Ranger Full Survival Build (Hardcore)(Improved)

@IcyAngel
If you do a high end map (I'm talking 66+ rare) with a Maze or +Size modifier (or 2 maps without), its completely realistic that in the entire course of the map, there will be 10 attacks that have a chance of hitting you. Each of them will be doing 3k+ damage, and up to 6K if from a rare/unique.
Using evasion (except in extreme situations, where you would have over 3k life), you are likely to die once on every single decent high end map you roll, without even considering bad luck. This is not a good option for most players, which is why the 'evasion sucks' is such a common opinion among players that actually do the entirety of the end-game content (and those that don't, but learn from the experiences of others without having to make the same mistakes themselves).
In that same realistic situation, not considering bad luck, someone using armor would not die.
Factoring bad luck just sways the situation more in favor of armor.
Having over 3k life is great and all, but having it as a requirement for evasion to be even remotely usable for end game means that its the worse option, considering getting 3K+ life is no small investment and can also be done by an Armor user.

@Bowlslaw
LOL! Beady-eyed, mouth-breathing. I got the perfect mental image from that. XD

See you guys talking about survivability. Had a pretty basic question in regards to that, might as well ask here.

Anyway so what I am wondering is basically if a bow ranger is at all viable as a solo HC character?
Perhaps a strange question but I would think that a bow build is perhaps better suited for group play where you can get some protection from others acting as meat shields, more so than other builds?

Ofc as a new player every character I make will die sooner or later that goes without saying.
But basically what I want to know is if a bow ranger is one of the hardest builds to survive solo HC with? I am assuming it is.

@Eivon
Any ranged build tends to be pretty good solo HC. ^^
There are a lot of mechanics you can take advantage of to get yourself extra protection, and just because you are ranged in no way means your character cannot be very tanky.
Generally, what you want to do is stack a metric ***tonne of life, which means blood magic is a very good option. Rangers can also get a lot of Armor very easily by using Evasion equipment + Grace (the aura) and have Iron Reflexes (evasion converted to armor); since the stat dexterity gives you +1% evasion per 5 points, you end up with great armor for almost no investment.
Bow skills also tend to work amazingly with leech, so having a Blood Magic build with the Life Leech support gem on whatever skill you use, and just a bit of regeneration (1-1.5%) is a very solid choice. You can also prepare for bosses that you know are rather nasty (like Dungeon Map Brutus) by leveling up some simple yet effective skills for just those situations (like decoy totem for Dungeon Map Brutus).
<3

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Lezli wrote:

@IcyAngel
If you do a high end map (I'm talking 66+ rare) with a Maze or +Size modifier (or 2 maps without), its completely realistic that in the entire course of the map, there will be 10 attacks that have a chance of hitting you. Each of them will be doing 3k+ damage, and up to 6K if from a rare/unique.
Using evasion (except in extreme situations, where you would have over 3k life), you are likely to die once on every single decent high end map you roll, without even considering bad luck. This is not a good option for most players, which is why the 'evasion sucks' is such a common opinion among players that actually do the entirety of the end-game content (and those that don't, but learn from the experiences of others without having to make the same mistakes themselves).
In that same realistic situation, not considering bad luck, someone using armor would not die.
Factoring bad luck just sways the situation more in favor of armor.
Having over 3k life is great and all, but having it as a requirement for evasion to be even remotely usable for end game means that its the worse option, considering getting 3K+ life is no small investment and can also be done by an Armor user.

You are right, I have not played through high level maps, so maybe my view is biased.
But considering how armor mechanics work in this game, I think your view is also very romanced.

You say 3k life is extreme for a ranger at that point, so let's take a lower value... let's say 1.5k (easier for calculations, but I don't know if it is realistic end game- feel free to correct me).

Now considering this formula:

Damage Reduction = Armour / ( Armour + (12 * Damage) )

For a 50% reduction, you would need 12 times the unreduced damage in armor.
Which means that you would need more than 36000 of armor to simply survive a hit of 3k, which is not easily attainable by any means, especially for a Ranger (not to say you could not even get enough armor not do die from a 6k hit, because you would go over the 75% reduction limit).

What you say is probably true for mid-end game, but later, against very high dmg mobs, armor loses a lot of effectiveness, whereas evasion keeps its full effectiveness.
Honestly, if a hit goes through for any of the two, with armor you are only very slightly less likely to die. Except a hit goes through less than one time in ten for the evasion ranger, whereas it goes through 95% of the time for the armor ranger.

But an evasion Ranger can evade almost 100% of ranged attacks (and 20% of spells, which is a big deal), which is often one of the biggest killers of frail characters (because in combat, it can be pretty hard to actually keep track of missiles and dodge them manually), which gives a very very distinctive advantage.

Lezli: thanks for reply. Hehe sounds like I need to reconsider some preconceived notions. Playing a bow character in other action rpgs usually means a frail existence, forgot this is PoE and not D2 bowazon or D3 demonhunter. :P

@Icy Angel
2500 life is a good number to guesstimate with.
It is kind of cute that you think 36k is an unreasonable number. ^^
On my ranger 'Lezli' (before I gave everything away to new players), my base armor with decent end game gear after grace was 13k. If I end up in a situation where I would be taking a hit from something nasty and it can be predicted, I pop a granite flask, which adds 10k armor, then multiplies that new total by 1.8, giving me 41k armor (or something like that, didn't ever check so I might be wrong on how it's calculated).
I also use for my life potion, which, combined with the Alchemist node and a decent belt, pretty much turns into a permanent buff of +80% armor, which leaves me at over 23k armor constantly, with a 2.5k VERY realistic health pool. This is all without the gear one should realistically have for doing that end game content in Hardcore (I play softcore, so my gear is fine).
I hope this sheds some like on to the situation. My view of armor isn't romanticized, its very realistic and logical. ^^
Or you can just 1-shot everything before it gets on screen which is what a lot of rangers do (me included). XD

^Not 3600, 36 000, LOL!
So you see, even with your granite flask (which is very far-fetched to bring into the equation considering it's not always available and that you cannot always know when you are gonna get hit AND it takes a potion slot for nothing), a single hit would leave you at low health.
Two hits in a row and you die automatically. And that's against a 3k hit.
Any hit at 6k (like you mentioned) = goodbye.

I personally take IR (armor) over Evasion is because I don't feel like leaving my life globe up to chance. But that's a personal opinion. Evasion, unlike armor, has the ability to completely avoid attacks, but on the chance it fails, you can get punished hard if it's a high-damage hit.

One thing I like to note is that just like armor, evasion also has diminishing returns, but is not subjected the same DR formula that armor is, which gives evasion an edge over armor in that regard. Phase Acrobatics, Acrobatics, and Arrow Dodging provide a minimum defense on top of the evasion you build up. I have not tested this on any Ranger build of mine, but if PA/A claw Shadows can survive endgame, I'm sure Rangers can too.

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Islidox wrote:

I personally take IR (armor) over Evasion is because I don't feel like leaving my life globe up to chance. But that's a personal opinion. Evasion, unlike armor, has the ability to completely avoid attacks, but on the chance it fails, you can get punished hard if it's a high-damage hit.

One thing I like to note is that just like armor, evasion also has diminishing returns, but is not subjected the same DR formula that armor is, which gives evasion an edge over armor in that regard. Phase Acrobatics, Acrobatics, and Arrow Dodging provide a minimum defense on top of the evasion you build up. I have not tested this on any Ranger build of mine, but if PA/A claw Shadows can survive endgame, I'm sure Rangers can too.

Oh really? I didn't know that. Do you know if there is more information somewhere?

And actually, I kind of agree with you. I think Evasion and Armor are relatively equal, but that Evasion is a bit more gimmicky, and can either be a life saver or a damnation really, so it is probably better suited for SC, where a death isn't nearly as dramatic. I'm just saying that it can still be a viable option in HC, contrarily to the popular belief.

So far it's been Eva Vs Armor, why not just take a step back and put them together for a build that uses Leather & Steel for both it's Armor & Evasion.