[1.3] Sidra's Necromancing Ranger of Chaos (Poison Arrow) Videos/Atziri capable

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Asidra wrote:

Hi all. I have been playing a build that aside from being really fun and different, is becoming pretty strong, easily handling all map content without having to skip bosses and downing Atziri. I am basically done leveling, it's 95 - although I may grab another level or two. But because of how different it is from anything I've seen here I wanted to post this guide in case anyone wanted to play it.

And 1.2 buffed it huge!. It was already a super fast clearer, but the new 1.2 tree brought more damage via all the new projectile nodes adding up to over 2k more DPS, more move speed, and even a tad bit more area coverage. Those are the 3 things that impact clear speed. It flies. And while mana and maan regen took a hit making AA and the use of MoM harder to work with and less effective, it had such good use of multiple layers of defense, it's still safe. If you have followed this guise you won't be dying. Base life regen also went down, replace by more effective healing potions. Before you could get away with 1 healing potion, now you will want 2. But all the extra speed made this already awesome build even more fun to play.




CONCEPT

At it's core, this is an EB/MOM Poison Arrow Ranger. In order to keep mobs occupied as the Chaos AOE does it's work, it employs the help of Zombies and Skeletons. With Skeletons coming from a Spell Totem, you basically have a never ending supply of "meat" to throw at the enemy. The Zombies work great through most of the area or map, and the Skellys do an amazing job of drowning bosses. While they also provide secondary DPS (fully leveled zombies hit surprisingly hard) their prime role is simply to keep enemies attacking something other than you, and somewhat stationary, while your enemy's HPs drop like a rock. EB/MOM (additionally utilizing some evasion and Ondar's Guile) makes you hard to kill as well - you are not a glass cannon behind your mob wall. And it also supplies you with far more mana than you can use. Because of this, I am now running a level 15 Arctic Armor for additional defense. Saves 102 HP per fire or phys hit, and I still have 100 mana regen even while moving. But more importantly - the quality version adds 7% move speed. I don't view it as a vital part of the builds defenses, but do find it a good way to use some of the excess mana regen the build has while still keeping enough to make MoM useful.

From a healing perspective, although the build doesn't get to benefit from any life leech or LGOH, it does get some regen from the tree. In addition, it gets 20% more effectiveness from healing potions, and given the abundance of mana - Sapping prefixes make extremely effective healing potions. A sapping sanctified potion returns over 3k HP over 3 seconds.

The other nice thing about the minions in this build as that they perform their function well with only 2 nodes that required 0 travelling.

End Result is an Extremely fast and safe build, capable of safely handing most of the game's challenges, and nothing specific that you need to stress about, like reflect for some builds.

LEVEL 95 TREE

Current Gear and Links:

Spoiler

Auras: Grace and Clarity
Curse: Vulnerability
Arctic Armor Lv15 (105 phys/fire dmg saved)
Poison Arrow DoT (true calculated value) - 20,195


I currently (after aura reduction) have a mana pool of 1,535 and 259.8 mana/sec regen. Hps are 5,034. Evasion 9,850

Finally - the build is cheap to play, and also probably HC viable.

VIDEOS

76 Academy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA5-zyhEiZw

Double Maze Vaal kill w/ minus max:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-zZg487xDU

Atziri: http://youtu.be/2ZGZVN4FAk0

1.2
77 Shrine Map including Piety kill: http://youtu.be/guIlt0mx3hU

COMMON QUESTIONS ANSWERED:

I. Leveling Gear

Spoiler

This is a complex build, and I did not write my guide explaining a lot of mechanics - I just assumed people would take a peek at my gear and understand what's going on. If you are less experienced at the game, and given the complexity of the build...that was probably a poor assumption to make on my part. To explain gearing and what stats to look for - it's best to understand the 3 keystones.

1) Ondar's Guile. This looks at your chance to evade, and doubles it versus ranged attacks. In order for it to work - you need evasion. And the more you have the better it is. As it is also the first keystone you get - you want to start the game with evasion based gear while also running Grace.

2) Eldritch Battery. This takes all of your Energy Shield and converts it into mana, enabling a much larger mana pool than you could otherwise get. In order for it it work, though...you need Energy Shield. So while you can start with evasion only gear - once you get this keystone you want Evasion/ES gear. If you look at my gear each of my pieces of equipment, except my helm, are EV/ES. It also means that any + Energy Shield on accessories, (or +int which increases ES) is useful if you can find it

3) Mind Over Matter. This should be the very next keystone you take after Ethereal Battery. It takes that big honkin mana pool you now have - and any damage you take 30% of it will come from your mana pool (thus only 70% is coming from your HP). This is assuming you have mana there to take from. So this keystone makes two other stats extremely important: +Mana and + Mana Regeneration. Ideally (which I am not even at) you maintain a 7/3 ratio of HP/Mana which would give you the max possible effective life via a single hit. But the more mana you have up to that level the more damage against your HP you can be saved. And what happens when you get hit? You lose mana - which is why mana regenration is perhaps the builds most important stat. Because once you are hit you want to gain that mana back as fast as possible so you have as much as possible to save you from your next hit - at the same time you are using it on very expensive abilities.

So the core stuff you want to look for on gear are:

EV/ES based gear
HP
Resistances Capped
+2 Minions on Helm
+ES +Mana +Mana Regen

Useful Unqiues:
Silverbranch can be used all of the way to 64 as long as your Poison Arrow gem is leveled appropriately for the area. Just be sure to sick your zombies on totems.

Carcass Jack is the only piece of equipment that can actually help offensively - adding a little damage and poison cloud aoe radius. It's very good for the build, and doesn't need to be a 5L as your poison arrow doesn't go in it.

Atziri's Foible (crappton of mana and mana regen) or Sidhebreath if you don't have Atziri's

For the start of the game just link Poison Arrow > Faster Projectiles. As mana and gem ownage allows add Concentrated Effect and Empower. You may need to buy a level 1 Empower and level it in your off-slot, getting level 2 at some point for early-mid endgame. Slower Projectiles and Culling Strike also add poison cloud damage and can be used with or in replace of any of the above. Increased Area of effect, while not adding damage, can also help. So you can mix and match those based on the number of links you have available to you - and availability.

And lastly - your bow. While you may not be able to afford a +2/+1, +2 (SharpShooter prefix) is a 64 mod. So, literally, all you need to do once you are 64 is pick a bow of your choice off the ground and toss a few alts on it - shouldn't take more than a few stacks you will will have yourself a a nice upgrade. Or you could just buy a +2 yellow bow at any point, a lot of which can be found very cheaply if the other stats (which are irrelevant to you) suck.

II. Leveling Trees

Spoiler

30 PTS - Get Ondar's and next to MoM

80 PTS - to EB< then MoM

III. How to Scale Poison Arrow

Spoiler

1. Gem Level
2. Increased Chaos Damage (tree, qualitied Added Chaos,Cherrubim's Maleficence)
3. Increased Damage over time (tree)
4. Increased Projectile Damage (tree, Rearguard,Drillneck,Faster/Slower Projectiles)
5. Increased Area Damage (Concentrated Effect, Carcass Jack, tree)*
6. Increased Damage (Culling Strike, LeHeup)

* It works but does not display correctly in the tooltip

The 6 categories are right, a few of the specific examples may have slipped my mind so no guarantee it's all inclusive.

IV. How do you calculate Poison Arrow Cloud Damage?

Spoiler

I keep getting PM's about how I calculate Poison arrow DPS - so I will add it here, and then update it into the main post once I complete all of my 1.2 Enhancements. Also of note is that this is not some DPS shenanigans where people have LMP, and multiply their DPS by 3 or something like that. Poison Arrow's cloud tooltip does not accurately show anything with an "Area" tag into the cloud damage. This is most commonly Concentrated Effect (more) and Carcass Jack (increased). It has been verified by GGG that they do impact the cloud damage, just do not show in the tooltip. For some odd reason, since the on hit effect of Poison Arrow isn't Area damage, they cannot visibly display the secondary effect accurately. Much like Lightning Strike or Molten Strike tooltips don't display the projectile damage.

But it's easy to verify and confirm GGG's statement it works despite tooltip limitations - Concentrated Effect is so strong that the increased damage is easily visible despite no tooltip change. So what I calculate is simply how the tooltip would read if it wasn't erroneously missing any added area damage. To calculate you need:

-Current displayed tooltip DPS
-Base PA Gem damage (hover over gem while it's equipped so it has the impact of any + levels)
-missing increased area modifiers
-missing more increased area modifiers

In my current case - these are my numbers

-11,339.8 Tooltip
-2,250 Level 28 Gem Base
- 24% (12 from Carcass Jack, 12 from Blast Radius passive)
-70% (level 21 Concentrated Effect - it gets an extra level from the +1 in the bow)

The calculation is:

[(Missing Increased Modifiers x Base gem damage)+Displayed Tooltip DPS]*(1+Missing More Modifiers)

For me:

[(.24*2250)+(11339.8)]*1.7

20,195.66 DPS

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skycraft1811 wrote:

At which point does the damage scaling go up?
I am currently lvl 62 with PA - SlowerProjectiles - Faster Projectiles - Increased are of effecct
With this combination and my gear I get like 855 dps ... it is not even worth atm to do Docks, because killing takes so long ... any ideas?

My weapon

Spoiler

Edit: I just need to kill Piety and Domius to finish a3 merc

"

skycraft1811 wrote:

At which point does the damage scaling go up?
I am currently lvl 62 with PA - SlowerProjectiles - Faster Projectiles - Increased are of effecct
With this combination and my gear I get like 855 dps ... it is not even worth atm to do Docks, because killing takes so long ... any ideas?

My weapon

Spoiler

Edit: I just need to kill Piety and Domius to finish a3 merc

"

Asidra wrote:

"

skycraft1811 wrote:

At which point does the damage scaling go up?
I am currently lvl 62 with PA - SlowerProjectiles - Faster Projectiles - Increased are of effecct
With this combination and my gear I get like 855 dps ... it is not even worth atm to do Docks, because killing takes so long ... any ideas?

My weapon

Spoiler

Edit: I just need to kill Piety and Domius to finish a3 merc

The damage goes up when you start following the guide.

I use Concentrated Effect, and a Carcass Jack and quality on Poison arrow to make up and surpass the area to make up some of the lost area.

And what the hell is that bow...are you playing a physical build, or a Poison Arrow build? Because Poison Arrow builds use + levels in the bow. Bows with +2 to gem level are cheap as hell. And you could have been using a Silverbranch all this time for like 1c and doing more damage. Do you have an empower leveling in your off slot?

I made the guide to help - but it only works if you at least try and follow it. I understand certain things may be cost prohibitive - but other really aren't - they are just bad decisions.