One-week "Resistance Penalty Testing" Hardcore Ladder Race

I started as a Marauder to get a Heavy Strike and a Groundslam gem. Then I finally started my Ranger.

In my first try I managed to die in Fellshrine due to a serious real life issue that forced me to move away from my computer without saving my character.

When I had overcome the loss the next day I decided to give it another shot and I started another Ranger. Early game is pretty similar to Marauder besides two things. First I used pure evasion gear, second I had serious strength issues. Before facing Brutus I wanted to pick up the 30 strength node to be able to use a Tribal Maul. Until lvl 20, where I was able to use an Onyx Amulet, I couldn't upgrade my weapon. Soon after that I could start picking up some strength nodes and from then on, strength issues were solved.

Basically what I did to progress was to grind Ledge and Fellshrine on almost every difficulty (except normal Fellshrine) until I felt ready to move on. In dangerous areas (either due to lack of resists or because of generally dangerous monsters) I tried to avoid fighting at all. When I felt relatively save i killed huge groups while progressing.

Buildwise I rushed Iron Reflexes, then moved on to Golem's blood, also picking up the health nodes. Then I went straight for Resolute Technique on the shortest path, later I refunded some of the points used here. Due to the need of resists, I went for Diamond Skin next and then picked up Unwavering Stance. At that point the build started to "feel good" and everything I picked up afterwards was just to either make up for lack of gear or to provide tankiness or increased damage. The reason why I avoided Blood Magic was that I couldn't have used Hatred then which would've resulted in a great dps-loss. Besides Hatred I ran Grace because of the extremely good synergy with Iron Reflexes.

The resist gear I obtained throughout the race was pretty mediocre, which was also the reason why I ended up picking up several 15% resist-nodes. For example in merciless Western Forest I had -28% fire resist which ended up in almost getting oneshot by Martyrs. At some point I was carrying 9 pieces of jewelry in my inventory to be able to adapt to as many possible combinations of elemental damage as possible. When I approached endgame I decided to just max all my resist by picking up nodes since in maps there is no way to tell which forms of elemental damage would await me. From time to time I had to refund some points to make gear upgrades possible without losing maxed resists.

Helping Kraityn wasn't an option since I desperately needed skill points early to finish my core build and later on it was pretty obvious that the health from oak is simply worth more.

The most valuable skill throughout the race for me was Enduring Cry. Early the 20% extra resist were almost mandatory to survive in certain areas, later on the extra physical damage reduction together with enfeeble enabled me to tank almost any physical damage sources, which was necessary because my gear was mainly focused on resists.

In the end the playstyle was very similar to the wellknown Groundslam Marauder, it just had more style as a Ranger in my opinion. ;)