Disclaimer: Please bear in mind, this build is PVM only and it has not yet been tested in PVP.



The Vandal:
The Hybrid Zon that Fooled and Raped Them All


Table of Contents

1) Introduction
2) Ideology
3) Skills, Stats, & Breakpoints
4) Gear
5) Gameplay
6) Conclusion

Introduction

I try to find skills that people aren't utilizing. A zon is one of the original characters in Diablo. She can fight with range or melee, with physical or elemental. She’s much like a druid in many senses. Few other characters are as versatile and effective as an Amazon in PVM situations.

I have named my character build "The Vandal" because my physical zon breaks everything in her path. She damages monsters of all shapes and sizes. She's unaffected by Iron Maiden even as a 100% physical damage character.

This guide lays out necessary breakpoints and expectations and guidelines for things you should look for when selecting equipment. I have also included three different sets of gear that I think will work well depending on what price range you are in.

I will also discuss ideology and gameplay for people who are interested in how I have approached this game over the past 8 years and want to learn about the experience of others to bring more enjoyable gaming to your computer.

I try to learn from you every day. You have learned about my variation of the summoner, now enjoy my unique guide to the Amazon.



Ideology

An Amazon has a special purpose. She can kill things from close up or far away with sharp spearlike objects. For about 3 weeks I worked with building a Spear Zon for PVM and it just wasn't that fun! I try to always build fun characters since PVM is pretty homogeneous after almost 9 years of Diablo 2. I now believe I have a build that no one uses. I've checked every forum I can find looking for a build based on these main attacks and I have yet to find one. So...here we go.

I love melee characters. I love the fact that they are up close and in the action. My first character was a Zealer. This was way back in the day before synergies and crazy runewords or even decent armor. We had hammers and crappy shields. Then in 1.09 I got Schaefer’s and shit my pants. Shael'd Schaefer’s, Vamp Gaze, Shaft Stop, Bloodfists, Tearhaunch, etc. I loved my zealer but always found problems with Iron Maiden and the fact that I couldn't hit just one target when I wanted to.

As a zealot, you click zeal once and it swings the axe/sword/scepter/hammer really quickly about 5 times. If you run up to a group of monsters and only want to hit one, you're shit out of luck. You have to hit all of them. What happens when one is a boss and is kicking your ass with lightning and would really like to end them quicker than the rest? You switch to Sacrifice but then you realize you didn't stack you Life Leech enough so you end up 1-2 shot killing the monster AND yourself or you had to kill an rather nasty undead monster that you couldn't leech from. Either way, it could get ugly fairly quick.

The Amazon has two skills that break down zeal into distinctive categories. First, you can hit multiple targets with FEND* and second, you can aim for only one target with JAB. These two skills make for an incredible duo regardless of the order you choose to kill a group in. Personally, when I run up to a group with a mini-boss, I JAB the balls of that bastard then FEND off the rest.

We have a problem with FEND and JAB though because they don't quite measure up to Zeal for one reason...FANATICISM!!! JAB and FEND would have been discovered a long time ago had this aura been available for other characters. Well guess what people, Fanaticism is here and we are going to use it!!! Your Amazon will wield Javs and a Shield as one weapon and a Bow for the other. We need Fanaticism the whole time for incredible damage and increased attack speed. I am going to suggest you use Act 1 Cold Mercenary with a Faith Great Bow. If you are opposed to using runewords, sorry. This is the ONLY one you actually do NEED to utilize this exact skill set. It costs 2 high runes but I promise that’s all you will need.

JAB and FEND are both very specifically melee attacks and you will get raped by Iron Maiden. I corrected that problem and made this Amazon a hybrid with a very powerful bow and STRAFE!

The three skills I will now show you how to build from are FEND, JAB, & STRAFE! If you have read to here and have decided this is not the build for you, thanks for getting here. If you are interested, please read on!

*Fend- Fend has a slight bug in it. Your attack gets interrupted and it looks like you are hitting when you aren’t when you decide you want to hold your mouse button down. The only way to fix this is to point, click, release, and repeat. If you are like me and always click and release, you won’t have any problems and you won’t even notice it. If you are a click and hold player you either need to stop reading here and not build or get use to the click and release. Sorry guys, nothing we can do about Blizzard screw-ups.


Skills

Your Vandal has three main skills, none of which require synergies. This makes it incredibly easy to max out and have room to play around; most characters have a main skill with several synergies and other required pre-buff skills so it’s less negotiable.

Skills Required for Build:

Javelin Skills
+20 Jab
+1 Impale
+20 Fend

Bow Skills
+1 Magic Arrow
+1 Multi Shot
+1 Cold Arrow
+1 Guided Arrow
+20 Strafe

Passive & Magic
+20 Valkyrie
1+ ALL OTHERS (9 if you only put 1 in each)

As you can see, you max out at level 82 with all skill quests completed. This leaves you with 10+ skill points to allocate as you wish before you even have to start baaling. Once I maxed out and put gear on, I increased Critical Strike until I was comfortably sitting at 75%. Then I put a couple more in decoy but it doesn’t really matter.

The reason I chose Decoy over Inner Sight is because you will have an Act 1 Mercenary and she will cast a lower level Inner Sight and mess yours up from time to time. Fearing this, I felt it was a waste to drop more skills in one that wasn’t going to be active every moment. I thought this was a minor price to pay for the super boost you get from an Act 1 Mercenary.



Stats

This is not your typical “use no stats, just glitch on enigma build.” We are going to need to drop A LOT of hard points into Strength and Dexterity. This is a Melee Build and needs certain things to be completely effective.

Do yourself a favor and evenly put up to 40 Strength, Dexterity, and Vitality on this build. Then bring your life up to 200.

Now you should have:
40 Strength
40 Dexterity
200 Vitality
15 Energy (Don’t do it. 10% Mana Leech is all you will need for godlike performance)

The Rest of the Skill points (About 250+/-) will be reserved to use as needed. Be sure to save them until you have your core gear, that is, your torch & anni (as high as you can get), and your low requirement gear that has Strength or Dex. Ultimately, you will want enough strength to wear all of your gear and enough Dexterity for max block with your shield (this will also greatly increase your attack rating on both your javs and your bow).



Break Points

The usual breakpoints for this build are fairly straight forward. What I am going to pose to you is that we need several things on this build. Your needs determine your gear so pay attention. You want to attain all of these things in this order:

DAMAGE (we don’t want to hit each monster a lot)

ATTACK RATING (we don’t want to miss said monster a lot)

CRUSHING BLOW

ENCHANT (demon limb is your friend. It will greatly improve your viability and entertainment)

AMPLIFY DAMAGE (I will show you two ways-we need this to remove physical immunity)

17% Life Leech/9% Mana Leech (I found these to be the magic numbers to never have to use anything but the Purple Potions in time of emergency)

MAX RESISTANCE (this is always mandatory for anyone in the action. Actually, no this is just mandatory period)

FASTER RUN WALK (we are a running melee character. If you don’t have good frw, you will probably get bored and quit the character. The game is supposed to be fun afterall, so run fast)

STATS (gear that gives you stats are great because it increases your ability to drop points in vita so you stay alive longer)

SKILLS (obviously these help with damage but a great set of javelins will trump tons of skilled items)

MAX BLOCK/86% FASTER HIT RECOVERY (it is very simple to hit these with decent equipment and it will reduce your need for Potions even further)

INCREASED ATTACK SPEED (this is listed lower because we hit it REALLY easily)

DAMAGE REDUCTION % (this is always nice but our last consideration. We can get by without it and we know that DR% gear is super super expensive. There are other more interesting ways to spend FG)

Here are your IAS Breakdowns so you can see where you want to be:




Let's aim for 54-58% IAS!



Gear

Alright, Based on what we looked at above, we need some good shit.

There are some things that are non-negotiable. They are:

Eth/Replenish Matriarchal Javelins- Either titans for the cheap, or godly rares for the rich. We need Eth Mat Javs because that is our primary source of damage. We don’t have the option to socket our weapon so this is critical. The only way you will do considerable damage is with these. Matriarchal Javs have the best IAS to DMG Ratios for your Zon plus they are built for her with +Zon skills.

FAITH Merc Bow (that’s a great bow or blade bow only please—don’t cheat your mercenary out of her last frame of attack) JAH, OHM isn’t so bad to find or trade for. Sorry, just the way it is.

Raven Frost- Attack Rating, Dexterity, and the ever famous and necessary CANNOT BE FROZEN.

Windforce- GOD. This is simply GOD and cheap for building a Zon whom only uses Strafe when she can’t stab her opponent.

Amplify Damage- There are two ways to get this skill.

The cheap way is to wear Atma’s Scarab. This gives you a really nice 20% bonus to AR as well as some other mods. You will need to run up to physical immunes and FEND them off. Since FEND is a fast attack, it will cast pretty quickly and they will go down.

The expensive way is to somehow find Amp Damage on your Eth Javelins. Good Luck.

This is what I recommend for building this character in three distinct fashions:

Riding High and Mighty:

Helm: Guillaume’s Face
Armor: Perfect Duress
Belt: Razortail or OW Belt (you won’t need anymore fhr though)
Javelins: Rare 2/3/20ias/Amp/Cruel/Fools/Replenish Quantity-Eth Mat Javs
Shield: 17 FHR/Deflecting/Prism/2os Heater (low str reqs/high block rate)*
Bow: 8% Windforce w/ God Jewel
Gloves: 2 java/20ias/10cb/stats
Boots: Gores
Rings: Perfect RF + ar/9%ML/stat/LL/5%AR
Amulet: Godly FRW Zon Ammy with Stats & Res.

*if you have 20ias on your gloves and javs, you’ll only need 1x 15ias jewel. Then add as needed (stats, res, or damage)

Middle Classed:

Helm: Guillaume’s Face
Armor: Any Duress
Belt: Razortail
Javelins: Good Eth Up’d Titans
Shield: Mosers w/1-2ias/res all jewels (depends on your needs if you have a low faith)
Bow: Any Windy w/ ED jewel
Gloves: 2/20 jav gloves with stats or res
Boots:Gores
Rings: Good RF + ML/AR/Stats (if you can get all)
Amulet: Cat’s Eye (Keep your Atma’s in your inventory and put it on when you need it)

On Welfare:

Helm: Guillaume’s Face
Armor: Twitch
Belt: Wilhelm’s Pride
Javelins: Any Eth Up’d Titans
Shield: Whitstan’s Guard
Bow: Any Windy
Gloves: Magnus Skin
Boots: Goblin Toe
Rings: any RF + ML Ring
Amulet: Atma’s (keep it in your inventory and use Cats if you can, otherwise, just use atma)

/!\ ALL GEAR SHOULD BE SOCKETED AS NEEDED. IF YOU DON'T NEED TO SOCKET SOMETHING PARTICULARLY, GET %ED JEWELS /!\

Merc:

The merc can be naked for all we care as long as she has that Faith. Here’s what I would aspire to:

Faith with a godly Eth Giant Skull with 2x 15/15s and Eth Up’d Shaftstop. She’ll have DR%, Max res, Last Frame IAS, Knockback, and Sick Damage. Then I would Socket her Shaft with some sort of Enhance Damage Jewel or just a Perfect Ruby.

Inventory:

This is PVM People, you need an inventory. If you want to use skillers, do so but I would suggest:
Torch
Anni
Gheeds
2 Java Skillers (w/frw if you are rich)
SCs as needed to fulfill FHR and Resistance needs. Then you could grabs some FRW if you wanted.

DEMON LIMB!!!!!!!! Get this, keep it in your inventory next to your charms, pre-buff your merc, valk and self with it at the beginning of each game. Put your javs back on. Done.
Atma’s for basically everyone because amp javs are incredibly hard to get.

KEEP YOUR INVENTORY WIDE OPEN TO PICK SHIT UP!!!

Gear Conclusion:

Gradually build up your gear selections and make them as godly as you can. You’ll have a lot of socketing room to meet requirements and even more room to use in your inventory for charms. Make sure you put stuff like IAS in sockets before Resistance of FHR because those can be made up for in the inventory. Mana Leech and Life Leech are hard to replace as well. Find this stuff before you socket your godly shield with Ber for DR%. We want other breakpoints first.

I would start with the Faith and Windforce, and some cheap pair of 20 IAS gloves so you can meet requirements and do pretty well with Strafe if you’re having a hard time finding godly rare javs and shield.



Game Play

I leveled my Vandal the old fashion way. I ran through the game with people and built skills as I went. She proved reliable in solo games for getting stuff done.

Start like this:

Get your Critical Strike and Inner Sight immediately, these skills are invaluable.

Pump Jab but as new Passive Skills become available, drop one in each of those.

Once you can utilize Strafe, pump it full. This will be your primary attack for a while.

Once Strafe is full, pump Valk (if you want) or start on Fend.

Once you have Jab, Strafe, Fend, and Valk pumped, do as you please.

Get a bow that’s ok and run with your buddies or whatever through the game upgrading equipment as you go. Get bloodfists and Twitch as early as you can as these are pretty godly. I would also use Videlas Boots and Amulet as it gives you massive FRW and 50% MF. Deaths Guard belt is super helpful until you can use Raven Frost for the Cannot be Frozen.

Once you start getting to a higher level, start looking for your final javelins. They will be difficult to find but you will have one of the most elite, unique characters Deckard Cain has ever had the pleasure of identifying items for.

Make sure you pre-buff with Enchant yielding Demon Limb. This is a godly item for both of your skill sets.

Now, in places where IM reigns supreme, use STRAFE and your Windforce.

Where you want to focus on a single monster, fire up JAB.

When you run into a crowd like cows, whip out your FEND.

Enjoy!



Conclusion

You should have:

2nd to last frame Jab Attack/Last frame Fend Attack/Last frame Strafe Attack
Tons of Crushing Blow
Max Block/Max Res/87% FHR/Good FRW
20% Life Leech/9-10% Mana Leech(on jav attack, 16+ on bow)
Fanaticism
Tons of damage

&

Fun!


Fanaticism has enabled the Fend Amazon to exist. Without synergies or auras, the skill is basically worthless. Blizzard has offered us a new way to enfranchise characters whom otherwise would never exist. I don’t think we are done exploring these concepts, in fact, I think we are only beginning.

I look forward to your educated and relevant rebuttal.

Now go climb that ladder!

This post was edited by mephistophilis on Mar 3 2009 01:28pm

Strafe Bug ??
Serach and read about it...

Even though this would ruin the whole point of a hybrid zon, another option for
casting amp is Lacerator Winged Axe. You could fire off a few arrows, switch
for 33% ctc amp, and then take out the PI with just your bow, and put back on
javas when done.

Also I'd like to just mention the usefulness of Freezing Arrow and Lightning Bolt.

Yeah the freezing arrow and lightning bolt will work for preference. I ended up not liking them as they were just more hotkeys to set and I found myself not really using them.

only problem with lacerator is the causes monster to flee effect overrides amp

I did read about the strafe bug and I forgot to include it. The fact of the matter though, is that it doesn't really matter that much because we are going to have the 20ias on windforce and 20 ias on our gloves so no matter what level fanaticism we use, we are going to claim to be hitting last frame.

We can 't avoid the fact that we will hit frame 2 even if we are only shooting at frame three is basically what I'm saying. I've found that the strafe lock isn't long enough to matter but if you find yourself annoyed that we can't move for a split second, just swap weapons and you'll be freed up.

Interesting build and interesting read.

How does the low % of cast and the low radius of amp (lvl 2) work out for you? Do you find it casts enough to be worth wearing?

Thanks I try to keep it new and exciting for my readers.

You'll only need the amp for physical immunes. Otherwise, you deal enough damage to kill quickly. The range is fine since you are melee and in their face.- That being said, if you have amp javs they are super god.

Jab and Fend are super fast attacks so you're going to get casts every 4 clicks or better. So I usually keep atmas in my stash for as needed. Then something else on.

This post was edited by mephistophilis on Mar 4 2009 07:08pm