Classic Ranger Discussion

[Taft12]

I noticed some discussion of rangers in this (http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=391167) thread, but rather than get OT there I thought I should start a new thread

I created a ranger a couple weeks back when I completed Vidala's set (the armor was hard to find, I ended up overpaying for one in a trade). The mods sounded great with pierce, good cold dmg bonus and +AR based on level and most of all HIT FREEZES TARGET. Whoops, that mod doesn't count when you use a bow :rant: Mad at myself mostly because I already knew that Iceblink didn't work on a bowazon.

Anyways, this char still smokes PvM through NM with maxed holy shock and resist lightning, even in large games. I'm still wearing Vidala, but I am getting the items together to ditch the set. The bow I think would work best is Rogue's Bow with it's high speed. I wear Sigon gloves and helm for the 30% IAS and +AR/level. Death's combo might be better but I don't have the belt. Is going after +skills worth it for the dmg bonus?

In the other thread, someone mentioned holy fire. I am pumping holy freeze as a secondary for lightning immunes, but is fire a better choice? I always thought it was one of the worst skills in the game.

This char is PvM only but I wouldn't mind knowing what some PvP options are (if this is a viable PvP build at all... probably not)

[eggo]

Holyfire is good for Norm Act1-2 and the beginning of 3 for the weak monsters. Other than that, I think you should stick with your plan at Holy Freeze.

[fredsta54]

Rangers.. a good build imo. They are viable pvp and pvm- pvp they can be quite a shock to the player who will immediately consider a pally with a bow a noob.

Pvp build- max holy shock and synergies, utility skills, rest to blessed aim
Pvm build#1- Max holy shock and synergies- and holy freeze and synergies. Rest (if any) to blessed aim
Pvm build#2- Max fantacism, blessed aim, rest is up to you. You could add holy shock as a way to deal with phys immunes.


Best gear Setup- (pvm) Tarnhelm- angelic ammy and rings- deaths combo- rogues bow- twicth- rare boots with fr/w, fhr, resists etc. If youd rather focus on cold dmg from holy freeze- u would max that n synergies first, and use wizendraw. Less dmg, but the freeze effect is very nice

As for pvm setup #2- i havent build one in a while- but get 9fpa attack with a high dmg gothic bow while getting high ar from your gear. Use goblin toe. Resists are nice. This gear is much more flexible- whereas with setup #1... i wouldnt change it


Pvp build- +2 pris ammy- high resist rings- deaths combo- twitch- rare boots- rogues bow- Tarnhelm or rare fhr resist



This is mostly just an outline- but the gear i wouldnt reccomend changing- much, if at all.

Also note that this is only my personal experience- and others may have diffirent opinions. You need 90 ias for a 9fpa attack with rogues bow (not counting the 50 on the bow) and speed is dmg

Hope this helped ;)

Rangers rule.







Fred

[Zodijackyl]

Holy Fire + Raven Claw. Confuses everyone you attack, and clears everything up to NM cs, where there are too many fire immunes for this to work.
I prefer deaths to sigons, one reason being the 15 resists from deaths, and the versatility of a helm over a belt. I might have a spare dsash for you on esccl, I'll check mules and get back to you :)

[Taft12]

Zodijackyl that would be aces if you did have a spare. My acct is *Classic_Taft and I'll find something nice to give you in return if you've got one.

From looking at the Arreat Summit (http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/paladin-offense.shtml) Holy Fire does around the same damage as Holy Freeze when fully synergized, and Holy Freeze has chill as an added bonus so Freeze is prefereable for PvM - Holy Fire would be damn sweet though PvP since fire resist isn't really stacked up on most duelling chars and if they do just switch to shock.

I did some hunting on bow FPAs on Paladins and came across an excellent LoD guide (http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=217256) in the Paladin forums. For Rogue's Bow:

Rogue’s Bow (Unique Composite Bow) : This bow's base speed is [-10] and it has a +50% IAS bonus. This means that this bow will already fire at almost 10 frames per attack. If you socket it with a shael, and equip a pair of +20% IAS gloves, the bow will now shoot at 9 frames per second, which is the fastest you can get as a Paladin.

So if you equip a twitch and Death's combo (or Sig gloves + any other Sig item, I use the helm) you'll get max speed on a ranger. :thumbsup:

[Fearlessone]

RAngers are very nice thru nm, unless u know what u are doing, u wont have fun in hell, so u will have to plan ahead by carefully evaluating all these builds. Like I said in the other thread here, u should consider partying with someone who uses the skills u NEED to be really good for hell games, assuming u want to go that far:

amping or lowresist necros, u make the corpses then they provide the meatshield for protection and CE to finish off the mob.

enchantress. They can give u up to and over 1300 fire damage per arrow. :drink: Now this wont be so helpful in the chaos sanct, either Nm or Hell with half the monsters there being fire immune. Only if u are also pairing with an foh pally or lr cursing necro can u do well there with this in mind (and I'm still not sure if this is enough to bring down the fire immunity, there is a forumla about this where ur conviction or lr is only 20% effective on immunes till u get the resist down to 99%, then it normally lowers resist).

Static sorc. She brings the hitpoints way down, u finish them off.

fanatic or conc pally. Get another aura to boost ur damage. Conc pallys easy to find, fan is hard.

I've never tried the holy shock ranger, so cant comment there. But I'm saying if u really want to do well in hell, u can just watch the games that are up and wait for one of these not-so-common builds to enter the game before u hop in. And u would be surprised how peeps learn to love u and play their not-so-common build cuz they know u will be on and buddying up close to themn the entire game!! :buddies:

[fredsta54]

Rogue’s Bow (Unique Composite Bow) : This bow's base speed is [-10] and it has a +50% IAS bonus. This means that this bow will already fire at almost 10 frames per attack. If you socket it with a shael, and equip a pair of +20% IAS gloves, the bow will now shoot at 9 frames per second, which is the fastest you can get as a Paladin.

So if you equip a twitch and Death's combo (or Sig gloves + any other Sig item, I use the helm) you'll get max speed on a ranger. :thumbsup:

As i already have said.

I did not mention the holyfire exploding arrow ranger for a number of reason, the main one being that it is not viable in hell, and the bow required is slow.

There is one, redeeming feature of the holyfire ranger- altho not that much. The fire dmg is given to the radius explosion AND the actual arrow. So altho the explosion will always hit, if the arrow hits- the monsters actually hit will receive double dmg- whereas the others just receieve the explosion.


You can also make pvm rangers that are only 1 element- stronger in groups but cant solo.

Simply pump up the skill- holy shock or holy freeze and its its syerngizes- max out blessed aim for more ar- and you can have a fairly good redemption as well.

A holy freeze ranger equipped with a wizendraw is excellent- the bow fires magic arrows- which give even more ar in addition to maxed blessed aim- you can use less + ar gear which results in more +skills//resists.

As for the previous comment on rangers being weak in hell if you dont know what you are doing-


"Pvm build#1- Max holy shock and synergies- and holy freeze and synergies. Rest (if any) to blessed aim
Best gear Setup- (pvm) Tarnhelm- angelic ammy and rings- deaths combo- rogues bow- twicth- rare boots with fr/w, fhr, resists etc. If youd rather focus on cold dmg from holy freeze- u would max that n synergies first, and use wizendraw. Less dmg, but the freeze effect is very nice"

This build can solo hell. Even hell chaos sanc. And the gear is not that expensive. I reccomend that you max holy shock and its synergies first, and dont use wizendraw- as holy freeze is basically just a backup for immunes.

In the rare case of a needed to kill cold//light immune- simply equip boneflesh and/or goblin toe. The open wounds//crushing blow is sufficient.

Please trust me when i say this is the best- i would not dream of any other gear for a soloer pvm ranger.









Fred

[TheRenderer]

It all depends on what difficulty you plan to PK.
I myself have only created a holyfire PvP norm ranger and it excelled at everything that did not have fire res (roughly 800fire dmg @ lvl 37).

I have attempted Holy Shock rangers, bu in my opinion, like i stated in the previous thread regarding this build, is that the range in damage is to extreme for my taste. To have (for example) a attack that does 10-1000 light dmg leaves plenty of room for high end attacks, but just as equally enough room for mediocre attacks. I had troubles even with norm cows with Hshock.

But to each their own, I think i'm going to try Hfreeze tonight to test it out.

Regardless. Best. LLD (lvl 16-30). Ranger...Gear...Evarrr (for uswest) -
Tarnhelm
Eye of etlich (added ability to freeze)
Raven Claw (explosion can stun pvm/pvp)
2 x Sojs
Death Set
Ghoul Stalkers or Treads
Twitch
And all stat points in Vit, all skill points in Holy Fire then Fire Res.

That will mop the floor with my doubters

[fredsta54]

A holyfire ranger is basically a weak fireball sorc, sadly. But, for pking in norm (lvl 37 seems a little steep for normal) holy fire would probably be your best bet.

Holy shocks dmg is great. Its all about avg dmg. Lvl 20 holy shock syerngized kills normal cows on aura dmg alone.

As for pvp shock rangers- 9fpa ranged ~3k avg light dmg is pretty good.


Your setup looks pretty solid for ur holyfire ranger. I would reccomend getting decent ar- as i mentioned- if the actual arrow hits (not just the explosion) you will be doing double dmg.







Fred

[TheRenderer]

Yeah I build pretty steep chars for their difficulty. I personaly don't make hell chars, only high lvl nm chars (69 BvS, 65 BvA on west alone).

It's kind of cool. I dont personally go around pking games with lower lvls, I just make them to impress lol...