Favorite zon builds

and an update on firezon - borrowed flamerift from the big boss sorc and did

Chaos Sanctuary today with Faith, 13% Flickering Flame and a few skillers. still very slow. wonder if Phoenix will be enough to make her fast, or will it take closer to ~10 good facets?

Janet the Java wrote: 6 days ago

ganseng wrote: 6 days ago

Janet the Java wrote: 6 days ago

It definitely does.

Let's be honest, no matter what you do, it's never going to be an OP build, but I like a slightly off meta build, and it can comfortably clear any area on P1 (I don't really get much opportunity to test beyond P1 tbh). I just recorded a little video of Chaos for reference; terrible play on my part, and I have far from best gear (all my facets are cheap rubbish), but it works even in areas with lots of fire resist, although obviously not breaking any speed records.

thanks, impressive! Phoenix on firezon somehow makes much more sense than on sorc shield to me..

do you think

Redemption from Phoenix will be enough to forget about potions, so that merc can use Faith with

Fanaticism and not Insight?

Infinity doesn't add that much value if you have -43 res just from

Helm and bow does it?

and.. why don't you use Phoenix? facets outweigh with fire dmg increase or other reason?

Yeh Phoenix is -28 fire res, but with perfect facets you would have -25 res and +25 damage, so should in theory be much stronger. Although honestly, at the time I was playing around with this, I'm not sure I could even afford Phoenix heh.

As for the merc, frankly I never even considered anything but Infinity; so haven't tested that. It is annoying drinking mana pots though, so chalk that up as another reason to consider Phoenix. I may have to test further. I can happily afford to get proper facets and a

Defender's Fire at this point. Pretty sure BiS

Helm would not be Flickering Flame but a 3os

Tiara with frw stuffed with more facets.

Phys bow zon is something special imo.
Really satisfying to me how it sort of breaks a barrier, comes together and really starts working well.

hmm and a crazy thought. if max dmg for fire zon is just maxing facets apparently, wouldn't xbow with 6 sockets be bis?

and for icemaiden, wouldn't it with say 35 dmg/-35 res, beat Ice with 30/-20?

ganseng wrote: 2 days ago

and an update on firezon - borrowed flamerift from the big boss sorc and did

Chaos Sanctuary today with Faith, 13% Flickering Flame and a few skillers. still very slow. wonder if Phoenix will be enough to make her fast, or will it take closer to ~10 good facets?

Janet the Java wrote: 6 days ago

ganseng wrote: 6 days ago

thanks, impressive! Phoenix on firezon somehow makes much more sense than on sorc shield to me..

do you think

Redemption from Phoenix will be enough to forget about potions, so that merc can use Faith with

Fanaticism and not Insight?

Infinity doesn't add that much value if you have -43 res just from

Helm and bow does it?

and.. why don't you use Phoenix? facets outweigh with fire dmg increase or other reason?

Yeh Phoenix is -28 fire res, but with perfect facets you would have -25 res and +25 damage, so should in theory be much stronger. Although honestly, at the time I was playing around with this, I'm not sure I could even afford Phoenix heh.

As for the merc, frankly I never even considered anything but Infinity; so haven't tested that. It is annoying drinking mana pots though, so chalk that up as another reason to consider Phoenix. I may have to test further. I can happily afford to get proper facets and a

Defender's Fire at this point. Pretty sure BiS

Helm would not be Flickering Flame but a 3os

Tiara with frw stuffed with more facets.

I'm in the process of acquiring what I need to test a few options. I don't think you need 10 facets to be effective, but I'm confident Phoenix > Faith, -fire res being more important than IAS on such a build. I'm not convinced whacking facets in the armour is really necessary, suspect Phoenix + Enigma + Flickering Flame is pretty good.

right.. and I guess the crazy idea with 6os xbow is wrong, +3 skills and a higher attack rate on a bow beat the one extra facet?

and maybe i shall give up the act 1 merc stubbornness and get me an emilio.. he would be useful with ethereal Infinity

Thresher, own

Holy Freeze, ethereal

Andariel's Visage and ethereal Chains of Honor wouldn't he?

other mercs prly not that much.. act 3

Enchant wouldn't bring anything, neither on me nor on

Valkyrie?

Janet the Java wrote: 2 days ago

ganseng wrote: 2 days ago

and an update on firezon - borrowed flamerift from the big boss sorc and did

Chaos Sanctuary today with Faith, 13% Flickering Flame and a few skillers. still very slow. wonder if Phoenix will be enough to make her fast, or will it take closer to ~10 good facets?

Janet the Java wrote: 6 days ago

Yeh Phoenix is -28 fire res, but with perfect facets you would have -25 res and +25 damage, so should in theory be much stronger. Although honestly, at the time I was playing around with this, I'm not sure I could even afford Phoenix heh.

As for the merc, frankly I never even considered anything but Infinity; so haven't tested that. It is annoying drinking mana pots though, so chalk that up as another reason to consider Phoenix. I may have to test further. I can happily afford to get proper facets and a

Defender's Fire at this point. Pretty sure BiS

Helm would not be Flickering Flame but a 3os

Tiara with frw stuffed with more facets.

I'm in the process of acquiring what I need to test a few options. I don't think you need 10 facets to be effective, but I'm confident Phoenix > Faith, -fire res being more important than IAS on such a build. I'm not convinced whacking facets in the armour is really necessary, suspect Phoenix + Enigma + Flickering Flame is pretty good.

ganseng wrote: 1 day ago

right.. and I guess the crazy idea with 6os xbow is wrong, +3 skills and a higher attack rate on a bow beat the one extra facet?

and maybe i shall give up the act 1 merc stubbornness and get me an emilio.. he would be useful with ethereal Infinity

Thresher, own

Holy Freeze, ethereal

Andariel's Visage and ethereal Chains of Honor wouldn't he?

other mercs prly not that much.. act 3

Enchant wouldn't bring anything, neither on me nor on

Valkyrie?

Janet the Java wrote: 2 days ago

ganseng wrote: 2 days ago

and an update on firezon - borrowed flamerift from the big boss sorc and did

Chaos Sanctuary today with Faith, 13% Flickering Flame and a few skillers. still very slow. wonder if Phoenix will be enough to make her fast, or will it take closer to ~10 good facets?

I'm in the process of acquiring what I need to test a few options. I don't think you need 10 facets to be effective, but I'm confident Phoenix > Faith, -fire res being more important than IAS on such a build. I'm not convinced whacking facets in the armour is really necessary, suspect Phoenix + Enigma + Flickering Flame is pretty good.

I suspect xbow is just too slow and I'm not sure I want to get 6 more facets to test that one, interesting question though.

I will test Emilio with Infinity vs other options (assume you have Faith on the A1 merc?), but I think that

Conviction aura is just unbeatable if you want to improve clear speed.

ganseng wrote: 2 days ago

hmm and a crazy thought. if max dmg for fire zon is just maxing facets apparently, wouldn't xbow with 6 sockets be bis?

and for icemaiden, wouldn't it with say 35 dmg/-35 res, beat Ice with 30/-20?

6 facets would be 30/-30, not 35.
Ice also delivers 20 IAS, so you'd have to compare it to shark with 5 facets.

Since immunes are the only things that block you,

Wizendraw with facet is very strong as well. It's biggest problem is that you hit 1-2 less frames.

ganseng wrote: 2 days ago

and an update on firezon - borrowed flamerift from the big boss sorc and did

Chaos Sanctuary today with Faith, 13% Flickering Flame and a few skillers. still very slow. wonder if Phoenix will be enough to make her fast, or will it take closer to ~10 good facets?

Janet the Java wrote: 6 days ago

ganseng wrote: 6 days ago

thanks, impressive! Phoenix on firezon somehow makes much more sense than on sorc shield to me..

do you think

Redemption from Phoenix will be enough to forget about potions, so that merc can use Faith with

Fanaticism and not Insight?

Infinity doesn't add that much value if you have -43 res just from

Helm and bow does it?

and.. why don't you use Phoenix? facets outweigh with fire dmg increase or other reason?

Yeh Phoenix is -28 fire res, but with perfect facets you would have -25 res and +25 damage, so should in theory be much stronger. Although honestly, at the time I was playing around with this, I'm not sure I could even afford Phoenix heh.

As for the merc, frankly I never even considered anything but Infinity; so haven't tested that. It is annoying drinking mana pots though, so chalk that up as another reason to consider Phoenix. I may have to test further. I can happily afford to get proper facets and a

Defender's Fire at this point. Pretty sure BiS

Helm would not be Flickering Flame but a 3os

Tiara with frw stuffed with more facets.

Damage of fire is just too low. Compare it with

Fireball on sorc. And sorc can use Phoenix+Spirit instead of only Phoenix bow.

it's 35/35 if one them is a perfect uber

and well aware that sorc is in a different league, fire sorc is my main.. but even she is a bit slow in the

Chaos Sanctuary and world Stone when they are terrorized, so i use the self wield Infinity zon with Enigma

vued wrote: 1 day ago

ganseng wrote: 2 days ago

hmm and a crazy thought. if max dmg for fire zon is just maxing facets apparently, wouldn't xbow with 6 sockets be bis?

and for icemaiden, wouldn't it with say 35 dmg/-35 res, beat Ice with 30/-20?

6 facets would be 30/-30, not 35.
Ice also delivers 20 IAS, so you'd have to compare it to shark with 5 facets.

Since immunes are the only things that block you,

Wizendraw with facet is very strong as well. It's biggest problem is that you hit 1-2 less frames.

vued wrote: 1 day ago

Damage of fire is just too low. Compare it with

Fireball on sorc. And sorc can use Phoenix+Spirit instead of only Phoenix bow.

Depends, damage is too low for what? To smash through P8? Definitely! To have fun on P1? I don't think so!

Exactly, fire dmg is even a little higher than Ice when fully optimized I would say.. Ice is safer thanks to crowd control, and very gratifying with shattering corpses

currently i use Faith on the zon herself, and Insight on the rogue. as soon as i get Phoenix, i will test Faith and Ice on the rogue

fire sorcerer from act 3 may appear promising but the

Enchant dmg is just too low i'm afraid. and barb with Plague will most certainly lose to Infinity.. but looking forward to practical test results

Janet the Java wrote: 1 day ago

ganseng wrote: 1 day ago

right.. and I guess the crazy idea with 6os xbow is wrong, +3 skills and a higher attack rate on a bow beat the one extra facet?

and maybe i shall give up the act 1 merc stubbornness and get me an emilio.. he would be useful with ethereal Infinity

Thresher, own

Holy Freeze, ethereal

Andariel's Visage and ethereal Chains of Honor wouldn't he?

other mercs prly not that much.. act 3

Enchant wouldn't bring anything, neither on me nor on

Valkyrie?

Janet the Java wrote: 2 days ago

I'm in the process of acquiring what I need to test a few options. I don't think you need 10 facets to be effective, but I'm confident Phoenix > Faith, -fire res being more important than IAS on such a build. I'm not convinced whacking facets in the armour is really necessary, suspect Phoenix + Enigma + Flickering Flame is pretty good.

I suspect xbow is just too slow and I'm not sure I want to get 6 more facets to test that one, interesting question though.

I will test Emilio with Infinity vs other options (assume you have Faith on the A1 merc?), but I think that

Conviction aura is just unbeatable if you want to improve clear speed.

ahhh just died twice to souls in tz worldstone with my main self wield Infinity zon.. a reminder that even the strongest builds are not invincible
and btw it's wrong to say that self wield Infinity one shots everything. i have to poke tz

Baal 3-4 times!

It's a little hard to say, since I enjoy several -

Freezing Arrow, multishot,

Lightning Strike,

Lightning Fury.

All around the most satisfying to me is a solid

Freezing Arrow build. She can mow down a lot of areas other classes don't like or can't easily handle (

Flayer Jungle/dungeons and

Great Marsh come to mind immediately). She's not great at bosses but when it comes to zone clearing and pack hunting, with the right build she's a ton of fun.

The

Lightning Strike Infinity

Matriarchal Spear is also great fun and shreds bosses in a quick second. Both builds are good fun to play and can survive pretty well even if resists are low (provided you can put a few points into

Dodge / Avoid /

Evade).

Plan out a build and try them out sometime.

Freezing Arrow is super mana hungry though, and you have to manage potions, even with high end gear. Maybe there's a way to fully solve the problem, but I haven't seen it yet!

Thanks for the input. We have a similar opinion, but for me self wield Infinity is #1 and icemaiden #2

Do you use nightwing veil? I would too but it's so ugly

And since you specialize in icemaiden, maybe you can share some Insight on two question from before:

1) Ice
1.1

Arrows do heavy dmg when they explode on target. But often they just fly through target without exploding and do minor damage. Do they just miss and do I need more attack rating? If they miss, why do they do damage at all?

-> here I assumed problem might be

Pierce and tried replacing razortale with arachnid's mesh.. feel it improved a little but still many failed explosions, especially on bosses, so is it attack rating after all? and what

Belt/what

Pierce percent do you have?

1.2 It's crazy mana hungry, so I go with Insight A1 merc.. Is a better option available on A1 merc? Will I be able to compensate Insight with potions without regular trips back to town?

ReinardusVulpes wrote: 4 hours ago

It's a little hard to say, since I enjoy several -

Freezing Arrow, multishot,

Lightning Strike,

Lightning Fury.

All around the most satisfying to me is a solid

Freezing Arrow build. She can mow down a lot of areas other classes don't like or can't easily handle (

Flayer Jungle/dungeons and

Great Marsh come to mind immediately). She's not great at bosses but when it comes to zone clearing and pack hunting, with the right build she's a ton of fun.

The

Lightning Strike Infinity

Matriarchal Spear is also great fun and shreds bosses in a quick second. Both builds are good fun to play and can survive pretty well even if resists are low (provided you can put a few points into

Dodge / Avoid /

Evade).

Plan out a build and try them out sometime.

Freezing Arrow is super mana hungry though, and you have to manage potions, even with high end gear. Maybe there's a way to fully solve the problem, but I haven't seen it yet!

ganseng wrote: 3 hours ago

Thanks for the input. We have a similar opinion, but for me self wield Infinity is #1 and icemaiden #2

Do you use nightwing veil? I would too but it's so ugly

And since you specialize in icemaiden, maybe you can share some Insight on two question from before:

1) Ice
1.1

Arrows do heavy dmg when they explode on target. But often they just fly through target without exploding and do minor damage. Do they just miss and do I need more attack rating? If they miss, why do they do damage at all?

-> here I assumed problem might be

Pierce and tried replacing razortale with arachnid's mesh.. feel it improved a little but still many failed explosions, especially on bosses, so is it attack rating after all? and what

Belt/what

Pierce percent do you have?

1.2 It's crazy mana hungry, so I go with Insight A1 merc.. Is a better option available on A1 merc? Will I be able to compensate Insight with potions without regular trips back to town?

ReinardusVulpes wrote: 4 hours ago

It's a little hard to say, since I enjoy several -

Freezing Arrow, multishot,

Lightning Strike,

Lightning Fury.

All around the most satisfying to me is a solid

Freezing Arrow build. She can mow down a lot of areas other classes don't like or can't easily handle (

Flayer Jungle/dungeons and

Great Marsh come to mind immediately). She's not great at bosses but when it comes to zone clearing and pack hunting, with the right build she's a ton of fun.

The

Lightning Strike Infinity

Matriarchal Spear is also great fun and shreds bosses in a quick second. Both builds are good fun to play and can survive pretty well even if resists are low (provided you can put a few points into

Dodge / Avoid /

Evade).

Plan out a build and try them out sometime.

Freezing Arrow is super mana hungry though, and you have to manage potions, even with high end gear. Maybe there's a way to fully solve the problem, but I haven't seen it yet!

I don't use anymore

Pierce besides the initial point. No

Razortail - I use

Goldwrap (for MF)or

Nosferatu's Coil (MAEK) and upgrade the

Goldwrap for max potion slots. Positioning is

Key with any bowazon but even moreso with

Freezing Arrow. I use A2 Might Mercenary and Infinity on him because it makes all of the difference, especially in P8. You've got to shepherd him around with their AI to get

Conviction on your targets properly, but it's worth the hassle. As for mana, I go out with one stack of

Super Mana Potion and two stacks of

Full Rejuvenation Potion so that there's no issue. Mostly, I use her in TZs, Pits, Stony Tombs, Chaos, and Worldstone if I want to farm it (it can get rough though). When you're champion hunting and elite hunting there's an overabundance of potions, so it's easy to snag them.

When you setup with no piercing gear (I've got a Mist

Matriarchal Bow with 100%

Pierce and an Ice

Matriarchal Bow that I use sometimes but mostly stick with Faith

Matriarchal Bow) and only use the single point,

Freezing Arrow still pierces frequently, but often explodes *in* the pack or at the front as well. So the explosive damage is dealt in an ideal fashion. I'm not sure why most of the build guides are obsessed with maxing

Pierce as though it's a Javazon, but it's a bad idea in my opinion - particularly when magic finding - and it does nothing for boss fights.

Arachnid's isn't a bad idea, but the FCR breakpoint is either 68% or 99% to aim for. I get that via weapon switch to Heart of the Oak and Spirit

Monarch - Sometimes I'll use a

Hellwarden's Will for IAS and FCR, sometimes I use a

Nightwing's Veil, I've even got a

Harlequin Crest with a 15% IAS/ 14 All Resists jewel in it. It varies a little bit with charms too. You *can* stack resists and go with Mist bow to get great resists, but I've found the survivability is almost identical to having very little resists. In Worldstone Keep you may be pressed to slap on some resists, but usually they are frozen or dead before I get mauled too much by souls or anything else. You have to weigh out the gear you want to use. I've found using Call To Arms and Spirit on switch isn't of any significant benefit to the build. Clear speeds are slower while survivability stays the same.

I considered that CTA would be better overall for mana - and I've tried maximum MAEK builds too -

Valkyrie Wing,

Silkweave,

Nosferatu's Coil, rare rings with MAEK - even +3 MAEK on

Opalvein. Stacking as much as I can WITH CTA for greater mana pool still doesn't eliminate the mana drain and makes clear speeds slower. So, for how I play mine, the FCR is dominant over the other components, and downing potions is an unavoidable mechanic in D2R for several builds, so it's no sweat. Only gets annoying when I have to tele or backtrack a lot on a map, but even that's not an issue since rejuvs are now stackable in stash.

Oh and I think that having a bit more or less attack rating for

Freezing Arrow is largely irrelevant, especially if you're running Faith. If you're running Ice, well, maybe you can spare a few skill points to get extra attack rating, but I don't have an issue with

Arrows landing 98% or more of the time, even on

Baal and Diablo.