Strafe

[Taem]

Instead of chilling and slowing foes down, Frozen Arrow stops enemies solid, which give you a lot of leisure time and is very useful in party play with melee characters since it's much easier to take out enemies that can't attack you at all.;)With some good pierce, you can freeze the whole screen, and sometimes beyond with a few shots.

Also Meat, if you like speed, you should try aiming your stats for a matriarchal bow and make the harmony runeword. This is much less out of your way as matriarchal bows really only require dex that you are getting anyways. The runes and a 4 socket matri bow aren't exactly the easiest things to find, but it should be easier than a windforce. You might even find a good rare (they are better than in 1.09) but I feel there is very little reason to aim for a hydra bow unless you already have a Windforce. Crusader bows are better than hydra bows in every other case, as Crusaders have slightly lower average damage but much less requirements which means more points in dex or vitality.

Also, an upgraded lycander's aim can't be ignored either.

Alright, I got a Lycanders Aim but I can't get my attack speed over 11 FPS. Anyways, I had 34 extra points to spend and no idea where I wanted to place them, so I did some comparisons between Guided Arrow, Strafe, and Frozen-Arrow. Sorry my table is a bit messy, but I'm not sure how to make tables in HTML (I know this isn't a valid excuse with the internet and all, but I don't have the time to research it right now).

________________GA_St_FA

• Skill Points__20_20_41<>
  
• #Enemies___1__10_Mob
  <span style="color:#666666">Note: GA and FA attack at normal FPS, whereas St attacks at almost double your FPS<>
  
• +DMG___115%_120%_+1300<>
  
• Special__Auto targets_Fast Attack_Freezes<>
  
• Drawbacks_1-enemy @a time__Strafe Lock/Next Hit Delay__2x Skill points/Only physical arrow leeches<>
  [st]So the verdict? After careful comparison, I've decided that GA is a great skill to have, but with 1-point only! Strafe has too many drawbacks, and strafe-lock in hell is downright deadly in hardcore. So I'm trying Freezing Arrow for the first time ever and I'll see how it goes. I invested the points last night and set FA and GA to the left mouse button and hotkeyed them, then did some trial runs in Nightmare in Frigid and was pleasantly surprised; I have on a Tal's Mask and ring with 4% mana steal and I hardly ever saw my mana deplete, and when it did, I simply switched over to GA or spammed multi at a crowd. I'm getting used to the 3-attack sequence and it will undoubtedly take some time, but from what I saw, I liked it. Thanks for the suggestion.
  
  
  EDIT: I may make a Strafe only Amazon someday to compare apples to oranges, but I think I will very much enjoy using FA this season. I think Strafe (if it worked correctly past 4FPS) would be the most damaging attack to use against bosses. As it stands now, I can get FA down to a 8 or 9 FPS attack with some good gear and a good bow and do ultimately about the same amount of damage to a boss, but no freeze. The defining factor that makes FA ultimately better than the rest is it's piercing ability to destroy a mob. Also Strafe hits 10 enemies, sure, but the entire Strafe takes much longer - even at 2 FPS - than shooting FA at 9 FPS at a mob does. The damage from attacking 10 enemies at once as opposed to an entire mob rapidly with FA does not even begin to compare; no, FA is superior in every way on paper.