Bowazon ready(?), merc's turn...

[pheis]

Bowazon ready(?), merc's turn...

So i finally finished my bowazon and this is how she looks like:

WF 'shael'
Fortitude
Andarie'ls visage '15IAS 8min dmg'
LoH
Nosferatu's coil
Ravenfrost
Rare ring with min+max dmg and resistances
Waterwalks
Cat's eye amulet

Maxed strafe
Maxed penetrate
10 points MS
17 Valk with gear
few points A/D/E
rest in pierce and critical strike

181 Vita
317 dex
Str enough for gear

Any suggestions gearwise? What about charms? I havent got any of those except for some low torch. I'm fairly happy about her gear atm and i havent started on my merc yet. Basicly faith is out of question as im pretty poor, i just managed to get forti on my hands today. I'm doing pits, CS and maybe the occasional cow lvl in hell. I've thought of these 2 options:

1) Might act2 merc with insight.
2) Fire act1 merc with harmony

Now im not sure how much would this might aura boost my damage, i find my killing speed in CS to be little slow sometimes(as in i dont 1hit everything ). Insight's aura seems little waste because i rarely run out of mana. Act2 merc's survivability also worries me because of IM, but that could be solved with low damage insight. However, then i'd probably have hard time keeping him up against diablo... :undecided:

Second option seems better to me. I like to run fast, possibly with elite bow she could even kill something on her own, but whatabout armor and helm? I've never had act1 merc before, but i was thinking something along the lines of 'stone' runeword in eth. Great hauberk or just duriel's shell, maybe even shaftstop if she gets 75 to all resistances anyways. Crown of thieves or something for helmet, im not exactly sure how it works as she is ranged...
Also i know i can take a few hits on my own, but what about her? I don't like to babysit my merc all the time...

 

[crawlingdeadman]

Re: Bowazon ready(?), merc's turn...

if you're not going to use either faith or pride on your merc, nothing beats good old reaper's toll. i recomend an act one cold merc using faith if you can afford it and you're going to be running chaos.

 

[pheis]

Re: Bowazon ready(?), merc's turn...

As i said faith is out of the question and from experiance i can say that reaper's toll is far too deadly for my merc in CS. I simply don't want to ress my merc everytime some frigging oblivion knight decides to cast iron maiden :censored:

 

[chien]

Re: Bowazon ready(?), merc's turn...

As my experience, multi kills faster in choas (I am using faith MB @ fastest BP). When you have multi @ 7frame, most of monsters including OKs will be under hit recovery mode (with razortail+skills for 100% peirce). If you switch to act1 merc without faith bow, you lost the might aura from act2 merc without the compensation from fana aura. I am not really sure 9frame multi will cut (from your IAS=125) or not. But, you might give it a try. I feel insight aura is great for multi as it drains mana pretty fast

Chien

 

[braincrasher]

Re: Bowazon ready(?), merc's turn...

You could increase your damege a lot if you switched Cat´s eye to Atma´s Scarab. Ctc amplify is sweet and it would free you to use any mercenary you want. And no more stress about physical immunes.

 

[pheis]

Re: Bowazon ready(?), merc's turn...

That would put me at 10/2 i think...

 

[chien]

Re: Bowazon ready(?), merc's turn...

Yes.. so, WF is best paired with Faith Act1 merc Otherwise, you will need to sacrifice many gear spots for IAS. Yes, atma is great. My faith zon is using it.

Chien

 

[crawlingdeadman]

trade your fort for a faith for your merc and use another armor (course you'll have to add a bit) or put faith on yourself. i didnt notice you mention that faith was out of your reach and figured since you have fort you must have access to faith as well.

i honestly dont lose my might/reapers toll merc all that often in sanc. it's mostly about running ahead of him and casting decoy next to oknights. you do that and/or run up fast and run back about twice as far back as you ran up. this will make your merc quit attacking and follow you back. when he does this turn back around and fire some volleys. in between a couple volleys you cast decoy behind the "wave" you're firing upon. these two tactics keeps my merc alive most of the time. to do this even remotly safely you really need knock back somewhere (which you have on wf).

another alternative might be the act3 merc with a lawbringer sword. it provides the sanctuary aura and would knock back all the undeads (knights and soul drainers). this option is used by teleporting hammerdins effectively b/c they tele and then knock everything out of the way for the split second they dont have hammers out. i dont know if this would work with a merc that was free range.

if faith isnt an option on your merc i'd go with 1) not running chaos or 2) harmony merc. any merc is better than none. really if you learn to play with him you'll be fine. i usually lose him only once in a while using all the tactics i mentioned. but really quit using insight, you dont need it.

You could increase your damege a lot if you switched Cat´s eye to Atma´s Scarab. Ctc amplify is sweet and it would free you to use any mercenary you want. And no more stress about physical immunes.

horrible suggestion. he needs ias to do well with wf. he's gonna be wanting more, not less. damage will increase as his levels increase. if he's really complaining about not killing everything in one strafe (or volley of mult) then he's gonna have to give up on his zon and make a lamerdin. zons require skill to use well.

 

[pheis]

Re: Bowazon ready(?), merc's turn...

I played around abit with act2 and act1 mercs. I had duriel's and reaper's toll on my a2 merc(no helm, didnt mule yet). He didnt die on OKs at all and definately helped me with 2 PIs that i met, but then diablo... jesus he killed my merc in 1 hit! I had to pot him a couple of times during the run but other than that he was either lucky or OKs simply dont have time to cast that IM on him when im multishotting and strafing them to hell.

After that i grabbed a new merc from act1, game her harmony and duriel's shell too. I I kinda forgot about her completely until i reached the last seal and i noticed that she was still alive. Unfortunately the last seal kinda wiped me so i still havent seen her perform on diablo. However, i definately enjoy vigor aura! I'll post more about her when i see how she does against diablo.

 

[crawlingdeadman]

Re: Bowazon ready(?), merc's turn...

i really am starting to think the key to diablo is to throw dracs on, run around using GA until lifetap procs, then just standing as close to him as a melee character and either strafing or using GA until he goes down. a merc doesnt get close enough to take advantage of the "too close to get hit with the hose" bug, but if you do it big D should focus on you. with a high attack speed and good enough ar (or using GA) you can pretend to be a zealot and just tank him.

 

[chien]

Re: Bowazon ready(?), merc's turn...

My experience is that the key to prevent OKs from casting IM is to hit them hard and fast as quick as possible (of course, decoy is useful as well). Even with all that, sometimes, the merc will die anyway but not too often.

For BigD, the amp is triggered pretty fast (with strafe using Atam) and most of time, I kill him first before he can kill my merc (just keep him busy with valk/decoy ).

Chien

 

[pheis]

Re: Bowazon ready(?), merc's turn...

Ah well apparently even my harmony rogue merc that was so awesome at staying alive in CS got toasted by Diablo himself. I'll stick with her for now. I'll probably run CS and Pits faster anyways because of vigor aura, in CS might is kinda nice as mobs die little faster but in Pits i can hardly notice the difference. Those PIs still bother me tho, but until i get faith i guess ill just have to deal with them.

 

[crawlingdeadman]

Re: Bowazon ready(?), merc's turn...

what do you use on switch? good pi solutions include a prebuff of demon limb enchant charges, harmony (good ele damage), and witchwild string.

 

[pheis]

Re: Bowazon ready(?), merc's turn...

Ah yes WWS has that amp damage proc, that's awesome! Thanks for the tip.

 

[Virility]

Re: Bowazon ready(?), merc's turn...

Hmm, I would like to hear about your take on the merc. I tried several setups with windforce with and without faith merc. I ultimately settled on a might merc wielding either Reapers and eventually Pride. Diablo ignores the Valk, goes right for the merc with me a very close second. I found best success with D using atma's. If the proc fired with in the first series of strafes then the merc had a better than half chance to survive. If the proc did not go off then I was rezzing the merc.

Baal was much different, the act 1 merc did not cut it no matter what I used. A2 merc and valk with decoy always next to Baal held it on place for the kill. It was a very predictable fight.