Bow ama is terrible..

[pharphis]

No, I'm sorry. The advises are really bad and misleading. Probably some of the worst I've read/seen for a good amount of time.

I've decided to stick with a pure light sorc for PvM and then make a bowazon for PvP instead.

:/ Our advise was that bad, eh?
Fishy and strafer aren't working for you with top notch gear?

zaph makes a good point about expectations, though. I run p7 pits with my strafer (using windforce, no faith for me) and fort armor and it is very fun and effective. I've tried a bit of RoF and CS, but I think I would need a bit of a gear upgrade to enjoy that more, as it is somewhat slow.

[Pyrotechnician]

Fine, you want to do max damage? Lets talk max damage.

Bow - Windforce, Damage at level 90 - 35 to 519 (approx.) (20 ias inherent on bow) - Socket with 40ed/15ias jewel (adds 4-27 damage)
Armor - Fort - 300% ed
Boots - War Travs - adds 15 - 25 damage
Helm - 3 socket helm, I would say all 40ed/15 max damage jewels, but since they are bugged that would be stupid to say the least, lets go with the oh so popular 40ed/15ias jewels (want to hit that breakpoint you know) - 120ed/45 ias total
Gloves - 20ias, other mods not important probably plus skills
Belt - Razortail - pierce
Ammy - as stated highlords critical works funky in conjunction with the critical strike skill, so atmas for amp (even though you might detest, note amp only procs on middle two arrows)
Rings - Whatever, something with leach, and a ravenfrost.

Glass Canon Build - 400 dex = 400 ed

Charms - Fine Small charms of Craftmanship (+4 max damage per)
Sharp Grand Charm of Maiming (+14 max damage per)
Full inventory is 10 GCs and 10 SCs, but we will leave it at 9 GCs to have room for torch/anni.
Total plus max damage from charms = 166.

Merc - Faith bow with level 15 fanac (we choose the faith merc over the act 2 merc since we will need at least some sort of ias to hit a decent breakpoint with multishot, even though this sacrifices damage) = 144% ED

Breakpoint table with level 15 fanac and hydra bow:

IAS	Frames Per Attack	Attacks per Second
0 %	11	2.2
6 %	10	2.5
22 %	9	2.7
46 %	8	3.1
92 %	7	3.5

Ias from equip:
Bow - 35
Helm - 45
Gloves - 20
Total - 100 (Hits last breakpoint)

Damage from equip (Max only):
546+25+166 = 737
Bow + Boots + Charms

Enhanced Damage:
100+400+300+120+144 = 964%
Base + Dex + Armor + Helm + Fanac

737 * 9.64 = 7104.68 * .75 = 5328.51
Multishot penalty is factored in.

Hell Bovine HP with 1 player:
9442 per arreat summit, cows however have 50% DR as well.

Level 20 critcal strike would give you double damage 68% of the time. So effectively you will not be able to "one shot" them. However if they become amped by atmas you should be able to if critical strike procs. Technically using faith bow yourself, and using a pride/might merc would get you higher damage, but it would be difficult to hit the last breakpoints.

Good luck getting all that though.

[DoW Fanatic]

Bow Amazons aren't terrible. Plenty of us have played through with budget gear. Tal mask, razortail, silkweaves/Aldur's, Laying of hands/cleglaws until then, dual ravenfrost/ravenfrost, rare with stats and dex, cat's eye, Witchwild String (have used skystrike, Lysander's and others), Lionheart armor. Might merc with Tal mask/vampgaze/crown of thieves, lionheart/shafstop (many armors work here) and a big hurty stick. That's it, nothing fancy.

[Archone]

Why do you people use ed jwls for bowazons? Maxdmg jwls adds more dmg you know. Due to the low basedmg of bows!


Peace

EDIT: Oh. Its tested and proven.

[Pyrotechnician]

Why do you people use ed jwls for bowazons? Maxdmg jwls adds more dmg you know. Due to the low basedmg of bows!


Peace

EDIT: Oh. Its tested and proven.

In the setup I listed above the ED jewels actually provide a higher damage overall than using 15max/15 ias jewels in the helm.

Switching the jewels in the helm ends up with 782 max damage and an ed multiplier of only 8.44 which makes 6600.08 before the multishot penalty. There is probably a point that additonal max damage is better than additional off weapon ed, but I didn't hit it in the setup listed above.

Using a 40ed jewel in the bow adds a max of 27 damage as opposed to the 15 that the max damage jewel would provide.

[Archone]

68 max base dmg of Hydra Bow*0,4 ~ 27?

But I get your point!



Peace

[Pyrotechnician]

Yep, to many numbers for me, you are correct with 27. For some reason I was using .5, probably thinking about ohm rune.

[Archone]

So dmg wise, /hit not /sec. 30max jwls would be the best here?

[Pyrotechnician]

Yes fine archone, prove me wrong, a Vermilion jewel of Carnage would technically be best with 30 max damage if you got the best possible roll on the prefix and suffix, but as you said you would need to make up that ias elsewhere, probably by swithing out the atmas for highlords. Which would give you more base damage as well as an increased chance of double damage.

[Archone]

It takes some experimentation for sure!


Peace and love