Amazon spears review

[Inkognito]

Re. poison explosion: It seems to target any corpse on my screen. I thought it was targeting the ones closer to my zon but maybe thats just me. In any case its just academic, because even a fully synergized poison explosion of a necro is quite lacking, and this ctc level 9 poison explosion does next to no damage. Now if it were ctc corpse explosion, we'd be talking!

Indeed sorta academic. If only it could be beefed up with facets, and venom effects, +poison damage items...etc.

Corpse explosion would be an INSANE! proc for any weapon(armor/item...anything!) My head almost explodes just thinking about the potential of that being a ctc effect.

[zaphodbrx]

Corpse explosion would be an INSANE! proc for any weapon(armor/item...anything!) My head almost explodes just thinking about the potential of that being a ctc effect.

Bonehew has charges of CE. Also corpsemourn armor, and a few other stuff ( Black runeword? ). Not quite the same thing as ctc, but its there

[Pyrotechnician]

But it wouldn't be as fun as random corpses exploding while continuing your attack. Also the casting rate would probably be pretty harsh since many Amazon builds contain little to no FCR.

[zaphodbrx]

I'd just like to add that a good stoneraven is like really hard to get, and ultimately it isn't even that good.
It varies on so many parameters and it doesn't even drop that often to begin with.

I only have one, and I got hosed on pretty much every parameter except resistances which are little more than avg

Stoneraven
Matriarchal Spear
Two-Hand Damage: 219 to 320
Durability: 15 of 28
(Amazon Only)
Required Dexterity: 142
Required Strength: 114
Required Level: 64
Spear Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x9c2a7fdd
+237% Enhanced Damage
+404 Defense
All Resistances +43
Adds 101-187 magic damage
+1 to Javelin and Spear Skills (Amazon Only)

Ariocs drops a lot, and a near perfect one is easy to get and totally outclasses stoneraven. As well as Lycanders and Viperfork as well. Speed , deadly strike +skills and ITD on Ariocs is really hard to beat.

[zaphodbrx]

Bumping this thread, have been trying out my new 'silence' runeword. Turns out it isn't as bad as I thought it would be. It has the highest +skills of any spear ( +5, of which +2 is to all ), it has insane +allres which makes it easy to max out on resists and swings at a fairly decent rate. With 20 ias on the spear, 70 ias from other equipment it swings at 6/5 fend which is the same as arioc's needle. The hit causes monster flee and hit blinds target are annoying but not incredibly so, they are tolerable. This is miles better than stoneraven for sure. High manaleech, decent damage, -requirements are all good mods. It even has MF!

Currently I'm wearing a Lionheart because my stats are all messed up, and thinking of what armor would be most suitable. +2 skills would go well, along with high defense. I'm thinking *gasp* +2 Arkaine's valor? Since resists have eased up a bit, I think that is most suitable - will try it.

Here are the stats on 'silence'. It's still not really worth it if you don't have a few ists and guls lying around. I could have made another death but bleeaah...

Silence
Matriarchal Spear
'DolEldHelIstTirVex'
Two-Hand Damage: 195 to 285
Durability: 22 of 28
(Amazon Only)
Required Dexterity: 114
Required Strength: 91
Required Level: 55
Spear Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x84dfcd33
+200% Enhanced Damage
All Resistances +75
11% Mana stolen per hit
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Requirements -20%
20% Increased Attack Speed
20% Faster Hit Recovery
Hit Causes Monster to Flee 25%
Hit Blinds Target +33
75% Damage to Undead
+50 to Attack Rating against Undead
+2 to All Skill Levels
+2 to Mana After Each Kill
+3 to Javelin and Spear Skills (Amazon Only)
Socketed (6: 6 used)

[Flayed One]

Hi,

You can't just slap different spears on a zon with some "random" gear and compare. The results won't mean much. Everything depends on what gear you have and what you want to achieve.

For example, if you want to go mainly charged strike and only use fend as a backup, then Ariocs Needle is better than Lycanders Flank, because of its speed advantage, and ability to put more points into synergies - ITD allows you to get by with only 1 point in penetrate (and 50% DS may allow you to put less in Critical Strike).

OTOH, if you want to use mainly fend and do not have fortitude, then Lycanders may be a better choice. One of the best other good armor choices is Treachery for it's Venom, Fade and 45% IAS. If you use that and Shael your Lycanders, you only need 25% IAS more to hit 5 frame fend, at which point it's better damage and additional stats will leave Ariocs Needle far behind.



I also wanted to add, that the reason why Amazon Only spears have slightly lower average damage than normal spears, is not only +Jav&Spear skill, but also the fact, that they have better damage bonus modifier ( 70/30 str/dex instead of 100 str). It's especially noticeable when used with a max block jav/shield on switch.

[zaphodbrx]

Hi,

You can't just slap different spears on a zon with some "random" gear and compare. The results won't mean much. Everything depends on what gear you have and what you want to achieve.

For example, if you want to go mainly charged strike and only use fend as a backup, then Ariocs Needle is better than Lycanders Flank, because of its speed advantage, and ability to put more points into synergies - ITD allows you to get by with only 1 point in penetrate (and 50% DS may allow you to put less in Critical Strike).

OTOH, if you want to use mainly fend and do not have fortitude, then Lycanders may be a better choice. One of the best other good armor choices is Treachery for it's Venom, Fade and 45% IAS. If you use that and Shael your Lycanders, you only need 25% IAS more to hit 5 frame fend, at which point it's better damage and additional stats will leave Ariocs Needle far behind.

I have a hard time believing that Lycander's can be better than Ariocs in any way. It's just too slow, and fortitude > treachery ( assuming you have it, which I do ) for fend. And no it doesn't have better damage. Ariocs is much better with deadly strike and ITD ( and faster obviously ) . Trust me, I leveled till 81 on Lycander's flank and it was very painful. Un-upgraded, but I got the point, it sux.

I leveled till 85 to finally use the Arkaine's valor and I must say I'm very impressed with this character. By using Delirium on merc I found that 1 point in decoy is all that is reqd, so dumped everything else into lightning skills. Level 34 lightning strike is awesome, so is charged strike. Fend isn't as good, but that's mainly because of the 'hit causes monster flee' on silence which is hellishly annoying but can be dealt with ( like pin them against a wall ). The damage output on the screen is more than my lightningfury zon , though ofc LF is still better ( also I use griffons on the lf zon but not on spearzon ) but atleast I don't have to worry about the mana constantly running out and needing to use insight merc. Huge manaleech from physical damage of spear ( + fend ) ensures enough mana is obtained to fund the high manacost of CS and LS. She does quite well in players 7 pit runs ( not very fast, but okay ).

[Flayed One]

Firstly - of course I meant upgraded Lycanders. I'm not comparing an exceptional weapon with an elite one.

Secondly, sorry, but that's exactly what I meant by saying you use 'random' gear when testing. Ariocs Needle is great, because it's very versatile and flexible, but not all other spears are.


If you want to try Lycanders out you need to tailor your gear to it. Most importantly get the 120% IAS you need for 11/5 fend!

Even with Fortitude:
- 50% you can get from the weapon (shael),
- 20% from Highlords,
- 20% from Laying on Hands
and you only need 30% more from helm+belt - IAS Jewel in Andariels Visage for example.

As for why it can be better:

-It's avg dmg is higher by 27% (assuming both are perfect, Lycanders does 322,5 avg dmg, Ariocs Needle does 254)
-60 more life(+vita)
-it has decent %ll (5-9)
-it gets you higher AR, because it requires less Strength and more Dexterity
-it gets you higher off weapon %enhanced damage (by 41%) thanks to 80/50 damage bonus, assuming you only have enough strength and dexterity for gear.
-it has range 5 as opposed to 4 - more monsters may get hit by a single fend cycle

OTOH
-50% DS means only ~8% increase in damage for a lvl 85 character with level 20 Critical Strike, Gores and Highlords, even less for a higher leveled one
-ITD means only a few percent better cth for a lvl 85 character with lvl 20 penetrate (hard to quantify, because it depends on monsters level), even less for a higher leveled one
-390 poison dmg becomes less than 100 dmg in hell even without factoring monster resistances.


Ariocs Needle is really great because of it's versatility and flexibility, but when it comes to pure physical damage on a specialized character it loses... Especially without Fortitude (Treachery means both spears have a lot of gear options)

Unless you Zod an ethereal one or something:P

[zaphodbrx]

Ah, I see what you mean.
But actually, any build using Lycander or Ariocs would necessarily be a CS/LS build with fend as a backup for LIs and for leeching. I would never use these two for a mainly fend build.

We'll only be having 1 pt in crit and penetrate, thus DS and ITD make a lot more sense.
For 'pure physical damage', both of them are no good at all. For that you'd want Ethereal 'Breath of the dying' (rich), Eth upped Hone Sundan ( medium ), Normal Hone Sundan ( poor ).