Effective Amazon Build

[Crystalion]

Perhaps it would be different if you had exactly the right bows avaialable to twink your character with, or you were lucky enough to find a cruel/elite level damage bow just playing through the game.

Yes indeed.

I have very good damage blue and yellow bows just rotting in my mules. I also have Goldstrike, Buriza, Demon Machine and various lesser bows that have all dropped either for me or players 2 (I often play with a partner). Trading for good bows is usually cheap (v1.10 brought back a reasonable trade economy). Bear in mind that, in v1.10, these can all be upgraded to elite (the yellows and golds, not the blues).

I almost bought a Blood Raven's bow just because, at the Lum asking price, it is so pathetically cheap I feel sorry for the poor thing.

This is all ladder, btw.

The elite spears available cheaply boggle the mind. I find myself wanting to buy them for my merc, and I don't even *have* an act2 merc. (Again, this isn't a dupe economy, this is a MF economy).

I understand Hardcore is a tougher proposition.

Still, if you understand either trading or MF, you no longer need to be a meph run fanatic in v1.10 to get good gear. That is, it drops all over the place. Including "easy" parts of act 1 Hell.

This is without even considering getting cruels by cubing (bear in mind the equity in v1.10: all weapons get the gem reroll recipes, not just swords).

As long as you have PMH and that high damage bow (and Shaels are easy to get to make it sufficiently speedy) then Multishot and Strafe can now really do a number for you, in terms of damage output.

Of course, without PMH you're hosed.

With PMH and some sort of effective crowd control (how anyone could pass up having an uber Valk is beyond me... this is one of the most extreme favors done to players for v1.10) you are at least at v1.09 levels, because you won't get stalled very often by physical immunity. With crushing blow and Lifetap working ranged, you're really cooking. Enchanted you are a GODDESS.

Also v1.10 brings a number of very effective runewords within reach of ordinary mortals (via Countess, Hellforge, trading). Some of these strike me as very good for zon builds (thankfully they nerfed Delirium pre-release so that it isn't so overpowered as to be mandatory act 1/2/5 merc gear, but if you don't consider it for a bowazon you're passing up a huge bet, in hell).

In fact, if it weren't for the faster monster AI and silly numbers of boss/champ packs (a great rush for sc players, a pain in the behind for hc, I'm sure), I'd be hard pressed to reject monster complaints that the players have gotten too powerful.

...

However, if you don't like needing to grok all the new added item complexities, or you play Classic, then I'd have to agree, many physical skills were "nerfed" in that light (only). I think this is a boon for classic, actually, because it means you can get, in softcore, a lot of the challenge and coop play (in hell) that you'd be forced into hardcore for in LoD. It does, however, mean that the new synergized skills for classic non-physical builds have boosted their relative effectiveness tremendously.