[Guide]The Bown Charmer

[defboy99]

Bramblewood Bows drop in all difficulties, so you'll be able to find them in Normal, Epic and Legendary. Farm the Soronis swamps in Act IV for your best chance of snagging a Bramblewood Bow. They'll also drop just up the beach from Rhodes, but Soronis has many more frogs to farm so your odds are greater in Soronis. And if you use the Xmax mod, farming can further increase your chances of having them drop due to the increased number of enemies.

[Irma2]

Rhesus drops anywhere in Epic and Legendary, so just farm whichever boss you're most comfortable with. An oddity of Bramblewoods is that, the higher they go, the less they reduce resistances. I'm not sure whether this was an error by the devs or an attempt to limit the bow's power in Epic/Legendary. But Normal Bramblewoods have the highest resistance reduction, then Epic, then Legendary.

Of course, this is compensated by the Epic and Legendary versions having much higher base damage and thus being better choices overall. But it is odd that the Normal version should have the best stats.

My petmaster Champion is using a bow rather than a staff, mainly because Onslaught works with bows and Bramblewoods offer better resistance reduction than staves. As the toon is not doing any damage but merely debuffing and slowing with Bramblewood and Onslaught, I have farmed my end game bow already in Normal.

It's a bit disconcerting now, in Act IV Epic, to have a massive yellow ring around my feet and to not be doing more than a mere scratch to enemies. It's not what I'm accustomed to with Warfare toons. But it sure does help the Wolves to kill quickly. The bow delivers -55 resistances. With a Legendary Shen-Nong's and 3X Monkey King's Trickery, I'll be debuffing by 54 every shot, and 109 every fourth shot. So I'm approximately doubling the Wolves' damage on bow attacks alone. Toss in pet jewelry, the flat damage bonus from Battle Standard, the further debuffs from Triumph and Susceptibility, and armour reductions from Hamstring and Doom Horn, and my toothy companions are most satisfied with their master's input.

[Jean]

An oddity of Bramblewoods is that, the higher they go, the less they reduce resistances. I'm not sure whether this was an error by the devs or an attempt to limit the bow's power in Epic/Legendary. But Normal Bramblewoods have the highest resistance reduction, then Epic, then Legendary.

Of course, this is compensated by the Epic and Legendary versions having much higher base damage and thus being better choices overall. But it is odd that the Normal version should have the best stats.

This bug, like many other ones, is now fixed with >>> the Patchfix for the Fanpatch <<<.

[Irma2]

Cool, thanks.

[i6uuaq]

The Bown Charmer
5) Help with Attack Damage Converted to Health. This is a necessity for almost all toons, especially in Legendary. The Necrosis synergy of Deathchill makes it possible to leech life from Undeads, Constructs, even Traps!

Also do not be shy to fire up Dark Covenant and Unearthly Power. The life drain may seem off-putting at first but it is offset by Herbal Remedy and, besides, you will be leeching so much life off everything you hit that you won't even notice the drain. When one or two hits fill your health bar completely, losing a small percentage of your life over time is not a biggie at all.

Hi Irma2,

Can I just check where exactly the lifeleech is coming from? I'm roughly following this build, about to hit level 50, but I'm not noticing significant leeching going on yet, and I don't really see it under the skills. Are the skills meant to augment life-leeching equipment, or is lifeleech inherent in the skills?

Thanks

[Irma2]

The life leeching, or Attack Damage Converted to Health to be more precise, is not in the skills but in your equipment. Necrosis simply makes it more effective.

As an archer, whether Bown Charmer or any other Hunting class, I follow one of two different philosophies for ADCtH:

1) To have it "on demand" via weapon switch. This is effective for pure bow toons. My primary slot will be taken up by a Bramblewood bow, usually socketed with Achilles or Shen-Nong's or Artemis to maximise my damage. But because it's very difficult to find a Bramblewood ...of Feasting/Devouring, and because I don't want to reduce my DPS by socketing Anubis' Wrath, and because I'm avoiding most damage anyway by kiting, I'm happy to have any bow ...of Devouring on weapon switch and/or to socket a good dual affix green bow with Anubis' Wrath. So I play with Bramblewood until my health drops below 50%, hit W to switch to my life leeching weapon, then switch back as soon as my red bar is full again. Which, if monsters are in Necrosis range, takes about two shots. Even if my DPS dips during this time, it's hardly noticeable. If you can farm or shop something like a Tyrant's or Relentless Stygian Bow of Devouring and socket that with Achilles, or a Tyrant's/Relentless Stygian Bow of Alacrity/Annihilation socketed with Anubis, you'll still do great damage while sucking back health. Just not as much as you'll do with a good Bramblewood, though. Resistance reduction is king in Legendary so Bramblewood is what you want in your primary slot.

2) To have ADCtH "always on" via items other than weapon. The most obvious and effective means to achieve this imo is with the Soul Shiver artifact. Regardless of which weapon you use, you will get +13% ADCtH on each hit. I prefer this approach for bow & spear hybrids because I ideally want a spear and shield on weapon switch, not an ADCtH bow. So I again play primarily with Bramblewood and hit W when I encounter a mob or boss which is better tackled at melee range. Whichever weapon I use, Soul Shiver is constantly topping up my health bar so I don't need to worry about it, nor gimp my damage by having to socket Anubis or accept ...of Devouring as suffix. There are much better sockets and suffices for damage. The downside is that it takes up your artifact slot. Although there are good artifacts for spear users and somewhat fewer for archers, I don't find any of them to be that powerful that I can't bear sacrificing them for Soul Shiver. It may mean that my DPS is a bit lower overall but the benefit of having constant health top-ups with each hit compensates for that.

[MystWalker]

A great guide. I am following it closely, albeit not exactly. The recipe is there, but adding your own touches is what makes each chef different

Currently, my toon is level 20 on the backside of Athens, and rocking hard. I twinked quite a bit, I wasnt sure how well this toon would really do, but it is rocking.
I didnt see anything about it in the guide, unless I missed it (oops. old age setting in, lol). What, if any, is a good target AS to look for? Currently my toon has 145% iirc, and I hit a shrine of mastery and it bumped to 202%. The animation couldnt keep up, it was like having an Uzi back in the dark ages.. the satyrs were *not* amused.. lol. It did empty my mana bar pretty fast, since I am only a couple levels into Spirit so far.

[Irma2]

I follow the goal of getting as much AS as possible but not gimping myself in the process. For eg, I would always go with Bramblewood bow. If I can farm one with ...of Alacrity, great. If not, I'm not going to gimp myself by going with a green ...of Alacrity. The resistance reduction of Bramblewood trumps AS imo.

I'd extend that to all other gear slots as well. If you can get in extra AS without compromising something which you deem more important, go for it.