bowazon dex

M

mystified

New member
bowazon dex

I am thinking of making new bow, as my current one is....well underperforming.

I am using GMB faith, but having problem getting fastest IAS with lack of 3 sox/useful mod helm.

So for a new one, many people suggested hybrid, or even pure bow vita, which will give me more chance to survive those pesky elemental dmgs.
My bow has bad res as it is (30 all res-ish, filling charms of max dmg only...)

So what would be the best choice?

Pure dex build or more life? I just don't know how much difference it wil make..
 
100 vitality has always served me well :smiley:
then pour rest into dex. since you can afford a faith gmb, im assuming afew 11 light res sc's wont be beyond your reach. that should be the only element causing you problems, so i think it's worth sacrificing other charms for a couple of these, so you will hit the 80 res possible with forti.
use mavs helm socketed with a 15ias jewel for the cheap ias helm :smiley:
 
Tankmobile said:
100 vitality has always served me well :smiley:
then pour rest into dex. since you can afford a faith gmb, im assuming afew 11 light res sc's wont be beyond your reach. that should be the only element causing you problems, so i think it's worth sacrificing other charms for a couple of these, so you will hit the 80 res possible with forti.
use mavs helm socketed with a 15ias jewel for the cheap ias helm :smiley:
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ias jeweled mavs helm is a perfectly fine helm. i use it on my bowa. she's hitting about 7.5k with guided now that ive thrown a pride on my merc. veeery fast killing now ive bothered to actually try gearing her up



 
I second the boost to vitality. I also chose the number 100. I view resists and vitality and inverse relationships-better resists lets you get by with less vitality. As for resists I found that a minimum of 60's in lightening resist using no absorb gear worked okay against black souls and the like. You should be able to leech life to survive against the other damage types.

If you are going to remake the character hold back points to allow you to find your comfort zone for vitality especially if you already the gear you will use beyond level 85. There have been posts/screenshots of people holding 60+ stat points well in to their mid 80's and doing great.

It is worth the effort to get yourself a Call to Arms and Spirit shield for buffing/life boost and before you summon your Valkyrie(if you use one). This is a great way to give you time to find those vitality charms instead of trading for them. This gets to be a bit clumsy with gear switches if you choose to use javelins.
 
CTA never lasted long enough (using lidless not enough str) so I switched to vigor aura making harmony (damned fast!)

I think I will start investing pts into dex then. Guess I will need to do some fine calculation for maximum efficiency.
max/ar/life scs...when am I gonna get all these lol :p
 
my zon with about 1000 life (mostly due to max/ar lifers) and all negative resists does very well in chaos. Really with valk + decoy you shouldn't get hit.
Lifeleech also helps a ton. The only problem with my resists is that diablo's lightning hose is deadly against me.
 
My zon does not have a single point in vita. If you are pvm maybe you can try CoH for survivability. the difference is not that huge between it and fort, because it does extre damage to demons/undead. I have 800-900 life before BO and I have never died after gearing up.

As for big D's hose, he telegraphs it. Just run outta way. :)
 
pure dex build so...and I prerfer forti vs CoH. just matter of taste I guess.
and the fact that I still need ber to make a dusk co don't help.

I want to see how useful ama can be in PvP. PvM it rocked as it was, and I liked it fine.
my strafe/multi was aroud 5K with pride running chaos. Never had problem and never got killed with just valkyrie. heck, not even merc dies i there!

but as sky said I did have problem with dia, and I assume the worst with elemental builds in pvp.

What if I change to MB faith? Will that give me enough flexibility without losing much dmg in PvP?
 
For pvm it is my feeling that CoH is better. You get much better survivabilitywith CoH, and the sacrifice in damage is not large at all. For Pvp fort is the best, no questions. Another thing is that CoH allows you to build rather easily without a single point in strength as well, while fort does not. No str = more dex.

Also, with coh, the extra damage to demons and undead is not shown on the LCS, so you would not be losing out too much on the damage scale. I have stacked resists in hell when I use CoH, and thus even souls don't damage me easily.

For PvP you need gmb faith because of the difference in damage. About 10 average damage etween the two bows. In PvP, it is taken that you will use the normal zon gear, like ias gloves, cat's eye, 120/45 helm and so on, and so the ias is there without sacrifices. You can use other gear without ias if you switch, but the currenct gear is the best as it stands.
 
Ouallada said:
For pvm it is my feeling that CoH is better. You get much better survivabilitywith CoH, and the sacrifice in damage is not large at all. For Pvp fort is the best, no questions. Another thing is that CoH allows you to build rather easily without a single point in strength as well, while fort does not. No str = more dex.

Also, with coh, the extra damage to demons and undead is not shown on the LCS, so you would not be losing out too much on the damage scale. I have stacked resists in hell when I use CoH, and thus even souls don't damage me easily.

For PvP you need gmb faith because of the difference in damage. About 10 average damage etween the two bows. In PvP, it is taken that you will use the normal zon gear, like ias gloves, cat's eye, 120/45 helm and so on, and so the ias is there without sacrifices. You can use other gear without ias if you switch, but the currenct gear is the best as it stands.
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i cant quite agree with you on the survivability issue. Coh does have nice resists, true, but it severely lacks in defense. With fortitude you basically have a guaranteed 4k defense which really has saved my life in hardcore. With coh the defense is way lower, due to the smaller defense on the armor itself and the lack of chilling armor.

And as far as damage is concerned, having the extra 20 points in dex thanks to coh's str bonus is far less beneficial than the global 300% ed on fortitude.
And coh-s resist bonus is the equivalent of having two 15 all res charms and a 5 res small charm which would add about 13 damage before off-weapon ED to the coh-user in the form of max dmg charms(which is roughly 5-7% increase in total damage), which in turn is less useful than fortitudes 300% ed(at least a 7-8% increase in damage).

Overall i think that fortitude really is the better armor of the two, in pvm at least (i dont have any experience with expansion pvp).Its better if you are a damage freak and its better if you play hardcore (i do!)



 
Defense is pretty useless pvm. A bowa should not be getting gang banged by mobs anyway. The threat pvm is from ranged elemental attacks. Read: souls, knights, diablo's lightning hose, baal's cold wave etc.

And yes, fort does give some damage, but this is partially offset by coh's ability to deal extra damage to demons and undead (100% and 200%) for pvm, as well as the 20extra dex from free stat points. That is not to mention the dr as well as mf from coh, which is pretty nice pvm. Dr maybe not, but a little mf is useful.

2 x 15 res gcs and 1 5res sc means the loss of at least 10.5 max and the loss of life through 3/ar/20 scs, which are a zon;s standard gear, as well as AR. If 10max gcs are used, then 11.5 average damage difference. The more off weap ed you have, the more damage this 11.5 average damage becomes.

Fort also has life/level, but this life is non bo-able, and the life loss from using res gear (much harder to get a 20/5 than a 3/xx/20), coupled with the 2 less skills for bo means that fort's life gain is not as large as it seems for pvm.

I must also add that the 2 to skills gives you better passives, more bow skill damage, better crit strike, a better valk, a better decoy and a better bo. Moreover, this is pvm, and coh has life leech, which has to be made up somewhere. Assuming one ring is rfrost, the other should ideally be a ar/str/dex/life/mana/res ring, with the first 3-4 mods needed for a top build. Simply put, there is no space for a dual leech ring. Take out res or mana and you can have mana leech in there, but to have dual leech means a huge sacrifice elsewhere.

the summary of my points would be:
Fort has better damage, but lower survivability
Zons don't die to melee. They die far more often to range elemental attacks if you have KB.
Coh has ed as well, and the dif in damage is not that great
CoH has leech, to free up a slot on rings.
 
Not really. They should not get hit by melee. But attacks such as cold waves or souls' lightning pierce regardless. Play cautiously against them, and you sacrifice time that fortitude's superior killing speed affords. Don't play cautiously, and you may die. Again, it is pvm, and everything dies quickly. More efficiency comes from surviving mf runs.

Plus, the difference in damage is not as great as it seems pvm. The extra crit, better valk, 100/200ed to demons and undead and the 20dex all give you damage. How many people here simply use all 14max gcs and 3max/ar/2dex scs for pvm? It simple is not economical and a tragic generalisation to say that killing speed always > survivability.
 
Ouallada said:
Not really. They should not get hit by melee. But attacks such as cold waves or souls' lightning pierce regardless. Play cautiously against them, and you sacrifice time that fortitude's superior killing speed affords. Don't play cautiously, and you may die. Again, it is pvm, and everything dies quickly.
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I use decoy and Valkyrie activly in those cases, I havent experienced any major difficulties.
Ouallada said:
How many people here simply use all 14max gcs and 3max/ar/2dex scs for pvm? It simple is not economical and a tragic generalisation to say that killing speed always > survivability.
Click to expand...
I have 0 points in vitality and no life from charms. I only get from items Im wearing + Anni/Torch. I use either frw or dex on my charms.



 
The same applies for me. I use both fort and coh at times. When I use Coh, I also use only 3/ar/18+ and 3/ar/frw scs. No problems either in killing either. I have everything into dex as well. It is not simply a one way street. i survive well, and kill well. So do you. It isnt mutually exclusive based simply on how much damage you do. If need be, I can even tank convic soul packs in hell with coh.

Well, another good way to see is this. Do you think a 3os/30dex helm is superior to a 3os/100life helm?
 
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