View Full Version : [B]Faith / Fury Hybrid[/B]
Introduction
I have been a bowazon fan ever since Diablo 2 came out. It was my first character in single player as well as softcore ladder season 1. Since then I have built over 20 different bowazons. My first character to kill Diablo clone was an amazon wielding a buriza using guided. I have built WWS straffers, Windforce straffers, Buriza straffers/multi zons, Faith multizons, WF multizons with act 1 faith mercs so on and so on. What motivated me was the fact that bowazons were considered by many to be weak / difficult builds. Getting resists is tough. Major trade offs in damage/AR if going the vitality route. Dealing with immunities was difficult. Extremely item dependent. The only thing the lowly bowazon had going for her was that she was ranged and therefore did not have the same problems with Iron Maiden or Stygian Dolls that other characters had. I have had incredible success with some of my recent builds and perhaps have hit the apex of my ability with bowazon builds. All this and never once had I experimented with the Javelin tree. The time had finally come.
The Build
After reading through the guides I decided to go Max Lightening Fury for cows -n- crowds, Charged Strike for boss’s and at lease one synergy. Now it was time to decide how to handle Lightening Immunes and even worse…Lightening and Physical Immunes. I did not like any of the options offered in the other builds (poison is just not for me) and I needed to be able to handle all areas of the game solo. Since this build would be working much closer to the enemies than my previous builds, I figured that resists and life would be far more important than ever before. I figured a bow on switch would be best as this was what I was used to anyway but this build would have much less dex than I was used to. Heck, my previous bowazons were 450+ Dex builds and I still kept a demon limb on switch. How would I hit anything? That’s when it hit me. Faith has ITD and since it has fanaticism, lower ias requirements to hit a decent shooting speed. PERFECT.
Gear
I tend to let my gear determine my stat/skill point placements so this is where I started. Since this was primarily a Lightening zon, I would focus on +skill items but make sure that I had the necessary leech to survive.
Helm – Shako w/ 15% ias jewel – (mf, life, mana, +2 all skills) sweet
Armor – COH (resists, life leech, +2 skills) perfect
Shield – Spirit (cheap and +2 skills. Great other mods)
Boots – War travelers (mf, frw and damage boost. Great boots)
Gloves – crafted +2 bow skills, knockback, 20% ias (I will explain why bow skills later)
Belt – Thundergods Vigor (light absorb, +3 LF and STR)
Amulet – Cats eye (frw, dex, 20% ias)
Ring – Ravenfrost – (dex, can not be frozen)
Ring – manald heal (our mana leech)
Weapon – upped titans (mine ethereal 190% but any will do)
Switch – Faith GMB (mine has +2 bow skills,+2 all skills, level 14 fanaticism)
Annihilus charm
Ok. Let’s see what we have here. In javelin mode we have +9 to passive skills and +11 to javelin skills. In bow mode we have +7 to passive skills and +11 to bow skills. We have life and mana leech covered. We have 55% ias which will net an 8/2 strafe with faith GMB. We have knockback. We can absorb lightening which is always a bonus and we cannot be frozen. Our resists look pretty strong.
Our damage for strafe will be a bit low without fortitude or a lot of dex but let’s be real, we are building a Lightening based zon with a very fast strafe as back up. My strafe damage with this build is 1,850 without any merc auras. Respectable to say the least (ask any WWS straffer).
Stats
Str – Enough for Gear. Highest Req will be spirit @ 163 I believe. You will get a big boost from your items so work backwards.
Dex – Enough for Gear. Highest is Upped titans @ around 159. Same as above.
Vit – The rest. Keep your life high and you don’t die. Simple as that.
Skills
Javelin
LF – max (crowd control when close together)
CS – max (boss skill)
LS – max (another great crowd skill when enemies are spread out)
60 total in javelin tree
Bow
Magic arrow – 1 (level 12 with + skills. For the rare PI/LI)
Multi – 1
Guided – 1
Strafe – 1 (level 12 with + skills. Main switch skill)
That’s right. Only 4 points in bow tree. Outstanding.
Passive
(I carry 1 passive skiller which = +8 in bow mode and +10 in jav mode.
Critical strike – 1 (9 in bow mode = 54%)
Penetrate – 1
Pierce – to taste (I have 9 which gives (19) 84% in jav and (17) 82% in bow
D/A/E 1,1,1 = 49,57,49 in javelin mode
Inner site – 1
Slow missles – 1
Decoy – 1
Valk – 1 (level 11 if cast in jav mode)
18 total skill points in passive tree
82 total skill points. This is achieved at level 71. Remaining skill points can be spent in valk, pierce, magic arrow or another synergy for Charged Strike.
Charms
I carry 3 Javelin Skillers with + life & 1 passive with life. I also carry a bunch of 20 life sc’s with resist second mods and 1 x 15% resist all GC with life. In general this is the best place for this amazon to get additional resists / life. The Javelin charms are just overkill.
Merc
I never bothered to level a merc to help me. Did not even need to. If I had to choose, I would probably go holy freeze. You could Go might merc and get concentration from a runeword. This would substantially increase your strafe damage but I have never felt the need. I am in the process of leveling a Holy freeze merc at the moment just for the hell of it.
Recap
Basically spending hard skill points in the bow or passive tree does not increase damage substantially for bowazons. When making bowazons we are forced to spend these points here as our equipment is geared to leeching, damage and speed. Bowazons benefit very little from +skills. Now javazons are similar to many other builds in that +skills directly affects damage output. This build takes advantage of the +skills to increase our damage while maintaining high attack speed and maintaining high passives.
The build is not all that expensive besides Faith GMB and Chains of Honor. Faith is a must but Vipermagi could replace COH. I sometimes use a rare circlet with dual 7 or 8% leech, +2 amazon skills and 8% resist all with a 15% jewel in it. Then I throw on an SOJ. I use the +2 bow skills gloves to save skill points in magic arrow and strafe. You could always wear +2 Javelin crafted gloves and spend a couple extra points in the bow tree. I choose Thundergods Vigor over razortail as I have so much + passive skills that the light absorb is a better value. The strafe damage coupled with COH (ed% to demons) and knockback makes Chaos Runs very doable.
I am at level 88 with this zon and have spent at least 10 additional skill points in a 3rd synergy for CS. Cows are a joke with level 37 lightening fury. Baal and Diablo go down very quickly from level 34 Charged strike. Most builds have 1 or more areas of the game that cause them difficulty. I can honestly say that with this build, I have yet to come across one.
Hope you enjoy this build as much as I have.
Certainly an impressive build. I wonder what your final stats/life/mana came out to be - please post. I am also curious as to your strategy: do you play her more ranged with strafe/MA/LF and only melee with CS and fringe-hitting LS. CoH sounds great, but I would be nervous to mix it up without some great def, strong merc and valk. If mostly played as a ranger, what do you think of going with a full bow skill rather than LS? Also, did you level up as a Jabber or a weak Strafer?
Also, a couple of nits - your skill total is wrong - you left out the javalin pre-req's and CA. And the max str you need is 156/185/219 depending on the shield you made Spirit in (CoH may have affected this...).
All in all, a sweet build - I'd love to try her out.
Hope you enjoy this build as much as I have.
Drop of the Anni, Faith, CoH, and Shako at *DudSpud, and I'll let you know.:D
DudSpud
Certainly an impressive build. I wonder what your final stats/life/mana came out to be - please post. I am also curious as to your strategy: do you play her more ranged with strafe/MA/LF and only melee with CS and fringe-hitting LS. CoH sounds great, but I would be nervous to mix it up without some great def, strong merc and valk. If mostly played as a ranger, what do you think of going with a full bow skill rather than LS? Also, did you level up as a Jabber or a weak Strafer?
Also, a couple of nits - your skill total is wrong - you left out the javalin pre-req's and CA. And the max str you need is 156/185/219 depending on the shield you made Spirit in (CoH may have affected this...).
All in all, a sweet build - I'd love to try her out.
Drop of the Anni, Faith, CoH, and Shako at *DudSpud, and I'll let you know.:D
DudSpud
Wrote the guide from memory. Monarch for spirit so 156. Thanks for noticing the missing couple skill points for prereqs. Probably why at 88 I only have about 10 in the 3rd synergy.
life is arounf 1400 but will check later. Mana is somewhere between 350 and 500. Again will check. Leveled as CS/straffer. I have almost every low and mid item so I was totally tweeked the whole way. Helps keep you safe and minimize wasted stat/skill points. I think I used 8 different bows on the way up including a godly rare matriarchal bow available at 42.
Current play depends on area. In a lot of areas I actually use lightening strike. Chaos sanc as a straffer with CS for 2 of the seal boss's and diablo. LF for tightly packed areas, Strafe for corrodors, LF for baals minions, CS for all bosses/superuniques. As long as I can't get IM'd, I wanna go mix it up. 59% dodge, a bit of block and 1400 life keeps you safe enough for CS to take down all of listers bunch before you have a problem.
A major requirement of this build is faith for the ITD/fanaticism. If you have that bow, you probably can scrounge up most of the other gear with the exception of Chains of Honor.
Just checked actual stats:
Level 87
All with gear.
(Jav / Bow)
Str 176 / 156
Dex 288 / 268
Vit 295 / 273
Energy 36 / 36
Life 1609 / 1543
Mana 512 / 413
Resists 75,75,85,75 both modes
Damage
Magic arrow = 628-2411
Strafe = 495-1950
Charged strike = 665-1316 Physical and 1-4111 x 9 light
LF = 742-1516 physical and 1-2928 x 38 light
Chance to Block = 73%
Naked
Str 85
Dex 203 (forgot, I went max block here)
Vit 222
Energy 15
Skills
inner 1
slow 1
decoy 1
valke 1
D/A/E 2/2/2
Critical 2
Penetrate 1
Pierce 7 (80 & 82%)
Magic 1
Multi 1
Guided 1
Strafe 1
Jab 1
Poison Jav 1
Plague Jav 1
Lightening Fury 20
Lightening Strike 20
Charged strike 20
Power strike 5 (synergy)
Lightening bolt 5 (synergy)
Actually was pretty close from memory except for the max block.
Made corrections & added my final stats / damage @ level 87.
Introduction
I have been a bowazon fan ever since Diablo 2 came out. It was my first character in single player as well as softcore ladder season 1. Since then I have built over 20 different bowazons. My first character to kill Diablo clone was an amazon wielding a buriza using guided. I have built WWS straffers, Windforce straffers, Buriza straffers/multi zons, Faith multizons, WF multizons with act 1 faith mercs so on and so on. What motivated me was the fact that bowazons were considered by many to be weak / difficult builds. Getting resists is tough. Major trade offs in damage/AR if going the vitality route. Dealing with immunities was difficult. Extremely item dependent. The only thing the lowly bowazon had going for her was that she was ranged and therefore did not have the same problems with Iron Maiden or Stygian Dolls that other characters had. I have had incredible success with some of my recent builds and perhaps have hit the apex of my ability with bowazon builds. All this and never once had I experimented with the Javelin tree. The time had finally come.
The Build
After reading through the guides I decided to go Max Lightening Fury for cows -n- crowds, Charged Strike for boss’s and at lease one synergy. Now it was time to decide how to handle Lightening Immunes and even worse…Lightening and Physical Immunes. I did not like any of the options offered in the other builds (poison is just not for me) and I needed to be able to handle all areas of the game solo. Since this build would be working much closer to the enemies than my previous builds, I figured that resists and life would be far more important than ever before. I figured a bow on switch would be best as this was what I was used to anyway but this build would have much less dex than I was used to. Heck, my previous bowazons were 450+ Dex builds and I still kept a demon limb on switch. How would I hit anything? That’s when it hit me. Faith has ITD and since it has fanaticism, lower ias requirements to hit a decent shooting speed. PERFECT.
Gear
I tend to let my gear determine my stat/skill point placements so this is where I started. Since this was primarily a Lightening zon, I would focus on +skill items but make sure that I had the necessary leech to survive.
Helm – Shako w/ 15% ias jewel – (mf, life, mana, +2 all skills) sweet
Armor – COH (resists, life leech, +2 skills) perfect
Shield – Spirit (cheap and +2 skills. Great other mods)
Boots – War travelers (mf, frw and damage boost. Great boots)
Gloves – crafted +2 bow skills, knockback, 20% ias (I will explain why bow skills later)
Belt – Thundergods Vigor (light absorb, +3 LF and STR)
Amulet – Cats eye (frw, dex, 20% ias)
Ring – Ravenfrost – (dex, can not be frozen)
Ring – manald heal (our mana leech)
Weapon – upped titans (mine ethereal 190% but any will do)
Switch – Faith GMB (mine has +2 bow skills,+2 all skills, level 14 fanaticism)
Annihilus charm
Ok. Let’s see what we have here. In javelin mode we have +9 to passive skills and +11 to javelin skills. In bow mode we have +7 to passive skills and +11 to bow skills. We have life and mana leech covered. We have 55% ias which will net an 8/2 strafe with faith GMB. We have knockback. We can absorb lightening which is always a bonus and we cannot be frozen. Our resists look pretty strong.
Our damage for strafe will be a bit low without fortitude or a lot of dex but let’s be real, we are building a Lightening based zon with a very fast strafe as back up. My strafe damage with this build is 1,950 without any merc auras. Respectable to say the least (ask any WWS straffer).
Stats
Str – Enough for Gear. Highest Req will be spirit monarch @ 156. You will get a big boost from your items so work backwards.
Dex – Enough for max block. I am at 203 naked, 288 in jav mode.
Vit – The rest. Keep your life high and you don’t die. Simple as that.
Skills
Javelin
Jab – 1
Poison Jav – 1 (prereq)
Plague Jav – 1 (prereq)
Power Strike – 1 (prereq & synergy)
Lightening Bolt – 1 (prereq & synergy)
LF – max (crowd control when close together)
CS – max (boss skill)
LS – max (another great crowd skill when enemies are spread out)
65 total in javelin tree
Bow
Magic arrow – 1 (level 12 with + skills. For the rare PI/LI)
Multi – 1
Guided – 1
Strafe – 1 (level 12 with + skills. Main switch skill)
That’s right. Only 4 points in bow tree. Outstanding.
Passive
(I carry 1 passive skiller which = +8 in bow mode and +10 in jav mode.
Critical strike – 1 (9 in bow mode = 54%)
Penetrate – 1
Pierce – to taste (I have 9 which gives (19) 84% in jav and (17) 82% in bow
D/A/E 1,1,1 = 49,57,49 in javelin mode
Inner site – 1
Slow missles – 1
Decoy – 1
Valk – 1 (level 11 if cast in jav mode)
18 total skill points in passive tree
87 total skill points. This is achieved at level 76. Remaining skill points can be spent in valk, pierce, magic arrow, D/A/E or another synergy for Charged Strike.
My final stats @ level 87
Naked / Javelin / Bow
Str 85 / 176 / 156
Dex 203 / 288 / 268
Vit 222 / 295 / 273
Energy 15 / 36 / 36
Life xx / 1609 / 1543
Mana xx / 512 / 413
Resists 75,75,85,75 in bow and jav
Chance to Block 73%
My damage @ level 87
Magic arrow = 628-2411
Strafe = 495-1950
Cstrike = 655-1316 physical and 1-4111 x 9 light
Lfury = 742-1516 physical and 1-2928 x 38 light
My skills same as above except extra 1 in D/A/E and 8 extra points in Synergies for CS. Pierce is only 7 but next 2 points will bring to 9 as listed above.
Charms
I carry 3 Javelin Skillers with + life & 1 passive with life. I also carry a bunch of 20 life sc’s with resist second mods and 1 x 15% resist all GC with life. In general this is the best place for this amazon to get additional resists / life. The Javelin charms are just overkill.
Merc
I never bothered to level a merc to help me. Did not even need to. If I had to choose, I would probably go holy freeze. You could Go might merc and get concentration from a runeword. This would substantially increase your strafe damage but I have never felt the need. I am in the process of leveling a Holy freeze merc at the moment just for the hell of it.
Recap
Basically spending hard skill points in the bow or passive tree does not increase damage substantially for bowazons. When making bowazons we are forced to spend these points here as our equipment is geared to leeching, damage and speed. Bowazons benefit very little from +skills. Now javazons are similar to many other builds in that +skills directly affects damage output. This build takes advantage of the +skills to increase our damage while maintaining high attack speed and maintaining high passives.
The build is not all that expensive besides Faith GMB and Chains of Honor. Faith is a must but Vipermagi could replace COH. I sometimes use a rare circlet with dual 7 or 8% leech, +2 amazon skills and 8% resist all with a 15% jewel in it. Then I throw on an SOJ. I use the +2 bow skills gloves to save skill points in magic arrow and strafe. You could always wear +2 Javelin crafted gloves and spend a couple extra points in the bow tree. I choose Thundergods Vigor over razortail as I have so much + passive skills that the light absorb is a better value. The strafe damage coupled with COH (ed% to demons) and knockback makes Chaos Runs very doable.
I am at level 87 with this zon and have spent at least 10 additional skill points in a 3rd synergy for CS. Cows are a joke with level 37 lightening fury. Baal and Diablo go down very quickly from level 34 Charged strike. Most builds have 1 or more areas of the game that cause them difficulty. I can honestly say that with this build, I have yet to come across one.
Hope you enjoy this build as much as I have.
Thanks for the tips - I thought you would be using LS alot but wasn't sure because I have only seen it used. And melee makes more sense with max block, possible with all of the life from charms and of course 50+% D/A. I think I might try my own version next - I am slowly turning into a Spearie.
The guide looks better as you fleshed it out, but... one last nit, I promise - Cold arrow is a pre-req for guided/strafe.
DudSpud
Thanks for the tips - I thought you would be using LS alot but wasn't sure because I have only seen it used. And melee makes more sense with max block, possible with all of the life from charms and of course 50+% D/A. I think I might try my own version next - I am slowly turning into a Spearie.
The guide looks better as you fleshed it out, but... one last nit, I promise - Cold arrow is a pre-req for guided/strafe.
DudSpud
You are correct. Just checked all the skill points and there is one there. Missed it. I'm pretty sure that you won't find anything else there. I use LS a lot in open area's. I really do play mostly like a javazon. If I see knights or LI then I go Strafe. If I run into a couple baddies, I will just run up to them & CS them. LS left click, Fury or CS on right. Magic arrow on left, Strafe on right. The 75% block & 49/59/49 with 1600 life makes meele pretty safe. Overall damage is pretty close to a full lighening build but with a very good method of dealing with immunities. With a little gear switch, you have a pure light build. The strafe part of this build is actually pretty strong. Figure 1,200 average damage at 8/2 with knockback. You could definately play this as a straffer if you get a better meat shield (pump a few more into valk and develop a merc). Would probably kill at about the same rate as an upped WWS. Max resists and 1500 life in bow mode is like a hardcore WWS straffer.
Over 100 views and no opinions/questions/suggestions???
Tell me what you think. Tell me something you would do different. Tell me it stinks. Tell me something :)
I think that many people who would have commented blew their rhetorical wad on Euro-Crash's Faith hybrid. The builds both have Titan's and Faith, but to me are quite different. His is primairly multi, which is a different mentality than Strafe. Also different is that yours is really an elemental melee build with a ranged back-up, while his is all ranged. Thus you scrimped on bow points to get some killer lightning attacks. This forced you to get as much +skills items as you could and still remain viable. I actually think that +skills on a Zon is underrated beacuse of the power of the passive evade skills, pierce, and penetrate, not to mention your actual attack skills. Then again, who doesn't want more skill points...
Strafers, for one, because after slvl 6, you are maxed on the number of arrows you can fire, and in your build at slvl 12 you are firing a minimum of 5, and then only at LI's. This is where I think the best idea of your build lies, using a physical attack that doesn't require being maxed out as a secondary skill. Each point only gives you 5% more damage - worth it for the pure strafer, but not here.
Oh, and speaking of skills, I can make an earth-shattering suggestion that will make your build truly uber - get MA to 13 so it costs no mana.
One other suggestion I would give is Insight. I know you didn't do too much with Mercs, but LF eats mana - perhaps with this and SoJ, you could drop the Manald and get +1 skills. And for the real rich, Infinity for the conviction aura to break many LI's and soften up all the rest. Pride for concentration would be nice, and certainly increase his damage, but if strafe is mostly a secondary skill, and most of your damage is lightning, this seems less needed.
Oh, and another suggest from a poorer player such as myself - In you set up you can get up to +13 on Valk when cast by shopping +3 passive gloves, +3 passive circlet, +3 passive ammy, +4 Titans/Spirit - heck, as long as we are switching stuff out - go to +16 (the magic slvl17!) with 2xSoJ/BK and arachnid mesh.
DudSpud
I think that many people who would have commented blew their rhetorical wad on Euro-Crash's Faith hybrid. The builds both have Titan's and Faith, but to me are quite different. His is primairly multi, which is a different mentality than Strafe. Also different is that yours is really an elemental melee build with a ranged back-up, while his is all ranged. Thus you scrimped on bow points to get some killer lightning attacks. This forced you to get as much +skills items as you could and still remain viable. I actually think that +skills on a Zon is underrated beacuse of the power of the passive evade skills, pierce, and penetrate, not to mention your actual attack skills. Then again, who doesn't want more skill points...
Strafers, for one, because after slvl 6, you are maxed on the number of arrows you can fire, and in your build at slvl 12 you are firing a minimum of 5, and then only at LI's. This is where I think the best idea of your build lies, using a physical attack that doesn't require being maxed out as a secondary skill. Each point only gives you 5% more damage - worth it for the pure strafer, but not here.
Oh, and speaking of skills, I can make an earth-shattering suggestion that will make your build truly uber - get MA to 13 so it costs no mana.
One other suggestion I would give is Insight. I know you didn't do too much with Mercs, but LF eats mana - perhaps with this and SoJ, you could drop the Manald and get +1 skills. And for the real rich, Infinity for the conviction aura to break many LI's and soften up all the rest. Pride for concentration would be nice, and certainly increase his damage, but if strafe is mostly a secondary skill, and most of your damage is lightning, this seems less needed.
Oh, and another suggest from a poorer player such as myself - In you set up you can get up to +13 on Valk when cast by shopping +3 passive gloves, +3 passive circlet, +3 passive ammy, +4 Titans/Spirit - heck, as long as we are switching stuff out - go to +16 (the magic slvl17!) with 2xSoJ/BK and arachnid mesh.
DudSpud
I guess you are right about crashs's build. Both do seem similar when you consider that both require faith to be done rightand both are bow/light hybrids. I just recently fell in love with the light tree but the LI's take forever to kill. When I built a pure light build, I realized how incredible all those +skills worked in the passive tree and then to solve the Immunity problem, I could get away cheap with a bow skill like strafe. With ITD and Fanat, it would have good power/speed without much effort. That damn mana forced me to the manald or dual leech but a good runeword on merc would definately allow the soj. Nice idea. I was also thining a lycanders could work as a poorer build as it has ITD. The damage would be lower and it would be slower but it could work. I will throw one more point in MA since I am at 12 now.
By the way, I am a big fan of faith multi. kills very fast but I wanted to maximize the light tree so could not afford to pump dex and forgo the life. I had little DR and love to go toe to toe with CS. Figured strafe would work well against the small groups of LI's.
I think this little guide deserves to be stuck, too. XZON can you tell me if you have cleaned it up to your desired leveland whether or not you want to add anything to it?
Thanks
I think this little guide deserves to be stuck, too. XZON can you tell me if you have cleaned it up to your desired leveland whether or not you want to add anything to it?
Thanks
Thanks Dacar. I made all corrections/revisions & my final stats at level 87. Only thing I missed was the 1 skill point in cold arrow as a prereq. Not worth a rewrite though. Maybe you could clean up that title for me. Tried to bold but it didn't work out.
This build is for all the Javazons out there who got sick of immunities. If you have access to a faith GMB, you can now punch through the entire game without any problems while maintaining that incredible lightening damage that we all love.
Some may be able to achieve a bit more light damage going pure but this gives a back up in strafe that can compete with pure bowazons.
Can you add a gear guide for those who either don't have the runes for Faith or play single player? This would be like a 2nd tier gear setup. Maybe even add an ideal gear guide to use as you level up.
Can you add a gear guide for those who either don't have the runes for Faith or play single player? This would be like a 2nd tier gear setup. Maybe even add an ideal gear guide to use as you level up.
Sure. I'll work on it over the next day or so.
Shlongor
01-04-2005, 04:24
Bowazons havn't been a weak build since the bow bug. Don't know what game you're playing ;)
durianking
01-04-2005, 15:36
Have wanted and had a headache tryin' to read up how to build an Enjoyable character that could take care of himself/herself in NM ... maaybe even rush someone sometime ...
Gonna try this out tonight .
Thanks a mil , XZON !^^
Have wanted and had a headache tryin' to read up how to build an Enjoyable character that could take care of himself/herself in NM ... maaybe even rush someone sometime ...
Gonna try this out tonight .
Thanks a mil , XZON !^^
She will more than take care of herself. Heck, you could rush people in hell with her. Play as pure light zon till hell. That's when the LI's start to pop up on a regular basis. This is when you be needing strafe/magic arrow periodically.
Euro-Crash
01-04-2005, 23:28
She will more than take care of herself. Heck, you could rush people in hell with her. Play as pure light zon till hell. That's when the LI's start to pop up on a regular basis. This is when you be needing strafe/magic arrow periodically.
XZON this is nice. You are right about the ability rush people. NM is a joke with both your guide and my own. Hell is even somewhat enjoyable. How are the rushes going with this style?
I am having good fun playing the opposite side of the coin. I recently added a BER rune to my Merc's Reaper's Toll....it absolutely rocks. If anything I would include a short section on mercenary selection as I feel a well-equipped mercenary is an integral part of a PvM build.
If you haven't tried a BER'd Reaper's Toll, I think you should.
XZON this is nice. You are right about the ability rush people. NM is a joke with both your guide and my own. Hell is even somewhat enjoyable. How are the rushes going with this style?
I am having good fun playing the opposite side of the coin. I recently added a BER rune to my Merc's Reaper's Toll....it absolutely rocks. If anything I would include a short section on mercenary selection as I feel a well-equipped mercenary is an integral part of a PvM build.
If you haven't tried a BER'd Reaper's Toll, I think you should.
Thanks Crash. I haven't been playing it at all lately. Just hardcore now and very little at that. Overall, the Light tree is very strong compared to the bow side. Overall damage is definately way higher than anything that a bowazon can come up with. As a group killer, it's tough to beat a strong faith multi zon though. Anywhere there are no light immunes, my high damage LF with 38 bolts should clean things up even in large games very quickly. The bow side could use some help when LI's are around. Maybe for rushing, I would use a might merc for some extra punch. I am gonna make some adjustments for a lower end gear build. I am thinking a goldstrike arch bow as if shaeled, it would have 70% ias and only need 50 more for 9/2. Since it has decent damage and a hefty increase to AR, I think it could work. This version would definately require a decent merc so I would add that also. What this build really needs is a minimun of 9/2 strafe with a boost in AR from the bow to work correctly. I went over all the other bows and this seems to be the only one that fits the build. I will make a revision in a few days when I have it all figured out.
itsPizzarific
04-04-2005, 01:09
eaglehorn could be used to replace faith i guess, it has itd and some nice damage as well.
nice guide btw. :wink2:
im thinking of starting a hybrid after reading yours and euro's guide, i think it will follow the lightning tree more like yours, but use multi like crash's
im also thinking of trying an a1 merc with faith, and using wf myself.
and finally, should i use fort or coh? my res will be terrible but i want nice damage as well. meh. i will probably use sanctuary as my shield though.
eaglehorn could be used to replace faith i guess, it has itd and some nice damage as well.
nice guide btw. :wink2:
im thinking of starting a hybrid after reading yours and euro's guide, i think it will follow the lightning tree more like yours, but use multi like crash's
im also thinking of trying an a1 merc with faith, and using wf myself.
and finally, should i use fort or coh? my res will be terrible but i want nice damage as well. meh. i will probably use sanctuary as my shield though.
Thanks for the thumbs up on the guide. I considered eaglehorn for ITD and damage however hitting a decent breakpoint will require too much ias with this bow. It is very important to me to keep the lightening side strong and 55% ias should be the max with this build. Goldstrike has 50% plus a shael = 70% making 9/2 reachable. It does not have ITD but does have 100-150% to AR which should help and can be upgraded for more damage.
My build uses the bow not as a crowd control skill as crash does but more as an immunity killer. You will never encounter a full screen of LI's but small groups or individuals. When using strafe against small groups, multiple arrows will hit and pierce which will take those few monsters down quick. If you go multi, you will be spamming tons of arrows against only a few monsters. Multi is incredible against a full screen of badies (way better than strafe) but strafe is better against individuals/smaller groups or large groups that are packed tightly together (with high pierce). I think that multi will be wasted in this build. Also, knockback works much better for strafe. For the same reason that you would choose strafe over multi against a boss, you should use strafe with this build.
I gave some thought to the faith on merc and WF on you. Interesting but you will still have the AR problem then. Damage and speed will be great but no ITD which could cause a problem. I ended up with only 268 dex in bow mode which will definalty keep the chance to hit lower than I would like.
For my build, COH is definately better. The +2 skills and resists are very important for jav mode. Fortitude will help bow mode but I found my bow damage to be more than sufficient for what I use it for.
After looking at what you are thinking of doing, I think you could possible build a hybrid of crash and my guide. You obviously want more bow damage than I needed, you would like to use multi/fortitude and WF with Faith on merc. If you go for more dex and less life and go fortitude, you could use multi as your primary skill and develop CS and synergies for your boss skill. Your lightening damage will suffer a bit (less + skills) and you will be a bit more fragil in jav mode (lower passives/resists and less life) but it should work.
itsPizzarific
05-04-2005, 00:07
something like this (i believe the bp for 7fpa multi is 92 ias if i keep a 15 fanat faith on my merc)
rare zon circlet - +2 skills, dual leech - ias jewel or shako ias jewel if i dont need the mana leech (15 ias)
ammy - highlords (20 ias)
wep 1 - wf shael (40 ias)
wep 2 - titans
shield - sanctuary or dream - undecided
armor - fort
gloves - +3 java or passive, 20 ias (not sure which would be more useful) (20 ias)
belt - razortail - unnecassary? piercing wont help multi much (i think its only the middle 2 arrows). so maybe dungos, arachs, tgods (ias from nos is irrelavent)
boots - travs, treks or gores (not sure)
this gives 95 ias. and +11 in java mode if i use arachs and java gloves, which should yield some nice damage. i probably wont be using arachs though .. so +10.
my res will be just terrible though .. i guess ill just have to play smart o_0.
skills would be like this:
10 base multi
20 guided
20 lf
20 cs
1 in all passives (i will use passive skillers)
enough in valk to get 17 w/ skills (might wanna max actually since im losing a tank by using a bow merc)
rest into another synergy of LF
another option would be to keep guided at 1 point, since the damage increase isnt godly or anything, and put more into some lightning skills or valk.
just wondering, since ive never used faith before .. will it be annoying staying close to your merc for the fanatacism aura? if so, i might have to use a faith gmb and go with 8fpa
something like this (i believe the bp for 7fpa multi is 92 ias if i keep a 15 fanat faith on my merc)
rare zon circlet - +2 skills, dual leech - ias jewel or shako ias jewel if i dont need the mana leech (15 ias)
ammy - highlords (20 ias)
wep 1 - wf shael (40 ias)
wep 2 - titans
shield - sanctuary or dream - undecided
armor - fort
gloves - +3 java or passive, 20 ias (not sure which would be more useful) (20 ias)
belt - razortail - unnecassary? piercing wont help multi much (i think its only the middle 2 arrows). so maybe dungos, arachs, tgods (ias from nos is irrelavent)
boots - travs, treks or gores (not sure)
this gives 95 ias. and +11 in java mode if i use arachs and java gloves, which should yield some nice damage. i probably wont be using arachs though .. so +10.
my res will be just terrible though .. i guess ill just have to play smart o_0.
skills would be like this:
10 base multi
20 guided
20 lf
20 cs
1 in all passives (i will use passive skillers)
enough in valk to get 17 w/ skills (might wanna max actually since im losing a tank by using a bow merc)
rest into another synergy of LF
another option would be to keep guided at 1 point, since the damage increase isnt godly or anything, and put more into some lightning skills or valk.
just wondering, since ive never used faith before .. will it be annoying staying close to your merc for the fanatacism aura? if so, i might have to use a faith gmb and go with 8fpa
Very well thought out. Definately keep guided at 1. What will skill level of magic arrow be after + skills? This works out to be a great PI/LI killer. If you get the damage to a decent level you could probably get away with a final level of 10 or so. I ended up at 11 and it was a little weak based on my final damage numbers. Stoneskin PI's were taking longer than I am used to with my pure bowazon builds. Pierce helps LF a lot but I would still choose tgods over all else. 20% light absorb is just a life saver in certain areas. +3 LF at least partially makes up for the reduction in pierce %.
Love the circlet. I also have a +2 amazon skills, dual leech (7% ML,8% LL), with 8% res cold, fire, poison 15% res light. The merc thing can get annoying. I've been there. They tend to get lost and your speed drops to nothing when they do. Makes a sweet Chaos Sanc runner though. I think maybe for that reason, go faith. Also a free bunch of skill points in the passive and bow tree's. Mine is +2 all, +2 bow which helped me to conserve a lot of skill points. Plus ITD is huge no matter what.
Depending of final passive +skills, I like cats eye better than highlords due to 25 dex. If your CS ends up in the 60% range, I think the additional DS% is not gonna be worth the added dex.
Shield wise I have not looked in to dream or ever used sanctuary. I use spirit monarch mostly or SS socketed with 5/5 light die. Also keep a 4 P topaz monarch for occasional cows.
You know, you could pretty much do whatever you want at this point. With this type of gear and a hybrid build like ours, Who can say that one way is that much better than another. Give it a try just to be different and let us know how you like it. I'm sure you will have no problem soloing and doing MF runs.
itsPizzarific
05-04-2005, 03:28
my circlet is +2 zon, 8 ml 5 ll but no res.. im looking for a better one.
i think im gonna stick with highlords for the skills .. i will be going to dex route with maybe 100-150 base in vita (closer to 150 probably due to low res).
so you think i should go with the gmb and an a2 merc? if so, i could put a nice eth reapers i have on him and wouldnt need magic arrow.
and do you mean a 4 factd shield, not a topazd one?
thanks for your help :)
my circlet is +2 zon, 8 ml 5 ll but no res.. im looking for a better one.
i think im gonna stick with highlords for the skills .. i will be going to dex route with maybe 100-150 base in vita (closer to 150 probably due to low res).
so you think i should go with the gmb and an a2 merc? if so, i could put a nice eth reapers i have on him and wouldnt need magic arrow.
and do you mean a 4 factd shield, not a topazd one?
thanks for your help :)
I think you should probably use the GMB yourself. Plus you would need another faith anyway as mercs can't use GMB.
Decrep definately does not break every physical immunity. Then again, the monster would also have to be LI so you would be fine 99.99% of the time.
Sorry, I meant 4 isted. Don't know what I was thinking.
This guide is now linked in the build guide sticky. You can still post here, though. Have fun!
Hi,
probably a silly question from a player who seldom plays amazons (I'm tempted to try one, based on this guide) ...
Faith is waaay too expensive for me, but what are your opinions on using the venom runeword instead ? It also has itd, has a lot of poison and pmh. As the bow is only used for immunes, would this work as well ?
DelBoy
Veilside
29-12-2005, 18:10
Hi,
probably a silly question from a player who seldom plays amazons (I'm tempted to try one, based on this guide) ...
Faith is waaay too expensive for me, but what are your opinions on using the venom runeword instead ? It also has itd, has a lot of poison and pmh. As the bow is only used for immunes, would this work as well ?
DelBoy
save yourself a mal rune and make yourself a harmony bow instead. make it in a +3 bow MB or some other -10 or 0 speed bow and it should be ok.
Omikron8
29-12-2005, 23:37
Low level strafe + faith = waste of a faith
why even bother with the bow tree
if you see an LI just rush it with your merc (using infinity since you are quite rich apparently) and jab it to death, as many LI's in this game have naturally low hitpoints with a few exceptions like bramble hulks
i wouldn't even call this a hybridzon, more like a 99%+ javazon
a true hybrid would have 20 strafe and a high level crit
Low level strafe + faith = waste of a faith
why even bother with the bow tree
if you see an LI just rush it with your merc (using infinity since you are quite rich apparently) and jab it to death, as many LI's in this game have naturally low hitpoints with a few exceptions like bramble hulks
i wouldn't even call this a hybridzon, more like a 99%+ javazon
a true hybrid would have 20 strafe and a high level crit
actually any level strafe + faith is waste of faith.
What do you think exactly matters when you raise the level of strafe? I am at level 12. Would 23-25 be much better? Level 24 would be 60% more damage over level 12. Oops, I am sorry. That is 60% of base damage of bow. What is that? About 100 average damage per arrow? That is a very small gain for the cost of 12 skill points. I think those 12 skill points are better served in the jav tree (pretty much the whole point of the build if you read it). FYI, 60 dex points would achieve the same damage as you suggest.
High level critical too. Have you ever looked at the diminishing returns as you pump up critical strike? It gets real ugly after about 63% and getting over about 75% is next to impossible. I can't remember the numbers but I was definately well over 50% with level 9.
As far as LI's, they do come Pi also. They are also in act 3 which means you can have IM cast on you. Jab does not work too well then. It is played mostly as a Javazon true but has a nice back up in strafe which is reasonably powerfull considering how strong my Javalin side is.
Master Zap
05-01-2006, 00:50
[QUOTE=XZON]actually any level strafe + faith is waste of faith.
Ive have one of these builds and it owns in hell.. I use multi instead of strafe
there isnt a need to max multi.. 5-8hard points will provided enough fast spammage. multi is better for PVP anyhow.
I have Max GA, Max L. Fury about 8 points in multi and I am working on maxing CS. I also have a lvl 15 valk that I will put 2 more points into.. then just a point or 2 in the usual D/a/e , Critical strike.
and Pierce of course.. with +skills I am around 70% pierce
after making all the usual zon builds I find this one to be the fastest killer and I never run into anything that is immune to me...
I have crappy res. in hell but never seem to get hit with might merc and valk out.
I pretty much pumped dex over 300
at lvl 85 I have 600 ish life....
gear
Faith gm bow
enigma archon armor
+20/-20 Light facet monarch shield
titans revenge
40%ed/15ias 16% DR Vampgaze
goreriders boots
+3 bow gloves w/3% ml (for bosses I use LOH at times too)
Highlords ammy
2x ravenfrost with a carrion ring on switch (if I need the lifesteal)
Tgod belt
16/19 torch
couple gc's
almost maxed this build to great success... just missing the anni..
sometimes I think a COH would be better armor... but I am lazy and like the teleport from enigma... I also rush folks in all the diff. levels so it saves alot of time...
ForsakenEmpire
08-01-2006, 19:32
I was wondering... why not griff instead of shako? isnt the light bonuses worth it?
what body armour do u suggest besides COH anf Fort? and would stealskull or tal mask soc with 15% ias jewel work if u dont have shako? maybe even vamp gaze soc with 15% ias? i mean i have a shako, but its on my mfer so i need another helm. aslo the shield, what else besides spirit? im nonladder :)
fireefly
23-01-2006, 00:11
i may use this guilde, may change a few things but overall this will help me alot
Gandolph
16-05-2006, 01:06
Sounds like a fun build. My mods will be CoH instead of Nigma (Zon's have the worst cast rate in the game), and hopefully Infinity for my merc. I'm pretty poor at the moment, so the build is going slowly. I'm going to have to rebuild and twink her when I get all the gear. I'd like to use Griffons but I fear I will never be able to afford a good one. Delirium might be a fun option, but hell cows might not see the humor.
Can't decide on a shield. SS for max block, or spirit for skills? What about Whitstans Guard shield? No res, but high block.
ButrosButros
31-07-2006, 23:18
LF = 742-1516 physical and 1-2928 x 38 light
How do you get your LF damage this high? Do the bolts get a bonus from high dex? I've got level 37 or 38 LF, with CS and LS also maxed and my lf bolt damage is only 1-2000.
This seems to be really good build. But i'm thinking about her low life. Meaby add Infinity for merc, and CTA on swich? Will infi break enough immunes? GMB faith looks pretty fun to me (haven't played bowazon before, and I believe it will be handy vs immunes. I also thought about Might merc (will it add reasonable dmg?) and if it won't, any suggestions for merc?
I would apreciate if I get answers for these.:rolleyes:
Uchiha Sasuke
27-10-2006, 08:07
edit: This is a full javazon . =/
Uchiha Sasuke
27-10-2006, 08:11
This seems to be really good build. But i'm thinking about her low life. Meaby add Infinity for merc, and CTA on swich? Will infi break enough immunes? GMB faith looks pretty fun to me (haven't played bowazon before, and I believe it will be handy vs immunes. I also thought about Might merc (will it add reasonable dmg?) and if it won't, any suggestions for merc?
I would apreciate if I get answers for these.:rolleyes:
Infinity will effectivly destroy immunes. Think light sorcs.
Uchiha Sasuke
27-10-2006, 08:27
Sounds like a fun build. My mods will be CoH instead of Nigma (Zon's have the worst cast rate in the game),
How will this be your mod if the guide says to do so?
and sorry bout three seperate posts... =/
Infinity will effectivly destroy immunes. Think light sorcs
Haven't ever got infi, so I actually can't think (sure i've seen them, but it's not the same). But after all, I still decided to go without infi (for original build), and go with holy freeze merc (don't know what wep/armor he's gonna use, need to think about those. Weapon is prolly gonna be insight for mana.
Now I saw the Harmony bow, and wouldn't it be fun to eguip act1 merc with Harmony & lvl 10 vigor? I would run fast, and my merc wouldn't die so often, when he don't go next to every enemy that game got :P What you think about this? Or would act2 merc with holy freeze/might + some other aura (weapon) be more affective?
Thanks for any help. :)
this build will destroy anything in hell right? considering im getting more +skill charms and what not, but i was just wondering if i wont have a problem with any bosses and mobs
The builds idea certainly is valid. There have been many of those builds and quite a few can be found in the amazon show off thread. And no, they don't have problems with bosses nor mobs. Bosses are easily killed with charged strike - each bolt does the listed damage and each bolt hits - and mods are easily killed with lightning fury, multishot or strafe.
However, most of those aren't created by this guide. There is a more recent guide - a bit longer too - that seems to be more popular. I'm not familiar with this guide, on the other hand, I am familiar with the new guide and I think it my be wise to have a look at the new one.
http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=643918
vBulletin® v3.8.4, Copyright ©2000-2009, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.