Could use some advice
#21
Not sure if this might help. I suppose I've played quite a good amount of D2 Classic (Single Player) with the Barbarian, Sorceress and Amazon (these are levels 40-50) and a bit of Paladin (L 30+) and only a sub-level 30 Necro (it's only recently that I installed and played LoD so I still notice some differences that D2C had with LoD, but that's for later.)


Anyway, this may not be the best advice, but it's generally how I play my Amazon. I usually use a bow with my Amazon (ie. Bowazon) although I tend to keep a high dmg spear-class (typically a rare pike preferably with Increase Attack Speed and Life-steal) for backup against bad bosses.

With regards to passive skills, I typically put more than 1 point in Critical Strike and Pierce (if you have leftover skill points).
As to bow skills, at the beginning, either Ice Arrow (single monster) or Multi-shot (many monsters lining up).

Then I progress to using Strafe and Guided Arrow.

Strafe is my default attack mode since it doesn't need much targetting. You may need some mana-leech items, if you don't have one yet (it's not easy to find mana-leech in D2C 1.09. Mana-leech, esp. rings was easier to find pre-1.07. Mana leech now only occurs on amulets, except for the unique ring with mana-leech).

Guided Arrow really shines when used for bosses because it always hits, and when you have "piercing" weapon like Ichorsting or the Level 30 Pierce skill, it hits multiple times! (strafe doesn't always hit so you may need to boost your Attack Rating by +AR rings or Penetrate skill. The trick about Guided Arrow is that if you have the Pierce skill at good enough levels (even a couple of points will work), the arrow will hit the same monster possibly more than once (I think there's a cap of around 6 hits if you have really high Pierce). So basically, 1 Guided Arrow hits the monster a lot of times and kills difficult monsters quickly (assuming you're having trouble killing a certain monster.

Use Jab with a high-dmg pike occassionally for badass bosses (weed out the minions first). (Jab is used in the beginning to middle character levels, because it's easy to find high-dmg pike compared to high dmg bows. Although much later, the big bows can dish out a good deal of damage, especially when you gain the Guided Arrow + Pierce skill -- at that time, GA+Pierce combined with a half-decent bow can deal out possibly more dmg than the Pike+Jab)

Use Freezing Arrow for crowd control, with Pierce skill the Freezing Arrow can freeze multiple groups of monsters. And I believe the splash damage of Freezing Arrow can also leech life/mana (when used with life/mana leeching items). Formerly in v1.06 or earlier, I believe Freezing Arrow was quite mana costly, but afterwards FA was tweaked so that it could leech from the monsters splashed-damaged (please correct me if this is wrong). Again the high mana cost of FA makes it a once in a while skill to use (but really useful for non-cold immune mobs). Remember the freezing length of FA (and other ice arrow skills is augmented if you have item that adds cold-dmg, back in ye olde days, they were looking for Eye of Etlich unique amulet that had 11-second cold duration as this chill/blue duration added to the FA's cold duration. Note that Nightmare halves this cold duration though, and Hell quarters it. But a quarter of 11-seconds is still 3 seconds and that's quite a lot even in Hell diff).

And for LEB (lightning enchanted bosses) or fearsome multi-shot bosses (like the corrupted rogues which can fire a lot of arrows at a time), always cast the Slow Missile skill -- in fact due to Slow Missile, I find that Amazons are the best when facing off MSLEBs because you can try to outrun (as usual, an amazon is generally built for speed so as much as possible wear light armor; I never use heavy armors on amazons esp without fast run boots) the globs of charged bolts.

BTW, as for attribute points, I think you can stop pumping the Energy which you've already put quite a good number of (55 in your above post). I prefer +mana rare rings/amulets (or on other items like socketed helm). Instead try to gamble for a mana-leech amulet to gain back mana. Strength is only needed to equip a better bow, and sometimes a better armor. But I find not much need for better armor because Amazons should stay mobile and a light plate/mage plate which have low STR reqmt is ideal. Pump Dex for more damage and check the AR rating if you're hitting around 75% or better chance to hit. Pump Vitality (if you have spare attribute points) for more life -- the better to survive that big damage attack from bosses.

Typically I don't pump Energy at all and pump Vitality only a bit but pump STR and DEX to be able to use the better bows/pike. Then pump Vitality once again.


Another thing about damage calculations and selection of your bow -- damage bonus from skills is multiplied to the base dmg of your bow (disregarding elemental/poison dmg) so later on, when your skill damage bonus is high enough, a double bow with 11-26 base damage would be better than a composite bow (dmg 4-8) of lightning (1-40 ltng dmg) because the "11-26" is multiplied by the damage bonus from skills and dexterity. Whereas if you multiply "4-8" by the dmg bonus, it will only result in little effect because of low bow base dmg. The "1-40" lightning dmg is only added after the dmg bonus calculations.

Which is why you might want to keep your eye out for exceptional bows (I believe edge bows/razor bows start dropping in Normal Act 4 and Nightmare Act 1) with high base dmg.


{hmm. edited this post a few times to make it clearer, hopefully. Any longer and I probably should have written a "beginner amazon guide"...}
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