I'm considering two options: Fishyzons or Gunslingers. The bow (Buriza) will be the same for Blitzkrieg either way, but ShocknAwe's bow will be determined by the focus. Wizendraw or Melody for the Fishy option, or WF for Gunslinger.
I've pretty much worked out gear for Blitzkrieg since I'm versed in 1.09 gear options (still trying to obtain a TGod's for her, but I can always rob another character if it doesn't drop soon), but I'm a little lost on how to gear up ShocknAwe.
For Blitzkrieg, Stealskull (13@ jewel), 28 Mara's (Mephy just dropped this the other night - I'll post to the IFT soon), Skullder's (Um), rare gloves with +2 J/S, 20% IAS, 22% MF, TGod's, Rare boots with resists/MF, RF and a stylish Scintillating Ring of the Leech (or BKWB if I can solve resists), Titan's + SS / Buriza, 6x Harpoonist's GCs. Her power in 1.09 is legendary, but I want to answer the question of whether Charged Strike is as good in 1.09 as it is in 1.13. The key here is to work out using Skullder's and still managing resists since I haven't found another Tal's.
Merc will end up with standard Hone Sundan + Blackhorns (Gaze for Ancients/cows) + Smoke or Gladiator's Bane
For ShocknAwe, I've got Titan's + SS or WG, and Chains of Honor (using the 2 Sur runes I traded some 1.10s RWs for) in a +15 ED Wire Fleece I have from 1.09... and that's it.
I'm thinking the Merc will sport Reaper's Toll + Vamp's Gaze + Duriel's (upped)
So for ShocknAwe, CoH will work for the Gunslinger or Fishy option, but I'm a little stumped for helm, gloves, belt, etc. I'm thinking a beta Delirium might be fun, but I'd also like to consider one the Andy's I traded for (I have some fabulous jewel socket options for that), but the level req means I'll play most of the game with something else. I'm thinking StealSkull would help with a Gunslinger, but Fishy would like the +2 skills from Shako, Delirium, or Andy's. I don't have a Griffon's.
SO... questions:
1. What do you think of the names - any suggested alternatives? I'm not set on those yet. I'm also considering Evita (1.09) and Hillary (1.13).
2. Any driving reason for either the Fishy or Gunslinger option? I've heard of a Mudslinger, but I'm not sure that's gonna work in 1.09.
3. Any really cool gear setups that work especially well for the 1.13 Zon? I want to use the CoH, but I do have a full Tal's I can pick the armor, belt, and Helm from. I think the MF from a pTopaz socketed Tal's 3-piece is plenty for my MF needs. It's low on +skills though.|||Well, if you want to make a hybrid, it's much smarter to use similar things on both switches. Like, either focus on weapon damage or on skill damage. It's so much easier to get FA/CS/(LS/LF) to work than it is to get Strafe/FA or Strafe/LS/CS to work.
Gearwise... +skills is dandy. That's all my zon really needs. Which is the entire point of it. There are literally no items at all that cater to both strafe and LS/LF/CS. So, instead of getting a bang out of each slot, any potential zon using strafe is always essentially half naked. Which is a lot worse than it sounds, trust me.|||Quote:
There are literally no items at all that cater to both strafe and LS/LF/CS
Actually 'Chains of Honor' is a very decent choice in that manner in 1.13c. And I think RobbyD has runes for it, should he choose to go that way. +2 Skills, 20 Str, 200 DtD, 100 DtU, @65. Spot on IMHO.
Of course it's not a perfect choice for either one, but it's a very good item for both.
I see not a single iota of reason for using Tal's set on an Amazon. The reason Sorc uses it is the X-item bonus on the Orb combined with MF. Even then Uniques beat it. If you want MF, go for Skullders.
FA is a mana hog in 1.13 (much much worse than LF), not sure about 1.09. But since there's no 'Insight' back then, I'd rather leech with Strafe to fill the mana pool, than have it emptied by FA. But that's just me.
Overall though, it is easier to make Fishyzon work than a Gunslinger work.|||Quote:
Actually 'Chains of Honor' is a very decent choice in that manner in 1.13c.
It's very nice for the FA/LF variant, but for a strafer I'd pick Fortitude over CoH any day. Tbh, if I had to make a hybrid, I'd pick fortitude just because strafe needs so much more help to be good than LF/CS.
You can see that from my guardians that tried for the split between physical and lightning damage. They pretty much always went more or less all out with helping the physical part. The lightning part is just so good that it nearly always outshines the physical aspect of any given build. You'd probably need faith and fortitude to outperform even a mediocre LF and CS.|||He's got WF. That comes a long way. And come close to 'Faith', for a strafer.
@RobbyD: The trick to make a Gunslinger shine (and that can only happen in SC in my view) is something like what Nagisa did in this thread. Basically she's GLASS cannon. There's no way around the glass part. It's near impossible to sacrifice lightning damage for safety. Sacrificing physical damage for safety and she'll loose the bang with physical part.|||I'll just toss a +1 to pretty much all of what Nightfish said.
It kind of also depends whether you want to make an actual "hybrid" Gunslinger, which is kind of silly in terms of practicality, or just a javelin based amazon who can swap to a decent enough bowside for something different and/or dealing with immunes. FA works fine in both cases, but has a greater floor in terms of the amount of lightning damage you need to lose in order to make your cold damage actually worthwhile. Multiple Shot and/or Strafe make you lose damage more from the changes you need to make to your gear and stat points, rather than lost skill points. Of course, an extremely strong MS/Strafe will require a middling dose of skill points flushed over as well.
Long story short, I wouldn't recommend a Gunslinger as a competitive build against a Fishyzon if you don't have an amazon-only 'Faith'. Even then, it's kind of a preference thing, but the physical side really needs the bonus AR/skills (and Fanaticism) to get it cooking without dampening the lightning side too much. FA needs AR to an extent to really get going as well, but the physical skills pretty much demand it.
Hope that made sense and/or was helpful?|||Thinking back to my old lf/multi hybrid zon from .09 I would say that it's a lot more do-able to hybrid then. Your LF is your main crowd skill and will take down those packs in no time. +skills can bump up your multi some and I would say to take GA instead of strafe for the smaller LI packs and Buri's awesome piercing style from then. If you had a WF in .09 that would destroy anything whether you strafed or multi'd.
In 1.13 wf with a fort to bump the phys damage that much more. Again, if just for LI's and situational then stay with CoH for the resists and skills to bump CS/LF. Since you stated you want to compare the power of CS between patches then by all means, look for the skills and see what you can do there while maintaining resists and enough back up damage to take out LI's on the switch.
Similar gloves will help out the CS/LF in 1.13 and a T-Gods or Arach's for a belt would be good choices for the +skills as well again. Lastly the Andy's or Shako would probably be the best choices with the +skills and lead to more of a fishyzon rather than trying to split the balance between +skills and +damage. Really it will come down to how often you want to or need to use your bow. If it is just for the back up then go fishy and shoot for the +skills. If you want to be able to bow whenever and it not take forever then aim for Fortitude (similar runes/expenditure to CoH) with the WF or faith in a +3 zon bow (expensive but good).
Hopefully you can find the T-gods to help with light res/absorb in .09 and maybe a dwarfs in there for fire absorb and magic absorb if your fire is getting low. Might not have all the other mods but if you're that worried about the resists... Hope any of this helps.|||Quote:
I see not a single iota of reason for using Tal's set on an Amazon. The reason Sorc uses it is the X-item bonus on the Orb combined with MF. Even then Uniques beat it. If you want MF, go for Skullders.
Can't agree. I used 3-piece Tal's (Helm + Armour + Belt, the first two with PTopazes) rather effectively on a Strafezon. I didn't have Skullder's for a long whole, but I don't like it anyway, as it offers nothing other than MF (well it has 10 MDR, but Tal's has 15). Total MF from those 3 pieces is 211-216% (depending on the belt), and you get decent resists, MDR, dual leech, mana, life, and a small dex bonus. Combine with a Windforce and you have a decent p1 Pit runner without doing too much else (lots of gear left over to do whatever you want to do with it). Can't offer any advice for a Javazon, as I've never played one, but if you want to make a Strafe-based MFer, and have a WF, then Tal's 3-piece is very definitely worth considering. Not the world's most efficient MFer, but certainly viable, and more fun than a bloody Hammerdin.
|||I think the basic idea I'm brewing is to just have as effective a bow switch as is reasonable for when LF/CS don't work, so it sounds like the Fishy is the way to go for 1.13 at least. In 1.09 the Buriza is a great MA/GA or FA weapon, so I might just mix up the bow skills between the 2 Zons.As far as 1.13 Fishy bows, I've been picking up Wizendraws while running 1.10a Andy, and I have that Melody GMB I made in 1.09, but I'm really thinking a beta CtA in a GMB or MB would be nice (total +5 skills to B/X). I'd have to rush some chars, but 1.10a Andy did actually drop a Gul, so I'm already a quarter of the way there. Plus there's always the Buriza I can try out for some piercing, target freezing fun.
I have a great Faith base (4os +3 skills +10%ED GMB), but I lack the runeage for that, sadly. One day, though.
Thanks for all your help and discussion, especially Greebo and Nightfish.|||Good luck with your project. Blitzkrieg is a good name, and I would be tempted to use Blitzkriegslist as the second, but hey, I am kinda lame.
Charged strike in 1.09 only releases 3 bolts no matter the slvl. At level 20 it does 223-252 damage per bolt. At level 30 it does 370 or so damage. The real problem is that it only releases 3 bolts. It would be an ok skill at p1 facing a single enemy, but you have a Buriza for that.
I would also say don't wait until you have the perfect gear to do a character. It will be much more fun just doing something and making it work your way. Sometimes you it is nice to have something to compare to. If you jump into using a faith right away, you won't be able to appreciate the awesomeness as much as the guy who first used WWS to get through the game.
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