Strafe Amazon x Diablo/ Baal: Guided Arrow or Strafe?

Strafe Amazon x Diablo/

Baal:

Guided Arrow or

Strafe?

Hi

At the moment I'm using

Guided Arrow to kill

Baal/Diablo on my runs. The feeling is that is faster than was with

Strafe (that I was using while finishing Hell and on the first runs just after finishing Hell)
But I saw on https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/ that my "damage per second" against

Baal/Diablo is a little higher with

Strafe (and maxroll don't even consider the "2 frames breakpoint" that I've reached which, I understand tha would make my real "damage per second" even higher).

Does the maxroll calculation make sense? in the end do I deal more damage with

Strafe than with

Guided Arrow to bosses?

OBS:

Guided Arrow,

Strafe and

Multiple Shot as maxed.

Can you tell if the calculator is taking into account the 4-frame Next Delay of

Strafe?

Don't know

And thinking about the "4-frame Next Delay" the "2 frame breakpoint" is probably worse than the "3 frame breakpoint" against a single target
(if I understand right...with 2 frame you will lose 2/3 of the

Arrows, while with 3 frame you will lose only 1/2 )

Aelanwyr wrote: 1 day ago

Can you tell if the calculator is taking into account the 4-frame Next Delay of

Strafe?

Strafe when the tentacles show, else

Strafe

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

One of them shouldn't be

Guided Arrow

krathkor wrote: 1 day ago

Strafe when the tentacles show, else

Strafe

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think I will continue with

Guided Arrow anyway.

1 -

Guided Arrow is recommended on the guides over

Strafe against single targets

2 - If maxroll is not considering Next Hit Delay, well... that "damage per second" is wrong and I may ignore it... And If maxroll is considering Next Hit Delay, I cannot trust on the damage either, as maxroll do not compute my current attack breakpoint of "2 frames" (this is a know issue) and would be calculating Next Hit Delay considering a "3 frame" breakpoint....

fredkid wrote: 1 day ago

Don't know

And thinking about the "4-frame Next Delay" the "2 frame breakpoint" is probably worse than the "3 frame breakpoint" against a single target
(if I understand right...with 2 frame you will lose 2/3 of the

Arrows, while with 3 frame you will lose only 1/2 )

Aelanwyr wrote: 1 day ago

Can you tell if the calculator is taking into account the 4-frame Next Delay of

Strafe?

I don't think its necessarily worse, as in the event of a miss, the 2-frame

Strafe will attempt a new hit sooner. Also, assuming a 100% hit rate, both attempt a hit on both the initial arrow and the arrow that arrives six frames later. You "waste" more

Arrows, sure (although

Strafe only ever uses one per click), which could potentially cause a slight dip in dps as the first and last animations of

Strafe are slightly longer than the repeating frames in-between...but there are also 3/4 as many frames in the entire

Strafe...

Idk, just eyeballing it, I'd say that unless your to-hit is 95%, the quicker opportunity to pick up the slack left by misses probably still makes the 2-frame

Strafe better.

krathkor wrote: 1 day ago

Strafe when the tentacles show, else

Guided Arrow (EDIT)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I never use

Guided Arrow, because

Strafe has a higher chance to proc

Amplify Damage, which is the best damage source available to a Strafezon.

This is calculated against

Baal with a level 2

Amplify Damage proc, which I hate doing for these calculations because it's fake DPS until you actually trigger the proc. Nonetheless, this is my character's max potential vs.

Baal with

Atma's Scarab and

Guillaume's Face.

Even if Maxroll's next frame calculations for

Strafe are off, this is too big of a difference to not notice, and it is clear as day in action.

In my case the difference is not that big vs

Baal

without

Amplify Damage with

Amplify Damage
OBS: Did you change the target to

Baal on your calculation? (93% chance to hit against him seems a lot )

Guided Arrow – Level 30
Damage: 676–3306
Physical Damage: 666–3296
Poison Damage: 10 over 4 seconds
Attack Rate: 8 frames (3.13 hits per second)
Damage per Second: 10,754
Attack: 10,650

Firestorm - Burn: 104
Crushing Blow: up to 12,793 damage per second
Time to kill: 40.13 seconds

Strafe – Level 30
Damage: 679–3319
Physical Damage: 669–3309
Poison Damage: 10 over 4 seconds
Chance to Hit: 74%
Attack Rate: 33 frames per 9 hits (6.82 hits per second)
Damage per Second: 11,611
Attack: 11,500

Firestorm - Burn: 112
Crushing Blow: up to 13,759 damage per second
Time to kill: 37.21 seconds

Guided Arrow – Level 30
Damage: 2009–9899
Physical Damage: 1999–9889
Poison Damage: 10 over 4 seconds
Attack Rate: 8 frames (3.13 hits per second)
Damage per Second: 32,261
Attack: 31,950

Firestorm - Burn: 311
Crushing Blow: up to 12,793 damage per second
Time to kill: 17.10 seconds

Strafe – Level 30
Damage: 2017–9938
Physical Damage: 2007–9928
Poison Damage: 10 over 4 seconds
Chance to Hit: 74%
Attack Rate: 33 frames per 9 hits (6.82 hits per second)
Damage per Second: 34,831
Attack: 34,496

Firestorm - Burn: 335
Crushing Blow: up to 13,759 damage per second
Time to kill: 15.85 seconds

Snakecharmed wrote: 1 day ago

This is calculated against

Baal with a level 2

Amplify Damage proc, which I hate doing for these calculations because it's fake DPS until you actually trigger the proc. Nonetheless, this is my character's max potential vs.

Baal with

Atma's Scarab and

Guillaume's Face.

Even if Maxroll's next frame calculations for

Strafe are off, this is too big of a difference to not notice, and it is clear as day in action.

Screenshot 2025-03-25.png

fredkid wrote: 1 day ago

OBS: Did you change the target to

Baal on your calculation? (93% chance to hit against him seems a lot )

Yes. The difference is I'm level 99 (matching

Baal's mlvl) and my

Strafe AR is 30K.

Since your chance to hit

Baal is much lower, that caps

Strafe's potential and puts

Guided Arrow on more even ground vs.

Strafe.

GA is SOOOOO much fun to play with, I played it on many chars especially using

Widowmaker and it was such interesting experiences always! I also played with

Strafe on about 2 chars, mostly while leveling but it was far less appealing and effective (maybe because of a non-max level and synergies). GA also makes game look and feel a bit silly and makes "proper positioning" non-existent.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that GA also ALWAYS hits (doesn't bypass the block tho), so you don't have problems with AR at all...

I know you said you are killing

Baal atm but GA is also massively better when farming

Mephisto, for example, if you are doing the bugged strat since it will hunt and hit him huge majority of the time unlike

Strafe that basically just shoots in a straight line and thus is very avoidable when Meph is jiggling across the void.

Now for other things I think that

Strafe could probably be more reliable, for example if you have some sort of a proc build... Still need to test out how both of those cases behave with things that have 100% chance to cast (for example shooting Bow/CB with Explosive

Arrows/

Bolts or using something like Brand).

Yep

Guided Arrow always hit (on the maxroll details above you can see that it do not have "Chance to Hit" entry unlike

Strafe)

TheDoo wrote: 23 hours ago

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that GA also ALWAYS hits (doesn't bypass the block tho), so you don't have problems with AR at all...

Flashbacks to old school D2 where the

Guided Arrow and

Pierce combo was just stupid silly.

fredkid wrote: 1 day ago

Strafe Amazon x Diablo/

Baal:

Guided Arrow or

Strafe?

Hi

At the moment I'm using

Guided Arrow to kill

Baal/Diablo on my runs. The feeling is that is faster than was with

Strafe (that I was using while finishing Hell and on the first runs just after finishing Hell)
But I saw on https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/ that my "damage per second" against

Baal/Diablo is a little higher with

Strafe (and maxroll don't even consider the "2 frames breakpoint" that I've reached which, I understand tha would make my real "damage per second" even higher).

Does the maxroll calculation make sense? in the end do I deal more damage with

Strafe than with

Guided Arrow to bosses?

OBS:

Guided Arrow,

Strafe and

Multiple Shot as maxed.

Just to experiment, have you tried using Atmas Scarab for

Amplify Damage? This is a video I've shared several times on the forum. It was a Strafezon experiment using

Witchwild String bow with

Atma's Scarab. The Diablo take down I think was pretty fast considering the build was level 83 at the time and using what is often considered a lesser bow.

Yep
i'm using

Atma's Scarab (but random seems to not like me.... )

mhlg wrote: 19 hours ago

fredkid wrote: 1 day ago

Strafe Amazon x Diablo/

Baal:

Guided Arrow or

Strafe?

Hi

At the moment I'm using

Guided Arrow to kill

Baal/Diablo on my runs. The feeling is that is faster than was with

Strafe (that I was using while finishing Hell and on the first runs just after finishing Hell)
But I saw on https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/ that my "damage per second" against

Baal/Diablo is a little higher with

Strafe (and maxroll don't even consider the "2 frames breakpoint" that I've reached which, I understand tha would make my real "damage per second" even higher).

Does the maxroll calculation make sense? in the end do I deal more damage with

Strafe than with

Guided Arrow to bosses?

OBS:

Guided Arrow,

Strafe and

Multiple Shot as maxed.

Just to experiment, have you tried using Atmas Scarab for

Amplify Damage? This is a video I've shared several times on the forum. It was a Strafezon experiment using

Witchwild String bow with

Atma's Scarab. The Diablo take down I think was pretty fast considering the build was level 83 at the time and using what is often considered a lesser bow.

fredkid wrote: 12 hours ago

Yep
i'm using

Atma's Scarab (but random seems to not like me.... )

mhlg wrote: 19 hours ago

fredkid wrote: 1 day ago

Strafe Amazon x Diablo/

Baal:

Guided Arrow or

Strafe?

Hi

At the moment I'm using

Guided Arrow to kill

Baal/Diablo on my runs. The feeling is that is faster than was with

Strafe (that I was using while finishing Hell and on the first runs just after finishing Hell)
But I saw on https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/ that my "damage per second" against

Baal/Diablo is a little higher with

Strafe (and maxroll don't even consider the "2 frames breakpoint" that I've reached which, I understand tha would make my real "damage per second" even higher).

Does the maxroll calculation make sense? in the end do I deal more damage with

Strafe than with

Guided Arrow to bosses?

OBS:

Guided Arrow,

Strafe and

Multiple Shot as maxed.

If you're hitting your break points you should hear the male voices often. Sometimes it will take a few seconds for it to go off but when it does it has a duration of 11 seconds which should be enough time for it to proc again. It works best with mobs.