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Corwin the Brute's Guide to the LoD Bowazon

Corwin

Introduction

Why the Hell do another bowazon guide?

I really don't know this one. Perhaps because there is more to bowazons than just endless cow slaughter and cheesy playing. Perhaps because I think I may have something to contribute to the already abundant literature on the subject (although I'm mighty scared about doing a bowazon guide when AK404's most excellent guide already exists). Or perhaps because I'm bored, or because I would like to share some of my bowazon tips with others in a less volatile format than a forum post. Or even perhaps because 1.10 is supposed to come and I'm a masochist.

Ok, got it. But... What is this bowazon thingie anyway?

"Bowazon" is the Diablo 2 slang term used to designate the members of the Amazon class using a bow as their main weapon. While other characters in the game can use a bow (and there are some pretty interesting bows for those characters), none of them can develop the wide range of skills a bowazon has in her arsenal. To put it more bluntly: the bowazon is the only mainstream bow-using character in Diablo 2.

What is in this guide?

This guide is written at a very generic level. I am not a good number cruncher, and I will not try to look like one. So you will find lots of tips and generic analysis but not much math.

Other than that, there will be sections dedicated to the stats and skills of a bowazon, with complete analysis of all LoD Bows and Crossbows skills, a huge section about all equipment slots, several template bowazon builds ("the speedazon", "the mageazon"...) with their strengths and weaknesses, a quick and dirty walkthrough (with a few special descriptions of important bosses and how to beat them), and many tips I have developed or adopted over two years of playing bowazons.

And of course, this guide will be full-packed of the (in)famous Corwin rants.

What is not in this guide?

As I said earlier, there will not be much formulas and number crunching.

This guide doesn't include much useful advice for PvP (Player versus Player) gaming: PvP is a much different animal from PvM (Player versus Monster), and is even more terribly unbalanced. In order to keep games "fair", PvP players have to invent specific rules and restrict some equipment combinations, and it would take time I haven't to list them (they often change, by the way). Oh, and I suck at PvP.

This guide is focused on SoftCore (SC) play: HardCore (HC) play is somewhat different, and I don't feel I'm qualified enough to write about it.

This guide is dedicated to "mainstream" amazon builds. By this, I do not mean the standard "Buriza + Damage Reduction/ Multishot + Guided Arrow" stereotypic bowazon so often found on Battle.net, but rather time-proven builds, able to finish the game in Hell difficulty for an average player with a minimum amount of decent equipment. Variant character players usually have ample knowledge of the game, and as such do not need guides in order to make very fun and sometimes surprisingly effective characters.

This is a guide about "How to play the game as a bowazon", this is not a game on "How to not play the game as a bowazon". For people wanting this, here is the guide:

• Spam channels asking for power-acting.

• Once power-acted, make cow game after cow game (don't forget to spam channels some more asking for help with Ancients at levels 20, 40 and 60, of course: people love killing Hell Ancients for beggars).

• After leeching enough in cow games (don't forget to spam "Who gets leg?", "Who can make?", "Who has free stuff for me?" and "Who has WF for trade?", it breaks the monotony of public cow runs), equip your (probably duped) godly equipment.

• Proceed to do more cow runs until level 99, alternating more leeching with dying "because of lag" where you will be able to retire your character (or use it for duelling).

• Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of a godly character having done less than 1% of what is to be seen in D2! You may now turn off your computer and leave some space on the Realms. Thank you.

I heard bowazons are cheesy and for n00bs?

Eh. For a variety of reasons I will explain, bowazons seem to dominate any game of D2 they enter. Using the well-known "Diablo2 suckiness reciprocity principle" ("If they are better than me at what they do, then I must suck or Blizzard should nerf them"), bowazons are labelled "cheesy", "overpowered", and "unbalanced" by many irritated players. And they are right, to some extent. Let me try to explain why this is so, and why there is probably not much Blizzard can do about it.

Leveling

For the better or for the worse, D2 fame is governed by leveling speed (that can probably be traced down to the existence of a ladder system for this game, about which an excellent article can be read here). Hence, in order to level as fast as possible, most of D2 players are looking for the areas that will give the highest amount of experience for the smallest amount of time invested, with a minimum risk. Since version 1.04 (and with the small exception of version 1.08, where sorceresses and Bloody Foothills ruled the show), bowazons have excelled in the fashionable leveling areas. Rule #1: The fastest leveling build in the current leveling area will always be called cheesy and people will whine for nerfs about it.

As of now (version 1.09), the leveling area of choice is the Not So Secret Anymore Cow Level, and bowazons as well as javazons are probably the best classes for it, although some sorceress builds come pretty close.

Equipment

The youngest people (D2-wise, at least) reading this may not realize it, but there was a time where the bowazon "sucked". That is to say, they "sucked" like the druid or the paladin "suck" now (i.e. they don't clear the cow level in under 4 minutes). Amazons "sucked" because of a bug (the infamous "Bow Bug") that cut their damage-dealing ability tremendously.

Version 1.04 corrected this bug, and the bowazons began to "rule", "own", and of course people started calling for nerfs. Eh. Amazing how fast the pendulum can swing, no?

Lord of Destruction is worse in this regard. With the item inflation, Blizzard made the terrible mistakes to:

• "design" (using the term "design" loosely here, because "randomly slapping all the good properties players seem to enjoy on a single item after getting drunk on cheap vodka" was a bit long) bows able to deal incredible amounts of damage (often in the range of the best close range weapons), not taking into account the ability of a bowazon to apply said damage to a large amount of targets in a very short amount of time, with little to no personal risk

• add too many crowd control modifiers to the bowazon's defensive arsenal

At first, it didn't seem such a problem: after all, those unique items were supposed to be extremely rare, and balance would be kept, right? Wrong. Blizzard completely underestimated two other things here:

• the determination of players to hunt endlessly for better equipment (the Magic Find (MF) craze)

• the determination of players to cheat (through exploitation of bugs, use of hacks...). The worst of those cheats are the dupe hacks, that allow an unscrupulous player to make an exact copy of an existing item. While Blizzard has some measures to protect the Realms against such duplication exploits, they are always a step behind the hackers.

As of now, most bowazons on the Diablo 2 Realms own at least one of the most powerful bows or crossbows, ranging from the very common Buriza Do Kyanon to the extra rare and expensive Windforce, with everything in between.

And here is one of the keys to such bowazons dominating the game: Blizzard cannot balance the difficulty of Diablo 2 for such extreme weaponry. Because if they did, people stuck in single player games or without the time or willingness to dedicate large amounts of time to Magic Find would be left out in the cold.

Character balance and game design

The bowazon is an interesting case as far as character balance is concerned. Her skills are pretty well-balanced, and all work flawlessly one with another, while her optimal stats allocation is completely unbalanced. Why?

All melee fighters must invest in Strength (to wear equipment, especially heavy weapons and armors and improve their damage), Dexterity to a lesser extent (to improve their chance to block if they use a shield and to improve their chances to hit), and Vitality (to avoid dying).

All spell casters must invest in Vitality (to avoid dying, because they don't have the luxury of life leech), and Energy (to fuel their spells).

A bowazon needs to invest just enough in Strength to wear her equipment, and can after that pump Dexterity to her heart's content, thus improving both her damage and her chances to hit at the same time. Life and mana management are taken care of through life and mana leech. Easy, no?

Another interesting point is that ranged fight (or spell casting) is much more powerful in D2 than close combat. The reasons for this are many, ranging from the large open spaces found everywhere in the game to the inherent imbalance of multi-target skills. And there is not much Blizzard can do about it.

Conclusion on "cheesiness" and "Blizzard must nerf the bowazon"

In my humble opinion, there is not a lot of room for bringing the bowazon back in line with the other characters. Some tweaking of skills is possible, but the prevalence of overpowered exceptional/elite ranged weaponry, the mere existence of mana and life leech, the domination of ranged fight... Make me extremely pessimistic about a successful rebalance of the bowazon.

By the way, a few words to the people calling for nerfs. Why do the bowazons disturb you? If it is because they take "your" place on the ladder, then build one. The ladder is not a place for crying whiners. It is a place for completely nuts near professional power-levelers. Do you believe the people on the top of the ladder whined about amazons when they realized they were overpowered? Nope, they started building some of their own. If bowazons disturb you because they "own" in your games, play with other people. Sure, the average Battle.net oh-so-subtle Burizazon will often make some smart comment like "LOL, Man, yOr pala suXoRz, make a Zon". Do you really need to listen to her? Back then (when bowazons "sucked", remember?), people willing to party always played with Bowazons: they were known as considerate, friendly, and generally nice players. That was before 1.04: when the audience at large realized Bowazons didn't "suck", they duped the best bows they could find, stopped playing their barbarians (who didn't "suck" back then), and started giving bowazons the bad reputation they still have now. In public games, you can't escape jerks. But do not believe the jerkiness comes with the character build, it's generally the other way around.

A few quick points before starting

This guide is bound to be made obsolete by future bug discovery and patches. From now on, I will refer by "bow" to both bows and crossbows, and to a player as "he". No sexism nor crossbow discrimination should be read into this.

English is not my first language, so please bear with me, and don't be weary of pointing my mistakes: I like improving my English.

The Tao of the Bowazon

"A bowazon must kill targets before they reach her. This is the core of all things bowazonish."

As you will see later in this guide, all bowazon tactics, equipment choice, strengths and weaknesses boil down to this. This is very important. Follow the Tao in both of its parts (killing targets and preventing them from reaching you), and you will become a great bowazon. Don't follow it, and no amount of godly equipment will save you.