Bow...for an assasin

[Ferrous]

Bow...for an assasin

Alright, so I know this sounds difficult, but I'm trying to figure out the best bow for an assassin to use (PvM). I haven't played an Amazon since 1.09, and at that point I had a Buriza so I didn't care about other bows. But now I do.

The two main things to keep in mind is that I'm expecting my assassin to have maxed boost of speed and to have maxed Venom (which adds substantial poison damage). I figure I should have a widowmaker as one item, to handle bosses, and I should get a second bow that has good elemental damage to handle poison immunes and physical immunes. I would want the second bow to also be able to pierce, so I'm looking into finding a razortail to help me out. I anticipate having an Act 2 Cold Merc.

Other gear that I'm considering -

Bramble (for poison damage)
Razortail (for piercing)
Trang's Gloves (for more poison)

I know that this isn't the assassin's forum and all that, but I figure I should come here for bow suggestions.

 

[crawlingdeadman]

top of the line would be faith. a good 2nd place would be harmony imo. for non runewords i'd go with witchwild string or eaglehorn. the perenial favorite of windforce is also a good choice. with my bow druid i used wws for a long time, but replaced it eventually with a blade bow harmony. it's really nice, but ar is a pain in the rear, i'd suggest getting an ITD bow if you can.

 

[Ferrous]

Well, I'm starting to think Hellrack for the elemental damage, "Dream" for the helm, and Widowmaker for the ITD and guided arrow on switch. My only real advantages for physical attack is my attack speed boost from Burst of Speed, and a small defense decrease on the enemy from cloak of shadows. Besides that, and with the physical damage reduction in hell, I don't think using physical damage is the smartest idea, but I may be wrong. As is, I get a speed reduction for using bows since I'm playing an assassin (which, of course also affects my elemental damage)...so hence, I think that going for elemental damage might be a better idea.

 

[crawlingdeadman]

man, dont go with crossbows. you'd be wasting all the speed you gain from bos. since you can only top out at fpa 11 while with bows you can get down to 9 fpa. 2 frames is a lot when you're using a "normal" attack.

since i looked it up anyway i figured i'd post your ias breakpoints from the german calc. keep in mind that ias from bos is different than gear ias and you probably wont need much if any gear ias to hit a desired bp.
[0] wsm bow

Einstellungen 
Charakter Assassin 
Rechte Waffe Schattenbogen / Shadow Bow 
Fertigkeit Standard 
IAS Frames pro Angriff Angriffe pro Sekunde 
0 %15 1.6 
9 % 14 1.7 
18 % 13 1.9 
30 % 12 2 
48 % 11 2.2 
75 % 10 2.5 
125 % 9 2.7

here's for a [0] wsm crossbow

Einstellungen 
Charakter Assassin 
Rechte Waffe Gorgonen-Armbrust / Gorgon Crossbow 
Fertigkeit Standard 
IAS Frames pro Angriff Angriffe pro Sekunde 
0 % 20 1.2 
7 % 19 1.3 
13 % 18 1.3 
20 % 17 1.4 
30 % 16 1.5 
44 % 15 1.6 
63 % 14 1.7 
86 % 13 1.9 
129 % 12 2 
200 % 11 2.2

bah the tables look like crap, but you can see the IAS, FPA, and APS clear enough.

 

[NASE]

Why would you put faith on top? The biggest advantage of faith is the fanat-speed increase. Seen the fact that the assasin is going to use bos, that advantage is gone.
Atleast consider some of the other top end bows. Brand have good damage, deadly strike, good ar boost - exploding arrows, so perhaps getting some fire damage charms - idt and knockback. Wrath has the always usefull ctc Decrepify, problem is a bit low base damage though if this switch is for PI/PI anyway, decrepify can break that immunity. And it has crushing blow, not useless on a low damage build.

If you do go with a crossbow, buriza is a no-brainer if you ask me. It has great speed for a crossbow, 100% pierce - so no need for razortails - good cold damage and freeze. It may be slow though if you use it as a strategic weapon, it may serve you very well. Frozen monsters don't run far.

P.S. have you done the calculation about trangs gloves, or do you just assume that they will give you more damage? IIRC, you can get 20 ias, and +3 skills. Poisons amazons have better damage that way if they use bramble, perhaps assasins do too.
P.P.S. why not use a wand with charges of lower resist on switch? A monster that is PI/PI unbreakable can just be ignored, certainly if you merc can freezes it anyway. And a monster with low res might be killed faster by your merc then you may think.

 

[Ferrous]

Well if I go with bows for non-physical/non-poison oriented damage, then I'm pretty much left with

Wrath
Adds 85-120 Magic Damage (102.5 avg)
Adds 41-240 Lightning Damage (140.5 avg)


Ice
Level 18 Holy Freeze Aura (157.5 avg added to attack)
+25-30% To Cold Skill Damage
-20% To Enemy Cold Resistance


Harmony
Adds 55-160 Lightning Damage (107.5 avg)
Adds 55-160 Fire Damage (107.5 avg)
Adds 55-160 Cold Damage (107.5 avg)

Brand
Fires Explosive Arrows or Bolts (15) (91.5 avg)
100% Chance To Cast Level 18 Bone Spear On Striking


Those aren't exactly high numbers. Hellrack does about 580 average elemental damage, which is about twice the elemental damage of anything else here.


Edit: Interesting idea about the wand, but I hate relying on charges. Thanks for the tip on the gloves, I'll look into it - however, a 25% increase to poison with already 500+ damage from venom is substantial, and ias might not be necessary given the high BoS level. I'll look into it though.

I've thought about Buriza, but the elemental damage on it is not exactly terrific. Also, exploding arrows don't seem to do a whole lot of damage, so I'm a little skeptical about relying on them as a means of elemental damage.

I'll think about the high end physical damage bows...but I'm skeptical. I've never been one to rely on physical damage.

 

[DH Amazon]

My BowAssa uses Kuko (I even upped that). Upped one has high dex req. (around 188 dex?) I have about 300 dex, so its no problem.
Pierce, nice elemental damage and splash-effect. Upped has even nice psysical damage.

Upped wws is not bad either, you never run out of arrows. Can kill all immunes using this one. Shoot magical arrows, so boost ar a little.

I have Widowmaker at stash, but I prefer using kuko. You need mana leech using widowmaker, those other two just use basic attack.

And those quite odd, cta and passion runeword bows are not bad either. But those Jah-runeword bows are of course much better.

 

[NASE]

Wrath
Adds 85-120 Magic Damage (102.5 avg)
Adds 41-240 Lightning Damage (140.5 avg)

You are missing the point about wrath. Wrath has decrepify. IT BREAK PHYSICAL IMMUNITIES. Same goes for wws, amp does that too.
btw, magic damage is unresistable, elemental damage isn't.

P.S. Have you got a look at the life of monsters in hell, monsters regenerate life faster then 580 per 11 frames.

May be not, though 580 per 11 frames is slow as hell.

[edit]
If you are using exploding arrow, you can stack up on fire damage charms. That way you will have an area-of-effect skill. Combine it with high level pierce and you may get over 580 per shot of the monsters are grouped.

 

[Ferrous]

You are missing the point about wrath. Wrath has decrepify. IT BREAK PHYSICAL IMMUNITIES. Same goes for wws, amp does that too.
btw, magic damage is unresistable, elemental damage isn't.

P.S. Have you got a look at the life of monsters in hell, monsters regenerate life faster then 580 per 11 frames.

May be not, though 580 per 11 frames is slow as hell.

For most monsters though, I'll have poison and physical stacked on top of that. Poison will also prevent healing (at least, I think it does).

I've sorta been out of the loop of the abbreviations for a bit, so can someone tell me what "wws" is?

 

[NASE]

wws stand for Witchwild String. A nice little exception bow that offer 40 res, two sockets, ctc amp, fires magic arrows.
http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/exceptional/ubows.shtml

btw, I just checked, you can only get martial art skills on gloves. So trangs it will be.

Yes poison stops regeneration, though you will only use that bow for PI/PI right? So that ain't a valid argument.

[edit]
If you are using exploding arrow, you can stack up on fire damage charms. That way you will have an area-of-effect skill. Combine it with high level pierce and you may get over 580 per shot of the monsters are grouped.

perhaps we should stop editing our post, this is getting complicated.

 

[crawlingdeadman]

Why would you put faith on top? The biggest advantage of faith is the fanat-speed increase. Seen the fact that the assasin is going to use bos, that advantage is gone.
Atleast consider some of the other top end bows. Brand have good damage, deadly strike, good ar boost - exploding arrows, so perhaps getting some fire damage charms - idt and knockback. Wrath has the always usefull ctc Decrepify, problem is a bit low base damage though if this switch is for PI/PI anyway, decrepify can break that immunity. And it has crushing blow, not useless on a low damage build.

If you do go with a crossbow, buriza is a no-brainer if you ask me. It has great speed for a crossbow, 100% pierce - so no need for razortails - good cold damage and freeze. It may be slow though if you use it as a strategic weapon, it may serve you very well. Frozen monsters don't run far.

P.S. have you done the calculation about trangs gloves, or do you just assume that they will give you more damage? IIRC, you can get 20 ias, and +3 skills. Poisons amazons have better damage that way if they use bramble, perhaps assasins do too.
P.P.S. why not use a wand with charges of lower resist on switch? A monster that is PI/PI unbreakable can just be ignored, certainly if you merc can freezes it anyway. And a monster with low res might be killed faster by your merc then you may think.

good points all. i just automatically thought of faith b/c of my druid using minions a lot. if he's going to rely on shadow and a merc then it's still a good choice. it also has fire damage as well (another reason i thought of it).

after reading your post though i'd think wrath is a good choice since it's main drawback (lack of ias) would be countered by the bos use.

i like harmony still though. you get another minion (valk) and also the super cool vigor aura. course if you're going all out with expense on this char there are better choices.

 

[Ferrous]

good points all. i just automatically thought of faith b/c of my druid using minions a lot. if he's going to rely on shadow and a merc then it's still a good choice. it also has fire damage as well (another reason i thought of it).

after reading your post though i'd think wrath is a good choice since it's main drawback (lack of ias) would be countered by the bos use.

i like harmony still though. you get another minion (valk) and also the super cool vigor aura. course if you're going all out with expense on this char there are better choices.

Assuming that I can still cast shadow master with valk....well, that would just be awesome.

Alright, so at the moment it's looking like Wrath, upped Kuko or Brand as the main possibilities, yes?

 

[crawlingdeadman]

i dont see why you wouldnt be able to. i have bear (or wolves), ravens, and a spirit as well as my valk. the only thing is she'll dissappear sometimes like what revives do (heh, harmony has revive charges too, btw.).

 

[Ferrous]

i dont see why you wouldnt be able to. i have bear (or wolves), ravens, and a spirit as well as my valk. the only thing is she'll dissappear sometimes like what revives do (heh, harmony has revive charges too, btw.).

Okay.


After thinking it over, it seems like Brand with Razortail is the best decision. How does that sound to everybody?

 

[YogiRat]

Go ahead and use the Hellrack, provided you put a point into Blade Fury and use it that way. I had an old Furysin that used a Langer Brieser (sp?) with no bolts :laugh: on switch for the MF. It killed very well with it's 6FPS attack speed, almost double the speed of the fastest Xbow/IAS combo and half again as fast as any bow combo.

Don't sell BF short, yes it only does 3/4 damage, (like strafe and multi) but it's one of the fastest attacks in the game. The CTC at this speed is worth the ticket alone.

 

[Ferrous]

Go ahead and use the Hellrack, provided you put a point into Blade Fury and use it that way. I had an old Furysin that used a Langer Brieser (sp?) with no bolts :laugh: on switch for the MF. It killed very well with it's 6FPS attack speed, almost double the speed of the fastest Xbow/IAS combo and half again as fast as any bow combo.

Don't sell BF short, yes it only does 3/4 damage, (like strafe and multi) but it's one of the fastest attacks in the game. The CTC at this speed is worth the ticket alone.

I love Blade Fury, but I'm not really making a Furysin. I'm trying to make an Assassin that legitimately fires arrows.