Shanksie1337
13-04-2004, 18:17
Shanksies 1.10 Pit Strafer guide
Hi there folks
This is long post (get a cup of Tea ready), this is the final version, with some changes made due to the feedback (ty all). The versatility section didn’t turn out as planned, and there are still some grammatical errors that Word has missed and I am too blind to see after 27 read thrus. Still I hope to have produced a useful document that can answer some of the questions that people have regarding this build.
*Aim:
After reading these forums for some time you see the same old questions asked over and over again, so I am writing this guide with the aim of having all (well most) of the answers in one place.
This guide is based on a pit running pure strafer on Ladder – some of my choices are ladder only but where possible I will list alternative methods for NL / poorer / richer players. I only play ladder so that’s why I am limiting it this way. Plus if I have these items on ladder I can assume most others do as well as I am relatively new to D2.
Once complete and at a decent level (~78-80) she will be able to solo Hell Pits in an 8 man game.
This guide is mainly geared to a strafer using a Windforce as it seems that everyone finds a WF then thinks “I’ll make a strafer to run the pits”, other bows are of course mentioned, but the bulk of this guide is WF based. The build is Hell viable with many of the main bows/xbows, but imho it only excels with a high damage bow.
*Stat points:
Str – enough for gear – extra str doesn’t give extra damage.
Dex – as much as you can spare – more dex = more damage.
Vita – personal preference and gear/charm dependant. I recommend 50 min and ~800 life as an aim.
Mana – BASE.
Those who have already have the items before building the char are at an advantage as you can easily work out where to stop investing in strength, but as I guide I’d say you can go up to 95 easily (for WT’s / 97 for Eagle)), any more than that will be bow dependent – Windforce mainly – 134 str rqd.
*Skill points:
Strafe – 20
Penetrate – 20
Valk – 20*
Pierce – 70% min – more as desired
Critical Strike – 50% min – more as desired
D/A/E – 1 min – more as required (depending on +skills I aim for the 40-50% region).
Plus prerequisites skills for Strafe
*Valkyrie is always a point of debate for any zon build, my reasoning for maxing the valk is twofold:
1. As a meat shield more life = better shield for you
2. As a meat shield to help keep our merc alive and take her share of the hits.
At a minimum I suggest slvl 17 including +skills.
As you can work out this leaves many spare skill points unspent, and spending them is entirely up to you. I tend towards extra points into:
Pierce – more pierce improves your arrow chance to pierce the 1st / 2nd /3rd etc etc target.
Critical Strike – better chance to do double damage.
D/A/E – if you feel you are getting hit too much...
Decoy – both to use in its own right and as a synergy for your valk (more life for valk)
All points spent in the passive tree also benefit your merc/valk so I always prefer to spend them there as opposed to trying to hybrid my zon with either J&S skills or the Cold / Fire arrow branches.
*Equipment:
This main area for debate over equipment is the balance between IAS (increased attack speed) and mf (magic find). Personally I have played with both full mf (30IAS) and full IAS (120IAS) and have to mention that the killing speeds are not that different. I will try and list both mf and IAS options so you can try both sides for yourself. I also realise that IAS can be added to helm, armour and bow via socketing but I will leave those permutations up to you as there are far too many to list here.
Also unlike some chars – mf sorcs for example – a strafer is very dependant on good gear, mainly because her damage is based on equipment as opposed to +skills. This is one of the reasons I stress this guide is referring to a WF based zon, simply because other bows lack the damage.
Key
PT = socketed with perfect topaz
LL = life leech
ML = mana leech
Res = resistances
ED = enhanced damage
IAS = Increased Attack Speed
CBF = cannot be frozen
DR = damage reduction to physical
N/A = Not available
ITD = Ignore target defence
Bow
The main item for any bowazon and a pit strafer is no exception, I am sure we are all familiar with the main bows, (and the not so mainstream ones too), but for the purpose of this guide I will list the main 5 or so.
Windforce – the daddy of bows and the best attainable for most ladder players – huge damage, knock back and ML make this bow hard to beat.
BoTD runeword – too expensive for the majority of legit ladder players – but an excellent choice if available (I have never owned one, and I am not likely to in the near future so I’ll leave it to others to extol it’s virtues). Also as you don’t get ETH bows it does seem a waste of a Zod to make a BoTD bow/xbow.
Those are the 2 end game bows for most players, however some players prefer using bows from this list:
Lycanders Aim – upgraded or not – none upgraded it makes an excellent levelling bow, and upgraded it can be used by those without a WF.
WWS – upgraded or not (or both) - %amp + 2 sockets + Deadly Strike
Eaglehorn – less damage but ITD means hitting is easier – some prefer this to a WF.
Buriza / Langer Briser / Goldstrike Arch, plus many others that I have not listed.
The reason I list so few is that for a strafer speed and damage are the main aims for a bow and whilst many bows offer a myriad of mods, the above bows are available to all purses and can provide the killing power/speed we need.
Bows (like everything else in D2) are a matter of preference and affordability, those I have mentioned are the bows I guess the vast majority of the realms are using.
Just a note on socketing the bow
MF can of course be added to a bow via a jewel or an IST rune but I STRONGLY recommend against it as there are far better options for socketing in bows. For example – Amn / ED / IAS / mana per kill / Shael / Nef etc etc.
Helms
MF = Shako “pt” / ptopaz helm / SteelSkull
IAS = SteelSkull / Mavinas Diadem
Other = Tal’s mask (dual leech + res + life) / Peasant crown (poor mans shako) / Vampire Gaze (DR + Dual leech) / Crown of Thieves (LL + dex).
Armour
MF = Skullders Ire “pt” / Enigma runeword / ptopaz armour / Chains Of Honor runeword
IAS = Anything socketed with IAS jewels – some ppl like Jewellers xxx of the xxx – where this is a socketed magical armour with a natural + to life socketed with ED/IAS jewels. / Twitchthroe (usually upgraded if possible). Good/legit ED/IAS jewels on ladder cost a fortune, off ladder 40/15’s are widely duped and readily available.
Other = Lionheart runeword (quite simply an excellent armour) / Duriels / Spirit Forge / Shaftstop.
Belt
MF = Goldwrap (30mf + 10 IAS) – upgraded if possible
IAS = Goldwrap / Nosferatu’s Coil (IAS + LL)
Other = Razortail (a pure strafer should have plenty of skill points available to get high pierce) / Verdungos (DR + life) / Thundergods (str + life + L absorb) / String of Ears (LL + DR)
Gloves
MF = Chanceguards – upgraded if possible
IAS = Laying of Hands (20 IAS + excellent bonus to damage vs demons) / Rare/Crafted Gloves with 20IAS and nice mods.
Other = Set (see below)
Boots
MF = War Travellers (WT’s)
IAS = N/A
Other = Cow Kings boots (mf + dex) / Set (see below) / Waterwalks (life) / Silkweaves (mana per kill) / Goreriders (damage mods)
Amulet
MF = magic or rare with mf
IAS = Cat’s Eye (20IAS + dex) / Highlords (+skill + deadly strike + IAS)
Other = Mara’s (attributes + resistances) / Eye of Etlich (Cold damage + freeze time + LL) / Crescent Moon (dual leech) / Atmas Scarab (% to cast Amp damage – see notes on mercenary).
Rings
MF = magic or rare with mf / Nagel ring
IAS = N/A
Other = Ravenfrost (a must have ring for any zon) / rare or magic with useful mods (see below).
Charms
Annihilus is a must if u can – and with everyone DC hunting they can usually be traded for a decent Hell forge drop.
Gheeds
Skillers – Bow and Crossbow are NOT needed – a strafer kills with damage not skills. Passive and magic are useful as they boost the passives for you, your merc and your valk.
Life sc’s – aim for 800 life (or a level you are happy with) and then fill with either:
Mf charms
Poison damage charms
Again there are too many possible combinations to list.
Set combinations that give useful partial bonus’s and/or have useful individual items
IK = Gloves / Belt /Boots
Mavina’s = Gloves / Belt / Helm
Sigons = Full for levelling as a javazon / Gloves / Belt / Boots
Vidala’s / Artic = for levelling as a bowazon
Angelic = Rings*2 / Amulet
A note on Mavina’s set
The bow on mav’s set has quite low damage and this means that the full set is of little use to a pure strafer. The full Mav’s set is quite useful for a FA based zon and there is already a guide by Freyas sticked on these forums.
Mod’s to aim for in your equipment
+attributes – in this order dex = vita > str > energy. If you can get any of the 3 main attributes from your gear this means you have more stat points left to use in the dex/life trade-off.
+cannot be frozen – usually from a ravenfrost – stops us getting slowed down by cold.
+damage - for example on the WT’s – as this get’s multiplied up by bonus’s.
+faster run/walk – FRW – helps us get into good safe positions quickly.
+IAS – personal preference and there is a direct trade-off with IAS and mf, more mf = less IAS so experiment about and find a balance you are happy with.
+knock back – crowd control and keeps us from taking hits.
+life – keeps us alive and helps us get near our ~800 life target.
+life leech – helps keep us alive, ~7LL is enough depending on your damage.
+mana – enables us to keep strafing those non leechable monsters.
+mana leech – strafe costs 11 mana and so you need some method to refill the mana pool, ~7ML is enough depending on damage (more damage = more leech as leech is a % of damage).
+mf – the main purpose of this zon.
+passive & magic – good boosts to valk etc if u can get them from rare/crafted gloves.
Mods I feel are not/less important
+crushing blow / open wounds / deadly strike etc – as we need to get IAS and mf into our gear we really have no spare equipment slots to account for these mods and I know my zon kills fast enough without them. Some bows have these mods on them already, but imo these mods do not make up for the lack of raw damage.
+IAS – put both places as too much is a waste and u need to ensure you don’t have excess IAS – for example 100 IAS is a waste as you are not any faster than if you had 90. Experiment about and find the IAS/MF trade off you are happy with.
+resistances – wherever you play your merc valk and decoy should be taking the hits, the majority of monsters in the pits do physical damage, but u can play anywhere in the game with very bad resistances as the merc valk decoy should always be taking the hits. My strafer has MINUS 60 res all.
+skills – strafers kill with damage not skills (like a furyzon), some +skills is nice to boost the passives.
The tables in there nice form can be seen here:
http://www.diabloii.net/characters/amazon/faq2.shtml#What%20is%20IAS? – cut and paste this link into IE then click on “10. Whats is IAS - UPDATED”
Bow IAS table – which I had to butcher as the formatting doesn’t work in the forums :/
FPS____[10]____[5]____[0]____[-10]
15/4_____0
14/4_____4______0
13/3_____11_____6_____0
12/3_____22_____15____9______0
11/3_____35_____27____20_____8
10/3_____56_____46____37_____22
9/3______89_____75____63_____42
9/2______120____102___86_____60
8/2______147____125___105____75
7/2______292____240___200____142
In the above table a WF (and BoTD in Hydra or Crusader bow) is [10].
WF IAS with some possible solutions:
12/3 – 22 (clean WF[20] and IAS belt[10] = 30 IAS)
11/3 – 35
10/3 - 56
9/3 – 89 (Sheal’d WF[40] + IAS belt[10] + IAS amulet[20] + IAS gloves[20] = 90 IAS)
9/2 – 120 (with IAS jewels this is easily possible but at the cost of mf)
8/2 – 147 (don’t even try as you would have ~0 mf)
7/2 – 292 (lol! I dare you)
The below table is for Crossbows, with a Buriza being [10.
FPS____[10]____[0]____[-10]____[-40]____[-60]
22/6_____0
22/5.5____2
21/5.5____3
20/5.5____7
19/5_____11_____0
18/5_____19_____7_____0
17/4.5____27____14_____3
16/4.5____37____22_____9
15/4_____50_____32____18
14/4_____70_____48____30______0
13/3.5____95_____68____46______4
12/3.5____138____99____70______16______0
11/3______215___152___109_____35______8
These tables have all been taken from the Amazon FAQ at the top of this (and every) page via the left hand side drag down menu.
*Mercenary:
For me there is only one choice for a strafer – the Act2 Nightmare Offensive Might merc:
My reasons are:
Act2 – because we will equip him with a Reapers Toll weapon and this is of huge significance to the build.
Might – might provides an excellent boost to our damage – in some cases it can add 30% to our strafe damage, plus the might aura gives boosts to both our merc and our valks damage (plus anyone in our party).
Other mercs have there uses, but none get close to the might merc, holy freeze is nice, as is blessed aim. But both those merc’s are supplanted with knock back and high AR/penetrate respectively.
Mercs Equipment
Helm – Anything with high life leech – Tal’s Mask / SteelSkull / Crown of Thieves etc.
Armour – Anything with high defence (upgraded where possible) and good mods – Duriels / Shaftstop / Skullders / Leviathan / Stone runeword, basically anything with 600+ defence.
Weapon – the most important item for the whole build imo, this is even more important than your choice of bow! – Reapers Toll (ETH is possible) – socketed with Amn.
Our merc is going to take huge amounts of damage and be in the front line for all attacks so lots of LL is vital to keep him alive. I aim for 20+ LL and with my preferred set up he has ~30 LL.
Why Reapers?
As a pure strafer the only thing we fear are Physical immunes (PI), now for pit running the only PI you are likely to face are PI uniques as none of the normal monsters spawn PI. However for ease of play in other areas where PI’s can spawn – Act2 + Act3 spring to mind, then you need some fast way of making them vulnerable to you.
The Reapers has 33% to cast decrepify on striking. Once triggered this means that every monster affected will lose 50% to physical resistances as well as having slower attack and movement speeds.
This affect will mean you do much more damage to those monsters and also it will remove any PI you encounter, even Stoneskin PI.
There are other methods of removing PI from monsters that can be used, and for those on NL you will have to try one of these methods as the Reapers Toll is Ladder only.
WWS bow has 2% to cast Amplify damage
Atmas Scarab amulet has 5% chance to cast Amp damage.
There are other sources of both Amp and decrepify and rares can spawn with either as a mod.
*Levelling Strategy:
As with everything in D2 ppl have many ways to do things and each prefer there own methods/ideas.
As we are going to be a pure strafer, with no non physical attack bar a few optional pdsc’s we are going to have problems in certain areas – Act2 and Act 3 spring to mind so if you are levelling by questing you really need to party for these acts. It is possible to solo quest the whole game, but the PI ghosts in both acts are a real pain for our strafer.
For those who do it the fast way, ie rush from a mate through the important quests and then baal running this is the easiest way to do it.
Normal quests until clvl 21 (usually this means end of Act2 – mid Act3)
Then cows until 25
Rush all remaining Acts & Ancients (& any key quests) and then baal runs until ~clvl 45
Nightmare rush (remembering to hire an Act2 Offensive merc) and Ancients
Nightmare baal runs until lvl 73 (for WF), or until you are lvl 75 (so merc can wear Reapers)
Now you have some choices:
1. Straight to the pits – in 1 man games – excellent for levelling up our merc (he needs to be lvl 75 for the Reapers).
2. Baal run to level up the merc
3. Go back through Normal + NM and do any/all quests that u missed and want/need to do.
4. Hell questing – A1Q1 / A1Q5 / A2Q1 / A3Q1 / A3Q4 / A4Q1 / A4Q2 / A5Q1 / A5Q3 are all the decent quests (on all difficulty levels).
Whichever you choose sooner or later you will want to venture into the pits to start mf’ing.
*Pit Running Strategy:
Start small and solo the pits in a single game and work your way up to a “difficulty” you are happy with at your level. The pits are an excellent place to level up our merc, so keeping him alive is a priority, and going back to town as soon as he is dead is sensible too.
Once you both are lvl 75 (or higher) you should be ready to make things harder for yourself, thus increasing the drops and the exp gained.
So join Hell questing games, or any games where there are a few players and give the pits a try.
Some Pit tips:
1. Use the Outer Cloister Waypoint and go backwards through the Monastery Gate and into the Tamoe Highlands. Follow the path and at some point it will fork/split with one branch leading to the Pits and the other leading towards the Black Marsh. If you take the wrong fork simple go back and take the other way. It helps to play with the map on as the entrance to the pits is shocking purple in colour and is easily seen on the map when not visible on screen.
2. If in doubt over mf/ias trade-off go full IAS for the first few runs, and gradually cut down on the IAS until you reach a comfortable point.
3. Learn the layouts, we want to kill everything as all monsters can drop good items, you soon learn how to “find” the way down to level 2 last as there only a limited number of map layout variations.
4. Strafelock – the bane of all strafers – once you have fired a strafe you will be unable to move or do anything for 1 or 2 seconds, so think before you fire and don’t be afraid to run back behind your merc/valk before you start firing. With practise you almost won’t notice the strafe lock as you will happily strafing away from a position of safety behind your merc and valk. I must say that if in doubt I always fire, as if I fire I hit and I leech so any damage taken is quickly nullified. The only dangerous area is the start of the second level when u can be faced with too many archers to be able to leech more than you loose.
5. Take it slow, your merc & valk will lag behind – she can be recast in front should u need.
6. Decoy can be used, especially near corners/intersections, however the only place I ever use it now is right at the start of the second level, just by the flame torch by the first stairs. This way if there are several archers she gets hit first and I know to be a little more cautious.
7. Use Strafe to “scout” ahead, with an empty screen fire one strafe – if 1 arrow appears there are no monsters in range so move forward. If several arrow shoot of then there are monsters in range (and in the direction of the arrows), so you can cast a decoy that way (and Valk), and advance slowly shooting off strafes. Just repeat this method until you feel comfortable with your char, and the layout of the pits.
8. In your belt keep 16 FULL rejuv’s – you will pick up so many from the pits that it’s a waste to have single life/mana potions in our belt. Plus with good ML/LL we shouldn’t need to drink potions, they are more for our merc should he run into a large pack.
9. Beware of monsters who explode on death, they can wipe ~700 life in one blast – a rejuv is in order here.
10. If your Valks heath gets into the yellow – retreat and recast, this is much better than trying to recast a dead valk.
11. The pits are not like Meph, where some rare/unique/set drops every run, some runs will produce nothing better than a flawless gem or 2, but the beauty of the pits is that unlike meph anything and everything can drop. So many runs are needed to produce results and I am dubious regarding some ppl’s claim to have found x shakos, y Stormsheilds and x Tal’s armours in 10 runs.
Hi there folks
This is long post (get a cup of Tea ready), this is the final version, with some changes made due to the feedback (ty all). The versatility section didn’t turn out as planned, and there are still some grammatical errors that Word has missed and I am too blind to see after 27 read thrus. Still I hope to have produced a useful document that can answer some of the questions that people have regarding this build.
*Aim:
After reading these forums for some time you see the same old questions asked over and over again, so I am writing this guide with the aim of having all (well most) of the answers in one place.
This guide is based on a pit running pure strafer on Ladder – some of my choices are ladder only but where possible I will list alternative methods for NL / poorer / richer players. I only play ladder so that’s why I am limiting it this way. Plus if I have these items on ladder I can assume most others do as well as I am relatively new to D2.
Once complete and at a decent level (~78-80) she will be able to solo Hell Pits in an 8 man game.
This guide is mainly geared to a strafer using a Windforce as it seems that everyone finds a WF then thinks “I’ll make a strafer to run the pits”, other bows are of course mentioned, but the bulk of this guide is WF based. The build is Hell viable with many of the main bows/xbows, but imho it only excels with a high damage bow.
*Stat points:
Str – enough for gear – extra str doesn’t give extra damage.
Dex – as much as you can spare – more dex = more damage.
Vita – personal preference and gear/charm dependant. I recommend 50 min and ~800 life as an aim.
Mana – BASE.
Those who have already have the items before building the char are at an advantage as you can easily work out where to stop investing in strength, but as I guide I’d say you can go up to 95 easily (for WT’s / 97 for Eagle)), any more than that will be bow dependent – Windforce mainly – 134 str rqd.
*Skill points:
Strafe – 20
Penetrate – 20
Valk – 20*
Pierce – 70% min – more as desired
Critical Strike – 50% min – more as desired
D/A/E – 1 min – more as required (depending on +skills I aim for the 40-50% region).
Plus prerequisites skills for Strafe
*Valkyrie is always a point of debate for any zon build, my reasoning for maxing the valk is twofold:
1. As a meat shield more life = better shield for you
2. As a meat shield to help keep our merc alive and take her share of the hits.
At a minimum I suggest slvl 17 including +skills.
As you can work out this leaves many spare skill points unspent, and spending them is entirely up to you. I tend towards extra points into:
Pierce – more pierce improves your arrow chance to pierce the 1st / 2nd /3rd etc etc target.
Critical Strike – better chance to do double damage.
D/A/E – if you feel you are getting hit too much...
Decoy – both to use in its own right and as a synergy for your valk (more life for valk)
All points spent in the passive tree also benefit your merc/valk so I always prefer to spend them there as opposed to trying to hybrid my zon with either J&S skills or the Cold / Fire arrow branches.
*Equipment:
This main area for debate over equipment is the balance between IAS (increased attack speed) and mf (magic find). Personally I have played with both full mf (30IAS) and full IAS (120IAS) and have to mention that the killing speeds are not that different. I will try and list both mf and IAS options so you can try both sides for yourself. I also realise that IAS can be added to helm, armour and bow via socketing but I will leave those permutations up to you as there are far too many to list here.
Also unlike some chars – mf sorcs for example – a strafer is very dependant on good gear, mainly because her damage is based on equipment as opposed to +skills. This is one of the reasons I stress this guide is referring to a WF based zon, simply because other bows lack the damage.
Key
PT = socketed with perfect topaz
LL = life leech
ML = mana leech
Res = resistances
ED = enhanced damage
IAS = Increased Attack Speed
CBF = cannot be frozen
DR = damage reduction to physical
N/A = Not available
ITD = Ignore target defence
Bow
The main item for any bowazon and a pit strafer is no exception, I am sure we are all familiar with the main bows, (and the not so mainstream ones too), but for the purpose of this guide I will list the main 5 or so.
Windforce – the daddy of bows and the best attainable for most ladder players – huge damage, knock back and ML make this bow hard to beat.
BoTD runeword – too expensive for the majority of legit ladder players – but an excellent choice if available (I have never owned one, and I am not likely to in the near future so I’ll leave it to others to extol it’s virtues). Also as you don’t get ETH bows it does seem a waste of a Zod to make a BoTD bow/xbow.
Those are the 2 end game bows for most players, however some players prefer using bows from this list:
Lycanders Aim – upgraded or not – none upgraded it makes an excellent levelling bow, and upgraded it can be used by those without a WF.
WWS – upgraded or not (or both) - %amp + 2 sockets + Deadly Strike
Eaglehorn – less damage but ITD means hitting is easier – some prefer this to a WF.
Buriza / Langer Briser / Goldstrike Arch, plus many others that I have not listed.
The reason I list so few is that for a strafer speed and damage are the main aims for a bow and whilst many bows offer a myriad of mods, the above bows are available to all purses and can provide the killing power/speed we need.
Bows (like everything else in D2) are a matter of preference and affordability, those I have mentioned are the bows I guess the vast majority of the realms are using.
Just a note on socketing the bow
MF can of course be added to a bow via a jewel or an IST rune but I STRONGLY recommend against it as there are far better options for socketing in bows. For example – Amn / ED / IAS / mana per kill / Shael / Nef etc etc.
Helms
MF = Shako “pt” / ptopaz helm / SteelSkull
IAS = SteelSkull / Mavinas Diadem
Other = Tal’s mask (dual leech + res + life) / Peasant crown (poor mans shako) / Vampire Gaze (DR + Dual leech) / Crown of Thieves (LL + dex).
Armour
MF = Skullders Ire “pt” / Enigma runeword / ptopaz armour / Chains Of Honor runeword
IAS = Anything socketed with IAS jewels – some ppl like Jewellers xxx of the xxx – where this is a socketed magical armour with a natural + to life socketed with ED/IAS jewels. / Twitchthroe (usually upgraded if possible). Good/legit ED/IAS jewels on ladder cost a fortune, off ladder 40/15’s are widely duped and readily available.
Other = Lionheart runeword (quite simply an excellent armour) / Duriels / Spirit Forge / Shaftstop.
Belt
MF = Goldwrap (30mf + 10 IAS) – upgraded if possible
IAS = Goldwrap / Nosferatu’s Coil (IAS + LL)
Other = Razortail (a pure strafer should have plenty of skill points available to get high pierce) / Verdungos (DR + life) / Thundergods (str + life + L absorb) / String of Ears (LL + DR)
Gloves
MF = Chanceguards – upgraded if possible
IAS = Laying of Hands (20 IAS + excellent bonus to damage vs demons) / Rare/Crafted Gloves with 20IAS and nice mods.
Other = Set (see below)
Boots
MF = War Travellers (WT’s)
IAS = N/A
Other = Cow Kings boots (mf + dex) / Set (see below) / Waterwalks (life) / Silkweaves (mana per kill) / Goreriders (damage mods)
Amulet
MF = magic or rare with mf
IAS = Cat’s Eye (20IAS + dex) / Highlords (+skill + deadly strike + IAS)
Other = Mara’s (attributes + resistances) / Eye of Etlich (Cold damage + freeze time + LL) / Crescent Moon (dual leech) / Atmas Scarab (% to cast Amp damage – see notes on mercenary).
Rings
MF = magic or rare with mf / Nagel ring
IAS = N/A
Other = Ravenfrost (a must have ring for any zon) / rare or magic with useful mods (see below).
Charms
Annihilus is a must if u can – and with everyone DC hunting they can usually be traded for a decent Hell forge drop.
Gheeds
Skillers – Bow and Crossbow are NOT needed – a strafer kills with damage not skills. Passive and magic are useful as they boost the passives for you, your merc and your valk.
Life sc’s – aim for 800 life (or a level you are happy with) and then fill with either:
Mf charms
Poison damage charms
Again there are too many possible combinations to list.
Set combinations that give useful partial bonus’s and/or have useful individual items
IK = Gloves / Belt /Boots
Mavina’s = Gloves / Belt / Helm
Sigons = Full for levelling as a javazon / Gloves / Belt / Boots
Vidala’s / Artic = for levelling as a bowazon
Angelic = Rings*2 / Amulet
A note on Mavina’s set
The bow on mav’s set has quite low damage and this means that the full set is of little use to a pure strafer. The full Mav’s set is quite useful for a FA based zon and there is already a guide by Freyas sticked on these forums.
Mod’s to aim for in your equipment
+attributes – in this order dex = vita > str > energy. If you can get any of the 3 main attributes from your gear this means you have more stat points left to use in the dex/life trade-off.
+cannot be frozen – usually from a ravenfrost – stops us getting slowed down by cold.
+damage - for example on the WT’s – as this get’s multiplied up by bonus’s.
+faster run/walk – FRW – helps us get into good safe positions quickly.
+IAS – personal preference and there is a direct trade-off with IAS and mf, more mf = less IAS so experiment about and find a balance you are happy with.
+knock back – crowd control and keeps us from taking hits.
+life – keeps us alive and helps us get near our ~800 life target.
+life leech – helps keep us alive, ~7LL is enough depending on your damage.
+mana – enables us to keep strafing those non leechable monsters.
+mana leech – strafe costs 11 mana and so you need some method to refill the mana pool, ~7ML is enough depending on damage (more damage = more leech as leech is a % of damage).
+mf – the main purpose of this zon.
+passive & magic – good boosts to valk etc if u can get them from rare/crafted gloves.
Mods I feel are not/less important
+crushing blow / open wounds / deadly strike etc – as we need to get IAS and mf into our gear we really have no spare equipment slots to account for these mods and I know my zon kills fast enough without them. Some bows have these mods on them already, but imo these mods do not make up for the lack of raw damage.
+IAS – put both places as too much is a waste and u need to ensure you don’t have excess IAS – for example 100 IAS is a waste as you are not any faster than if you had 90. Experiment about and find the IAS/MF trade off you are happy with.
+resistances – wherever you play your merc valk and decoy should be taking the hits, the majority of monsters in the pits do physical damage, but u can play anywhere in the game with very bad resistances as the merc valk decoy should always be taking the hits. My strafer has MINUS 60 res all.
+skills – strafers kill with damage not skills (like a furyzon), some +skills is nice to boost the passives.
The tables in there nice form can be seen here:
http://www.diabloii.net/characters/amazon/faq2.shtml#What%20is%20IAS? – cut and paste this link into IE then click on “10. Whats is IAS - UPDATED”
Bow IAS table – which I had to butcher as the formatting doesn’t work in the forums :/
FPS____[10]____[5]____[0]____[-10]
15/4_____0
14/4_____4______0
13/3_____11_____6_____0
12/3_____22_____15____9______0
11/3_____35_____27____20_____8
10/3_____56_____46____37_____22
9/3______89_____75____63_____42
9/2______120____102___86_____60
8/2______147____125___105____75
7/2______292____240___200____142
In the above table a WF (and BoTD in Hydra or Crusader bow) is [10].
WF IAS with some possible solutions:
12/3 – 22 (clean WF[20] and IAS belt[10] = 30 IAS)
11/3 – 35
10/3 - 56
9/3 – 89 (Sheal’d WF[40] + IAS belt[10] + IAS amulet[20] + IAS gloves[20] = 90 IAS)
9/2 – 120 (with IAS jewels this is easily possible but at the cost of mf)
8/2 – 147 (don’t even try as you would have ~0 mf)
7/2 – 292 (lol! I dare you)
The below table is for Crossbows, with a Buriza being [10.
FPS____[10]____[0]____[-10]____[-40]____[-60]
22/6_____0
22/5.5____2
21/5.5____3
20/5.5____7
19/5_____11_____0
18/5_____19_____7_____0
17/4.5____27____14_____3
16/4.5____37____22_____9
15/4_____50_____32____18
14/4_____70_____48____30______0
13/3.5____95_____68____46______4
12/3.5____138____99____70______16______0
11/3______215___152___109_____35______8
These tables have all been taken from the Amazon FAQ at the top of this (and every) page via the left hand side drag down menu.
*Mercenary:
For me there is only one choice for a strafer – the Act2 Nightmare Offensive Might merc:
My reasons are:
Act2 – because we will equip him with a Reapers Toll weapon and this is of huge significance to the build.
Might – might provides an excellent boost to our damage – in some cases it can add 30% to our strafe damage, plus the might aura gives boosts to both our merc and our valks damage (plus anyone in our party).
Other mercs have there uses, but none get close to the might merc, holy freeze is nice, as is blessed aim. But both those merc’s are supplanted with knock back and high AR/penetrate respectively.
Mercs Equipment
Helm – Anything with high life leech – Tal’s Mask / SteelSkull / Crown of Thieves etc.
Armour – Anything with high defence (upgraded where possible) and good mods – Duriels / Shaftstop / Skullders / Leviathan / Stone runeword, basically anything with 600+ defence.
Weapon – the most important item for the whole build imo, this is even more important than your choice of bow! – Reapers Toll (ETH is possible) – socketed with Amn.
Our merc is going to take huge amounts of damage and be in the front line for all attacks so lots of LL is vital to keep him alive. I aim for 20+ LL and with my preferred set up he has ~30 LL.
Why Reapers?
As a pure strafer the only thing we fear are Physical immunes (PI), now for pit running the only PI you are likely to face are PI uniques as none of the normal monsters spawn PI. However for ease of play in other areas where PI’s can spawn – Act2 + Act3 spring to mind, then you need some fast way of making them vulnerable to you.
The Reapers has 33% to cast decrepify on striking. Once triggered this means that every monster affected will lose 50% to physical resistances as well as having slower attack and movement speeds.
This affect will mean you do much more damage to those monsters and also it will remove any PI you encounter, even Stoneskin PI.
There are other methods of removing PI from monsters that can be used, and for those on NL you will have to try one of these methods as the Reapers Toll is Ladder only.
WWS bow has 2% to cast Amplify damage
Atmas Scarab amulet has 5% chance to cast Amp damage.
There are other sources of both Amp and decrepify and rares can spawn with either as a mod.
*Levelling Strategy:
As with everything in D2 ppl have many ways to do things and each prefer there own methods/ideas.
As we are going to be a pure strafer, with no non physical attack bar a few optional pdsc’s we are going to have problems in certain areas – Act2 and Act 3 spring to mind so if you are levelling by questing you really need to party for these acts. It is possible to solo quest the whole game, but the PI ghosts in both acts are a real pain for our strafer.
For those who do it the fast way, ie rush from a mate through the important quests and then baal running this is the easiest way to do it.
Normal quests until clvl 21 (usually this means end of Act2 – mid Act3)
Then cows until 25
Rush all remaining Acts & Ancients (& any key quests) and then baal runs until ~clvl 45
Nightmare rush (remembering to hire an Act2 Offensive merc) and Ancients
Nightmare baal runs until lvl 73 (for WF), or until you are lvl 75 (so merc can wear Reapers)
Now you have some choices:
1. Straight to the pits – in 1 man games – excellent for levelling up our merc (he needs to be lvl 75 for the Reapers).
2. Baal run to level up the merc
3. Go back through Normal + NM and do any/all quests that u missed and want/need to do.
4. Hell questing – A1Q1 / A1Q5 / A2Q1 / A3Q1 / A3Q4 / A4Q1 / A4Q2 / A5Q1 / A5Q3 are all the decent quests (on all difficulty levels).
Whichever you choose sooner or later you will want to venture into the pits to start mf’ing.
*Pit Running Strategy:
Start small and solo the pits in a single game and work your way up to a “difficulty” you are happy with at your level. The pits are an excellent place to level up our merc, so keeping him alive is a priority, and going back to town as soon as he is dead is sensible too.
Once you both are lvl 75 (or higher) you should be ready to make things harder for yourself, thus increasing the drops and the exp gained.
So join Hell questing games, or any games where there are a few players and give the pits a try.
Some Pit tips:
1. Use the Outer Cloister Waypoint and go backwards through the Monastery Gate and into the Tamoe Highlands. Follow the path and at some point it will fork/split with one branch leading to the Pits and the other leading towards the Black Marsh. If you take the wrong fork simple go back and take the other way. It helps to play with the map on as the entrance to the pits is shocking purple in colour and is easily seen on the map when not visible on screen.
2. If in doubt over mf/ias trade-off go full IAS for the first few runs, and gradually cut down on the IAS until you reach a comfortable point.
3. Learn the layouts, we want to kill everything as all monsters can drop good items, you soon learn how to “find” the way down to level 2 last as there only a limited number of map layout variations.
4. Strafelock – the bane of all strafers – once you have fired a strafe you will be unable to move or do anything for 1 or 2 seconds, so think before you fire and don’t be afraid to run back behind your merc/valk before you start firing. With practise you almost won’t notice the strafe lock as you will happily strafing away from a position of safety behind your merc and valk. I must say that if in doubt I always fire, as if I fire I hit and I leech so any damage taken is quickly nullified. The only dangerous area is the start of the second level when u can be faced with too many archers to be able to leech more than you loose.
5. Take it slow, your merc & valk will lag behind – she can be recast in front should u need.
6. Decoy can be used, especially near corners/intersections, however the only place I ever use it now is right at the start of the second level, just by the flame torch by the first stairs. This way if there are several archers she gets hit first and I know to be a little more cautious.
7. Use Strafe to “scout” ahead, with an empty screen fire one strafe – if 1 arrow appears there are no monsters in range so move forward. If several arrow shoot of then there are monsters in range (and in the direction of the arrows), so you can cast a decoy that way (and Valk), and advance slowly shooting off strafes. Just repeat this method until you feel comfortable with your char, and the layout of the pits.
8. In your belt keep 16 FULL rejuv’s – you will pick up so many from the pits that it’s a waste to have single life/mana potions in our belt. Plus with good ML/LL we shouldn’t need to drink potions, they are more for our merc should he run into a large pack.
9. Beware of monsters who explode on death, they can wipe ~700 life in one blast – a rejuv is in order here.
10. If your Valks heath gets into the yellow – retreat and recast, this is much better than trying to recast a dead valk.
11. The pits are not like Meph, where some rare/unique/set drops every run, some runs will produce nothing better than a flawless gem or 2, but the beauty of the pits is that unlike meph anything and everything can drop. So many runs are needed to produce results and I am dubious regarding some ppl’s claim to have found x shakos, y Stormsheilds and x Tal’s armours in 10 runs.