Matriarch Harvester - WF/Faith Bowazon

[J-Dog]

Hello everyone!

Jah+Vex+Vex was the result of RFL round 3 for me so I could no more avoid creating the runeword Faith. Deciding the base bow for Faith was incredibly hard for me. The main contenders were 3 skill/5ed GMB, 9ed Shadow bow and 7 ed Great bow. I didn't have a 3 skill Matriarchal bow which would have probably been the weapon of choice for me since I've wanted to try an Ice maiden with Faith as well.

I had a socketed WF collecting dust after re-specing my previous bowazon into a javazon so I decided Harvester would become a WF/Faith merc variant and made the Faith into the Great bow:



NORMAL
Played at P7 and Harvester was twinked with Jewels of Envy > 5x Tal bow > Jewels of Carnage > Sigons. Not much to say. Couldn't wait to get to NM since that's one of the most fun things to do in D2 with a twinked character. Leveled to 45 and moved on to NM.


NIGHTMARE
Played at P7 the NM playthrough was a blast. Harmony Matriarchal bow, Sigons 2 piece, Raven, Cat's eye, Razortail and her endgame circlet made it a fun ride. I believe Harvester reached level 65 in act 5 which was when she could start using Faith. Harmony is honestly so ridiculously good for it's price that even though Faith is obviously superior the difference in NM P7 wasn't dramatic. At level 73 WF was introduced so it was time to go hire a A1 merc and feel the girl power. Leveled to 75 and moved on to Hell.

Below are pictures of the circlet (socketed with 15ias/6 light res jewel), the NM look which I though was cool and a close call from WSK:





HELL
Played at P7 from Act 1 to Act 3 and switched to P3 for Act 4 and Act 5. The P7 gameplay was engaging and the pace was fine. I wanted to feel OP for the last few hours so I lowered the player settings. This was the end game build:

STATS
STR - 134 after gear
DEX - All the rest
VITA - 110 after gear
ENERGY - 0

SKILLS (hard points below, +3 P&M from gear and +3 Valk from Harmony on switch)
20 - Magic arrow
10 - Multishot
20 - Strafe
8 - Critical strike
6 - Pierce
11 - Valkyrie
5 - Decoy
Rest - Penetrate

GEAR
WF (shael)
Fortitude Wire Fleece 28 allres
Beast Cowl rare Circlet
LOH / Crafted blood gloves 20ias/8CB/3ll/11ar/12light res/18life
Razortail
Entropy Loop rare ring 97ar/4ll/11dex/11allres/32fire res
Razortail
Raven 20/234
Cat's eye
WT 43%

CHARMS
Damage / AR / Life / Faster run/walk / FHR / All res / 2x P&M skillers (fhr/life) / Gheeds
Highlights are 2x 3/20/3%fr/w sc's!

BREAKPOINTS
7 frame attack
100 fr/w without Harmony
20 fhr

MERC (CB setup)
Faith Great bow
Duress
Giant skull with 2x ias jewels

Character screen after finishing Hell at level 87:


Here are some pictures from the journey through Hell. Girls night out:


1st HR found during playthrough for me:

3/20/12:

Baal is down:


CONCLUSION

Bowazon is one of most iconic D2 builds and even though it has suffered in the most recent patches it's still one of the most fun builds out there. I think it's because her skills have no synergies and they all have situations where they shine. MS for open areas, Strafe for narrow spaces and picking out leftovers, Magic Arrow for PI's and single targets... great fun.

I will run chaos with Harvester and I'm already experimenting with different setups. I'll write down my experiences probably during this weekend. I'm off to the family summer house for the weekend and I'll try and find some time between bass fishing and sauna.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Pb_pal]

Awesome char. Some really great finds along the way too, congrats!

 

[Babyhell]

Girl power!!!

Spoiler: Kinda off topic

I was wondering what I would do with the Lo dropped on my HC Amazon, either a Fortitude for the merc or for her...you may have sealed the deal, I wanted to make a bowazon, it will open that possibility for after the Random Tournament! Merc will end using it anyway on this character, it will be some defense lost for an opened possibility, I take the trade ;-) only point is the medium armor base I have to use... oh well, I'll find some FRW to compensate!

Also yes, Harmony is of great use especially without Enigma, that Vigor aura is so damn cool to work with.

Edit: and this circlet... congrats!

Thanks for sharing!

 

[J-Dog]

@Pb_pal Cheers! Loot found during playthroughs feel extra sweet. I guess it's because you're not really looking for anything so the surprise factor is amplified.

@Babyhell Great choice! The merc will be fine... Looking at how sloppy they are at what they do, he should feel lucky he's wearing an armor with a Lo rune in it anyway. If he still misbehaves you should let him wear Isenhart's Case for a while and see how that feels.

 

[saracen85]

Congrats! Definitely trying this build soon... Just a matter of pulling the trigger on the runewords

 

[Luhkoh]

Great writeup! Sounds like a blast.

 

[maxicek]

Nice character & write up, congratulations. Lo rune in open play is very nice.

 

[PhineasB]

Nice character and very much enjoyed the write up. That is a nice take on a classic, and one I had planned to run for a few levels in the Pit after respec’ing my Ice Maiden. Thanks for taking the time to post it!

 

[J-Dog]

Thanks to everyone for the nice comments!

@saracen85 Go for it!

@Luhkoh I'll level her to lvl 90 and maybe do a little run project if I don't get distracted by another character.

@maxicek Yeah, act 2 was generous in this playthrough.

@PhineasB I think I'll make a magezon once I have the runes for a second Infinity. I miss Freezing Arrow!
.........................................................................

I re-spec'd out of max strafe and invested more into Valkyrie. Also less invested in Vita and more into Dex.




Also switched to might merc with Reaper's, Treachery and Steel Shade. That meant putting WF into stash and putting Faith on Harvester herself. Mostly the changes were made because I was struggling with Diablo but I also wanted to do an overall comparison with Faith+Might merc vs WF+Faith merc.

Both setups are good but I do feel like this one is overall more balanced. High fire and light res let Harvester tank Diablo's a little better although I still have to move her out of the way of the flames and his red plasma spray. Merc's Decrepify is very nice when proc'd and the skeletons summoned by Faith are excellent tanks. I think I'll respec again, max Decoy and go with lvl 1 Valk. Maxed Valk without BO dies a little too often for my taste and also Decoy seems to draw monsters like moths into flame with the added control of casting it where ever you want.

I'll revisit WF+Faith setup at lvl 90+ and see if the added +max dmg per level has changed the game in favor of that setup. I'll be grinding P7 Pits and P3-5 Chaos with this setup for now.

 

[J-Dog]

So I've revisited WF+Faith setup. I went with a strafe build instead with Atma's for amulet thinking she would perform well on higher p-settings in Chaos. This was not the case so I quickly re-spec'd back into MS/MA build and optimized skills and stats a little better than with the original build. Here's what I ended up with:





Valk is level 17 when casted with Harmony and the stronger Decoy is nice compared to the original version of the build. 19-24k AR is probably overkill but it gives Harvester a decent chance to hit Diablo with MA which is important. Those 2 extra skill points will most likely be dumped into Decoy (I'm sure seeing those 2 free skill points is triggering some OCD's ). I've been running P7 Pits and P1-3 Chaos with her and that's what she'll be doing for the rest of her life.

 

[saracen85]

AR for magic arrow is bugged, so LCS should be much lower than stated. But with 400+ dex, it should still be in the 10k+ range, so no worries

" Magic Arrow's +% Attack Rating is not applied, even though the character screen calculates and displays AR as though it is. +% AR from other sources is applied. "
-AB wiki

 

[J-Dog]

@saracen85 Wow, I didn't know that. Thanks!

 

[saracen85]

@saracen85 Wow, I didn't know that. Thanks!

Yeah.. The same goes to the elemental Bow skills as well. So, those skills AR looks so good in LCS though in reality are supposed to be much lower.

Silver lining is that apart from pierce, the AR won't matter much since the elemental skills are all about AOE.

 

[J-Dog]

Let's necro this thread. I gambled 3os/20fcr Tiara and it inspired to re-spec Harvester into a teleporting variant. Still some skill points and attribute points to spend.


Gear:
- Enigma Light Plate
- WF with ias/29 poison res jewel
- LoH
- WT
- Arach
- Highlords
- Raven
- 10fcr/4LL/28cres/7mf ring
- Charms are pretty good with a mixture of dmg/ar/fr-w/res/life (2x 3/20/3fr-w sc's with same skin being the highlights )

She hits:
- 75% ias which should mean fastest frame with level 15 Fanaticism
- 48% fcr bp with bow / 68% fcr on switch (CTA+Lidless)

Merc is wearing Treachery and Delirium which by the way is absolutely awesome with it's curse proc's.

She can handle RoF at P3 with doable speed and Pits with either P5 or P7. I enjoy P5 more because it's a bit more fluent. I'd say this is the strongest she's been so far. Teleporting is so strong not only from efficiency point of view but also the positioning and merc positioning a.k.a. she's doesn't get lost and constantly end up missing Fana which was one of the main reasons I liked Might merc better with the old setup.

I'm glad I found a use for the WF I had socketed!

 

[Nona]

It was fun reading through this thread and the changes you have made over time. What did you end up socketing the WF with?

 

[J-Dog]

It was fun reading through this thread and the changes you have made over time. What did you end up socketing the WF with?

Good to hear! I had ed/min damage jewel in it which I reluctantly unsocketed. The reason was that I needed 75 ias which I would've achieved just fine by socketing the Tiara with 2 ed jewels and 1 ias jewel. I wanted it to have 3 ed jewels for I might end up using it with a Faith MB (that's not made yet) at some point so so the ias would most likely end up being wasted. Also doesn't it just look better with only ed and fcr in it.... let's be honest that was the reason.

I ended up socketing the WF with 15ias/29poison res jewel which got me to 0% pres. That symmetry did also push me into using that jewel.