Beating Ancients as a Bowazon

Virid

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Jul 21, 2009
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Beating Ancients as a Bowazon

I seem to be at a huge block here that I can't solo ancients at all. Since I refuse to Pub through this encounter, is there anything I can do to beat them?
 
Re: Beating Ancients as a Bowazon

Been a while since I did it a Zon but I'll second the lots of running. Also full belt of full rejuvs plus drop a bunch around the encounter before starting so you can pick them up on the run as there's nothing worse then getting them down to one ancient left and running out of potions.
 
Re: Beating Ancients as a Bowazon

I seem to be at a huge block here that I can't solo ancients at all. Since I refuse to Pub through this encounter, is there anything I can do to beat them?

Ancients, in my experience, are all about tactics. Knowing how they work will help you deal with them. Hopefully you have some points in Dodge/Avoid/Evade - if not, put some there.

Decoy is useless for Ancients - they totally ignore it. If you pumped Valk, she and the merc should occupy the spinner - but the leaper and the thrower are all about you. Since the leaper deals the biggest one-hit blow, you need to take him our first and stay ahead of his leaps. GA doesn't lock you in like Strafe does, so I recommend GA for the leaper - avoid the leap, couple GA shots - avoid again. You can't worry about anybody else until he's out of the picture. Once the leaper is out, you can use your favorite attack for the other 2.

Make sure to keep the Merc healthy and recast the Valk as needed - that will allow you to focus on the Thrower and then you all gang up on the spinner.


 
Re: Beating Ancients as a Bowazon

I seem to be at a huge block here that I can't solo ancients at all. Since I refuse to Pub through this encounter, is there anything I can do to beat them?

Easy to way to do those:

Lots of running speed (harmony bow, good boots)
Slow items (clegclaw gloves, riphook bow at switch)

Release barbs, shoots them with Riphook. Run a lot until you just one of those barbs are following you. Kill it. Rince are reapeat for other two.
Its little faster with good merc and valkyrie, but bowa can do alone too.

If you have very low life, like 400 or less, change some items before fight, use shako, shaftstop, aldurs boots etc... and change some damage charms to life charms.
Those help so that thrower can't kill you with just one throw, those other two barbs are easy for bowa, they never hit you.

Keep distance when you kill them, so that explosion after dead don't kill you, especially in nmare.

And use guided arrows, at start you can use multi to slow them all at once.
Use magical arrow if one is PI, or if you run out of arrows. It's quite easy task, if you don't panic there.

Lvl 62 (shako lvl) bowa can do hell anciets quite easily, but some extra lvls don't hurt either.

Drink couple (5 each) thawnings and antidote pots in town before fight, those extra resist never hurt.

I have killed hell ancients over 20 times with bowas, for strong bowas (end of ladder) its 15-30 seconds job, for weak bowas (start of ladder) its 3-5min job.

Have fun, its one of the funniest quests in game.



 
Re: Beating Ancients as a Bowazon

Does Slowing work on the Ancients? Don't have the game installed atm, can't check myself..
If so, a lot of frw and slowing items plus some cold damage sc's (and a long poison duration charm to stop life regen) combined with GA could keep you safe?
And the "drop pots before the fight" that Kikie mentions is very helpfull, also drop some arrows while youre at it :thumbup:

By the way, what level are you at and what difficulty? And what kind of gear are you running?

Edit: DH beat me to the punch..
 
Re: Beating Ancients as a Bowazon

Does Slowing work on the Ancients? Don't have the game installed atm, can't check myself..
If so, a lot of frw and slowing items plus some cold damage sc's (and a long poison duration charm to stop life regen) combined with GA could keep you safe?
And the "drop pots before the fight" that Kikie mentions is very helpfull, also drop some arrows while youre at it :thumbup:

By the way, what level are you at and what difficulty? And what kind of gear are you running?

Edit: DH beat me to the punch..

ST is a good point - Clegaw's + Blackhorn's + Nosferatu's to really slow them down, and using a Buriza adds cold to that. Maybe put Kelpie Snare in the Merc's hands. And sorry, I've been doing 1.09 so I wasn't up on the FE bug or the potion chugging - Infernostrides are a good way to pump both FR and R/W. Leech is not very effective against Ancients, in my experience, so Ravenfrost (especially combined with Buriza) + Dwarfstar might be a good combo of rings.


 
Re: Beating Ancients as a Bowazon

Does Slowing work on the Ancients?

It works, but that ww-barb is deadly when slowed (extra careful with him)



Riphook+Blackhorn's rogue merc is good there if you don't want to use slow items for youself.
Edge-bow (thorns) works there too, leave decoy next to you and move away when ww-barb attacks. After you have slowed barbs, you have time to do this kind of tricks, but maybe its better to avoid them at first time.



 
Re: Beating Ancients as a Bowazon

Simple formula....

-Valk, Strafe, and a little bit of CB. You just run around to keep them at or past the screen's edge, and strafe whenever you can stop for a second. Takes em down right fast in my experience.
 
Re: Beating Ancients as a Bowazon

My merc seems to drop from the first WW. Is that just a gear issue, or should I try using an A1 defensive merc for the fight?
 
Re: Beating Ancients as a Bowazon

My bowazon has been having the same trouble with the Ancients -I have a lvl 84 Strafer - My Might merc has 45% Crushing Blow with Kelpies but gets killed right away, the Strafer has >50% CB but also dies quickly. Up until ancients, this bowazon was just cruising through Hell. I thinks its been the WW ancient that keeps getting her.

So -I've got the message -use some more slowing such as Clegaw's, get more FRW and run, run run.

Would a defiance merc make a significant difference in the merc's ability to survive?
 
Re: Beating Ancients as a Bowazon

Would a defiance merc make a significant difference in the merc's ability to survive?

Absolutely not. For your merc, I'd strongly suggest a boatload of damage reduction items like Shaftstop: he's going to get hit, the only thing you can do is reduce how much he'll be hit for.



 
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