[1.2.0] Lightning arrow bow ranger (3 Auras/ life based/ max dps/ good survivability)

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Dan1986 wrote:

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Shipman wrote:

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Dan1986 wrote:

So I was told Kripp stole my idea with life based vaal pact heh? :)
It was only a matter of time until people figured out that life pots are obsolete if you get vaal pact. You don't need an ES build to make it work

Dunno if completely ignorant or troll.

There was a smiley next to my comment in case you missed that. So I wasn't completely serious. In a game like this the options are limited and there are only so many things you can do so to invent sthg you would probably have to go back to closed beta.
Still it was amusing to hear that Kripp talked about a unique vaal pact life based build 1-2 days after I published this guide. It may be coincidence or not, and by the way who cares? Kripp is a very good theory crafter, so if he does it that only proves my point that it is viable.

Except for the fact that this is the SECOND time that Kripp has made this build, and the first one was many months ago.

Except for the fact that his last build wasn't LIFE based vaal pact, but ENERGY SHIELD based vaal pact, which makes a huge difference. The latter was standard in many OB CI builds.

Also as I said this is not about claiming who had the idea first - it was probably some unknown person in closed beta. And could you please edit that 'EXCEPT' from my quote because that's what you wanted to say and not what I did say. Kinda BM to edit additional stuff into other peoples' quotes ~.

Okay so i'm now level 68, my tooltip dps with hatred on states 1907 LA with 2804 frenzy, my gear is as follows



Now i have 70 chaos orbs to my name, i would love a huge favor, what should i replace first ? i'm sitting around 65% fire res, 75% lightning 50% cold.

I can spam LA about 7 times before having to use my mana flask (i have 6% mana leech) still isn't enough, i'm sitting around 2400 HP and my passive tree is as follows. (i didn't know 100% how to follow it while i leveled so i didn't take all the crit yet.

This is my passive tree (I followed your final build and pretty much put points where i thought would help sooner.) I'm at a loss at how to increase my DPS and over all HP. like i said i can purchase items, it's just pretty hard to find decent res with life and atk speed/ mana leech.

One more question, my 5L with mana leech still doesn't allow me to spam LA with hatred on, am i doing something wrong? Big thanks! <3

Hey born2bemonday,

In the tree you are missing the most important crit nodes in the ranger part, that is Heartseeker (40% multiplier) + Deadly draw (another 40% multiplier) - multiplier is what makes most of the damage endgame. You should also take Unwavering stance very soon as it's only 2 points away. That's an example of how you could progress:

You have already gotton Iron grip which is good, but Iron grip only grants 2% proj damage per 10 strength so it matters most when you got all of the strength nodes in the tree, that is when you got vaal pact and unwavering stance as well. However if you got + str on gear it might be a good dps increase already.

Your gear looks decent. The best upgrade is probably a Lioneye's Glare or high phys roll rare Thicket bow. The chest is fine, the rings look good. I'd change the amulet if you can for another one with 50++ crit multiplier and if possible crit chance, life, res (expensive). In terms of belts you could try to obtain an 'Auxium'. The quiver is fine; you could only improve this with one that also has crit multiplier, res and life next to elemental dmg. With regard to boots you would like to get similar ones, but with 20-30 movement speed. In terms of gloves there are some good uniques + crit chance/multiplier (I don't remember the name) or 'Thunderfists'. Your helm doesn't have much evasion. You can trade much better ones for a few chaos, like 200 evasion + , life, dual res.
Also note: If you try to 6-link an item (chest/bow), only do that with endgame items like Lioneye's Glare, high phys roll thicket bow or a really good rare Assassin's Garb chest (2k+ evasion, life, all res). Otherwise it's a waste of fusings.

With regard to the mana leech problems: You can probably solve them with higher dps. Mana is leeched proportional to physical dmg, so you need to increase the dmg. But on the other hand 6% is already quite high. In comparison in life based builds people sustain a 6L-ability with blood magic and life leech, whereas a 8% life leech gem is usually good enough to spam the ability.
I made little changes to your tree that grant +60% mana regen and also 20% incr mana recovery from flasks. You could try that out for now; permanently you want to solve the mana issues via leech. Alternatively you could drop Hatred for now; you don't really need it that early. Try to take the crit nodes as I suggested, that should make up for it more than enough.

You have reached the more difficult phase of the game I'd say - that means you got decent gear and a 5L chest, but it's getting harder to progress. Spamming a highly linked ability always requires a lot of mana (or life if you are blood magic) which is simply hard to sustain without the best gear. You need like 5,000 dmg per shot physical dmg to leech 300 mana per shot with 6% mana leech (0.06 x 5,0000 = 300). That means your lightning arrow damage has to be 10,000 pure, because only 50% of it is physical. With chain you need less of course because p

I added another temporary solution to the main thread: blood magic. It solves mana issues, but prevents auras. In your case you got all the mana leech gear already so I don't know if that's the best idea :) But it always works.

Thanks for making this guide,its really helpful!

Got one question,if you had to choose between conductivity and elemental weakness,what would you use from these 2?

What sort of HP can you achieve with this build (without kaoms)?

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Pyrelord wrote:

Thanks for making this guide,its really helpful!

Got one question,if you had to choose between conductivity and elemental weakness,what would you use from these 2?

Hey, it's hard to say because it really depends on your overall stats on gear. If you use Hatred I'd definitely opt for Ele weakness. Or if your gear has other elements next to lightning dmg. But if your main dmg is lightning I'd opt for conductivity.

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apatia77 wrote:

What sort of HP can you achieve with this build (without kaoms)?

I don't know the exact values tbh. As I pointed out, right now I don't have any time to play the game. But this will change in the future ;)

The build is kind of flexible too. You can abandon some of the damage nodes and take more life nodes around the Scion area for example.

However I want to point out that a good build provides as much...:

- % + life/ES,
- % increased damage/crit chance/crit damage,
- defensive stats, either armour or evasion or both,

as possible. This makes builds generally comparable, because you can compare all of the above values if you want. Playstyle is not comparable nor difficulty (active skills to handle), but the raw stats always are.
I do not say this is the only viable ranger build out there. There are many good theorycrafters in these forums and this is not about competition (at least not to me). But I am convinced that it does very well. You don't have to play a build to the highest levels to find out if it works, if you just have a look at what it can achieve by the passive tree. The rest comes from items anyways.

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Dan1986 wrote:

So I was told Kripp stole my idea with life based vaal pact heh? :)
It was only a matter of time until people figured out that life pots are obsolete if you get vaal pact. You don't need an ES build to make it work

Thanks, giving it a try now. So far it Works great :)

Yeah there has been a popular Nemesis-RIP to reflect recently. I happens every season :)

Hi Dan,

Thinking of trying this build it looks cool!
Could you post progression builds (like where you should be at with 30 passive nodes, 50, etc). I'm very new to ranger so I'm not sure where to progress to first looking at your passive tree.

Thanks for the thread!