The Amazon plays like a slightly more battle-capable Rogue from Diablo I. She can hold her own in one-on-one combat but truly excels at ranged weaponry. Her two options are the Bow and the Javelin. You need to make a decision which one you will specialise in. The javelin is best if you prefer to keep you melee skills particularly sharp. Don’t try to keep both weapons at maximum, as this will mean that you won’t reach full potential in either. The Amazon is the thinking fighter. You can’t just take her hip-deep into demons and start slashing. She’s best as a guerrilla terrorist. Hit and run, attack and fade. Ambushes are a speciality of the Amazon. (Much like the Vietcong guerrilla tactics of the Vietnam War)

Obviously, Dexterity is you prime statistic, but Strength can’t be ignored either. At every level advance, think about placing two points into Strength, two into Dexterity, and one into Vitality if you want a well rounded character. Otherwise keep Dexterity as your dominant stat with for points added at each level and one to the other stats every consecutive round. You may want to think about keeping Vitality up as well as you’ll be running a lot. Once you have a decent set of combat stats, think about diverting some skill into energy. While you won’t be using high-cost powers constantly, there will be a constant drain on your Mana. You’ll need to have enough magic power to ensure you won’t be just getting off a few shots then having to run away continually.

The bow-using Amazon has a few important skills that she needs to be particularly efficient with. Magic Arrow is the most important and is an essential early level skill. It creates a surprise magic arrow. Interestingly, the higher skill point you have in it the more damage it does and the cheaper it is until by level 12, it’s free. It is a handy default attack for this character. Cold Arrow is also a vital skill. Freezing attacks are one of the most useful attack types in the game, and piking off a rampaging horde can certainly dictate the tempo of battle to your advantage.

One nice little combo is Critical Strike, which means you’ll basically never miss with Multiple Shot. There is nothing quite like a 120 degree arc of death on your screen.

If you want to get into more melee fighting with the Amazon, try for the javelin skills. Jab is the basic skill that allows more attacks for a compromised accuracy. It doesn’t pay off too well until, say, the fifth level. But keep putting points into it for a good all-round attacking skill. Lighting and Poison are the two sub-trees for the javelin Player. Lighting is probably the more damaging but Poison can sometimes work more insidiously. Javelin combines extremely well with a high-level critical strike. Even the hardest bosses can’t survive too many of those.

Generally. The Amazon is a bot more flexible than the Barbarian but misses out on the sheer skill with weapons. However. If you like playing it fast and loose and don’t mind being on the run, she impresses with a wide range of baffling powers.

- Spitfire