Help getting pwned in Hell !

[gjcraig]

I have been making Successfull sorcys for about 3 years - good necros , and good druids too . But I have always tried to make a good bowazon and she gets owned especially now in 1.10 . I have never used strafe and I think that might be part of the problem . But now I have this 80 zon that uses a Kuku and has a good valk and still can't kill well in hell . What are some basic good and bad things to do or not do with a bowzon ?

[Shanksie1337]

ok we'll need lots more details on your "failed" zon

gear
charms
stats
skills

[gjcraig]

Ok let me get em brb ;)

[gjcraig]

Ok here are my skills so far - Valk 20 , Freezing Arrow 20 , Cold Arrow 16 , Multi shot 20 . All other Passives have 1 in them . My Gear is Kuku Shakaku , Pesant Crown , Maidens ammulet - plus one zon skills , 2 manald heal rings , Waterwalk boots , string of ears , plus one to bow skills gloves , and a rare armour with resists . Charms give me another 260 poision damage and 36 lightning damage and the rest of charms are life and resists . My stat points with gear on look like this - Dex 238 , Str 137 , Vit 70 , Energy 110 . What usually happens is I come up to a group My Valk charges and tanks very well . I shoot the group with Freezing arrow pop off like 10 or so shots half the group is dead but Im out of mana now even though im leeching . The rest of the group either finally kills my valk or I finally finish them off after a long boring shooting fest with level 7 after plus skills magic arrow . This takes forever and gets borring or I have to tp out before i get killed just depends on if they can kill my valk or not - Im in level 4 hell btw .

[Shanksie1337]

do you have a merc, as you don't mention one, if not get one, and level him up asap. if you do have one, then what lvl/equip

also to save me doing the maths, what are your:
life
mana
resists

and lastly - how "rich" are you? (easiest answer to this is what sort of runes do you have muled?), can you afford better? as if i am going to suggest gear swaps it will save me suggesting certain items.

and lastly (again), what do you play? ladder/nl (u obvoiusly dont play HC).

[Shanksie1337]

but at a swift glance i'd say your stats are a little arse-over-tit.
110 energy - what is the base here? (ie naked)
137 str - again whats the base here?

as i fear you may have spent too many points in these 2 at the detriment of vita

[gjcraig]

Ok on the runes I have 2 Hels , 1 Fal , 1 Shael , and 2 amns - all the other ones are low end . I play sc ladder . I have a Rogue merc level 80 with me and I will be switching to a might merc on my next Bowazon . Energy is the base 110 str is plused by 7 so base is 130 - I put that much in str for when I get a WF .

[Shanksie1337]

ok off the top of my head (FA isn't my strength, made the mistake of making a mavazon using FA and have never gone back to give it a proper try).

Statwise i'll be truthful here and suggest a remake of the whole char, but thats just my opinion.
far too much energy - my reading of the whole FA/Strafe or FA/MS build is that you spam FA, then use MS/Strafe to leech back your mana, as opposed to spending several stat points in energy.
As for strength to wear a WF - i admire your positive attitude, but it's a very long way from the items you are wearing to a WF, unless you get so very very lucky somewhere and you find your own. So i'd be realistic and assume that the points put into str were wasted. (if u ever do aquire a WF there are, imo, better builds to use, so you'd be better off making a zon to specifically use the WF, as opposed to tweaking one so she could wear one should you aquire one).

That said, my zon has 85 vita with gear, and with charms is ~750 life, so you could possibly save her.

For possible equipment changes see Freyas FA guide stickied in these very forums, most slots have an option or two that can be bought with pgems/crafting runes.

From what i can see, you are lacking in IAS meaning that you aren't firing very quickly.
All i can stress is mf some, save those gems and cube pgems, then trade for better gear as suggested by freyas.

and lastly get an Act2 merc, doesn't really matter (imho) what kind you get as anything has to be better than a rogue merc for a bowazon. (basically you both do the same thing, but you should do it better). Nip to act2, buy a merc and give him as much life leech as you possibly can. Even an act5 barb merc would help, as this would help your valk stay alive, ideally you would have either a holy freeze merc to slow almost everything down, or a might merc to increase your MS damage (and thus your leech), and also to increase the valks damage.

Skillwise - again FA isn't my strong area, but i'd have some more passives if you can, with not many + skills from gear your D/A/E must be quite low, and although you, in perfect world, shouldn't take hits (your merc/valk should), both your merc and valk benefit from your passives.

Critical strike and peirce are also very important with strafe/MS, so the lack of these will also hinder your leeching/killing powers when switched from FA.

i am drunk, gonna go make some food and then join the better half in the sack, hope i have helped.

and as a final point, if you play on Europe SC ladder, pm your account i am sure i have some stuff muled that would help your situation.

[slayer37]

Ok here are my skills so far - Valk 20 , Freezing Arrow 20 , Cold Arrow 16 , Multi shot 20 . All other Passives have 1 in them . My Gear is Kuku Shakaku , Pesant Crown , Maidens ammulet - plus one zon skills , 2 manald heal rings , Waterwalk boots , string of ears , plus one to bow skills gloves , and a rare armour with resists . Charms give me another 260 poision damage and 36 lightning damage and the rest of charms are life and resists . My stat points with gear on look like this - Dex 238 , Str 137 , Vit 70 , Energy 110 . What usually happens is I come up to a group My Valk charges and tanks very well . I shoot the group with Freezing arrow pop off like 10 or so shots half the group is dead but Im out of mana now even though im leeching . The rest of the group either finally kills my valk or I finally finish them off after a long boring shooting fest with level 7 after plus skills magic arrow . This takes forever and gets borring or I have to tp out before i get killed just depends on if they can kill my valk or not - Im in level 4 hell btw .

Kuko is really not an endgame bow for me. I'd say ditch it for better bows if you can have it. WF, Eagle, WWS, even Lycander's are better IMO. I'd say since you already have Hel and Fal then trade for Lum and make Lionheart for the armor. I think it is generally recommended to have dual leech helms for bowazons so I say get one. Tal's/Vamp/Stealskull come into mind.

[Nirlem]

Save upp the gems you find and buy some new equippment!

Goldstrike arch cheap and usefull even in hell(fast bow) socket it with a shael rune. (70ias)

tals mask(10% dual leech cost a few p.gems)

Laying of hands gloves (20ias and extra damage to undead/deamons)

with just those 3 items your leech will be fine and with 90 ias you will shoot alot faster! 9/3

Hel Lum Fal is a great armor that gives alot of resists!(like said above)

Razortail belt will help with pierce so you dont have to put many points there.

rings and amu can be freed up for more resists/life or so.


skill usement is also important!
use 1 frozen arrow, after the pack is frozen use another attack (multi/strafe) to get mana back. then repeat!

if you use multishot you wont need to spend the full 20 skill points in it either around 10 points covers your needs!

hope this helps a little!

[Morphane]

the problem is by far your equipment,and crowd Control. Uses freezing arrow to lay down of AOE(area of effect damage), up your pierce so that you are hitting more than 1 enemy. Now that the group is frozen and not going anywhere open up with a fury of multiple shot or strafe (just don't gate strafe locked), by this point your valk and merc should be tanking away ripping the weakened monsters to shreds. You mention problems with enemies getting too close, the solution to this is simple knockback, this will stop any troublesome monster types that want to play.

You can nef your bow of choice (a total waste...) or go with cleglaws pincers set gloves that are easy to find and slow you enemy by 25% percent and have knockback. Ok now as for damage, the string of ears is alright b/c you get life leech and some DR but in your problem is a lack of vitality, this can be corrected with a verdungos, +30-40 vitality that will increase you life dramtically. The peasant crown is lowbie spell caster helm, for a lowbie bowazon your best friend is crown of theives 11% life leech and 25 to dex as well as sme other mods. As for armor go with Crow Caw ias, and open wounds, this will increase your damage, also get a pair of goreriders so you have some more open wouds and crushing blow. most of this stuff is easy to find and is cheap to trade for.

Ok bow lots of options:
1. widow maker
2. Cruel Matrichial bow with plus to bow skills.

why these two bows, two reasons they are cheap and add to skills, a good cruel mat will add +3 to bow skill tabs, and have decent damage, they are also easyto find, just do some killing in nightmare.

Widow Maker would by next choice, it is cheap and will add to guided arrow(+5) which will help you against bosses.

I dunno if this helps you or not, but in essence the fact is you have spell caster stats on a bowazon...and at your level your going to have problems panning that out, grab lam essen if you haven't already done so for the extra stats, ditto for den,rad, and izzy for skills, aswell as anya and the Golden Bird for resistance and life respectivly.

[Shanksie1337]

i have to disagree with the nef/cleglaw opinion above, if putting a nef in a bow is a waste, then wearing a pair of gloves based soley on the kb mod is even worse. (agreed the slow option may help, but with practise it's not needed - plus a nos coil would be a much better option if slow was needed).

As for getting mobbed, KB will help, but it's more to do with positioning and how fast u advance when playing. And never fear to retreat well behind valk/merc casting a decoy behind you.

The CoT is a nice option, but once u can wear Tals Mask this will also assit with your ML problems. If u ms much more than u FA, then use the CoT as the dex will help and you shouldn't have too much ML problems, but if u FA more, then Tals mask for the ML (and other nice mods) is a much better option.

As for gloves - LoH are excellent.

So for a small outlay of pgems you can have much better gloves/helm, and then try with whatever bow's u prefer:
WWS / GSA / Cliffkiller / Eaglehorn can all be bought for pgems and will give you more firepower.
and for helping with ML problems a Lycanders Aim is also an excellent choice.
Add this to a LionHeart runeword body armour and you should notice a nice improvement.

So the moral is - save some pgems, and trade yourself some better items, but at lvl 80 with your stats it may be too late to make her much better.

Lastly i agree that 20 in MS is a bit of a waste aswell, MS is an exellent unmaxed skill, and those spare points could have been better spend in to passives.

[Phantasy]

I commend ur guys efforts to talk about equipment for stats and mods. However I am often lost on what a LoT and WWS are. What are these????

For example: Hey Sty I found this cool MD SC and it had some CD. Man I was killin away and poof my HoZ sent sparks aflying. Then I used some KB and C and found I was SL. OO poo! So I slipped on some MW and started trapping with BP.

What the heck did I just say above? Let me translate: Hey Sty I found this cool max damage small charm and it had some cold damage. Man I was killin away and poof my Herald of Zak sent sparks aflying. Then I used some knockback and charge and found I was stun locked. OO poo! So I slipped on some Marrowwalks and started trapping with boneprison.

Man I don't know about you, but the translation was whole lot more enjoyable and only added 15 seconds of typing on. Not to mention our wives, girlfriends, sisters, and mothers won't think were are complete nerds who sit around making up acronyms for real words. Not to mention some of us don't have the slightest clue what you are talking about!!! :flip:

[Omikron8]

LOT --> Likely meant LOH (Laying of Hands)
WWS --> Witchwild string

[Phantasy]

Now how does LoT= Laying of hands?? There's not even a "T" in any of those words :flip: . Let me look again :spy: , umm nope lolz. This just further proves my point, stop the acronyms!!! Unless you have a key at the end lolz.

[Shanksie1337]

Now how does LoT= Laying of hands?? There's not even a "T" in any of those words :flip: . Let me look again :spy: , umm nope lolz. This just further proves my point, stop the acronyms!!! Unless you have a key at the end lolz.

pardon me for being dim (and slightly drunk), but where has some1 (apart from you) refered to a LoT?

i used LoH and CoT, but not LoT :D

and laying of hands // crown of thieves, but any fool could have worked that out as they are clearly given there full names in the above posts.

[det]

To add another opinion:

If you have a Kuko, max EA and Immo. Get pierce as high as possible. Get a HF merc and a Valk of lv 17+. Load up on Cold charms and wear an Eye of Ettlich. Invest a few points into FA

Entire groups should now be well chilled and frozen (hidden freeze duration on Eye). Fire Immo to cook them at the same time. If it is not fire Immune, it will die fast. If it is fire immune you can freeze it and your merc and Valk can kill it

The game is beatable in hell with a Kuko. For leech Tals Ugly Mask helps a lot.

[slayer37]

The game is beatable in hell with a Kuko. For leech Tals Ugly Mask helps a lot.


Hehehe... from the way you sound, you really hate Tal's Mask's appearance. Your other post mentioned the same thing about Tal's. Noobs will think Tal's mask is really Tal's Ugly Mask. :lol:

[Omikron8]

Style is all fine and dandy with an amazon but it will usually not keep you alive :) unless you find some godly dual leech+all res circlet to replace the tal's mask. I believe this mask is the best pvm zon helmet in the game. Leaves many other equipment options open.

[gjcraig]

Just so everyone knows - My new Bowzon is level 14 now with her level 8 might merc - got rushed couldn't wait for the merc . Anyways these bows you guys are always mentioning are they mostly crafted ? Or do you just trade to get em ?

[Shanksie1337]

trade

and ignore the rush, get the might merc when u r ~lvl 50 and he will be about lvl 40, saves u dragging him thru.