How can I get more survivability for this melee ranger build?

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ivkoto77777 wrote:

Ugh, how do you guys do 5 million dps? I have pretty decent gear and with everything lined up PoB says I do a little bit above 200k dps. I can't see how I'll do 5m even if I only had 3k life :D


I meant to say "evasion + block". I don't know if dodge is still a mechanic in the game now...

Currently I have fortify, taste of hate, arctic armour and sometimes endurance charges, so maybe i will only need to beef up the hp & chaos resistance in order to not get 1shot like the day before. The problem with this game is that you can never tell what really killeed you most of the time...

Getting much more dps starts with being smarter about what you use. "Fight for Survival" gem is not an endgame item. It sounds cool and there's appeal that it only works with Frost Blades but if you look at what you are actually getting from it, it's pretty terrible. Remember, jewel sockets aren't free and you spent a horrendous number of points making the one on the left work.

Most of the gear you have is pretty basic. Not terrible per se but not great either. If you want a few million dps on a non-meta build (like yours), you need much better stuff. Your weapon is pretty decent but that's really it.

Here are some examples just to give you an idea:

1) Helmet - A blizzard crown base with Nearby Enemies have -9/-12 cold res is a ton of damage.

2) Amulet - Phys gained as extra cold/fire (if you aren't going freeze/chill, I'd do Cold to Fire as this also removes the blizzard crown's downside). Can get crit chance/multi on suffixes too.

3) Your shield has no damage on it.

4) Queen of the Forest is great for moving fast, not great for damage.

As you can see, you don't have damage because you built your guy to not have damage. You feel you need more defenses because the mobs are killing you but part of the reason is that you have no damage to kill them quickly, which allows them to stay alive and kill you. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Here's the thing: Queen of the Forest is great for glass cannon builds because you zip around and kill them quickly. It is terrible for builds that want to be tanky and do no damage.

Your character currently has an identity crisis because it's trying to be fast and tanky, which are counterproductive together. If you want to do damage and get through more of the game, you need to decide if you want to be fast, high dps, and squishy; or slow, tanky, and low dps. You CAN be high dps, fast, and tanky but those builds cost a few orders of magnitude more than yours.

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TemjinGold wrote:

Getting much more dps starts with being smarter about what you use. "Fight for Survival" gem is not an endgame item. It sounds cool and there's appeal that it only works with Frost Blades but if you look at what you are actually getting from it, it's pretty terrible. Remember, jewel sockets aren't free and you spent a horrendous number of points making the one on the left work.

I see that the bottom left part of my tree is pretty weak right now, since they reworked the tree. I used to get a lot more points there.
If I get good cluster jewels and regular jewels, I can refund some points and reach the cluster socket that's between ranger and duelist, that could be a decent next step to aim for, right?

But what are you comparing Fight for survival with that you say it is a weak dps choice? Isn't 30% cold pen a strong dps stat? I understand that for endgame you probably want rare jewels with 7% life and 3 strong dps stats, but which stats do you have in mind that will be much better than than 13% cold damage and 15% cold pen?

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TemjinGold wrote:

1) Helmet - A blizzard crown base with Nearby Enemies have -9/-12 cold res is a ton of damage.

Thanks, I didn't know that this base even existed!
It looks like that this kind of item with -%cold res and life and resists will cost dozens of exalts which might not be my best investment right now.

This base should be a good dps boost even without the negative cold res mod, right? I can try to buy a base and use some essences or chaos orbs to roll good resists.

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TemjinGold wrote:

2) Amulet - Phys gained as extra cold/fire (if you aren't going freeze/chill, I'd do Cold to Fire as this also removes the blizzard crown's downside). Can get crit chance/multi on suffixes too.

I'll keep an eye on those, but they look like they are super expensive. I guess mine should do for now as a budget option for now, since it has good legacy crit multi and a lot of +stats that help me equip gear.

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TemjinGold wrote:

3) Your shield has no damage on it.

What stats do you have in mind for the shield? I currently have 15% chance to deal double damage when focused, which I though is a great damage multiplier.
I thought that, if anything, I'm missing resists and %damage reduction and manybe even %life on it.

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TemjinGold wrote:

4) Queen of the Forest is great for moving fast, not great for damage.

Yeh, I see that. I'll try to get myself a Armor + evasion chest that has +%critical strike chance to attacks.
Would you recommend any other stat to prioritise for this slot?


All in all, I currently have about 10-ish exalts in currency now and maybe 15-20 extra when I sell some items I don't need. Even then I don't want to spend more than 2-3 exalt per piece on this build to keep it in a sensible budget. Which items would you advise me to focus on first? I'm guessing that the helmet and another cluster jewel will be my biggest bang for buck right now and maybe after that I should go for a chest with better offensive or defensive stats.

Thank you very much for taking the time to discuss this build!

Don't compare Fight for Survival to another jewel (if you focus penetration with a hex and cold pen support, that 15% per jewel is giving you much less than 15% more damage anyway), compare it to what you can do with the points you spent to get it.

I'll use one example: the lower left one you currently have is currently ELEVEN points in total. Yes, you get a decent amount of life there but no actual damage other than the jewel itself. Those same points for example can get you the Charisma wheel (this generally equates to getting an entire extra aura or more) and Coordination/Blood Siphon (which puts you near Assassination). Or you could choose to get the large cluster at the top. When building a tree, don't just go with "this looks strong, I want it," break it into power per point spent. Yes that node could be strong but how much am I getting per point?

As for upgrading, I would probably shoot for a Pandemonius amulet first. Looks like you can get 1 that's 20% already for an ex. At low budget, you can't beat that ammy for damage.

As for your Frost Blades, don't play Phys to Lightning, it's awful for this setup. There is a mastery in the Winter Spirit wheel that gets you 40% conversion (for 100% total). Play Cold Penetration (get the awakened one if you can afford it, it's usually cheap). I don't think Fortify is helping you because you hit for so little the fortify stacks don't proc (yeah they nerfed fortify a couple leagues back). Instead if your crit chance is high, play Nightblade support. That is singlehandedly the best support for claws right now if you crit.

Read through the new masteries, some of them are really strong. The claw wheel can get you Nightblade skills get 40% increased effect of elusive.

As for the 2nd Fight for Survival, a Large Radius ring Thread of Hope in that socket gets you a TON of great notables without traveling to them. It's a bit expensive for your budget but it allows you to pull out a ton of travel passives that you can then realllocate elsewhere.

Note for the thread of hope, if you have a stack of divine orbs and want to gamble, divining changes both the resists and ring size. So you could buy a small ring for 40c and divine it to get the large ring.

Those are the 2 pieces of gear I would advise upgrading first because they are transformative.

You'll see just doing that will have your dps improve by leaps and bounds.

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TemjinGold wrote:

I'll use one example: the lower left one you currently have is currently ELEVEN points in total. Yes, you get a decent amount of life there but no actual damage other than the jewel itself. Those same points for example can get you the Charisma wheel (this generally equates to getting an entire extra aura or more) and Coordination/Blood Siphon (which puts you near Assassination). Or you could choose to get the large cluster at the top. When building a tree, don't just go with "this looks strong, I want it," break it into power per point spent. Yes that node could be strong but how much am I getting per point?

I think I generally get it. The bottom left part of the tree was left over from a very old version of the build.

In order to save 11 points from there, I do have to go through One With Nature. Which makes me spend 3 of the points. After that I can respec out of Survivalist, which brings me back to 10 points "saved".

I'm thinking of picking up a cluster jewel to get some more life and damage with those points.

I have a couple of ok-ish jewels (6-7% life, crit multi, AS) that I can use instead of small clusters, until I buy Small Clusters with Fettle. That's one of the best defensive small clusters, right? I think GGG even made it legacy only because it is so good?

(Ugm btw, do you think it is better to shop for cluster jewels or to try to craft them? I'm still new to them and I have no idea how to craft them properly.)

The top of the tree is also looking a bit inefficient to me.
The travel nodes to the large cluster jewel will be 5, while if I travel south to reach the Duelist/Ranger Large Cluster, I need to spend only 3 points and I can still pick up the same life nodes I will drop at the top. This makes it a better choice, right?

As for upgrading, I would probably shoot for a Pandemonius amulet first. Looks like you can get 1 that's 20% already for an ex. At low budget, you can't beat that ammy for damage.

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TemjinGold wrote:

As for your Frost Blades, don't play Phys to Lightning, it's awful for this setup. There is a mastery in the Winter Spirit wheel that gets you 40% conversion (for 100% total). Play Cold Penetration (get the awakened one if you can afford it, it's usually cheap). I don't think Fortify is helping you because you hit for so little the fortify stacks don't proc (yeah they nerfed fortify a couple leagues back). Instead if your crit chance is high, play Nightblade support. That is singlehandedly the best support for claws right now if you crit.

Read through the new masteries, some of them are really strong. The claw wheel can get you Nightblade skills get 40% increased effect of elusive.

This is great insight, thank you! I wasn't aware of this support gem as well!

It is a bit of a puzzle though! If I remove Phys to Lightning, I loose shock and I loose my power charge generation. I use Stormrider at the moment which isn't super reliable, but still works.

What would you suggest for power generation in case I remove Stormraider & Phys to Light?
I can try to annoint Overcharged, if it isn't super expensive.
Or maybe at this point it isn't worth it to bother with power charge generation?
I have 72% chance to crit without power charges, because I have Increased crit strikes in my sockets. I also intend to get a couple more Pressure Point & Precise retaliation medium clusters, so that should raise it a bit more. And If I replace Phys to Light with Nightblade it will raise even more. But maybe at that point it is better to replace Increased Crits with Increased multi or some other support gem? Taking care of this puzzle might be complicated :D

And if I change the Cold mastery to Phys to Cold I also loose my frenzy charge generation.
Overcharged might take care of this as well, but I have no experience using it so far. Would you suggest something else?

I think I can get shock from Vaal Lightning trap, so I guess that nightblade is going to give me a nice boost, if I can combine it with the shock from the trap. Just a matter of choosing which support to replace with it...

I just tested out Fortify in map level 72 and it instantly stacks to 20 on the first normal pack I fight. That means it's working corretly, right? It only lasts 5 secnds, but maybe this means my hits aren't that weak after all, right? I also have 5-6 attacks per second, so maybe that also helps it to stack fast?


I'll go through the rest of the message a bit later, cuz I have some other stuff to do. This is very helpful, thank you very much!

P.S. I managed to grab an interesting jewel last night: It isn't exactly top tier, but should be a decent option for one of the jewel sockets in the clusters, right?

On a T5 map I think you're fine. If you go higher, you may have problems keeping fortify up. But if it's working for you at the moment, feel free to keep it in.

Can you share your pob? The advice I'm offering is from bits and pieces I'm piecing together.

For your shock, do note that the effect of shock is dependent on how hard you hit, so if we don't fix that, you will barely have any shock effect on fights that matter (i.e. bosses and tanky rares). For shocks from hits to be worth it, you need to basically do a ton of lightning damage and invest into shock.

Don't fall into the trap of doing a bit of everything. Pick something (like cold's chill/freeze or lightning's shock) and go all in on that. That's how you build a strong character.

Imho it's huge waste to not use Ghost Dance for any character stacking high evasion.

This should be an up-to date pob: https://pastebin.com/1pxDwFzn

I made the connection through One with nature, but I'm holding off on respeccing the points from bottom left and the top part of the tree until I get a new large cluster jewel (8 passive points, with Force Multiplier & maybe Battle-Hardened).

I can socket these jewels in the sockets untill I get the medium & small clusters:

edit: I had 1 point leftover, so I plugged the open jewel socket in the medium cluster with one of the jewels right now

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Atech2 wrote:

Imho it's huge waste to not use Ghost Dance for any character stacking high evasion.

That looks like a cool Keystone, but I think it needs investment in evasion/es gear, right? I don't think I have a single piece of gear that could fit that description :D I've never played anything with evasion and this char has only 28 es in total :D

https://pastebin.com/bLqXB8Wc


ok i had a play with ur tree, this might be a rough idea of what id aim to do personally by lvl94 given what were starting with. capped spell suppression, 5500 life, 2.6 million peak dps.


it would involve getting a better large cluster, i honestly dunno the price on them ive never bought one, i just roll my own using harvest. slam em with attack more common or something until they hit 3 prop, ive got dozens by this point. this is the one i used in the pob





i switched to raider, i just feel like raider gives way more bang than deadeye.






just for interest, you asked about damage earlier, i copied over some other items from my stash into your pob and pushed the build to lvl99, just so you can get a picture for understanding when ppl on the forums talk about x number for life or dps etc and your wondering what theyre doing, what that would actually look like as a setup. this is a rough tree with about 6k life and 7.3 million peak dps at lvl99, starting from the tree above and then just adding in the extra 5 levels of points and the item upgrades, pushing the support gems to the awakened versions, 21/20 gems etc, few other skill changes like getting frostbite in there.

https://pastebin.com/xBRXPqE6

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ivkoto77777 wrote:

This should be an up-to date pob: https://pastebin.com/1pxDwFzn

I made the connection through One with nature, but I'm holding off on respeccing the points from bottom left and the top part of the tree until I get a new large cluster jewel (8 passive points, with Force Multiplier & maybe Battle-Hardened).

I can socket these jewels in the sockets untill I get the medium & small clusters:

edit: I had 1 point leftover, so I plugged the open jewel socket in the medium cluster with one of the jewels right now

1) You can remove the dex node to the right of Intuition.

2) That conc effect support in your helmet is hurting your Enduring Cry. I would remove the support entirely. Your warchief is not doing meaningful damage with or without it because you need more than 2 links for it to do good damage. The warchief's primary purpose is to buff your guy. Conc effect hurts that by shrinking the range.

3) There are a lot of gem sockets dedicated to different types of defense mechanics. You have 2 healing pots AND Enduring Cry AND Steelskin on CWDT. On top of this, you also run Arctic Armour. You are investing a ton into defense but not doing so effectively.

4) You spent five points to get 15% life from Written in Blood (the other stuff you get going there is peanuts). That's 3% a point which is incredibly inefficient.

I agree with the guy above that Raider is the much better choice if you have to play a Ranger. Deadeye gives you pretty much nothing.

I think the macro issue you are facing is that deep down you want to play someone big and beefy but you decide to pick one of the squishiest character classes for you build. Rangers are generally fast glass cannons. If you go completely against the grain to force this character to be tanky, you will end up with a really rough time as you can see here.

That's not to say you can't make this effectively tanky--I would get rid of a lot of the defense choices you made and instead run Grace and Determination. Invest into the Charisma wheel, maybe even get an annoint for Sovereignty, and pick up a Grace reservation mastery somewhere. You will find that doing so with a good chest piece (since you are in Standard, one of my favorite budget dex chest pieces is Fox's Fortune) plus a Jade and Granite flask will significantly mitigate the damage you take in a way that is far more effective than the entire defense setup you have here.