She has always seemed kind of slow to level for me. How do you level your Amazon? Multi-arrow, then switch to javazon?
Javazon is the fastest, HOWEVER…it is VERY expensive to pull off properly.
You are better off running a bow build and saving gear until you can switch. But again, super expensive.
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Leveling charged strike zon should be easy.
Bowa on the other hand, is a special kind of a task. Let me give you a shorthand guide:
- Immediately shop a 3os longbow from Gheed right as you load the game as a level 1.
- You want to put in chipped topaz/rubies into the bow.
- Save all +power damage jewels you find for socketed helms and armors.
- Save and use ALL +damage charms for walk-through Bowa, it matters.
- Also pay attention to keeping the strongest Javelins and Shields with block that you find. Sometimes during walk-throughs as Bowa, it is better to swap to high block rate and single strike melee with Jab, than it is to try and range things. A good example is when you get into some areas in a2 like maggots lair or arcane sanc or tal tombs. Having a solid 75% block is worth it in these areas. 75% is easy to achieve at low levels with the kinds of mods being dropped on shields. Just add to your DEX, don’t ignore it.
- When hit a2, your a1 bow is going to start dropping off into uselessness. Your new source of damage will be the a2 mercenary for awhile. You want to hire an a2 merc and immediately begin dipping some gold to gamble him a poleaxe or pike from the gamble guy in a2.
- When you begin to hit level 20+ in later a2, take some time to stop and gamble the best bows you can find in a2 gamble screen. This is going to be your only way to get solid damage upgrades for awhile. You want to also do this with javelins. I believe it is by level 23 or 24, the gamble screen will start showing you long war bows and throwing spears, these are what you want to gamble.
- All of this will get you through until norm act 5. In norm act 5, your damage ouput as a Bowazon becomes doable in single player, but nearly useless in say 6 to 8 player, unless you’ve managed to get your hands on some kind of lvl 30ish unique such as a Skystrike or Riphook. You’ll want to take some time to stop and trade to get a hold of a Skystrike or Riphook if you can for act 5.
- After you’ve cleared normal dif with a Bowa, do not even worry about entering nightmare difficulty until you’ve gotten your hands on something like a Lycander’s or Kuko. By the later portions of nightmare dif and certainly the beginning of hell dif, you will absolutely need a Buriza to get keep moving forward while keeping things practical.
- As soon as you get to the point were you have Buriza level damage output, you’ll be fine to play and get things done while gradually building a stronger setup along the way.
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^ This is the kind of information share I like to see! Keep that up good sir.
If you want a greater read, go to your search engine and type in: TSBoyer’s Bowazon Guide
That’ll tell you everything you need to know.
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Whew
MVP post here TSBoyer. Thank you so much. Copying this to notepad.
Try to get 2 socket white bow(s). If you fine one it is great. You also can buy one from NPC.
Note: you can buy 2 socket white Short Battle Bow in Act 2 from Fara. If you made to Act3 before Lv19, you can buy 2 socket white Long Battle Bow from Asheara in Act3.
Put Ort + Eth into it to make Zephyr. You should easily fine 3 Ral and one Eth from normal The Countess by doing a few runs. This should boost your damage for the early game.
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For anyone reading this, to use Zephyr requires CLv 21. So you can make the runeword, but won’t be able to equip it until later. I went with a 3-socket white bow and put three Tals into it, which works just fine all the way up to Mephisto and even so-so in early Act 4, so long as you’re good with stutter stepping every so often. Where Zephyr comes in handy as the alt weapon swap is Andariel and Duriel. I’d hit them with the TalTalTal bow, swap over to Zephyr and use Ice Arrow, chugging mana pots to keep that going, and swapping to the TalTalTal bow every few seconds to poison them again. Duriel needs a lot more of this since he has high poison resist.
I found that making a Stealth runeword early on at CLv 17 made getting around and even in and out of monster packs much easier. This coupled with a FRW charm w/ secondary + stamina will also make up for the run speed loss when having to swap to jav/shield if you have that as your alt weapon swap.
The primary thing that makes bowazons slow early on is stamina (really wish they’d just get rid of that in the end and rebalance item budgets around that), low mana, and the fact that you miss. A lot. Gets uber frustrating trying to hit with a javelin or pilum in melee and seeing a long string of whiffs while the monsters seem to have the run of the mill with your face.
Protip with bows: Always keep at least one spare maxed out quiver of bows in your inventory, and two if you can afford the space. They drop so much less frequently than bolts that you can find yourself running out a lot prior to getting the cube in act 2.
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Thanks for bringing it out.
If any Bowzam has a hard time hitting the target, Blessed Aim Act 2 Merc does exist.
I know people usually prefer Might for extra damage. However, increasing hit rate is also increasing damage output.
I like going cold arrow a1 merc, but sadly a1 mercs die so freaking easily that they are grossly overmatched by anything from act 2 onward. 
I play Bowazon, almost exclusively. It’s hard.
20 points in Magic Arrow. A few in Critical Strike, and a few in Dodge. It’s all about fast attacks, and increasing physical damage(which gets converted to magical damage). That gets me to about the middle of Act II.
Then, I generally put points into Strafe. Good times!
I know, I know, you don’t like the lock you get while straffing. However, if you do it right, you can tank, or Decoy your way out of trouble. Amazons make great tanks, since they can Dodge, Avoid, Evade. As long as you’ve got the hit recovery.
I didn’t say it would be easy.
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Addendum: If you don’t like Strafe early, put lots of points into Pierce. You’ll need it.
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personally i like to go both ways and i do fishy zon… i made it to hell done almost all solo i struggled a bit once at meph and up due to lack of resist and survivability but once there getting gears from pit is easy.
fishy basicaly you’d get light fury charged strike and lightning strike maxed.
1 in critical strike 1 in pierce and 1 in penetrate
then proceed to max freezing arrow and cold arrow (only 1 pt in ice arrow as it only upgrade freeze length) and whenever you can make a melody in a +3 skill amazon bow. your + skills will benefit both freeze arrow and javs and you deal frost and light damage as well as a bit of physical so you can deal with pretty much anything as long as you can survive and play smart… however its pretty mana hungry so you will chug pots a lot.
if you want to know more in details i suggest you check for nightfish’s fishy zon guide.
gl!
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i can sleepwalk through normal with a javalin. just build up charged strike and kill everything. much easier guide to follow.
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Yeah that’s probably the best guide.
I just started my Javazon yesterday and Im in hell already. It is however my third Hell character so gold was no issue. I honestly think your best bet is charged strike. It does not rely on attack rating and the damage is insane. Make sure when you can change to Lightning Fury in the skill tree you do so.
I also recommend runewords “Peace” armor lvl 29, “Rhyme” shield lvl 29, and last but not least “Lore” helm lvl 27. That will give you + 5 (it may be +4 think my gloves had +1 on them)to skills which is a huge dps increase and makes the gear you need much less. I played with a blue enhanced damage Javelin until today when I reached Hell(shopped in one of the acts in Normal difficulty).
If you are trying to get the runes makes sure to wait until Nightmare Countess. Makes it so easy, couple of run and you should be done. It is also important that you get the white or grey bases with sockets from NORMAL ACT 1 for your rune words unless you find them.
Hammerdin has problems in Maggot lair and Anya’s passage but on my Javazon it just plays so smooth. I have to say the javazon is a great character and it is not nearly as clunky as Hammerdin feels.
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Man I think the best thing to do is like roll and just have fun. I tried out a zon to level 16 in HC, and died. ​I’m thinking about trying out another amazon and doing more of a bow build.
I played like 30 hours non stop over the course of a couple days and managed to clear the quests in act 1 up to Andarriel in about an hour with a strong set of rejuvenation potions. Toward the end I spammed Black Marsh maps 12x. Good exp- but tunnel vision. I think it’s not the best thing to do in HC. The search and destroy playstyle works but requires focus. I tried out a 16 hc assasin shortly there after which I still have.
Made a complete version, here you go: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d2r/t/bowazon-pvm-walkthrough-end-game-guide/20427
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