THE BASIN |
Build SamplesNow that we had a long overview on item selection, we need to piece them all together. When assembling equipment, we must carefully balance the offensive and the defensive aspects. You don’t want to focus entirely on killing enemies such that it allows your enemies to kill you very easily. While the best defense might be a good offense, leave the ‘glass cannon’ build to Bowazons please. Bowazons try not to get hit, while even ranger Javazons would have to go toe-to-toe with their enemies sometimes. On the other hand, you also want to be able to kill at least some enemies to eliminate threats to your health. Starting a Javazon can be tough, but not as tough as a Bowazon because of your excellent defensive abilities. With a decent blocking shield, moderate resists and the biggest, fastest javelin you can find, you can easily make your way through Normal. Your life will be easier if you can have another character gamble a rare Throwing Spear for you in higher acts. Even a little bit of leech will help, and it’s relatively easy to get leech on your javelin. As for actually playing your Javazon in early life, see Game play section. And now, for some example builds. Disclaimer: The following build samples are by no means carved in stone. Most of these build samples represent the extremes. Please feel free to experiment with what you have until you are satisfied with the result. My purpose of making this section is to provide some ideas, nothing more. Power TwinkersWhile playing a Javazon in early game is easy enough, introducing powerful items (for that level) that has been found by previous characters can immensely help both your defensive and offensive. This is called twinking. And there are quite a few of these items. Most of the normal set items abandoned by higher-level characters (because they ‘suck’) can become very powerful in the hands of low-level characters. I will introduce two of the best setups I can think of. Death’s + AngelicThis build enhances your killing power. Death’s combo is very powerful even for higher-level characters, while partial Angelic provides some nice life and mana bonuses.
This setup combines the excellent bonuses from Death’s (30% IAS, CBF, 15% prismatic and 8%LL) with Angelic’s (+1 skills, 50 mana, 75 life, 50% FR, vulpine, scaling AR, and MF as bonus). The bonuses are very complementary, and guaranteed to make you a tough low-level tank with decent resists, life leech, CBF and mana reserve. The weakness of this set is mana leech and resists. You get your leech from Manald, and resists from your shield. This setup should go a long way. You can complete this at clvl-12. Iratha’sA defensive set. The nice thing about Iratha’s is of course the resists, while still keeping your precious armor and shield slots open.
The weakness of Iratha’s set is leech and offensive power. We compensate those with armors like Twitch or Stealth to help your physical or javelin attacks respectively, as well as adding leech from Cathan’s Seal and Manald Heal. You can complete this at clvl-15, although Twitch would require another level. Tanking BuildsOnce you survive your early levels, life would be much easier for you as you gain skills like Fend and Lightning Fury. As your defensive and offensive passives become more mature, the enemies are not getting significantly stronger. Nightmare difficulty is prime time for an Amazon as this is when she perfects her skills, leveling rapidly as she unleashes death and destruction upon the hapless minions of the Prime Evils. Hell difficulty is another matter altogether though, since enemies become much stronger, gain various immunities and resistances, and able to spawn a nasty combination of special mods (see Game play). A Javazon must start thinking on how to focus her build to prepare herself for the challenges ahead. For a melee Javazon, the challenge is to prepare her for tanking the worst enemies that she might face ahead, and often the answer takes more than just good blocking and good defensive passives. Below are some suggestions for some of the other defensive focuses a Javazon might want. Physical Damage ReductionA Javazon who expects to tank the worst physical damage attackers would be advised to get some form of physical damage reduction. While most of the time Javazons can get by using life leech, there are some instances where she can’t depend on leech. Hard-hitting PI boss as well as stunning bosses won’t give her too much chance to leech. Damage reduction is useful to increase her resilience against such attacks. Magic Damage Reduction gets big-time nerf in LoD, which is a shame, but it is still useful in some situations. Before we start, let me remind you that Damage Reduction is capped at 75% to prevent complete immunity to physical damage. Absolute reduction is still able to nullify damage, however, and is calculated before percentage reduction. The following build plans are rather extreme: Percentage-based
The above setup gives you the usual ‘green bone helm with black armor with gold shoulder plates carrying white javelin and light kite shield’ look that you often see in Battle.net channels. As you can see, the DR% in this setup is excessive, but the items are good nonetheless. The disposable part in this setup is Shaftstop, which will give you anywhere from 60-70% total DR, since it doesn’t offer too many other mods. The weakness of this setup is that none of the DR% items offer too much resists, so it has to be made up in the other slots. Unless you carry skill charms or +javelin gloves and uses Titan’s, you also won’t have many +skills. Other alternatives to Gaze include Harley Crest (for +skills, life, mana and 10% DR) or Rockstopper (for resists and 10% DR). Absolute-based
Remember what I said about absolute damage reduction not helping too much? Well, if you pile a lot of damage reduction items, you’ll eventually arrive at a point where not much damage remains after you subtract them. Weaker physical damage will even be brushed aside. The above setup will ignore all physical damage less than 100 at least, which is on par of a higher-than-average melee attack damage of a hell Minion of Destruction. Who don’t want to be invincible? Since absolute-based damage reduction isn’t typically considered a critical mod, most of the items with the mod come with resists, so resists won’t normally be a problem. You might be hard-pressed to kill, however. Get your leech from rings unless you’re lucky enough to get it on your helm. Sol runes, socketed in armors or helms, will give you an extra 7 PDR. The absolute damage reduction won’t help you against extra strong, damage-increasing aura monsters, however. The physical damage inflicted by such nasty monsters typically is much higher than you can possibly get in your equipment. In addition, a hell Hell Bovine has an average melee damage of 150, much higher than a Minion of Destruction’s, so an absolute damage reduction Javazon who attempts to tank in the Moo Moo Farm (especially in the middle of Fanaticism-enchanted Bovines) will definitely get creamed. Some percentage damage reduction would definitely be recommended in that case. Special thanks to Infanta, the passionate advocate of the -DR build, for opening my eyes on the merits and demerits of absolute damage reduction. And yes, if you’re reading this, you definitely shouldn’t tank moos with your kind of build =) DefenseAs stated earlier, a Javazon normally won’t rely on defense to tank. Defense is nice since it provides an extra buffer against physical attacks (in addition to blocking and skills). Defense is calculated before blocking and defensive passives to determine whether damage will be taken, therefore adding another layer of protection to the Javazon's already impressive defensive bonuses. The Javazon does not have defense increasing skills, and therefore high defense might seem quite unachievable. The changes in LoD, however, include the presence of high defense armor and your own walking Defiance aura pillar. The Act 2 Defensive Town Guard (see Mercenaries) that you hire in Normal or Hell difficulty will come with Defiance aura, in case you can’t find your friendly Defiance Paladin (Defiance Paladins are made obsolete with Defiance mercs nowadays, but they do exist) or an Ironbarb. As a result, while you can never approach the defense rating of a Barbarian or Sorceress (who was built with defense on mind, that is) you can achieve a very respectable defense rating, only slightly below a Paladin’s. Most of the items with very high defense have very high requirements, but that’s a price to pay.
Defense is also available on charms, so you might consider adding several of them. Pul rune will give you 30% enhanced defense on armor, helm or shield. The difference on defense of most belts, boots and gloves as well as some helm might not be significant enough such that you can substitute other items with less defense but more benefits, like leech or resists. The high defense items typically don’t come with resists . . . and Veil of Steel, as the helm with most defense and 50% prismatic resists, requires an obscene 192 Strength to wear. Hel rune will help reduce requirements of your helm, armor and shield. While the amount of defense would not be quite enough to significantly affect your chance to hit in Hell difficulty, the multiplicative effect of Defiance can bring it to respectable level. Note that some attacks are inherently ITD, like Minion of Destruction’s and Frenzytaurs' (supposedly, even though somehow defense does make a difference) as well as attacks of the Blunderbore/Urdar and Thorned Hulk types. And note that no amount of defense will save you from elemental attacks. And always remember that running zilches your defense. An effective defense Javazon would have a lot of faster run/walk (usually from charms) to boost her walking speed. Elemental DefenderIn contrast to physical damage reduction, we have builds that specializes on ability to take any elemental harm that comes their way. Resists alone are not enough; an Elemental Defender (as I would call it) also adds some absorb to increase their resilience to elemental attacks. The goal is to get maximum resists in Hell, and able to tank nastiness like an MSLECE (multishot LE/CE) which spews multiple packets of deadly lightning bolts, or maybe take Lister’s FE death explosion in high player count games (on these games, since FE is affected by HP of monster, Lister’s FE death explosion may one-hit-kill even characters with 5000+ life). Of course, the Elemental Defender would still have to be wary of Conviction aura since Conviction does cut through resists like a hot knife through butter.
Absorb gears typically have no resists on their own, so you will usually have to give the Javazon a lot of resist charms to make up the difference. Make sure you have maximum blocking, however, since nasty physical damage attackers will quickly overwhelm this build. A tanking Javazon cannot focus on defensive alone. No tank, however good, can hold out indefinitely against enemies. Even when the Javazon is up front, stoically blocking and occasionally taking hits, she must have some means to hit back. To hit means to damage, and to damage means to leech. I can think no further than D_Spear’s Spearazon Mantra: "To survive, a spearazon must Leech, to Leech one must Damage. The more Damage you do the more you Leech, therefore the better you will survive. To Damage one must hit, to hit one must survive." While being able to damage is more critical to Spearazons than to Javazons since spearies deal more damage with their huge stick and do not have shields to significantly reduce her chance to be hit, a Javazon must similarly hit to survive. The duration is much longer for Javazons, however, and there are specific defensive build called the Dropazon, on which the Javazon can survive for a long time (at least 30 seconds) without attacking and leeching back. This is very rare, however, and requires specific equipment, but even for such builds to leech means to be able to survive much longer. In contrast, there are offensive builds that try to tank less and kill faster. With that in mind, therefore, I will touch upon some of the more offensive builds. Mix and match some of these with your choice of defensive build. FenderLike the name implies, of course, the primary skill of this build is Fend. As I said earlier, Fend received a significant upgrade in LoD, dealing a lot more damage than before as well as being uninterruptible. This is the favored primary attack for the more defensive builds, as well as Jab of course, but a Javazon can be designed in such a way to maximize her physical damage. Kinda like a spearie with shield. Here’s an example of such build:
No matter how much damage you do, you still will have trouble taking down a high HP enemy, say Lister the Tormentor, without means like Crushing Blow. Some Crushing Blow is a must for such enemies. If you’re lucky to score a 10% CB glove, that should probably be enough, otherwise go with Gore Rider or Guillaume’s. The ImpalazonOf course, you can have an Impale specialist among Javazons. The goal with the Impalazon is to hit as hard as possible, as fast as possible. An additional consideration is that the javelin will lose durability no matter how high Impale level you may have, so you would want your javelins to regenerate or have increased stack. Your gear, therefore, will be focused on IAS and damage, as well as bonuses to life or resists or damage reduction to cover you when you're most vulnerable, which is in the middle of the impale sequence. CB is less a concern since you're definitely going to be slower than a Jabazon, but some CB would be nice.
Always refer to the Impale table when planning how much IAS you want to get (although do get 5-10% IAS more than the listed IAS for a particular breakpoint since the testing methods were still subject to errors and uncertainties). Non-Physical Jabber/The CrusherBig Props to Loschonorg and WuTangYang for the idea of this build. The basic idea stems from the fact that the nerf stick has beaten Jab so much that the physical damage progression isn’t funny anymore. However, Jab is extremely fast, and elemental damage is not affected by your physical damage increase, so Jab can be an effective elemental damage delivery method. In addition, Crushing Blow is not affected by physical damage as well, so packing a lot of Crushing Blow will help take down the high HP enemies (or everything in general). Note that CB won’t work against PI monsters, but your elemental damage will, so there’ll be fewer monsters resistant to your attacks. Here’s an example. Javelin: Shocking Harpoon of Quickness (ideally of course - the idea is to get the fastest javelin, preferably with elemental damage, and with some decent physical part to leech). Titan’s will work if you have IAS gears - the damage helps you to leech.
Your resists will be lacking, but this is an extreme build. You can tone down your build somewhat depending on how much of the defensives you need. Also, make sure you add to Penetrate as AR increase on Jab isn’t that great. Speed Demoness"Pssst . . . Little girl . . . Over here . . . Would you like some IAS?"
You’re no Bowazon, but there are merits on making a speedy Javazon. The idea is to deliver damage with the fastest rate as you can manage, and to be so speedy that you give your enemies no chance to retaliate. This Javazon lives and dies by the speed table. Her dream is achieving the fastest speed possible for Fend and Jab. Oh, and you can stop stoning me now since I have the Jab table up. Thanks Kyrene! I am not going to actually detail this build as the speed to reach the fastest breakpoint possible is dictated by your javelin. Refer back to the Speed Table. Fending at 7/4 requires 95% IAS on base -10 javelins and 135% IAS on base 0 javelins, quite easily achieved. Sources of speed for Titan’s can be, for example, The Cat’s Eye/Highlord’s Wrath (20%) + Fervored (socketed with Jewel of Fervor, that is) Stealskull (25%) + Fervored Twitchthroe (35%) + 20% IAS glove. As part of the theme, the speedy Javazon might also like to have a lot of FRW. The focus on making a speedy Javazon can range from dealing a lot of physical damage, or more like the non-elemental jabber build. Regardless, do make sure you actually have good AR to hit. Nothing’s worse than a super speedy air fender. Good jabbing speed is quite essential for PvP Amazons since they need to blocklock (or better still, stunlock) their enemies in melee. Skill distributionsNote: the following is a very rough draft of what a typical tank would look like. Equipments may modify your needs, especially regarding the passive skills - like Critical Strike, Penetrate and Pierce. Javelin/Spear: Jab: 1 (recommended: 1+) Passive/Magic: Inner Sight: 1 (recommended: 1) With the exception of Lightning Fury, the Amazon doesn't get increasing returns with skills, unlike the Sorceress. Do not feel like you have to max anything. Even mid-level LF is often powerful enough. Exception, of course, being variants that use one or two skills most of the time. Ranger BuildsRanger builds are easier to build than tanker build because ranger build emphasizes more on mass killing from a distance. In fact, ranger Javazons are amongst the best characters to be played non-twinked since their killing power is almost independent of her equipment. There are fewer defensive considerations when building a ranger: instead, one must consider mana management, mana and life leech, +skills, and maybe some other bonuses like MF and GF. However, a pure Javazon ranger must also pay some attention to defense, since there are some instances when using physical attack is more efficient for killing compared to Lightning Fury or Plague Javelin. The sole exception to this rule is when the Javazon is a hybrid Bowazon as well, in which case single enemies can be taken down using a bow and your Valkyrie/Decoy tank. Still, defensive elements are always recommended due to the ever-present threat of lag. A very successful generic Javazon will combine some elements of tanking as well as ranged attacks to maximize both killing speed and survivability. The best place a Javazon would thrive on obviously would be the (not-so-secret) Cow Level, where Lightning Fury makes short work of hundreds of bunched cows. The only defensive consideration here would be to counter physical attacks and occasionally lightning bolts from the rogue King, and that’s a very easy problem to solve. A well-built Ranger Javazon, however, must be able to survive in any condition, although she’s not necessarily expected to tank the nastiest enemies. Yes, there is life outside the Cow Level, dag nabbit. For one, you should at least give some thought on how are you going to take care of the Lightning/Physical immunes. As I said earlier, if you develop a melee Javazon, it shouldn’t be too hard to develop her mass-killing side. Some points on Lightning Fury and Pierce would give you ‘instant-Ranger-in-a-can’ although she will not kill as well as a dedicated Ranger. It is worth it to develop, however, so that your Javazon can handle a wide variety of situations. For rangers lucky enough to obtain a Titan's Revenge, enjoy your stick because it's pretty much the perfect ranger's javelin! Do note that the physical damage on the Titan's is almost irrelevant since you'll be relying more on your skills for most of the damage, although it would've been useful for leech. If you're lucky enough to obtain some Ethereal Titan's, it's best used to jab/impale/fend, but be careful when you start throwing LF with it, since once it's depleted it's forever useless. Carry another set of non-ethereal Titan's to use when your Ethereal set is running low and needing to regenerate. There are instances where you are better off doing something other than throwing Lightning Furies. That, and my rants about stupidity of inexperienced cow slayers, will be featured in its own little section in Game play. The Steak Chef"So I ask myself: SELF! How do I kick this up another notch? Add some
Lightning Furies to the mix, and BAM! It’s a beautiful thing."
This build, unfortunately, derives its name from the Secret Cow Level, because this is where ranger Javazons mostly roam around. Let me emphasize that this build can be very effective outside the Cow Level as well, assuming it's played properly. This build maximizes +skills for the best killing power, and uses a lot of LF, as the premier javazon skill in LoD 1.09. For a Ranger Javazon, there are very few javelins that can beat Titan’s Revenge, so it’s definitely the cornerstone of this build. This build will need some form of leech to sustain her LF, of course. P in the following description refers to Pierce.
This build will definitely be gasping for resists. Toning down killing power to get more resists would be a great idea, and will give you a resilient tank if you also have a little damage reduction. And if you want to go pure Ranger, eschewing the physical skills, my advice to you is to get more mana and mana regeneration, maybe some more leech as well, and pack two sets of javelins (hopefully both Titan's). One point in Jab is almost always recommended, however, even if it's only to help you gain levels. And then, there are ranger builds that focus less on killing power and more on: The (one who wants to be a) Millionaire"And now, for the one hundred dollar question . . ."
Since the skills are very independent to equipment, in theory one can actually make a Javazon dedicated for finding better items and more gold. This build carefully maintains killing power while increasing MF/GF at the same time. IMHO, this build is great to play in Cow Level, but too much focus on MF and GF leaves the character relatively weak for anything else. Some defensive considerations would make this a fun character. The figures given in parentheses are (MF/GF).
As you can imagine, that’s quite an extreme build. Take out and put in stuff for more survivability. Another alternative to increase your resilience is to wear Tal’s Fugly + Armor + Belt. You gain resists, leech and a lot of that good stuff, but lose some MF and GF in the process. Sometimes we just have to make the sacrifices. The best targets to MF with a Javazon are Pindleskin and Eldritch the Rectifier (Hell, Act 5) or the Secret Cow Level, if you’re into such things. Naked Javazon"Behold, the power of n00dity!"
The n00dity madness began with NakedBabe, a famous naked hardcore sorceress in Classic Diablo II who defeated Diablo in Normal before finally ending her career at clvl 34 in Nightmare Underground Passage. Back then, the concept of n00dity was unheard of, but it soon became popular as people were drawn to the challenge of playing an unclad character. So, you ask, what should I do to play a n00d character? Strip down and play Diablo-II naked? Much as that would be an interesting suggestion (not to mention providing some interesting mental pictures too) that’s not the way you play a naked character. ‘Naked’, in this case, is playing without the benefit of equipment. That means, no visible armor and helm at the very least, but pundits insist on not wearing anything but the bare minimum required to survive and kill. Jewelries are usually allowed. The challenge comes from the fact that without armor and such, your defensive abilities are severely impacted. Spell casters are the prime candidates for naked characters, since they are less dependent on their equipment to function effectively. Not surprisingly, since skills like LF and PJ depends less on equipment, ranger Javazons can kill just as effectively when naked as when they are clad in full armor and whatnot. Quite obviously, a naked Javazon will never be able to function well without a javelin. The only concession for defense is the shield, of course, since blocking is an important part of being a Javazon. So now, we come to the obvious question of leech and resists. When you’re playing naked, you definitely can’t tank too much, but you don’t want to be sitting duck either, so get some of those. Being naked means that you’ll need much less Str than if you’re fully clad, depending on your shield and javelin selection, and the extra points should go to Vitality to increase your life reserve. Life is the way a naked Javazon compensates for her . . . umm . . . shortcomings. Your shield is literally your lifesaver, so make sure to have as close to 75% blocking as possible, and try to break the 2-frames FBR breakpoint. Being naked also means that you may get less AR bonuses if you choose to poke things, so do get some Penetrate. Defensive Passives are mandatory, of course, as of Offensive Passives. Being naked means that you have to be smarter about your skill point allocation, too. Try to choose the lightest equipment you can get away with. For example:
For higher difficulties, players might go on with the minimum equipment, or they can start equipping other non-visible stuff, depending on how they define n00dity. Addition of circlet (preferably a rare with resists), belt, glove and boots will definitely increase the survivability of the naked Javazon while still giving her that unclad look. For the less insistent n00d players, the Quilted Armor/Ghost Armor/Dusk Shroud family of armors will give you that look, with the shoulder pads. You can either Smoke or Lionheart the armor, thus giving you that much-needed resist boost. Naked Javazons are certainly unusual and fun. And for Hardcore n00dists, well, more power to you, and plenty of luck, even though I still think y’all should get locked in padded cells. Special thanks to jfbrown42 for Naked_Java, the working model for this build. "And Kabbie
pans the camera as the naked Javazon (with a 3DT covering the naughty
bits) runs into the Chaos Sanctuary screaming, 'See? Told you I could
do it! Ahahahahah-AUGH!'" Skill distributionsNote: the following is a very rough draft of what a typical ranger would look like. Equipments may modify your needs, especially regarding the passive skills - like Critical Strike or Pierce. Javelin/Spear: Jab: 1 (recommended: 1+) Passive/Magic: Inner Sight: 1 (recommended: 1) Plague Javelin, of course, is optional, but what are you going to do with the rest of the skill points anyway, assuming you're making a pure ranger? Miscellaneous BuildsSample Notwink BuildSpecial thanks to Torrilin for this one. If you’re not so lucky as not to inherit those really nice LoD items, here is a sample build for a Javazon made by relatively easy-to-find items.
Try to get some vulpine and mana/kill if you cannot get mana leech. This build focuses mainly on light tanking with some occasional LF, so you won’t need too much mana for this one. Hybrid JavazonLoD brings about another important change: now anyone can carry an alternate weapon (and shield, if applicable) and use it at will. A Javazon may opt to use a weapon of different nature on her weapon switch, taking advantage of her other skills. The other weapon would either be a bow (more common) or a spear (less common). Such Javazon would be called a Hybrid. A Javelin/Spear hybrid typically focuses on the physical side of the Javelin/Spear tree as well as the Javelin side. Such Javazon would use a javelin for mass killing and heavy tanking, and a spear when faced with a single, strong enemy. A spear can inflict a lot more physical damage than a javelin. This hybrid build requires less skills management, but she would be in trouble when it comes to handling PI, since spearies are a lot less capable in handling PI than javazons anyway. A Javelin/Bow hybrid invests on the Bow/Crossbow tree as well as the Javelin/Spear tree. This build is obviously very versatile, as long as there is clever planning of skillpoints, since developing all three trees of the Amazon is indeed very difficult. A hybrid of this kind either focuses more on the bow side (ranger: uses bow most of the time but javelin when it comes to Furying - LF is more independent of equipment, bow skills are more dependent) or on the javelin side (typically a tank who needs a way to handle enemies that she can’t tank, like MSLEBs). Depending on the build focus, of course, the Amazon may choose to invest more on bow skills or on javelin skills. The two sides find common ground in the Passive/Magic Skills, so the passives tend to be well-developed in hybrids. Pierce in particular helps both sides. For more on bow skills, bow selections and bowazon builds, I refer you to AK404’s most excellent Bowazon Guide, CorwinBrute’s Bowazon Guide (one that inspires me to write this, in fact) or any other Bowazon guides around the web (although those two are the best, in my personal opinion). Your equipment choices boil down to the fact whether your Amazon prefers to do everything from a distance or from up close, in which case it would be ranger vs. tank choices again.
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