Strafe

Magically splits one arrow into several that target multiple nearby enemies.

Strafe is the skill of choice for many high-level Bowazons, although Multishot is also an option.

Strafe will automatically aim and fire at targets on the screen up to the

Strafe limit. As you get more points in

Strafe it will hit more monsters at once.

Strafe is good at alerting you to new monsters entering the area. If you start firing in a new direction where you previously have not been firing at, you will know a monster is over there in that new direction.

Try to lead groups of monsters into a tight pack. You will then be able to take advantage of

Pierce. This will also keep you from switching back and forth in opposite directions which will save time.

Strafe is subject to a 4 frame Next Hit Delay. Because

Strafe will often fire faster than once per 4 frames, this can easily result in wasted shots when firing at a lone target. For this reason,

Strafe isn't as good against a single monster as large groups of monsters. You may quickly run out of Mana when using shots against a single monster. Try switching to another skill if you are fighting single monsters.

Strafe will sometimes fire a little off-screen, but Multishot is much better for firing at monsters off-screen.

Strafe works very well with Cold Damage. Find an item that adds Cold Damage to make all your hits Cold Damage

Arrows. This will chill monsters and will also sometimes shatter them preventing monsters from raising the corpses.

Freezing Arrow also works well with

Strafe especially in Normal and Nightmare mode before Cold Length is significantly reduced. You can also set one mouse button to Freeze Arrow and the other to

Strafe (or use Hot Keys). Fire a Freeze Arrow to stop the monsters in their tracks, then follow up with

Strafe to shatter them.

You may wish to assign

Strafe to your right mouse button. That way if you need to get away, clicking the left button won't cause you to

Strafe rather than move.

Strafe works with the Paladin's

Concentration Aura in the following way:
Damage = Bow_Damage*(1 + Dex_bonus + Concentration_bonus + Strafe_bonus)

There is a rather hidden "Minimum shots" effect in

Strafe. What this means is that

Strafe will fire at least this many shots at one monster, but will fire more up until the

Strafe limit if there is more than one monster. This is very useful in making multiple hits vs. one single monster, but the downside is that it puts you in

Strafe lock more often.

The formula is as follows: Min

Arrows fired = 2 + slvl / 4 rounded down.
Which means, at level 4, 3 shots are fired; at level 20, 2 + 20/4 or at least 7

Arrows are shot.

Strafe Lock
While you are Strafing, your character will be locked in place. You will be unable to move until you are done Strafing. Keep in mind that as you put more points into

Strafe and it hits more targets, the time you are locked will be longer. Hardcore players might wish to avoid placing too many points into

Strafe. For players on Normal mode this is generally not a problem. Be sure to not fire a

Strafe right before trying to run away and you will usually be OK.