INTRO

Hi all, i read a lot of post this days, asking for pvm/pvp bowazon stuff.

I play Diablo since the beginning and my favorite char has always been Bowazon.

I recently made a looot of tests, IG and theory and i was surprise about the results.

First of all, sorry for my english, it's not my maternal language but i think i'm understandable (sorry if no ^^)
Secondly, I maybe made some mistakes, feel free to correct me if necessary.

Well, most of bowazon are playing with Faith (that was my case too) and those who dont, play with WF + Faith merc.

Pratically 100% of videos or guides who are testing WF vs Faith made the same mistake, they use the same exact stuff except for the bow.
U cannot use the same stuff for WF and for Faith, the ias needed isnt the same, the str/dex neither. The results are obv wrong.

PVM

Let's talk about PVM first. (I precise i did all maths in DPS, otherwise it's non revealant)
I did some tests about that and the first common mistake is to play with Faith in pvm.

The results of my tests are WF has no equal in terms of raw damage.

I tested Faith + pride merc
WF + Faith merc
WF + Pride merc.

Faith + pride do 7% more damage than WF + pride BUT those results are WITHOUT atma proc. Because as i said, the stuff isnt the same, WF only reach 9fpa but it allows us to wear atma scarab, which is a huuuuuuuge damage buff.
If u count atma proc, damage are x2 in WF setup. (I still speak in DPS)

The worst setup is WF + Faith merc which deals 15% less damage than Faith + Pride.

So, regarding those results i can tell the best PVM bowazon setup is :

120/45
WF 40/15
Forti
LOH
ravenfrost / Some rare ring
Razortail
WT

PVP

Speaking about PVP now, i cant really tell what is best char as long as i cannot test all setup vs many opponents and as we all know, dps is not all in PVP.

Firstly with the 6fpa reachable via MB Faith setup i though that was the best setup, cause we lost some damage compared to GMB setup but MB allows us to wear COA/Dungo, atma + abs stuff without losing ias bp.

Then i tried the WF setup that i tried in pvm (with some adjustments ^^)

I used :

120/45
WF 40/15
Forti
Atma
Dracul's
Ravenforst / Rare ring
Nosfe
WT

With this setup i reached 9fpa (which is low) but the WF damage are really insane, it counterbalance easily the lost of ias.

PVP RESULTS

Results are :

Faith MB setup deals approximatively the same amount of damage than WF setup (but MB can wear atma, coa, dungo when WF can wear atma + dracul's )
They both deals approx 8% less than GMB setup.

So, i think we will have to test in real situations if the lost of 8% damage worth to be able to wear atma coa dungo, or atma dracul's.

If someone wants to make tests, i already have the WF setup to try this ^^


Edit : I know people will say "ATMA DRACUL BM", but we dont really care about gm/bm in theorycrafting, i just want to know what is the best setup

This sort of thing would be more persuasive if you posted your math. I am curious to know how you calculated your DPS in each of these scenarios because on the face of it, it seems unlikely that there is such a small difference in number of attacks per second between 9FPA and 6FPA but maybe there is.

It would be really interesting if this is the case because it would make bow runewords nearly pointless. Which is sad. Already the bowazon has to be one of the lowest return on investment general builds in the game.

That is because they are using the wrong faith, use Shadow/diamond bow Faith, it need 65IAS, so you can use the same setup than windforce (atma and razortail), still reach 7fpa instead of 9fpa (more shoot, more atma procs), the only thing that you need to change is the helm, since for shadow/diamond bow faith 45max damage/45 ias helm is better than 120/45 damage wise.

Test it, is more DPS and that with 1 one point in penetrate instead of 20 to have a decent AR with windforce.

So more damage, faster attacking, free 19 extra points.

I just did maths with d2maxroll, it provides you all what u need. The most important things is ofc, dps.



I already tried diamond setup, it deals way more damage than MB setup at 6fpa. To reach 6fpa with diamond u need 155ias, and u are more stuck in gear than GMB setup ^^

I even tried Brand setup/ goldstrike setup/ WWS setup.

I only speak about GMB/MB/WF because those are the best (regarding my tests)

No, try it at 7fpa, 6fpa diamond is worse for PvM because you want atma.

7fpa diamond > 9fpa windforce.

Does maxroll have truly accurate FPA data now? If so that makes it really easy.

Honestly I find these results pretty disappointing. 40/15s are going to be a lot less common in D2R which makes this sort of build just stupid expensive.

Ah, i though u were speaking for pvp.

Let me try this

No d2maxroll doesnt use 6fpa, i did maths manually to convert the 7fpa results from maxroll to 6fpa. That is not really hard ^^

Right, but originally I was trying to understand how you had calculated your DPS because intuitively it seems odd that the DPS would be so much higher on a WF despite being 9FA. That's why I was curious exactly how you determined DPS.

How many attacks per second is 9FA and how many is 6FPA? And are you using character screen damage?

I am 6% higher with WF atm. That is not a lot, i agree.

U can wear atma with 6fpa setup, u just have to switch Forti for 160/60.
But you lost 14% damage if u do this, that is not good.