View Full Version : New Amazon/Need Some Advice
Tacothedeep
17-07-2008, 05:51
Hi fellow amazon lovers!
Like so many others, I heard about D3 and loaded up the old D2 discs in excitement. Ive played twice before, once back in the good old days of .09, and once in the ridiculous rune days of .10. A ladder reset brought me hopes that all the dupes would be at least a little less prevalent, plus I just wanted to play. In .10 I played only zons, and I think Ive beat hell with 5 different zon builds at this point. Anyways, I wanted to try making one of my favorite characters from .09, but didn't know if it would still work well in .12, so Im wondering if I could get some advice.
Im thinking about something like:
20 Lf
20 Charged Strike (if this is primarily for single bosses, do I need to max it?)
10-20 strafe (need some suggestions on that, obviously maxing would req some sacrifices elsewhere)
5-17 valk (I hear 17 is the number to hit....otherwise)
1 in each of the dodge skills
a couple in penetrate and crit strike and pierce
The real question is, with pretty ****ty gear (as in, I have what I will find, what my hellforge will let me trade for and what I can pick up in pgems from slaughtering nm cows), what version of this build might be able to fare decently in hell?
A guy in a party of mine was kind enough to give me a demon's arch, which should suffice for an end game spear, but I have no bow and as I said, everything else will pretty much have to be found traded for.... so imagining very mediocre setup, what sort of skill considerations should I make? Does that mean Ill probably need to max/hit 17 in valk? Pump more in the dodge skills to make up for bad armor/resists/defense? Also.... Is harmony a good enough bow to work as a killer of phys immunes with an adequate investment in strafe end game?
That was lengthy, but I would appreciate any help/advice I can get. Id also like a chains of honor, a faith bow, a maras and some eth titans...... k thx bye :crazyeyes:
Since you already have Demon's Arch, why bother with bow skills at all? You can kill the LIs with mere 1pt into Jab taking advantage from the added fire damage of the Arch and opt for pure lightning build.
Just make 'Rhyme' into either Heater or Grim Shield for the CBF and gamble for some jewelry. You can save your Imbue rewards to use on circlets/tiaras with sufficient ilvl. Identify every pair of rare boots you find, or even gamble for them. You will find some reasonable armor and belt along the way, I'm sure. Shop for java gloves or try crafting some.
Other than that, you can use FA/CA backup for your lightning skills (fishyzon) making 'Melody' RW into a +3zon bow. Lightning/Strafe hybrid is imo the most gear-dependent one.
Check the guides in the stickies for more info :wink:
The problem:
Fury/CB require +skills gear.
Strafe has no AR modifier, so unless you find an ITD bow or socket a Jah, you're going to miss... a LOT in hell mode because your gear doesn't concentrate on AR and you don't have penetrate.
If you have ITD, then you won't have any issues, but that doesn't leave you with many choices :X
Tacothedeep
17-07-2008, 23:59
Thanks a lot guys. Sounds like I might as well go all lightning and maybe if I find a nice bow down the road, I can rebuild/level a bit and throw a few points in strafe for the hybrid novelty. I do feel like I might have the same AR issues with jab as a solution to light immunes, but i suppose there isnt much I can do about that without some investment in penetrate. Perhaps the skills I save on not maxing strafe can go there for now. thnx again. still waiting for the omggodlyitamz offer though :)
So I'm in the same boat as you. Starting over -- having not played since 1.09.
I decided to go with this build:
http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=464188
For a person without access to uber equipment there seems to be a lot better synergy between Lighting Fury, Charged Strike and Freezing Arrow. None of these skills have to hit to do damage. They all depend largely on +skills. That gives you two damage types. I'm considering trading for a Witchwild String bow to give me a third option for dealing damage (it offers amplify damage and magic arrow).
I haven't found it that hard to start building up decent equipment. Only up to level 36 but I just snagged my Razortail and I imagine I'll be able get enough for a Witchwild and a Titan's Revenge without too much extra work. There's a lot of stuff that I know I'll never get -- barring some really lucky drops -- but there's still plenty of good gear to be had cheaply.
One of the biggest problems for me is deciding how much to try and stretch my skills. For example I wasn't sure if should spend points on pierce given that I wasn't planning to rely on getting a huge amount of +skills items. So I dropped 5 points into pierce which gives me decent piercing without any +skills and a Razortail. However I already have a lot of points to drop into all four primary skills and those 5 points are just making things tighter.
I went with the same type of build, and I assure you, by the time you get to hell, you're going to want/NEED 1 point in guided arrow.
With your build, I was able to pretty much breeze through normal and nightmare modes completely un-twinked.
I found a kuko shakaku from NM Meph, which is great for FA, but I really didn't need to use FA at all. My Act2 normal defiance merc was able to kill any unique lightning immune without much trouble at all, so I found myself not even weapon switching to kill them.
Once you get to hell mode with that build, I ASSURE you that you'll run into problems.
It'll hit you two ways:
1) Your merc just won't survive like he did in normal and nightmare. He'll die.. A LOT. And since you don't have a valk, that becomes a big strategic problem because you can't rely on your merc to hold enemies off you, as well as not relying on him to take out all the LI enemies you come across.
2) Monsters have so much more HP that you won't be able to just pop mana pots, then pick up the ones dropped by the mobs you just killed to keep your mana up like you did in normal and nightmare. Pair that with terrible AR and a 50% physical resistance (which means a 50% leech penalty) in hell mode, and even with TONS of mana leech (I have 32% right now) you'll find yourself STARVED for mana.
That's where lvl 1 guided arrow comes in :).
It always hits so you can use it to leech in between FA's. You can also use it to shoot targets off-screen so you don't have to risk your merc running in to suicide against tough uniques.
You're also just going to have to come to grips with the fact that you'll be buying tons of pots from vendors.
(unless of course your jav's and bow have ITD, then you won't have a mana problem)
My goal is to have my Witchwild by Hell and use magic arrow / amplify damage on that to support. I'm not sure that will be enough but I am sure that I'll be able to trade for one by then (on US West ladder, anyway, a Witchwild is running at ~5 pgems which is trivial to have by Hell).
I'm not saying that *is* an answer, just that I'm hoping it will be. I guess I'll see. I was also planning on relying on mana per kill instead of mana leach to avoie problems with leach and poor AR.
My goal is to have my Witchwild by Hell and use magic arrow / amplify damage on that to support. I'm not sure that will be enough but I am sure that I'll be able to trade for one by then (on US West ladder, anyway, a Witchwild is running at ~5 pgems which is trivial to have by Hell).
I'm not saying that *is* an answer, just that I'm hoping it will be. I guess I'll see. I was also planning on relying on mana per kill instead of mana leach to avoie problems with leach and poor AR.
The chance to cast amp damage just isn't high enough for me to consider it to be reliable.
Even when using WWS with a strafer, I didnt' find amp to go off often enough for comfort. (Unless you pair it with Atma's Scarab, and then it was quite good)
Magic arrow will indeed help you with LI's, but if you are speccing into FA anyway I found it to be MUCH faster and safer to use FA, especially against groups of LI's like the Fetish's at the start of act3.
But using FA will run you into mana issues, and WWS won't help with that.
(you only leech off physical damage, and as far as I know, magic arrow's physical damage has to pass an AR check even though the magic dmg always hits, just like every other attack with a split damage type.)
So the only thing WWS will do for you is allow you to fire magic arrows after you've run out of mana.
That will actually be a really good strategy when fighting un-leechable mobs, but against anything you can leech from, (in my experience) it's MUCH faster to just throw a guided in between each FA to leech enough mana to keep firing FA.
I'm not saying WWS is at all a bad choice for the LF/FA build, but I still really believe you'll want that 1 point in guided to use for mana leech down the road.
It made all the difference in the world for my success with that build.
sevencreature
20-07-2008, 10:48
My goal is to have my Witchwild by Hell and use magic arrow / amplify damage on that to support.
Not advised. You need AR, damage and IAS for it to be usable. ESPECIALLY AR - you need to have at least around 8000. I'd say that with mediocre equipment, low DEX and without max Penetrate, this is impossible to reach for amazon (if you don't plan to wear Angelic jewelery - but still).
Not advised. You need AR, damage and IAS for it to be usable. ESPECIALLY AR - you need to have at least around 8000. I'd say that with mediocre equipment, low DEX and without max Penetrate, this is impossible to reach for amazon (if you don't plan to wear Angelic jewelery - but still).
I'll have to try it to see, but aren't the level 20 magic arrows from Witchwild at +181% AR? Is that not enough? I realized that I wouldn't be very high AR without a boost and that's why I was interested in Witchwild in the first place.
As for IAS, it's really not a huge boost in damage as compared to some things. Certainly it's quite valuable if you are going for a full physical damage build like strafe/multi but Magic arrows are just a 3rd damage type for LI/PI's, etc.
(But using FA will run you into mana issues, and WWS won't help with that.
(you only leech off physical damage, and as far as I know, magic arrow's physical damage has to pass an AR check even though the magic dmg always hits, just like every other attack with a split damage type.)
So the only thing WWS will do for you is allow you to fire magic arrows after you've run out of mana.
As I stated I was intending to rely on mana per kill more than leach so AR doesn't matter as much. That said, I'm not sure whether I'll get enough or not. I'm planning on using Silkweave boots and a Valkyrie Wing with +4 mana per kill. Those are both well within the budget of a first character and offer +9 total mana per kill. I.e. I'll have to kill about 2 critters per LF/FA. In NM I rarely dip below max mana with +5 mana per kill but that obviously may get a lot tighter in Hell and I'm considering some other mana per kill items as well (i.e. Que-hagan's Wsdom is another +3 mana per kill as well as +1 skills, may get a good rare, etc.).
Also, my hope was that the AR bonus on the magic arrows would make them more viable for hitting targets that I'd otherwise miss.
sevencreature
20-07-2008, 20:20
StGabe: Hmm, I've completely forgot about the MA bonus, that could actually work... Add to it Demon Limb for example. Haven't tried it myself though (LCS is not helpful in this regard).
IAS to be able to quickly set off AD... Still MA is handy for single enemies (extra tough boss for example) - killing groups would be probably pretty slow (IMO).
Tacothedeep
21-07-2008, 23:10
While this thread has gone in a pretty different direction (although very relevent and interesting), I wanted to clarify a few things and maybe ask a few more questions. To update, I am through to act 5 nm, with LF maxed and CS nearly maxed. Basically solo'd nm, it was cake.
-Somebody mentioned my merc dying as a problem because then I won't have a tank...
As I stated originally, I will definitely have valk, and as I am about to mention below, with the bonus from harmony it will be a level 17 (which I still haven't had anybody confirm, but that is the desirable level, yes?). So the weak merc shouldnt be too much of a problem.
-Another question, I have enough to make harmony at this point. Is that a sufficient bow to warrant going with strafe to deal with LIs? Should I screw the bow and just use jab? Or is the fishy zon more effective at dealing with LIs for this build, and I would have more success with the FA route?
I'm at about the same point as you with my build. Level 58, finishing up NM solo. Just to give you some ideas I'll share my thoughts so far. Of course I haven't done much in hell yet and the last time I finished hell was about 6-7 years ago so you can take this all with a few grains of salt. :-)
--
How much have you invested into passives at this point?
That seems to make a big difference with my build and no twink equipment. If you've put more than 15 or so points into passives or any points into strafe/MS then, at this point, freezing arrow is probably going to be really tight. I myself fear that I put just a little bit too much into pierce (I don't have great gear to skill it up to the "magic number" of 9 so I put it up to 5 with skill points).
I'm right about where you are. Just finishing up NM. Right now I'm at 15/15 LF/CS (19/19 after titans) which is more than enough to wipe out piles of enemies near instantly. On the other hand, I'm only 10 FA / 5 CA. So far that's enough to kill off LI's but it doesn't leave a lot of room and I'm pretty inefficient when it comes to that. Each few points in FA/CA makes a noticeable difference though and while I think that the build will be quite viable I'm probably going to be leveling up for a while before I go into Hell (I want to hit at least 15/10 FA/CA before I move on).
Harmony looks pretty nice but what other equipment do you have? You might get more bang for your buck trading for cheaper things. So far I've managed to trade for:
Titan's Revenge (9pgems)
Razortail (2 pgems)
Witchwild String (5 pgems)
Silkweave Boots (3 pgems)
Razortail and Titan's seem like must-haves if you don't have them yet. Witchwild has been pretty good so far. I love the Silkweave boots. I still hit plenty and get a lot of leach. Both FA and the free Magic Arrow have built in +AR which helps. Since FA doesn't have a lot of synergy yet it does blow through mana quickly so I tend to alternate frozen arrows with magic arrows. It gets the job done, and as I said, more points seem to be making it more and more viable.
I don't use Valkyrie or a merc. So far I've been mostly fine. I tend to herd a lot for maximum LF efficiency and so valk/merc just get in the way. Of course I do have an occasional death (but I'm softcore so it's not that big of a deal).
I'm still at +5 mana per kill. I'm trying to line up a Que-Hegan's and a Valkyrie Wing to up that to 11 or 12. That said, it's been more than enough so far. I can run through NM Chaos Sanctuary without pretty easily without ever needing to stock up on pots. I've got a lot of life leach and no mana leach. It's useful but I don't depend on it. The times when I die are when I get trapped and I do so quickly that leach would hardly matter and mana is more of a gate than life at this point.
Anyway, if skill points are tight you're probably better off looking at strafe/MS. Of course then I hope you've been working a lot on dex as you'll need it a lot more. I'm having a lot of fun with FA/CA hybrid though and I expect it to be very powerful once I finally get everything maxed. Unfortunately that's not going to happen until the late 80's though. If I could do it again I'd take about 5 points out of passives to speed that up LF/CS/FA/CA.
Hornedtoad
22-07-2008, 20:41
If you have extra skillpoints, I like the CS/LF/FA build.
I'm level 79 and am now in A3 hell and haven't had any real problems in Hardcore.
I have 20 CS, 20 LF, 20 FA, 1 in all the passives with 2 in pierce, and the rest in Cold arrow(~10)
Using Titans+Kuko Shakaku(until make melody in +3 bow skills matriarchal bow) and I am finally doing enough damage with bow skills to handling LI. If you don't have enough points for 20 FA + ~7-10 CA by lvl 75 then I'd stick with the physical damage route, as the FA just won't do enough damage.
PhilMeyer
22-07-2008, 22:24
Doesn't look like anyone in this thread is advocating using poison skills.
I just returned to diablo after 3 years off, and have a level 66 tesladin and a level 50 javazon that I am building at the same time.
Not having much wealth (don't yet have a Hell viable character) I made a mistake by entering Hell without a backup attack for LI's on my Holy Shocker, and don't want to make the same mistake with my Javazon. Either build works with tricks and gear without a backup it sounds like, but I'd rather have the flexibility.
I've been reading every guide I could get, and the build that appealed to me most was a 20CS / 20LF / 20PJ / ~10pj build. It looked like spending 30 on a backup skill would be sufficient for poison javelin, and that it'd be better then trying to squeeze in the 40 points for a FA build.
But since no one here has even brought up poison as an option, is this terrible bad idea?
If you do go plague javelin you'll want to max poison javelin as it equates to a 50% damage increase (from 200% damage to 300% damage).
From what I've read it seem that it comes down to inferior damage. Some back-of-napkin calculations:
Level 20 plague javelin with Level 20 poison javelin deals about 5,700 damage over 10.6 seconds. That's around 530 damage per second. Of course this is applied over a very large AoE but you can't repoison during that duration.
Level 20 Freezing Arrow with Level 20 Cold Arrow does about 1,000 damage per shot. With a 10 frames per attack bow (which isn't that great) you're looking at 2,500 damage per second. Of course, if you penetrate and hit 5 times you'll do 5 times this damage, each with a small AoE.
Plague Jav Advantages/Disadvantages:
* very low damage over time
* hits a wider area
* much cheaper mana-wise
* can use a shield + titans
* undead are highly resistant on top of creatures who have immunity
Frozen Arrow Advantages:
* far better damage over time
* smaller area of effect
* on tight groups can deal damage several times over to the same target
* freeze provides crowd control and helps to group
* uses a lot more mana
It seems like synergies really hurt plague javelin (relative to other skills). Before them, you could just get plague javelin and it was competitive. Now you really need to pick up poison javelin as well or you're only doing 1/3rd damage. The biggest problem with frozen arrow is going to be the mana usage whereas the biggest prolem with plague javelin is going to be extremely low damage over time. I think that most people don't bother considering plague javelin because they'll always take the higher damage over time build and worry about getting potions along the way.
About 7 or so years ago I had a hybrid that was able to put lighting fury, jab and plague javelin all in one package. I'd just throw poison on top of lighting or physical damage (so I always had something else to do during the 10s that the poison was taking effect). Now charged strike is too good not to take and plague javelin really needs poison javelin as the synergy is too good to pass up. That makes skill points a bit too sparse for a 3rd attack type though.
Tacothedeep
23-07-2008, 19:01
Update (for those following along at home :)):
I beat nm, and at level 70 have decided I need to spend some of my 110 saved stat points and 10 saved skill points before moving on to hell (nm was surprisingly easy to conquer with just LF and CS maxed, even with only 500 life). So far you guys have been amazingly helpful, and I have I think my last set of questions for you.
I scrounged up enough pgems to get a buriza, and while that isn't ideal for FA, I think Im going to take a bit of a different direction. Im thinking that this character is primarily going to be a cow runner (to find gems and socketables), so I won't be dealing with LIs very frequently. Im thinking with the extra points I have (assuming ill get about 27 more points to distribute, counting the 10 I have stored), Ill put about 7 more into strafe, and then max a synergy for CS/LF.
My question is.... Will buriza with an 8 point strafe be enough to kill most LIs in hell, albeit somewhat slowly?
If it matters, I am planning on playing a low-vita (80-100), high-dex (~270) build. Is anybody screaming in their head "Don't do that you fool!"?
I guess the other option would be to NOT max a LF synergy, and distribute those 20 skills in some passives, so if that sounds like a better option, Im all ears.
Also, either way, what should I socket in my buriza? I used to love nef, but I hear knockback isnt as effective as it once was? And additionally, if I go the route of maxing a LF synergy, would an eth be better to make up for the AR loss of not investing in penetrate?
Thanks in advance!
@Tacothedeep
IMHO, strafe is a terrible skill to pair with a furyzon build.
The reason? no AR bonus.
Buriza isn't ITD, so I can guarantee you will have a LOT of trouble hitting mobs in hell with strafe.
To compare, my last WWS bowazon had max penetrate and 250+ dex by the time I got to hell, and my chance to hit hovered at around ~60%. So without penetrate, yours will be ~30%... :X
Correct me if I'm wrong about this, but I believe the physical portion of the attack has to hit before it will freeze target as well. So if you were intending to use strafe to spray groups with the "freezes target" mod from Buriza, I don't think that will work as well as you might hope.
I think if you bank on strafe, you'll eventually end up using guided instead because it will be much more controllable.
Example: a mob breaks away from your merc/valk and heads at you... you strafe, but since you have such a low hit rate, you might miss every single arrow you send at that mob. Whereas if you were using guided, you could target that mob, hit him (which will freeze or slow him long enough for you to recast valk and finish the job)
(you just need SOOO much AR to be effective with physical attacks that aren't ITD in hell)
BUT since you will have a high level valk, it should be just as safe to keep your valk up and pick them off as it would be to use FA while your merc handles them as a Fishyzon would do..
AND since you'll have extra skills to spend in another LF synergy, you'll kill faster against non-LI monsters as well.
TLDR version:
Your idea WILL work, but I think you'll find yourself using rank1 guided more than you use that rank8 strafe... so it may be worthwhile to forgo strafe all together and use those 8 points elsewhere.
I'll have to try it to see, but aren't the level 20 magic arrows from Witchwild at +181% AR? Is that not enough? I realized that I wouldn't be very high AR without a boost and that's why I was interested in Witchwild in the first place.
Short answer:
No, that's not enough.
My last Bowazon had 250+ dex and lvl 22 Penetrate (which is +245% AR) and I still only hit ~60% of the time once I hit act2 Hell.
The Magic portion doesn't have to pass an AR check, it will always hit.
So yes, you'll be able to spray tons of Free Magic Arrows at mobs and as long as you can keep your Valk or Merc up, you'll eventually be able to kill Lightning Immunes just from the magic portion.
But it's going to be ANYTHING but fast...
Which won't generally be a problem, until you hit LI fetish packs in act3 hell. Then you're going to pull your hair out.
One more thing I just wanted to note before I take my leave...
The reason why the "fishy" build is so effective is because anything that's not LI dies quickly in groups with fury or quickly single target with CS.
Against mobs that are LI (including all Lighting Enchanted Mobs), Freezing Arrow provides insane crowd control while keeping your merc alive and you away from the charged bolts.
Then on top of that, you can easily grab 1 point guided arrow and have a third damage type (physical) with GREAT utility all without having to worry about AR... AT ALL.
(I could speak volumes about how useful a 1pt guided has been for me to leech mana as well as kill the REALLY difficult mobs from off-screen.)
Once you take away FA from the equation, you lose a damage type.
So then Lightning/Phys immune mobs will be a pretty big problem.
Granted you won't run into that type of mob very often, and you can simply avoid them or use WWS's magic arrows to eventually kill them, but it's just not as fast or versatile in my opinion...
Don't let me dissuade you if that's how you want to play, because it CAN work... It's just not optimal in my experience.
Short answer:
...
Not terribly short. That said ....
I'm not sitting that far below you actually. I've got +181% from magic arrow and +75% from penetrate (after skill bonuses). So slightly ahead on +AR%. My dex after items is only about 180 though.
I'm heading into hell right now so we'll see. Like I said, magic arrow is my 3rd/4th damage type. So I'm not that worried. Also, as someone mentioned, Demon Limb is an affordable option for greatly increasing my AR further. I'm more worried about getting enough into Freezing Arrow (currently at 17FA/9CA which is good but could be a lot better).
Tacothedeep
24-07-2008, 19:13
Good advice all around. My general problem is twofold, I want a valk, and I don't have the skill points if I get one to finish the build if I go fishy. I think based on recommendations here that Ill pump GA a bit, and the rest into valk.
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