Which backup skill on a strafer?

[Flayed One]

Im dead set on not using Lightning Fury because I used it on too many characters already. My (must have) skill setup looks like this:

20 Critical Strike
20 Penetrate
1+ Pierce (Ill decide once I decide what gear will she use)
1 Inner Sight ( prereq)
1 Slow Missles (one point wonder)
1 Cold Arrow
1 Magic Arrow
1+ Multiple Shot(depending on the gear)
1 Guided Arrow(prereq)
20 Strafe

The three skills I was thinking about:


Magic Arrow

Pros:
-Next to no resistant or immune monsters
-Costs no mana
-Costs no arrow

Cons:
-only ~25% damage convertion
-only ~25 damage added

Cold Arrow

Pros:
-good damage convertion ~50%
-good damage added ~90
-freezes

Cons:
-costs 6,5 mana
-lots of resitant and immune monsters

Fire Arrow

Pros:
-good damage convertion ~50%
-best damage added ~120

Cons:
-one skillpoint more to max(the other are prereqs)
-costs 6 mana
-lots of resitant and immune monsters


While I must say I liked fire idea, Im a bit afraid of immunes.
It seems like clod and magic are better options, but which one is better? which one would you use and why?

[WrongdayJ]

I like FA.

While there are enemies that are immune to cold damage. . .there's a very good chance that they could still be slowed by the cold.

Few monsters have the 'can not be frozen' mod. Plus, the 'splash' of the FA could be helpful against small crowds. I don't know what you are planning on running for pierce, but with a razortail and about 5-6 points in pierce, FA is a one-point wonder as a backup skill.

[Leohappy]

multi/strafe is a good combo
and of course 1pt FA

[Flayed One]

Thanks for your advise guys, Im gonna try 1 pt FA, but that actually isn't what I was looking for. Guess I should've been more clear. By "back up" skill I meant a solution for physical immunes.:wink3:

[NASE]

atma's scarab, wws, wraith reapers toll. Everything that has ctc amp or decript.
This will solve most of the problems, and really are good options. If you just shoot one arrow with low damage, this will become frustrating when you find a lot of them.
With the option I have given you, you can keep on strafing. this means more arrow with potential damage come up.

P.S. if you really want a backup skill, perhaps the poison route is an idea. This one has nice use against normal monsters too, assuming that it take some time to kill them.

[Flayed One]

On my last strafer I went with the WWS route, but then I found out that maxed magic arrow with Lycanders Aim kills immunes faster then WWS. I needed a good few strafes/shots to get Amplify working with WWS, and even then immunes resistance was down to 80% at best.

IMO amplify damage/decripify works good for increasing damage output against non immune monsters, but is a really crappy PI solution.

Poison Skills aint good too, because gloams are Poison Immune:badteeth: .
And most of normal(not boss) PI monsters are ghost type/undead, so they are either poison immune, or highly poison resistant...

since Im bored with lightning skills, that leaves only the skills I mentioned:badteeth:

[viable]

i've two strafer, one is a guardian and the other one is at hell.

for guardian i use maxed strafe with windforce and atma's scarab, amplify works on every regular PI monster and breaks most of the PI boss monsters, 1pt magic arrow if amplify can't break a boss's PI, 1pt guided arrow for act bosses. i use demon's arch and rhyme with 1pt jab on switch. i can run CS and WSK at players 1, the other places at players 3

also, i use FA (with max cold arrow and ice arrow) and strafe on my other bowazon, full Mavina's set with cat's eye amulet and nef rune in the bow. i'm thinking to carry a kuko bow on switch for dual immunes (cold and physical).

fire bow skills need full synergies to be effective in my opinion, keeping a kuko bow on switch or wearing an atma's for cold and PIs is better than spending lots of skill points in fire in my opinion.

i'm not an expert of bowazons but i'm not bad too, i hope these helps :)

[Leohappy]

Guess I should've been more clear. By "back up" skill I meant a solution for physical immunes.:wink3:

there is really no clear cut PI Solution on a bowazon

you can either use magic arrow or freezing arrow
however the former doesn't do enough damage, and the latter needs a lot of skill points and consumes a lot of mana (physical immunes are unleechable)

it's best if you simply play in areas without physical immunes and put your points into skills that are actually going to help

[fartAttack]

personally, i would put points in magic arrow. yeah, the other two skills have better damage conversion %, but there are alot of PI/other immune monsters out there. in those situations you'd be left with a 1pt magic arrow to do the work. that is very, very slow. i know on my next zon build, magic arrow is going to be maxed.

[viable]

personally, i would put points in magic arrow. yeah, the other two skills have better damage conversion %, but there are alot of PI/other immune monsters out there. in those situations you'd be left with a 1pt magic arrow to do the work. that is very, very slow. i know on my next zon build, magic arrow is going to be maxed.

i didn't try the maxed magic arrow, but i think you don't need to max it to be effective, it converts physical damage of your bow to magic damage by a percentage, if you are using a high damage bow (like windforce) you won't need maxed magic arrow (1pt magic arrow always did the job for me).

edit: also, AR bonuses from bow skills don't work, only penetrate works iirc (someone correct me if i'm wrong), maxed magic arrow won't make big difference on your PIs killing speed

[Kijya]

Fire is the most effective damage typ vs the common physical immunes if you exclude poison.

Wraith type (all subtypes are PI)
Light res: 0
Fire res: 0
magic res: 50
cold res: 50+ (varies among the subtypes)
chill effectiveness: 0

Blood Lord (other subtypes are not PI)
Light res: 33
Fire res: 33
magic res: 33
cold res: 33
chill effectiveness: 10

Stygian Fury (other subtypes are not PI)
Light res: 66
Fire res: 25
magic res: 0
cold res: 50
chill effectiveness: 33


The brute damage of LF makes lightning better, but excluding it as you did fire wins on pure dmg. However cold has slowing and freezing benefits. Magic doesn't take arrows ofc...