New to physical bowazon: physical immunes

Hi i haven’t made a physical bowazon since .09 back when

Guided Arrow pierced and could 360 back through the target. I miss that

Just recently I’ve built another, I’m having fun and have been impressed with the physical damage output yet frustrated with the poor mobility. Why does perhaps the most ill suited char to use Enigma short of a shapeshifter Druid, have no skills contributing towards movement speed or mobility? This is related to my question but mostly a side rant…

My main issue is with physical immunes. For those experienced with this build, what have you tried and what are your favorite options? I don’t want to run the same areas over and over. She has little mf and I want to use her for tzs and look for bases for fun, thus I’m seeking a generalist approach.

I spread myself too far with skills on my current build and tried

Magic Arrow, I’m not satisfied. I’m aware of atmas option but I’m currently reliant on my ammy for ias and I think the proc chance is too low. I’m considering freezing or

Exploding Arrow. Im using Hustle as a side arm and don’t want to

Sacrifice the Bos proc for the ias and frw boost, otherwise I’d assume Ice and

Freezing Arrow would be the solid option.

I’ve looked through physical immune monster stats and from what I can tell, they in general have

Lower Resist to fire than cold. I’ve built an

Exploding Arrow zon before and somewhat know what to expect. I think it’ll be sufficient for my purposes, but also will spread me thin on skill points. Necessary

Sacrifice perhaps.. I’d like to try

Freezing Arrow just for the experience and the cc would also be nice for the situations posing my zon the most trouble, but I question its viability without Ice. I’m planning on running p3 max.

My questions are: how good is

Freezing Arrow without Ice? Good enough to drop the squishy phys immunes no prob? Which tactics have you been most pleased with regarding physical immunes? For my current set up, Hustle side arm, Faith gmb main, what do you think the ideal clear speed options are?

Also, I shouldn’t throw in what is probably a topic that’s probably been debated endlessly on this forum somewhere, but what are your preferences regarding

Strafe vs multishot? My current zon is almost all in on

Strafe yet I find myself using both and finding many situations in which ms is superior and I honestly enjoy it more. I’d still plan on using both for any build type but could save a lot of skill points by pulling points from

Strafe and making ms my go to which should clear up alot of skill points being it’s already very effective at low investment.

Thanks!

My

Strafe Amazon has sunder charm and

Atma's Scarab amulet and has zero problem even with PI and Stone skin together.

Hi,
Sunder Charm +

Atma's Scarab is a good start to deal with physical immunes.
If you want to clear faster,

The Reaper's Toll on merc is a must.

I second the

Bone Break and

Atma's on a Strafezon. For armor I would also recommend a Fortitude.
This should give some indication of how effective the two are in breaking physical immunity.

You can still invest a couple of points into Guided since it's really fun to play with. It can still do some shenanigans (like bounce of walls and whatnot), not like in .09 (which I played the most as well) and if you use

Widowmaker (even on some off-meta hybrid build like for example Paladin Ranger) you'll realize you won't be using any

Arrows or in other words you'll literally have unlimited ammo.

Otherwise, what people before me said, it's basically

Bone Break + stack as much +dmg possible (

Windforce is a popular choice with a lot of small charms)!

P.S. Frostmaiden (

Freezing Arrow build) is awesome actually! You don't need Ice for that, but if you are gonna do some double build like that then you'll need to consider investing more into skillers actually, since skillers help a lot with the dmg especially for cold/fire paths. You'll probably need to divide your inventory into a couple of skillers for cold to be effective enough and a bit for the +dmg/AR which will make physical part viable as well.

Don't worry too much about over-investing into all res tho, I found it very easy to kite +

Dodge/

Evade and I played with both pure physical path (Multishot/

Strafe + Guided) and Fire&Cold builds.

I prefer using

Magic Arrow on my

Strafe bzon to deal with physical immunes, as

Guided Arrow feels quite underpowered, even though the latter is maxed out, and the former is only at 3 base levels. No

Atma's Scarab amulet, no

Bone Break sunder grand charm necessary. It's equipped with a +3 skill Faith

Grand Matron Bow. The merc uses a socketed reaper's toll.

bigbikefan wrote: 10 months ago

I prefer using

Magic Arrow on my

Strafe bzon to deal with physical immunes, as

Guided Arrow feels quite underpowered, even though the latter is maxed out, and the former is only at 3 base levels. No

Atma's Scarab amulet, no

Bone Break sunder grand charm necessary. It's equipped with a +3 skill Faith

Grand Matron Bow. The merc uses a socketed reaper's toll.

That's how I used to do it before I began using

Atma's which changed everything, and that was before Sunder Charms were released.

Magic Arrow is effective but it can only fire at normal speed, so you will never hit your breakpoints even with a Faith runeword at lvl 15 fanat. You will also never be able to quickly take down physical immune mobs such as some of those you will find in the Arcane, Nil's temple, and World Stone Keep, but it does work. If you are hitting your

Strafe breakpoints, which is 80 IAS on

Windforce, les than 20 IAS on a Faith GM, and

Atma's will proc quite often because lvl 2 Amp has a duration of 11 seconds, and that is usually more than enough time for it to proc again before the 11 seconds has passed.

I strongly prefer multishot, but I think I'm in the minority. I don't like how

Strafe locks you in place and shoots in all directions if you are in a dense area

Multishot also just feels much better for clearing density. You can clear the next screen packed full of monsters completely by accident. And in seconds

But it has its downsides, it's much harder to gear and it's weaker. And the autotargeting and lower mana cost from

Strafe is nice sometimes--I still use one point in

Strafe on a multishot build for cleaning up stragglers or when I'm fighting undead that I can't leech mana from

For physical immunes I use

Magic Arrow. Multishot only needs 8-11 hard points and 20 into guided, so you can usually max

Magic Arrow, or close. With max dexterity investment and good gear, I find it works fine--but, I guess I mostly avoid areas with physical immunes. If you like multishot better, check out the Bowa youtube channel for skill allocations and tips on gear. I learned a lot from that channel

If you want to farm the entire game without a care in the world,

Freezing Arrow bowazon is really good now with sunders. I had a lot of fun making one a few ladders ago. Mine had an Ice mat bow, and my build was hybrid with

Strafe--I've talked about it before on here in a previous post, or you can message me for details if you are interested. You can run Faith instead for more emphasis on physical damage, but I haven't tried it and I think you will have to settle for a lower breakpoint with a GMB unfortunately. Still worth trying though. If you are out of respecs I have extra tokens on NL, if you are playing there--happy to give you one

marl71 wrote: 10 months ago

I strongly prefer multishot, but I think I'm in the minority. I don't like how

Strafe locks you in place and shoots in all directions if you are in a dense area

Multishot also just feels much better for clearing density. You can clear the next screen packed full of monsters completely by accident. And in seconds

But it has its downsides, it's much harder to gear and it's weaker. And the autotargeting and lower mana cost from

Strafe is nice sometimes--I still use one point in

Strafe on a multishot build for cleaning up stragglers or when I'm fighting undead that I can't leech mana from

For physical immunes I use

Magic Arrow. Multishot only needs 8-11 hard points and 20 into guided, so you can usually max

Magic Arrow, or close. With max dexterity investment and good gear, I find it works fine--but, I guess I mostly avoid areas with physical immunes. If you like multishot better, check out the Bowa youtube channel for skill allocations and tips on gear. I learned a lot from that channel

If you want to farm the entire game without a care in the world,

Freezing Arrow bowazon is really good now with sunders. I had a lot of fun making one a few ladders ago. Mine had an Ice mat bow, and my build was hybrid with

Strafe--I've talked about it before on here in a previous post, or you can message me for details if you are interested. You can run Faith instead for more emphasis on physical damage, but I haven't tried it and I think you will have to settle for a lower breakpoint with a GMB unfortunately. Still worth trying though. If you are out of respecs I have extra tokens on NL, if you are playing there--happy to give you one

When you have

Strafe you're going to max out multichot for synergy. I use multi sometimes on swap in areas such as cows, but

Strafe has much better survivability because of leech.

Strafe is also more effective in tight areas such

Travincal and the

Halls of Vaught, but I know several other players who use multi so I guess it's all a matter of what you prefer.

mhlg wrote: 10 months ago

When you have

Strafe you're going to max out multichot for synergy...but

Strafe has much better survivability because of leech...I guess it's all a matter of what you prefer.

Yeah multishot is a

Strafe synergy. The number of

Arrows maxes out at ~lvl20, but the mana cost keeps going up, so it's a bit of a mana drain to use it on a

Strafe build

I've never had problems with leech on multishot. But I only have ~600 health with max investment in dex, so I guess any amount of leech is enough...

is

Windforce better or Faith?

xigua wrote: 10 months ago

is

Windforce better or Faith?

This has been up for debate quite a lot in the past here, and in the end it boils down to.. personal preference? Well, until you consider that the great @Schnorki is a stalwart supporter of

Windforce over Faith, so I guess

Windforce is the answer

forums/windforce-strafe-breakpoints-t1281614.html
forums/story-of-my-bowazon-t632904-20.html
forums/high-end-bowazon-questions-t869503.html

(there are probably even more topics discussing this )

ShadowHeart wrote: 10 months ago

xigua wrote: 10 months ago

is

Windforce better or Faith?

This has been up for debate quite a lot in the past here, and in the end it boils down to.. personal preference? Well, until you consider that the great @Schnorki is a stalwart supporter of

Windforce over Faith, so I guess

Windforce is the answer

forums/windforce-strafe-breakpoints-t1281614.html
forums/story-of-my-bowazon-t632904-20.html
forums/high-end-bowazon-questions-t869503.html

(there are probably even more topics discussing this )

And I always will be!

Seriously though, it is quite possibly one of the oldest still ongoing "fights" in D2. And probably always will be as they're both excellent choices and each have their pros and cons (see among others the noted topics above I guess).
Personally, I'd never use Faith over WF in any sort of PvM scenario (unless I end up making a 2nd bowzon and just want it to be different) but I won't blame folks who do as I understand the reasons.

As for the actual topic here:
If you're mostly on lower player counts, a sunder is all you need to shred through most PIs. On some comparatively high level PI champs and the like it may (sometimes..rarely..) still be worth using

Magic Arrow instead (which every phys zon has at a more than sufficient level anyways) but that's about it.

Reaper's is a complete waste of what could be another aura as a well geared zon still usually tears through PIs faster than your merc gets there to hit (and hence proc) anything.

And similarly,

Atma's proc chance is and remains abysmally bad so not only is it not needed but you'll also reliably see it not proc at all or proc late enough to make no difference anyways. Or (raaaarely) proc right away and still make no difference for that matter. All while giving up a real necklace for it (which you do notice..albeit more hidden thanks to no visible effect surrounding base dmg). And that's not even considering the abysmal radius or the fact that it works horridly with multishot, thanks to most

Arrows being unable to proc it.

On high player counts, it may make sense to think about adding reaper's or possibly even

Atma's (mweh) though even then,

Magic Arrow typically still does a sufficient job to make neither one really worth it. But at least at high counts I can understand why someone chooses to use either of them..kind of.. ^^

Strafe vs. Multishot is easy: both.
They each are clearly superior to the respective other, depending on the situation/positioning.

So if you don’t have a Harmony, i highly recommend it! Especially if your still leveling. I had it on swap when i was getting my character through hell and into the end game, it was what i switched to when i was just running around (

Vigor), casting valkerie (+6, are you kidding?!), and it has enough elemental damage to deal with physical immunes.

You could put a reaper’s toll on an act 2 merc - it’s still an option.

And for run/walk speed gotta keep those

Boots to +30 or better, the amulet that gives it, and either Treachery or Hustle should get you zipping around (and some charms always help)

I also just maxed out

Magic Arrow when i was leveling, it did better single damage than anything else until i was like lvl 90, plus it costs zero mana after like lvl 12.

Magic Arrow and Harmony = physical immunes die just as fast as regular monsters.

I never have and don’t plan on using a physical sunder charm (i usually run a max dex build)

Oh yea i “prefer” multi shot, it’s just more fun. But objectively

Strafe is better for dps. I just hate freezing my device because of all the fire effects from the torch.

Nate2.0 wrote: 10 months ago

6, are you kidding?!

Well, it's an "oskill", so Amazons only get at most +3 from it (whereas other classes who don't have the

Valkyrie skill naturally can get the full +6 bonus), but it's still a nice bonus of course

xigua wrote: 10 months ago

is

Windforce better or Faith?

Why choose if you can have both, I do. A Faith is expensive and base dependent, while a

Windforce can be had for a

Vex, which means you will probably have a

Windforce long before you have a chance to roll a Faith. A bow not mentioned is the

Witchwild String which is also affordable and will get you through Hell lvl.

Oh yea i “prefer” multi shot, it’s just more fun. But objectively

Strafe is better for dps. I just hate freezing my device because of all the fire effects from the torch.

I also dislike the fire effects from the

Hellfire Torch, and I wish there was a way to turn it off. It doesn't freeze or cause any issue with my system but it makes it difficult to see drops which means you have to wait a bit for it clear to see if anything of value dropped.

With

Windforce, what is the best setup and is Might Merc with Pride go to combination?

Yes might merc with Pride is good, otherwise act 1 cold with Faith, or the controversial act 5

Frenzy with Last Wish and Hustle

On Maxroll, I tried to apply different gear combinations to swap Faith with

Windforce to see if it's better or not but didn't understand the result.

With

Highlord's Wrath (+20), Lying of Hands (+20),

Shael in

Windforce (+40), two ias Jewel on

Giant Skull (+30) and Hustle armor (+40), the calculator on right hand side shows 73 ias. How could this be true?