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

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rhtmxhq8 wrote:

Could you provide 0-40 leveling with that build? Since it splits two ways, I do not know which path to go first :D or does it depend on the gears you pick up on the way. Thank you!

Done.

Nothing really changed, and the build I posted will be adapted for players that don't have great gear. The Heart of Oak and Primal Spirit are taken ASAP when going along the offensive-side of the Ranger highway. The 6%eva/4%HP nodes are taken much much later in the higher levels.

Hey fool, why aren't you online :P I wanna talk to you :(

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Azemotay wrote:

Hey fool, why aren't you online :P I wanna talk to you :(

I'm at work...

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Islidox wrote:

That means you will need to be extra careful when you encounter physical reflect mobs and use Bear/Conversion Traps or single out the phys reflect boss from the pack. You won't have armor to protect you from straight reflect damage, but having evasion and Acrobatics/PhaseAcrobatics will help avoid some of the damage.

Actually with Ondar's Guile now working for reflected damage (also in the patch notes) and reflected damage remaining the same type as the original damage source (in this case projectile attack damage) as well as monster accuracy being reduced (reflect uses the monster's accuracy for hit calculations).

You have to be less careful than just about every single other build, excepting perhaps high leech Vaal Pact users (and of course dual totem users...). Most reflected damage will miss you, if you get a 47.5% evasion chance or more then 95% of all your reflected damage won't even touch you.

The only potential issue is if your damage is enough to 1-shot you. Otherwise, every time reflect does hit evasion entropy will ensure that you won't get hit again by the next 19 sources of projectile damage provided you ensure that you don't get hit by non-projectile attack damage (which you'd still evade but would eat up all your entropy in the process meaning the next attack or reflect probably will hit).

An elemental damage bow build would be able to withstand even more reflect. 95% of reflected damage would be evaded, provided you reach at least 47.5% evasion chance, and the 5% that does hit would be reduced by your elemental resistances, making it practically impossible to 1-shot yourself and, in total, nullifying around 98.75% of all reflected damage.

EDIT: Forgot to factor in Acrobatics, which also applies to reflect. This'd nullify 96.5% total of all physical reflect and 99.125% of all elemental reflect total. With purity the elemental reflect would be reduced by 99.23%. All of it over a full evasion entropy cycle of course, there would still be a single massive reflect hit, not reduced at all in the case of physical damage.

Hi,

What if i'm gonna use lioneye's glare, do i need to take IR again?
Also wanted to ask how dodge works with lioneye's on reflect mobs, can i dodge them? Or because of lioneye's passive you always hit yourself?

I think all of us self admitted newbs really appreciate this thread. so thanks!

now to my question. i'm doing an LA (javazon, as i call it) build. I've seen a ton of builds go for phys damage buffs, projectile damage and iron grip. I think this takes away from the LA splash that i'm using 95% of the time to do most of my damage. I made some changes to a cookie cutter LA build and would like your input on this swayed focus to elemental damage. (this is my first character in merciless) i don't have lioneyes.

@Gobla: I've went up against a physical reflect mob, but it seemed like I was getting hit for a majority of the time. (45% chance to evade, translating into a 90% chance to evade projectile attacks.) I'll need to test this further because I know what you're saying sounds right, but my experience differed. It's possible that I used up my entropy cycles while fending off a pack surrounding the phys reflect mob, but I'll have to test that again to really see if you can avoid a majority of the reflect. That also means getting the boss alone for best results.


@AllRghtsRsrvd: that's actually a good question to which I don't have the answer to. I assume that hitting with the Lioneye's bow only affects you and the mob, and any reflect damage is not based on how the damage source was dealt but what the damage source is and if you can mitigate/evade/dodge it. That's what I'm guessing, so don't take my word for it.


@SRTurboNJ: No problem, glad to be of help.

I think you're operating under a wrong assumption there. LA and its AoE damage is all considered part of the projectile attack. As such, the keystone Iron Grip affects the initial shot AND the AoE damage. The AoE does the same damage as the initial arrow does.

If you get Heart of Oak, I don't really see a point in getting Unwavering Stance, especially since you're not supposed to be facetanking mobs anyway.

Try this for 101 points:
More life, more damage. I don't see why you need Celestial Walker, especially since you need to spend 3 passives on Int, which does nothing for this build. Also, Inner Force is recommended for builds that have 5+ auras because its total effect is 18% compared to 30%. That's my opinion with Inner Force, others may disagree. If you're a CI-physical build, then you should get Inner Force since 2 auras used (Discipline and Grace) and directly related to your survivability. In this case, only Grace applies and as such I don't think its worth grabbing.

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Islidox wrote:

@Gobla: I've went up against a physical reflect mob, but it seemed like I was getting hit for a majority of the time. (45% chance to evade, translating into a 90% chance to evade projectile attacks.) I'll need to test this further because I know what you're saying sounds right, but my experience differed. It's possible that I used up my entropy cycles while fending off a pack surrounding the phys reflect mob, but I'll have to test that again to really see if you can avoid a majority of the reflect. That also means getting the boss alone for best results.

Well the evasion formula is still set up to highly disadvantage stacking pure evasion and with physical reflect coming from rare monsters who still have a lot of accuracy it's entirely possible that instead of 45% your actual actual evasion chance against that specific mob is much lower, causing it to burn through your entropy stack much faster. Even if all the other mobs are normal ones with low accuracy that mob alone would cause your entropy to cycle much faster.

If your experience is that then it may very well be that I've overestimated the decrease GGG implemented for mob accuracy and that, especially for rare monsters, it's still more than high enough to require practically impossible levels of evasion rating for a decent evasion chance. There's still an exponent in the evasion formula, meaning that every increase in accuracy must be matched vast increases in evasion rating up to the point where you can literally double your evasion rating to little effect.

If you're up for an experiment, you might try using both blind support gem and enfeeble on reflect mobs. Unlike stacking evasion, reducing enemy accuracy has, thanks to the same formula, huge effects on your evasion chance. This should produce a noticeable effect, although I'm not sure if blind actually applies to reflect ( it probably should, but seeing the bugs that existed with spell block, spell dodge and Ondar's Guile not applying I'd not be surprised if it didn't work ).

Well, I'll be trying it out later... hopefully I get some Reflect mobs and pray I don't die.

Also, thread has been updated with revised (and 1 new) builds! Located here.

Thanks for this thread! I'd like some feedback on this build I thought up using Elemental Split Arrow. I intend on running wrath, grace and anger, running Elemental Weakness with Temporal Chains as my curse. My main AOE dps will be Split Arrow linked with Life on Hit, Chain, Weapon Ele and Faster Attacks. My single target will be Frenzy linked with Life Leech, Weapon Ele, Faster Attacks, and Added Light Dmg. This build uses shock stack to increase its dps, and I'm planning on using it in onslaught (so the survivability is a little higher)

The skill tree has IR, BM and RT, since I don't want crits due to fear of reflect, BM because I don't want to mess with mana, and RT for the extra armor.

Skill Tree: