Vitality (20~100+)

The amazon starts with 50 life, 84 stamina and 20 vitality; she gains 2 life and 1 stamina per clvl. Every point of VIT adds 3 life and 1 stamina.

Vitality is important to the bowazon; if she isn't placing points into DEX, she will be investing in this. My personal recommendation for softcore is around 100 VIT: it isn't so much that I feel I'm cheating myself out of damage and it isn't so little that my bowazon crumbles in less than ten hits. Thanks to avoidance, leeching, and minions, bowazons have a high chance for survival with minimal VIT, but with bad luck, lag spikes, poison, smart targets and not quite-as-smart minions, this "paper tiger" style can be suicidal, so a target of 500-700 life is recommended. (In HC, find as many +life items as possible, with a target of 900+ life.)

While DEX is a bowazon's most prominent attribute, after a while, damage begins to take a back seat and keeping your character alive becomes more important. The switch from DEX to VIT is entirely up to the player, but it usually occurs around the 250-300 DEX mark. Like all characters, the bowazon must balance her capability to cause damage against her capability to survive it: more VIT equals less DEX which equals less damage, but while your bowazon can have too much DEX due to diminishing returns on damage and attack rating, she can never have too much life. With more life, she will be more able to withstand a few good hits with less chance of being caught in "hit stun" (see Faster Hit Recovery).

On the other hand, under most circumstances, VIT is the one attribute that can be passed over the most. After all, VIT exists only to give more life, and there are other ways to do that: for example, a small charm of vita (+17~20 life) is about as good as 5~7 points of VIT, so three of these can easily replace up to four levels worth of stat points. (Many thanks to Manarina for the tip.) On a larger scale, armor of the whale can add up to +100 life, which is worth ~33 VIT.

A general guideline is regardless of how much life she has, so long as a bowazon can keep her orbs filled, then all is well, no matter how much is needed to fill those orbs in the first place. This can usually be achieved through high damage and life leech.

Where can I get extra vitality?

Equipment:

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

Sockets:

Io rune: +10 vitality when socketed in anything.

Charms:

Annihilus small charm: +10-20 vitality.

Hellfire Torch large charm: +10-20 vitality.

Where can I get extra life?

Equipment:

Rare rings: +1-40 life.

Rare amulets, belts, body armor, circlets: +41-60 life.

Magical amulets, belts, body armor, and circlets: +61-100 life.

Magical amulets, body armor: Centaur prefix (+[0.5/clvl] life).

Magical circlets: Elephant prefix (+[0.25/clvl] life & mana).

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

Sockets:

Rubies of varying quality in helms and armor: +10-38 life.

Rare jewels of spirit: +3-8 life.

Magic jewel of hope: +9-20 life.

Charms:

Small charms: +5-20 life.

Large charms: +6-35 life.

Grand charms: +5-50 life.

Oh yeah, one more thing. If given the choice, go for items with straight-up +life over items with +vitality, +%life, and +life/clvl. Items with +life are affected by +% life effects like Battle Orders and Oak Sage, but items with +vitality, +life/clvl, and +vitality/clvl are not. In addition, +% life items are additive, not multiplicative, with other +% life effects. According to librarian, your life total is added up like this (simplified):

Your Life when Naked + Life from Equipment × (1 + (+life% effects/100%)) + (3 × VIT gained from items) + (+life/clvl) = Total Life

Similarly, +mana items are affected by +% mana effects, but +energy, +mana/clvl, and +energy/clvl are not. (Thanks to adeyke for the tip.)