Bow assassin help

[netmc]

Bow assassin help

I had stopped playing d2 for a while, and started again when the new ladder season started.

I created a zon strafer to create an item fund for my bow assassin. I now have a angelic ammy and ring for the huge AR boost. I also had the best rare circlet drop in normal off of eld. A rare visionary(+1% AR per clv) circlet with some resists and mana/level.

The only question now is where to put skills. I have traditionally maxed SM and venom with a couple points in BoS and lit sentry.

I was thinking of saving those skill points in venom by using the new 1.11 rune word for the assassin. (chance to case lvl 15 venom) and the harmony rune word for some nice elemental damage.

I am only lacking a Ko and a Lem rune to make both rune words.

Any suggestions/comments? I know this isn't end game gear, but the way I play, it will be a while before I get to hell baal.

Are these rune possible to come by, or am I just wasting my time?

My strafer is level 56 right now and running minor nm uniques pretty quickly (I think) Andy, Countess, Trav, Eld, Shenk...

I plan on putting the saved skill points from venom into lit sentry and its synergies... not to metion having the extra tank from the +to valk..

Thanks

 

[Noumenon]

Sounds like an interesting idea.

Care to explain some about how you're building it? I've been searching for a nice new build.

 

[netmc]

Bow Assassin Tips

In 1.09 and 1.10, my bow assassin was my favorite char. There is just something about using bows...

One of the reasons I like the assassin so much is that she gets her own recastable killing machine, the Shadow Master. The second is Burst of Speed. She can reach a very fast firing rate with a fast bow, and a couple points in BoS w/o sacrificing a lot of items towards IAS. The downside is that she gets no AR bonus from skills, which means she has to pump a lot of points into DEX to get a decent chance to hit.

There are 2 routes to go. First, get a bow that fires explosive arrows/bolts. The explosive arrows are auto-hit. No AR needed. (A guided arrow bow works even better.)

The second route is to load up on DEX. Since I only play hardcore, this makes it a bit trickier since you need to have more VIT.

(I go the second route)

There are a few tricks that make this much simpler.

1) Use Angic ammy/ring combo. The ring gets a +12 AR per clvl bonus when worn with another set item. The ammy is the most logical since you get a +75 to life bonus when wore with another set item. (And +10 DEX as a partial set bonus.)

2) Use Sanders' Boots. +100 AR, +5 STR, +10 DEX, 40% faster walk. Although lacking in resistances, the other stats make this the nicest boots available for a bow assassin.

3) Use a visionary helm. The helm gives a 1% AR bonus per clvl. If you take the bonus of the angelic ring and sanders boots, and natural dex, adding a percentage bonus on top of that is just awesome.

At level 18, my bow assassin has 50 STR, 55 DEX, and 40 VIT--262 AR and 144 life. With angelic ring/ammy combo I end up with an additional 266 AR (216 from ring bonus and 50 from DEX bonus) and +75 to life (239 total) Add a visionary helm, and that adds (at level 18-- +18%AR ) an additional 95 AR.

When using the venom skill, poison duration is .4 seconds which is only 10 frames. That speed is easily reachable with a fast bow and only using a couple of points in BoS.

With the new rune assassin rune word having a chance to cast level 15 venom, I figured I could put those points in a synergy for lit sentry instead (+12% per synergy point). Going with level 15 vs level 20 venom, you lose about 100 poison damage over .4 seconds, but I figure it is worth is to be able to add an additional 21 points to lit sentry synergies. (252% lit damage)

With using the Harmony rune word, you also get another tank--a level 2-6 valk.

Hence, you'll have 1 Shadow Master(level 20), 1 Valkerie(level 2-6), and 1 merc for meat shields to keep everyone away from you. You can now pick off creatures at your leasure.


Skill points

20 Shadow Master
5 pre-reqs
1-10 Burst of Speed (Whatever need to get proper bow breakpoint)
20 lit sentry
20 death sentry
3 pre-reqs

Finished build at around mid level 60's to low 70's.

Add additional skill points into lit sentry synergies.



Hopefully, you have a high damage bow. With harmony you get:

+200-275% Enhanced Damage (varies)
+9 To Minimum Damage
+9 To Maximum Damage
Adds 55-160 Lightning Damage
Adds 55-160 Fire Damage
Adds 55-160 Cold Damage

plus some additional bonuses.

You have massive lit damage from lit. sentry, and about 350 poison damage.

Between all the different types of damage, you shouldn't run into any immune monsters you can't handle.

Lightning immune monsters will be take the longest, since most of your damage will be from lit traps, but you should still be doing about 600-700 damage per arrow/bolt every 10 frames, in addition to anything your merc and SM are doing.

Souls are probably the hardest thing to kill since they are normally lit immune, and lit pierces your meat shields to hit you. I wouldn't really worry about any resists except for lit. All the others should be blocked by your meat shields and never reach you.

Hope that gives you some ideas on making a bow assassin.

BTW, I don't play PvP, so all this is for PvM only.

 

[JanusJones]

I don't know how this hasn't been mentioned yet . . .

WIDOWMAKER!!!!!!!

Ward Bow
Ladder Only
+150-200% Enhanced Damage
33% Deadly Strike
Ignore Target's Defense
Fires Slvl 11 Magic Arrows
+3-5 To Guided Arrow

Guided arrow + ITD = no AR necessary in PvM. Which means very little DEX investment and a lot of open equipment slots.

As for the new Zon armor, it's a neat idea - consider this, however - put it on your Merc! That frees up your own selection for something a little more useful - say, perhaps, Enigma? Teleport on a bow-assassin seems like a good idea to me . . . nothing like being able to flee a bad situation.

 

[BowMama]

...or Fortitude? Eni is nice but the huge damage bonus from Forti is more usefull for a bowasin. Instead of tp-ing away in panic, kill the monsta quickly.
Widowmaker is nice, really. Only prob is, I could get a Faith bow in 1.10 relatively easy (way better than Wmaker for most) but never a Widomaker, its so rare or so popular... Or I was unlucky.

 

[Quietus]

...When using the venom skill, poison duration is .4 seconds which is only 10 frames. That speed is easily reachable with a fast bow and only using a couple of points in BoS.

It might be worth pointing out that the Fade on .. treachery, was it? Will overwrite your burst of speed. It's only a 5% chance when struck, so it might be not too much of a problem, but if it DOES go off, bye-bye BoS.

 

[netmc]

I purposely didn't look at the high end rune words when figuring out my build. The highest rune I've ever had was an UM rune from hell forge. I am a casual player... maybe 1-2hrs a day, 1-3 days a week. I would love to have only one of those high end runes for fortitude, or enigma, or any of those very high end rune words, but alas...

Anyways, I'm not worried about the 5% fade going off. I'm not planning on being hit at all, but if I am, I would much rather have fade go off (since my resists will probably be negative and a small DR reduction) to hopefully keep me alive long enough to get away.

As far as AR, isn't it true that some of the monsters ignore ITD, and you DO need AR to hit them?

Also, I was just thinking, since I play only on hardcore, with all that AR, wouldn't there be some occasion to have a nice javalin/SHIELD on switch? With all the AR, I would still have a good chance to hit no matter what weapon I wanted to use...

 

[BIGeyedBUG]

As far as AR, isn't it true that some of the monsters ignore ITD, and you DO need AR to hit them?

It's definitely true. The code seems to have changed from 1.1 to 1.11 though, so it's not completely certain yet which monsters are immune to ITD. Myriddin's initial take was that now all uniques are immune, but not champs or minions.

(AR can still be slightly important even in ITD situations too, as even if defence is ignored there is still a level comparison in the CTH equation. Not much of a factor though, except maybe if you enter high area level places in Hell like the Pit (85) at a relatively low level yourself.)

Also, I was just thinking, since I play only on hardcore, with all that AR, wouldn't there be some occasion to have a nice javalin/SHIELD on switch? With all the AR, I would still have a good chance to hit no matter what weapon I wanted to use...

Sure, Assassins can do very well with thrown weapons, and a shield is great for hc. She won't be quite as much a "Bow Assassin" though.