Improve. The. Ranger. Area.

While I'm on a rant, why is hit chance capped at 95%? Resolute Technique grants 100%. Dexterity is bad enough as it is; does it really need this bizarre penalty?

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Islidox wrote:

Stuff

That new Heart of the Panther is thematically not anything like the current one and I'm not sure how you end up with it in this area.

One of the issue of changing the Ranger area is it's unique in its type, it's a mess of circles connecting to each other in various points. Every class has 2 main areas that generally chain in 2 more and are linked in the middle. Duellist is different since it's 2 areas that then chain into 4 smallers areas with the middle now hosting the mana nodes. Ranger is like herp derp circles.

The top part goes into damage then split into 1H and bow, but the bottom part also split into the 1H and then defensive nodes, but then the defensive area has another defensive area and the 1H area has a crit and a block area linked to it and everything exits at the same point more or less. It's all very messy. Also it's extremely specific nodes that don't have the power of specific nodes. Also there's a lot of 4points circles instead of the more common 6points circles.

In your example I guess you take basically everything that's not the bow nodes and make it into 2 circles? It's missing some of the early top nodes though like Weapon Artistry.

I think the easier way would be to "normalize" the ranger start and simply have top=general dmg(accuracy, attack speed, kinda like it is) then split into 2 sub areas, one bow one melee. The melee area is 1H specific and as such get strong 1H bonus and also block specific with a link toward the defensive area just before in case you want to DW. The bottom area is purely defensive with one side being mitigation(evasion/stun resist, mixed and stronger) and another being health.

Assuming not doing that though:

On the stun nodes, I think they need to be merged and all into 3points, with stronger values, for example 3pt stun first area: 10%chance to avoid stun, 10% stun duration reduced, per point. Lead into a new notable:You have a % chance to avoid stuns equal to your evasion chance. That'd make the whole line a lot more useful since you'd have 60-70% chance to avoid stuns, which isn't Unwavering Stance but is pretty good still, and you'd have a 30% duration reduction when you do get stunned. The evasion % can be increased a bit, I liked the suggestion of Islidox to add 12health to the first evasion node. Consider making the 10% into 12% too considering you need 3. The new Notable replaces Finesse.

This then leads to the current 2 health 2stun duration. The stun duration nodes are merged into the stun chance nodes, so we need new stuff there. The idea of having mana seemed pretty interesting to me, 12% mana nodes maybe. Change the 8% health into 10%health too. I don't know if I like the idea of an area with only 4 points though and exiting directly into the rest of the tree, feels a bit weak. Maybe linking it to the current shield node and move the shield node instead of the crit node and move that crit node somewhere else/remove it.

By merging those 4points into the shield node, you can then do a 2points on each side into a notable connected to both that splits again into 1point on each side. Do 8% health/8%mana on each side and in the middle a +20str +20int +20%mana regen +1%life regen node. Since it's in the middle it's covered from easy access from outside and would probably be useful in most builds but blood magic.

On the upper area, I still haven't checked if the bow nodes are strong, but keep them like they are and just increase values or switch stuff around as needed.

For the 1H stuff make the 2 melee nodes 8% at least, not sure why the 2nd one is 6% makes little sense. I'd consider making the accuracy more than 12% too. Weapon Artistry is fine but I'd maybe boost it a bit to be more in line with duellist stuff, like 4% block and 12% physical. Don't like how far it is from the bottom area however, it's basically unaccessible, usually you can cross over between the areas to pick such a notable at a small investment. I would link it to the evasion node instead of DW dmg.

Then this area splits into DW and 1H like currently(I'd look into the values though, 6% is weak) and merges back into Heart of the Panther at the end(add one 1H node and extends the circle so it's 3/3 > notable instead of 2/3), which is now stronger. It needs to be strong for both 1H and DW, have stats and attackspeed I'd say. I liked the idea of having movespeed on it too. Something like 20dex, 4%attackspeed, 4%movespeed, 6% melee physical? A strong single point that gives a bit of everything. From it, it links into the Shield node that's now on the top small circle, or back into the health/mana new area at the bottom.

Shield node should be boosted to give block recovery, and just boosted in general. Something like 2%block - 4%block 40%block recovery 20%shield defenses - 2%block. Notable in the middle because it's now linked close to 2 other notables from the previous changes, but whatever.

Crit node moved wherever. Maybe in place of the new 8% mana nodes, since there's now mana in the starting area. Consider a way for bow to get there though, maybe bow nodes themselves should have their own mana regen, like via mana leech, or better a unique notable that gives mana on hit(which goes well with the tendency of bow attacks to hit tons of stuff from chain/lmp/splitarrow/basic aoe etc).

I still think she's doing better than the witch. You can remove the Walker lines and that savant node from the game, and it'd be an improvement.

As for mana and rangers, let's be real tea here. The Mana Leech gem is what they use if not blood magic, full stop. Burn 5 skill points to get a still insufficient sum of mana regeneration, or use a gem slot and have ~500 something more DPS or life with those points instead, while also being able to use two auras at once comfortably? I don't think there's really a decision to be made there.

Overall I think the area's due for a refurbish when they add kittens to the game. (And you can bet they're coming. Four characters get Summon Skeletons from Brutus; and I'd go out on a limb and say one of those is a placeholder.)

Comparing the Witch and Ranger starting areas to the Marauder, it isn't much of a contest. After the Duelist adjustment, I'd say even he has a better archery start area than the Ranger now. Leather and Steel: +16% and +2% movement speed per point for two points. The shorter route to the Golem's Blood and Berserking. The Acceleration.

Now she's like a sad old cat lady who can't reach her critical chance zone (which leads her away from the Shadow area, as opposed to the Witch whose's leads into it) without the cat.

Gotta stand by my earlier comment on the area: The idea that quantity, not quality, as something you can design a class around here just doesn't work. The Ranger was designed with the idea you'd be more prone to staying inside her borders and not venture outside of it much.

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kellypoe wrote:

While I'm on a rant, why is hit chance capped at 95%? Resolute Technique grants 100%. Dexterity is bad enough as it is; does it really need this bizarre penalty?

Just another silly vestigial Diablo Thing. Which is just another silly vestigial Dungeons and Dragons thing.

The attack speed cluster and movement speed cluster needs work. There should be some notables with extra effects and more investment. They serve no purpose where they are right now, except impeding movement to the massive amounts of notables sitting just beyond it.

Combine both the movespeed and attackspeed clusters, make a notable granting both, then add some slight cast speed alongside everything else. Makes this area slightly more efficient for people who don't want the full investment in this cluster either. Maintain 3 point invest to pass through the cluster though. 6 node cluster. Notable should be the ENTRY node from the ranger's side. 4 other nodes are split into attack speed and movement speed passives that both serve as exits from the tree to the current exit position on generic dex node. put cast speed attaching to the "middle" nodes as well, resting directly below the entry node but not attached to it directly.

For the rest of the ranger tree, I would be extremely happy if they could increase some of the 3 clusters to 4 clusters, with variable scaling in investment, and reduce 6 clusters to 5. I think it would fit in very well with the character's "design". This will all technically make the ranger more powerful because 1. they can stay in their comfort zone more-so now 2. it makes it more effective for other characters to DIRECTLY invest into the ranger tree but the most important is 3. Rangers will in fact go beyond the comfort zone but never too far, possibly branching out in more paths than other characters can allow while never becoming too ridiculous on certain stat paths. I love the weapon nodes in the shadow area for this particular reason, but I think it should follow an even more aggressive pattern. Make it somewhat like those super weapon clusters but require another point of investment before you get to your weapon nodes.

The negatives to every point are not even major threats to game balance. First off, the beginning ranger area is an area where I would not invest more than 25 percent of my nodes in simply because they all mix and match in bizarre ways. Rangers shouldn't be forced sooner than other classes to leave their skill tree simply for not rolling bows but they are, and they don't get anything out of this disadvantage whatsoever. Second, other bow users often don't even pick up the beginner ranger bow passives, and just skirt the outside of that area. Very high investment without a big payoff at all. And then the rest of the beginner area is the opposite of that, low investments that weaken you in various areas that you can't recuperate in the near vicinity. Third, my most bizarre passive specs by far have been melee EV. I'm traveling 4 different paths all going straight outside of the tree because I feel like I'm forced to. On my duelist I went straight to iron reflexes and then back to marauder area and never looked back, didn't even consider getting thick skin, or attempting to boost armor by DEX. It's been my most effective duelist by far. Every single previous duelist I've attempted to use thick skin etc. to my advantage but the area has no further incentives to invest once I get there.

My *band-aid* suggestions for the ranger core skill tree:

Swap the 3 nodes Heartseeker with the 3 nodes Shield Mastery cluster, so that bow users get better access to Heartseeker. edited to make this sound more logical :)

Heartpierce is also very hard to reach for non-Frenzy builds.
A fix would be to enclose the 6-points *wheel* at Fitness with an extra link between the 2 8% Life nodes which have a gap atm.
(charge builder nodes shouldn't act as a *bridge*, they're too skill specific)

As was mentioned already, the 3 10% Evasion nodes next to the 18% Evasion starting node are subpar and worth skipping if there'd be a better way out to the south actually.

All nodes Increased Physical Damage for bows should be changed to More Physical Damage for bows to help the pathetic damage of physical bow rangers with builds in ranger/non-STR territory.

The newly added 3-points incr. Mana don't help at all since they're in an awkward spot.
Old Mana Flows was the real deal. Moving it away from Ranger has isolated Ranger even more now.

IMO the issue with all of the crit passives is that you can get crit chance and crit multiplier through equipment and support gems quite easily, and there's arent any remarkable keystones to make the ranger portion of the tree particularly good for a crit build.

Furthermore, crit passives that apply to a specific weapon type (or spells) tend to be much more powerful, making the nonspecific "15% increased critical strike chance" passives incredibly underwhelming.

Post insanity edit: Pretty much everything below this dealing with numbers is wrong. Wasn't thinking in PoExilese; projectiles from Lightning Strike don't benefit from Melee Physical Damage support, as they lack the melee flag. Frenzy with a bow is a bit stronger than Lightning Strike if you have +charges, but costs about a zillion more mana.

And another: The way the E.damage bonus was cut in half was wrong here. .9 times the physical multiplier, then sum it with the rest.


Was derping around in the Sewers, with my eternally mana-starved Elemental Hit Ranger (whose greatest dreams is getting the Mana Leech gem up to 3% so I can still be mana-choked by the leech cap) when it occurred to me how much easier everything is on my Marauder. Freaking everything. Damage, life, leech, regeneration, resist, accuracy; everything.

And then it was apparent: Lightning Strike is strictly superior to archery.

I was going to run the numbers, but the support gems coming next week could've made me look like quite the derpologist. It shouldn't be necessary; this truth is so apparent.

Built-in multipliers to the skill. Strike is 1.2 times .7; 84% effectiveness. Split Arrow is 80%, Frenzy 110%.

Intrinsic weakness with Bows (good lord their max local IAS% suffix is pitiful btw); with the best +Physical Quiver in the game:

2H Maul: 325.8
Bow: 247.05

31.8% more damage.

Damage multipliers; Strike has + .40 from Weapon Elmental Damage times 49% from Melee Physical Damage times Faster Attacks. Bows, Faster Attacks and some flat damage stuff.

One thing you DO get with a green zone archer: an accuracy multiplier to diminish your damage. Times .9 guyzz.

Total from multipliers:

Strike: 3
Archer: 1.296

So ball it up together, ignore the IncreasedDamage% stat multiplier because, math:


Lightning Strike: 3.32
Frenzy: 1.28... okay add the attack speed and it's really 2.53. Use Frenzy, Archer Bros.
Split Arrow: 0.93


.... ok this does sound a lot like a "nerf Lightning Strike so it only goes off if you hit something in melee" kind of a post. But seriously, there are wider reaching issues with the characters who aren't red. Besides Archers basically being mandated to be Elemental Attackers (building up a huge +elemental damage base damage) and taking Blood Magic or being doomed to stare at an empty bulb all day (the chastity belt of fun).

Endemic I suppose is still the prime attributes. We all played Diablo 2. We all know the one truth about stat systems that give you the "choice" between speccing to not die and something else: there's no choice at all. There should be +3 life per skill point in Dex and +2 life for Int.

There should be a damage aspect on Int and Dex. ~1% spellpower and Critical something. Even 2 or 3% chance per skill point is something. And there can be +Armor% for Strength for symmetry. If anything needs some normalizing, it's this.

Also: I know I'm not the only one confused about why Quivers don't have higher level versions. Shields level up; everything in the hands but arrows level up. Link didn't kill Ganon with a lv. 5 Heavy Arrow.


Then the mana costs. Good god. Split Arrow is 19 for five projectiles; Strike 13 for 3. Assume they all hit something:

Split: 4.65
Strike: 9.96

So with Split Arrow you're paying 46% more mana for the privilege of doing damn near half as much total damage; and the damage it does do is spread-out more, so it lowers the rate it achieves threat destruction.


Yeah, I suppose it's not really that bad since I'm making a comparison without giving something to compare with the two extra gems I'm giving Strike here, but Added Cold and Lightning damage and a flat aura (Lightning Strike can Hatred!) aren't going to make that huge of a difference to anything 'sides Frenzy, and the idea really was to compare Physical Leech.

bump :\

I'll be rolling ranger MELEE character with acrobatics and sword n board see how it goes. But the ranger starting area is indeed a place i will leave VERY quickly... but i cant :(

Well, is it surprising that the ranger area is not melee oriented???
Just saying but, I'm playing a Dueslist with Iron Reflexes and strongly intend to get to the ranger start for the Finesse, Heartseaker, Weapon Artistry, Heart of the Panther and first ranger stone which is 18% evasion rating boost...