Strafe (five or maximum)

Clvl: 24
Prerequisites: Magic Arrow, Multiple Shot, Cold Arrow, Guided Arrow.
Effect: Fires a volley of arrows at multiple nearby targets.
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, fixed cost of 11 mana.
Synergy from: None.
Synergy to: None.

Strafe uses searching fire (firing at sequential targets) at an accelerated rate; this skill offers higher damage, automatic targeting (but not automatic hits) and an effective range of the entire screen at a fixed mana cost. Strafe should become a primary attack when the mana/life gains your bowazon makes from attacking so many targets at once begin to equate to nothing (i.e., your bowazon's actually making more mana than she's spending). Depending on your style, any level of Strafe is good, with a range of 5-10 for those who simply want to use Strafe as a secondary attack to regain mana for elemental arrows, to 20 for those who use it as their primary attack.

Those who use Strafe as their primary source of damage must max the skill. Strafe begins with a 75% damage penalty to all forms of damage, much like Multiple Shot, but every level slowly negates the physical damage penalty by 5% per level until you hit level 20, when physical damage is brought back up to normal. While I would rather have Strafe's damage bonus work properly, the skill still has its uses: for example, it can't be fooled by lag because the server is targeting Strafe for you. More than one arrow may hit a target at a time. It has a relatively low mana cost and a wide search area. And so on.

— adekye

Because Strafe targets multiple monsters, it works much like Zeal, Fend, and Fury, but at range; the strafing sequence — from the initial attack animation to the strafe itself to the amazon's return to her ready position (when she's not attacking anything) is called a strafe cycle, which is a good time to get into the bowazon's speed ratings. When you see a notation like "9/2" or "11/3," this refers to the bowazon's strafe cycle. (More information on this can be found under Increased Attack Speed.)

Speed is all and well, but why should it matter here? The obvious "speed equals damage" and "speed is cool" philosophies aside, positioning for a strafing bowazon is extremely important because as she picks out her targets, there're going to be gaps in her firing pattern, and the further away she is from her targets, the wider those gaps are going to be. You don't want gaps because gaps mean you're not firing, but still locked in strafe. If a target walks into that gap mid-strafe, you're not going to target it until your next strafe cycle. You want a tight firing pattern that minimizes those gaps so you can get out of one strafe and into another as quickly as possible. And to move from one strafe cycle to the next as quickly as possible requires speed, and lots of it.

Think of it like this: find a small clock, place your finger in the center of its face, and time how long it takes your finger to go from that point to the numbers on 12, 1, 2, and 3 o'clock. Now imagine that clock has a 12' radius, and do the same. That's the basic difference between Strafe and its melee cousins: the range exaggerates any mistakes you might make, so it's the problem, but it's also the solution. Think of Strafe as a funnel. What you want is as many arrows going in a single direction as possible; the strafe cycle finishes faster, the density of arrows is higher, and there's going to be high chance that more arrows will pierce (if available), which equals more hits per arrow. The absolute worst case scenario is a bowazon spinning in circles when she's firing: optimally, you never want your bowazon shifting herself from her original ready position during strafe at anything wider than 45° angle unless you're absolutely sure you can kill anything at the fringes. You can settle for 90° angles without a problem, but 180° is right out, and 360° is that worst case scenario you never want to get into. That means you're surrounded, and with your valk, merc, and decoy, that leaves you wide open on one side, and unless you can freeze anything coming from that end or run to that end to turn your 360° disadvantage into a 45° targeting area with a higher kill density (re: run to one end where it's safe and cap everything without having to twist and turn a lot), you're in trouble.

And yes, minions have a lot to do with exploiting your strafing patterns. I left a textual description in the Decoy entry of the Passive/Magic Skills section, but pictures have always been more effective. Here's an example of an iffy strafing pattern:

The first thing is location. Tunnels like these have a lot of dead spaces, shaded in red. From where Kabbie is standing, her kill zone (shaded in black) is actually three narrow passages instead of the one (at the 4 o' clock position) on which she should be concentrating. Note that there's a more-than-noticeable gap between the arrows headed in the direction of her minions to the left and the main clump of arrows aimed at the zombies at the bottom right. If anything had walked into that gap while she was strafing, it wouldn't be targeted until her next strafe cycle. Also, if she had stepped back a bit (marked in the picture), her kill zone would be much more focused, allowing her to tackle each group at her leisure. (And for those wondering why the minions are over to the left, I didn't plan for it to be that way, and summoned a decoy just after this screen was taken.)

The trick to getting around this is herding. Here's another shot of strafe in action, this time against Eldritch and his crew. What makes this group so nice is that they're out in the open, so getting a nice tight strafing pattern is simple. The shot here presents an ideal strafing pattern.

This works a lot better: Kabbie can go through ten Strafe cycles, yet she'll be firing her shots so fast that it'll seems like one continuous stream of arrows. You're not going to be hitting as hard as a paladin or werewolf, but you'll be hitting fast and you're going to be safe.

In short, what makes this skill great in both single and multiplayer is its high benefit/cost ratio and ease of use. Bugs aside, the singular drawback of Strafe is Strafe Lock: your bowazon is locked into place while her shots release. This has everything to do with the strafe cycle, and the solution is easy: so long as you keep a fast bow and remember to avoid the no-no's of strafing, you'll never notice strafe lock in action.

If Strafe is chosen, an assigned hot key is highly recommended.