[1.xx] Islidox's Build tips/critique section for Rangers

- If you don’t understand your build regarding its play style, its weaknesses and strengths, you would not in million years come up with a good skill/support set.

- In essence, what fuels your build (life via Blood Magic or mana) will also dictate which skills can be used and which cannot. BM builds cannot use %-based auras like Hatred, Purity, Vitality, Haste, and Determination while mana builds can. On the other hand, BM builds can stack a lot of flat-mana auras easily like Grace, Wrath, Anger, and Discipline.

- Offense can generally be understood by the type of damage you’re dealing. If you are dealing physical damage, you want to use skills/supports that boost the physical damage, and if you’re dealing elemental damage, you want to use skills/supports that boost the elemental damage. Same for crit damage.

- However, don’t be pigeon-holed into thinking “I’m only going to deal with 1 type of damage” and call it a day. Certain skills and supports will take advantage of other damage types. Best example of this is that Ice Shot works by converting a certain % of your physical damage into cold damage. The more physical/projectile damage you can get on top of elemental damage passives, the more damage you do with the ice portion of the skill. Added Fire Damage adds a converted portion of your physical damage to fire damage ON TOP the of original damage. Keep this in mind for later.

- In my experience, I usually plan out builds with a certain layout
> 1 or 2 single target/DoT skills
> 1 or 2 multi-target/AoE skills
> 1 or 2 curses
> 1 to 3 utility skills
> 1 to 3 auras

- A good build will encompass at least 1 of every type of skill, some more than others depending on your build or how you want the skills to supplement your play style.

- Generally speaking, utility skills are there to even the odds in combat.
> Auras and buffs INCREASE your defense/offense.
> Curses WEAKEN the enemies.
> Totems, Spells, and Traps are there to mainly DISTRACT your enemies.

- All Rangers should use the Grace aura as it adds an extra flat evasion amount. It’s like another set of armor for Iron Reflex users or simply more chance to evade for pure evasion users. Other auras can be used to supplement your damage (Anger/Wrath/Hatred/Haste) or defense (Purity, Determination, Vitality, Clarity).

- Typical curses that Rangers use are either Projectile Weakness or Temporal Chains. Both are very powerful in their right, but certain builds may opt for different curses. An elemental ranger would probably want a sort of ele-resist curse like Elemental Weakness, Flammability, Frostbite, or Conductivity. Crit builds would want to utilize the Critical Weakness curse. A tanky ranger may opt for Warlord’s Mark or Enfeeble.

- Regardless of any build, have a leveled Poison Arrow OR Puncture on standby or in weapon swap slot. This skill can be affected by all types of damage for the actual projectile damage, but the main use for this skill is for rare mobs and Bosses. For example, Poison Arrow's chaos damage from its poison cloud is great for super hard-hitting bosses that have lots of Energy Shield and HP. (Think Gravicius, Piety, Brutus, Merveil, Vaal Oversoul) While it may turn into a kiting fest, it will keep you alive while doing damage all the same and keeping YOU out of harm’s way. If you can get the ES down, use that opportunity to spam your strongest skill before dodging the next incoming attack. ES presents the problem that if you can’t take it out and deal damage to the actual life bar, then you’re effectively wasting mana as their ES will regenerate given enough time. Poison Arrow or Puncture can circumvent that entirely, which is why they're so useful.

The section that you’re all been waiting for if you’ve made it this far. In short, coming up with logical supports for the skills you are using is very important and can make or break a build.

- As seen in Part II, you’ll notice that there are several categories of supports available. Builds that strictly do physical damage will want to use the general bow supports with some other supports from other support sections (elemental, niche). Elemental builds will want to use supports from the elemental bow supports plus general bow supports.

- The Multi-Projectile bow supports are usually used in conjunction with skills that do not have an AoE component to them. However, you are not restricted to using them on AoE skills, but keep in mind that you further dilute the damage done, especially when using Fork, Chain, LMP, or GMP.

- Now to go over specific skill/support, always aim for 4Ls and work off that. 5Ls/6Ls are generally used for more general bow or niche bow supports.

> Frenzy + FA + PPAD + Mana Leech/Life Leech/AFD/WED

> Rain of Arrows + PPAD + CAE/IAE + Faster Attacks/Culling Strike/LGoH

> Split Arrow + FA + Pierce + PPAD + Culling Strike/LGoH/WED

> Burning Arrow + AFD + WED + FA + FirePenetration/PPAD/CtI

> Ice Shot + PPAD + Mana Leech + WED/ColdPenetration/Faster Attacks/Increased Duration

> Lightning Arrow + WED + PPAD + FA + LightPen/ALD/LGoH/Chain

> Elemental Hit + WED + Faster Projectiles + Added(whatever)Damage/Life Leech/Faster Attacks

> Explosive Arrow + Faster Projectiles + LMP/GMP/Fork/Chain + Faster Attacks

> Puncture/Poison Arrow + PPAD + Increased Duration + LMP

- As you notice, these skill layouts are what I consider the optimal selection. Those that do crit damage may substitute any of those supports with ICS/ICD and be happy with that. I recommend doing that for single-target skills. However, these are in no way set in stone. Experiment, and see what support selection is the BEST for YOU. Notice that for each skill presented, I put in several alternative choices in form of slashes (/).

- Also, any of these skills can be modified with Multi-projectile supports for crowd control. The four skills below are usually the best candidates for such treatment:

> Lightning Arrow + LMP/GMP + Fork/Chain

> Ice Shot + LMP/GMP + Pierce/Fork

> Split Arrow + Chain/Fork

> Poison Arrow + LMP/GMP + Pierce/Fork

- You can also use the same skill and retool it for different purposes, such as using Ice Shot with a single-target configuration and Ice Shot with crowd-control configuration. (Requires 2 Ice Shot skill gems)

- With 5Ls and 6Ls, now you may want to consider using general bow supports that you couldn’t squeeze into your 3/4Ls. For 5Ls, you generally want to put in another general bow support. For 6Ls, now you may have the option to put in a niche bow support, and IIQ/IIR are very good candidates for that, and even on 5Ls. Don't forget that the more supports you put on, the more costly it gets and plan accordingly.

- Niche Bow supports can be used if you want a skill to function differently. Chance to Flee is nice to attach onto AoE skills, while Elemental Proliferation is good to attach onto elemental bow skills, especially for those that proc crits. For bosses, maybe stacking Stun or Knockback would prove more to your liking to deal with such tough customers and essentially keep them from attacking you. Perhaps you want a close quarter skill for enemies in your face, slap a Point Blank support. The possibilities are endless, but you need to make the choice.

- Don’t feel limited by the 8 placeholders for skills. For example, if you plan on running more than 1 aura, you can let the aura take up 1 slot and click on the slot to switch to another aura to activate that one.

- Always level up your skills to the max. The only skill that brought this myth up regarding skill-level halting was Lightning Arrow, and that’s been changed. Max em’ all. Don’t ask me any more questions on this particular matter because it’s been answered here.

- You can also level up other gems in unused sockets or weapons on your weapon swap slots. This is useful if you have other gems you wish to level up even if you don’t need to use them or don’t have the necessary links. Yes, even if you’re not using the weapons in your weapon swap the gems will level regardless.

- Weapon Swap can be useful to house extra utility skills. For example, I think one of the best combinations is to equip a single-wield sword, socket Whirling Blades or Leap Slam, and be able to get out of dodge when the shit hits the fan.

- When selecting your gem rewards from quests, PLAN AHEAD OF TIME! Think about which skills/supports come first that you need the most. I cannot stress the fact that gem selection is a process that you must plan ahead of time in order to have the appropriate skills and supports supporting those skills in your possession. Use the Quest Rewards Google spreadsheet to do this.

- See what others have done, and then you can understand why they chose such skills/supports to augment their play style. However, ultimately the choice resides with you and you should do what you think is the best for your build.