Cow runs!

jdkerr

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Dec 13, 2008
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Cow runs!

I have questions about cow runs.

We all know that lightning amazons have a reputation for being good at clearing the cow level quickly. I have discovered that an FO sorceress seems to do a good job, as well.

So the questions are:
(1) What builds are good for reasonably fast cow runs?
(2) What melee builds -- if any -- are good for reasonably fast cow runs?

(We are obviously talking about Hell, ultimately.)
 
Re: Cow runs!

Most AoE builds are fine as long as you keep the player settig low. Once you go high (I really don't think there's any reason to do cow runs on lower player settings :p) nothing competes with LF zon, atleast not without infinity.
 
Re: Cow runs!

I've been running cows with my Blizzard-sorc on players 7. I don't know what's sort of times the amazons are clocking, but my runs take 5 minutes or so ( Edit: Almost forgot, that includes getting the leg) . I could shave off some time off of that though by stopping to kill every cow that I run across and moving at a faster pace.

Current LCS damage is 9k, which could be buffed with a couple more charms and if I just had any facets. DF and NW are eager to get paired with those. :whistling:
 
Re: Cow runs!

Kimppi,

Are you 1-hit killing the cows at /p7? If not, how far down would you have to scale it to get there?
 
Re: Cow runs!

@Kimppi: I only can recommend you to see corrupted's video from cow runs :)
Cow run

jdkerr: if I can say somethink about melee build, I will say ew barb beacuse is only melee that can attack lot of targets during few time :)
 
Re: Cow runs!

jdkerr:

Looks like the normal cows drop from one blizzard on p7 if it hits well, but because of its random nature that doesn't always happen. The boss packs can take two or three before they go down. I usually just spam away until nothing moves.

bassano:

Nice going :)

I did run cows with a LF zon when I was playing on bnet. I've been meaning to make a runner in SP too but haven't bothered yet because I'm missing a Griffons. Probably wouldn't even need it but whatever :p

I'm liking the more relaxed running with the sorc compared to that vid though. What usually happens is that I'm standing behind the idiot, and when the cows start surrounding him, I throw a couple of glacial spikes so that he doesn't die and after that start spamming blizzard until everything is dead.
 
Re: Cow runs!

I think the somewhat unique thing about LF amazons is that LF's damage potential gets larger and larger as there are more enemies on the screen, and the bolts from LF cover the entire area of the screen (and beyond). With Blizzard you have a timered spell covering a smaller area, and with Whirlwind you are still hitting at 4fpa, so even though you can whirl through a crowd, the crowd doesn't actually increase your damage output like it does with LF.

To put it another way, if there are 50 cows on the screen, WW will take about 50 times longer to kill them than it would to kill 1 cow. LF will probably kill those 50 cows faster than it could have killed a single cow.

One should run with whatever they have fun running with, but it's easy to see why LF is such a great fit for Cows.
 
Re: Cow runs!

WW barbs aren't so good with crowds. WW is a single target attack, it's just that the hits are distributed to many monsters in weapon range.

NF advocates a blizzsorc for cow runs.

I think my time with a javazon(with infinity :O) is about 10 minutes, but I have to rely on my merc, since apart from infinity, my gear is only average(have no facets :().
 
Re: Cow runs!

I ran cows for a while with javazon with infinity and the runs were fairly long even though the cows dropped in a flash. Positioning the merc was hard and he liked to mess with herding.

Recently I re-geared with enigma and and faster attack speed (I found a second, low end, griffons that I could stick an IAS jewel into as opposed to my high end faceted one) and the runs are much faster even though my damage is about 20% lower. The mercenary is also very easy to position with enigma. I was able to achieve a decent (for a zon :p) cast rate from griffons + spirit + ring. Now I must re-build as with enigma I have 256 strength.
Resistances were solved by focusing exclusively on lighting.

I believe that my runs are now about 30-60 seconds longer than my BO lasts but I completely clear the entire level save the king. That is probably about 5 minutes per run but it could be a lot more as I don't time myself and I try to relax and have fun.
 
Re: Cow runs!

Would a lightning sorc be a good cow runner? Lightning for when there aren't many cows around and CL for when the screen is full of them. I think mana would be the biggest issue.
 
Re: Cow runs!

My light sorc runs cows quite well when I get the urge. Haven't timed the runs, but I'd estimate a little over 4 minutes. You need -eLR, though, and it's tough to get a good amount of that and 117 FCR if you don't have a Griffon's. I use:

-Griffon's (-25 eLR)
Mara's/crafted 10 FCR ammy
Crescent Moon (-35 eLR)
Spirit
Skin of the Vipermagi
Arach's
Trang's gloves/Chancies
2x SoJs
War Travs

Two skillers, a Gheed's and a couple shimmering SC's round things out. Never made a javazon, but after watching a few vids of them I think I prefer using the sorc, anyway. You can keep your merc (and his Insight) as you should be teleporting enough to keep him from hurting your herding technique.
 
Re: Cow runs!

What about Crescent Moon (esp. beta) on a zealot? Fast zeal + lvl13 static field every 5 hits? (Any other fast melee attack would be equivalent, I suppose...)

What about rabies? The cows are packed close together and will spread the disease?

What about bone spear, with the piercing attack?
 
Re: Cow runs!

I tried rabies. Lots of fun, but slow compared with blizzsorcs/javazons. And I did it only on p3. P7 would be even slower. Still, if you have a rabies druid, give it a try :D
 
Re: Cow runs!

I tried light sorceress with infinity on cows but I had mana problems as I did not have any 1.07 mpk rings at the time. Lightning is good at insta-gibing cows and at high levels, when lightning's damage grows much faster than chain lightning's, lightning is all around better for individual as well as groups of cows. Lightning is also lighter on the mana pool. :p

I have tried a tesla-din in cows too but even with a beta crescent moon his damage to groups was lower than a sorceress and much lower than a javazon. That's not to say he didn't kill fast he just didn't drop 50 cows in 1 second like a javazon can.

The tesladin's max damage was ~10k per hit swinging with 4-frame zeal. A lighting sorceress can hit ~12 cows with ~12k chain lightning every 11 frames. The same sorceress using lightning can hit between 4 and 12 (depending upon the size of the group) cows for ~36k max damage every 11 frames. A Javazon can hit ~40 cows for ~4k max damage, 5 times (piercing) every ~10 frames. The javazon clearly wins assuming equal mobility.

Even factoring in that the telsadin and sorceress have static field so the monsters have less life the javazon still wins.
 
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