Physical vs. Elemental Rangers

Can someone tell me what the pros and cons are of each setup? And which is more viable in HC?

Both equally viable in HC. Elemental Rangers obviously benefit from the ability to incur status effects on targets, but a physical ranger with auras can do the same.


They differ in skill choice, for obvious reasons as well as the fact that a purely elemental ranger is infinitely more difficult to gear given that you will be trying to roll three elemental damage rolls on your bow as opposed to a physical ranger who needs +damage and % damage.

Also, physical rangers benefit from both the Blood Drinker node as well as the Iron Grip keystone. In contrast, elemental rangers have early access to +WED nodes and later on, Catalyse in the templar tree.


Hope this sheds some insight.

So which should I choose as a starting character? I'm rerolling since my 39 got sent back to default.

Bump.

You can go either or and transition at any point in the game really.

So the question that begs to be answered is, which one would you like to play?