gearing a bowazon

[:1]I just started playing recently (a friend got me into it), and decided I wanted to go for a pure physical bowazon.

The problem is, I'm having trouble figuring out how I'm supposed to get the gear that all the guides say I should be using. As far as I understand, the de facto bow nowadays is Faith, and it's just way out of my price range. My funds right now are about 10% of the way to being able to afford Faith, and that's after 60 billion or so nightmare farming runs.

Most of the stuff I get as drops from NM baal (or wherever else), I can't even sell for pgems. Apparently the good stuff comes from hell, but I just don't have the damage output (or anything else) to farm hell.

How am I supposed to get over this wall? Do I just give up and make a hammerdin like everyone else?|||Hi

Bows like witch wild string or harmony runeword are pretty cheap trade wise and fairly easy to find on your own. You can eventually get a wws by farming nm baal enough and runes 4 harmony not that difficult to get either.

No neither 1 is gonna have the killing speed of a faith but both are absoutely capable of getting you all the way through hell if necessary (at the very least they will allow you to get in2 hell and start doing pit runs) and can definitely hold you over until you find or trade for something better.

Kaytie|||WWS is a great little bow. I agree with KaytieKat in that you are never going to be able to ride through Hell with no issues. You're playing an Bowazon. It takes some skill and strategy. Try to get your hands on one. It will help tremendously. Also, Treachery is a nice little armor that shouldn't be out of the price range of anyone really.

Let us know what gears you have now. Then we can make suggestions on affordable gear replacements.|||i second the two bows recommended above (especially harmony), and add to it Eaglehorn. i have not personally used it, but it has some nice features and i have heard it works fine.|||Quote:








i second the two bows recommended above (especially harmony), and add to it Eaglehorn. i have not personally used it, but it has some nice features and i have heard it works fine.




Hi

Yeah I didnt mention Eaglehorn or Windforce just because that both wws and a decent harmony bow or a lot easier to get and are IMHO a lil superior in that both have ways of dealing with PI's.

On other hand if pure max phys damage is what floats ur boat Eaglehorn and Windforce are both pretty spiffy and thanks to all the 1.10 runewords like faith and ice etc they have both dropped SIGNIFICANTLY in trade value from what they were in their glory days when WF was considered THE bow of bows. Although even then you'll still gonna what a wws or harmony or SOMETHING on switch in stash or have SOME kind of plan for handling PI's.

And a second on treachery for being handy for bowies. It is fairly cheap and adds LOTS of speed and the venom can help with PI's (you just want to make sure that the venom from treachery is at best a suppliment to your PI solution not THE solution all by itself)

Treachery is a little light on the resists since you do NOT want to be counting on the fade as a bowazon (you actually need to take a few hits on purpose to get it to go off and thats not always the best plan survival wise for a bowie). But with good sources of resist elsewhere or with a bow with built in resists like WWS treachery is just spiffy.

And if need be cheaper alternatives such as smoke or lionheart are very high in reists and in case of lionheart other very useful mods for a bowie that are very capable of getting a budget conscious bowazon through hell much less holding their own until she can find or afford the more big name shines.

Kaytie|||Quote:








i second the two bows recommended above (especially harmony), and add to it Eaglehorn. i have not personally used it, but it has some nice features and i have heard it works fine.




Those mentioned above are good choices.

Upped Riphook is good hell viable bow too (I am using it at the moment, while soloing hell chaos/baal runs).

Edge (in elite bow) is good enough too for solo hell games.

Soloing hell Pits or Chaos is not so hard for starting bow-ama. Getting through maggot lair, arcane etc... is much harder. If you can solo nmare baal with you ama, you are good enough to do Pits runs.|||I forgot about Lionheart. That is a nice, cheap armor, too.|||+1 Harmony/WWS/Treachery/Lionheart

I really like upped Goldstrike Arch

Spoiler


Goldstrike Arch

Hydra Bow

'Nef'

Two-Hand Damage: 34 to 234

Required Dexterity: 167

Required Strength: 134

Required Level: 70

Bow Class - Very Fast Attack Speed

Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Item Level: 78

Fingerprint: 0x8ffe15a7

+245% Enhanced Damage

Replenish Life +12

Knockback

Required Level +7

50% Increased Attack Speed

129% Bonus to Attack Rating

193% Damage to Demons

174% Damage to Undead

5% Chance to cast Level 7 Fist of the Heavens on striking

Socketed (1: 1 used)

or Cliffkiller

Spoiler


Cliffkiller

Crusader Bow

'Shael'

Two-Hand Damage: 57 to 232

Required Dexterity: 121

Required Strength: 97

Required Level: 64

Bow Class - Fast Attack Speed

Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion

Item Level: 59

Fingerprint: 0xc3756943

+50 to Life

+223% Enhanced Damage

+9 to Minimum Damage

+29 to Maximum Damage

+80 Defense vs. Missile

Knockback

+2 to Amazon Skill Levels

Required Level +7

20% Increased Attack Speed

Socketed (1: 1 used)

too.|||i�ve always been a fan of upped lycanders. built a chaos sanctuary multi shot ama back in 1.12 around it with a lionheart. not the fastest killer, but very capable of handling it in 1 to 3 player games|||thanks for all the helpful advice, I guess maybe I was just being impatient and expecting too much from running with other classes like sorcs and seeing them slaughter everything even with average gear.

I managed to get a 4 socket matriarchal bow which I've turned into "harmony", which seems to be a big upgrade from my old bow which was an un-upgraded goldstrike. Haven't had a chance to test the new bow in act 4 yet, though, I'll probably do that today.

my current setup is like: kira's guardian, "smoke" dust shroud, "harmony" mat bow, laying of hands, manald heals, gore rider, cat's eye, and i should be getting a nosferatu's coil from a trade today.

it has plenty of both leech, enough IAS to get to a 9 frame attack, and 75 all resists in hell. No MF on that setup at all, though. If the 75 all resists ends up being overkill, I guess I could swap out the kira's guardian for a m'avina's true sight to get to the 8 fpa breakpoint (or swap out the "smoke" for a "treachery" for a similar result)