First time strafer

[Ash Housewares]

First time strafer

making my first strafe zon, really my first zon of 1.10

I'm wondering, whats a good backup attack skill?
I've been toying with magic arrow and it's pretty nifty, would it work well vs. PIs?
-I won't be witchy, probably use WF so no MA bonus from my bow

it's a nifty skill but there are so many better group elemental skills for amazons, but, what would be the most effective considering the lack of synergy?

also, I'm not clear on the magic number for valkyries from what I've read/heard it's 17? but is that hard points into the skill or including +skills?

thanks!

 

[Decebal]

making my first strafe zon, really my first zon of 1.10

I'm wondering, whats a good backup attack skill?
I've been toying with magic arrow and it's pretty nifty, would it work well vs. PIs?
-I won't be witchy, probably use WF so no MA bonus from my bow

it's a nifty skill but there are so many better group elemental skills for amazons, but, what would be the most effective considering the lack of synergy?

also, I'm not clear on the magic number for valkyries from what I've read/heard it's 17? but is that hard points into the skill or including +skills?

thanks!

Hello!

Nice to see tha you are trying some other builds besides FRENZY Barbs. Nice guide btw! :thumbsup:

I use Frozen arrow as backup on my Strafer! I maxeed cold arroe too to give some more punch! It is kind of mana dependent skill but i like the splash damge on it! And to improve your chances of taking down those PI:s Reapers on the merc (might act 2 NM) is very good! Or infinity if u play ladder, though I must admit i never tried it on a strafer! Antoher option is to use Harmony rune word on switch. Cheap an very effective! Make it in a 4 sox, +3 Matriarchal bow!

Valkyrie need to be lev 17 at least (including + skills). At lev 17 Valk gets war pike as weapon! Pierce is important too on strafer! Razortail might save u a lot of point or you can maxe pierce an rely on less pierce. IMO when using WF u should have no problems! Some other players prefer Razortail but I Use Nosferatus coil!

Good tip: - Use enchant charges from demons limb to prebuff. You can have it in your stash. The enchanting last long time!

Hope it helps!

/Dec

 

[Myrakh-2]

Just another first timer here, but here's what I've been doing so far.

Originally I decided to go with Magic Arrow (MA), but I've now decided to instead get a Witchwild String. Currently I have 1 hardpoint in MA as prereq, and a bit from gear (this will get lower, though, since I'll replace the Vipermagi with something else).

My Windforce takes a while to whittle down physical immune bosses in A1 or spectres in Arcane Sanctuary with this low level MA; it works a bit better with Itchies in A2. So I really want to get that Reapers, and the WWS (which I'll upgrade). My *impression* is that MA is viable, but it needs some more skillpoints (hence WWS on switch ) or quite a bit more physical damage than I'm dishing out, and preferably Amp Damage or Decrepify to take care of the "basic" physical immunes, leaving only the hard PIs to the backup skill --- I have't tried the Decrepify yet, though (best case scenario still leaves immune monsters with 90% resists, which means your normal arrows do about the same damage as a lvl 10 MA unless the monster has magic resistance --- but with Decrep I'll be able to Strafe, thus pumping out arrows at insane speed for a lot more damage/time).

Actually, I don't really know whether it's the magic damage from MA, or whether it's really the Valk doing the damage That's a bit I don't really like about the Valk: I have no idea what gear she's wearing, except for the obvious mods (armor color and ctc effects going off) --- and it's changing everytime I recast her, which happens frequently since she's always off on a sightseeing tour when monsters are coming towards me.

As for the Valk... I'm planning to max it. Still having problems with my merc (currently leaving him dead until I get the Reapers, and will try again then), and even if I do get the merc to survive the Valk will still be 50% of my minions --- and the only recastable one, which pretty much makes her a replacement for Gumby, except that she isn't quite that good as tank and has an annoying timer, but at least she does some damage on her own instead.

The "magic number 17" is because that's the level where her weapon is upgraded to a rare war pike (IIRC).

I found Decoy to be useless, but I only spent the 1 point in it to get to Valk, so maybe more would make it useful. Not planning on doing this, though --- if I use Decoy it's mostly to see whether something happens upfront, in which case I'm replacing it with the Valk...
I've also used the Decoy on the nightmare baalruns to possibly buy a "splitsecond" to see where the pack is appearing so I could cast the Valk at the correct place.

And believe it or not, I also like to fire off a Strafe to see if monsters are nearby --- it seems to have an auto-targeting range that extends beyond the visible area. Which is sometimes annoying as well... but I guess with playing time comes playing practice and experience. I've already started to throw freezing arrows between my strafes...

 

[Ash Housewares]

I never quite knew how strafe worked but I played Drunk Cajun's strafezon and really liked the mechanics of the skill so I'm building my own now

the whole frozen arrow thing scares me off because of the synergy needed and high mana cost while magic arrow seems "safe" and requires minimal investment 10-20 points

 

[itsPizzarific]

I never quite knew how strafe worked but I played Drunk Cajun's strafezon and really liked the mechanics of the skill so I'm building my own now

the whole frozen arrow thing scares me off because of the synergy needed and high mana cost while magic arrow seems "safe" and requires minimal investment 10-20 points

strafers arent skill intensive, and can afford the 40 points to max freezing and cold arrow. also, strafe leeches back your mana like crazy, so use it to refill.

20 strafe
20 freezing
20 cold
rest you can distribute in passives however you like. critical strike, penetrate (for ar problems), pierce (lvl 9 total pierce+razortail = guranteed).

magic arrow would also be neat though, yes it will deal with PI's pretty well, especially using windforce. you can also put reapers toll on your merc, the decrep breaks most PI's. it would actually be more efficient than freezing arrow, since the damage isnt godly on freezing, and its not based on weapon damage like magic is. but freezing is a lot more useful in most other places for the erm freezing.

and yes, aim for level 17 valk w/ total, like including +skills.

really up to you. you could also go with freezing, then use wws on the switch for its magic arrow and amp.

 

[Ash Housewares]

40 points is alot if I don't like it, I think for now I'll just put enough points into magic arrow to make it mana free and see how it goes from there

edit - now that I think about it, both fire and cold arrow convert a substantial portion of my physical damage to elemental, double what magic arrow does

how successful could these skills be?

 

[Myrakh-2]

the whole frozen arrow thing scares me off because of the synergy needed and high mana cost while magic arrow seems "safe" and requires minimal investment 10-20 points

Yes, using FA vs. physical immunes (i.e. no leeching) means *tons* of mana pots. I put FA at one point and just use it for the freezing, not for the damage; I also try to get cold damage as secondary mods on charms to up the duration.

The whole idea to strafe for leeching sounds nice in theory, but IMHO it won't work in most cases --- there will be too few non-PIs around, or they'll be dead before the PIs are. Relying on certain monsters being around to kill certain other monsters is always a bad idea.

Besides, a PI/CI combo will be difficult to kill (even if you use a wand with lower resist charges *and* that wand breaks the immunity). PI/MI should be far less common...

 

[itsPizzarific]

fire arrow works very well, i would pick it over cold since cold arrow doesnt splash, just use a cold charm or something and pretend you're using cold arrow (and fire arrow does more damage and looks cooler).

-_-

 

[Decebal]

I never quite knew how strafe worked but I played Drunk Cajun's strafezon and really liked the mechanics of the skill so I'm building my own now

the whole frozen arrow thing scares me off because of the synergy needed and high mana cost while magic arrow seems "safe" and requires minimal investment 10-20 points

Merc using reapers toll + FA and CA as synergy (both maxed) + mana pots! It works nice here without problems! Using FA as backup skill is better than MA imo! Tempresses on your way to Baal go down a lot faster than using MA.

you can aways add elemental sc in your stahs also to increase the elemental damage if you like! Poison, cold, fire, lightning! Take your pick!

/Dec

 

[Ash Housewares]

fire arrow works very well, i would pick it over cold since cold arrow doesnt splash, just use a cold charm or something and pretend you're using cold arrow (and fire arrow does more damage and looks cooler).

-_-

does fire arrow splash? I know exploding arrow does but I've never used fire arrow, that's interesting

 

[itsPizzarific]

no, it doesn't.

kinda like firebolt doesn't splash, but fireball does. =O

still, i would definately use it over exploding if PI's is your main concern, the fire damage from exploding is minimal to say the least..

edit: btw what lvl are you? i made a new bone necro and got him up to 40 through enchant runs/baals. o.0

 

[Ash Housewares]

no, it doesn't.

kinda like firebolt doesn't splash, but fireball does. =O

still, i would definately use it over exploding if PI's is your main concern, the fire damage from exploding is minimal to say the least..

then what the crap were you saying about cold arrow not splashing, fire arrow is sounding better to me, frozen arrow just doesn't sound like the build I want to do, I tried FA zon in 1.10 beta and didn't like it

and you seem awfully cheery/excited decebal, you are churning out exclamation points like mad

edit - lvl19

 

[itsPizzarific]

oh right. o.0 no idea, i think i meant that ..

NVM OMG. just use fire, no more q's.

 

[Dacar92]

then what the crap were you saying about cold arrow not splashing, fire arrow is sounding better to me, frozen arrow just doesn't sound like the build I want to do, I tried FA zon in 1.10 beta and didn't like it

and you seem awfully cheery/excited decebal, you are churning out exclamation points like mad

edit - lvl19

Who is this n00b who has invaded our forum?

Good to see you've found the most fun build in the game.

I always tell people that Frozen Arrow can be an awesome skill for killing. Between that and strafe you can kill everything in the game. High level valk and a well equipped merc (ideas for this are already covered above) and you'll cruise through the game with few problems.

I have a lvl 86 zon using those skills and she is a fun character to play. I maxed FA and strafe and put about 10 in CA for the synergy. She can handle multi player baal runs very well. She can hold her own and contribute to the party.

Good luck!

 

[KeNnY-DK]

I maxed strafe on my build and just slapped a reapers on my merc, ive not met a monster i couldnt kill so far.. but then again i mostly pit run

u should read shanksies pit strafer guide ( covers basicly every area in the game, but point is, he knew what he was doing!) i know u said ur making ur own, but u can learn quite a bit from that guy (may he rest in peace(he aint on the forum anymore ))

 

[YogiRat]

As has been stated, you are going to have a lot of extra skills to play with. Another option would be to make a LF/strafe hybrid, but often this becomes a java build with bow taking the backseat. Or you could pump your passive tree. Big points into pierce will allow you to forgo using a Razortail.High penetrate is great for the AR, chanted or not. Getting d/a/e to 50% (12/7/12) isn't as popular as it used to be but you will have the points to burn.

For PIs I recomend the Harmony RW in -10 speed bow.The elemental damage on this bow is just amazing. You can use Harmony at lvl41 I think. Make it in a Matriarchal. If you don't have the stats yet, a blade bow will do. Stack some elemental damage charms and you will kill PIs with strafe.

 

[Decebal]

and you seem awfully cheery/excited decebal, you are churning out exclamation points like mad

edit - lvl19

Yes I do Ash! (one here for you again)

Concerning the hints for the build! I wrote how I built my strafer and what backup skills i used for strafe! It works for me very good so i just wanted to share my experiences to a "frenzy" barb. Of course there a lot of options to use as backupskill but as Dacar92 said u can kill everything in all acts in hell! You decide what you should do...the choice is yours!

BTW: Dual EBOTD CB rulez

/Dec