Are any kinds of Bowazons good for PVM Anymore?

[Arcono]

Like any kind?

Cold?
Strafe?
Multishot?

I want to make a zon but I want to be efficient PvM (Solo act4 w/ 4+ people?) I hear its too hard though, especially with amazons. Is there no way to make a good pvm bow zon?

[FrankWest]

Multi/Strafers are still very effective. You don't even need particularly great gear to make a strafer, just decent IAS and high dex and knockback. Everything dies, like good little demons. My strafer is and has always been my favorite character. It's useful in any situation, and a lot of fun.

I don't know much about coldzons, so I won't touch that one. But multi/strafe is still a deadly combo.

[Beltyn]

Hell takes a real bite due to lack of damage, even with decent bows.

Hope to hae a pally with conc about to make up for it.

[Corn]

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce the Magic Arrow Zon.

I had one up to lvl 81 a few months ago. And it was only earlier this week I acquired most of the gear back to remake, granted, not as good as version 1.

Basic Idea is:

Max Valk
Max Critical
Max Pierce
Max Magic Arrow
1 into dodges

To be even anywhere near effective in Hell in late game you have to sacrafice a lot. No resists, all +min/max, +dex, +ias% gear, glass cannon. Death gloves, death belt, biggons cap, fast bow, gtoe boots, twitch, +dex and dmg rings ammy was what I was wearing on my previous zon. On this remake, I am still looking for biggons cap, and always always looking for a faster bow.

Keep in mind, I am playing on HC, so this makes the build even more fun and exciting to play as it is. As you can imagine, the strategy behind playing the char is to not get hit at all using your range of skills. With proper use of angles with pierce, valkrie, decoy, and slow missile, the version 1 zon was able to solo Hell CS NP. Just an idea of what my stats were like, I had 95 str after twitch for my gothic bow, about 80 base vital, and the rest was all dex.

The little perks with the build are fun also, for example, how I never have to run to town to get more arrows. Not many people can hack it out with this build. When people used to see me as a zon solo in a Hell game, they used to ask what I was doing. I would tell em I was cs'ing, and they almost never believe me. They come, I show, "gg zon."

Definately not your average strafer or multi shot zon, but easily my most fun, and most challenging build for classic HC of all time imo.

[WarlockCC]

Any strafer should be able to do quite nice as long as you get yourself some Crushing Blow.
Goblins will do nicely, Rattlecage will also do and has the added downside of some monsters running away, while with a strafer with a solid Valk, you will want all the monsters packed together around your valk so your pierce can cause several hits per arrow.
A good addition to the Goblin Toe boots would be the BoneFlesh unique armor, which causes Open Wounds. The open wounds will cause a monster to lose life depending on your characters level over a period of time, so this would make up for slower bows.
Most strafezons become viable like that and they can solo most of Hell alone.
I vaguely recall Open Wounds also working on Physical immunes if you have elemental damage, though I'm not entirely sure about that and it should be tested. You will want to skip most Physical immunes in a 4 player game anyway, since it would take too long to bleed them to death.

To make a working (not taking eons to kill things) strafer without goblins, you would need a very high damage bow. I am using a 93-169 damage ballista on my level 82 strafer (nearly 400 dex) and I use goblins on her because it still helps her kill speed.

Welcome additions for a strafer are offcourse freezing(Iceblink), knockback(Cleglaws gloves or Howltusk), slow(cleglaws gloves), elemental damage(preferably cold for cold slowing the non-cold immunes), blind(coif of Glory).

[StaMpu]

I have a lvl56 strafer/freezearrow
Some questions: None of you guys mention anything about penetrate.
Will your dex get the desired AR at higher levels? Because with strafe I have a hard time hitting on hell cs. Do you prefer dmg of xbow over speed of bow?
Dmg for xbow is just dex too right? Doesn't the str saved when using a bow add the dmg cuz u can spend it on dex? U'd have same dmg and more speed?

[Arcono]

Its probably due to your low level

[StaMpu]

Probably... Any oppinions about bow or xbow? for strafe

[goomba]

Probably... Any oppinions about bow or xbow? for strafe

xbow, if I'm not mistaken has a slower breakpt than the bows, but has the potential (again if I'm not mistaken) of having a potential for a higher damage.

a gothic bow in the 15x - 16x range is about as good as one will get. I would wager that there are more than a couple 16x - 17x crossbows that never even get identified cause nobody thinks to do so...

[StaMpu]

xbow, if I'm not mistaken has a slower breakpt than the bows, but has the potential (again if I'm not mistaken) of having a potential for a higher damage.

a gothic bow in the 15x - 16x range is about as good as one will get. I would wager that there are more than a couple 16x - 17x crossbows that never even get identified cause nobody thinks to do so...

I know xbows are slower and require a lot more strength... That's why I'm wondering what you think is best. Because it might have more base damage...
But a bow is faster..... and u require less strength for a bow so you can spend those on dex and you'd have equal damage but higher speed?
Dex points damage bonus is same for xbow as it is for bow, right? :shocked:

[Corn]

With my magic arrow build, I found the dex pumping solved the AR problem in Hell. However, I am considering switching the ammy/ring out for angelics. With my build, hit rate is very crucial.

Regarding your xbow question, if I found a high dmg ranged wep, but slow, I would make a strafer.