Freyas FA guide(repost)

[Zroc]

Hmmm...what do you think of this idea?

Equip:
Mav's Set
Cold Facet's in the bow, armor, and diadem
Highlord's Wraith
Raven Frost
Rare dual leech ring with AR
Whatever boots

On switch:
Titan's
Shield with Lightning Facets

I like Mav's set, cuz it has 100% resists, leaving you at +30 in hell. With an anni, you're at 40-50...you're at maxed lightning resists already with Highlord's, maxing the rest isn't difficult. Highlord's give the skill, ds, and 20 IAS...90 total IAS, which the calculator says give the 9 frame attack. The rare ring isn't hard to come buy with gambling and crafting (I have a nice 10/5 119 AR life and str crafted I like).

8 total plus skills (passive and bow/xbow) from the set, highlords, and anni.

Skills (assuming 102 at level 90)
Bow Tree:
20 FA
20 CA
1 Strafe
44 Total Skill Points

Jav Tree:
20 Lightning Fury
23 Total Points

Leaving you 35 points to put in your passives...
I'm thinking:
1 in Inner Sight
1 in Critical Strike (level 9, 54%)
4 in Dodge (level 12, 50%)
1 in Slow Missles
5 in Avoid (level 13, 60%)
4 in Penetrate (level 12, 145%)
1 in Decoy
1 in Evade
9 in Valk (level 17)
8 in Pierce (level 16, 82%)

The one I have doubts on is level 12 Penetrate, but Mav's set does give some rather healthy AR on it's own (150 AR and a 50% bonus), so should be ok there.

So that's it...Frozen Arrow, Lightning Fury, and Strafe if I need it.
I like Lightning Fury...it's basically the Frozen Orb of zons, where 20 points without synergies is still very effective. I like the idea of freezing things and then spamming Lightning Fury, basically...then having either for cold or lightning immunes, and strafe for a dual immune.

Thoughts?

[lextalionis]

Hmmm...what do you think of this idea?

Equip:
Mav's Set
Cold Facet's in the bow, armor, and diadem
Highlord's Wraith
Raven Frost
Rare dual leech ring with AR
Whatever boots

On switch:
Titan's
Shield with Lightning Facets

I think its really good. I started comparing it to an upped Lycanders with a Nightwing's Veil, Duress Armor, and then either BLOOD Crafted gloves or possibly Laying of Hands. I think they are very comparable. In fact, I think be better off. There are so many pluses to resists, (245.5 avg Magic Damage) and what not from wearing the Set that it really does even out very quickly.

I'm not sure that if you replace Lycanders with a BotD, HoJ, or CtA on a +3 Grandmatron Bow/Matriarchal Bow and wear CoH armor that you wouldn't be better off damage wise.

I love the idea of hybriding to get LF. The needs for each are so similar and it gives you Cold, Lightning, and Physical Damage. I think this build could do very well in Hell.

I also was worrying with the number of points in Passive. I was thinking that I might want even more. Even to the point of going after Passive Charms instead of Bow Charms.

But at the end of the day, I think I'd be really impressed with your setup, possibly making a very strong Solo Hell character

[Zroc]

Yeah, I think it will be too. Mav's set has nice overall bonuses, like 30 str and 45 dex, the 245.5 avg Magic Damage you pointed out, casts level 15 Nova a lot, ton of AR, fat resists, ton of cold damage...basically tailor made for FA, it would seem. Plus the 100% magic find never hurt anybody
I plan to run 50 travs, 16 7% mf charms, an anni, and a 40 Gheeds, so I'd have 302% mf while running...not bad for a zon, really. The last thing I plan to do is the cold facets...if she kills fast enough without them, I'll go Ist in the weap, and ptopaz the armor and helm for another 78% mf/380% total.
I'm a fan of lower resist wands for bosses anyway, so the facets may not be needed. And my merc...well, I love mercs, so I spent a ton getting good equipment. I run an Eth Cresent Moon Cryptic Axe (casts static a TON...awesome), Eth Chains of Honor armor (uber...my favorite creation), and Guillemot's Face for the 35% Crushing Blow and DS. My merc kills bosses faster than a lot of players, and let me tell ya, your merc casting a FAT level 13 static every 2 seconds is a beautiful thing (I always use HF mercs).

The passives are the thing I'm a tad worried about too, but I'm thinking 50% in Dodge, 60% in Avoid, and 46% in Evade (all at the points where diminishing returns start kicking in) should be enough for a Freezing Arrow build with a good level 17 Valk, holy freeze merc, and decoy. I mean, you ARE freezing the majority of your enemies
Level 16/82% is where Pierce drops off hard, and 82% is a good number...I don't think I'd put any more points in there even if I had 'em.

Then penetrate at level 12/145%...just not sure on that one, or even how much I'd actually use strafe anyway (there's not a lot of cold and lightning dual-immunes). Plus, again, Mav's set adds 150 raw AR and another 50% bonus.

Truth be told, I've always used Demon Limb anyways, so I've never had AR problems. If some zon out there doesn't know about this yet, go spend 5 pgems to get one, or check your mules, you probably have one somewhere.
Demon Limb has level 23 enchant charges, so you can pre-buff at the start of your run...equip it, cast enchant on yourself, stick it back in the stash.
You will get 87-111 fire damage added, and more importantly, a FAT 218% AR bonus...for 672 seconds (over 11 minutes). This is basically a free additional level 20 Penetrate, very nice. I do this out of habit now, on any AR based character

[Aps]

Hi im new to the forums and had a couple questions.

FA's splash does not activate things such as cb or chance to cast on striking (as you stated near the begining of this post) is this the same for the splash dmg on exploding arrow?

What exactly works with these two skills what does not?

[Narishma]

Thanks for a great guide! I love my FA zon. BTW, using Mav's set, before any other +skill items or facets, a fully synergized (for dmg) FA will do 1787-1827 splashing cold damage.

[NeraMornit]

Great guide! And Zroc, great idea. Atm I'm trading mostly for items for my sorc, but I've already got mavs set on a awfully built zon (my first ever) so I'll make and new one and xfer that over. I've also got thunderstroke lying around somewhere, I think I'll go with that over Titans and try the lf thing since I can't really afford facets and I've got my hands full trying to outfit a sorc anyway. Now to get a shield....Any suggestions on the shield if I'm not gonna stuff it full of facets? I think I'm going to go steal my Frost Zealot's demon limb for this...

Once again, great guide and great idea on the hybriding thing,
Nera

[Lyxtwing]

The cold damage from items seem to double in a way, but only on targets hit by the arrow itself:

Eg. a 1-2 cold damage small charm in my inventory adds 1-2 to the arrow and 1-2 to the splash, adding up to 2-4 if the arrow hits the target.

This does not seem like much, but if it were 200 cold damage it would start to be a bit of a bonus. It seems to me that the cold damage from items rather than skills would help in bos fights by doubling as a way to gain some extra damage, and should also give that nice boost to cold length. Though, the down side would be less AR if you don't go for as high in skill boosts.

Just my 2 cents, may have been mentioned and I missed it.

note: if someone does not have can not be frozen, it can be fun to hit them with your max (or high if you didn't max it) cold arrow, along with around 10-40 1-2 cold damage cold charms. No real point, but it is funny.

[nebby]

I heard Cham was calculated like Ice blink:

Iceblink: Ice Blink has a 13-50% Chance to work. Ice Blink works with Ranged Weapons. This is not displayed on the item.
Freeze Time in seconds = (100 + CharacterLevel*2)/25
The minimum Freeze Duration (at Character Level 1) would be 4.08 seconds, and maximum (at level 99) would be 11.92 seconds. Freeze Length is reduced to 1/2 and 1/4 on Nightmare and Hell.

only times three since it's +3 to freeze. Of course I could have mis-interpreted if they meant 3 times more likely or I've been fed misleading information on these forums before.

I know this is an old guide/thread, but I came across this and just had to correct this for posterity. The formula is correct, but fails to mention that ranged weapons have a reduced (1/4) chance to freeze target, similar to the difference in crushing blow, and also now similar to knock back (in 1.10). Something to keep in mind with freezes target when applied from an item.

[deadsea]

I know this is an old guide/thread, but I came across this and just had to correct this for posterity. The formula is correct, but fails to mention that ranged weapons have a reduced (1/4) chance to freeze target, similar to the difference in crushing blow, and also now similar to knock back (in 1.10). Something to keep in mind with freezes target when applied from an item.

I think that's not too important here as it's about a FAzon and FA always freezes i believe.. Unless of course the nastie has cannot be frozen..
But still it's a interesting note.. I didn't know that

[FrozenSolid]

Ok, so with maxed FA and CA, 10 Pierce, 12 Valk and 1 Strafe, Id have some spare points around lvl 70. I was wondering where to invest them in? Penetrate for AR boost or Strafe for DMG boost against those cold immunes?
I'll have around 5 to zon skills and 2 Bow skills.