Hello,

I'm very noob to zons in general and haven't ever played a freezing arrow build. I want to make one as my next WT, however I really can't decide between making it on classic or making it on vanilla xpac (no lad rw)

Can anyone who knows a damn about zons give me pointers as to which place would be more fun/interesting to run this build? Unless I'm missing something, I think the classic attempt would be much harder - is this correct?

i don't know but you should try hammerdin with shako

Thanks for advice, already tried but it was so OP that it was easier than playing with plugy

so classic zon can clear CS solo, on PL1. but it takes pretty optimized gear to do it.

you're pretty locked into using a +skills item in every slot you can manage one.

Silks offers a skill and mana leech
Tarn is about your only option
2x sojs
+2 ama ammy

then you can run either deaths/sigons 3pc or use Bfists with rares. even gtoes

+2 ama on a gothic bow is pretty much the dream but really any decent double bow or w/e exceptional version will work, even without +skills. dont bother with wizendraw after norm.

decoy/valk can tank out pretty much anything but you might need 20 pts valk to do a players 8 run for dmg in hell/nm, and it will be SLOW.

lucky for you the inventory will be empty because you'll need a massive amount of mana pots.

the dmg output of strafe/ms doesn't keep up in PVM for classic. you could do like a 1.09 walk and pt the shit out of pierce and be a boss killer MF runner.


but on xpac it's a really simple build, mana after kill items help quite a bit but even plain bowa can clear the game slowly.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Apr 17 2019 11:25am

Yeah I was kind of worried about damage potential on classic in p8. The only guides I saw for classic freezers were focused around bnet/p1 and even then they were saying it can clear all but is very weak, slow, and dangerous haha..

On xpac I figured I could just farm for lycander aim and I'd be good to go for the most part

I about rolled one of these for my WT. Haven’t played any kind of bowazon for like 15 years. Ended up making a Fendzon because I haven’t made one of those ever, I don’t think.

oh heck yeah. xpac progression on bows is really nice.

3x ral bow, right into an Edge, then farm NM meph/andy until something drops. and there's like 10 bows that are end game viable, riphook for christ's sake can be upgraded and used in hell. or even harmony.

i made a classic bowa that used the stickied guide and it was fun to play, especially in bigger runs since you're just c/c, but yeah solo it was bad. even my revive/poi nova necro cleared faster.

I think edge is lad only? I'd probably just use w/e until I could farm Lyc aim.

I was thinking of doing one of these options:
Try on classic /p8 all times ... then if (when ) I die, either remake on classic and do p8 for progression/p3 for re-runs ... Or else just remake on xpac /p8 all times.

yeah lad only!

p3 re-runs might be a do-able run. hell even p8 might be a doable run.

the difference between optimized gear in the # of +skills on xpac vs classic is a lot different. hoto,nigma,spirit,arachs,CTA,charms etc on expac you lose like 20 skills. on classic a random char has like 6 less skills.

i'd suggest you don't invest heavily into Freezing arrow until you get some +skills gear, useit as C/C and spend the pts in Crit and Pierce instead. as well as Valk. a 20 pt valk might be 100% needed in all of the classic scenarios you're planning.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Apr 17 2019 11:36am

Okay thanks, well I'll try it on classic first. I was going to follow this guide which says level 8 valk: https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=70730160&f=57&p=474933883#p474933883

But again that is for b.net which implies either p1 or a party of helpers. We will see I guess, I'll try my best until I'm frustrated as hell and then remake on xpac lol