What is the best way to obtain dualmax weapons?

[blackduck]

I decided to try Eastern Sun again after a while. I started all over again untwinked and since pretty much all my characters were spellcasters I want to use physical weapons now. I'm planning on doing a multishot/strafer amazon as I liked them in the vanilla d2. Since I eventually want to reach high, dualmax rares seem to be the absolute choise over unique weapons.

First I'll have to choose my base item. Grand Matron Bow lurks in my mind being an obvious choise and it seems to be so when comparing to other bows but crossbows appear to be far superior to it when it comes to raw damage. Both Odysseus Crossbow and Assassin Crossbow (it's just name and it's not class specific item?) do beat GMB hands down. At least in the vanilla Strafers didn't really need skill points as they gave so little reward after all the off-weapon enhanced damage. Unless that is totally different in ES I'll just have to drop GMB.

Assassin Crossbow and Odysseus Crossbow seem to be more tied. OC has clearly more attack power but the wsm -40 of AC cannot be ignored. However IAS can be d-stoned so I wouldn't think that getting enough of it would be impossible for best possible Strafe / Multishot frames even with wsm 0. Especially if I'm going to get 900% ed on it. I really haven't gone into details yet on if wsm 0 is too slow in the end so give some feedback.

Code: Select all

Reflex Bow/Ceremonial Bow    (qlvl 27/52) -> Grand Matron Bow  (dmg 27-80,  avg 53.5, wsm 10 )
Heavy Crossbow/Balista       (qlvl 24/49) -> Odysseus Crossbow (dmg 61-105, avg 83,   wsm 0  )
Repeating Crossbow/Chu-Ko-Nu (qlvl 28/53) -> Assassin Crossbow (dmg 50-88,  avg 69,   wsm -40)

After I've chosen my base item I'll have to find out how to obtain Screaming and Fool's at it. I think that I have 2 good options:

1. Crafting
2. Gambling

I'll go into crafting first. None of the Legacy recipes seem to add anything that can't be added with d-stoning (unless 2 sockets cannot be gotten otherwise). One can skill forge unique jewels and get +2 class skills out of those 2 sockets of legacycraft or just pull additional enhanced damage in addition to the d-stoned 900%. Right? Class crafts don't really seem too impressive on non-class weapons except the barbarian craft which gives quaranteed 10-30% deadly strike which can't be d-stoned and is quite nice in my opinion. Although Critical Strike and Deadly strike on my other gear should grant me enough even without it too. Setting up the crafting seems to be a bit more work than just gamble them as I'd pretty much have to gamble magic weapons first and after that it would cost me Rune+Blemished/Perfect gem+D.stone which adds some price for each roll. My resources are far from endless so this actually can be a major drawback.

If I gamble I always have that 30% chance to hit a rare which can be a dualmax weapon as long as it can get lvl 50 affixes (Screaming + Fool's). There is few options for me at this point: NM Gambling Chits, Hell Gambling Chits and original Gambling. I briefly glanced the affix and suffix lists and it seems that it would help me getting a dualmax if I stick with the lowest possible ilvl items that can spawn those lvl 50 mods as there was some lvl 51+ mods. I think I could achieve this by levelling up a specific character for gambling (would lvl 55 be alright or do qlvl or some other modifiers come into play?) I don't know if it would be cheaper or more expensive to gamble when comparing to buying nm chits (that are ilvl 65 and can probably spawn more affixes than ilvl 50-59 items).

When going through suffixes I found this "of Aurora" that seems amazing modifier. Unless there is some restrictions, if I would be insanely lucky, I could spawn a rare with dualmax AND one of those nice auras. Protection from Evil (lvl 78) seems to be quite awesome, Might would be at least equally cool and Fanaticism would blow my mind. I suppose PfE and Might could spawn from Hell Chits and Fanaticism would require gambled items as it has lvl of 88 and Hell chits give only 85. Getting them would be very expensive. In addition to that all of those auras do have VERY big variance in their level ranges. PfE with lvl 1 and radius of 2 yards doesn't seem that impressive. Might and Fanaticism would do their trick even at lower levels but those can probably be obtained from somewhere else. In the end I guess that having this ridiculously low chance to spawn a dualmax with any of those three auras is not worth it when taking the cost for each roll in account.

In conclusion:

1. Should I go for Odysseus Crossbow, Assassin Crossbow or am I overlooking some aspect of Grand Matron Bow?
2. Is getting guaranteed 2 sockets OR 10-30% Deadly Strike worth all the Runes+Gems / Gems+D.Stones crafting would eat?
3. Would I save gold if I had that lvl 55 (or any other level required for those good affixes on all gambled Heavy or Repeating Crossbows) instead of buying ilvl 65 Chits at NM?
4. Am I completely off on this matter? If yes where should I look?

Sorry about the longish read. I tend to write walls of text.

[Blinn]

1. I personally prefer the Grand Matron Bow over a crossbow. IIRC strafe using a crossbow simply doesn't reach the lower framerates as a bow, the lowest firing rate on bows is simply faster than a crossbow regardless of how much IAS you try to use to make it up. I've used a converted Aanna's Set Ballista before, and despite coming with 80%IAS right on the weapon it is noticeably slower than a bow even with other added IAS. With a GMB you can almost ignore IAS, and just stack massive amounts of +max damage and other mods.

2. I would not bother crafting, or gambling. Here's option 3 which I prefer:

Gamble/chit a high ilvl rare bow.
2 flawless gems + rare = new rare of same ilvl

That's it. A complete reroll for only 2 flawless gems, and you can keep rerolling that 1 rare bow over and over. This is IMO the cheapest and most efficient way to get a dualmax weapon. In contrast crafting is MUCH MUCH more expensive:

ONE craft = 1 D. Stone, 1 Perfect Gem (which alone is already equal to 4.5 rare rerolls), a jewel, and a magic weapon. The jewel and magic weapon doesn't seem like much, but it is a big hassle to hoard a stock of junk jewels that large, or to constantly buy magic weapons from the shop for each craft. The total price of a single reroll through crafting is drastically higher than using a rare reroll, I cannot recommend it.

3. Again, I'd get a base rare bow to reroll and keep buying flawless gems to do it until satisfied.

[Stabby_McTwist]

In regards to Bow vs Xbow, another bonus of the Bow is the Amazon Only bows can get +1~3 Bow and Crossbow Skills staffmod for free.

For the second question, 2 sockets is nothing since you can add it to a rare later on and the 10~30% DS isn't much either, in my opinion.

Don't gamble for Rares, you'll waste FAR too much money.


As an example of some weapons you can get, here are two I've come across:

Currently lost, most likely for good. All in all, I don't think Fanat was all that impressive, not to say it wasn't nice. But I think the 'godlyness' of it was more in my head as the speed increase wasn't as big as I had hoped and Might would have added more damage.
(I lost this in the past then came across a backup save on a flashdrive -- which is now dead)


Pretty sure my Amazon has this bow equipped, it's been a while since I played.
All in all I think this is the better of the two bows, I can get Might/Fanat Merc to give me a higher level of the skill, the Amp procs constantly, I lose +2 Bow but gain 3 sockets (one over the Fanat bow + recipe) which I can put +1 All Skill jewels (+9 Level Penalty), and it has 20% Open Wounds (not huge on it's own, but icing on the cake).

[blackduck]

Thanks for the quick replies. Rerolling with just 2 Flawless Gems is a nice point as I didn't know about that. All I knew was the LoD version of rare rerolling which eats up 6 Perfect Skulls for each reroll. It definitely is a lot cheaper to just buy those gems instead of gambling and hoping to get lucky with that 30% chance.

It appears that crossbows indeed are slower than bows since they use different animation that apparently is capped at certain speed (and their speed actually starts slower too, no matter their wsm :/). So GMB tree is superior.

Now only thing for me to know is if ilvl 50 Reflex/Ceremonial/GMB can spawn with dualmax mods. I did few rolls and didn't seem to get neither of those dualmax mods (although I got somewhat nice bow for now with similar but lower mods). Their rarity of course can easily explain that. Does someone know the formula on how mods are selected in ES?

Those are some very sick bows you showed. I hope I score something similar in the near future.

Btw is there any way to reduce vendor prices? At least I couldn't find any items with the price reduction mod. Even Edge runeword has been nerfed by removing it. :/

[Stabby_McTwist]

Now only thing for me to know is if ilvl 50 Reflex/Ceremonial/GMB can spawn with dualmax mods. I did few rolls and didn't seem to get neither of those dualmax mods (although I got somewhat nice bow for now with similar but lower mods). Their rarity of course can easily explain that. Does someone know the formula on how mods are selected in ES?

http://homepage3.nifty.com/miyoshino/es/es3pref_n.htm
http://homepage3.nifty.com/miyoshino/es/es3suff_n.htm
Screaming and Fools are both Lvl 50.
Good CTCs are in the Lvl 36~60 range.
All Auroras are Lvl 78~88.

Ideally, what you want to do is make a list of the mods you want and try to get a bow with an iLvl that is equal to the highest Lvl of the mod. You don't increase the chance of getting the mods you want, but because the higher iLvl equals a larger the selection of mods you can get, you lower the chance of getting something else.
I think with the Corpse Song I was looking for a Dual Max Might aura to go with a Fanat merc, so I needed something with an iLvl of 83 minimum.

Btw is there any way to reduce vendor prices? At least I couldn't find any items with the price reduction mod. Even Edge runeword has been nerfed by removing it. :/

Not anymore.
In 2.3 you could add up to -99% Vendor Price to items, but that just lead to infinite money.

[Hans]

Bows for the most part are the best for the Amazon. The only time when a Crossbow may do well is if you only use Strafe and use Eagle Eye with it. You would want to use the most damaging crossbow. I think the 6 socket Mighty gemword would be the best bet and add IAS with the d-stone. That alone may help with reducing the negative IAS of Eagle Eye.

I think I should get back to my experiment with an Eagle Eye/Strafer/Xbow Amazon which I started quite some time ago.

[Stabby_McTwist]

I had tried an Eagle Eye zon with Fanat merc and Assassin's Crossbow, didn't like it all that much.
I tested it using Multishot and the damage didn't really justify the slow speed.

[Hans]

I would not use Multi-Shot with a Crossbow anyway since Crossbows are way to slow.

I would use Strafe with knock back to help to keep monsters away from the Zon. You can still get a good attack/frame with a Crossbow. Likely will need Fanaticism and Annihilation when equipped to offset the negative IAS.

[blackduck]

Did around a hundred rerolls without scoring. One was pretty close though as it had the Fool's and a lower version of Screaming. Too bad those don't count. ;(

I noticed that it was somewhat rare to get +x to Bow Skills even though I'm rolling a ilvl 89 Grand Matron Bow. Is it really that rare or am I doing something wrong? I didn't really analyze my results but most of my rolls spawned without a single point to bow skills. It's not really that big issue as I still believe that extra skills for bow tab are not that needed.

Since I don't have a gold finder character I obtained my rerolling gems by doing lot's of Halls runs and then turning Forging Hammers into Perfect Amethysts by using the secret recipe #14. It wasn't the most efficient way I guess but I got other drops as well so not too bad either. Every 2 runs net 4.5 rerolls. Do you think that it would be possible to grab some easily accessible gold find gear and earn more rerolls faster by either re-equipping my amazon and running something else(I'm not limiting myself from respending skill points if that is needed) or by levelling up another character for that task?

[thepsycho2]

If you have unforged jewels, you can Ra-forge those jewels, but keep in mind you'll only get 2/3 of the stated rune bonus. It's a cheap way to increase gold find on a character.

It'll take a while, but mostly, getting a dual-max modifier on a weapon is more on luck than how many gems you spend. I suggest you should keep working at it, but not to the point of wasting your resources for another character..

Just keep at it, you'll eventually get it. It took me a crapload of chances to get a good sword for my paladin. I might join the rerolling queue on bows as well to better my amazon.

(Don't forget to check your item level)

[Stabby_McTwist]

I noticed that it was somewhat rare to get +x to Bow Skills even though I'm rolling a ilvl 89 Grand Matron Bow. Is it really that rare or am I doing something wrong? I didn't really analyze my results but most of my rolls spawned without a single point to bow skills. It's not really that big issue as I still believe that extra skills for bow tab are not that needed.

Yeah... I kind of noticed the same thing, but then got it (usually +2, sometimes +3, rarely +1) almost CONSTANTLY for a long time, so I figured it was just me.
Maybe it is rarer than I remember (or it was changed) and I just got lucky.

Since I don't have a gold finder character I obtained my rerolling gems by doing lot's of Halls runs and then turning Forging Hammers into Perfect Amethysts by using the secret recipe #14. It wasn't the most efficient way I guess but I got other drops as well so not too bad either. Every 2 runs net 4.5 rerolls. Do you think that it would be possible to grab some easily accessible gold find gear and earn more rerolls faster by either re-equipping my amazon and running something else(I'm not limiting myself from respending skill points if that is needed) or by levelling up another character for that task?

I don't think it's all that hard to make a Gold/Magic Find character... the problem is, stacking all that GF/MF and keeping yourself killing fast on high difficulty areas.
I could be wrong, but I think some of the better areas to GF in would be WSK and Bloodraven's Workshop.

The list might be dated, but I think the majority of the items are still good for a GF'er: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=36597
This was more done out of fun rather than any thing like gold/minute type thing. I could have probably increased kill speed significantly by reducing effective goldfind slightly (remember diminishing returns! the higher a stat the less effective more points are), which would have made more gold/minute, but this was more to see 'how much GF I could stack'.

So long as your current equips aren't huge, I'd suggest looking at two Elemetal Jewels (Rings), a Heart of Jewels (Diadem: Elite Circlet) and Robin Hood's Precision (Tuigan Bow: Exceptional Precision Bow) possibly upgraded.

[Blinn]

Decent gold find gear actually isn't too hard to come by, you can do quite well on the cheap which is what the character should be anyway. Doesn't make much sense to blow tons of resources on a character who'll just be earning all that stuff back. The hard part is keeping an adequate kill speed with such gimped equipment. I actually think the Amazon is a pretty decent choice for this. Using Multishot and/or Strafe, essentially the core build would be just a big damage bow, all stats into Dex, CtC Amp Damage. You won't be fighting anywhere near 100%, but it should be enough for Nightmare where you can still get very good gold drops. I also use a Fire Rogue because she uses physical bow skills as well and might land a few killing blows herself for extra gold find. One CtC Amp Damage Amulet on both me and the Rogue is enough, we each have a big bow, and pretty much everything else is to raise Gold Find.

General gold finding tips:
- Save Ra runes...
- Jewels can have up to 40% Gold Find. I'd save 38-40% Gold Find jewels, even if there's no other mod, and Ra Forge for over 60% Gold Find IIRC. Socket as many of these as possible.
- Lots of GF items are normal and exceptional, so they're actually not too hard to get. cLoD Chance Guards, Goldark's Strap, and Elemental Jewel Ring are a great place to start.
- Pricier items are Tasselhoff's Set and Thief Runeword Helm. Both are excellent.
- oskill Find Treasure. I used to use this on my GF character, but the casting animation was so slow and the success chance isn't too impressive, so I stopped using it and opt to simply start another run instead.

[Hans]

There are also a few nice runewords with gold find on them.

[Nameless]

If you're only into gold finding (and don't care much for finding high runes, elite charms or similar), then farm a relatively low level area for your character. NM special areas for a lv 85+ character, possibly even mid-level NM areas or Normal special areas.

Multi Shot 'zons or Phantom Hatchet barbs are probably the best, but any character with good AoE damage will do (Tesladin, FO or Immo Sorc, Thunder Wave barb, ...). The big advantage of Multi Shot and Phantom Hatchets when used in a low level area is that you only need a good weapon (lots of damage) and possibly a few auras from the merc (a caster will require more +skills). Since you'll be fighting weak monsters, you don't have to care about life, resists or defense and can devote the rest of the gear to GF. The base gold amount of the monsters will be relatively low, but the high amount of GF will even this out. And you'll have a very high killspeed so it typically takes much longer to sort through the loot and pick up the good stuff, not much point in using Find Treasure, except on bosses or champs.

The 'zon has the advantage that she has native Pierce skill, the barb will be more durable and he can carry a GF weapon ("Greed" RW) in his off-hand and still use Phantom Hatchets.

[blackduck]

Took a bit of effort but finally I got one. Shame that there is no additional goodies so in the league of dual max bows it isn't anything worth bragging about. Now I'll just have to collect all the maples...

(Am I right if I say that mf helps finding unique charms?)

[Hans]

Mf does help with finding unique charms. MF does suffer from diminishing returns. I like to have from 200% to about 600% if you have more it is fine as long as it does not hurt your killing power. Most GF builds will have enough MF since m any of the GF gear also has MF on the item as well.

[Firesnake]

Crossbows always lose against Bows because they are too slow as already mentioned. The higher damage can't compensate because you get tons of dmg from other sources which makes the additional damage close to useless. But attacking at 7 fpa compared to 8 or even 9 is a higher gain, let alone that you can react faster which is important in high level areas.

When it comes to bows just use the one with the highest damage (max damage is slightly more important than min dmg because it's increased by another 350+%) and GMB probably beats them all because of +Bow skills. The speed doesn't matter because even with eagle eye you can reach the highers attack speed possible with any class of bow. I did a thread on that issue that has to be around somewhere. Eagle Eye amazons can easily beat 100k strafe maxdmg...

[the_bogan]

Mf does help with finding unique charms.

Sorry Hans, I'm going to disagree with you on this one. One tourney, I found three unique charms in act 1 Nightmare, and my MF was about -400%. I wasn't finding magic non jewellery, let alone rare or sets, so because unique charms are in their own tresure class, I'm going to say MF doesn't affect their drop rate.

[Hans]

Mf does help with finding unique charms.

Sorry Hans, I'm going to disagree with you on this one. One tourney, I found three unique charms in act 1 Nightmare, and my MF was about -400%. I wasn't finding magic non jewellery, let alone rare or sets, so because unique charms are in their own tresure class, I'm going to say MF doesn't affect their drop rate.

If Unique Charms have their own treasure class than I think I might be wrong.

[Firesnake]

In fact there IS an treassure class for unique charms, but that does not mean that they can't just drop the normal way. So MF helps but in a less effective way because it only works on a part of the drop chance of unique charms.

[the_bogan]

To me that's just like saying that the Viper Amulet will drop in game. That's a unique amulet.

[josilito]

Crossbows always lose against Bows because they are too slow as already mentioned. The higher damage can't compensate because you get tons of dmg from other sources which makes the additional damage close to useless. But attacking at 7 fpa compared to 8 or even 9 is a higher gain, let alone that you can react faster which is important in high level areas.

When it comes to bows just use the one with the highest damage (max damage is slightly more important than min dmg because it's increased by another 350+%) and GMB probably beats them all because of +Bow skills. The speed doesn't matter because even with eagle eye you can reach the highers attack speed possible with any class of bow. I did a thread on that issue that has to be around somewhere. Eagle Eye amazons can easily beat 100k strafe maxdmg...

i agree with you
but not all Crossbows lose against Bows

[Lucifer666]

you resurrected a 2 year old thread just for that??? maybe a better explanation of your point of view would have been better to add too,just so that it looks that it makes sense...

[gooms420]

Here is my zons current Dualmax bow for my strafer.
This is the only one currently, I'm working on rolling an aura bow.

[cpt_chaos]

This is my strafe amazons dualmax bow with 3 HE runes and a HE forge.
It had 800 maxdmg from start. the rest is d-stoning and the HEs.