Amazon help

[Wintercount]

Amazon help

Hi, folks.
Based alot on Jek's guide (especially the items), I have made an amzon (not in the game, just on paper) and before I started playing her I wondered if you have some suggestions how to make her better. I'm sure I made something wrong since I'm pretty much a noob. Anyway, here she is :

1 in all prerequsities

max Lightning Fury
max Multi-shot
max Guided arrow
5 dodge
5 avoid
5 evade
6 pierce
6 critical strike
from here on I just start putting all the points in Valkyrie.

102 strength
165 dexterity
all other points in vitality
base energy

ITEMS:
weapons - Windforce
swap weapons - Titan's Revenge and Stormshield
armor - Tal Rasha's armor
gloves - Laying of hands
helm - Harlequin's Crest
belt - Thundergod's Vigor
boots - War Traveler
amulet - Mara's Kaleidoscope
ring - raven frost
ring - dual leech ring

Now, I do not have and probably never will have all theese items, so some alternatives would also be ok.
Anyway, what do you think?

 

[Nidlav]

Hmmm....Jek's guide is more geared towards a lightening Javazon rather than a hybrid. But here are some thoughts...

Your skill selection totals 92 points with no valk and only 1 in penetrate. With an emphasis on bow skills you'll want some penetrate. (Note that penetrate doesn't help you with LF though.) As a ranged only char I'd trim back points in Dodge and Evade to 1 and maybe Avoid to 4. That'll save you 9 points that you can put into penetrate bringning it up to 10.

And as you stated.....points beyond your 92 should go to Valk....but I'd suggest that you not wait until the "end" to get/pump valk. With +3 to LF on the Thundergod's Vigor and +2 skills on Mara's amulet you can get away with less in LF until late in the build. Maybe just put 10 in there and use the 10 saved points in valk.

If you're going to use your Bow as your main killer you will probably want more of your stat points in Dex and not pump Vit so hard.

It's kind of hard to give you specific advice since you mentioned that you don't have the equipment you listed. You list many items that are not easily attainable and if you don't get them it will effect they way you play and build the char.

One last point is that you have 2 bows skills that both do physical damage...and a jav skill that does lightening. That gives you 2 types of damage. Most builds have some "weakness" in that they generally focus on 2 types of damage and a handful of dual immunes will be difficult if not impossible to kill. The 2 physical bow skills you've chosen do not synergize with each other so you might want to consider Magic Arrow instead of Guided to give you 3 types of damage. Especially since LF is not all that effective vs single targets. So if you face few, scattered, strong PIs....it'll be challenging to take them down with LF. Magic arrow might be a better bet. However, I don't pretend to be an expert in the Bow tree....so advice from seasoned bowazons would be helpful here.

nid

EDIT: Oh....and I believe people often suggest that it is not necessary to max MS.....advising that 10-15 is all you need. More points just increases the mana cost and the few extra arrows you get really aren't worth the mana cost. This could allow you to get your valk/penetrate up even faster. And...fyi...you list Tgod's belt as your helm and don't list a helm.

 

[Wintercount]

EDIT: Oh....and I believe people often suggest that it is not necessary to max MS.....advising that 10-15 is all you need. More points just increases the mana cost and the few extra arrows you get really aren't worth the mana cost. This could allow you to get your valk/penetrate up even faster. And...fyi...you list Tgod's belt as your helm and don't list a helm.

Ops, my fault :embarrass
It's supposed to be like this:
helm - Harlequin's Crest
belt - Thundergod's Vigor

 

[Wintercount]

One last point is that you have 2 bows skills that both do physical damage...and a jav skill that does lightening. That gives you 2 types of damage. Most builds have some "weakness" in that they generally focus on 2 types of damage and a handful of dual immunes will be difficult if not impossible to kill. The 2 physical bow skills you've chosen do not synergize with each other so you might want to consider Magic Arrow instead of Guided to give you 3 types of damage. Especially since LF is not all that effective vs single targets. So if you face few, scattered, strong PIs....it'll be challenging to take them down with LF. Magic arrow might be a better bet. However, I don't pretend to be an expert in the Bow tree....so advice from seasoned bowazons would be helpful here.

nid

What about Fire Arrow?
And besides, do you have any ideas for socketing?

 

[Nidlav]

Another thing to mention is that Stormshield really isn't a good choice for this build....for a couple of reasons. First....with the equipment you've listed....you won't be able to equip it with the 156str req...unless you equip the Titan's first...then equip the SS. You can initially equip it....but not sure how it'll work when weapons switching. I guess it would probably work okay. But that's beside the point...you don't need the SS mods. The primary attribute on SS is the 35% Damage Reduced. As a ranged-only char this really isn't that important to you. It has great block % and decent resists....but you can get these 2 things on many shields that are easier to find and easier to equip. And since you'll have a good amount of Dex for your bow skills.....you have even more choices for maintaining max block with a shield....ie....you won't NEED to use a shield with a block % in the 70s.

Here are some other shield options:

- Moser's Blessed Circle with 2 perfect Diamonds....good block and lost of res all.
- Whistan's Guard as an early shield before you have a ton of dex. Low lvl req....huge block %....add a perfect Diamond for resists.
- Ancient's Pledge runeword.....good resists...but lacking increased block %.
- Rhyme runeword....resists, mf, block and cannot be frozen if you don't have a Raven Frost ring yet.
- Sanctuary runework....HUGE resists, block, def vs missiles, +dex

There are many others you could make work as well. Good luck.

nid

 

[Nidlav]

The Fire Arrow/socket questions would be best answered by the bowazon experts around here. Sorry.

nid

 

[Wintercount]

The Fire Arrow/socket questions would be best answered by the bowazon experts around here. Sorry.

nid

Actually, you allready helped me quite a bit. Thanks!

 

[Krunch_Kidney]

Hi, folks.
Based alot on Jek's guide (especially the items), I have made an amzon (not in the game, just on paper) and before I started playing her I wondered if you have some suggestions how to make her better. I'm sure I made something wrong since I'm pretty much a noob. Anyway, here she is :

1 in all prerequsities

max Lightning Fury
max Multi-shot
max Guided arrow
5 dodge
5 avoid
5 evade
6 pierce
6 critical strike
from here on I just start putting all the points in Valkyrie.

102 strength
165 dexterity
all other points in vitality
base energy

ITEMS:
weapons - Windforce
swap weapons - Titan's Revenge and Stormshield
armor - Tal Rasha's armor
gloves - Laying of hands
helm - Harlequin's Crest
belt - Thundergod's Vigor
boots - War Traveler
amulet - Mara's Kaleidoscope
ring - raven frost
ring - dual leech ring

Now, I do not have and probably never will have all theese items, so some alternatives would also be ok.
Anyway, what do you think?

You know that those items are REALLY EXPENSIVE? Well, good luck getting them. Anyway, I'd drop both multishot and ga and put points into strafe instead. Strafe works both as a crowd killer and a single-target killer. You'll want WAY more dex if you're using any physical damage skills and points in penetrate since attack rating is a major issue in hell. I'd only put one point in d/a/e and concentrate on your main killing skills (obviously) as well as pumping your valk (which you will definitely need) and penetrate. You'll also want a decent pierce with LF, so you'll probably need to place at least 6-10 points in pierce. You may want to use razortail instead of T-God's for the pierce which will help with your bow skills as well as LF. (razortail gives 33% pierce)

 

[inkanddagger]

Since lightning fury is your effective crowd control skill, why use multi?

Instead it would suit you better to max charged strike instead. You already have the synergy for light fury going for it, and with just these two skills maxed on the jav tree, cs does enough damage to make you an extremely powerful boss killer.

So basically what I'm saying is - drop multishot, maybe even drop guided in favor of something more useful like freezing arrow, or since yr using a high damage bow go with magic arrow. I haven't ever seen anything immune to both lighting and magic.

And pierce DOES help with lighting fury. If the javelin pierces it releases the 30+ bolts, and then when it hits the next target it releses 30+ more bolts! So you are going to get way more than the listed damage per hit, and many many many more bolts of lighting flying around depending on how many targets the initial javelin pierces and hits.

 

[Wintercount]

You know that those items are REALLY EXPENSIVE?

Yes, I know, it's actually just a dream-setup.

Anyway, I'd drop both multishot and ga and put points into strafe instead. Strafe works both as a crowd killer and a single-target killer.

Has Strafe synergies? Anyway, dumping both multishot and ga leaves me with 40 free points. That means 20 in strafe and 20 in...?

You'll also want a decent pierce with LF, so you'll probably need to place at least 6-10 points in pierce. You may want to use razortail instead of T-God's for the pierce which will help with your bow skills as well as LF. (razortail gives 33% pierce)

When I reach 71% chance of pierce at slvl 10, will I really need the 33% from Razortail?

And also, what merc should I use?

 

[Nidlav]

And pierce DOES help with lighting fury. If the javelin pierces it releases the 30+ bolts, and then when it hits the next target it releses 30+ more bolts! So you are going to get way more than the listed damage per hit, and many many many more bolts of lighting flying around depending on how many targets the initial javelin pierces and hits.

I think you might be referencing my first post with this comment....but I said penetrate doesn't help LF. Pierce is critical to LF's effectiveness as you point out. :]

To Wintercount: No...Strafe has no synergies and I agree that it might be a "better" option than MS....but I'm sure MS could work. I didn't try to move you too far from your original skill choices though. I mean....we may as well just tell you to go for a cookie cutter build altogether. CS is also a good choice, but again, I didn't want to steer you away from the type of build you started with. Throwing in a melee skill greatly changes your selection of equipment too. For example...my comments about SS before would not be true if you went with CS....etc.

As for pierce...more is better....especially with LF. The general guideline is to shoot for 75%....but more is nice. ie....yes....your 71% + Razortail would be effective....but not necessarily needed.

Have we completely confused you yet?

nid

EDIT: As for a merc...it REALLY depends on what skills you end up with and what equipment you'll have. Get that settled first. You won't really need to make any serious choice on a merc until Act 2 NM anyway.

 

[Wintercount]

Have we completely confused you yet?

Yes, you have :scratch:

So. let's say I dump MS for Strafe (I'm actually starting to like this idea). However, I don't want to start using charged strike as I would like my bow to be the killer.
I put 10 points in pierce and I use razortail. I put 10 points in penetrate, only 1 in dodge, evade and 4 in avoid. I pump my valk simultaonusly with the rest of my skills and not afterwards.
Have I got it right?
And also, should I dump GA too? I'm not so reluctant to change from my original skill settings as long as I use either MS or Strafe and the bow still see's most action. And also, I don't like the FA idea (I don't know why, guess I'm spoiled ).

 

[Nidlav]

Okay...so...it sounds like you've decided to go with at least Strafe and LF...with Valk, Penetrate and Pierce. 3 of these 5 skills are lvl 30 skills....so be prepared to "rough it" for a while. I'd say you'll be somewhere in Act 5 normal when you hit lvl 30. At lvl 30...in Act 5....you'll have 33 skill points earned. 10 in the Passive tree (1 in each), 4 in the Jav tree (1 in LF + 3 pre-reqs) and 10 in the Bow tree (7 in Strafe + 3 pre-reqs)....that's 24....leaving you 9 points.

You could save those 9 points so you can pump multiple skills for a while as you lvl....or you could spend them in Critical Strike and/or Penetrate. I don't have any advice on which to choose as my choice would be based on my equipment and how the char is playing. I'd probably try to save them for my main skills....but this is your char. I'd only suggest that you hold off on pumping any of the D/A/E skills beyond the 1 pt pre-req to Valk. As another person suggested here....you may not need more than 1 in those. Also....I've found that the Valk is most critical in Hell difficulty. So if you're looking for one of the skill to "skimp" on until you can earn a lot more points....Valk might be it.

As long as you've got a good idea where you're headed skill-wise you should do fine with most any path. If you're really unsure...just hold the points until you need to do something to advance. Good luck.

nid

 

[retrovamp]

ITEMS:
weapons - Windforce
swap weapons - Titan's Revenge and Stormshield
armor - Tal Rasha's armor
gloves - Laying of hands
helm - Harlequin's Crest
belt - Thundergod's Vigor
boots - War Traveler
amulet - Mara's Kaleidoscope
ring - raven frost
ring - dual leech ring

I have a lvl 84 windforce zon myself, and I found that lacking gear with crushing blow, deadly strike, or even amp damage means that you'll be doing very little damage in hell games with people, in later acts. I've been able to use multishot, but only because I use atma's ammy for the amp damage, and I also maxed critical strike. I'm using gore riders and also Guillaume's face set winged helm for even more crushing blow. My gear setup along with maxing critical strike is better for a pure bowazon.

- The gear you listed would be great for a pure javazon IMO. You'll need to switch to %chance to deal 2x damage items if you want your windforce to be decent in hell games with lots of people.

Also, I made a dexazon, but this didn't help that much. I'm at about 450 dex right now, and I found that for 1.10 it would have been better to pump a little bit more vitality, unless u can get lots of life charms. The crushing blow, critical strike, open wounds, amp dmg etc. is what you really need in 1.10 to do ok damage in hell team games. Laying of hands was what I also used on my zon, but currently I'm trying to boost my crushing blow by crafting Blood Gloves:

Magic Heavy Gloves/Sharkskin Gloves/Vampirebone Gloves
Nef Rune
Perfect Ruby
Any Jewel

> Crushing Blow (5-10)%
(1-3)% Life Stolen Per Hit
+(10-20) To Life

- and you can also spawn 10-20ias with dual leech too.
as you can see, 10% crushing blow gloves with 20ias, and maybe even +2 bow/passive with some leech/dex would be very nice =).

- oh and also if you find that you're lacking attack rating, instead of pumping penetrate you can also use Lava Gout gloves. They have a 2% chance to cast lvl 10 enchant on striking, which doesn't sound that great, because the added fire damage base is only about 27-39, however it also grants you a 101% bonus to your attack rating for 360 seconds (6 min). Pretty nice bonus.

 

[Wintercount]

Looking back, I would've gone for the blessed aim Act II merc instead of the thorns one. That would allow you to cut the Penetrate skill back to 1 and free up tons of skill points.

But, what is this?

 

[retrovamp]

Blessed aim merc doesn't seem like the best option. The truth is, you probably won't even need lava gouts or that many points into penetrate to have decent attack rating. (ex. if you were to use MS and not strafe, the % to hit is usually very low, probably not even close to 70%. but MS is rapid firing, so you will hit monsters enough) It all depends on your gear, and if you feel that you have enough attack rating to be as effective as you want. Perhaps you can hold back on penetrate as one of the last skills u pump, just to see if you will actually need it.

In all my past zon builds, I always kept penetrate to 1 point, and added at most maybe 4-5 points later on if I really was desperate for attack rating. But imo you probably wont need many points into it.

Now that I think of it, if you really want to be a sniper and pick off enemies more efficiently from long range, a might merc would probably be best. If I remember correctly he adds at least 40%ed, but not sure...

 

[Wintercount]

Well, I think it's pretty clear for me now, except for one last question.
Is fire or magic arrow any good? Maybe I could use one of those instead of GA and that would give me three different attacks. I have no experience with those skills and have no idea how good/worthless they are.

 

[slayer37]

Well, I think it's pretty clear for me now, except for one last question.
Is fire or magic arrow any good? Maybe I could use one of those instead of GA and that would give me three different attacks. I have no experience with those skills and have no idea how good/worthless they are.

Fire, cold and magic arrow are good only for bows with high physical damage. Since you plan to use the highest physical damaging bow in the game then MA is definitely a skill to use. Scrap fire/cold arrow since a lot of monsters are immune to it. The only ones immune to magic as far as I can remember are zombies and bosses in Hell.

 

[Wintercount]

Fire, cold and magic arrow are good only for bows with high physical damage. Since you plan to use the highest physical damaging bow in the game then MA is definitely a skill to use. Scrap fire/cold arrow since a lot of monsters are immune to it. The only ones immune to magic as far as I can remember are zombies and bosses in Hell.

So it's worth dumping GA for MA? Just need to be sure.

EDIT: GA adds 95% damage at slvl 20. That's much more than the +19 dmg MA gives at the same level.

 

[slayer37]

So it's worth dumping GA for MA? Just need to be sure.

EDIT: GA adds 95% damage at slvl 20. That's much more than the +19 dmg MA gives at the same level.

Ga still has its uses but not really worth maxing. I used slvl1 GA to kill Hell Ancients. It really took a lot of time and hit/run tactics but it got the job done. IMO, no real easy way to deal with ancients but to hit and run and GA is the best for that since it autoaims.

MA is good not because of the +19 magic damage (it helps :lol: ) it gives but because of the magic conversion of physical damage it grants. It gives you an alternative mode of attack when enemy is PI. Comparing damage will definitely give GA the win over MA but then again enemies that are PI are common unlike MI.