The Witch and Ranger Zones are the weakest in the game

I disagree, travelling to the Shadow is worth if if you're going pure crit damage, as there is Witch cluster along that highway, as well as 2 Shadow nodes. Plus, you can grab phase dodge and acrobatics. Duelist offers better 'regular' damage but if you're going crit damage with a melee weapon, Shadow is superior.

I just don't see it. It's such an ungodly point tax for the ranger.

Frankly, for shadow melee, you are vastly better off starting as witch or a shadow. And ignoring the Ranger's road full of 50 million mediocre weapon damage nodes for every weapon ever made.

And realistically, 60-70 skill points will be all you get to work with. The Ranger's critical damage points are only any good for bows and Heartpierce. Or if you're planning to use Frenzy with +critical chance.

Myself, I'd rather work more on building up that ~3000 effective HP to be able to tangle solo PvE in the final difficulty.

(One thing I'd like to point about about those two builds up there: sure, the ranger one has more dex. But the witch can spend the two points she's saved for +60 dex, equaling all of the +dex picked up from the ranger's laborious route. Significant nodes are powerful.)

(To be absolutely fair, 250% c.damage and +265 c.chance is stronger than 170% c.damage with +355 c.chance by around 5%, with 5% base crit weapons. I find the entire thing icky myself. Adding 50% damage and then taking 0 defense nodes afterward since +50% base weapon damage is not inspiring. These builds... use bows or daggers for these builds. They have high value nodes for this sort of thing (daggers moreso than bows). Or spells.)

(This also disregards that skill point wise, attack items are more generous with critical strike multiplier than chance to crit.)

Edits: Man I'm sucking at the math tonight.