State of Amazons (a bit long)

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Seekers
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Shinoda wrote:iam not the best player in mxl but ive been playing some xbow necro to compare it to bowzon

i know iam shitty at the game but while xbow necro could reach endgame without any problems in terms of solo progression (no trading)

i just couldnt do that with bowzon if it has something to do with my positioning or kiting ive been trying to pay attention to it but it was of no use,
i did clear up to a2 hell before basicly hitting a wall in terms of damage with Flowerspring , Jitans , deafall , Hanabigami , honorific gloves that gave me a huge str resist and dex bonus , and Siegfried rw in helm with some LL jewels , i simply couldnt complete the act even with points into curare i died in 2-3 hits (more or less stunned to death i did put MO's on my stuff to maybe help that fact but well that didnt work

i aggree that bowzon can perform pretty good in the late game [dunc , k3k , maybe even faust] but as a bosskiller or progressing as one it werent possible for me

maybe its just cuze i suck and its a factor of git gut but just going with the meta and play xbow basicly made me stop playing cuze playing xbow just didnt feel good to me like bowzon does


1: U build full phys dmg on bowa
2: U go paragon
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duysir0
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Javazon:
-Appreciate the Enfilade rework. But Javazon still doesn't work for me, she's mediocre in both damage and tankiness. Her damage is non existence without using Ecstatic Frenzy and a 200TG shield. WDM rainbow build is available but is absolute shite too. Free Defense boost and FHR doesn't really help. Fairy Witch is kinda buggy at times.
-Damage:
► Show Spoiler

-Defense:
► Show Spoiler

-Uberskills:
► Show Spoiler

-Itemization:
► Show Spoiler

-Afterthought: I've completed a Melee nec and Throwsin play through which is similiar in playstyle and I dare to say they both excell Javaz in anyway possible. They just blazing all the way to Destruction with cheap rare, low tier uniques and runewords, while with Javazon, u have to contansly stop to upgrade, to tweak your gear with crafted jewel and MOs but till then your character still feel suck to play with. Mediocre damage, mediocre defense, having skills that's low on damage, skill that require 10pts to remove CD, skills that cost too much mana, skills that use corpses, dex weapon that requires strength but still low on damage, questionable item options, UBERskills that's non uber. I personally just feel bad in any possible ways playing this build. As for other Zons, Bowzon works, EF goes much better with her than Javaz, gear options are much nicer. Spear is ok-ish but could use some QoL updates, I'm digging the pounce, love the passive and multihiting Greathunt, but the first 2 skills need some rework. Blood and Storm are on toptier performance right now which is nice.
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Primarch
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Primarch wrote:I played mostly hammerzon this latest patch and I think it’s in a decent place for farming (though slower than melee Necro and other competitive builds) but single target suffers greatly as you reach 125+. Vizjun and Duncraig were a joke with lifesteal keeping me up through multiple barrels and Faust was easy as well but Necrobots were killed SO slowly. The mechanics are indeed clunky for any dynamic fights and hammers suffer greatly in confined spaces. You can’t rely on magnetism as a boss-killer as most end-game boss fights fall under the aforementioned dynamic category. Cornering bosses is a huge pain in the ass, especially when the hammers are soaked up by adjacent walls. The really problem simply lies in single target.

After testing spearzons, I have no idea how anyone can state they’re in an ok state. The lack of block makes high TCD almost irrelevant as they die incredibly quickly in higher content and their clear speed is not even competitive enough to compensate. If spearzons had a dodge mechanic or an HP buff to make up for the low hp (possibly on lioness at the expense of like 25-40% of the TCD), the lack of paragon might be manageable but, in its current state, Spearzons just aren’t viable outside of few select farming routes.

To put things in perspective, compare a spearzon with (end-game ~11k hp) to an assassin with max block and 70% dodge and you’ll find that, not only is their surviviability laughable in comparison, but their clear speed in both single target and packs is much lower as well.

If one tree needs a reconstruction, it’s spearzon plain and simple.

The easiest fix, in my opinion, is to simply add a dodge mechanic and/or an HP boost that puts them at around 22-25k hp in optimal gear to compensate for the complete lack of mitigation that they currently have. Another possible option is to give them a life regen passive (“lick wounds”) that offers significant hp regen and flat damage reduction). This might also fit with the theme of “lioness” much better. As for spearzon damage... I wouldn’t be so bold as to ask for more than one tweak at a time but I’d simply suggest comparing spearzon damage to other endgame class builds and drawing your own conclusions.


One thing I forgot to mention about HOZ single-target is the lack of sustainability as crowd density is the primary source of survivability due to stacked LL.
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Marco
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@Primarch: if you're suggesting HZON needs a better bosskiller, I disagree. Hammerzon currently stands as a pretty high tier build. It doesn't need anything atm, it works fairly cheap, it's super cookie-cutter already as well. I think all builds need to have something to figure out, otherwise, what's the point?

Uldy took about 25-min on first attempt as 130 hzon, playing semi SSF (i used a total 95 TG for danmaku+hele, both which can be replaced by crafts, which are even better for this battle). Anything else (but samael) isnt complicated at all, even laz is really doable (especially getting there).

Surely late lab stage bosses become tricky. Then again this build has so much going for it already, huge def, max block, max %DR, LL. It can jump to p8 farming right away as you're virtually unkillable on any phys-based zones, vizj, fauzt, dunc, you name it.


---

Regarding bowzon, ive also played this considerably this season. There isn't much reason to discuss this build as it's gonna receive considerable changes. However, I don't think it's nearly as bad as everyone made it look. Ive done most of ubers up to 125 included, at which point I respecced to a more tanky build because I wanted to test lab. Here are some of my observations, some of which will remain true after the tree is reworked:

- After cancerous struggle until you get a TU bow, this *has* to be the fastest char to run the 3 difficulties untwinked.
- Cheap as hell
- Probably the fastest movement in the entire game
- Very fun to play because there's so many active skills which shine in diff situations, and rewards proper play (as opposed to xbow nec where you spam vodoo 24/7). For example:
- Sun strike: mostly irrelevant, surprisingly good in places like fauzt however.
- Barrage: the skill for small rooms, also the "get off my face" skill. But also a the best boss-killer in certain encounters (kab, zt)
- Phalanx: brutally good boss killer, supposedly hard to use even though not really (just use spellbind).
- Wyrmshot: the farming skill, very strong.
- Rapid Wyrm: (oskill) it shines as a safe bosskiller for most early/mid content. Such as: QT, jday, belial. And even forest keepers.

Overall it's a really fun and interesting build that isn't really cookie cutter, which is partly what makes it so fun. There's a few niche situations currently where it can excel over other zon builds like hzon, mostly farming p1 places, like teganze (much better) or fauzt. The only current issue with bowa, is that it gets hard-countered in a few places, such as Ureh, and probably bremm. It's annoying, but not a huge deal.


This topic's feedback on bowzon was preceeded by the following statement:
"Bowazons are intended to rely on heavy rainbow damage"

The statement isn't true, and thus it pretty much invalidates all the feedback that follows it. There are no pre-defined rules on how a character is built, you build it the way that yields the best results (or the ones you look for). This means going full physical when we are talking about bowa. Certainly, bowzon historically was built on rainbow damage when pierce MOs existed, but the past is the past. LL is incredibly strong in this build, and replaces the need for reanimates. I also don't really understand how wyrmshot is a "low range" skill. And saying CB nerf neutered bowzon single target is just false, she does great, but most people neglect phalanx+spellbind combo.
xXIchimaruXx
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1: U build full phys dmg on bowa
2: U go paragon




got any items for early game TU's rws anything i can start with ?

would appreciate to know so i can maybe work something out
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Shinoda wrote:
1: U build full phys dmg on bowa
2: U go paragon




got any items for early game TU's rws anything i can start with ?

would appreciate to know so i can maybe work something out


Long war bow TU . Yes its heavy dex requirement but it screams psy dps all over... i did bow ama untwinked in version 1.0 and again in 1.1 and did better then all other chars that i've made so far. Its the best build for all difficulties untwiked untill i hit k3k there i strugguled and didnt bother with the build anymore since it took 60 mins to finish it first time with lots of deaths so i left it there at lvl 117.

Armor sharkbaiter (dont bother with jitan its s***) have koth mace on switch and switch between barage spam for the buff and you will be wreaking havoc dmg , also i didnt like estatic frenzy cuz you just need some def even if its piss poor like 30k with max mo def on gear. Did roughly 6k dps without double buff and about 8k with from tu's and full amethits in sockets only tu's.
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Primarch
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Marco wrote:@Primarch: if you're suggesting HZON needs a better bosskiller, I disagree. Hammerzon currently stands as a pretty high tier build. It doesn't need anything atm, it works fairly cheap, it's super cookie-cutter already as well. I think all builds need to have something to figure out, otherwise, what's the point?

Uldy took about 25-min on first attempt as 130 hzon, playing semi SSF (i used a total 95 TG for danmaku+hele, both which can be replaced by crafts, which are even better for this battle). Anything else (but samael) isnt complicated at all, even laz is really doable (especially getting there).

Surely late lab stage bosses become tricky. Then again this build has so much going for it already, huge def, max block, max %DR, LL. It can jump to p8 farming right away as you're virtually unkillable on any phys-based zones, vizj, fauzt, dunc, you name it.


---

Regarding bowzon, ive also played this considerably this season. There isn't much reason to discuss this build as it's gonna receive considerable changes. However, I don't think it's nearly as bad as everyone made it look. Ive done most of ubers up to 125 included, at which point I respecced to a more tanky build because I wanted to test lab. Here are some of my observations, some of which will remain true after the tree is reworked:

- After cancerous struggle until you get a TU bow, this *has* to be the fastest char to run the 3 difficulties untwinked.
- Cheap as hell
- Probably the fastest movement in the entire game
- Very fun to play because there's so many active skills which shine in diff situations, and rewards proper play (as opposed to xbow nec where you spam vodoo 24/7). For example:
- Sun strike: mostly irrelevant, surprisingly good in places like fauzt however.
- Barrage: the skill for small rooms, also the "get off my face" skill. But also a the best boss-killer in certain encounters (kab, zt)
- Phalanx: brutally good boss killer, supposedly hard to use even though not really (just use spellbind).
- Wyrmshot: the farming skill, very strong.
- Rapid Wyrm: (oskill) it shines as a safe bosskiller for most early/mid content. Such as: QT, jday, belial. And even forest keepers.

Overall it's a really fun and interesting build that isn't really cookie cutter, which is partly what makes it so fun. There's a few niche situations currently where it can excel over other zon builds like hzon, mostly farming p1 places, like teganze (much better) or fauzt. The only current issue with bowa, is that it gets hard-countered in a few places, such as Ureh, and probably bremm. It's annoying, but not a huge deal.


This topic's feedback on bowzon was preceeded by the following statement:
"Bowazons are intended to rely on heavy rainbow damage"

The statement isn't true, and thus it pretty much invalidates all the feedback that follows it. There are no pre-defined rules on how a character is built, you build it the way that yields the best results (or the ones you look for). This means going full physical when we are talking about bowa. Certainly, bowzon historically was built on rainbow damage when pierce MOs existed, but the past is the past. LL is incredibly strong in this build, and replaces the need for reanimates. I also don't really understand how wyrmshot is a "low range" skill. And saying CB nerf neutered bowzon single target is just false, she does great, but most people neglect phalanx+spellbind combo.


Fair point. I do enjoy playing HOZ and there are workarounds. I’m mainly concerned about Spearzons.
HeroicDose
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so i popped a bella and threw a giallarhorn and
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Required Level: 100
Item Level: 120
Physical Resist 5%
+(100 to 150) Life after each Kill
+(15 to 25) Mana after each Kill
(25 to 50)% Bonus to Defense
3% Reanimate as: Random Monster
on just /w my endgame geared hammerzon stuff to see what the playstyle was like. now obviously the equipment choice is far from ideal, but my wyrmshot damage was around 7k and i had 28% LL. however, it seemed like i was barely leeching anything at all and was squishy as all hell in dunc. is that purely because of the equipment, or is bowzon far more dependent on moving and dodging and potting vs being able to regen life and take a few hits?
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Primarch
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HeroicDose wrote:so i popped a bella and threw a giallarhorn and
Lammergeier
Lammergeier
Bolt Quiver (Sacred)

Required Level: 100
Item Level: 120
Physical Resist 5%
+(100 to 150) Life after each Kill
+(15 to 25) Mana after each Kill
(25 to 50)% Bonus to Defense
3% Reanimate as: Random Monster
on just /w my endgame geared hammerzon stuff to see what the playstyle was like. now obviously the equipment choice is far from ideal, but my wyrmshot damage was around 7k and i had 28% LL. however, it seemed like i was barely leeching anything at all and was squishy as all hell in dunc. is that purely because of the equipment, or is bowzon far more dependent on moving and dodging and potting vs being able to regen life and take a few hits?


Of course it’s about dodging and kiting. Life leech can only do so much when you have literally zero damage mitigation.

Zero avoidance.

Zero block.

Zero armor.

Zero organic physical resistance and very limited physical damage resist range in itemization.
Edited by Primarch 4 years.
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Primarch
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Kinda odd that Amazons go from being the only class with an avoid mechanic in CLOD (3 different types as a matter of fact) to having less avoid (zero) than any other class.

Even on class-specific items, Zons have no dodge options outside one item that only grants 5% but reduces your armor to zero. Even bulky and sluggish barbarians have access to crane stance while the Amazon has nothing to indicate she is indeed an agile jungle huntress.

But hey, at least she can summon fire elementals (which, for whatever reason, isn’t even part of some synergistic summoner tree. It’s just randomly placed in their passive tree in lieu of something valuable/necessary for reasons that elude me) (-: