Fend Amazon Build Guide - D2R 2.6

Fend Zon Introduction

The Amazon is often pictured with a spear, however there are actually very few viable builds in the game to make this a reality!  One of the viable builds is the Fend Amazon which we will take you through in this guide.

The Fend Amazon uses 2-handed weapons to attack all enemies around them, dealing huge amounts of damage.  The build is centred around the Fend skill in the Javelin and Spear skill tree, the skill adds bonus Damage and Attack Rating onto your attack and when used attacks all enemies around you.  The skill does not have any synergies; however the Amazon’s Passive and Magic skill tree is extremely strong and gives plenty of opportunity to increase our Damage and survivability.  The Passive skills allow us to gain a tank in the form of the Valkyrie, big boosts to our Attack Rating and Critical Strike and also the ability to Dodge and Evade incoming damage.  This makes the build very well rounded and able to farm anywhere in the game.

The build has an unusual playstyle because you want to be surrounded, which for the majority of other builds is a very bad thing!  However you are safe on the Fend Amazon with extremely high damage and life leech, you can sustain forever.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Fun to play with cool animations
• Niche build
• Viable to kill ubers.

Cons:

• Slow farmer
• Low mobility
• Dangerous for Hardcore
• Limited options for magic find

Skill Tree

Javelin and Spear Skills:

• Jab (1+)
• Impale (1)
• Fend (20)

Passive and Magic Skills:

• Inner Sight (1)
• Critical Strike (10)
• Dodge (1)
• Slow Missiles (1)
• Avoid (1)
• Penetrate (20)
• Decoy (20)
• Evade (1)
• Valkyrie (20)

Bow and Crossbow Skills:

• None

The above allocation will take you to level 86, beyond this place your points into Jab to help with killing Ubers.

Levelling

The Fend skill isn’t available until Level 24, and the prerequisites won’t give sufficient damage to play the build straight from the start.  For the levelling and early game process we can make use of the Lightning Damage skills in the Amazon’s Javelin and Spear Skills tree, these deal huge amounts of damage in the early game and will see you through to Act 3 Nightmare with little problem.  Focus your points into the Power Strike ability which is available at Level 6, and keep placing points here until you reach Level 18 when Charged Strike becomes available and place your points here until maxed out.  Power Strike is a synergy to Charged Strike, so placing points there early helps with your damage in the long term whilst providing you with sufficient damage in the short term.  Once you have 2-3 points in Charged Strike you will notice a huge power spike, and this ability will kill everything very quickly.  Once you reach Travincal in Act 3 Nightmare we can reset our skills and stats and begin using Fend, the Council Members in Nightmare have high lightning resistance so the power of Charged Strike begins to fall off very quickly at this point.  Fend is a melee skill and you will be a little squishy at this point, so be careful in your gameplay and don’t try to take on too many monsters at one time.  Try to get some life leech on your items to help sustain you in combat too.

Early Game

This section is intended to showcase an item build that is achievable after completing the game and you’ve done a bit of farming to get some good starter gear.  Some of the runes may require repeat farming of Normal and / or Nightmare Countess, or item farming from Andariel / Mephisto however this is normally achieved within a short timeframe.

Helm:               “Lore” Runeword (Ort Sol) / Peasant Crown

Amulet:             Utility Amulet with life, resistances, magic find etc

Weapon:           “Obedience” Runeword (Hel Ko Thul Eth Fal) in a 2-handed Amazon spear

Armor:              “Treachery” Runeword (Shael Thul Lem)

Gloves:             Bloodfists

Rings:               Ravenfrost / Utility ring

Ravenfrost provides the “Cannot be Frozen” mod which is fundamental for any physical damage dealer.

Belt:                 String of Ears

Boots:               Faster Run Walk with Resistances

Inventory:         Life / Resistance Charms or Magic / Gold Find Charms

Mercenary:       Act 2 Desert Mercenary with “Might” Aura and “Insight” Runeword (Ral Tir Tal Sol) or “Obedience” Runeword (Hel Ko Thul Eth Fal)

“Obedience” is an extremely strong weapon for the Fend Amazon in the early game, the runes are all cheap / relatively easy to find and if you don’t find them during your playthrough you will have enough currency to trade for them with items you find.  The Runeword gives a huge amount of damage, stats and resistances – there really is no better weapon to work with in the early game.  It also has a % chance to cast the Enchant skill in yourself when you kill an enemy, providing further Damage from Fire but also an extra boost to your Attack Rating making you have more successful hits.

The most efficient early game farming areas would be The Pit in Act 1, or Travincal in Act 3.  Travincal may be a little scary immediately after finishing the game, however this can be fixed by purchasing a pair of Infernostride or Hotspur boots to increase your Fire Resistance.  Wherever you farm try to make sure you are hitting monsters at all times so that you’re constantly leeching life.  You will need your Valkyrie alive and with you to absorb some of the damage and distract some of the monsters.  I do not recommend farming The Secret Cow Level or The Chaos Sanctuary with this build in the early game, Cows have very large amounts of health and will take a long time to kill. The Oblivion Knights in The Chaos Sanctuary will cast the Decrepify curse on you, reducing your Attack Speed, Damage and Defence making you extremely vulnerable to attacks.

End Game

The end game build is a lot of fun and the animations are great to watch!  It is not the most expensive build in the game, but still achieves a high damage output making it capable of killing anything in the game.  With the chosen weapon, we need to target a total of 125 Increased Attack Speed on our character to hit the 5 frame Attack breakpoint.

Helm:               Artisan’s Tiara of the Whale (80+ Life, 3 Sockets) with 3x Enhanced Damage, Increased Attack Speed Jewels

Amulet:             Mara’s Kaleidoscope

Weapon:           “Breath of the Dying” Runeword (Vex Hel El Eld Zod Eth) in an ethereal Matriarchal Pike with +3 Javelin and Spear Skills on the base

Weapon Swap:  “Call to Arms” Runeword (Amn Ral Mal Ist Ohm) and “Spirit” Runeword (Tal Thul Ort Amn)

Armor:              “Fortitude” Runeword (El Sol Dol Lo)

Gloves:             Rare Gloves with +2 Javelin and Spear Skills and 20 Increased Attack Speed, some resistances or stats on there is also useful

Ring #1:            Ravenfrost

Ring #2:            Rare or Crafted Ring with Life Leech, Mana Leech, Attack Rating and Resistances.

Belt:                 String of Ears

Boots:               Gore Rider War Boots

Inventory:         Grand Charms with +10 Max Damage / 70+ Attack Rating / 35+ Life

Small Charms with +Life / + All Resistances

Amazon Hellfire Torch Large Charm

Annihilus Small Charm

Mercenary:       Act 2 Desert Mercenary with “Might” Aura, ethereal Reaper’s Toll, ethereal “Fortitude” Runeword and ethereal Andariel’s Visage socketed with an Increased Attack Speed / Fire Resistance Jewel

Stats

Strength:    Enough to wear your gear

Dexterity:   Enough to wear your gear

Vitality:       As much as possible

Energy:      None

Hardcore

This build would be very dangerous to play on Hardcore.  We use a 2-handed weapon, so there is no opportunity to use a shield.  It is possible to use a 1-handed Javelin with the build, however finding one with enough damage to make the build viable is extremely difficult.  The end game build can survive in Hardcore, however making it that far is difficult and if you want to play Hardcore I would recommend looking at alternative builds – or at least playing a conventional Javazon until you gain enough currency / items to purchase the end game Fend Amazon items.

Playstyle

I mentioned at the start of the build that the Fend Amazon gameplay is slightly unusual, because you want to be surrounded to deal the most amount of damage.  Before entering any form of combat, make sure you summon your Valkyrie and give everyone the Battle Command and Battle Orders buffs from your “Call to Arms” weapon switch.

This build does not have the Teleport skill so we need to run around the maps to find monsters to kill, for this reason the optimum places to farm are areas where bosses are close to waypoints or portals – for example Eldritch and Shenk next to Frigid Highlands, the Council Members in Travincal or Pindleskin through the Portal next to Anya in Act 5.  The Secret Cow Level or The Pit in Act 1 are also good options, however there is some travel distance involved in both areas which reduces the efficiency.  Try to target larger packs of monsters or Elite / Champion packs to deal the most damage from Fend.  Run up to the front (or middle of the pack if you can) and start using the Fend skill, your Amazon will attack everything in a circle extremely quickly.  Our “Breath of the Dying” weapon will cast the Poison Nova skill at regular intervals which is a great animation to watch!

Your mercenary will also be doing work, his Might aura will boost your damage further and Reaper’s Toll has a chance to cast the Decrepify curse on targets – further increasing your damage, but also reducing the damage of the monsters.  Decrepify can also remove Physical immunity from monsters meaning nothing slows you down!

Diablo Clone / Ubers

This build is viable for Diablo Clone and Ubers.  Diablo Clone is relatively simple, however Ubers is difficult and requires practice – it also requires a bit of luck that Life Tap gets cast quickly to help you sustain.

There are a few changes required to our build to improve our efficiency, the weapon of choice is Hone Sundan Yari.  The weapon has a high % Crushing Blow and also 3 open sockets, which we put Increased Attack Speed Jewels into.  We also need Dracul’s Grasp gloves for the % chance to cast Life Tap, Thundergod’s Vigor belt to boost our Lightning Resistance and absorb and Guillaume’s helmet to further increase our Crushing Blow.  The skill to use is Jab for the fast attacks, if you have low Attack Rating swap your rare ring to an Angelic Ring and your Mara’s to Angelic Amulet – this combination will sort out any problems with Attack Rating!

Diablo Clone will die very quickly, your Mercenary and Valkyrie will distract him for enough time for you to get close and start hitting.  By the time he targets you, Life Tap will have been cast and it’s game over for the Clone!

Mini Ubers (Duriel, Lilith and Izual) are easy with this build, the only drawback is that you won’t have “Enigma” and therefore no teleport so will need to fight your way through the areas until you reach the bosses.  This shouldn’t be too difficult with end game gear.

Before taking on Uber Tristram you will need to prebuff yourself using “Treachery” Runeword so that Fade is active.  It is also worth purchasing a Demon Limb Tyrant Club, to allow you to cast Enchant on yourself for more Attack Rating.  Make sure you take on the Ubers one by one, you will struggle if you try to take on more.  This is where the luck comes in to play…  You will need Life Tap to be active to sustain yourself in combat, with the attack speed of jab this should happen quickly.  If you try and fail, you can always purchase a wand with Life Tap charges from a Merchant and cast this on the Uber before Jabbing them.

If you'd rather skip farming you can quickly buy D2R Items from our D2R Store.