maiku
31-07-2007, 16:43
This is a theoretical build that I've been considering for the last couple days. I've gotten my bowazon past level 80 and playing with her and doing magic-find runs is nice...but I'll need some new characters and challenges in the near future. I've always been a fan of spearazons and other uncommon builds, so I was wondering if this one would be considered doable. I also want to acknowledge that I've been inspired by reading Enchantress guides in the past and from my own melee Enchantresses, past and present, and my Zealots.
Zealerzon/Charged Striker
One of the interesting things that 1.10 brought was the rune word "Passion" which can be put into a 4-socket weapon.
"Passion"
Dol + Ort + Eld + Lem
+25% Increased Attack Speed
+160-210% Enhanced Damage (varies)
50-80% Bonus To Attack Rating (varies)
+75% Damage To Undead
+50 To Attack Rating Against Undead
Adds 1-50 Lightning Damage
+1 To Berserk
+1 To Zeal
Hit Blinds Target +10
Hit Causes Monster To Flee 25%
75% Extra Gold From Monsters
Level 3 Heart of Wolverine (12 Charges)
Pay special attention to the bolded +1 to Zeal. No longer do Zealots have an exclusive monopoly on this precious skill. Through this rune word, anyone who can hold a sword can have a stab at zeal. I've read that with +to all skills items, this can be raised to 5 or more. That is automatically full zeal, just without the AR bonus! Do note that Passion provides a substantial bonus to AR, though. Passion also offers one more precious skill: Berserk, which allows you to convert physical damage into magical damage. One problem meleers have is Iron Maiden, which often means the Chaos Sanctuary is either off limits or a painful memory. 'Tis a most accursed thing. Berserk allows you do get around this. Oblivion Knights and their kin will be more fodder for your blade. The basis of this build revolves around a Passion melee weapon, whether in an axe, phase blade, hammer, or two hander. I would take phase blade, for its speed and indestructibility, but amazons have very slow block rates and hit recovery when using shields and swords, so this should be noted ahead of time. The second part of this build revolves around a Thunderstroke javelin, Titan's, or high damage rare javelin. Even though I like Titan's a lot, I would take a Thunderstroke for price and convenience, but we'll get more into that. Also, it's easier to upgrade to a Titan's later than it is to switch to a Thunderstroke. We'll try to make good use of strength and dexterity, so they're not wasted.
Primary attack: Zeal at level 5 or more. This is what I would use to clear packs of uglies up close and personal.
Secondary attack: Charged Strike, used mainly on bosses or monsters/people I just want dead in one or two hits. Avoid against lightning immunes who are very common in hell difficulty. Useful also against PIs if I don't want to use Berserk. I have two melee attack modes to use as the situation calls for.
Ranged attack: Lightning Fury if I want. This'll help to synergize Charged Strike.
Skill setup:
Zeal: Provided to me by the Passion weapon. Raise to level 5 with +skills items so I get full benefits. Must be +to all skills items. Keep on left click.
Charged Strike: Max this. This'll be my alternative for some physical immunes and most bosses, so I can crisp them with lots of little bolts.
Lightning Fury: Synergy to Charged Strike and a powerful ranged attack, max this, IMO.
Critical Strike: Since I'd be doing a lot of physical damage, doubling this damage would be terrific. Invest 10-12 points at least to get over 50%. This double damage applies to my melee damage too, not just arrows, bolts, or javelins. Some might consider maxing this, though it has severely diminishing returns after 60%.
Penetrate: With Passion's high AR bonus, I may not need to invest much or at all in it. Lightning jav skills also do not really require much AR.
Pierce: Take it or leave it. If I planned to use Charged Strike and Lightning Fury a lot, it would be wise to either get a Razortail and then raise this to 70% pierce or invest until it is around 70-80% with skill points alone. This latter one might be the way to go if I intend to use Thundergod's Vigor, the war belt, which gives +3 to Lightning Fury and Lightning Strike.
Power Strike & Lightning Strike: add only if I wish to synergize Lightning Fury and Charged Strike further.
Dodge, Avoid, Evade: 1 point if I want to rely on +skill items to get them to level 5+ or put in 5-10 points to make myself extra tough. Dodge will probably be the most useful here, since I will be standing and fighting a lot. Put more into Evade if I plan on throwing a lot of Lightning Furies.
Fend? Yes, I could alter this build, so that instead of relying on lightning skills, I use Fend with either a nice high damage javelin or punishing Amazon spear. This has its pros and cons. I'm aware of the Fend "whiff" bug, where if you are caught in dodge/avoid/evade or disrupted during an attack, you may "whiff" and miss on all subsequent attacks in the Fend cycle. If using a spear, I would find a nice exceptional or elite one, like a Matriarchal Spear or Pike, and rune word it with either Insight or Obedience. I would use Insight early on then Obedience later for its massive damage and relatively easy to obtain runes. There are several nice, relatively obtainable unique spears. Fend's high damage also could also make it a boss killer, but I'd need to be careful since I might not be using a shield if using a spear. If I went with Fend, I might add more to Penetrate.
Valkyrie: I think it would be good to max this or at least getting her to level 17, so that she can take quite a lot of punishment and provide a long-lasting, useful distraction.
Decoy: I could add to this if I want my Valkyrie to be nigh immortal.
Bow skills: Instead of lightning javelin skills, I could substitute maxed Cold Arrow and Frozen Arrow to deal with packs from afar and then try to melee bosses with my Zeal. This would make it a Zeal/Frozen Arrow hybrid. Quite appealing, IMO, since I'd make use of many of the same skills like Critical Strike, Pierce, Valkyrie, etc. that I would as a tankazon and I would lose less points in prerequisites than I would to get my main lightning skills. I wouldn't use Strafe or Multi, because those are more suited for a full-time bowazon. The emphasis of this build is lots of raw damage, up close and personal.
Maiku's ideal build
Zeal: 5+ (items, remember)
Charged Strike: 20
Lightning Fury: 20
Critical Strike: 10-15
Pierce: 10
Valk: 20
Dodge: 1-5
Evade: 1-5
AR: 8,000+ (either through items or skills)
Defense: as high as I can get it.
My equipment at time of writing this:
Weapon: Passion phase blade/cryptic sword (can be made quickly, I have runes and can get a sword, I'm sure), Thunderstroke
Shield: Splendor, later get a Spirit Monarch
Helm: +1 Peasant Crown. It looks terrible on zons, but then again so do many masks and helms.
Armor: Likely Treachery Dusk Shroud
Belt: T-gods
Boots: Rare with resists and faster hit recovery and run
Rings & Ammy: Ravens and Eye of Elitch
Equipment is extremely flexible, although I think it would be helpful to use a Razortail or Thundergod's belt for the special bonuses they give to Amazons. For armor, I would use a Twitchthroe, Treachery, Duress, etc. Those are within what I can get. Any high-defense armor with resists is good. For the weapon, I'd use a Passion phase blade for style and indestructibility on the primary setup, even though Amazons have some problems with sword and shield. One could use a Passon axe, mace, hammer, or flail of some kind. It needs to have 4 sockets and be some type of elite item--want to have good damage. Secondary would be Thunderstroke/Titan's to use Charged Strike and Lightning Fury. For shield, I'd use a Rhyme (Shael + Eth), Splendor (Eth Lum), Spirit (Tal Thul Ort Amn, in a monarch), or good unique or rare shield. Something like Tiamat's Rebuke could add a little zing to my zeal with its high elemental damages. Boots would be Goreriders (for crushing blow), War Travelers (added damage and nice stats), or rare boots with lots of resists. Helm is really wide open. Add enough IAS items to reach a 4-5 fps Zeal and to do quick hits for Charged Strike.
Str: 100ish
Dex: 120-200 (less if I wear Ravenfrosts or rings with lots of +dex)
Vitality: Everything else here. Sword to sword, spear to spear, jav to jav. I'm meeting enemies face to face. The more life the better.
Energy: Zilch.
Mercenary. Because I'd be going for physical damage mostly, I'd suggest a Might mercenary. It'll make Zeal and Valk more powerful, and thrown damage with Lightning Fury will go up. I could also use a Holy Freeze Mercenary for crowd control, but I find Holy Freeze more useful for sorceresses and mageazons. I should have up to three punching bags (mercenary, Valk, decoy) for mobs to occupy themselves with. I'd like to give my mercenary a weapon like Insight, Obedience, Reaper's Toll, or Blackleach bill. With a weapon like Reaper's Toll or Blackleach, the cast-on-hit curses from these will make enemies less deadly and me more deadly. The Decrepify from Reaper's could be just the thing. :thumbsup: Insight and Obedience in good polearms will drastically increase the merc's damage and make him a force to be reckoned with.
This isn't an original build, I suppose, since it does draw a lot on the Lightning javazon and other tankazon builds. But I thought I would throw up my ideas for others in the forum to critique. Am I crazy or could this girl actually kill stuff well?
Zealerzon/Charged Striker
One of the interesting things that 1.10 brought was the rune word "Passion" which can be put into a 4-socket weapon.
"Passion"
Dol + Ort + Eld + Lem
+25% Increased Attack Speed
+160-210% Enhanced Damage (varies)
50-80% Bonus To Attack Rating (varies)
+75% Damage To Undead
+50 To Attack Rating Against Undead
Adds 1-50 Lightning Damage
+1 To Berserk
+1 To Zeal
Hit Blinds Target +10
Hit Causes Monster To Flee 25%
75% Extra Gold From Monsters
Level 3 Heart of Wolverine (12 Charges)
Pay special attention to the bolded +1 to Zeal. No longer do Zealots have an exclusive monopoly on this precious skill. Through this rune word, anyone who can hold a sword can have a stab at zeal. I've read that with +to all skills items, this can be raised to 5 or more. That is automatically full zeal, just without the AR bonus! Do note that Passion provides a substantial bonus to AR, though. Passion also offers one more precious skill: Berserk, which allows you to convert physical damage into magical damage. One problem meleers have is Iron Maiden, which often means the Chaos Sanctuary is either off limits or a painful memory. 'Tis a most accursed thing. Berserk allows you do get around this. Oblivion Knights and their kin will be more fodder for your blade. The basis of this build revolves around a Passion melee weapon, whether in an axe, phase blade, hammer, or two hander. I would take phase blade, for its speed and indestructibility, but amazons have very slow block rates and hit recovery when using shields and swords, so this should be noted ahead of time. The second part of this build revolves around a Thunderstroke javelin, Titan's, or high damage rare javelin. Even though I like Titan's a lot, I would take a Thunderstroke for price and convenience, but we'll get more into that. Also, it's easier to upgrade to a Titan's later than it is to switch to a Thunderstroke. We'll try to make good use of strength and dexterity, so they're not wasted.
Primary attack: Zeal at level 5 or more. This is what I would use to clear packs of uglies up close and personal.
Secondary attack: Charged Strike, used mainly on bosses or monsters/people I just want dead in one or two hits. Avoid against lightning immunes who are very common in hell difficulty. Useful also against PIs if I don't want to use Berserk. I have two melee attack modes to use as the situation calls for.
Ranged attack: Lightning Fury if I want. This'll help to synergize Charged Strike.
Skill setup:
Zeal: Provided to me by the Passion weapon. Raise to level 5 with +skills items so I get full benefits. Must be +to all skills items. Keep on left click.
Charged Strike: Max this. This'll be my alternative for some physical immunes and most bosses, so I can crisp them with lots of little bolts.
Lightning Fury: Synergy to Charged Strike and a powerful ranged attack, max this, IMO.
Critical Strike: Since I'd be doing a lot of physical damage, doubling this damage would be terrific. Invest 10-12 points at least to get over 50%. This double damage applies to my melee damage too, not just arrows, bolts, or javelins. Some might consider maxing this, though it has severely diminishing returns after 60%.
Penetrate: With Passion's high AR bonus, I may not need to invest much or at all in it. Lightning jav skills also do not really require much AR.
Pierce: Take it or leave it. If I planned to use Charged Strike and Lightning Fury a lot, it would be wise to either get a Razortail and then raise this to 70% pierce or invest until it is around 70-80% with skill points alone. This latter one might be the way to go if I intend to use Thundergod's Vigor, the war belt, which gives +3 to Lightning Fury and Lightning Strike.
Power Strike & Lightning Strike: add only if I wish to synergize Lightning Fury and Charged Strike further.
Dodge, Avoid, Evade: 1 point if I want to rely on +skill items to get them to level 5+ or put in 5-10 points to make myself extra tough. Dodge will probably be the most useful here, since I will be standing and fighting a lot. Put more into Evade if I plan on throwing a lot of Lightning Furies.
Fend? Yes, I could alter this build, so that instead of relying on lightning skills, I use Fend with either a nice high damage javelin or punishing Amazon spear. This has its pros and cons. I'm aware of the Fend "whiff" bug, where if you are caught in dodge/avoid/evade or disrupted during an attack, you may "whiff" and miss on all subsequent attacks in the Fend cycle. If using a spear, I would find a nice exceptional or elite one, like a Matriarchal Spear or Pike, and rune word it with either Insight or Obedience. I would use Insight early on then Obedience later for its massive damage and relatively easy to obtain runes. There are several nice, relatively obtainable unique spears. Fend's high damage also could also make it a boss killer, but I'd need to be careful since I might not be using a shield if using a spear. If I went with Fend, I might add more to Penetrate.
Valkyrie: I think it would be good to max this or at least getting her to level 17, so that she can take quite a lot of punishment and provide a long-lasting, useful distraction.
Decoy: I could add to this if I want my Valkyrie to be nigh immortal.
Bow skills: Instead of lightning javelin skills, I could substitute maxed Cold Arrow and Frozen Arrow to deal with packs from afar and then try to melee bosses with my Zeal. This would make it a Zeal/Frozen Arrow hybrid. Quite appealing, IMO, since I'd make use of many of the same skills like Critical Strike, Pierce, Valkyrie, etc. that I would as a tankazon and I would lose less points in prerequisites than I would to get my main lightning skills. I wouldn't use Strafe or Multi, because those are more suited for a full-time bowazon. The emphasis of this build is lots of raw damage, up close and personal.
Maiku's ideal build
Zeal: 5+ (items, remember)
Charged Strike: 20
Lightning Fury: 20
Critical Strike: 10-15
Pierce: 10
Valk: 20
Dodge: 1-5
Evade: 1-5
AR: 8,000+ (either through items or skills)
Defense: as high as I can get it.
My equipment at time of writing this:
Weapon: Passion phase blade/cryptic sword (can be made quickly, I have runes and can get a sword, I'm sure), Thunderstroke
Shield: Splendor, later get a Spirit Monarch
Helm: +1 Peasant Crown. It looks terrible on zons, but then again so do many masks and helms.
Armor: Likely Treachery Dusk Shroud
Belt: T-gods
Boots: Rare with resists and faster hit recovery and run
Rings & Ammy: Ravens and Eye of Elitch
Equipment is extremely flexible, although I think it would be helpful to use a Razortail or Thundergod's belt for the special bonuses they give to Amazons. For armor, I would use a Twitchthroe, Treachery, Duress, etc. Those are within what I can get. Any high-defense armor with resists is good. For the weapon, I'd use a Passion phase blade for style and indestructibility on the primary setup, even though Amazons have some problems with sword and shield. One could use a Passon axe, mace, hammer, or flail of some kind. It needs to have 4 sockets and be some type of elite item--want to have good damage. Secondary would be Thunderstroke/Titan's to use Charged Strike and Lightning Fury. For shield, I'd use a Rhyme (Shael + Eth), Splendor (Eth Lum), Spirit (Tal Thul Ort Amn, in a monarch), or good unique or rare shield. Something like Tiamat's Rebuke could add a little zing to my zeal with its high elemental damages. Boots would be Goreriders (for crushing blow), War Travelers (added damage and nice stats), or rare boots with lots of resists. Helm is really wide open. Add enough IAS items to reach a 4-5 fps Zeal and to do quick hits for Charged Strike.
Str: 100ish
Dex: 120-200 (less if I wear Ravenfrosts or rings with lots of +dex)
Vitality: Everything else here. Sword to sword, spear to spear, jav to jav. I'm meeting enemies face to face. The more life the better.
Energy: Zilch.
Mercenary. Because I'd be going for physical damage mostly, I'd suggest a Might mercenary. It'll make Zeal and Valk more powerful, and thrown damage with Lightning Fury will go up. I could also use a Holy Freeze Mercenary for crowd control, but I find Holy Freeze more useful for sorceresses and mageazons. I should have up to three punching bags (mercenary, Valk, decoy) for mobs to occupy themselves with. I'd like to give my mercenary a weapon like Insight, Obedience, Reaper's Toll, or Blackleach bill. With a weapon like Reaper's Toll or Blackleach, the cast-on-hit curses from these will make enemies less deadly and me more deadly. The Decrepify from Reaper's could be just the thing. :thumbsup: Insight and Obedience in good polearms will drastically increase the merc's damage and make him a force to be reckoned with.
This isn't an original build, I suppose, since it does draw a lot on the Lightning javazon and other tankazon builds. But I thought I would throw up my ideas for others in the forum to critique. Am I crazy or could this girl actually kill stuff well?