Sirgog's Amazon Crit/Accuracy Spear 0.2.0 Starter

This will evolve rapidly over the first days of 0.2.0, as while skill damage numbers are available at the time of writing, we still don't know the 'feel' of the skills. Hence no tree, no gear outline... just a plan.

Finalized build guides will take some time for anyone to be able to create.

A great deal of skill testing will be taking place over the first few days.

Day 1 Notes:

Parry and Disengage fail more often than you intuitively expect, and the reason is that Disengage requires you to hit the specific monster you parried, not just any monster after executing a parry.

Unless/until this changes, I advocate the cheesy levelling approach outlined in section 5.

To Spear Or Not To Spear - That Is The Question

The Amazon ascendancy is playable with any weapon and with bows already being good and crossbows receiving buffs in 0.2.0, there's no reason you have to play with spears.

But - this build IS going spears, because spears are shiny and new. And that's a good enough reason to try them out.

Initial Ascendancy Plan

This character will aim to make good use of the Amazon's Critical Strike notable (which GGG have stated adds base critical strike to weapons), can and likely will spec the Penetrate notable depending upon what gear is available, and will experiment with Elemental Infusion. If Elemental Infusion is great, I'll click into Infused Avatar as well.

Defensively, I'll be starting with the Mystic Harvest notable if it suits the gear and skills I settle upon.

A Fallback Option: Predatory Instinct

In the event that Elemental Infusion disappoints, Predatory Instinct is at least reasonable. Weaknesses appear to be 45% of monsters' life bars, this means that an enemy with a million HP requires 850k effective damage to kill (550k under normal circumstances, 450k under weakness conditions where 300k damage removes 450k life).

This makes the two point node worth 17.64% more damage against rare and unique enemies - not a node to be excited by, but one that is good enough.

Allocate Predatory Instinct if and only if enough of the following occur that I don't really have other options:

• I get a spear that's hard to beat, but that does not have enough accuracy to benefit from Penetrate.
• Elemental Infusion plays poorly.
• Mystic Harvest does not play well with my gear/skills - either I am already doing primarily physical damage and so don't benefit from it, or I have too little leech for Mystic Harvest to be impactful.
• Stalking Panther doesn't suit the gear I am wearing.

About Critical Strike

This is about the Amazon ascendancy notable, not the game mechanic with the same name.

How much total chance to hit can you expect?

The evasion formula caps out (or for fellow maths nerds, has an asymptote) at 150% chance to hit. Some have interpreted this to mean that 12.5% base critical is the payoff for allocating this node.

The reality is different.

The Arbiter of Ash has 675 evasion rating on difficulty 4.

Getting 100% chance to hit only requires the player to have an accuracy rating of 1350 - double the Arbiter's evasion.

Getting 120% chance to hit (which Critical Strike turns into 5% base crit) requires 2700 accuracy.

Getting 135% (8.75% base crit) requires 6075 accuracy. At this point, the level of investment into accuracy is becoming extreme - a Dexterity stacker that invests into accuracy on the tree requires excellent gear to get to this level.

WARNING:

Some rare monsters (and potentially bosses with some mechanics) have the modifier 'Evasive'.

These monsters are believed to have double the Evasion Rating expected of a monster of their level... which is equivalent to you having 50% less accuracy against them.

Blind

The 'Blind' condition imposes a 20% penalty to both accuracy and evasion. Applying it to a monster causes your subsequent attacks against that monster to benefit more from Critical Strike, as their excess accuracy is higher. This is a substantial effect, as good as having 25% more accuracy on your character.

It may not surprise you that Blind is an excellent way to apply the Blind condition.

As well as this, an enemy suffering from the Blind condition is less accurate, which is mathematically equivalent to you having 25% more Evasion rating.

Against Weak Monsters

Never underestimate weak monsters. I die much more to fast moving, fast hitting 'small monsters' than I do to bosses.

Dart in. Parry when able to gain the Parried buff, then use Disengage linked to Profusion to gain Frenzy Charges. Strike with a variety of skills against weak monsters.

We will use Herald of Thunder if able to inflict Shock enough to be useful (failing that, we will try Herald of Ice and Herald of Ash). These Herald buffs will assist in clearing.

Later on, we will experiment with Spearfield linked to Pin and Lockdown, as well as secondary skills linked to Innervate and/or Ice Bite.

Against Tough Monsters

We will initially soften the monster up with a secondary skill linked to Blind. (Note: Blind is not available until Tier 2 support gems come online early in Act 3).

Because we critically strike often, we can potentially use Cold Exposure, although this will only be useful in certain gear configurations.

The Ascendancy's Elemental Infusion will likely be strong here, but this needs to be verified in game. We certainly should have the required Frenzy Charge generation for it.

Over time this will become more proscriptive, e.g. saying "Use this support on this skill".

For now, it's a list of gems that are likely to be good in general.

Fire Infusion Lightning Infusion Cold Infusion (only one at a time)

Martial Tempo

Life Thief

Heavy Swing

Blind

Conduction and Innervate together on one skill

Ice Bite and Glaciation together on one skill

Rage (note: requires melee tag, not all skills with spears have this)

Potential may be good, if spears are good at generating power charges

Aim to pick up the following clusters (assuming no major unannounced passive tree changes). Remember to remain flexible; just because I don't mention the lightning damage/penetration cluster doesn't mean you shouldn't grab it if you are near it and have a spear with great lightning damage.

Tree locations are described with 'close', 'medium' or 'far' to describe distance from the center, and direction considers the passive tree as a massive clock, so 3 is due right of the center just as 3 is due right of the center on a clockface.

Javelin Swift Skewering - far 4

Falcon Dive - far 4

Heartbreaking Struck Through - far, between 3 and 4

Serrated Edges - far, 3

Honed Instincts Blur Eagle Eye - close, 4

Cooked - medium, 4. This has changed - more damage, always up, but has a drawback that erases one evasion rating small node (aka not much)

Acceleration - far, 4. Very good cluster.

Unsight - medium, between 3 and 4. Unconditional chance to blind (on a small node) is fantastic here in longer fights. This is also close to Escape Velocity and a jewel socket.

Pocket Sand - far, 3. Very powerful blind cluster.

Stand and Deliver, Catalysis - far, 4. We are already close and these are solid.

This is better if you have Horns of Bynden for the Str, but you can get Str elsewhere.

Stomping Ground is completely and utterly overpowered early on in conjunction with Rake. This hits twice and the damage is filthy if you can have 50-ish Strength.

Disengage also works in place of Rake but was far weaker. It is available earlier.

This will hard carry you through Act 1 and probably 2.

Major Power Milestones:

Freythorn quest - acquire Herald of Thunder and the spirit to use it

Tree at the end of the act:

I learned late in A1 about the Stomping Ground cheese, if I knew earlier, I'd have allocated more Str.

All times in Australian Eastern Standard Time

04-Apr-2025 1602: Initial release. No Act diaries.

04-Apr-2025 1932: Updated following initial gem information. Added section on Parry, Disengage and Frenzy Charges.

04-Apr-2025 2000: Added early passive tree priorities.

04-Apr-2025 2120: Corrected to 0.2.0 changes to Cooked

04-Apr-2025 2252: Format changed to improve performance, no content changes

05-Apr-2025 0933: Added A1 notes