[1.2.0] Ice Pierce Crit Ranger

Kiri,

Thanks so much for the reply, its very helpful and look forward to your future posts here.

I am currently 64, and just yesterday traded for new belt, and boots, that had Life/Mana Leech on Physical Damage and I am disapointed to see they do not work on the IS :(
Sure does on FRENZY THOUGH haha.

Like yourself I can honestly say that most of my deaths are cause of my stupidity or LAG/RUBBER BANDING to a place I was not and get killed haha.

BuDiu, could you post your setup please? I'd be interested in seeing that.

It's definitely a thought, having Chain rather than Pierce, so each projectile hits up to 2 extra mobs, and directed too. However, Chain 1) takes up a gem socket I really don't have, and 2) has a 30% less damage modifier. In contrast, I achieve the pierce effect without the socket, and...I guess my damage argument is invalid, as 0.49 (LMP chain) and 0.5 (GMP) are not all that different. And one has to consider that a piercing iceshot can hit more than 3 targets. If you're lucky.

Well, the math says one thing. My 5-linked GGGRR might say another, and I do have a Pierce gem, and one should definitely not underestimate scattered groups. Scattered groups are a weak point of this build, I fully agree.

About gem sockets: I have something of a thing for getting life back on attack. Looking at other people's builds (aimlessgun's EB crit archer comes to mind), they don't do that provided BM is not involved. If you can come up with a way to make your 5L mana sustainable, feel free to drop the LL/LoH gem, I guess? Hmm, something to keep in mind for sure as I playtest my solution to the problem.

Does anyone else find it interesting how, after one or two attacks into a large group, the only monsters left are the ones closest to you?

Speaking of which, aimlessgun's got some very good points in his guide, I strongly recommend reading it.

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I guess my damage argument is invalid, as 0.49 (LMP chain) and 0.5 (GMP) are not all that different.

It's definitely worth mentioning that LMP + chain gives you much better LoH return as it hits more targets (usually). Also dmg in many cases can be better I think.

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Does anyone else find it interesting how, after one or two attacks into a large group, the only monsters left are the ones closest to you?

That's direct consequence of pierce strategy.

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Still cant figure out a way to deal with reflect, its just too much damage.

I think the main strategy here is to convert as much dmg as possible to elemental. E.g. 40% from ice shot and 50% from quiver. Since the phys part is the bad one which cannot be mitigated as effectively - 75% armor reduction is hard to get.

Also the LoH gem is absolute necessity all the time.

@Kirielis: take my post for what it is as feedback, nothing more. Not sure why you took so much offense to feedback looking at your build from another angle.

There are several things I also want to point out in your response.

Blood Rage is not sustainable for life-based builds except for builds that spec high life (4k+), life regen, life leech, and high chaos resistance. LOH helps, but without significant chaos resistance, you're going to lose more life than you gain back, which is why I never recommend using Blood Rage for frenzy charge buildup. Also, life leech from Blood Rage is based on physical damage only. IS's AoE cone effect is 100% cold damage, which does nothing against Blood Rage's chaos DoT.

Also, I never said that Temporal Chains was to be used over Projectile Weakness. In case it wasn't clear before, TC should supplement your PW as it adds more utility than CW does. I currently have 38% chance to crit on my own phys/cold/crit ranger, and that's more than enough crit for me, so I have PW and TC on my skillbar with CW on reserve. CW should be used for extremely tough bosses as PW provides much more utility than CW. Even at 30% crit chance, I would choose PW/TC over PW/CW.

Using Pierce is going to obviously raise issues with reflect, and I won't disagree with you there. It comes with the territory for this particular build, especially when shots go off-screen.

If Mind Drinker/ML is not sufficient for end-game (I wouldn't know because I haven't tested a 5L IS with Mana Leech), then that means using BM/LOH as mandatory supports. Which leaves 2 sockets left for multi-projectile support and/or damage supports. May not be ideal, but I can see why the setup is what it is.

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If Mind Drinker/ML is not sufficient for end-game (I wouldn't know because I haven't tested a 5L IS with Mana Leech), then that means using BM/LOH as mandatory supports. Which leaves 2 sockets left for multi-projectile support and/or damage supports. May not be ideal, but I can see why the setup is what it is.

Given the build - maybe Eldritch battery should be taken to increase the mana pool. ???

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Filousov wrote:

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If Mind Drinker/ML is not sufficient for end-game (I wouldn't know because I haven't tested a 5L IS with Mana Leech), then that means using BM/LOH as mandatory supports. Which leaves 2 sockets left for multi-projectile support and/or damage supports. May not be ideal, but I can see why the setup is what it is.

Given the build - maybe Eldritch battery should be taken to increase the mana pool. ???

I would agree with this too. However, it also means limiting your equipment and reducing your armor using eva/ES gear compared to pure eva-gear.

@Islidox: Didn't so much take offense as I felt that you weren't really addressing the points, certainly did not mean to cause offense.

Blood Rage is perfectly sustainable on a LL gem linked to IS, and since I'm linking BM to it anyway, works out pretty well. Though admittedly there's less margin for error compared to using Frenzy to stack charges.

No, it certainly wasn't clear before that you meant TC in addition to PW - I don't dual curse and I don't really expect anyone else to dual curse. Yes, TC is a fine addition to the lineup, in the case that you have two curses to use. I'll add that to the OP.

Regarding mana:

IS - LMP - WED - ML - LOH. Not sustainable with a mana pool of ~600. Tested. It's sustainable without the WED, but 1.7 multiplier really hurts. aimlessgun's crit archer build does go for EB. I can certainly see the value in it. It's a possible build choice which I had considered, especially if one chooses to use eg. Carcass Jack, which is amazing for Ice Shot.

In many hours of math and playtesting, I have found exactly one solution to making a 5L IS mana sustainable that did not fall apart in the first minute of playtesting at docks. It's a very expensive solution that also makes my HP pool take a significant hit, and I don't even know if it works in maps yet, since I had to return the item to my friend.

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IS - LMP - WED - ML - LOH. Not sustainable with a mana pool of ~600. Tested. It's sustainable without the WED, but 1.7 multiplier really hurts. aimlessgun's crit archer build does go for EB. I can certainly see the value in it. It's a possible build choice which I had considered, especially if one chooses to use eg. Carcass Jack, which is amazing for Ice Shot.

On this I can perfectly understand why taking piercing when going to int tree part is very good choice. Chain is not option, because noone wants to have chain + LMP + LoH + ML + IS gem setup!

This resource problem is kinda hard to solve for all ranger builds to say.
Especially on HC and Onslaught. Because the chars usually don't survive that long. :-)
Going mana resource build is good, but I always see gear kind of problem. It's at the end most likely better setup than going Blood magic passive or Eldritch battery passive, however to get there is significantly harder.

Maybe I should try a Witch to see whether the similar problem applies to int based build. :-)

Great success!


Observant readers will notice that I have taken out both BM and LL (as compared to the previous time I posted this armour) and instead am running WED and AFD. My character pane DPS has doubled.

My resists have gone from 75/75/75 to -2/18/4. My HP has gone from ~2800 to ~2500. I have barely enough mana to cast one curse and two ice shots.

This is going to be an interesting ride.

Posted rough ~70 point mockup for 0.11.2, will fool around with IR changes before deciding on a complete build.