Magic Arrows

Magic arrows are all bow/crossbow skills that are in the center of the skill tree; they are nearly universal: they may be applied to nearly any situation, require little in the way of tactics and are the easy to use. The respectable damage of the skills in this tree, combined with their low mana costs, not only make them excellent primary attack skills, but in conjunction with leech, also serve to supply the bowazon with mana so that she may use her stronger but costlier elemental attacks. Most bowazon builds revolve around magic arrow skills. This tree deserves some attention because it houses the bowazon's strongest physical attack skills. These skills are nice, but unimaginative: these are not the end-all, be-all of the bowazon.

Aside from Guided Arrow, magic arrow skills are treated as normal attacks — they are dependent on the bowazon's AR and can miss. Magic arrow skills have no synergies attached to them.

Magic Arrow (one point)

Clvl: 1
Prerequisites: None.
Effect: Creates an arrow composed entirely from mana.
Properties: Can be blocked, dodged, works with all passive skills, steals life/mana, treated as normal attack, can be resisted/negated via physical resistance/immunity, uses no arrows.
Synergy from: None.
Synergy to: None.

Magic Arrow converts a percentage (equal to slvl) of your physical damage to magic damage, then adds additional magical damage (equal to slvl) on top of that. This additional magic damage is added onto the normal arrow after Dexterity bonuses (+1 means that if your normal arrows deal 100-200 damage, your Magic Arrow will deal 101-201 damage). Magic Arrow is useful against certain uniques: instead of wasting arrows strafing a single physical resistant unique, plink away at it with magic arrows while your minions keep it busy. While the damage is less, the mana cost is nil with no loss of arrows. With its low mana cost, any bowazon would find it beneficial to use Magic Arrow until she can consistently leech back enough mana to support the attack skill of her choice. However, there's no need to invest more than a single point due to its high obsolescence factor.

Like all bow/crossbow skills, Magic Arrow can be used as a primary attack (assigned to the left mouse or main attack button).

M'avina's Caster grand matron bow (slvl-1), Widowmaker ward bow (slvl-11), Witchwild String short siege bow (slvl-20), Witherstring hunter's bow (slvl-3), and Wizendraw long battle bow (slvl-5), the unique bows that fire magic arrows, will only do so when using a normal attack or Magic Arrow. All other bow skills will override the Magic Arrow property of this bow.

Multiple Shot (5 to 10 points)

Clvl: 6
Prerequisites: Magic Arrow
Effect: Splits one arrow into several.
Properties: Can be blocked, dodged, works with all passive skills, steals life/mana, treated as normal attack, can be resisted/negated via physical resistance/immunity, damage decreased by 25%.
Synergy from: None.
Synergy to: None.

Multiple Shot (which will hereafter be referred to as "MS") gives your amazon her first AoE attack: a spread volley of arrows that can be controlled with practice. For example, targeting an target with MS sends your arrows in a nice tight formation that spreads out as if goes further (though only one arrow will hit an target), but targeting any point between your bowazon and the target will fan out the pattern and MS aimed directly in front of your character will have an exceptionally wide spread (and if you're using a lot of arrows, it shows).

Multiple Shot is invaluable in areas where your bowazon has to attack a lot of targets at once with full mobility (i.e., cow level). Unfortunately, MS's damage is cut to 75% normal arrow damage (this applies not only to physical damage, but elemental damage as well), making it an ineffective attack against small groups; it's most effective against large groups where all of MS's arrows can be used to their fullest effect. Multiple Shot's only benefit per slvl is more arrows, so expect diminishing returns around slvl-10 or so, as the spread isn't a huge improvement at even slvl-20. Because of its increasing mana cost and lack of damage, it's recommended that MS be kept low and tossed aside in favor of Strafe in single player games. In multiplayer, mana costs are not a concern, as sufficient mana leech makes the cost of a slvl-20 MS — something that was supposed to balance the abuse of this skill — negligible. At slvl-10, MS can cover most corridors and snipe monsters from afar. Because of this, I use MS to lure unseen targets closer to my bowazon so I can use more damaging attacks like Strafe and Freezing Arrow. It is also an effective carrier of non-elemental effects like Crushing Blow and curses on striking. Note that MS's lowered damage is nullified against large groups, as MS gains 100% more damage per level because of the extra arrow and Pierce makes the skill even more damaging.

If MS is chosen, an assigned hot key is recommended. Do not use MS against small groups or single targets because as of v1.08, the shotgun effect of MS no longer applies; MS makes its To-Hit check once per target and only once: if one arrow misses a target, they all miss that particular target. A twenty-arrow volley against five targets will only result in five hits at most: all other shots are wasted. If a target is missed, it has no bearing on whether or not the neighboring target will be hit from other arrows of the volley. Let me repeat that one more time: if one arrow misses a particular target, then every arrow misses that target.

Shadow Warrior (one to maximum)

Clvl: 18
Prerequisites: Claw Mastery, Weapon Block
Effect: Summons a powerful valkyrie warrior to fight by your side.
Properties: Minion, life scales with difficulty level, casting speed is subject to faster cast rates, uses magical equipment with attributes of a level equal to (25 + 3{slvl}).
Spell Timer: 6 seconds.
Synergy from: None.
Synergy to: None.

The valkyrie represents one of the most drastic changes to the amazon class as a whole, so read carefully. The valkyrie ends most vulnerability problems a bowazon will have with tougher targets by granting her a remote shield. The valkyrie is a bowazon's most useful skill, but I've learned to not rely on her to protect my bowazon all the time, but to use her in conjunction with my hireling, Slow Missiles, and Decoy. There is no excuse to not have a valkyrie: regardless of what kind of amazon you play, even a single point in Valkyrie is a point well spent. A quick look at her synergies should give an astute viewer a good idea of what kind of potential this minion has: imagine a high-level spearazon with 3,000-5,000 life and your bowazon's base passive skills packing sacred armor and a war pike, and that's what a valkyrie is. Along with the clay golem and shadow master, the valkyrie sits in the enviable position of being one of the best minions in the game.

When a valkyrie is summoned, she automatically receives weapons and armor. These items receive attributes of a level equal to (25 + 3{slvl}), so a slvl-5 valkyrie will be using a clvl-40 spear. As of v1.10, the valkyrie can spawn with...

— Fuzzbox

...with many thanks to Fuzzbox, adeyke, and HunkyDory, who found this all out. According to Ruvanal, valks don't get any new types of equipment after slvl-27. Unless listed otherwise, all equipment is magical.

— Arreat Summit

Like all minions, a valkyrie takes extra damage from Andariel, Duriel, Mephisto, Diablo, and Baal. A hot key for valkyrie is highly recommended. For your information, I named my valkyrie "Lenneth."

Shadow Master (five to maximum)

Clvl: 30
Prerequisites: Claw Mastery, Weapon Block, Shadow Warrior
Effect: Summons a powerful valkyrie warrior to fight by your side.
Properties: Minion, life scales with difficulty level, casting speed is subject to faster cast rates, uses magical equipment with attributes of a level equal to (24 + 3{slvl}), 40% physical damage resistance, +10 strength & dexterity/slvl, regeneration rate: 2, base defense: 196, base AR: 163/243/363 for Basic/NM/Hell.
Spell Timer: 6 seconds.
Synergy from: None.
Synergy to: None.

The valkyrie represents one of the most drastic changes to the amazon class as a whole, so read carefully. The valkyrie ends most vulnerability problems a bowazon will have with tougher targets by granting her a remote shield. The valkyrie is a bowazon's most useful skill, but I've learned to not rely on her to protect my bowazon all the time, but to use her in conjunction with my hireling, Slow Missiles, and Decoy. There is no excuse to not have a valkyrie: regardless of what kind of amazon you play, even a single point in Valkyrie is a point well spent. A quick look at her synergies should give an astute viewer a good idea of what kind of potential this minion has: imagine a high-level spearazon with 3,000-5,000 life and your bowazon's base passive skills packing sacred armor and a war pike, and that's what a valkyrie is. Along with the clay golem and shadow master, the valkyrie sits in the enviable position of being one of the best minions in the game.

Point investment depends purely on personal preference; my personal preference is a high-level valkyrie. In the past, valks were often resummoned for repositioning or to quickly use them as an animated shield, so it isn't necessary to maximize her effectiveness at the cost of skill points. I used to recommend basing her skill point usage on recasting rationale: if she died in combat too often, then consider adding another point to increase her life. If she's never where you need her to be, then don't add points to keep her mana cost low. In addition, her life scaled with the number of player in the party, so a valkyrie was eight times tougher in a full game — this is no longer the case now. Thus, a valkyrie between 5-10 points was a good balance between life and mana cost — this was further complicated in v1.10 by the valkyrie's casting timer: it's six seconds. Fortunately, this is balanced out with her vastly improved fighting abilities. For low to medium-offense builds, the valkyrie as an actual combat unit warrants some attention.

Let's start with durability. Valkyrie life scales proportionately with her mana cost; it also scales with difficulty level (as noted by Chippydip). In short, the tougher you want your valkyrie to be, the more points you invest in Valkyrie, Decoy, or both. It's just that simple; what's not simple is balancing out your bowazon's defense via valkyrie with her offensive potential and your bowazon's offensive skills (which is taken care of on a case-by-case basis). Another reason to invest in your valkyrie is to upgrade her items, which brings to attention to ability to actually kill things, something she's never been able to do before.

When a valkyrie is summoned, she automatically receives weapons and armor. These items receive attributes of a level equal to (25 + 3{slvl}), so a slvl-5 valkyrie will be using a clvl-40 spear. As of v1.10, the valkyrie can spawn with...

— Fuzzbox

...with many thanks to Fuzzbox, adeyke, and HunkyDory, who found this all out. According to Ruvanal, valks don't get any new types of equipment after slvl-27. Unless listed otherwise, all equipment is magical.

— Arreat Summit

Like all minions, a valkyrie takes extra damage from Andariel, Duriel, Mephisto, Diablo, and Baal. A hot key for valkyrie is highly recommended. For your information, I named my valkyrie "Lenneth."