Tales from a Bowmancer

Someone requested I do a review on the Bowmancer playthrough so here we go! As an added bonus will also include a rough build guide. Enjoy

The Prep: Before even setting one foot into

Blood Moor I knew there was gonna be some much needed planning for this run to succeed. So I made a collection of all the unique bows as well brought together as many low level Dexterity charms as I could find. And No, I did not use any bows that gave +skills to amazon. However my A1 Merc did receive a

Kuko Shakaku which absolutely slaps! Oh Yea' almost forgot gave myself pair of

Bloodfist as well.

Day 1: At first the beginning was slow. shooting single targets at a time. amp damage +

Clay Golem was big help early on. But once I finally got to level 15 and equipped the

Raven Claw, oh boy does this Rock! Poor Andy didn't even know what hit her. Dare I say easier then Normal Bone Necro Run! Should mention that I do play online. But after each Act I go back single player to reface each Boss alone for more accurate feel on the build. This helps level my toon up faster plus is more enjoyable to play along with others. Also, I always Walk. No Rush Ever.

EDIT: Just wanted to add that upon my very 1st shop at

Charsi I lucked out finding a 3os Bow which I used till level 7 adding two chip topez and a chip

Ruby. With every new bow I would gain access to from my stash, the previous one was passed down to my A1 Merc. and by all means, I am no expert in Diablo. I play for fun. so This isn't the Perfect way to level up a Bowmancer. More of simply sharing my thoughts and experiences thu out this unbeaten path few dare to take.

Continuing on, my confidence was building heading into Act2 after making Andy look like another

Fallen from

The Den of Evil. Up to this point I've put one point into the following skills; Amp,

Iron Maiden,

Dim Vision,

Teeth,

Bone Armor,

Corpse Explosion,

Bone Wall,

Clay Golem,

Golem Mastery with like 15 points saved. Just wasn't sure what to do with them. But that would quickly change once I finally reached the end of Act 2. Heading to

Duriel with a new Rogue's Claw Bow.. My

Clay Golem, Mercenary and Confidence was all smashed to Smithereens at an Instant upon entering his Lair.

Made a Bone marrow escape just before joining them in Oblivion came to realization that I've got work to do. Started by spending all my remaining points into

Golem Mastery. As it's become very apparent we need a Tank that can survive more then one hit. Then I proceeded to grind out some tombs and reached level 26 giving access to two new Bows! The

Wizendraw and

Stormstrike. Yes I would keep two bows equipped at all times. However am thinking of using a

Wand with

Bone Armor + Synergies on swap if I ever find one in the wild.

Level 26 also gave me access to Confusion and

Life Tap to which I must state now, Confusion became the Star of the Show for this Build so far! Now was time to revisit Mr.

Duriel and seek my Revenge. It was night and day this time around as my new reborn Tank of Clay was able to survive the entire battle! Little

Iron Maiden and this was another effortless battle won by the Bow. Act 3 Proved to be fairly easy using a combination of Confusion on mobs and Amp on the Elite monsters.

Mephisto put up a good fight, but was still no match against this Bowmancer.

Day 2: Act 4 was still more the same. Am glad I picked up on the tactical uses of Curses thru my Cursemancer Run from a previous Necro.

Confuse, Amp and admittingly occasional

Corpse Explosion whenever my Merc or Clay be in danger or to help speed up killing those high density little creepy crawlers. But honestly, I've probably used CE less then a dozen times the entire playthrough. The Merc with her Fire

Arrows gave nice AoE DMG that helped handle most mobs.

With the help of another Necro and his summons alongside a Cold Sorc we made pretty short work of Diablo. Carried on thru Act 5 and faced no problems. I chose to use Prison on those final wave of Monsters cause I just wasn't gonna test to see if this Summon Necro army was strong enough to hang. For Context I'm Level 35 up to this point. Rocking another new Bow, The

Riphook which worked very well for me. The Summon Necro was level 24 and Sorc was level 22. So yea, wasn't taking any chances.

Facing

Baal wasn't much of an issue. I used

Life Tap to help keep our Summons Friends alive and after about 2 minutes sure enough

Baal gave out his last gasping laugh as his soul left his arrow riddled body. And that was Great and all, most would carry on. But I had to prove to myself that I can do it solo. Reaching level 36 gave me access to a new Bow,

Pus Spitter which was a very welcomed +2 Necro Skills and decided to Respec so I can equip a G-Face to add some Crushing Blow and Deadly Strike. Now I'm Ready!

Or sooo I thought. Diablo is no joke man. He instantly destroyed my Merc and

Clay Golem on the first Move!

Lightning Bolt my Hopes and Dreams into Ashe before my Eyes. Panic sets in as I scramble to avoid another Blast that narrowly brings me to my first Death. But I wasn't going down so easy. Quickly teleported myself back to give this greedy angel of heaven Gold to

Revive my

Fallen partner and save the world and all. But back to the Battle. I hopped back thru the blue portal and began Round 2

Iron Maiden,

Life Tap all for nothing as

Clay Golem can't survive for more then 5 seconds. Didn't take long for the Mercenary to follow. But this time I wasn't running away. I kept bringing back Clayface and got in every shot I could while dodging every bullet Diablo fired at me. Amp Damage was the only answer here and I think the G-Face played a big role in Finally bringing the Big Red Machine down. Phew was a long hard fought battle, but the Bow rained supreme!

Now came the Real Test.. Or sooo I thought. Turns out

Baal and his Waves was Much much easier then facing Diablo. Who knew?! Confusion every wave but the Last. Prison

Iron Maiden on the Last wave. Amp Damage on

Baal and keep on spawning Clay golems like it's a Pottery Class. He even died a lot faster. Think what helped was being able to stay safe distance and keep a steady flow of

Arrows plucking into his Face. It was a good effort

Baal but you stood no chance against my undead bow-wielding necromancer and That, was the end of Normal Difficulty

Summary: It was possibly the most fun I've had leveling up a Necro. The challenges, having to strategize each upcoming battle and overall Fresh playstyle definitely gave this Run a boat load of Fun. The only drawbacks was, Yes it was painfully slow in the beginning, Did have to grind out few extra levels to keep up in each Act.

And Finally the biggest drawback, which is more of a double edged sword really.. You're just firing a bow. pluck pluck pluck. that's all it is at the end of the day. Curse here Curse there sure. But Mostly just doing one single action the entire run. Just firing a bow the whole time. But also, You're a Freaking Necro that's Firing a Bow the Whole Time!

So yeah overall definitely been a refreshing take on a Necro, this being my 9th one? I'm not sure, lost count. I am sure firing the Bow, once I get the Brand, will become a lot more exciting. I am looking forward to my run through Nightmare and Hell equipped with Brand and Bone Runewords. I will gladly let you all know how that goes within this topic

If you are interested in seeing what the Endgame build will look like here is a link that helped inspire this playthrough;

For those who wish to give this a try on your own, I say Good Luck! It's gonna be a bumpy thrilling rollercoaster of a ride! I also do strongly suggest picking up some unique bows before starting the run. This made leveling up much more exciting with every new bow in stash waiting to have their strings pulled by the cold fingers of a deadman

Hope you enjoyed these Tales from a Bowmancer. Stick around for another Chapter in a few days to learn how the Journey continues. Till then, with the words of another great Necro Player..

Keep On Slaying!! UGH

I like your style man. Great read. I think once I have enough runes to make Brand, I will try a bowmancer too.

Nice indeed, great fun to read ! Thanks for sharing.

Soultego wrote: 8 months ago

If you are interested in seeing what the Endgame build will look like here is a link that helped inspire this playthrough; minecraftle game

For those who wish to give this a try on your own, I say Good Luck! It's gonna be a bumpy thrilling rollercoaster of a ride! I also do strongly suggest picking up some unique bows before starting the run. This made leveling up much more exciting with every new bow in stash waiting to have their strings pulled by the cold fingers of a deadman

Hope you enjoyed these Tales from a Bowmancer. Stick around for another Chapter in a few days to learn how the Journey continues. Till then, with the words of another great Necro Player..

Keep On Slaying!! UGH

Screenshot031.png

Omg this wacky build is amazing! Why does torch

Firestorm have a different animation than the druid skill

Firestorm?

seannews wrote: 7 months ago

Omg this wacky build is amazing! Why does torch

Firestorm have a different animation than the druid skill

Firestorm?

The Torch

Firestorm is based off Diablo's big-arse one, not the Druid's piddly little one.

seannews wrote: 7 months ago

Why does torch

Firestorm have a different animation than the druid skill

Firestorm?

Lanceor wrote: 7 months ago

The Torch

Firestorm is based off Diablo's big-arse one, not the Druid's piddly little one.

Yeah, they're different skills, even though they're named the same

It's Time for the Final Chapter in the Tales from a Bowmancer

Gonna try to keep this Short n Sweet. (Fair Warning, That didn't Happen) It was pretty clear from the start that

Pus Spitter was not gonna cut it for even Act 1 after clearing the Den. So decided to hop into a few NM Cow runs to gain 10 more levels and equip myself with 2 new Bows, The

Goldstrike Arch and

Buriza-Do Kyanon. Unfortunately the Goldstrike didn't meet expectations and ended up left on Ground where it belongs swapping back to the

Pus Spitter for some much needed +2 to Necro Skills with sole purpose of having stronger

Bone Armor and

Clay Golem

Just barely getting thru Act 1 with the Buriza, it dawned on me. That there was a considerably large gap between the level 41

Crossbow and level 65 Brand and there was no way I was gonna make it that far with this pea shooter. This also made me take a double look at the list of Bows and realized I missed two for the Collection desired to completing this run with relative ease. The level 39

Witchwild String which may have been fun but doubt as useful. And then there was the, don't laugh..

Demon Machine. you may be wondering how I overlooked this Monster and well my only explanation for that was. I thought the weapon was in the level 65+ range, no idea it was only level 49!

So what did I do? what any normal sane person would and piggybacked some more Cow runs till I reached that sweet sweet level 65. This of course, gave me access to the Runewords Brand, Bone and Wisdom. Now it's GAME ON! The rest of Nightmare was as you could imagine, a complete breeze. hardly a thought or effort was needed as the True Bowmancer in his Final Form decimated all that stood before him. To my actual surprise, Hell was basically just as easy and I was like a little boy with his Happy Meal; Lovin' It!

With all the Quest done it was time to put this Machine Gun Skelly to the Real Test! Farmed up a little first to reach the necessary level for my Merc to equip the Faith bow runeword and I was ready to release more

Arrows then The Persian Army from 300. Time to block out the Sun! I ran around all the regular farming spots with various player counts from 1-8 and here's my Final Take on the Bowmancer

For starters. This build is not for Boss Killing. perhaps with some adjustments to gear that can be arranged but in his natural state, not the best. To give an idea,

Baal takes about 60 seconds to kill. His real Strength comes against Mobs, the More the Merrier. With Players 1 he's capable of clearing all general Farming Locations such as Cows, Pit, Eldritch, Shank, Nihl, Tombs,

Arcane Sanctuary and more. I think you get the picture. To my pleasant surprise he actually does well on his own in Players 3-5 in all areas as mentioned above. Once the room reached players 7-8 was when I felt the damage lacking some. However, he could still hold his own in even areas such as

Chaos Sanctuary or Worldstone Keep. just not in any impressive fashion.

Should have mentioned previously that when reaching level 65, did a respect to the character. dropping all curses except for Amp and

Decrepify, kept with

Clay Golem + Mastery + Resist from summon tree. and Maxed out all

Bone Spear Synergies. Will provide a link to Maxroll D2 Planner near the end with all exact stats and gear in his final state. So instead of confusion, I'd utilize

Bone Wall as means for crowd control which prove very effective as this would Line most the enemies up for some excellent piercing action! Golem did become weaker but wasn't relying on him as much. In fact, I wasn't relying on anything outside from my Bow and perhaps

Fanaticism from the Mercanary which left me wondering, do I even need a golem or curses?!

So what do I think overall. Well it was most definitely some of the most fun I've had on D2R so far! But I do admit that feeling seemed to

Fade quicker then usual with other builds. Perhaps it's the on going only needing one action playstyle which may be suitable for some. But drew a few yawns personally as over time only shooting a bow tends to grow old. Not having an Enigma or

Teleport staff definitely effected his mobility so that also kept the game play feeling, slow. Not feeling effective against Bosses was also bit of a let down but was to be expected. A Fun Build to play from time to time, but not All the time.

So whats so great about a Bowmancer?! Well Glad you asked. One caveat that I can say is that there was no need for Sunders as basically any and all Immune enemies died all relatively same speed. Probably Fire and Magic immunes proved hardest to kill but it was hardly noticeable. a combination of Amp Damage, Fire

Arrows, Cold

Arrows (Merc), Magic Bone Spears and Physical Corpse Exploisions. Immunities and Sunders was all an after thought with this barrage of different damage types. Another cool thing was no need for Insight or Mana Potions or Mana in general. As mentioned previously, There really wasn't any need for golems, curses or anything besides shooting a 100

Arrows per minute. Which by the way is very satisfying when Mowing down Cows.

Well hears my final thoughts. Would I do it again? Absolutely yes. there was even a moment I even considered using the Bowmancer as my Main. He did

Attract a lot of positive attention from others, even being referred as "The Necro God" so that was all comforting considering I spent over two Jahs to create this build. I'd only recommend this build for other fellow Necro enthusiast seeking something Fresh and Off-Meta to try out. But for anyone just seeking to use a Bow wielding class, I'd point towards the Amazon or perhaps Enchantress Sorc as I'd imagine they be more friendlier with playstyle, effectiveness and perhaps even overall fun. (Wouldn't truly know tho since I only play as Necros)

So that's basically it. Hope I didn't forget anything. Got any questions, please feel free to ask as I be happy to answer. Here is, as promised, the full set-up of my Bowmancer in his current state. Also if you have any suggestions on how to improve that also be great! just Please don't tell me to get Skillers cause that one is Obvious. and Yes I did all of this without a Single Skiller in my inventory! I'd like to think with a full row of PnB GCs that He'd be much more reliable and independent in players 7-8 lobbies. Otherwise he feels more like a background character adding little support. Here's the Link to my Toon in D2Planner format: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/kn1d10zn

Hope I've inspired you to try for yourself this Bowmancer or perhaps even some other kind of Off-Meta build with your favorite class. Just remember, this build is primarily for Fun! Not for the Fastest Farming Clear Times you can Imagine. So with that in mind, I give this Build a Solid 9.5 out of 10 absolutely worth the Time and Runes that it cost to play. With that I leave you with these final words .. KEEP ON SLAAYING!!

Some Reason I couldn't attach this to previous message .. But here's some shots of the Bowmancer in Action .. Oh How satisfying when you see 2-4 Spears fly out from time to time

Inspiring me to try some new builds. Thanks for sharing. I usually just give away most of the unique bows I find going to start keeping the good rolls I find.

That was a great read and I’m really hyped now. Machine gun skelly… lmao

Yeeeeyyy the Bowmancer finally! Thanks for sharing this with us, it was an awesome to read about it.

As a Demon Machinetress enthusiast, I am delighted by this project. Brand is a very cool runeword, indeed!