For more information on the amazon's passive/magic skills, please refer to the amazon's passive/magic skills section of the Arreat Summit.
"Offensive passive" skills form the backbone of the bowazon's arsenal — these are the skills on the right side of the passive/magic tree that supplement damage-dealing capabilities. While adding points to a bowazon's bow/crossbow skills will improve the damage of that particular skill, adding points to the passive skills will improve the efficiency of three to nine skills simultaneously.
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.
Clvl: 1
Prerequisites: None.
Effect: Grants a chance to do double physical damage with your attacks.
Properties: Works with all non-elemental attacks.
Synergy from: None.
Synergy to: Valkyrie: as per skill description.
Say this after me: "Free damage." Sound good? That's what Critical Strike is all about: take your damage, multiply it by two. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to see that's a really good thing.
Take this skill up to a minimum of slvl-7 unmodified for a 49% chance of inflicting double damage for any physical attack, then advance as you see fit. My personal minimum is slvl-10, though I strive to raise Critical Strike to slvl-16 with +skills items. While Critical Strike is one of the most useful passive skills, it's not the most powerful: Critical Strike doesn't work with elemental attacks, limiting its usefulness. Equipment with the deadly strike ability can be used to supplement a bowazon's chances of a critical hit.
Clvl: 18
Prerequisites: Critical Strike
Effect: Additional chance to hit.
Properties: Does not work with elemental or guided arrows.
Synergy from: None.
Synergy to: Valkyrie: +40 AR/slvl.
Penetrate boosts AR by 35% for the first point and by 10% for every point invested thereafter. The significance of Penetrate becomes apparent as your AR develops into the thousands yet your chances to hit a monster seemingly start a slow downward slide. And I'll admit that, yes, hitting stuff in Hell difficulty level, especially in v1.10 is hard. There's a reason for that, and it's not because you didn't invest enough points in Penetrate but because of your character is beginning to suffer a level disadvantage that will plague her until she hits the late 80's.
Every bowazon should have one point in Penetrate for no other reason than it's a prerequisite to Pierce. If you're playing Hardcore, you will probably be allocating points into vitality, so Penetrate is recommended. Penetrate is also highly recommended for PvP bowazons who do not use Guided Arrow as a primary attack. (I know you people are out there.)
But let's get back to why it's so hard for your über-dexterity bowazon to hit anything in Hell with anything besides Guided Arrow even though she has AR in the ten-thousands. The reason is that Penetrate may raise AR, but this has little bearing to the way AR relates to To-Hit percentages, as reported by Chuck of the Amazon Basin (edited):
The To-Hit formula, in percentage form, is:
The misunderstanding here is that your level affects things. In reality, the only time it affects things is if the overall To-Hit is bumping against the 5% or 95% caps. At any other time, the level part of the equation can be discarded. The whole point of making a comparison of which is better and such is to try to generate the highest overall damage. Because we are trying to make the different variables independent, it should become clear that the best way to work with the numbers is to take percentage changes. For example, if [we] try exact number changes, then how much another point into Strafe affects things depend on what your bow average is, etc. Thus, the all-important quantity is the percentage change (usually increase).
For any given level, when you're changing the AR & DR part of the equation, the level part is constant. You can ignore it. In short: your level doesn't matter. Having a high Penetrate to counter a level disadvantage doesn't work. For the skeptics, let's try a concrete example. Say your base AR was 1,000, the monster's DR is 500 and you're level 25 and the monster's level 50. Then To-Hit is:
100 × 1,000/(1,000 + 500) × 2 × 25/(25 + 50) = 44.444%
Now let's bump up your AR to 2,000. Then we have:
100 × 2,000/(2,000 + 500) × 2 × 25/(25 + 50) = 53.333%
This results in a percentage increase of (53.333 — 44.444)/44.444 = 20%.
Now let's do the same with you at level 50. We thus have:
100 × 1,000/(1,000 + 500) × 2 × 50/(50 + 50) = 66.667%
100 × 2,000/(2,000 + 500) × 2 × 50/(50 + 50) = 80%
Again we find a percentage increase of (80 — 66.667)/66.667 = 20%. Your level shouldn't be a consideration when thinking about Penetrate, unless the To-Hit is bumping against the 5% or 95% caps.
…
While Penetrate increases AR rather linearly, the formula the number is plugged into has severe decreasing returns (I say decreasing instead of diminishing because of the set diminishing returns formula that Blizzard uses to calculate stuff like Critical Strike per level, etc). When you're at the higher reaches, whether you're doing 89% or 89.5% To-Hit doesn't matter too much. On the other hand, putting points into other stuff means that, while you're be hitting a bit less, the overall average damage that you do increases by a lot more. Thus you should put points elsewhere instead of Penetrate.
— Chuck
Because the elemental portion of elemental arrows and guided arrows don't take AR into account, Penetrate has no bearing on the success of the elemental portion of elemental arrows or guided arrow and is only useful for Magic Arrow, Multiple Shot and Strafe. Let's go over the first part one more time: the elemental portion of elemental arrows. What this means is that if you launch any elemental arrow, elemental effects will always hit, though the arrow itself may miss. If your bowazon was hoping to leech back mana or life, implement a critical strike, non-elemental attack, or any attack that is cast upon striking, it's just not going to happen.
Due to the plethora of +AR bonuses from items, auras, and spirits available, Penetrate is arguably the weakest of the passive skills. My recommendation is to give this skill one to eight points, then let dexterity, +AR items and +skills take care of the rest. It's also come to my attention that some idiots out there are going to recommend pumping this skill when using an Eaglehorn crusader bow. Because it already has ITD, +skills and a sizable scaling AR bonus, any more than a few points in Penetrate would be a waste as the bow already gives a 414-594 AR bonus in addition to skill bonuses and a 95% chance to hit any target of equal or lesser level.
Clvl: 30
Prerequisites: Critical Strike, Penetrate
Effect: A chance that your missile will continue through its victim.
Properties: Works with all missile attacks except for Guided Arrow.
Synergy from: None.
Synergy to: None.
Pierce gives a chance that a projectile will pass through its target and hit another target in a straight line behind it. This has a profound impact on all bow/crossbow skills, making it the most useful and powerful passive skill a bowazon has: for every target an arrow pierces though, its magical effect is released, magnifying the effect(s) of a single arrow. An Ice Arrow can freeze more than one target, Freezing Arrow will release a 3.3 yard cold-damage explosion for every target it hits and pierces and Immolation will leave a patch of flame for every target it passes through. In addition, elemental and non-elemental effects are carried along with the arrow. In short, anything that your bowazon has within her line of sight (and beyond) has a chance of becoming a target, no matter how deep into a group it may be. Because Pierce enhances the bowazon's strengths of ranged crowd control, this skill is an excellent investment. How many points in Pierce you'll want depends on playing style and skill preferences: at least three points are recommended for a 42% chance, but for elemental attacks, a slvl-6-10 (59-71%) would be a excellent idea. To maximize your damage potential for the least amount of points, slvl-14 (79%) is recommended, though I usually go as high as slvl-16.
There can be multiple piercings in a crowd; combined with high-damage area effect skills, this can be devastating due to overlapping damage. The only practical limitation to this skill is getting targets to line up. Once you get monsters to behave (re: herding), there's no limit to the amount of damage your bowazon can do to a crowd. The following chart shows the chances for multiple piercings (vertical column) as points are added to Pierce.
| slvl | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 26 | 28 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 23% | 34% | 42% | 49% | 55% | 59% | 63% | 65% | 69% | 71% | 73% | 75% | 77% | 79% | 80% | 82% | 83% | 84% | 85% | 86% | 87% | 88% | 89% | 90% | 91% |
| 2 | 05% | 12% | 18% | 24% | 30% | 35% | 40% | 42% | 48% | 50% | 53% | 56% | 59% | 62% | 64% | 67% | 69% | 71% | 72% | 74% | 76% | 77% | 79% | 81% | 83% |
| 3 | 01% | 04% | 07% | 12% | 17% | 21% | 25% | 27% | 33% | 36% | 39% | 42% | 46% | 49% | 51% | 55% | 57% | 59% | 61% | 64% | 66% | 68% | 70% | 73% | 75% |
| 4 | — | 01% | 03% | 06% | 09% | 12% | 16% | 18% | 23% | 25% | 28% | 32% | 35% | 39% | 41% | 45% | 47% | 50% | 52% | 55% | 57% | 60% | 63% | 66% | 69% |
| 5 | — | — | 01% | 03% | 05% | 07% | 10% | 12% | 16% | 18% | 21% | 24% | 27% | 31% | 33% | 37% | 39% | 42% | 44% | 47% | 50% | 53% | 56% | 59% | 62% |
| 6 | — | — | 01% | 01% | 03% | 04% | 06% | 08% | 11% | 13% | 15% | 18% | 21% | 24% | 26% | 30% | 33% | 35% | 38% | 40% | 43% | 46% | 50% | 53% | 57% |
| 7 | — | — | — | 01% | 02% | 02% | 04% | 05% | 07% | 09% | 11% | 13% | 16% | 19% | 21% | 25% | 27% | 30% | 32% | 35% | 38% | 41% | 44% | 48% | 52% |
| 8 | — | — | — | — | 01% | 01% | 02% | 03% | 05% | 06% | 08% | 10% | 12% | 15% | 17% | 20% | 23% | 25% | 27% | 30% | 33% | 36% | 39% | 43% | 47% |
| 9 | — | — | — | — | — | 01% | 02% | 02% | 04% | 05% | 06% | 08% | 10% | 12% | 13% | 17% | 19% | 21% | 23% | 26% | 29% | 32% | 35% | 39% | 43% |
| 10 | — | — | — | — | — | 01% | 01% | 01% | 02% | 03% | 04% | 06% | 07% | 09% | 11% | 14% | 16% | 17% | 20% | 22% | 25% | 28% | 31% | 35% | 39% |
As you can see, a slvl-20 Pierce would give a 50% chance of piercing around four monsters in a row, if not more. For this reason, Pierce is not the "diminishing returns" skill that it appears to be.
Items with piercing — Doomslinger repeating crossbow (35%), Ichorsting crossbow (50%), Stormstrike short battle bow (25%), Buriza-Do Kyanon ballista (100%), Demon Machine chu-ko-nu (66%), Kuko Shukaku cedar bow (50%), Razortail sharkskin belt (33%), Gut Siphon demon crossbow (33%) — add their percentages to your bowazon's pierce skill, so it's possible to achieve over 100% pierce, though the absolute cap is 100%. The Buriza-Do Kyanon has a 100% chance to pierce its target; if your bowazon plans on using one in the long run, there is little need to invest in Pierce, though at least 3 points would be advised for a secondary weapon.
last updated: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 — version 0.10
© 2004 AK404. All rights reserved.