Diablo II Hints

Skills: Bow and Crossbow

• The Bow and Arrow skills are one of the two main paths your Amazon can take.  Because the skill points are limited, it is better to focus on either the Bow and Crossbow skills, or the Javelin and Spear skills.  Either way you decide to go, you should still be putting a few points into the Passive and Magic skills as well.
  
  Cold Arrow -- This skill allows you to chill your attackers.  The damage is not so good, as the normal damage of your arrow is cut in half.  But, you get the added cold damage, and the biggest benefit is that your attacker is slowed down.  You can then pump several cheap normal arrows into the slow moving target.
  
  Exploding Arrow -- This skill will let you fire bomb an area.  Use this skill as a way to cook large hordes of lower level monsters.
  
  Fire Arrow -- This skill has a few good uses.  First, it does a decent amount of damage, adding both the normal damage of your bow and the fire damage to the total.  Second, the arrow is very bright, and you can use it as a scout into dark territory -- just fire one and see what you can see.  Some monsters are especially sensitive to fire (like Andariel) so you might like to have a couple levels of this early on.
  
  Freezing Arrow -- This skill allows you to work cold magic on an area.  You will do some direct damage, but also you get a lot longer to mop up or attack a major monster.
  
  Guided Arrow -- This skill gives you the bow-fired equivalent of a homing missile.  This is a great way to hit monsters even while they are safely off of the screen.
  
  Ice Arrow -- This skill is the big brother to Cold Arrow.  It not only slows your enemies but will freeze most of them solid.  A very nice feature is that the lower level monsters often shatter into ice cubes, making them unavailable for resurrection by a high level monster.  Almost all monsters are at least slowed by Ice Arrow, giving you time to target them or run away.
  
  Immolation Arrow -- This is the big brother to the Exploding Arrow, and it adds lingering burning damage to an area.  You can cook large hordes of stronger monsters with this.
  
  Magic Arrow -- This skill allows you to shoot a purely magical arrow.  This skill starts out relatively useless, as real arrows are quite cheap and work almost as well if you have some dexterity.  But, if you persist in developing it, you will see the mana cost per shot go down, until finally it goes down to no cost at all.  The arrows never miss, and you'll never run out.  With a good bow, damage can be pretty good.
  
  Multiple Shot -- This skill will turn every arrow you fire into many arrows, each doing the damage of a regular arrow.  Large monsters will catch several arrows at a time, making it a strong weapon in your arsenal.  This also works well if a lot of attackers are following you, so you can target down the line.
  
  Strafe -- This skill allows you to hit lots of enemies in many directions at once.
  

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