Help with Pure cow killer ama

[UberB]

Help with Pure cow killer ama

Hi all, I want to make a Zon purely for cow running. She should be able to kill hell cows in 8 player games. This is what I figure at the moment, please comment if I am right and tell me what I should do differently.

Skills:
20 lightning fury (duh)
20 charged strike (for the stragglers)
20 lightning strike (if the cows just won't get together)
Enough in pierce for 100% pierce with razortail

Do I need a valk? Decoy? D/A/E? If not then I'll put extra points into LF synergies, that way CS and LS get better too.

Stats:
Strength for gear
Dex for max block
Rest in vit

Gear
Griffon's Eye
Titan's Revenge
Stormshield (so I can tank cows long enough to pick up items)
Rare +2 jav skills glove (I see everyone using this, are these the best?)
Razortail
Raven Frost (for the occasional Cold Enchanted/Holy Freeze cow)
Other ring: bk? soj? rare with resists?
Silkweaves
Ammy: Mara's? Cat's eye? Highlord's? Crescent moon?
Armor: Arkaine's Valor (again, I see everyone using these, are these the best? Do +2 skills beat the 15% Lightning damage on Ormus's?)

Inventory
Torch, 1 jav gc (found this by coincidence, not going to use more because it's pvm and need room to pick up good stuff :grin

So, can anyone offer help, particularly on the armor, ammy, and skill setup?

EDIT: forgot about mercs lol

Merc

Are they helpful? Do they interfere with herding? If yes then I'll forget about one. If they help with herding, I think Defiance merc would be the best.

I noticed mercs died a lot in the cow level, I think this is because with all those cows swinging at you the mercs are put into hit recovery again and again which stops them from leeching well. So the solution would be to go mass defense, right?

Gaze
Insight
Eth Stone

That should be enough, assuming they are even useful at all. Are they?

 

[mephiztophelez]

Re: Help with Pure cow killer ama

err, i wouldn't use an arkaines myself. maybe an enigma or a CoH or a Treachery?

i'd put one point into Valk and only one into Pierce (let +skills boost it). 100% pierce isn't totally necessary (and your belt will provide a lot of it). pump all other points to lit synergies.

as for ammy, if you need IAS on your ammy, use the highlords/cats-eye, if you don't need ias, go with the mara's (if you have one) or some rare with +skills and resis.

 

[BlushNine]

Re: Help with Pure cow killer ama

I always like to suggest getting the Valk skill for any Amazon, only because even at 1 pt it's utilitarian benefits outweigh the cost of that potential 1 point spent anywhere else, as is the pre-requisite Decoy. The cost of not having it in your arsenal is not having an instantly cast-able emergency tank. In general, and on the Moo Moo Farm in particular, I find it easier not to have my Valk out walking about. You tend to split the crowd up between her and your Amazon. LF works more conveniently having them all in one place. But Valk really shines if you have decent levels in it and run into a Lightning Immune Boss. Pop her out, let her tank while you run out of range and then when she reappears unsummon, continue your Bovine genocide. Or if you like kill him. Personal play style really.

If you're only doing Cows and you're experienced at dodging them, Hell Bovine are slow enough that you can get by somewhat without DAE. I wouldn't recommend skipping them though. Definitely would not spend more than 1 pt in each either, as higher DAE cause you to duck too often and will prevent you from actually throwing LF. Like Valk, you get such a great return for the 3 points spent here, 1 in each. +skill items such as your Titan's and gloves will be enough to bring them up enough that it will allow you to survive a short brush with a small pack toe to toe. Useful when you don't want to expend the Javelin stack throwing LF on a few stragglers. CS the 2 or 3 that are half dead.

100% pierce isn't totally necessary (and your belt will provide a lot of it). pump all other points to lit synergies.

I half agree with this. Note that Razortail will give you 33%. 100% Pierce isn't totally necessary but I remember someone showing a statistical chart between the difference of 80-90% Pierce and it convinced me Pierce was something I really did want to have pinned at 100%. Anyone have that reference handy?

 

[UberB]

Re: Help with Pure cow killer ama

Yeah, I'm really curious on how Pierce works with Lightning fury. If not Arkaine's then what? Enigma and Coh are way out of my budget. Currently I use an Ormus's but how is Treachery better than that? I don't think the IAS and FHR beat the damage from Ormus's but go ahead and prove me wrong lol. I thought Cat's Eye would be good for the FRW because I don't think I need the skills from the Mara's. Currently I'm using a spirit instead of a SS and a garbage ammy and I'm cutting up the cow like butter, half of them die from the first fury. This is from /players1 though. And is a merc worthwhile?

 

[BlushNine]

Re: Help with Pure cow killer ama

Pierce works wonders on LF. Everytime your wooden Java hits a target LF splits all its bolts. Everytime it Pierces and hits another cow it splits all its bolts. As you can imagine you line up 10 cows and Pierce 100% its like you threw 10 Javas each splitting only you threw 1 Java. This used to be a problem back in a really old patch version where it showed each split and too many bolts spammed the video, so Blizzard modified the way they look on your screen in one of their patches. They condensed all the lightning bolts if they are really close and just calculate them in big lump sums. But damn it used to look even more awesome back then.

In Cows it's kinda dicey to have an escort with your LF-Zon for the reason I stated above with Valk. It splits them up as well as you need to keep an eye on them incase they stray. And do you really need anything else? Seriously. Like you said, you're slicing through them like butter. You need the butter melted too? If you really want a companion get something that deals with Lightning Immune random cow bosses maybe, though thats also kinda dicey. A nice thing about LF-Zons on the cow prairie is that its pretty hard to kill the Cow King and he's always LI.

I would choose +skill items over most other attributes since thats what will increase LF damage. The only place I would not is a 4sock shield with facets. . But hush you didn't hear that from me. For when you get the budget for the facets...

Don't worry. You will still slice them like butter in P8. You'll just have a few more random half deads.

 

[UberB]

Re: Help with Pure cow killer ama

When I was using a Spirit instead of a SS I was killing the cows but didn't have any time to pick up the items. I couldn't tank the cows. It was kind of funny though, running all over the Moo Moo Farm and switching from killing cows to get items to just straight killing cows. You are right about the merc, if he does not help with herding then I won't bother with him.

What I still confused at:
Pierce: 100% worth it? I do have the skill points, the synergies only give 1% extra LF damage, why not?
Armor: Arkaine's is good? What about Ormus? Treachery? Why?

 

[KremBanan]

Re: Help with Pure cow killer ama

Enigma and Coh are way out of my budget.

Gear
Griffon's Eye

Are you on a budget or not?

 

[thefranklin]

Re: Help with Pure cow killer ama

If you are on bnet, you are going to have to axe the torch.

For the armor, I plan to socket a bunch of 4/5's in a jewelers armor of + life (shoppable, only found a +35 so far). My thought is that spirit (or stormshield, but I can take a few hits so I don't use it) is better than the armor I would wear. This thinking comes because spirit and not 5/5 lite facets are cheap, yet coh/enigma are expensive.

By going the quad faceted armor, I will be able to pull the cows down to just 5% light resis (from 50), so my damage to cows from lf will almost be the value you see on the screen (2400+), whereas if you just had griffons the dtc would be 1600, and if you had neither of them it would be 1200.

 

[UberB]

Re: Help with Pure cow killer ama

Heh, I should say I paid an arm and a leg for the Griffon's, and now I'm out of runes.

 

[KremBanan]

Re: Help with Pure cow killer ama

My suggestion is to focus on +skills, Mana After Each Kill(maek) and FRW.

Helm: Griffon 1sk/-res/+lightdam: sox with a 15ias/3maek jewel
Shield: Lidless 5maek/1skill sox: 15/3
Gloves: +3javask/10ias
Belt: Razortail
Rings: 2x SoJ or BK (if you can afford) +2sk/mana/life
Weapon: Non-eth Titans +4sk/30frw/
Boots: Silkweaves 5maek/mana/30frw
Amulet: Crafted +2sk/frw or rare/crafted +2skill/mana or Cats Eye 30frw
Armor: Que Hagens +1sk/3maek sox 15/3 jewel or Ormus :15/3 Peace rw +2skill or Arkaines +2sk :15/3
Torch: +3sk (any torch will do) high resists is preffered
Anni: +1sk (any will do) high resists is preffered
Other charms: Skillers are ofc preffered, especially with 7frw, but those can be expensive. 3frw scs with adds like mana and resists.

Without charms you will have about this:
~ +17skills
~20-22 maek
~60-90 frw (boost this with charms)


For pure Cowrunning, you dont need a merc, as it will mess up the herding of cows. You will want to gather them in nice large groups(here the frw comes in hand).
I didnt list a Ravenfrost, for pure cows you can get along without one. But if you like, you can ofc use one.
You can get away with all points in LF/CS and their synergies(1pt in pierce ofc). That means no Valk, no Decoy, no DEA. If you aint comfortable with the thought, you can put 1pt in DEA and Decoy. Valk still isnt really needed, as she also interfer with the herding.

For upgrades in the equipment, my goal would be to get Enigma, it got +2skills and the 45frw is just lovely for cows.