Poison and Plague Javs are basically worthless

[lextalionis]

I thought that since I would max the synergy and had decent skills and got Trang's Gloves that my Poison Damage would be decent. But its not. I have minutes of poison damage and it lasts 5 seconds? Plus, I mean if you have to wait for them to die, fast stuff kills you because it bum rushes you.

Lightning Stuff works well. LF, CS both are really good. I really appreciate them. But I should've gone Hybrid with something else, anything else.

I'm just complaining now so other people don't try this build. Poison is the most busted damage source in the game. If only it stacked, but alas it does not. Thus we are destined to die when we hit Lightning Immunes.

[lextalionis]

Further venting:

I'm really happy with Lightning Stuff in general. Synergies have greatly fixed the lighting side of Amazons. LF takes on packs well. CS takes on individuals well. They synergize each other well. I''m getting enough damage out of max both without any more points in anything else. I hear when the max a second synergy for CS it gets sick.

I just think that we should think of a better second source of damage for this build. Poison blows. Jab works ok, but I'm not having mana problems so much any more.

[JustGotOwned]

I thought that since I would max the synergy and had decent skills and got Trang's Gloves that my Poison Damage would be decent. But its not. I have minutes of poison damage and it lasts 5 seconds? Plus, I mean if you have to wait for them to die, fast stuff kills you because it bum rushes you.

Lightning Stuff works well. LF, CS both are really good. I really appreciate them. But I should've gone Hybrid with something else, anything else.

I'm just complaining now so other people don't try this build. Poison is the most busted damage source in the game. If only it stacked, but alas it does not. Thus we are destined to die when we hit Lightning Immunes.

I'm having a great time with my plaguezon. Sure I dont have the gear she needs yet, but once I do it'll help my jab so much. To make this build work you need 1.10 trangs gloves, jav gcs, bramble armor, and as many +skills as you can get.

[Omikron8]

I don't believe it was ever the intention to let poison kill well on its own. The point of it is to severly weaken your opponent while you come in close and finish them off, such as with jab or fend.

[luuuucifer]

Plague jav is great for a hybrid.
Throw a plague, then shoot away.

Also, it is very useful in dueling. It works really well combined with the puddle trick against charging/zealing pallys.

[JustGotOwned]

Plague jav is great for a hybrid.
Throw a plague, then shoot away.

Also, it is very useful in dueling. It works really well combined with the puddle trick against charging/zealing pallys.

Yea it does. . .too bad every charger Ive gone against has run back to town once I get him, since you can basically predict where theyre going to charge just throw one that way and you're all set, then start chuckin LF's and they "should" go down rather quickly.

[det]

If we all went for THE uber build, we would all play hammerdins :lol:

My first Ladder character was a Plaque/poison zon and with crappy gear she made it all the way to act 2 hell...later, with some improved gear (Titans) even to act 5. (second skill: your much loved LF)

I had fun ;)

[lextalionis]

I was talking a little more about PvM than PvP. It probably does work well in PvP, because almost no one plays with - duration and full poison resists. So it will do the damage intended, plus. Winning a duel is a lot of avoiding the other guy and if you can do damage while you do it.

[hittitian]

I'd say poison skills are not meant to be PvM zon's uber skill. If you want a zon who is comparable to any other uber characters, try a strafe-litening hybrid. I found her to be very effective in every aspect of hell play including throne and pit runs. My hybrid runs pit three times faster than pure strafe MF zon, and she never dies at throne with full res gears.

[lextalionis]

I'd say poison skills are not meant to be PvM zon's uber skill. If you want a zon who is comparable to any other uber characters, try a strafe-litening hybrid. I found her to be very effective in every aspect of hell play including throne and pit runs. My hybrid runs pit three times faster than pure strafe MF zon, and she never dies at throne with full res gears.
THanks, I think that was more what I was looking for. I only play PvM. And I'm so happy with the LF and CS. But I'm getting frustrated being ***** by all the LI creatures. I guess if I rebuild then I'm looking forward to something else. You think Strafe works well? Good, I had heard the general nerf on Bow skills was pretty much in. But its good that Strafe has no synergies since it will allow more points for Passives. Of course I may need more points in Penetrate. Are there other Bow Skills I should look at? FA?

[sir goatscelot]

Have to disagree. It works fine for me and it's my secondary skill. Telling people not to use certain skills is something we should all stay away from. Just because I cannot use a particular skill well, does not mean someone else also cannot. Sorry to hear about your bad xp and good luck on your next build :)

[lextalionis]

Have to disagree. It works fine for me and it's my secondary skill. Telling people not to use certain skills is something we should all stay away from. Just because I cannot use a particular skill well, does not mean someone else also cannot. Sorry to hear about your bad xp and good luck on your next build :)

I've played a lot of D2 and I'm just not having a lot of luck with it. I have trouble with the groups of 4-5 that run very quickly. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I actually had a lot of success with Poison in normal. I single dosed things and they died. It took a while, but they died... in a reasonable amount of time. Now it takes multiple doses and lots of time to kill anything with poison. Not to mention that all I do is avoid things while I wait for the poison to do its work. It just gets annoying, especially to kill even small weak Hell creatures.

If you've had a good experience, try to explain your tactics and gear that make it successful.

[hittitian]

THanks, I think that was more what I was looking for. I only play PvM. And I'm so happy with the LF and CS. But I'm getting frustrated being ***** by all the LI creatures. I guess if I rebuild then I'm looking forward to something else. You think Strafe works well? Good, I had heard the general nerf on Bow skills was pretty much in. But its good that Strafe has no synergies since it will allow more points for Passives. Of course I may need more points in Penetrate. Are there other Bow Skills I should look at? FA?

No problem. I hear disagreement from others, and that is fine with me. Poison and plague javs definitely have their own need in some situations. What I meant was simply there could be a more effective way of coping with those situations. I sort of doubted bow skills can go with javs after 1.10 release due to huge skill investment for synergies. But LF is still effective in hell without any other synergy investment which is sort of a waste considering it gets +1% bonus from other peer synergy skills. Fortunately, strafe turns out to be very effective for single target or small pack of groups in 1.10 which must be a perfect combo with LF for massive crow control capability. And, strafe can cover the LF's hefty mana consumptions for individual target and works for most of LIs. I don't think any other Jav skills would be as good as strafe when it comes down to viability.

I found guided arrow could be a back up skill for lightning immunes, but it heavily depends on IAS to be effective and works mostly for single target. This may not work for most of LF zons who are commonly IAS independent and hesitate to throw javs at small pack of monsters. FA requires too much skill points to be effective in hell and sucks up as much mana as LF (or even more). I don't even mention what happens to immolation arrow. And, they don't have auto-aiming either.

And, mostly strafe-LF hybrid works with minimum skill points since they don't need any synergies. I found those remaining skill points going to passives which actually boost her viability a lot more than synergized one.

Now the only problem with hybrid zon is you need at least half-decent gears since you want to achive two goals at the same time. My zon ran with WF and titan with storm sheid on, and so far was the best among any of zon builds I tried. However, I found her to be 90% effective as well even when she wore a gold strike/eagle/buritto with Rhyme shield on. Skill points boost won't matter that much in this build considering the power of LF comes from piercing and herding mobs to release maximum number of lighting bolts from piercing jav at its trajectory. I'd say LF is a skill that really needs your control over crowd. If you played a lot of cows in 1.09, you should know what this means.

Good luck and hopefully you enjoy it.

[sir goatscelot]

Since as an Java you are considered a ranged char, use it ;)
Keep Valk up and use decoy to keep hard hitting lighting immunes occupied. Stand back a toss Plague till their life bar is low, then jump in and jab to clean up. Try not to run around too much as your valk and or merc cannot keep up. Also, blocking and def drop to worthless lvls when you run.
If you activate monsters, they will generally ignore your minions and go after you which sucks. This is another reason to stay with merc and valk. If by chance come after you, you must give them a reason to go after one of your minions. Recast valk and decoy on top of baddies and disengage. Step back and plague etc etc. Plague and Lf dmg is not based on jav dmg but does beneift from +skills so massive phys dmg is not needed for those skills. If you can't get titans, any weapon/gloves with maidens, lancer, valkyries prefix would be good. You can buy them from vendors in nightmare and hell :) Hope that helps. Oh yes, sometimes monsters are lightning and poison immune in which case your outta luck if you dont have merc lol. Also some might be light immune and have 75% poison resist which will also slow you down. Have fun.