Bowazone advice

I started playing as a

Nova Sorceress and have farmed some currency (

Jah rune and a few smaller ones). I'm planning to invest everything into a Bowazon (Faith) build. Do you think this character can comfortably farm the

Chaos Sanctuary (1ppl) without an expensive setup with runes in the inventory? I love the bow feel / gameplay, but it looks like that all tier list rate Bowazones really low.

Thanks in advance for your answers!

As a general note, tier lists are typically relative rankings, not absolute descriptors of capabilities.
I.e. if a bowzon is ranked as B (or whatever they have her as), that generally means "regardless of what she can or can't do, she's just nowhere near a hdin/javazon/200nova/whatever". It does not mean "she B, she so bad she can't kill anything!". Also, all of those lists should be taken with a (massive) grain of salt, if bothered with at all.

More specifically, a bowzon can very comfortably handle P1 CS in largely budget gear and with no charms and such added. Case and point, my ladder zon did just that for the past few days with a Faith matri and budget everything else, alongside a crap torch, crap anni and no other charms (before then getting randomly insta-geared by a value drop ^^). You obviously won't be anywhere near as fast as a properly geared meta build (or a fully stacked bowzon for that matter) but you do just fine and still get through at decent speed and in (subjectively) a much more enjoyable fashion.
(Note: This applies to

Strafe, multi and a combination of both - it just all works)

Do note that Faith is optional. You can do the same thing even with a far lower budget using

Windforce. Only reason I opted for Faith on her was because my main zon (NL) is already using the "slower but harder hitting" WF approach (and she always will).

You caaaaaaaan actually do the same thing with a Hustle matri bow as well though at that point it does still take what I would describe as excruciatingly long so at that stage, I for one still opted for pits over CS. Though since you're starting off with your

Nova sorc and already a solid budget stacked up, that won't affect you.

Personally, I actually just replaced said ladder Faith zon with a sin now as I just much prefer WF (and didn't want a 2nd zon doing the same thing as the NL one) but either works just fine, with or without otherwise stacked gear or charms.

I have a Grand Matron Faith Bow

Strafe Amazon. What I have is GMB Faith, Hustle armor,

Giant Skull, +2 Amazon skill neck / Mara,

Raven Frost, one rare ring with +5% mana leech,

Laying of Hands,

Nosferatu's Coil,

Aldur's Advance. The offhand is CTA + Spirit. The Grand charms are +1 passive life skillers and The

Bone Break. The small charms are just crap ones, 3 / 20 / 20 are jsut too expensive. The last 2 are Anni + Torch.
The merc is Act 1 rogue with Matriarchal Mist Bow, Hustle armor and Cure

Helm.
1 pp

Chaos Sanctuary run is just too easy. Maybe not the fastest clearing speed, but it's really fun seeing those knights getting knocked back and die.

Letradanel wrote: 8 months ago

I started playing as a

Nova Sorceress and have farmed some currency (

Jah rune and a few smaller ones). I'm planning to invest everything into a Bowazon (Faith) build. Do you think this character can comfortably farm the

Chaos Sanctuary (1ppl) without an expensive setup with runes in the inventory? I love the bow feel / gameplay, but it looks like that all tier list rate Bowazones really low.

Thanks in advance for your answers!

Added to what Schnorki said regarding budget gear, I've easily cleared CS and dropped Diablo with an upped

Witchwild String strafezon in under 5 minutes.

Thank you so much for your answers! Already working on my Bowazone

Leveling a bowazon is amazing. I have a dex only bowazon with

Windforce. To level it, I used

Raven Claw,

Kuko Shakaku and then

Lycander's Aim. I did not have any problems and afair CS hell was no problem with

Lycander's Aim. Only Diablo himself needs a bit of movement.

Verband wrote: 8 months ago

Leveling a bowazon is amazing. I have a dex only bowazon with

Windforce. To level it, I used

Raven Claw,

Kuko Shakaku and then

Lycander's Aim. I did not have any problems and afair CS hell was no problem with that bow. Only Diablo himself needs a bit of movement.

Can't help but agree. They do tend to be among the most fun classes/builds to level imo.

Verband wrote: 8 months ago

Leveling a bowazon is amazing. I have a dex only bowazon with

Windforce. To level it, I used

Raven Claw,

Kuko Shakaku and then

Lycander's Aim. I did not have any problems and afair CS hell was no problem with

Lycander's Aim. Only Diablo himself needs a bit of movement.

Here's how

Witchwild String fared with Diablo.

Nice. That

Magic Arrow Binding on right mouse confuses me though. Why not auto shot?

I made a

Freezing Arrow (here is a guide: https://maxroll.gg/d2/guides/freezing-a ... azon-guide). It's fantastic for

Chaos Sanctuary. Damage and survivability were no issues. I think the 'problem' (if you view it as such) is that the kill speed is noticeably lower (versus decked out Hammerdin for example). Otherwise I recommend it very strong and fun!

Bow amazon will do fine with plenty of budget gear during levelling and if you ever grow tired of it, Faith on an act 1 Merc is great. (Well, everything except for her ai).

It's kinda like having

Blood Raven follow you everywhere.

Letradanel wrote: 8 months ago

I started playing as a

Nova Sorceress and have farmed some currency (

Jah rune and a few smaller ones). I'm planning to invest everything into a Bowazon (Faith) build. Do you think this character can comfortably farm the

Chaos Sanctuary (1ppl) without an expensive setup with runes in the inventory? I love the bow feel / gameplay, but it looks like that all tier list rate Bowazones really low.

Thanks in advance for your answers!

Verband wrote: 8 months ago

Nice. That

Magic Arrow Binding on right mouse confuses me though. Why not auto shot?

He didn't make this vid i believe.

Myself, i had left mouse set as normal attack and RMB as

Decoy with the skills hotkeyed to both buttons

LMB default to Normal attack for the Free L20

Magic Arrow using WWS, F1 / F2 to FA &

Strafe.
RMB default to

Decoy, F3 / F4 to

Slow Missiles and valk.

Next i set F1 - F4 to keys on my KB.

Only using mouse to move and target, & KB to execute the attacks.

Verband wrote: 8 months ago

Nice. That

Magic Arrow Binding on right mouse confuses me though. Why not auto shot?

I didn't actually use

Magic Arrow with the build. I placed on the right mouse as a backup that I didn't need because

Amplify Damage took care of all physical immune. The build was relatively new and at the time I made the Chaos run video it was at level 78.

mhlg wrote: 7 months ago

Verband wrote: 8 months ago

Nice. That

Magic Arrow Binding on right mouse confuses me though. Why not auto shot?

I didn't actually use

Magic Arrow with the build. I placed on the right mouse as a backup that I didn't need because

Amplify Damage took care of all physical immune. The build was relatively new and at the time I made the Chaos run video it was at level 78.

Skaijuice wrote: 7 months ago

He didn't make this vid i believe.

If you mean he as in me, then yes I did make the "vid."

Here's a guide about the highest DPS for bowazon:

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d2r/t ... ble/165859