Need suggestion for runeword bow

**jediz** · 14-10-2011, 03:54

I have got a 3/4os GMB, wanna build a bowazon, which runeword should i make, faith brand or ice? Any suggestion and analysis are appreciated. Thanks!

**Azaar** · 14-10-2011, 11:47

First off, seeing what your current build is will help in that regard, so you may want to post it. As to the bows themselves:

Brand -- not many people seem too thrilled with Brand; lvl 18 Bone Spear isn't a whole lot of magic damage (piercing, admittedly) to work with (though I'm considering a Necromancer using it with some of the synergies hyped up in conjunction with poison for a hybrid poison/bone build, but that's a whole other thread in the making there). I assume (I've not played with Brand personally yet) that Bone Spear only triggers once, regardless of how much Pierce + Razortail you have, so it might be best to just hold off unless you really want to do some sort of Dark Ranger theme.

Faith -- godly mods on top of godly mods (did I mention there were godly mods on this runeword?), Faith is easily the pinnacle of bows in many respects. Everyone hypes it, and with the lvl 12-15 variable-range Fanaticism aura, that's icing on the cake.

Ice -- very solid runeword on its own, but geared towards a Frostmaiden build with its lvl 18 Holy Freeze. If you're doing FA/Strafe as a build, Ice is what you should likely put together.

I'm not good with all the IAS and damage comparisons, but I do recall that the GMB is better for overall damage, but requires significantly more IAS to hit the high-end frame breakpoints. Some say a Matriarchal Bow is better for the IAS and frame breakpoints, though the damage isn't as great, so there's trade-off either way. Faith, at least, the IAS won't be quite so much of a problem with the variable Fanaticism aura, but it will play a larger role with Brand and Ice, if you lean in that direction.

**crawlingdeadman** · 14-10-2011, 13:53

listen to Azaar's advice then make faith.

**jediz** · 14-10-2011, 14:26

Thanks Azaar and crawlingdeadman for advice. I also read some other topics, i've decided to make a frostmaiden first, so i made an ice gmb, its 7% from max ed, but cold damage is +26%, is it good enough? It's a hard decision to wether reroll it you know why, any futhur suggestion? And about ias, how many ias i need to reach a balance point?

**scollin** · 14-10-2011, 15:08

The IAS breakpoints with an ice bow (since it comes with no IAS) and no fanaticism aura from a merc or anything are 5/11/22/35/56/89/147 for 14/13/12/11/10/9/8 frame attacks. Note that this is for normal attack/cold arrow etc not for strafe.

i know you've already made Ice, but for future reference Faith really is the absolute king of bows, its got pretty much everything you could ever want.