fairly high dex (to equip the best bows) and this will up your AR on its own. With + skill sitems you wont need to worry about hitting thigns.
Pierce (0, 1, 10, 100%)This is one of the most important skills. It gives your arrow a chance to pierce through a target and hit the one behind it. Its not limited to one target either, one arrow can keep pierceing until it flies off the screen. This skill alone will allow you to deal with groups better than almost any other class. By the time you reach hell you need this to be 100% with items. This skill depends on the bow your going to use. Wile it is possible to use a buriza (which gives 100% pierce) for the entire game, you will kill so slow with it in hell that you will be almost forced to upgrade. Several items (belts mostly) will give you an increase to this. Theres a cheap belt that gives a 33% chance, which means the skill must take up the other 60%. This can be done with around 8 skill points.
Pets:
Decoy: (1). Useful for scouting ahead, and for pulling things off your merc in emergencies. Seems to have a built in taunt ability. You will never need more than 1 point tho, as it cant move, cant attack, and dies really really fast.
Valkyre (1-20): This is open for debate. Without question, you will need some points into it. Your valk is your life. Without it, you have no chance of surviving hell. At high levels, your valk can even do enough damage to make a difference in your kill rate. I would suggest putting 20 points here. You need your valk to have enough life to be able to tank bosses like anderial, diable, and baal. Now your valk will never be able to last long agionst these act bosses but a high skill will allow it to last long enough that you can fire off 6-7 arrows, then recast your valk and repeat.
Other:
Innser Sight (1) only a prereq, useful for lighint up mobs in darker areas, or invisible mobs like the ghosts.
Slow Missle (1): Good 1 pointer, slows missles down enough that you can move out of the way.
Summary:
Guided arrow (20)
Multi Shot (10)
Strafe (1)
Freezing Arr. (15)
Ice Arrow (1)
Dodge (3)
Avoud (6)
Evade (3)
Critcal Stike (13)
Penetrate (1)
Pierce (12)
Decoy (1)
Valkyre (20)
TOTAL (106)
Available points (111)
Now, realisticy you wont be able to get to level 99. A good goal to set is level 90 which would give you 102 points. As far as skill progression. I would alterniate GA and Valk in sets of threes, like this,
Level: GA
Level: Valk
Level: Somethign else
Level: GA
Level: Valk
Level: Something else,
The exception to this is that you will want to put one point into a skill asap, and youll want to have at least 10-15 total (with + skills) into FA before you hit hell.
Stratigies: This setup can kill most monsters, abeit more slowly than other classes. However, this is made up by the fact that this is one of the most versitle setup's available. There is no type of monster you cant hanle, and you are not stuck doing the same thign over and over (like a zealot, hammerdin, frozen orb sorc, ect). You will have three main attacks, and will often use then in conjunction with each other. Plus you will have a pet/tank and a merc. Out of all the classes Ive played, this is the most versitle and fun.
Your main strategy for late game is the placing of your valk. Everythign will come down to this. Your valk tanks, you stay back and shoot. Unfortanaly its never this simple.
A good stragegy is called kiting (termed from EQ), this wowrks mainly on act bosses and other super uniques. What you will do is place your valk near boss, move away and fire some arrows, As soon as the valk dies (will be quick) you run farther back, place the valk again, and then shoot some more. you can repeat this by running around in big circles around the boss.
Another strtegy is called scout shooting. This is done by very carfully getting into visual range of a mob, but not being close enough that it starts to come after you. Then, keeping your aiming pointer directly alligned with the mob, move back a little bit, and fire some arrows (prefabaly multi). If your not in visual range of the mob, it wont come after you, but the arrows will still hit and kill it.
Advanced scout shooting: This doesnt work very well in 1.10 but in certin instences it can be very helpful. Guided arrow and timing are the key. Setup: Have GA on right mouse button. Have bow equiped on primary weapons, and nothing equiped on secondary weapons. Have secondary weapons active.
Ok this is kind of hard to explain. First you get into targatable range of the mob without it coming after you. Then with your empty weapon slot active you r-click on the mob with guided arrow. Of course you wont fire anything because you dont have your bow equipped. Wile holding down the right mouse button, move out of visual range of the mob. Once your out, hit the button to swap your weapons. If done correctaly, you will have the mob targeted, be outside visual range, and shooting guided arrows at it, the mob will have no way of responding. This is very tricky to get to work properly, as you will often loose target lock when you move away. One area that it seens to work every time on tho is the keeper in the arcane sanctuary.
Troubles: Hell of course
1. Mana Burn: You dont generally have a lot of mana, and if you get hit by a mana burn mob, you usually loose it all. This is very problematic as even if you refil with a potion, your attacks are intrupted. Since all of your attacks use some ammount of mana. this can be a real problem. The worst is when its on a ranged attack
2. Freeze/Slow: By the time you reach hell you will have to have somethign that gives you "Cannot be frozen" but you will still be vunrable to the slow curses, best thing to do for these is to let your valk/merc kill (seems to be immune) or run around until you get a different curse.
THE NUMBER ONE BOWAZON TROUBLE:
Duriel!!! Duriel (a2 boss) is the bane of all bowazons. The tight space prevents us from moving around, so we cant kite. The size and speed of duriel preven us from positiong ourselvs so that he goes after our valk instead of us. Even if we do manage to cast a valk, and se goes after it, there wont be enough time after the valk to recast before he comes after us. And even if miracles, of miracles we recast our valk before the old one dies, duriel will usually not target the new one and STILL come after us. Also, duriel frezzes with every hit, making us shoot aganoizly slow. My level 92 bowazon has trouble killing NM duriel.
There are two solutions to this. One is of course to have someone (pallys are great) help you. Wile this isnt hard to do at all (takes about 2 minutes of asking in chat) it makes you not 100% self sufficent.
Option 2: Put one skil point into jab, get a javilan and a shield. With + skill items, jab will give 5 quick hits, that will still be quick even wile frozen. Witht his + a descent shield, + life leech, you can tank duriel somewhat. It will take a very long time to kill him, but you will eventually kill. One point for a skill that will only be used to kill one mob???? sounds crazy but its the only way that I know of.
The final option (only viable at higher levels) is to get tons of life charms, a good 2 handed weapon, cant be frozen item, and just try and tank, tping when low on health.
EQUIPMENT: Im not going into much detail on equip, as I dont remember what half of its called, instead I'll focus on mods you need:
General:
Good Mods:
Cannot be frozen: This is crucial in hell, ravenfrost rings are good fir it.
Rest in peace : This is much more useful than it first appears, there are many mobs in the game that get ressurected, this will stop them.
Knockback: This can be helpful if you have a high damaging bow, but if you have a weaker quick bow, its usually more of a hinderance, as the mob will often be pused past the edge of the screen, which makes your valk go after it, which makes your valk attract friends you may not want yet
Leech: Mana is more important than life, altho if your like me and hate constantaly picking up, TPing for potions, both are good. At lower levels it will be usless but as you level up and get better damage you wont need too much of it. 15% life / 15% mana is probally the lowest youll want. IF you can get life up to about 25-30% you can refill your entire health bar in one volly of multi shot. Same goes for mana, wile you dont need as much of it for mana, you have to have enough that you will get back plenty for your arrows.
Bows: Thers not a whole lot out there, progression should be somethign like this.
Lycander's Aim:
Burista:
Upograded burista:
(forgot the name of this one, its new in 1.10)
Windforce
BOTD Colosial X-Bow, or maby BOTD Hydra.
If you do go for botd (very very expensive) Id suggest putting it on a colosal x-bow. The botd will give it a 60% ias, and if can get another 50% ias or so, you can get it down to 9 frames. If you want to go faster with less IAS get a botd hydra, altho the damage on it is going to be less than an upgraded burista even with 415 (pefect) ED. The dmg for a botd is actualyl less than a WF, but the mods make up for it. Duel leech, and some other nice effects. Unfortantaly, the cool looking effect (poison nova) is completely uselss, as it goes off from you, and not from where the arrow hits.
Armor:
Mavianns (sp?) is some of the best zon armor available. +2 skills and 1200 deffense
CoH -- this is the ideal armor seign as without it, theres almost no way to get max resists.
Enigma -- With enigma + some mana items, you will be able to rush people in nm and hell, it wont be as quick as a pally/sorc but it will be more realible.
LEVELING:
1-6: join 8 player games and kill stuff outside of A1, if someone leaves, find a new 8 player game. Takes about 6-7 minutes
6-10: Go through as many of the areas in A1 as you can, gathering WP's. As soon as you hit 10, get with a group and go kill andy.
10-15: Do 8 player sewer runs (if its too hard, go level in a1 catacacombs for a bit). 3 sewer runs should get you to 15.
15-20: Arcanse sanctury, emptying it out completely (all 4 directions) should get you 4-5 levels. again 8 player game
20-24: Cow runs, these can be a pain to find, but try to get a high level mass killer to run some games (sorcc, teeth necro, other amazon). 3-4 runs should get you to 24
24: Get rushed to A5 and have rusher kill ancients, this will automatacaly give you exacly one level:
25-43: Get into a baal run game, prefabaly one where the sorc is teleporting to baal. Shouldnt take more than an hour or two.
43: Get rushed through A5 NM.
44-75: Baal runs, should take a few hours. NM baal runs are much better than normal runs, no bots, better orginization, longer commitment.
75: Hit hell ( I wouldnt suggest going to hell any sonner unless you ahve a lot of good gear). As I challnge, with all of my characters, I take the time to do all of the hell quests my self, with only minimal WP support from others (the only think I let them do is give me WP's). I feel this is the untlmate test, if I can survive a4/a5 and solo diablo, Ive made a good character.
75-90: Exp from questiong, this is a good time to go back to all the acts and get all your bonuses:
Act 1:
Den of evil: Free skill point
Cain: Free ID'ing
Act 2:
Sewers - Kill radement for a free skill point
Act 3:
Golden bird: 20 life points
Kalim's Will: Complete the flail to give to one of your meelee alts. The completely flail has no requirements to use, and has awosme damage for a lvl 1. It will kill most mobs in one hit, allthe way into A2
Act 4:
Izual: 2 Free skill points
Act 5:
Anya: +10 to all resists. (Do normal + NM BEOFRE you enter hell, it will help alot)
Also, if you plan on helping people or rushing, I always go throu and get all the WP's even the ones I wont need. That way I can always help someone with anything.
Anyways, I hope this guide makes it to the guides section or at least a sticky.
Please leave any feedback and have fun: