[3.25] Scourge Arrow Poison Prolif Pathfinder - Fast, tanky, fun to play

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Kalamir wrote:

Could somebody look at my build please? the playthrough through the story was very smooth but since i do maps i am struggling. not only that i got more delirium rewards, i also die more often and don't know why.

https://pastebin.com/LPdbJA3T

Even with 100ex+ in gear rangers are going to be squishy if they take damage. The whole playstyle with rangers is getting enough damage and clear where nothing hits you. And stuff where that cant happen(bosses for example) you really need to work around the mechanics and keep moving. Go on youtube and look at scourge gameplay for an example of this. Always be moving and always be shooting ahead while mapping. Dont wait until packs are close to shoot since at that point you will be taking damage. General advice as I havent seen you actually play it, but its a problem a lot of people face with playing rangers who arent use to them. Good people make rangers seem tanky because they rarely take big hits because of their damage.

You are still a low level though and missing a lot of damage and life. Get a new armor, you have an es based armor. You want something with 700+ evasion rating. Get atleast 1 anguish rings with increased chaos damage and buff effect on it. Get quality on your gems, you're missing projectile speed and a lot of increased damage here. Darkscorn is going to be a big upgrade when you can afford it. You have 0 jewels, lot of damage missing here. Damage goes in hand with staying alive, when you get enough damage to be clearing things instantly, you dont get it. Like I said, rangers are squishy no matter what build it is, you have to scale damage.

What set of passive points have players been switching for the Low Tolerance cluster jewel? I assume we want to use the jewel socket next to double projectile damage and Phase Acrobatics. I'm level 93 right now, and I don't think I'm willing to level much further.

Is Assassin better than Pathfinder? What are the differences? Thank you.

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LawsonGD wrote:

What set of passive points have players been switching for the Low Tolerance cluster jewel? I assume we want to use the jewel socket next to double projectile damage and Phase Acrobatics. I'm level 93 right now, and I don't think I'm willing to level much further.

The weakest ones, e.g avatar of the hunt, charging offensive.

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mida2706 wrote:

Is Assassin better than Pathfinder? What are the differences? Thank you.

Assassin is higher dps, a bit squishier, worse clear, PF is tankier, better clear, lower DPS.

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LawsonGD wrote:

What set of passive points have players been switching for the Low Tolerance cluster jewel? I assume we want to use the jewel socket next to double projectile damage and Phase Acrobatics. I'm level 93 right now, and I don't think I'm willing to level much further.

There's not just Low Tolerance, there are many other new strong notables that are worth grabbing over the ones we chose in 3.9. I'm one level below you, so hopefully what I write here can apply to your build.

Some thoughts after 1 week+ with the new league mechanics
Both the Large Cluster Jewels and the Medium Cluster Jewels are basically pure damage facilitators. Damage mitigations and reductions mainly enter the field for the Small Cluster Jewels, but imho these are never worth (save one exception) their jewel slot/passive point cost (see below).

So which new cluster notables are viable to look at for this build?

Large Cluster Jewels
For a Large Cluster 12% increased Damage with Bows Jewel:
- [+++] Tempered Arrowheads
- [+++] Feed the Fury (applies also when you leech mana)
- [++] Martial Prowess

For a Large Cluster 12% increased Chaos Damage Jewel:
- [+++] Unholy Grace
- [++] Touch of Cruelty

and, if you build up high enough crit chance:
- [+++] Overwhelming Malice

Medium Cluster Jewels
For a Medium +4% Damage over Time Multiplier Jewel:
- [+++] Circling Oblivion
- [+++] Low Tolerance
- [+++] (Life+Damage) Flow of Life
- [++] Brush with Death

For a Medium Channelling Skills deal 12% increased Damage Jewel:
- [++(+)] Hex Breaker (Curse Immunity whilst attacking, in case you don't have it from a flask)
- [++] Unwavering Focus
- [+] Rapid Infusion

Small Cluster Jewels
Imo Small Cluster Jewels are barely worth it, as they cost 1 jewel slot plus 2 additional passives (at least) to reach the notable. The only one I'm using and ever plan to use is Born of Chaos.

What about added jewel slots and non-notable passives?
For a Large Cluster Jewel, make sure to get one with:
- 8 Added Passive Skills
- 3x '1 Added Passive Skill is X'
- 2 Added Passive Skills are Jewel Sockets

For a Medium Cluster Jewel, make sure to get one with:
- 4 OR 5 Added Passive Skills,
- 2x '1 Added Passive Skill is X'
- 1 Added Passive Skills is a Jewel Sockets

This allows you to get minimal passive skill point waste when building your cluster jewel tree.

For the Large Cluster Jewel:
- Allocate 2 notables + 2 jewel sockets at the cost of 5 skills points in the Large Cluster Jewel, or
- Allocate 3 notables + 2 jewel sockets at the cost of 7 skills points in the Large Cluster Jewel,

For the Medium Cluster Jewel:
- Allocate 2 notables + 1 jewel socket at the cost of 4 skill points.

Allowing you to build a cluster tree looking something like the following:
Note the importance of minimizing waste of passive skill points onto non-notable passives in the cluster tree.

What passives do we sacrifice?
- Charging Offensive (I would never use this one even without cluster jewels)
- Avatar of the Hunt
- Entropy
- Hunter's Gambit

The two latter ones may seems as strange options to drop, but they are 3 and 4 passive points with no attack speed, respectively, and 7 points is a lot in the context of an optimal Large-Medium Cluster setup, particularly if you only choose the +++ notables I've listed above.

I also do not personally allocate the following ones, but it depends on your needs for your particular playing style:
- Bravery
- Art of the Gladiator

You could always skip one Medium Cluster Jewel in favour or these passives.

Use Path of Building for your specific character!
As with all my advice, this is min-maxed for my current character with my current (somewhat crappy) gear, and I would advice anyone to play around in POB to compare actual numbers. Note that the POB fork supports cluster jewels.

A general feeling this season is that damage will be no issue, whereas squishyness may (most strong defensive notables are placed in Small Cluster Jewels, which, imho, are rarely worth the cost to allocate). My experience from last season, however, is that as soon as we hit enough damage the squishyness goes away. I'm currently at lvl 92, 5.4k HP, 88% chaos res (Divine Flesh + Darkscorn) and 6.3M Shaper DPS (counting 0 frenzy charges), but will want to reach 6k HP and a whole lot of more damage before I'm done.

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Sclyzed wrote:

Even with 100ex+ in gear rangers are going to be squishy if they take damage. The whole playstyle with rangers is getting enough damage and clear where nothing hits you. And stuff where that cant happen(bosses for example) you really need to work around the mechanics and keep moving

I really want to second and emphasize on this sentiment. I love playing SA and ranger/evasion builds, but you need to always keep moving. If you want to be able to facetank a higher tier boss you might want to consider other builds with stronger leech and damage mitigation mechanics, however usually at the cost of speed and maximum damage (compare to my SA build last season, extremely fast and extremely high damage).

Artradis, could you provide a POB pastebin for me to look at your build? I have decent gear but am nowhere near the 6.3M shaper dps you have, wondering if I'm configuring it wrong or something.

@artradis, I am probably missing something, but how come you're not using freeze immunity flask?

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Simmadown wrote:

Artradis, could you provide a POB pastebin for me to look at your build? I have decent gear but am nowhere near the 6.3M shaper dps you have, wondering if I'm configuring it wrong or something.

Sure: pastebin link.

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Nethermore wrote:

@artradis, I am probably missing something, but how come you're not using freeze immunity flask?

This probably falls under preference and play style. I've personally never struggled with freezes except for in delve, possibly as this build move (and eventually kill) so fast and very seldom get frozen. When I do delving I may swap my bleed immunity for a freeze immunity for azurite nodes. Note that I'm yet to get a Corrupted Blood immunity jewel; once I do I will drop the staunching life flask for e.g. Forbidden Taste (and, eventually, Bottled Faith).

Also, whenever I open a strongbox (I never bother to identify them) I pop plague bearer, so that even if I am frozen, the closest mobs die (and also provide me with life leech via "Life Leech from Any Attack Damage", which I have at 0.8%), very seldom leading to death.

I got lucky in my first Simulacrum encounter and got my hands on a Voices cluster jewel (3 medium sockets). I followed the POB closely up to the 90 point variant. What would you guys suggest I do now? Should I respec and use some of the cluster jewels mentioned? Or should I just sell? It's around 2.7-3ex atm.

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axiomatiks wrote:

I got lucky in my first Simulacrum encounter and got my hands on a Voices cluster jewel (3 medium sockets). I followed the POB closely up to the 90 point variant. What would you guys suggest I do now? Should I respec and use some of the cluster jewels mentioned? Or should I just sell? It's around 2.7-3ex atm.

I would recommend to sell it ASAP. As with any uniques their price will drop as the league goes along, particularly league-specific ones (their sense of rarity is usually blown up in early league). The price of Voices (all variations) will drop rapidly as more players are reaching their Simulacrum encounters. The ~3 ex are more worth for investment in gear such as Darkscorn, Glorious Vanity, Circle of Nostaglia and so on.