Ranger Start Tree feedback

there may not be wand specific nodes in ranger area,
but you can make a dual phys wand ranger from 1h and projectile nodes.
witch isnt great at melee, they are focused mainly on spells.
but they make great phys/ele atk or spellcaster.
they have excellent nodes for both. AND PATHING.
oh and they can summon. whatever, its not my thing.
witches can summon but cant optimally use a bow.
ok, so not every class can do everything perfectly.
thats fine, thats what classes are for. specialization.

you cant, okay well not easily, make a ranger spellcaster.
you could make a decent-ish ranged one. (power siphon may as well be atk and spell)

ranger is an attack user, like marauder and deulist.
half the classes are primarily ideal for atks. (portal urself into hell)
seems legit, all skills are spells or atks.
otehr half are spell user right?
-nope, both templar and shadow can do either, both melee and ranged.
which is fine! cuz they are str/int and int/dex aligned.
and they can do either quite well. good nodes and good pathing.

Witches-ranged spell or atk user, good nodes available, good pathing options.
Rangers-ranged atk user or melee atk user. good nodes, bad pathing options.
Templar-melee spell or atk user (or ranged ele cuz ele nodes).great nodes.easy pathing.
Marauder-melee atack user, specialized 1h or 2h w or w.o shield, esp 2h mace.
-very tanky, great dmg w any wep but daggers/wands (opposite side of tree int/dex)Duelist-extremely good 1h or 2h melee, easy pathing, can also ranged w bow.
-not spell user. great with any weapon, can be tanky or offensive.
Shadow - i dont play shadow, but melee or ranged attack or spell user.
- possibly easiest pathing passive area. how to mess up.
- no 2h wield nodes. a few ele/spell (2h is rlly a str thing)
- great at any type of dmg w 1h weapon, bad at being tanky.


TLDR rangers arent spell users. u have the option, ranged or melee ranger, atk user.
- there are good nodes for both melee and ranged.
- but the pathing is not optimal for 2h melee.
-> if you assume 2h melee is 50% of melee, the other 50% 1h, that doesnt make sense.
So! just touch up the pathing, improvement for 2h melee ranger please.
2h user should have option not to go through 1h or shield nodes and get that juicy key node.

on staves


blah blah rage, weapons and spells/attacks


class signature

Sorry, but I'm not feeling the 2handed-ness for the Ranger. She's much better off DWing or 1hand+shield as befits her character. The fact that she already has 1 cluster dedicated to two-handed weapons (one of the best might I add) is enough. She doesn't need more weapon clusters cluttering up her tree.

When can we see survivability added to Dex? This stat needs a revisit in how it adds to the survivability to heavy-dex users apart from a secondary defense mechanism.

Witches can do everything pretty easily.The only thing they lack in that case is life.
My EB crit LS witch with a bow can reach 5k frenzy dps and about 3k LMP-LA and can sustain
LA-LMP forever.

Rangers on the contrary can do less builds than a witch but I think now with the improved
tree they can do these builds with quite great success.Things are way better now for the
rangers.My dps improved a lot,more life,more damage passives available,accuracy is much
better now and my 40% chance to evade seems to work but since my computer isn't great
I can't heavily test it.

As for weapon specific nodes I think a ranger is ok.There's a lack in pure dexterity
weapons but I don't know the current numbers in str,int and dex weapons and their hybrids.
Crossbows (if they ever come into the game) would be pure dex,although they should be dex/str
hybrids imo.Two handed weapons should be pure str or str hybrids.

"

TLDR rangers arent spell users. u have the option, ranged or melee ranger, atk user.
- there are good nodes for both melee and ranged.
- but the pathing is not optimal for 2h melee.
-> if you assume 2h melee is 50% of melee, the other 50% 1h, that doesnt make sense.
So! just touch up the pathing, improvement for 2h melee ranger please.
2h user should have option not to go through 1h or shield nodes and get that juicy key node.

2H is NOT 50% of melee.

For skills ( not spells, so attacks here ) :


There are 1h+shield options ( with claws/daggers/axes/swords/dext-swords/wands/maces )
There are 2*1h options ( same than above )
There are bows options ( bow only )
There are 2h options ( with maces/staves/axes/swords )


So, 2h would be 33.3 % of melee and 25% of attacks if that would be equally distributed, but hey it's not even the case imho.

If you wanna go 2H, go fora duelist/mara/templar, half of the classes already do this, rander is not meant to use 2H weapon from the beginning, there isn't any pure dext 2H weapon, end of the story.

Mostly, I like the new tree. I play Ranger almost exclusively, and the new tree is very interesting.

Here's what I'd do with it, with some notes:


The skill cluster between +20% accuracy and Ballistic Mastery is something to pass by now, with everything below it being a better idea: Going through evasion/life up through Heart of Oak to Ballistic Mastery is a better long-term plan than going straight through Increased Projectile Damage or Increased Attack Speed. I don't know what I'd do with it, though.
The link between Weapon Artistry and the top side of that circle should be between 1h Attack Speed, not Dual Wield Damage. This makes the path to Aspect of the Panther a little less wasteful for 1h+shield builds (if anyone is even bothering with that path).
The +10 dex between Aspect of the Eagle/Gymnastics/Revenge of the Hunted is just... awkwardly placed. At least delete the one with the red X. When I drew on that pic, I didn't notice that the only triangles of +10 base attribute nodes were in the middle.

Finally: Please do something about evasion and spell damage. Rangers can't evade spell attacks. With elemental spells, that's not too serious, because elemental can be resisted. Mostly. With physical spell damage, there are two ways to deal with it:
1: Resist. Iron reflexes and/or armor-type armor and/or granite flasks.
2: Massive amount of life.

You can't evade spells (although you can get 20% dodge against them), so yes, Evasion builds are vulnerable to physical spells. How many mobs actually do physical spell damage, though? All I can think of are those Vaal Construct things and Perpetus.

Okay with a little time to consider the new tree:

Melee as a Ranger primary

This is much less awful now - she has nodes you actually want. Complaints are more on the side of equality, about her root.

The stats on the Opening of Evasion and Life are still inferior to the Duelist's. The first five opening skills for the duelist, all three melee routes:

Red Attack - 37% damage, 8% ias, +12 life
Red Life - 27% damage, 1% regeneration, 16% increased life, +12 life
Green Dual Wield - 24% damage, 16% ias

Versus the two Ranger has:

Ranger Damage - 20% damage, 4% attack speed, 24% evasion, 4% life, +12 life
Ranger E&L - 42% evasion, 20% life, +12 life

While the 8% universal ias freebie the Ranger gets on the archery side is nice, it doesn't quite compare to how the Duelist's zone leads into the powerful Acceleration and Dervish.

This is unique - melee ranger is the only supported Archetype that forces you to wear a specific sort of armour. I would suggest making two changes whenever the opportunity presents itself:


1. Bite the bullet and make the first two nodes out of her defensive side pure +life type things. And make the three "Evasion and Life" nodes on the wheel to Finesse pure evasion.

2. Strongly consider making the three Melee Damage and Attack Speed nodes match the stats on Duelist's equivalent (especially the damage). They kind of feel like an arbitrary "why do I have lower numbers than that guy?"/"Because screw you is why" kind of deal.


Critical Damage With Weapons

There's daggers and there's spells and then there's a lot of nothing else when it comes to worthwhile critical builds. Since opting out of Resolute Technique and the mountains of +life str brings, it would be nice if it were truly worth doing it.

There should be a melee equivalent of Lethality in her region, and an Attack-based equivalent of Arcane Potency there as well. I'd suggest upgrading Pressure Points into an Arcane Potency (but with flip flopped numbers, 20% chance, 30% multiplier) kind of a thing.

Also it's expensive as hell still to transition into her backfield. Outside of Acrobatics, we're not talking about a region with a field of endless life clusters and synergistic attack nodes here. Just a solid Multiplier cluster and some bow critical chance. Being funneled through +Frenzy Charge with no choice and grifted for five levels worth of grinding is a bit much.


Shadow <-> Ranger

There's still really no elegant segway between the two for melee characters. Maybe that's by design and intention, but there's really a lot of empty do-nothing tax in every route.

It may just be me, but I think it'd be pretty elegant if, for Shadows, the following were true: The default area for Daggers is Witch/Shadow, the default area for Claws is Shadow/Ranger.

On that note: maybe the power level of the Ranger's claw cluster should be pushed significantly.


Traps

Traps pretend they have anything to do with Dex. They have nothing to do with dex. There is no benefit whatsoever for them to have dex on them; the wheel doesn't support that. They are int-based spells, through and through. Why are they so throughly, completely merged with every other spell build out there? Why even have them require Dex if Dexterity doesn't empower traps?

It makes no sense. If Chewbacca lived on Endor you must acquit.


Just some meaningless random personal whining

I kind of miss the 4% bow IAS nodes for Elemental Hit. It's silly and dumb I know, but due to how expensive +% damage for Elemental Hit for bows is, they were a little bit of a better deal than sallying forth into the middle of the tree for the Elemental Weapon Damage%.

Eh.

"

Incompetent wrote:

You can't evade spells (although you can get 20% dodge against them), so yes, Evasion builds are vulnerable to physical spells. How many mobs actually do physical spell damage, though? All I can think of are those Vaal Construct things and Perpetus.

Brutus and his early-Lunaris-Temple clone Kole. They have regular attacks, but they also have this powerful (but slow) AoE melee ranged attack which leaves a bloody smear on the floor. The grappler is likely also a spell. Unless you lag, getting away from Brutus before he can go from 'grab' to 'smash' is easy.
The Vaal Oversoul also has that very nasty AoE melee attack, plus falling rocks. The rocks aren't that nasty, because you can usually just step out of the way. The smash attack is extremely nasty unless your ranger is an archer, or heavily armored.
I think the self-destruct attacks are also spells (Unstable Spawn, Alira's Martyr, Carrion Minion). Most of these are easy to avoid, but I remember how they seemed so weak against my witch.
"Detonate Dead" is a spell. Alira uses it, and so do some of the early spellcaster enemies in Lunaris. Staying away from corpses is easy if you're careful where you leave them (or blow them up yourself: Detonate Dead is a green skill, and all you really need to do is get rid if the corpses so they can't be used on you).
There's that ape with the bear traps and the EK attack in the beginning of Act III. I forget its name.

"

ALaggyGrunt wrote:

"

Incompetent wrote:

You can't evade spells (although you can get 20% dodge against them), so yes, Evasion builds are vulnerable to physical spells. How many mobs actually do physical spell damage, though? All I can think of are those Vaal Construct things and Perpetus.

Brutus and his early-Lunaris-Temple clone Kole. They have regular attacks, but they also have this powerful (but slow) AoE melee ranged attack which leaves a bloody smear on the floor. The grappler is likely also a spell. Unless you lag, getting away from Brutus before he can go from 'grab' to 'smash' is easy.
The Vaal Oversoul also has that very nasty AoE melee attack, plus falling rocks. The rocks aren't that nasty, because you can usually just step out of the way. The smash attack is extremely nasty unless your ranger is an archer, or heavily armored.
I think the self-destruct attacks are also spells (Unstable Spawn, Alira's Martyr, Carrion Minion). Most of these are easy to avoid, but I remember how they seemed so weak against my witch.
"Detonate Dead" is a spell. Alira uses it, and so do some of the early spellcaster enemies in Lunaris. Staying away from corpses is easy if you're careful where you leave them (or blow them up yourself: Detonate Dead is a green skill, and all you really need to do is get rid if the corpses so they can't be used on you).
There's that ape with the bear traps and the EK attack in the beginning of Act III. I forget its name.

Smash that brutus and kole use is an attack, not a spell.
Grapplers do use a spell similar to discharge but is lightning damage only.
Rocks are a physical spell, smash is attack, part physical and part fire.
Self-destructs are a spell but it's fire damage, not physical.
Detonate dead does only minor physical damage, fire is probably over 90% of it.

So pretty much the only physical spells you should worry about are bear trap, vaal rocks and ethereal knives. Not seen too often but still can be annoying, fortunately most of them can be avoided, for bear trap you just have to move constantly and slowly retreat to safe ground, knives have small range and you can usually move away if you see vaal preparing to rock it.

Well, with the new change my melee CI ranger switched to evasion instead of IR ( I don't wanna waste my 400+dext, and potentially 500+ later ), and it's pretty much as efficient as before for most of the cases, stun dodging works with a high evasion + high block chance ( 20% more chill avoiding is niiiice too ).

BUT :
- I can't face the Guetto's boss, just impossible unless I would own him with a much higher dps .... -___-' I will just trade those maps to the vendor now ...
- Physical reflect mode is a pain in the ass now, it makes everything much much more dangerous and slower to clean.
- I can almost die to a boss and own him because he's not touching me at all the next fight with him .... it IS random ( I got the case today with the spider lair's boss ... ).

The only good thing in this is that I got a little more dps from what I use to have, but for the rest .... :/.

( and I can't go for acrobatics because ... I'm CI, and it would completely dumbly remove 50% of my health pool ... )