For more information on the amazon's passive/magic skills, please refer to the amazon's passive/magic skills section of the Arreat Summit.

Besides their additional synergies for the valkyrie, not much has changed about these skills in v1.10. If you're new to the game, keep reading; if this is all old to you, let's move on.

The only other class that has a defensive passive tree is the barbarian. While the barbarian has skills like Natural Resist, Iron Skin and Increased Stamina, the amazon is given evasive skills, which are independent of the equipment and abilities of the defender and attacker. These are the best defensive skills in the game: give a naked amazon 12 points in Dodge and, no matter what her level is, no monster will have more than a 50% chance to hit her while she is standing still. No other class can possibly get their Defense Rating high enough to avoid monsters who are of a higher level than they are 50% of the time, but the amazon can do it with no problems whatsoever. However, as wonderful as evasive skills are, they're of little use to a bowazon; this is discussed below.

Dodge (1 to 12 points)

Clvl: 6
Prerequisites: None.
Effect: Grants a chance to move out of the way of a melee attack while standing still.
Properties: Works against all melee attacks while standing still or attacking.
Synergy from: None.
Synergy to: Valkyrie: as per skill description.

Evade (1 to 12 points)

Clvl: 24
Prerequisites: Dodge, Avoid
Effect: Grants a chance to escape any attack while moving.
Properties: Works against all attacks while moving.
Synergy from: None.
Synergy to: Valkyrie: as per skill description.

Avoid (1 to 7 points)

Clvl: 12
Prerequisites: Dodge
Effect: Grants a chance to move out of the way of a missile attack while standing still.
Properties: Works against all ranged attacks while standing still or attacking.
Synergy from: None.
Synergy to: Valkyrie: as per skill description.

Dodge and Avoid give an amazon a chance to avoid a melee or missile attack, respectively, while standing still or attacking; Evade works against all attacks while moving. This is indispensable for a melee-based amazon because a single point in any of them is worth literally hundreds of DR points, but its importance to the bowazon is diminished by valkyrie and Decoy: when they're taking almost all the hits for your bowazon who should be attacking from a distance, then what's the use in being able to dodge them? However, even one point in these skills is indispensable to an amazon's survival. I tend to invest one point in these skills, then raise them with +skill items; with the constant danger of lag spikes, others feel more points are necessary because a bowazon doesn't need to allocate twenty points to any skill (except Guided Arrow if she chooses to duel) and a +50% chance to dodge all attacks is a good safety net. D/A/E is indispensable during corpse retrieval as your amazon has substantial defense without equipment.

As a general rule of thumb, if an attack can be effected by Slow Missiles (skeleton mage attacks, all physical missile attacks including potions, Bone Spirit, charged bolts from LEBs, lightning bolts, oblivion knight elemental attacks, poison spit, red mana burning lightning from ghosts, regurgitator corpse puke), it can probably be avoided. AoE attacks and others are generally not missile-based and aren't effected by Avoid. This includes auras, Blizzard, Charged Bolt, curses, Fire Wall, Inferno, Meteor, Diablo's red lightning, any nova-type attack and Bone Spirit. Skill point allocation to Avoid is a matter of personal preference: no bowazon should stand still for ranged counter fire and with Slow Missiles, Decoy and valkyrie, it's child's play to manually avoid most missiles.

Evade works against any melee or missile attack and gives a chance to evade AoE attacks, making it possible to run relatively unscathed through a fire wall or blizzard. Use of Freezing Arrow, Guided Arrow and Multiple Shot involves herding monsters, which involves running circles around them. This could justify four or more points in Evade. Note that Evade's animation does sometimes kick in when your amazon successfully dodges a melee attack: this is called Evade Lock. According to the Arreat Summit,

For Hardcore, one might want to consider a flat 50% in D/A/E. This is a 31-point investment, but you stay alive, so it's worth it. Personally, I'd just tack on six +passive/magic charms and save 18 points, but I'm a bit nuts like that. However, because synergies work off base skill points, you'll have to actually invest points if you want your valkyrie to have D/A/E, which is good because you'll also have more D/A/E, but my argument is that a high-level valkyrie with a ton of life and more steel than a mechanized cavalry needs D/A/E far less than your bowazon needs…say, bigger and better arrow skills. My advice: take the charms, beef up your amazon's pre-existing passive bonuses, and save your synergies for your offense.