Bowazon Bozo?

Bowazon Bozo?

Thanks to all here, I'm scooting along with my CL/FO Sorceress. You guys are great, inspirational and helpful.

Now, there's one question -- as I do have Attention Deficit Disorder (or whatever) I like to keep several going. I've always wanted to do a Bowazon, but haven't really done it because I hear they are worthless in 1.10. I figure if anybody knows, it'd be the good folks of this forum.

So, any experience with Women Who Love Bows?

Suggestions?

Thanks so much!!


BuddhaMind

 

I've played several amazons using the physical damage bow skills. To be quite honest, they do not come close to other good characters when it comes to killing things. You can beat the game with them but don't expect wonders from them. The 3/4 weapon damage penalty really hurts strafe and the 5% ED you gain for each skill point is truly pathetic. Personally I would recommend to put 20 points in LF as a backup skill so you have something to kill with if you're not happy with bows.

 

I love my strafer, she is my sole MF'er at the moment. She takes her Windforce and ~475 MF into the Pits, Ancient Tunnels, Sewers 2, RoF, Eldritch, Pindle, and WSK for one gigantic run.

She uses might merc. Only way to go, gotta have that Reapers! I have found Multishot is sooo much fun too. Bowazons are tons of fun, we had a character elimination thread where we did a community ranking on which builds we enjoyed, and the Bowazon was the first place!

 

I just started an HC strafer the other day and must say that I've enjoyed playing her very much. She's not a powerhouse by any means, but can hold her own with the help of Valk and Merc.

I finally got to Act II NM and got my might merc so I will have to see how she handles it now.

I'm hoping she goes to Guardian status, but we'll see.

Overall Bowazons are a blast!

 

I agree. A ton of fun and good mfers aswell. Mines a ms witchyzon with a might merc packin' reapers and she does p8 pits and p3 wsk at a good rate. Not an overpowering character but solid and efficient. With a lvl 20 valk, she can survive anything.

 

I'm currently playing a Frostmaiden, and she is a blast. That's maxed Frozen arrow and maxed synergy cold arrow (i think, whichever one increases damage, and not frozen length) a couple points in mult-arrow helps early on in the game, but strafe ends up being more fun to me for a secondary skill (i sort of use it defensively, because it will always show you what direction more monsters are coming from, even if you cant see them yet) Untwinked, you are going to go through quite a bit of mana pots all the time, until you can find a good bit of mana leech and a bow that does a good bit of physical damage.

She does quite a bit of damage IMO, and kills mobs like nobody's business. I played n and nm on p8 and it wasnt slow going, im playing hell on p3 and its slower due to the cold immunes. I've been playing around with different ways to deal with CI's, so thats kinda fun too.

So, as you can tell, my suggestion is a Frost Maiden!

 

I have several bowazons. They can't rival a Bliz sorc or a Hammerdin in terms of pure uberness. But they are certainly viable and can kill quite quickly in Hell. The best gear certainly helps in this regard, but it is by no means required to have a Windforce to make one viable.

My reccomendation for a pure Bowazon would be to have one physical damage skill (strafe is excellent) and one elemental backup skill for PIs. Cold or fire damage are both viable - take your pick. If you concentrate on physcial damage, then get either a Might merc or a HF merc. Personally i went with Might for my Strafer and found it to be a good fit.

 

Well i just restarted d2 and so far ihave a lvl 38 Freez/Strafer and she is doing quite well at this point(100 piercing attack woot)(thanks to razortail/koku shakanu(whatever its clled) Shes a freakin blast and is absoluteley destroying everythin in act 5 p8 make a strafer you wont regret it.

 

Strafers are only fun if have some decent gear, ie. bow. Once you reach part of hell you will hit the wall without a decent bow. So depending on if you are twinking or not, you may have to park her temporarily or play with extreme patience. You could also go the LF route as previously mentioned. Sounds like you will have a decent bow though. Good luck!

Cheers K

 

an upped WWS is all you need. personally i love bowazons, its kind of funny because i have never really considered them underpowered because they are very easy to play and generally do decent damage.

 

i have an OT question, but i saw you mentioning WWS
im puzzled, and dont know what to socket it with...
what would be the best option?

 

my strafer uses upped riphook (I know someone will say it is waste of runes, but, I'm happy with it), hardly deal great amount of damage (900ish max damage after might merc and include small amount of element damage from charms/gear). But she is very safe, and can handle hell pretty well.

I found she could handle P3 at hell (just take two to three times longer to kill things).

 

your playing a slowazon deathmaster?

 

Slowazon? I wouldn't call my zon slow. Yes, she is a little slow compare to WF zon who put a lot of points into Dex. However, my full Vit zon using lower damage weapon can kill normal monster in few arrows. Since she can shoot "10" arrows (only cost one real arrow) per attack, it adds up pretty quick. and between knock back ability, decoy, valky, and merc, there isn't much danger either.

 

no no silly i dont say your zon is slow

a slowazon is a build that uses alot of slow gear to slow monsters down to a crawl, While not as fast killers as wf strafezons etc they are very very safe

 

Oh, that slowazon. then the answer is no. I rarely use slow missile after passing half way NM. after certain level, I found knock back and keep shooting will keep monsters at bay, in fact many of them won't even see my zon on same screen, strafer has this advantage to take out the enemy automaticly (auto aim) and before they can walk within screen and half.

 

lol not slow missile slow gear like your riphook it has 30% slow

slap on a Blackhorn's Face for another 20% and add Cleglaw's Pincers for another 25%+ knock back apply with strafe and laught at the monsters

ohh and give your merc a kelpie snare so you both apply 75% slow to the monsters. very safe build as far as i know

 

Er -- while I know it's a good opportunity to discuss existing builds and strange, exotic weapons, etc, may I bump this back in line with the original topic/question?

Is a bowazon playable untwinked on 1.10, by your experience, or, given these postings, do you have to twink with rare and exotic items?


BuddhaMind

 

I have a Magic Arrow Bowazon who I really enjoyed playing. She was strong up until Hell, when I had to twink her pretty heavily, but she still kept on truckin'.

At the moment, she is stuck on Hell Ancients, and I don't know if I'm even going to try to get her past them (left her there a couple of months ago). But up till that point, it was a very fun build, and the Valkyrie is such a tank, its worth it just to see what a bad*** she is.

 

buddhaMind bowazons can beat hell untwinked hey after i made the sniperzon guide johnnybravo made a MA only bowazon and finished hell:thumbsup: his guide is in the strategy compendium

of course you might want a more normal zon

seriously strafe zons and FA zons can be played untwinked without to much hassle. Just remember that the zons are not hammardins and you should be fine.

of course there are other vaible builds untwinked for bowazons just look around alittle.

btw zons are great partners in mp games. i promise those melee chars will love any zon that take care of oks for them