Guide:Javazon v1.10, by Sint Nikolaas

Diablo II Strategy Guide Info:

[edit]

• Patch: v1.10
• Gametype: PvP
• Class: Amazon
• Specialisation: Javazon
• Author: Sint Nikolaas

Icy Veins Javazon Build (Lightning Fury / Charged Strike Amazon)

Javazon

A javazon is on many aspects different then a bowazon (of course), however many of the main points stay the same. As an amazon, prepare to run a lot. Get good blocking and try to keep your resists (or single resist if you’re facing a specific opponent) up at any time. In my opinion a javazon is quite a lot easier to build then a bowazon, however learning to duel and kill with her is a different story. Note this though, the javazon I’m about to introduce to you has the ability to kill any opponent in good manner dueling (BM... ew anyway), while live trough any attack. She’ll have incredibly high damage if you have the right gear, but can hold her own if you don’t have it all day long. The javazon I recommend is a poizon.

Note about the damage. At first glance the damage seems quite nice, with both the poison skills maxxed you’ll have 10k on one and 6k on the other. However if you take in notice that this is over a duration of time, calculate the PvP penalty and resists it won’t be pretty. However if you get better gear and especially some mentioned gloves and a couple of skills you’ll do double damage easily. I’ll note that a fully decked poizon can get around 125-150k damage. That’s 5k damage per cloud after resists and penalties. (This takes crazy gear though. Note also that my I had a poizon that had around 70k and did incredible.. think about doubling that amount.) Needlessly to say you can drain a lifebulb faster then your own mana bulb when you’re getting better.

The stats

The stats are pretty straight forward.

• Strength – Enough strength to equip all your equipment. Take note that if you have strength from other sources you can include those (like strength charms). Don’t forget thought that once you use this strength you can’t take it off.
• Dexterity – Enough to get max block. You need it.
• Vitality – Every point you can spare.
• Energy – None.

The gear

The main problem with a poizon is that you need +skills or +poison damage to get good damage. The upside however is that we have an attack that does not require AR to hit and can’t be blocked. That means that you can run around all day not even trying to hit your opponent to get a kill in. (NOTE: It doesn’t work like that though.. just.. exaggerating a bit.) Seriously though, get those skills.

Helm

• Harlequin crest. One of the best helms out there. It’s also recommended because most people have one lying around anyway. Gives skills, DR and a load or life/mana. Don’t look strange at the mana, you’ll need it.
• Andariel’s Visage. Besides the drawback that is has negative fire resistance, this helm is a beauty. Gives skills, strength and IAS. It also gives a load of poison res, but who uses that right? Oh.. wait..
• Valkyrie Wing. Another good one, I haven’t used it, but the FRW and the FHR alongside the skills (try to get two) makes it pretty nice.
• Rockstopper. As always on the list. Very good defensive helm, no skills but resists, fhr, life and DR to make up for it.
• Peasant crown. A skill, FRW and some life/mana. It’s a mini Harly..

Amulet

• Cat’s eye. My suggestion. It gives the needed FRW and with a good chuck of dexterity you’ll have an easier time blocking. Don’t overlook the IAS.
• Mara’s. Of course, if you have one, go for it.
• Eye of etlich/highlords. Just listed for the skill.

Magic/rare amulet – try to get one with skills and second mods. Everything is a bonus.

Armor

• Bramble. I have to list it because it’s just the best armor out there. It gives a massive boost to your poison damage and the FHR is nothing to sneeze at. It’s probably out of price range though.
• Spirit shroud. Gives a skill and CBF. Not bad, but nothing great either.
• Skin of the Vipermagi. A skill and resists, that’s more like it. Still nothing too great though.
• Duriel’s Shell. A nice defencive armor. It gives good resists, CBF and a chuck of life. The strength on it is just extra.
• Que Haegan’s. A skill and FHR, listed beneath Vipermagi as FHR is easier to get (shael runes) then resists (um runes).
• Naj’s lightplate. Here’s a bit of an unusual choice, it looks decent enough with the skill, life and resists, but it’s a heavy armor and you’ll lose on running speed wearing it. Yes, despite the name.
• Natalya’s shadow. Another unusual one, I’m listing it because besides the decent armor it self it can come with 3 sockets. If you have some poison facets, or just want to be more safe then this one can help.

Gloves

• Trang-oul’s gloves. Find, trade, beg, burrow or steal them. They are just too good for this build not to have. Increases your damage a load. Oh and some cold resist too.
• Bloodfists. Distant second. Gives great mods of course, but use the trang’s if you have them.
• Rare gloves. I’ll list them because you can find some nice rares that have +2 javelin/spear skills, IAS, resists and stats. However they are very hard to come by and Trang’s still outstrip them.

Belt:

• Arachnid’s mesh. Hard to find or expensive to trade. However it’s the only belt that gives a skill so I figured I’d list it. Don’t worry about it if you don’t have it though.
• Thundergod’s Vigor. A very nice belt. Gives strength and life besides the fact that it counters lightning opponents in the best way possible (+max and absorb).
• Trang oul’s belt. This belt is just nice, if won’t help you out as much either offensively or defensively, however it might help you in picking your other gear as it give CBF. It’s pretty hard to come by though.
• M’avina’s belt. Nothing too spicy besides that one mod. FRW. Did I mention yet that you can’t have too much of it?
• String of ears. Gives DR. Wear it if you don’t have anything better.
• Bladebuckle. Easy to overlook. However it gives strength, dex and FHR. It’s decent, but certainly not best.

Boots:

• Shadowdancers. The best boots. They give good FRW, have excellent FHR and give great dex. However also very hard to come by.
• Sandstorm treks. These are the lighter version of the shadow’s. Still very nice boots but also somewhat hard to get.
• Waterwalks. This one is decent enough on it’s own. Gives FRW, dex, life and a little max fire res. Good enough if you can’t get the above two.
• Tearhaunch. Also a pair of boots people tend to skip. Besides the fact that there are better boots out there you don’t want to underestimate these. All res, FRW as well as a little strength and dex makes a good deal.
• Aldurs boots. If you went with Andariels mask then these boots complement it perfectly. They make up for the lost fire resists as well as give a very nice chunk of FRW. You can obviously wear them if you have gone without Andy’s and put them to good use too. Don’t forget about these.

Shield

There are several options however I suggest that you go with max block. This means that you have to get a shield with high block percentage as you don’t want to invest too heavily in dex (as it doesn’t help you in any other way).

• Stormshield. Almost the only choice for this build. It speaks for itself. The high strength requirement actually brings out a nice spot as it will allow you to wear 4-socketed monarchs filled with perfect gems to counter elemental damage.
• Gerke’s Sanctuary. Good shield. Gives good block, DR, resists and some life replenish.
• Moser’s. Three things make it good, it’s common, it has decent resists and it has two holes instead of the normal one. The block percentage is low(ish) though and it doesn’t look good on an amazon. If you don’t care about that, go for it, the extra hole may give you an edge.
• Whistan’s. This shield gives great blocking. Besides that there really is nothing to look at.

Weapon

• Titan’s revenge. This weapon has all the mods we need. Just get it and be done with it. It gives skills, stats and FRW. You can’t ask for anything more on a javazon. It’s also a nice bonus that they replenish meaning you won’t run out in the middle of a duel.
• Rare/magic. Go for it if you find a nice one. The amazon javelins (maiden javelin etc.) can spawn with +skills too. Try to get one with replenish mod and stats.

Rings

• Ravenfrost. If you don’t have CBF, use it here. The dex is good to help you block. You won’t need the AR though.
• Stone of Jordan/Bul Kathos wedding band. Both not always available and quite hard to find. However I’ve listed them because they give skills. Use these if you have them.
• Dwarfstar/Wisp Projector. Use these to counter fire or lightning. Remember the rules about absorb though.
• Rare rings. Look for strength, dex and resist. Don’t worry about anything else.

Switch

This one is actually quite important. On your switch you want to have a bow. Why? Quite easy. If you have a bow on your switch you can actually lure people out that play defensively or even damage people when you carry some open wounds. You’ll just have one point in guided arrow and you’re on your way. If you’re a bit wealthy and don’t look on an Um rune more or less you can get the fastest bow you can find and socket it with that Um for an extra 25% OW. The key to handling the bow is that it has to be fast. It doesn’t really matter what the damage is or what the extra mods are, it just has to be fast. If you get a magic bow with 40% IAS, then use it over that rare bow which has 320 ED, 10 strength, 15 dex and 24 all resist. You don’t have your bow to run around with, you only need it to make a few shots when your opponent is far (enough) away. The moment you can see your enemy or when it starts attacking you (some opponents can attack you off screen) you don’t want to be caught with your bow out. The problem is that there aren’t any bow’s out with OW that we can use. So it’s either an Um rune or some OW on other gear (that I didn’t list). The trick is also of course to let your opponent think you have OW even if you don’t have it. Just keep a bow on switch and fire a couple of arrow’s when you’re safe.

• Magewrath (or widowmaker.. but that has more requirements). It’s not great and doesn’t have OW, but it does give you the guided skill for free meaning you won’t have to put points in it to get there.
• Goldstrike. Listed because of the speed. No OW here though.
• Rogue’s bow. Another nice and fast one. It doesn’t matter it has 5-12 dmg. Again no OW.

Building your amazon

A javazon doesn’t require too many skills. This is great as it allows you to have an easier time PvM or maybe surprise your opponent by picking an unexpected skill.

Bow tree. 0-4 If you went with a bow that has guided arrow on it you don’t have to put any points in the bow tree. If you haven’t just spend enough points to get 1 in guided arrow. Don’t bother maxxing it as you’re not a bowazon. You rely on poison clouds, not on arrows.

Javelin/spear. Minimum 41.

• Poison javelin 20
• Lightning bolt 1 – prereq.
• Plague javelin 20

Here’s where it’s at. Your poison javelin will be your highest damager, however it will require a lot of time to work too. It’s faster then the plague javelin and it has better range. The plague javelin has shorter range and a timer (meaning you can’t spam them) but they explode in quite a big poison cloud about half a screen away. You’ll be using the plague javelin more then the poison one as it’s easier to lure people into chasing you over the cloud and it does better damage as it requires shorter time. The poison javelin is to catch casters or other fleeing opponents. Lightning fury 20 (optional) if you have the free points and want an easier time PvM, put them here.

Passive and Magic. Rest. Forget about critical strike, penetrate or pierce. You don’t intent to hit anyone anyway.

• Dodge – 11 after skills.
• Avoid – 7 after skills.
• Evade – 11 after skills.

Try to get these three to 50% minimum. If you have left over points you can put a couple here but the returns aren’t great.

• Valk – 0-17 after skills. This is a personal preference. Not mine though. If you want a nice tank PvM, use her. She’s absolutely useless in PvP and more of a hindrance as people can actually leech of her. The same with decoy. Don’t bother with her in PvP.

This means that if you have no +skills or +specific skills you’ll still only need 71 skill points to finish this build. That’s pretty neat. Taking in an average level of 85 at high level PvP that means you can spend 25 free skillpoints.

Your inventory

This is partly copied from the bowazon as.. they’re both.. amazons.

The javazon can make a lot of use of her inventory. So much even that you probably have it full during the duels. However filling it up might be quite expensive. Your best bet is to try and get javalin/spear skill grand charms. Try to get as many as you can by rerolling or trading. 10 would ofcourse be the ultimate. Don’t worry about second mods on them, even when they’re plain they’re worth their 3 slots over any other charm(s). I can’t stress it enough though.. try to get them.

If you put together your amazon and equipped her to your best, you’ll probably notice that she won’t have max resist or won’t run as fast as you’d want her to, or won’t even have the desired FHR breakpoint. This is where the charms come in. Small charms are something great, they can have up to 11 resist in single elements or up to 5 for all. They can get 5 FHR and (nowadays) 3% FRW. Try to hit the maximum resist level (normally 75) in Hell (!), the best FHR breakpoint you want and the most FR/W possible. Take a look at the rules and see how much FR/W you can carry around for a GM duel. Try to reach that point. Don’t worry if you don’t though.. but of course more is better.

Your stash

This is actually very important and should never be forgotten. This is where your character hides her special equipment. This is where you can differ yourself from other characters and counter anyone out there. Normally in your stash you would have ‘’pre-buff’’ gear. This means that for instance a barbarian would have a lot of +skills items to boost his BO up before he switches back to his battling gear. This is also the place where you’ll have your resistance gear lying around. Resistance gear is very important for every dueler. If you face a sorceress for the first time you’ll know why.. same with a FoH paladin. Resistance gear comes in various shapes. The most common ones are extra absorb and max resists. Others are overstacking, I’ll explain this last even though I’ll make comments about it in between.

Extra absorb and max resist. You should have equipment to counter any element. That means Fire, Cold, Lightning and Poison.

Poison, I’ll start with the last one because that’s the easiest. Not a lot of people use poison damage, this however also means that not a lot of people have a good way to counter it. There is one item that can change that though, in the form of Death’s gloves. These gloves have crazy resists and most importantly poison length reduce. When you’re wearing the gloves you should consider using the belt too as the combined set bonuses are quite nice. Fire on the other hand is a bit easier to counter. One of the items I like to use here is a Nokozan relic. This will give you up to 85% resist and some FHR as a bonus. I recommend them over the hotspur boots which are, if you solely look at the fire mods, a bit better, but you’ll lose out on FR/W easily there. You won’t have to overstack against fire users.

Lightning. Here’s a twofold. You’ll have the lightning damagers on one hand that deal very nice lightning damage, on the other hand you’ll have the lightning damagers that deal very decent lightning damage but lower your resist like crazy. Well, one item is pretty much mandatory to counter lightning, a thundergods belt. It gives upto 85% resist and absorbs quite a bit too. However if you’re only wearing this you will still be pummelled by lightning users. You should be able to overstack. Keep either a 4 socketed monarch in your stash filled with perfect topazes or a 4 socketed armor filled with resist jewels.

Cold. There’s really only one build that can do good cold damage, however the sorceress is known for it and by god will she do good damage. There are several ways to counter this. I advice against trying to get +max gear. Even though you’ll have up to 95% resist she’ll just lower it like crazy (cold mastery) and it won’t do you any good. Just try to get good absorb (two ravenfrosts spring to mind) and again a 4 sapphire shield should help a lot. A 4 socketed armor with jewels is again a viable option if you can attain at least the same amount of resists as the shield (160). Overstacking. I mentioned it a couple of times now. Overstacking generally means countering your opponents negative resists.

To take an example of a FoH paladin. Let’s just say that he does 6000 lightning damage with conviction on at –150 resists. This will obviously hurt you. If you’re wearing tgods only and have 85% resist he’ll do the following damage:

• 6000/6 = 1000
• 85% - 150 = -65
• 1000 * 1,65 = 1650 dmg.
• 1650 – 20 (absorb) = 1630 Knowing the average amazons life span this means instant death.

However if you carry around a resist shield to counter the conviction it’ll be:

• 6000/6 = 1000
• 85% - 0 = 85
• 1000 * 0,15 = 150 dmg.
• 150 – 20 = 130 Which is almost an impossible difference.

So overstacking means that you have gear in your stash that helps you stack your resists over your normal max. Even though you already have 85% resist you pack another 160 to make sure that even after your opponent lowers it (a lot) you’re still safe. You should count on every PvP player that does elemental damage to have –nme resists. Even if that don’t have it naturally they will get it from gear (lightning facets give up to –5% for example). Always keep overstack in your stash. I favour the shields as I normally have enough strength to wear a stormshield anyway, but if you have the jewels to make a good armor you might even outstrip the shield with a magical armor like this:

Jeweler's Ornate Plate of the Whale

• Defense: 447
• Durability: 60 of 60
• Required Strength: 170
• Required Level: 47
• Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
• Item Level: 86
• Fingerprint: 0x2fd6025a
• +97 to Life
• Socketed (4: 0 used)

Little strategy

Trust on your damage. Some will counter it, but just keep pumping those poison clouds out and run trough them. They will die eventually.

If you have to go offensive, do it moderately. Don’t go overboard. Make sure you have an escape route or know how to make a safe spot using the poison clouds.

If a physical attacker runs away (like a zeal pally or so) don’t immediately run after him. Think about why he’s running away. Is it because he’s dying to poison? You might get a bow out and snipe that last hp. Is he trying to get you to run after him? Walk. Walking keeps your block up. Get that fr/w. You can’t have enough.