Bow Speculation

Since launch I’ve played a hybrid Amazon ( Freezing Arrow and Lightning Fury). It’s great fun and runs every area of the game with ease, including the primetime WSK — the only lvl 85 area with a waypoint (besides River of Flame which is not worth farming).

I’m really excited by the prospect of bow skill buffs that have been hinted recently. FA is already great, for most mobs and most single targets. There’s nothing like freeze-locking huge crowds once you have high enough attack rating to Pierce everything. You can solo p8, as long as you have enough mana leech to keep firing.

If Exploding Arrow had damage to match, or if Immolation Arrow had no cooldown, I could sell my javelins and go full bore into bow skills, low strength (no Spirit Monarch), high dex. A boost to physical bow damage would be good too, I guess, but the piercing fire splash damage would really be better and would not break any PvP balance. Cold and Fire bowazon could focus on IAS, +skills, and AR, and Call To Arms bow could be endgame MF gear.

What do you think Blizz will do in regard to bow skill buffs?

I just want them to rebalance the Mavina bow to not be so abysmally terrible.

removing Multiple Shot 25 percent reduction or at least som of it, and y mavina bow etc should be changed

Indeed, Mavs set is decent for a Freezing Arrow build in terms of damage, MF, and survivability, but its lack of mana leech means you have to chug mana pots constantly. That’s why I decided to go with Harmony and Stealskull (until I can get a gg Circlet with FRW)

I have a feeling that the prices of 4OS Grand Matron Bow and Bow Skiller Charms are going to change dramatically at either the start or end of the season for non-ladder trading.

I'd also personally like to see Act 1 Mercs be able to equip amazon only gear.

moonlit wrote: 4 years ago

Indeed, Mavs set is decent for a
Freezing Arrow build in terms of damage, MF, and survivability, but its lack of mana leech means you have to chug mana pots constantly. That’s why I decided to go with Harmony and
Stealskull (until I can get a gg
Circlet with FRW)

It is not lacking mana leech, the problem is that it lacks phys. dmg and attack rating, so mana leech has no effect.

I run a frost build which has heavy phys. dmg as well (Faith) and i only have 5% mana leech and never need a single pot.

Mav set has the same issue as Ice Bow. The phys side is just terrible and thus you run oom very quickly.


I would hope the make mana leech work for freezing Arrows elemental side or reduce the mana cost by 80% lol

Fire skills have always the problem that everything and their mother is fire immune in hell and it cannot be broken, other than that, EA is not even that bad currently.

IA is just bad. Impact dmg, dot and the delay, is just awful.
IA has the same problem as firewall (without bug) does to little dmg when the enemy instantly moves out of it.
The killing speed would just be way too low.

moonlit wrote: 4 years ago

(until I can get a gg
Circlet with FRW)

If you run frost, why don't you use night wings? Kinda a budget option.
I mean a 15/-15/frw Helm might not even be much better


There are different combinations that I tried out so far:

Ice / Faith
20/-20 armor / Fortitude
Night wings / 45/120

I really must say that the phys. side (right side of the gear) is much stronger at least on p1 and you have infinite mana and life. You can kill everything in the game, although Baal take forever.

Durok wrote: 4 years ago

It is not lacking mana leech, the problem is that it lacks phys. dmg and attack rating, so mana leech has no effect.

I run a frost build which has heavy phys. dmg as well (Faith) and i only have 5% mana leech and never need a single pot.

Mav set has the same issue as Ice Bow. The phys side is just terrible and thus you run oom very quickly.

Of course the low phys damage of Mavs bow is an issue with leech. But, I would be okay with that if I could have a phys damage bow on switch for leeching -- unfortunately, Mavs set takes over the gloves and Helm slot, so the highest possible mana leech you can have with Mavs set is 6% total -- ring only. Maybe that's enough with Windforce on switch since it has ML itself. But I really really like having Harmony on switch...I love to be fast.

Durok wrote: 4 years ago

I would hope the make mana leech work for freezing Arrows elemental side or reduce the mana cost by 80% lol

They did hint at reducing mana cost of bow skills I think! It was pretty vague though -- could just be multishot or something, we will see.

Durok wrote: 4 years ago

Fire skills have always the problem that everything and their mother is fire immune in hell and it cannot be broken

That doesn't bother me since I plan to run dual-element (plus phys) and have zero intention of blowing all my charm budget on Infinity. Primary cold, secondary fire does very well in Chaos Sanctuary -- fire would be reserved for Oblivion Knights.

Durok wrote: 4 years ago

EA is not even that bad currently. IA is just bad. Impact dmg, dot and the delay, is just awful.
IA has the same problem as firewall (without bug) does to little dmg when the enemy instantly moves out of it.
The killing speed would just be way too low.

EA has terrible damage, barely acceptable once you max both of its synergies, when you consider it has zero utility (no freeze effect).
IA firewall damage is garbage, but its raw impact/splash damage is very high -- 41% higher than Freezing Arrow when each have one synergy maxed. The only problem with Immolation Arrow is the cooldown. Again, ignore the firewall effect -- it is useless even when synergized, and that's okay.

Durok wrote: 4 years ago

If you run frost, why don't you use night wings? Kinda a budget option.
I mean a 15/-15/frw Helm might not even be much better

I'm running dual-element. Currently cold/lightning. I don't plan on using facets in my Helm for this reason. If I stick with lightning I'll probably ditch my Spirit shield for a +20/-20 lightning Monarch one day though.

Durok wrote: 4 years ago

I really must say that the phys. side (right side of the gear) is much stronger at least on p1 and you have infinite mana and life. You can kill everything in the game, although Baal take forever.

Indeed, Baal is mainly why I have javelins on switch -- Charged Strike is extremely strong against bosses even with just one synergy ( Lightning Fury).