PvM Gunslinger - Physical Bow/Lightning Java Hybrid

[Uncle_Mike]

Great guide

He's diarunned a few of my chars working on this guide, if you want a CS runner capable of handling 8 player games look no further :laugh:

[Dacar92]

Great work! Got to finish reading this one. Thanks Kijya.

This is the first guide I have ever stickied......on it's first day posted.



:afro:

[Kijya]

Thanks for sticky Dacar :smiley:

Some end here?

Thanks for pointing it out, that's what I get for jumping back and forth while writing :laugh:

Why obedience instead of good 'old Demon Limb? Price of charges?

I'm personally somewhat against relying on charges, but might be better to mention all possible sources of enchant there :scratch:

Also curious about the amount of life. Is it enough to support melee in 8 player games?
I feel that the lack of high d/a/e (but I've only tried WF strafe and a Faith hybrid so far) and high life would be kind of annoying(deadly) when glooms, casters and whatnot starts going crazy.

On a higher bugdet base vit can get you to 600-800 life, fairly safe in most cases. On a low budget some vit might indeed be needed, or maybe throw on thundergods and max your resists while traveling in those areas.

some notes i made as i read through:
i like vipermagi as a kind of mini CoH. it doesnt give anything to your bow (aside from a possible jewel) but it gives some resists (if you need it) and a +skill.

chains also has life leech (one of only a handful of armors that does).

you can get ias on boots.... kinda. two sets have partial set bonuses of ias if you have two pieces, IK and sigon. if you really need the ias you can put on the gloves and boots from either set and get 25 ias from IK and 30 from sigon. both are pretty poor options, but they are there.

i realize there are tons of other choices on gear but two shields i've used are mosers (would go under safety) and a faceted tower shield (dont know if headhunters is strictly better, but i didnt quite have the strength for a monach w/ facets and i got it prefaceted).

i've been using a new hybrid i made for this season that has a set up you may be interrested in. she's mostly an mf zon built to run chaos, but can run other places with a few modifications to gear (getting any res whatsoever).
steelskull (ias jeweled)
highlords
skulders (ptopaz)
faith gmb
LoH (would prefer 20ias/kb gloves but i havent made any yet this season)
mf ring (mine is 100mana/24mf)
razortail
ravenfrost
wartravs

i decided to make this a hybrid after getting bored running pits with a strafer, but not being able to satisfactorly finish off diablo with the bow skills. to that end my switch:

thunderstrokes
mosers (2pdiamond)

with this set up and a few mf charms i'm hitting decent player one kill speed in addition to carrying ~340%mf. i'm none to thrilled about my cs damage, but diablo dies most games without the need to pot. since i have such terrible resists i went ahead and put a bit into vit (800 life or so). i also went ahead and pumped valk up a bit and am using a might merc w/ reapers toll for additional tankage. with proper tactics and decoy use i've gotten his deaths down to a manageable once every 2-3 runs (i even went 5 in a row without losing him once). using reapers allowed me to put shako on him for a bit more mf.

congrats once again on the best looking guide i've ever seen.

Might be a good idea to increase the number of shields mentioned indeed, and Viper Magi may also deserve mentioning.

notes taken :azn:

[stephan]

Impressive guide! I love the artwork as well.

Note: Strafe has recently been found to have a serious speed bug that makes anything above “9/3” useless when playing on the servers.

Just to make this clear: the bug is present on SP too. Diablo 2 uses a client/server model for all playing modes.

[HellPlayer]

Testing the build, with lvl 83 she gained end game gear:
-Andys visage(15ias);
-ds fortitude;
-razortail;
-war travellers;
-Loh;
-maras;
-raven frost;
-rare mana leech ring(4%);
-windforce(shael);
-titans;
-troll nest sanctuary.
Only problem I encountered is mana in java mode, going soon to upgrade the titans and want to heard if this is enough to solve or more leech is needed?Maras is good but can be replaced for a rare +2 with mana leech and Loh can be replaced with a rare java/ias/ml and then the amulet by a crescent moon. My actual merc is a act1 rogue with faith(to be honest in bow mode she uses my setup for Krembanan wf zon with a1 merc faith minus the atmas amulet).What more can I test to fix this mana issue?
HellPlayer

[crawlingdeadman]

the best way i've found is to use an ias/mana per kill jewel in the hat. alternately yoiu can get mana per kill on rings as well i think. higher base mana regenerates faster so increasing your pool may help. ultimately when you run out of mana for fury, switch and use strafe to get it all back (unless you're facing unleechables). if you have only a minor problem, just pot occasionally it wont kill you.

i also see you're using sanctuary. lidless is a really nice mana shield. it has a big chunk of mana per kill and increased maximum as well as 10 energy.

[HellPlayer]

I saved from crafting 2 jewells 15ias/2mpk, going to replace the plain ias on the andys for one and test a lidless with the other to see how it works, from a kinda guide for cheap cow runner i remenber the boots waterwalks have it too, will test to see how affect bow dmg whitout war travs, the zon is working good hosting pub chaos runs at this lvl.
HellPlayer

[NASE]

good guide - like we were expecting anything else.

though two things. Isn't jab a spear only thing? So you can use it with obedience polearm?
Second, why do you focus on ias in your gear selection and not on skills. They seem atleast as important.

Damn, no I really have to make one.

[Kijya]

Just to make this clear: the bug is present on SP too. Diablo 2 uses a client/server model for all playing modes.

Thanks for the info

though two things. Isn't jab a spear only thing? So you can use it with obedience polearm?
Second, why do you focus on ias in your gear selection and not on skills. They seem atleast as important.

Yeah, my blunder jab cannot be used with polearms of course.

IAS is crucial to make your bowskills work in my opinion, so seems best to list items according how much ias they could carry I'd think. The javelin skills on the other hand work with just 20 base points if needed, well pretty much in any case. But of course when you have the ias you need, skills should be your next priority.

[brownmoses]

Nice guide, I had been wondering on how secondary attacks measure up for a Lightning zon hybrid.

Also what are your thoughts about which auras are most effective from an Act 2 merc? I was thinking Defiance vs. Holy Freeze, but also considering might for the increased leach and especially when using the bow vs. LI.