Having trouble with Dominus in cruel - - ranger

So, I don't remember ever having so much trouble. A lot of it comes from pre-Dominus, like Ali and Orcus but still .... very frustrating. 56th level.

Can someone look at this and maybe give a good suggestion? Thanks in advance.

You only have ~60 life on your gear.

Get life rolls on every piece of equipment, even blue items are better than yours.
Just "life+resist", ignore the rest.

Also your skill tree sucks.
In PoE, you do:
life nodes, life nodes, life nodes.
Then, if there's finally no more life to grab, then you start thinking about damage.

I donÄ't get your skill links too.

Maybe you read a guide before rerolling a new character.
Which you will have to do, this one doesn't look like it can be saved.

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Peterlerock wrote:

You only have ~60 life on your gear.

Get life rolls on every piece of equipment, even blue items are better than yours.
Just "life+resist", ignore the rest.

Also your skill tree sucks.
In PoE, you do:
life nodes, life nodes, life nodes.
Then, if there's finally no more life to grab, then you start thinking about damage.

I donÄ't get your skill links too.

Maybe you read a guide before rerolling a new character.
Which you will have to do, this one doesn't look like it can be saved.

Awwww 'cmon. That isn't helping. Telling someone they suck isn't the best for player retention in the game and is kinda mean.

Harsh...

You have some good points though.

I'm not telling him (her?) he sucks.
I'm telling him his skilltree, gem and gear choices suck.

My first characters where completly wasted and unable to progress, I guess yours where too... There's nothing wrong with it. Shit happens.

But it would be wrong to hang on to a character that has so many deficits.

Reroll, ideally under some guidance, and then, once you understand 8or think you understand) the game, you can start to mess around with own ideas.

Hi kolyaboo

I see a few glaring issues immediately.

1. Your lack of life on your gear, I'm imagining you have barely 1k hp?
You need more HP. Prioritize that.

2. You are using a lot of different skills, many of which have no synergy.
Focus on a few skills at most.

You'll need to ask yourself which skills you enjoy using out of what you've shown.
Once you do that you can find complimentary skills that will help reinforce your main skill.

Which leads to the next point.

3. Your skill tree. I'll be honest, it's all over the place. I feel you're trying to supplement every skill you're currently using and that will be a futile effort in the end.

You need life nodes. You can only afford to buff one kind of skill.

To start... your exit from the ranger start position is going through melee physical nodes, I can't understand that one, you're currently using no skill that would benefit from it. If you're going bow, using the north exit area would be more beneficial.

I notice you've taken the DoT nodes, so you're wanting to buff poison arrow? I don't see that skill gem even in your gear. So those would be nodes to spec out of. If you're wanting to buff Puncture, you're not really supporting puncture with support gems that will give any gains. I also wouldn't personally recommend building around puncture as your main skill, it requires higher end gear.

You've taken MoM, (mind over matter), I doubt you're really able to support that node, it's only going to be hurting your mana sustain right now with your gear/tree. I would spec out of that.

Your skill tree is very inefficient, you've traveled over to the duelist area for projectile nodes, while ignoring closer nodes by ranger start. Ideally you would spec out of that and take nodes near ranger area.

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You're looking at 15-20 regret orbs--quest respec points to get your skill tree to a better position.
I don't feel that is worth it at all. You're in cruel, over the course of a weekend you should be able to level a new ranger up again, borrowing gear you already have, while prioritizing new gear with life on it.

You may be really attached to your character, but from my experience it's not worth the time or effort into rescuing a character at this early low level stage.

If I was you I would abandon that character and immediately reroll a new ranger.
That would be my advice.

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I would suggest picking one or two bow skills only, and planing your build around that. Rain of arrows is a great skill that is easy to level with and is viable from low level to high level. It's not very gear dependent.

Buy or get from quest rewards a decoy totem. Drop that down to pull aggro off yourself in tough fights.


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Some of your skill links and support gems are quite ineffective. Some of them even doing nothing but lowering damage and costing more mana to use.

I would advise browsing through the ranger section of the forum and looking at various bow builds to give you some ideas of passive trees to try out, as well as more effective skill-support links. There you will find great advice as to most efficient skill links as well as reasons some of your links are less then ideal.
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Don't be discouraged or get frustrated, at least you got as far as end of A3 cruel on your first ranger/bow character you've ever made.
Take some of the lessons you've learned with this character and apply it to your next one. I'm sure it will be stronger and you'll progress even further into the game.

I would take whatever your main attack is an put it on the 4L. I tried playing a ranger a long time ago and made the mistake of having a lot of weak attacks as opposed to 1-2 strong attacks. Pick an attack for mobs and then pick one for single targets and do what you have to do to get good links to make those attacks stronger. Consider using Projectile Weakness for more damage.

You didn't post your boots. Make they have movement speed in case you need to run away to survive.

You do need more life. Take the 2 points out of mana gain and add more life. You may want to consider taking the points Method to the Madness and adding those points to life. In Cruel you don't have to worry about chaos resists too much. There are mappers who run with -60% from what I've read. if you want to add those later just try to be close to the those areas. The main thing you need to do is survive. The one thing I've learned is your DPS means nothing if you're dead. That's the mistake I made on my highest build. Once you get more life you may be able to come out of Mind over Matter, which would allow you attack more often too.

If you're a solo, non trading, grinding type of player like me check out my guide

Thanks. I would make a new character but I don't play solo with this one, I play with a friend that's a witch and making a new character would be an inconvenience. I'd like to smarten this one up instead. If I ever make another ranger, I'll learn from this one. I can run MoM because of an aura that the witch runs. I never play solo with this character so that's not an issue.

I got past Dominus easily just a few minutes ago due to other people's auras, as you can see, this character can't run any aura.

I don't mind regretting some of the points; I have quite a few of the orbs and haven't used any of the character's respecs.

Considering using barrage and ice arrow as the main attacks, what would be the best allocation of the points in the tree to support the skills and what would be good support gems?

I have most of the gems or my friend does in inventory or I can purchase them in the rare case where I don't have access to them.

Forgot to post the boots, they do add to life but I have been looking for more gear that adds.
Now that she's in merciless I will be hopefully finding a better bow or buying one.

Fazlez, I will read your guide thanks for the link.

Thanks in advance!

Here's how you beat Dominus with a weak build. Set aside about 50 - 100 portal scrolls, fight your way to the doorway leading to his lair atop the Scepter of God, and open your first portal scroll. Then dash out with all guns blazing as best you can and suicide charge the evil one and his help until you get blown away. Repeat process again - and again - and again - and again - until you wear Dominus down through sheer boredom. By this stage his vocal chords will be so spent from thundering out his taunts at you that all he'll do upon sighting you for the hundredth time is roll his eyes at you in sheer exasperation and whisper hoarsely 'kill me - PLEASE!'

ROFL