Hey all, after the latest D2R patch fixed strafe damage and ar bugs, and reading @ffs mat thread, I was anxious to try it out. My original plan was to just grab a bow and kill things. After researching youtube videos to confirm that the strafe bugs were indeed fixed, I saw a video that stated 2 frame strafe was working. New Goal! It turns out it is really good now! Not hammerdin good, poison nec good, or mosaic good, but it is the best a screen-wide-aoe zon has been in a long time. And I have budget gear.
Gear:
Upped WWS - 2x min ed jewels
Guillaume's Face --- +15% Increased Attack Speed +9 to Maximum Damage (Carmine Jewel of Fervor)
The Cat's Eye
Hustle Wyrmhide
Mana Leach Resist Ring
Raven (190/19)
War Travs 34%
Razortail
+33 max damage charms with ar, life
% gheeds
anni 19/12
Necro ??! Torch 11/12
Merc:
Reapers Toll
Hustle Armor
Tals Helm
Normal and nm was played at p8 throughout their entirety, Hell act 1 at p3, acts 2-5 at p5 (except p1 where ghosts could spawn). Hell Ancients were done at p5, Hell baal at p3.
Skills: Maxed MS, GA, Strafe. 13 to Valk, 8 pierce, rest to penetrate. I only have +1 skill with anni in my final gear.
Stats – All stat points put into dex except for what was needed for str. In act 2 hell I put enough points into vit to get to 600 hp, and have alternated putting into dex / vit since then. 5 dex points only adds like 10 max damage, while 5 vit points was 20 hp (a small charm I could remove).
Gear Selection:
After beating Nightmare, I leveled to 79 in p8 terror zones and I play tested the following bows:
Harmony mat
Hustle GMB
Insight Shadow
175 ed buriza (un upped, no socket)
170 ed wws (un upped, empty socket)
Eaglehorn (no socket)
243 GSA
I also did Hell act 1 at p3 with those collection of bows. I could not believe that I would attack a group of monsters in hell, kill them, and then find a boss pack behind them that were also dead, to an exceptional unsocketed wws! Of these bows, buriza felt the strongest but was also the slowest and a playstyle I didn’t want. Running glass cannon, I did not want to be strafe locked that long. Hustle GMB felt the weakest, even tough in my calculations it should have been very comparable to the others. Harmony mat felt good against the ghosts, but when I upped the player count and tried it against a phys immune in act 2, it didn’t feel good at all.
I locked in WWS, LoTH, Razortail, War Travs, G-Face, Ravenfrost, and Hustle in as gear. To get 90 ias, I needed 20% from my amulet slot. As I did not have Cat's Eye or Highlords yet, I used a sorc to run Hell Andy until one dropped. I needed a dual leach ring, but I do not have one yet and I crafted all the rubies I had trying to get one, but no success. I decided that a mana leach ring led to a higher kill speed as chugging life potions was easier than chugging mana potions.
Notes:
1. I have never liked strafe, but I used it 90% of the time.
2. The merc did overwrite amp, but the regularity of decripify was worth it
3. I did not have a 3 socket eth polearm/spear when I started hell. I have now tested it, and I like hustle + wearing atmas better than Reapers. I didn't enjoy fanatacism from an act 1 merc because of the range, and I assumed that the low range of lvl 1 fana would be terrible. Honestly, it is not because you tend to stand near the act 2 merc when firing, plus you always know where he is going to go.
4. I have the runes for Mist, but it didn't look spectacular enough to use them as it is my only Charm for now, and WWS was working for p5 hell fine enough for me. Even with Mist, I would probably replace it with WF because a 2fpa WF would quite a bit more damage.
5. I also have the runes for BOTD, but once again, it doesnt do enough. It hardly outdamages WWS.
6. One annoyance was having to max multishot, it really hurts the mana pool. It is a very small synergy to strafe and a larger synergy to GA. I rarely used GA, so it is kind of useless for that. Because I was using WWS with Guillaimes so that I had 100% DS, I didnt need critical strike. However, after running the math on strafe, you actually get more damage adding points to critical strike than multishot. I used +4, +6 skills (anni, torch, +2 faith) and it seems about any amount you put into CS instead of MS will increase strafe damage. having more CS also increases MS damage. If I switch bows, I will probably only put 10 into MS and the leftover points into CS.
7. I didnt really use Magic Arrow all that much. I think there was one unbreakable PI I killed with it. Sadly, this character loves its skill points now.
8. I don't have a physical sunder charm, it would be great on this character. As I understand the -res would work at full strength.
Deaths:
5, all in act V hell - see ramblings below.
Thanks for reading!
Code:
Name: BowsBeforThrows
Class: Amazon
Experience: 1547756179
Level: 89
Naked/Gear
Strength: 75/130
Dexterity: 350/449
Vitality: 95/135
Energy: 15/45
HP: 511/531
Mana: 147/187
Stamina: 247/247
Defense: 87/1095
AR: 1720/2582
Fire: 149/109/49
Cold: 99/59/-1
Lightning: 121/81/21
Poison: 99/59/-1
MF: 72 Block: 60
GF: 113 FR/W: 120
FHR: 50 IAS: 95
FCR: 10
Magic Arrow: 1/2
Fire Arrow: 0/0
Cold Arrow: 1/2
Multiple Shot: 20/21
Exploding Arrow: 0/0
Ice Arrow: 0/0
Guided Arrow: 20/21
Strafe: 20/21
Immolation Arrow: 0/0
Freezing Arrow: 0/0
Inner Sight: 1/2
Critical Strike: 1/2
Dodge: 1/2
Slow Missiles: 1/2
Avoid: 1/2
Penetrate: 10/11
Decoy: 1/2
Evade: 1/8
Valkyrie: 13/14
Pierce: 8/9Gear:
Upped WWS - 2x min ed jewels
Guillaume's Face --- +15% Increased Attack Speed +9 to Maximum Damage (Carmine Jewel of Fervor)
The Cat's Eye
Hustle Wyrmhide
Mana Leach Resist Ring
Raven (190/19)
War Travs 34%
Razortail
+33 max damage charms with ar, life
% gheeds
anni 19/12
Necro ??! Torch 11/12
Merc:
Reapers Toll
Hustle Armor
Tals Helm
Witchwild String
Diamond Bow
Two Hand Damage: 129 - 136
Durability: 33 of 40
Required Level: 65
Required Strength: 89
Required Dexterity: 132
Fingerprint: 0x7383dd9b
Item Level: 87
Version: Resurrected
2% Chance to cast level 5 Amplify Damage on striking
Fires Magic Arrows
241% Enhanced Damage
+17 to Minimum Damage
89% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)
All Resistances +40
Required Level +7
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Ruby Jewel of Bliss
Socketed: Ruby Jewel of Bliss
Witchwild String
Diamond Bow
Two Hand Damage: 129 - 136
Durability: 33 of 40
Required Level: 65
Required Strength: 89
Required Dexterity: 132
Fingerprint: 0x7383dd9b
Item Level: 87
Version: Resurrected
2% Chance to cast level 5 Amplify Damage on striking
Fires Magic Arrows
241% Enhanced Damage
+17 to Minimum Damage
89% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)
All Resistances +40
Required Level +7
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Ruby Jewel of Bliss
Socketed: Ruby Jewel of Bliss
Ruby Jewel of Bliss
Jewel
Required Level: 58
Fingerprint: 0x4c0c62b6
Item Level: 81
Version: Resurrected
35% Enhanced Damage
+7 to Minimum Damage
Ruby Jewel of Bliss
Jewel
Required Level: 58
Fingerprint: 0x2e86e339
Item Level: 81
Version: Resurrected
36% Enhanced Damage
+10 to Minimum Damage
Bitter Hold
Ring
Required Level: 74
Fingerprint: 0x79cb0243
Item Level: 91
Version: Resurrected
+10% Faster Cast Rate
+46 to Attack Rating
6% Mana stolen per hit
All Resistances +10
Lightning Resist +22%
Diamond Bow
Two Hand Damage: 129 - 136
Durability: 33 of 40
Required Level: 65
Required Strength: 89
Required Dexterity: 132
Fingerprint: 0x7383dd9b
Item Level: 87
Version: Resurrected
2% Chance to cast level 5 Amplify Damage on striking
Fires Magic Arrows
241% Enhanced Damage
+17 to Minimum Damage
89% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)
All Resistances +40
Required Level +7
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Ruby Jewel of Bliss
Socketed: Ruby Jewel of Bliss
Witchwild String
Diamond Bow
Two Hand Damage: 129 - 136
Durability: 33 of 40
Required Level: 65
Required Strength: 89
Required Dexterity: 132
Fingerprint: 0x7383dd9b
Item Level: 87
Version: Resurrected
2% Chance to cast level 5 Amplify Damage on striking
Fires Magic Arrows
241% Enhanced Damage
+17 to Minimum Damage
89% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)
All Resistances +40
Required Level +7
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Ruby Jewel of Bliss
Socketed: Ruby Jewel of Bliss
Ruby Jewel of Bliss
Jewel
Required Level: 58
Fingerprint: 0x4c0c62b6
Item Level: 81
Version: Resurrected
35% Enhanced Damage
+7 to Minimum Damage
Ruby Jewel of Bliss
Jewel
Required Level: 58
Fingerprint: 0x2e86e339
Item Level: 81
Version: Resurrected
36% Enhanced Damage
+10 to Minimum Damage
Bitter Hold
Ring
Required Level: 74
Fingerprint: 0x79cb0243
Item Level: 91
Version: Resurrected
+10% Faster Cast Rate
+46 to Attack Rating
6% Mana stolen per hit
All Resistances +10
Lightning Resist +22%
Normal and nm was played at p8 throughout their entirety, Hell act 1 at p3, acts 2-5 at p5 (except p1 where ghosts could spawn). Hell Ancients were done at p5, Hell baal at p3.
Skills: Maxed MS, GA, Strafe. 13 to Valk, 8 pierce, rest to penetrate. I only have +1 skill with anni in my final gear.
Stats – All stat points put into dex except for what was needed for str. In act 2 hell I put enough points into vit to get to 600 hp, and have alternated putting into dex / vit since then. 5 dex points only adds like 10 max damage, while 5 vit points was 20 hp (a small charm I could remove).
Gear Selection:
After beating Nightmare, I leveled to 79 in p8 terror zones and I play tested the following bows:
Harmony mat
Hustle GMB
Insight Shadow
175 ed buriza (un upped, no socket)
170 ed wws (un upped, empty socket)
Eaglehorn (no socket)
243 GSA
I also did Hell act 1 at p3 with those collection of bows. I could not believe that I would attack a group of monsters in hell, kill them, and then find a boss pack behind them that were also dead, to an exceptional unsocketed wws! Of these bows, buriza felt the strongest but was also the slowest and a playstyle I didn’t want. Running glass cannon, I did not want to be strafe locked that long. Hustle GMB felt the weakest, even tough in my calculations it should have been very comparable to the others. Harmony mat felt good against the ghosts, but when I upped the player count and tried it against a phys immune in act 2, it didn’t feel good at all.
I locked in WWS, LoTH, Razortail, War Travs, G-Face, Ravenfrost, and Hustle in as gear. To get 90 ias, I needed 20% from my amulet slot. As I did not have Cat's Eye or Highlords yet, I used a sorc to run Hell Andy until one dropped. I needed a dual leach ring, but I do not have one yet and I crafted all the rubies I had trying to get one, but no success. I decided that a mana leach ring led to a higher kill speed as chugging life potions was easier than chugging mana potions.
Notes:
1. I have never liked strafe, but I used it 90% of the time.
2. The merc did overwrite amp, but the regularity of decripify was worth it
3. I did not have a 3 socket eth polearm/spear when I started hell. I have now tested it, and I like hustle + wearing atmas better than Reapers. I didn't enjoy fanatacism from an act 1 merc because of the range, and I assumed that the low range of lvl 1 fana would be terrible. Honestly, it is not because you tend to stand near the act 2 merc when firing, plus you always know where he is going to go.
4. I have the runes for Mist, but it didn't look spectacular enough to use them as it is my only Charm for now, and WWS was working for p5 hell fine enough for me. Even with Mist, I would probably replace it with WF because a 2fpa WF would quite a bit more damage.
5. I also have the runes for BOTD, but once again, it doesnt do enough. It hardly outdamages WWS.
6. One annoyance was having to max multishot, it really hurts the mana pool. It is a very small synergy to strafe and a larger synergy to GA. I rarely used GA, so it is kind of useless for that. Because I was using WWS with Guillaimes so that I had 100% DS, I didnt need critical strike. However, after running the math on strafe, you actually get more damage adding points to critical strike than multishot. I used +4, +6 skills (anni, torch, +2 faith) and it seems about any amount you put into CS instead of MS will increase strafe damage. having more CS also increases MS damage. If I switch bows, I will probably only put 10 into MS and the leftover points into CS.
7. I didnt really use Magic Arrow all that much. I think there was one unbreakable PI I killed with it. Sadly, this character loves its skill points now.
8. I don't have a physical sunder charm, it would be great on this character. As I understand the -res would work at full strength.
Deaths:
5, all in act V hell - see ramblings below.
Thanks for reading!
Normal- I leveled this character up with a 3 jewel of envy helm, 3 tir breast plate, and 5 socketed long bows with poison gems, and multishot. In D2 legacy I always used 1.07 RavenClaw for my zon level purposes, but honestly I liked this a lot better. Sure the 07 ravenclaw was less work overall and you could get almost through normal one-shotting everything with the synergy, but the poison bow had some extra style I wasn’t ready for. It smoothly took me to level 27, which is a new benchmark in leveling bowzons, and possibly all zons. BowsBeforeThrows, meet the Insight bow and an inventory of sharp gc’s. Well, I only have a couple right now, and I have a pair of 7% frw + 24,25 mana gcs that I can put on at lvl 14 that are my D2R staples for normal difficulty. Level 27 to 39 was a breeze, where a new bow entered the mix, Harmony +3 mat bow. Sadly, I could not make a Hustle mat bow, as until now, I have basically thrown away all 3 os items. I know I had rolled 3 os +3 mat bows in cows, and had several 3 os eth elite polearms. I didn’t have a single 3 os polearm/spear at this point so I could not try hustle on the merc, but I did have a +3 3os GMB that I could try at level 54.
I shopped a staff of teleport in normal act 2, and that stayed on my weapon switch throughout the entire playthrough.
Nightmare- NM was a breeze, and I couldn’t figure out if Harmony mat bow or insight diamond bow was better. I was leaning towards insight being better due to the extra ar, but I wasn’t really hurting for ar anyways. It might have been the extra critical strike? I put a reapers toll on my merc for decrip procs, and kept it on him the rest of the game. I don’t think he really got close to any monsters to really make a difference with the curse until hell, especially if I was using knockback, which is another mod I was contemplating.
Hell Act 2-5- Looking through my gomule stashes, my idea for this character was as follows:
Achieve 2 fpa strafe while wearing Laying of the Hands and Guilliames Face. That tossed out the buriza. Because I used strafe 90% of the time in NM, and it was the bow that could most improve by giving it its finishing touches, I went with Witchwilde String. It takes 90 ias to get to a 2 frame strafe, and I wanted to get the highest possible damage on the bow and I don’t have any ed/ias jewels. Without using the bow sockets for ias, 20% from gloves, 40% from armor (hustle), 15% from helm, and 20% from amulet would do the trick. I needed to get to 105 to get to 8 frame multi, but I don’t have an andys helm, mavs helm, or 2 socketed giant skull (I rolled one with 1). So I stuck with 9 frame multi. I did not have a 20% ias amulet, so I took a few days break running Hell Andy until I got one. I was also blessed with an Atmas, but I had already decided on what I was doing with this character for now.
I happened to have 2 x 35% ed minimum damage jewels that I could socket it with, so it ended up having a nice 241% ed and + 17 to minimum damage with a damage range of 129-136. Too bad you can’t get good min damage charms.
Act 2 was pretty easy although I did drop the Arcane Sanctuary down to p1 because the ghosts were taking too long. I kept reapers on the merc so when amp procced it would be overwritten relatively quickly in a situation where the merc and I were focusing down one monster or pack of monster like ghosts. Other than that, I was happy having both because decrip was much more dependable as a damage booster and immunity breaker. Amp was still very useful because of the strafes massive aoe. If amp went off, I would throw some multis in its general direction and non of the monsters would last long enough for the merc to wander over.
Act 3 gave no problems, but there was not souls in the Great Marsh. The council was surprisingly easy, but convicted Bremm did eat my merc/valk quite a few times at the entrance to Durance 3. Meph easily at my merc but a few valk casts and a health potion or two was all it took.
Act 4 had souls, but I was able to take them slow without any deaths. That jolting first blast of lightning when you find out souls spawn is a one of a kind feeling you don’t get anywhere else. Diablo ate the merc, but went down fast.
Act 5 was where I started having some deaths. My first death was OHKO by an extra strong might aura siege beast.
The siege beasts were a pain in general, looks like they have 50% physical resist and 50% chance to block.
I died in the Glacial Trail to a pack of ghost minions that were at 5% hp while I was cursed, after I killed the unique.
I died to a convicted LE boss offscreen in the frozen river. Dumb death, there weren't even souls here.
I died to the ancients once when I let Talic whirlwind through me for some reason. I reset one time after that after merc got cursed and died, and then I was able to dispatch them. I separated Korlic and took him down (used 70 arrows in the process). I found the other two, which were close to half hp because of the damage taken before separating, and another 80 arrows later they were done.
WSK3 had souls, and I got 3 shot by a champion pack of souls. They included a Possessed soul, and this guy could 3 shot me, and took longer to kill than any act boss. Strafe, lvl 20 magic arrow, guided, nothing really made it go quicker. What a beast!
Baal’s waves went way easier than I expected. Even p5 Lister didn’t really take any longer than the fourth wave. Baal at p3, however, did take a long time. I did mess around with the clone first because I wasn’t paying attention. I had to go to town for mana once, but I was never in danger. Baal rewarded me with an absolutely not perfect 6/10 string of ears.
I shopped a staff of teleport in normal act 2, and that stayed on my weapon switch throughout the entire playthrough.
Nightmare- NM was a breeze, and I couldn’t figure out if Harmony mat bow or insight diamond bow was better. I was leaning towards insight being better due to the extra ar, but I wasn’t really hurting for ar anyways. It might have been the extra critical strike? I put a reapers toll on my merc for decrip procs, and kept it on him the rest of the game. I don’t think he really got close to any monsters to really make a difference with the curse until hell, especially if I was using knockback, which is another mod I was contemplating.
Hell Act 2-5- Looking through my gomule stashes, my idea for this character was as follows:
Achieve 2 fpa strafe while wearing Laying of the Hands and Guilliames Face. That tossed out the buriza. Because I used strafe 90% of the time in NM, and it was the bow that could most improve by giving it its finishing touches, I went with Witchwilde String. It takes 90 ias to get to a 2 frame strafe, and I wanted to get the highest possible damage on the bow and I don’t have any ed/ias jewels. Without using the bow sockets for ias, 20% from gloves, 40% from armor (hustle), 15% from helm, and 20% from amulet would do the trick. I needed to get to 105 to get to 8 frame multi, but I don’t have an andys helm, mavs helm, or 2 socketed giant skull (I rolled one with 1). So I stuck with 9 frame multi. I did not have a 20% ias amulet, so I took a few days break running Hell Andy until I got one. I was also blessed with an Atmas, but I had already decided on what I was doing with this character for now.
I happened to have 2 x 35% ed minimum damage jewels that I could socket it with, so it ended up having a nice 241% ed and + 17 to minimum damage with a damage range of 129-136. Too bad you can’t get good min damage charms.
Act 2 was pretty easy although I did drop the Arcane Sanctuary down to p1 because the ghosts were taking too long. I kept reapers on the merc so when amp procced it would be overwritten relatively quickly in a situation where the merc and I were focusing down one monster or pack of monster like ghosts. Other than that, I was happy having both because decrip was much more dependable as a damage booster and immunity breaker. Amp was still very useful because of the strafes massive aoe. If amp went off, I would throw some multis in its general direction and non of the monsters would last long enough for the merc to wander over.
Act 3 gave no problems, but there was not souls in the Great Marsh. The council was surprisingly easy, but convicted Bremm did eat my merc/valk quite a few times at the entrance to Durance 3. Meph easily at my merc but a few valk casts and a health potion or two was all it took.
Act 4 had souls, but I was able to take them slow without any deaths. That jolting first blast of lightning when you find out souls spawn is a one of a kind feeling you don’t get anywhere else. Diablo ate the merc, but went down fast.
Act 5 was where I started having some deaths. My first death was OHKO by an extra strong might aura siege beast.
The siege beasts were a pain in general, looks like they have 50% physical resist and 50% chance to block.
I died in the Glacial Trail to a pack of ghost minions that were at 5% hp while I was cursed, after I killed the unique.
I died to a convicted LE boss offscreen in the frozen river. Dumb death, there weren't even souls here.
I died to the ancients once when I let Talic whirlwind through me for some reason. I reset one time after that after merc got cursed and died, and then I was able to dispatch them. I separated Korlic and took him down (used 70 arrows in the process). I found the other two, which were close to half hp because of the damage taken before separating, and another 80 arrows later they were done.
WSK3 had souls, and I got 3 shot by a champion pack of souls. They included a Possessed soul, and this guy could 3 shot me, and took longer to kill than any act boss. Strafe, lvl 20 magic arrow, guided, nothing really made it go quicker. What a beast!
Baal’s waves went way easier than I expected. Even p5 Lister didn’t really take any longer than the fourth wave. Baal at p3, however, did take a long time. I did mess around with the clone first because I wasn’t paying attention. I had to go to town for mana once, but I was never in danger. Baal rewarded me with an absolutely not perfect 6/10 string of ears.
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