Attack Rating

This is where it all starts. Good marksmanship is vital; Attack Rating is your second most important secondary attribute, just behind damage by a hair: after all, if you can't hit something, you can't hurt it. Since you'll be using dexterity to raise it, Attack Rating often goes hand-in-hand with damage. A more complete explanation of Attack Rating can be found at Librarian's FAQtoids in DiabloII - Lord of Destruction, Patch 1.1x, but for those who aren't math-inclined (like myself), PeterPaulRubens has made a handy D2X/1.11 AR Calculator.

According to the Arreat Summit, the To-Hit formula used to determine the chances of an attacker hitting a defender is (in percentage form): 100 × AR/(AR + DR) × 2 × alvl/(alvl + dlvl). This applies to monsters as well as players.

Your amazon's base AR will be 5 × (dexterity - 7) + 5; after your first level of Penetrate, it's quite unlikely that you'll ever need to refer to your base AR score again. It's more likely that you'll be more concerned with your total AR, which will be Base AR + Flat AR Bonus × 100 + (Attack Rating Bonus)/100. Here's how this works out: let's say we have a clvl-69 amazon with 300 dexterity, slvl-10 Penetrate, a Witchwild String short siege bow, and 500 AR from equipment. For the sake of simplicity, let's say that the bow has no AR bonuses and she has no skill bonuses. Her base AR would be:

5 × (dexterity - 7) + 5 = 1,470 Base AR

Now let's add in her 500 AR from equipment:

1,470 base AR + 500 from equipment = 1,970 Adjusted AR

And finally, we'll add in her percentile-based bonuses. At slvl-10, Penetrate gives a +125% bonus to AR.

1,970 adjusted AR × (100 + 125/100) = 1,970 × 2.25 = 4432.5 Total AR

Thus, your bowazon would have a total of ~4,433 AR. Now, let's say our bowazon wants to kill Diablo in Hell (Ladder) difficulty. How's this going to work out? Well, according to the Arreat Summit, at Hell difficulty, Diablo is a level 94 mob with 2,534 defense. The To-Hit formula is, again, 100 × AR/(AR + DR) × 2 × alvl/(alvl + dlvl), so our bowazon's chances to hit Diablo are:

100 × 4,433/(4,433 + 2,534) × 2 × 69/(69 + 94) ≈ 53.8651%

Ouch. I wonder what'll happen if we raise the bowazon's level to 94, but don't mess with anything else...

100 × 4,433/(4,433 + 2,534) × 2 × 94/(94 + 94) ≈ 63.6233%

Woah, okay, what the hell just happened? Our bowazon gained around 10% to hit just by raising her level! This is going to be explained in the article about Penetrate, but the short explanation is that your level means a lot more than AR for purposes of hitting things. The higher your level, the greater your chances to hit; the lower your level, the lower your chances to hit. (As this example shows, however, that is absolutely no excuse to skimp out on your AR bonuses!) There're two caps to watch out for: you have at least a 5% chance to hit anything, and you can't exceed more than a 95% to do the same.

There are two types of AR bonuses: flat bonuses and percentage-based bonuses. Both work well in conjunction with each other, though flat AR bonuses are slightly better than percentage-based bonuses; the reasoning behind this is pretty simple: a +100% bonus of 100 AR equals 200 AR, but that same +100% bonus applied to 500 AR gives 1,000 AR. The more you put in, the more you get out of it.

Where can I get equipment with AR bonuses?

Equipment:

Rare weapons: +121-150 AR

Magical weapons: +151-450 AR

Rare circlets, rings: +101-120 AR

Rare amulets and gloves: +10-20 AR

Magical weapons: Hawkeye prefix (+[1.5/clvl] AR)

Rare weapons: Fool's prefix (+[16.5/clvl] AR) and (+[0.5/clvl] maximum damage)

Various unique, set, and rune word items give varying amounts of AR

Sockets:

Amethysts of varying degrees in weapons: +40-150 AR

Diamonds of varying degrees in helms and armor: +20-100 AR

Rare silver jewels: +41-60 AR

Magical argent jewels, +61-100 AR

El rune: +50 AR, +1 light radius when inserted into a weapon

Charms:

Small charms: +1-36 AR

Large charms: +4-64 AR

Grand charms: +6-132 AR

Where can I get equipment with percentile-based AR bonuses?

Equipment:

Rare helms, circlets, bows, crossbows: Visionary prefix (+[1/clvl]% AR)

Various unique, set, and rune word items give varying amounts of AR

Sockets:

Gul rune: +20% bonus to AR when inserted into a weapon

Auras:

Blessed Aim: starting at +75% AR

Fanaticism: starting at +40% AR

Heart of Wolverine: starting at +25% AR

To me, the most important part of the bowazon is Attack Rating, just a hair ahead of damage. I've got a lot of reasons for this. The first is that AR is the first equation the computer considers when you attack a monster. No hit, no damage. Attack Rating affects every attack the bowazon makes (except for Guided Arrow), and because the game is bugged so that the AR bonuses of elemental arrows don't apply, you not only want your AR to be as high as possible, but you want to pace yourself through the game in such a way that you'll always want a 70~95% chance to hit any monster in a given stage. The second is that most of my builds focus on both physical and non-physical damage, so no matter how much physical damage my bowazon inflicts, the non-physical damage is always there to add a decent chunk of pain. The third reason is the use of Amplify Damage: because it doubles all the physical damage my bowazon pumps out, I always try to have an item that casts this particular curse upon striking. There are other reasons, but the long and short of it is that I can always find numerous ways to stack damage on my bowazon, but not so many for ensuring that my bowazon hits her target, despite her level disadvantages.

But honestly, if your bowazon doesn't pass the first math test and whiffs on a monster, then she can't check for damage. Thus, you want to hit your target before all else. This section covered how to increase your chances to hit by increasing your AR. The following sections will cover how to increase your chances to hit by lowering the target's DR — or disregarding it altogether.

• Ignore Target Defense
• -25% Target Defense
• -XX to Monster Defense per Hit

Bugs Related to Attack Rating

There's a bug concerning the relationship between the Blessed Aim aura from a paladin or town guard and amazon's Penetrate skill. Tests have shown that the AR bonus from Penetrate is negated by the Blessed Aim aura. That is to say, if you plan on having a Blessed Aim aura around, don't invest in Penetrate. According to librarian, this is caused by both skills using the same aurastate, so you can't do anything about it in unmodified game. However, other auras with +AR bonuses won't negate Penetrate's AR bonus.

There's another bug with the amazon's ranged attack skills with AR bonuses. They're displayed, but they don't work. Oops.