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

Hi there Islidox. First and foremost thanks for a great guide. It brings up a lot really great points for us new guys, who aren't really that familiar with this game yet :)

I have a few questions that you (or any other more expirienced players can answer).

So far I have followed your second passive build and focused on physical damage.
Link to build:

I have a few questions for my Ranger and how I could / should build it.

1) The original build does not include the 3 x 3% movement speed nodes right above 'Thick Skin'. Is it worth it to grab these nodes or will i get plenty of speed (and thus overall increased farming speed) from haste and boots?

2) Also there are 8% psysical damage nodes. the first is right next to fury bolts and the second is close to deadly draw and heavy draw in the bottom right corner of the tree. Should I grab these or am I missing something? What is the reason the build doesn't incluse 16% increased psysical dmg for "only" 2 nodes. Is there some math behind this that means that these 16% aren't really worth it?

3) I have a really hard time choosing a single target damage gem. I tried Poisen Arrow, but felt it became to mana-inefficient. Frenzy is not really part of the passive build, I currently use it since it grants good dps. But alas frenzy is also very mana intensive.

So is burning arrow, lightning arrow ice show worht playing around with or are these better (only viable?) for elemental damage builds.

"

Frankenberry wrote:

I have a few questions for my Ranger and how I could / should build it.

1) The original build does not include the 3 x 3% movement speed nodes right above 'Thick Skin'. Is it worth it to grab these nodes or will i get plenty of speed (and thus overall increased farming speed) from haste and boots?

2) Also there are 8% psysical damage nodes. the first is right next to fury bolts and the second is close to deadly draw and heavy draw in the bottom right corner of the tree. Should I grab these or am I missing something? What is the reason the build doesn't incluse 16% increased psysical dmg for "only" 2 nodes. Is there some math behind this that means that these 16% aren't really worth it?

3) I have a really hard time choosing a single target damage gem. I tried Poisen Arrow, but felt it became to mana-inefficient. Frenzy is not really part of the passive build, I currently use it since it grants good dps. But alas frenzy is also very mana intensive.

So is burning arrow, lightning arrow ice show worht playing around with or are these better (only viable?) for elemental damage builds.

1. No, not worth it (info taken from this thread from one of the answers of Islidox to the same question)
2. No, I think it is just not enough points for everything. This nodes were taken to reach master Fletcher and Fury bolts. You can add even 3 more same (+8% Phis damage) nodes from the very start: to the bottom left from Perfect Aim, there will be +4% atack speed (that is also quite useful) and then those 3 nodes.
3. Poison Arrow have good scaling chaos dot damage.

@a11ison:
- Try reaching for the Ice Bite notable in the Duelist tree. (30% cold damage with weapons)
- Frostbite if you have enough Int.
- Split Arrow is better because you don't get penalized for more arrows and you can stack ele stuff on it. (Fork + LMP = your projectiles do 40% of their original damage (-30%, -30%), and don't forget the cost modifiers of 125% and 150%)
- If you have Weapon elemental Damage nodes, Wrath is a fine addition to buff your ele dmg.

@tempallo:
1. If you use BM, replace the LightningPenetration/ALD with LGoH. Puncture and Poison Arrow do not leech life to you in terms of the skills' effects. You'll only get the life leech back on the initial arrow damage on impact.
2. LA has a built in crowd control function because it can hit 4 targets at once. (hits 1, then branches out to 3 additional targets) By adding LMP/GMP/Chain/Fork, you add more arrows to hit more targets. PA creates clouds of chaos damage that is effective for large groups of enemies when they pass through it, and adding more arrows to that means more crowd control. LA technically does not need to be supported with a multi-projectile support, but you can if you want to make it your AoE ability. I think you can get by without it.

@Frankenberry: Volanchik has answered the majority of your questions. I'll go into more detail.
1. If you get IR, for 1 passive point you get 8% MS from Celerity. If you move down to Berserking/UnwaveringStance/BM, the Armor Mastery notable is another point, earning you a true net of 8% MS. Evasion/hybridEvasion armors have a MS penalty of -4%. With 2 notable passives I can get more bang for buck than those three 3% MS. (net of 5% MS for 3 passives, while the 2 notables earn me a net of 8% MS for 2 passives)
2. It was a matter of reaching for the more important notables to ignore those 8% nodes.
3. Burning Arrow is the single-most cost effective and damage-effective skill a Ranger can wield short of Frenzy and Elemental Hit. Burning Arrow adds a converted phys-to-fire damage ON TOP of physical damage you're dealing. Poison Arrow is great for bosses for a kite-n-run manuever.

Thank you very much for the replies (:

Very nice thread. I may have to reroll after reading this, but I'll give a try to the one that matches my idiotbuild L20...

Hi Islidox,

I am interested in trying your crit ranger build (#3 in the list) (http://bit.ly/WRjjYh). However I am having troubles understanding it completely. You say "Pick your Defense, Pick your Offense, Pick your Fuel." But I have trouble seeing how this build picks its defense, or fuel.

A summary of the nodes:

+60% increased maximum life.
+20 increased maximum life.
+76% increased evasion.
+50% increased maximum energy shield.

Is depending on such a mix of stats really safe in Cruel and Ruthless?

As for the "fuel," we have 2% mana leech and mana derived from intelligence (+60). We have neither Blood Magic or Eldrich Battery to pull from so it seems to me that we're depending heavily on mana potions, making the above survivability concerns even more severe.

"

kivin wrote:

Hi Islidox,

I am interested in trying your crit ranger build (#3 in the list) (http://bit.ly/WRjjYh). However I am having troubles understanding it completely. You say "Pick your Defense, Pick your Offense, Pick your Fuel." But I have trouble seeing how this build picks its defense, or fuel.

A summary of the nodes:

+60% increased maximum life.
+20 increased maximum life.
+76% increased evasion.
+50% increased maximum energy shield.

Is depending on such a mix of stats really safe in Cruel and Ruthless?

As for the "fuel," we have 2% mana leech and mana derived from intelligence (+60). We have neither Blood Magic or Eldrich Battery to pull from so it seems to me that we're depending heavily on mana potions, making the above survivability concerns even more severe.

I summed up all nodes and have different total.
As we talk about this one build

It has:
At 75 lvl:
STR 54
DEX 180
INT 124

Base life* : 547
Base mana* : 402
Base evasion* : 275

* without multipliers and bonuses from equipment

Now for multipliers:
Max life: +104%
Evasion: +122% (86% from nodes and 36% from 180 Dex: 10 DEX = +2% evasion)
Energy Shield: +110% (86% from nodes and 24% from 124 Int: 10 INT = +2% ES)
Phis Damage: +77%
Attack Speed: +24%
Crit Chance: +280%
Crit Multiplier: +180%
Elemental res: +20% (without chaos).
Movement speed: +4%
Mana Leech: 2% of phis dam.
Mana regen (base without miltipliers): 7 mana/sek (105% max mana per minute).
Shield cool down recovery: +20%

As for survivability I don't see big problems. This build definitely not for tanking huge masses and probably some problems with Act bosses, but for wiping the map is perfect. You meet mobs, take hits to the shiled, kill pack, and until you meet another pack ES recovers. With bosses there are places where you can hide to recover you shield (with -20% cool down recovery it will take 4.8 seconds not being hit to start recovering). And those +20% elemental resist quite good because there are not much choice for ranger with resistances at his passive tree like other chars.
For offence there are no problems with such +% phis damage and +% crit chance and multiplier.
As for fuel... 7 mana/sek (it is also without gear !) and 2% mana leech from that phis damage I think quite enough. Few pages earlier Islidox posted skill combos.

So I just had a 50% conversion Blackgleam drop and now I'm wondering if I should stick to my physical crit ranger or change to an elemental ranger. Is Blackgleam as nice as it seems, or is there some catch I'm not getting?

"

volanchik wrote:

I summed up all nodes and have different total.
As we talk about this one build

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIBr-sB0fT4okDEotwVq9Kn1P7IFfD5Y-dUJP3VAL3mPs9RR2_yOdSgnzMM_isZ1f_ejb8FtbEwhs4M8qXLNj2Ia-OEDkinNMBRcNVwUvPqEZado_yrMHx_KzH6IXZ298qpOlgEfo19BflNktaKnyfw2Uk7cn6295ma62MRL4fbYeKiLlBCjDZVSyaVbXu1SKq4qn-HGbTFKwrBANsaEHv1S7466xR_xg==

It has:
At 75 lvl:
STR 54
DEX 180
INT 124

Base life* : 547
Base mana* : 402
Base evasion* : 275

* without multipliers and bonuses from equipment

Now for multipliers:
Max life: +104%
Evasion: +122% (86% from nodes and 36% from 180 Dex: 10 DEX = +2% evasion)
Energy Shield: +110% (86% from nodes and 24% from 124 Int: 10 INT = +2% ES)
Phis Damage: +77%
Attack Speed: +24%
Crit Chance: +280%
Crit Multiplier: +180%
Elemental res: +20% (without chaos).
Movement speed: +4%
Mana Leech: 2% of phis dam.
Mana regen (base without miltipliers): 7 mana/sek (105% max mana per minute).
Shield cool down recovery: +20%

As for survivability I don't see big problems. This build definitely not for tanking huge masses and probably some problems with Act bosses, but for wiping the map is perfect. You meet mobs, take hits to the shiled, kill pack, and until you meet another pack ES recovers. With bosses there are places where you can hide to recover you shield (with -20% cool down recovery it will take 4.8 seconds not being hit to start recovering). And those +20% elemental resist quite good because there are not much choice for ranger with resistances at his passive tree like other chars.
For offence there are no problems with such +% phis damage and +% crit chance and multiplier.
As for fuel... 7 mana/sek (it is also without gear !) and 2% mana leech from that phis damage I think quite enough. Few pages earlier Islidox posted skill combos.

I just quickly added up the nodes in my head and didn't consider the stats, that's why they didn't add up. In any case, I decided to go ahead and try the build and I see that I was right in all accounts. Maybe I suck, or maybe I'm just doing it wrong.

I'm level 38 and have put the majority of my points in to the few "defensive" nodes we have. My HP is too low, my Energy Shield is near worthless, I have almost no non-gear resistances, my mana pool is too short to sustain the DPS on my abilities, so I frequently end up killing things with Default Attack. And to top it all off, I can't even experience the high crit rate, because it doesn't come in to its own until you've locked in quite a few crit nodes.

If I'm doing something wrong, I wouldn't mind knowing so I have an idea how to reroll the character a second time around. I'm in Act 1 Cruel and it's not worth continuing; I've been miserable with it ever since the start of Act 3 Normal. Either way, I wouldn't consider this the "solid starting build" that Islidox makes it out to be; at least, not without more information.

@tuderen: Blackgleam is a decent quiver, except you may be losing out on life/rez mods. To counter that, you have to make sure that the rest of your equipment has life/rez mods to counter balance that.

@kivin: I should have made a disclaimer, but not all builds I've posted are things I've personally tested. However, I believe that the builds have a solid foundation in the things it needs to survive and deal appropriate damage. And believe me, I'm still struggling on my mostly physical-damage ranger myself (though capable of soloing content).

If I can see your build, I might be able to see what you did wrong. The emphasis of this build is that once you hit the Shadow tree, you want to start using the Shadow gear for its EV/ES and its better Green/Blue socket colors. (Green for Bow skills/support, Blue for ICS/ICD). By Cruel, you want to be using at least 2Ls or 3Ls. By Merciless, 3Ls/4Ls. Also try to find gear with +Mana or Mana leech mods on gear to help alleviate your mana.

I know that when I was theorycrafting this build off of Anubite's build, I knew that mana may be the biggest issue. I purposely stop the build at 84 points (the Int node in the uppermost left corner) because you have a wide variety of choices you can make in terms of which direction you want to go in. Go south for rez/life/mana+regen/ES or west for ES/Mana+regen or Northwest for life/ES. I also think that by picking up all the Int nodes in the Shadow tree should also help add more mana as well. If you have a smallish amount of ES (50-200), you could consider converting that to Mana by using the Eldritch Battery keystone. Consider this build a variant of the Crit Ranger using the EB keystone: EB variant of Critical Ranger using 90 points