Effective Amazon Build

[Crystalion]

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? ;)

Nah, I guess, as usual, that I wasn't clear, because that's not what I meant to say at all.

I was not focused on the viability of any particular subclass. My argument was:

1. unless the ladder data is "cooked" then clearly zons as a class can do okay in hell (required xp for the clvl noted)

2. it seems highly unlikely to me that all those zons are just one unbalanced build type that can be "dismissed" as good only in a very limited subsection of hell--surely you'll grant me that they're in hell, as their level/titles indicate?

3. therefore it seems likely to me "statistically" (which I had in quotes, since this is seat of the pants and not exact reasoning) that we're likely seeing evidence that *some* zon builds have been found that more or less "work" in hell

4. Despite that reasoning seeming pretty good to me, I still think *asking* for successful zons on AB zon forum to speak up would be a better "proof"

Please remember that the original post is questioning whether an "effective amazon build" for v1.10 hell is possible.

While I made some side references to subpoints about particular subclasses and zon builds, these are not relevant to the core argument, 1..3. Nor are they important, given that #4 defers, given my limited expertise, to the folks that would *really* know the answer.

Now that that is out of the way, I'd have to agree with your statement, unless, perhaps, the beginning of the ladder showed a huge lead for a particular class over all others, in which case it would be reasonable to ask "how did Blizzard goof? What skill are these guys using that is so quick to level up?" This might indeed, in those circumstances, point a finger at a likely subclass.

On the hardcore ladder you get a tiny clue about subclasses by looking at the death frequencies (at least when the ladder started up). You can probably get a much better clue by snooping people's level/portrait in bnet channels, since you can often infer quite a bit about their subclass from their appearence.

In any event, my v1.10 ladder primary is a subclass of Sorc that plays more like some zon subclass than a fireball sorc (the two other builds she is probably "closest" to). I'm a ranged enchantress, using demon/razor.

I personally feel that an enchanted zon with a teleport ammy/circ can do a better job, most of the time, at doing what I actually do, most of the time (e.g. if you assume there is already a melee enchantress in game, which would be "better" to the add to the party, me or a zon?... I'd vote for the zon--player quality/equip/level etc. being equal, of course).