Ice Shot Ranger dealing with elemental resist boss

I have no problem clearing trash in higher tier maps but when I get to a boss with elemental resist or cold resist I'm basically screwed. I've been using Barrage but I think that's not the best option. Any suggestions on a physical based attack that I can use to deal with bosses that Ice Shot doesn't work for?

I recently came back after being gone for 3 years so the skills I used to use aren't necessarily the best.

I mean... You could just shred the bosses Resistances with Ice Shot.

Cold Penetration
Frostbite
Frostbomb
Elemental Weakness (If you can multi-curse)

Can put any mob into negative resists with that. Meaning you'll melt through resistant bosses and well, mobs without high resists will just vapourize with that much -resists...

Also note, you'll want to link Cold Penetration to Ice Shot to make it do anything.

Not sure how I could get multiple curses but you have some good ideas. I'll give those a try. Unfortunately I don't have and until now have never heard of some of these gems.

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Greenmind wrote:

Not sure how I could get multiple curses but you have some good ideas. I'll give those a try. Unfortunately I don't have and until now have never heard of some of these gems.

In case you were unaware, once you complete Siosa's quest "A Fixture of Fate" in Act 3, he will sell all the gems that would otherwise be available for some class up until that point in the game. In particular, completing A Fixture of Fate in Merciless will unlock all gems that can be purchased by a town vendor (leaving only a handful of gems remaining).

Hey, thanks! I just found one last night. I'm still trying to make sense of the mechanics. I'll have to check it out. Any recommendations on a skill to use with it?

I managed to 5L my chestpiece and now have curse on hit with frostbite off of barrage to drop resistances. I put ice penetration in my ice shot link and that helped as well. Bosses aren't giving me problems like before.

A golem also works wonders with malachai's artifice.
Also, there are a few weapon elemental damagae clusters on the skill tree (also cold weapon damage and phys -> cold conversion) that give you a bit of elemental penetration with their final node.

I found a cluster of 3 nodes (Fangs of Frost) that gives +54% cold damage with weapons and 8% cold penetration. I'd likely drop a power charge node and some int to grab it but unfortunately due to some gems I'm leveling to 20 to trade for 20% quality I can't do that just yet. Seems like a good trade off though.

I also switched to Blast Arrow with Curse on hit, Frost Bite, Physical projectile support, and Faster Attack Support. Once I 6-link I'll add in something else like Weapon elemental damage.

When I do respec I'll have:

11% Elemental penetration and 8% Cold Penetration from passives, -44% Cold resist from Frostbite, and 37% cold penetration from the support gem in Ice Shot. That should be enough to get through any cold resistant mobs. If I remember correctly Cold penetration can drop the resists to negative numbers so even if a mob isn't cold resistant this should work.

Just a thought but is it normal for people with the extra arrow from Deadeye to switch from GMP to LMP on ice shot? I made the switch and it seems just more effective with the chain from Deadeye covering the areas the missing 2 shots from GMP would have done..

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Greenmind wrote:

I'd likely drop a power charge node and some int to grab it but unfortunately due to some gems I'm leveling to 20 to trade for 20% quality I can't do that just yet. Seems like a good trade off though.

Did you know that you don't have to be using a piece of gear in order to grant EXP to the gems inside it? This means you can level gear that you can't use due to requirements, as well as gear that is in your weapon swap. So, it would be totally legitimate to place gems you want to level into your weapon swap, never use them, and still gain EXP for them. It may not help in your specific situation (such as if you use weapon swap for combat), but it didn't seem like something you knew. Hope that helps.