Melee Ranger for OB

I'm going to bump it up too :)

been playing bow user since OB and got bored pretty fast, DPS is great but i traded some items with a sword / shield ranger and thought that character looks great and i started looking after one :)

thanks to mewt75 i found this topic from "let's build a 1h+sword for hc" since i'm playing softcore i think i'll look after this one :)

will come back when i hit 40 or more to give my feelings

Hello !

Thanks to morii20 for reminding me.

Okay so i've tried to play ranger as a 1h / shield since the beginning of the game. I hit 60 today and i'm act the end of act 2 merciless.

So far so good, i decided to modify the initial build.

here it is (70 points)



Ok so the goal was to make a ranger who can survive in merciless, so i decided to take almost no offensive nods and most defensive nods instead.

With this i have a little over 2k HP. By taking some attack speed nods(berserking +15% AS) and using only swords / rapier (most of the time its base attack speed is 1.50 / sec) and faster attacks support gems i manage to have 2.7 attack per second using double strike / cleave. And since i'm using frenzy i go over 3 attack per seconds. So life leech isn't needed.

I use double strike with faster attacks / blood magic support gem / life gain on hit.
Cleave is with mana leech / life gain on hit / faster attack

I choose not to take blood magic because of Auras. In fact the goal is to get notable "inner force" and with its side nods i'll have +30% aura effect on me.

By using blood magic support gem (you get one at mercy mission on merciless, or can trade with other players) i can use anger / grace on my life. Since blood magic have a huge impact on mana reserved, i traded a reduced mana support gem.

% based aura (determination / wrath / tempest shield) goes on my mana pool leaving around 80 mana points. Enough to cast enfeeble. Enfeeble is the best choice since monsters will hit less often, if you use blind with double strike i managed to blind brutus in merciless in less than 5 secondes (around 15 attacks) and he barely hit me. Same for merveil's first form.

I'm not sure this is the "optimal" way of playing a 1h / ranger but it has worked great since the beginning.

With tempest shield i go over 55% of block chance (over 65 using crest of perandus) and with both determination / grace i go over 7 k armor atm (61% damage reduction).

I find this build great because i can use flicker strike / whirling blades to move fast across the levels. Whirling is huge for escaping (like poison arrow cloud) and hitting summoners.

here is what i plan to do until the end :



I'll finally take some great sword offensive nods. I'll go take inner force to get the most out of grace / determination (huge armor) and damages aura like wrath anger hatred.

In the end, the dps isn't that bad compared to "all out dps" builds, you can tweak it to get more resist (though diamond skin helps a lot) and i'll have hufe life pool thanks to strengh (almost 300 from passive only) and all health % nods.