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

Amazing guide Sky, thanks.

Do you have any gameplay videos of your ranger?

I can put some video up -- just need to work out the details. Coming soon.

is this build still effective?

I am using the build and at level 68 right now in Ambush. If you mean is it effective due to the changes in Ambush and the other Leagues, there wasn't that much that changed that impacted the build.

im atm lvl 87, 2nd la ranger build in ambush, and i must say i disagree with many things you say in your guide. but thats the good thing in poe as there are so many possiblities, lets see how this works out in endgame.

some things i want to say :

picking resists as bandit reward is not very helpful in my opinion, you get resi gear along the way, and its not a problem to get the resis capped even with some uniques, same thing for resists in the tree.

someone mentioned it earlier, there's hardly any crit in your build which will become a problem - in my experience you want to stack crit multiplier (which became even harder after the nerf) and not primarly crit chance on your gear.

you spec 35 % pierce without taking any advantage of it

you use minions, i think a spell / ranged attack totem is way more efficient
i use ranged attack with Ice shot and ele prolif, when opening a strongbox, everything is freezed and just explodes with the first lightning arrow.

also you specc thick skin, if you got point blank, its not that expensive to get there, in my opinion its better to concentrate on the hp / etc in the shadow starting area and above.

anyways, a very detailed guide hope to see some updates once you reach lvl 80 + :)

greez

"

cptkule wrote:

im atm lvl 87, 2nd la ranger build in ambush, and i must say i disagree with many things you say in your guide. but thats the good thing in poe as there are so many possiblities, lets see how this works out in endgame.

some things i want to say :

picking resists as bandit reward is not very helpful in my opinion, you get resi gear along the way, and its not a problem to get the resis capped even with some uniques, same thing for resists in the tree.

someone mentioned it earlier, there's hardly any crit in your build which will become a problem - in my experience you want to stack crit multiplier (which became even harder after the nerf) and not primarly crit chance on your gear.

you spec 35 % pierce without taking any advantage of it

you use minions, i think a spell / ranged attack totem is way more efficient
i use ranged attack with Ice shot and ele prolif, when opening a strongbox, everything is freezed and just explodes with the first lightning arrow.

also you specc thick skin, if you got point blank, its not that expensive to get there, in my opinion its better to concentrate on the hp / etc in the shadow starting area and above.

anyways, a very detailed guide hope to see some updates once you reach lvl 80 + :)

greez

It doesn't seem like we are very far apart in our approach.

So the whole reason to crit is to shock and freeze (not chill which doesn't depend on crit). Obviously this build does benefit from crit chance and also from crit damage multiplier. I will look at the guide again and make sure it mentions crit multiplier. I had over 300% crit damage multiplier primarily from gear in Standard.

And your comment about resists is basically the same as your crit comment except instead of taking resists from the tree you want it on gear.

So to answer the two above comments: I would say it just depends on the gear that is available to the player. If a player feels they don't have enough resists and or crit from gear it should be taken as passives from the skill tree. If a palyer invests their skills in resists and or crit nodes on the tree that later become available through gear, then they should use their Refund points and put their points to use in other areas.

Pierce is not fully developed in the guide as it has its complications -- namely it doesn't work so well with Fork and Chain (LMP seems to be the answer to these problems). All that being said I felt it was more of a benefit than a detraction to use Pierce. I will add in these comments to the guide for those wishing to develop Pierce and possibly the Drillneck Quiver.

Your Thick Skin comment is noted. I'm on the fence on this one and the Point Blank skill. I'm reconsidering taking Point Blank if Chin Sol isn't used.

I use minions and a flame totem. Your idea for a freeze totem sounds interesting and I will try it. Minions are very useful and it is just fun to take a tank down, resurrect them, and have them fighting on your side.

I appreciate all your comments and will use them to improve the Guide.

Edit: Guide updated as promised.

Nice to see the cause going strong, brings back memories! Good job mate.

P.

great guide. really thorough and organized.

one more useful trick : smoke mine.

the cloud of smoke will blind things. and here's the thing, i thought it had a _chance_ to blind things, like the blind gem. it does, the chance is 100% :-)

really. it's fantastic. just put one in your current location and detonate. bonus points if you can remember to sprinkle them as you go. especially great during boss fights.

your level 78 tree seems to have only 85 points. should be closer to 100. is it the right tree ?