MP Frenzy / Point Blank lvl 61 Ranger build (video)

*Is split arrow just a poor-man's multiple projectile frenzy?

Yes. It faces the same "20% less damage" that multiple projectile frenzy does, yet maxes out at 20% increased attack speed from quality and 42% increased physical damage at level 15. MP frenzy with six charges gets boosted to 96% attack speed from quality and 48% increased physical damage. Assuming you use faster attacks instead of MP on split arrow that would boost the attack speed to 59% at level 15, still far shy of a frenzy build.

One might argue that split arrow is the better option for a ranger avoiding frenzy charges as I set out to do with this character. Using the points for increased critical passives and movement speed worked out just fine at the lower difficulties, and it was nice shattering groups without having to use a Diamond flask.

Problem was late game multiple crits were needed to kill with split arrow and the slow attack speed was not taking advantage of flasks because I couldn't spend it faster than it filled up. Thats quite an issue for a character with low mana pool. This was netting me less attacks, for less damage, and wasted flask drinks. Couldn't make good use of Diamond flasks due to slower attack speed with split arrow leading to running dry on flasks because I wasn't able to kill effectively.

*Will a full evasion ranged build making use of Hyrri's Ire for acrobatics survive the end of merciless and transition into Chaos at 56?

Yes, and possibly if you have lots (max life over 1000) of +HP from gear and passives.

After equipping Hyrri's Ire at 47 the boost in avoidance was impressive. This made the end of merciless quite enjoyable and the added cold damage/chill duration synergized well with the added cold damage support on Split arrow. Picked up the Piercing Shots cluster at that point and was able to swap to temporal chains instead of projectile weakness for even more slow-motion action.

I had been grabbing +HP on gear whenever I could and picked up five life passives to keep myself from being one-shot. After seeing Urist's ranger put immortal call to good use, I figured that would be a good idea in case of curse-immune quick moving groups. Seems like certain monsters in Chaos hit for over 900 damage, and the skeleton archers hit for around 400. There were more than a few deaths grinding chaos to 60, but much was learned in the process.

*Will poison arrow pick up the slack caused by terrible gear while leveling?

Yes. Poison arrow remains a safe and effective single target/AoE attack throughout the entire game independent of gear. See Urist's thread for more details on making the most of poison arrow.

*Is a crit-build effective while completely ignoring power charges?

Yes. Using at least one Diamond flask will give you on-demand screen clearing AoEs and also making quick work of rare monsters. Being able to use these flasks makes investing in Critical chance passives less attractive, especially if they are not in the way to something more worth the points (such as crit multiplier).

*Will completely ignoring mana, stun recovery, accuracy, and status ailment avoidance passives cause problems?

As long as you can spend more mana than you regain per second, the current system will reward you for ignoring such utility resource nodes. If this is not the case, spend points on attack speed instead.

The stun recovery was looking attractive from level 56-60 due to having less than 900 health. I knew I wouldn't need them after equipping Kaom's so I just suffered through the stuns trying to keep my distance from mobs and using temporal chains. If the multiple 8% stun avoidance and recovery nodes were condensed into half as many 16% ones they would be worth considering.

The status ailment avoidance clusters are just not attractive in the current system considering the majority of caster mobs use projectile spells which are simple enough to manually avoid by moving. Before equipping Kaom's there were many times in chaos and in the merciless dungeons when the cold weaver skeleton casters would chain freeze me. I would rather get more HP to decrease ailment duration than invest in a chance to avoid it. Again, if these clusters were condensed or put in the way of something more attractive, I would consider taking them.

*Is Point Blank Archer worth taking while not applying to rain of arrows, and lightning warp is causing crashes?

Yes! I wish I had tried Point Blank Archer from the beginning instead of waiting until 60.

Rain of arrows sees its best use in jungle maps and caves where swarms of enemies surround you (also nice for hitting mobs inside a room that the doorway would block your split arrow/mp frenzy). I actually stopped using rain of arrows at the end of merciless since it would require heavy support (increased aoe, concentrated aoe, faster attacks, added fire damage, or faster projectiles)
and I was more interested in testing split arrow vs. mp frenzy with my five-linked bow. Will look into rain of arrows further once it works with Point Blank Archer.

Lightning Warp seems like it would work well with Rain of Arrows since both skills have a delay before effect. I briefly tried lightning warp while I had all the movement speed passives, 30% boots, and 30% flask move speed but wasn't able to get a good rotation with RoA.

*Is straying from the typical 7-8 frenzy charge build and Iron Reflexes viable for Hardcore?

Probably not a good idea. If you play HC and have access to Kaom's Heart this build is very fun and safe in chaos. Otherwise, I would stick with something like Pyrocon's blood magic / iron grip build.