[1.2.0] Ice Pierce Crit Ranger

@davidx91

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I don't really understand Vaal Pact and CI though.. Can you sort of explain that a little? Thanks.. Maybe post your passive tree so far? :D

VP CI is almost a completely different build, I suggest looking at KayeOsse's thread for ideas. I don't have a CI variant posted, I'm afraid. That said, I find that this is a great first character build, because it has pretty large damage modifiers and is therefore less gear-dependent. Not to mention being safe. (The gear dependent thing does NOT apply if you're CI! CI builds are gear dependent almost by definition.)

@eckart

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anybody knows if projectile damage helps ice shot damage more than physical damage? i guess it only applies once for the entire shot so it wouldnt make a difference

Projectile damage will also modify any bonus elemental damage from gear, for example if you're using Wake of Destruction. Both projectile and physical apply equally to damage from the skill itself.

@1acadia1

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I was thinking something a little more like this -
(tree link)
Thoughts?

Edit - I'm also thinking about running a few auras. I'm thinking Grace + ? + ? I'm not quite sure which offensive auras are best, would I want to go Hatred or Wrath?

Fair warning: I do not have a HC noncrit variant of this build that made it to endgame. All build comments are purely theorycrafting.
- point efficiency, you could save at least a couple of travel nodes by just taking different routes. This may or may not necessitate getting more +30 stat nodes, but those are generally worth your while anyway.
- the Heavy Draw cluster kind of sucks.
Sorry I can't be of more help, but as I said, this is out of my area of expertise.

Hatred > Wrath, all day every day. Adding a % of your physical damage is huge. I haven't played extensively with the new auras, but if you're running 3 of them then you're also using a BM gem. And that's fine, just wanted to make sure you knew.

@twixa

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Making a variant for this build for hardcore. Thought Scion would be a greater start than the possibility of using duelist for this build. Give me some feedback

- I feel that the diamond skin/golem's blood cluster in bottom is only worth it if you're headed there for VP, or if you're taking the frenzy charge too. Frenzy's a good single-target skill.
- Save a point routing through the str nodes below ranger, rather than the dex nodes at point blank.
- Are you going for AR or EV? If armour, take IR; if evasion, take Ondar's Guile.
- Shadow section has tons of good stuff. Most importantly, crit builds really do need a LOT of points committed to crit, and you're missing a lot of really good (points-efficient) ones.

I would probably remove the diamond skin/golem's blood cluster in favour of picking those crit nodes up. (Yes, yes, I know, damage and survivability tradeoff, but then I'd have de-specced those anyway unless going Frenzy or VP. There's that pretty HP/EV cluster near acro...)

My build atm, 60 lvl Nemesis Scion, doin not bad after getting some mana regen adn mana leech, lack of defensive items, but still i like build itself:


And what i want to build next:


One thing im not sure about is skillgems, im using IceShot+ManaLeech+LMP+Pierce, but i feel that i mb should switch to BM+LL, when i get 5L something.
Also, not sure about totems, skeletottem or agro totem, will i need them or not.

I'm lvl47 now on HC with a variant of this build and it's working pretty damn well. Everything just dies so fast and nothing can touch me and evne if something actually hits it aint that bad with 15% reduction from armor and a quite large HP-pool. I'm also popping Molten Shell to go up to 25% reduction during the moments when I know I'm gonna get hit a few times.... Aiming to put Molten Shell + something else on Cast When Damage Taken later on.

Here's the build I'm working towards to (lvl80)


Any ideas on what I could/should change?

I took the Evasion+Armor nodes just to negate the -50% armor effect from Acrobatics so that I'll get at least that 10-15% reduction with a few Armor+Evasion items.

Shucks, everyone's doing acro noncrit builds, I feel so far behind the times.

@O4epegb

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One thing im not sure about is skillgems, im using IceShot+ManaLeech+LMP+Pierce, but i feel that i mb should switch to BM+LL, when i get 5L something.
Also, not sure about totems, skeletottem or agro totem, will i need them or not.

You'd use BM if mana leech alone can no longer sustain your shots. Usually this happens when you get a 1.7aps bow or when you use GMP. Or when you decide to max out your mana globe with auras.

As for totems, to each his own. The most common defensive options are skeletotem, decoy totem, and blind flametotem. My habit is to raise a totem on bosses, since I can't face tank them properly, or (very rarely) when I just need the distraction. You can also use a CDT gem for extra protection, see any other forum section on why this is OP right now.

@crafteri

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Any ideas on what I could/should change?

I took the Evasion+Armor nodes just to negate the -50% armor effect from Acrobatics so that I'll get at least that 10-15% reduction with a few Armor+Evasion items.

As I've mentioned several times before, I do not actually have an acro noncrit ranged build, so will offer only theorycrafted advice. I'm a bit wary of that entire ev circle, would have gone for the HP circle first instead, but other than that, it looks pretty good. Also, granite flasks (of Reflexes for lol evade, or of Iron Skin to get the full 3000 armour) are still awesome even with acro.

And as mentioned above, check pretty much any other forum/feedback section on exactly why CDT is currently OP.

A few comments/questions.

Regarding crit vs noncrit builds and what this really boils down to- guarding against Reflect...

Is this really an issue for a build like this? First of all, the damage is almost cut in half- 60/40 physical/cold.

Secondly... and more importantly with an Evasion build- you get two Evasion checks against a crit. IF you are hit with a crit(your accuracy vs your evasion), there is a second roll against Evasion(off Entropy- so random) that gives you a chance to downgrade the crit to just a normal hit.

For details on Evasion vs Crit see the "Some caveats" bit of this post by Mark

And for builds that have Ondar's Guile and Acrobatics... hey I'm open to being wrong, but I just don't see why heavy EV builds that are basically half elemental are worrying about Reflect damage like they are using IR. ;)

Kirielis... Talons of Murder(18% PDBows and +12 life) and that 20% bow crit node are right next to the path you've taken to get Haste from the Shadow and seem pretty awesome. Directly below the Shadow "dual wield damage" nodes. Did you skip those on purpose or just a nugget that you overlooked?

Another question... I picked up a Blackgleam (on Nemesis). That would still be alright with a build like this? I figure it will, I just don't know if there is some nuance I should think about(like if there is a build that is "way better" for 'gleam). I will probably start a char aiming at this build, but will probably try to wring most of the health out of the Ranger tree before heading to duelist.

So far I like this build, only problem I've encountered is that the AoE of Ice Shot doesn't always seem to apply. With 95% hit chance, targets directly or semi-directly behind the target that gets IS'ed doesn't always get damage. Is this just me having this issue or?

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Chedric wrote:

A few comments/questions.
Is this really an issue for a build like this? First of all, the damage is almost cut in half- 60/40 physical/cold.

At 60 lvl im almost oneshoting myself without any crit node vs an ele reflect pack, so i think it is huge issue with crit build, adn even without.

@Chedric

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Regarding crit vs noncrit builds and what this really boils down to- guarding against Reflect...

Is this really an issue for a build like this? First of all, the damage is almost cut in half- 60/40 physical/cold.

Ice shot's cone is 100% cold, read the skill again. And besides, even the phys part can be really nasty on a phys reflect map.

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Secondly... and more importantly with an Evasion build- you get two Evasion checks against a crit. IF you are hit with a crit(your accuracy vs your evasion), there is a second roll against Evasion(off Entropy- so random) that gives you a chance to downgrade the crit to just a normal hit.

And for builds that have Ondar's Guile and Acrobatics... hey I'm open to being wrong, but I just don't see why heavy EV builds that are basically half elemental are worrying about Reflect damage like they are using IR. ;)

Because the (not actually half elemental) hits do get through. You can't beat the RNG forever, that's why even the blind/acro/dodge/block builds stack HP. Let's not even get into Lioneye's Glare, okay?

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Kirielis... Talons of Murder(18% PDBows and +12 life) and that 20% bow crit node are right next to the path you've taken to get Haste from the Shadow and seem pretty awesome. Directly below the Shadow "dual wield damage" nodes. Did you skip those on purpose or just a nugget that you overlooked?

Ooooops. Missed it in my sweep of the 1.0.0 tree. Thanks!

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Another question... I picked up a Blackgleam (on Nemesis). That would still be alright with a build like this? I figure it will, I just don't know if there is some nuance I should think about(like if there is a build that is "way better" for 'gleam). I will probably start a char aiming at this build, but will probably try to wring most of the health out of the Ranger tree before heading to duelist.

It would affect the initial phys hit, but the cone is still 100% cold damage. Yes, of course there is a build that is way better for blackgleam, I don't think it gets much WORSE than my build for using blackgleam.

@Wallwalker

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So far I like this build, only problem I've encountered is that the AoE of Ice Shot doesn't always seem to apply. With 95% hit chance, targets directly or semi-directly behind the target that gets IS'ed doesn't always get damage. Is this just me having this issue or?

Sounds like a desync thing so that the targets aren't actually behind the first mob hit. Mostly you shouldn't even notice this issue with multiprojectiles?

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Kirielis wrote:

Ice shot's cone is 100% cold, read the skill again. And besides, even the phys part can be really nasty on a phys reflect map.

I knew something had slipped my mind. Thanks for pointing that out.

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Because the (not actually half elemental) hits do get through. You can't beat the RNG forever, that's why even the blind/acro/dodge/block builds stack HP. Let's not even get into Lioneye's Glare, okay?

Sorry, I wasn't questioning stacking life. I just didn't know why stacking life/resists/acro/etc isn't enough alongside Evasion with regard to crit vs "noncrit" reflect. "Noncrit" builds can still crit, and so can monsters. If you have enough life to soak a crit from yourself and high EV/Ondar's... but I guess if you are shooting fast enough you can cycle through the entropy value and get off two crits faster with high crit than without.

Hmm... VP and LL?

Lioneye's or RT eliminates Evasion- including reflected attacks. Most unfortunate for EV builds... ;)

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Yes, of course there is a build that is way better for blackgleam, I don't think it gets much WORSE than my build for using blackgleam.

Doh. :( I must rethink my strategy...

I haven't yet used LMP with Ice Shot, but my avg MS is somewhere around 20, I barely ever have any form of desync.