[3.5] Tornado Shot Build Help

It's been a long time since I've played and I'm trying to help my wife with her Tornado Shot ranger. Right now, the character seems too weak to take even a few hits, and doesn't have the power to destroy things before they touch her.

Can anyone give some advise on the best things to do to improve the build? I don't have much to trade, so improvements under 100 chaos are ideal :).

https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/xiaobang/characters?characterName=sikancil

Thanks in advance!

Okay, there are a couple of things that can be fixed right away for no currency:

1. Drop Ice Bite from the Tornado Shot link setup, replace it with Added Cold Damage instead

2. Drop Vicious Proj from the Barrage setup, and replace it with Added Cold as well (she doesn't do any chaos damage over time, as far as I can tell, so that's a dead link)

Cheap upgrades:

1. Quiver:

Change it to The Signal Fire, the upgraded form of Blackgleam. Buy a well-rolled Blackgleam quiver, and the Fire and Brimstone Prophecy. Then go to the Crematorium (Act 3) and kill the boss to complete the upgrade. This should cost very little.

2. Flasks:

Most of her flasks don't really do anything. I'd recommend dropping all of them and changing them out, except for Atziri's Promise.

Her flasks should look like this:

Bleed Immune Life Flask/Quicksilver Flask/Atziri's Promise/Diamond Flask

Get a Seething or Bubbling Divine Life Flask, with the Staunching suffix. This is easily achievable by using Orbs of Alteration on Diving Life Flasks until you hit Seething or Bubbling without a suffix, then going to Einhar and beastcrafting the "of Staunching" suffix. As far as I can see, she has no Bleed removal/immunity, so that might be killing her a lot.

As for the other flasks, try to get at least one with the suffix "of Warding", to give curse immunity. Until she finishes Eternal Lab, get one with "of Heat" as well, for the freeze immunity. Once she finishes all her labyrinth runs, she should have Avatar of the Veil, so you don't need Shock/Freeze/Ignite immunity, and you can drop the flask with the "of Heat" suffix.

For the last flask slot, a Taste of Hate would be good, both defensively and offensively. But that's 50c, so you can just run any other flask instead for the time being.

3. Passive Tree:

I don't know if she's following a guide, but if she's not, try this one: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2007539/page/1

For a quick boost in damage, removing the single "Evasion and Life" node near "Revenge of the Hunted", and the Dex node that leads to it, then respeccing into the "Cold Damage", "Weapon Cold Damage", and, with one more level, the "Winter Spirit" nodes will help greatly.

Orbs of Regret aren't particularly expensive, and there are a bunch of free respec points from the questline, so this shouldn't be too expensive.

4. Labyrinth:

She needs to complete the labs, all the way to the Eternal Labyrinth. I'm aware that she's probably not strong enough to complete it by herself, so if you can carry her through Merciless/Eternal Lab, or if she can pay for a carry, it'll boost her damage and survivability significantly. Her next lab should net her "Quartz Infusion", which gives Dodge and Phasing, and Eternal Lab will net her "Avatar of the Veil", which is a ton of damage, increased movement speed, Spell Dodge, and, perhaps most importantly, immunity to Elemental Aliments, which means she can ignore Freeze, Shock and Ignite.

If you can carry her through Merc Lab, that won't cost anything. Eternal Lab carries usually only cost the Offering, which is around 4c.

5. Jewels:

Her jewels aren't doing much for her. Drop Poacher's Aim and Survival Instincts, and if you can, drop the "Maelstrom Ichor Viridian Jewel" as well. Bow builds usually rely on stacking flat elemental damage, from Abyss Jewels. Take a look at the guide I linked above for examples. Basically, she should be looking for jewels with stats like "Adds _ to _ cold/fire/lightning damage to bow attacks", and getting as many of them as she can.

These will vary in cost, and you can upgrade them slowly.

6. Body Armour:

In all likelihood, the best upgrade she can get for body armour will be a "Shroud of the Lightless". It's good because it offers Elemental Penetration as a skill link, and an Abyss socket. It's also a cheap option in a way, because you only need to 5 socket/link it to get the effect of a 6 link, because of the level 20 Elemental Penetration.

It should cost about 40 chaos for a Shroud of the Lightless, and a bit more to 5 socket and 5 link it. It's a massive DPS boost, since it's basically a 6 link.

There are definitely other upgrades that can be worked towards, for example, a "Dying Sun" flask will increase damage and clearspeed significantly. Take a look at the guide linked above for more long-term ideas, but what I've listed above should definitely help with the damage issues.

As for her health pool the following are all solid options: ignoring damage nodes for a while and speccing into life nodes instead, trying to get life on her Abyss Jewels, and getting life on her Amulet. If need be, dropping "Lightpoacher" for "Starkonja's Head" is a good option, especially until she can afford a 2 socket Lightpoacher. Similarly, dropping "Bubonic Trail" for a pair of rare boots with movement speed, life and resists, until she can afford a 2 socket Bubonic Trail could help with surviving hits.

Good luck!

Thanks for your suggestions!