


Because the bowazon’s damage output is also tied to dexterity, she can spend most of her points on it. As we saw in the section on dexterity, the stat’s contribution to hit rating is considerable if the player chooses to stack a lot of it. (Technically, the javazon can also employ a Valkyrie, but the greater range of the bowazon makes the Valkyrie a little more useful for the latter build.) The bowazon’s other advantage is her ability to gain two benefits from dexterity. At high levels, the Valkyrie is hearty enough that it can even tank bosses for a reasonable amount of time, although it has trouble controlling boss aggro. The bowazon even gets to add the extra protection of having the beefy Valkyrie minion to distract enemies. The bowazon, like the Traps assassin and the sorceress, can sit back at quite a distance, and enjoy the safety that distance affords. Even the javazon has to be fairly close to reliably hit with her lightning spells. The druid has to be at the center of his Hurricane. The paladin has to be at the center of his target area when casting the Blessed Hammer. As we’ll see with several classes, ranged attacks in Diablo 2 are not all equal in effective distance. The great, intrinsic advantages of the bowazon are her long range and the fact that she gains two benefits from dexterity. Unfortunately, Diablo 2 is not the kind of game which relies on those things, and so the bowazon ends up a little underpowered relative to her peers. Overview: The bowazon is built on classical RPG checks and balances. Synergies: Poor, top-level skills only gain moderate damage from one other skill, and there aren’t enough skill points to spare to take advantage of it Part One Continued: Character Class Overview Amazonīuilds: 2 – Bowazon (uses bows and the bow/crossbow skill tree) and Javazon (uses javelins and the javelin skill tree)īuild strength:Long range, two benefits from dexterityīuild weakness: Low damage, no spells, too many skills to invest in
