Guide:Magezon v1.10 Update, by MuffinMan
The mageazon is a bow-using Amazon who uses all fire and cold bow skills, without points in Multishot or Strafe. This means IAS, leech, to/hit, and physical damage are much less important, while equipment that boosts elemental damage, lowers elemental resistance, and increases mana, is very useful.
- See the original thread from the Amazon strategy forum for much more discussion about this build, and additional item choices and arguments.
Contents
Introduction
First off, let me say that this is not a build guide; due to the fact that I don't have all the gear in the game other gear combos could work better for all I know. This is just me writing about a zon Im making, looking for feedback and new Ideas.
Some of you might have read my old thread where I was testing to see if a Cold/Fire build could be PvM viable, due to the fact that nearly no-one makes them.
Another thought behind it, was the idea of having a PvM bowa WITH torch without dropping games all the time (anyone who has a torch on a strafer on Bnet knows what I mean..) This meant Multishot and Strafe was out of the question. You will still drop for spamming arrows in Baal runs and so on, but not even close to the rate of multi or strafe. Besides I really really really hate strafelock..
There is another thing to keep in mind as we go down the elemental route, the elemental damage's chance to hit is not the same as the arrows, so we don't need a lot of dex to hit things with the splash damage. I remember reading about it somewhere but don't know where. Anyone?
Having maxxed Pierce or not is up to the player, but not needed in my opinion. With my current setups +skills brings it to 80% with only 1 hard point invested.
Skills
- Magic Arrow - 1
- Fire Arrow - 20
- Exploding Arrow - 20
- Cold Arrow - 20
- Ice Arrow - 1
- Freezing Arrow - 20
- Guided Arrow - 1 <-not needed in PvM, but can at least mess with bad PK'ers
- 1 point in all passives, maxing Valkyrie last, as we level up.
Completely avoiding Immolation Arrow, as its timer makes it useless when you need to set monsters on fire before they kill you. It gives no synergies, so not even a single point here.
Stats
- Strength: Enough for gear (I prefer having enough to be able to put the torch in stash, full games and torches just don't mix)
- Dex: Never tried to go for enough-for-gear-only here, it might work maybe?
- Life: The rest
- Energy: None
The Gear Ideas
About gear, since its elemental based we need lots of one thing: skills! Minus % to enemy resistance is a nice one as well
NOTE: You need an A2 merc with Insight. Without him, you will not have enough mana. And thats the bottom line.
Helm
- Andys Visage - because its cheap and pretty awesome for this build. Socket it with a fire or cold facet, that -30 fire res can be handled elsewhere.
- Nightwing's Veil can be used (not tested), but it has no IAS. That mentioned; IAS is not as important here as with other bow builds as spamming will drain your mana pool dry quick.
Gloves
- Go for rares that got +skills/ias/resists, if you can find it.
- NOTE: Someone may note the lack of Knockback on the build, but you need to keep the monsters together since you totally rely on splash damage. They move down fast anyway, and with the life/merc/valk/decoy you gonna have it will not be a problem at all. Besides the monsters are easier to hit when they get close
- +3Bowskill/20ias magic gloves works too.
- I have neither and use Lava Gout gauntlets, a tad lower damage than with -+2bowskill/20ias magic gloves (but with some resist and enchant.)
- Laying of Hands works, but only at the monsters hit by the arrow itself. So go for something else this time!
Armor
- Enigma - The tele is a lifesaver for your minions without substitute. +2 all skills. The mad FRW makes herding monsters a walk in the park.
- Not completely needed to be honest, used a +22allres un-upped vipermagi on the solo baalrun refered to in the thread linked to some inches up here.
Belt
- Arachnid Mesh - +1allskills and fcr to help out with the zons turtle-tele.
- Razortail - The Pierce. If you don't have a lot of +skills, use this. As stated earlier, maxed Pierce is not crucial. But a high percentage is indeed!
Boots
- Natalyas Boots - Decent resists, cheap, and most important fast (40%frw). Im so happy with these, I have not tested others yet.
Amulet
- Maras - +2allskills, resists, enhanced attributes
- Eye Of Ethlic - +1allskills and a really long cold duration added to Freezing Arrow
- Seraph's Hymn - +2allskills, bunch of ED to demons/undead and stuff. With lots of dex, LOH gloves and this, you could balance in good physical damage as well.
Rings
- BK and Ravenfrost. (or Soj instead of BK)
Weapon
There are really many options here since we mainly get our damage from skills and other equipment that adds to the splash damage. But a few ideal bows spring to mind:
- Faith +2/3, other stats are not that vital. Skills > Aura/damage this time.
- I use a grand matron's bow, tested for a while with a matriarchal bow but I ran out of mana soooo fast due to the firing speed. So the GMB seems more right to me, even though a MB actually kills faster (mainly the elements thats doing damage here). If you have a lot of insane mana charms, go for the MB.
- Ice, preferably in a GMB for the same reason as the Faith. +25-30% To Cold Skill Damage and -20% To Enemy Cold Resistance... Don't have Ice, so haven't tried it.
Switch
You will probably use the same bow for all monsters, so keep pre-buff items here if you have any. Recently added Call To Arms and Spirit myself, recommended!
My current setup
- Andys Visage, -4/5 cold facet
- Faith GMB +2all/+3bowskills / Cta+Spirit prebuff
- Maras amu
- Enigma Mage Plate
- Lava Gouts
- BK + Ravenfrost
- Arachnid mesh
- Natalyas Boots
- Torch 17/14
- Anni 16/18/10
- 9 Bowskillers, with life/frw/strenght
- Random sc's
Holy Freeze Merc (Insight/Tals helm/Dragon Armor)
Lvl47 Freezing/Exploding
