We are at a crossroads. Who’s the greater bow user? the Amazon or the Sorceress? each of whom starts with the most dex, (unless the Necromancer was corrected to 30, but I could see a dagger requiring more skill with the hand than a bow if you’re relying on your hit and run tactic to strike)
Pretty sure that the situation comes down to an inversive split. Once you factor the Nagi as a secondary archetype that belongs with the Sorceress in one way or another, then you can ask which archetype, Nagi or Amazon should excel at light crossbows over heavy bows or heavy bows over light crossbows? Light bows would go with an Assassin or the “missing Phantom” and heavy crossbows would go with the Barb or at least the Valkyrie in a reconsideration.
But we see the problem. The Nagi from Wc3 wields only a bow and the Amazon skill tree is labeled Bow and Crossbow skills not Crossbow and Bow skills. Which one of the two is the bow or crossbow dominant one?
If the Nagi has 2 life per vitality point then the dominant bow user should go to the Nagi since life and strength go hand and hand while it’s more that dex and energy go hand and hand albeit in a different kind of way.
Second, who do we identify as the greater bow user, the Sorceress or the Assassin? Even though the Assassin could use a bow with burst of speed and venom, I don’t think it really comes close to comparing to the Sorceress bow user due to enchant. Therefore, knowing that the Amazon is more related to the Assassin than the Sorceress by stat pattern it’s not surprising that bow dominance would lean towards the Nagi.
Third, bows attack faster than crossbows and speed is traditionally associated with the lesser life pool. For example, if you wear heavier armor then you can’t move as fast. Who’s wearing heavier higher strength required armor? Those with more life pool. Lesser life pool, lighter armor, faster movement speed for a faster weapon.
Conclusion: The Amazon should be light crossbow primarily and heavy bow secondary, while the Nagi should be heavy bow primarily and light crossbow secondary.
Once this is worked out, we’ll talk about how the support role and the staggered stat pattern identity is completely filled by the Barbarian and the Paladin but the identities involving the Assassin(Soloist) and the Sorceress(Self Situational) are missing an archetype and/or hero beside them in the orientation.
the lazy bums wont even put five minutes of real work to fix the multishot damage bug. never in my life have i seen a company ran this badly by the lead.
An Amazon shouldn’t really use crossbows at all. Amazons shoot with bows, period.
Crossbows are a completely different type of weapon that has little to do with real archers and more to do with heavy artillery. They’re more like a thick cannon, i.e., an elegant archer.
And in D2R, archers are currently more like B-tier, so there’s definitely room for improvement there.
But we’re actually doing something a little crazy here, because obviously Team Blizzard doesn’t give a damn about D2R…
Let’s say that the Amazon started out with 30 dex and 10 energy. Then there might be something more believable in what you’re saying but we have 3 heroes that start with 25 dex. We understand why the Sorceress starts with highest energy and the Barbarian starts out with highest strength. But then you look at a bow like a shadow bow which has the biggest tear between strength and dexterity requirement and you ask which character this bow in particular belongs on. Practically speaking it wouldn’t be the Amazon. What ever bows and crossbows have the narrowest gap between strength and dex requirement would be the kind that she would use to more closely align with the stat pattern theme of 20 stats across the board which the Amazon and Assassin reference. If the bows and crossbows that have the narrowest stat gap are not made up of light crossbows and heavy bows then I’m going to have to call bs and say that there’s something wrong with the game design. I’m reluctant to go look this stuff up at the moment because there’s certain bows that stand out in odd ways. Like a great bow that requires more strength than dexterity to use, which I claim should be called a “poor bow” and a demon crossbow that attacks so fast you would think it to be a machine. Hence demon machine.
You have to let go in your heart of the idea that the Amazon is like the “Ranger” from PoE2. The Amazon is not a ranger. The rogue archer might be a ranger and it would align with some DnD archetype and rightfully so. But the Amazon is not an “archer purest”
Let it go bro…
(3 periods)
I want to add though that in my more recent interpretation of the Sorceress/Nagi identity that the Nagi from Wc3 maybe should have always been a light crossbow user. If that’s true then it sheds light on the differential between the overall child and mother identity here. This means that the shadow bow would belong more on the Sorceress and the Pellet crossbow the Nagi. Which means a tear between Light and Large bows(shadow), and heavy small crossbows(pellet bow). Note the extreme requirement of dex in each case.
Light and large bows and heavy and small crossbows wouldn’t belong on the Amazon then. It would be the kinds of bows and crossbows that have the smallest gap between strength and energy requirement, but maybe there could be some favoritism to what your saying because the dex requirement would always be ideally greater than the strength requirement.
But now I think the problem has been solved and the true sense of inversion gets revealed which has more to do with the Amazon 3 lpvp vs the Sorceress 2lpvp, not the inverse between light crossbows and heavy bows.
So hat off to you my friend, you won the argument but that doesn’t necessarily mean you won the war.
The Amazon and the Sorceress would be promoting different kinds of bows, but that might make you feel uncomfortable when the one that the Sorceress is wielding seems more like the typical bower’s bow.
But now let’s say we had a bow and crossbow skill tree for both the Amazon and the Sorceress/Nagi. The Amazon’s would be more specifically called “moderate bow and crossbow” skills and the “shared” bow and crossbow skills between Sorceress and Nagi would be called “radical bow and crossbow” skills.
May the chaos be unleashed already for god’s sakes.
I’m realizing why you might be half correct on this now. The Amazon can still be the bow/crossbow user, and the user of the radical bows and crossbows that have the greatest gap between strength and dexterity requirement as well.
What this then ultimately means is that while the Sorceress as a mage might be radical, as a warrior she is moderate.
We just don’t have some counter example where we can say that the Amazon as a mage would be wielding moderate mage class weapons. Hell, the Valkyrie can’t even be half perceived as a support. There might be some kind of argument for why these things are the way they are, but I can’t sense an overall explanation.
And now that we have a raw explanation for the concept of the “moderate child”(Nagi) and how it was replaced by the “radical animal”(Druid), it makes the perception of the game design all the more awkward.
1 day later:
Had more of a chance to think about this and my conclusion is that Warcraft 3 probably had the Nagi right as a radical bow wielder. Which means that the Amazon and the Nagi would both be radical bow wielders but apparently in their own way.
See if the Zon’s Valkyrie and passives allow her to invest in to dexterity to wield extreme bows as a “purist bow” user like you assert, then that’s a reason for why she needs 3 life per vitality point.
If the Sorceress in this game invests heavily in to life pool because she only has 2 lpvp then a paradigm shift in to 2 forms of a nagi as a melee and ranged would suggest that the investment in to vitality as the Sorceress would retranslate the investment in to dexterity as the bow wielding nagi and in to strength as the yari wielding Nagi. But since the nagi doesn’t have a Valkyrie or decoy to tank up front for her then that must mean that she would have a suspected 4 lpvp in alignment with the Barbarian. And so the reason why the Amazon needs 3 lpvp would be the same reason for why the Nagi would need 4 lpvp.
But then you have the issue of the melee nagi where an extreme strength weapon ought to make sense and look like a trident like weapon. If you look at mid tier spears you will find the yari and the yari is practically the exact weapon that it looks like the melee sea witch is wielding. The yari requires ONLY strength and no dexterity at all. So there is your extreme example.
Question, what other weapon might this extreme dex shadow bow be comparable to in the Blizzard universe? Have you ever taken a look at the moon glaive of the “unarmored” huntress? Now a glaive requires high strength, so that’s not exactly the right title for the weapon. It’s actually a combination between a chakram and a boomerang. And how much dex would a weapon like this require? Almost dex entirely as dex is a skill with the hands. In some cases you would spin this weapon on your finger and then flick it with the wrist, almost suggesting a pure dex/minimal strength requirement.
Multishot BowZon and JavaZon are one of the best AOE skills in the game.
Yes, multishot cant do higher player counts, buy i have one and the gear she is using is:
Wisdom Helm, Hustle Armor, Hustle Bow on Swap, Cat Eye, War Trav, random rings, random belt, random charms, LOH, anni and Mathriarcal Mist Bow
My merc is act 1 with Harmony
I can easy clear entire screen, i use in conjuntion multishot, guided, strafe and magic arrow
Since i play SSF online, i play on p1 and its fine
I can easy clear Cows, Chaos with multishot and strafe
What is a Naji, and what is Wc3?
Cannot understand what the rest of you post(s) are in regard to without knowing what those things are.
Valk is not support?
Maybe I missed something prior that you are referencing, but both my Bowazons use high level Valks to tank, gather the monsters attention, and, make kills… all while allowing the Bowazon more opportunity to (safely ) reposition for more strategic/effective “piercing” attacks.
Used in conjunction with Decoy, the Valk becomes not only a damage sponge, but an even better tank killer… and… appreciating the skill points invested… she is free to cast anywhere on the battle field, and free to “resurrect”.
Interesting conversation, but, referencing other games/characters- to me - is - irrelevant.
I disagree because you guys aren’t mentioning anything about the fact that the Amazon is a spear and javelin hero. With that said, I can point out what appears to clearly be an error between starting energy between the Amazon and the Barbarian. This isn’t the first time that I’ve pointed out this confusion before(such as between Necro and Sorc stats). Fortunately the solution is very minor and simple. Just reduce starting energy of the Amazon down by 5 and increase her strength by 5. I also have a few diagrams of orientation to show that the Amazon is practically divided down the middle between strength and dex, not to be confused with the Valkyrie. Then the Barbarian’s energy going up by 5 would mean he’d have to lose 5 from dex down to 15. Since the Barbarian might be great at about everything except being skilled with his hands(dex) we could say that adding points to dexterity for him enhances his damage output with an extra bonus. On the other hand, dexterity should not be enhancing his chance to block as much as the other heroes.
Btw, this “blocking deficiency” might not be too big of a deal at all if we had something like “Barbarian class dueling shields” in the game.
Once we get this starting stat confusion resolved between the Barb and Zon, it will clarify that the Amazon is more of an “arch warrior” , although this is not absolutely the case as she is off that aim slightly, once again not to be confused with the Valkyrie. It’s as though that the purpose of the higher starting stat of 15 energy for the Amazon was being attributed to the Valkyrie which is understandable, but the Valkyrie still doesn’t gracefully transition from soloist in to support with the Barb and Pally. She’s lacking something that’s probably pretty minor but obviously missing.
What this brings me to now is the clarification on why cross-bows need to be included with bows to represent the Amazon “mastery” so to speak. The problem is that they need an additional line for the title of the Bow and Crossbow skill-tree in the title, but you should only see this additional line of information if you hold a button down(like the clever way that dota 2 has addressed issues like this). So the full title of the Amazon skill-tree should be “Large and Light Bows” and “Small and Heavy Cross-bows”. I might not have stated that properly before. So looking at just bows that aren’t Amazon Only, the Shadow Bow is definitely ideal here. It’s a large bow that establishes it’s lightness from by the extreme dex requirement. But with cross-bows it seems that one that would be heavy and small would require about an equal amount of strength and dex. The Pellet bow is small and light because it requires so much from dexterity and it stands out so much. But with the Demon crossbow, that’s not the case. It has to be small and heavy and the stats don’t actually lie about this because if you notice the Tier 2 Cho-Ko-Nu requires more dexterity than strength, but then once you upgrade to the Demon cross-bow it requires more strength than dexterity. This reveals the balance between strength and dex requirement that I’m talking about but it obviously doesn’t get elegantly structured. Maybe it was designed this way to make different weapons seem different?
Also, as the demon crossbow has -60 speed (super fast) it provides a sense that it is like a machine. Maybe it can be said that’s why the demon cross-bow is so heavy, besides balance of stat requirement.
But you guys could be "almost right’ if the demon cross-bow is the only real “small and heavy” crossbow. Which means the shadow bow and maybe only a few more similar bows would be ideal on the Amazon beyond at least the Demon cross-bow.
I’ve said this before, large and heavy crossbows would be more ideal on a Barb, or perhaps especially the Bear Druid. It’s as if that’s what they were exclusively meant for since we don’t have a merc that would use them. And then small and light bows would be something that the Assassin, or the “missing phantom” would use, but the Assassin doesn’t really receive any kind of “small and light” bow perks perse which could be stated by her skill description, and we don’t have the “missing phantom” hero to reference in any way all together.
Nagi = Nagi Sea Witch. Wc3 = Warcraft 3.
And would excel at large and light bows and small and heavy crossbows like the Amazon but in a very specialized or alternative way than the Amazon. Perhaps it’s time to get a little creative.
I don’t know about being a better tank killer, but you might have a point on “easy to pre-resurrect”
1 day later:
With more time to think about this, I think it’s possible that I could still be right about the Amazon being first and foremost a crossbow hero, but once again most specifically a demon crossbow user before any bows. Am I saying that there should have been a signature Amazon bow that is a demon crossbow? Yes. Can she still have signature bows that are large and light? For sure, because otherwise the demon crossbow would be her only signature bow.
And why is the accurate assessment of the Bowazon? It simply has to do with Strength vs Energy. It simply takes more energy to wield a shadow bow due to the severity of the gap in the stat requirement, not because dexterity is more related to energy than strength. Who would be the greater energy based hero? The Nagi or the Amazon? It’s naturally the Nagi. Now you could argue that if the Nagi is the prime shadow-bow user then why wouldn’t she be a primary colossus crossbow user? The requirements of the colossus crossbow have a similar extreme gap of stat requirement as the shadow-bow. There are two possible answers to this. Either 1. the stat requirements on the CCB are wrong and should have a minimal gap, or 2. there’s no life pool requirement to use the CCB. Notice that I didn’t say vitality requirement but rather a minimum life pool requirement. Am I saying that it would therefore be possible for say a Druid to be wielding the CCB with this requirement and that his oak sage dies and his equipped CCB would become disabled? Yes. So what’s the right answer? It’s one or the other, but this ends with the Amazon as majoring with the demon crossbow and minoring with the shadow-bow and the Nagi majoring with the shadow-bow and minoring with the demon crossbow.
Plus, as it’s been previously pointed out, the Amazon does not sport a bow at the hero select screen. Now ask yourself if there was a Nagi involved with the hero select screen, where we might not even see the sorceress anymore, what would the Nagi be wielding? Well it could either be a yari, or a shadow-bow. If a yari, at least the choice was correct to show-case either one or the other of the right choices. For the Amazon, it’s either shield an javelin or the demon crossbow.
Sounds like a disaster of archetypal conflict doesn’t it?
Well maybe, just maybe you could flip the whole stat requirement situation on the Shadow-bow and the Demon crossbow. But then you’d have to change your whole perspective to justify why crossbows are more energy related and bows are more strength related. This might be easy for crossbows and you could say, well is the demon crow bow really a machine? It probably isn’t, so therefore it would take tremendous dexterity to unlock it’s full potential? On the other hand, trying to justify why a large bow is more strength affiliated is difficult, although I have read that it does require a good deal of strength to draw the string back, I mean especially if it’s not a compound bow. Maybe crossbows have a lever that provides leverage for drawing the string back with it?
So apparently there is still hope here, it would just require a whole stat requirement rework of bows and crossbows.
Btw, for those that would try and argue that the Nagi and the Amazon would be too similar of bow users because the inverse of bow type use dominance is not meaningful or saying anything, well I could make the same argument between the Assassin and the Barbarian. What’s the real difference between dual wielding claws and dual wielding short swords? There has to be more convergence than divergence in the mirror translation at some point.
If we go that far I wanna mention that Amazons actually used more weapons like spears, axes, schields and swords. It’s true that Amazons actually never used crossbows, but the Amazon in D2 never uses axes which they been represented often with. And they not just used bows as ranged weapons, they also used slingshots ^^
They are very close to saying something like “Barbarians throw with axes period”, yet do enchant Sorceresses throw with knives? Do Druid’s still wield heavy crossbows with bears? It’s easy to understand the Sorceress’ advantage to wielding the one handed knife if knives attacked faster than axes, in which case bows attack faster than crossbows, but it’s not easy to see the Bear’s advantage to wield a crossbow. If only some all metal bolts would fall from time to time that were ethereal.
D1 had the better system with the game being almost classless, save for very few skills that were unique for each class. It’s no wonder PoE and even Demon’s Souls went that same route. I’m not a big fan of classes and archetypes. Just let me choose my character’s background and build it from there.
I always wanted Diablo 3’s passives to be part of a pool where choices for passives could overlap from one hero in to another. That was my only hope for Diablo 3 and it was never implemented.
Going in to Diablo 4, it’s more inspired by Diablo 1 right, so you’d think that we’d see a shared passive pool right off the bat right? But nope. And no plan for anything like that which I know of.
you can beat it easily, so what do you do then ? Either start a new char and beat it again easily, or try another, harder, more interesting challenge. Am I right ?
One with Strafe and one with Multi and Valkyrie maxed out.
Both variants are basically high-end and can only be upgraded with RMT and trading.
My Strafe Ama does 8k damage without Curse, twice as much with Curse, and has all the stuff for devastating shots.
My Multi does 5.3k damage, but doesn’t have Atmas because it hardly pays off there.
Strafe does better damage and basically kills a little faster, especially with the Atmas amulet and Curse.
But Multi is better for farming, especially for easy targets like A3 Jungle, simply because the fan damage is very easy to play, but takes a little longer.
My Strafe Ama has RW Faith Bow, Mercenary A2 Damage Merc with RW Pride.
My Multi has RW Mist and the Merc is A1 with RW Faith Bow.
Multishot Ama gets damage problems from P3 onwards, Strafe ama from P4 onwards as well.
Both are good for solo play. But the equipment is expensive. With a 5% Curse Bow for Strafe and a 10% proc chance on Amplify Damage Curse, Strafe Ama would still have a slight edge over Multi.
In terms of strength, these Amazons are comparable to a Frost Sorc.
So, okay, not S-tier, weak A-tier, up to good B-tier compared to the rest of the classes.
The most powerful Amazon is Java, followed by the Chain Lightning RW Infinity Spear Amazon. After that, I would put the Elemental Amazons. My Frost Ama with high-end EQ is stronger than Multi in terms of damage, but is more difficult to play.
how do you reach 8K ? which means, what base are you using for the faith ?
what do you have on switch ?
atma’s gives you 5% ctc how do you get the additinonal 10% ?
why haven’t you maxed your Strafer’s Valk ?
what about resistances ?
can you do Lilith ?
I honestly think that the passive skill penetrate needs to also be a % chance to convert a % of physical damage from spear in to damage reduction penetrating damage. Might apply to spears and or crossbows and not work with amp damage. I guess this would be an alternative to ethereal bolts. Physical spearazons just aren’t competing in options.
Second, I want to bring up a new point about something else without creating a new thread so I’ll probably add to the title of this one. My latest conviction about Sorceress stats is that they need to start as 10, 15, 20, 35 in order to reflect her vibrant youth and health while still being physically weak. So anyway, with those stats we can clearly sense the separation between strength and energy.
With that said I believe that I’ve managed a sophisticated expression of the Barbarian and his Strength/Vitality relationship and the Sorceress’ Strength/Energy relationship and I’ve updated an old diagram to express these incase B wants to take a look.
https://ibb.co/nG7Fxd9
Also, here’s another updated diagram to go with the previous one.
https://ibb.co/b58xTTHz
Notice the Ghost Spear to Yari change, and then assuming that a shadow bow and demon cross bow had switched stat requirements, which is probably what all the light large bows and small heavy crossbows need to swap on.
You can do everything with S.trafe Ama, including UT.
However, this requires an EQ change for UTrist.
Otherwise, with absolute high-end EQ, I think you can achieve around 12k damage, with Atmas that’s 24k, and with devastating blows that would be over 40k.
You also give little in life and maximize Dex for maximum damage. Life comes from equipment.
The secret, of course, is charms in Inv. +Damage/Attack Value.
As a physical Bogi, you don’t use +1Skiller, because that’s less effective than directly increasing damage via +Damage Charms, both small and large.
Over the seasons, I kept giving my S.trafe Ama some and swapping them for better ones I found in the seasons, plus all the other items from the ladders. At some point, my non-ladder Ama was strong.
Because finding that stuff during a ladder is not possible. Rather then through trading, but that’s just really expensive.
To get to 10% amplify Damage Curse, you need Atmas 5% and a very, very rare bow, preferably Matron’s Bow with 2 sockets, IAS, and lots of +ED and +max damage, and of course with the 5% chance to amplify Damage Curse. That adds up to 10% and it almost always procs with S.trafe Ama, because unlike Mulit Shot Ama, with S.trafe Ama the curse can be triggered with every arrow, whereas with Multishot, only the two middle arrows of the fan can trigger it. Therefore, it is basically much worse with Multi and it is better to wear other items such as Cat’s Eye as an amulet.
These rare bows with a 5% curse chance can reach base damage levels of Windforce, causing the total damage to increase massively and ultimately surpass the RW Faith Bow, precisely because the 10% chance to amplify damage means that the damage is almost constantly doubled.
But there’s a catch… These rare bows are basically only tradable. Sites like Traderie offer them from time to time. Price… 100 Jah or Ber runes and more… So it remains theoretical.
With the S.trafe Amazone, you don’t have enough points to skill a Valkyre. Basically, you should aim for skill level 17 with the Valkyre, using items, because that’s when her spear is converted into an elite version.
The Valkyre has internal, invisible upgrades. Up to a maximum skill level of 27. At skill level 27, the last item she carries, an amulet, is converted into a rare item with more random properties.
All of her item slots are continuously upgraded until then, from normal to magical and then to rare, and at higher levels to NM and Hell versions.
The game just doesn’t show this. However, there are guides on when what is improved.
To answer all your questions, there are videos on this topic.
For now, I can only offer you a German video that I used as a guide and slowly worked my way up the ladders.
Subtitles are in English, so take a look or find other videos on this topic.
At 2:18, you can see the rare bow he uses here. I don’t have a bow like that yet either^^ You Tube Bowie(german)
I am also a strafer and we are following similar paths… GMBs are indeed very rare… and 10% is a huge huge
number… never seen one like those you are describing… you must be melting everything…
to me Valk is a priority because my char is so very low in life… but I make sure that nothing never reaches her…
nice to see a fellow bowazon who has done the work…