[1.0.6] Lunys' LA / Frenzy High End Crit Ranger GUIDE (in-depth analysis) 3 VIDEOS

Hi

I'm doing a similar build (but imho i think its a lot better than yours) with the same weapon but instead its a CI VP Iron Reflexes split arrow ranger

gear:



tree at 91:




I have 6.5k ES, 44% physical damage reduction, and 37.5k split arrow dps self buffed (68.1k split arrow dps in a full party of auras)

The reason why I think my build is better than yours is the following -

1 - I am chaos immune, meaning I get a free 16% life leech from blood rage (with enhance), and can also do chaos degeneration maps a lot easier than you can for obvious reasons.

2 - I have a larger pool EHP (effective HP calculated by a characters life + ES + physical damage mitigation).

3 - I am 100% completely immune to any kinds of reflect - Due to the synergistic nature of CI, VP and Blood Rage, as well as the incredibly wide-spread distribution of damage amongst the 6 arrows fired from split arrow, the entire essence of why this build is completely broken, I am able to confidently attack into a 4 x reflect pack (double map mods + overlapping reflect auras) + vulnerability + shocked ground + minus max and my ES will barely spike at all. I can do ele reflect maps without even using a life leech gem, whilst physical reflect maps I chose to use a life leech gem simply because it is safer (I can most definitely run without it, but I typically chose to go with it instead of using WED, simply because if I were to use WED, my ES would spike slightly more if I were to come across a physical reflect pack, so I don't like to risk it).

The fluctuation of your life in that Courtyard video was absolutely ridiculous, a true testament to the unreliability of your build. Keeping in mind that this map was not even minus max. I do not think your build is viable end game (By end game, I mean level 95+ where dying will cost you an active week of mapping time).

You have poor elemental reflect mitigation - Not being able to run blood rage cuts down your potential life leech substantially, something a VP build needs a LOT.
You have poor physical damage mitigation - 23% physical damage reduction is an actual joke, those white devourers where hitting you for half your health)

You fail to take one of the best aspects of going a life build (LIFE REGEN) and squander it.

And all for what? To apply some shock stacks? Sure you may do negligibly insignificant more damage than I do, but at what cost?

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Cloud_Templar wrote:

1 - I am chaos immune, meaning I get a free 16% life leech from blood rage (with enhance), and can also do chaos degeneration maps a lot easier than you can for obvious reasons.

I have no need at all for additional Life leech. Another 16% life leech would be completely wasted.
Do you really think that chaos degenration maps are a problem for me? I can't wait around forever, thats true. But i takes more than 2 full minutes for the chaos damage to kill me if i go afk (if its a high ~30 chaos dmg per second roll)

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Cloud_Templar wrote:

2 - I have a larger pool EHP (effective HP calculated by a characters life + ES + physical damage mitigation).

That may be true, never said that my EHP Pool was big... but it is big enough for my purposes.

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Cloud_Templar wrote:

3 - I am 100% completely immune to any kinds of reflect - Due to the synergistic nature of CI, VP and Blood Rage, as well as the incredibly wide-spread distribution of damage amongst the 6 arrows fired from split arrow, I am able to confidently attack into a 4 x reflect pack (double map mods + overlapping reflect auras) + vulnerability + shocked ground + minus max and my ES will barely spike at all. I can do ele reflect maps without even using a life leech gem, whilst physical reflect maps I chose to use a life leech gem simply because it is safer (I can most definitely run without it, but I typically chose to go with it instead of using WED, simply because if I were to use WED, my ES would spike slightly more if I were to come across a physical reflect pack, so I don't like to risk it).

Apparently you are unaware of the way Vaal Pact and Lightning Arrow work.
I am 100% completely immune to any kinds of reflect i have encountered so far as well. The only way for me to kill myself are multiple reflects + vulnerability and if i would attack such a pack with Frenzy, which i simply won't do. When i am mapping solo there is actually no point in using frenzy, because rares die by Lightning Arrow Crits together with their pack.
I have NEVER, i repeat NEVER killed myself using Lightning Arrow against any kind of reflect.

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Cloud_Templar wrote:

The fluctuation of your life in that Courtyard video was absolutely ridiculous, a true testament to the unreliability of your build. Keeping in mind that this map was not even minus max. I do not think your build is viable end game (By end game, I mean level 95+ where dying will cost you an active week of mapping time).

The fluctuation of your Energy Shield in this map wouldn't look much different. Apparently you fail to realize how hard this map actually was ^^ check the map mods again.
Additional minus maximum resistances would't have made any noticable difference.
Maybe a small one when facing the bosses.

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Cloud_Templar wrote:

You have poor elemental reflect mitigation - Not being able to run blood rage cuts down your potential life leech substantially, something a VP build needs a LOT.

Once you reach the point when one single Critical Strike of one of your attacks can restore your full blood pool any additional point of Life Leech is utterly worthless when running vaal pact. There is only one cenario in which i personally would benefit from more life leech. And thats double boss + temporal chains palace dominus with physical reflect. If you can solo this with your build, i'd like to see a video. But you won't be able to and thats totally fine because almost every reasonable endgame player would skip the boss with these mods.

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Cloud_Templar wrote:

You have poor physical damage mitigation - 23% physical damage reduction is an actual joke, those white devourers where hitting you for half your health)

My physical damage mitigation is very low compared to other builds. But one white devourer is not hitting me for half of my blood pool :) Do you see me dying to them? I don't.

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Cloud_Templar wrote:

You fail to take one of the best aspects of going a life build (LIFE REGEN) and squander it.

And all for what? To apply some shock stacks? Sure you may do negligibly insignificant more damage than I do, but at what cost?

I fail to take one of the best aspects of going for a life build and squander it huh ... i'm not going to comment on this^^

And all for... A LOT LOT LOT LOT more damage, especially when under the effect of party auras.
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Just like Nephalim said, my death counter, once i have leveled a bit more, will speak for itself. Maybe i will die a lot and stand corrected, but since i've played this build in various hard maps, i would be very suprised by this. Anyway... time will tell, for sure! :)
Also additional videos including solo runs are coming soon, maybe these will convince you that my build is perfectly viable.

Added the second video!
LvL 78 Palace Map with Chaos damage over time & Pack Size.

Pretty easy map, but who doesn't adore pack size :)

Next up are solo videos of courtyard & palace!

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And all for... A LOT LOT LOT LOT more damage, especially when under the effect of party auras.

It is not that much more dps than a fine tuned aura based build but it is compared to a BM keystone build like blastrophe's - in fact more than double the dps with much less gear investment outside of the weapon.

Keep in mind providing auras yourself means several things:
1) your dps does not fluctuate based on party composition
2) you guarantee massive dps gains for allies who care not spell casters
3) your final clear time in groups will still be faster and more consistent than non aura


Regardless, that's not really the point. The point is whether or not you can viably level with this build and if it is superior or comparable to the ES version of the build as VP is the defining characteristic of your build and which also coincidentally is the defining characteristic of high dps ES builds.

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Nephalim wrote:

It is not that much more dps than a fine tuned aura based build but it is compared to a BM keystone build like blastrophe's - in fact more than double the dps with much less gear investment outside of the weapon.

Keep in mind providing auras yourself means several things:
1) your dps does not fluctuate based on party composition
2) you guarantee massive dps gains for allies who care not spell casters
3) your final clear time in groups will still be faster and more consistent than non aura


Regardless, that's not really the point. The point is whether or not you can viably level with this build and if it is superior or comparable to the ES version of the build as VP is the defining characteristic of your build and which also coincidentally is the defining characteristic of high dps ES builds.

I do not agree 100% to the 3 advantages of running auras yourself, but lets not start an argument about this, its merely my personal opinion regarding this matter.

What i have to admit though is that i mainly choose this build because i am usually playing with a party of friends, that provide essential auras.

If my goal would have been to achieve the best solo gaming experience i might have taken the aura + CI approach.

But the whole point of this build is achieving almost unrivaled damage in partys while maintaining more than enough clearspeed and survivability if you have to solo endgame maps.

I am going to record the promised solo videos within the next 5 hours. So if everything goes as planned they should be on youtube within the next 6 hours.
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Apart from this, can anyone tell me how Cloud_Templar is running 3 auras with the build & gear he linked in his post. Maybe i overlooked something, but i only see 5% reduced mana in the tree + reduced mana gem. Which is not enough to run 3 60% auras.

Or is he just running two and has one of them as an alternative for party play?

But if that's the case i have a hard time to believe he achieves 6.5k ES 44% EDR and the DPS Values he posted at the same time. Also i don't think he can maintain his manapool good enough to keep firing for an unlimited amount of time.

Please tell me if i missed something, i am anything but an expert when it comes builds like his (CI + Multi Auras + Mana based)

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do not agree 100% to the 3 advantages of running auras yourself, but lets not start an argument about this, its merely my personal opinion regarding this matter.

What i have to admit though is that i mainly choose this build because i am playing with a party of friends, that provide essential auras.

If my goal would have been to achieve the best solo gaming experience i would have taken the aura + CI approach.

But the whole point of this build is achieving almost unrivaled damage in partys while maintaining more than enough clearspeed and survivability if you have to solo endgame maps.

Simply put, you will not always run with those same people and you are not guaranteed the aura buffs and certainly not an assumption you can make about others who may follow your build.

Imo, i do not see the point of posting non self buffed stats other than the wow factor and to entice players. I could just as easily respec out of all my aura nodes, dump it into additional dps nods, sit in a party with an aura buddy and have 30k-35k LA but that simply is not what will feasibly happen in game in the long run because heavy aura users are very rare.

One my concerns about people following a certain other BM keystone build is that the unbuffed dps number they saw is unrealistic and most will end up at 3000-4000 LA dps even with high end gear. the buffed dps is even more misleading as they will likely never be extended play with a dedicated aura player.


I had a similar discussion with someone before but what it comes down to is consistency and stability vs potential. Would you rather be at 95% , 100% of the time or 155%, 30% of the time and 80% the rest of the time? Keep in mind in the former case you are the one making others perform at 155%. the percentages are not alluding solely to dps numbers but rather over all performance.

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Nephalim wrote:

Simply put, you will not always run with those same people and you are not guaranteed the aura buffs and certainly not an assumption you can make about others who may follow your build.

I personally do always run with the same people, or i solo. But of course its true that i cannot make the same assumption about anyone else. I will make sure to emphasize, somewhere in the OP that the builds full potential only shows in organized party gaming. Which is by the way something i can only recommend to all of you lonely fellows out there. No better way to enjoy gaming than with friends!

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Nephalim wrote:

Imo, i do not see the point of posting non self buffed stats other than the wow factor and to entice players. I could just as easily respec out of all my aura nodes, dump it into additional dps nods, sit in a party with an aura buddy and have 30k-35k LA but that simply is not what will feasibly happen in game in the long run because heavy aura users are very rare.

I don't see the point either, but people have been requesting them. I did label these screenshots with "perfect auras" though. So everybody who gives it some though, should be able to realize that this is a very rare cenario.

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Nephalim wrote:

One my concerns about people following a certain other BM keystone build is that the unbuffed dps number they saw is unrealistic and most will end up at 3000-4000 LA dps even with high end gear. the buffed dps is even more misleading as they will likely never be extended play with a dedicated aura player.

Well you can't say i didn't point out clearly how extremely gear depending my build is.
Especially when it comes to the choice of the bow.

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Nephalim wrote:

I had a similar discussion with someone before but what it comes down to is consistency and stability vs potential. Would you rather be at 95% , 100% of the time or 155%, 30% of the time and 80% the rest of the time? Keep in mind in the former case you are the one making others perform at 155%. the percentages are not alluding solely to dps numbers but rather over all performance.

In this case you are assuming that you are only spending 30% of your time in a party... or that your aura buddies don't stay close to you most of the time.
Once i recorded the Solo Videos, i'll capture some full party high end gameplay.
This will at least prove that it is possible to have an uptime of 90%+ of all auras in an organized party. It takes some effort but we try to stay close together when playing in an organized party all the time... well expect for our flicker striker... he's just all over the place :P

Minor update:

-Added party aura screenshot description.
-Added & updated video descriptions.

check it out in section 5.1. & 5.2.

I am closely reading every single post in this thread, I was hoping someone will start discussion like this.

I am currently using LA crit ranger (legacy kaoms, voltaxic, thunderfists, no vaal pact, 2 auras) and my DPS is absolutely horrible so I am trying to find out which way should I respec.

1) keep the Life based build and get VP + mirrored bow, essentially same build as Lunys

2) switch to full EVA (6L high eva chest instead kaoms) which would obviously grant more frenzy DPS (then another variation either use Voltax or get pDPS bow + VP)

3) completely transition to CI, get high ES or even better high ES/EVA 6L chest, mirrored bow + Vaal pact is obvious choice here, kinda worry about mana cost though since that would be mana based build, not even sure if sustainable with chain...essentially the build Cloud posted but with LA and preferably ES/EVA hybrid would seem a bit better to me

4) or another ES variation I am thinking about the most recently, go Shavrones Wrapping, go low life, that way if you take mana red. nodes u can go 4 auras at once + u get huge AS benefit from blood rage...obviously that build would have the most potential solo DPS, problem of relatively low ES on Shavs would be compensated with self discipline aura....I saw a guy running this build, 60K frenzy, 21K LA (with auras and charges but only with 5L Lioneyes linked with frenzy), 4.5K ES, 9K eva...

for those who TLDR, can anyone experienced or anyone who tried some of those build variations comment which approach is the best in terms of survivability and DPS? Life based vs life EVA based vs CI ES vs CI low life in other words

Ive been theorycrafting this with one of my guildmates for a week now and I cant still decide which way to go:(

any help appreciated

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Aerinqq wrote:

I am closely reading every single post in this thread, I was hoping someone will start discussion like this.

I am currently using LA crit ranger (legacy kaoms, voltaxic, thunderfists, no vaal pact, 2 auras) and my DPS is absolutely horrible so I am trying to find out which way should I respec.

1) keep the Life based build and get VP + mirrored bow, essentially same build as Lunys

2) switch to full EVA (6L high eva chest instead kaoms) which would obviously grant more frenzy DPS (then another variation either use Voltax or get pDPS bow + VP)

3) completely transition to CI, get high ES or even better high ES/EVA 6L chest, mirrored bow + Vaal pact is obvious choice here, kinda worry about mana cost though since that would be mana based build, not even sure if sustainable with chain...essentially the build Cloud posted but with LA and preferably ES/EVA hybrid would seem a bit better to me

4) or another ES variation I am thinking about the most recently, go Shavrones Wrapping, go low life, that way if you take mana red. nodes u can go 4 auras at once + u get huge AS benefit from blood rage...obviously that build would have the most potential solo DPS, problem of relatively low ES on Shavs would be compensated with self discipline aura....I saw a guy running this build, 60K frenzy, 21K LA (with auras and charges but only with 5L Lioneyes linked with frenzy), 4.5K ES, 9K eva...

for those who TLDR, can anyone experienced or anyone who tried some of those build variations could comment which approach is the best in terms of survivability and DPS? Life based vs life EVA based vs CI ES vs CI low life in other words

Ive been theorycrafting this with one of my guildmates for a week now and I cant still decide which way to go:(

any help appreciated

I believe there is a build thread for each variant you are wanting. Most threads of screenshots of stats as well.

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2) switch to full EVA (6L high eva chest instead kaoms) which would obviously grant more frenzy DPS (then another variation either use Voltax or get pDPS bow + VP)

This is not at all an option. single target dps isnt that important in groups.