I like your ideas, sir! Particularly with the arrows being similar to quantity replenishing from throw-Barb.
I also think the effect of crushing blow should be raised to match melee instead of being cut in half like it currently is. We can’t even attack as fast unless using strafe. For those that don’t know, crushing blow works half as effective as melee on Bowzon.
Imho 2 things.
Eth bows
Infinite bolts or arrows that way no more arrows and bolts drop.
Off topic tomes should be Infinite too.
The issue with arrows and bolts is their existence means many of the mob drops are going to be a huge amount of crap that nobody wants to pickup, they also take up too much space in the amazons inventory. I agree with removing them or increasing the stack size to 4x and making them only purchasable from the shop so they stop dropping for everyone.
I will post this warning again, as I have previous times the issues of infinite ammo/removing arrows/bolts from the game came up: Beware of what you ask for. D1 and D3 did not use ammunition for bows/crossbows, but had durability on the bows themselves. Perhaps Blizzard decides to remove ammo in the name of QoL for inventory space, then decides to add durability to all bows/crossbows as a balancing mechanism. Perhaps now your favorite bows have crap durability, or can roll Eth and are fairly worthless without a Zod or a runeword that makes the weapon indestructible. Like with removing stamina from the game, would require too much work to rebalance.
Blizzard already gave an upgrade to stack size. My bowa runs full inventory of charms with cube and tomes + key stack…rarely has an issue managing arrows; they drop plentifully and picking up with a full inventory refills offhand stack easy.
Personally I find all skills to cost too much mana, even the sorceress skills.
Id take durability bows with infinite quivers that can be magic/rare/Unique/set
Please thank you
That’s because people min-max and don’t put points into Energy. Also existence of Insight. Back before 1.10, I never leveled a Sorc without putting points into Energy. Most skills do not have an issue with this, especially physical damage skills with mana leech affixes on gear. Sometimes you have to manage your resources, and alternate tactics; such as multishot costing a load to use, hit skeles and got no leech? Use Strafe to reduce mana consumption until you hit an enemy you can leech from.
Zonz are fine atm, they got a huge buff to bow skills, passive skills, and jav skills, id like to see other characters get attention first.
Like throw barbs, melee sins, among other things
They got a damage buff but not an itemization buff
That damage buff only consolidated faith as to best bow
What bowazon needs is real weapon diversity
1)Allow skill effects to stack and you’ll see rise of interest in bows like kuko shakaku, brand, witchwild string, etc
Creating a less raw power selection but with a stronger flavoured mechanic
Sky strike and gold strike for example
2% lvl6 meteor… laughable % and a uselessly low level, rendered useless due to lack of synergies
Same for goldstrike 5% lvl 7 foh…
Make both at least 10% with stuff like clvl/2 skill levels
That would give you a high enough level to compensate the lack of synergy and also enable other classes to use those bows with the ctc boosted by synergies
Ie: lvl 96Bow Paladin using Goldstrike arch which grants 10% chance to cast lvl48 foh on striking
Or a lvl 94 enchant sorc using sky strike to trigger lvl 47 meteors
This reduces the dependence on OP weapon and allows you to go toward more speciality bows
I have the same problem. Merc is poisoned fighting mephisto and while I’m 1/3 screen away from him, my mana regen is abysmal.
When you think about it, act 1 merc doesn’t require arrows but you, a more powerful version than a merc, need. Dev logic baffles me sometimes.
Yes, but I find it costs too much mana even with level 17 meditation insight. It’s not right.
Or you can look at any caster builds where weapon durability means nothing. Balance that out first, if that’s your idea. I don’t mind bows having durability in exchange for unlimited ammo though, sounds perfectly nice. And while we’re at it, sorc and hammerdin should have their weapons losing durability while casting spells as well.
Most sorc don’t put points in energy, and has zero mana problem with merc equipping insight. Same for hammerdin and FoHdin. It’s not a problem of min max, it’s a problem when other classes can min max but have ways better mana management than yours.
Mercs also don’t use durability on weapons, while you do. Guess we might as well require them to now, to be in line. Buh bye eth armor and weapon values. 
Also, Sorcs were dumb if they didn’t point energy before 1.10, unless they were completely leeching exp through rushes. No mana pots to buy back then either, thus you had to manage your mana resources. While insight removes that, it also removes itemization on your Merc. Tit for tat.
Also, itemization is a lot more friendly for weapon dmg percentage based mana regen, thus melee doesn’t have as much issue with mana pools beyond maybe Whirlwind. Double Swing is even free at 9 skill points, Zeal has a fixed low cost, etc.
Balancing what exactly?
That assumption is two orders of magnitude removed from reality.
Yes, that is the “coping mechanism” they added as a QoL improvement, almost every other drop is arrows! Pathetic really.
In my opinion she needs more powerful skills and synergies so that with +skills or with a +3 GM bow, she does much more damage than with a +1 GM bow. But then you got a Shadow Bow/Crusader Bow (et all) which would become absolutely useless because of +0 skills.
As I see it now, a GM bow hits less than a Shadow Bow and only with +3 skills it comes close. This is how they have “balanced” it.
They need to buff the Bows skill tree much more, then work on Shadow Bow vs +3 GM bows.
Weapons have durability. They have itemization related to that durability. Quiver stacks are the bows durability. Diablo 1 had durability on the bows. Diablo 3 removed quivers as the durability factor and directly placed durability on the bow, as well as the stat based quivers. In Diablo 2, items can roll eth that are not inherently or affixed with indestructible. With me so far? How farfetched is it when you link the facts?
Blizzard already gave bows a quality of life by increased stacks to 500. Considering the game doesn’t force a one to one ratio of arrows removed per skills like strafe and multishot, this stretches a long way, longer than durability on most weapons with a Zealer in Hell, where a single Zeal could remove a full durability point, which is waaaay less than a 500 durability stack.
Blizzard also went through the trouble of making Double Throw Barb viable. Doubtful that they’d abandon that to give infinite throwing weapons thus bypassing the mechanic that they brought into the game.
No, Bowazone is too powerful even as it is. Many runewords and various elemental damage skills
You have already received a synergy buff. bowazon is too greedy
Powerful compared to what? Hammerdin? FoHdin? Blizzard or lighning sorc? Lightning fury or lightning strike javazon? It’s not even as good as hydra sorc which is a tier behind the aforementioned builds. A frostmaiden with starter gear and +3 matriarchal bow with melody runeword kills p3 mephisto nightmare 20-30% slower than a hydra sorc having only spirit sword. That’s powerful?
Except that hitting the repair button at smith npc doesn’t replenish the quantity. You have to sell the old arrow, buy new one. Those are clunky steps that greatly impede the gameplay quality of a bowazon.
IMO high mana cost is justified for all caster classes. Mana is supposed to me the limiting factor of casters; just like chance to hit is for fighters.
All magic comes with a price ©
Spend some points in energy, get a few mana charms, and things will get better.
With this, you are not asking for QoL. You are asking for direct buff.
I’d dig shift+rclick or “repair all” refilling arrows too.
Arrow recovery? There is one already. Look on the ground man, arrows literally pour out of monsters.
Honestly I hate what they did to throw mastery. The part where you can literally “not consume” and “replenish” a quantity on the same throw. How that basically made Eth weapons have no downside with high throwing mastery.
That sounds more like a D3 mechanic, on first glance.
Zonz didnt just get a damage buff, they got an evade/dodge/avoid buff as well, quite significant.
They buffed Multi and Strafe and Guided, as well as Ice if I am not mistaken.
The thing you are asking for isnt necessarily an itemization buff to amazons alone, because that would go across the board, and again I will iterate, it would look like a D3 cluster of exploding screen shenanigans, I really don’t want that, we already get spammable skills.
This also has nothing to do with quality of life overall. As it is a core change to procing skills on items.
I still don’t see the reason for this as WW barbs oldschool max frames during frozen or decrepified as well as throwing skills, and searching for actual items to throw is greatly needed still.
I have called for a vendor refresh mechanic similar to the gamble refresh mechanic that was implemented, since people already nihlathek portal or change waypoints/leave town, re-entertown.
There are other things that need to be addressed before we delve deeper into increasing proc chances.
MAJOR EDIT:
Also this QOL you ask for sounds more and more like it would take away from the core design of how classes are originally designed to be played, and favor a more niche group.
Niche does not equal a favorable QOL patch, at least in your iteration of it.
Sorry to rain on your parade, just giving my honest opinion.
Again, not if your merc is equipping insight. It’s not right if you are still mana hungry after your merc has an insight. That’s what I complain.
Bowazon is not magic. Sorc casting a spell doesn’t cost anything except mana. No durability loss. Same for any caster builds. Melee builds consume weapon durability but they have something called “phase blade”, or a zod rune. So why bowazon has to suffer all these downsides without any notable advantage?
No it doesn’t. Sadly. Nothing. The only way is to sell your arrow and buy new one. 2 steps for 1 refill. Bad design.
And care to explain why act 1 merc doesn’t need arrow?
You just hate looking at any build becoming strong besides paladin and sorc. Nobody cares about throw barb before patch 2.4. They do now. If you have the gut to call it bad change, may as well ask dev to double the cost for all sorc skills and remove the interaction between concentration and blesses hammer. Every build should have something gimping them down right? Not the case for S tier builds.
“no it doesn’t what”? I didn’t assert anything happening.
That’s a good question, but what about dragons?
No, i don’t. I hate homogenizing the game. Different classes should have different advantages.
I hate specifically the “infinite” throwing weapons, not making them last longer.
Chance to not consume quantity - ok
Chance to replenish on crit - ok on paper. But when it replenishes even when you throw weapons in the air or when the quantity wasn’t even consumed - immersion breaking and boring.