Crushing Blow Bow (Say that 10 times fast)

Hi,

I am trying an amazon for the first or second time. This ladder my friend and I have had such a good influx of items that I am willing to make a bowzon (which I had always dismissed as too gear intensive). I have read through a few guides like frostmaiden etc. but I have been wondering about getting over the damage hump by piling on the Crushing Blow gear (I first had the idea when I picked up some goblin toes and was about to throw them away when I thought about the concept).

Now I know CB works differently for bows (does less damage rather than less chance to proc if I am correct.) Would it be a decent idea to throw on as much CB as I can? Or would this have a negatice impact on PvM? If loading up on CB is a bad idea would having a single item (goblin toes?) be helpful at least?|||Crushing Blow works at 1/2 the effectiveness on ranged attacks compared to melee attacks. Having CB on a bowazon won't have any negative impact, but it isn't the best stat for one. Goblin Toes are decent boots, Gore Riders or War Travs are better.|||Crushing blow is a good supplement. However, only when a few conditions are met.

1) you need good damage elsewhere. 100% chrushing blow with 10 damage isn't going to work. You want to use straith damage for the little critters. Good bowazon can manage to kill those in 2 or 3 shots. Crushing blow is waisted when you kill that fast. So that's the first incentive, try to get good damage.

Note that this raises a dilemma. If your main focus is on these little critters, is it worth investing in crushing blow for that 1% that might not be killed that fast. So a to large focus in crushing blow as you may see forinstance in smiters isn't good, you neglect the true power of bowazon to much.

2) you want good speed. Very often, speed ourperforms damage. With something like crushing blow, this is even more true.

3) good cth. if you don't hit, crushing blow isn't all that effective.

And then, crushing blow can be an interesting supplement. I use goblin toe on my harmony bowazon and I'm happy with it. My damage is good enough though not that spectacular that I kill everything in 2 or 3 shots. my cth is good due to high level and my speed is at 8 fpa.

And it will be even more effective when you focus forinstance in chaos and diablo.|||Building on what NASE said, a physical bowazon has to have a balance, because she has just the one attack for everything, so that one attack has to be a swiss army knife.

-You need good damage, but you'll never reach the pure damage potential of, say, a Zealot or Fury barb, so you cant just rely on pumping pure damage alone.

-CB is a good supplement, but you'll need damage to finish the job once they're down to that last little bit of health, or else you'll spend half your efforts trying to finish them off and you wont have saved any time.

-You also need to meet a couple other requirements (LL, ML, CBF, KB, IAS, 100% Pierce mainly), which will tie up some of your gear options, depending what skills and bows you're shooting for

Generally, I like the "all in one" CB sources: Guillaume's, Gores, and Duress for a Strafer. That's 65% CB, but you also get OW for a little DoT, and decent DS to augment your raw damage. For a MS/Strafer, Gores really is the only flexible source you can get for CB, but even 15% is noticeable...you can do Blood Crafted gloves too if you roll 20 IAS for 5-10% more, but then you're losing the big EDvD bonus on LoH which generally does you more good in the long run vs big targets like Act Bosses, who are all demons.

But you cant really build a CB-zon the way you can build a CB-Uber char - not until they make Death or Grief a Bow-compatible runeword, anyway You have to build, basically, a "CB-DS-ED-+Max" physical bowazon.

You can, however, build yourself a nice CB A2 merc! Obedience is an awesome runeword and comes with 40% CB, which you can augment with Guillaume's and/or Duress (or Treachery so he attacks faster), just make sure he has a source of some LL. His CB will be at full (melee) effectiveness, too.|||Alright guys, thanks for the in depth answers. I'll take what you're saying into consideration and see what comes up. You've both been very helpful.|||heres a list for cheap CB gear that you could use if you are makeing her



Helm

Guillaume's Face lvl 35 str 115

35% CB



Arm

Rattlecage lvl 29 str 70

25% CB



Boots

Goblin Toe lvl 22 str 50

25% CB



Gloves

Steelrend lvl 70 str 185

10% CB

or

Venom Grip lvl 29 str 20

5% CB



Belt

none

35 35

25 25

25 25

10 5

_ _

95%* 90%**

* to equip all must be lvl 70 str 185

** to equip all must be lvl 35 str 115|||Nofi Kalkanor but most items you list are completely useless. As agreed by droid and myself, you need balance. From my memory, I'm sure most of those are very unbalanced choices.

And you forget one of the best option. Crafted blood gloves come with crushing blow and lifeleech and the potential of skills, ias, stats etc.|||true i forgot bout the blood gloves...

but i had a zon last ladder and she worked just fine with this gear

all you need is a good fast bow

like Buriza-Do Kyanon|||Actually those are all decent except the gloves, definitely blood craft's the way to go. Steelrends have too high str, Vgrips get outshined by just the automods on blood craft, let alone the randoms.

The problem with Rattlecage in endgame, though, is that HCMtF overrides Amp from Atma's, which you definitely dont want. And i'd still trade the extra 10% CB from Goblin Toe for the 30 FRW and DS on Gores.

And Buriza is not a fast bow. Its a fast crossbow, but you cant get faster than I think /4 strafe on a xbow, and for CB builds, its all about more attacks per second. I'd rather, for the price, have a Harmony MB or a WWS (which you can up).|||ya i can see the HCMtF being a slight prob

but if it does proc the monster flees so its not dat big of a prob

just takes longer to kill guys :/ but it does add abit of safety

ya ok its a Xbow not a normal bow... and it might not be the fastest but its damage is very good and you need that damage to fin guys off

plus the chance to freez monsters adds more saftey to it and with Buriza you dont need any points in Pierce