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

Personally speaking I think elemental damage is still king in the world of ranged. There's no real way around it as certain passives/supports/skills make elemental damage the way to go.

Also, stacking crit is difficult as you'd be hard pressed for a high crit% with high physical damage bow. (6.5%-7% crit chance on bow). With crit passives within reach, you can potentially reach anywhere from 20-30%, and more with the Increased Critical Strikes support and the Critical Weakness curse. However, this requires the build to be completely vested into crit and may run across survivability issues. It can be done, proven by VictorDoom, but requires some heavy gear investment.

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Islidox wrote:

Personally speaking I think elemental damage is still king in the world of ranged. There's no real way around it as certain passives/supports/skills make elemental damage the way to go.

There are only 3 elemental passives in my part of the tree (I'm sure you know which those are) and I'm not sure if those would be beneficial as I'm not focused on any one element, but rather I use poison mostly, and supplement with lightning and normal arrows. The elemental nodes would supplement all the added damage I get from my equipment, but I'm still not sure if that would be better than boosting base damage. Of course, I'd like to do both, but limited nodes ... ya know. I was going to get that +15% node west of Iron Reflexes, but I've been reconsidering that as well, given that players say they can max out their resistances easily enough without getting that bonus...

Could use a comment on this one as ES/Evasion for defense (w/ some HP nodes)
I Use Frenzy + Added Cold Damage for single target
Ice shot + LMP/GMP for aoe.
I'm also using Hatred Aura

I'm currently level 40 here's my build atm

bump

I was just about to bump it myself, hehe. :)

Okay, so I've been reading a lot of stuff, and tweaked my anticipated PA build into this direction here:



It gives up a few things in the normal Ranger area, and goes way West for Resolute Technique and that 5% max resistances. I found that the 4 points I would have put into getting Diamond Skin from Iron Reflexes can give me 18% in the middle.

The problem with this build is that too many points are used, points I might never see. I'm not sure where to cut back. The resistance nodes can be pulled back after a while, but with everything else I'm a lot more hesitant.

HP stacking is said to be king. But that doesn't mean I want to lose 20% evasion/armor for two points. Maybe I don't need that damage cluster East of IR, but I was looking forward to bringing on the pain after getting those.

Unless there's a better way of getting a lot of defense, it seems that Steel Skin is definitely a worthwhile venture into Duelist area. And the HP boosts add up to +218% (pretty high). If I ignore the damage cluster (40% plus some speed) I can get +242% HP. But still, the point totals...

And this whole thing completely ignores Frenzy. People talk about using frenzy charges, but I'm not seeing the point. We shoot fast already, right? But what I mean by "not seeing the point" is that I think I don't understand the workings of Frenzy well enough to have a real opinion on it. Is it really that advantageous? How does it even work? You fire Frenzy a few times to build up charges, and I suppose they stack together, and last as long as you can kill enemies fast enough. Right? So what, 5 charges means an enemy every 2 seconds (or still 10)? Isn't it easier just to pump your main attacks out there?

Any ideas where I should cut back/what deserves more attention than I realize? For instance, a lot of people talk about Blood Magic, but I'm apprehensive about that one.

Frenzy charges build w every hit, not kill, so it's easy to build charges. The charge bonus stacks and the timer counts down. If u hit w frenzy the timer restarts so its easy to keep charges up and the bonus applies to ur other attacks as well.

Disappointed at the ranger class - building the Physical ranger by VictorDoom - currently i don't have any probs act3 cruel 53lvl

but

Like islidox himself said - the only way to really do high damage reliably is by using lmps chains LA builds... aka ele damage..

Crits don't work for hardcore and what is there left? fire and bear traps?

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Montanx wrote:

Frenzy charges build w every hit, not kill, so it's easy to build charges. The charge bonus stacks and the timer counts down. If u hit w frenzy the timer restarts so its easy to keep charges up and the bonus applies to ur other attacks as well.

Plus your range totem benefits from your frenzy stacks too... watch its DPS and speed go up when you gotz a full stack!

@VideoGeemer: Blood magic was a game changer for me, ironically, my survival went through the roof!. I'm using Petrov's elemental build (Iron grip and resolute technique) and having a lot of fun.

Hey guys, sorry for neglecting the thread for a while, I've been busy with the game and IRL stuff.

@VideoGeemer: I'd go with this build for more survivability. Also, the 20% mana regen nodes are a kaizo trap as mana regen only helps when you have a hugh amount of mana for it to be effective. In that case, you're better off with more mana and looking for mana regen/leech mods on items.

The build: using 108 points

Armor does only so much, so stacking it up isn't necessary and in fact a waste of points. Better off looking for evasion gear with high evasion, and with the Reflexes notable and Armour Mastery, you should be set. Blood Magic is another way to manage your resource, which then requires 2 things: 1) high life 2) regen/leech/LGoH. Due to the rising difficulty of this game since CB, stacking life has been paramount and BM is a logical choice in that regards.

@ygrakz: I think you can get a better response from VictorDoom as that build is very similar to his physical/crit Ranger.

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Dhrakken wrote:

@VideoGeemer: Blood magic was a game changer for me, ironically, my survival went through the roof!. I'm using Petrov's elemental build (Iron grip and resolute technique) and having a lot of fun.

I'm doing a PA build, but that might not change whether BM would be good or not. Maybe I'm still too low-level, but the way things are now, I have to be mana conscious so that I don't waste too many shots on poison (and I do use LA for certain circumstances when enemies are right next to each other, just not as a primary attack) and then using normal arrows to pick off individual monsters, because there's no way I'd have enough mana for that.

The thing is, if I used LIFE to do these things, sure, I'd have a bigger pool, but I'd be in a pretty bad place when I could absent-mindedly kill myself by using too much poison. Sure, without it, I run out o my ability to spam high-level attacks, though...


I need to think about it. If I do eventually go that way, I can respec any mana points I've spent.