Hi there. I usually am used to playing meta characters like Javazons, hammerdins etc. Characters that can clear efficiently and very fast on players 8.
I wanted to try a physical bowazon with fully skilled MS, GA and Strafe setup. I used enigma, shako and bow skillers. I took it out for a spin with the legendary WindForce and I could not consistently kill the weakest monster in hell mode, a quill rat in one shot.
She has slow mobility compared to other teleporting classes and she takes forever kill a pack of elites (again compared to what I am used to with my one shot metas characters) on players 1!
I then was greeted by Dclone and I was not even able to tickle him with my most powerful single target skill. A fully upgraded Guided arrow + all synergies. I was able to chip away at his health, but it just took too long. I switched to my Javazon build and took him out so fast with lesser gear just to pick up his charm.
Before I go out and ask for even more buffs I need to better understand how to properly play this build. I think I am playing the bowazon wrong.
I remember back in the day when monsters were weaker and MS was able to one shot cows in hell mode. In D3 MS destroys trash mobs and that is the fantasy I want to relive in D2r. I just donât know how to properly build my character to achieve this. Thanks for your feedback.
First thing to note is you donât want skillers for physical, you want damage charms. Usually referred to as 3/20/20 small charms, or some combination.
Next thing is amazons have slow cast to start with, so enigma teleport isnât going to be great. And you want fortitude for the damage buff.
Youâll want goreriders and a gface for the crushing blow.
Thank cutthroat2. That is some good advice. Those small charms seem rather expensive. Other than Gore riders and Guillaumeâs Face, are there any budget builds I can use? What is a good starting bow for hell mode?
Unfortunately bowzon right now is gear dependent. If you can find an ist or two you can get a windforce if you donât want to get a faith. Razor tail is the better belt, youâll want to max out the passives that give you attack rating and double damage, and razor gives you 33% pierce youâll add just enough into the piercing passive to get you 100.
Increased attack speed gloves, you can find people dumping 1 skill 20 ias for cheap. High lords amulet I donât think is a lot? And one raven frost with a rare ring that gives leach. Or you can use two ravens. You donât need a bul kathos ring
Also, wait for 2.4 to go live. GA and multi are getting at least a 50% net damage increase, the former of which will help a ton against act bosses and ubers.
For physical wf will be the best bet to build cheap. Everything cutthroat said was correct. You want to also concentrate on ias. For cheap ias use treachery. 45 ias and fade. Highlords with andys shael wf is enough to reach the 125 break pt. If you want to go fort you will need to use 20ias gloves with 15 ias andys with 10ias belt or whatever combination.
I have a bowzon that has the worst possible faith roll, 12/3/2 with 330ed, 162% gores, 1/20 gloves, and two raven frosts, and I can clear cows and Wsk which was all I was aiming for. I do have damage charms, but again I did it min max so if it gave max damage I held onto it till something better came along, I think I had a grand charm with +3 max damage for a while.
But big thing I forgot to mention is youâre not dumping points into vitality, just get enough strength to wear your gear and everything else into dexterity
Thank you all for your insights. I am having a challenging time leveling up with ms. Itâs not a very strong skill to use early on without its synergies I think I will go back to using explosive arrows for the leveling process. I also see no reason to fully level up MS past a certain level as it does not yield significant gains over the mana cost.
Shako is not good for Bowazon
Andarials visage is 5x better. You want decent life and mana leech to survive
And Yes Fortitude armor makes a huge difference
I Run with
Fortitude
Andariels visage
Raven Frost
Duel leech ring
Highlords ammy
Laying of hands
War Travlers
Goldwrap
Windforce Shaelâed
And Ofcourse a Hellfire Torch
My Charms all Lightning Res with different stats like life of FRW
All of this is relatively cheap but the fortitude âLOâ rune.
I can run Chaos sanctuary in under 10 minutes usually.
You Can swap Gore rider boots and razortail and get more damage output that way but loose MF, I Try to stay around 150 with Gheeds and some MF charms
Also You dont want Strafe and guided arrow in the same build, Guided is a boss killer. It always hits.
I canât help but notice your username is the same one as the YT user who commented on my budget bowazon video within the last couple of hours.
Since you have a WF and have beaten hell, youâre probably looking more at getting some gear that starts to approach end game level.
Hereâs my gear suggestion here: https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/qt0106bv#2
Summary
Gear
Mavâs helm with IAS jewel (you can use Andyâs as well, just make up for the fire res deficit)
Life leech ring
Ravenfrost
Razortail
Laying of Hands
War travs
Fortitude
Catâs eye or Atmaâs
Max damage charms
Harmony on switch
Build: Max dex, 71% critical strike, 15,000 attack rating
The most expensive piece on this is the faith on the merc, but itâs not super mandatory if you canât afford it, and especially at the turn of the new patch, Iâd hold off on getting one for now and maybe stick with an act 2 might merc for now.
The WF has very low min damage. Keep that in mind.
Try switching to gface + gore riders for dclone while using atmaâs
Thatâs a healthy attitude. For general DPS, basically there are 5 damage pillars you want to keep increasing:
Damage from weapon, +min/max damage from other gear
Dexterity, off-weapon enhanced damage
Critical strike/deadly strike
Attack rating, character level and chance to hit
Attack speed
The maxroll build link above should show more details, you can compare these stats with your current build and see where you fall short the most.
Perhaps thatâs the problem? Gface and gores are great in the situation that youâre describing - killing bosses. They donât need to be used all the time, just stash them until the time you need them.
I just did a test and the new dmg of strafe and GA will make a huge difference. Watch the Onad video, I did and it was helpful. I use laying of hands, Gface with 15ias, razortail for pierce, fort for dmg increase, Atmas for the Amplify dmg, windforce with a Shael +20ias. Not a super fast killer but it does the job and use your Valk to help hold them in place.
In comparison to his other chars, he shouldnât expect to kill bosses super fast, no matter the gear.
MS does nothing for bosses and strafe roots you in place, GA is fine but not fast.
Donât create expectations for a class/build that donât fit reality. The bowazon, to be on an attractive level of farm speed, needs very expensive gear in comparison to his other characters.
Can you do thing without the gear? â yes
Are you very fast? â no
CB is pretty nerfed on a bowzon, sure it helps with bosses, but itâs not like on barb/pala/kicksin and you are mostly better off taking WT over gores. I remember someone doing the math. Gface removes slots, which might get you to a slower IAS breakpoint, not sure if itâs worth it, didnât do the math.
But Bowzon gets a lot slower after p3/p5, not only on bosses. So if p3 already feels slow, donât go for higher player counts.
It depends on your setup, with the amount of crit and off-weapon ed and dex being the main determining factors that boost wartrav damage. This is kind of what it looks like:
vs Diablo
Wartravs on top end Faith + Pride bowazon using GA: 20 * 20(dex, skill ed, item ed) * 1.71 = 684 average damage
Gore riders CB on battle.net: (113,812 * 0.75) * (1/16) * 0.15 / 2 = 400 average damage
Gore riders DS on top end Faith + Pride bowazon using GA: (1.75 / 1.71) * ~5,105 = 119 average damage (after subtracting damage added from wartravs)
In this comparison, wartravs wins out, but this is based on a top end setup. For lesser geared bowazons (as the case is here), the wartrav damage contribution will be less making gore riders more viable vs Diablo.
vs Baal
Gore riders CB on battle.net: (493,701 * 0.75) * (1/16) * 0.15 / 2 = 1,736 average damage
Without question, gore riders are much better than wartravs vs Baal.
Basically multiply the gore rider crushing blow damage by 2.333 to get the crushing blow numbers for gface.
Gface CB vs Diablo: 933.33 average damage
Gface CB vs Baal: 4,050.67 average damage
Gface DS: (1.75 / 1.71) * ~5,201 = 121 average damage (after subtracting damage added from circlet)
For the best top end circlet for a bowazon, the DPS it adds is about 23-24% assuming going from 8 â 7 fpa and adding 8% overall average damage (from the +45 max damage). But then gface can be socketed with a 15max/15ias jewel as well, so the net damage gain is actually less than that at +21% before crushing blow.
Using an average damage of 5,490 for a faith setup and reverting that 21% damage gain, you get 4,537 average damage. The difference is 953 (used later).
vs Diablo, this gain is very close to the damage gain you get when wearing gface vs Diablo with the gface edging out the circlet slightly with 933.33 CB damage + 121 DS damage gained vs 953 (based on the portion of DPS gained from attack speed as well as raw damage) for the circlet. You may want to use the circlet if it has FRW though, personal preference.
You can also use a Faith MB and keep 7 fpa with gface and use Atmaâs at the same time.
vs Baal, again without question, gface is much better than the circlet vs Baal.
I think I will go back to using explosive arrows for the leveling process. I also see no reason to fully level up MS past a certain level as it does not yield significant gains over the mana cost.
