Hardcore Bowazon Questions

[jozipper]

Hardcore Bowazon Questions

Hey all,

Just had a few questions for those of you that have built hardcore bowazons before, although some of you softcore veterans should be able to answer a few of these.

Ok, so I'm going mainly strafe with my left overs either going into multi or freezing arrow.

My skills will look something like this:
Strafe - 20
Valkyrie - 20
Pierce - 20
Penetrate ~ 8 right now
The rest in prereq's, enough for good D/A/E and leftover's in some form of crowd control.

So, here's the questions:
1) Extra points to freezing or multi? I'm thinking freezing for some optimal crowd control when I'm desperate to save my skin. However, from what I read the amount of freeze time doesnt change from skill lvl 1-20 unless it's synergy is maxed, which I won't be doing. Maybe one point freezing and leftovers in multi?

2) How much do you recomend for penetrate? Is a full 20 points necessary or can I get away with less because of all the points going into dex?

3) What's a ballpark to shoot for in Vitality? I know the standard answer is everything thats left. However, that wont work in this situation becuase I'll be playing largely untwinked and unrushed through norm and nm. I can't save up points and just dump them all in Vit at the end. So how about a ballpark, or those of you out there that have similar bowies, why don't you let me know your lvl and total life? That way I can compare and see how I'm doing.

Thanks for any help or suggestions you may have.

 

[phool]

1) pierce is way too high, the skill suffers severely from diminishing returns. No more than 5-6 points in there imo. Now the secret to FA's freeze time is not the skill itself but rather how much cold sources you have on your equipment. Each seperate source adds to the freeze duration. You'll probably have a ravenfrost for starters, if you add perhaps 4 small charms with 2 cold affixes (e.g. 'hibernal sc of winter' or whatever) you should have a freeze time that's actually useful in hell. With cautious play (scouting ahead by firing strafer ahead of you to see if you enter strafe animation or not) and some knocback/slow etc FA should be unecessary and won't do any damage without maxing it and its synergy, as well as dedicating some of your gear to +skills.
2) nothing better to do with it imo. Do get a reasonable critical strike though as well, unless you're using wws. Multi won't be very useful to you ever unless you've got top notch gear (i.e. faith or faith merc).
3) 80-150 vita I'd say, see how you feel about it.

 

[YogiRat]

I agree with Phool, no more than 5-6pts into pierce if you have access to a Razortail, 9pts if you don't. I also agree that FA does not have to be maxed to be an effective secondary skill. It is a huge mana hog when maxed and outside cold damage can more than make up for your lack of skill investment. Still, I'd put 8-10 hard points there. Twenty is too many into Valk, hit the sweet spot (17) and put more points into decoy. The reason why is that a short duration deek is not an effective scouting tool. A strong decoy that suddenly dies when you cast it ahead is a sure sign of trouble. She is a lifesaver and makes your Valk stronger too, 5+points. Phool is right about multi too, untwinked it isn't that good. As for the dodges, that is really open to debate, but I'd do at least 7/4/7.

Go ahead and max penetrate. It won't hurt, particularly if you skimp on dex a bit to boost your vit.

I think you are a little past this, but when I start out I run 1/2/2 on my stats until I get to 50vit, then 1/3/1 until I get the strength I need, 4/1 after that. This is not set in stone though, get your stats anyway you can.:wink3: Go for 1000-1100 life to enter hell and 1500+ by A5.

Hope I helped.

Btw, Witchwild or Harmony.:thumbsup:

 

[yetidiah]

try out a howltusk greathelm, the KB and hit causes monster to flee are great mods to help stay safe.

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

Ok, so I'm going mainly strafe with my left overs either going into multi or freezing arrow.

Sounds lovely. If you're going to get frozen arrow, max it and max it's damage synergy. Nevermind multi if you're going strafe/frozen.

My skills will look something like this:
Strafe - 20
Valkyrie - 20
Pierce - 20
Penetrate ~ 8 right now
The rest in prereq's, enough for good D/A/E and leftover's in some form of crowd control.

I wouldn't go so high on the Valk. I'd instead use a Decoy, Merc and have some cold/knockback on the bow. Get a valk if you think you really need it. Personally I found it wasn't necessary for me. Definitely avoid pushing Pierce that high. Get it into the 60%~70% area and stop there. Penetrate, max that thing. You're not doing anything if you're not hitting and if you're putting points in Vit, and not going nearly all Dex, your AR will be low. Most attack skills here like Strafe offer no AR bonus. Penetrate is the difference between hitting and hitting half the time. Definitely get that baby up.

1) Extra points to freezing or multi? I'm thinking freezing for some optimal crowd control when I'm desperate to save my skin. However, from what I read the amount of freeze time doesnt change from skill lvl 1-20 unless it's synergy is maxed, which I won't be doing. Maybe one point freezing and leftovers in multi?

You already have strafe, if you're going for more control, get Freezing and get it's synergy (the damage one, not freezing one). Fill up on cold charms and a little "Slows enemies by" and knock back gear. You'll find that its plenty control, even with the 2ish second freeze time.

2) How much do you recomend for penetrate? Is a full 20 points necessary or can I get away with less because of all the points going into dex?

I would push it to the top. You're not useful if you cannot hit. And you are HC so there will be some points in Vitality, which means less Dex, which means less AR. Your strafe has zero AR bonus. Think about it. Penetrate is very important.

3) What's a ballpark to shoot for in Vitality? I know the standard answer is everything thats left. However, that wont work in this situation becuase I'll be playing largely untwinked and unrushed through norm and nm. I can't save up points and just dump them all in Vit at the end. So how about a ballpark, or those of you out there that have similar bowies, why don't you let me know your lvl and total life? That way I can compare and see how I'm doing.

Now this is subject to you and how much risk you're willing to take. I would tell you to get 100 in Vit total, for 500ish life, and dump the rest in Dex. Play cautious, play smart. Do more damage, hit more often, and have more fun. If you want to go just enough Dex to use your bow and drop the rest in Vit, that's fine, but you will do less damage and hit way less often with really low AR--it will be a problem in Hell if you make it there, with only 3k AR for example. Shoot for 6k+ AR. Vitality is important early on until you get your tanks (decoy, merc). If you get a large Vitality pool, Decoy copies it when you cast and will be pretty useful. If you go low Vit, Decoy does much since it will die in one hit copying your life. Low Vit, take the Valk. High Vit, you could get by on a Decoy and Merc. It's all about how you want to play. Personally I like seeing 300~400 Dex on a bowazon even in HC.

Note: if you're untwinked, you will want that frozen arrow skill. Otherwise, you'll find it hard to do real damage physically with strafe. Your `magical' stuff will get damage from the skill points. Your physical attack skills require high dex and a high damage bow, or you do pinddle-dink damage (consider 100 damage bow, 100ish dex, and then a 25% damage penalty). It's not much damage. Frozen arrow on the other hand doing well over 2k will shatter faces.

Cheers, :sunny:

 

[jozipper]

Hey guys,

Thanks for all your comments, they have proven to be very helpful so far. It's definetly nice to have a place to ask questions where you know they'll be answered and explained.