- Feb 24, 2004
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[highlight]A Little History[/highlight]
I've made no secret of my love for amazons. My dirty little secret, however, is just how much I fell in love with passivezons over the last few years. It all started while I was keeping up with @Pb_pal's progress with Calabi, his 2-handed Passion-wielding passivezon in the Passive Aggressive tournament. It reminded me how much I still wanted to try out the build. Especially after remembering....WAY back when in the D2 Build Elimination thread, I had cast a vote for the passivezon as one of my two least favorite builds after never having even tried it. The admonition in that same thread stuck with me for quite a while:
So I saw @kestegs Committed Tournament and figured it would be a good playground to get my first passivezon going. She did better than I thought, making it to the Pits in Hell before dying due to bad play. That death hit me harder than I had expected, as I had become quite attached to the character.
Fast forward 2.5 years later and I decided to make an entry in @Kitteh's Untwinked 99er reboot, going with a passivezon. Hardcore. Evidence is right here for mental instability!
Celia went quite further than my previous attempts, ultimately crafting a Passion Conquest Sword and Fortitude Great Hauberk and taking on the pits before dying due to bad play. This death was tough to swallow as well, due to the time spent farming runes and finally getting to the point where I felt she was doing very well. My follow-up entrant, a LFzon also bit the dust early (NM Mephsito), so I decided it might make more sense to attempt a 99 run in SC first, seeing as my endgame play time experience was still rather limited.
So, true to my decision, Zaira was built towards the view of trying out the build in a twinked setting. I don't quite remember when I began the character, but she has been seeing playtime on and off probably ever since my untwinked 99er Furyzon started collecting gear. Zaira has been the character I gravitate to when I get tired of playing tournament characters, or just need a break from another character. I do remember she was less than level 30 when I came back from my post-RFL break a couple months ago.
[highlight]The Playthrough[/highlight]
I do not recall some of her early twinked gear, whether she went with Sigon's or not. She upgraded from a Steel Two-Handed Sword to Shadowfang and then to Soulflay. At level 30, she switched to a Bloodletter and Rhyme Bone Shield and her journey really began in earnest. She kept Aliza, Fire Rogue, and equipped her with Riphook. Nightmare difficulty was sped through quickly, with a max-level Valk destroying all opposition.
My plans were to outfit her with both Grief and Fortitude, and to give Aliza a Faith bow. The Jah rune I found from RFL round 2 went to a Faith Blade Bow. I still lacked two Lo runes to make the other two. After defeating Mephisto on Hell difficulty, I briefly planned to run LK with her to get the missing Lo runes, along with an Ohm for CtA. At this point I felt I had too many other character commitments with other tournaments to justify spending too much time running LK for the runes when she could just as easily finish her journey and likely benefit from the finds of another character down the road.
Bloodletter was replaced with Blood Moon, Rhyme was replaced with a Shael'd Stormshield. Faith was equipped on Aliza when she hit 65, and that, more than anything else, made me want to take her all the way to the end. I ended up making a Harmony Blade Bow to deal with physical immunes after continually failing to find any elite sword bases to make Lawbringer.
I don't remember her normal Hellforge drop. NM Forge was a Pul, Hell was an Ist.
She only experienced two deaths. First was in NM Sewers when she took 2 successive, unblocked doll explosions while amped. The second was in the Frozen River when, after taking shots from Gloams, a Prowling Dead's charge finished her off. Otherwise she was generally very safe with max block, D/A/E, max Valkyrie and max Decoy.
Lister rolled Physical/Fire Immune. The worst roll since not even my mercenary could damage him. Rather than park him, I unloaded 3.5 stacks of arrows at him with Melody. Baal was much easier, thanks to the Crushing Blow from Guillame's.
[highlight]Stats, Gear, Skills[/highlight]
View attachment 14841
The lack of poison resist was probably the biggest pain. Enemies like Radament causes many trips to town to heal, since not even health pots could outpace the poison damage.
Helm: Guillame's Face
Armor: 'Lionheart' Mage Plate
Belt: String of Ears
Gloves: Laying of Hands
Boots: Rare - 20% FRW/10% FHR/30 LR/35 FR
Amulet: Chromatic Amulet (29 all res)
Ring 1: Blood Craft - 3LL/15 STR/19 life/5 LR/1 MPK
Ring 2: Ravenfrost (212 AR/15 dex)
Weapon 1: Blood Moon
Shield 1: Stormshield (Shael)
Weapon 2: 'Harmony' Blade Bow
Steel (110) Grand Charm of Sustenance (26)
Sharp GC (+9 max/74 AR) of Sustenance (25)
Sharp GC (+10 max/67 AR) of Strength (6)
Acrobatic GC of Sustenance (28)
Tangerine (5) SC of Vita (17)
Snowy SC of Balance
Ruby (10) SC of Greed
Amber (10) SC of Greed
Amber (11) SC
55% FBR meant a 10 frame block rate, just 1% shy of reaching the lowest 9 frame block rate with swinging weapons. Quite slow blocking, but I never found it much of an issue. I let the valk and decoy tank while I killed everything on the fringes so that I was only being attacked by 1 or 2 mobs.
Helm: eth Rockstopper (Rusty Jewel of Fervor)
Armor: Shaftstop
Weapon: 'Faith' Blade Bow (lvl 15 Fanaticism)
View attachment 14842
I was VERY happy with my perfect roll on this! The IAS tables for level 14/15 Fanaticism look like they're missing numbers, so I can't tell if I was able to hit the 7 or 8 frame attack with 20 IAS and a [-10] speed weapon, but judging from the numbers in the level 13 Fanat table, I'm going to assume it was 7 frames.
[highlight]Future Plans[/highlight]
Level 99, of course! In reality, though, I really want to see what her performance will be like when kitted out with Grief and either Fortitude or CoH. I never expect her to outperform a Fanatic Zealot of course, but there's some indefinable kind of fun in playing this kind of character. I happen to have another level 30 passivezon waiting for me to be finished. She is untwinked HC and will likely follow in the footsteps of my first untwinked 99er attempt, though I doubt she'll actually make the push to level 99.
If you have never tried this build, it is one I can definitely recommend.
I've made no secret of my love for amazons. My dirty little secret, however, is just how much I fell in love with passivezons over the last few years. It all started while I was keeping up with @Pb_pal's progress with Calabi, his 2-handed Passion-wielding passivezon in the Passive Aggressive tournament. It reminded me how much I still wanted to try out the build. Especially after remembering....WAY back when in the D2 Build Elimination thread, I had cast a vote for the passivezon as one of my two least favorite builds after never having even tried it. The admonition in that same thread stuck with me for quite a while:
Cygnus said:There should be a rule against voting against a build you have never tried
So I saw @kestegs Committed Tournament and figured it would be a good playground to get my first passivezon going. She did better than I thought, making it to the Pits in Hell before dying due to bad play. That death hit me harder than I had expected, as I had become quite attached to the character.
Fast forward 2.5 years later and I decided to make an entry in @Kitteh's Untwinked 99er reboot, going with a passivezon. Hardcore. Evidence is right here for mental instability!
Celia went quite further than my previous attempts, ultimately crafting a Passion Conquest Sword and Fortitude Great Hauberk and taking on the pits before dying due to bad play. This death was tough to swallow as well, due to the time spent farming runes and finally getting to the point where I felt she was doing very well. My follow-up entrant, a LFzon also bit the dust early (NM Mephsito), so I decided it might make more sense to attempt a 99 run in SC first, seeing as my endgame play time experience was still rather limited.
So, true to my decision, Zaira was built towards the view of trying out the build in a twinked setting. I don't quite remember when I began the character, but she has been seeing playtime on and off probably ever since my untwinked 99er Furyzon started collecting gear. Zaira has been the character I gravitate to when I get tired of playing tournament characters, or just need a break from another character. I do remember she was less than level 30 when I came back from my post-RFL break a couple months ago.
[highlight]The Playthrough[/highlight]
I do not recall some of her early twinked gear, whether she went with Sigon's or not. She upgraded from a Steel Two-Handed Sword to Shadowfang and then to Soulflay. At level 30, she switched to a Bloodletter and Rhyme Bone Shield and her journey really began in earnest. She kept Aliza, Fire Rogue, and equipped her with Riphook. Nightmare difficulty was sped through quickly, with a max-level Valk destroying all opposition.
My plans were to outfit her with both Grief and Fortitude, and to give Aliza a Faith bow. The Jah rune I found from RFL round 2 went to a Faith Blade Bow. I still lacked two Lo runes to make the other two. After defeating Mephisto on Hell difficulty, I briefly planned to run LK with her to get the missing Lo runes, along with an Ohm for CtA. At this point I felt I had too many other character commitments with other tournaments to justify spending too much time running LK for the runes when she could just as easily finish her journey and likely benefit from the finds of another character down the road.
Bloodletter was replaced with Blood Moon, Rhyme was replaced with a Shael'd Stormshield. Faith was equipped on Aliza when she hit 65, and that, more than anything else, made me want to take her all the way to the end. I ended up making a Harmony Blade Bow to deal with physical immunes after continually failing to find any elite sword bases to make Lawbringer.
I don't remember her normal Hellforge drop. NM Forge was a Pul, Hell was an Ist.
She only experienced two deaths. First was in NM Sewers when she took 2 successive, unblocked doll explosions while amped. The second was in the Frozen River when, after taking shots from Gloams, a Prowling Dead's charge finished her off. Otherwise she was generally very safe with max block, D/A/E, max Valkyrie and max Decoy.
Lister rolled Physical/Fire Immune. The worst roll since not even my mercenary could damage him. Rather than park him, I unloaded 3.5 stacks of arrows at him with Melody. Baal was much easier, thanks to the Crushing Blow from Guillame's.
[highlight]Stats, Gear, Skills[/highlight]
Code:
Name: Zaira
Class: Amazon
Experience: 762086284
Level: 81
Naked/Gear
Strength: 116/207
Dexterity: 154/184
Vitality: 210/230
Energy: 15/27
HP: 840/1005
Mana: 135/175
Stamina: 354/354
Defense: 38/1194
AR: 740/1353
Fire: 184/144/84
Cold: 149/109/49
Lightning: 175/135/75
Poison: 89/49/-11
MF: 0 Block: 75
GF: 10 FR/W: 20
FHR: 45 IAS: 20
FCR: 0View attachment 14841
The lack of poison resist was probably the biggest pain. Enemies like Radament causes many trips to town to heal, since not even health pots could outpace the poison damage.
Code:
Magic Arrow: 0/0
Fire Arrow: 0/0
Cold Arrow: 0/0
Multiple Shot: 0/0
Exploding Arrow: 0/0
Ice Arrow: 0/0
Guided Arrow: 0/0
Strafe: 0/0
Immolation Arrow: 0/0
Freezing Arrow: 0/0
Inner Sight: 1/2
Critical Strike: 15/16
Dodge: 5/6
Slow Missiles: 1/2
Avoid: 5/6
Penetrate: 20/21
Decoy: 20/21
Evade: 5/6
Valkyrie: 20/21
Pierce: 0/0
Jab: 0/0
Power Strike: 0/0
Poison Javelin: 0/0
Impale: 0/0
Lightning Bolt: 0/0
Charged Strike: 0/0
Plague Javelin: 0/0
Fend: 0/0
Lightning Strike: 0/0
Lightning Fury: 0/0Helm: Guillame's Face
Armor: 'Lionheart' Mage Plate
Belt: String of Ears
Gloves: Laying of Hands
Boots: Rare - 20% FRW/10% FHR/30 LR/35 FR
Amulet: Chromatic Amulet (29 all res)
Ring 1: Blood Craft - 3LL/15 STR/19 life/5 LR/1 MPK
Ring 2: Ravenfrost (212 AR/15 dex)
Weapon 1: Blood Moon
Shield 1: Stormshield (Shael)
Weapon 2: 'Harmony' Blade Bow
Steel (110) Grand Charm of Sustenance (26)
Sharp GC (+9 max/74 AR) of Sustenance (25)
Sharp GC (+10 max/67 AR) of Strength (6)
Acrobatic GC of Sustenance (28)
Tangerine (5) SC of Vita (17)
Snowy SC of Balance
Ruby (10) SC of Greed
Amber (10) SC of Greed
Amber (11) SC
55% FBR meant a 10 frame block rate, just 1% shy of reaching the lowest 9 frame block rate with swinging weapons. Quite slow blocking, but I never found it much of an issue. I let the valk and decoy tank while I killed everything on the fringes so that I was only being attacked by 1 or 2 mobs.
Code:
Name: Aliza
Race: Rogue Scout
Type: Fire - Normal
Experience: 53800884
Level: 81
Dead?: false
Naked/Gear
Strength: 133/133
Dexterity: 201/201
HP: 1320/1380
Defense: 1102/2008
AR: 2183/657083
Fire: 188/148/88
Cold: 182/142/82
Lightning: 177/137/77
Poison: 153/113/53Helm: eth Rockstopper (Rusty Jewel of Fervor)
Armor: Shaftstop
Weapon: 'Faith' Blade Bow (lvl 15 Fanaticism)
View attachment 14842
I was VERY happy with my perfect roll on this! The IAS tables for level 14/15 Fanaticism look like they're missing numbers, so I can't tell if I was able to hit the 7 or 8 frame attack with 20 IAS and a [-10] speed weapon, but judging from the numbers in the level 13 Fanat table, I'm going to assume it was 7 frames.
[highlight]Future Plans[/highlight]
Level 99, of course! In reality, though, I really want to see what her performance will be like when kitted out with Grief and either Fortitude or CoH. I never expect her to outperform a Fanatic Zealot of course, but there's some indefinable kind of fun in playing this kind of character. I happen to have another level 30 passivezon waiting for me to be finished. She is untwinked HC and will likely follow in the footsteps of my first untwinked 99er attempt, though I doubt she'll actually make the push to level 99.
If you have never tried this build, it is one I can definitely recommend.
Last edited:
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