Quote (Blah58 @ Sat, Aug 30 2008, 10:44am)
1 into freezing arrow rapes mobs
using freezing + raven in hell will freeze monsters for 1.5 seconds, pleanty of time for your strafe or multi to kill everything in your way
shoot 1 or 2 freezing if monsters are swarming you too fast
also switch up your gear imo, you have wayy to much ias you will reach bps easily with faith merc
This, but have a 100% cb setup as the cb carries into the explosion as well. I think I remember reading that in one of that guys guides over @ basin. I'll look for it
Found it:
A Magezon with 70% Crushing Blow - an Ice Crusher!Not only would the FA splash freeze the hordes and Amp them up, it would also transmit multiple Crushing Blows throughout the pack. While CB only does 50% of its melee damage on bows, every monster I pierced with an arrow would take a double hit from the cold splash as well. And the 50% Physical Resist in Hell would be completely nullified by Amp Dmg, insuring maximum CB damage as well.
I realized my original notion of pumping FA for cold damage was pointless, so I replaced my remaining SoJ with a Bahamut's ring. With that I still had over 650 Mana, without the extra +skill point. A handful of small cold dmg charms took my freeze time back up to 3 seconds, and some resist charms made the numbers fairly positive. And as another recent thread has revealed, cold damage from items boosts FA splash damage.
I had another trick up my sleeve as well. I'd learned a lot about the Kuko's Explosive Arrows from using the Demon Machine on my Crushing Bowmancer. The ExA fire splashes are just as wide as FA cold splashes, and they transmit CB damage just as well. The big difference, however, is that it costs exactly zero mana to fire ExA's with the Kuko.
What this gives you is a way to manage the mana drain of Frozen Arrow. Instead of plugging away with FA until Amp triggers, you can freeze the pack with your first volley, then switch to a normal attack with Explosive Arrows to continue pounding them with Crushing Blows and triggering Amp Dmg. The overlapping fire splashes does some decent damage as well.
Guided Arrow is also useful, doing both CB and fire damage to a single target, as well any elemental damage you have from gear and charms. And with maxed Immo and LF, you can handle Physical Immunes with ease.
Finale
The last item on my agenda was replacing my now redundant Blessed Aim merc with something more useful. Holy Freeze seemed like the best choice, but a problematic one: I'd have to level up a lvl-35 HF merc from A2 NM with a Magezon who was already lvl-75. That could be tedious.
Looking at my old merc, I saw he was using a Kelpie Snare and Blackhorn's Helm, not exactly the most agressive gear available. I gave the new merc a higher damage spear with some life leech, plus armor and helm studded with perfect Rubies for maximum life.
I figured we'd do NM Arcane Sanctuary runs till he leveled high enough to handle A5 NM, and then move up to A5 Hell around lvl-60. I'd freeze the monsters and let him get in most of the finishing blows.
Turned out he could kill fast enough, but even with Holy Freeze, he'd take enough damage to die pretty quickly as well. At his level, he just didn't deliver enough damage to leech very much life back. Our prospects began to look very tedious indeed.
Then I remembered something about that discarded Kelpie Snare. Not only did it have a scaling Life boost and 50% Fire Resist, but Slows Target by 75%. Normally, I wouldn't even consider a buggy effect like Slows Target, but if the monsters are already Holy Frozen, how much desync would you actually get? Virtually nothing, it turns out, not even when you add Blackhorn's 20% Slows Target for 95% total! Blackhorn's also has +20 Lightning Absorb, giving my merc a significant boost in the LEB tanking department.
But would a setup like that prove viable in Hell? To make a not-so-long story short, one of the first bosses we met up with in Act 1 Hell was a Holy Shock LEB, who killed my 2000 HP Valk almost instantly. The merc was just lvl-60, but had no trouble handling this guy and just about every other boss in the game. Duriel's Shell gave him extra Life and Resists boosts, as well as Cannot Be Frozen, but it's his ability to paralyze his foes that pulls him through. He has no leech and his damage is on the low side, but most monsters just turn blue and stand there while he stabs them.
Denoument
To sum up, my conclusion is that Crushing Blow makes the Kuko into a powerful end-game weapon, perfectly compensating for its only weakness - low Physical Damage. Combined with Frozen Arrow, Amp Dmg, and 100% Pierce, the results are simply devastating. For anything that combo won't handle, you can choose between maxed Immo and Lightning Fury. And for most bosses, you can easily ping-pong them to death with Guided Arrow. Couple all that with a merc that can stop almost anything dead in its tracks, and you have what in my eyes is one of the most versatile builds in the game.
This post was edited by VickIsSick07 on Aug 31 2008 09:00pm