Bowadin/ranger

[Ferrous]

I read the Ranger guide provided by Rane- and it was fairly useful. A couple of questions -

If you were switching auras between smite/fanat/concentration, would the damage stack?

I saw no mention of Widowmaker (good for pvp) or eaglehorn. Why?

Does sacrifice work with bows, or is that melee-only?

If sacrifice does not work, are there any combat skills that a bowadin can use?

Assuming Sacrifice works, I was thinking along these lines, skill-point wise:

Sacrifice: 20
Fanaticism: 20
Redemption: 20

Other points possibly into Concentration or Blessed Aim, depending on what bow. How helpful would holy freeze/holy fire help?

Obviously life steal would be quite helpful for this build.

I know that bow does not suite paladin very well, but I'm a bow junky - I love the bowasin, and I'm intent on finding viable other bowa-builds for other classes.

[KillJoyBob]

Only the Paladin's "normal attack" works with bows and crossbows. No other combat skill can be used with these ranged weapons.

Aura switching for stacking purposes did used to work, but that was back in 1.09D. That was because some auras used to linger for a few seconds after they were switched off. This has been disabled since 1.10.

Sorry, I didn't have any good news. :D

[Ferrous]

aaaah, crap. So basically, a bowadin for 1.10 (1.11) would be pretty damn hard to play.

[icicle]

My Fanat Zealot is currently using Widowmaker socketed with Nef on switch for dueling with Hammerdins. Damage is 1k+ to 3k+ given 80% Deadly Strike.

At the same time, I have an Act1 Rogue merc who is equipped with Gaze + Fort + Faith combination and she's doing 1k to 2+k of damage.

During PvM, I mainly switched to Widowmaker whenever I encounter Oblivion Knights and hence, I don't think my character can count as a true blue Bowdin. In any case, I can survive using Widowmaker but crowd control can be rather difficult at times especially in multiplayer games. Life leech and mana leech isn't much of a problem and Widowmaker's magic arrow is a blessing as I don't need to care about the number of arrows in my quiver.

For stats, I have maxed out Fanat, Zeal, Holy Shield and Smite. I have 10 pts in Sacrifice and a few points in Defiance. As you can see, given that I'm not a true Bowdin, the skill pts allocation is certainly not optimal w.r.t. a Bowdin build.

Equipment wise, I'm wearing a CoA, Fort, Highlord, Dracul, T-god, Goreriders + 2 Ravenfrosts. I'm sure some of those can be swapped for better Bowdin gears.