1.10 zon Bow and Arrow review

[Zzabur]

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.

[dahak_i]

Bowazons are pretty much all I play, and this pretty much solidifies some of my assumptions about 1.10 (I won't download it, for various reasons.) I appriciate the heads up.

[Ice]

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 7-12 damage bow doesn't seem like a low damage bow to me but I'm positively doing reasonably well in hell and can solo at least players 3 for most areas in hell. Damage can always come from skills.

Immo is still a nice skill. The timer is a problem but on a per-shot basis, it is definitely superior to explosive arrows and you can always alternate between immo and explosive arrows to maximise the damage done. Against non-cold immune, the mix between FA and IA is also probably going to be the way to maximize damage done.

Between ice and cold arrow, I'll skip ice arrow altogether since cold arrow boosts FA damage but ice arrow only boosts the duration (which is not really needed if you have okayish gear).

[jms]

My zon just started NM, and I'm on my way to maxing freezing arrow. My question is, after maxing fa, should I begin maxing cold arrow for the extra dmg, or ice arrow for the additional freeze time? Are either of them worth it, or should I invest my points elsewhere? With Hell in mind, what would you (or anyone else) recommend?

Also, is strafe really that bad? :(

EDIT: Sorry Ice, missed your post (would help if I read the entire thread first :)) Any other suggestions?

[kandrathe]

My first SP zon in D2 classic was a Strafezon, which was cool until she reached hell. Once your meat wall collapses, and you get rushed by fanatics you want/need to dash and not be locked in place waiting for another 5 arrows of animation. So, when LOD came out I rebuilt her on USEast as my first realm character, but this time using multishot and I was much happier in hell. It just shoots faster.

You sacrifice the extra dmg%, but If you need that you can add augment with small dmg charms or switch to guided arrow.

[Dyntheos]

I found knockback and strafe to work nicely in 1.09.

was knockback used in any of the strafe tests?

Personally for balance I think MS should do 50% damage not 75%, guided should pierce yet get no +damage just a higher peirce bonus, and strafe should throw out as many arrows as it states even when you have only 2 creatures on the screen, and 10 points in it.

[Zzabur]

A 7-12 damage bow doesn't seem like a low damage bow to me

Immo is still a nice skill. The timer is a problem but on a per-shot basis, it is definitely superior to explosive arrows and you can always alternate between immo and explosive arrows to maximise the damage done.

Against non-cold immune, the mix between FA and IA is also probably going to be the way to maximize damage done.

7-12 damage has an average of 9.5
A regular GMB has 47; Most unique and cruel elites have average damages in the 100's.

I cant believe i missed that immo + explosive thing... :unsure:
Anyway, that would up the killing rate, but will still be slower than cold arrows and multishot, and without freezing effects.

Last (but not least) immo + freezing will not work well.
Fire AND cold inmunes make this tactic impossible against most mosters.
Also, maxed Freezing Arrow + maxed Cold Arrow does -roughly- the same damage than maxed Immolation Arrow + maxed Exploding Arrow, so basically what you would be doing is spending 41 - 60 skill points for the added fire patch damage. That leaves only 28 - 9 skill points for passives, and you won't have magic arrow, multishot, guided arrow nor strafe.

[Zzabur]

I was strafing with a windforce.
Strafe works "as well" as on 1.09. It did not get any king of nerf nor bonus, but monsters got beefed up greatly. It could work on party play if you have some tanking friends.

[kandrathe]

IMO, knockback can be useful up to the point where your amazon is no longer a novice in Hell difficulty. At some point I found that with enough small cold dmg charms for chill duration works nearly as well as knockback. I spam enough MS to chill and poison the encroaching masses, and then switch to GA to take out the baddest monsters first. I like to kill most everything when it is just off the screen. I still keep a pair of crafted gauntlets with knockback in my stash for emergencies.

[Ice]

7-12 damage has an average of 9.5
A regular GMB has 47; Most unique and cruel elites have average damages in the 100's.

That's my point... I have played with a 7-12 bow in hell and doesn't seem to be surviving that badly, well... at least able to solo players 3 in most areas with it. Usually, I'd prefer a Kuko though.

Last (but not least) immo + freezing will not work well.
Fire AND cold inmunes make this tactic impossible against most mosters.

First off, they do work. It just depends on your build and how prepared you are to handle situations like that.

When I converted my 1.09 mageazon to 1.10 (and spending her long unused 40++ points), she definitely has no problems killing mobs of mixed fire+cold resistance. You can "sort out" the crowd since the fire immunes will get frozen. In the mean time, you could also have poison or lightning charms for some minimal damage while your merc and valkyrie is attacking at the same time. All that damage added together is not insignificant.

That's just considering 1.09 gear (can be Kuko, +5-6 bow skill bow or lightning bow etc). With a single Mal and Ist (within reasonable reach by the time you get in a few hellforge quests and perhaps some countess runs), you can get a nice vamp bow in the form of Call to Arms... put that in a matriarchal bow and you have very decent physical damage, high +skills, BO, speed all in one bow. With good synergies going on, the combination of FA + immo is not insignificant at all. Three elements of damage (more if you have good lightning or poison charms) makes quite a decent combination.

That leaves only 28 - 9 skill points for passives, and you won't have magic arrow, multishot, guided arrow nor strafe.

Not all amazons need multishot, strafe or guided. It's fully possible to get by and do well without any of them since so many combinations of skills work well for amazons. It's just a matter of trying out some of the not so common combinations and see which ones work.

[Zzabur]

I know. I considered a mageazon build using FA / IMMO when i read your post, but as i stated, it requires a lot of skill points, leaving little space for passives, and i am uncomfortable with that (though the mageazon uses a lot of +skills, so 1 on all passives could do).

By the way, my favourite skill levels for passives -the less i put into them- are 7 on critical strike and pierce, 6 on dodges and 1 on the rest (valk will get some more points now)

The original idea of the post was to give an insight of what the "new" skills are and how they work, hopefully helping other lurkers in their testing, and trying to be as objetive as i could. What i meant is "FA worked far better than IMMO". I know that you can make a successful IMMO zon (actually, my first testing -not relevant at all, since i spent like 3 minutes with it- with fire arrows was made with a naked zon equipped with a composite bow).

PS: if a cold-arrow user is a Frost Maiden, how do you call a fire-arrow user?

[Dark Luke]

guided arrow will remain primarily as a pvp skill, but it is still the most powerful physical attack skill even after pierce is gone.

Multishot is better than strafe in both pvm and pvp.

[Smoketest]

PS: if a cold-arrow user is a Frost Maiden, how do you call a fire-arrow user?

I don't know if someone coined this or not, but Flame Diva sounds nice.