Poison arrow vs. Lightning arrow

Hi all,
I have a 45 level ranger and have been using poison arrow coupled with lesser multiple arrows and faster projectiles for crowd control. I like this setup because the arrows hit the monsters on screen and if one arrow misses the target, it does damage where it lands whether it’s on screen or off. This has been working since I’ve started my Ranger. The other Ranger builds I have seen in action use lightning arrow for kills and attacks. Now that I am halfway through Ruthless/act 2, I am wondering if poison arrow is still viable for crowd control in the later acts. This is my question to the more experienced rangers. Is poison arrow viable in the end game or should I switch to lighting arrow or is there a better solution for crowd control?

Your doubts are justified, but here's my view.

Like you, I wasn't willing to invest in a glasscannon build and opted for a more conventional build. Post 9.11 patch, I changed my build into a more attackspeed-oriented supplemented by +phys dmg and +ele dmg mods and passives.

Now I roll with 2 main forms of attack. My main attack is a 3.05 hit/sec Burning Arrow with 3 support gems: Faster Attack, Faster Projectile, and Mana Leech. My other main attack is Poison Arrow with 3 support gems: Faster Attack, Lesser Multiple Projectiles, and Pierce. Other skills socketed for versatility are:
- Lightning Arrow for small groups of enemies,
- Explosive Arrow for DPH on bosses (Thinking about changing it to Puncture)
- Haste aura + Frenzy to raise 3 Frenzy charges to bring my Burning Arrow hit/sec to 3.43
- Projectile Weakness + Totem support (saves me time to cast continuously and acts as decoy)
- Phase Run when things get dicey or I'm rushing through

I'm in Act 2 of Merciless, so I'd say it's still a viable build. It also becomes important to start looking for 4Linked and 5Linked and even 6Linked equipment so that you can add more support gems to increase the DPS/DPH/AoE/DoT of the skill.

For example, a true Poison Arrow Build in my mind would have this:
> Poison Arrow (green)
+ Added Chaos Damage (blue)
+ Lesser Multiple Projectiles (green)
+ Pierce (green)
+ Faster Attacks (green)
+ Increased Area of Effect (blue)

(I don't think Elemental Proliferation applies to chaos damage, but I could be wrong)

With all these socketed items in a 6link item, Poison Arrow would be a serious AoE/DoT attack when spammed enough.

Thanks for the advice.
I like you’re thinking. Now I know it can be done.
Currently my major problem has been socketed items. I do have a bow that has 4 sockets but went with the bow I have now for the damage. Anyone want to trade or in need of this?
My other bow and armor has 3 sockets and the rest of my gear has 2 links.

My format so far has been
-Hatred with faster projectiles & Additional Accuracy as support gems
-Projectile Weakness with Increase Critical Strike for support
-If really needed, I have Grace with Faster Attack
-Phase Run for the exact same reasons as you

For hard monsters or bosses I have been using my other 3 socketed bow with primary attack being Elemental hit with Weapon Elemental Damage and Added Cold Damage for support gems.
I do have Pierce maxed out and sitting in a socket but not active.
I also have taken the Point Blank passive and am thinking of taking Arrow Dodging since I get hit more by range weapons than other weapons.

There's several things you're doing wrong, and it has to do with the support gems you've socketed with non-attacking skills.

Auras such as Hatred are not affected by Supports meant for arrow skills like what you have. I don't even think aura skills go with ANY support with perhaps supports such as Increased Area of Effect or Faster Casting or Reduced Mana Cost.

So Faster Projectiles, Additional Accuracy, and Faster Attack support gems do nothing for your Hatred and Grace aura skills. Same thing for curses, you have to find support gems are designed for curses, much like the supports for auras mentioned above as well as the Increased Duration support.

Or, as a novel idea, stack a curse or a aura on a totem and have the totem cast the curse/aura for you. I don't think auras+totem is effective as the radius is rather small, but a curse skill with totem can be effective as I mentioned in my first post.

Once you hit Merciless, you'll need 4L items at the very least, and shoot for 5. I wouldn't bother with 6L items unless it was lvl 65+ gear (endgame gear) and had every mod/affix/suffix that suited your build.

As for your build, you might want to adopt Iron Reflex instead of Arrow Dodging. I say this because I'm not fond of the evasion mechanic in this game as on Merciless and endgame maps, monsters have the ability to one-shot you should you get unlucky enough to evade it. To that end, I'm packing all dex gear and some evasion passives to turn that into damage reduction (like what regular armor does) with the Iron Reflex Keystone. For that to be effective, you'll also want to sink some passives into life nodes.

To give you an example of what my build looks like:



Note that I spend passives on some life nodes, some mana nodes, a lot on attacking speed, and physical damage nodes. The all important Iron Reflexes at the bottom allows me to take hits as if it acted as regular armor. The other method of defense for Rangers is sinking passives into the Shadow tree for their Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics Keystones, and when combined with Arrow Dodging, allows you to evade a lot of stuff. I for one don't think it's worth the risk and would rather take damage reduction over evasion anyday.

"

I'm in Act 2 of Merciless, so I'd say it's still a viable build. It also becomes important to start looking for 4Linked and 5Linked and even 6Linked equipment so that you can add more support gems to increase the DPS/DPH/AoE/DoT of the skill.

There-in lies my problem. If had the more or different colored sockets I would use them. Primarily they are being used as place holders right now.


this is what my gear looks like right now.


With my 2nd bow being


This is what my tree looks like. with the execption of the strength I think I'm doing ok there.


btw, I wasn't able to view your build.

lest try this again
Passive tree

Try this:



The last link was in fullscreen mode, so might've had difficulty in accessing it. I'd show you my equipment but I have absolutely no idea how to link it.

Your build looks very similar to mine, except I opted out of the Heavy Draw passive pocket for some other nodes. If I ever get the time to level up my character to reach that pocket I will.

Thanks for the advice Islidox. Seems like I am heading in the right direction....

Incidentally, I figured out what i was doing wrong with your link. I didn't know I had to keep highlighting your link and slide it to the right (they need to fix the box for links).

As far as showing gear...
click on your toon at the botton of the screen and click on the item you want and the link should appear in the edit box. I think it works best in chrome.

Again thanks for the advice.

No problem. And up above is a list of the equipment I'm using atm.

"

magree wrote:

Thanks for the advice.
I like you’re thinking. Now I know it can be done.
Currently my major problem has been socketed items. I do have a bow that has 4 sockets but went with the bow I have now for the damage. Anyone want to trade or in need of this?

Spoiler

Unavailable

Hey, I am interested in the bow. I will be on tomorrow around noon PST.

-Thx

Islidox, are you getting Frenzy charges out of your totem? Damn totem support gem still hasn't dropped for me...