Pyrocon's HC Ranger Build - Updated for 9.8

Now Updated for 9.8!
If you've read my build before, most of the changes take place in the skill recommendations. Most importantly, I no longer advise Blood Magic.

Hey everyone,

I'm writing this to explain my Ranger build since I'm always being asked questions about Rangers. You might be asking yourself why should you even bother reading this? Allow me to put those questions to rest.


---- THE FAQ ----

Q: Who are you and why should I listen to you?
A: I'm a grumpy old man that's been playing this game since Alpha, and I only play Rangers. I might know a thing or two about them.

Q: What's so special about your build?
A: Nothing in particular, but I started this ranger at the beginning of the 9.8 patch. My ranger is 2 bars and 1.5 beers away from hitting level 62 as of this writing, and I've never died. That means you too can survive and thrive in HC without needing any twinking if you continue to read!

Q: Why Hardcore?
A: Any 5 year old can faceroll a glass cannon over and over to their heart's content when there aren't any actual consequences. Hardcore requires you to actually factor in survivability, in addition to having a true economy sink (death). If you aren't playing on Hardcore, you aren't playing Path of Exile.

Q: It seems like some of the sections below aren't as fleshed out as one might expect from a build guide.
A: If you want me to elaborate on something, let me know in the thread or in game and I'll elaborate as needed below.

Q: But you're always an asshole in global chat! No one wants to read your ramblings!
A: Stop being an idiot, and I'll stop treating you like one.

---- THE GEMS ----

Pick up Lightning Arrow as your first reward and Poison Arrow soon there after to start leveling it. Mobs in Normal are beyond easy, so Lightning Arrow fills out the AoE need for faster clearance. Other key gems to grab from quest rewards along the way are Piercing, Hatred, Frenzy, Lesser Multiple Projectiles, and Temporal Chains. Every other gem is just gravy.

Once you've gotten Piercing, that plus Poison Arrow will be your bread and butter. AoE? That's what the cloud is for. Piercing? TWO CLOUDS! Reflection mobs? Shoot at the ground in front of them with PA. The cloud doesn't reflect damage. Plus, you're doing optimal single target damage in most cases without having to break a sweat. Additionally, you can add in LMP (Lesser Multiple Projectiles) once you've leveled it up some. It needs to be leveled up to 7 or 8 first to offset the DPS loss from socketing it.

You'll (probably) eventually want switch to Frenzy, but that's not until you're dishing out 4k+ DPS, and even then, it really doesn't shine until Chaos. Chaos mobs are almost all resistant to Chaos damage, so your Poison Arrow DPS will drop off quite a bit. Frenzy is still nice enough in 9.8 that you'll get great DPS out of it even if you don't spec for Frenzy charges. Bonus if you do.

Hatred is a great DPS boost for the mana reserve cost. Poison Arrow is a relatively low base cost skill (compared to other good bow skills such as Frenzy and Explosive Arrow), so you can easily manage a 30% hit to mana with a few decent vials or mana pots. Haste is nice as well, but the 10% bonus is static for the life of the gem and it's a 40% reserve (as opposed to 30% for Hatred), so it's sub par unless you have the capacity to run both in tandem.

Temporal Chains is the ONLY curse you need. Anything that doesn't fall before it gets near you, this curse will ensure that your kiting doesn't need to be A++ amazing in order for you to stay alive. Seriously, don't even bother leveling up another curse. You won't need them, ever.

---- THE SKILLS ----

This is where I cast aside all those tempting nodes as bunk. See all those sexy, sexy bow nodes in the Ranger passive area? Here's a hint: IT'S A TRAP!

You will have the core of your build rounded off by level 40 (approximately). This build gives you a lot of flex in where you want to go after that.

Don't take bow passives to start. Don't even think about it. After you've gotten (most) EVERYTHING else, you'll take 6 points to get the 35% Piercing passive, freeing you from your Piercing support gem bondage.

Spend your first points making a beeline for Iron Grip and Titanic Might. I ran Blood Magic in 9.6, but with auras and the Frenzy charge changes, I can't recommend going that way again. If you really like the Blood Magic mechanic, my recommendation is to socket the Blood Magic support gem on your main skill and then run 3 auras with all that mana you don't need. Hatred, Haste, and Grace for the ownage trifecta.

Why Iron Grip? Strength is good for hp, and for 1 point, you can easily increase your DPS by 30% or more, depending on the gear you end up with. There is zero reason for any bow wielding Ranger to not get this skill.

Once you've picked up Iron Grip, grab the 2 8% life nodes just north of the very first strength node you picked up, and then grab the Increased Attack Speeds nodes south of the second dexterity node, working your way southward. Grab Fury Bolts (but not the third projectile damage node yet), Titanic Might, and Thick Skin. The life and str nodes you have should now be turning you into a beefy killing machine.

Next stop on your trip through the tree is Iron Reflexes. This bad boy converts all your evasion (including the bonuses you get from dexterity, etc.) into armor. You're already a relatively str/life heavy ranger, so mitigation over evasion works to your advantage. This is a frequently discussed item, and I feel that other threads address the pros/cons of both armor types sufficiently well to the point that I'll leave it at that.

Now that you've set yourself up for survival, you're ready to crank out the damage. You'll notice that you're not too far from a few nice bow passives on the main artery that you've traveled down thus far. Your next 4 points should be for Master Fletcher (across from Fury Bolts.) After that, I recommend the next five going to Perfect Aim (to the right of your starting point.) Those two alone will give you a huge DPS boost, not to mention all the other nodes leading up to them.

At this point you need to decide how heavily you're relying on the Piercing support and if you want to swap it out or give up the mechanic altogether. For a 10 point investment you can get a permanent 35% piercing added to all your shots, and if you plan on replacing Poison Arrow with Frenzy at some point down the road, I highly recommend this passive since it will compensate for the loss of the cloud.

At this point, you should have enough potency to take out everything with ease up until Chaos, and even then Chaos can be cleared with a bit of time and patience. I can't recommend some evasion nodes at this point strongly enough, as each node will translate to a few % more mitigation from Iron Reflexes. Being killed in 2 hits or 3 makes all the difference in terms of Chaos survival.

Link to my current skill allocation:

---- THE GEAR ----

People have a tendency to overthink this part when a lot of it boils down to luck. Focus on getting life leech, physical damage, evasion, additional life, and increased attack speed. Everything else is fluff compared to those stats.

---- THE CONCLUSION ----

I've probably missed something in here, so I'll address it later. If you have any questions, ask here or in game and I'll be happy to answer them. Now get off my lawn.

Nice to read, a skilltree-link for the calculator would be nice.

Great read and well formatted! This guide really helped open my eyes to a solid build for hardcore. As most hardcore players know, going full glass cannon can pretty much guarantee a death before merciless.

Going to re-roll and try it out.

Since I tried to follow and make the build, here's the tree for everyone, including all essential skill he mentioned. After that you can take either MF, MS, frenzy support or more damage.

Typical FC build with a couple twists. Well, maybe not typical as a lot of people would look at you incredulously for taking Blood Magic. They obviously don't realize how powerful one can be with the right setup.

As someone stated above, 'good read'. It looks nice, flows nice and gets to the point. Nice work.

Thanks for the skill tree, Programmer. That's exactly what I have (with some MF since I'm past the point of needs.) You missed a lone damage per charge node. Here's a new link that reflects this:



Updating the OP as well.

Edit: noticed two more, a run speed and an ias. I'd like to point out I think all three nodes you left out are essential. With 8 charges, you have another 48% damage, 16% ias, and 32% run speed. All three are really needed for Chaos, with the run speed being the highest priority. My boots don't have run speed on them, so the run speed from charges and Temporal Chains is just enough to out run everything, which is required for survival. Updated the link a second time.

Your gear linked would be nice too :).

"

Hodenkobold wrote:

Your gear linked would be nice too :).

I'll link it if you really want, but my gear isn't anything to write home about, which is really the point of the build. I had nothing in my stash, and no one gifted me anything ridiculous. Anyone that's been playing in Default and wants to really experience the game (Hardcore) should be able to do so with this build without any sort of gear required.

For all the buildup at the beginning of your post I was kinda expecting to read about a clever HC melee build :/.

Guess the current state of Chaos makes anything short of an hp/regen-stacked melee tank in HC a bad idea.

Iron Grip sounds like a good idea, but people who take Blood Magic continue to baffle me. There's no mana problem in this game that can't be solved by two mana flasks, and there are caps on both life leech rate and flask regen rate, so I'm not sure if having two more life flasks is actually an advantage.

Why not just throw unupgraded summons in to tank for you?

"

Pyrocon wrote:

I'll link it if you really want

I'm just interested, I play selffound all the way.