The State of (Java/Ama)zons

[Siosilvar]

Does anybody know exactly how impales multi target works? Is there a way to make it hit more targets? Does number of targets scale with anything? Skill description does not say anything 'bout that, but it doesn't mention the multi target aspect at all.

I can see the skill animation go off on 1-3 enemies. Target 2 and 3 actually take damage, so it isn't just a visual bug. How many targets are hit (1, 2 or 3) seems to be somewhat dependent on enemy proximity (not sure if proximity to each other, or proximity to player). I can't reliably get it to hit 3 enemies tho, no matter how much I try to bunch enemies close together before testing.

Have only tested at low lvls until now. Has anybody seen it hit more than 3 targets?

Impale fires 5-6 invisible projectiles in a tiny area. Nothing you can really do about it, just treat it as a single-target skill.

[heamn]

Did give javazon a go, seriously, mediocre at best, rerolled to hammerzon and never looked back. plus you can use melee devotion with hammer of zarae now.

Saw someone mentioned that Eviscerate was fixed @ patch 2.1.3, did give Javazon another go and to update about my second thoughts,

I went with pure WDM Javazon, it's pretty sexy with Impale + Spellbind for bossing, and Eviscerate for clear.
and being pure WDM, you are highly effective with Life Leech and Mana Leech, this is great when doing bosses, was able to clear Hell Baal

Edit: Adding my char for reference, ignore the newly crafted Javelin, Baal was killed with T4 Maiden Javelin.
https://tsw.vn.cz/char/Toria

however below are some pain points

1) When monsters comes into point blank, Eviscerate's main strength shines when all 6 javelins explodes and "shotguns" with all 6 shrapnel, when monsters gets too close, you'd most likely only hit with 1~2 javelins.
*Well git gud you may say to kill shits before they come close.
1.1) Saw someone posted about goin melee devotion and playing pure impale build, seeing that java tree is pretty point starving, pure impale melee is actually brilliant, except that it's pretty bad for clear, unless adding a small aoe to impale hits.

2) Being forced to smax shield passives to get to the next one is awkward, for example, as a javazon you naturally invest alot into dex, hence smax shieldmaiden feels like a waste, same goes for Second Wind, i'd love to be given a choice to be made, rather than forced to smax in order to get the next passives i'd drool on.

3) Overall tankiness is pretty deceptive, you survive if you blocked which is capped at 50%, there aren't much you could spend points on getting defense rating, most of the time i either block and survive via leech and high HP pool from paragon, or i dont.

in comparison hammerzon which have high amount of defense rating which nets you up to 5% chance to be hit with proper investment, and not to mention about the block rate you get from dex investment.
*still salty that they removed the max block passive from divine tree.

[hwtchirino]

My lvl 130 curare javazon uses the set and steamrolls duncraig and fauzt... Objectively, she has TRASH gear compared to my UHC pally that struggled in fauzt with decent gear. Once he got his current setup with 11k tri-beam and 14k mindflay, sure, he deletes the screen everywhere he goes.

But my point is, my zon has terrible gear, doesn't come close to dying in fauzt and destroys everything. It shouldn't be happening, imo. It's literally a 1-button build, spamming eviscerate. I don't know where the OP gets the notion that the javazon is mediocre. Of course, I haven't tested my zon's limits because she's not even high enough level for Scos yet, but the fact that she plows through most of "farm" content (duncraig, teganze, fauzt) and doesn't die due to obscene leech says a lot about javazons this patch. I wish my pally could have been able to do that in zero time with laughable gear, but no.. it was a fuken long hard road for him to get to where he is now.

[Honkler]

My lvl 130 curare javazon uses the set and steamrolls duncraig and fauzt... Objectively, she has TRASH gear compared to my UHC pally that struggled in fauzt with decent gear. Once he got his current setup with 11k tri-beam and 14k mindflay, sure, he deletes the screen everywhere he goes.

But my point is, my zon has terrible gear, doesn't come close to dying in fauzt and destroys everything. It shouldn't be happening, imo. It's literally a 1-button build, spamming eviscerate. I don't know where the OP gets the notion that the javazon is mediocre. Of course, I haven't tested my zon's limits because she's not even high enough level for Scos yet, but the fact that she plows through most of "farm" content (duncraig, teganze, fauzt) and doesn't die due to obscene leech says a lot about javazons this patch. I wish my pally could have been able to do that in zero time with laughable gear, but no.. it was a fuken long hard road for him to get to where he is now.

Java is in a better place after the patch (note when this post was made). That said, Dunc/Fauzt survivability is hardly an issue for most builds and shouldn’t be a metric with which to study class/build viability. Clear-speed however…. That brings attention back to HOZ

[hwtchirino]

Post was made 1 week ago? What am I missing.

Given that end-game progression is quite linear, how does your notion stand? If those areas aren't good metrics of predicting performance in harder content, then you should explain yourself. My experience confirms the contrary.

Most builds don't have an issue with Fauzt in set gear? Gtfo. I never see any one walk into Fauzt with set gear and steamroll it like this java zon. Care to enlighten me on which builds can accomplish the same feat?

I'm confident that with a few more levels, charms, trophies, cycles, Scos and Lab farming is more than possible. And again, I'm using curare. Imagine if I had meta gear and went phys/deadly strike. Oh yeah, the ladder shows how good that is.

[Honkler]

Post was made 1 week ago? What am I missing.

Given that end-game progression is quite linear, how does your notion stand? If those areas aren't good metrics of predicting performance in harder content, then you should explain yourself. My experience confirms the contrary.

Most builds don't have an issue with Fauzt in set gear? Gtfo. I never see any one walk into Fauzt with set gear and steamroll it like this java zon. Care to enlighten me on which builds can accomplish the same feat?

I'm confident that with a few more levels, charms, trophies, cycles, Scos and Lab farming is more than possible. And again, I'm using curare. Imagine if I had meta gear and went phys/deadly strike. Oh yeah, the ladder shows how good that is.

The post was made before the Java fix. “1 week ago” means up to 2 weeks ago if im not mistaken. I think it was 1.5 or 1.6. I don’t remember. Java DPS is in a decent place now but I remember it being squishy as hell in Scos and got fucked pretty hard on navigator once you get to like ~Lab 4 due to lack of block sustain from shield maiden.

To answer your question, there are a few pretty solid specs/sets that can easily clear Fauzt (I.e. Vesseldin, summon/Xbow necro, cold/Arcane sorc, Cyanidide) the list goes on. The reason I say Fauzt isn’t a good indicator of survivability is that you’re taking hundreds of low dmg attacks in Fauzt/dunc which procs shield maiden sustain permanently, topping you off so you can lay down evidcerates to clear the map and spread curare without worrying about your low HP pool. Additionally, shieldmaiden has a ton of baked in PDR/defensive stats that are great in mid-tier endgame (I.e. Fauzt/Dunc) until you start facing enemies that flat out global you (I.e. Scos/3+ Labs). At that point, you should be approaching 50% PDR organically so the baked in star stick isn’t as effective as it is when you first enter endgame. It’s a matter of scaling. That 7% HP regen gets far less effective when enemies start two-shotting you.

Also, “endgame is linear” uhhh what? That varies entirely by class/spec, as loosely evidenced by season statistics, where most zon builds peak around 135-140 then taper off steeply where other class builds progress. While there isn’t a direct correlation between level and content, I can tell you right now that spear/HZON goes from farming Fauzt/Dunc carefree to getting absolutely yeeted in Scos/labs. A lot of it has to do with build design. For example: Both are effectively melee builds with zero avoidance that must get up in the enemy’s face to do dmg. Spearzons have zero block so, while their high defense does help, they simply cannot survive in higher content. Anyone that believes spearzons are anywhere near competitive (or even viable) with most other class specs is living in a fairytale. HOZ suffers from clunky mechanics and a lack of reliable single target damage. While HOZ yields solid sustain when fighting huge packs of enemies, the damage is mediocre at best and you end up getting deleted when druids spawn. Especially Conjurer/Hunter. Takes 5 minutes to kill a Druid in general and that’s if you’re not dying. You rely on HOZ LL to barely stay alive and cannot cast magnetism due to the 100% conversion preventing sustain so your only single target source of damage is completely negated. The same applies for pretty much all other (HARD-impossible) Ubers. And that’s not even touching on the fact that narrow corridors absolutely destroy your ability to clear with hammers. There are simply too many negative factors at play.

Nothing “linear” about it. You straight up hit a wall after Fauzt/Viz’jun (as I stated in the OP). HOZ cannot clear DLABs and it’s painfully slow in Scos. I am begging Ben- or one of the MXL veterans to make a video of a HOZ zon clearing DLAB1-10 without an obnoxious number of relics. Won’t even ask for Deimoss, though he is one of the only stationary endgame bosses that might actually render Magnetism momentarily viable.

This trend is further exemplified in the following:

Notice how most classes follow a relatively uniform spread up to 150? Notice how Zons are the least played class all around? Notice how Amazons compete with Assassins until 140-145 and then they just tank? I believe this is due to The min-max players opting for literally any other class when pushing the top-tier content. Java was a step in the right direction with its -PDR impale skill making bossing more accessible but the class, as a whole needs help.

[Honkler]

Are chat notifications messed up or something? It keeps showing people commenting but my comment was the last one…

[vindog]

I'm running a curare javazon atm currently at lvl 130 and can Coast through dunc/fautz just fine. I'm looking at the next gear transition out of the set (currently using java set and wyrd set) as I start to level up further and look at later content but I'm at a bit of a standstill as to what to use. Does anyone have any suggestions on the end game gear?

[Jo_Jo]

I'm running a curare javazon atm currently at lvl 130 and can Coast through dunc/fautz just fine. I'm looking at the next gear transition out of the set (currently using java set and wyrd set) as I start to level up further and look at later content but I'm at a bit of a standstill as to what to use. Does anyone have any suggestions on the end game gear?

Im running with:

Amanita

Amanita
Helms
'VenAmn'
Runeword Level: 100
3% Chance to cast level 1 Time Wave on Melee Attack
+(200 to 300) to Attack Rating
-(21 to 25)% to Enemy Poison Resistance
+(2 to 5) to Amatoxin
(3 to 5)% Chance of Crushing Blow
Attacker Flees after Striking 20%
+(115 to 143)% Enhanced Defense
+(30 to 50) to Vitality
Poison Resist +25%

Scales of the Drake

Scales of the Drake
Ring Mail (Sacred)
Defense: (5239 - 5921) to (5764 - 6514)
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 550
Item Level: 120
+(1 to 2) to All Skills
30% Cast Speed
+(25 to 38)% to Poison Spell Damage
-35% to Enemy Poison Resistance
+(14 to 18) to Lorenado
+(115 to 143)% Enhanced Defense
+300 to Life
Maximum Poison Resist +5%
Physical Resist (5 to 10)%
Socketed (6)

Screaming Serpent

Screaming Serpent
Short Spear (Sacred)
Throw Damage: 207 to 240
One-Hand Damage: 135 to 150
Required Level: 100
Required Dexterity: 924
Item Level: 105
Dexterity Damage Bonus: (0.11 per Dexterity)%
10% Chance to cast level 1 Javelin Nova on Kill
+(2 to 3) to All Skills
+200% Enhanced Damage
-(25 to 50)% to Enemy Poison Resistance
+10 to Curare (Amazon Only)
Weapon Physical Damage +(30 to 90)%
Maximum Poison Resist +2%
Poison Length Reduced by 50%
Requirements +100%
Socketed (3)

Lorekeeper

Lorekeeper
Light Gauntlets (Sacred)
Defense: (1018 - 1179) to (1159 - 1342)
Required Level: 80
Required Strength: 300
Item Level: 120
+3 to All Skills
20% Combat Speeds
+(5 to 10) to Firedance
+(90 to 120)% Enhanced Defense
Regenerate Mana +(40 to 60)%
Requirements -50%
Socketed (4)

Astrogha's Moon

Astrogha's Moon
(Wyrd Set)

Darkling
Viper Skin
Angel of Death

Set Bonus with 2 or more set items:
Maximum Poison Resist +2%
Poison Resist +75%

Set Bonus with complete set:
-25% to Enemy Poison Resistance
+23 to Amatoxin
Slow Target 5%

Seal of the Nephalem Kings

Seal of the Nephalem Kings
Ring
Required Level: 100
Item Level: 120
+(1 to 2) to All Skills
(10 to 15)% to Strength
(10 to 15)% to Vitality
(10 to 15)% Bonus to Defense
(10 to 20)% Gold Find

and

Khalim's Protector

Khalim's Protector
Shields
Except Barbarian Shields
'VenLoVenAmn'
Runeword Level: 100
+(1 to 2) to All Skills
2% Base Block Chance
60% Block Speed
-15% to Enemy Poison Resistance
+(171 to 200)% Enhanced Defense
Maximum Poison Resist +4%
Poison Resist +25%
+50 Life after each Kill
50% Bonus to Defense

but could also be

Svalinn

Svalinn
Shields
'RhalLoOhn'
Runeword Level: 115
-1% to Enemy Elemental Resistances per 150 Dexterity
8% Chance to cast level 7 Life Spark when Blocking
1% Base Block Chance
15% Block Speed
20% Hit Recovery
+(151 to 200)% Enhanced Defense
+(30 to 40) to all Attributes
(15 to 20)% to Dexterity
+200 to Life
Fire Resist +(20 to 25)%
Lightning Resist +(20 to 25)%
Cold Resist +(20 to 25)%
Poison Resist +(20 to 25)%
Fire Absorb (3 to 5)%
Physical Resist 5%

because its great, but i chose Khalims for the +2skills

With that, i can run Scos very comfortable. Some of the Druids are tougher than others, but paying attention it can be smooth.