Multishot Bowazon - Wich bow for DPS?

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Hi people.

I’m rebuilding one of my favorite builds of the game, and I want to know your opinion about the best bow for a Multiple Shot Bowazon.

So, Faith Grand Matron Bow VS Faith Shadow Bow VS Windforce, wich is better for DPS? Or any other bow?

My focus will be DPS, and not necessarily clear speed focused on mobility (reason why I pretend to use a 3sockets helm with 30 Dexterity instead of 30% Faster Run Walk).

Obs: I searched for a similar topic, but didnt find it. So sorry if it already was debated here.

Thanks in advance.

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Faith for hitting the attack speed break point
I usually prefer Windforce for the knockback
Nothing really else to say about it. Mostly preference

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Hello everybody,

As a dedicated bowazon player I have to tell you that with the new Hustle rune word a lot of things have changed for the Multishot Bowazon end game bow options. In the past before the introduction of this rune recipe the Faith Grand Matron Bow + Pride Might merc was definitely much better and more stable compared to Windforce + Act 1 Faith merc.

For the record Faith on a shadow bow is a waste, GMB + 3 skills is the best base.

Now with a Hustle bow at your weapon swap slot you have plenty of options with both Faith GMB and Windforce.

If you choose Windforce - you don’t need act 1 merc to reach the 7 IAS breakpoint anymore. You just need 138 IAS with burst of speed activated by Hustle bow.

Suggested build:

Helm - +2 skills Valkyrie Wing with 40 enhanced damage/15IAS jewel.
Jeweler’s diadem/tiara of speed with 3x40 enhanced damage/15IAS jewel is slightly better but extremely hard to obtain.

Main weapon - Windforce with 40 enhanced damage/15IAS

Weapon swap - Hustle (preferable with GMB base)

Amulet - The cat’s eye

Body Armor - Hustle on Archon Plate - gives you 40 IAS plus 65 faster run walk! You literary are flying with burst of speed activated!
4 socket body armor with 4x 40 enhanced damage/15IAS is also an option for more damage but that way you are sacrificing a tons of faster run/walk mobility of Hustle.

Belt - Nosferatu coil

Rings - 2x raven frosts

Gloves - Laying of Hands

Boots - War Traveler

Charms - Only maximum damage/attack rating charms.

Stats - allocate enough strength to equip the items, the rest goes to Dexterity.

Skills - Max out Multi shot, Guided arrow, Magic arrow, Critical strike and Penetrate. One point to strafe to activate quickly the Hustle’s burst of speed and one point to all the other passive and magic skills.

Merc - Pride Might Merc

Pros - At the end you have 140 Faster run/walk + 23 from Burst of Speed from Hustle and 7 IAS breakpoint Windforce with crazy maximum damage combined with Pride & Might aura.

Cons - You are vulnerable to casters due to low hit points and negative resistances so have to be very careful with them and to use the maximum of your enormous mobility.

If you choose a Faith Grand Matron Bow - you have more stable and balanced character, higher minimum damage, more skills, more resistance and more hit points but you lack the mobility and the higher maximum damage of the windforce option.

Helm - +2 skills Valkyrie Wing with 15 maximum damage/15 IAS jewel.
Jeweler’s diadem/tiara of speed with 1x15 maximum damage/15 IAS jewel + 2x30 maximum damage jewels is slightly better but extremely hard to obtain.

Main weapon - Faith Grand Matron Bow with +3 bow skills

Weapon swap - Hustle

Amulet - The cat’s eye

Body Armor - Fortitude Archon Plate. You need badly the 300 percents enhanced damage here to compensate the lower base damage.

Belt - M’avina for 20 Run/Walk and mana leech or Razortail if you prefer more damage over mobility.

Rings - Raven frost + dual leech rare ring with attack rating resistance and damage affixes if possible.

Gloves - Laying of Hands

Boots - War Traveler

Charms - Only maximum damage+attack rating charms.

Stats - allocate enough strength to equip the items, the rest goes to Dexterity

Skills - Max out Multi shot, Guided arrow, Magic arrow, Critical strike and Penetrate. One point to strafe to activate quickly the Hustle’s burst of speed and one point to all the other passive and magic skills.

Merc - Pride Might Merc

Pros - Higher minimum damage, crazy amount of attack rating, a lot of + skills buffs, 3 offensive auras, more hit points and positive resistances in hell.
Cons - Lower mobility ( 95 faster run/walk + 23 from Hustle) and lower maximum damage.

Hope this helps, cheers!

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Already saw some people saying the same - no much difference on damage, it’s more about gameplay style.

Thanks a lot, dude, helped very much.

The build that I played for a long time was:
Faith on GMB; Fortitude; Cat’s Eye; Andariel’s Visage; Razortail; 20%/Knockback crafted gloves; Raven frost and a dual leech ring; War Traveler; Naj Staff on weapon swap; Max damage charms. Merc with Pride and might.

Very fun build, just killed eveything without even seeing them. Just corpses. But i think it struggles too much on players 8, that’s why I want more damage.

Now I got 5 +14 Max Damage grand charms, some nice +3 Max Damage small charms (some with FRW instead of life) and a 10% Bone Break Sunder Charm, i pretend to rebuild it.

The build I was planning to get is:

Helm: 30 Dexterity with 3 15/40 Jewels
Gloves: 20% IAS, knockback, dual leech (dont know if 2 for Bow skills or 2 for Passive and Magic skills)
Belt: Nosferatu’s Coil (to achieve the 7 frame with 95% IAS)
Ring: Dual leech with 9Max and 9Min damage rolls
Grand Charms: 14 Max damage and AR
Small Charms: 3/20/3% FRW instead of life

Keeping the same for the rest (dreaming for drop a perfect GMB base, this thing is so expensive).

I really didn’t consider Hustle when thought about the build. Valkyrie Wing seems very nice as temporary instead of Andariel’s Visage, but i like it very much. Actually, I played with no points on Vitality, almost no bonus for life on gear, no Call to Arms, and yet the build was very tanky as I described. With Cannot be Frozen, reasonable Life Steal, and the evasion skills, it becomes almost imortal.

The teleport is very important for me, even doing Chaos, for that parts when you see it’s not the right path to achieve the Sanctuary, or almost any dungeon on the game. Also for repositioning merc, I just love teleport, but will consider Hustle on weapon swap.

And for your topic, seems like Windforce does more damage, even without that many auras from Faith build.

Anyway, gonna think about it, thanks a lot again!! Cheers!!

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Hello mate,

With Burst of Speed activated by Hustle you need only 45 IAS with Faith GMB to reach 7 frame IAS. Not to mention that it boosts your running speed significantly. Try it out as a weapon swap and you will see the difference. The best way to activate the burst of speed is with strafe, so put one skill point in it for that purpose.

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For sure I’ll try it, glad its a cheap runeword.

Thanks a lot for the tips. In the future I’ll post my results.

See ya, good weekend

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I have made two recordings to show you how Windforce + Hustle weapon swap & armor performs. The result - Cow level cleared in around 11 minutes and the labyrinth plus the Chaos Sanctuary cleared in around 8 minutes on players 7.

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Hello, hustle has introduced a few more options, and while it hasn’t shifted the meta away from Faith GMB + Pride combination, it’s made an option for Windforce to be competitive with faith.

To clarify here, Windforce has the highest potential DPS by a slight edge now if you’re using a 160/60 armour, but Faith overall is better for survivability with Fortitude and movement with Harmony still the best option for weapon swap if you’re not using Enigma.

If you use Hustle armour in addition to Hustle on swap, you will run as fast as having Harmony on swap, but you won’t out DPS faith anymore and won’t have as much survivability either.

If you’re using Enigma, which is really the best setup for places like Chaos and other open areas, you won’t be able to reach the 7fpa breakpoint with Windforce.

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Hello man, good to “see” you again. :slight_smile:

“Hello, hustle has introduced a few more options, and while it hasn’t shifted the meta away from Faith GMB + Pride combination, it’s made an option for Windforce to be competitive with faith.”

Quite right, nothing to add here.

“movement with Harmony still the best option for weapon swap if you’re not using Enigma. If you use Hustle armor in addition to Hustle on swap, you will run as fast as having Harmony on swap, but you won’t out DPS faith anymore and won’t have as much survivability either.”

Correct, if you are using Faith setup with Harmony on swap you run nearly as fast as Windforce setup with Hustle Armor and Hustle swap… BUT that way you still need 95 IAS with Faith GMB to reach 7 FPS, while if you use Faith GMB with Hustle on swap you need only 45 IAS for 7FPS which gives you a lot more options for helmets and belts for extra damage and running speed in particular. Otherwise you are still obligated to use 45/45 or 45/120 diadem and Nosferatu’s coil to reach 95 IAS.

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It’s actually the same running speed. Level 10 Vigor on Harmony is very good for running speed, even compared with Level 1 Burst of Speed from Hustle. So that’s basically the trade off:

  • Go with Windforce + 2x Hustle, same running speed but lower DPS than Faith GMB
  • Go with Windforce + Hustle + 160/60, slower running speed but slightly higher DPS than Faith GMB

Lower survivability on both options above as well.

95% IAS isn’t trivial, but it’s not overly prohibitive either. You can still use Fortitude as long as you max out IAS across your helm (45), amulet (20), gloves (20) and belt (10).

Gloves and amulet best in slot options happen to have IAS on them anyway so those options won’t really change much. It does open up the option to use Atma’s if you use strafe. Might not be a bad option to be honest.

For belt, you can’t use razortail, but noscoil isn’t a bad belt either and pierce can be made up for by dumping skill points into it. Faith builds have a lot of flexibility around skill allocation.

For helm, a damage circlet is still the best option, you just change out 2 or 3 of the 15/15 jewels for pure damage jewels (+30 max) instead. You gain a bit of damage this way, but you lose running speed due to not using Harmony. Not sure if the trade off is worth it considering that Hustle requires activating BoS every 2 minutes.

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I really apreciate all the informations you post here. This video helped a lot to think better on what build I want. Was possible to see happening lots of things you talked about.

Maybe for bosses, if using Windforce, blood gloves with 10% Crushing Blow and some more points on stafe would be a very good alternative. The great weakness of the build are the act bosses, this could be of great help. For Faith builds, i don’t want to take out the Knockback on gloves, i think its really important. Giant Skull seems nice with 2x 15/40 jewels, although Windforce already have Knockback.

Actually, Giant Skull seems pretty nice for Faith build if using Hustle on weapon swap - can get 20% Crushing Blow with blood gloves, wich would help a lot against act bosses, and still get the 95% IAS.

Nice dude, thanks for the tips. That’s why I really like Naj’s staff on weapon swap - amazing for mobility, dungeons in general, and for always having merc near you for the auras. Also for saving your merc when he just jump inside lots of High Council lol

I’m still thinking about the build I want. GoldenArmada helped a lot with the videos. I’m thinking more about Faith for now. Actually, all options seems good, it’s more about gameplay style.

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You could go with enigma then but it requires a few changes in setup:

  • Dual modded max damage charms instead of max damage and run/walk, some max damage/life ones I’d you want too
  • Wizard spike + stormshield on swap for survivability, or wizard spike + spirit for cast speed

Both options give you max res and can save you from a bad teleport with the option to block attacks + DR or a second teleport quick enough to avoid hits.

Here’s me doing a challenge in Chaos Sanctuary quite a while ago now.

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Another very useful video! Just followed your page on YT.

The attack speed seems higher then 7 FPS lol

What do you think of Crushing Blow for bosses? Also, don’t you miss knockback on the build? Seems very strong, and you’re not even using 14 Max damage charms.

Another doubt for you, experienced Bowazon players.

Physical Sunder Charm is useful for the build? I remember when that annoying Succubus just made my zon goes much slower, and I had to ignore them in order to be efficient, or be patient and kill them with Magic Arrow. Does the 5% damage will be relevant? Maybe if done with some elemental damage?

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Cheers :slight_smile:

It’s not really practical to make room for crushing blow on a bowazon. It only does 50% of what it normally would with a melee attack. It takes just as long to kill players 8 Diablo with crushing blow gear swapped on, Baal or Ubers are the only cases where crushing blow makes sense to put on a build.

Not at all. Valkyrie, Decoy and merc do a decent enough job holding enemies back. Skeletons from Faith are arguably better anyway.

You really need to mix in Decrepify or Amp damage to make use of the physical sunder charm, so not really worth it unless you’re in a team with a necro. You also become more squishy and lose damage and attack rating if you use the sunder charm.

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Morning Onadroig,

You are right. I have just tested Faith GMB bow with both Harmony and Hustle on swap. To summarize:

Faith GMB + Harmony = more faster run/walk, less maximum damage.
Faith GMB + Hustle = less faster run/walk, more maximum damage

Both options are good, I can not tell for certain which is better. Maybe it is a matter of preference.

And definitely despite the fact that Windforce setup is with slightly higher DPS, Faith GMB setup is still much more reliable and the best option for that build.

“If you use Hustle armor in addition to Hustle on swap, you will run as fast as having Harmony on swap”

Windforce + double Hustle is still a little bit faster than Faith GMB + Harmony but it is insignificant difference, while the survivability and the DPS of the Windforce are falling behind significantly this way.

Regards

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Thanks a lot for your opinions.

Just need a 4 sockets GMB for now, tried it 4 times with no sockets bows, and none was 4 lol At least got a 3 sockets one, will make Hustle in the future. Gonna keep playing for the 4 sockets.

For this time, I think I’ll use M’avinas helm with a 15% attack speed jewel as a temporary instead of Andariel’s Visage.

Also, seems that next season is close. Although not so likely, would really like to see some buffs for bowazon. Any thoughts about some changes?

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All she really needs is minor FCR breakpoint improvements, evade granting some small movement speed bonus, and crossbows buffed in some way.

I’m more of the opinion that there should be nerfs to other classes, starting with damage based synergies reduced in power by a bit.

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Yeah, come buff on Crossbows that allows an alternative gameplay - not better or worse, just different from Bows.

Much easier tokens should be something that really would upgrade the game experience and fun.

A new item that increases monster density in an area would be really fun too - something not too hard to farm that doubles monster density in the area you are.

They could also make something that was very well explored on Diablo 3 - sets specially made for some builds - like a set with helm, boots, belt and gloves specially buffing bowazons. Same thing for Tesladin and some other nice and, although already strong builds, that could get some buff, like Summon Necro and Whirlwind barb.

Actually, I confess that I liked Diablo 4 really much, but I keep playing Diablo 2 much more lol That’s why a new expansion would be really fun for me.

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Hello again Onadroig,

Inspired by your video, I have been trying to clear Chaos Sanctuary as fast as I can, without Enigma. I prefer Fortitude for the extra damage and I simply don’t perceive the idea for teleporting bowazon. The best results so far - 5 minutes and 36 seconds.

Faith Multishot Bowazon Chaos Sanctuary speed run - 5:36

Do you think there is any way to do it faster with this setup?

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You won’t be able to beat Enigma just due to the fact that you have to run through the River of Flame, but the reason why Enigma is good in Chaos Sanctuary is because Chaos Sanctuary has 3 areas where you need to turn around and head back to the centre, and on top of this still being relatively safe in general (no blind teleports).

To improve your non-tele bowazon play though, I suggest playing a little more aggressively and running into larger groups more - rather than start firing away the moment 2-3 enemies are on screen - so that your multishots become more optimal.

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