Skill layout for Pvm bow Amazon.

[BierWiser]

PVM with Faith Mercenary.

I've looked at both threads that include guides for Faith mercenaries, but they are not very solid on their skills choices. This is for a pure bow Amazon, what skills should be used?

[Evrae Altana]

Here's what I did with my PvM bowazon:
20 Strafe
20 Valk (sexy tank)
20 Penetrate
2-3 each in D/A/E
4 in Pierce I think (~11 or something with +skills)
~5 Multi (it was like ~12 or something with +skills)

[Eilo Rytyj]

Here's mine:

20 Freezing Arrow
20 Cold Arrow
20 Strafe
20 Valk
1 in all other passives... they all get to 10+ with my +skills, that means slvl 10 Pierce w/ Razortail.
Rest of points going to Penetrate.

Put Magic Arrow on your left click. At slvl 13+ it's completely free, and it has a chunky huge AR bonus too.


So yeah, mine's a Frostmaiden with an Act 1 Fath merc. Uses Lycander's Aim w/ Shael to get to 8 frame/2 frame Strafe. Will upgrade to Ice GMB sometime... soon.

My Multi was ~slvl15 with just 1 point. I maxed Strafe on a Frostmaiden purely because I had nowhere else to put the skill points, and I wanted a strong Strafe as well as Freezing Arrow. D/A/E were all at slvl 10 or so, which is plenty fine if you spend no time in melee, and can physically evade projectiles.

I built her as a Glass Cannon, with 39 Str (!), 50 Vit, and the rest in Dex. With +26 Str from my Circlet (http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/3049/screenshot041uy3.jpg), +20 Str from CoH, +10 Str from WarTravs, +18 from a rare ring, and +14 stats from Torch, I could equip all gear with ease. I've recently stripped her, since I needed the RFrost, Highlords and CoH for another character.

[BierWiser]

Here's what I did with my PvM bowazon:
20 Strafe
20 Valk (sexy tank)
20 Penetrate
2-3 each in D/A/E
4 in Pierce I think (~11 or something with +skills)
~5 Multi (it was like ~12 or something with +skills)I like your layout better, but I am wondering one thing. I am gonna want to fight cows. Does Strafe attack fast enough with the IAS from everything to kill them? I've seen an Amazon do Chaos by herself, with single shots, and it wasn't frozen arrows like the other guy said.

[Evrae Altana]

Strafe more than does the job, but I find I use Multishot more whenever I'm fighting Cows, while only using strafe against isolated enemies. Against Chaos Sanc though, I use Strafe and Multi about 50/50.

[Hymn]

I like your layout better, but I am wondering one thing. I am gonna want to fight cows. Does Strafe attack fast enough with the IAS from everything to kill them? I've seen an Amazon do Chaos by herself, with single shots, and it wasn't frozen arrows like the other guy said.

Strafe, with enough IAS, is the fastest attack speed in the game, gaged at 2FPA, or 12.5 attacks per second. The problem with strafe is a thing called Strafe Lock, which is when you trigger Dodge/Avoid/Evade, meaning you still go through the attack animations, and arrows fire, but none of them actually hit.

With a faith merc, I am assuming you are going for max physical damage at the quickest rate possible, am I correct?

Couple of... well they are not all speed builds, but they maximize physical damage, instead of magical damage or CTCs or frost/fire spells.


Setup: Pierce comes from skills
Passive Tree
20 Critical Strike
20 Penetrate
20 Pierce
20 Decoy
1 Inner Sight
1 Slow Missile

82 Points

Bow Tree
20 Strafe
1 Cold Arrow
1 Magic Arrow
1+ Multi-shot

23 Points


And thats it.


Why decoy? Little known fact, strife shoots more arrows if you have a decoy deployed. Since you are using a bow merc instead of a melee merc, you can have your decoy take all the damage instead of aaaanyone else. The best part is, the decoy's life is based directly upon your life, and every stat you have, it has too. If you have 3k life, it has 9k life at level 20. The other part, if you do use a melee merc, and you use enigma as your main armor, you can teleport your merc, and all the enemies will focus fire on your obviously beefed up decoy.

[crawlingdeadman]

strafe lock is where you're locked into place after hitting strafe.

Strafe Lock
While you are Strafing, your character will be locked in place. You will be unable to move until you are done Strafing. Keep in mind that as you put more points into Strafe and it hits more targets, the time you are locked will be longer. Hardcore players might wish to avoid placing too many points into Strafe. For players on Normal mode this is generally not a problem. Be sure to not fire a Strafe right before trying to run away and you will usually be OK.

what you're describing is the same as the "fend bug" that does affect multi hit attacks + d/a/e. i've never noticed it affecting my zon strafing, however because i dont get hit unless i'm doing something stupid.

edit: not meaning to sound like a jerk (well actually yeah i kind of am) but that is the worst Bowzon skill layout i've ever seen. sure i've maxed penetrate before and been happy enough with it but never once have i heard of anyone maxing critical; for one (huge diminishing returns) or pierce (much easier to take one gear slot for razortail than 19 more skill points than necessary(depending on +skills ofc)). And why bother with 20 into decoy without one in valk? my one point decoy works just as well as a 20 point one. i lay her down kill everything on the screen and move on. it's still there having done its job and not 'died'. even with the bug the only reason i can see to not put points into the d/a/e branch is if you're HC and dont want the risk of dodge lock.

[Hymn]

strafe lock is where you're locked into place after hitting strafe.



what you're describing is the same as the "fend bug" that does affect multi hit attacks + d/a/e. i've never noticed it affecting my zon strafing, however because i dont get hit unless i'm doing something stupid.

edit: not meaning to sound like a jerk (well actually yeah i kind of am) but that is the worst Bowzon skill layout i've ever seen. sure i've maxed penetrate before and been happy enough with it but never once have i heard of anyone maxing critical; for one (huge diminishing returns) or pierce (much easier to take one gear slot for razortail than 19 more skill points than necessary(depending on +skills ofc)). And why bother with 20 into decoy without one in valk? my one point decoy works just as well as a 20 point one. i lay her down kill everything on the screen and move on. it's still there having done its job and not 'died'. even with the bug the only reason i can see to not put points into the d/a/e branch is if you're HC and dont want the risk of dodge lock.

Hmm... I don't recall ever being swarmed being a bowazon really. Yeah maxing critical, I didn't mean to do that lol, It was 3 am when I wrote that. If the person wants, they can put 7 there, then put 7 into each d/a/e and valkyree, but that version is just the anti- d/a/e anything.

[BierWiser]

strafe lock is where you're locked into place after hitting strafe.



what you're describing is the same as the "fend bug" that does affect multi hit attacks + d/a/e. i've never noticed it affecting my zon strafing, however because i dont get hit unless i'm doing something stupid.So, max out Valkyrie still? I've got every other bit of information I was looking for. Thanks for all of those who gave information.

My friend just wanted to know, what do you say when you hear the phrase Guided Arrow.

I'm gonna be using Nosferatu's Coil (7% Life Leech) for my Amazon, so no Razortail. Gonna put 1 point in Pierce, though.

Main skills from what I've learned (I've never made an Amazon before).

20 Strafe.
20 Penetrate.
20 Valkyrie.
1 D/A/E.
1 Pierce.
1 Critical Strike.

I'm gonna have a lot left over, should I max Multi-Shot first or Guided Arrow? Should I put more in D/A/E? Item +skills will help a lot.

[Silverhand]

So, max out Valkyrie still? I've got every other bit of information I was looking for. Thanks for all of those who gave information.

My friend just wanted to know, what do you say when you hear the phrase Guided Arrow.

I'm gonna be using Nosferatu's Coil (7% Life Leech) for my Amazon, so no Razortail. Gonna put 1 point in Pierce, though.

Main skills from what I've learned (I've never made an Amazon before).

20 Strafe.
20 Penetrate.
20 Valkyrie.
1 D/A/E.
1 Pierce.
1 Critical Strike.

I'm gonna have a lot left over, should I max Multi-Shot first or Guided Arrow? Should I put more in D/A/E? Item +skills will help a lot.


Guided Arrow = 1 point pre-req.

I don't know that I agree with the 20 points in penetrate - seems like overkill. If you ever want to wear anything other than razortail, I think you'll want more in pierce and much less in penetrate.

Put some extra points into MS for CS or Cows.

Cheers,

Silverhand

[crawlingdeadman]

sorry if i sounded testy earlier.

i'd go up to casting at lvl 17 valk (so factor in +skills).

critical is something to put points in dont get me wrong but after a certain amount (say about slvl 9) it just isnt worth it, you start to get 2% per lvl then 1% then at slvl 16 it takes 2 points to get another 1%.

if you arent going with razortail then a good number in pierce is recomended (yeah yeah contradict myself more) again it gets to have less impact after a few skill points but 99% pierce is nice (i'd reconsider razortail but if you need the ias/leech/slow then stick w/ nos coil).

frozen arrow should not be over looked. even at one point it can give you time to catch your breath vs fast moving mobs. if you like it for this purpose i'd suggest putting a few extra points in ice arrow to increase its duration as duration is much less in hell.

multi is good in certain circumstances so get it up to a decent number of arrows, but even multi zons dont always max it as it's mana consumption increases w/o much of a damage increase.

guided is something you either hate or love. i tried using it as a boss killer... it works but you'll be at it a while. imo bow zons are severly lacking in a boss killing skill.

as a bowzon you'll have some extra points to play around with so definitlly try out some of the one point wonders and if you like them add more. oh and hot key magic arrow, it's great at phys immue killling (unless its a pack of extra fast, fanat ghosts then you'd best hoof it).

[Silverhand]

sorry if i sounded testy earlier.

i'd go up to casting at lvl 17 valk (so factor in +skills).

critical is something to put points in dont get me wrong but after a certain amount (say about slvl 9) it just isnt worth it, you start to get 2% per lvl then 1% then at slvl 16 it takes 2 points to get another 1%.

if you arent going with razortail then a good number in pierce is recomended (yeah yeah contradict myself more) again it gets to have less impact after a few skill points but 99% pierce is nice (i'd reconsider razortail but if you need the ias/leech/slow then stick w/ nos coil).

frozen arrow should not be over looked. even at one point it can give you time to catch your breath vs fast moving mobs. if you like it for this purpose i'd suggest putting a few extra points in ice arrow to increase its duration as duration is much less in hell.

multi is good in certain circumstances so get it up to a decent number of arrows, but even multi zons dont always max it as it's mana consumption increases w/o much of a damage increase.

guided is something you either hate or love. i tried using it as a boss killer... it works but you'll be at it a while. imo bow zons are severly lacking in a boss killing skill.

as a bowzon you'll have some extra points to play around with so definitlly try out some of the one point wonders and if you like them add more. oh and hot key magic arrow, it's great at phys immue killling (unless its a pack of extra fast, fanat ghosts then you'd best hoof it).

Crawl:

Couple of thoughts - and I may be way wrong - just coming back to the game after about a year and a half away. This is more to confirm my understanding than anything else.

*Valk Level 17 - Rationale here is that your Valk gets a weapon upgrade at level 17.

*Crit - One/two point wonder conventional wisdom is driven by the fact that +skills will normally get this up to the point of diminishing returns.

Multi-Shot - One point with +Skills should give you enough splits to be effective. The two places I see mentioned as locations where MS is more valuable than strafe are Chaos Sanctuary and Cows.

*Guided - This was the premier boss killing skill before .09 when it could have multiple penetrations. You could put 4 - 5 GAs into the air and they'd all be yo-yoing around for multiple hits on the same boss. I think this was nerfed in .10. That left strafe as the Boss killer with as many as six hits per shot on any individual target.

Just things I've picked up in recent reading.

Cheers,

Silverhand

[Virility]

Consider adding a few of those left over skill points into decoy, this boosts the valk's life. A hardy valk is a good thing. The valk buys you time to do alot more stuff than re cast/run. It may be a non issue if you play solo or do not intend to solo the more difficult areas in multiplayer games.

[crawlingdeadman]

yep, yep. knowing how much +skills you're going to have is a definite benefit. if one point gets you to the diminishing returns (on all the passives) then that's all you really need. my first bowzon had a ton of skills left and she worked just great. when i first made my bow/jav hybrid i tried using 20 point GA as a boss killer (wanted to keep as far from everything as possible). it just didnt work. Diablo (hell) was taking way too long.

so i think what we're looking at is:
bow and crossbow:
1 magic arrow
1-1+ multi (till you have a good # of arrows or only 1 if you're not using)
1 cold arrow
1 guided (i dont recomend more)
20 strafe
1-1+ ice arrow (if you want better duration on freezing or 20 if you want to make a frost/strafe zon)
1 or 20 freezing arrow (i only use one and highly recommend that)

passives:
1 innersight
1 slow missles (very useful hotkey it)
1 decoy (very useful hotkey it)
1 - 1+ (cast at 17 or just one. with plus skills i only put in 6)
1 dodge
1 avoid
1 evade (if you're light on plus skills maybe a few more into each)
1 crit (more if you want)
20 penetrate (if you're using a itd bow(faith) only one point. at least it doesnt suffer diminishing returns)
1 - 9 pierce (after that it's not worth it, imo)

javalin and spear:
none if you do then you're a hybrid and it opens up a whole new can of worms

this is what i'd do for the standard strafer. i'm sure that other people have written better write ups on this topic. depending on where you put extra skills you'll be done with skills long before you get your end game gear. dump extras where you want.

[WrongdayJ]

It's really tough to beat the FA builds for absolute crowd control.

I max the entire cold arrow tree, then use either max guided or maxed magic arrow as the back-up arrow skill (for cold immunes & popping frozen bodies).

I don't really use the strafer or multishot builds, but I know some who do to great effect. They are definately worth looking into.

The key (to me at least) is the pierce factor. I use the razortail with about 6-9 points in pierce. You will turn into a cow/crowd KILLER.

Then I put the rest in the passives. 1-2 hard points in D/A/E each, CS gets a couple, Penetrate gets 1 hard point, the rest into valk and decoy.

As for stats, only enough STR for gear, Vit and Dex get the rest with a slight edge going to dex unless its a HC build, then Vit gets the points, Energy gets zero. Leech, + to mana after each kill items, and pots fill the blue bubble.

This is just my opinion though, based on what works for me.

[DudSpud]

Not to point out anyone in particular, but there has been some uncontested (minor) advice posted here which is not true in 1.11b...

- The Magic Arrow (or any bow skill, sadly...) AR bonus only works if the attack is melee. That means that, irrespective of what the LCS says, you do not gain an AR bonus to your Zon's bow skill attacks. What happens to a Fury druid I don't know.

- Base life of a Decoy is based on 50% of your Zon's life, so 300% life to a decoy is actually 1.5x your life.

- Strafe my have a 2 frame attack, but that is AFTER the first shot, and there is still the end strafe animation, which is no faster than 7 frames for the two. Add to that the fact that you can only fire 10 arrows per strafe, and the best you can hope for is 10 arrows/sec.

- The Ice arrow synergy only increases FrzA chill length by a miniscule amount per skill point invested, and is not woth it in my opinion. Get a few cold charm affixes and with your Ravenfrost you are much better off.

If you can afford Faith, then you can probably get the best from the other gear you need. I'm guessing WF, Travs, Fortitude Dusk, etc. Therefore the skill layout I would suggest is:

20 Strafe
7 or so in Pierce depending on whether or not you wear Razor tail
20 Valk, if you solo - she'll help keep the badies away, especial as you don't have a melee-minded merc. Bumping Decoy is a great idea s it boosts her life/res as well as that of the Valk.
A few in Multi for really big, fast mobs.

And really, the rest is at your option. With a Valk and proper (and often) use of Decoy, D/A/E wont do much for you except buff your Valk and Decoy (D/A, at least), so I usually leave theese at 1. CritS until you get bugged by the diminishing returns, especially if you don't have a source of DS. Put enough in Penetrate to get a chance to hit that you are comfortable with, remembering that CtH is clvl dependent, so it will increase as you level up. Also remember that when your merc is going to be Inner Sight-ing, which will substantially increase your CtH. Oh, ITD from Faith is only going to work for your Merc. Freezing Arrow is a great skill, maybe max it and Cold Arrow if you don't party or have another way to deal with PhysI. Magic Arrow is also great in this regard, though the 20 points may as well be spent in Cold Arrow as the physical to cold conversion is double (I think the likelyhood of PhysI/FI doubles is less than Cold/PhysI's, otherwise Fire Arrow would work just as well). On the other hand, I think PhysI/MI are rarer still, so MA might be a convenient way to go. Also remember that Witchwild String on switch would give you 20 MA for free. You could also consider Guided if you run bosses instead of areas and don't want to hybridize with Javs.

Whatever you choose, with the gear you are likely to have, you cant go wrong, only less right.

Have fun,
DudSpud