Viable Freeze Arrow build?

[TheBirdsGoTweet]

I'm still kinda noob at the game and I remember screwing up my first Bowazon =/
I was wondering what can I do with a Freeze arrow Bowazon

I was thinking about this set up

20 Cold Arrow
20 Ice Arrow
20 Freezing Arrow

20 Valkyrie
5 Pierce
1 into all prereqs

I'll have 55% chance of pierce which isn't bad (or is it?)
I still have 17 points left here. I was thinking of putting them all into Decoy or Critical Strike. But then there's Evade =/ I'm not quite sure on what to do here

Help would be greatly appreciated

Also, what skills should I max out first? By level 60 I should have max damage with Freezing Arrow and 1 point into all passive skills. Where should I go after this? Max out Valk first or synergies for it?

[KremBanan]

Read some of the guides and other threads about FAzons. There you will see that maxing Ice Arrow is a waste of points..it doesnt add damage, but cold duration and thats a waste because the duration you gain is very low.

Slap on Razortail and achive 100% pierce. With FA, it will be an significant difference. Do it. You might also want a physical skill, for facing cold immune monsters and for leeching mana back. Strafe is a good choice for that. Valkyrie is always nice, feel your way forward on how many points you wanna spend here. Personally I like to max it normally, but others do otherways..feel your way forward there.

[ShazamLies]

If you don't mind pumping out mana pots or you have high leech/damage gears, another viable/faster option for killing cold immunes would be to go the lightning route. Charged bolt is a faster bost killer, and FA + LF are just great crowd control/mob killer skills.

Also when facing a cold/light immune, worst come to worst you can just jab it. :wave:

[peterpaulrubens]

If you don't mind pumping out mana pots or you have high leech/damage gears, another viable/faster option for killing cold immunes would be to go the lightning route. Charged bolt is a faster bost killer, and FA + LF are just great crowd control/mob killer skills.


A FA/CS/Fury zon was my Season 2 starter build. Worked very, very well untwinked, although I had problems with weapon switch in the middle of fights. Only thing it lacked was mana. I chugged pots like a sorority lush even with an Insight merc.

[maiku]

20 in Ice Arrow is a really bad idea. Just put 1 point there. If you need more freeze time, get some cold small charms. Put a few more points into Pierce (9-10) and then get over 100% with Razortail. Frozen Arrow's power comes from a lot of piercing and the cold explosions that happen every time FA pierces a monster. With a tight pack of monsters, you might be looking at 3-5 explosions as your arrows pierce. The damage quickly adds up.

I suggest also adding to Strafe, which should give you a way of mowing down cold immunes in Hell. For mana woes, either high mana leech with Strafe or having a good amount of mana (400+) with an Insight merc can do a lot to lessen your woes. Such high levels of mana can be achieved by getting good +mana charms (like +50 mana grand charms) and +mana rings like rares with 50-80 mana or Ravenfrost rings. From there, you should have few problems. Try to stack as many +skills or +bow skill items as possible, because FA damage will go up a lot, even with a few +skills.

[Greg Richardson]

http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=129705

thats a good FA build

[TheBirdsGoTweet]

Thanks for the replies =)

So FA in general is bad =/ What good arrow build is there to use then?

[Evrae Altana]

So FA in general is bad =/ No.
FA combined with a high percentage of Pierce can be extremely powerful. Mav's set is a solid set of gear for a Frostmaiden if you're poor. For the rich, Ice turns a Frostmaiden into God's personal smiting tool.

[prion]

I just took out Duriel and found that Disciple set is pretty good as well.

[maiku]

Thanks for the replies =)

So FA in general is bad =/ What good arrow build is there to use then?

No, FA's hella powerful. :grin: Just don't max Ice Arrow, because it's a waste of points. IMO, max Cold Arrow first and then Frozen Arrow as early on as possible, and get yourself a Razortail ASAP because it adds an automatic 33% Pierce. With 9-10 points in Pierce, you can have 100% Pierce w/ no +skills. If you have +skills, you won't need to really add to Pierce that much.

With Cold Arrow and Frozen Arrow synergized, you'll notice things exploding in just a few shots. You need to combine it with high Pierce (80-100%), so you can regularly get 3-5 pierces. Every time an FA arrow pierces, it causes an explosion for 1-2K cold damage (or more). Let's say you're hitting for 2K cold damage with maxed and synergized FA + skills items. If you have a closely packed bunch of enemies and one arrow pierces 3 times, they'll take roughly 6K cold damage from just that one arrow. If you're shooting arrows real fast, you can do tens of thousands of damage to them quickly. We're only talking about cold damage so far. If you have a lot of dexterity and a good bow, you can add a lot of physical damage on top of that. This is why Pierce is so important. You want and need those cold explosions and lots of piercing deadly arrows. 100% Pierce guarantees this. If using Mav's set, settle for 80%+ Pierce as the next best thing.

FA is a wonderful, wonderful skill. Do use it and build around it. Your zon will be on steroids through Norm and Nightmare. However, have a secondary attack skill like Strafe or Multishot so you can deal with some cold immunes when you get to Hell difficulty. Non-cold immunes in Hell difficulty still usually die in a few shots from FA. You will still be good and viable in big games. Just make sure to look for +skills items and +bow skill grand charms. FA gains a lot of damage with +skills.

[Dacar92]

No, FA's hella powerful. :grin: Just don't max Ice Arrow, because it's a waste of points. IMO, max Cold Arrow first and then Frozen Arrow as early on as possible, and get yourself a Razortail ASAP because it adds an automatic 33% Pierce. With 9-10 points in Pierce, you can have 100% Pierce w/ no +skills. If you have +skills, you won't need to really add to Pierce that much.

With Cold Arrow and Frozen Arrow synergized, you'll notice things exploding in just a few shots. You need to combine it with high Pierce (80-100%), so you can regularly get 3-5 pierces. Every time an FA arrow pierces, it causes an explosion for 1-2K cold damage (or more). Let's say you're hitting for 2K cold damage with maxed and synergized FA + skills items. If you have a closely packed bunch of enemies and one arrow pierces 3 times, they'll take roughly 6K cold damage from just that one arrow. If you're shooting arrows real fast, you can do tens of thousands of damage to them quickly. We're only talking about cold damage so far. If you have a lot of dexterity and a good bow, you can add a lot of physical damage on top of that. This is why Pierce is so important. You want and need those cold explosions and lots of piercing deadly arrows. 100% Pierce guarantees this. If using Mav's set, settle for 80%+ Pierce as the next best thing.

FA is a wonderful, wonderful skill. Do use it and build around it. Your zon will be on steroids through Norm and Nightmare. However, have a secondary attack skill like Strafe or Multishot so you can deal with some cold immunes when you get to Hell difficulty. Non-cold immunes in Hell difficulty still usually die in a few shots from FA. You will still be good and viable in big games. Just make sure to look for +skills items and +bow skill grand charms. FA gains a lot of damage with +skills.

Nice write up. I have been a strong believer in FA for a long time. As a matter of fact, I am currently leveling another FA/strafer. My favorite build. It IS viable and you'll do decent damage in baal runs, too.

[Tvk]

I've got a freezing arrow amazon on Europe that's coming together nicely. Got one last season as well, and I can tell you that it's hands down the most fun build I've played.

[ale beer two]

FA ZOns are awesome fun. If its not cold immune, its dead very quickly. Frozen solid even before your merc and valk gets to it. Sometimes (most times) dead even before the merc and valk can take a swing at it.

They do have mana issues though, even with insight merc. This should not detract from the fun of the build though, as blue pots are pretty cheap and easy to get.

Definately consider mavs set. +100 res all makes for positive stacked resists in Hell which is very nice.

I have found Guided arrow to be perfectly suitable to CI's only takes a few shots to get them down. This free's up switch for CTA.

[Dacar92]

Instead of Mav's set, may I suggest Treachery for the resists (although you need to get hit to trigger it the fade) WWS for the bow, razortail, Ice on switch if you can get the runes, and then the standard bowazon gear for the rest of the slots. Mav's bow is a little low in the damage department. So is WWS but the Amp will help considerably. Windforce or WWS, I have used both. Both are great for this build.

[peterpaulrubens]

WWS for the bow, razortail, Ice on switch if you can get the runes

WWS and Ice on the same char?

If you can get the runes for Ice, you can get the runes for Faith, and Faith is just a better all-around bow IMO. Fanat means you can pump out 7-frame arrows easily. Massive AR boosts will allow you to hit and pierce even champs and bosses (where the ITD of Ice will fail you), and you have an awesome Strafe/Multi bow to boot.

Ice is obviously custom built for a Frostmaiden but if you're going to use a physical damage bow skill as backup then Faith is a better value for your runes, and there's no need to pull off a sometimes-painful weapon switch mid-fight.

WWS is a great little bow but if you've got the runes for Ice/Faith then just put it down.