Just to clear up some possibly misleading advice in this thread, Dexterity increases your damage when using a dagger (or Javelin or Bow), Strength increases your damage with a sword. It's an either/or situation here as you can't have both, just bare this in mind. Also remember that an Amazon weilding a sword has a very slow block recovery (some call this a bug, I prefer to think of it as an idiosyncracy of the build), so having a high levels of Dex can get you into trouble with the fast moving denizens of Hell, my Zon has 66%(?) block and I don't have problems. Make up your AR with charms.
Flayers: Yes, those pesky little buggers can be a problem if you are inexperienced, but they (and all other ranged attackers you will come across) are actually quite easy once you know how. First you need to cast a Decoy ahead of you to divert their fire for long enough to cast Slow Missiles. Once you have done this take it to 'em and show them your War Face (YYYYAAAARRRRGGGHHH!!!!!). Also, a kind of hidden bonus comes with Fortitude in that any missile must first pass the Chilling Armour which means no constant Avoiding issues.
You may want to consider using Passion as your weapon and to become a Palazon. I swear that this weapon was designed especially for Amazons as, unlike any other character class, every single mod is put to use and is actually useful. It gives crowd control in the form of Howl (Hit Causes Flee) and Zeal, a small boost from a Heart of Wolverine, and immunity from Iron Maiden when you use Berserk. I can tell you from extensive experience that an Amazon is more effective with Berserk than a Barbarian (0% Defence means nothing when you have almost 60% Dodge
).
The new runewords have given massive scope to the general Tankazon build in terms of equipment and Mercenary selection (so much so that my guide has been postponed many, many times lol ) as well as enabling the Amazon, for the first time, to have a caster build that is also strong in hand-to-hand combat against immunes. So don't let me dicourage you from using Oath, the HoW and Iron Golem will be extremely useful for you (just don't make eth...)
You have three choices of Mercenary to hire.
A Rogue has Inner Sight which will increase your effective AR by lowering the enemies defences. If you choose a Rogue there is simply no bow choice other than Faith. In my experience the Fanatacism Aura from Faith is not as good as you want it to be, but it still gives a decent bonus.
Blessed Aim is also an extremely useful Merc to hire which will, again, increase your AR. If you choose this Merc you can arm him with Last Wish or Pride for Might or Concentration Auras respectively.
The best merc you can hire, however, in terms of damage output is, of course, the Mighty Merc. Arm him with Pride and you will be doing about as much damage as you ever will when solo. You could also give him Doom which won't actually increase your damage but will slow things down a bit (I have never felt the need but thought I should point out the option).
My Palazon is currently lvl 97 and has used a sword since she found a cracked short sword on the Blood Moor at lvl 2. The only time she doesn't use a sword is on switch where she has Gimmershreds (and Medusa's Gaze) which give a tactical advantage over Physical Immune Mana Burners (like Ghosts) that you can't Berserk.
Sera Braveblade
lvl 97
70% Kira's Guardian (Sheal'd)
1/48/175/35/245 (?) Seraph's Hymn (Highlord is also good if you can make up the +Skills (to get a 5 hit Zeal) elsewhere)
Passion Cryptic Sword (a Scourge is a slightly better option with the inherent 50% ed to Undead but it's soooo fugly)
Fortitude Balrog Skin (before I could afford Fortitude I used both +2 Valour and Duress, CoH is also an option)
Pdiamond Stormshield
Laying of Hands
5% BK Ring
Verdungo (stashing the String of Ears with it's Life Leech was a hard decision, but in the end the +Vit from Verdungo won out)
Carrion Wind (to max Poison Resist and give another cool minion and life leech)
Gore Riders
Annihilus
I play on Asia where runes are prohibitively expensive so my Mighty Merc is wearing Levi, Bonehew and...I forget his helm. Sera was not rushed and played the entire game only skipping cows. This is not a run-kill-run type of build, it requires some tactics in order to be successful, like what I said about the Flayers, but once you figure it out it is most enjoyable. She is also not as low damage as some people tend to think, in a full party recently I had a 6.6k Berserk.
