Well, below there is a review for each skill... Passives remain the same same save for valk, and since i have not played a succesfull spear and javelin zon (hint: LF cowazon is *NOT* one!!!) i wont try to do it now.
As for the patch... it gets a while to get used to the slaughtering hordes of mosters, but once you do its all like the old times (the slaughtering hordes become slaughtered hordes).
The testing was made with a clvl 70 - 80, using 30ish, 50ish, 85ish (maxed) and 100% pierce (with razortail). The test bows were: Matriarchal Bow, Grand Matron Bow, Lyc's, Lyc's GMB, Goldstrike, Goldstrike HB and Windforce.
Magic Arrow:
Is not that bad... at least, not as bad as it used to be.
Consider that it converts up to 20% of damage into magical (wich can be bad, but it's worth it most of the time) and can hit multiple enemies with pierce (Guided Arrow cannot).
It can be helpfull to kill that Physical + Cold or Fire inmune.
At level 20 the +AR% gives almost Guided Arrow's ITD (almost) and it's mana free - not that i could care less of in this new patch.
I frecuently found myself killing small (3-5) groups of cold inmunes with magic arrow; also, it is a level one skill and does not require actual arrows....
Rating: :rolleyes:
Cold arrow:
Seems nice to kill physical inmunes (if you can't support / have not maxed already Freezing Arrow) and it boosts your Freezing Arrow damage.
Rating: ;)
Ice arrow:
After some testing, proved useless. The increased +100% (half a second on hell!) Freezing Arrow lenght is definitely NOT worth the points, and +% damage to cold arrow is not required, since the %converts damage to physical takes care of preety much any physical (and / or magical) inmune -that without taking into account that you should be using Freezing Arrow anyway-.
Manacost and damagewise is similar - slight better - than Cold Arrow, and it freezes for a long time, even on hell (assuming maxed synergies). It is not a bad skill at all, but Freezing Arrow is much better.
Rating: :huh:
Freezing arrow:
THE cold skill, featuring more than a flat +1000 cold damage if cold arrow is maxed. You can definitely use this to kill those nasty inmunes (actually, since you can buy mana pots, and i can count with one hand the zons whose 45% damage is greater than 1000 - 700 at best, if you maxed ice arrow too- this IS the skill to go. It takes care of preety much everything not cold inmune, and the -much- lower freeze lenght versus ice arrow is nothing compared to what a blast radius can offer.
Without taking account inmunities, the best arrow skill by far.
Rating: :D
Multishot:
Seems better than Strafe (as always). It requires only 6-10 points, while strafe cries for +% damage. Strafe got me on some nasty situations too. Strafe lock was a pain back on 1.09, now its plain suicidal unless you have a lvl 10+ Valk and a Merc. Multishot works wonders against cold (maybe fire, if you go the other way) inmune packs. Freezing arrow is faster againts not inmunes, but sadly immo and explosive are way slower.
Rating: B)
Guided Arrow:
Does not pierce anymore (yay?) and could have used some synergy (maybe a reciprocal synergy between guided and magic could be nice. Damage IS greater than Magic Arrow's, and mana cost is also irrelevant; it hits only one target though, and i found myself killing small (3-5) groups of cold inmunes with Magic Arrow... Of course, guided is better for single bosses and fast enemies, after all it has full ITD and tracks targets down.
Without pierce (it should pierce, IMHO, just not hit the same target twice) this skill does not work at all without a healthy bonus to IAS. If you're shooting at anything less than 9FPS (even 9 sometimes), and have anything but godly damage you'll get swarmed preety soon even with knockback. Of course we're talking about small packs, you do deserve to die if you face 20+ mosters with this skill.
Rating: :huh:
Strafe:
My "most favourite" skill since 1.0. Why you ask? it looks just *great*. Beeing inferior to multishot since capped at 10 hits it really sounds like it could use a synergy or boost. +Damage, more hits, and +% AR (even plain +ar!).
Strafe CAN perform better than a high level multishot against small mobs, and works wonders on some areas, but that's preety much it.
Strafe wins the "Godly" title of _the most suicidal skill of them all_, at least on this tree. Strafe lock is a mayor pain. Almost any pack of mosters can stand more than a volley of arrows - enough to tear you apart with their improved speed... And we are talking about act 1 and a well built zon with a windforce!!!.
My advice: if you go strafe, max dodge and evade, you *will* need them.
Rating: :(
Fire Arrow:
This skill iss... mmm... cold arrow with a different fx. And does not chill!
Cold arrow performed better against all but cold inmune monsters. Beeing a fire skill, it should give way more damage; instead cold and fire arrows are carbon copies.
Rating: :(
Explosive Arrow:
Shines on the fire "tree", and you can max both explosive and fire for awesome damage (same as ice arrow). It's killing speed is near Immolation Arrow, if you have some IAS. Of course, with a low damaging bow immo begins to outperform it, but with a low damage bow you can't survive hell anyway. A strange thing that happened to me is that with high damage bows Explosive arrow performed nearly as well as regular attacks.
It has a small blast radius, but since it does not freeze, Ice arrow performed better against all but cold inmune monsters. Again, a carbon copy of ice arrow, trading freeze traget for a small blast radius.
Rating: <_<
Immolation Arrow:
The best fire tree skill.... or should be. It features impressive 1000 fire damage (when explosive arrow maxed) and a nice patch of fire damage (can be improved with fire arrow) wich the mosters flee as they should do.
You can do some serious damage coupled with pierce *BUT* Freezing Arrow features the same damage, freezing targets and no a timer...
I guess the tradeoff is "a small firepatch with a cast delay versus freezed target on AoE with no aditional damage". Sorry, but one more time the cold counterpart (freezing arrow) performed better against all but cold inmune monsters.
Rating: <_<
IMHO Fire arrows should do more damage than their cold counterparts, considering that cold secondary effects are way more powerful than "a little +damage". Otherwise, they "should" (meaning will) be left as "variant" material.
I think that's it on my review, hope you all enjoyed it, and wishing some feedback. By the way, sory for my poor english.
As for the patch... it gets a while to get used to the slaughtering hordes of mosters, but once you do its all like the old times (the slaughtering hordes become slaughtered hordes).
The testing was made with a clvl 70 - 80, using 30ish, 50ish, 85ish (maxed) and 100% pierce (with razortail). The test bows were: Matriarchal Bow, Grand Matron Bow, Lyc's, Lyc's GMB, Goldstrike, Goldstrike HB and Windforce.
Magic Arrow:
Is not that bad... at least, not as bad as it used to be.
Consider that it converts up to 20% of damage into magical (wich can be bad, but it's worth it most of the time) and can hit multiple enemies with pierce (Guided Arrow cannot).
It can be helpfull to kill that Physical + Cold or Fire inmune.
At level 20 the +AR% gives almost Guided Arrow's ITD (almost) and it's mana free - not that i could care less of in this new patch.
I frecuently found myself killing small (3-5) groups of cold inmunes with magic arrow; also, it is a level one skill and does not require actual arrows....
Rating: :rolleyes:
Cold arrow:
Seems nice to kill physical inmunes (if you can't support / have not maxed already Freezing Arrow) and it boosts your Freezing Arrow damage.
Rating: ;)
Ice arrow:
After some testing, proved useless. The increased +100% (half a second on hell!) Freezing Arrow lenght is definitely NOT worth the points, and +% damage to cold arrow is not required, since the %converts damage to physical takes care of preety much any physical (and / or magical) inmune -that without taking into account that you should be using Freezing Arrow anyway-.
Manacost and damagewise is similar - slight better - than Cold Arrow, and it freezes for a long time, even on hell (assuming maxed synergies). It is not a bad skill at all, but Freezing Arrow is much better.
Rating: :huh:
Freezing arrow:
THE cold skill, featuring more than a flat +1000 cold damage if cold arrow is maxed. You can definitely use this to kill those nasty inmunes (actually, since you can buy mana pots, and i can count with one hand the zons whose 45% damage is greater than 1000 - 700 at best, if you maxed ice arrow too- this IS the skill to go. It takes care of preety much everything not cold inmune, and the -much- lower freeze lenght versus ice arrow is nothing compared to what a blast radius can offer.
Without taking account inmunities, the best arrow skill by far.
Rating: :D
Multishot:
Seems better than Strafe (as always). It requires only 6-10 points, while strafe cries for +% damage. Strafe got me on some nasty situations too. Strafe lock was a pain back on 1.09, now its plain suicidal unless you have a lvl 10+ Valk and a Merc. Multishot works wonders against cold (maybe fire, if you go the other way) inmune packs. Freezing arrow is faster againts not inmunes, but sadly immo and explosive are way slower.
Rating: B)
Guided Arrow:
Does not pierce anymore (yay?) and could have used some synergy (maybe a reciprocal synergy between guided and magic could be nice. Damage IS greater than Magic Arrow's, and mana cost is also irrelevant; it hits only one target though, and i found myself killing small (3-5) groups of cold inmunes with Magic Arrow... Of course, guided is better for single bosses and fast enemies, after all it has full ITD and tracks targets down.
Without pierce (it should pierce, IMHO, just not hit the same target twice) this skill does not work at all without a healthy bonus to IAS. If you're shooting at anything less than 9FPS (even 9 sometimes), and have anything but godly damage you'll get swarmed preety soon even with knockback. Of course we're talking about small packs, you do deserve to die if you face 20+ mosters with this skill.
Rating: :huh:
Strafe:
My "most favourite" skill since 1.0. Why you ask? it looks just *great*. Beeing inferior to multishot since capped at 10 hits it really sounds like it could use a synergy or boost. +Damage, more hits, and +% AR (even plain +ar!).
Strafe CAN perform better than a high level multishot against small mobs, and works wonders on some areas, but that's preety much it.
Strafe wins the "Godly" title of _the most suicidal skill of them all_, at least on this tree. Strafe lock is a mayor pain. Almost any pack of mosters can stand more than a volley of arrows - enough to tear you apart with their improved speed... And we are talking about act 1 and a well built zon with a windforce!!!.
My advice: if you go strafe, max dodge and evade, you *will* need them.
Rating: :(
Fire Arrow:
This skill iss... mmm... cold arrow with a different fx. And does not chill!
Cold arrow performed better against all but cold inmune monsters. Beeing a fire skill, it should give way more damage; instead cold and fire arrows are carbon copies.
Rating: :(
Explosive Arrow:
Shines on the fire "tree", and you can max both explosive and fire for awesome damage (same as ice arrow). It's killing speed is near Immolation Arrow, if you have some IAS. Of course, with a low damaging bow immo begins to outperform it, but with a low damage bow you can't survive hell anyway. A strange thing that happened to me is that with high damage bows Explosive arrow performed nearly as well as regular attacks.
It has a small blast radius, but since it does not freeze, Ice arrow performed better against all but cold inmune monsters. Again, a carbon copy of ice arrow, trading freeze traget for a small blast radius.
Rating: <_<
Immolation Arrow:
The best fire tree skill.... or should be. It features impressive 1000 fire damage (when explosive arrow maxed) and a nice patch of fire damage (can be improved with fire arrow) wich the mosters flee as they should do.
You can do some serious damage coupled with pierce *BUT* Freezing Arrow features the same damage, freezing targets and no a timer...
I guess the tradeoff is "a small firepatch with a cast delay versus freezed target on AoE with no aditional damage". Sorry, but one more time the cold counterpart (freezing arrow) performed better against all but cold inmune monsters.
Rating: <_<
IMHO Fire arrows should do more damage than their cold counterparts, considering that cold secondary effects are way more powerful than "a little +damage". Otherwise, they "should" (meaning will) be left as "variant" material.
I think that's it on my review, hope you all enjoyed it, and wishing some feedback. By the way, sory for my poor english.
Blind me please,
I am on my hands and knees
I can only pray
Take my sun away, away...
I am on my hands and knees
I can only pray
Take my sun away, away...