Quote (AlongComesMary @ May 11 2014 09:50am)
I want to start a new char... I thought about an ama... but what kind of?
javazon is good in pvm/pvp?... how to skill? what items? or even bow is better ?
ty for your opinions guys
Hi, glad u though about amas!... They can give you a lot of fun; and, imho, there are enough ww babas, hdins, and blizz sosos out there... Just think different ;P
Java vs Bowa Both can be fun (and viable), but I'd go for bowa. A poison-shock java is cool, but her physical dmg sucks, psn is slow, and, most importantly, can't deal cold damage.
PvP vs PvM PvM, of course!!
There's plenty of life beyond Blood Moor... let's wipe it out!!
It's just my opinion, but I think building a char able to kill (and survive to) each and every monster the game engine can throw at you, anywhere in the game, is more stimulating -and fun- than building a hyper-specialized and über-equipped beast just to fight 30-second duels... Only my opinion, it's ok people having fun with PvP, ofc.
The bad news are that humans are smart, and game AI sucks... If your PvM char is 'too' powerful, you risk getting bored... That's why God created amas
, the dumbest char in realms (the only char that can't get more than lvl 28 skills, the only char without masteries… c'mon!, we even shoot the posts :lol:). Mix that with weakest attacks and defense, bugged skills and joke weapons... Challenge guaranteed!! And challenge means fun...
Finally,
PvM allows team play... by far, the best this game can offer: u can get enched, boed, aura-ed (!)... and enjoy being a goddess of destruction
So, we are going to build a PvM bowa… There is already a very good guide for a PvM
Magezon, and as i'm playing a frost-strafe zon (yep,
Kylva is not a Mage… people often confuse them just because both wear Silks and Tarn, but strafezons got hairy nipples XD), i'll show u how to build one.
I'm currently writing a PvM frost-strafezon build & strategy guide, will only give some excerpts here… (no pictures, srry)
A Classic frost-strafe PvM amazon has two main attack skills, Strafe and Freezing Arrow, and two secondary, Magic and Guided arrows. She couples highest possible cold dmg on a bowa (in common with magezons), with a very decent physical dmg (main difference with magezons), thanks to her 'damage skills' (Critical Strike and Pierce; Penetrate to a lesser extent) and damage items (bow and jewels -yes, this is not LoD, I use the term 'jewels' for amu and rings).
These attacks allow her to instantly (or almost) kill most non cold-immune enemies, but also to kill most immune minions with just 1-2 strafe arrows. Some cold-immunes (high HP, stone skin, etc…) may need a few (just a few) more arrows to bite the dust, while multi-immune bosses will pose a real challenge to you (but they will eventually die, take that for sure…^_^).
That is: she can kill each and every monster spawning in hell(no "plz, some1 kills De Seis for me?" XD)
, anywhere(no 'Mephi-killer', 'CS-runner', etc… she kills from A1 to A4. Period)
, the vast majority of them pretty fast, while getting nice drops. This is what you would expect from a proper PvM char, isn't it?But, if it was that easy this wouldn't be a good game…
MANA, mate, mana is your weak spot and main concern. You need a huge and constant mana supply to run this babe smoothly. In brief, you can get mana drinking as mad (the lame way) or leeching more than a vampire queen (the classy way). Forget about mana regeneration… too slow (the 400% mana regen from a shrine can't sustain non-stop FA, even if wearing all mana regenerating available items [Garb, Lenymo, etc]). Guigeek claims that mana regen is enough for his Mage build, owing to his huge mana pool and the alternate use of FA and Immolation… idk, would like to see his babe in motion.
Leech will come from physical dmg through mana leech items. High ML can also give you some protection against mana burners (cool, isn't it?): if they hit you and you already have arrows in the air, you can automatically recover from a potentially danger (and certainly annoying) situation.
Kylva is currently 21% ML (leeching from amu, bow, armor, left ring and right ring)… she usually clears Cow level in hell without drinking a single pot.CS shouldn't be the gold standard to measure a PvM build effectiveness… it is intentionally made easy: 100% minions non cold-immunes, no magic immunes (lucky hdin), no iron maiden (lucky baba), easiest boss in game (Vizier is a joke, even Rakanishu is more dangerous)… A CS run will take approx. 10 minutes with this build… but we are talking about a
walk and full run, that is, killing
all mobs in upper river and
all mobs in cs (btw, River can be a lot harder than cs if there are gargoyles and oblivion mage packs -shooting at you from outside screen limits, before you can even spot them… arg!).
A2 tombs and Viper temple are your real acid tests… (Travi is pretty hard too… SM can't slow down Hydras (why?), valky rarely lasts more than 2 sec, and my fr is -13; you may need a 'divide and rule' strategy there, picking nasty bosses separately after killing the non cold-immune council members)
On the defensive side, she can't rely on her defense, elemental resistance or life stats to stay alive. She will avoid death by not being hit, which she will achieve with a range of defensive skills: some passive (Dodge, Avoid, Evade), some active (Decoy, Slow Missiles, Valkyrie), some 'human': knowing where/when to run, what to kill first, where/when to cast/recast valky and decoy…(bowies are not made for careless, impatient, or plainly stupid players…). The consequence of this is that she
doesn't need high def, life or resis (don't forget the 10% LL you get from Sigons).
Kylva is 600 life, 900 def (with Silks), -13/32/28/-33 resis with rare rings (-13/7/2/-33 with 2 SoJ), and only lag or my own stupidity can kill me. In summary, playing this ama is all about
controlling the battlefield (which, incidentally, covers the entire screen... and beyond) and
being hyperactive: your PvM bowa needs
7 active skills to kill and survive; 5 of them she uses
constantly -strafe, freezing arrow, valky, decoy, slow missiles- the other 2 (guided and magic arrows) quite often.
The frost part of the build is very easy to achieve: you just need to give her the required skills (20-1-20 on cold tree; silks, tarn and sojs… done). The physical part will be the most difficult, as you need specific rare itms that would take some time to gather…
The only similarly busy build that comes to mind is a summoner using CE, bone spear and curses (but they don't 'control' battlefield, basically overwhelm it…). The opposite char would be a hdin… he is like a walking black hole: move, stop, let as many foes as possible surround you, do the hula-hoop …rinse and repeat.
A. STATS- Energy: nothing. See above for mana discussion.
- Str: 100 (enough for Silks) …not counting gear!! Ten extra str points from Sigons will allow u to use a ballista if u find a nice one (and 10 extra points on dext mean nothing).
- Vita: Between 100 and 150. Less than 100 will make u too fragile, more than 150, needlessly sturdy (after all, you are not supposed to be hit very often ;P) and would weaken your dmg. Use either 100, 125, or 150… not 107, or 142, vgr. Every point not assigned to vita will go to dext, so make them count and give your weapon a noticeable 25% or 50% dmg boost.
Vita must help u survive at least some 1-hit death situations; the 'acid test' for vita is surviving dolls explosion, death cold nova at Travi, and a Cow King hit when either he is fanaticized or you are suffering amp dmg. I'm using 125 vita.
- Dext: all remaining points. If you go for 100 str and 125 vita, your base dext will be 300 (lvl 90 char). I love round numbers, hehe...
B. SKILLSI'm assuming u will get at least +5 skills from your items, +6 being optimal. Unless otherwise specified, all numbers are 'hard points', not counting skill points from items.
1 - BOW & X-BOW SKILLS There is an endless debate involving strafe
vs multi shot, and, to a lesser extent, cold
vs fire… Shortly put, (1) MS is the ugliest skill in game (… spamming screen with dozens of blind arrows, c'mon!), (2) a spray & pray strategy can't be more alien to the 'precision tool' that is your bowie, and (3) you want each of your arrows deal non-damage effects, not just the 2 central ones. Strafe is invaluable for 'scouting' the surroundings. Strafe is lag-proof (the server will guide your arrows, not you). Strafe lock and dmg lowering (u only get 3/4 of your weapon dmg) are not a problem for me.
Cold
vs fire: fire is weak, expensive (need 20+20+20 for maximum damage), slow, unreliable (mobs can walk away from your pyres), CS is full of fire immunes, and, importantly, it doesn't prevent monsters' resurrection… Not least, u can't see a shid when screen is full of fire XD. Never heard of a successful fire-strafezon… And, dude, we can get
ENCH!!! (sadly, there is no cold ench… )
1.1 Cold tree: 20-1-20 for maximum synergies.
1.2 Central tree: full of 1-point wonders,
---1- Magic arrow: this is the skill you will use to kill multi-immune bosses (with Boneflesh and psn) and to avoid wasting strafe arrows when they are attracted by low-priority targets. MA CAN PIERCE, mana cost tends to zero, and uses no arrows…
---1- Multi shot: useless (well, u may use it once-twice in a year).
---1- Guided Arrow: the skill you will use to pick bosses with nasty auras, to kill heavy cold-immune bosses (Duri, Izu), isolated shooters, and running immunes (De Seis, oblivion mages, Blood Raven, ghoul lords,..)
---20- Strafe (don't forget the Next Hit Delay of 4 frames: you can't hit same monster again with strafe till the 5th frame; this makes strafe not the best skill to finish off single monsters; you'd better switch to GA).
1.3 Fire tree: nothing
2 - PASSIVE SKILLS 2.1 Left tree: --- 1-Inner Sight: Pretty useless… yes, u can cast it during long fights against immunes if you have nothing better to do.
--- 1-Slow Missiles: your second best defensive skill (after decoy). You must be casting it
constantly… It not only lowers missile speed by 70% (awesome), but 'illuminates' foes, allowing you to know, before opening a door, if a room contains monsters, where are they located and, often, which kind of mob it is (their movement pattern can be very telling).
---1-Decoy: She is the real Dia unsung hero… If I were forced to choose between decoy and valky, i'll keep decoy… 'nuf said
. Will deserve a dedicated strategy guide, as it has, literally, dozens of
vital uses. Just to say the main ones, it is a shield (you telling me that you will run hell without a shield?… good luck then [valky is not a shield, just a tank… very very different]) and it can distract/attract mobs and fire from you and your valky. P-r-i-c-e-l-e-s-s, dude. Simply put, if you don't use decoy you are not a good PvM bowa. Period. Carriage return.
--- 2-3 to Valky. All u need from your valky is her to last for 6 seconds (the casting delay). A lvl 8 valky has a pretty good survivability and she gets a rare lance… [give 3 points to ensure she will be lvl 8 even when you use Boneflesh]
2.2 Central tree: go for 50% (or as closer as u can) in Dodge, Avoid, and Evade (counting skills from items). You may not need so much protection against melee attacks, but your valky certainly does… You will easily dodge slowed missiles, but your valky won't. If she dies too fast, things will get ugly for you…
2.3 Right tree: Most important skill here is Pierce. Nothing can multiply your dmg more than pierce… both your physical AND your elemental dmg!!!.
Critical Strike without pierce can only double your physical damage; pierce without CS can multiply it by 5, and your cold dmg too!!! Pierce can also make the 10-arrow strafe attack turn into a 50-arrow attack, not bad…
Don't forget that more physical dmg means more mana leeched, thus more mana available for FA.
--- Pierce: go for a lvl 12 pierce (with +skill itms). 75% chance to pierce 1 mob means a 25% chance to pierce 4 times (thus hitting 5 mobs)… One in four arrows is a pretty nice percentage, as you are firing 21 arrows per second. You can't pierce more than 4 times though…
--- Critical Strike: between 50% and 65% (with +skill itms).
--- Penetrate: hard to make specific recommendations… You need to hit mobs to kill them, ofc, but you are already oozing dexterity… My advice is: check your attack rating on the char screen; ideally, your chance to hit should be around 80%-85% most of the time (never below 60%-65%). See what happens if u get, say, 250 extra AR from an item… Often, it just translates to a 1%-2% boost in AR. Does it worth an extra skill point to penetrate? It's up to you.
I'm using lvl 8-9 Penetrate (95%-105% bonus to AR) and getting nice chances to hit… Freezing Arrow is supposed to give u insane AR, but it is bugged (thx Blizz, thx).
C. GEAR Your frost-strafezon will be surprisingly easy (and cheap) to equip… mostly XD: you don't use a shield, only 9/10 slots to fill, and 5/9 will be occupied by set and unique items. You just need to worry about bow, amu and rings. Even these 4 will be easier to get than you've had thought, because no other char wants/needs them. Your ama 'personality' will thus be defined by her bow and jewels… choose them carefully.
1- HELM: -Tarn: +1 skills… and 50% MF; MF must be an important part of your life as PvM… you will be killing zillions of mobs, u deserve a reward.
-Backup helms:
--Howltusk: you are using AoE attacks, last thing you want is scattered/fleeing mobs. Use it exclusively for very tight situations involving fast cold immunes: namely, vipers, urdars and yetis… and prophylactically before crossing potentially dangerous portals/doors (cows portal, Ruined temple door, Durance 3 door).
--If your bow doesn't have poison damage (bad), carry a Wormskull with you, will need it for double/triple immunes (no Snakecord plz).
--Coif of Glory is great in normal and nightmare difficulties… blinded mobs don't shoot missiles, don't spit corpses (gargoyles), don't attack you if you are not close to them, etc.
--Damage helms (Biggins, Dusk, 3-PE socketed helms), only good for fun…
2- ARMOR: -Silks: +1 skills, 5% mana leech, decent defense, medium weight.
-Backup armor: Boneflesh… best resource the game offers you to fight multi-immunes. Simply put, NOTHING survives the combined power of open wounds and poison. Period. You exchange the +1 and ML for just life leech -and Boneflesh is a heavy armor- but when you are fighting immunes you don't run that much, and as they are harder to kill, they can hit you more often, so life leech is cool.
-Alternate armor: Iceblink… best bowa armor for normal and nightmare… awesome.
3- GLOVES-BELT-BOOTS: Sigons. There is no easier/cheaper way to get 30 IAS, 10 str, 10% LL, life, 20 fr-40 cr, 320 def, 20 frw, room for 16 pots… and 50 MF (this makes 100 MF with Tarn, thus doubling your chance to get better drops).
You don't need more than 20 frw. Playing a PvM bowa is not about long and fast runs, but about reaching a safe place and then doing small and accurate movements to get best pierce angle; speed is incompatible with precision.
4- AMU:+2 prism with a stacked resis is mandatory. Mana leech, damage, and dexterity (from most to least desired), are highly appreciated but second tier mods. Any PvP sister can give u free such amus (if they lack dext/dmg, they are considered crap).
5- RINGS: 3 options
-- 2 SoJ. With 2 SoJ you will be moving towards the Magezon side of the spectrum. Pros: maxed skills (good both for cold dmg and overall build 'solidity'), nice mana boost. Cons: no extra phys dmg, no mana leech, no resis… I only wear two sojs when csing with babas/pallys (they deal phys/magical dmg, i deal cold), or before entering cow portal, as 'bo sticks' to pump up my valky.
-- 2 Dmg-ML-resis rings: 9 min dmg (no need for max dmg, but always welcome), 5% ML, and one good resis (yes, one can be enough… this make your rings cheap and easy to get). If one ring gives you half freeze duration, perfect.
All other mods are just the icing on the cake. You don't
need dext… Dexterity gives you extra damage (…and defense u don't really need, and AR u already have in excess), but it's a percentage of your weapon's base damage. 20 dext on a 30-140 bow (a very good bow indeed), just adds 6 min dmg and 28 max dmg. A 9 min dmg ring gives you 36 extra minimum dmg (with 300 dext). Dexterity on a ballista could be interesting though. Pros: you get very important (vital) stats. Cons: you loose skills…
-- 1 SoJ + 1 Dmg ring. 6- BOW:A good bow is always hard to find, specially in Classic… but, again, the bows that fit best with your build are considered bad (slow and/or weak) by PvP bowas, thus making them easier to get, even for free.
-Bow type: Gothic (best dmg, relatively slow) or Rune (best speed, relatively weak). You can exchange a Goth for a very good Large Siege (same speed). Forget X-Bows (Ballista) till you are a pro bowie…, with the only exception of Chuks: you just need 10 IAS to hit its max speed, thus making Sigon gloves unnecessary; it allows you to try different rare (or unique) gloves/belt/boots. It will be very difficult to get the complete stats granted by the three little Sigons though… it's up to you.
Get a Rogue bow too; it is the best bow for dealing non-dmg effects (you can play Angelzon ;P)
-Stats: A good PvM bow should have (from most to least important):
-- Skills: mandatory. Either +1 or +2 (btw, why aren't there +3 or +4 bows? that's unfair…). If you use a non-skilled bow, you will be forced to wear 2 SoJs. It must be an awesome bow, because it will have to incorporate the stats you would otherwise get from your rings (dmg, ML, resis). Chances are you will end up with a +1 bow with nice dmg and a +2 bow with not-so-nice-dmg…
--Physical damage: You NEED dmg, both to kill and to leech. The importance of physical dmg can't be stressed enough with this build. Until you get a decent damage, you will be essentially a magezon without fire…
--Elemental 'effects': ideally, your bow should deal cold, poison and fire damage… even 1 point is enough (all you need is the 'side effects' of these elemental attacks, not their damage).
You want cold because you must be able to chill/shatter mobs with all your arrows, not just with FA. You
need poison, because when you are killing 'slowly' (i.e., not instantly), last thing you want is monsters regenerating their life… psn prevents life regeneration. Fire is a pretty cool add-on, as it has a little 'stun' effect… like a poor-mans knock-back.
If your bow has only 1 element, it must be either cold or poison; socket for the missing one. If it has 2 elements, socket for the third. If it has all three (lucky guy) consider socketing with PS or, why not? with PD (many undeads out there, and many of them cold-immunes). Never socket with PA (not to mention PT!!!).
These are the only requisites a PvM bow must fulfill… The following are good mods too, but they should't dictate your bow selection:
--Dexterity: Again, 20 dext on a bow is cool, but nothing to write home about (see above)… If u manage to get many dext itms (bow, amu and rings), the boost would be noticeable and, thus, worthwhile; you could give this build a twist and make it more 'dexazon' (great for partying with cold soso… she deals cold, u deal phys); if bow has 20 IAS, you can even use 10 IAS dext gloves, 3 PE helm, dext belt (Bladebuckle) and dext boots, hehe.
--IAS: don't be dazzled by IAS… Speed doesn't kill by itself, DPS kills… (get a Rogue bow and see how you perform in hell ;P). Moreover, keep in mind that each IAS BP just gives you roughly 10% more dmg.
This build only needs 30 IAS on a Goth to reach a 12 frames attack (i.e., 2,08 attacks/sec or 20,8 strafe arrows/sec). This is a very significant figure for a frost maiden: freeze duration is reduced to 0,5 sec in Hell; with a 12 frames attack you can effectively lock non-immunes till they die (you can be completely safe fighting a pack of urdar champions even if they are just inches away of your nose, hehe). Moreover, higher speed implies a higher mana consumption, but not always a higher mana production… if you overshoot, you will run out of mana. This applies to fanaticism too; be very careful when partying with a fana pally, it can severely disrupt your build (incidentally, best paladin auras for you are concentration and conviction).
With the 30 IAS from Sigons, a 10 IAS goth lets you hit the next breakpoint for non-strafe arrows (35 IAS; 11 frames/att or 2,27 attacks/sec). A 20 IAS goth hits the BP for Strafe too (42 IAS; 11/3 attack, 22,7 arrows/sec). 22,7 arw/s with 20 IAS bow vs 20,8 arw/s with 0 IAS bow… not even 2 extra arrows per second. Weight this carefully when choosing a bow…
--Resis: yeah, resis are good… no need to stress it. As already stated, you don't need gozu resis, and you will get them from other gear slots (mainly, amu & Sigons). If a bow gives you resis, great!, but don't use it if it doesn't meet the skills, dmg, and elemental requisites.
D. STRATEGY This post is already long enough... won't elaborate the strategy section. The above sections include many strategy tips and hints... Ask for specific situations and I'll be glad to explain you how to deal with them.
The most important point is very easy to understand, but can be hard to put into practice:
THINK AS AN AMA This means
(1) You are not a 'single char', but a 'trinity': bowa-valky-decoy; and
(2) be patient (but think fast): you must evaluate the situation, and then move to a strong position from which you can initiate the killing (control, remember?).
If you find yourself running as headless chicken, endlessly complaining about your bow/dmg/killing speed... and dying, you must rethink your strategy. Don't blame the build... ;P
FINALLY (
) if you want to build this bowa, I'll be glad to help you... either leveling/tutoring her, or giving items (can give you 2 free sojs, and can lend you a decent bow till you find one... even some good -not godly- dmg & ML rings). If you want to see Kylva in action, just say so and we will arrange a meeting (I play Eu Sc Nl).
Thx for asking, thx for reading... and apologizes for long post and poor english...
K.
E/ minor re-formatting and re-wording
This post was edited by Kylva on May 12 2014 11:49am