Have wealth, need bowazon gear suggestions

Hi!

I've played a hammerdin+smiter since the ladder season began and amassed quite some wealth. Therefore I want to start playing the class I love the most again: bowazons!

It's been quite a while though (took a long break before this season started) and I'm a bit rusty on gear. Also, I never had the resources I have now. I'd love to get some suggestions, since I know there are several approaches to build a bowazon.

I'm mainly interested in a strafe/multi build without MF, to run chaos, pits and Baal.

Main questions:

- Do I use Faith myself or on act I merc (with me using WF)?

- If using Faith myself, what type of bow should I use? Same for merc Faith.

- If using Faith myself, what's the best A2 merc aura? Might or HF?

- What should the rest of the equipment look like to get to the proper IAS breakpoint (and what IS the proper breakpoint)?

Equipment I have so far:

- 8ml WF

- +3 GMB, +3 MB and and the runes for Faith

- Fortitude in sup AP and fortitude in eth AP for merc

- All uniques and set items I could possibly think of that might be useful to a bowazon such as stealskull, atma's, razortail, loh, gores, bul kathos, etc.

- eth CA with runes for Obedience or Doom

- Perf Andy's for merc

All suggestions and tips are welcome! I've looked through a lot of the threads in this forum but couldn't really figure out a definitive answer to my questions.

Thanks!|||http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...d.php?t=325914



I prefer Krembanans guide with an a1 merc.|||the question on wf vs faith for me comes down to what the rest of your gear is going to look like. if you just want to rely solely on your bow for damage, faith wins out. it is the single item killer. if you want to totally max out your damage and dont want mf, go with windforce on you and faith on the merc. in that case, krem's guide is great and should answer all your other questions.|||Thanks!

I really don't need MF (have my hammerdin for that). The bowazon will hopefully net me many socketables and runes instead, besides being incredibly fun to play.

So far it seems like I'll be going WF with A1 Faith merc then.|||Quote:








the question on wf vs faith for me comes down to what the rest of your gear is going to look like. if you just want to rely solely on your bow for damage, faith wins out. it is the single item killer. if you want to totally max out your damage and dont want mf, go with windforce on you and faith on the merc. in that case, krem's guide is great and should answer all your other questions.




I still dont understand what the basis of that statement is. The cheapest "big bow" setup is the 8 frame wf build(due to wf being cheaper than faith). And for the ultimate best, there is little difference between the three setups http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/s...d.php?t=758031|||faith for mf is what i'm driving at. you can load up on mf gear and faith covers the holes better in one item. you get everything you need (except knock back). it's just what i do, dont worry about understanding, lol. what i meant by that statement was that it's personal preference.|||My vote, pound for pound with cost not a factor, is the WF + A2 Might/Pride merc, now that IM is no longer a concern in WSK/CS.

I think, though, mathematically, 15ed Faith GMB + Might/Pride merc setup has the greatest potential for DPS, when you factor in a buttload of +4 max SCs (or +8 max LCs, etc.)|||That's interesting. You're saying a Faith might not even be necessary?

I have the runes for a Pride, but lack many +3 max SC's.|||I don't want to sidetrack this conversation, but my question sort of falls along the lines of this particular discussion in that I do not and have not played a bowazon but I am an avid Bnet trader and as such end up with all kinds of strange items every week or so and need to research to figure out what the heck to do with them/who uses them.



That being said, I have acquired a few random bows in terms of runewords this week and would like quick info as to what type of char/merc would actually use them.

1. Brand hyrda bow, 291ed 295 dd

2. Ice cb 221ed 29csd

Again. I've never played a bowazon and I acquired these pieces for next-to-nothing while currency flipping and cubing up runes. What specs/players would actually use these?|||Scrub: None and none, really. Any Zon would want to use a MB/GMB for any runeword but Silence (which is 6os). The Ice CB is potentially useful for an A1 cold merc, but not really since the big benefit there would be the HF aura and the A1 merc tends to try and stay far away from monsters, where auras do little good.

Duck: Faith/WF zon with Faith/Might+Pride merc combos are really all splitting hairs. They vary from each other by less than, oh, 5% in terms of total DPS with comparable endgame equipment (not counting full dupe builds like 120/45 helm with 160/60 armor). Some have a slight edge at a certain point, others edge them out later if you have certain other things. You really can't go wrong with any of them, though.

And with your apparent level of wealth (I wont ask how or from what site you acquired so many HRs), I'd skip the +3 max and go straight for +4/20 SCs and +8/45 LCs. They're the ideal for any physical Zon build.