Satyendra, Physical Bowzon

[snickersnack]

The Build

I've been interested in doing a physical bowzon since the patch that brought a lot of changes to amazons, especially the DAE bug. I've always favored Strafe over Multishot, but with the synergy changes, there's no need to choose only one. I didn't read any guides as I figured skilling would be pretty straight-forward, and it was.

Multishot: 18/24
Guided Arrow: 20/26
Strafe: 14/20
Valkyrie: 20/27
Decoy: 3/10
D/A/E: 1/8
Critical Strike: 7/14
Penetrate: 1/8
Pierce: 7/14
Saved: 3

Early Leveling

I don't really recall details now, but my notes have the following list of twinking gear: arctic set, vidala's set, duskdeep, howltusk, iceblink (with "was good" note ). I used Wizendraw on a Cold Rogue, and as far as I can tell, I kept the same merc throughout the playthrough.

I used Blastbark and then Riphook, which was a big damage boost. 1 point into Pierce, with +1 skills from Eye of Etlich. Razortail went on at 32, of course.

Mid Leveling

Again, I don't recall much, but I have some notes on gearing. Witchwild String at 39, moving Riphook to the merc. Vampire Gaze at 41, War Traveler at 42, Crescent Moon amulet at 50. As soon as was possible (with +dex gear), Harmony Matron Bow went on the main weapon swap and Hustle MB sent on the alternate swap. Prebuffing with BoS was very effective, and I kept it there for the rest of the run. WWS went to the merc.

At 60, Atma's Scarab went on and stayed for the rest of the playthrough. At 65, Faith Diamond Bow went on the zon. At 73, Windforce (shael) went on the zon, and Faith DB went on the merc.

1 point in Valk was good enough for NM, though she did die to bosses a lot.

Late Game

For a while, I had 10 in Multishot, 10 in Guided Arrow, and 1 in Strafe. I also toyed with the idea of putting more points into Pierce and using a different belt, but I never got around to trying that.

Overall, the run was safe and easy, even on /p8. It was also interesting not using CtA. I had to recast the Valk occasionally, but that was fine. The extra run speed from prebuffing BoS with Hustle was much appreciated.

weap: Windforce (shael)
switch: Hustle MB
helm: CoA (ral,ort)
chest: Fortitude
belt: Razortail
gloves: Rare (+2 Passive/Magic, +3 ML, +3 LL)
boots: War Traveler's
ammy: Atma's Scarab
rings: 2xRavenfrost
charms: anni, torch, bone break, gheed's, 1 box skiller, res/ar/life, and some lightning damage

merc:
weap: Faith DB
chest: Treachery eth Great Hauberk
helm: Andariel's Visage (RJoF, fire res type)

Deaths

Eh, none? I'm not sure, but I did stop keeping notes in Act 1 of Hell.

Finds

Mal rune
Jav Skiller with +2 max damage
Pcombat skiller
Vex Rune (from a spine beast in Tamoe Highland)

Future Plans

You might've noticed the second character in the first screenshot. That's my long-planned-recently-started eBOTDz melee Necro. I'm writing this mat post now mainly because It's time to start moving charms from this character to the necro, and writing this after stripping the character will be harder.

After that, I'm not sure. Maybe a BotD/Lacerator frenzy barb, or maybe something with Wolfhowl.

 

[LouB]

Congrats, I've got to do another Bowazon sooner than later. I did a full Mavina's set and now I want to try it with Faith and Wrath.

 

[snickersnack]

I always thought that Wrath was a weird runeword since there's no ED% on it.

 

[little birdy]

I always thought that Wrath was a weird runeword since there's no ED% on it.

Not straight enhanced damage, but it does give pretty solid damage boosts against demons and undead. That’s a pretty big chunk of monsters in the game. And ctc Decrepify or Life Tap. And a bit of Crushing Blow. Cannot be Frozen and Prevent Monster Heal too. I’ve never made one but I think it’s a pretty interesting rune word!

 

[Dacar92]

Congrats! I've always been partial to strafe as well. I love a strafe freezing arrow bowazon. If you had gone to 17 on the valk she gets a nice weapon upgrade there. But still, nice build and I am sure it was fun.

 

[LouB]

Wrath also has no IAS. As @Wmeredith pointed out in his guide the ED% comes from the ctc Decrepify. I made it for my Fury Wolf's Rogue Merc and it worked quite well.

 

[thefranklin]

Nice! Is there a good way to tell when Hustle actually procs bos? I guess it might be easier without your might merc having 2 auras.

 

[snickersnack]

Not straight enhanced damage, but it does give pretty solid damage boosts against demons and undead. That’s a pretty big chunk of monsters in the game. And ctc Decrepify or Life Tap. And a bit of Crushing Blow. Cannot be Frozen and Prevent Monster Heal too. I’ve never made one but I think it’s a pretty interesting rune word!

Yeah, but the ED% to demons and undead counts as off-weapon, so it doesn't increase the base damage. It has other good mods, I just see it mainly as a support weapon and not a main damage-dealer.

Also, no ias as @LouB pointed out.

Nice! Is there a good way to tell when Hustle actually procs bos? I guess it might be easier without your might merc having 2 auras.

Not really. I just watch her feet, which is a pain sometimes with a torch.

It would be nice if a future patch added some buff/debuff icons at the edge of the screen.

 

[saracen85]

I always thought that Wrath was a weird runeword since there's no ED% on it.

Those with 1.08 charms would definitely benefit from this. When I played one, I questioned its value because Edge does the same thing, but at a huge fraction of the cost.

However, it might actually be quite interesting... on a blade sin.

 

[snickersnack]

Those with 1.08 charms would definitely benefit from this. When I played one, I questioned its value because Edge does the same thing, but at a huge fraction of the cost.

However, it might actually be quite interesting... on a blade sin.

Hmmm, I had thought that off-weapon ED% was always worse than on-weapon ED%, but with enough max damage charms... On a bladesin, though isn't +max damage applied before even on-weapon ED%? That's what I got from a skim of AB.

 

[NorthDakota]

Hmmm, I had thought that off-weapon ED% was always worse than on-weapon ED%

damage is calculated roughly

1. base weapon damage (eth bonus goes here too)
2. on-weapon ED
3. flat damage from on or offweapon iirc
4. off-weapon ED

So yeah.. the more of those busted charms you got the more off-weapon ED takes priority over on-weapon ED. Realistically there aren't many situations where you can trade them 1-to-1, or doing so is still far worse because the weapons you'd choose that provide more off-weapon ED (like damage to demons or undead) are kinda trash or situational.

Like wrath adding to demons/undead 300/375% off weapon ED, that's not a lot of gain over faith's insane stat lineup. Not to mention it excludes a bunch of monsters. It's also super defensive on a class that already has a ton of great defensive options baked into its skills. And if you have access to a boatload of busted 1.07/8 charms, then you're really not going to need wrath's help in the first place. Especially now with magic arrow being so strong at dealing with immunes. Decrep isn't super helpful when everything dies almost immediately and you don't have to worry about weapon swapping or whatever. But it is still a neat weapon imo.

I'd love to look more closely at how wrath performs with my 1.07 charms using maxroll's damage calculation, but unfortunately maxroll's character planner won't accept them and I'm not so sure I'm smart enough to do it by hand.

To be completely honest the more I look at wrath the more I'm thinking it'd be neat to use in the offhand slot on my bowazon. I'm probably not swapping out CtA since I'm 98 and I'd prefer to have the life at this stage in the game but once I'm 99 then..

 

[thefranklin]

I agree with ND stating that if you had the godly charms, you would be much better off making Faith better than trying to get Wrath to work. With that said, it would be pretty close if you could assume decrip on everything and everything had 50% physical resistance to begin with. There are a million variations and what I have saved in my calc is not optimal for either (nor likely any) setup.

DPS- Faith GMB with +416 max damage from charms:
45 ias helm, fort, highlords, 20 ias gloves (not using loh ed in calc), 10 ias belt for last ms bp
strafe: 123,375
ms: 31,316 (27,956 /w razortail)

Wrath with the same stats, assuming 375 off weapon ed (275 off weapon ed from bow in () )
also includes on bow ele damage
strafe: 62,716 (59,396)
ms: 18,227 (17,229)

WWS 2 shael atmas: 86,026; 19,850
WF Shael: 119,457; 24,501

 

[NorthDakota]

with +416 max damage from charms

wat.

how is that number possible?! I thought I was crushing it with 170. Uhmmm what are the highest values for charms?! Looks like I'm going back to 1.07

 

[thefranklin]

I used 8x40 plus 8x12. I thought the max gc was 40 and max sc was 12, not that anyone has that much. Except Worg.

 

[NorthDakota]

I used 8x40 plus 8x12. I thought the max gc was 40 and max sc was 12, not that anyone has that much. Except Worg.

Thanks. I'll start looking. Best one I've found is 23 so far so definitely a lot of room for improvement.

Do you know the Lo and Vex drop patterns in 1.07? I tried searching real fast but I couldn't find it easily.