boss killer: GA vs strafe

[NitecryXI]

not sure if this has been discussed before... but, strafe would be a better boss killer than guided arrow, simply because with similar amount of dmg at lvl20, u getta hit the dude 7times with strafe instead of GA 1 shot, rite?

[Crying Freeman]

Yes. But then, you will need gigantic amounts of AR if you want all the arrows to hit. Around 10k AR, and usually you will only hit 3/4 arrows or so. Still, better than GA.

[NASE]

Some of the high end bowazon users favour strafe. And strafe is certainly better when you have 'on-hit' mechanisms like crushing blow or ctc amp.

In the other case, Guide arrow should be faster as the damage of strafe is quite low (-25% is huge). And you don't have ar problems.


Try them both and see what fits you. There isn't a consensus.

[Von Lazuli]

This needs to be mentioned. NextDelay. Strafe has it at 4 frames, which means to optimise your damage with strafe you need a 5 frame strafe, which is a little tricksy to achieve unless you keep an unwieldy crossbow on your weapon switch. GA will do higher damage than strafe nearly as fast (assuming both 7 frame GA and 2 frame (6 frame effective) Strafe. However, GA always hits, whereas the %chance of strafe hitting messes with your effective frames of damage. The always hits (unless blocked) is enough reason to use GA.

Mana use is another issue all together though.

[NASE]

This needs to be mentioned. NextDelay. Strafe has it at 4 frames, which means to optimise your damage with strafe you need a 5 frame strafe

That has been confirmed to be wrong. Yes, next delay is relevant however, arrow don't just collide with a big monster - like the act bosses - for one frame. They collide for more then 1 frame so each 5th frame, there will be an arrow colliding with the boss registering for a hit.

With small monster, this might be accurate yet how often do you encounter a single small monster?

[DH Amazon]

I use strafe, but haven't even tested with guided if its faster/slower. Can't be much faster anyway, maybe couple seconds or so (need to test with current ama).
At least strafe works against baal's twin, so its easy to take them both down at same time.



Editing these values later, after two test.
Baal with guided: 2min 25s, 347 arrows, 15 mana pots
Baal with strafe: 1min 34s, 86 arrows, 12 mana pots
Fleshripper 45s, 0 arrows 0 mana pots *)

Both are bad times, as twin appeared when half life left in both cases.
Strafe, 17.1k ar, 81% chance to hit baal.
*) From old tests


After this test, no Guided for this ama. That twin is main problem with it and need to carry extra arrows if doing in full game.
Full game dia drops faster than single game baal, and strafe works there much better. After this short test, I keep strafing bosses.

[droid]

NextDelay and chance-to-hit kinda cancel each other out, too.....if you're only hitting 60% vs a given boss, then even with 3-frame strafe you're only going to hit with, on average, 6 of your 10 arrows per volley. Thats an average of 5 frames between actual hits, statisically.

[Bladewind]

Strafe is much better if you can hit 17k AR. I got similar AR for my Zon too. :)