M'avina's?

[Coldfire]

Would M'avina's set actually be good for a bowazon? I always hear that some of the sets really aren't that great (especially Aldur's) and mostly what I hear on here for bowazon's is witchwild, windforce etc. and I'm just wondering if it would work (well).

I've already built a Magic Arrow bowazon (using Hellrack) but am otherwise not too amazon-savy and was thinking of trying a FA zon

Let me know what you Amazon regulars think

[TheSilence]

l think Mavs is ok for an ice arrow. It usually takes good care of resist and such, but it's weak physically and a slow killer.

[maiku]

Would M'avina's set actually be good for a bowazon? I always hear that some of the sets really aren't that great (especially Aldur's) and mostly what I hear on here for bowazon's is witchwild, windforce etc. and I'm just wondering if it would work (well).

I've already built a Magic Arrow bowazon (using Hellrack) but am otherwise not too amazon-savy and was thinking of trying a FA zon

Let me know what you Amazon regulars think

I think it's an awesome set. I made a new Frostmaiden just for Mavina's.

Max Cold Arrow (synergy to Frozen Arrow)
Max Frozen Arrow (primary attack)
Either leave Strafe at 1 point or max it (I maxed mine eventually at higher levels as secondary attack)
Multishot: your choice (possible secondary)
Valk: 17+ or higher...even go ahead and max it.
Make sure Pierce is around 80%+.
Decide if you want to invest some into Critical Strike. Will pay off if you use Multishot or Strafe a lot. 50%+ for starters.

Add Zon Torch, Anni, Bow Skillers, and freeeeeeeeze stuff for a long time while doing almost 3K cold damage per shot (and actually much more because of cold explosions from Frozen Arrow, more like 3-15K possible per shot with piercing cold explosions). Remember you also do decent physical damage too along with your arrows.

Stats

High Dex (300-400+)
No Energy

Str and Vit at your choosing.

Walk around with maxed or nearly maxed resists in Hell. Clean out CS. No prob. Pick up loot because you have pretty good MF. Kill Diablo because you can tank him easily, even when he blasts you with his Lightning Hose of Death. Pick up loot.

Walk around Worldstone Keep during Baal games, watch other Bowazons die from poor resists. Shoot Black Souls and Oblivion Knights and Mages to death with Frozen Arrow and Strafe. Tank a few lightning blasts of death because of your high resists. Watch more people die and later retrieve their bodies. Continue to throne room. Someone dies. You clean up the Throne Room with FA and begin to dream of endless swarms of non-cold-immunes walking right into your arrows. Someone dies. You freeze most of Lister's pack except for Lister. Someone dies. You kill Lister. Everyone rushes to kill Baal, and you follow with Valk, Merc, and yourself in good order.

That's what life is like as a Mavina's Set Frostmaiden.

[prion]

it's pretty godly for frostmaiden, also good for strafe.

or...just use strafe as your backup attack on frostmaiden which is the standard build anyway.

you can enchant yourself with demon limb also.

there is a build spec on this board for a pure strafer using mav set. lemme c if i can find it
yah here it is: http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=601296&highlight=m%27avina%27s+strafe

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

I actually acquired and recently made a Bowzon off the Mav's set. The overall stats and +skills are very, very nice. It's definitely not a raw physical build though. Your physical skills do not benefit +skills hardly at all and as a Bowzon, getting %ED for your physical damage just doesn't happen--you take hits to %ED, like multi & strafe for example, then build up from that again via the skill's ED and DEX bonuses. The big deal of the Mav's setup is highly oriented towards her more elemental bow skills, like Frozen arrow. So naturally, the frost amazon has Mav's set as probably her 2nd best option in the game (#1 goes to runewords, of course).

But Mav's set is easy to acquire due to runewords, so it makes it all the more attractive to try things out without having to break the bank--which was my main allure. Plus, you look cool in it... glowing. Don't see Mav Zons running around nearly as much as Tal's & IK.

Having made one, I will definitely put my vote towards the `Titan' approach with this set. Nevermind +VIT. Get STR to wear the gear (and don't forget it's massive +STR bonuses for set pieces, you will get to the highest STR req for the armor very quickly), and the rest just dump into DEX. If you're very paranoid, drop maybe 100 into VIT, but no more than that. DEX means hit power and damage. That bow is very limited on physical damage due to just being ~200 damage. That's it. You won't enhance that through gear. Only DEX is going to make that go up. So when you see numbers like `700' on strafe, you will be asking "Woa, that's all?" so go with high DEX and get that damage up there. It helps a lot to leech back your bulbs too unless you stroll with an Insight merc.

I went with Strafe due to it having the extra enhanced damage on top of it's 75% damage nerf unlike Multi which has no enhanced damage. The set is pretty fast if you socket shael/ias/ias in the gear, so strafe is great there. Mainly though, just unload really fast high powered frozen arrows that freeze them all and deal big splash damage. Think high powered fireball, but with a bow, and using cold damage instead. It works great. You strafe the ones that are immune to cold.

Bow skill charms are very beneficial to amazons using frozen arrow. In fact, all your damage actually comes from +skills, not from gear here, not from your bow. Think `caster' when you think Mav's set. Because that's what it essentially is. Bow charms don't have a lot of worth on the realms, so trade for a few. You can probably get them in bulk from someone for very cheap (get a few for a pul rune?). Mav's gives you high skills all around, so that's great, and the gloves enhance cold damage by a % as a bonus. So higher skills from charms will shoot your damage very high. Go for that.

Cheers, :smiley:

[Coldfire]

Hey all, thanks for the great replies! I think I'll go ahead and try one based on the info gathered here!

Prion--I am thinking of making a strafezon also but was planning on using witchwild as per the guide section

[maiku]

If you plan on going with more of a Strafer setup in M'avina's, take a look at Atma's Scarab as your primary amulet, as casting Amp with Strafe rocks. If going with Frozen Arrow, look to a +skills amulet like a nice +1, +2, crafted, Mara's, or long-chill Eye of Elitch. If going with WWS on your Strafer, look no further than Cat's Eye.

[MrKaxe]

Don't forget an Eye of Etlich for extra freeze time in Hell...get a whole bunch of them and test the hidden freeze duration and count how long the monster stay frozen but chances are they'll die from the immense ownage of the FA!

Speed on this set is very reasonable to reach bp's...Shael in bow and a 15% IAS in the Diadem gets you a 9 frame attack which is one from (7 frames is impossible with this set!) the top at 8 frames

[lukefojut]

Mavina's is a wonderful set for an Ice Maiden. A few suggestions:

Low damage: Keep Dex high, A2 Might Merc all the way (or A1 with Faith, but is much more expensive Vs the end result)

Strength: Quite heavy items, make sure you Str glitch with as high stat Torch and Anni as you can afford)

Speed: MrKaxe is on the money with his advice

Elemental damage: This is a set with a distinctly elemental feel - embrace it, own mobs and invest in half a dozen Bow GCs. These will cost you a few Pgems and will add a lot to your cold attacks).

Valk: Use one if you plan on playing as a low Vita 'glass cannon'. Your Merc will die from time to time and it's always useful to have a backup.

Mana: Get some mana leech from a ring if possible, Ice Maidens are quite mana intensive at times.

[omgwtfbbqpwned]

If you make a FA zon out of M'avina's, make sure to pump a little into NRG. Even with Leech, BO, +Mana/Kill, +% Mana, and +Mana, you'll still be running out of Mana after a few Arrows. :(

[pelaaja]

I am planning to do Mavina bowazon, should I put shaels and IAS jewels to all sockets (bow, armor, diadem) or just to some of them? I was planning to use Highlord's Wrath amulet (+20% IAS, +1 skill, deadly strike), is that not good?

[MrKaxe]

I am planning to do Mavina bowazon, should I put shaels and IAS jewels to all sockets (bow, armor, diadem) or just to some of them? I was planning to use Highlord's Wrath amulet (+20% IAS, +1 skill, deadly strike), is that not good?

Highlord's is nice and Deadly Strike will help the low Physical damage of the bow and in turn, help mana leech but FA will benefit more from the increased freeze length of Eye of Etlich and to pick one up on SC would probably be dead cheap so i'd trade for one but if you just want to use it then Shael the bow and Highlord's will take you to the 9-frame bp dude...Insight will help with mana worries as well but in my experience alvl 15+ is needed...13 and 14 seems to be not enough when I was using it...

[Zon2000]

I say don't pump any into energy - you're just wasting stat points. 1 point into energy yields you a measly 1.5 mana. Yuck.

You're better off getting 1-2 grand charms with 40+ to mana and a cta to boost that.

[omgwtfbbqpwned]

^ I used to agree with you.

After building a FA/Exploding M'avinazon, my opinion quickly changed. The set gives you +30 Str and +45 Dex, which basically means you only need 92 Str and 107 Dex. If you have a Torch or Annihilis, it drops ever further. If you pump Vit, you'll be approaching 400 Vitality at higher levels (I was closing in on 350 at level 77), which I found almost uncessary, as I rarely got killed, especially when you have a CtA.

I didn't put a point into Strafe (no easy way to quickly Leech) or have an Insight Town Guard (I like some variety, otherwise I'd just make a bunch of Hammerdins and Light/Cold Sorcs), so you can probably ignore my advise to pump Nrg if you do have one of those, but I was constantly constrained for Mana, but never for Life. MPotions are always there, but when you need to constantly pick them up, it gets annoying.

Bow&Xbox Skillers are cheap and add to your elemental damage quite nicely, so I loaded up on them rather than Mana GC's, and since it was just PvM, loading Nrg for a bit once I had 350+ Vit wasn't such a bad choice in the end.

[prion]

the old Magezon spec actually included points in energy

[maiku]

If you make a FA zon out of M'avina's, make sure to pump a little into NRG. Even with Leech, BO, +Mana/Kill, +% Mana, and +Mana, you'll still be running out of Mana after a few Arrows. :(

Not needed to pump Energy. A combo of leech, +mana per kill (obtainable from Silkweaves or rare/magical jewels), +mana, and "Insight"--all of these that you've mentioned can keep a Frostmaiden's mana bulb topped 95% of the time.

Most enemies die in a few shots in Hell anyway, and if you stack a few +mana charms (30-50+ mana a piece), you'll hit 300+ mana quick. If you get 400-500 mana, you can even skip the "Insight" and rely on your mana regen and leech to carry you through. My Mav Frostmaiden runs with about 500 mana now, no points in Energy. I use an "Insight" Merc as backup, but if he dies in CS, no biggie. Takes 20+ shots to empty her bulb anyway.

Energy investments were good on old Mageazons (and I used to build them in Classic) but they are not needed now. Old Mageazons didn't have access to an "Insight," so much +mana per kill gear, +mana charms, or ridiculously high FA damage that kills enemies quickly either.

Also, I want to mention that it's not needed to pump Vitality much, if at all, either. A Frostmaiden freezes most enemies solid (which means they can't attack, close in, or overrun you), has a Merc, Valk, and Decoy to form a minion wall between her and enemies, Mav's belt & faster run boots should provide more mobility, and Mav's set offers big resists. She should rarely get hit, and when she does get attacked up close, the set's big +skills make 1 point Passives like D/A/E quite high so she has an excellent chance to dodge attacks. This is a super safety set. If you can get some additional resists from amulet, rings, or boots, you can have maxed resists with ease in Hell.

BTW, I want to ask what kind of damage you were getting with a synergized Exploding Arrow toward the end? I've always wondered if I should make an Exploding Arrow build, because I just can't stand what's happened to Immolation Arrow. It used to be so cool. Now the timer has screwed it royally. And Mav's might be a nice opportunity to give Exploding Arrow a lot of punch with the heavy dose of +skills. Last ladder Mageazon couldn't cut it in Hell with Immo. -_-

[MrKaxe]

BTW, I want to ask what kind of damage you were getting with a synergized Exploding Arrow toward the end? I've always wondered if I should make an Exploding Arrow build, because I just can't stand what's happened to Immolation Arrow. It used to be so cool. Now the timer has screwed it royally. And Mav's might be a nice opportunity to give Exploding Arrow a lot of punch with the heavy dose of +skills. Last ladder Mageazon couldn't cut it in Hell with Immo. -_-

I tried it dude, the short version is it's not worth it...because FA loves + to skills I paired it with another (backup) attack that loves + skills...Lightning Fury...with a basic Ancient's Pledge and a Titan's on switch you can easily deal with the Cold Immunes for 20 points + the pre-req's to get to LF :thumbsup:

Totally agree with Immo...used to be so cool...now it's a do-able build but a slow killer...