Advice on my build.

I feel like I'm at a wall with the damage. I also feel like I may have screwed up on the passive tree. This was my first character so I really wanted to just make my own build, but I'm really feeling over-shadowed by other people and their damage in parties.

Looking at your profile, you appear to be playing a non-crit bow build. Those tend to not be very strong. Look at some of the Crit Split Arrow guides, you might be able to transition into a build like that without it costing too much. While doing so, you should also prioritize crit on a lot more of your gear and passives than you currently do.

There's a lot of inefficient passive choices on your tree, so I think it'd just be best if you follow a tree from one of the crit split guides. But if you want, I can point out a few of the passives that really need to be changed on your current tree. You also have like no life at all, you'll probably get 1 shot by a light breeze the moment you step outside, that should be fixed as well.

Also your single target Frenzy really should be on the 5L in your bow, no sense having that be a 4L when you have a perfectly good 5L filled with just random gems.

You also don't appear to have any items in your weapon swap slots, you could be levelling an extra 6 gems if you stick a pair of 1h weapons on there.

Thanks for the very quick reply. I would love to be able to fix or adapt my build into something that works, so I would be grateful if you could point out some of the flaws in my passive tree. I really don't want to start over, but I will if I have to. Thanks for all the help.

I'd probably go with a passive tree sort of like https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgYAAx4FtQiJD6sWvxqNH0Ei6iP2JIsmlTB8OdRNklFHUdlVS1smW69daGHifyt_-4TFjX2Nv5AKlQWa8Zu1oJ-i2aR4sJKw2LVIwdXDOsqp3vjo1usU_5OMNnBSKgvz6nDVidNsjGKsnaq5fIwL7LA2PW1spctVhe4OVvox-nb3wTOGziF2DY38xb3mPs8k_edU_97UI0p945-HdnpTYevPerIZMgGbJuHboaQF-f7IZ6D-HcFJyNz-urvjxKLtgxmOAF7Tfn11CC7veg==

A good guide to follow is https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1041989, it mostly seems to be full of sensible advice that I would agree with.

I'll break the important info down into sections

Passives
I wouldn't describe the passive tree I linked as optimal, but it should be effective, I tried to keep the number of regrets needed to fix the passive tree to a minimum. If you do choose to restart you'll probably want to restart as a Ranger.

I've taken almost 4x as much crit, and more than doubled your life, at the cost of taking half as much physical damage(You were taking way too much, compared to your other stats), there are diminishing returns on over-investing on just one method of damage scaling, ideally to get the best DPS you would want to get a good mix of phys+crit+attack speed. I've also taken a couple of Frenzy Charges, I think you're underestimating just how much damage Frenzy Charges add to your build.

Gems
Instead of Lightning Arrow, you should probably use Split Arrow + Chain, and instead of Physical to Lightning, you should probably leave most of your damage as physical, the linked tree takes a couple of mana leech nodes, that those should be enough for you to sustain your skill without needing those mana flasks, which will allow you to replace them with something better.

On your curse on hit Herald of Thunder setup, I notice you are using 2 curses, but don't have the ability to apply 2 curses to enemies, this means only the last curse will actually apply, and the first one will be completely ignored. Try using Assassin's Mark as the only curse applied, so you can generate Power Charges, thus increasing your crit chance. And use Herald of Ice instead of Herald of Thunder, this should more reliably generate charges, and overall improve your clear speed. Or you can just manually curse with another Split Arrow.

On your main Split Arrow setup you should probably use Split Arrow + Chain + Physical Projectile Attack Damage + Faster Attacks, the 5th link is a bit of a toss up, you can use Weapon Elemental Damage, or Added Fire, or even keep Phys to Lightning, or use Life Leech. But the first 4 I would say are mandatory. Increased Crit Damage is another good one, once you begin to have an acceptable crit chance.

For your single target Frenzy, you may want to look into how to set-up a proper Puncture setup, but for Frenzy you probably want something similar. PPAD + Faster Attacks + WED + Added Fire or something along those lines.

You also don't appear to be using Hatred, you should just use Hatred.

Gear
Don't have time to elaborate on what gear needs fixing first. But there are a few things that should be changed in that regard. May go into details on that later today when I'm available.

As others have mentioned, traditional bow builds are typically played with crit, as it is difficult to do adequate damage otherwise. That being said, I have seen successful non-crit builds which utilize Point Blank to compensate for the lack of the extra multiplier from crit. You can then divert the points you saved by not going crit to survivability nodes in order to make Point Blank safer.

Anyways, if you wish to attempt to enhance the build without changing it's original spirit, I suggest the following changes (I haven't actually tested this, so bear in mind that the considerations below are purely theoretical).



Here is the modified tree: Modified Tree

The perhaps larger issue is your gem setup. Projectile speed is pretty much irrelevant for conventional lightning arrow builds. Also note that Faster Projectiles has "increased" projectile damage, not "more" projectile damage. Definitely drop it for Weapon Elemental Damage. With Physical to Lightning, you will be dealing all lightning damage (barring nominal fire and cold damage from gear), and since we picked up Frenzy charges, Faster Attacks becomes a relatively less effective support. Replace it with Lightning Penetration. Try GMP instead of LMP. It might help with clear and mana (more on this below). Finally, aim for a quality Lightning Arrow and link Herald of Lightning to Curse on Hit and Conductivity; being able to shock enemies dramatically increases the damage of lightning based builds.

As for gear, since you are scaling pure lightning damage, focus on weapon elemental damage, flat physical damage, and attack speed in addition to the usual life, resists, and stats for meeting stat requirements.

Some additional optimizations include weening yourself off of mana flasks. Since you are converting 100% of your physical damage, you no longer have easy access to mana leech. Luckily, Lightning Arrow delivers many hits when used, so you could conceivably sustain off of mana gained on hit. Consider the Spirit Void cluster to the right of Ranger and jewels with mana gained on hit. Lightning Arrow is terrible for single-target damage, so I would probably use Frenzy linked with Physical Projectile Damage, Physical to Lightning, Faster Attacks, and Blood Magic. If you pick up Master of the Arena in the Duelist area (1 point away), you can run Blood Rage for a slight attack speed boost and automatic Frenzy charge generation. Finally, to help with AoE, try equipping a Penetrating Quiver and socketing a Poacher's Aim jewel (15% pierce and 10% projectile damage), available as a reward for the Fellshrine quest on Cruel difficulty.

The tree linked above is intended for a character around lvl 80. If you level beyond lvl 80, do not invest in additional damage nodes: as mentioned, you have reached the point where it would be more efficient to introduce a new multiplier, such as crit, rather than adding more increased damage. Instead, invest in more survivability. You can either go up from Duelist towards Scion for Life and Evasion or go to the left for an Endurance charge, Life, and increased Armor. You can spec out of Revenge of the Hunted and the Armor, Evasion, and Life hybrid nodes in the Duelist start as you reach more efficient clusters.

To conclude, non-crit Lightning Arrow cannot compete with crit Lightning Arrow in the damage arena. However, like most non-crit builds, the advantage is that you have more points available to invest and more free affixes on gear. If you want to deal high damage, you could easily go crit Lightning Arrow by using the build posted by Shotgun_Surgeon in this thread. The same gem setups described above would work, or you can forgo Physical to Lightning and take advantage of the easy leech made available by the physical damage. Going crit also alleviates the need for quality on Lightning Arrow, and Conductivity.