Effective Amazon Build

[Epi]

The comment is in reference to the supposition (that I was responding to, attempting to deny) that ladder zons are all unbalanced LF zons that can't handle hell but instead just farm xp.

With 100% pierce the cows still offer an ideal environment to "safely" farm xp

Well, cows are ideal killing targets for LF 'zon indeed, but it doesn't mean that LF 'zons cannot handle other areas of hell. After all, LF is powerfull enough even without any synergies (which add... what?.. 1% per skill point invested), so you can put a lot of points into other skills. Yes, if you're specializing in lightning, LI monsters will be tough for you - poison just doesn't do enough damage, so you have to jab/fend, but with some patience it is possible for her to kill everybody... and I'm not even talking about parties with non-lightning chars. :)

However, if you don't have a high level of piercing, then the math in favor of LF/cowpacks isn't compelling.

Well, if you don't have Razortail, you have to put points into the skill, that's correct. :P And so what? LF javazon can afford it.

Still, since you can do this cookie cutter build, I needed to deny the plausibility that all 200 of the hc ladder zons are using it.

Bear in mind that I'm countering varoius objections to zon abilities (which I don't believe hold up). I myself am not advocating any particular build for zons. Merely asserting that I don't believe zons are hopeless in hell in v1.10.

Anyway, my point was not that all other amazon builds suck. Quite frankly, I just don't know by myself - my only 'zon in 1.10 happened to be LF/CS javazon, - although from what I read on AB forums, bowazons are not hopeless, so you're most likely correct in that.

My point was - and I still insists on it, - that you cannot tell viability of particular subclass by looking at ladder. Hey, there were a lot of druids on ladder in 1.09, and guess how many of them were elemental? ;)