View Full Version : Is a PVP bowazon still worth building nowdays?
CaimDark
09-09-2006, 11:32
I know bowazons are no longer what they once were, but I'm thinkg about trying one, and I don't want to spend tens of hours on one just to find out they can't even kill anyone 40 levels weaker... so, can a bowazon still hold her own in duels? If so, where can I find a good PVP bowazon guide?
Thoridian
09-09-2006, 13:40
Well yes, theyre VERY good BUT they need insane gear and player skills... Without the best stuff (especially charms) and skill u wont see her real power
Well yes, theyre VERY good BUT they need insane gear and player skills... Without the best stuff (especially charms) and skill u wont see her real power
WORD
to be as effective as possible u cannot hold back on funds with this char, and you need the good skill as well.
The charms are definetly important, u can't really escape with crappy charms that much.
Also there are obvious builds that cause a bowa a hard time.
soul killer
09-09-2006, 14:51
Bottom lines is if your rich and dont know were to spend your HRs you either give em to me or make a gg bowazon.
A full pimped bowazon is incredibly difficult to take down.
ManiacalPope
09-09-2006, 15:27
Yes, but you have to be rich enough to equip her. As in Faith Matriarchal bow, some sort of +2 to amazon circlet or a p vamp gaze with 40/15 or a 120/45 helm or something of the sort, maybe berber coa... mass bow/xbow gcs, torch, anni, coh or fort, Crafted gloves with LL and +2 bow skills, some sort of sexy boots, etc etc. It's not cheap, at all, expect to spend alot if you want her to be great. But if you're willing youll prolly have one of the hardest characters to kill. I have a friend who has a fully decked out zon and it pretty much pwns all. =/
dont use bow gc's, go all damage or poison or whatever you want, fill it upp with 3/20/20 :rolleyes: anni torch
get a forti, good faith bow, good crafted gloves etc.
gear depends on if you ar gm or bm, if bm you can be a real *ss with lotsa slow and kb and all that fun stuff :thumbsup:
CaimDark
09-09-2006, 21:49
I suppose good items won't be a problem to me. I play only single player and with my friends, and we keep an item database of every item we find on mules, and we give each other everything we find. Since I don't play on the realms, remember that I can't use realms only equipment. And how about charms? What exactly do you call "godly charms"?
soul killer
10-09-2006, 01:17
Max dmg/life scs are gg for bowazons,psn scs are also extremely useful.
Fill your whole invent. with those and a 20/20 torch and 20/20/xx anni and youll be unstoppable.
Omikron8
10-09-2006, 04:01
stay away from all types of pallies in pvp as a bowazon
seriously they will rearrange your face in seconds
CaimDark
10-09-2006, 23:51
I guess I will start one when I grow bored of my WW barb and my still early in the making Hammerdin. But I need a good, in-depth, PvP guide, where can I find one? The ones I found are either PvM or very basic (use this gear, max these skill, and that's it).
CaimDark
11-09-2006, 22:47
Are there no good bowazon guides?
No, there's not really any bowazon guide in terms of strategy. There's one in the sticky, but that really only outlines gear and skills. My main character is my Bowazon, and 90% of the time when I play my zon I'm dueling, so here's Koshio's Incredible PvP Bowazon Guide!
A lot of this I already outlined above.
Gear: Basically faith/wf are your two choices. If you're crazy you can go BoTD or a rare or something, though. Everything else is damage and speed. That's your bowazon. Damage and speed. You're looking for +Damage (Razortail and War Travelers) and +Increased Attack Speed. Don't skimp on run speed either, you need it to stay alive.
Skills: I personally duel with a pve-built bowazon. I'm going to rebuild soon into a 20 GA 20 crit 15+ dodges build, though. If you can bear having mad-weak group killing skills, just get GA maxed and then passives. Multishot can be useful and it's usually how I get owned by other bowazons, but I personally do not find it useful mainly due to it draining my mana ridiculously quickly. Get multi if you want, and then only do 5-10 points in it.
Stats: Strength for gear, go for strength bug. It makes you cool. Zero vitality... the only downside to this is auradins/dreamers who will kill you in one shot from off the screen without even thinking about you. Oh, and sorces who get thunderstrike. Rest dex to maximise damage.
Strategy (Fun part)
Lets start with... other amazons!
Bowazons: I tend to lose against other bowazons, for whatever reason. I can tell you that multishot is what gets me. I generally will pop a decoy to catch a few guideds, but they figure out that I do that pretty quickly and just head straight into the multi-spam, which outdoes my own multi-spam. This is in a fairly close-combat situation with one person cornered though. Bowazon duels can go for quite a while if both are playing conservatively. My advice here would be to break the 'run around dodging unlocked guideds and multis from both people' routine and just head straight in, rambo style. If you die, you die. But at least you're not spending five minutes playing 'catch me if you can' with the other zon.
I have dueled no poizons and the only lightning zons I've dueled were farcasting charged striker newbs, so I can't give you anything there :/
Assassins:
Trappers: Trappers are fun to fight. The general idea from the zon is to catch the sin in a pause or in mid-teleport. Many sins that I duel like to throw down a few traps from a few screens off towards me, and then teleport close and mindblast lock. Here's where your luck has to kick in... hopefully you can bounce around in blasts enough to dodge the lightning and then run for it. The sin almost always will chase you from here... turn around and melt her face.
Kickers: Haven't dueled many, and the one or two I have I don't remember the fight ;/
Barbses:
I love fighting WWBarbs. All you need to do is get your mouse-skills down. What you need to do is lure the barb into wwing and then simply sidestep and fill his face with GAs. Repeat to infinity. You should only die when you screw up or you get caught against some terrain. The problems kick in when they decide "Hey, maybe I can't use WW against this zon. I think I'll just concentrate against them or bezerk." All you can really do here is run and hope you run faster so you can turn around and get off a few GAs.
BvCs: Laugh when they do their funny jumping, get out of range when they stop to make an approach and shoot. Not much experience here, so that's all I can give you.
Enigma barbs: Pray. Sidestep and pray.
Sorceresseseses: Blizzard... try to get out of it before the first tick. If the sorc stops her teleporting, start moving immediately. Not much experience here again, so that's all I can give... again. (I'm sorry, but I only pub duel and I never see these types of characters >.>)
Firebaal: (lol I'm funny) Not too hard to dodge, but it can get hard to get a shot in. Try running away and then turning around to get a few shots in when they teleport after you.'
Orb: Orb is suck. There's not really going to be any dodging of orb, so just lock and hope you get them at the same time they get you. Or just try to outrun the orb/bolts.
Paladins: Chargers/Smiters... why does everyone and their mom have to have a charger/smiter? Oh well. Your strategy against these guys... hold your ground and try to get a few lucky knockbacks and a crit streak. They're hard to hit, they hit hard and they're completely unavoidable for a zon. Shoot and pray.
Hammerdins: Hammerdins are fun to fight. We'll be bringing out one of our grand total of two strategies (All bowzon fights seem to be the same... >.>) and that is... dodge the hammers. I don't remember if they come out the top or the bottom. But remember that they have to stop to cast, so get out of the way of the first few loops and get a few shots in. Killing a hammerdin can take a while... a lot of the time they decide they're done trying to hammer me and just charge me :/
FoH: Bring out your valk and decoy, shoot, and pray.
Auradins: Sit in town or leave the game.
Zealots: Zealots don't really exist, sorry.
Druids: Wind Druids: Multi them down (This is one of the few situations it may come in truly handy) and hope they don't decide to teleport on top of you immediately. Of course, they will and you'll die. Not much to do against wind druids.
Ferals: Outrun, turn around and shoot is really your only option. Maybe they'll see a rabbit and chase it instead of you.
Necromancerererers: Bone! Dodge the spears, outrun the spirits, hope they don't decide to teeth you. It can be a bit like a fireball sorc... not hard to evade, just hard to get shots off at.
Poison: You have two choices... mow or evade. Evading will only let you get a few shots off, but mow relies on the necro's inherent weakness because he probably own't have too strong of bone armor.
Teleporters in general: Lead. Lead like kitten chasing its prey with another kitten following it. Anticipate where they're going to go and launch some GAs there.
And that's Koshio's half assed bowzon guide >.>
Edit: Have a few things to add...
Expect to die a lot. Expect to have absolutely nothing you can do against that annoying hybrid bone/summoner necro or against all the thousands of desyncing smiter/charger/vindicators running around on battle.net. Expect to just have a paladin pop up out of nowhere and one-shot you. Expect some characters to use a combination of good gear and specific defensive skills to basically make you do no damage. D2 dueling is far from balanced, espescially for the bowazon, and you're going to die.
CaimDark
12-09-2006, 08:25
Thanks Koshio for the tips Koshio!!! Although, I see that the Bowazon is pretty much screwed against almost everyone!!!! I guess it's Blizzard's way of "balancing" duels after letting invencible bowazons run rampant for the last five years. I remember that when I last played this game with my zealot, in 2001 (wow, I'm getting old...) bowazons were invencible, as were WW barbs (except against bowazons). Now, with the news PVP rules, Enigma, and synergies, paladins seem to be the new dueling gods.
Anyways, now that I'm done with my WW barb (just got to level 86, more than enough to murder my friends, lol), I just might try a bowazon for the challenge after I finish building my hammerding.
Omikron8
12-09-2006, 21:40
"balancing" would actually require brains on blizzard's part
instead they introduced enigma, let it be duped to hell which allowed all the teleporting classes (except zons who suck at tele) to crush bowazons
CaimDark
13-09-2006, 07:11
Indeed, Enigma seems to be 80% of the reasons bowazons went from god-like to whimp-like. Instead of choosing a couple of classes to ridiculously overpower everyone else every new patch, it would be nice if they actually balanced duels and let everybody who doesn't play only the current patch's godlike classes to participate.
Thanks for that guide koshio.I just made a multi zon for running chaos and Im having lots of fun.Just thinking of making another for pvp.
Youve given me ideas, although from your guide it doesnt sound too hopeful for the old zon:grin:
Nice to read a guide with a sense of humour about it:smiley:
Bladewind
13-09-2006, 12:39
Use slow gear. Its unethical but what the heck, you need it !
CaimDark
13-09-2006, 19:26
Use slow gear. Its unethical but what the heck, you need it !
Unethical? I don't think anyone ever stopped using slow gear against me due to ethical considerations... but how does slow works in PvP these days? Does the old Buriza-Clegaw's Pincers combo still works in PvP?
xix sephra
13-09-2006, 22:15
use the cheapest things you can use to win.. thats my motto :)
Nosferatu belt... 10% slow 10%ias :grin:
mpbu mpsu
14-09-2006, 17:05
well, bowazon are very impressive on dueling board i have 17 chars 15 of them are over lvl 90 :thumbsup: my bowzon is lvl 45 and only 2 of my chars are better my lvl 99 smiter and my lvl 99 javazon think about lvl 45 and better than some of my lvl 90's :shocked: my bowzon rocks in duels so trust me m8 make a bowzon :thumbsup:
CaimDark
15-09-2006, 01:29
My bowazon is now at an impressive level 17!!! I just killed the countess, I'm playing on players 8 and wearing Artic Gear, full set, so far, so good. But i'm really at a loss about what to do with my skills. Every guide seems to have different ideias about how to spend skill points. What I do know is that I will max guided arrow and critical strike, and that's it, I need suggestions for the rest! I'm thinkig about strafe, is it any good? Koshio mentioned multiple shot, but isn't strafe a lot better, judging from the skill description? What about dodge, avoid, evade? Should I spend points on all of these? or none at all?
Another question I've asked before, but perharps those who know the answer did not see it: as for gear, how about the old Buriza-clegaw's pincers combo? Does it still work?
I guess my biggest challenge playing this bowazon will be changing my mindset. For the past weeks I've grown used to playing a godly WW barb with 4000 life with battle orders on. No matter how tough looking or large a pack of monsters is, I just charge right on, even on hell (except when they include those pesky iron maiden casting oblivion knights...)! Not to mention my recently started hammerdin who kills everything in seconds, even the big bosses. Now I will have to get used to playing a sissy with no life who can't even afford to trip!!
You need:
Forti armor
Faith GMB
uped eth 195-200ed tytans
lots of charms max/ar/life ale max/ar/frw, you dont need fhr
Rest is just an added bonus, look for 7fps and max dmg.
I like Shako... just do... but ofc a 30/3 tiara is more sexy... I just like the mods and lots of mana for multi spam...
Now, skills... bow skills are easy, max GA and like 13-15 multi shot arrows.
Have 1 point in jab and FURY in java tree. Dodges = rest. And 1 valk if you like, you need decoy anyway.
I aim to have like 1500-1600 life on bow mode (at least)
Sorc:
FB: if they name lock = you die fast, use 85 res (inferno) as a must (dwarf could me nice too), try not to let them get to close, if they do switch to java, LF them for a little bit of stun and dmg and run, lf behind untill you can GA them.
Blizz: if they name lock = see above, dodge blizzards. If they play def just name lock with GA and dodge blizzards. Stack res (200 or more, I use Kira and rare boots), 2x 20dex ravens as a must!!!
Light: well, use Tgod and hope for little dmg as the dmg range is HUGE, casting is slow and easy to dodge with a little foot work. Not hard realy imo.
ORB: well, this is the most easy duel for me... Use 2 ravens and some res... but I don't use any usualy... don't try to dodge the orbs, cause you can't, just don't get hit with a central orb... name lock and GA till the sorc is dead... move as little as possible and don't stop shoting.
Ama:
Bow: I play offens, you will die more that way, but more fun. If you play lame, just run back and spam multi/GA... when close try to use SM, then jab/LF them to death (lf vs jab = lf wins 85% of the time), if they run, name lock GA and chase with java.
PSN: don't let them cast SM on you and just GA from far away, they HAVE to play offensive...
Fare-cast-lame-whatever: whatever.......
Barb: see previous guide, pray for no lag :) Use LF to stop the bastards, works wonders!
Palla: LF is THE one-point wonder here... Spam with GA and when they get close (they will) go to shield mode and spam with LF untill one of you is dead or you can run away and spam some more GA. Realy.
Dru: Multi shots do the job, and frw and fancy run skill. Against mele use LF to stop the bastards and GA / run / LF / run / GA / run / LF / run / GA.....etc...
Trap sin:
multi, multi, multi spam... how much mana do you have? if they tele/DF and name lock with MB try to kill with LF if they have little life left, if not try to run for it and snipe with GA and multi spam.
You can always abuse the OW/DS/etc. switch bug (I use the 50OW shield vs high ES sorc sometimes), fire some arrows and switch to the OW weapon/shield while the arrows are in the air, the OW bonus will apply to the arrow then it hits (nice with multi).
LF is a way of ballancing those hard duels, when the oponent is to close to use a bow... Tytans are best for the 30 frw and repl, use eth uped with nice ED, one point does tons of dmg (and it's not light dmg, they might use tgod to absorb, thats GOOD!! nothing to absorb!!!!). Rare eth 450 ed javas are very sexy, but hard to get...
CaimDark
15-09-2006, 04:27
You need:
Forti armor
Faith GMB
uped eth 195-200ed tytans
lots of charms max/ar/life ale max/ar/frw, you dont need fhr
Rest is just an added bonus, look for 7fps and max dmg.
I like Shako... just do... but ofc a 30/3 tiara is more sexy... I just like the mods and lots of mana for multi spam...
Now, skills... bow skills are easy, max GA and like 13-15 multi shot arrows.
Have 1 point in jab and FURY in java tree. Dodges = rest. And 1 valk if you like, you need decoy anyway.
I aim to have like 1500-1600 life on bow mode (at least)
I forgot to mention this I play only single, or eventually over IP, so realms only equipment is out of the question. As for the skills, isn't strafe better than multi-shot? And how about critical strike?
for PvP only multi, strafe could have some use, but it's **** for 95% duels so not worth it... cirical max, or at least 20 with all gear if you feal that the 1% per 2 lvl is not enough (I max it). Sorry if I was unprecise, I wrote that at 4 AT (my time) so... I just wanted to say something about the not so obvious skills.
Go for a hard-hiting high-dmg bow... If a windforce, socket with 15ias/40ed.
60ias/160 life armor
15ias/40 czako
20 ias glowes
20 ias amu
And that gives you a total od 150 IAS = 8fps = max for hydra bow (and most bows that are not a faith), the dmg will rock.
brualness
15-09-2006, 11:52
hello and yes bowazons still rock and here is a guid http://strategy.diabloii.net/news.php?id=585
its the 1 i jused and welli been having a lot of fun with my bowazon
DIEnamic
15-09-2006, 13:37
even the best of the best bowazons get wiped by certain builds. theres no way around it, bowas just got nerfed into the ground in 1.10.
imo, it's great to have a rich pwnazon but you still won't beat even half of the smiters you face and will have serious troubles with windy druids and the like.
at least from how I see it, the standard faith/wf bowazon gets smacked every time and the cookie cutter needs to break. bowazons need new tactics other than "unload guided arrows in his face and pray critical strike works".
Gandolph
16-09-2006, 00:16
I'm building a PvP bowazon right now to act as a tag partner with my buddies ww barb. Just like in the good ol' days, he's the infantry and I'm the archer.
When you play 2v2 or 2vX duels, it's a whole different strategy.
Yeah, find a Hammerdin witth offens skillers to support you (changing auras to stack them) and you will own all the oponents with multi / ga spam before you see them, or a smiter or just a support hybrid with max auras and hammer/foh/smite to kill (not much killing power, but he just has to support you and stay alive as long as you, then if you die be able to do "some" dmg to kill of the oponents that you didn't finish off)
Yeah, find a Hammerdin witth offens skillers to support you (changing auras to stack them) and you will own all the oponents with multi / ga spam before you see them, or a smiter or just a support hybrid with max auras and hammer/foh/smite to kill (not much killing power, but he just has to support you and stay alive as long as you, then if you die be able to do "some" dmg to kill of the oponents that you didn't finish off)
you need really crazy good gear (duped jewels etc), stuff like 45/160 30 faster run walk circlets and the works. In my time dueling, the most dangerous aspect of a bowazon was her ability to run really fast, with enough frw you could desynce. This makes teleing on top then casting very difficult. Though it might be my crappy 32mb video card that gives me 30 fps in duels.
CaimDark
24-09-2006, 09:18
Slowly but surely my bowazon is growing, and she is now a mighty level 26 warrior!:rolleyes:
My impressions so far: having grow used to playing a WW barb and a hammerdin dealing a whooping 11k per hammer (meaning I have no trouble walking right into a swarm of enemies and slaughtering everything in seconds in hell, p/8), I'm finding playing a low life, low damage "sissy" rather difficult. Still, I like the challenge, and I'm learning as I go.
I've died once and saved and exited twice because swarms of enemies surrounded me so fast there was simply nothing I could do! The most difficult situation I've encontered so far was going into a kurast bazzar temple searching for Lam Esen's tome and running right into a dozen extra fast baddies with nowhere to run...:cry: I dearly missed
WW in those times...
Here're my skills, stats and gears right now (including pluses from equipment):
Str: 70
Dex: 102
Vit: 49
energy: base
Points left to spend: 10
Skills:
critical strike: 10
Penetrate: 2 (35% increase in AR for a single point seemed like a good deal)
Multishot: 5
Guided arrow: 10
the rest in pre-requisites.
Gear:
Vidala's Rig full set (bow, boots, armor and amulet)
Helmet: Tarnhelm
gloves: Clegaw's pincers
Belt: Sigon's Wrap
Rings: Cathan's seal x2
how am I faring? Is my bowazon any good? How can I improve her? Any suggestions for gear and skills at this level?
Thanks for the help!
Bladewind
24-09-2006, 11:20
Get a merc ? At low levels, prayer merc helps alot if you lack leech.
i use a harmony on my switch and it does wonders. try it out, i bet you'll love it. turbo speed on a switch gets you out of a lot of jams. pally trying to charge u down, try to outrun it. you can out run most of the noob pallies out there. let me know if you guys try it out and what you think of it.
CaimDark
24-09-2006, 20:22
Get a merc ? At low levels, prayer merc helps alot if you lack leech.
Ooops, forgot to mention, I'm using a rogue mercenary, she's helping quite a lot. I'll stick with her until I can get a might merc from NM. I have more than enough life leech (see my gear, 2 cathan's seals 6% life leech each), but no mana leech whatsoever, and that's causing me serious problems using guided arrows and multishot:undecided:
CaimDark
01-10-2006, 18:13
I'm happy to report that my bowazon just had her first duel... and lived to tell the tale! I fought a sorceress, and killed her all 3 times. I just kept running and making sure we were never on the same screen, and shooting GA when I had the chance, and eventually she went down!!
So I guess that answers my questions: Bowazons are still worthy!!!!!
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