Wands can be ethereal - why not bows?

I made a post a while back wondering why set items couldn't drop ethereal.

Why not bows/xbows? Okay I get that I can technically 'wack' enemies with my Oculus melee style. I just think it could be a cool way to boost bowazon dps but I could be totally mistaken about the mechanics.

Bows and crossbows don't have durability, so they can never break - being ethereal would thus have no downside. I guess the question should be - would you enjoy having durability on every bow and

Crossbow and be forced to repair them as a tradeoff to allowing them to be ethereal?

ShadowHeart wrote: 1 year ago

Bows and crossbows don't have durability, so they can never break - being ethereal would thus have no downside. I guess the question should be - would you enjoy having durability on every bow and

Crossbow and be forced to repair them as a tradeoff to allowing them to be ethereal?

If the ranged attack increased via weapon damage then I'd prefer they contain durability...I mean I like power. And aren't bowazons a weaker loadout in today's current state?

8k damage and can clear the whole screen.
I don't think bowazon needs more damage.
The build is just expensive.

mockingbirdreal wrote: 1 year ago

8k damage and can clear the whole screen.
I don't think bowazon needs more damage.
The build is just expensive.

This could be totally true, I haven't played the class in 20 years. I just don't see many of them in D2R.

Is that 8k build wielding Faith RW?

ghostpos wrote: 1 year ago

This could be totally true

It is. Unless you truly go for dmg, then you get far more than 8k.

Bowzons aren't held back by damage so much as they are held back by the fact that you have to pick and choose between really getting to that level of damage and getting solid mobility.
A true dmg build will be running everywhere. As a result, a sorc or hammerdin have basically finished their CS clear before you as a bowzon ever even made it to the entrance. You don't have

Teleport. You don't have anything along the lines of

Leap or

Whirlwind to get you past blocking mobs. You're simply stuck running and killing what's in your way. Sure, you can kill it relatively quickly..but you still lose what feels like an Eternity for having stopped.

And even when you do drop some damage to get an Enigma, your cast rate (i.e. travel speed) is just abysmal. Getting at least some FCR to go from "abysmal" to 'still bad" will then cost you even more damage, up until you eventually get to the point where you finally have at least java-like

Teleport/speed but gave up too much damage to get there.

That's why the original Hustle weapon actually had me genuinely looking forward to it. It went after the one thing really holding back a bowzon: mobility. The combined run speed over a long enough duration was..glorious! You still got stuck on blocking mobs but hey, at least the movement between them was finally something more up to par. Too bad that never made it to live.

Making bows be ethereal would indirectly address it as well I suppose since you could then just use the

Eth dmg gain to make up for what you lose by going for Enigma+. But imo that's just boring and dumb.
Plus it'd leave bowzons with a massive dmg boost in situations where they really don't need it (PvP in general, fast-to-reach-without-

Teleport PvM content).

One simple addition to (imo) solve all bowzon problems (mind you, "problems" is on a rather 1st world level here..they're really not bad in and by themselves):
Add a unique quiver.
- Give it infinite (or at least replenishing) ammo.
- Give it lvl 15-20

Vigor (close to the same speed you got from the original Hustle except this way, your merc can keep up - but you lose the attack speed bonus you had with Hustle to balance it out again).
- Give it +1 to

Leap

The first two should be obvious.

Leap would be the most appropriate solution to "path-blocking" currently already available.

Teleport would be overkill. Dragonflight would likely feel weird and could also end up being quite OP actually (though taking the merc along would be nice).

Leap is fitting in that it not only solves the path-blocking but also gives zons a way to create distance to their ranged targets by pushing them away (but not too far, due to the low lvl).

A likely far more fitting idea would be to skip the

Leap part and to instead adjust

Evade so that it also allows you to move through mobs if you haven't attacked in say 5 or 10 seconds but that'd then actually require something new.

Either way, none of the above will ever happen so...mweh, I'll still keep my zon as a bowzon and enjoy her as is. (and will continue to be cranky about the missed opportunity with the original Hustle..^^)

Thanks for the very detailed reply @Schnorki.

Again it's been decades since I played the bowazon (I did make a javazon recently for obvious reasons) and this was well before Enigma RW came into the picture. I still want to give the build a try but will focus on how to develop better mobility when I do.

Think of a

Windforce as everything an

Eth bow would want to be without any of the downsides. D:

mockingbirdreal wrote: 1 year ago

8k damage and can clear the whole screen.
I don't think bowazon needs more damage.
The build is just expensive.

A basic hell level Strathezon can be built quite cheaply. A 6%

Windforce can be bought for

Ist+

Mal,

Shael it and you have 40" IAS.

Sigon's Gage and Sabot's give another 30% IAS along with 10%LL and 20% run walk, 40% cold resist, cost a couple of Pgems. The other 10% IAS needed for 80%

Strafe break points can be gotten with a

Goldwrap, cost 4 Pgems. I have never had to purchase a

Raven Frost, because they drop quite often, but if needed they're cheap too. The only expensive gear in this build would be a

Lo for a Fortitude. From there it's a matter of farming for improvements. An act 2 Mercenary with a Reapers, also cheap, will help with physical immunity. Head, neck and rings can produce a number of options. For neck I would suggest a cheap to buy

Atma's.

mhlg wrote: 1 year ago

A basic hell level Strathezon can be built quite cheaply. A 6%

Windforce can be bought for

Ist+

Mal,

Shael it and you have 40" IAS.

Sigon's Gage and Sabot's give another 30% IAS along with 10%LL and 20% run walk, 40% cold resist, cost a couple of Pgems. The other 10% IAS needed for 80%

Strafe break points can be gotten with a

Goldwrap, cost 4 Pgems. I have never had to purchase a

Raven Frost, because they drop quite often, but if needed they're cheap too. The only expensive gear in this build would be a

Lo for a Fortitude. From there it's a matter of farming for improvements. An act 2 Mercenary with a Reapers, also cheap, will help with physical immunity. Head, neck and rings can produce a number of options. For neck I would suggest a cheap to buy

Atma's.

Physical bowazon, as other melee build, rely on gears.
Without end-game gears, it is just doable because damage dropped under 2000

I've already done a physical build similar to the one above twice with a Matriarchal Harmony, and by the time I got to Hell lvl act 3 the damage was over 3000. Once I added a

Windforce, and Fortitude the damage was well over 6000.

Physical bowazon, as other melee build, rely on gears.

Gear is important but with a Bowazon you're also focusing on placing all your attribute points into dexterity, which increases damage and attack rating.

mockingbirdreal wrote: 1 year ago

mhlg wrote: 1 year ago

A basic hell level Strathezon can be built quite cheaply. A 6%

Windforce can be bought for

Ist+

Mal,

Shael it and you have 40" IAS.

Sigon's Gage and Sabot's give another 30% IAS along with 10%LL and 20% run walk, 40% cold resist, cost a couple of Pgems. The other 10% IAS needed for 80%

Strafe break points can be gotten with a

Goldwrap, cost 4 Pgems. I have never had to purchase a

Raven Frost, because they drop quite often, but if needed they're cheap too. The only expensive gear in this build would be a

Lo for a Fortitude. From there it's a matter of farming for improvements. An act 2 Mercenary with a Reapers, also cheap, will help with physical immunity. Head, neck and rings can produce a number of options. For neck I would suggest a cheap to buy

Atma's.

Physical bowazon, as other melee build, rely on gears.
Without end-game gears, it is just doable because damage dropped under 2000

I just respected and strung this together with a level 56 Zavazon I Was building. The gear so far is Head

Peasant Crown, Body Spiritshroud,

Great Bow Harmony (a Matriarchal would be better for skills), Sigon's mits and

Boots,

Razortail, Ravenfrost, 30% prismatic amulet. As you can see no Fortitude, no anni, no torch, and the build is already well over 2000 DPS. It took me less than 30 minutes to respect and get to this point.

mhlg wrote: 1 year ago

I just respected and strung this together with a level 56 Zavazon I Was building. The gear so far is Head

Peasant Crown, Body Spiritshroud,

Great Bow Harmony (a Matriarchal would be better for skills), Sigon's mits and

Boots,

Razortail, Ravenfrost, 30% prismatic amulet. As you can see no Fortitude, no anni, no torch, and the build is already well over 2000 DPS. It took me less than 30 minutes to respect and get to this point.

Oh, sorry, forgot to mention all damage I said was for

Multiple Shot.
My point is,

Strafe provides enough damage to finish hell but doesn't have real AOE for farming.

Multiple Shot has AOE but you need end-game gear to have enough damage.

mockingbirdreal wrote: 1 year ago

mhlg wrote: 1 year ago

I just respected and strung this together with a level 56 Zavazon I Was building. The gear so far is Head

Peasant Crown, Body Spiritshroud,

Great Bow Harmony (a Matriarchal would be better for skills), Sigon's mits and

Boots,

Razortail, Ravenfrost, 30% prismatic amulet. As you can see no Fortitude, no anni, no torch, and the build is already well over 2000 DPS. It took me less than 30 minutes to respect and get to this point.

Oh, sorry, forgot to mention all damage I said was for

Multiple Shot.
My point is,

Strafe provides enough damage to finish hell but doesn't have real AOE for farming.

Multiple Shot has AOE but you need end-game gear to have enough damage.

This is still using only a Harmony

Great Bow with no damage adding charms.

Strafe does just fine with AOE anywhere in Hell. In fact my main build does better with

Strafe in everything and that's only a marginal difference. When

Atma's

Amplify Damage procs everything drops. Also remember when you max out

Strafe you will also max out multi shot. Here is my build with a Harmony at level 59 and a Fortitude. This isn't to say that people will have a Forti at level 59, it's only to demonstrate the increase in damage. And consider that by the time the build reaches the level for a

Windforce it will add another 70 points in Dex and 14 in skills, and by the time it reaches level 75 it will have an anni and torch which will add yet another 30 to 40 points in dex.

mockingbirdreal wrote: 1 year ago

mhlg wrote: 1 year ago

I just respected and strung this together with a level 56 Zavazon I Was building. The gear so far is Head

Peasant Crown, Body Spiritshroud,

Great Bow Harmony (a Matriarchal would be better for skills), Sigon's mits and

Boots,

Razortail, Ravenfrost, 30% prismatic amulet. As you can see no Fortitude, no anni, no torch, and the build is already well over 2000 DPS. It took me less than 30 minutes to respect and get to this point.

Oh, sorry, forgot to mention all damage I said was for

Multiple Shot.
My point is,

Strafe provides enough damage to finish hell but doesn't have real AOE for farming.

Multiple Shot has AOE but you need end-game gear to have enough damage.

Here's with Multi shot still using a Harmony and already past 2000 dps. Imagine adding a

Windforce with all the additional basic gear.

Here's with Multi Shot with a Harmony.