Lightning Arrow (LA) Ranger Guide – From Beginning to End Game

Lightning Arrow (LA) Ranger Guide – From Beginning to End Game

Part 1

1. Introduction
The purpose of this guide is to explain key concepts of having a successful Ranger, and to provide recommendations on how to build your character from beginning stages all the way up into the Level 70 Map running character stages and beyond. No special gear is required to follow the guide, however all successful PoE characters have to improve their gear as they level.

First let’s talk about what a bow user is and is not. A bow user is a run and gun player. Bow users are based on Dexterity which provides accuracy (chance to hit enemies) and evasion (chance to avoid being hit by enemies). When I say “based on Dexterity” this means that many of the skill tree improvements and the Ranger’s gear (Bows, Chest Piece, and Quivers) will have bonuses to dexterity, accuracy, and evasion. You will not be a tanky character like a melee character, instead you will have to depend on fast, hard-hitting attacks, and positioning to keep your Ranger alive. As a Ranger your character will excel at taking down mobs quickly, but you will have to employ strategy to deal with some of the more dangerous bosses in the game as going toe to toe with them is usually certain failure.

2. Damage, Defense, and Life

Damage, defense, and life will concern you as long as you play your Ranger or any other PoE character. These three concerns drive your passive skill selections when you level up and will drive all your gearing decisions. Let’s briefly discuss each of these three character attributes as they apply to the Ranger.

Damage – The most important piece of gear a Ranger owns is a bow. A good bow will give you a high damage output and let you kill things quickly while a bow that is sub-par for the level you are on will make you want to quit the game.
Bows with high physical damage (not elemental damage e.g. fire, cold, and lightning) are preferred because all life and mana leeching, and many damage % passive skill increases, are all based on physical bow damage. In addition to high physical damage ; + elemental damage, increased critical hit chance, increased critical hit damage, chance to stun, and attack speed, are all worthwhile damage modifiers on a bow.
Your character’s raw DPS can be observed in your character screen (press c) in the Offense Tab. This should not be confused with your skill DPS, which can be seen by hovering over your mouse and keyboard assigned skills.

Defense - There are 4 defensive stats you should be aware of – Evasion, Armor, Energy Shield, and Dodge.
a. Evasion – Is the chance of not being hit when compared to the attacker’s accuracy rating. Evasion is the primary defensive stat that results from Dexterity, so you should have plenty of it.
b. Armor – Armor mitigates physical damage. So when you take a hit, your armor reduces damage to your character.
c. Energy Shield – Received from intelligence and gear, another type of damage mitigation that you can readily see as it shows up over your health globe.
d. Dodge – Is the chance an attack will miss your character. Dodge can only be obtained from the Acrobatics passive skill or can be found on mid-level gear items.

Life – Life/hit points is your character’s ability to take damage once a hit is received and the damage passes through all defenses. You will have to allocate skill points to life on a continuous basis to survive the increased damage dealt to your character as levels progress. As explained in the beginning of this guide, your Ranger will not be a life tanking powerhouse because your primary stat is dexterity.

3. Skill Gems and Which Ones to Use
You will not be a Lightning Arrow (LA) Ranger until you obtain a LA gem. However, all bow skills follow the same path and there is no penalty for changing skill gems. The recommended gems you should choose as quest rewards are:



That should get you off to a good start. Keep on the lookout for gems that have increased quality. Increased quality gives a gem new abilities.


Skill Point Distribution through Level 20

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIAm40ILu2DGY4AXtN-r-sB0aJA9PihIsSiu-P-un11JJ1iWtwVp9T-yA==

So ends Part 1 of the Guide - Part II will build out the LA Ranger through Level 60. Part III will discuss the end game LA Ranger.

All comments and questions are welcome.

Thanks go out to the excellent PoE Wiki at http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Path_of_Exile_Wiki which continues to be a great game resource.

For the experienced player my other guide - Hardcore Molten Strike /Bow Ranger Guide - Levels 1-41 http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/933332

Part II – Building out the Ranger from Skill Points 21-71

This part of the guide continues the LA Ranger build from skill point 20. At or around level 20, your Ranger is somewhere in Act 3 of Normal. By the time your Ranger hits level 60 you will be in, or arriving at, Act 3 of Merciless. This stage of all PoE character builds is where you make all your important decisions and if you choose poorly you will hose your character.

Ranger Key Building Blocks

In Part 1 of the Guide we discussed damage, defense, and life/health as the three driving factors that that will impact your character throughout the game but we didn’t delve into the details on how to manage these factors to build a solid Ranger. In this part of the guide we will discuss the details of managing these things but first I want to talk about the concept of dragging.

Dragging as it applies to your Ranger means one of your stats is lacking – it is falling behind the other stats and is causing problems. Stats that drag should be quickly addressed either by using newly earned skill points, Respec Points, or by making gear changes. In the discussions that follow on the different Ranger stats I will point out how to determine if a stat is dragging and what to do about it.

1. Damage/Damage per Second (DPS) - A bow with high physical damage is needed through all stages of the game. High physical damage is needed because life and mana steal/leech only apply to physical damage. In addition, many Ranger skill bonuses only apply to physical damage.

Dragging damage is fatal to your character. A solo bow user must kill mobs quickly. If white mobs aren’t dying to 2 or 3 bow shots you are not doing enough damage for your level. Hopefully you have been choosing bow and projectile damage nodes and not skipping them for other skill sets. So if you are dragging damage, it’s typically time to craft or buy a new bow that does higher damage.
It addition to having a higher damage bow, the bow and all other gear you use should be 4 sockets and all linked together. You may not be able to afford to put the links and sockets on all your gear at first, but adding linked support gems is another way to increase DPS.

2. Defense/Evasion/Armor –Evasion will be our main defense which is supplied by Dexterity and can be found on all non-weapon gear. As chest pieces have the highest evasion ratings of all gear, I suggest you wear the best rare or unique chest piece that you can afford. Basing our defense on evasion also allows us to use Acrobatics for an additional 30% chance to dodge attacks.

Dragging evasion is a bad thing as you will get hit too much. Try to keep it at 50% or higher (to check press C for character screen and then click on the Defense tab). Evasion erodes as you level because monsters gain more accuracy (chance to hit). So you will have to manage your evasion throughout the game.

What about Iron Reflexes? Let’s put this dragon to rest. Many popular bow builds out there take the Iron Reflexes Keystone. Iron Reflexes converts all Evasion to Armor. The problem with Armor is it only defends against physical damage. Why would a player choose to give up a chance to evade all attacks to have a boatload of protection against one type of attack? Armor is good for going toe to toe with end game bosses, but I think the evasion/dodge route is more viable for a Ranger.

3. Life/Hit Points – As a Ranger, you will always be dragging life. Evasion gear typically doesn’t have large life bonuses and Rangers have a difficult time accumulating a lot of strength. So you have to look at life as your damage indicator. Can you take a hit from a level boss and survive long enough to kill it? Are blue mobs eating you up too fast? Are your evasive stats dragging and causing your character to need more life?

The best practice is to select life nodes when you don’t need to select something else because you don’t want low life to become a problem. I think I had about 800 life when I finished Normal, 1200 – 1500 when I finished Cruel, and I have around 3000 at level 78. You will typically hear that you should have 4000 life by the time you hit the end of Merciless. I think that is a great number for a melee character, but that would sacrifice too many of our other needed stats.

4. Mana Management – You will also always be dragging mana throughout the game. Mana powers your attack skills, your auras, and anything else you want to cast. To help you have enough mana you have to use some combination of skill points, mana regeneration, mana leech, mana reduction gems, the Warload’s Mark curse, the blood magic skill gem, and flasks.

I do not recommend the Blood Magic modifier on gear, or the Blood Magic Keystone (these two choices will delete mana and run everything against health). It is very difficult to run auras with Blood Magic without specialized gear, and as Rangers we don’t need the added reduction to our health pool.

5. Life and Mana Leech – One of the ways to get around having a lower life character is by having good life and mana leech. The best way to get this is by using gear with the leeching skill. You can also use linked leeching gems, life regen and mana regen passive skills, and the Warload’s Mark curse.
A surprising fact from the PoE Wiki “Unlike life leech from other sources such as passive skills and equipment (and the Warlord’s Mark curse), the life leech gem works with any damage type”. Apparently the mana leech gem works the same way, so if you have a lot of elemental damage on your bow you might opt for the gems.

6. Resistances – You want to keep Cold, Fire, and Lightning resistance near 75%, which is the maximum you can get. Chaos resistance is harder to get, and most players will ignore Chaos resistance and use a Chaos resistance flask for certain bosses. Your gear, auras, and passive skill selections all play a part in managing resistance.. Your character will lose 20% resistance in Cruel and 60% in Merciless so plan accordingly.

Skill Point Allocation

1. The next allocation of skill points 21 – 31 will be to head up the right side of the tree, taking some life and evasion nodes in the process and getting near some bow damage nodes and positioning us to take the Acrobatics nodes and having dodge as an additional defense. Dodge provides a 30% chance to avoid attacks and negative effects and is computed before evasion. The downside to dodge is you lose half you armor and energy shield, but you probably don’t have much of either so it is a small loss.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIBm40ILu2DGY4AXtN-r-sB0aJA9PihIsSiu-P-un11JJ1iWtwVp9T-yBn-GwEF-aOKmyYyAbIZz3ro1usUzeo=

2. For the next skill point allocation of points 32-43 we will grab all the Acrobat skills points and take the adjacent bow damage nodes picking up 30% chance to pierce in the process.
Note: If you use Fork, or Chain to split your arrow, be aware that Pierce will not be as effective with these skills because they will prevent the pierce from occurring. The solution is to use lesser multiple projectiles (LMP) instead of Fork or Chain. Also be aware that the Unique Drillneck Quiver does not gain damage benefit from all forms of pierce. See the thread discussion at https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/832023 for more information on Drillneck.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIBm40ILu2DGY4AXtN-r-sB0aJA9PihIsSiu-P-un11JJ1iWtwVp9T-yBn-GwEF-aOKmyYyAbIZz3ro1usUzeoFtbEwhs531PlW1CPdqMaiMHFLeDpC


3. Now we head to left to pick up some life and bow damage, resistances, and mana reduction nodes so we can run auras with points 43-55.
I suggest you also use a mana reduction gem and run two auras - a 60% damage aura and the 40% Vitality Aura. I also recommend the Grace aura (increased evasion) as a potential substitute. If you feel you don’t have enough mana or regen, you can always take the adjacent mana nodes or get more mana steal or regen on your gear.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIBm40ILu2DGY4AXtN-r-sB0aJA9PihIsSiu-P-un11JJ1iWtwVp9T-yBn-GwEF-aOKmyYyAbIZz3ro1usUzeoFtbEwhs531PlW1CPdqMaiMHFLeDpCIuprJF_hlembtVM1TLHOSMuCGYr7CfbaGo8=

4. Life Nodes - Next we will lay in a bunch of life nodes as you are probably nearing the end of Cruel and you want to beef up before you hit Dominus, and before you hit Merciless. Keep in mind that having +life on gear will greatly magnify the amount of total life your character has. These points could be taken anytime during your character’s progression. So if you feel you need life, take these points earlier.
So for points 56- 71 we start out taking the two evasion and life nodes below the thief’s Craft +30 Intelligence node and then go down the tree a little further and take the Gymnastics life nodes. We will also go down the tree some more and pick up the Thick Skin life nodes and this will give us a total of 148% additional life which should put your character in the 2200 -2500 total life range.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIBm40ILu2DGY4AXtN-r-sB0aJA9PihIsSiu-P-un11JJ1iWtwVp9T-yBn-GwEF-aOKmyYyAbIZz3ro1usUzeoFtbEwhs531PlW1CPdqMaiMHFLeDpCIuprJF_hlembtVM1TLHOSMuCGYr7CfbaGo9h63pTFfA6WAR-hxnveu4OI_bv8FpIVvr8xWegh3ZKfQ==

This ends Part II of the Guide – In Part III of the Guide we will go down the tree and take Ondar’s Guile (doubles evasion from projectile attacks). We will also lay in more life and fill out the tree with more bow damage/crit.
I also hope to have some gearing suggestions and fill in anything else I have missed.

I appreciate all comments and thanks for reading.

For the experienced player my other guide - Hardcore Molten Strike /Bow Ranger Guide - Levels 1-41 http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/933332

Part III - POE Lightning Arrow (LA) Ranger Guide – From Beginning to End Game – Build Conclusion

Strategies and Tactics, Magic Find, Gearing, and Tips

Strategies

1.Use Spectres, Zombies, Skeletons, and Totems to pull Agro (monster focus)
a. Totems - In Normal and Cruel modes, totems are extremely helpful against anything except level bosses. Any totem will do, as they all pull agro. Some swear by the Decoy totem, but I don’t see any greater benefit to it than one of the damage totems. In Merciless I use the spell totem as a curse thrower. It throws curses whenever a monster comes into range and frees you up to do other things.

b. Spectres – Provided by the Raise Spectre gem, creates your very own tank to draw agro for your Ranger. Use on the tankiest monster you can grab - rock beasts, large statues, curse throwers, and whatever else looks interesting. I use this skill throughout the whole game. It is very effective and fun to grab powerful enemies and have them helping you. You do have to be careful on how high you level this skill as it uses Intelligence as it’s required attribute, and if you gear swap Intelligence items it could become unusable.

c. Zombies and Skeletons – These are both so-so agro drawers for a Ranger. Neither lasts very long without supporting skills and gems, so I look at these as short-lived obstructions.

2. Toe to Toe Combat – The best Ranger tactic for toe to toe combat is --- to RUN! For bosses and monsters with high physical damage (Brutus et al) the best tactic is to run from them (Kite) and shoot whenever possible to wear them down. However, in PoE there are cases when you are better off going toe to toe with bosses that have powerful ranged attacks but relatively weak melee attacks (Meryl, Piety (melee form), Dominus (second form all Difficulties), first form Normal (will update when I get there on other difficulties).

a. Use a Quartz Flask – The quartz flask is your “Oh Sh__!” go to in difficult fights. It lets you run through monsters for 5 seconds – and they can’t hit you either (you can still be frozen). Great for nasty bosses, Strongboxes in Ambush, and whenever you need it.

b. Use Traps – Traps are great for nasties that want in your face and are tanky. Throw a fire trap down to knock their hit points down. Conversion traps in Ambush are also nice for Strongboxes and other nasty groups.

3.Magic Find
This is a tough one for an on-a-budget Ranger as all our increased item rarity (IIR) and increased item quantity (IIQ) comes from gear. There have been posts that show that the more of each you have on your gear, the more likely magic items will drop.
To get the best IIQ and IIR items that have good offensive and defensive stats will cost you some currency. I believe I was running about 80 IIR and 20 IIQ on gear and then I used the IIR gem on my Ice shot skill to give me another 50+ IIR on my level 78 Ranger.
Try to get as much IIR and IIQ as you can without sacrificing needed affixes.

Update 3 April - This dropped for me from a random rare monster on a Level 66 Dunes map.



I was using gear with about 180% IIR and 19% IIQ and playing solo.

I guess it was just RNG luck as the best drop I had before this was a



As I mentioned above, it helps to get your IIQ and IIR up for drops. Of course this will cut your DPS and defenses down somewhat, but if you are running solo, you really should get sensible magic find gear and do most of your running with it on.

So if you have to drop a few levels when you are farming, I think it is entirely worth it.

I will do some gear shopping when I sell the axe and post the new gear up.

4. Increase Crit Chance and Crit Damage Multiplier to Shock and Freeze - Shocking and Freezing occur when a critical hit occurs. To increase your chance of critical hits you need to get crit chance on gear or from the skill tree. You will also need to increase your critical damage multiplier in proportion to how much crit chance you have. So with a total crit chance of say 10% you would want 200% - 300% crit damage multiplier.
Be aware that LA gem quality results in increased shock duration, so if you see an LA quality gem for cheap you should pick it up.

5. Gear
None of my level 78 Ranger's gear cost more than 1.5 Ex and most items were less than that. I have no GG items because I hadn’t played long enough to buy them. In addition, none of my gear has more than 4 links as I found it too expensive to try to go for a 5 or 6 link. There are no gear pieces I have that you can’t get with a high level character without too much effort. That being said, the gear you use will probably be different depending on what is available to your character when you play.

Bow - The bow I was using at Levels 62-78 was the Chin Sol. It does 100% more damage up close and has knockback. Paired with the Point Blank Keystone skill, that means 150% more damage up close where most of the fighting takes place. I linked the LA gem (20% Quality which gives added shock chance) with the added cold damage gem (to chill and get more damage), Cull gem (to kill things faster - as it basically knocks 10% life off of everything), and the Fork gem. (Note: You do not need this bow to use this build, however you will need a powerful bow for end-game. Never stop upgrading your bow.)



Gloves - Aursieze Gloves were used throughout a good portion of the game for their high IIR and other good stats. Gloves are set to throw a spell totem with the Warlord's Mark curse. Faster casting and Blood magic are used to cast from life as this is cast at the beginning of battles when life wasn't at a premium.




Boots - Goldwryms for IIQ, mana regen, fire resist, and some movement speed for running. This group usually has my Ice Shot group on it (was experimenting with Puncture which is also a good "kill shot" choice). Also includes Item Rarity (51%), and two damage gems -- Weapon Weapon Elemental Damage and Physical Projectile Attack Damage. I suggest experimenting with different additional damage gems you own to maximize DPS depending on the main skill you use.





Body Armor - Hyrri's Ire chosen for high ES, 2000+ evasion, 25% chill, and Acrobatics. You can use this armor and not take the Acrobatics Keystone which I did not choose at the time I played my build.
This group of gems usually has my Raise Spetre group of gems which include Raise Spectre, Blind (monsters have reduced chance to hit when blinded), Minion Health, Minion damage etc.



Helm - Rat's Nest. A great piece of Ranger gear - Attack Speed, High Evasion, Global Crit, IIR, and movement speed. My aura gems are on my helm - Vitality for life regen for me and my minions, Hatred for extra damage, and of course the Reduced Mana gem which makes the auras possible. Skeletons are on there as I had an extra slot and that's where they went.



Quiver - Try to maximize DPS from your quiver and do not use it primarily for defensive stats unless you have a very powerful bow. My quiver has high accuracy (don't overlook accuracy as it has a big impact on DPS) and + 47% Global Crit Damage multiplier.



Jewelery and Belt - Nothing special here. A lot of rares to get resistances, life, mana, and some IIR.



Flasks - Quartz flask and life and mana flasks.




Please keep in mind that you don't have to duplicate my gear to be successful. It is more important that you understand why I used the gear and skill gems I chose. If you understand my choices then you should have no trouble gearing your own Ranger.

Skill Point Build Out - Points 76-85

To complete our skill point build out we take Ondar's Guile for twice the chance to evade projectile attacks (arrows, fireballs, etc.) and we will also take the physical damage/life nodes above and a little to the left of Ondar's, all the way up to Heavy Draw. With our last four skill points we head to the top left of our selected skills and go up the tree to select Haste (15% increased attack speed) and we will use our last skill points on the life/mana node and life node directly above Haste.
At this point my character was at level 78 in Standard.



Semi - Final Thoughts (See update below for additions and changes)

1. Your bow is your key piece of gear. To be a successful Ranger your bow has to have high damage for the level you are playing. I encourage you to trade for bows with high physical damage. It is extremely difficult to play self-found as a Ranger.

2. Build and Gear compliment each other. If you are dragging an attribute you can make it up in the skill tree or with gear changes.

3. Do not neglect +life, +mana, mana regen, life steal, mana steal and IIQ/IIR on your gear.

4. Keep an eye on skill gems that have a main attribute of Intelligence (Raise Spetre) or Strength. Do not level these gems too high or they will be unusable if you change a key piece of gear supporting the key stat. (Hint - If you use the Cast when Damage Taken gem it should not be leveled at all at first or it will be worthless to your character.)


Updates, Additions, and Changes

Update April 3, 2014

I have had a few gear and skill adjustments at level 75 and I suppose I will continue to do so as I continue to level in Ambush.

I have leveled both a Puncture gem (for boss and tank killing) and a Rain of Arrows (RoA) gem for switching up with Lightning Arrow.

I have found that Puncture eats most tanks and bosses up, and works great with kiting.

RoA is useful for conserving mana and fighting on multiple levels, and it works well with the Hatred aura (chill and freeze) and the added cold damage gem. RoA conserves mana mostly because it does not need a complimentary gem to fork or chain it like LA does. So if LA is causing you mana difficulties you can use RoA or link a mana steal, or blood magic gem with LA.

I have used a Respec/Refund point and removed the Point Blank skill from my tree because with Puncture there is no reason to be close to any bosses, plus with Point Blank your DPS can actually be penalized (fall below 100%) if you shoot from too far away (this is explained on the PoE Wiki if you want more info).

Instead of using a Chin Sol bow I have chosen to use a rare. Again if you want to kite then Chin Sol and Point Blank aren't much help. I will probably buy a Lioneye's Glare when I sell my Soul Taker unless I find a really good rare bow with over 300 DPS.

Finally, I am not using the Hyrri's Ire chest this time because it has no resists and I found a decent rare 5L to use.

Here's my current gear set and skill tree at Level 75 (I run the Grace and Hatred auras all the time):





Update April 5, 2014

I sold my Siege Axe and wanted to post up the gear changes I made with some of the proceeds. I decided I would switch over to the Lioneye's Glare, Unique Imperial Bow.



The reason I decided on this bow if that there is no accuracy check - so it always hits. Also, it has very good DPS and it is fast, so this helps to leech life and mana.

I changed up my amulet and one of my rings to get 4% life steal and 2% mana leech. The life steal really has helped my tankiness and the mana steal has let me drop the mana steal gem from my bow.



I changed up my belt and quiver to get more DPS and to balance my resists.



Stats as of level 76

Resists: Fire and Lightning 75%+, Cold is at 64% (yes i need to correct this), and Chaos is -31
Life: Is hovering around 3000. I'm not having any one shot issues but will add more life as I level
Evasion: 49% with Grace
Dodge: 40%
Spell Dodge: 30%
Projectile Dodge: Increased with Ondar's Guile

Damage per skill DPS Indicator
LA - 2000 DPS (with Hatred 2500)
Rain of Arrows - 2700 DPS (with Hatred 3500)
Puncture - 4000 DPS (with Hatred 5700)

** The DPS difference between LA and RoA is caused by using LMP with LA. While LMP is not causing any DPS loss at my level, it does not contribute much to additional DPS.
Puncture has the highest DPS because it runs off of my 5L chest and is not split, or diluted by leeching or BM gems (you can see the chest and gem setup in the update above this one).

Overall I am very happy with the DPS and speed of the new bow, and map running is going quite well.

Will update again as I get further along.

Thanks for reading!

For the experienced player my other guide - Hardcore Molten Strike /Bow Ranger Guide - Levels 1-41 http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/933332

I was gonna do somethin like this for my LA guide but I havent had the time xD.

Feel free to jump in with any comments. I just thought something more detailed might be helpful.

well, idk what tree your going to be using so i'm reluctant to combine your guide with mine lol. I may just end up adding a reference section for varying guides i find helpful, i'm on the ranger forum alot so i do read through alot of em.

My build is Ice Shot for bosses, LA for everything else, Auras of Hatred and Vitality, and I run with a big frigging statue all the time curtousy of Raise Spectre.

I use Point Blank and a Chin Sol but that's optional.

I'm going to keep the guide more open-ended for whatever gear people find/use and not have any specific Unique item requirements.

This is my tree at Lvl 78

Thought I would recommend something similar or at least explain what and why I did it.

Just a comment on the layout of your guide :) I feel the more general comments about describing energy shield, armor, evasion and dodge, which gems to pick up from quests and so on should not be the first thing in your guide.

These comments are mainly for completely new players. My suggestion is to start off with a somewhat shorter guide such as

1) First 20 points, 40 points, 60 points, 80 points, 100 points, 115 points.

2) 4L setup. 5L setup. 6L setup (maybe different setups, if you got several ideas).

3) Which stats you want from different gear pieces.

4) Which uniques got something to add to your build.

Then in the second post (which is currently reserved) go further into detail. In this way, people won't have to scroll far down before they find the information they are most likely looking for.

That is just my 2 cents :)

Also I really feel these forums need a good ranger LA guide! :) Seen many requests lately for builds / help, so keep up the good work! :) (Be ready for the talent reset in 8 days ;))

"

Frankenberry wrote:

Just a comment on the layout of your guide :) I feel the more general comments about describing energy shield, armor, evasion and dodge, which gems to pick up from quests and so on should not be the first thing in your guide.

These comments are mainly for completely new players. My suggestion is to start off with a somewhat shorter guide such as

1) First 20 points, 40 points, 60 points, 80 points, 100 points, 115 points.

2) 4L setup. 5L setup. 6L setup (maybe different setups, if you got several ideas).

3) Which stats you want from different gear pieces.

4) Which uniques got something to add to your build.

Then in the second post (which is currently reserved) go further into detail. In this way, people won't have to scroll far down before they find the information they are most likely looking for.

That is just my 2 cents :)

Also I really feel these forums need a good ranger LA guide! :) Seen many requests lately for builds / help, so keep up the good work! :) (Be ready for the talent reset in 8 days ;))

First thank you for your comments. All feedback is appreciated.

The guide was very simple in the first part to enable new palyers to follow along. Part II will be where a lot of gearing and skill discusiions take place including: running auras, IIQ and IIR discussions, mana and health pool management, and of course gearing choices.

As the guide goes on I intend to discuss choices and options more and have less of a cookie cutter guide.

I appreciate your input and encourage others to contribute.

Not sure if it matters because it's your guide - but I totally disagree about Ice Shot. Burning Arrow is a better single target DPS - it hits harder and costs less mana. Ice Shot is better used as an AOE skill due to the fact it makes an AOE behind the target (totally watsed in 1v1 combat).

Like the guide - the game can be confusing and early choices can have impact for a while. This could help.