Revisiting Bowazon for P7/P8 running

[ffs]

I played around a bit with Bowazon setups and trying to build one for Pit running on higher player settings. I've always liked Bowies, but at the same time was often underwhelmed with their performance when running somewhat more difficult content. So as a little side project I fooled around with a lot of different setups for her, in an attempt to make her viable for P7 Pit runs. After some testing, gearing around and several respecs, I've ended up with a build and setup that I thought performed surpringly well. And while testing different approaches she got me a Zod – which is a big plus for any build in my book.

When it comes to teleporting Amazons, I'm an advocate of the 99% FCR breakpoint, in particular for Javazon (for which I've also made a video some time ago). So I was also going for that here. Hitting 7 FPA Multishot was quickly discarded, given those FCR needs made it not feasible. Running the numbers quickly indicated that neither GMB nor Mat Bow provided a DPS advantage (considering the IAS range I was able to move within), but Diamond/Shadow Bow seemed appealing for 8 FPA. I ended up using my first Faith I made in a Diamond Bow, which I like also for the close damage range providing consistent leech. That meant 8 FPA required 30% IAS from other gear with 13+ Fanaticism, which I got via the headpiece socket and a pair of craft gloves. Actually both of these are quite nice items that I've been meaning to put to use for some time.

Since I figured it's overall better explained by talking, I made this little vid.

Equipment:

Spoiler

• +2 Amazon, 20% FCR, 30% ED, + life circlet, socketed with IAS/8 min dmg jewel
• +2 Amazon, 20% FCR craft amulet
• +2 P&M, 20% IAS, 2% LL, 10% Crushing Blow craft gloves
• Faith Diamond Bow (13/1)
• Enigma MP
• Arachnid Mesh
• Rare ring with 10% FCR, 6 ML, 6 LL, Mana, MF
• Ravenfrost
• War Traveler
• Switch: CtA, 34% Spirit (29+ necessary with the above FCR gear)
• Merc: Pride GPA (16 aura ), Treachery, Andy's (IAS/FR)

Build:

Spoiler

• 20 Pierce
• 20 CS
• 10 Multishot
• 3 Valkyrie (17 after + skills)
• 20 Magic Arrow (Currently she doesn't have this though, since I was trying with max Guided Arrow before, but that didn't perform as well as Magic Arrow. Alas, I'm out of essences and was too lazy to farm another one. )
• 1 Strafe for situational use, probably will put remaining points here when min-maxing her build at some point (i.e. after ditching GA)

Stats: Dex-as-dex-can (156 Str for Monarch, rest to Dex). Could be worthwhile to stat Vit instead of going high Dex, though she seems to be just fine with her current life pool.

As stated in the vid, she can't really compete with top P7/P8 Pit runners like Necro or Java. But surprisingly she's not too bad, and it's definitely a lot of fun running with this setup.

I'm curious as to how others have tried to run Bowie on P7/P8 – any thoughts or comments on her? I find it an interesting and fun little challenge to push her to higher player settings.

 

[Kitteh1]

I can't remember what players setting Caessa was running pits on, but I'm pretty sure that @pharphis had/has (probably had, what a loser!) an efficient pit running bowazon at a decent players setting.

 

[ioupain]

Nice Amazon and gear. I'd never heard of the Pride/Teleport issue, but then I don't have a Pride!

 

[pharphis]

nah my zon was slow. I don't really get how they can be fast. I switched mine to AT FA zon for 94-95 and never played her again.

Well I think I respec'd to get cow king grailers

 

[Zyr]

@ffs , ffascinating!

 

[Gynli]

I'm currently running /p8 CS with my bowa for the 99er challenge; and just wanna mention couple things. Do note that I only watched parts of the vid and may have missed something.


About the Pride/Teleport bug. You have to click for each teleport.

I rmb reading about it here on the forum some months ago. The tldr was that concentration's 'chance of uninterrupted hit' ironically interrupts your casting when holding down the mouse button; and should never happen if you click for each teleport. Annoying workaround; but a workaround nonetheless.


About bowas and /p8. She's bad at it. =P

Bowas are great at lower /p settings; she can clear the whole screen with MS as she drives by. On higher settings, especially against higher hp monster like RoF/CS like i am doing atm, she definitely needs high Crit and some kind of curse to lower their physical resistance.
It's annoying to wait for the merc to catch up and proc decrep for me, but with teleport like in ur setup, it won't be much of an issue. Monsters in Pits have about 20~33 natural physical resistances, so it should about double your damage. Teleporting ontop of a boss, side-stepping away from the angle you wanna shoot at, and firing wide-angle MS to clear the area sounds like a good strat to me.

Side note regarding MS level. More the better - for me.
Ppl say 10~12 arrows are good enough - and it might be true for enclosed areas like the Pits - but I am definitely wanting more arrows with my current 17 MS. At my current level, I can shoot 90 degree angle with arrows quite close to each other; but for 170~180 angle shots, there are quite alot of arrows missing in the middle. For my final stretch, I'm planning to sink 18 hard points into it, so that I can reach the maximum numbers of arrows with +5 skills from GMB/MB Faith. E: to add, two arrows from one MS cannot hit the same monster; if one hits, the other simply pass through the target. This means, with tight spread on arrows, you can simulate piercing. /E


Gears and stats.
tldr for below;
- Lower dex, higher vit, CtA for Spirit, GMB/MB with more ias.
- reaper vs pride at your discretion

Spoiler

1. Dex vs Vit. => lower dex, higher vit

In the vid you said have base vit and 156 str and rest into Dex. From my experience, some extra 300% off-ed from dex doesn't make much difference between Fana/Might/Concentration - even more so if you opt for LoH.

You could opt for higher vit and lower dex; and consequently your CtA for Spirit.


2. Fcr gear. => Spirit + lidess

On a similar note from above, if you opt out of CtA for a spirit; you can use Spirit + Lidless. Not only will you have an extra slot to work with, you also don't have to pump as much str.


3. Bow choices with ias swap. => GMB + 50% ias / MB + 45% ias

Without swapping out CtA. You can try 2os/20fcr circlet for extra fervor. I'm sure you either don't have one, or have already considered it, but worth mentioning it. This will net you 50% ias for 8fpa GMB btw.

Assuming you do swap out CtA for Spirit;
a. Ammy for Highlords. 55% ias for 8fpa GMB. (DS is nice; but with high CS it'll be less apparent)
c. Arachnid for Goldwrap. 45% ias for 7fpa MB. MF to boot.

After some basic calculations - disregarding +dmg from charms/gear - GMB comes out on top for every ias breakpoint except for 45, which is when MB reaches 7fpa with 14/15 Fana, and 8/9 for Diamond/GMB.


4. Gloves => LoH

CB doesn't mean much for bowas, especially for low hp targets like pits. Bow skills don't add much dmg and none to multishot; especially compared to 350% from LoH. E: it's 2 passive. Still, couple % of CS shouldn't outperform 350% from LoH. /E

Beauty of a roll though. =(


5. Reapers vs Pride => ??

Here I'm not too sure which will be better.

With reapers I feel you can tele-bomb boss packs; and let stray arrows take care of the critters. If so, higher Dex, CtA and 2os/20fcr for 30ias from helm sounds ideal here.

With Pride, you'll have higher damage and won't be dependent on merc, but will stone skins will slow you down even with 20MA.


E2: while just thinking about how to setup my own tele bowa, I realized you can reach 100fcr with perfect spirits x2 + 20fcr circ/belt/ammy + 1 fcr ring.
This frees up 2 of (ammy/belt/circ) for ias and such.

Another setup I could think of is Razortail for piercing.
- 3os helm for 45 ias + gloves for 65 ias. Ammy or belt for fcr. This reaches 7fpa for your Diamond Bow Faith.
/E2

well that's all i got.

Now i'm considering if I should be looking at 99fcr teles for my CS bowa... hm.

 

[Nano]

I've experienced the teleport/concentration bug with my Hammer/Zeal Hybrid using a Pride Merc as well. Not too annoying on a questing-type character.

Nice demo video, kind of makes me want to build my own bowazon that I've been putting off for so long.

 

[ffs]

@ioupainmax I made the Pride for her only recently as well. But it has some uses for other characters potentially, and I'm working towards that runeword grail anyway.

@Gynli Thanks for your response, those are good points. I've considered a number of them and mentioned some above and in the vid, but here's my thoughts them:

• Dex vs Vit: As mentioned above I basically just went with maximum Dex first and so far didn't feel her ~900 life was too low. But you are of course right that Faith doesn't benefit as much from high Dex as WF, and I'm indeed thinking about going for higher Vit with the next respec for min-maxing purposes.
• CtA: I don't think I'll drop it for this type of runs, even with high Vit. It's still higher life, but also higher mana which is very useful for teleporting, and most importantly it helps the Merc's survivability a ton really.
• Multishot: I agree and I do have 20+ arrows on it. 10-12 is not enough for Pit runs either IMO, gaps will be too big when widening the angle e.g. in those "camp"/"nest" parts.
• Glove choice: LoH is of course a good standard choice, but I felt for P7/P8 Pit runs they are not quite as aweome as they are in most other scenarios. Stone Skin bosses are generally what slows her down a bit, and in particular Skeletons at that (as well as Skeleton champion packs). Demons don't usually take long to kill, that's why I prefer the the CB and +2 P&M from the blood craft gloves I'm using. But admittedly I didn't test LoH on her that much yet – will do that and see how it affects run times.
• Reaper's vs. Pride: I was thinking Pride wins easily for this type of area running, since I don't always want to rely on Decrepify to proc and moreover it will only hit a small portion of the monsters I'm firing at. Pride on the other hand gives you the damage bonus for 100% of your arrows, and no matter how far targets are away. But I might try with Reaper's and see how run times compare.
• 7 FPA: The choice is kind of between 7 FPA with 68 FCR and 8 FPA with 99 FCR, and I wanted to go for the latter. Not entirely sure it's better objectively, but I am sure that personally I enjoy the 99 FCR gameplay.
• Bow choice: Given I wanted to hit 99 FCR, I am only able to incorporate up to 35 IAS with the circlet she's using currently. Diamond Bow/Shadow Bow perform best for this IAS range. GMB will only hit 9 FPA (and at least when running Sharp GCs resulted in lower overall damage) and Mat Bow will also hit 8 FPA but provide lower damage than Diamond/Shadow Bow. As you said, it could be worthwhile to use GMB with a 2os/FCR circlet though. Thing is I don't have any truly amazing ones. Best I could do is a blue +3 P&M/20% FCR that I could take to Larzuk and hope for 2os. With that I could hit 50 IAS and use GMB Faith, which would then also hit 8 FPA Multi. I'll have to run the numbers to see whether this will result in higher damage over my current setup.

About bowas and /p8. She's bad at it. =P

That's the general sentiment I know, but I was hoping to challenge that at least to some extent. As shown in the vid she can run P7 without much trouble, just a bit slower than other builds.

About the Pride/Teleport bug. You have to click for each teleport.

Tried this briefly and it still happened... But like I said I don't mind it that much honestly, just thought it's something worth noting.

 

[Gynli]

Here's the quote from @onderduiker from this thread regarding concentration bug. Apparently it's already been almost a year since I read it.

Failure to Teleport while Concentration is active is definitely linked to its chance uninterruptible 20%: I edited Skills.txt to increase it to 100%, and Teleport failed every (other) time (always teleporting in place before teleporting to the cursor); I decreased it to 0%, and Teleport never failed.

However, this only applied when holding down the right mouse button: when I clicked for each individual Teleport, then it didn't fail. I haven't tested it, but based on this I wouldn't expect mercenaries and pets to be affected since there's an AI delay between every action.

CtA.
Yup; if you want to hold onto the CtA then I'd agree with high dex and even base vit.

LoH.
good point. now that I recall to strafing back in the early days of my bowa at pits, it was stoneskin skellies that were the slowest to take down - and might/amp archers the scariest.

Pride.
I don't own a Pride to test it out; but I thought possible that time earned from Decrep on Stone Skin might outweight the increase in damage with pride. I do have LoH and fortitude on my bowa, so the dmg from conc is even less significant shud i use it. But like you said, should be worth testing. =)

Hope it works out, and thanks for the gameplay vid btw. I can safely say ill take up a teleport setup of my own for lvl 98. but with 68 fcr from dual spirit...

 

[Zylo]

Thanks for post/thread ffs. In the past 2months I’ve found 3-4 WF’s, took that as a sign, and regeared my strafer earlier this week.
While fun, I also noticed her clear speed really falls off on higher /psettings. I’m going to make a few gear changes that you mentioned, and see where she stands.

I also have a good bow base for CtA available. I’m doing a bit of reading now, but maybe that’s a route to explore. I am either thinking a hybrid of some sort, or strafer with a high FCR switch - we will see.

Thanks again for all the insight and number crunching.

 

[Gynli]

... In the past 2months I’ve found 3-4 WF’s, ...

I hate you.

Then again, I'm running with mere 30~mf so i got only myself to blame...

 

[Lemstar]

sounds like the build for a 1.07 Valkyrie Wing; you should be able to get 7fpa and still hit your FCR breakpoint

 

[ffs]

@necrolemming Indeed that is a very nice headpiece for this one. Ironically, while I don't time travel generally, I do have a 1.07 Valk on some old mule character that isn't part of my current stashes/characters. That's because it's so long ago I'm not sure of its provenance (not entirely sure I found it myself, and back then I sometimes traded with a friend who fooled around with open bnet etc...). So apart from generally just using self-found current patch gear, I think I'll pass up on this one. Definitely an extremely good headpiece for this approach though.

Played around with her for another hour or so yesterday. Following the discussion here I bit the bullet, farmed another Diablo essence and went for another respec. Moved some ~60 points from Dex to Vit (now ~1150 life after BO), maxed MA and went up to 24 arrows MS. CS and Pierce remain maxed. I checked again and with my + skill setup the last point increases 1% each. Remaining points to Strafe for situational use. The overhaul didn't have a huge impact overall since I was kind of close to this build before, but it's an optimization nonetheless.

I also checked damage for 2os/20 FCR circlet to use with GMB Faith for 50 IAS/8 FPA. It is a DPS improvement, but only by some 3-4%, while losing some other useful stats. Should be a more significant difference though if I drop Sharp GCs, which I might do at some point. But for now I'll stick to her current circlet. I tried LoH and while it didn't really improve run times, some very brief testing indicated it was pretty much the same clear speed, definitely better than I had thought. Probably requires more testing to see how it compares long-term regarding those undead toughies. Reaper's on the other hand resulted in slower runs. Just doesn't always proc in time and only affects a portion of the targets.

@Gynli Regarding the Teleport issue, I tried again with clicking for every Teleport. While it helps indeed, it still happens occasionally. I think it's when the click occurs just before the previous animation finishes. But again it's totally fine IMO, even more so with that semi-workaround.

@NanoMist Go for it, she's fun to play that's for sure. I'm curious as to what you'd come up with.

 

[T72on1]

I hate you.

Then again, I'm running with mere 30~mf so i got only myself to blame...

I have done so many runs with different characters and varying amounts of mf, and still haven't found it either. So yeah, I hate him too . But just from a grail perspective.

 

[Dispo96]

I wish I still had my zon that I used back in the day... She would clear Chaos in an 8 player game so fast nobody could keep up.. I swear she had a Faith merc and a WF on herself.