TABLE OF CONTENTS
- INTRO
- SHOWCASE VIDEO
- REASONS TO PLAY
- REASONS NOT TO PLAY
- MAIN STATS
- ENDGAME SKILL BUILD
- EXAMPLE GEAR
- MERCENARY EXAMPLE
- GAMEPLAY LOOP
- MECHANICS
- SCREENSHOTS AND EXTRA STUFF
- CONCLUSION
Character created for 3.0.8 patch (new quivers added).
April 27, 26: 3.0.8. guide created.
May 14, 26: 3.0.9. slightly update merc section and a paragraph about updated Holy Shock aura damage.
Jun 02, 26: 3.0.10. video added. confirmed working.
1. INTRO
Using strafe as a vehicle for Chance to Cast (CTC) spells is kind of a known quantity in Reimagined. There are several builds that are done with the mechanic, ranging from pure physical variants (Diamond Bow Multishot Strafe amazon) to other lightning variants (Holy Shock Fist of the Heavens Strafe Paladin).
I dubbed the present build Thor's Shotgun because of how it looks like on the procs. Everytime you get a Lightning Bolt proc, and due to the way the character holds the crossbow, it looks like you are just dishing out a shotgun blast to mob's faces. And usually you do that in barrages, deleating entire packs, once you scale the build properly.
The “precursor” to this build is the Wintershock Strafe Amazon. That build is, in some ways, better than this one because you have a lot more free points so you can actually have a more impactful physical contribution on your damage, but that is a LOT LESS COOL to see in action. The Wintershock build is a lot more ‘stable’ and gets off the ground a lot faster due to its CTC spells having high innate damage, but this shotgun build scales a lot better as you accrue a lot of gear though, mostly due to how Lightning Bolt procs carry 75% of weapon's damage (including elemental).
(If you happen to want to do the Wintershock version instead, you can pretty much follow this guide somewhat and just swap the weapon and bolt case for Wintershock and a Quiver of Elemental Slaying or good rare drop of the sort. Scale some physical damage and put more points into Strafe and its Synergies for more sustain but still aim for high lightning and cold % damage to maximize the procs.)
2. SHOWCASE VIDEO
Below is a P8 Cows video to show a litle bit of the build gameplay.
CLICKY, CLICKY. EMBED DIDN'T WORK.
3. REASONS TO PLAY THIS SHOTGUN AMAZON
- COOL FACTOR. There is something stupidly satisfying about seeing this absolute huge line of thunderstorm falling down from the sky and melting everything in its path.
- Damage. The build scales a lot regarding damage, and excels in farming density.
- Putting an A3 merc to good use. Probably too good of use, to be honest.
- Putting a crossbow to use - in a world of bows.
4. REASONS TO NOT PLAY THIS SHOTGUN AMAZON
- Damage as well. There is some variance element to how much damage you can dish out. In dense packs, you almost always just melt them within half a strafe - specially when you reach high levels of pierce, but against single bosses and resistant Heralds you will feel your kill speed varias a lot depending on how lucky you get with procs and how much you dedicate your gear to stats like Crushing Blow.
- Difficult gearing puzzle to solve and uncertainty regarding IAS breakpoints (detailed in the mechanics session).
5. MAIN STATS
Regular decades-old D2 stat logic. The bare minimum you need to equip gear on STR, whatever you feel you need on DEX to have enough Attack Rating (I aim for the bare minimum of 10k, but I probably should get more) and everything else on VIT.
This build doesnt use max Strafe, so you should always pay attention to AR, but the merc enchant helps a lot with that - specially at the end.
6. ENDGAME SKILL BUILD
This guide gonna be light on leveling tips, because honestly leveling an amazon in Reimagined is mostly just Magic Arrow spamming till the end of Nightmare. Your gear baarely matter, you can go Glacial Orb if you want at some point or just don't. Just stack IAS and spam Magic Arrow, there is really no secret in leveling Amazons here.
For lvl 100 with all extra skill points, this is the build to use:
- 25 Lightning Fury (Synergy)
- 25 Charged Strike (Synergy)
- 25 Elemental Covenant
- 1 Guided Arrow (pre-req and it is your Boss/Heral killing tool)
- 1 - X Lightning Strike (all the rest of the points, also pre-req for Charged Strike)
- 1 - X Strafe (you can put more points here only for AR and cut points on the third Lightning Bolt synergy)
- 1 - X Valkyrie (whatever you feel comfortable with)
- 1 - X Penetrate (same idea as Strafe, if you feel you need more AR, you could put more points here)
- 1 Pierce (can use more at the start)
- 1 Critical Strike (mostly pre-req, but not bad to have)
- 1 Dodge & Avoid (mostly pre-req, but not bad to have)
- 1 Evade (mostly pre-req, but not bad to have)
- 1 Inner Sight (pre-req)
- 1 Slow Missiles (mostly pre-req, but not bad to have)
- 1 Magic Arrow (pre-req)
- 1 Multishot (pre-req)
Lightning Fury and Charged Strike synergies NEED to be maxed, as each one of them give you an extra Lightning Bolt on procs and that increases its effect massively. They also improve the flat lightning damage added on these Lightning Bolts. The third synergy (Lightning Strike) is a lot less impactful, only increasing the lightning flat damage added - which is not huge portion of the damage but it is noticeable. At lower gear levels I used less points on this synergy and more in Strafe and Valk for general utility, but as gear was pushed towards end levels I felt I could progressively drop points from them and invest in the last synergy.
7. GEAR SETUP
The build is very gear dependent, including specific pieces that are core functional for it to work (the Weapon + Quiver combo, basically).
For corruptions and upgrades the favored mods is %elemental damage wherever it is available. I min-maxed this char a lot less than usual, so I didn't got those in any slot but weapon, and I did some “derps” on gearing, but I will call out the places I did some slight mistakes so you don't do the same. Corruptions that give -elemental resist are not recommended, because you will overcap that stat by the end so you wont be getting benefits. Othe than that, most of other corruptions are beneficial. The ubiquitous +all skill corruption is a lot less impactful than usually on this build, as it virtually does nothing for your damage output. It does help with Valk sustain; and general utility/survival for the passive skills, BO and Shout; and some AR due to Strafe and Penetrate.
7.1. HELM SLOT – GRIFFON'S EYE
The vanilla all starr favorite for any Lightning build remains so here. When judging the best copy you get, tend to prioritize high %elemental damage versions (this will be a constant in this guide), but don't pass on good rolls if they get good corruption. I got stats corruption on mine, which I was glad to keep. Even though +ask isnt that big on this build, there werent other enchants I found particular interesting, and having a good base of +ask is always beneficial anyway to reduce re-buff times and have good generalist skills.
One other option to keep in mind is Sorcerer's Cache. It doesnt give -lightning res, but at the very high levels of gear you might not need it due to the way this build gearing shakes up. This piece provides 30 FCR instead of 25, and that is basically its only benefit over Griffon's. It is very marginal, but it may be precisely what you need to get a new FCR breakpoint with the build. I only mention it because this happened to me haha.
And lastly, the final suggesstion for this slot if you want to be a lot more defensive is Blindsight. The crowd-control on this piece of gear is unmatched in the mod.
7.2. GLOVE SLOT – ELEMENTAL CRAFT
On this build I didn't ran from doing my ever maligned elemental craft on 2 gear slots.
For gloves, there isnt really any good lightning or generalist % damage option (this is kind of a thing in reimagined, there aint real lightning dedicated pieces for neck, glove, belt, boots, shield - while there are stuff for all of these on the other elements). You dont benefit much from +ask and physical mods too, so there isnt much attractive options there. I did use some Black Lotus at the start, but as soon as I got more pierce from other sources that one also was not good too. So I ended up with these:
Talking about pierce, this is the better enchant for this slot, but take some care when doing it. I didn't math out exactly how much I would be getting from my other gear and the amazon passive, and I ended up with 106% pierce by the end, which meant I could have put one of the enchants to another use.
This one corrupted to 15% attack speed and 20% ED%. You don't feel much of the ED%, but the IAS was fine enough. IAS is a problem on this build, both in amassing it and also in knowing exactly how much you need. I will talk more about it in the mechanics portion of the guide, but we are kinda flying in blind in Reimagined regarding Crossbows breakpoints.
A good alternative for this slot for most of the progression are the Set Gloves Stormtwist Grasp. They give 20% IAS and FCR, and 10-15% lightning skill damage, meaning they are very decent gloves before you have the wealth to get elemental crafts.
7.3. ARMOR SLOT – DIABLO'S SCALE (OR ARKAINE'S VALOR)
The choice between these 2 armors will come down to what you can get the best rolls and corruption combo. In general, as the +ask doesnt do that much for you, Diablo's Scale will be a better choice if you get good lightning damage and max resist rolls on it. The 25 all res is pretty good too cuz the build doesnt have that much.
The FRW is super nice as the build also doesnt have much of that, and the max resists help to offset the Elemental Covenant penalties. The fact that Diablo's Scale also has a golden color on your char its also a huge plus (now that we dont have dyes anymore xD).
For corruption I ended up getting a +1 ask on it, that even though its not that good, its also a bit of benefit. I wouldn't pass on the change of suffering from success on getting a 1% corrupt too anyways. The theoretical best I guess would be an Indestructible corrupt on and ethereal one, but rofl at anyone going for that.
Enchants on chest are almost always locked on PDR% for me.
The max-res rolls could be better on this piece, but the light damage was perfect and I got a decent corruption, so it stays.
7.4. BELT SLOT – ECSTASY OF ISHTAR
This slot was the one that gave me the most pierce at the lowest opportunity cost comparing to the rest of the gear, so thats why I went for it.
This slot can also corrupt to extra pierce, so if you get that it might also factor in your choice of enchants and gear selection on the glove slot. I got a whatever flat life corrupt on it, but since the pierce roll was nice I kept it.
Enchant here I chose 3x 6 stats 6 res because the build doesnt have that much innate resist on the pieces and the stats helped equipping some more gear.
Good old Razortail is also a completely acceptable item for this slot if you don't wanna have to deal with Ishtar's variable pierce % rolls.
7.5. BOOT SLOT – CRAFTED ELEMENTAL
This slot was the way I found to circumvent the absolute hunger for IAS that this build has, specially since I couldn't find an acual good place to slap a Fanaticism source (maybe I should steal my Summond Druid crafted and put on the merc and change the gear choices I made on him, but thats something for the later I guess).
Anyway, this craft I stole from another one of my chars, so it came with the enchants I had there. This char in particular doesnt benefit from the strength on the enchants because they higher STR gear I use is 165 and the boots themselves are 163, but it is what it is. If I could change it, probably would put some flat life on them? Or maybe vit/dex? Not much to use.
Regarding corrupt, these had a nice CBF, that you need to get in 1 of your pieces as no piece has it innately on this gear setup.
Another option to use here is, no joke, the lvl 10 ALL STARTS Cheetah Speed. Yeah, thats what it comes down to…
7.6. WEAPON SLOT – THOR'S BOLT
This weapon is what makes the build work, and its so cool.
The main thing to aim here are %lightning damage and, deceptively, the aura level (will talk more about it on the mechanics portion of the guide). Having high Flat Physical Damage and 3 skills is nice, but not a priority target when judging which version of the weapon you wanna keep.
Regarding corrupts, the best ones to get are 5% lightning damage, with either 5% elemental pierce (which is what I got here) or even FCR. Getting FCR is nice (and probably optimal, it would be in my case) because it would push you to another BP if you have some in your gloves and charms, which helps a lot to teleport as Amazon cast is … awful, to be nice. Pretty happy with the second best corrupt in a good base though.
Regarding enchants, there are a few things to consider.
I went with a tri-elemental flat 63-511 damage, as those carry in the Lightning Bolt procs too. The weapon already has 1-800 lightning damage innately, so you dont get full benefit from the enchant on that element. Due to save bits, instead of getting the 64-1311 light damage you would want on that, you get 63-1023 only. Still, I think it is worth it, but honestly just doing another +2/-2 Lightning Enchant is fine too.
I left one slot open on my weapon though cuz I'm still judging the possibility of making 1 30ED+Knockback enchant on the weapon, but didnt have the will to commit to anything yet.
The rest of the enchants would be +2/-2 Lightning thinking only about max damage.
7.7. AMMO SLOT - BOLTS OF THE ZAKARUM
This is one of the new quivers that came with patch 3.0.8. It helps this build a lot, and it was the reason that made me want to do this character. Not that it wasnt a build that could be done before it, but it just triggered me to want to try it.
The ONLY thing to matter on this one is the aura level (as you will most likely overcap -light res by the end even with minimun roll). I got this bolt case while leveling and forgot about it, but its the first thing I'm fixing when playing the char again xD. 4 levels in shock is not backbreaking, but if we are trying to min-max some…
Another option to use here is the lvl 15 bolt case Sisterhood Bolts. Those bolts are honestly super nice and might be enough of a trade-off if you absolutely need more IAS and cant find anywhere to get some. Try to avoid it though as the LB procs are the main point of this build.
7.8. JEWELRY SLOTS
For amulet, I defaulted to a Sigil of Hope while gearing up because of all the Resists and Max Res, and ended up never looking back. There isnt a dedicated Lightning amulet on the mod and the physical-based amulets feel lackluster for the build too. Even so, this slot almost garanteed has another best item to use (most likely should be an elemental craft too, ronc), but I just rolled with Sigil and I'm happy with it.
I got a flat life corrupt, but you can get %5 elemental damage with FCR on this slot - rerolling jewelry for optimal corruptions is not a realistical goal for me though (the best to do would honestly be Uber re-rolls for this slot). Enchants I went if Ama skills because it is unique enough on this slot to justify it, and I can also steal the neck later if I do some other amazon I build.
For rings, I went with a pair of Wisp Projectors. Good Elemental crafts (RONC) most likely would be better here, but these are just nasty enough. Get good %Lightning damage rolls. The Arc procs actually do add quite a chunk of damage as this build stacks A LOT of %light damage.
For enchants, probably doing some IAS + FCR enchants here should be optimal (specially if you are starving for some ias because of no BoS), but once again this is an item stolen from my Lightning Ranger (Paladin) and I slapped some resists there because I was not lucky enough to get some res/max res corrupts on any of my gear. Same thing ended up happening here, so good enough.
Finally, the Voltshades actually start to pile up A LOT when playing this spec. On cows is pretty common to have like 20 spirits following you at one point. I imagine they don't scale with lightning damage, but it felt like it on my other char. Its hard to know for sure though because there is just so much lightning going on from everywhere on these builds that I cant know exactly whats going on.
7.9. ALTERNATE SLOT
For me this slot is usually saved for Warrior's Untamed/CtA + ask stick shield/HS oSkill combo. That is what I ended up doing here too, but only because I was lucky enough to have those Burst of Speed boots I listed before.
If you dont have any other source of BoS (I dont play with unequipping buff gear, but its an option there if you don't mind doing that), I would use an Invisible Stalker Ghost Glaive. That should take precedence over BC/BO/Shout if you have no other BoS option or enough IAS to not need it.
7.10. JEWELS
7.10.1. UNIQUE JEWELS
This build doesnt have much subtlety regarding jewel choice. Some arguments could be made for some ED%/IAS jewels due to how starved the build is, and maybe trying to put some more physical damage on the build… but at the end of the day, nah, they are all absurdly underpowered when compared to the +/- light facets.
Slap all of those you can on your gear. You need to amass as high %light damage you can on this build (more later), and this also gives you a good chunk of flat light damage that you put to use very well.
When selecting your jewels, aim for as many %5 light damage ones you can get. Getting good -light res is good too, but dont sacrifice %damage for -resist on this build (which is usually the other way around in this game). I have a bunch of -3 light res jewels on my gear and I'm still overcapping -light res anyways.
7.10.2. UBER COLOSSAL JEWELS
Also a no-brainer. Get the light uber jewel for both you and your merc. Same logic apply, the higher %damage, the better.
7.11. CHARMS
Honestly, all unique charms are good here. Every single one of them give you good benefits. The best one to mind is Conclave of Elements. It adds even more damage than it looks like (more on that below).
You can (and should) get a bunch of good Large Charms with 5% lightning damage to finish filling up your slots.
And obviously, have a good Lightning Sunder too. A plain mod one removing resist penalty is what you will use during progression, but at the end you can probably work your gear out to be able to squeeze a RotW with a high %lightning damage roll (aim for that 15%).
8. MERCENARY
The important thing to know is that an A3 Lightning mercenary is COMPLETELY OBLIGATORY on this char.
Without one, you wont have enough damage. Its lightning enchant is what carries about half of the build's damage. Gear the merc the best you can, he is as important as you are almost regarding the damage, and he is also a beast on itself (we might have honestly made these guys - or at least the light one - a bit too strong xD).
Slap as many +skill gear and %light damage gear you can on this dude. My current guy is filled with Heaven Facets cuz I spend all my light faces on the Amazon herself, but you should gauge the best combinations of facets+skill as you would on any playable character. The merc can delete regular packs of mobs very effectively by itself with high gear amounts, so even though the enchant raw damage is your focus while deciding to gear him, if you can manage to squeeze aditional -enemy lightning resist on the merc without costing you Light Enchant damage, you should aim to do that.
My merc currently has a 2-9309 lightning damage enchant that also gives a -26 enemy light resist, which overcaps me on that and more than doubles my strafe damage due to how much %light damage I have.
The importance of Light Enchant will be made even clearer below.
9. GAMEPLAY LOOP
Regular gameplay loop consists of:
- Swap to alternate gear.
- Buff Battle Command.
- Swap back to main set (or to the set where you have more +ask for Valk).
- Summon Valkyrie. If you are a madman you can ‘farm’ for a beneficial aura on them, but I just dont care.
- Swap back to alternate gear.
- Buff Battle Command again, Battle Orders, Shout on yourself, your merc and valk.
- At any point dureing this, also buff BoS if you have on the most appropriate gear.
- Swap back to main setup.
- Go out into the wild and kill stuff.
Remember to keep your buffs up. Since the build doesnt have tons of +ask, they don't last that long even with all the chars and incidental skills you have.
Strafe is your choice of skill for density clears, and Guided Arrow is your tool for Bosses and Herald kills once you have good amount of pierce and the arrows start to bounce back and forth on the bosses.
10. MECHANICS
10.1. ENCHANT
Enchant has multiple layers of “stuff” going on.
Enchant double dips masteries bonus. What is meant by that? Every source of elemental damage that is applied to a character that can attack is multiplied once by the WIELDER'S %damage on those elements. These sources also get multiplied first by similar bonuses on the CASTER'S gear beforehand, and if you are both the Caster and the Wielder, thas when you have the double dip.
This means for this build that the mercenary's enchant number, whatever it is, when applied to you, also gets multiplied again. So, your if your merc is a lightning variant, when he enchants you for lets say 7k light damage, and you have 200% light damage on your gear, you get 21k light damage added to your attacks.
This is what cranks the build damage numbers and the reason why you HAVE to have an A3 light merc with you. My current not enchanted Strafe max damage is currently 30k; with my merc enchant bumping it to 64k.
10.2. HOLY SHOCK AURA
This same double dip is what makes the Holy Shock aura you get on this build deceptively strong.
At first glance, one will for sure think a Holy Shock aura, even if lvl 35 on a non-paladin (synergies) or non-sorc (light mastery skill) will not be a big deal, but even relative low numbers get elevated to huge contributions when you stack %elemental damage a lot, which you can do on this mod.
A lvl 35 Holy Shock aura adds, currently, around 1-2.2k damage to your attacks as flat damage at lvl 35 and with no synergies. That damage gets multiplied by your %light damage once, which would bring its tooltip damage (if it had one) to around 7.2k max damage on the gear setup I have, and then multiply it again on the attack to about 24k max damage. This is A LOT more than ppl tend to think at quick glance (so much it will be reduced by about 33% on the next patch in a holy-aura paladin rebalance already merged to come).
EDIT for 3.0.9.: The numbers I mentioned above are slightly outdated as in 3.0.9. the Holy Shock (and Fire and Freeze) auras contribution to main damage had a good damage nerf. Since this first pass at the guide, I upgraded my HS aura to lvl 35, and currently my not enchanted Strafe damage is 1k-30k, with around 20k of the max damage coming from the lvl 35 aura I have. (Thats shakes up to around 4k lower damage with 4 more levels on the aura then it was before 3.0.9. Absolutely still completely fine.)
10.3. LIGHTNING BOLT CTCs
The reason I chose Lightning Bolt as a proc over the others (in particular, over the double nova procs from Wintershock, which is the build that directly “competes” with this one), is what the skill does.
First, it gains extra projectiles from maxed Lightning Fury and Charged Strike synergy, which maximizes the damage spread it can achieve. Also, the spells synergizes really well with your gearing, with its flat lightning damage added benefitting a lot from the %lightning damage you stack and with the spell becoming a density deleting tool when you achieve very high levels of pierce (talking actual pierce, not elemental pierce).
The skill adds a quite decent amount of flat light-damage to the procced attack, but that is not the biggest contribution in damage it gives. Synergies bonus damage get applied only to this portion of damage, meaning the third synergy (Lightning Strike) is not as important as the other 2 (Lightning Fury and Charged Strike in the damage contribution). In theory, I guess these numbers should also double dip in %light damage too, but messing around with the actual skill with a Javelin equipped and comparing numbers that doesn't seem to be the case. Not 100% sure on that, but anyways you deal enough damage as is.
The most important though is that it carries 75% of your weapon damage (and that includes elemental damage added, not only the physical portion of it as you would first think). All your sorces, from enchant, to the flat damage holy shock adds, to flat damage on stuff like your facets and Conclave of Elements are all added up and carried at a 75% rate on the 3 Lightning Bolts.
One thing to mind about LB is that the extra projectiles end everything else not only have to proc, but they have to hit on the main target it procs on to trigger the 2 additional mastery bolts and keep the piercing chain on all of the 3. This increases the importance of having a good AR even more on the build.
10.4. CROSSBOW IAS BREAKPOINTS IN REIMAGINED
Crossbow (all of them) attack frames strata was changed to that of a Ghost Spear on Reimagined, which is something I'm not actually sure what it means exactly. In theory it changes IAS breakpoints and max FPAs, but both Del and Ben tell me different things, and I have some toruble understand what the impact is.
For regular attacks, just using the Ghost Spear base in a calculator should give you the north to go by regarding IAS, but there is not a way to gauge precisely for Strafe with that weapon base, and specially with BoS messing every calc up (as its IAS bonus is not the same thing as a flat IAS bonus on gear).
Anyway, flying blind regarding IAS on this type of weapon on the mod. I just got as much IAS as I could and whatever frame I got, that was it. I might be like 1 IAS away from a new BP, but can't know. The attack speed I got feels nice either way.
11. SCREENSHOTS
Below is just a simple screenshot for my finished char.
The 77% pierce is gear values, +29% I have on the skills adds up to an overcapped 106%.
The -lightning res is overcapped as well, but there no good way to convert that excess into anything meaningful for the build.
12. CONCLUSION
Well, if anyone decides to do this build, hope you have fun. This mode enables so many cool memebuilds that even if they are not the optimal choice, you will be strong enough to do everything and still have much more fun than cookie cutter builds.