Bowazon

Hi all,

I wanted to try the Arctic Gear set on a zon and it now became a lvl 82 physical zon
After lightning and icemaiden she feels fun, approximately as fun and strong as the icemaiden

I got a few questions along the way

1) progress between ~12 and 28 was painfully slow, until I could equip

Skystrike - it was a physical build all the way
Did I miss some bow or

Crossbow that would have been good inbetween? Or do you just have to level with

Exploding Arrow?
2) then from 42 to ~65

Lycander's Aim, felt good.. there wasn't a much better option was there?
3) now it's a fully geared zon, rogue and

Valkyrie trio rocking Faith and Mist
I keep Mist on the main and Faith on the rogue because Faith rolled bad and I like the 100%

Pierce, res and +3 all skills on Mist.. but if bot rolled perfectly, what would be better?
4) gear currently below - are there any substantial improvements possible?

main
Mist

Shako
Fortitude

Laying of Hands
credendium

Rite of Passage

Atma's Scarab

Manald Heal
rare ring with str, dex, fire res, and life leach

merc
Faith

Peasant Crown (prly to be replaced with another

Shako or the zon Ice

Helm?)

Iron Pelt (to be replaced with gladiator's bane soon?)

i think u need at least one of crushing blow,

Gore Rider,

Horazon's Hold,

Guillaume's Face, &

Highlord's Wrath.

Fall wrote: 5 hours ago

i think u need at least one of crushing blow,

Gore Rider,

Horazon's Hold,

Guillaume's Face, &

Highlord's Wrath.

thx..

i think

Atma outclasses the highlord here,

Amplify Damage is just too good

not sure about guillaume,

Shako is also so nice

but

Boots are certainly a fair point, was also thinking about

Gore Rider,

Infernostride, goblin's toe or aldur

Ahh and forgot anoth question - does CtA buff the

Valkyrie?

ganseng wrote: 5 hours ago

Ahh and forgot anoth question - does CtA buff the

Valkyrie?

I don't know if the BO buff

Valkyrie's life or not, but cast

Valkyrie after BC/BO is definitely the way to go. She will have at least 2 more levels.

Insight bow is huge for leveling with a physical bowa. Edge is a nice little gap filler until you hit level 27. (keep Edge in your stash, for gambling. 15% vendor price reduction)

Faith is better than Mist for physical. with

Razortail and +skills you should have a pretty easy time hitting 100%

Pierce. Mist is supernice in a

Matriarchal Bow for exploding/

Freezing Arrow hybrid zons.

I like keeping a Hustle/Mania on swap for bowazons,

Strafe or multishot to trigger

Burst of Speed, then swap back to main.

Demon Limb is another cute swap to help with AR and a little extra damage from

Enchant.

yeah CtA buffs the

Valkyrie as far as i know.

Valkyrie Wing is also a nice grab, FRW is a game changer for

Strafe zons, makes it a bit easier to reposition and put distance between yourself and the mobs so you don't get wrecked in the middle of

Strafe frames. Wisdom is another sneaky option, if you have mana troubles or want some additional

Pierce, but would be better used as a leveling item.

I love

Atma's Scarab on a phys bowa, but it's kind of a toss up between that and highlords. the IAS from highlords is a huge perk.

Gore Rider for sure, goblins are nice but losing FRW is a no go for me with a zon.

Horazon's Hold and

Horazon's Legacy as a two piece is pretty legit too for physical builds, and opens up a ring slot since you don't need ravenfrost for cannot be frozen. but you lose out on 2/20 rare gloves or 3/20 magics.

EDIT: For A1 merc

Helm: Bulwark,

Vampire Gaze,

Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest, and

Crown of Thieves are all solid options.

Guillaume's Face is good too, but no life steal, unless you socket quest, and there are probably better uses. Wisdom is another option, for cannot be frozen and

Pierce, but not a great endgame choice.

loadbearingposter wrote: 5 hours ago

Insight bow is huge for leveling with a physical bowa. Edge is a nice little gap filler until you hit level 27.

Faith is better than Mist for physical. with

Razortail and +skills you should have a pretty easy time hitting 100%

Pierce. Mist is supernice in a

Matriarchal Bow for exploding/

Freezing Arrow hybrid zons.

I like keeping a Hustle/Mania on swap for bowazons,

Strafe or multishot to trigger

Burst of Speed, then swap back to main.

Demon Limb is another cute swap to help with AR and a little extra damage from

Enchant.

yeah CtA buffs the

Valkyrie as far as i know.

Valkyrie Wing is also a nice grab, FRW is a game changer for

Strafe zons, makes it a bit easier to reposition and put distance between yourself and the mobs so you don't get wrecked in the middle of

Strafe frames. Wisdom is another sneaky option, if you have mana troubles or want some additional

Pierce, but would be better used as a leveling item.

I love

Atma's Scarab on a phys bowa, but it's kind of a toss up between that and highlords. the IAS from highlords is a huge perk.

Gore Rider for sure, goblins are nice but losing FRW is a no go for me with a zon.

Horazon's Hold and

Horazon's Legacy as a two piece is pretty legit too for physical builds, and opens up a ring slot since you don't need ravenfrost for cannot be frozen. but you lose out on 2/20 rare gloves or 3/20 magics.

thx.. a few more clarifications if yu don't mind

1) why are

Laying of Hands not good with 350% dmg to demons?
2) why does Faith beat Mist exactly if your use both?

Fanaticism boosts dmg more on you than on your party true but Mist has more attack speed and 100%

Pierce.. frees points and

Belt for other applications. plus survivability is better with Mist
and dmg boost is additive from what i understand, meaning it's not that big of a deal with all the other effects is it?
ignore defence is big of course, but u need it mainly vs bosses and hear

Guided Arrow always hits doesn't it?

Bows to consider as you level, if you have access to them:

Witchwild String (lvl 39) is highly underrated, and it will take all the way through Hell lvl. It also has

Amplify Damage and when used with Atama's it increases the odds that one or the other will proc. A Mist is a decent bow but for the price there are much better options. A

Windforce can be purchased for an

Ist, and is competed with on by a Faith runeword bow otherwise nothing else will touch it.

Here is a

Witchwild String with

Atma's Demo I made killing Hell lvl Diablo.

mhlg wrote: 4 hours ago

Bows to consider as you level, if you have access to them:

Witchwild String (lvl 39) is highly underrated, and it will take all the way through Hell lvl. It also has

Amplify Damage and when used with Atama's it increases the odds that one or the other will proc. A Mist is a decent bow but for the price there are much better options. A

Windforce can be purchased for an

Ist, and is competed with on by a Faith runeword bow otherwise nothing else will touch it.

Here is a

Witchwild String with

Atma's Demo I made killing Hell lvl Diablo.

thx i did use it on merc with 2x

Shael during leveling.. helped sometimes, but 2% chance is very low indeed

ganseng wrote: 4 hours ago

mhlg wrote: 4 hours ago

Bows to consider as you level, if you have access to them:

Witchwild String (lvl 39) is highly underrated, and it will take all the way through Hell lvl. It also has

Amplify Damage and when used with Atama's it increases the odds that one or the other will proc. A Mist is a decent bow but for the price there are much better options. A

Windforce can be purchased for an

Ist, and is competed with on by a Faith runeword bow otherwise nothing else will touch it.

Here is a

Witchwild String with

Atma's Demo I made killing Hell lvl Diablo.

thx i did use it on merc with 2x

Shael during leveling.. helped sometimes, but 2% chance is very low indeed

If you watch the video, every time you hear the echoed male voices, cry "D"

Amplify Damage has prc'd. When you use Atmas with the Witchwild you get two chances of

Amplify Damage procing. Faith is better than Mist in a number of areas. Faith has the

Fanaticism aura which makes it easy to hit its break points and proc

Atma's amplify.

This is a Demo of Faith in

Travincal.

mhlg wrote: 4 hours ago

ganseng wrote: 4 hours ago

mhlg wrote: 4 hours ago

Bows to consider as you level, if you have access to them:

Witchwild String (lvl 39) is highly underrated, and it will take all the way through Hell lvl. It also has

Amplify Damage and when used with Atama's it increases the odds that one or the other will proc. A Mist is a decent bow but for the price there are much better options. A

Windforce can be purchased for an

Ist, and is competed with on by a Faith runeword bow otherwise nothing else will touch it.

Here is a

Witchwild String with

Atma's Demo I made killing Hell lvl Diablo.

thx i did use it on merc with 2x

Shael during leveling.. helped sometimes, but 2% chance is very low indeed

If you watch the video, every time you hear the echoed male voices, cry "D"

Amplify Damage has prc'd. When you use Atmas with the Witchwild you get two chances of

Amplify Damage procing. Faith is better than Mist in a number of areas. Faith has the

Fanaticism aura which makes it easy to hit its break points and proc

Atma's amplify.

This is a Demo of Faith in

Travincal.

don't mean to be stubborn, but Faith on merc gives

Fanaticism ias just as well doesn't it?

ganseng wrote: 4 hours ago

thx.. a few more clarifications if yu don't mind

1) why are

Laying of Hands not good with 350% dmg to demons?
2) why does Faith beat Mist exactly if your use both?

Fanaticism boosts dmg more on you than on your party true but Mist has more attack speed and 100%

Pierce.. frees points and

Belt for other applications. plus survivability is better with Mist
and dmg boost is additive from what i understand, meaning it's not that big of a deal with all the other effects is it?
ignore defence is big of course, but u need it mainly vs bosses and hear

Guided Arrow always hits doesn't it?

Laying of Hands are good. they're great for bosses, and areas where demons are the largest enemy type. they can be BiS depending on where/what you are farming. against non-demon mobs, you might prefer Passive and Magic skiller/20 ias gloves or 20 ias/crushing blow gloves (or a set of crafted

Blood Gloves with all three)

since you're running Faith and Mist, yeah Mist will be faster when stacked with the fanat aura from your merc. but with if you run Faith and Mist merc, you get the full damage bonus of both auras, plus ignore defense for mobs, and massive attack rating increase for bosses and super elites. Mist on a cold A1 merc allows for great crowd control, with the

Pierce +3 freeze and

Freezing Arrow, it also procs more casts of

Inner Sight because of the IAS affix, which is also pretty handy for mobs. I wouldn't say that there is a gigantic gulf between the two, especially when run together. but i feel like self worn Faith works out better at higher player counts.

but honestly, it's a game and it's not always about min maxing ideal builds... like, i wear Chains of Honor on my phys bowazons, despite the fact that Fortitude is objectively a better option... i just like the res, +skills, and magic find

ganseng wrote: 4 hours ago

don't mean to be stubborn, but Faith on merc gives

Fanaticism ias just as well doesn't it?

In theory, the A1 girl will follow you wherever you go no problem, but in reality and without Enigma, the girl is just too slow to even keep up. You won't get

Fanaticism aura with you for quite long time.

Flyhorse wrote: 4 hours ago

ganseng wrote: 4 hours ago

don't mean to be stubborn, but Faith on merc gives

Fanaticism ias just as well doesn't it?

In theory, the A1 girl will follow you wherever you go no problem, but in reality and without Enigma, the girl is just too slow to even keep up. You won't get

Fanaticism aura with you for quite long time.

that's very annoying for sure!

and regarding the break points.. from what I could find it's 32% IAS and then 86%

if I have 40 ATM and

Fanaticism grants further ~30 (not shown), I could reach next break point if I equipped

Andariel's Visage instead of

Shako for example.. right?

ganseng wrote: 4 hours ago

mhlg wrote: 4 hours ago

ganseng wrote: 4 hours ago

thx i did use it on merc with 2x

Shael during leveling.. helped sometimes, but 2% chance is very low indeed

If you watch the video, every time you hear the echoed male voices, cry "D"

Amplify Damage has prc'd. When you use Atmas with the Witchwild you get two chances of

Amplify Damage procing. Faith is better than Mist in a number of areas. Faith has the

Fanaticism aura which makes it easy to hit its break points and proc

Atma's amplify.

This is a Demo of Faith in

Travincal.

don't mean to be stubborn, but Faith on merc gives

Fanaticism ias just as well doesn't it?

Fanaticism aura on a rogue merc is not that dependable, and using an Enigma on a Zon is an exercise in frustration. A held Mist bow isn't even close to a held Faith, I've tried every possible combination and the top two choices were Faith and

Windforce. This is an image of the Mist I rolled for testing.

ganseng wrote: 3 hours ago

Flyhorse wrote: 4 hours ago

ganseng wrote: 4 hours ago

don't mean to be stubborn, but Faith on merc gives

Fanaticism ias just as well doesn't it?

In theory, the A1 girl will follow you wherever you go no problem, but in reality and without Enigma, the girl is just too slow to even keep up. You won't get

Fanaticism aura with you for quite long time.

that's very annoying for sure!

and regarding the break points.. from what I could find it's 32% IAS and then 86%

if I have 40 ATM and

Fanaticism grants further ~30 (not shown), I could reach next break point if I equipped

Andariel's Visage instead of

Shako for example.. right?

The IAS break point is really depending on your bow and skill. I think there is an IAS calculator here which you can use to find the right break point.

ganseng wrote: 3 hours ago

if I have 40 ATM and

Fanaticism grants further ~30 (not shown), I could reach next break point if I equipped

Andariel's Visage instead of

Shako for example.. right?

Use this to figure out how much IAS you need
attackspeed.php

Fanaticism doesn't just grant IAS, it also decreases the amount of overall IAS you need to reach breakpoints.

In my experience the Merc ACt 1 gets to you pretty quickly and it's more of an annoyance than a a problem. The only real zone where it's actually a problem is

The Arcane Sanctuary since no Mercenary knows how to pathfind through that and gets stuck often. I don't like to run that with the Bowazon anyways as the Phys immune ghosts are such a headache even with Atmas.

I really like the

Windforce + Faith Merc since it lets you put a ton of Magic find elsewhere in the build since you don't need as much IAS.

it allows me to run

Shako socket

Ist, Chancies, and War Travelers and even without the the crushing blow I melt through all of the

Terror zones. The knockback from the

Windforce makes it so that generally Heralds can't touch you unless they are ranged.

I keep an Highlords in my inventory and swap to Atmas when I find something I want to kill that's phyically immune.

You won't be shredding bosses quickly or doing ubers but I found that she is the most enjoyable character for running TZs to try and get a sunder charm.

Having a lifeleech ring and an

Amn rune in your

Windforce makes you feel so tanky despite the low health pool. I don't even feel the need to run CTA in my offhand and run Harmony instead to zoot around the map with the

Vigor Aura.

thanks.. do i read it correctly

Grand Matron Bow will have same max attack speed as

Matriarchal Bow if i have

Fanaticism lvl 12, Mist, 20% ias gloves and

Andariel on?

ganseng wrote: 2 hours ago

thanks.. do i read it correctly

Grand Matron Bow will have same max attack speed as

Matriarchal Bow if i have

Fanaticism lvl 12, Mist, 20% ias gloves and

Andariel on?

What skill are you using?

Strafe, multi shot,

Freezing Arrow?

No, you'll have a a 1 frame attack difference. If using a standard skill for amazon you'll hit 8FPA with your 35IAS, lvl 12

Fanaticism, and a

Matriarchal Bow and 9FPA with a GMB.

This is because a GMB has a base speed of 10 and

Matriarchal Bow has a base speed of -10.