Here’s a guide about an amazing non tier build, very defensive, fun and beautifull to play, with a very high amount of damage against group enemies.
Weapon - Ice Matriarchal bow
Swap - Call to Arms and Lidless Wall
Helm - Nightwing’s Veil with a 15% IAS jewel
Amulet - Highlord’s Wrath
Armor - Enigma on Mage Plate
Gloves - 3/20 bow skills
Ring - Raven Frost
Ring - Stone of Jordan
Belt - Arachnid Mesh
Boots - Caster craft with resists and high mana
Charms - Cold Sunder Charm, Bow skillers, small charms with life/mana or life/resist
Status
Strenght - needed
Dexterity - needed
Vitality - none or few points
Energy - remaining points
Skills
20 Freezing Arrow (main skill)
20 Cold Arrow
17+ Pierce
3-5 Dodge, Avoid and Evade
10+ Valkyrie
Merc
Infinity
Andariel’s Visage
Fortitute
This build makes a very relevant use of any +skills/+bow skills from gear.
Matriarchal Bow is for sure the best base for Ice. You need 75 IAS to reach the 8 frames attack speed, wich is one from the higher. With Grand Matron Bow, you would need 147 IAS to reach the same breakpoint, and 89 IAS to reach the 9 frames attack speed. Also, the physical damage from GMB doesn’t do much here.
I took out Mara’s amulet and a 5/5 facet from helm to reach the 8 frames attack speed, and it totally worth.
Call to Arms is really the best option for weapon swap, as it gives a lot of mana, really needed, and 1 extra point skill, and also a high amount of life.
When tested it before with much more points on vitality, and less on enery, I had always problems of lacking mana. Now, I don’t have this problem, even without mana leech.
There are lots of remaining skill points, and a nice way to play is using a 2/20 gloves with mana leech and Strafe to recover mana. I’m not using this gloves or strafe, and still don’t have any mana problem.
My life, with only 2 life skillers, is 531, and get to 900+ with Call to Arms. But I don’t have any problem with this. It’s a very defensive build. Freezing Arrow just freezes lots of monsters, Holy Freeze slower all monsters in a high area around you. Merc, Valkirye and Decoy are you tank minions. Dodge, Avoid and Evade gives more than 50% each of evading an attack. All these skills with teleport makes you almost unkillable if played right.
So, you don’t have do fear low life and negative resistances because it’s tanky with other sources of defensive skills.
Also, Infinity is required for damage. Some people says about Insight, but, as said, mana problems are totally solved with lots of points on energy and some gear that gives more mana. I don’t even need mana leech or mana potions. We don’t have much Resistance Reduction for cold immunes, and Conviction helps a lot here, along with high attack speed.
I tested it on P8 Cow Level TZ 96, and it’s very strong. Like Javazon, it takes advantage from high monster density with Pierce.
The only downside is the low Cast Rate for teleporting. But it’s for every Amazon build, there’s not much that can be done here.
So, I think this is the best build for this Bowazon.
Any opinions will be apreciated.
Have fun.
EDIT:
Some observations:
1 - This build was made thinking on fast farm, prioritizing damage and mobility
2 - 2k mana and mana potions and you’ll have no problems lacking mana
3 - The perfect caster boots would be:
30% FRW
Increase Maximum Mana 5%
Regenerate Mana 10%
20 To Mana
Lightning Resist 40%
Fire Resist 40%
Cold Resist 40%
or
30% FRW
Increase Maximum Mana 5%
Regenerate Mana 10%
60 To Mana
Lightning Resist 40%
Fire/Cold Resist 40%