This compendium is for Diablo 2 v1.05 and is under constant revision. Its editors are AK404, Corwin Brute and LineNoise; the materials contained within may be found in guides by Vehementi, the strategy forums at diabloii.net, Lurker Lounge, Amazon Basin Forums, Bolshoi Too, LineNoise, Icemage, VenomousVixen, and the Chaos Sanctuary. Opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author. Use this information at your own risk. Any errors are purely the fault of the author, who is neither employed by nor represents Blizzard Entertainment. Diablo is a registered trademark and Blizzard Entertainment is a registered trademark of Havas Interactive, Inc. and/or its wholly owned subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries. The most current version of this guide may be found at <http://freespeech.org/ak404/readme/game/amazon_ak404.htm>; critiques, suggestions, and comments may be sent to <angelkiller404@mindspring.com>.
My deepest thanks go out to LineNoise, who has graciously contributed the entirety of his work. A special thanks to Spiderdrake, Sirian, and Skandranon for helping me develop a better eye for the imbalances in the game.
Strength. Beauty. I am without equal in God's kingdom.
This compendium is for the bowazon, a subclass of amazon who primarily uses the bow/crossbow skill tree, and plans her skills accordingly. There are different sorts of bowazons, according to skill and equipment emphasis. These include the speedazon, strafazon, multizon, pyrozon, frostmaiden, and all variations in-between. This compendium will attempt to focus on all of them equally and without prejudice; if all you want to do is throw around Multiple Shots and level like mad, quit reading: you've found out all you need to know about leveling as a barbazon — max Multi and Critical Strike, then find out that Whirlwind barbarians still level faster. This guide was written for players who want to have fun, don't want to screw up while doing it, and are willing to succeed at being good bowazon players on their own terms and no one else's.
This guide will help explain all aspects of the game that are specific to playing a bowazon. Some possible topics, such as "tips on trading for items you want", were not included because they are not specific to the bowazon subclass. Though there is a walkthrough offered in this guide, I've chosen to make it as obscure as possible; there are simply too many variables to make any walkthrough for a bowazon, and in my view, players should be encouraged to feel their way through the game on their own. But if a specific problem or monster is worth talking about, then it will be focused on.
It should be obvious from the many variants of bowazons that no single guide could possibly cover all aspects of one variant without drifting into the aspects of another. Keep this in mind when reading this guide that although each main section is somewhat self-contained, a greater amount of knowledge can be gleaned by reading all of the sections as part of a greater whole. For example, the Skills section is useful by itself and the Combat section is useful by itself, but they are even more useful when understood in tandem.
Unlike most other guides and FAQs, this compendium will not be set as a static overview, as this would aim at looking at the bowazon as a whole — skillsets, stats, templates, playing style, and so forth. Such a singular mindset would involve placing everything into sets of reductive categories. Such a format is fine and well for a guide written by one or two authors with a suggestive style of play, but for a compendium, only a narrative that welcomes discussion, opposing points of view, and perspectives will do. The aim is to bring together players who are most knowledgeable in their particular skill, playing style, build, and mindset. Though there are many sensible ways to play a bowazon, there is no one "correct" way to do so.
Before v1.04, there was a bug with bows that prevented any enhanced damage attributes from working; as a result, the bowazon wasn't a power class, but an art form: an understanding of tactics, strategy, positioning, space, teamwork, discretion, intelligence...these were the hallmarks of an experienced bowazon who had learned the ability to control the flow of battle - when it started, who moved (and when), how to take advantage of positioning, how to get to the most important targets, and so forth. The bowazon was a primary reactive, secondary active character. This bears some explaining: in Diablo 2, characters sit on a scale from reactive to active in that they either react to the actions of monsters or initiate action against them. Most lie somewhere in-between, but the barbarian, for example, is on the active end of the scale because he's excellent at initiating attacks against monsters, but if these attacks fail, the barbarian is vulnerable to counter attack. The reactive zookeeper-type necromancer is the exact opposite: he can't inflict serious amounts of damage on monsters unless they have made a move first. The bowazon was primarily reactive in that she didn't have the sheer power to take on a lot of monsters at once, but had enough versatility to handle the right amount. The secondary active role came in when she was allied with other character types, usually reactive ones; then her active nature would come out and she initiate action against the monsters, who would in turn play into the hands of the reactive characters.
Diablo 2 v1.04 changed all that. With the fixing of the bow bug, the bowazon shows her true strength...and then some, becoming a supra-active character with no reactive strategies (aka, a universally-hated "nerf" subclass, àla barbarian). According to most players, the bowazon is the strongest character in the game, second only to the barbarian. She also has no inherent weaknesses; any arguments against this are based on skill, equipment, and stat choices. The general consensus on the Lurker Lounge is that she is too powerful as well. In addition to reviewing the finer details of the bowazon, this guide will also provide some facts to back these opinions up.
The bowazon is overpowered and unbalancing, but she is not unbeatable. I reached this conclusion after noticing a post-v1.04 upsurge in the number of players with mid-60 clvl bowazons that had absolutely no idea where they needed to invest skill points, because they thought they had everything they needed and wanted already.
Many players will argue against this ("Bowazons are not invincible/unbeatable! I've beaten many bowazon players with so-and-so. I've been beaten by so-and-so when I was using a bowazon. Bowazons can level faster than anything. Bowazons have problems against Duriel, Hephasto, and LEBs. Bowazon PKs are so cheap."), but no one's saying that she's unbeatable or that bowazon players don't need skill. This counter-argument is spurious because it over-exaggerates the original point, which is that bowazons have an extraordinary amount of unfair advantages and little disadvantages, relative to most other characters in the game. That people can cite individual cases of player so-and-so successfully defeating bowazon players or bowazons having problems against certain types of monsters doesn't change the general fact that, on average, bowazon characters are just flat-out better than any other character in the game, save the barbarian.
The yardstick used to measure how balanced a character is not player-vs-player, but leveling speed; this is not to say that characters who level slower (i.e., minion necromancers) are any less viable than bowazons, but that, overall, they will achieve less kills per minute than bowazons, meaning that their game will be slower-paced and they'll advance through the game slower. No game is going to have characters that are perfectly matched, either in leveling speed or PvP. But what should happen is that the variation in players' skills should mask the inherent variation in the characters' qualities. But in the case of the bowazon, that masking effect does not occur. The inherent superiority of a bowazon gives players using her a direct advantage in leveling, advancement, and power gains per level.
In PvP (which is separate from PvM and monster-killing rate, the focus of this guide), she has an advantage and a bowazon will win more often on average. This isn't the same thing as "A bowazon will always win!" or "How good the player is doesn't matter!" Again, counter-arguments that over-exaggerate the original argument aren't worth anything. The key is to look at the abstract, not the personal. The problem with the original counter-argument (aside from the fact it exaggerates) is that it's from a personal perspective, not an abstract one. Personal experiences vary from place to place, but as long as you're playing D2, the abstract qualities always stay the same. This means looking at the abstract qualities of a bowazon (statistics, skill trees, damage-dealing ability, equipment, vulnerability, versatility), not citing personal anecdotes.
This section was last modified: Monday, April 16, 2001.
© 2000, 2001 AK404, Corwin Brute and LineNoise. All rights reserved.