CorwinBrute's guide to the LoD Bowazon

[CorwinBrute]

Hi fellow Lurkers !

You can download version 1.2 of my Bowazon guide (in RTF) at this address.

Version 1.3 will be out Really Soon™ ("Really Soon" is a TradeMark of Blizzard Entertainment), but will mostly fix spelling mistakes and English flaws, the core of the document is unlikely to change.

The guide is 85 pages long, and describes all the bowazon skills, lists of equipment, and a large variety of "templates". The focus is clearly SC, as I lack the HC experience.

Nits, comments, suggestions... are of course welcome !

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

*tips helm*

[Occhidiangela]

1. In your dexterity Discussion, you need to switch two numbers.

"the mere 100 additional DR a 400 Dex score would give is completely insignificant."

Change to read: "the mere 400 additional DR a 100 Dex score would give is completely insignificant."

Then consider the 800 Additional DR a 200 Dex score yields . . . you are still probably right. :)

2. Ice Arrow Freeze duration (and the Pierce skill) keeps going up and is a very good way to approach the. 5.8 seconds (2.9/1.45) at level 20 and 6.6 (3.3/1.65) at level 24 are tactically useful in Hell if Pierce keeps working as it does now. Just my two bits on that one, from a variant perspective. :) I realize that the FA and EyE combination has been a standard for a long time. :) IA and Eye would be fine, it just takes a bit more work and reliance on Piercing "in a line."

3. In regards to Crushing Blow. "It doesn’t scale with the number of players in the game (I think ?)"

Yes it does. As the monster's life goes up, so does the '12.5 % remaining' go up. CB is based on the monster's damage in-situ. I think it adds a decent accelerator to monster death in high player count games.

4. You comment on the Lore Runeword seems to have overlooked the +1 skills combined with 30% Lightning resistance and at least the nominal - 7 Damage can't hurt in NM and normal difficulties on those rare occasions when the 'Tao' using Bowazon gets hit.

5. NM resist penalty is now 50%, IIRC. (Walkthrough section.)

Again, nice work.

Item Comment: In Acts II and III up to V in Normal, a three socketed Composite Bow with Three Perfect Gems, or Better Yet, Three Runes (Like Three Ral, Tal, or Ort) can go a long way to speeding up Monster Death. Three perfect Sapphires boosts cold duration. I like to give my Act I Rogue, after she is fifth level, two flawed amethysts and a chipped or flawed sapphire. YMMV. The other option is to put three Ith runes in for a whopping +27 to max damage, however, that may take a bit of luck, twinking, and some cubing to get there.

Act III revisited: I have found that act III is one of the easiest places to go through for a bowazon in Normal if you use sockets and have a bit of luck with gem drops and using a bit of cubing to boost the value of the gems. :)

[Tommi]

1 point of Dex gives 4 AR and 1/4 DR. I think CorwinBrute is right on the dex topic.

[CorwinBrute]

Thanks for the comments.

Defense Rating is indeed 1 extr DR point for each 4 points in Dexterity. Removing a 20 Dex Ravenfrost lowered my Defense by a grand 5 points...

Crushing Blow scaling will be corrected in the next revision, as well as the other various nits (thanks a lot for the NM Resists penalty). I find Act3 Normal to be a pain to a bowazon without access to Decoy, Valk or FA. But of course, your mileage may vary... :P

[Occhidiangela]

Sorry about that goof on the Dex/DR.

[Occhidiangela]

Oh, maybe it is a matter of style. I tend to do quite a bit of move and shoot in act III, but the real bonus is shooting across the rivers at flayers who cant leap attack over to you. However, when the pack is on the same side of the water as you, it does take quite a bit of 'hit and run' to sort it out, I agree. :) That is where Ice Arrow and an elementally socketed bow help slow down the mob. :)

[CorwinBrute]

Actually, my favorite use of Ice Arrow is in Normal Act2, against those pesky resurrecting mummies and skeletons. It is also useful in Act3 Jungle as you point it. Another excellent tactic past level 24 is to summon a Decoy on a bridge, thus building a chokepoint for the monsters, and get happy with Immolation.