Hey.

Have you tried out that hybrid bow? Faith of ice or w/e its called?

Is it still restrictive regarding gear?

It's considered GM but there are a few things that people need to understand about Faith of Ice Bows
Faith of Ice is only useful on the Europe Server where Bugged Siggard's Stealth Belts exist (Which provide DR% and 10% ias on the same belt)
On other realms Fath of Ice is completely useless, here is why:
** Also keep in mind that bows have nothing to do with your Javaside switch which often ends up being used more than the bow in more serious pvp **

First of all, Amazons have a very high Critical Hit naturally. It's very easy to achieve 72% Critical on an Amazon (This is roughly 3/4 hits will be double damage)
Normal Faith Bows have higher weapon damage than Faith of Ice Bows but Faith of Ice has 20% Deadly Strike
People think the 20% Deadly Strike is more important than the higher base damage and this is wrong
Here is how Critical works with Deadly:
* You fire an arrow and it hits, the game now attempts to roll your chance of success with Critical Strike (72%) If Critical works, Deadly does nothing
* If Critical fails (Which is only a 1/4 of the time) The game then attempts to roll Deadly Strike % (Lets say you're even wearing Highlords and Faith of Ice) for a 45% chance of Deadly Strike
You then get a 45% chance to save your double damage, this is still a 55% chance of NOT DEALING DOUBLE DAMAGE and it isn't helping the damage output of the natural 72% Critical much at all
This is pointless seeing as how you only (potentially) benefit from the Deadly Strike 1/4 hits and you are sacrificing a significant amount of weapon damage off a normal Faith and FRW off Cat's Eye to obtain this
Having the higher weapon damage from a normal Faith results in your hits just hitting harder to begin with and seeing as how Amazons deal double damage 72% of the time anyway
The average damage output with a normal faith is much higher over time than while using a Faith of Ice

To sum it up, that 20% deadly strike is only helping you on about 1/8 hits on average

1 crit works
2 crit works
3 crit works
4 crit fails - deadly strike initiates and works
5 crit works
6 crit works
7 crit works
8 crit fails - deadly strike initiates, does nothing

Worth the whole number damage drop? No it is not



Second of all, the +20% IAS on Faith of Ice Bows is useless, wether it's on a matriarchal bow or gmb (Keep in mind these are the only two types of Faith of Ice that are in productoin)
If it had been 25% IAS, it would have made all the difference, here is why:

* Take the setup in my guide that uses a Diamond Bow Faith and consider that you are trying to replace it with a Faith of Ice GMB
The setup has 70% IAS comming from a Rare Diadem, Cat's Eye and Crafted Knockback Gloves = 7fpa with Diamond
This setup (as compared to a 45/120 setup) is important for providing more life, more resistance, +skills, and the use of verdungo's for DR% and life replenish

Now at first glance, Faith of Ice GMB gets you excited due to +20% IAS!!! It makes you think you can fit a GMB in with a durable setup but look again, 70% + 20% = 90% and is still 2% shy of granting 7fpa
You'll still be rocking the Nosferatu's Coil, that or a 45/120 to obtain 7fpa. This is a terrible trade-off seeing as how normal GMBs and Diamonds deal virtually the same damage as a Faith of Ice anyway
It just isn't worth sacrificing durability, it's all about character durability/survivability in more serious pvp



Matriarchal Faith of Ice: This is just pointless to begin with, mats require 45% ias to hit 7fpa, +20% ias is a pointless mod seeing as how all Amazons end up wearing this gear:
* A Diadem with sockets and 30 frw (what else to put in this other than 40/15ias jewels?) double mod'd damage jewels are glitched, so you'll end up with 30% ias in a helm regardless
* Fortitude Armor (+300% ED?, yes please)
* Cat's Eye (+30% FRW?, yes please) comes with a free 20% ias
* Crafted Knockback Gloves (20% IAS on all good sets)
The Matriarchal Faith of Ice only demands +25% IAS outside of the bow to reach 7fpa but the preferable gear to boost a zons frw and damage provides a base 70% ias anyway
And seeing as how Matriarchal Bows deal trashy damage, you may as well upgrade to better damage and benefit that 70% ias, this results in a Diamond Bow Faith



It's too bad they don't produce Faith of Ice (Diamond Bows)
If they did, you'd only need 45% ias on the setup, ** Rare Diadem + Cat's Eye = 50% IAS and 7fpa **
This would let you wear Dracul's or even Cleglaw's Pincer's while maintaining 7fpa and healthy damage
Now that would be a significant upgrade in an Amazon Build

Only downside is that you'd still need 90% ias on your javaside to hit 9fpa throw
This means you'd need 40% ias javas which are impossible to find anymore



All in all, Faith of Ice is an illusion as well as a tremendous waste of your cash/fg

This post was edited by Habakkuk22 on Jan 18 2012 10:06am

You'd lose knockback tho..

If you want to wear dracs/clegs on foi setup use a 2 socket giant skull with 2 * 40 ed 15 ias ( assuming a foi diamond bow existed ).

Build most guys on eu with foi are going for is:

3 socket 30 frw circ with 40ed 15 ias jewels
foi gmb
forti
08 highlords
bug belt
raven
some sick bow ring
crafted gloves 20 ias 2 p&m etc..
wt's
20 ias matri's eth rep 4xxed
storm/swordback

this allows you the extra DS ( and light res ) from the Highlords while not losing frw.. dunno how good it is in practice.

This post was edited by Jeebus666 on Jan 18 2012 09:57am

Not a bad setup at all but I still believe in the +STR/DEX and +RES on high-end Rare Diadems

The more res you have on worn gear, the less +5% SCs needed
This is directly equivalent to how many +3 max you have
And on a good zon (even vita) gets about +60 actual max dmg per +3 SC
Not to mention attack rating for multi-shot

remember the 15 str and 25 dex u get from bb so it kinna covers the amount u lose from diadem ( and with diadem +str you may have to flash it to get str bug ).

Also 20 res on bb and 35 light res ( which is the most important res ) so you can probably get max res for most setups a lot easier here.

hes east.

no bbelt




not for telezons that use 175/20s

This post was edited by Azn Masta on Jan 18 2012 10:16am

Well I was tallking more about the eu setup in my post ( which is why i mentioned highlords ). Looking at it again, I guess he was talking about the knockback setup with giant skull, but I think the gain of knockback is worth losing those mods on a diadem.

no kb on zon = ezpk :/

Telezons are in themselves, a waste of fg
11 frame fcr just doesn't work in high-end PvP

We've been all through this earlier in this guide and all have to say is this:
There are strong reasons why telebowas do not compete in world ladders

Tele with CS and Plague on the other hand, works great

But 11 frame tele as a defense mechanism is terrible against seasoned fpk stompers

Honestly if you're trying to make a telebowa with GA
Just make a necromancer with bone spirit
It's faster tele, spirits cannot be blocked and linger in the area cast to arc back in at chasers



and I was talking about Dracul's with GSkull/Rare alike. IT would be preferable with GSkull though (Knockback is a must in most situations)
being able to front OW and still wear Stormshield would be an amazing PvP advantage vs Barbarians/Smiters/Assassins

This post was edited by Habakkuk22 on Jan 18 2012 11:17am

wtf? you must have 775def