Bow Amazons options

[zaphodbrx]

That's what strafe is for. I honestly dont know why we're going around and around. MA does jack all vs many of those you list too. A pack of the PI frenzytaurs aren't going to sit still for you to kill them all one by one with MA.

MA takes care of stuff that the physical skills can't handle better than FA. That's the point really. Magic dmg is far more versatile, plus all the advantages like no mana cost and less skill points used. I'm not saying FA is bad, if you want to use that make an FA zon, don't have FA as a backup to a physical build because it is just not as good as MA is. That's my opinion anyway ( from a lot of playing ). The PI frenzytaurs do sound scary though, but with KB it should be doable.

It's not a one or the other type thing with me. Use them both! Or dont.

Thing is, you can't really do both. You want to have 20 points MA, 40 points FA, AND strafe AND multishot AND passives.. Not gonna happen dude. Both skills are basically junk without the full investment in it so it does become a one over other thing, and imo MA is both better AND requires less skill points..

Last I knew, Zaph, you hated bow characters anyway.

Huh?

[Quingu]

I'm making my first zon at the moment. I'm using 20 Valkyrie, 20 Penetrate, 20 Strafe, 20 MA build. It works like a charm with my upgraded WWS. I haven't died ONCE and I'm in Act IV Hell. There were really no threats at any point. I have 1k life and Act II merc. Freezing from FA works only for 0.5 seconds in Hell, which is crap. So far I met about 5 - 10 PI AND CI monsters, which would be a pain with FA. MA all the way for me.

[Namtar]

I tried using Freezing Arrow as a backup against physical immune monsters on my Strafe/GA Faith bowazon, and while it did do decent damage, it depleted my mana in seconds. Guided Arrow is practically free at high levels and while Strafe does deplete mana a bit, leeching compensates for it against almost all targets, so my amazon wasn't geared for maximizing Freezing Arrow's potential. Magic Arrow eventually became my go-to PI killer.

Of course, if I was only maxing one of the physical damage skills instead of both Guided Arrow and Strafe, some gear changes and investment into cold skills would make Freezing Arrow look like a much better option. For a purely physical bowazon, Magic Arrow seems pretty convenient.

[Jocular]

I'm making my first zon at the moment. I'm using 20 Valkyrie, 20 Penetrate, 20 Strafe, 20 MA build. It works like a charm with my upgraded WWS. I haven't died ONCE and I'm in Act IV Hell. There were really no threats at any point. I have 1k life and Act II merc. Freezing from FA works only for 0.5 seconds in Hell, which is crap. So far I met about 5 - 10 PI AND CI monsters, which would be a pain with FA. MA all the way for me.

Each cold charm adds 1 second to cold duration in normal, and .25 in hell (if the monster has no cold resistance). If the charm has 2 cold affixes, it adds 2 seconds, and .5 respectively. Even 1 or 2 columns of cold scs makes a huge difference, and makes FA extremely useful for crowd control.

I too vote for FA. As a Bowa, you should have CB/OW already to deal with Bosses (plus it helps hugely with regular monsters as well). If you're willing to take more than 5 seconds to kill a Boss Pack, OW does the job easily. I've killed many PI/CI immunes in Hell Act V on /p3 with relatively meager gear, relying on 1 poison charm (50psn over 6 seconds) and CB/OW from Duress.

Sure, MA does more damage to a single target, costs no mana, and will deal with all immunities (except magic obviously). However, you lose so much in crowd control by using a Strafe/Multi/MA build. And if you are indeed doing a physical damage build, 600 or 700 health is easily more than enough when you have a Merc, Valk, and a Decoy to soak up damage for you, and with your arrows putting monsters into hit recovery left and right.

As for mana depletion...that really shouldn't be an issue. Cast Decoy to bunch up the monsters, shoot FA a couple of times to freeze the ones that can be frozen, and strafe away. You'll probably have at least 60-70 mana at least at the end of a single strafe volley, which is more than enough to recast decoy if necessary, shoot FA once or twice, and strafe again. Better crowd control, better survivability, at the cost of killing PI, and PI/CI immunes slower. And seeing how PI immunes aren't common much at all, FA is clear to me to be much better than FA.

[Namtar]

I too vote for FA. As a Bowa, you should have CB/OW already to deal with Bosses (plus it helps hugely with regular monsters as well). If you're willing to take more than 5 seconds to kill a Boss Pack, OW does the job easily. I've killed many PI/CI immunes in Hell Act V on /p3 with relatively meager gear, relying on 1 poison charm (50psn over 6 seconds) and CB/OW from Duress.

Crushing blow against physical immunes?

Sure, MA does more damage to a single target, costs no mana, and will deal with all immunities (except magic obviously). However, you lose so much in crowd control by using a Strafe/Multi/MA build.

I hate multishot and never use it. But my bowazon mostly just used Strafe on crowds. Sometimes a Slow Missiles and/or Insight beforehand, sometimes a Decoy if my Valkyrie and my merc were being lethargic. Maybe I'm just not a fan of "crowd control" in Diablo II. I don't use AI curses on any of my necromancers and I hardly ever Mindblast as an assassin. But yeah, running up against physical immunities, my thoughts were more along the lines "These annoying monsters won't die to Strafe or Guided Arrow because they're immune, so I need to damage them" and not "I need to slow these monsters down."

As for mana depletion...that really shouldn't be an issue. Cast Decoy to bunch up the monsters, shoot FA a couple of times to freeze the ones that can be frozen, and strafe away. You'll probably have at least 60-70 mana at least at the end of a single strafe volley, which is more than enough to recast decoy if necessary, shoot FA once or twice, and strafe again. Better crowd control, better survivability, at the cost of killing PI, and PI/CI immunes slower. And seeing how PI immunes aren't common much at all, FA is clear to me to be much better than FA.

It sounds like maybe you're talking about a dedicated Strafe/Frozen Arrow hybrid? I'm sure that would work, but it's not nearly the same thing as having a purely physical build (Strafe and Guided Arrow in my case) and needing a backup skill for immune monsters. My 1-point Frozen Arrow with +skills was so expensive that it repeatedly failed to kill physical immune monsters before I ran out of mana and had to switch to my free (it can even hit manalessness with only one hard point) Magic Arrow. I didn't care that the monsters were slowed down by Frozen Arrow. I didn't want them to be frozen. I wanted them to be dead.

[Jocular]

Crushing blow against physical immunes?



I hate multishot and never use it. But my bowazon mostly just used Strafe on crowds. Sometimes a Slow Missiles and/or Insight beforehand, sometimes a Decoy if my Valkyrie and my merc were being lethargic. Maybe I'm just not a fan of "crowd control" in Diablo II. I don't use AI curses on any of my necromancers and I hardly ever Mindblast as an assassin. But yeah, running up against physical immunities, my thoughts were more along the lines "These annoying monsters won't die to Strafe or Guided Arrow because they're immune, so I need to damage them" and not "I need to slow these monsters down."



It sounds like maybe you're talking about a dedicated Strafe/Frozen Arrow hybrid? I'm sure that would work, but it's not nearly the same thing as having a purely physical build (Strafe and Guided Arrow in my case) and needing a backup skill for immune monsters. My 1-point Frozen Arrow with +skills was so expensive that it repeatedly failed to kill physical immune monsters before I ran out of mana and had to switch to my free (it can even hit manalessness with only one hard point) Magic Arrow. I didn't care that the monsters were slowed down by Frozen Arrow. I didn't want them to be frozen. I wanted them to be dead.

My bad on the CB. But I find that what little elemental damage I have, plus OW is enough to deal with Hell Act V PI/CI monsters.

The strategy that I wrote out should work fine for a purely physical zon as well. Just more strafing, and using FA for the sole purpose of freezing things rather than freezing/hurting things.

And it just seems that you enjoy a faster, more aggressive play style than I. Which is perfectly fine, and using magic arrow for PI/CI immunes does suit your play-style. Though you should really care more about crowd control regardless of how aggressive a player you are...it makes the game more fun, and gives a sense of purpose to each time you "go into battle". Rather than attacking wildly left and right, you overcome the enemy AI using skills that Blizzard gave you for that exact purpose, and can defeat groups of monsters that would have previously left you annihilated. Case in point, superdave's Annagoanna naked zon.

[Namtar]

My bad on the CB. But I find that what little elemental damage I have, plus OW is enough to deal with Hell Act V PI/CI monsters.

Yeah, I'm not surprised. Especially if you have a high attack rate.

And hey, Magic Arrow is a prerequisite for Strafe anyway. If you already have it, even if you're also using Frozen Arrow, it seems like it would still have to be worth switching to for those occasional dual immunities.

The strategy that I wrote out should work fine for a purely physical zon as well. Just more strafing, and using FA for the sole purpose of freezing things rather than freezing/hurting things.

It's been a while since I was trying out Frozen Arrow as an immune killer, but it was really looking like something that was either going to require a gear change or potions for me. The damage was good, the freezing was good, but the mana cost was too much. Maybe if I'd focused on damaging the immune monsters earlier, rather than strafing away all the leechable monsters around them, but really, I could just as easily have used Frozen Arrow a couple of times to stall and done most of the real damage with the much cheaper Cold Arrow. In fact, I think I ended up doing just that for a while, eventually settling on Magic Arrow as more convenient. By the way, I did and do still use Frozen Arrow for its utility. Maybe I should have mentioned that.

And it just seems that you enjoy a faster, more aggressive play style than I. Which is perfectly fine, and using magic arrow for PI/CI immunes does suit your play-style. Though you should really care more about crowd control regardless of how aggressive a player you are...it makes the game more fun, and gives a sense of purpose to each time you "go into battle". Rather than attacking wildly left and right, you overcome the enemy AI using skills that Blizzard gave you for that exact purpose, and can defeat groups of monsters that would have previously left you annihilated. Case in point, superdave's Annagoanna naked zon.

To be clear, I play almost exclusively on /players8 and if I remember correctly my bowazon never died in Nightmare or Hell, so it's not like I was recklessly charging in and destroying everything without even looking. For a lot of the more dangerous packs, I spent some time sniping with long-range Guided Arrow. I do think that the physical bow skills lend themselves more toward a glass cannon approach than most other skills do, but of course a more balanced bowazon can do well too.

And like everyone else, I was a big fan of Annagoanna. But I don't think I'd have the necessary patience for something that extreme.