Is a bowazon Council runner viable? Worth it?

[Darkthrone]

I usually read about barbarians, paladins, and sorceresses running the Council, but I don't recall hearing about any amazons. By viable I don't mean can she physically do it; I'm sure she can. I mean can she do it in a comparable amount of time to the aforementioned character classes?

My amazon is currently level 79 and just entered act 3 hell, so I should be able to do the runs pretty soon, though I'll get to early act 5 to get the +10 resistance scroll since I'll need it. I ran the Council on nightmare on players 8 and they melted to her, so I am wondering if in hell on players 1 (or is it 3, what should I be running on?) and some better gear they'll fall just as easily.

The majority of my playing time recently has been running Lower Kurast for runes, which I have been pretty successful (in my opinion, though a Ber still escapes me), so I can start making some of the decent runewords. I've gone through my stashes and put together some decent gear to run them, but I would need some runewords to have a pretty good set up. This is my current gear:

Weapon: Harmony runeword in ward bow base. Managed to roll a 273% on the enhanced damage. (this will be replaced)
Helm: Stealskull
Armour: Lionheart runeword (this will be replaced)
Gloves: Laying of Hands (they were pretty much made for this )
Belt: Nosferatu's Coil
Boots: Gore Rider (I opted for them over Goblin Toe despite the decrease in crushing blow since they have faster run/walk and deadly strike, but these could be swapped)
Amulet: Highlord's Wrath. I also have a Seraph's Hymn but it only has 37% enhanced damage against demons. I think the increased attack speed and deadly strike on the Highlord's is better. I would love to try a Cat's Eye, but I don't have one.
Rings: 2 rares:

Spoiler

Plague Loop 
Ring 
Required Level: 60 
Fingerprint: 0x86331e6f 
Item Level: 82 
Version: Expansion 1.10+ 
+117 to Attack Rating 
2% Mana stolen per hit 
3% Life stolen per hit 
+37 to Life 
+43 to Mana 
Poison Resist +6%

Entropy Touch 
Ring 
Required Level: 48 
Fingerprint: 0x8c6253e3 
Item Level: 83 
Version: Expansion 1.10+ 
+10% Faster Cast Rate 
+75 to Attack Rating 
5% Life stolen per hit 
+10 to Dexterity 
All Resistances +8 
Lightning Resist +16%

I'm not attached to the rings, and likely they could be swapped out for something with fire resistance, but life leech I think is mandatory.

While I can't make a Brand or a Faith yet, I crunched the numbers between the two and if you compare them Brand edges out Faith in damage only slightly, but I think Faith is a better bow due to its fanaticism aura which gives you increased attack speed (and buffs your mercenary). It also has a huge bonus to your attack rating, resistances, +skills, etc. Plus it's cheaper to make. The question is do I put it in a ward bow or a hydra bow? Hydra bows deal more damage on average but if I am reading the wiki correctly the ward bow is slightly faster inherently. A great bow is even faster, and only deals slightly less damage than a ward bow. Will that matter? I have another ward bow I can use. I don't have a hydra bow yet, but that's okay because I don't have a Jah rune yet =] (close though). I also have a 4 socket matriarchal bow but it only has +1 to bow and crossbow skills. Should I wait until I find a +3?

Wrath is also interesting since you have a significant chance to cast decrepify and a moderate chance to cast life tap. It also has 20% crushing blow and is very cheap to make.

Armour-wise I'd make a Chains of Honor. Mercenary would get a Fortitude, Reaper's Toll (though I'd love a Pride), and probably a Vampire Gaze, but I could swap the helm out for whatever, probably something with fire resistance. Speaking of which, I have amassed fire resistance charms while running Lower Kurast so I think I am okay on resistance.

I also have a +6 Battle Orders Call to Arms on swap, so there's that, too.

Anyway, sorry for the long post. Is this worth it? There are a lot of runes involved, so if it's not worth it I might not make some of the runewords, though I'd probably still make a Faith since it's an awesome bow.

Thanks for reading!

 

[maxicek]

I think you will be better with Black Hades stuffed with damage to demons jewels. Windforce should be the goal for a bow.

Worth it? My guess it will be more efficient use of time to make & level a Barb. Slap on 2x Oath and off you go.

 

[Mir]

I think the best bet will be cold based amazon, much like blizzard sorc. You will have to deal with 1 CI council member but that is why you have the merc with you. The biggest problem with amazon is getting to them and tank them.

The barb can outrun (if no teleport) the monsters from wp to council and enter melee with them alone but amazon have to keep some distance so it will force you to fight not only them but some of the monster around the building too.

With sorc you have mobility and can reposition yourself and avoid fighting other monsters.

Amazon is not efficient enough but probably more challenging which is important too.

 

[frozzzen1]

I just tried gearing my javazon for test and she can be pretty good. 27 sec avg for p3 travincal run. But that was just first couple test runs or so. Probably more accurate number would be ~25 sec over long run. It's not bad but not sorc/barb + it's not safe enough and needs pretty specific gear to be safe while running.

As for bowazons, not sure, she can be viable runner for sure but I'm pretty sure she can't touch javazon in terms of performance + she would need crazy gear to be decent runner. If I had to put estimate* to her run times I guess I'd say something like 35-40 sec could be
doable but I would need to respec and regear my bowie to see it for myself and that's not something I'm overly enthusiastic about. Without good gear like Windforce or Faith I would say it won't really work.

* might not be true at all

So in nutshell, you might be best by going with LF in the end if you really want trav amazon. Bowa can do it but at the point where your bowazon might be viable trav runner you won't need runes anymore

 

[Beoron1]

I would suggest a faith merc and a WF for yourself most likely. From what I understand that's the highest physical damage bowa combo for PVM. I used magic arrow on my zon for immunes, and that worked pretty well.

 

[Darkthrone]

I think you will be better with Black Hades stuffed with damage to demons jewels. Windforce should be the goal for a bow.

Black Hades is certainly cheaper than Chains of Honor (though I don't have one), but even a perfect one with 60% damage against demons and three 40% enhanced damage jewels (which I also do not have) is 20% less than Chains of Honor, plus you lose out on the other good stuff like +65 all resistances, life leech, etc. A Windforce would be pretty awesome but I also do not have one. I could run Pindleskin for one, but that would take some time.

Worth it? My guess it will be more efficient use of time to make & level a Barb. Slap on 2x Oath and off you go.

I do have a barbarian in very early development (act 1 normal) which I could use for this. It's certainly worth considering. I read somewhere that Grief is the best for this, since the hidden damage gets added to the base of the weapon which is then used in enhanced damage calculations. Is that true? Should I use that instead of Oath? Would be more expensive but less expensive than Faith. What about one or two? I have a Stormshield, but it may not be useful in this scenario. Also if I were to use a barbarian I would probably not use Chains of Honor and instead use Fortitude, though could go either way.

I think the best bet will be cold based amazon, much like blizzard sorc. You will have to deal with 1 CI council member but that is why you have the merc with you. The biggest problem with amazon is getting to them and tank them.

The barb can outrun (if no teleport) the monsters from wp to council and enter melee with them alone but amazon have to keep some distance so it will force you to fight not only them but some of the monster around the building too.

At the moment my amazon can run pretty fast, but that's also because she's using Harmony. When I swap out Harmony I'd probably search for a Cat's Eye to replace my Highlord's Wrath to maintain the quick speed (I have a few 3% faster run/walk charms in the inventory as well). As for tanking I have my valkyrie and decoy, plus I can quickly run down into Durance to "teleport" my mercenary with me. I hadn't even thought about that until I watched a video on Youtube.

Amazon is not efficient enough but probably more challenging which is important too.

This certainly does sound like a challenge!

So in nutshell, you might be best by going with LF in the end if you really want trav amazon. Bowa can do it but at the point where your bowazon might be viable trav runner you won't need runes anymore

Doing a javazon crossed my mind, too, but I much prefer playing bowazons. As for not needing the runes anymore, hahaha that also crossed my mind, but I am missing a lot of the key runewords that a lot of players have. The only good runeword I have is Call to Arms, though I can make some others right now.

I would suggest a faith merc and a WF for yourself most likely. From what I understand that's the highest physical damage bowa combo for PVM. I used magic arrow on my zon for immunes, and that worked pretty well.

I've thought about putting the Faith on a rogue, but would she be able to survive? To be honest I've never used a mercenary other than the desert mercenaries, so I'm not sure what a high-level rogue is capable of. That would also mean I could not put the Faith in an amazon bow, which may limit me in the future. Also not having the desert mercenary means no might aura. It would be kind of interesting to play a different type of mercenary, though. Hmmm, food for thought.

 

[jiansonz]

What main bow skills is your amazon using?

(I am trying to picture how the fight plays out, which is very hard for me. I only play Hell Travincal once with all my characters, and it usually takes about an hour to clear. Very few of those characters can tolerate that even two council members can see (and heal) each other. I lure out one at a time and kill them out of sight of the others. I almost can't grasp the kind of damage output that would be needed to defeat the whole pack at once, what with the insane healing that goes on).

 

[Darkthrone]

What main bow skills is your amazon using?

(I am trying to picture how the fight plays out, which is very hard for me. I only play Hell Travincal once with all my characters, and it usually takes about an hour to clear. Very few of those characters can tolerate that even two council members can see (and heal) each other. I lure out one at a time and kill them out of sight of the others. I almost can't grasp the kind of damage output that would be needed to defeat the whole pack at once, what with the insane healing that goes on).

I would probably use freezing arrow to at least start, but I was using strafe when playing on nightmare with players 8. Valkyrie would probably be maxed. I would use decoy at times as well. Basically keep them occupied while I unleash death. I would have max fire resist and so would my mercenary. Killing the Council has never really been that hard if you're properly equipped, and she will be equipped specifically for it. People run the Council all the time very quickly. With the set up I had in mind she would have over 1,000% enhanced damage (including damage specifically towards demons) and about 60% increased attack speed.

EDIT: Also if I recall correctly, Blizzard toned down the healing they do in a later patch. I've rarely seen them do it anymore (also, I intend for them to be dead before they can =]).

 

[Beoron1]

I think wf/faith merc is the highest pvm damage you can get, even more so than faith/might merc with pride, but I could be mistaken there. With a valk your merc should survive well, and the wf gives you the KB too. My WF/faithmerc amazon could clear CS in Hell pretty easily.

 

[zaphodbrx]

FA is probably way to go. You can probably freeze them all and kill them quick with something like 'Ice'.
But seriously it's not worth it. I tried running p7 council with a spearazon a few times. It worked okay thanks to mass leeching, but there isn't a whole lot of point in it because fend is such a crappy skill compared to zeal.

 

[Darkthrone]

I'm probably going to build my barbarian into a Council runner. Maybe one day I'll try this when I have more runes to spare. I'm currently doing Chaos Sanctuary runs in normal to get his level up because Diablo just steam rolls him. I'll run Pindleskin with my sorceress to get a Windforce and use my bowazon as a dedicated Chaos Sanctuary and Baal runner to get those essences.

I assume Grief is the go-to weapon for this? Does it matter if I have two of them (in phase blades, I'm assuming), or does equipping a shield make a difference? Also when it comes to Battle Orders, is it possible to find weapons with +3 war cries and +3 Battle Orders, or just the war cries?

 

[pharphis]

My best guess at a travazon would be the fishyzno, tbh. Have a merc with infinity and then switch b/w CS/LF/FA as needed. I doubt it would be as efficient as the common builds, though, and like others have said it'll take a lot of runes to get there.

 

[Beoron1]

I'm probably going to build my barbarian into a Council runner. Maybe one day I'll try this when I have more runes to spare. I'm currently doing Chaos Sanctuary runs in normal to get his level up because Diablo just steam rolls him. I'll run Pindleskin with my sorceress to get a Windforce and use my bowazon as a dedicated Chaos Sanctuary and Baal runner to get those essences.

I assume Grief is the go-to weapon for this? Does it matter if I have two of them (in phase blades, I'm assuming), or does equipping a shield make a difference? Also when it comes to Battle Orders, is it possible to find weapons with +3 war cries and +3 Battle Orders, or just the war cries?

If you are doing a barb council runner I would suggest Grief/SS and doing berserk. It is also a good CS runner if you just tele the seals and kill Diablo. Maxed berserk is really fast for killing Diablo.

 

[incomplet]

All classes can kill anything, just certain classes do it faster (sorc) or with more reward (barb hork).
However if you are adamant in using a zon, Frozen Arrow would be very good similar to why a blizz sorc is the fastest.
It is worth noting that Infinity also removes all cold immunes here.
My best advise is to reroll a map to where they all spawn together, or all in the building if you dont have teleport.

 

[Gripphon1]

I assume Grief is the go-to weapon for this? Does it matter if I have two of them (in phase blades, I'm assuming), or does equipping a shield make a difference? Also when it comes to Battle Orders, is it possible to find weapons with +3 war cries and +3 Battle Orders, or just the war cries?

Check out THIS mini-guide about how to make proper WW travincal runner barb.

Also, HERE is great thread about WW trav barb with a lot of info, discussions and some video examples. Here you will find recommendations from several players and many other advices.

As for your weapons switch, you can easily use dual Spirits for buff and to get much needed fcr for teleporting and hork. Dual Hoto is cheap and very effective option, I would say best possible option. I use dual Hoto myself. Check out linked mini-guide where you have everything listed.

Using shield does make a difference, it slows you down. You don't need shield for travincal, that is overkill. You can easily have 4k+ life and then council won't even touch you on any players. I assume you will run on players 3 since that is most profitable way. For players 3 anything above 3500 life is overkill. I had 2400 life on mine and didn't die for over 6000 runs. Just make sure you have lifeleech, high damage weapon, merc which doesn't die every run and you will run them like boss. Well, not at first, you will have to get used to hork, to continuous whirlwind and so on, but you will have a lot of benefit from it. After all, WW barb is second best travincal runner, second to blizzard sorc, so it is well worth it to master him.

My recommendation? You have my equipment listed in post #80 at second linked thread. I use bugged axes, but you can use dual phase blade Grief. Or some combo with Oath.

 

[Darkthrone]

Awesome, thanks for the links and info! When I get a chance tomorrow I'm going to go through everything and take a look.