DMC's Dodge Crit Ranger - 1.2

Hey there everyone. I'm DMC aka Dunestrider, and this is my first time writing an official build guide. However, that's not to say this is my first time creating a build - I've had great success with a RoA build I made in the past, as well as an armor/block Double Striker, and an Entropy build I made for a friend. I spend probably just as much time on poebuilder messing around with the tree as I do playing the game. The reason I've decided to create a forum topic is because I've been requested to share my build with friends and guildies, and I feel as though I've got enough experience playing a Ranger now that I won't look like an idiot. Probably.

Let's start the guide with a Q&A.

What is this build?
This is a SOFTCORE physical scaling pure Dodge Crit Ranger. It can make effective use of Split Arrow, Tornado Shot, Ice Shot, Frenzy, and Puncture. It also has potential with Lightning Arrow and Rain of Arrows, but I feel there are better builds out there for those two.

What can this build accomplish?
The full extent of its potential is yet unrealized by myself, but I know that it is an insanely fast map clearing DPS cannon, and can be built on a budget.

Why Dodge?
Minimal effort -> Maximum effect. What I mean by this is that all you have to do is pick up the Acrobatics nodes and some Life and make sure at least most of your gear has some Evasion on it, and you'll have enough survivability to take a couple hits (or rather, dodge a couple hits) when things get rough or you mess up before turning around and killing everything.

Why crit?
Not even a question. That's like asking 'Why bacon?' or 'Why sex?'
But let's assume you're an asexual basement dwelling vegan. The reason crit is so good for bows is because of the new passive tree. All the crit is readily accessible for a Ranger, and you'd actually be missing out on bow damage nodes if you tried to avoid crit.

Why do you have such a hard-on for movespeed?
Because gotta go fast like Sonic. With good movespeed boots and the passives, you won't ever actually need a Quicksilver flask except for leveling. This allows more space for Jade and Diamond flasks, or more of the beefy new Life flasks. It also makes it a lot easier to kite and dodge abilities, which is a lot more important with the new Boss updates. However, GGG doesn't like it when you squirm, so get ready for some desync.

Why don't you take Frenzy Charges?
Frenzy itself was beaten with the nerf stick. Not too badly, it is still a functioning member of society, but it needs counseling, which is expensive. I feel Puncture to be better for single target damage. I also don't run Blood Dance on my Ranger, though that doesn't mean it's a bad idea. If you feel a great fervor for Frenzy, or have a bigger movespeed hard-on than even myself, then by all means.

Why don't you take Power Charges anymore? (1.3)
Basically, there are 3 gems that increase crit stats. Increased Critical Strikes (ICS), Increased Critical Damage (ICD), and Power Charge on Critical (PCoC). Each Power Charge gives 50% crit chance. So, the base 3 charges = 150%. If you take another from bandits, and spend 2 passive points (for a total of 3 passive points) you can cap charges at 250%. That's a lot. But it requires a ramp up time, 3 passive points, and a gem slot. ICS was buffed, and ICD was nerfed. a 20/20 ICS is 167% increased chance. ICD will always be valuable for crit builds, but now that ICS can give you more crit than PCoC 3-charge, you basically have 2 choices: ICS (167%) + 3 passive points in crit (20+20+20) = 227% with no ramp up time, or PCoC 5 charges (250%) with a ramp up time. I believe GGG did a good job balancing this, and it's now totally viable to use either or.

When to use Pierce VS Chain/Fork, when to use Power Charge on Critical, etc.
Pierce is great for Split Arrow and is amazing for Ice Shot. It's also acceptable to use it with Tornado Shot, though personally I found it to be a waste of points. Chain is great for Split Arrow and it's pretty good for Ice and Tornado Shot as well, though I find Pierce to be better for Ice Shot and Tornado Shot is fine on its own. If you'd like, you can also spend 2 points to grab a Power Charge, but I'd only do this if you took the Power Charge reward from Merciless Banditos. You can then use PCoC or Voll's Protector to keep them up, which will raise your crit chance substantially. Personally, I recommend going with Power Charges. The difference in crit for 3 effective skill points and a gem/gear slot is huge.

Why does your build not have a main skill and instead you just say to pick one ourselves? I no like use my brane pls tel me wat do?
It's because all 3 skills (Ice Shot, Nado Shot, Split Arrow) are totally viable and comparable in the current patch, and the build works off of phys/crit scaling, which all 3 skills synergise with.

Passive Tree Progression


Banditos!
Normal: Help Oak (40 HP)
Cruel: Help Oak (18% Phys)
Merciless: Depending on your personal choices, Frenzy Charge (Help Kraityn), Power Charge (Help Alira), and Skill Point (kill all) are all viable. I went with the free point for 1.3, as Increased Crit Chance was buffed.

Gear Recommendation
Like I said earlier, it's possible to do this build with budget gear or as a first character. Since bows were buffed, you no longer run into a wall at lvl 50 when you can't kill anything at all ever without tons of good gear. With the addition of the Forsaken Masters, it's pretty easy to roll a good bow.
Even though it's a good build for a budget, there will always be expensive items that can take your build to a new level. For this build in particular, there are 3 such items.

Atziri's Step
Tons of base evasion, high Life, and 14-16% Spell Dodge. Not to mention 30% Movespeed. This 2-5 Chaos pair of boots will boost your survivability significantly, unless you're putting points into Frenzy Charges.

Alternate: Blood Dance
These boots will raise your survivability through the means of health sustain and higher movespeed per Frenzy Charge. I recommend these if you're picking up Frenzy Charges and plan to use Blood Rage. Good news is they're really cheap, too.

Maligaro's Virtuosity
Crit Gloves. Pretty darn useful for any crit build. Usually run around 1 Exalt.

Alternate: Shadows and Dust
Crit Gloves. Not as good as Maligaro, but good for mana sustain.

Rat's Nest
Attack speed, Movespeed, Crit, Rarity.... If you can afford one, they're great. Usually 1 Exalt.

Meginord's Girdle
The flat Phys damage is a big deal, and 10% Life is as well, considering the rework to Life. If you need resists, use a good Rustic or Leather tri-res, but if you can max out resists on your chest/rings/amulet, Meginords is amazing.
P.S. Doryani's is shit compared to Meginord if you're able to get the resists on other pieces.

QUIVER: NOTICE!!
Drillneck is great, don't get me wrong. But I've tried it out. You NEED Pierce for it to be any good (curse pierce doesn't count). This means that it's amazing for an Ice Shot or Split Arrow build using Pierce, but it's not so good for Tornado Shot. In order to run Pierce in Nado, you're going to need to drop either FA or Phys Proj. This lowers your base DPS output. This is somewhat rectified by Drillneck's Proj Dmg/Pierce chance and it's flat phys. However, you will lose out on a lot of crit. And considering you can easily get 95% (cap) crit chance with Power Charges, a good crit quiver is significantly better than Drillneck.

Aside from the Uniques listed, there are other Uniques that work well with the build, but are more of a personal choice to use. The standard goes for the remaining rare equipment; Life, Resists. Critical Chance, flat Physical damage. Try to also get something with some Leech stats on it for sustain. With the 2/2% Leeches from the tree, getting another 2/2% on an item should be plenty of sustain, depending on your damage and skill choices.
You're also going to want a good Crit Harbinger at some point. You don't need an amazing one, my first one was only 180 PDPS with only the Implicit Crit roll and I was still able to do maps with 0 effort whatsoever.

Skill Links
Split Arrow
Split Arrow - Faster Attacks - Pierce/Chain - Physical Projectile Damage. This is your 4link. If you get more links, you can choose to add PCoC, LGoH, and ICD.

Ice Shot
Ice Shot - Lesser/Greater Multiple Projectiles (recommend Lesser) - Pierce - Cold Penetration. This is your 4link. With more links, consider adding PCoC, ICD, Faster Attacks, Life Leech, Added Fire Damage, Weapon Ele Damage (if you take Added Fire and Weapon Ele you probably won't need Cold Pen as much, still trying everything out from scratch, feel free to get back to me with your own results).

Tornado "Nado" Shot
Tornado Shot - Greater Multiple Projectiles - Faster Attacks - Increased Crit Strikes - ICD - Phys Proj. I'm testing out the new Phys to Lightning gem, and so far it's great, but it is more difficult to sustain with less phys damage and ele reflect will hurt a lot, but I've been running it on phys reflect maps without much issue.

Puncture
Puncture - Physical Projectile Damage - Increased Duration - Increased Critical Damage.
You would use this on tough rares and unique monsters, then proceed to crit-knockback the jerk until he bleeds to death. If you get a crit with this setup, almost everything will die within seconds.

CWDT
Standard CWDT setup, I like to use the new Poacher's Mark with it as well.
Cast When Damage Taken - Enduring Cry - Immortal Call - Poacher's / Assassin's Mark, Vulnerability, Enfeeble, whatever you desire. Increased Duration is also acceptable.

Auras
Reduced Mana - Hatred - Herald of Ash - Herald of Ice
Screw Grace. You kill things way too fast to worry about it anyways.
......
But in all seriousness, you really probably don't need it. You've got Jade flasks and knockback on crit, you'll be fine. If you REALLY WANT it, feel free to use it instead. Experiment! It's your character, I'm not the one playing it, do what makes you comfortable.

If you have any questions or comments, or feel I've left something out, feel free to harass me about it.

I use Ice Shot+WED+Added Fire Damage+Physical Projectile Damage for aoe. Pierce from passives.
Ice shot aoe+Herald of Ash+Herald of Ice kill all.

Yeah, but you don't get full room clear with that. There have literally been rooms that I've fired off 1 shot with Ice Shot-LMP-Pierce-ICD and my screen drops to like 20 frames, I look at my Rampage bonus and it's at 50. I walk into the room, and everything's dead, and there's a group of bodies gathered around the doorway in the next room. I've done runs with a friend running the same passive tree and a bow with 5 less DPS but 23% higher crit multi and it takes him 10 seconds to kill what takes me 1, and he's using the same setup as you.

Granted, his single target damage with Ice Shot is higher, but I don't use Ice Shot for single target.

The AoE was boosted, but we aren't talking about some sort of nuclear explosion here. It's still just a bow skill and requires modifications for effective AoE. Also, it's of note that while the arrows themselves can't shotgun, the AoE effect can... So if you use LMP on a tight pack, the front 3 enemies take arrow damage, and everything behind them is hit by multiple AoE fields. That's why Pierce/LMP/GMP is so effective on Ice Shot. I'll try making a diagram. With my awesome Paint skills.



As an example, the guy being pointed out by yellow Is being hit by the AoE effects of 1 red AoE effect, 1 green AoE effect, 2 blue AoE effects, and the green arrow. That's a 500% DPS effectiveness.

Diagram just sold me on this build.

Making a new character named DMC_DaVinci.

I think I've earned it.

Updated.