As someone who really enjoys melee builds i use Harmony all the time, either as a switch for the aura or on a Rogue Merc. Werewolf Druid + Harmony Rogue is probably one of my favorite trick as it makes you zoom across the map. Does a decent amount of damage too specially if your merc is buffed by both Treachery and Demon Limb. Obviously not BIS or anything but worth mentioning for SSF or early ladder.
yea, power for cost, Harmony 100% hits that 'sweet spot' - it's not overpowered for cost like spirit, nor underpowered for cost like gloom - for me it is kind of one of the "gold standards" for what a runeword should be like (a custom made unique, in a power scaled to the rarity of runes)
I think a really useful following video would be for mace runewords, as well as mentioning the difference between hammers, maces, clubs, and staves for runeword purposes. Would likely help reduce a lot of the mix-ups.
Just wanted to stop and say thank you. I was having some real trouble with damage and clearing and then I saw you recommend harmony to which I had the runes for. This helped me greatly as I was still using Kuko Shakaku as I had nothing better for a looong time.
If you happen to find an eth lance ... honor is awesome. You can equip it from ~ 27ish for your merc and is a great late norm/nightmare weapon if you don't need insight.
Another note about Harmony: The +fire damage & +cold damage makes it an extremely effective weapon for low-level magezons, since that damage is added to the explosion radius of freezing/exploding/immolation arrow as well. That means the damage is at least doubled every time you use the associated elemental skill. For the level requirement of 39 (if it's in a lower level base than what you show in the video), 110-320 extra single target damage and 55-160 extra radial damage is certainly nothing to scoff at.
it's more just fringe builds - though you will likely see Wrath gain popularity in 2.4 with some of the changes to act 1 mercenaries - since it's another good source of decrepify. As far as Wrath builds, it's more gimmicks than primary builds, still fun, but yea - not a super common video subject.
Bowadin loves you Wrath because cannot be frozen frees up ring slot AND armor slot (though I can rock Hawkmail as a Tigulated until then...) unfortunately expensive as hell.
In 2001 I had a windy bowazon, got her to level 99. In version 1.09 or 1.10 I'm not sure which, they changed the way pierce works and basically crippled bows. I started playing again 3 years ago and I've made a few javazons and they are one of the most fun builds in he game (expensive though due to mercs infinity).
yup, that nerf pretty much dropped buriza's value by a massive amount - nowadays I've become pretty stuck on strafe for my bowazon, still strong enough with the right gear to be fun - nowhere near as strong as the bowazaon hayday though.
@@ryu-ken People always focus on that, but that isn't just the issue. Back then 100% pierce meant your multishot arrow would continue piercing. Now it'll pierce the first monster, hit the 2nd monster and be destroyed. Bows dps is pathetic, but the mechanical changes they made have destroyed the build.
I've always had a soft spot for silence as it was one of the original runewords before the OP runewords came in 1.10. Offers so much utility and a very safe option for a HC playthrough with blind, flee and resist. Grab like a cleglaws glove to get slow and knockback and nothing is going to even come close to threatening you. It is not too hard to make also. You can gather enough runes from hell countess and use the cube to get the runes fairly quickly. Finding a good base weapon will probably take longer than the runes if playing self found.
If nothing else, an upped Goldstrike can get you pretty far. Definitely +1 for the Witchwild String. Some of the uniques are harder to find than the base bows and runes, though.
There's actually a lot of "good enough" unique bows/crossbows - though "best" kind of depends on your build - obviously the 3 mentioned are nice (Windforce, Witchwild String, Goldstrike), Buriza is still fun with multishot even though the guided nerf reduced its power significantly. For me unique bows are sort of the 'stepping stones' up to the runewords - so it doesn't bother me to use stuff like cliffkiller, riphook, or magewrath either... that said, what bow you choose varies depending on if you're strafe, multishot, cold, or fire...
@@Alzorath Thanks. Even though Guided is sub-par these days, I want to do Ice Arrow 20 and Freezing Arrow 20 and Guided 20. not sure about valk vs strafe. I never liked the strafe animation even though its better than GA.
i remember using zephyr in my offline coop play with my buddy, it was pretty decent in normal up until i could get harmony and then later swapping that for faith. good times.
if it's got a decent amount of natural plus skills it can be fine - there's far worse weapons to put it in (if you plan on potentially using it on a rogue - a Great Bow may be a better choice)
I really wanted to make a CTA out of a +3 GMB … doesn’t seem like it would be entirely bad and if you don’t have a better bow and only have an Ohm rune you can’t make ice or faith anyways so seems like a decent option 🤷🏻♂️
@@TheDazeez I'm just saying you should make a harmony instead of a bow CTA if you're looking for a bow upgrade. It does the same sort of damage, is much cheaper and gives you elemental damage, valkyrie and faster running speed. You will of course need to find a 4 socket bow for this. CTA in a bow doesn't get the benefits of +skills from a shield, and in an amazon only bow prevents the CTA from being used in any other character class (which arguably CTA is more valuable for other classes). As for your 5 socket bow, there are no decent runewords for a 5 socket bow, so selling it won't get you much. You can hang onto it in case patch 2.4 introduces some awesome 5 socket runewords for bows. I funnily enough found a 5 socket shadow bow with +15%ed and +3 attack rating yesterday, and will be handing onto this for that reason.
The problem is the occupy 2 item slots. Arrows should be at least magical, maybe even rare and unique. Not too powerful, just a little something. Coral Arrows of Propogation Lightning Resist +22% Replenishes Quantity
@@Tumasch That could have been done if they had skipped the arrows and made quivers for the off hand as in D3. Necromancer off hands can take shield runewords, imagine if you could do that to a quiver.
honestly, not a huge fan of prebuffing in general for most the things I do, so I tend not to carry it around with me, just have it as an option for tougher runs (prebuff, then toss in stash and grab my normal swap - since most the runs aren't long enough to expire the cries anyways, at least not between town trips)
Eh... My Faith bowazon handles players 7 hell fairly well... I think the issue is expectations and need - there's very little need to p5, much less p8 for killing stuff, since the only real bonus it gives is XP and to some, bragging rights - not any proper functional benefit.
@@Alzorath I guess, likely I don't have the surrounding gear and or charms. Regarding the need to players 8, well I mostly play in open games doing runs so most times 8 players in the game.
"already" being about 7 years of on-camera playthroughs and some of my old save files off an old harddrive :) - you can transfer in your old single player files, in fact I'm still in the process of unloading my GoMule on to characters for single player.
@@Alzorath "for clearing areas I prefer stacking damage boosting auras" Its situational I mean if you get attacked by boss pack that curses you and also have crazy mods like extra fast then Edge or bramble or both become pretty viable since monsters themselves will literally killed themselves pretty fast before your skeletons make a swing. Thorns aura on a Nero is very suprising because it scales up. Sure monsters themselves don't deal that amount of damage compared to their HP however the frequancy of boss packs with fearsome mods is pretty high. I remember the first time I was in hell with Edge Necro and I was literally looking for boss packs with cursed mod since the duration in hell is long.
@@Alzorath indeed especially on the amazon bows... great runewords are only available in 4 sockets also the 6 socket runeword here are not for amazon bows...😅😅😅
With the improved Rune Drop rates (started in 1.13), they're nowhere near as bad as they used to be to make... still rough, but "feasible" - pre 1.13 most of these were like yacht expensive... now they're more on the level of car expensive.
Not sure what you're asking, there is one bow with ber, and it is never mentioned as a budget merc item (it's in the niche use, and is explicitly mentioned as being post-game)
Personally when it comes to low/cheap bow runewords I REALLY like how Insight has been made into a bow.
As someone who really enjoys melee builds i use Harmony all the time, either as a switch for the aura or on a Rogue Merc. Werewolf Druid + Harmony Rogue is probably one of my favorite trick as it makes you zoom across the map. Does a decent amount of damage too specially if your merc is buffed by both Treachery and Demon Limb.
Obviously not BIS or anything but worth mentioning for SSF or early ladder.
yea, power for cost, Harmony 100% hits that 'sweet spot' - it's not overpowered for cost like spirit, nor underpowered for cost like gloom - for me it is kind of one of the "gold standards" for what a runeword should be like (a custom made unique, in a power scaled to the rarity of runes)
I think a really useful following video would be for mace runewords, as well as mentioning the difference between hammers, maces, clubs, and staves for runeword purposes. Would likely help reduce a lot of the mix-ups.
I'll be addressing that for sure in the Mace/Hammer/Club videos (they'll be separate videos), contemplating adding it to Stave/Scepter/Wand videos.
Fortitude is cheap enough for my bowadin that I'd use it for armor AND bow.
Just wanted to stop and say thank you. I was having some real trouble with damage and clearing and then I saw you recommend harmony to which I had the runes for. This helped me greatly as I was still using Kuko Shakaku as I had nothing better for a looong time.
In 2.4, it looks like we'll be able to do Insight bows too, which might just beat out harmony for a few builds :)
Thank you, I've been looking for a quick rune word video that wasn't 30 mins long. Subbed
If you happen to find an eth lance ... honor is awesome. You can equip it from ~ 27ish for your merc and is a great late norm/nightmare weapon if you don't need insight.
Had no idea bows/crossbows couldn’t be ethereal
Next weapon type: Staff (Let's see where this path leads. Might even make Sunwuko proud...)
Another note about Harmony: The +fire damage & +cold damage makes it an extremely effective weapon for low-level magezons, since that damage is added to the explosion radius of freezing/exploding/immolation arrow as well. That means the damage is at least doubled every time you use the associated elemental skill. For the level requirement of 39 (if it's in a lower level base than what you show in the video), 110-320 extra single target damage and 55-160 extra radial damage is certainly nothing to scoff at.
Hi @Alzorath, great video! What are the edge builds for Wrath? I was hoping you would mention them :)
it's more just fringe builds - though you will likely see Wrath gain popularity in 2.4 with some of the changes to act 1 mercenaries - since it's another good source of decrepify. As far as Wrath builds, it's more gimmicks than primary builds, still fun, but yea - not a super common video subject.
for boss fight which is probably the worst as a bow zon wrath is so good very underrated bow
Wow....this is what i was looking for. The only such material about runewords for the bow. Greetings from Poland. Thanks and sub.
I have a question, Can Harmony be created in regular game modes in D2R? I've read somewhere that's its ladder only.
yes, "ladder only" applies only to LoD, not D2R :)
An update, it works on regular D2R not ladder mode, they say that ladder words not longer are ladder only.
nice video and explanation just one minor mention, a botd 15 ed sup hydra kills everything there in pvm except the faith (but very close to it)
Bowadin loves you Wrath because cannot be frozen frees up ring slot AND armor slot (though I can rock Hawkmail as a Tigulated until then...) unfortunately expensive as hell.
In 2001 I had a windy bowazon, got her to level 99. In version 1.09 or 1.10 I'm not sure which, they changed the way pierce works and basically crippled bows. I started playing again 3 years ago and I've made a few javazons and they are one of the most fun builds in he game (expensive though due to mercs infinity).
Yeah back in the day pierce+guided arrow was dope af. And also all the hexes made bowazons awesome as heck
yup, that nerf pretty much dropped buriza's value by a massive amount - nowadays I've become pretty stuck on strafe for my bowazon, still strong enough with the right gear to be fun - nowhere near as strong as the bowazaon hayday though.
@@Alzorath good old noob cannon
@@ryu-ken People always focus on that, but that isn't just the issue. Back then 100% pierce meant your multishot arrow would continue piercing. Now it'll pierce the first monster, hit the 2nd monster and be destroyed. Bows dps is pathetic, but the mechanical changes they made have destroyed the build.
I've always had a soft spot for silence as it was one of the original runewords before the OP runewords came in 1.10. Offers so much utility and a very safe option for a HC playthrough with blind, flee and resist. Grab like a cleglaws glove to get slow and knockback and nothing is going to even come close to threatening you. It is not too hard to make also. You can gather enough runes from hell countess and use the cube to get the runes fairly quickly. Finding a good base weapon will probably take longer than the runes if playing self found.
What are the best non-runeword bows for bow Amazons? The good ones her are beyond me but I can farm for some unique bows. Which unique bows are good?
Windforce
Witchwild string . Is a solid bow. You can Google for a guide revolving around this amazing bow
If nothing else, an upped Goldstrike can get you pretty far.
Definitely +1 for the Witchwild String. Some of the uniques are harder to find than the base bows and runes, though.
There's actually a lot of "good enough" unique bows/crossbows - though "best" kind of depends on your build - obviously the 3 mentioned are nice (Windforce, Witchwild String, Goldstrike), Buriza is still fun with multishot even though the guided nerf reduced its power significantly.
For me unique bows are sort of the 'stepping stones' up to the runewords - so it doesn't bother me to use stuff like cliffkiller, riphook, or magewrath either... that said, what bow you choose varies depending on if you're strafe, multishot, cold, or fire...
@@Alzorath Thanks. Even though Guided is sub-par these days, I want to do Ice Arrow 20 and Freezing Arrow 20 and Guided 20. not sure about valk vs strafe. I never liked the strafe animation even though its better than GA.
i remember using zephyr in my offline coop play with my buddy, it was pretty decent in normal up until i could get harmony and then later swapping that for faith.
good times.
I really love Harmony, just perfect as a weapon slot for any build that doesn't use it for better things (like CtA or a temp MF swap)
Weirdly, I think the change to Insight is going to make it my preferred SSF bow over harmony in 2.4 - but yea, harmony was great for a mid-tier bow.
Insight will be used a lot in 2.4 on bows.
Excellent and clear explanation, great video 👍
So it is possible to roll a +3 bow skills on a regular grand matron bow or matriarchal bow?
yup, and the amazon spears/javs can get +3 spear/javelin
@@Alzorath I dropped a +2 grand matron, still no +3 yet
Another Bow brother!!! Glad to see it's not only me XD
What bow would you say is best for pvp? Faith or Windforce
depends on the rules of the pvp matches... banning knockback isn't unheard of.
Is matriarchal bow worth making faith in?
if it's got a decent amount of natural plus skills it can be fine - there's far worse weapons to put it in (if you plan on potentially using it on a rogue - a Great Bow may be a better choice)
I also love Ice tbh.
why you dont show mist boy ? best on slot if you ask me
because I'm not a time traveler.
Wrath - the most underrated runeword
I love bowazons and hate them at the same time . They are so hard to get through even basic places with the proper gear ...
They're a bit finnicky to get used to - but they do pack a lot of underestimated power.
Made a Faith in a +3 GM bow for my Strafer... undeniably the best bow.
yea, arguably best in slot, especially if you get a good roll
@@schwann145 👍
I know, but with my build, Faith actually works better.
Oh harmony. Vigor and Gives you a valk and revive minions. Super kool
I really wanted to make a CTA out of a +3 GMB … doesn’t seem like it would be entirely bad and if you don’t have a better bow and only have an Ohm rune you can’t make ice or faith anyways so seems like a decent option 🤷🏻♂️
not a huge fan of that, but it's not as uncommon as some people would think
@@Alzorath love your content though! Thanks for the reply!
Make a harmony in a GMB or MB and save those nice runes for something else 👍
@@Bowazon I can’t… I said it was a 5 socket bow… my only option is CTA or sell the bow… that’s it and why I was wondering if it was worth it
@@TheDazeez I'm just saying you should make a harmony instead of a bow CTA if you're looking for a bow upgrade. It does the same sort of damage, is much cheaper and gives you elemental damage, valkyrie and faster running speed. You will of course need to find a 4 socket bow for this.
CTA in a bow doesn't get the benefits of +skills from a shield, and in an amazon only bow prevents the CTA from being used in any other character class (which arguably CTA is more valuable for other classes).
As for your 5 socket bow, there are no decent runewords for a 5 socket bow, so selling it won't get you much. You can hang onto it in case patch 2.4 introduces some awesome 5 socket runewords for bows. I funnily enough found a 5 socket shadow bow with +15%ed and +3 attack rating yesterday, and will be handing onto this for that reason.
Brand should have had amplify dmg on hit for being usefull
I think bows are very underrated, they just have such low physical damage.
The problem is the occupy 2 item slots. Arrows should be at least magical, maybe even rare and unique. Not too powerful, just a little something.
Coral Arrows of Propogation
Lightning Resist +22%
Replenishes Quantity
@@Tumasch That could have been done if they had skipped the arrows and made quivers for the off hand as in D3. Necromancer off hands can take shield runewords, imagine if you could do that to a quiver.
Once built right, they're not too bad. Are you trying to build one at the moment?
Very Nice, I was wondering how a botd would do in a 6 soc cross bow, but seems Faith is the way to go thanks
I actually think CTA isn't the worst to make for Javazons, if they want to have a Magic Arrow swap. But definitely an edge case.
honestly, not a huge fan of prebuffing in general for most the things I do, so I tend not to carry it around with me, just have it as an option for tougher runs (prebuff, then toss in stash and grab my normal swap - since most the runs aren't long enough to expire the cries anyways, at least not between town trips)
Silence has allres I love allres! 75% kills the entire penalty for Hell!
Bows and crossbows are the same when it comes to rune words?
Yup, sadly no crossbow specific or even amazon specific
@@Alzorath Well i imagine it would be hard wielding an Amazon as a weapon... XD
I'm currently struggling through nightmare with only a valkyrie and edge
Are these great on a act 1 mercenary?
Act 1 has mercenaries?
some of them are for sure.
@@fartdonkey8290 the bow lady
@@egalitarius8582 they suck
botd crusader bow is awesome imo, the attack speed is so fun to see
Botd an add a act1 faith merc get that thing shooting fast
I use zephyr on almost every character even sorc as a weapon swap for the 20% movespeed.
Faith is the first option for Amazons, with Harmony as a decent second.
So what about insight? no mention of that.. 🤔
It's right there next to the time machine.
I wish that Xbow and bows were actually good though :S
Even with decent geared WF bowa I could barely manage players 1
Eh... My Faith bowazon handles players 7 hell fairly well... I think the issue is expectations and need - there's very little need to p5, much less p8 for killing stuff, since the only real bonus it gives is XP and to some, bragging rights - not any proper functional benefit.
@@Alzorath I guess, likely I don't have the surrounding gear and or charms.
Regarding the need to players 8, well I mostly play in open games doing runs so most times 8 players in the game.
faith merc changes the game immensely.
How TF do you already have all the high runes.
"already" being about 7 years of on-camera playthroughs and some of my old save files off an old harddrive :) - you can transfer in your old single player files, in fact I'm still in the process of unloading my GoMule on to characters for single player.
@@Alzorath Dude that's so cool you can keep your old D2 chars. Makes a lot of sense :D
Edge on offhand summon necro is coo.
can also stack it with bramble on a rogue, though reflect damage is best for bosses, for clearing areas I prefer stacking damage boosting auras
@@Alzorath
"for clearing areas I prefer stacking damage boosting auras"
Its situational I mean if you get attacked by boss pack that curses you and also have crazy mods like extra fast then Edge or bramble or both become pretty viable since monsters themselves will literally killed themselves pretty fast before your skeletons make a swing. Thorns aura on a Nero is very suprising because it scales up. Sure monsters themselves don't deal that amount of damage compared to their HP however the frequancy of boss packs with fearsome mods is pretty high.
I remember the first time I was in hell with Edge Necro and I was literally looking for boss packs with cursed mod since the duration in hell is long.
edge is op if you want kill dclone on sp as a sorc or assasin
Brand, fellas. Brand
Edge and Zephyr are the best for the cost
I'd agree on the Edge thing... Zephyr, is "good enough" for the cost, but usually you'll find a rare that'll do about as good by then.
@@Alzorath Zephyr adds 30 defense! I like that
In swedish, "eld" means fire. :D
gonna have 2 go stock up on some Eld, ha ha.
Thanks 😊
there's not a lot of runeword for a 5 socket bow😢😢😢😢
I really wish they had more broadly useful bow runewords in general - most the big ones are very very niche...
@@Alzorath indeed especially on the amazon bows... great runewords are only available in 4 sockets also the 6 socket runeword here are not for amazon bows...😅😅😅
Hmm they might add some in future patches. Probably should pick up those white superior bows now just in case...
@@Alzorath haha just found a superior +15% Ed +3 ar shadow bow with...5 sockets today. God I hope they make a nice 5s bow runeword in the future...
Favorite runeword: Shael+Shael+Shael+Shael+Shael+Shael :D
Funnily enough, I do have a Shaelx6 polearm for a video I didn't end up making :P
@@Alzorath Haha ;D
Nah give me my BoTD crusader bow
LOL “somewhat expensive”
With the improved Rune Drop rates (started in 1.13), they're nowhere near as bad as they used to be to make... still rough, but "feasible" - pre 1.13 most of these were like yacht expensive... now they're more on the level of car expensive.
I would love to have my budget merc with a ber rune. wtf. Like honestly wtf. Something fishy is going on .
Not sure what you're asking, there is one bow with ber, and it is never mentioned as a budget merc item (it's in the niche use, and is explicitly mentioned as being post-game)
U gotta B lvl 62 4 that Venom tho, juz sayin.
for the one in the video yes, Venom has a minimum level req of 49 though, which is still pretty rough.
Fuck yea
Wow they are reall overpriced
Jah is pronounced Yah. I'm trying to spread the word of Jah
Nah 😉😉😉
@@Bowazon old Norse doesnt use the sound of an english J. Jotunheim is pronounced yotunheim for example.
@@maximos905 Aah 😉