Ranger - [Theory] Mana Shield + Eldritch Battery + Lightning Coil + Frenzy Melee - Forum

This is a theory crafted to incorporate the many advantages of the following synergies for a build that is hopefully viable in Nemesis. When 1.0.0 is here I plan to create a character with this build and flesh out the guide a little more. A character with the complete version of this build has the following: High Evasion, around 50% Block Chance, and a little Dodge without Acrobatics 51% Physical Damage taken "negated" without Armor or Endurance Charges Cannot be Frozen or Chilled 75% Chance to Avoid Shock and 38% Chance to Avoid Stun 8 Maximum Frenzy Charges (the most possible) making for a powerful Frenzy Specializes in one-handed melee weapons and uses skills without weapon-type restrictions Passive Skill Tree (Level 80) Passive Tree Nodes Other than the typical and obviously beneficial nodes taken, the following are the main aspects of the tree route: Mana Shield and Eldritch Battery According to the Gamespot interview with Chris, the former grants "When Hit, 30% of Damage taken is taken from Mana before Life" and is located where the Diamond Flesh node is found. Eldritch Battery converts your energy shield to mana. The combination of the two is suspected to be very powerful. Mana and Shield Defenses Mana is focused on heavily because it is essentially a secondary life pool with Mana Shield. Increased shield defenses in this case is another means of increasing mana, because the shield is the main source of energy shield to be converted. Additional Maximum Frenzy Charges Because they are all along the way through the Dexterity section of the tree, they were an obvious choice because of how powerful they are for the skills Frenzy and Flicker Strike and with Darkray Vectors. Shock and Chill Avoidance Shock, because we are using Lightning Coil, should be prevented as much as possible. Chill, because with Alpha's Howl you can reach 100% chance to avoid it. There's more information about that in the "Equipment" section. Essential Equipment Main Hand: Your high physical damage one-handed melee weapon of choice. You can choose any weapon type; it all depends on your preference, really. This is because the passive route doesn't include any weapon specific nodes, and doesn't need to. Off Hand: A shield with high energy shield. This is necessary for its energy shield's conversion to mana with Eldritch Battery. The passive skill tree provides a surprising amount of increased shield defenses, so it should be amplified quite nicely. Head: Alpha's Howl With this you cannot be frozen, but also cannot be chilled. Its 25% chance to avoid chill adds with the 75% from the passive skill tree, bringing you to immunity with 100% chance of avoidance. It also greatly improves three of our auras and reduces the reservation of all of them. Body Armor: Lightning Coil This is a particularly interesting item, seeing as how it provides an alternate but risky method of mitigating physical damage. We counteract its drawbacks by stacking lightning resistance and getting as much shock avoidance as possible from the passive skill tree (75%). Feet: Darkray Vectors These are, in my opinion, quite underrated. In this build they play a very pivotal role. Not only does it grant an extra maximum Frenzy Charge, but also high lightning resistance and dodge chance. The rest of your gear should have standard modifiers that benefit physical melee evasion builds. Other than the typical ones like resistances (you need a lot of Lightning resistance for Lightning Coil) and maximum life, you should keep a look out for physical attack life leech, physical attack mana leech, and increased mana regeneration rate. Main Gems Frenzy + Flicker Strike + Melee Splash + Multistrike + Melee Physical Damage + Added Fire Damage These are your primary attacks, gaining a huge damage boost from grabbing all available additional maximum Frenzy Charges (8 in all). At 20% quality and with 8 Frenzy Charges, Frenzy grants 96% increased physical damage and 144% increased attack speed (not including the 40% from the Frenzy Charges themselves). Grace + Clarity + Discipline + Reduced Mana Hatred + Reduced Mana The first link should be in your Alpha's Howl so that the gems are granted the additional 2 levels. This is because they are affected the most by them. Also, about Purity... I'm a little torn on whether or not it's optimal to include it when you have Mana Shield. I'll guess we'll have to wait and see. Vulnerability + Enfeeble + Increased Duration Because you focus on physical damage, Vulnerability is your best option as a damage curse. Enfeeble synergizes amazingly with evasion characters so that is a no brainer, of course same name in-game Last edited by iao#2860 on Oct 18, 2013, 10:05:30 AM	Posted by iao#2860 on Oct 14, 2013, 9:47:29 AM Alpha Member Quote this Post
Physical Damage Mitigation Lightning Coil is especially interesting for us because this is an evasion, block, and dodge based build. Pure evasion builds always had the problem of that one big physical hit making its way through your defenses, and this body armor provides a way to reduce the damage inflicted heavily with enough investment. Its "40% Physical Damage taken as Lightning Damage" means that the 40% is being put up against your lightning resistance, which has a base maximum of 75%. With a level 20 Purity it is 79%, but that is negligible in this case as it takes up too much mana, interfering with Mana Shield. The amount that wasn't negated is then divided again by Mana Shield. Before that, armor and Endurance Charges are taken into account, but in this case I won't include either so it isn't too complicated. The 30% that is sent to your mana instead of your life is negated quickly with mana leech and regeneration. " 1.0 * 0.4 = 0.4 (Physical Damage taken as Lightning Damage) 0.4 * 0.75 = 0.3 (Taken Lightning Damage negated by capped Lightning Resistance) 1.0 - 0.3 = 0.7 (Remaining Damage to be Inflicted) 0.7 * 0.3 = 0.21 (Taken Damage to Inflict on Mana) 0.3 + 0.21 = 0.51 (Total "Negated" Physical Damage) So, 30% negated with Lightning Coil and 21% negated with Mana Shield. Together that's 51%-- just about half. That's pretty damn effective, especially for an evasion build. same name in-game Last edited by iao#2860 on Oct 14, 2013, 12:17:11 PM	Posted by iao#2860 on Oct 14, 2013, 9:48:30 AM Alpha Member Quote this Post
Reserved post. same name in-game	Posted by iao#2860 on Oct 14, 2013, 9:48:40 AM Alpha Member Quote this Post
I like this idea. I think upon release the mana shield will open a lot of possibilities for new builds, especially for ranger which imo has the best defensive part in the tree. ..8 days left ;) My guides HC melee ranger: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/507976 HC RF scion: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/666667 HC RF marauder: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/842382 RF resource guide: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/832331	Posted by Necropotence#0405 on Oct 14, 2013, 11:32:02 AM Quote this Post
Some hardcore theorycrafting... even before the items are out. Regarding Purity, I think it'll be a must for this build, at least before getting the proper gear. -60% light rez is a heavy penalty, making it a total of 183 rez needed, including Diamond Flesh. Without using purity, that's roughly 30.5 light rez per item needed to max it out on your remaining 6 item slots (gloves, 2 rings, ammy, belt, and shield - weapon not included). With Purity (27), that becomes 156/160 total rez needed to max out, making it 26/26.7 light rez per remaining items needed. Essentially Purity relaxes your gearing needs immensely and allows you to also max out your other rez as well. If you can get 30-40 light rez and be able to max out cold/fire rez, then drop Purity. Otherwise, the gear wall becomes quite palpable, especially in Merciless. Of course, this can also be rectified by taking a few light rez nodes in the tree, but the only close candidate for that is the rez cluster underneath Nimbleness, under the EB keystone. The other clusters require way too many points to invest in with little return. (Except maybe for Lightning Walker because of the Int nodes you pick up on the way.) For Ranger build tips, tactics, and critiques, visit this thread: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/69224 Last edited by Islidox#7754 on Oct 14, 2013, 11:34:46 AM	Posted by Islidox#7754 on Oct 14, 2013, 11:32:37 AM Quote this Post
Alternative to Alpha's Howl: Helps reduce the mana taken from hits from 30% to 20%, but will depend on whether or not it will be necessary to maintain the mana shield effect. (I originally used alpha's howl before mana shield was revealed) Also, why no arctic armor? This is the perfect type of build to use AA with (unless you absolutely refuse to gear/spec for mana regen). I myself am running a EB RoA ranger build, about 2k max mana so far and 171 mana regen with lvl 12 clarity. Maxed clarity should give me enough regen to run level 20 AA (currently using lvl 16 AA). Build here for reference.	Posted by Zealflare#7547 on Oct 14, 2013, 4:18:30 PM Quote this Post
EB and Acrobatics ? Wont Acrobatics penalty halve your mana gain from EB?	Posted by symban#2593 on Oct 14, 2013, 10:33:40 PM Quote this Post
" Islidox wrote: Some hardcore theorycrafting... even before the items are out. Regarding Purity, I think it'll be a must for this build, at least before getting the proper gear. -60% light rez is a heavy penalty, making it a total of 183 rez needed, including Diamond Flesh. Without using purity, that's roughly 30.5 light rez per item needed to max it out on your remaining 6 item slots (gloves, 2 rings, ammy, belt, and shield - weapon not included). With Purity (27), that becomes 156/160 total rez needed to max out, making it 26/26.7 light rez per remaining items needed. Essentially Purity relaxes your gearing needs immensely and allows you to also max out your other rez as well. If you can get 30-40 light rez and be able to max out cold/fire rez, then drop Purity. Otherwise, the gear wall becomes quite palpable, especially in Merciless. Of course, this can also be rectified by taking a few light rez nodes in the tree, but the only close candidate for that is the rez cluster underneath Nimbleness, under the EB keystone. The other clusters require way too many points to invest in with little return. (Except maybe for Lightning Walker because of the Int nodes you pick up on the way.) One would probably gear without Lightning Coil and take Iron Reflexes if the requirements aren't met. The mana reservation of auras is going to be increased for 1.0.0, so I doubt there'll be enough mana to be useful for Mana Shield with Purity at 40% already. It is certainly a daunting task but I think it'll be worthwhile. same name in-game	Posted by iao#2860 on Oct 15, 2013, 12:16:19 AM Alpha Member Quote this Post
" Zealflare wrote: Alternative to Alpha's Howl: Helps reduce the mana taken from hits from 30% to 20%, but will depend on whether or not it will be necessary to maintain the mana shield effect. (I originally used alpha's howl before mana shield was revealed) Also, why no arctic armor? This is the perfect type of build to use AA with (unless you absolutely refuse to gear/spec for mana regen). I myself am running a EB RoA ranger build, about 2k max mana so far and 171 mana regen with lvl 12 clarity. Maxed clarity should give me enough regen to run level 20 AA (currently using lvl 16 AA). Build here for reference. I'm not sure about Mindspiral because of the lack of mana leech. In late levels, mana leech is probably more effective than the drop from 30% to 20% damage inflicting mana because you can get 20% of your mana leeched back per second. I don't know if I'd reach that cap, but even 10% per second would be effective because it's constant, not just for when you're hit. Arctic Armor is definitely a possibility, I just haven't tried it out much yet. I suspect it'll be pretty damn effective, though. I'll look into how exactly to fit it in. same name in-game	Posted by iao#2860 on Oct 15, 2013, 12:22:15 AM Alpha Member Quote this Post
" symban wrote: EB and Acrobatics ? Wont Acrobatics penalty halve your mana gain from EB? I didn't take Acrobatics. The dodge chance is from the unique boots Darkray Vectors. same name in-game	Posted by iao#2860 on Oct 15, 2013, 12:22:54 AM Alpha Member Quote this Post