Mageazon Ain't What She Used to Be, Help Requested

[maiku]

I've been back working on D2 for the last month, and I played this many, many years ago. One of the most fun characters I ever built was a frozen arrow/immolation arrow mageazon who was able to make Chaos Sanctuary runs like mad back in classic. I wanted to try this build again, seeing as how the damage of frozen arrow was increased and the dual elemental approach, I thought, would give me a lot of options to deal with hell monsters that my current javazon sometimes struggles with (you know, it seems like half the monsters in hell difficulty are lightning immune and this is *real bad* for lovers of lightning fury). Well...I think I've run into some serious difficulties, which often result in death.

I like leveling in act 2, especially the Canyon of the Magi, for the monster hordes and tightly packed groups. Lightning Fury and Frozen Arrow can normally cause them a lot of grief. With maxed frozen arrow and cold arrow (getting the synergy), I do about 1450 cold damage per shot. This was more than enough to devastate enemies in normal and nightmare, and I didn't have to upgrade my gear much. I also didn't have to use immolation arrow, although sometimes I'd fire a few to help quicken the slaughter. I started working on it to try to max it for hell difficulty, and now that I am in act 2, I find that it's next to useless. Not only is damage and fire rate poor, but sometimes monsters heal while in the middle of the BBQ! Without enough damage to kill mobs, I find that my valk and merc (Act 2 NM Holy Freeze merc) die in about 10-20 seconds, and then it's usually my turn next. I've had times when I die 4-5 times a row in a game...and it's really depressing.

Here's my gear setup:

Kuko Shaku Bow socketed with a shael rune
Heavenly Garb (for the mana regen, for mana is king when you need to keep a steady stream of Frozen Arrows going)
Eye of Elitch
Two rings with +100 mana
Frostburn
Nat's boots
Goldwrap
Tarnhelm socketed with perfect topaz

I have 600ish life and about 730 mana. It was overkill for nightmare, but now in hell difficulty, I find myself running out of mana quite a bit...it takes so many frozen arrows to kill things. I have 115 stat points saved up.

Str 75
Dex 50
Vit 120
Energy 70 or 80, IIRC

Skill points have been dumped into mostly frozen arrow and cold arrow for synergy and massive damage, and more recently almost maxed out immolation arrow, I think around lvl 18 or 19. My valk is at lvl 2. I've tried to go with more skill based damage instead of being reliant on equipment. With +skills equipment, I have about lvl 26 frozen arrow and lvl 28 immolation. Immolation seems fairly useless, though. I wonder if I should have gone with exploding arrow and fire arrow to be able to spam them as I can with frozen arrow.

Things I have been considering are getting a grand matron bow or matron bow and socketing it to make a Harmony. I have all the runes for that, but not a Faith...a little out of my budget. I also have considered getting Peace armor as well, for its +2 skills, addition to critical strike, and +valk skills (helping my bodyguard survive a little longer).

Please help. My baby's on thin ice. :(

[Wikipedian]

Soj (Stone of Jordan) rings would certainly help. They'll increase you're mana like mad and each give you + 1 to skills. Ideal rings for anyone in severe need of mana. It would be worth the 4 hrs (high runes) for each. If you can afford those, mana leech would also help. Maybe some rare rings with mana leech, resistances, attack rating, or any other mods that'll help you in hell.

Although, this build alone would be hard to get through hell with. If you could, you would probably need extremely godly gear. Good luck to you though.

[chien]

Give your merc an Insight stick. It will help a lot for your mana problem (and it won't break your bank account).

Chien

[Hector]

Harmony is a very good bow and it will help you immensely compared to what the Kuko does (more elemental and physical damage). With higher physical damage you can leech some Mana back to help your Mana issues. I would make Harmony on a Matriarchal Bow with +3 Bow skills (shoots faster than Grand Matron Bow); remember you'll need more Dex to use it, I would dump almost all of those saved up points into Dex, lol. :P

Try to grab magic gloves with +3 Bow skils, or rare ones with +2 Bow skills and other useful mods (IAS, Mana leech). In my opinion relying on Mana steal is more efficient than on Mana regen. Making Insight for your Merc also helps with the very fast Mana replenishment from Meditation Aura (put it on a Might merc for even more physical damage).

For extra damage you can also trade for +Bow skill charms. They're not high in demand so they are quite cheap to obtain in the realms.

Tarnhelm can also be easily replaced by a better Circlet with +1-2 Amazon skills, possibly a rare with Mana steal, +Mana, etc.

As for playing tactics I would rely almost exclusively on Freezing Arrow, it is much better than Immo. Immo is usable against Cold Immunes, but do help it with your physical attacks too (1 point into Guided Arrow will give you a reliable left-button click that always hits). Use at least one Poison Damage charm to prevent monsters from replenishing Life in Hell.

[NASE]

craft caster boots, can help with mana problem and don't need hrs. It's not like nats is that great for a bowazon, so perhaps you can craft some nice boots fast.

You do know that peace doesn't offer +skill to valk, it offers ctc valk on striking. I don't know of anyone playing around with a valk of that kind, however, if you play smart you can survive on a tank that i recast every few second. Though if you chose to do so, get a good decoy so you have something to place where you want it to be.

an other bow to consider is melodie, fine harmony will probably be better, but if your +3 skill bow rolls 3 sockets, you can't ever go wrong with making melodie, it's really cheap and offers +6 skills.

What is your merc gear? I find mercs hard to keep alive in hell with bad equipment

[edit]
and before I forget, try to get razortails, the pierce will help you more.

[maiku]

Harmony is a very good bow and it will help you immensely compared to what the Kuko does (more elemental and physical damage). With higher physical damage you can leech some Mana back to help your Mana issues. I would make Harmony on a Matriarchal Bow with +3 Bow skills (shoots faster than Grand Matron Bow); remember you'll need more Dex to use it, I would dump almost all of those saved up points into Dex, lol. :P

Try to grab magic gloves with +3 Bow skils, or rare ones with +2 Bow skills and other useful mods (IAS, Mana leech). In my opinion relying on Mana steal is more efficient than on Mana regen. Making Insight for your Merc also helps with the very fast Mana replenishment from Meditation Aura (put it on a Might merc for even more physical damage).

For extra damage you can also trade for +Bow skill charms. They're not high in demand so they are quite cheap to obtain in the realms.

Tarnhelm can also be easily replaced by a better Circlet with +1-2 Amazon skills, possibly a rare with Mana steal, +Mana, etc.

As for playing tactics I would rely almost exclusively on Freezing Arrow, it is much better than Immo. Immo is usable against Cold Immunes, but do help it with your physical attacks too (1 point into Guided Arrow will give you a reliable left-button click that always hits). Use at least one Poison Damage charm to prevent monsters from replenishing Life in Hell.

I followed your advice, and though I wasn't able to get a +3 bow, I got a +1 matriarchal bow on a Baal run with my paladin, which I promptly socketed to make a Harmony. It came out with 240% ED for 161 damage max and +3 to valk, etc. Now I definitely do some damage to them and my valk lasts a lot longer than she used to. I'll upgrade this to a +3 one as soon as I can and make another Harmony. Luckily, I have most of the runes for another, but I'll need to trade for or find another Ko. I put on Razortail to compensate for the loss of piercing from Kuko and to also boost my dex. It works very nicely. My dex is exactly at 200 with all equipment. I also equipped Skin of the Viper Magi as a temporary armor, for the +1 skill and resists. With a few equipment changes I can see her cautiously making her way through hell difficulty.

I got another level today and didn't die in the process. I can't tell you all how good that feels.

NASE, I probably do need to make some nice casters boots. I tried a few crafted items with a friend, and they didn't turn out as well as we'd like, so I'd given up on it. When I was thinking of the +to valk, I was thinking of Harmony's +2-6 skills to valk. Made a mistake. You're right that Peace offers a level 15 valk casted on being hit. I changed my merc's gear to Tal Rasha's Mask (for the leech), a polearm that does like 180 or 200 max damage, and I think armor with 400-500 defense. I have my highest defense armor on my paladin. Perhaps I will need to try to find or barter for some better merc armor. I think he's also an Act 2 Holy Freeze merc...but he's dead and I can't check at the moment. Should I upgrade him to a Might merc? Ran out of cash because my girl bought potions like mad. I looked at Insight, and I should be able to make it once I have more Sol runes, and put it into a 4-socketed polearm or something like that. I'm a bit low on runes at the moment, so I have to be conservative with them.

Eh, I also need to get a better helmet for my girl. I switched to a rare circlet that I have that adds +80 AR, 1-77 lightning damage, and +88 mana. It's decent, but I probably need more +skills and mana steal on it, if possible.

What would be the best armor to find or trade for to put the runes in to make Peace? My girl has 98 str now, plus charms and equipment.

[Aiglos]

Silkweaves and a Manald Heal will take you a long way.

And, as much as I love Viper, dump it. Make a high def SMOKE or Lionheart instead. I really advocate these two armors for mid-game leveling, because, let's face it, they're cheap and unbelievably useful. Harmony IS a great bow -- if you're wearing a Cat's Eye and 20IAS gloves that is.

I'll give you the same advice I gave someone else in the other thread about Lycanders. If you're looking for res and great boosts almost across the board for Amazons -- go with full Irathas. The Def is going to be low, but you'll have rings, boots, armor, and weapon open. If you keep using Harmony then you'll have to find IAS on your armor or, otherwise, you could run into speed issues. But Harmony is a nice mid-game bow. In fact, it's Hell viable if you have the right equipment to support it properly and it's made in the correct bow.

Two very quick possibilities here. If you skip Irathas then here is a cheap and quick fix that will help immensely -- res and IAS -- plus it'll free up your ammy to be Cat's Eye or High Lord's and you can keep Harmony. Get a Tal's Mask, Laying of Hands, and a Credendum Belt (or Razor Tail is fine for the Pierce). Personally, I would take Cat's Eye as my amulet and Silkweaves as my boots -- but you do what you can, eh?