Amazon Bows selection for runewords

General Discussion
1

If you could have any bow at all, which to “runeword” with, for a Bowazon, why would you choose anything other than a Matriarchal Bow/Grand Matron with +3 skills?

Shall I throw out all my white base bows?

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2

Its still good to have the lower lev bows for Edge, Harmony and such for leveling, after that none compare to the +3 on Mat or GMB bows.

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3

I agree. Unless you want to use the 2 runewords, Breath of the Dying or Silence, whereby you’d need the Hydra Bow / Crusader.

Seems I am going to throw out all other white bows I have been keeping then.

However I made this table to show the Strength requirements and Dexterity efficiency.

Bow str dex qlvl lvl str+dex Dex Eff
Large Siege Bow 80 95 46 25 175 1.19
Short Siege Bow 65 80 43 25 145 1.23
Gothic Bow 95 118 52 25 213 1.24
Crusader Bow 97 121 77 57 218 1.25
Ashwood Bow 56 77 39 29 133 1.38
Grand Matron Bow 108 152 78 58 260 1.41
Rune Bow 73 103 49 25 176 1.41
Diamond Bow 89 132 72 54 221 1.48
Ceremonial Bow 73 110 47 35 183 1.51
Pellet Bow 83 155 57 42 238 1.87
Ward Bow 72 146 80 60 218 2.03
Matriarchal Bow 87 187 53 39 274 2.15
Spider Bow 64 143 55 41 207 2.23
Shadow Bow 52 188 63 47 240 3.62

It seems the Shadow and Spider bows are the best in this respect.

4

when you take into account weapon speed they fall behind the great and blade and start falling behind in DPS. Of course you also have to make an assumption based on Str needs for other pieces before you can maximize the dex eff. Nice table to show the differences and should be helpful to people starting out a new Zon and making decisions on how to spread points. I always assume that I might use WF again, so I add points to gear to make sure I have just enough str to use it if I choose .

5

I just ran a test on 4 bows, Shadow, Spider, Grand Matron and Matriarchical. I gave both the Amazon only bows +2 skills. I maxed Strafe, MS and GA. I gave 10 points to Crit and Pierce. All bows have +450%ED.

Amazingly it seems that the Amazon bows, Grand Matron and Matriarchical just about stay in the game even though they have +2 skills…

I think Blizzard ought to add more weight to the Bow skills, they should have much more of an impact.

https://imgur.com/NN4Z2ju

https://imgur.com/pPTfasT

https://imgur.com/bb4N2Eb

https://imgur.com/BX9OrZo

And the Colossus Crossbow, ROCKS! Even with the ridiculous STR requirement… +500 DPS over the Grand Matron in Strafe!

https://imgur.com/S8e3Vwb