Base for Faith Bow

[Jamie]

@Jocular true. Another one I believe I am missing. It's quite astonishing some of the gear I have found (dfathom, griffons, an almost completely perfect eth heaven's might 2 socket that I hope to Zod one day, eth reaper's toll, have Fort/Enigma/HotO/CtA/Jah now) and then some of the items that are useful and much more common, I haven't found (gore riders/cats eye/high lords.. more if I thought about it). I found a fathom before a Shako lol. Crazy game.

I'm sitting on this fence of Blade Bow is prettiest and is a 15/3 with great speed, but a plain Diamond Bow appears to have a decent amount of more damage, although ugly and not sup. Then having +3 GMB and Mat that could be better for Amazon, but I ultimately want a WF and Rouge Mer, possibly.

Even an ICE is tempting with a FA Zon/Strafer. Although a non zon only bow with a Might Merc I think will be a blast for now with an Atma's Amulet.

I think going the blade might lose me damage, but look cool and allow me to shore up other areas where I won't have to focus on IAS, especially with high fanat roll, and that will allow me to get more damage and other offensive mods, along with some help with a little defense and resist from those spots I won't need IAS. I'll probably go glass cannon style mostly and have a might merc, valk, occasional decoy and the returned to tank for me, while I strafe/multi/low level FA monsters and use guided for boss. This will allow for me to make a fanat merc for my barb when I want and for other non pally melee.

If anyone thinks the damage lost from doing Blade is pure stupidity on my part, please let this noob to post 1.11 Amazons know now! The looks of it and the pretty 15/3 numbered on it (my ocd) is guiding me more than anything right now and I want the option for Merc Faith until I become wealthier.

Maybe I shouldn't stress because Blade Bow will be pretty good for Rouge, once I finally am able to afford a GMB Faith down the road and might have a nice +3 w/15 ed or something similar by then. Maybe stressing over the lost damage/gained speed on Blade is dumb of me considering I will likely go to WF or GMB later. I just really fear placing the Jah somewhere and then regretting it. I am definitely going to move the Wyrmhide Fort to my Bowzon and remake an Archon Plate one for my Zealdin, when the times come. For looks of course lol.

 

[Jocular]

I think you're going to have to decide who this bow is for. If it's ultimately never going be used once the Rogue gets her hands on it, blade is probably the way to go. If you see yourself using this bow for quite some time before the Rogue- it would probably be best to put it in the Diamond Bow. I personally like how the ward bow looks and would chose that among the [0]WSM bows

Considering how long it may take to find WF...and if you think you'll be mfing with the bowa or trying to get your clvl into the 90s...you might be happier with a [0]WSM bow just to speed things along.

I'd be willing to bet a Buriza would be close in DPS (if not higher especially if you're going for a glass cannon build) when compared to a 'Faith' Blade bow.

All this talking about bowas makes me want to put mine together again!

 

[Gripphon1]

Don't worry too much about all this. Faith is Faith regardless of bow. Main decision will be whether you want it in GMB or MB later on as the real endgame goal. If you make it now in a Blade Bow, then GMB makes more sense.

Anyway, depending how much do you play, runes aren't particularly valuable nor rare in this game, except at beginning and the Cham rune which is very useful no matter how many runes have you found. Once you make Enigma, Infinity, now Faith, Grief and other typically useful stuff, runes lose value big time. You will find more Jah runes and Bers and whatever, you won't know what to do with them except to create fancy runewords perhaps

EDIT
And Ist runes, that way you can put them in weapons, make 6x Ist PB for barbarian, 6x Ist Crystal Sword for whatever and so on. But even they lose value quickly since they do "rain" as the time passes by. Plus Mal can be combined into them, Ums and so on. Runes everywhere!

Here's what I have extra currently. The point is... just use runes, they will drop again

Spoiler

 

[e4e5Nf3]

They fixed it in 1.08 though, right? So if I upgraded my 07 sorcy to 08, I could do Hell Mephisto and theoretically find a Shako and Valor from him and it would be the same version. Just a lot harder to find them off Mfing than from finding a solid rack in 1.07. If so, I think upgrading to 08 would be worth it. But I'm not sure if that means some of the tasty charms are out of the equation.

Before learning about the broken Nightmare/Hell act boss drops, I wasted a lot of time farming Hell Mephisto in 1.08 and never saw any base item better than the lowest level exceptional ones. If you really want to farm monsters instead of racks, super uniques may be the way to go. The 1.08 thread has some good suggestions on that route. Normal Baal can also drop a few useful items like Chromatic Ire and String of Ears.

 

[Jamie]

@sudomasochist much appreciated! That actually makes me want to go up to 1.08, so I can run superuniques and uniques in act 5 and hope to land the 07/08 Valor/Shako/Valkry that I so badly want. The only thing that is depressing, is that it looks like I won't be able to land the outrageous max damage charms that come in 1.07. An inventory full of them vs 1.14 max charms, I imagine anyway, would be pretty big on certain melee characters. I guess trading for them is always an option too.

 

[T72on1]

Don't worry too much about all this. Faith is Faith regardless of bow. Main decision will be whether you want it in GMB or MB later on as the real endgame goal. If you make it now in a Blade Bow, then GMB makes more sense.

Anyway, depending how much do you play, runes aren't particularly valuable nor rare in this game, except at beginning and the Cham rune which is very useful no matter how many runes have you found. Once you make Enigma, Infinity, now Faith, Grief and other typically useful stuff, runes lose value big time. You will find more Jah runes and Bers and whatever, you won't know what to do with them except to create fancy runewords perhaps

EDIT
And Ist runes, that way you can put them in weapons, make 6x Ist PB for barbarian, 6x Ist Crystal Sword for whatever and so on. But even they lose value quickly since they do "rain" as the time passes by. Plus Mal can be combined into them, Ums and so on. Runes everywhere!

Here's what I have extra currently. The point is... just use runes, they will drop again

Spoiler

I think I can say that I have spent quite some time on this game since joining the SPF. Including some dedicated rune hunting, next to a lot of /p7 and /p8 runs. Even then I don't even have the runes to complete the rune grail (although I'm getting close). Point is: don't believe someone who is having runes on his sandwich for breakfast. He just lost all sense of reality, being a D2 bot and all that .

 

[Gripphon1]

In my defense, I wasn't really talking about players who are willing to invest Jah runes into something like Famine or Last Wish

 

[NorthDakota]

I don't see the rush in making it unless you're playing the character now.. If your plan is putting it on the merc and wearing a WF, and you don't have the WF, then wait to make it. More bases will drop in the meanwhile.

If you wanna get rolling right away then wearing it yourself as a gmb is probably your best option? Don't rush it and make a mistake you'll regret later though. Runes are not rare to those who have played a long time, but they are still valuable to those who play less and you don't know what the years will throw at you. I made an infinity in a CV and have regretted it ever since. Too slow and high requirements make it less versatile for using on multiple characters. Rushed into it when there was no point..

 

[Ashenshugar]

Though I don't have runes for breakfast, I do think that the advice given by @Gripphon is extremely sound. A rune spent must surely be better than having it in the stash? Also, if you spend (high) runes, you will surely gain them back through the use of the powerful new toy?

 

[Luhkoh]

IMO, don't make your first faith in a GMB. You may want to use it on a merc later, and cold do so on for characters. GMB is for your second faith

But I feel like you want to make it in your blade bow. As ffs stated earlier, a 0 wsm may be better, however, I feel you are overlooking an important fact. Faith is gonna rock even if you make it your "low" dmg blade bow. Like its gonna feel like butter compared to budget options (upped wws, upped gsa). So if you want to play a bowa now, then I say you make it in that blade bow, no hesitation. It may be worse than diamond bow, but again will feel just great, and you will also have the liberty of more gearing options.

If you don't want to play one now, then there's no point in deciding now. Don't let a jah feel like it's burning a hole in your pocket for no reason . If you feel it's best used for faith then make a faith at the time you actually want to play the bowa.

That's what I would do with a spare jah, but I am playing all self found. I feel like nobody is giving you a sanity check though if they say you won't get more use out of trading for an infinity like you mentioned. Just depends on the builds you want to play ofc, but infinity opens the door to OP javazon, light sorc, fire sorc, powerful sorc hybrids, powerful trapsin etc.

 

[srrw]

Why would you want to use a Faith mercenary outside of a novelty build. Bah.. Don't mind me, just rambling.

GMB all the way for me... Actually Windforce all the way for me. Faith is sort of a PvP bow, where 7fpa actually matters a lot. But if you really enjoy your bowazon and don't want to wait for a WF to go into godmode it's a good decision no matter which base you choose.

 

[Jamie]

@srrw it seems like having a fanat aura on a melee character would be nice. I don't know how it stacks up versus the might on an A2 merc though. I would think a Barb or shape shifter would enjoy a a1 merc with a faith. I know some people use them on a bowzon, with a WF as their main. I probably would want an A2 on a bowzon though, for the might damage and for the extra tank. If I don't find a WF (I can't honestly remember if I have ever found one before), having a Faith and an A2 merc would be nice... but that would mean GMB is probably the best option.

I guess the real question I have is how the Fanat Aura on Faith compares to the Might Aura on A2 Merc.

 

[T72on1]

Usually the answer is that Might A2 merc wins, due to him providing Decrep from Reaper's as well. I found the Fana of Faith on an A1 merc mainly needed for 2H builds that would otherwise be too slow.

 

[srrw]

In terms of damage - Might wins hands down.
Might at slvl20 (clvl95+ no plus skills) - 230% damage increase
Fanaticism at slvl15 - 144% party damage increase (on mercenary) + 33IAS

Naturally you don't need the IAS on all of the cookie cutter builds so Might wins. Decrep is cool as mentioned already if you do physical damage and Conviction is godtier if you do elemental damage. And the merc actually does a notable amount of damage. And he's a useful tank.

Therea are so many reasons not to use a Faith merc. As I said before, it's cool on a novelty build but never actually useful. Not nearly enough as Act II merc at least.

Again, that doesn't mean you shouldn't use one if you feel like it, it's just that it's no that good.

 

[maxicek]

In the SPF being cool on a novelty build should be an incredibly compelling, if not the number one, reason for doing it.

 

[Jamie]

@maxicek absolutely true lol. When I find a Zod, I am probably going to Identify my Ethereal Heaven's Might that is 2% off perfect, and slap that inside of it. I don't know what the second socket will be. Such a higher cool factor there that Grief be going into that stash. I am excited for the day I can use that item, I just wonder if I will be brave enough to Zod it lol. I don't think I will ever find a Zod though...

 

[maxicek]

Go for the Faith. Make it in whatever’s Bow you feel like, just don’t go for an Amazon specific bow for your first one. I have one in a Ward Bow, always been happy with it.

Most of the opinions here seem to assume you are using Multishot - To throw something extra into the mix, why not Strafe for PvM? Then all the IAS issues are gone.

 

[Jocular]

wrong thread!

 

[Jamie]

@maxicek well I kind of planned no using Multi and Strafe. It appears to me that each one has its own special situations. I had never made a Bowzon that used both before, but it seems a lot of people are leaning that way now. I love shooting fast, but if I am losing a lot of damage and the speed isn't making it up for it, it would be a bad idea I guess.

I was leaning non ama-only, for the option of having an a1 faith merc in special builds like a shape shifter druid, barbarian's with slow weapons like Death. I know people use WF Zon with A1 Faith Merc, but in my mind that has done no numbers or actual checking, I would think an A2 Might merc would be better because of being able to tank and it would add more damage.. per shot at least.. idk about DPS.

Also, I am hoping I can use Frozen Arrow along with Multi and Strafe. I really love the crowd control of FA, but I am not sure if I can get enough into all 3 skills for the best efficiency. I could also go a Holy Freeze Merc too I guess... and hope to get a Pride (is that the weapon with concentrate?) or some extra Auras on A2 Merc.

The real issue now, though, is that I am missing necessary bowzon for the builds I want (CoA or Giant Skull, Highlord's or Cat's Eye (do have Atma's though)) and I have fallen in absolute love with the trapsin I stripped in A1 Hell and decided to rebuild the other day.

Now I want to make an Infinity more than any other runeword. I have a Jah, a Sur and then bunch of Lem through Mal Runes left at this point. So trading the Jah might actually end up being my best bet.

 

[Jocular]

Do you want to do damage or simply slow stuff down with FA? Because if it's the latter you can just put a few cold dmg small charms in your inventory and put some into cold arrow to lengthen FA's duration. Wouldn't take much.

Also, you don't really need a mercenary to tank when you've got Valk and decoy. If you're short on points and need your Valk to only tank, I would recommend putting points into decoy only. Improves the life of both. I think 10 hard points would be enough to keep your Valk plenty strong.