Questions about WWS Strafeazon

[Callador]

Hi Amazon forumites! :wave:

I could use some advice for my WWS Strafeazon. She is at lvl 87 at the moment and she has 16 unspent skill points. If it matters I'm playing SP and PvM (obviously). I must add that she is my favourite char :grin:
Here's some background info:

Skills:
- maxed Strafe, Penetrate and Valkyrie (yes, I know that maxing Valk is quite pointless but anyway, I did max it. Nice tank!)
- 9 points in Pierce
- 1 in Freezing Arrow
- all the prereqs in Bow and Passive tree
- 16 unspent points

Stats (base):
STR: 95
DEX: 335
VIT: 80
NRG: 15

Gear:
Wpn: Upped 169% ED WWS "ShaelShael"
Wpn2: Demon Limb "Hel"
Head: Andy's "Ral"
Body: Fortitude Archon Plate
Gloves: Crafted Hit Power Gloves with 20% IAS and mana leech
Belt: Nosferatu's Coil or Razortail
Boots: War Travellers
Amulet: Cat's Eye
Rings: Dual Raven's

Inventory:
2 x Acrobatic of Sustenance, various res, AR, damage and FHR charms

With this setup I get 110 IAS => 8/2 Strafe.

And here's ehat I would like to know:
1. Should I just use Razortail to get max Pierce and put those 16 points to Freezing Arrow (or to something else)
Or should I stick with Nosferatu's and max Pierce skill?
2. Is there room for improvement in gear exluding charms? Gloves could be better of course :rolleyes:
3. Would Bow skiller's be more useful than Passive one's. IIRC 1 Bow Skiller increases Strafe damage by only 5%. It won't help a lot with Freezing Arrow either.
4. Is it true that AR bonuses with Bow skills don't work - e.g putting skill points in Freezing Arrow will only increase damage? That would make extra points in Freezing Arrow quite pointless because the damage won't be high without synergies. Should Freezing Arrow be only used as a tool to freeze enemies and not as a killer skill?
5. Is there a huge difference in terms of damage between 9/2 and 8/2 Strafe? If not, should I use "ShaelNef" WWS and swith my gloves to something else?
5. Any other advices you could give concerning skills and gear

Any help would be much appreciated :thumbsup:

[maiku]

Hi Amazon forumites! :wave:

I could use some advice for my WWS Strafeazon. She is at lvl 87 at the moment and she has 16 unspent skill points. If it matters I'm playing SP and PvM (obviously). I must add that she is my favourite char :grin:
Here's some background info:

Skills:
- maxed Strafe, Penetrate and Valkyrie (yes, I know that maxing Valk is quite pointless but anyway, I did max it. Nice tank!)
- 9 points in Pierce
- 1 in Freezing Arrow
- all the prereqs in Bow and Passive tree
- 16 unspent points

Stats (base):
STR: 95
DEX: 335
VIT: 80
NRG: 15

Gear:
Wpn: Upped 169% ED WWS "ShaelShael"
Wpn2: Demon Limb "Hel"
Head: Andy's "Ral"
Body: Fortitude Archon Plate
Gloves: Crafted Hit Power Gloves with 20% IAS and mana leech
Belt: Nosferatu's Coil or Razortail
Boots: War Travellers
Amulet: Cat's Eye
Rings: Dual Raven's

Inventory:
2 x Acrobatic of Sustenance, various res, AR, damage and FHR charms

With this setup I get 110 IAS => 8/2 Strafe.

And here's ehat I would like to know:
1. Should I just use Razortail to get max Pierce and put those 16 points to Freezing Arrow (or to something else)
Or should I stick with Nosferatu's and max Pierce skill?
2. Is there room for improvement in gear exluding charms? Gloves could be better of course :rolleyes:
3. Would Bow skiller's be more useful than Passive one's. IIRC 1 Bow Skiller increases Strafe damage by only 5%. It won't help a lot with Freezing Arrow either.
4. Is it true that AR bonuses with Bow skills don't work - e.g putting skill points in Freezing Arrow will only increase damage? That would make extra points in Freezing Arrow quite pointless because the damage won't be high without synergies. Should Freezing Arrow be only used as a tool to freeze enemies and not as a killer skill?
5. Is there a huge difference in terms of damage between 9/2 and 8/2 Strafe? If not, should I use "ShaelNef" WWS and swith my gloves to something else?
5. Any other advices you could give concerning skills and gear

Any help would be much appreciated :thumbsup:

First, maxed Valk isn't pointless. She's an excellent meat shield and dummy...when she's working properly. I like to max Valk or dump as many points as I can spare into it.

1. First, 100% Pierce (w/ Razortail) is very helpful and will help increase your damage quite a bit as a WWS Strafer. More piercing arrows = more opportunities to trigger Amp and Deadly Strike. A crowd of monsters that is Amped faster dies faster. Remember that WWS can trigger a Level 5 Amp on enemies, which usually covers half to a whole pack of enemies. All you need is one lucky arrow to make that happen.

Don't dump your remaining 16 points into Frozen Arrow. FA is very nice when it is combined with maxed Cold Arrow for the synergy bonus. As a 1-point investment, FA is primarily there to stop enemies in their tracks and to provide awesome crowd control. WWS can work with a Frostmaiden/Strafer hybrid, but I don't think you have enough points left to make that happen.

2. Laying of Hands or crafted Blood gloves, IMO. I don't notice any Crushing Blow in your setup, although you may be doing so much damage that it won't matter much.

3. You are correct that the +bow skillers will be fairly useless. Excellent on a Frostmaiden, mostly useless on a Strafer. Shoot for +min and +max damage charms. A WWS build can make excellent use of them, with high DS + Amp. On my WWS Strafer before, I stuffed her inventory full of +min and +max damage charms.

4. It might be true that the physical component of FA is bugged. However, the cold damage and splash from FA is autohit. As I mentioned above, if FA is a 1-point investment, it is useful as crowd control. As a primary killing skill, to do 1500-2000 (or more) cold damage it should be maxed and then synergized with maxed Cold Arrow. This will make it very powerful, and more than enough for Hell.

5. While the "Next Delay" bug can be a problem with fast Strafe, you'll be generally hitting several enemies in quick succession with Strafe, so the faster the better. Not a huge difference between the two, but I like the fastest Strafe I can get without compromising equipment too much. Now that I think about it, I believe I was at 8/2 Strafe with my Witchyzon.

6. Although some people will disagree with me, I think Crushing Blow should be incorporated into most Bowazon builds, and especially that of a Witchyzon. On ranged attacks, CB can take off 12.5% life per hit. However, it's reduced in effectiveness when enemies have physical damage resistance. WWS helps a Bowazon to get around this by casting Amp on enemies, which reduces their PDR by 100% and makes CB viable again. Add in fast Strafe + WWS's Deadly Strike, whole packs of enemies Amped and ready to be hit by CB, and you can become a true terror. It is also very helpful on bosses and will speed up their killing a lot. CB softens up enemies on the first couple hits, succeeding arrows finish them off. CB is fairly useless, though, if you are killing enemies in 1-2 hits.

Since you are using War Travs & Fort (which I wouldn't recommend taking off), then the only place you can add in some CB is from gloves. If you were willing to take off the War Travs, you could don some Goreriders and with Blood gloves, get up to 25% CB. I think 20-30% CB gets the best results, because you can CB enemies 1-3 times in a row with a Strafe volley. CB sped up my Witchyzon's kill speed quite a bit. However, I was running with a MF budget Witchyzon at the time.

[Callador]

Thanks for the advice maiku! :thumbsup:
I think I will max Pierce and save the rest of the points for now. CB, now why I didn't think of that. I'll craft some gloves and try that out.

[bcoe]

I would consider dumping the rest into decoy. Decoy is a great tank with a bit of investment. She'll attract a bunch of attention, making strafe+pierce (100% with razortail) that much more effective. It will also add a bunch of life to the valk, taking her from great to incredible tanking ability. It also drops the mana cost of the decoy, making her that much more re-castable. With a max decoy you can basically drop one into the middle of a minion pack and it will just stay there and take the beating while you wipe them out with strafe.

Just my 2 cents. Plenty of other viable options...

[Callador]

@bcoe: Well that's one option. I too have found Decoy to be very useful. Maybe I will put my spare points to it after maxing Pierce. I would really like to stick at 8/2 Strafe so no Razortail. If I find an Ruby (30% Fire res) Jewel of Fervor to stick inside Andy's, then I would use Razortail. But that ain't gonna happen, eh :rolleyes: