Lv 74 to Fight in Hell is realy hard for some Charas or Builds i got there with pure Shadow Assassin at 80 and it was realy hard an i need good some days to find good play style wich let Mercenary not insta die and myself. As Bow Merc you should have it way more easy because you can kite them the mass kills with let the mobs explode one or two shot came not before you are not 99 and have good endgear. If you play online try to get the Amazone Set complete it change your damag einto magic damage wich helps alot against immuns of the enemys also for the resis and mana. If you are 99 than you can think abaout it to push your Damage to maximum that you have a good wave clear.
Bloodraven never put your focus on the zombies let your valk play with them while you only run away from her mob and focus her the same i did with Assassin shadow clone plays with zombies and me and my Bow Merc Focus Boss. to reach 99 have 25 skill points more its universal diffrence. The most people play first a Chara lass wich can good farm including Hell without Perfekt Gear to farm the stuff for Charas that they later play as Main or farm runes to get per trade there wish gear for starting the main. But its also no fail to go the iron way because than you have way more playtime before you get bored and you learn to handle bad situations and find new ways of leveling wich can in endgame change your mind on equipment combos because you earn some experience that other players never get . A Game works mostly like a coin you have good side and a bad one but if you find a way to put the coin on the knew it opens new ways.
Try to combo with Bow Merc if you are Ice she can be Fire so you can kill everything and having the set allows you also to kill if the enemy have fire and Ice Immuns because you deal Magic Damage also you have two weapons slots wich can be switched while fighting to switch a lightning bow in. You can also cobinate Charms to drive rainbow Damage.
I hope it helps a bit so good luk and put you head out of sand if something dosent work so well.
There is a specific reason for 17 points in Valk. Though right now I can’t remember what it was. I presume it’s the threshold for the best Valk you can get (she is either dressed in Red or Yellow armour I cant remember).
If you show me an area where I could clear in x seconds with level 10 MS, I’ll show you me doing it in a lot less time with level 20 Strafe. No contest - at least with my gear (+6 to skills, Duress chest, 20% IAS clown gloves) and a very fast Harmony in a meh base) which I admit is crap.
The damage difference between those two skills is massive. Let’s assume AR is high enough for you to always hit. One use of MS10 fires 10 Arrows that might hit 10 targets. This costs 13 mana. One use of Strafe20 fires 10 arrows that will hit 10 targets, and each of those is dealing +100% more damage than the MS arrows. This costs 11 mana. And Strafe fires faster if you are spamming. Strafe is far superior even with NHD taken into account.
Anyways, you probably have those 10 points to spare, so it’s no big deal. I personally found I never used MS again once Strafe was online (and yes for a while I had both specced because I was unsure which I preferred mechanically). You won’t die to Strafe’s animation lock if you fire it in the right place and with enough IAS. My Bowazon rarely dies but takes ages to kill things sadly.
She’s full geared at lv 17 but I got plenty +skill Items so she’s lv 22 right now.
I don’t think you can kill anything as fast as with Strafe, just because I can cast Multishot 5 Times while Strafe shoots only 10 targets in the same amount of time.
I always use Multishot to clear the room of most enemys and Strafe does the ones that weren’t in the cone of multishot, the ones with more HP or the ones that just ran away.
Opening with Strafe into a room got me killed often because of the animation lock and multishot just clears the room faster.
A friend has lent me his Buriza until I find something better and I can definitely get on with that.
I still used a skill reset to test the frost / fire build. I expected it to perform better but it somehow caused a lot less damage than the physical build and due to the lower spread of the shots it was a torture to play with it, especially on the controller where you can’t snipe specific enemys, or I can’t do it… perhaps there is a lock-on button like in D3, I have not researched if there is one tbh…
I then used a 2nd reset back to physical again and only skilled Magic Arrow up until it no longer costs mana, but for physically immune opponents I find myself using Kuko Shakaku in the second slot which is doing nicely so far; maybe that will just replace the magic arrow completely, I don’t know yet.
I withdrew points from Guided Shot which I never use and some points from Valkyre as well, and put everything into Penetrate as a test.
I honestly don’t think it was worth it, the difference is strangely small, but the points don’t bother me either since they are not missing anywhere, so I won’t reset a 3rd time right away.
Maybe I overestimate how smooth it should be on Hell and my character is actually not doing that bad.
I can still clear everything in a reasonable amount of time, and I’m going to Act 3 now.
You need a ton of points in Pierce if you go elemental. Did you try that? If you get it high enough (20+), your Arrow pierces every enemy but the elemental explosion also procs for each one hit/pierced. So if there is a group, you will pierce several of them, causing multiple elemental explosions which will hit everyone in that group. If your AR is sufficient, your arrow will hit everyone pierced too for further damage.
That’s all you need to worry about. I personally found Hell a fairly smooth transition for almost every char except my Bowazon, who struggles in comparison with most of my other chars (several Sorcs, Bone Necro, Trapassin, Wind Druid). I also have a Fury Werewolf almost there too but he struggles. I am SSF so my gear is crappy across the board. This doesn’t really affect casters much though.
I used the Buriza since I don’t have any better weapon at the moment. I dropped low on mana very quickly and usually I don’t need any pots. Also I didn’t kill much, I almost died because oom and tried again with the same result so I took the 2nd reset.
Maybe I would’ve needed different Gear, I don’t know.
It’s not that bad, I actually only die when I run into a room and get sniped by a bunch of archers or something, because I’m too lazy to place my Valkyrie in the next room to check.
Some items like Atma’s Scarab or Metalgrid or Raven Frost… or Blood Raven, and it should be fine. But who knows when I will find something I actually need
