Freezing Arrow* is your main Damage Skill. The Skill shoots an arrow in the direction you are aiming. It deals Cold Damage and applies a Freezing/Chilling effect for a duration to anything it either hits directly or is in range of the arrow's explosion. This Skill does not require Attack Rating to hit targets and Freeze them.

Immolation Arrow* is a backup Damage Skill that deals Fire Damage. This Skill can pierce targets and leaves an AOE Fire on the first target you hit.

Exploding Arrow* is a backup Damage Skill that deals Fire Damage. This Skill pierces targets and explodes on each target it hits, dealing AOE.

* Increased Attack Speed Skills (IAS)

strafe*: Fires multiple arrows that auto-target at different monsters within range. This is used specifically to proc Hustle's burstofspeed buff, gaining us a massive amount of Skill Increased Attack Speed and Skill Faster Run/Walk. This buff is required to maintain the fastest possible IAS Breakpoint with the Standard setup.

Pierce* is a very important Skill for this build. It allows your Projectile (Arrows/Javelins) to pass through your enemies allowing you to not only deal damage to your first impacted target, but also the ones behind them.

Dodge*, Avoid*, and Evade* passively grant you a chance to dodge enemy attacks in the situations mentioned in the Skill. A dodged attack is negated completely.

Decoy* spawns a duplicate of yourself on the area you target drawing the enemy's attention to it.

Valkyrie* also can be used like a Decoy but she acts similar to a Mercenary as it follows you and attacks monsters.

enchant*: increases the target's Attack Rating by a large amount and adds a small amount of Fire Damage. This buff last for over 11 minutes when cast from demonlimb. This AR is pivotal to maximize your Chance to Hit.

* Increased Attack Speed Skills (IAS)
* Faster Cast Rate Skills (FCR)
* Skills that do NOT utilize either FCR or IAS

While every Stat in the Desirable Stats column is useful for this build, we highlighted the Priority Stats in Teal so you can easily identify the Most Important Stats on them.

Hover over any Item to see a pop-out with the full Item description.

Gear/Base Notes: Any Items with specialized or niche uses have a superscript that refers here.
1) M'avina's Battle Hymn makes a great setup for Hybrid Cold and Fire damage when using the full set together.

The areas below are efficient farming locations that make use of the build’s strengths. Other farming spots might not be as effective due to immunities or bad layouts. These areas are strong without a Sunder Charm.

Anything that has a ✔ in the "Starter" column can be farmed with the Starter Variant.

Your Mercenary serves an incredibly important role to the overall success of your build. They can be a front line tank, provide a pivotal Aura, and/or deal Physical Damage to kill enemies with Immunity to your Skill set.

Use a Desert Mercenary with Might Aura to deal with enemies that are immune to your main damage source. Equip him with Infinity to reduce enemy Resistances and Defense with Conviction Aura, drastically boosting damage.

The Mercenary is hard to keep alive until you have the minimum gear recommended in this guide. Remember you can drag Healing Potions onto the portrait, or shift + 1/2/3/4 to directly feed them a Healing Potion from your Belt. The Mercenary also gains bonus Resistances from Thawing Potions and Antidote Potions.

If your Mercenary dies in battle, you can revive them from any of the Mercenary NPCs in each Act. This does come with an increasing cost, capping at 50,000 Gold. Keep that in mind and decide if the Mercenary is currently worth the cost.

Breakpoints in Diablo 2 are the minimum values required to reduce the frames of an action. Below are the important breakpoints considered for this build. For more information on the mechanics involved, check out our in-depth Resource: Breakpoints.

Increased Attack Speed speeds up your attack animations. Weapon bases have different IAS breakpoints. Values for recommended weapon options provided below. Consult the d2planner for other bases.

Faster Hit Recovery is not required for survivability in this build, but early breakpoints can be utilized.

For all Hardcore gameplay, your primary concern is increasing your Resistances, Damage Reduction, Chance to Block and Maximum Life. This can mean sacrificing overall power level for a more secure playstyle.

This build is Hardcore viable. If you are unaccustomed to this playstyle, we recommend trying this build on Softcore to gain experience on how to successfully pilot it.