M’avina’s Battle Hymn – Set items

As many of the set items found in Diablo II, we do not know much about the person M’avina other than that she most likely was an Amazon warrior.

M’avina’s Battle Hymn, the top amazon set in LOD, isn’t the strongest bowazon setup in game, but it’s certainly one of the most enjoyable.

M’avina’s Battle Hymn is designed for a Bowazon with a class-specific bow, armor, helm, belt and gauntlets. This set is especially good for Amazons that don’t have many points in the Passive & Magic tree as the Plate Mail in this set gives +2 to all passive and magic skills.

While the set grants some nice bonuses, the Amazon-only bow’s damage is inadequate for full-time use in Hell.

The bow has a 10% chance to cast a slvl-15 nova on striking – that’s 92-139 lightning damage in a small radius. It also carries around 100~400 magic damage per shot – this magical damage is lessened by Strafe, but not by elemental arrows. In the end, 50~200 physical plus 100~400 magical per arrow is a lot of damage – the nova is just a very flashy icing on the cake. It’s not phenomenal, but it finally makes this set worth having, simply to have FA multiple pierce with overlapping novas. This set isn’t brutal, but it’s fun. Strafe has always been evil, but once Blizzard corrected the mistake of not allowing a monster to be hit more than once from a single volly, it just got plain sick, and nothing shows it off more than Mavina’s. Once I got the hang of the nova’s radius, I tried my damnedest to herd packs of monsters into tightly-packed groups to abuse overlapping novas from an 9/2 strafe or a volley of FA attacks. I now instinctively keep a track of bottlenecks whenever I go on a leveling spree.

This is a frostmaiden set: M’avina’s Battle Hymn screams cold damage. Then there’s the magical damage; the Caster is one of the few ranged weapons you’ll find with a significant amount of magical damage: this, combined with the unlimited magic arrows, ensures that you have something to deal with PIs. It’s slow going, but if there’re any party members that can deal with PIs better, then you’re contributing to the damage; if not, then you’re the primary PI killer.

M’avina’s Battle Hymn alone is equipped to handle just about anything: it gets magical, cold, and physical damage all in one package. There are very few things in the game — if anything at all — that are immune to even two out of those three things at once: resistant, yes; immune, no.

M’avina’s Battle Hymn doesn’t leave a bowazon with much space for customization: the only slots that are left open are the jewelry and boot slots, meaning that the bowazon will have to choose her sockets and charms wisely. The rlvl of this set is clvl-70.

The bonus for wearing two items is an impressive +20 strength, quite the boost considering the armor. As little as 92 strength is needed to use the entire set, assuming no +strength items. That much strength is enough to wear the Icy Clutch and Tenet for an impressive +30 strength (+10 from the Clutch, +20 for the partial bonus); this would boost a bowazon’s strength to 122, enough to use the Embrace. After the armor, the rest of the set is somewhat accessible (assuming you can obtain the diadem).

Item List

Socketing

Optimal socketing options can go one of two ways: the speed route or the cold route. M’avina’s Battle Hymn’s inherent IAS bonus is 70%, just enough to achieve a 10/3 speed rating. Another 20% IAS from either an IAS amulet or a Shael rune in the bow will give the set a 9/3 rating; insert two jewels of fervor into the diadem and armor (60%) for the 120% IAS she will need to reach 9/2. If you want maximum resists (the set itself offers 100% prismatic resists), you might have to shell out for prismatic IAS jewels, but ultimately, it’s worth it.

Conversely, you can use cold-damage Rainbow Facets for an edge in cold damage. The cold facets won’t increase the chill duration of your bowazon’s FA, but it’ll add a substantial damage bonus: a pair of average (4/4) cold facets will add around 200-300 cold damage, not to mention lowering your target’s cold resistance. If you fit out the set with three cold facets, you’ll be sacrificing speed, but 20% IAS is all you need to hit 9/3, and with an effective FA, everything you hit’ll generally stay still until you’re good and ready to kill it.

Without additional cold equipment, the total chill duration of the completed set is ten seconds in Normal.