The Dagger Ranger

hello everybody,

i recently rerolled my high lvl ranger after playing through that build selffound from 1 to 60. its a funny fastpaced gaming experience and i had a lot of fun with that build so i thought to share it (prepare for a wall of text) and get some discussion going and feedback about that underestimated form of ranger build. its great stuff always on the edge losing life from blood range while whirling throu groups of 20+ blue mobs :D but the build is very stable and u dont die if u pay some attention whats happening on the screen.
i didnt have mana issues with 2% leech. it was quite ok before but the recent passiv tree changes really gave that class a great boost.
the main concern is to get the stats together u'll need. 121 INT for the level 60 dagger and as much STR as u can get. unfortunatly the passives dont give much of that stats and i also didnt want to waste any passives. but more on this later..

so what we are talking about here..!?

+ high crit chance and damage
+ high attack speed
+ naturally high chance to hit
+ marauder like damage reduction but less run speed malus
+ around 50% block chance
+ very flexible build till merciless (u can play any 1 hand weapon)

- no AoE!
- u need to hit certain mods with your equipment and meeting the requirements can be a pain :)


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the skills
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main skill is flicker strike. it got everything we need and fits perfect for that build. 3% crit chance per quality % is also great for us. its also perfect for sniping bosses and high priority targets like archers and ranged mobs. main buff is blood rage for the frenzy charges and life leech. i use critical weakness curse in 95% of the situations for that extra crit chance and damage. temporal chains for really big groups and fast aura mobs (sometimes its hard to snipe them in a bulk of 30+ mobs) phase run is great for mobility and its also a huge dmg boost for 1 hit single targets like bosses..

(i listed the skills and the support gems i used with them behind)

main skill:

curses:

buffs:


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the passiv skills
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if u go for the 1 hand clusters first u stay flexible for along time. its possible to use any good 1 hand weapon u can find. ofc i go for crit/crit dmg, dagger dmg. i also picked up 3 extra frenzy charges, shield passives and life. and very important iron reflexes passiv keystone. (converts all evasion to armour rating)



here is a bigger pic:
http://www.mojoapparel.org/elpuno/poe/passiv_skills.jpg


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my gear and stats
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keep in mind that i took all the screens with my lvl74 ranger. i also used all my orbs and put everything i got in this char in legacy league. (far from perfect still) but like i said before i had no problems in a selffound playthrou. it just gets better the more advanced gear u own.
legacy items: as far as i'm concerned only the base type of the helm and 10% attack speed on 1 ring (think 7 or 8% is max now) is legacy gear. it really makes no difference in this case.

to meet the requirements of the lvl 60 dagger (121 INT) i recommend onyx amulett and 2x 30INT from gear (can spawn on jewelery and helm) like for every other melee build u want a high ed% weapon and attack speed, crit dmg and chance after that. u also should look for a STR belt giving u 60-70 STR. gloves and jewelery is the main source of dmg beside the weapon. u should get as much attack speed and dmg from this items as possible. also at least 1% of mana leech, better 2%.
crit mods can only spawn on amuletts so u try to get it there. also runspeed on boots is a must have mod for me. on shield, chest piece and helm u look for high evasion rating, especially on your shield. resist and especially life also comes in handy..










fazit: i was always the ranged guy but tried this build after the xp nerf and really got exited. i like this fast on risky play style. i was a lil sceptic in the beginning because this build totally lacks any AoE skill but its managable with flicker. i also tried other skills like ele hit and double strike but no chance to survive in chaos like this. the fast jumps from flicker saves u even in big group. its a stable buld but u need to be aware, lifes jumping up and down very fast in the middle of big mob groups.
like said the playthrou was not a big problem. like with all other classes i kept up do date with weapon and gear as soon as new tier drops. i always used transmutation orbs on white base stuff till i hit the mods i need. also i updated to 20% quality when i could. nevertheless i needed to farm a lil every difficulty to have a smooth progress.

i hope i could give some insights because i was asked quite often about the build ingame. i'm also looking forward to feedback and your own experiences with that kind of build. u might even tried it with dualwield or other skills?!

very nice guide!
Today i created a ranger and wanted to go with claws, but ur "wall of text" changed my mind :)
i'll definitely give this a try.

The DPS seems surprisingly high — especially to see that not much frenzy charges were being used (what were your frenzy charge effects?). I guess when one considers how abnormally high-power some of the gear is (5 linked high defense lvl 60 armor, uber weapon) it's not too surprising though.

It's also not too surprising if one considers that it's just single target damage, which is theoretically 2-8 times slower at killing some things (assuming same DPS).

For the best DPS you might be better off using a different ring than the 10% IAS. 10% IAS is good for people with little IAS — with high IAS you get reduced relative gains (diminishing returns), making it maybe more viable to go for added damage with accuracy.
Or speaking of legacy items: critical multiplier (have some).

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el_puno wrote:

+ no run speed malus

I don't know why you said that, cause it's quite obviously untrue.

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Xapti wrote:

The DPS seems surprisingly high — especially to see that not much frenzy charges were being used (what were your frenzy charge effects?). I guess when one considers how abnormally high-power some of the gear is (5 linked high defense lvl 60 armor, uber weapon) it's not too surprising though.

It's also not too surprising if one considers that it's just single target damage, which is theoretically 2-8 times slower at killing some things (assuming same DPS).

i just picked up 2 extra frenzy charges from passives. and +2% attack speed per frenzy charge. didnt even take the +6% dmg per charge. flicker also gives 10% IAS per charge wich makes it 17% IAS per charge in total.

yes there is even more dmg potential (in the passiv tree and also at my gear) if u go for more frenzy charges and its passives but i tryed to keep it balanced with some defensiv passives and i allready have not enough points to spend :)
the number look scary (with precasted phase run it would be 40k) but like u said its single target dps. but with flicker u jump from mob to mob killing 4 of them per sec in an ideal scenario. it clears big groups of blue mobs in chaos quite fast..
there is also some other factors like critical weakness or the burn/chaos dmg from crit wich u cant see in the char screen.

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Xapti wrote:

For the best DPS you might be better off using a different ring than the 10% IAS. 10% IAS is good for people with little IAS — with high IAS you get reduced relative gains (diminishing returns), making it maybe more viable to go for added damage with accuracy.
Or speaking of legacy items: critical multiplier (have some).

totally true. but i didnt have a better ring so far. and its hard to give away the best selfcraftet :). i also have some crit multiplier rings and some other gear but i tried to play without the legacy stuff. 250% more crit dmg would be totally OP and my feedback worthless..

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Xapti wrote:

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el_puno wrote:

+ no run speed malus

I don't know why you said that, cause it's quite obviously untrue.

true that. there is - 3% for the shield and - 4% for chest piece. but u cant avoid that even if they are full dex. but u dont need heavy armour with the keystone passiv. and u have a higher runspeed by default with ranger. maybe i was unclear with that point.

thanks for your input!

To be completely honest, my dagger ranger doesnt look anything like that passive wise (The skills are the same though).

Cool build.

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Riney wrote:

To be completely honest, my dagger ranger doesnt look anything like that passive wise (The skills are the same though).

What does it look like passive-wise?

hmm perhaps I should have played my flicker-dual-charge-witch with shield to, later on she got to fragile, but to get that keystone and take a shield sound like good ideas, perhaps I will try that soon xD

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EldricIV wrote:

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Riney wrote:

To be completely honest, my dagger ranger doesnt look anything like that passive wise (The skills are the same though).

What does it look like passive-wise?

i would be also interested in this. but i guess hes going more 'upstairs' in the 6th class part of the passiv tree. there is some juicy dagger clusters there. i simply didnt have the points because i go for iron reflexes to make the build more stable. but i'm sure there is some other ways to play that build effectiv.

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Btah wrote:

hmm perhaps I should have played my flicker-dual-charge-witch with shield to, later on she got to fragile, but to get that keystone and take a shield sound like good ideas, perhaps I will try that soon xD

it seems a very long way from the witch starting point to iron reflexes :D. maybe its also possible to play that build with very high ES. i didnt try it dual wield but even now with high damage reduction and 46% block chance i have to be in constant movement in chaos otherwise i get overwhelmed in big groups in seconds. a shield makes a big differenc. its not just the block chance u also get very high evasion rating = armour rating. (also resis and life can spawn on shields) and in my case i took a passiv giving me 30% more evasion rating from shields. (there is another shield cluster very close to iron reflexes keystone with another 30% evasion from shields and some extra block chance..)
i think for dual wield one should invest a lot more in life and maybe use temporal chains as main curse. also the chance to hit should be quite high to get the leech. i would also look for extra life leech on gear (5%ll from amulett comes in mind) and maybe life reg.

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el_puno wrote:

it seems a very long way from the witch starting point to iron reflexes :D. maybe its also possible to play that build with very high ES.

I was down there anyways for the Frenzy Charges and imho it's more effective to go there from Witch than going for the "Power Charge on melee crit"-node as Ranger...u wouldn't need that Keystone too fast anyways at the first difficulties beeing a glasscannon was absolutely fine

and ES in combination with Flicker Strike won't work at all I guess...ES is only useful when u take like no dmg normally, but with Flicker u definitely WILL take dmg and will need flasks in some situations and then dmg reduction is a must have