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Mageazon Strategy Guide

Introduction

Strafaezons are amazons that use strafe as their main source of offence, frost maidens are cold and ice specialists, multiazon are the masters of multishot, so what are mageazons? They are simply masters of the elements, using hi-powered ice, freezing and immolation arrows to great effects. Lack of physical damage hardly slow them down due to the fantastic damage that they can attain with immolation arrows.

Basic Statistics

2.1 : Initial Statistics

2.2 : Statistic Point Distribution

Strength. Strength is useless to a mageazon, except to fulfil item requirements. The heaviest item the mageazon would probably want should be the magefist (45 str) or at worst, frostburns (60 str).

Dexterity. Most of the damage the mageazon gets would come from the elements rather than physical damage, so dexterity plays a very minor role in adding damage. Also, since elemental arrows always hit, there's no need for attack rating as well. 50 dex for doomslinger (or at worst 60 for a -40% chu-ko-nu) would be more than sufficient.

Vitality.  A newbie bowazon will probably die trying this style of play, so what's left would be the more experienced bowazons. Vitality is of limited use if your enemies are either engaged by your minions, frozen solid or dead before they even reach you.

Energy.  This is the one stats that is the most important to the mageazon. With the need to cast many many immolation / freezing arrows in a row, you simply cannot afford to waste precious time portalling back to town for refills.

Amazon Skills

A mageazon needs very heavy investments in skills in order to become powerful and thus do not have the luxury of wasting points to make life easier in the starting levels.

3.1 : Javelin and Spear Skills

Irrelevant to this style of play.

3.2 : Passive and Magic Skills

Slow Missile (1+).  Your greatest concern would likely to be missile attacks. Having this skill on helps to reduce the number of hits you take. A reasonable skill to pump after you are done with the rest.

Decoy (1).  Valkyrie is a better tank but it doesn't last forever. Decoy makes a cheap target for enemies to hit, prolonging the life of your very expensive valkyrie.

Valkyrie (20).  High level valkyrie costs a bomb to cast out but this shouldn't be a problem for mageazons who have mana aplenty. The huge life bonus of the valkyrie is very important in keeping the enemies stuck in the sea of immolation.

3.3 : Bow and Crossbow Skills

Cold Arrow (1).  The first cold skill you will come across. This will help in slowing down enemy approaches while you wait to get ice arrow.

Ice Arrow (1).  A very good left button skill as it is cheap. If you decide to pump up this skill, the extended freeze duration will also help partly to keep the enemies in check.

Freezing Arrow (20).  Very useful against small bunches of critters where immolation would be overkill. Maggots and leapers are prime targets for this. Also important in keeping enemies stuck in a sea of fire.

Fire Arrow (1).  Your very first combat skill. Though the casting cost may be steep due to low starting mana, the extra damage plays a role in bringing down the bosses quickly.

Exploding Arrow (1).  This skill deals only the fire and explosion damage shown onscreen but is still good enough to take out boss packs while waiting for ice arrow to arrive.

Immolation Arrow (20).  A mageazon cannot survive without this skill. It is the main source of damage with its stacking capability, making it an awesome weapon since you would be able to chain-cast immolation arrows.

Guided Arrow (1+).  Good for boss battles, though damage is virtually non-existent. If you are going the alternative, non-piercing bow route, this would be a reasonable skill to pump eventually.

3.4 : Miscellaneous Prerequisites

Dodge, avoid, evade are not a necessity. With good positioning and slow missile, there should be little stray shots coming at you and slow missile would give you sufficient time to move out of harm's way anyway.

Critical strike, penetrate and pierce are quite useless as well since (i) physical damage is too insignificant, (ii) the shots always hit, (iii) piercing bows should be used anyway.

Mageazon Boutique

4.1 : The Weapon

The most important part of the inventory is the weapon; and among the properties on bows, you would want a piercing bow so that you can save up precious points in pierce and its prerequisites. There are a total of three piercing bows/crossbows and they are:

Doomslinger
	Repeating Crossbow damage :  6-12 frames   :  10 40 strength 50 dexterity	+1 amazon skill piercing attack greatly increased attack speed (+50) +15 life
. Ichorsting
	Crossbow damage :  9-14 frames   :  19 40 strength 33 dexterity	24-32 poison dmg over 3 sec +20 dexterity piercing attack +50 attack rating
. Stormstrike
	Short Battle Bow damage :  5-11 frames   :  13 30 strength 40 dexterity	1-10 lightning damage +8 strength +28 attack rating piercing attack 25% lightning resist

Among the three, ichorsting is the most useless due to its total lack of speed. Stormstrike is a better choice for starters due to its better attack ratings and additional lightning damage. However, at higher levels, the bonus to strength and +attack rating becomes irrelevant. Lightning resist and lightning damage also has less effects than doomslinger's +1 amazon skill and +15 life.

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After about 60 levels, the bulk of the skills would have been maxed out and you might want the option of higher damage. By pumping up piercing, you might be able to give up the unique bows and convert to a rare bow with higher damage potential instead. Fast bows with low requirements (shown below) make good choices.

For properties, look out for +2 amazon skills, enhanced damage, increased weapon speed, +cold damage and mana steal. Of course, it is virtually important to find a bow with all that stuff thrown in, but such a bow would definitely be very complementary to this style of play at higher levels, when you decide you want to add some piercing to your skills.

One last alternative is the Vidala's Rig set, which has "piercing attack" as a set bonus. This will be covered later in section 4.5.

4.2 : Armors and Helms

All other non-bow items in use must somehow supplement the mageazon's ability to kill the enemies. These include +skill to make immolation more powerful, +mana to give more firepower, mana regeneration for the same purpose or resistance to protect the mageazon from harmful elements.

For headgear, it is best to find a low requirement helm with +mana, resistances and perhaps hit recovery. Armor rating is really quite irrelevant as the low strength does not allow for any heavy duty stuff. One unique headgear stands out - Tarnhelm - for its +1 skill which is totally invaluable.

Tarnhelm
	Skull Cap defence    :  10 durability :  90 15 strength	+1 skill 75% extra gold from monsters 50% better chance of magical items

For armor, the only armor that gives +1 skill is silks of the victor, which is totally out of the question with its hefty 100 strength requirements. What's left are uniques that give resistance, mana regeneration or mana. Four uniques make my list this time and each have their own strengths.

Greyform
	Quilted Armor defence    :  09 durability :  100 12 strength	magical damage decreased by 3 20% cold resist 20% fire resist +10 dexterity 5% life stolen per hit
Blinkbat
	Leather Armor defence    :  16 durability :  160 15 strength	+16 defence against missile fast run / walk +25 defence +3-6 fire damage
Darkglow
	Chain Mail defence    :  47 durability :  130 36 strength	+20 to attack rating +5% each maximum resistance +3 light radius +25 defence per missile +10 to each resistance
Heavenly Garb
	Light Plate defence    :  200+ durability :  255 41 strength	enhcance defence +10 to each resistance 25% faster mana regeneration

4.3 : Clothing Accessories

With regards to belts, there are little good uniques around and it might be just the place to get the resistance you need for hell difficulty, you can also try to get +cold damage on some rare belts too. Three uniques are rather decent for the mageazons though...

Lenymo
	Sash defence    :  2 durability :  60	+15 mana 30% faster mana regeneration 5% resist all +1 light radius
Nightsmoke
	Belt defence    :  5 durability :  80 25 strength	10% resist all 50% damage taken goes to mana +20 mana damage reduced by 2
Goldwrap
	Heavy Belt defence    :  46 durability :  100 45 strength	30% better chance of magic items +2 light radius enhanced defence slightly increased attack speed (+10)

For gloves, only two unique stands out and both demands to be used over rare gloves. Of course you can use rare gloves but few, if any at all, will match the bonuses that these two fantastic gloves can provide.

Magefist
	Light Gauntlet defence    :  10 durability :  90 45 strength	faster cast rate 25% faster mana regeneration +1 to fire skills +1-5 fire damage
Frostburns
	Belt defence    :  44 durability :  120 60 strength	enhanced defence +40% max mana +1-6 cold damage cold duration: 2 seconds

Boots are better off rare than unique since only Treads of Cthlon is decent and even then a tireless boots of speed functions much like it. So a pair of boots with good resistance and fastest run/walk would be excellent for the mageazon.

Treads of Cthlon
	Chain Boots defence    :  8 durability :  80 30 strength	fastest run/walk +50 defence vs missiles 50% stamina drain +10 life

4.4 : Rings and Amulets

There can be only one amulet for a mageazon - a 10-12 second Eye of Etlich. This hidden cold value can be found by stripping naked (except the Eye) and bonking a monster in normal difficulty, counting to see how long it takes to thaw.

Eye of Etlich
	Amulet 2nd unique amulet	+10-20 defence vs missiles +1-3 light radius +1 to all skills 3-7% life steal +1-3 cold damage cold duration: 2-12 seconds
The Stone of Jordan
	Ring 3rd unique ring	+20 mana +25% max mana +1-12 lightning damage +1 to all skills

The Stone of Jordan, with its +1 skills and much added max mana, makes a very good ring and if you feel that you can live with lower resist, i would recommend getting x2 stones. But if resist is a problem, one stone can easily be substituted for a ring of similar value.

4.5 : Vidala's Rig

Vidala's Rig is a bow-armor-boots-amulet set with "piercing attack" as one of its set bonuses. A level 14 set, it's not all that bad if everything about the set works out as it is said to be.

Vidala's Ambush
	Leather Armor defence    :  65 durability :  48 15 strength	enhanced defence +11 dexterity
Vidala's Barb
	Long Battle Bow damage :  3-18 frames   :  15 40 strength 50 dexterity	+1-20 lightning damage
Vidala's Fletlocks
	Light Plated Boots defence    :  9 durability :  30 50 strength	+150 max stamina fastest run/walk
Vidala's Snare
	Amulet	+15 life 20% cold resist

Set bonus gives (i) piercing attack, (ii) freezes target, and (iii) enhanced damage. How much of these are actually functioning, i have not idea. All i know is that piercing works. But i think 4 items just to get piercing is too much, especially since you have to give up the amulet slot as well.

Character Development

5.1 : [clvl 01-10]  Birth

Starting a mageazon would be no different from any other bowazon, except that you seek 40 strength and 50 dexterity as soon as possible. Assuming no +str / +dex items are used, this will be attained at level 10. Since there is no difference from any bowazon, i won't go into details as it should be quite straight forward.

5.2 : [clvl 10-24]  Adolescence

These next eight levels will be waiting for ice arrow to appear. Using the doomslinger and exploding arrow or fire arrow, there should be little things standing in your way. Andariel will be the first test of your skills. Banish her easily with your fire and exploding arrows. Act II should likewise be of little problems for a bowazon since there is very little ranged attackers in the region (except perhaps those pesky skeletal archers, which you can match them arrow for arrow). Once ice arrow has arrived, it can be used to frost shatter the enemies in Tal Rasha's Tomb to prevent the animators from animating them again. Throughout these long and painful 24 levels, you should not invest more than 1 point into any skills no matter how tempting it may be, because once you reach level 30, you would likely be investing 3 points per levels, into immolation, freezing and valkyrie. Bear with the pains and pump your energy sky high, because at higher difficulty, you are going to need all the mana you can get.

5.3 : [clvl 24-30]  Young Adult

Compared to the previous period, this is a much shorter wait. Immolation and decoy would be your new toy. If you have yet to clear Act II by now, this will be a good time to do it. Hire a mercenary and enter Duriel's chamber... try to get decoy and merc to live as long as possible while you hurl all sorts of abuse at Duriel. Unless you are a proficient player, expect a beating here. Duriel is the most difficult opponent other than Diablo for a mageazon, mainly because of his holy freeze aura and the lack of space to perform hit and run. However, it can be done and once you enter Act III, gaining the necessary experience to get to level 30 should be of little problems. The skill points gained in this stage will go to immolation arrow, your most lethal weapon. Adding more to energy will set you up with enough mana to start chain-casting immolations. It is certainly possible to clear Act III  in this period.

5.4 : [clvl 30-43]  Adulthood

From level 30, the inclusion of freezing arrow and valkyrie, makes you much stronger since you now have two very steady means of getting monsters to stay in the immolation firewalls. If you are not done yet, Act III should be a breeze and for the council, stand outside the temple, cast a valkyrie in the temple to draw their attention and a decoy outside to help take the hydra bolts, and you can just immolate away! For normal difficulty, this should be cleared with ease. Mephistos posed little problems and will die quickly to your immolation arrows. Diablo will be your next major test. Hit and run tactics did the job for me, with either immolations or freezing arrows. And for a period of time, i somehow got Diablo stuck in a position where his lightning inferno and streams of fire all pass harmlessly through me and i just threw everything i've got at him. Burned up 75% of his life in that way and scored a relatively easy victory. For the skills, i would recommend pumping immolation to max during this period and distribute the rest between FA and valkyrie. Remember not to overspend on FA and valkyrie or you might just fall short. For me, i ended up with max immolation, level 14 valkyrie and 10 FA iirc. By then, i was already in hell / act II.

5.5 : [clvl 43-61]  Maturity

By the time you reach level 43, you should be an expert in targeting and positioning, so there's little need to stay more. Throughout this current phase, it's the time i maxed out my valkyrie, freezing and immolation arrow, finally reaching the pinnacle at level 61 (72 skill points needed). Halfway through this stage, i did my baroness run and at the end of the phase i was already very powerful.

5.6 : [clvl 61-99]  Veteran

Erhmm... what more do you want. With this setup, my little 9-18 damage doomslinger was annihilating hordes of monsters at hell difficulty. So who says that doomslinger can only function in normal and early nightmare?

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