Is there a reason for taking "Unwavering Stance"? Yeah i know it sounds good "can not be stunned" but i tried that one on 2 of may rangers and both had bad results. Somehow i take more damage with that. Maybe the 5% evasion is mega op :), i don't know, it's just that i take more damage from the charger mobs. I could instantly tell the difference.
So what level should your build get blood magic? do you go up by all the health nodes and then just straight down without grabbing any of them? Ive been playing with the tree and it seems like you dont get blood magic till about 40. Just wanted to clarify if you get it sooner then that.
I'm running this build, and I got Blood Magic ASAP. 26 skill points in, I spent 4 Respec points on this, so I had a stronger Early game. I rushed Perfect Aim, for level 3 or 4, then went straight for Elemental Arrows. After picking those 3 up, I went all the way to Blood Magic, making no detours along the way, when I was 4 points shy - I took 4 or my 5 points out of perfect aim & the 3 prior.
I did this because you get the Life on Hit at level 12-16, and keeping up with mana is frustrating to say the least. Life on Hit makes you survive much easier, and lets you spam non-stop, whereas my mana potions couldn't even keep up with my spam.
The only problem is it requires a Green-Green-Red, so be sure you have one of these before making the shift. I'm now finishign up Act 3, and could not be happier.
Do you mind making multiple steps to eventually reach the final build?
Like break it up into skills of 30 or something, so that we can better allocate points from the get go?
thoughts on SC ele rangers:
Iron Reflexes - I hear that Armor is inferior to evasion in the lategame (is it??), so I'm thinking of not picking this up. buuut everyone gets it and it synergizes really well with
No, armour is the best, look at it this way, if u have evasion, you will dodge lets say 50% of your attacks, but if u get hit by that other 50% u will instantly die with no armour.
With armour, you may take more damage overall but you wont instantly die. Rangers shouldnt be getting hit often anyway, so u just need to survive the initial burst.
Here's the summary:
(Also, both ranger builds have Iron Reflexes - I forgot to include that in the table above)
Note that the theoretical DPS is based on some simple assumptions, which may not match the game's calculations.
Some observations about defense:
- The ranger builds have 50-60% more HP than the shadow build.
- All builds have comparable resistances
- The ranger builds can stack armor higher by using pure evasion armor, thanks to 86% Evasion % and Iron Reflexes
- The ranger builds can't be stunned
- The shadow build can get high Energy Shield, but I feel that Energy Shield is fundamentally broken in that it becomes useless in a sustained damage scenario
- With life leech as core, the ranger builds can stand up to sustained damage far longer
- Both rangers have, or have ready access to, the very sexy +5% maximum elemental resist node
- The rangers have no need for mana flasks, leaving room for more defensive flasks (Granites, Resists), and with stacked armor they can get incredible returns from running high % armor boost flasks
Some observations about offense:
- All builds have comparable single target damage
- The shadow build has noticeably higher aoe lightning damage
- The ranger builds can't crit, but can't miss. My gut feeling is that the direct dps effect of this is relatively neutral, so I haven't included it in the calculations, but the reduced freeze/shock procs could hurt dps noticably, especially in AOE scenarios. The ranger builds can alternatively spec out of this keystone, but they lack the +110% crit chance of the shadow.
- The shadow has Inner Focus and can run one more aura (Anger). These are not included in the calculations, and will boost the shadow's damage further.
- The rangers are forced to run life leech or life on hit gems to survive Blood Magic. This reduces potential damage output significantly.
- Note that my assumptions for Iron Grip are very harsh. I'm assuming it only applies to final output physical damage (not before the split to elemental in Ice Shot / LA), and that only 10% of the damage is physical. More favorable assumptions for Iron Grip can boost Nalaa's build significantly.
- Nalaa's build has two unpicked +10% elemental weapon nodes ready for picking. This could boost DPS significantly, at the cost of some HP or other stats.
In conclusion:
I find these numbers hard to ignore. The defensive advantages of the rangers (massive HP, massive armor) seem to outweigh the offensive advantages of the shadow. While the Shadow could pick up another +44% Life by moving 5 nodes around, going higher is very hard, the build is spread so thin that doing so early would require dropping some of the other core nodes, sacrificing the other advantages the build has.
Finally, the ranger builds are much "tighter". The shadow build has "some" use of most stats, but few of them are particularly powerful (aside from ele damage). The ranger build makes some stats obsolete, but also more stats that become attractive to stack. While this will make mid-level gearing harder, it will probably increase the max level potential.
I think I might reroll ranger. Which fucking sucks.
(Final note: Petrov's ranger build could just as well be a Marauder. Tyr may be well ahead of us here :) )
thoughts on SC ele rangers:
Iron Reflexes - I hear that Armor is inferior to evasion in the lategame (is it??), so I'm thinking of not picking this up. buuut everyone gets it and it synergizes really well with
No, armour is the best, look at it this way, if u have evasion, you will dodge lets say 50% of your attacks, but if u get hit by that other 50% u will instantly die with no armour.
With armour, you may take more damage overall but you wont instantly die. Rangers shouldnt be getting hit often anyway, so u just need to survive the initial burst.
Thanks for responding. I don't have any endgame experience so I just don't wanna be gimped when I get there.
So what level should your build get blood magic? do you go up by all the health nodes and then just straight down without grabbing any of them? Ive been playing with the tree and it seems like you dont get blood magic till about 40. Just wanted to clarify if you get it sooner then that.
I'm running this build, and I got Blood Magic ASAP. 26 skill points in, I spent 4 Respec points on this, so I had a stronger Early game. I rushed Perfect Aim, for level 3 or 4, then went straight for Elemental Arrows. After picking those 3 up, I went all the way to Blood Magic, making no detours along the way, when I was 4 points shy - I took 4 or my 5 points out of perfect aim & the 3 prior.
I did this because you get the Life on Hit at level 12-16, and keeping up with mana is frustrating to say the least. Life on Hit makes you survive much easier, and lets you spam non-stop, whereas my mana potions couldn't even keep up with my spam.
The only problem is it requires a Green-Green-Red, so be sure you have one of these before making the shift. I'm now finishign up Act 3, and could not be happier.
I'm starting a new ranger and will probably use this build. Where is the elemental arrow nodes you are talking about?
