Say hello to the new rares of LOD; charms and jewels are the new wild cards of Diablo, as any number of them can suddenly turn a mediocre character build into an excellent character build or an already powerful build into an unbelievable powerhouse. Charms grant magical enhancements without needing to be equipped to do so; they simply need to sit in your character's backpack. An important consideration for any character, as well as the most overlooked, are charms, especially 7% MF, 5% prismatic, 5% FHR and 5% FRW smalls are to be coveted, as they can be used and carted over to other characters with a minimum of fuss. With an additional affix, especially one pushed to the maximum value for that size, a good charm can easily boost a character.
Because charms take up space, the goal is to get as many benefits as you can for the least amount of space, which calls for a charm with both affixes set to maximum values. In a classic sense of Blizzard's balance, small charms are the best all-around. Grand and large charms have very specific purposes: grands are best used for +skills and larges are best used for +stats. Block for block, smalls do so much better than either at almost everything; for example, the maximum prismatic resist on a small charm is 5%, but it's 8% on a large and 15% on a grand. For prismatic, there is no contest between large and small: Two prismatic large charms take up four spaces with 16% prismatic and possibly two suffixes, but they get squashed by four smalls, with their 20% prismatic and four possible suffixes, a total wash. Theoretically, smalls break even against a grand, but small charms are easier to arrange and can come suffixes, so three perfect smalls with suffixes end up giving you two more benefits than a perfect grand with an suffix.
For grands, +skill charms are the primary consideration, provided that they have an suffix: while +skills is always a good thing, you do want to have another benefit to make up for the three spaces you're taking up. For the standard bowazon, passive/magic charms are the way to go; bow/crossbow charms can be reserved for bowazon builds dependent on elemental arrows. The second consideration for grand charms is damage; the most minimum damage one can get on a grand is +3 and the most maximum damage is 10, which is a tremendous boost for a bowazon and her massive dexterity. For the bowazon, the most valuable charms tend to be resists (small), MF (small), faster run/walk, dexterity, maximum damage (grand, +10), elemental (small), + skills (grand) and FHR. FHR charms are of particular importance as few of the new ready-made items have FHR.
There are only three unique charms in LOD. You can only carry one of each at a time.
More information on charms can be found at the Charms section of the Arreat Summit.
What do I socket my bow with? This question comes up a lot and there are as many answers as there are people who answer them: 40/15 jewels, +max/+min jewels, Ohm, Nef, Shael, Amn, Vex, Lo, Cham runes. My rule of thumb to this question is:
When in doubt, use a Shael rune. Actually, my answer to this question is "What kind of bow is it and how many sockets do you have?" For example, any bow with a level requirement under 29-30 should not be socketed with any sort of IAS, as this will unnecessarily raise the level requirement; bows with a level requirement of 28 and under are special cases and should be treated as such. If it's an end-game bow with one socket and it isn't an exception to the rule (see below), then I refer back to my rule of thumb. If it's a magical bow with two sockets, I give the following advice.
Do not blindly use an Ohm rune or enhanced damage jewel unless it has a good amount of +min, +max or IAS on it. Enhanced damage jewels and Ohm runes increase the weapon's base damage, not its enhanced damage; if you haven't noticed, bows have relatively low base damage. (Elite bows are the exception to this rule, which is where Ohm runes are most useful.) If you want speed, be smart about it: check out the IAS tables in the Offensive attributes section of this guide. Find your bow, calculate your total IAS, find the next highest attainable breakpoint, determine for yourself whether or not it's worth it, and if it's, go ahead and put as much IAS as is needed. If it takes 40% IAS to hit that next breakpoint, then two Shaels; if it takes 30% then two Shaels or two fervor jewels; if it takes 35% then two Shaels or a Shael and an IAS jewel and so on. While it's good to be right-on in regards to speed, it isn't a bad thing to be over by 5-10% or so. It is a bad thing to be over by 15% and over, especially if you can't reach the next breakpoint; at that point, you're just wasting valuable slots that could be otherwise used for other things.
As appealing as knockback is, don't use a Nef rune unless you really have to. There is a Horadric formula for making gloves that have knockback, thus saving you a valuable socket, but if that option isn't open, then by all means, Nef your bow.
Now for every general rule there are exceptions. For example, the minimum damage on a diamond bow is close enough to the maximum that no rune would be as good for it as a +minimum damage jewel (possibly with IAS) would be, thereby giving an extremely tight range of average damage. A matriarchal bow (or any of the -10 speed class bows) jumps into new breakpoints so fast that a pair of IAS jewels with +%ED or +damage would be perfectly acceptable because it can reach 8/2 with minimal effort. The unique Buriza-do Kyanon ballista should not be socketed, ever: it's almost perfect the way it's and you can get the 15% IAS it needs to reach its next breakpoint elsewhere. Hardcore bowazons might want to consider resistance jewels, Hel runes or anything that would help keep them alive.
Another general rule of thumb would be to avoid raising the level requirement on your bow. Your bow's going to do you little good if you have to wait an extra ten levels to use it because you had to socket it with that 40/15 jewel.
last updated: Wednesday, April 18, 2007
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