I used to play D2LOD years ago (10+) and I had the typical bowazon … WF/Vamp Gaze/SOJ/etc. etc… however, I feel that D2R nerf’d what used to be the best build in the game… anyone have any luck building an end game bowa? I could use some advice…
Thanks
No many choice for bowazon.
For WF, 90ias, Forti, War traveler, LOH are the must. Ammy: choose from Highlord ammy, cat’s eye; belt: choose among rasortail, Nosferatu’s Coil and glodwrap; ring: ravorfroze, life leech ring. Helmet: any what u like.
By your post I assume your talking about a physical bowzon.
Yes, they are amazing and one of my fav builds, they just require stupid amounts of AR.
I just got my pbowzon to an “acceptable” level. Meaning 9K AR, aiming for around 10K.
Chest - Treachery is amazing for IAS/fade and venom procs and cheep
Rings/Ammy - I still have to use angelic’s ring/ammy for the huge AR bonus until I find better. Other ring is ravenfrost.
Helm - Gface, crushing blow/deadly strike
Boots - Wartravs extra damage and some mf
Weapon - Windforce, used beriza before it tho. Had to put 10 points into pierce after wf.
Belt - Goldwrap - IAS - Though if I find razortail I might swap out for it for 100% pierce.
Gloves - Laying on Hands, IAS, huge damage to demons.
All the max/min damage and ar charms you can find. I socketed my wf for life steal to free up ring slot for raven. You def need mana and life leech somewhere.
Might act 2 merc’s - Just got my reaper’s toll tonight
Spirit Shield / CTA on swap
I can not stress this enough for any physical build, AR, AR, AR. Talents such as penetrate are critical for your to hit. You can alter this later when you get some GG charms, ani, torch etc… Right now I’m full 20 points into it cause my charms are “decent” but not GG.
**Edit… yah don’t even think to build this while leveling… this is 75+ for sure.
To preface everything below, it will take a very long time to get the ideal gear below. These are more targets rather than what you absolutely need to do well.
For top tier setups, you’re looking at something like:
Players 1: Focus on enough damage with emphasis on faster run/walk
Faith runeword in a Grand Matron Bow
Pride runeword in a Thresher for your act 2 might Merc
Fortitude runeword in a Archon Plate
30% FRW Circlet with 3x 15max/15ias jewels
LoH
Noscoil
Cat’s eye
Wartravs
Dual leech ring + Ravenfrost
Charms: Annihilus + Hellfire torch + 10max damage 7% FRW charms + 3max damage 3% FRW charms + some resist charms
Switch: Harmony runeword for faster run/walk
Players 8: More emphasis on damage
Faith runeword in a Matriarchal Bow
Pride runeword in a Thresher for your act 2 might Merc
Fortitude runeword in a Archon Plate
30% FRW Circlet with 1x 15max/15ias jewel, 2x 30max damage jewel
LoH
Noscoil
Atma’s scarab
Wartravs
Dual leech ring + Ravenfrost
Charms: Annihilus + Hellfire torch + 14max damage charms + 3max damage 3% FRW charms + some resist charms
Switch: Harmony runeword for faster run/walk
Enigma option for teleport:
Enigma runeword in a Mage Plate or Dusk Shroud
Faith runeword in a Matriarchal Bow
Atma’s scarab
Less focus on run/walk, more focus on damage.
20% FCR Circlet with 1x 15max/15ias jewel, 2x 30max damage jewel
Switch: Wizard spike + Spirit runeword
Some improvements:
A multishot ama like your example profits tremendously from pierce in open areas like chaos or pits. I’d use razortail (100% pierce with lvl 9 pierce) and socket another 15ias/15max dmg jewel into the circlet.
Even if you say you’d keep nosferatu’s, shadow or diamond bow setup is superior. I’m just going to highlight the difference because everything else is the same. Average dmg of a perfect matriarchal faith with 15 max + 2*30 max dmg = 75 max would be:
(47 - 20) * 4.45 + 75 = 195
same for shadow bow but 3 x 15 + 10 (razortail) max dmg = 55
(59 - 15) * 4.45 + 55 = 250
250-195 = 55 average dmg difference before ed
Your setup would typically have:
300ed (might) + 400 ed (dex) + 288ed (fana) + 345ed(conc) + 300ed (forti) = 1633ed
The damage difference would be 55* 17.33 = 953, at 7fpa multi 953*25/7 * 0.75 = 2552 dps.
It doesn’t look like a lot for guided arrow but that’s a lot for multi. In no way, a matriarchal bow is BiS for your setup.
Best in slot: shadow or diamond faith
There’s a specific reason why I suggested just 1 IAS jewel into the circlet for the MB setup: It’s for keeping a 15%ias gface and gores in the cube for players 8 diablo and baal takedowns. By having the noscoil, it allows keeping the max attack speed with gface. We could get a 30% ias circlet, but then nos coil for the gface setup won’t fit in the belt and we start to sacrifice inventory space where charms would otherwise be.
For other scenarios, this setup still has 90% pierce and with the extra 15 max damage in the circlet, it brings the damage in line with diamond/shadow bow… or if we wanted to take things to the very extreme, allows socketing an extra +18 damage jewel (18min+18max damage) to make a 45% ias circlet with 36-51 damage and 30% frw.
The extra leech from the belt allows getting +strength (which in turn can make up into dex) from the ring slot instead of life leech, and the MB has +3 bow skills, shooting more arrows for cows, cheaper guided arrow cost, better physical immune handling and hitting 1 extra minimum arrow in strafe.
Also, your calculating is wrong, you’re getting the damage variance instead of the average and forgetting to average the max damage from the circlet, it should be:
(47 + 20)/2 * 4.45 + (0 + 75)/2 = 186.575 (but you get 20 extra dex for this… and as mentioned there are +18 damage jewels)
(59 + 15)/2 * 4.45 + (0 + 55)/2 = 192.15
Anyway, this is very min/max-y and I definitely am an advocate for diamond/shadow bow, having made my faith in a diamond bow myself.
Ok, there’s the difference about how I kill baal in P8, I don’t with the a pure bowazon. I either use jab with atma on switch or charged strike. Without tele, I’ve got stormshield socketed with a -15re/40ed jewel inside + eth upped titans. The one applying crushing blow is my merc in that setup.
With pride+might merc in tele setup, I typically sink 40 points into charged strike + lightning fury. I use on switch thunderstroke + 35fcr spirit + 10fcr dual leech ring + arachnid.
I’m still trying to craft a gozu fcr belt but the results have been meh so far. Any crafted caster belt with 5-10fcr is enough for the 68fcr BP.
Yeah true, hybrids have a much easier time with bosses. I’m on a mission to make the best pure bowazon.
Unless you don’t use jab/CS exclusively for diablo or baal, why not keep the javs in cube and switch out wiz spike for the javs?
I don’t differentiate between pure bowazon or javazon. I just see them as physical fighter or more of a mage. 1 point jab on a bowazon does so much damage compared to a javazon with it ( .5% javelin dmg from every point spent in dex, 0.75% from str, all the auras and a very fast attack speed) I don’t see a reason not to use it. 1 point lightning bolt kills physical immunes like wraiths faster than magic arrow on a bowazon.
Charged strike version is a hybrid but well worthy. You delete high hp champions, super uniques or physical immunes in p8. That’s much more effective than guided arrow or magic arrow. You don’t have to sacrifice pure bowazon side at all with a faith GMB/mat with +5 to bows and enigma. You put just one point into magic arrow and penetrate. They’re still going to be lvl 12 and lvl 9, more than enough. I think clear speed >>> being a purist.
On wizzy, nope, I CS high hp annoying monsters in p8. Cube is there to pick up items.
Have you tried doing ubers with a 1 point jab bowazon?
I really appreciate the pure mix/max thinking of your approach. To put it simply, I play pbowzom to play pbowzon. I kinda hate javazon’s, just don’t find the playstyle fun. I don’t care if its more damage, course it is. Call me a bowzon purist if you want or whatever, to each his own. The thought of putting in a jav on swap with an inventory full of charms and kicking out cta kinda makes me want to puke. There is a certain limit where enjoyment becomes tedium, and that build is the latter for sure.
There is no inventory full of charms and I don’t use cta.
I only ported all of my characters from LoD to D2R recently so I only just collected a few sets of keys to do my first uber runs 
Jab + javelin + crushing blow has admittedly a lot more damage output than any bow though. Still don’t understand why ranged attacks do 1/2 CB damage compared to melee…
Felt like cheating with inner sight, dodge, avoid and more dmg than a barb on a target per second, valk is also a real tank you can summon on demand. Do you know how much dmg jab does on a bowa?
I don’t know how to post here max roll links. If you could tell me how I’d show you the setup. There is no special skilling, you just swap your bow equip for the uber equip. Witches at Lilith go down faster with a bowa.
You can paste the ID of the build here, I can look it up (the random characters on the end of the web address after the last slash).
z401068a
Prebuff with treachery for resistance and dmg reduction (50% total dmg reduction with stormshield). I didn’t bother respecing back then, you could invest way more in life than me. Basically, you play here like a typical bowazon with jab on switch when you’re cornered and it happens a lot. Windforce is specially useful vs witches at Lilith. They’re really annoying with other melee classes, you can multi/strafe them all day. Vs the big 3, you can leave WF at home. Put any resistance charms vs light/cold you have into your inventory, any life charm helps, too. On switch a necro wand with life tap charges with moser’s, that’s it.
I didn’t have faith back then and my torch/anni weren’t impressive but it did work.
The PTR version of the d2 planner is online by the way.
Look up for that Mist vs rest comparison 
d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner-ptr/gc0106np#1
d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner-ptr/gc0106np#2
d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner-ptr/gc0106np#3
d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner-ptr/gc0106np#4
PS: subbed you on YT, will look out for your other runs.
Interesting. How good are the venom procs? You prefer treachery over fortitude? How often procs fade on you?