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Bows
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Bows are the best ranged attacking weapon in the game. They fire very quickly in the hands of an Amazon, and derive their bonus damage from your points in Dexterity. Amazons have a [[Amazon_Skills#Magic_Arrow|bow & crossbow]] tree, but other characters can be effective with them as well, especially Druids and Necromancers, who can take cover behind their minions and shoot from a distance. Necros and Druids tend become less useful with bows as they advance in levels, since their Dexterity isn't high enough, and they don't have any skills to boost their bow attacks.
Obviously, the main benefit of a bow is that it provides a ranged attack that doesn't require constant mana expenditure, and can't be resisted. Successfully hitting the target is based on your to/hit (called Attack Rating in Diablo II) and also their armour class (called Defense in Diablo II.) Another added wrinkle in Diablo II is that monsters with shields can now block, rather than just carrying them for decoration, as they did in the first game. It is not known how skillful they will be with shields, but the prospect of a higher level monster being able to block all, or most, of an attack of arrows is an interesting one.
Monsters in Diablo II are fast and have variety in their AI, and stun lock isn't so easy to obtain, so it shouldn't be as easy to line up your enemies and fill them full of arrows from a distance. The change from a floor tile set to a fully 360 degree movement system makes shots easier when monsters are coming in a straight line at you, since they won't do the old over, over, down, over, down, over, over, down, etc movement pattern that the floor squares forced them into in Diablo.
There are of course magical and unique bows in Diablo II. The magical and Rare bows will boast a huge variety of modifiers, including familiar ones from Diablo, but also many others that are totally new. The [[Unique Bows]] and [[Unique Crossbows]] are very nice, and we only know of the weaker ones at this point, from the beta. Like all weapons, bows and crossbows can be socketed with gems, to add various sorts of magical damage to every shot.
Ammunition is required for every shot. You must have a quiver equipped in one hand, while your bow or crossbow is in the other. Quivers are frequently dropped by monsters, and sold by NPCs for low prices, so keeping enough arrows or bolts around isn't a real problem for an Amazon.
The venerable bow is the weapon of choice for those who prefer to destroy their enemies from a safe distance. Consisting of a flexible length of wood or other material, drawn back by a bowstring, bows can range from commonplace short wooden bows to the enormous long war bows, usable by only the strongest and most dexterous archers. A skilled bowman can easily decimate oncoming enemies before they have a chance to close in, and in Diablo II, bows are effective at point blank range as well.
The weapon requires a quiver full of arrows equipped, and arrows can either be obtained from NPC merchants, or scavenged when dropped by the monsters you kill. Of all the classes in the game, the Amazon can lay claim to being the master of the weapons, and she has a skill tree devoted to various magical enhancements to the weapon. Bows occupy either a 2x3 or a 2x4 space in the inventory.
