Guardian Anna - D2R Bowazon

[ffs]

Been progressing a few HC chars in D2R. Apart fromt his Amazon, a Wind Druid, Blizzard Sorc and Hammerdin are in the making and will then more or less complete the "classic builds", so that I can finally go for some fun niche builds in D2R.

This is my Guardian #12, a Bowazon named Anna.

A few changes in D2R made me want to make a bowa again and try to make it feasible for running on high player settings... as I had done before in LoD, in particular with Pit running in mind. But that was in SC and with pretty high end gear, plus not having to worry much about damage mitigation. Then again, D2R offers a couple of nice additions and changes as well, so why not go for it anyway...

Playthrough
Surprisingly we managed to stay at P8 from start to finish. At some point in Hell I realized she was strong enough to go through with it, even though things like Ancients and Baal took a while.

But admittedly I cheated a bit in normal and NM regarding the bow thingy, and went with my typical fast twinked questing route, i.e.: Envy jewel'ed bow/helm/body armor until lvl 18, then using Charged Strike with MPK javelins and pretty much holding right click until the end Nightmare, equipping the usual twinking S&Us as we leveled up. Once in A5 NM she ran Eldritch/Pindle until lvl 65, then we respec'ed to the bow build.

One of the things I wanted to try was Hustle, as I was contemplating some setups making use of the BoS proc and allowing easier 7 fpa with Windforce or Faith GMB. So I did try it for a bit... and quickly discarded it. In the end there wasn't even a reasonable setup I liked with Hustle. The only possible exception being Faith GMB which would offer a DPS increase when using Hustle, since getting GMB Faith to 7 fpa no longer means losing out on as much as one would need to sacrifice in LoD. But in comparison to Diamond Bow (my standard "all purpose" choice for Faith), GMB setups were at roughly 7-8% higher damage with BoS active. IMO that's really not worth the hassle (pun intended). So I made my first HC Faith in a Diamond Bow, getting a nice 15/1 roll.

I was aiming for an actual "farming" setup from the get-go, so Enigma was a given, rather than stuff like Fortitude, despite having terrible cast rate. On my LoD Bowa I preferred 99 FCR (as described here), with 68 FCR also being good enough, but both were pretty much out of reach in HC: I'm still lacking some higher end gear such as 2/20 amulets in HC, and also needed to include a good amount of damge mitigation.

While I could have made Pride in D2R, I went with Reaper's Merc this time around. One reason being that my rune stash is rather limited and Pride isn't that useful for many characters, but also considering Reaper's has even higher damage anyway once Dercepify is triggered. Both are viable options in any case when running Enigma.

Also worth noting in A2 Hell I tried running with Sunder Charm for a bit when PIs were around, but even with the charm and Decrepify I still resorted to Magic Arrow vs PIs as it was the faster option.

Guardian Gear & Build
Gear:

• Faith Diamond Bow (15/1 roll in 8% ED base)
• CoA (2x IAS)
• Enigma LP
• Highlord's
• Laying of Hands
• String of Ears (found a fitting 8/15/15 one recently)
• Ravenfroat
• Rare ring dual leech, all res, fire res, min dmg
• War Traveler
• Switch: CtA & Spirit
• Merc: A2 Might using Reaper's, Cure, Treachery
• Inventory: Anni, torch, 4x Sharp GCs, 3x fine SCs, otherwise random life SCs

Build:

• 20 GA
• 13 MS (for max 24 arrows with gear)
• 20 Penetrate
• 17 Pierce for 91% (needed here because I wanted to use SoE)
• 1 D/A/E, Valk and pre-reqs
• Remaining points (9 currently) into Magic Arrow (used against tanky PIs)

Jewels in CoA are plain even though I could have sockted RJoF and the like, but I only have two 2os CoAs and didn't want to commit good jewels nor the CoA at this point.

LCS:



P8 Running
Random P8 Pit run example:

Only hitting the 32% FCR breakpoint, teleporting is a bit more clunky, but nonetheless I was surprised to see she performs quite well on P8 even with HC/safety oriented gear.

Definitely still a fun build.

Cheers

 

[snickersnack]

Cool character and write up. It'll be quite some time before I can try the build myself. My next Jah rune is probably going into a Phoenix Monarch.

 

[Miron]

Well done! Congrats!

I also going with bowazon in HC (single pass), trying to get my first Guardian. Since it's my one and only char, all that equipment is out of reach but I hope to make Hustle at least.

Have you tried other mercs?

 

[ffs]

@snickersnack yeah Phoenix can be used by numerous chars, good choice for your next Jah. Faith is fun though, apart from bowa you can use it on a bunch of ranger type builds or A1 Mercs to more easily hit certain attack rate breakpoints.

@Miron this time around I only used A2 Mercs, and Might once available. In the past I tried other combinations, for example l A1 Faith Merc and using WF on the Zon. But A2 Might is generally the best choice.

For single pass, apart from Hustle you could also look for Insight runes as it can now be made in bows, maybe you can even make both. In any event, stay safe bowa in untwinked HC is pretty rough.

 

[snickersnack]

@snickersnack yeah Phoenix can be used by numerous chars, good choice for your next Jah. Faith is fun though, apart from bowa you can use it on a bunch of ranger type builds or A1 Mercs to more easily hit certain attack rate breakpoints.

True. I'm questing an Avenger, and I'm going to try putting a Hustle bow on teh Act 1 merc. Even level 1 Fanaticism does a lot for bps. Well, I'll just have make that choice when it comes.

 

[DaveW]

Nice work ffs, I always have respect for a Guardian.

 

[thefranklin]

Nice build! That is quite the accomplishment to finish Hell p8 with such a low dex bowzon.

 

[ffs]

Yeah I’m rarely putting excessive points in str/dex, definitely max vit in HC but even in SC. A big life pool allows fearless teleporting and ultimately more efficient runs. It’s also a reason I didn’t like Hustle setups since on weapon switch I want CtA/Spirit in any case and dealing with swaps from inventory is annoying.

Worth noting I did some more Pit running with her, and tried a low DR setup with a 2os/20 FCR circlet and Arach, getting the 68 FCR breakpoint on switch. To my surprise it seems totally fine, as MS somehow stuns monsters frequently and providing sufficient safety from nasty rolls. CoA/SoE is probably smarter in HC anyway, but it works well and certainly in SC I’d go for such a 68 FCR setup on switch by default.