Dual Claw Ranger

I have this idea about making a dual wielding claw ranger. I thought it would be a shadow at first but they fit ES/Ghost reaver better and when you are doing it like that you can as well make a dual dagger instead benefiting from crit chance and all. I hate duelist and their retarded animation. Also ranger seems to be in good position for this evasion business.

The idea is it would be using evasion, acrobatics (maybe), raker nodes (at higher level), arrow dodging [insert the new name] and some physical dual wield passives, attack speed and, of course, life. Pure evasion gear. Main skill melee splash dual strike, hatred, grace, whirling blades. And playstyle mostly cherry picking. The lack of large AoE is obviously bad but whatever, maybe cyclone could be used with this build but I kinda dislike that skill.

Here is my idea of the passives at around level 70 (e: oops, 80). I would take life, physical damage and extra skill point from bandits.

I have already started this character although it's level 35 atm and I might reroll it or adjust it a bit. (Current skilltree)

My questions:

• Is this idea already predestined to fail?
  If it is, why?
• Are the crit nodes even worth it?
  With a bit of quality on dual strike it would put the crit chance somewhere around 15%, although they are calculated separately for each hand so the actual crit rate would be a bit better if we count one handed crits. The point is it would freeze things at times which is cool.
• Would it be better to take some multiplier nodes instead of some other?
  Depends if I even go for crit at all, I guess.
• Mana management
  Blood magic gem? Mana leech? QQ, help.
• Any uniques I should save for?
  I was thinking Bear cap and the hellion paw claws would fit, yes/no?

I have some experience with melee and evasion (so I don't need to be told that it sucks and I should go for IR) but I have never tried acrobatics. I have even made a dual strike ranger but it was with all the OP elemental damage (catalyze) and I would like to try something different.

Thanks for any input. Well, if anyone reads this :)

What skills are you going to use?


I mean:

Dual wield vs Claw + left arm cut

Dual Wielding: Dual Wielding while using flicker strike will cause the player to alternate weapons each attack.

What does that means?

Lets presume you have 1 claw with 100 damage and 2 claw with 80 damage.
Your damage will be 100 - 80 - 100 - 80 - 100 - 80 with 10% attack speed MORE (multiplicative).
So final damage is: (100 + 80) * 1.1 = 198

And in 1h variant you will deal damage 100 - 100 - 100 - 100 and so on.
So final damage will be 100 + 100 = 200

So... in Dual Wield we need both our claws perfect, and in 1h variant we just need to find best one.

Dual wield provide with 15% block chance (and without US it is stunlock)
Okey, lousy shield provide us with 20% block chance AND with ES / armour, resist.

So, why Dual?

Hi, thanks for reply.

The reasons I decided to dual wield are two. First one is dual strike as it strikes the enemy with both weapons at once providing decent damage boost. The whole idea is to use Dual strike, that's pretty much this build defining skill. Second reason, although it is really a secondary one, is that dual wield passives provide pretty good boost. The speed increase is just a cherry on top, definitely not a primary reason to dual wield.

Stunlock never comes from block, ever. If it wouldn't stun you, then the stun animation is not played on block either. If it would stun you, well, then it at least eats the damage. My other two melee rangers don't suffer from stun much. Bosses stun but they never hit fast enough to actually lock them. Also shield does the same at block. I'm not worried about this.

The truth is one has to find two good claws, but when leveling I can also use a dagger and claws, or even rapier or pretty much anything in the offhand if I find a good piece as dual strike can be used with any melee one handed weapon.

About the damage calculation - yes. Yes, dual wielding is pretty bad with flicker/frenzy and there is little point of doing that, I see the point. But I am not planning to use those skills. I focus solely on dual strike for damage dealing.

I'd take US, since you have lots of nodes to block on dual wield.


Block

When an attack is blocked, the game first calculates if the attack would have caused a stun were it not blocked. If it would have caused a stun, the blocking animation is played, stunning you briefly. If it would not have caused a stun, then you get a "free" block with no animation. Faster Block and Stun Recovery and Increased Block Recovery modifiers reduce the length of the blocking animation.


Fencing vs Swagger?

But +125% crit chance actually is nothing for crit build. Also you don't have any crit multipliers. And damage without those will be smth like hits.

Claw with 9% crit chance base will do:
9% * (1 + 125%) = 20.25% crit chance. With 100% hit chance damage will be 79.75 hits + 20.25 crits or 79.75 + 20.25 * 1.5 = 110 or +10% from normal.
With 80% hit chance damage will be lower vs Resolute Technique. Also evade checked twice for crits: 1-st time hit / miss, 2-nd time crit / hit.

You need lots of crit nodes to make it works.

"

wiggin wrote:

Hi, thanks for reply.
The truth is one has to find two good claws, but when leveling I can also use a dagger and claws, or even rapier or pretty much anything in the offhand if I find a good piece as dual strike can be used with any melee one handed weapon.

My friend made a calculations... Axe with enormous damage base provide enough leech to fill the leech cap, and do more damage then Claws :) Most of the time I saw dual claw builds on crit or without crit stack too much life leech.
Basically, 12% from passives, 18% from claws, 4-10% from gear, 7% from curse, 6% from blood rage, 8% from gem. I saw once 40% life leech. But...
With 3500 HP your max possible leech is 700 HP per second.
With 40% life leech how much damage need to make to leech that amount?
1750 physical damage per second?
And if you do 10 000 damage per second, what % of life leech you need to leech the cap?
10 000 * x = 700
x = 7%
ONLY 7% life leech needed to leech the CAP. Easy to have on gear and blood rage. So why claws? :)

Rapiers has at least nice bonus to critical damage at least if your build has crits.

US would make all the evasion useless, that's simply not an option. It doesn't matter how much block you have. 75% block will not get you "locked" more than you would be with 0% block exactly for the reasons in the quote.

Fencing vs Swagger?
Yeah I don't know if I should take 3% attack speed and 24% damage in two nodes or 2% block, 8% speed and 24% damage in 4. I still have a 2% block available elsewhere but the speed not. Or do I? Would you just trash some speed and save two points?

About the crit, I ask this question in OP (whether to get the available multiplier or just trash crit altogether). I simply don't know if it's worth it. On my other chars a freeze on my enemies was cool time to time. It gives some time to breathe, gulp a flask or give leech time to apply - something priceless for a melee at times. But as I say it's not where the damage comes from, just the utility. Of course it can be the source of damage when combined with multiplier (I have one char like that) but I think claws can't be used effectively in crit build at all to be honest. We have daggers for that. (Or wands in that matter)

Anyway 80% is easy on a dexterity char, but is it trash crit then? How to make my way to RT then? I am kinda clueless where to find points for that, it's unfortunately not like I get RT for 5 points >_<

"

wiggin wrote:

US would make all the evasion useless, that's simply not an option.

I'm stupid, mainly I saw IR builds, not Acro, so my mistake.

Well, you don't reach any cap on leech. But it's just a matter of the way you look at the cap. You steal the life to a buffer and it is then applied to your life at the 20% rate until your life is full or the buffer is emptied. You can chop in a group of monsters and get frozen/stunned/DoT and the leech will still be in effect if your max life is not reached and you stole enough life before. But I see the point, it's not much of a use to get way over the point you can sustain the leech when dealing damage. A bit over that point is useful. I don't know whwere will this point be. Leech gem takes a slot in gear >_< Maybe it would be better to just let claws go then?

I haven't even thought about blood rage, I always avoid that skill. It's just so popular in CI builds, hmm...


Edit: The problem is I tried a bunch of builds and I want to try something new. I don't want to reroll still the same OP shit over and over, it's boring >_< Then I get an idea and you tell me it is so much worse than the other options. What to do? WHAT TO DO? I can't just quit the game, I'm addicted. Any idea?

If crit build i'd say Crit > Phys. So take out all nodes from phys and put to crit.

Crit chance vs Crit multiplier:
Lets presume we have 100% chance to hit. (Don't want to make too boring math).
Base crit chance is 8% (lets presume you don't have ideal roll).

I'll add step by step crit chance and damage.

1. +100% crit chance. Total crit chance is 16%
Damage: 84 + 16 * 1.5 = 108 > 100 or +8% damage

2.
a) +100% crit chance. Total crit chance is 8% * (1 + 200%) = 24%
Damage: 76 + 24 * 1.5 = 112 > 108 or +3.7% damage
b) +50% crit multiplier. Total crit chance is 16%
Damage: 84 + 16 * 1.5 * (1 + 50%) = 120 > 108 ;)

Need balance within crit chance and crit multipliers. Lots of crit chacne with no crit multipliers - often crits with small boost to damage. Lots of crit multipliers no crit chance - no crits, no damage.

Not the best one, I don't like it myself, but at least it is crit build.

2 Rapiers will add +70% crit multiplier with Dual Strike, 2 Swords will add +36% accuracy, and claws... who need sio much life leech? ))

And swords clusters at Duelist tree is amaising:
Damage, attack speed and accuracy - all that needed by crit build :)