Spearazon Q's

[GreyGhost]

I've been thinking about making an Amazon with a spear as the main weapon. I haven't seen too many around ... why? Are they terrible?

Whats the best weapon for a character like this? Ebotd Mat. Pike?

[Omikron8]

ebotd mat spear
rockstopper/coa
fort/prudence/duress/coh
laying of hands
tgods
dual raven
highlords
gores
torch
anni
max/life/res charms

20 fend
20 penetrate
10 crit
20 charged strike
20 light fury
5 pierce
1 in prereqs

that's the build i used and she does fine except against very high phys damage like minions of destruction or damage aura + amp packs

[GreyGhost]

Thanks!

10chars

[Eustacia]

I've tried a few spearzon builds in hardcore. I find the best untwinked strategy is to put 3 points into vit per level and the rest into str/dex as needed. You will be underpowered for normal, so use your lit skills and drink lots of blues. Also, fend is very dangerous as a left click skill since one bad click = 10 attacks where you can't move = daeth.

Put points into lightning strike, not lightning fury. You can't use fury with a spear. Lightning strike is wonderful against those stupid Act 5 gremlins who teleport around.

On swap I use a big fire damage brandistock + jab to take out phys/lit double immunes as well as to have a weak spear on hand to avoid IM death. And I use an Act 1 cold rogue, going all out cold damage, even putting cold damage jewels in armor + helm (or use "duress" I think it is).

It's an absurdly difficult build though since you essentially have no defense and your attacks are slow.

[GreyGhost]

Yah I enjoy the absurdly difficult part. Either way I think I have the equipment figured out, although I'll probably use a gaze or delerium (there are no good helm runewords!)

I can make/trade for an eth ebotd mat. spear I think, and the rest of the items aren't a problem. Its too bad there aren't any spear runewords (the polearm runewords won't work in spears). I was even thinking of using a passion spear on switch for the berzerk skill to kill PI's, etc. For armor I will equip fort or coh.

For merc I was going to use a def. desert warrior to boost my def. For his weapon I will try to find infinity, insight, or pride. Although a might merc might be better.

I will probably need a lot of help in the end of hell but in general I think the build will be ... interesting.

[Omikron8]

fury is recommended over strike because strike suffers from the chain lightning bug in which chain light bounces cannot overlap and damage the same target simultaneously

and the raw power of fury is so much more destructive even without a CS synergy (but you are getting CS anyways)

put titans + shield on switch and use fury when you encounter groups of PI's or just tight groups of monsters with low light res

both fury or strike boost CS equally as well so that isn't an issue

Eustacia is right that this build is incredibly weak in terms of defenses/survival. Blizzard bugged fend so we can't even think of using d/a/e anymore unless you want to crawl like a snail in hell. You don't have blocking or max res (unless you have many good charms and multi res in all slots) and your defense doesn't exist when you are running (as with all builds). Luckily ebotd + ~15 life leech means a full life bulb in 1-2 fend hits even in hell because you should be dishing out about 5k fend after might and then you can factor in critical on top of that.

If you want to kill PI's use that same titans + shield switch and throw level 1 base lightning bolt at them. The 3/4 conversion should take them down fast. If you encounter a LI + PI or PI with high light res i just suggest to run as you will take forever. Upgrading your titans (eth not needed) will help with this light bolt damage conversion against PI's.

Try to hit for 1500 life as well, exploiting as many stat items as you can like ravens/ebotd stat bonuses/torch/anni/dual mod stat charms to keep your base dex as low as possible. 350+ base vit should be a reasonable number because an ebotd mat spear/pike has significantly reduced requirements over their regular versions

Hitting the FHR breakpoint at ~ 50% is very important too, rockstopper + prudence covered this for me