What is playable untwinked in 1.10?

[Bob the Beholder]

The stuff about the bowazon.

Sorry about reviving the topic that's been dead for a while (I completely forget this forum's stance on thread necromancy, but overall, I know, it's looked down upon).

Anyway, I just now tried part of what was said about the bow amazon, and it's working all right. I just now hit Slayer, and am about to move on to Nightmare, with completely no twinking, in anyway.

The only problems are the act bosses. Andariel excluded, because she's so early in the game so she's made weak enough that I just whacked with her with a stick 'till she died, every one of them have been a long, expensive, painful experience.

I tried to tank Duriel with a javelin and shield, and a dagger and shield, and it didn't work for anything. So I tried the bow, which worked as long as my mercenary survived, which was about three hits. I went completely broke reviving my mercenerary and buying healing potions and town portal scrolls. Not to mention that I died repeatedly. I eventually sold everything in my stash--gems, random items, runes--except for the Gorefoot I'd been holding onto, which I luckily gambled early on.

Mephisto wasn't so bad. I had to town portal constantly, to refill up on potions, but eventually I got a bit better at dodging his attacks, and he died. It still took a very long time, and a lot of money spent on potions. I mean, you normally don't think of potions as much of a money-leech, but that's just what they ended up being.

Diablo was worse than Mephisto, if only because he blocks and has more hp, so it took FREAKING FOREVER to whittle down his hp. Potions were still problematic.

And Baal, just a few minutes ago, was insane. Even getting to him! There was simply no way at all that I could do enough damage to get past the minions' regeneration with just the bow. Well, Freezing Arrow worked all right, but for half the bastards' life bars (and that's only if I get 'em all hit at once) I used up half a belt of mana potions.

Baal himself was ridiculous. For one, my character screen said I had a 48 percent chance to hit him, but it seemed to be overestimating itself. For every five arrows I shot, only one usually hit. And that's only if the constant cold-wedging and funky nova-thing allowed five consecutive arrows. He cloned himself through the whole thing. With my Paladin, I usually just chop the clone down in a few seconds, if only to get rid of him, but with the bowazon that was impossible. The puny damage I was doing wasn't even enough to register much on him!

Eventually, I switched to Guided Arrow, which seemed to hit fairly often, and just sucked down mana potions. Potion after potion after potion, after potion. I went back to get more about a dozen times.

See, I've done this same thing, repeatedly (you know, the whole 'beating normal' thing) with other characters, and it's nowhere near the problem that this is. I did with a zealot paladin, a zookeeper necromancer, a martial arts assassin, all kinds of stuff.

So, any way the bosses will stop being insane? Will the more powerful bows make this a bit easier? Though, I do already use a rare edge bow, with a good chunk of increased damage; it's just kind of... not enough, apparently.

On a side note, I've found my dumb blonde--soon as I got her--to be more reliable than my Act II mercenary, even if he does have an enhanced damage rare pike with life leach. The Predumblonde era saw this happening at pretty much any time in which a monster--or monsters--would approach my character. Ever. Decoy helped a bit in situations like that, but I really didn't have the mana to be throwing decoys everywhere.

Ehhh... I think I can just stop rambling now; it'll be for the best for everyone, I think.