Petrov's Elemental Bow Ranger Build(s) (0.10)

BUMP: May be updated for release.

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UPDATE FOR OPEN BETA (0.10.0): Build updated. With the (temporary?) removal of diamond flasks, I have chosen to also show a couple of builds which rely on Resolute Technique (always hits, never crits). Further, instead of suggesting one build, I have provided a couple of alternatives for tankiness vs dps. When diamond flasks are reintroduced, I will update accordingly. Note, I have kept the old 0.9.13 build there for those of you that still like to stack crit multi damage.
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I have put this build together based on my experience building (and rebuilding more than a couple of times!) my Ranger through Closed Beta and now again in Open Beta.

I believe this build mixes offence and defence effectively and is a fundamentally an attacking build, but without being a glass cannon. This is not a quirky build. It's basically a cookie cutter build - albeit with a Blood Magic lemon twist. It is not geared around any single unique (I'm looking at you Moosi) but can survive on most semi-decent rare gear.

The basic premise is that it relies heavily on elemental damage for offence, via Lightning Arrow/Ice Shot or Split Arrow. Defence is via Iron Reflexes (which converts Evasion into Armour), Blood Magic/Life Leech and Unwavering Stance (cannot be stunned). I've shown a few different options below to allow people to suit a build to meet their own style. There is untold - major and minor - variation possible, so feel free to adapt as you see fit of course, there is no "one size fits all".

I believe Unwavering Stance is important for the new maps system, where you may have to be less choosy about which environments you want to farm. For example, with mazes and underground maps, it can be relatively easy to get swarmed. This build relies on dishing out damage to stay alive (life leech) when you get swarmed. You can't dish out damage/leech life if you're stun locked!

This is not really a kiting build - you can still kite if you want to...you just don't have to. You can get up close and personal with big groups without worrying too much about dying.

The monsters I get most concerned with are ranged chaos dealers (eg vipers) and sometimes skeleton archers, or suped-up shield charging mobs (eg rare rhoas).

In terms of where you go to first - make a beeline for Blood Magic while you grab any life nodes along the way. After that it's up to you depending on how much life you feel you need versus your dps. You will need to farm for gear or beg your mates for their hand-me-downs.

All these builds I've shown are based on 100 points which, if you take the Oak +life and then two skill point rewards, represents a level 80 build.

1. The "all out DPS - shock stacking" build (0.10.0):

2. MOST POPULAR: The "tankier + shock stacking + inner force" build (0.10.0):

3. The "inner force + traditional DPS" build (0.10.0):

4. The "old Closed Beta" build (0.10.0):

5. The "iron grip and resolute technique elemental" build (0.10.0):

6. The "Softcore Level 90 Lioneye + Kaom's Heart" build (0.10.0):


These builds have lots of flexibility to trade more or less DPS for more or less life - feel free to adjust as you see fit and according to your play style/gear.

The beauty of Blood Magic is that you dish out so much damage that firing off a 5L Lightning Arrow doesn't consume life, net of life leech. You can also have 3 bubbling/seething life flasks (that also dispel frozen/chilled/burning) and [2 diamond flasks for when you need to kill a boss/rare super quickly EDIT: not until diamonds are back in]. You don't have to waste any flasks slots on mana obviously.

As for gems, I suggest a few possible combinations:

1. Lightning Arrow/Ice Shot + Weapon Elemental Damage + Faster Attacks + Lesser Multiple Projectiles + Life Leech/or Life on Hit (or Culling Strike if you have sufficient Life on hit/kill from your gear). I don't really think you *need* Chain with LA given it's LA's inherent AoE attributes, but give it a try as many people rave about it!

2. Split Arrow + Faster Attacks + Weapon Elemental Damage + Chain (or Culling Strike/Added Chaos/Added Lightning Damage depending on your life cost tolerance) + Life Leech/or Life on Hit.

3. (for bosses) Elemental Hit or Frenzy + Faster Attacks + Weapon Elemental Damage + Culling Strike (or Item Quantity) + Life Leech.

As for auras, I run Grace for the Evasion boost, and Wrath and Anger for dps given their relatively low life cost. Anything that reserves a % of mana is a no-go. Speccing into Inner Force (30% aura buff) give great bang for buck in later levels (when the auras get to their late-teens in level). Also, after level 80, where this guide stops, you will probably want to get both the Inner Force and Perfect Aim passives.

For curses, my choice is a quality Projectile Weakness (excellent quality bonuses!), alternatively an Elemental Weakness curse. Projectile Weakness is an often overlooked curse, but it synergises well with Lightning Arrow. Not only does it provide a "more" multiplicative damage modifier on cursed mobs, it also gives a very high % pierce chance - hence why I feel LA in particular synergises well (give LA's own AoE effect). Conductivity is also a popular curse if you stack lightning damage.

You should also try to get your hands on a decoy totem or a rejuvination totem - or even a spell/ranged attack totem with something like Ice Spear or Ice Shot linked to it. Bow users benefit greatly from the use of totems which distract or slow down mobs!

I also like to level a Bear Trap gem to help immobilise and kill bosses that like to chase poor pewpew rangers like me.

For gear, I suggest you focus on:
- Flat elemental damage modifiers
- + life modifiers
- elemental and chaos resistance modifiers
- attack speed modifiers

In my current Lioneye+Kaom's build, I run 6 auras: Wrath, Anger, Grace, Purity, Vitality, Hatred. The first three I run off a BM gem, the last 3 I run off mana. With my gear (linked at the top), this gives me just enough mana to still be able to cast a curse (at the moment Temp Chains or Proj Weakness - but when I fix my colours on my helm, I will use Ele Weakness as my offensive curse). Note, this build is more DPS heavy than I would recommend for a HC Lioneye+Kaom's build - for HC, you could sacrifice some of the Duelist DPS nodes (or Perfect Aim nodes), for more HP nodes.

For bandit rewards I suggest you help Oak in Normal to get the +40 base life increase, take the 6% Increased Attack Speed reward, but otherwise kill all bandits in Cruel and Merciless to get the skill point(s). If you are sure you're going to get Kaom's, then get the skill point in normal, as 8% life > 40 life for a Kaom's build.

Many of you have asked about where to buy better gear - after all, these builds are quite gear dependent. I will post some in-game shops I've had good experiences with (and mine when it opens!):

1. FitzGX's specialist thicket bow shop - he crafts his own and I bought a cool bow here!
2. Petrov's shop - you like the guide, buy from my shop!:)

Petrov.

Thx mate, was fun to read :) Maybe i gonna return to my beloved ranger class after i tried a duelist this time.

cheers

why Elemental hit instead of burning arrow .. bc BA i think scaling much better and it dps is better + chance of ignite.
Btw nice build, now im LA / CI but kinda missing Life stealing instead of mana leeching :) will try after wipe unless i will decide go Frenzy/CI awesomess

Hi reder, thanks for reading my post and your comments.

Burning arrow is ok, but its dps is actually less than elemental hit. Remember that, I think, the dps label for elemental hit is wrong - I seem to recall GGG saying that the dps does not reflect the "can add" element (npi) of elemental hit. Also, I don't think IIQ works on elemental effects, like ignite? Given the main purpose of elemental hit for me is boss killing, I don't really want the bosses to die of burning.

Also, as for curses, I generally use elemental weakness. If your Int is too low, temporal chains and projectile weakness are pretty good too. Alternatively, there is a 30 Int node just off the main path to blood magic which you could take in exchange for an armour/Eva or life node.

Petrov.

You said:

"

This is not really a kiting build - you can still kite if you want to...you just don't have to. You can get up close and personal with big groups without worrying too much about dying.

Why no Point Blank? Just 3 nodes away for extra 50% dmg.

"

marlev wrote:

You said:

"

This is not really a kiting build - you can still kite if you want to...you just don't have to. You can get up close and personal with big groups without worrying too much about dying.

Why no Point Blank? Just 3 nodes away for extra 50% dmg.

An interesting question. I did in fact originally have PB in the build. However, by speccing point blank it always encouraged me to go charging into big swarms which, at the margin, caused me to lose more time regaining xp from suicide charges, than I gained from mowing them down slightly quicker.

I basically 1-2 shot everything anyway, and PB didn't change that basic pattern, all it did was encourage me psychologically to go on suicide charges. The damage scales away pretty viciously from PB as well if you're far away, which was a pain on many maps.

All in all, I'd consider taking PB again if they made it a bit more powerful.

Petrov.

Great great build! thank you so much!!

So as a bit of a gag I bought Quill Rain, the unique short bow with 3+ attacks per second. When combined with my passive tree, 13% IAS gloves and 5% IAS quiver, level 1 Haste and a few Frenxy charges - I got my attacks per second to 5.49.

It looks nuts attacking 5.5 times per second.

It's not great if you miss stuff, it eats into one's life with Blood Magic. So I died by shooting my machine gun at air. Glad at level 74 I could see the funny side.

Hmm.

Petrov.

PS this means I won't be swapping out my current bow for quill rain any time soon. Quill rain is just good to whip out at dinner parties when someone wants to check out your attack speed.

Unwavering Stance is a must have in my opinion if you're not building a pure glass canon. I'm still on the fence as far as Blood Magic is concerned, I like it on paper but I feel it requires really strong gear to work well, and I feel tanky bow ranger builds are already gear-dependent.

5.5 attacks per second is mighty impressive, but indeed the impact on mana - or life with Blood Magic - gives pause.

How it works in Hc and why u dont take 30 stre node near thick skin (playing first time ranger).