Strafe Amazon Guide

Strafe* is your Primary Damage Skill. It splits 1 arrow into 5 upon firing, dealing Physical Damage to nearby enemies in quick succession. This Skill prioritizes monsters closest to your Amazon while alternating to any nearby targets. Your Character is rooted in place while firing; you cannot move.

Guided Arrow* fires a powerful homing arrow that tracks down its target. It always hits so long as it makes contact with an enemy. Use it against Act Bosses, Diablo Clone, and isolated Physical Immune monsters.

Multiple Shot* splits 1 arrow into many arrows (up to 24), fanning out in a cone in front of your Character. Use it when faced with dense packs of low Life monsters (e.g. Flayers).

Magic Arrow* fires a single arrow that coverts a percentage of your Physical Damage into Magic Damage based on its Level. It is effective against isolated Physical Immune enemies.

* Increased Attack Speed Skills (IAS)

Critical Strike* adds a % chance to deal double Physical Damage with your projectiles. This chance increases with Skill Level.

Penetrate* grants Attack Rating based on Skill Level.

Pierce* adds a % chance of your projectiles piercing through targets to others behind them. This Passive Skill greatly boosts the effectiveness of Strafe and Multiple Shot.

Valkyrie* creates a Valkyrie Warrior which fights by your side, mainly serving to tank damage. Re-summon her if she dies.

Decoy* creates a replica of your Amazon with increased health at the location of your cursor. It remains in one spot, drawing monster attacks/abilities until it is destroyed or expires.

Slow Missiles* slows and reduces the damage from ranged enemies' attacks/projectiles when cast. This Skill also illuminates nearby enemies.

Dodge* provides a chance that you "Dodge" melee attacks while attacking or standing still. This negates any potential Damage from a melee attack completely.

Avoid* provides a chance that you "Dodge" ranged attacks and/or spells while attacking or standing still. This negates any potential damage from a ranged attack completely.

Evade* provides a chance that you "Dodge" an attack (any) while walking or running. This negates any potential damage from an attack completely.

* 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.

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.

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

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

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.

Act 2 Desert Mercenary

Pride, Might

Use a Desert Mercenary with Might Aura to significantly boost your Physical Damage. Equip him with Pride for an even greater boost to your Physical Damage.

Alternatively, you can use an Act 1 Rogue Mercenary equipped with Faith to achieve maximum Attack Speed on the "Damage" Build Variant without needing to swap to Hustle to pre-buff Burst of Speed.

Mercenary Gear Options

Your Mercenary needs maximum Resistances, Life Leech, a high damage Weapon, and high Defense and/or Damage Reduction to stay alive reliably. Cannot Be Frozen is also a great stat for maintaining Mercenary DPS and leech. Ethereal gear is preferred since it doesn't lose durability. Mercenary Types and Gear Options at each Gear Level perform equally well in different situations; choose based on Farming Spots and/or personal preference.

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.

General

• Before starting your Magic Find/Experience run, swap to Harmony and cast Valkyrie. Recast Valkyrie as necessary to reposition it to your side or draw monster aggro away from you or your Mercenary.
• Swap to Harmony to use its Vigor Aura for quicker travel. Swap back to your main weapon (e.g. Faith) upon encountering monsters.
• Always maintain distance away from approaching mobs; avoid becoming surrounded by monsters coming from multiple sides/angles. Swap to Harmony to gain distance whenever necessary, and also take advantage of the Knockback stat on your gear.
• Cast Decoy and/or Slow Missiles when faced with dangerous ranged enemies.
• Pick up Arrows or Bolts that drop to replenish your Quantity.

For High Mob Density Farming:

• In most cases, use Strafe when encountering high mob density. Continue firing until all monsters in an area have been cleared. Strafe is also highly effective against Elites and most isolated targets (besides certain Bosses).
• Use Multiple Shot when faced with dense packs of low Life monsters (e.g. Flayers), especially in a Low Player Count game (/Players1-3 on Single Player).

For Bosses:

• When faced with an Act Boss or Diablo Clone, repeatedly fire Guided Arrows in its direction until it is dead. Always maintain a safe distance; it is possible to kill off-screen using this Skill. It should be noted that killing Bosses is not one of the Strafe Amazon's strong suits, particularly when it comes to Baal.

Immunities

• Bone Break sets all Immune to Physical monsters to 95% Physical Resistance, allowing any sources of -x% to Enemy Physical Resistance (including Amplify Damage or Decrepify) to take full effect.
• Use Guided Arrows to quickly apply Amplify Damage from Atma's Scarab to isolated Unique mobs Immune to Physical. When facing groups of Physical Immune monsters, using Strafe like normal is the best approach. However, simply running past Physical Immune monsters is often the most efficient approach.
• You can also use Magic Arrow to take down isolated Physical Immune mobs.
• If a Unique mob has unbreakable Physical Immunity, it is best to run outside the range of/skip said mob. Cast Decoy to keep it distracted and/or swap to Harmony for increased speed.

Late-Game

• If using Call to Arms on Weapon-Swap, first cast Battle Command 2 times and then Battle Orders once before starting your Magic Find/Experience run. Refresh these Call to Arms buffs whenever they expire (approx. every 2-3 minutes).

Optimal Loot/Experience Farming Strategies

• Chaos Sanctuary - Packed full of demon-type monsters, this Max Area Level Farming Spot is prime real estate for a Strafe Amazon using Laying of Hands among other demon-killing gear. Having somewhat narrow corridors while potentially dropping every item in the game, this area (along with River of Flame leading up to it) is a dream for this build. Feel free to run Chaos in a Max Player Count game full of leechers once you have solid gear. All aboard the Experience train!
• The Pit - This relatively easy to access Max Area Level Farming Spot with narrow corridors and low Life monsters is ideal for a Strafe Amazon. Farming this area is optimal in High Player Count or /Players5-8 on Single Player if you have solid gear.
• Worldstone Keep/Throne of Destruction - Another Max Level Area with tight corridors, this otherwise difficult Farming Spot can provide great loot and Experience for this build. Strafe shreds Baal Waves along with most possible monster spawns. Baal himself can be quite troublesome for this build, however.

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 (IAS)

Increased Attack Speed speeds up your attack animations. Weapon Bases have different IAS Breakpoints. Values for recommended weapon options are provided below. Fanaticism Aura provided by Faith does most of work if you have it equipped. Level 1 Burst of Speed from Hustle can also help you reach maximum Attack Speed with slower, harder-hitting Weapons such as Windforce. Consult the d2planner for other bases.

Grand Matron Bow Base Weapons (Faith, Mist, Harmony, Insight, Edge)

Windforce

Buriza-Do Kyanon (Upgraded)

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery increases survivability, but is not necessary on this build. Aim for the 32% or 52% FHR Breakpoint if possible.

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

The Strafe Amazon can become Hardcore viable with key changes to Gear, Stat Point allocation, and Skills. Review the changes below before building this character in Hardcore, as some of these changes differ significantly from the Standard Build.

Gear Changes

• Damage Reduction: Equip either Crown of Ages or Vampire Gaze for a Helmet, along with either Chains of Honor or Enigma for a Body Armor, to achieve decent % Damage Reduction on a Hardcore Strafe Amazon. If you are using Faith, make sure to equip Hit Power Crafted Gloves in order to retain the Knockback stat. You can also equip either Verdungo's Hearty Cord or String of Ears in the Belt slot for additional % Damage Reduction. However, this approach requires additional Skill Points into Pierce to maintain a solid % Chance to Pierce if not using Buriza-Do Kyanon.
• Stacking Resistances: Stack your Fire/Lightning/Cold Resistances beyond their default maximum values of 75 each (175 total in Hell). Stacking 85 additional Resistances in Hell completely negates the Conviction Aura of any Elite Boss or the Oblivion Knight's Lower Resist Curse. Beware of encountering both at the same time! Consider the primary damage type(s) of the monsters in the area you want to farm. Chains of Honor, Jewelry, and Charms are ideal sources of Resistances on this build.
• Lightning Absorb: Equip Thundergod's Vigor when farming an area where Burning Souls are able to spawn such as Worldstone Keep/Throne of Destruction.

Stat Point Changes

• No changes to the Standard Build's Stat Point allocation are absolutely necessary for a Hardcore Strafe Amazon (see the "Attributes" section above). You can choose to put however many additional Stat Points into Vitality instead of Dexterity for increased safety, however.

Skill Point Changes

• Allocate additional Skill Points into Dodge, Avoid, and Evade instead of Valkyrie to negate as much damage as possible.
  
  See the "Hardcore" Build Variant below for additional suggestions and visuals.