I. Introduction
Hi, I am Whitereflection and I play ESCL. I believe most of you have grown tired of the cookie cutter PvM classes, such as Hammerdins, Sorcs, and Javazons. I have tried out quite a few builds from the previous guide, unfortunately nothing has really worked out for me. Most of the builds simply don't pack enough fire power to mow down packs of monsters in hell with 50% damage reduction, and none of them can effectively solo farm Chaos/Cows etc with 5+ players in the game.

Finally I decided to come up with my own build, with some tips from the previous guides (They have made some good points which really helped me getting started). Can a Bowzon get more damage and hit the 10,000 damage cap in PvM solo? The answer is Yes. Follow this guide you will have a machine gunner shooting 7K+ damage multie shot/strafte and 9K+ damage guided arrow with 80%+ chance to do double damage! This build focuses pure physical damage, with the ability to cast amplified damage on strike to eliminate physical immune monsters.


II. Goal
Most people think that Windforce Bowzon with Faith Rogue Merc does the most damage, unfortunately that's wrong. This build will be using a Nightmare A2 Offense Merc (LvL 20 Might Aura ~ clvl 90+) equipped with Runeword Pride (up to LvL 20 concentration aura). LvL 15 Fanaticism aura from Faith only adds 144% damage to party members, which is puny compare to the 220% enhance damage from lvl 20 might plus the 345% enhanced damage from lvl 20 concentration aura.
My goal is to achieve 8 frame attack and 2 frame strafe with Hydra bow (Windforce) while getting the most damage out of my gears. 150 total IAS is required to achieve my goal. 7 frame attack with Hydra bow is not obtainable without fanaticism aura and it's not required in PvM since you don't need the deadly FHR lock. Bowzons should stay out of harms way, therefore I am not going to invest too much in vitality and 1,000 HP is healthy enough for a glass cannon. With a good 50%+ dodge/evade/avoid you should be able to dodge most of the elemental attacks, just watch out for those lightning bolts released by lightning enchanted monsters. Overall, a good 40%+ on fire and light resist should be more than enough to keep you alive.


III. Stats
Str: Enough to equip Windforce Hydra Bow (134 Str)
Dex: Once you have enough strength, all unused stat points should be invested here. 1 dex = 1% enhanced damage.
Vitality: Very little - None. You can easily obtain 1,000 + hp with charms even if you don't put a single point here.
Energy: Remake if you put any points here


IV. Skills
Max:
Critical Strike - 71% chance to do double damage, need to explain more?
Penetrate - Multie and Strafe both require AR, the more AR you have, the higher chance you will hit a target. Once maxed, your chance to hit normal hell monsters jump to a whopping 95%.
Strafe - each point invested here gives you 5% extra damage, excellent against line up enemies, bosses. This is one of your main attacks.

Must have:
~10 points into Multiple shot - more arrows = larger coverage = more damage, you will use this attack to clean the rooms and wipe out all the pesty summons.
~3 points into Pierce - Combined with razortail, you get about ~98% piercing attack, which is as good as 100%. Basically your arrows will always penetrate the front targets and hit everything behind, very deadly combined with multie shot/strafe.

Rest of the skill points:
~ Invest in Avoid / Dodge / Evade, these skills will significantly increase your chance of survival.
~ Guided arrow if you feel the need to snipe a single target. Each point will award you with 5% enhanced damage. Some people argue that this is the boss killing skill, I only use it to trigger amplified damage on physical immune uniques/bosses. Once amplified damage is triggered, I will finish the target off with strafe. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out 2 Frame Strafe with 7.5K damage deals way more damage than 8 frame guided arrow 9.4K damage when your AR is high enough.

Optional:
Valkyrie - You already have a melee merc to tank for you, this is totally optional.



V. Gears and explanation
This is very versatile build and you can invest anywhere from 10k - 500 depends whether you want the very elite version of items.

Helm
Jeweler's Tiara/Diadem of Nirvana (3os, 21-30 Dex Tiara/Diadem) socketed with 3 x 15 IAS/40 ED jewels. A perfect one gives you (30 + 120) = 150% Enhanced damage! 45 IAS is a must have to hit 8 frame when using Atmas.
This is THE glass cannon helm. The cheap version will be a plain 45 IAS/120 ED jeweled helm or a Mavina diadem socketed with 15 IAS jewel. If you are a pussy, get a 3os 100 life one and socket it with some 15 IAS/15 Resist jewels.

Armor
Jeweler's (name of low str & elite armor here) of the Whale (4os elite low strength armor with 80~100 life)
Socketed with 4 x 15 IAS/40 ED jewels, this armor is the essential to hit the 150 IAS BP (which in term gives you 8 frame attack with Windforce Hydra Bow). The extra life helps you survive and it's BO-able. Aiming for 100 life if you can afford.

Bow
Windforce Hydraw Bow Socketed with 15 IAS/40 ED jewel (or 15 IAS/15 Max jewel)
A forgotten glory. This bow trashes faith in terms of pure physical damage plus the extra knock back, and it WILL always hit if you have maxed penetrate passive skill.

Switch
6/6/X CTA (flail / CS, eth CS for style) + Lidless for Bo
Most PvP player will tell you how CTA sucks on a bowzon because the lack of + skills; and titan + SS is a much viable switch for defensive play/fury throw etc.
To my experience, unless I run up to them, most monsters will die before they even come close. The bonus life provided by Battle order keep my merc alive and give me a healthy hp boost, Battle command also boosts my damage by a little by increasing the aura level. If you can get a 6 BO, it lasts over 2 minutes which is good enough.

Gloves*
Laying of Hands 20% IAS, 350% Enhanced damage to demons, and a whopping 50% fire resist.
There is really no substitute to this. What are demons? Those fire spitting, double swinging, spell casting frenzy cunning bastards you encountered in D2 are usually classified as demons. We want them dead fast, and Laying of hands help with that.

*If you are extremely rich, you can show off your 2 Passive skill , 20 IAS, 15 Str/15 Dex dual resist gloves (maybe even with some crushing blow) here.

Belt
Razor Tail 10 Max damage, 15 Dex, Piercing attack. Sorry there is really no substitute to this.

Boots
War Travelers Adds 15-25 damage, 10 Str, and some MF.
15 min - 25 max damage = 40 damage total, which is equivalent to 4 x 10 Max damage grand charms that will take over 4 x 3 = 12 Slots in your inventory -- Which in term can be used for 12 x 3% FRW/5 Resist small charms (should you ever need the resist) that give 60% resist to all. I will slap you silly if you deicded to be a show off and wear some stupid rare tri-resist boots unless you find me a pair that gives 60 resist to all.

Rings #1
Raven Frost Ring , aim for a perfect / near perfect one
It prevents you from being frozen (except for holyfreeze aura), adds around ~1500 AR and about 300 guided damage. A must have for any bowzon.

Ring #2
Rare/Crafted ring with Life leech / AR / Str / Dex / Life / Resist etc
This is the only piece that will provide you with life leech, so get the best you can. Perfect one will be 120 AR, 12% life leech, 25 Str, 15 Dex, 60 Life, 11 resist all (crafted).
I am currently using a 118 AR, 10% life leech, 19 Str, 16 Life, 11% resist all.

Amulet #1
Highlords Wraith +1 skill, 20 IAS, 34% Deadly strike (clvl = 92) and 35% light resist
The modes I am after is the 34% deadly strike. Although Deadly strike and Critical strike (Amazon passive skill) don't stack directly, they do increase my chance to do double damage from 71% to 81% (I won't go into the boring math here).
35% light resist is also nice to have along with 20 IAS (although not really needed since we already have 150 with rest of the gears 45 helm + 35 Windforce + 60 Armor + 20 Gloves = 160)

Amulet #2
Atma's Scarab 5% chance to cast amplified damage which will remove physical immunity from monsters. It also make boss killing a lot faster once triggered, a must have for a bowzon.

Inventory:
Obviously the best Anni/Torch you can get

Small Charms:
3 Max damage/20 AR/3% Faster run walk - Although you are not required to mass FRW desync in PvM, but running faster does make you farm faster. Max damage/AR is a no brainer.
3 Max damage/20 AR/20 Life - Very expensive, but you get what you pay for. The cheap version is the 3 Max damage/XX AR/20 Life.
20 Life / 5 Resist all - You can also just get the 20 Life/11 Fire (Light) Resist small charms since cold and poison usually don't hurt that much.

As you can see, I still have tons of free inventory space not to mention the Gheed Grand Charm, Hitting 8k Strafe damage and 10k+ Guided arrow is not hard once you fill up the empty spaces.



VI. Merc Gears
Helm - Eth Vampire Gaze 8/8/20 Ber'ed I chose it over Andy's because of the 20% damage reduction. My zon will be doing most of the damage and a whole chunk of my damage comes from Merc Auras, it's my best interest to keep him alive.

Armor - Eth Bugged Fortitude 3K+ defense, 1.5 Life/LvL, 30 Resist All. You probably don't want a sacred armor because of the ridiculous strength requirement and Andy is not involved in this build.

Weapon - Pride Runeword with LvL 20 Concentration aura, preferably made on eth Cryptic Axe. The aura level matters the most here, so get as close to 20 as possible. Again you probably don't want eth CV because of the strength requirement.

So much damage it makes them say HAXX (taken with a combat shrine )



Thank you for reading

This post was edited by WhiteReflection on Jul 23 2009 08:29pm

Pretty nice guide but merc wil always die in chaos sanc and in baals due to iron maiden so faith merc is better for those areas imo. But for other areas great although some ppl might prefer reapers for ctc decrepify.

This post was edited by hue_two on Jul 23 2009 08:44pm

Very nice

I worried about Iron maiden as well before I tried her out, fortunately that doesn't seem to be the issue. Out of 30 Chaos runs, my merc died like 2-3 times.


With 98% piercing and knock back, most of the oblivion knights were pushed out of screen / killed before they got into range to cast Iron Maiden, and my merc was just following me from behind.

Occasionally they can land the spell on my merc, but by the time my Merc walked up front everything is dead already.

On top of that, Pride runeword doesn't have any ED% itself and the 28% Damage reduction from Gaze should allow your merc to survive few hits.

wow great guide. how viable is this for hardcore?

glass cannons seem pretty sketchy.

why not switch the merc's armor too? is fort really needed if you dont want your merc to do dmg?

why not use stone/duress/tyrael/coh instead?

pride is not good!
you should know that

this + all the gear above loh's is pointless and stupid..

fyi for the poor people, treachery+cats eye +mavs+15 ias jewel is also viable to reach 8fpa