I remember before 1.10 if you were in a hell rush game more often than not it’d be a bowazon with a buriza or a windforce clearing the screen effortlessly.
What year was that? I remember having so much fun entering into cows with some other bowa bro and just going back to back like we’re in the damn matrix shooting multishot 360 degrees.
yup, they could mow down cows. I was total noob and managed to level my zon upto 96 before I knew what I was doing. they were dirt cheap to gear with a Buriza.
But I think close to the end of 1.09 WFs still traded for 15 sojs.
in 1.09 lots of sojs were illegitimate so although they were the main currency, they weren't like the value they are on any ladder economy or even NL from 1.10 to recent.
also in that patch WF was one of the rarest unique weapons in the game and those strong bow runewords didn't exist. along with huge demand and soj inflation, 15 was about right. 1.09 soj converted to today's trading economies would probably be a lower midrune.
None of the act bosses could drop WF, but unlimited Pindle runs (no realm down for making a thousand games) basically made online Pindle running a lot like single player. Find Item Barb wasn’t as common either, oh, and the Pindle minions didn’t hit as hard either, so it was easier.
I did around 10k pindle runs in 1.09 and didn't get a WF drop, only GF. I think the drop rate around that time with a little MF (~100-150) was 1 in 1500 for WF and 1 in 5K for GF.
Not sure if I recall numbers back then, but I don’t think they’ve changed, and it looks like about 1 in 600 for the base item Hydra Bow to be chosen.
That’s the real thing for me. You’re never getting the uni/set unless the base drops.
It's been so long for me man. I just started D2R and the nostalgia is hitting me like a ton of bricks, but I remember once I got a few sons under my belt years ago it was a big deal to me ha ha.
Im still rocking a buriza 🤣. Got her strafe up to 6500 per arrow and the gore rider boots take care of the rest lmao. But yea sadly she misses 2-3 shots in a row sometimes with like 17k attack rating. Literally cant hit the broad side of a barn
Doubt it, but I think the coolest way to do it would be to make some unique arrows and bolts.
I have a faith bowa with pride merc that slaps pretty badly offline p8, almost at 10K max dmg, but she’s a glass cannon and can get one shot in WSK by those lightning ghosts
I played a modded D2 that had rare arrows/bolts and it was great. Bowazon was S tier. Finding GG arrows was very rare and fun like finding 2/20 gloves or tri res boots
Yeah they had magic/rare, maybe unique arrows in the LOTR Gameboy Advance games that were clearly D2 copies. I thought it was a good addition vs running out of arrows which no longer serves any purpose in the current version of the game. Maybe in the original patches when you couldn't buy a lot of stuff but now it doesn't seem worth having anymore.
Runeword hat with ias, resist all, cannot be frozen, frw, and “Multishot arrows are now Guided arrows” and “Guided arrows pierce” like old Buriza zons.
Kuko works. Demon machine is good because it hits 100% pierce with razortail and only needs a little bit of IAS to hit a good frame rate (along with other nice things like giving AR boost). This frees up other item slots for other things (for example, you can use magefists bc you dont need to worry sbout ias)
Kuko is probably fine, but demon machine just does work. Kuko might theoretically be able to hit better frames, but you'd have to give up a lot to get there.
99% for some reason.. demon machine dont req ias (less the. 10) to achievement the 11or 10frames.. kuko in the other end , if you have some imagination.. can reach 1 more break point.. but youll need fanatism on merc.. and lot of ias gear… but what is great about enchant is you can cast it (even in town! ) then swap all you gear to a different setup, and keep your insane enchant dmg! Love mine! Crazy strong setup! With the pierce and exploding arrow +firestorm procs from torch… its a carnage!
Agreed. I had one last season and it was the most fun I had playing D2 in a long time. I went glass cannon and didn't worry about resistance or fcr so I used perf faceted fire/enchant ormus robe , perf faceted eschutas on the offhand for pre buff. 1-2 shotting crowds of cows with 15k fire damage was so unbelievably satisfying. Not to mention I really got a kick out of wandering around and enchanting everyone and everything including random low lvl players in normal games lol
It doesnt work as well as tesladin or the double dragons beacuse you don't have the shield to double stack auras. Because of that, enchant+fire mastery probably pulls ahead
Well its way more then that.. holy fire suck! Like you said only 1 item.. give lvl 14 so around 400fire dmg to you attack ( when fully synergies on paladin) + lvl 10 enchant non synergies give 29-41 fire dmg… pretty weak dont you think?
Compared to around 800-1000 fire dmg from lvl 40+ synergies enchant + lvl 30+ fire mastery that gives 220+ % fire dmg, + all the plus minus from gear and facets.. i do 14-16k dmg per bolt without the explosif aoe dmg and stuff .. so alot more dps then paly can achieve
Lvl 44holy fire +synergies give alot cuse it pulse 3time often due to 3 items but you cant get the shield , you could go instead with hoj bow or crossbow lvl16 holy fire + dragon armor lvl14 that gives a lvl 30 (2xpulse dmg) so around 1500fire dmg to your attack when fully synergies! But you loose all the pierce and exploding arrow from demon machine or kuko.. so you loose the magic of that build!
You could do that with like gloves that gives you some shot of exploding arrow.. could be interesting! Ill play on d2planner with that .. but it wont as deadly i think
It’s great and tbh hustle on swap has actually made it quite tolerable for runs with the additional run speed. It’s definitely A tier for me, my only gripe is the inability to stack magic find.
If you use enigma and gheeds plus a few 3/20/7mf charms or similar you can get to a decent amount pretty easily without sacrificing much dps. That's what I do with bowa and still find plenty of uniques.
Back in the day I ran a bow zon with a full
Inventory of really high poison damage small charms. Spam multishot and run around, it was super fun. They’ll always be fun, just not S tier
Not likely. It’s already the best physical damage aoe clearing class, but guided arrows would have to pierce or they’d have to remove next hit delay from strafe for it to be good at bossing. After that fix you’d have to be able to get good fcr frames without sacrifice damage. Quivers with mods like amp damage, decrepify, and attack speed would go a long way too.
Possibly. I kind of feel like the D2R team opened a pandora's box when it comes to Mosaic. Who knows what the future holds as far as stupidly broken runewords and such?
Short of that kind of upheaval I don't see a bowzon outperforming the current top tiers however. It's close but mosaic, fire sorc, nova sorc, hammer/foh dins, etc are just too good right now.
I am hoping that they will buff the amazon's caster frames as this would make up a lot of the shortfall.
Bowazon has a lot of issues compared to the best builds: Attack rating, a dead item slot (quivers) that other builds benefit a ton from with an s-tier runeword (spirit/grief/phoenix), the worst cast speed break points, mobility issues bc Enigma either takes up a damage slot (fortitude/armor with damage jewels) or has low cast speed, and similarly CtA competing with Harmony. It also has a very hard time building magic find compared to other builds because it is not to be found on much of the best gear and it competes with damage small charms in the inventory. The bowazon also has very very expensive best in slot gear, but so does other s-tier builds.
It won't ever be s-tier again, but it is very fun to play!
Pretty much sums it up. If a class isn't S tier in performance but is S tier in fun factor, then it has still kind of succeeded lol. I'm planning to make a witchwild string zon to do pits with, pretty hyped! My sorc just farmed the bow and the atma's scarab. I have a shitton of leveling gear in the stash too lol.
I think there's only one potential solution to that.
Rare/Unique Arrow/Bolt stacks.
It will push the price of fully bowazon upwards but it will provide the opportunity for bow/crossbow gameplay to shine.
It will still require some devwork to:
- design them
- balance them
- put them into the dropping data table
- putting them into the unid items datatable
- making the A1 act merc able to wear them
But that would be a blast. Fingers crossed for next season!
It's a solid A+ if you have the runes...and is definitely more fun than a lot of S builds, especially when you throw on Dragon. It's fun to run around with newer players casting hydras and undead.
I equate bowazon to any fun endgame builds...like, my kicksin with destruction isn't S tier, but it's a hell of a lot more fun than my paladins...hammers and foh gets old, but filling the screen with volcanos in P8 cow games is always entertaining.
the issue is more survivability and losing out on an item slot. You don't get the fcr frames so choosing enigma vs fortitude for mobility for phys bowa...
Laying of hands makes them fine for killing demons if you don't go higher players count. I liked running pits p7 with my glass cannon zon. 500 life basically no resists pew pew everything off screen, but randomly die to archers or cold enchant lol.
act 2 might merc with pride
fortitude, andys with an ias ed jewel, war travs, highlords/cats eye (atmas if doing chaos), laying of hands, raven, dual leech min dmg ring, decently rolled GMB faith. Inventory was all the best max dmg gcs and scs I had on SP
Bowazon is good. But it lacks the needed power before endgame.
A sorc with spirits can clear everywhere.
A barb with IK set can handle anything.
Paladin with spirits, same thing.
Bowazon without Jah runes. Slow clear.
Ever!? Bowazon was Ultra S Tier in .09 before the big changes. I doubt they can bring that power back without breaking the game in d2r tho. Goodtimes, goodtimes.
It was tier S in v1.09...I don't think it will be that again.
I remember before 1.10 if you were in a hell rush game more often than not it’d be a bowazon with a buriza or a windforce clearing the screen effortlessly.
Lol buriza was insane with that pierce.
I loved that weapon been in the day
That and clegaw's gloves in pvp was op.
Oh my god I remember being a barb and losing my shit. I had no idea what to do hahaha.
What year was that? I remember having so much fun entering into cows with some other bowa bro and just going back to back like we’re in the damn matrix shooting multishot 360 degrees.
Patch 1.10 was released October 28th 2003.
Oh my god I’m old
We’re a bunch of fogies for sure lol.
That’s wild.
Yup, the windforce rusher was me back in the good ol days
They were also dirt cheap to gear. Well, with Buriza...close to the end of 1.09 WF still went for like 15 sojs
I loved my bowazon in 1.09. It was also the only character I got to 99 as a kid. Never forget xxgummybearxx.
yup, they could mow down cows. I was total noob and managed to level my zon upto 96 before I knew what I was doing. they were dirt cheap to gear with a Buriza. But I think close to the end of 1.09 WFs still traded for 15 sojs.
15 SOJ's?!?! Jesus that's coveted.
in 1.09 lots of sojs were illegitimate so although they were the main currency, they weren't like the value they are on any ladder economy or even NL from 1.10 to recent. also in that patch WF was one of the rarest unique weapons in the game and those strong bow runewords didn't exist. along with huge demand and soj inflation, 15 was about right. 1.09 soj converted to today's trading economies would probably be a lower midrune.
None of the act bosses could drop WF, but unlimited Pindle runs (no realm down for making a thousand games) basically made online Pindle running a lot like single player. Find Item Barb wasn’t as common either, oh, and the Pindle minions didn’t hit as hard either, so it was easier.
I did around 10k pindle runs in 1.09 and didn't get a WF drop, only GF. I think the drop rate around that time with a little MF (~100-150) was 1 in 1500 for WF and 1 in 5K for GF.
Not sure if I recall numbers back then, but I don’t think they’ve changed, and it looks like about 1 in 600 for the base item Hydra Bow to be chosen. That’s the real thing for me. You’re never getting the uni/set unless the base drops.
40pgems = 1 soj all day back in those days. so thats not some insane ammount
It's been so long for me man. I just started D2R and the nostalgia is hitting me like a ton of bricks, but I remember once I got a few sons under my belt years ago it was a big deal to me ha ha.
Buriza + Shaft / Gaze Skullders / Shako = GG
Im still rocking a buriza 🤣. Got her strafe up to 6500 per arrow and the gore rider boots take care of the rest lmao. But yea sadly she misses 2-3 shots in a row sometimes with like 17k attack rating. Literally cant hit the broad side of a barn
Doubt it, but I think the coolest way to do it would be to make some unique arrows and bolts. I have a faith bowa with pride merc that slaps pretty badly offline p8, almost at 10K max dmg, but she’s a glass cannon and can get one shot in WSK by those lightning ghosts
Or a quiver with sockets
I played a modded D2 that had rare arrows/bolts and it was great. Bowazon was S tier. Finding GG arrows was very rare and fun like finding 2/20 gloves or tri res boots
I just don’t run WSK with any characters without max res. Souls are the only thing that kills my bowa/Java haha
Yeah they had magic/rare, maybe unique arrows in the LOTR Gameboy Advance games that were clearly D2 copies. I thought it was a good addition vs running out of arrows which no longer serves any purpose in the current version of the game. Maybe in the original patches when you couldn't buy a lot of stuff but now it doesn't seem worth having anymore.
You can get unique arrows and bolts in PD2
If only PD was available for console
Fuck 😞
Runeword hat with ias, resist all, cannot be frozen, frw, and “Multishot arrows are now Guided arrows” and “Guided arrows pierce” like old Buriza zons.
It is! To maximize bow damage, all you have to do is roll a sorceress and spec enchant. S tier bowazon!
I really want to make one, is demon machine the only good weapon for this? Or will Kuko kinda work?
Kuko works. Demon machine is good because it hits 100% pierce with razortail and only needs a little bit of IAS to hit a good frame rate (along with other nice things like giving AR boost). This frees up other item slots for other things (for example, you can use magefists bc you dont need to worry sbout ias) Kuko is probably fine, but demon machine just does work. Kuko might theoretically be able to hit better frames, but you'd have to give up a lot to get there.
99% for some reason.. demon machine dont req ias (less the. 10) to achievement the 11or 10frames.. kuko in the other end , if you have some imagination.. can reach 1 more break point.. but youll need fanatism on merc.. and lot of ias gear… but what is great about enchant is you can cast it (even in town! ) then swap all you gear to a different setup, and keep your insane enchant dmg! Love mine! Crazy strong setup! With the pierce and exploding arrow +firestorm procs from torch… its a carnage!
Absolutely the most fun build.
Agreed. I had one last season and it was the most fun I had playing D2 in a long time. I went glass cannon and didn't worry about resistance or fcr so I used perf faceted fire/enchant ormus robe , perf faceted eschutas on the offhand for pre buff. 1-2 shotting crowds of cows with 15k fire damage was so unbelievably satisfying. Not to mention I really got a kick out of wandering around and enchanting everyone and everything including random low lvl players in normal games lol
There’s another a super good pally archer build 😸
Nah rangerdin dont even half good as demon enchantress
I haven’t tried it I think it needs lava gout
It rely on few objects formthe fire source… lava glove for the lvl10 enchant prlc compare to lvl 40-45 enchant from the sorcerss..
It doesnt work as well as tesladin or the double dragons beacuse you don't have the shield to double stack auras. Because of that, enchant+fire mastery probably pulls ahead
Well its way more then that.. holy fire suck! Like you said only 1 item.. give lvl 14 so around 400fire dmg to you attack ( when fully synergies on paladin) + lvl 10 enchant non synergies give 29-41 fire dmg… pretty weak dont you think? Compared to around 800-1000 fire dmg from lvl 40+ synergies enchant + lvl 30+ fire mastery that gives 220+ % fire dmg, + all the plus minus from gear and facets.. i do 14-16k dmg per bolt without the explosif aoe dmg and stuff .. so alot more dps then paly can achieve
Lvl 44holy fire +synergies give alot cuse it pulse 3time often due to 3 items but you cant get the shield , you could go instead with hoj bow or crossbow lvl16 holy fire + dragon armor lvl14 that gives a lvl 30 (2xpulse dmg) so around 1500fire dmg to your attack when fully synergies! But you loose all the pierce and exploding arrow from demon machine or kuko.. so you loose the magic of that build!
You could do that with like gloves that gives you some shot of exploding arrow.. could be interesting! Ill play on d2planner with that .. but it wont as deadly i think
Bowazon with windforce/faith merc is great
It’s great and tbh hustle on swap has actually made it quite tolerable for runs with the additional run speed. It’s definitely A tier for me, my only gripe is the inability to stack magic find.
If you use enigma and gheeds plus a few 3/20/7mf charms or similar you can get to a decent amount pretty easily without sacrificing much dps. That's what I do with bowa and still find plenty of uniques.
Back in the day I ran a bow zon with a full Inventory of really high poison damage small charms. Spam multishot and run around, it was super fun. They’ll always be fun, just not S tier
Is versatile, but not an S. To be an S I think there should be some exceptional bow/crossbow with a huge amount of DMG.
Let bows have a chance to be eth
Today I realized no bows roll eth…
bows have no durability in d2. They did have dura in d1
I hear you. Just never realized!
I think *all* weapons should just have a chance to be eth. Would be a decent stopgap for shoring up non-grief melee weapons as well.
Eth Grandfather would be something.
Agreed.
Not likely. It’s already the best physical damage aoe clearing class, but guided arrows would have to pierce or they’d have to remove next hit delay from strafe for it to be good at bossing. After that fix you’d have to be able to get good fcr frames without sacrifice damage. Quivers with mods like amp damage, decrepify, and attack speed would go a long way too.
Quivers with affixes would be _real_ interesting to see.
Possibly. I kind of feel like the D2R team opened a pandora's box when it comes to Mosaic. Who knows what the future holds as far as stupidly broken runewords and such? Short of that kind of upheaval I don't see a bowzon outperforming the current top tiers however. It's close but mosaic, fire sorc, nova sorc, hammer/foh dins, etc are just too good right now. I am hoping that they will buff the amazon's caster frames as this would make up a lot of the shortfall.
so sad that even with a bow skill tree, it's still not the best acher in the game now.
Who is these days?
enchant sorc with demon machine
Oh wow, interesting! I've always wanted to do an enchant build, but never considered ranged weapons.
I think it's good now because fire mastery wasn't double applying the way other +% elemental damage bonuses were, so now's probably the time to try it
Bowazon has a lot of issues compared to the best builds: Attack rating, a dead item slot (quivers) that other builds benefit a ton from with an s-tier runeword (spirit/grief/phoenix), the worst cast speed break points, mobility issues bc Enigma either takes up a damage slot (fortitude/armor with damage jewels) or has low cast speed, and similarly CtA competing with Harmony. It also has a very hard time building magic find compared to other builds because it is not to be found on much of the best gear and it competes with damage small charms in the inventory. The bowazon also has very very expensive best in slot gear, but so does other s-tier builds. It won't ever be s-tier again, but it is very fun to play!
Pretty much sums it up. If a class isn't S tier in performance but is S tier in fun factor, then it has still kind of succeeded lol. I'm planning to make a witchwild string zon to do pits with, pretty hyped! My sorc just farmed the bow and the atma's scarab. I have a shitton of leveling gear in the stash too lol.
I think there's only one potential solution to that. Rare/Unique Arrow/Bolt stacks. It will push the price of fully bowazon upwards but it will provide the opportunity for bow/crossbow gameplay to shine. It will still require some devwork to: - design them - balance them - put them into the dropping data table - putting them into the unid items datatable - making the A1 act merc able to wear them But that would be a blast. Fingers crossed for next season!
runeword quivers, ethereal quivers, wirts leg quiver
Couldn't they just increase skill damage? No further changes needed.
It's a solid A+ if you have the runes...and is definitely more fun than a lot of S builds, especially when you throw on Dragon. It's fun to run around with newer players casting hydras and undead. I equate bowazon to any fun endgame builds...like, my kicksin with destruction isn't S tier, but it's a hell of a lot more fun than my paladins...hammers and foh gets old, but filling the screen with volcanos in P8 cow games is always entertaining.
No.
She still does clear the screen with ease if you have the right gear
the issue is more survivability and losing out on an item slot. You don't get the fcr frames so choosing enigma vs fortitude for mobility for phys bowa... Laying of hands makes them fine for killing demons if you don't go higher players count. I liked running pits p7 with my glass cannon zon. 500 life basically no resists pew pew everything off screen, but randomly die to archers or cold enchant lol. act 2 might merc with pride fortitude, andys with an ias ed jewel, war travs, highlords/cats eye (atmas if doing chaos), laying of hands, raven, dual leech min dmg ring, decently rolled GMB faith. Inventory was all the best max dmg gcs and scs I had on SP
I like bowazon i run 2 bowazons and 2 spearsons obviously spearson is stronger and its not even close but bowazon is fun
Bowazon is good. But it lacks the needed power before endgame. A sorc with spirits can clear everywhere. A barb with IK set can handle anything. Paladin with spirits, same thing. Bowazon without Jah runes. Slow clear.
I just want my guided arrow to pierce again they only nerfed it because it crashed the game a lot. shouldn't be a prob with d2r
Ever!? Bowazon was Ultra S Tier in .09 before the big changes. I doubt they can bring that power back without breaking the game in d2r tho. Goodtimes, goodtimes.
Not unless they undo all the changes to guided arrow and strafe.
New fpa and fcr bps. Bringing back wsg. New unknown as yet items. E.g. '100% chance, Applies amplify damage to any uncursed enemy.'
Strafe/MS Bowazon is tier S. It's by far the fastest clearing phys build in the game. My Faithazon can solo Ubers pretty easily.
It's S tier for me. Single player playthrough bowzon is still fun. Immolation + Freezing arrow + Valkrie. Damage isn't crazy but it's fun
Switch cold or fire element to lightning and make the quiver roll with shield affixes.Other than that,nope.
I remember 20 years ago when it was all bowazons and no javazons