My Strafezon [PvM]

[djnat]

I've made one in ladder. She is very useful in party, doesn't die in baalruns, and can kill everything with the help of Valk, Decoy and a very powerful merc. She can make Hell baalruns alone.

Now, the guide.


Skills

These are the base values you have to put into your skills:

MAX Strafe
MAX Freezing arrow
MAX Cold arrow
9 Valkyrie
9 Critical strike
1 in all pre-reqs
1 Pierce
All the rest into Penetrate

Strafe is your main skill. With your final gear, you'll be attacking @ insane speed (2 frames per attack) and your damage will be really consistant. You also have critical strike, with your gear, @ level 17 (i.e. 65% critical), which is boosted up by the deadly strike from Highlord. You'll be doing double damage nearly always.
Cold arrow is the crowd-killer skill. When maxed with maxed synergy, it makes about 2k cold damage per arrow (in a radius of 3.3 yards) and it OWNS cuz it stops all enemies which are not immune to cold, or uniques / bosses. You also have a level 17 Valkyrie, which is a powerful tank. Why level 17 Valk? Cuz at level 17, Valkyrie changes its weapon to Warpike, thus increasing her dmg in a consistant way. And if she dies, you simply have to recast it.
In missile-enemies situations, your level 9 decoy can be also helpful. And so it is with your level 9 Pierce: a 69% chance of piercing is very helpful.
All the remaining points (@level 98 you can max it) go to penetrate: more attack rating is not a bad thing 4 your zon.

Stats

Strength: 88. This is the requirement of M'avina gloves. Once you have the gloves, you can wear WT, and all the rest of your gear.
Note: you have to use an annihilus @ level 70: save str points using +str small charms till you can use annihilus. Saving points will really help.
Vitality: the less you put here, the greatest your strafezon will be. You' ll be using CtA, so you have to put points in vitality till you have about 1.2-1.3k life at level 8x with your charms and under the effect of your own Battle orders. More than 1.2-1.3k life is a waste, you're a ranged char.
Dexterity: over 400 points. Dexterity is damage and AR, so you defin8ly need it.
Energy: only a point here means that you're a desperate case, and LoD is not your game. Leave it base.

Gear

Full M'avina set with 3 Jewels in the 3 sockets: two jewels with 40ed (or 3x ed) / 15 ias and 1 40 ed (or 3x ed) / 15 max (or 1x max).
The 30% ias of your jewels is very important cuz it makes you have max attack speed with strafe (2 frames).
War travelers
Highlord
Perfect Ravenfrost
Wisp projector
Note: use Heart of Wolverine charges of this ring in boss runs, especially baal runs when you face the minions: they are nice, add to your damage and your attack rating (and to your merc's and valk's ones). Very helpful. It also has lightning absorb, which is nice in Baalruns with that f#cking damnsh#t black souls.
Annihilus (it's ideal if it has +20 to all attributes)
Lots of small charms with +life / +ar / +max (ideal small charms are 20life / 20ar / 3 max). If you have many of them, you're set.
Some resist small charms to have maxed fire and lightning resists in hell (cold is not so important to be maxed, you have a ravenfrost which has a nice cold absorb, and poison doesn't matter, you are a ranged char and you'll never be in trouble because of poison).

Weapon switch:

Call to arms 1-handed weapon with low requirements
Sigon shield (or lidless, the only thing that matters is the +1 to all skills to increase by 1 level your battle orders from CtA)

Hireling

Might merc. Act 2 offensive (hired at nightmare). You have 2 solutions to equip him.

1. Expensive gear (+4 to Might aura = Xtra dmg 4 you and him, full resists, but no dr on him)

Eth Reaper's toll with ed / ias jewel
Andariel's visage with ed / max jew
"Chains of honor" Archon plate (or elite armor with a good base defense)

2. Average cost gear (no +skills, full dr, full resists)

Eth Reaper's toll with ed / ias jewel
Perfect gaze with Um or resist jew +@
Shaftstop upgraded to boneweave with Um or resist jew +@



Apart from Call to arms' runes and Chains of honor's runes (if you want to use it to improve your char, but you can also play without these items and use good different ones), it's a very nice build and it's not costly. It rocks in hell and you'll be owning ALL zones of the game. And, in a party, Freezing arrow is really useful 4 your friends (stopping black souls is very nice, like stopping Abyss knights ).


Good fun. Hope it helps.

Plz rate this guide, and if necessary, sticky it.
I love zons, and I want people to appreciate this char, cuz I've heard too many times that in this patch Bowazon sucks, and it isn't true.

[aphextwin]

planning to make your bowzon, but need few q's

1.) do i have to use wartravs, cuz bonemarrow gives dex, strgth bonus while wartravs only vita.

2.) if iam too poor to afford ed jewels (at least high 1's), what should i put in sockets?

3.) secks?

great guide, simple to understand liek it, i think it should goto sticky A++++++++++

[Jason]

Hmm, nice build idea, I may try it sometime

[fuxor]

travs add to min and max dmg and add vita.

Did you try atmas scarab? With attack speed that fast you'd be casting amp all the time and do dmg ranging from 1 x dmg to 2 x dmg to 4 x dmg. Doesn't gore riders add DS? If so then you'd be reaching 8 x dmg.

I had a GA zon in 09 with a set up kind of like this. She used a Cruel ward of swiftness (not the bugged one) and did like 1k max Ga dmg and killed peeps in usually 2-3 hits.

[WildfireFX]

he doesnt want secks :O

[ArcaneLegend]

Originally posted by fuxor
Did you try atmas scarab? With attack speed that fast you'd be casting amp all the time and do dmg ranging from 1 x dmg to 2 x dmg to 4 x dmg. Doesn't gore riders add DS? If so then you'd be reaching 8 x dmg.

I had a GA zon in 09 with a set up kind of like this. She used a Cruel ward of swiftness (not the bugged one) and did like 1k max Ga dmg and killed peeps in usually 2-3 hits.

um...how are u getting 8x dmg? deadly strike and critical strike do not stack fyi.

damn...1k dmg and theyre already dying? i did 3.5k and barely made a dent in most ppl! (i was using buriza cuz i was broke at that time lol)

[djnat]

Originally posted by newbie4lyfe
planning to make your bowzon, but need few q's

1.) do i have to use wartravs, cuz bonemarrow gives dex, strgth bonus while wartravs only vita.

2.) if iam too poor to afford ed jewels (at least high 1's), what should i put in sockets?

3.) secks?

great guide, simple to understand liek it, i think it should goto sticky A++++++++++

1) War travs are the best boots imho. Vitality, Str, run/walk and 15-25 damage added are simply marvellous bonuses. Not to count the magic find bonus.

2) The key point is reaching 120% total IAS from your gear. 120% ias makes you catch the last bp with strafe (2 frames). You have 70% from full M'avina, 20% from highlord and you need additional 30% to have 120% total ias. 30% = 2 ias jewels. They are sufficient. If they have also enhanced damage, they are perfect. The remaining socket has to be filled with a ED / MAX (ideal solution), but if you don't have it, you can use whatever you consider useful to add to your damage.

3) Secks ROCKS. :sly

Originally posted by fuxor
travs add to min and max dmg and add vita.

Did you try atmas scarab? With attack speed that fast you'd be casting amp all the time and do dmg ranging from 1 x dmg to 2 x dmg to 4 x dmg. Doesn't gore riders add DS? If so then you'd be reaching 8 x dmg.

I had a GA zon in 09 with a set up kind of like this. She used a Cruel ward of swiftness (not the bugged one) and did like 1k max Ga dmg and killed peeps in usually 2-3 hits.

Atma's scarab isn't as good 4 a strafezon as highlord is. Remember that highlord has deadly strike, +1 skills, and the very important 20% ias which allows you to improve your dmg using a ED / MAX jewel instead of a shael in your bow.

Consider also that you don't really need amp: you have your mercenary, and he casts, with his reaper's toll, Decrepify constantly, which is -50% enemy physical resist, slows enemies and is casted more often than the Amp by your Atma.

Plus, Highlord has lit res. I consider it a must.

Remember that:

Total % of double damage = Critical Strike + (Deadly Strike/100)*(100-Critical Strike)

In your case, you have (considering 30% deadly from Highlord @ level 8x):

Total % of double damage = 65 + (30 / 100)(100 - 65) = 65 + (0.3*35) = about 77%

which is very high.


With a good setup, charms, high dex and merc, you can do quite high damage. And you'll be so speedy that your damage will be really consistant. 12.5 arrows per second with an average dmg of 1.5k per arrow (that, with critical, becomes a real 3k in 77%+ of cases) and with two powerful tanks like your merc and your Valk (and in some cases, your Decoy) who really help you in fighting monsters, will make you ROCK.

Not to mention that you can easilly block all non-immunes to cold monsters with your Freezing Arrow, which will add about 2k cold damage per arrow with an insane attack rating (and pierce) when you can wear the full M'avina set.


And the last thing: I really like M'avina set for 3 reasons:

1) It has a LOT of resists when completed;
2) It has a balanced setup in terms of skills / stats bonuses, speed, and nice damage;
3) It is relatively cheap.


I love zons. And this zon really satisfied me.

[bacon2k3]

i think cats eye is a good amu.

[Jason]

Highlords > Cats Eye

Every noob thinks cats eye owns, lol..

[Scotch]

Originally posted by bacon2k3
i think cats eye is a good amu.

How can a cats eye be better then a highlords

[Ntrik_]

wow.. thats definitely 10/10 guide djnat.. aye well said.. :

(ideal small charms are 20life / 20ar / 3 max).

those charms jus totally pwns when ur zon or pally...

and high lord > cats eye cuz of deadly strike.. and 1 + skill... tho its got 20IAS instead of 30IAS. ppl can manage...


anyways, how about those dual leech with + AR and str on ur ring? u can use wisp projector jus for summoning in town.. then change it back.. (ughh.. very annoying)

[djnat]

Originally posted by N_LeGeNd)
1) high lord > cats eye cuz of deadly strike.. and 1 + skill... tho its got 20IAS instead of 30IAS. ppl can manage...

2) anyways, how about those dual leech with + AR and str on ur ring? u can use wisp projector jus for summoning in town.. then change it back.. (ughh.. very annoying)

1) Well, cats eye has 20 ias like highlord. It has 30 faster run / walk which is quite useful in PvP, useless in PvM cuz you're already fast when wearing WT / M'avina. The best bonus of cats eye is the +25 to dexterity, but i prefer the 3x% critical from highlord, the +1 to all skills and the lightning resist.

2) A dual leech ring is a good alternative to the Wisp projector. I prefer it cuz I use my ama only 4 Baalruns now, and against monsters like Black souls you can't leech, and against Oblivion / Abyss knights, Vipers and almost all enemies in Baalruns, leech is strongly reduced. However, the dual leech ring idea is not that bad, especially if it is a crafted ring with very good mods.

And no, you can't use Wisp Projector to summon and then change it. Heart of Wolverine is a minion just like Necromancer's skeletons or golems, and if you put the ring out, it disappears. So you have to wear the ring to have the spirit with you.

[Wushu]

but doesn't that require alot of mana pots since freezing arrow is kinda expensive?

[Ntrik_]

tis called some what mana regen and mana leech my friend. If not, there is always mana pot in the store

[ParanoigPigeon]

dont you need any dodge skills?

[ParanoigPigeon]

sorry im newb

[Soujiro]

iif your shooting that fast, you will most likely interrupet their attacks... dont double post please

[djnat]

I've made some corrections to this build, and I think it is right to post them here.

1) If you're going to play in party (like I do) a Wisp projector is a very good idea; if you're going to play alone, use a dual leech ring with good other mods. It can be very helpful in solo games.

2) 8 points (and not 9) in Critical are just fine, cuz I've noticed that crit has the same % @ level 16 and 17, so it's stupid to waste a point that can go into pierce (at the last, very high levels) instead. My bad.

3) This zon can become a perfect Pindle runner; you have 100% mf from Mav set, you can have up to 50% with your wt, and if you want to have more magic find you can equip your ama, in the inventory, with mf small charms and a perfect Gheeds. Not to mention that, instead of your dual leech ring, 4 Pindle runs you can use a perfect Nagelring or a magic find ring. With the right charms, you can have about 400% magic find, which is very nice.

Pindle runs, with this ama, last about 25-max 30 seconds, including the time to create the game, to summon the Valkyrie, to identify / sell the previous run's found items, to enter Pindle's red portal, to triple teleport and destroy Pindle and his minions with freezing arrow / strafe, to collect useful items from ground and to save / exit. To teleport, just have Naj's staff equipped as your switch weapon. 3 teleport charges = about 5k gold, 1/7 of a random good elite item that can be dropped by Pindle and sold to regain money soon.