[3.11] Hitchhiker Kai SMASH Tank. Build Plans - update into league

Cool, I'll be playing in a small private league so I guess the EO variant makes sense for me. Any last minute leveling tips? I guess GH only makes sense after we get the threshold jewel?

"

ZZZiltoid wrote:

Cool, I'll be playing in a small private league so I guess the EO variant makes sense for me. Any last minute leveling tips? I guess GH only makes sense after we get the threshold jewel?

im goin hard core rpg with it, so i'll literally level a templar to get GH level 1, and level a marauder to get rutheless support so i can start ranger with it immediately.

however you'd probably be best off leveling with frost blades until act 6. and after unlocking lilly you can buy the gems for it and possibly start from there.

i also want to try to run a 2 hander throughout my entire time leveling - not something i suggest doing, but would just be fun as crap

without going crit bandits are up to choice. alira would still get benefit with the mana regen and resistances. oak would be decent for dmg, defense. points probably be best overall

having gained more information regarding how the warcry cooldown recovery speed works, i'll definitely be putting pretty good investment into warcries. can get the cooldown down to 3.69 seconds, or 4.6 seconds if also using the new support gem for faster casting.
should be very good for both enduring cry and ancestral cry. intimidating cry only worried about using vs bosses

Bro - this is awesome.

I love staff Ranger.

I've also been dabbling in Glacial Hammer for quite a while - as you said it's such an excellent skill - one of the best melee skills - great multipliers and the Freeze mechanic is just too good. Too good.

Looking forward to trying this once I finish up another build.

i tried leveling it from lvl 2 with GH and it was....painful. lol
i had to do a CA trickster just to feel myself again, but im really really looking forward to crafting gear for this dude.

i tried other slam skills too, ice crash, sunder, tectonic, etc and they all felt like garbo compared to glacial hammer.

one thing that does SUCK about GH though, that i came to find out from playing the build, is that the 33% freeze cull does NOT work on bosses (i think all unique names), which is very unfortunate


but its awesome to see you're still kickin around man! thanks for commenting

Have been trying this, as having a HULK SMASH! ranger tickled my sense of humour. :D

Am having a lot of fun with it so far (I'm about halfway through the campaign). Makes a change from my normal spellcaster types. Started from L1 with GH. Was painfully slow at first, but picked up massively toward the end of Act 2.

A thing I've done that is maybe different is using Leap Slam as well as GH. Basically LS-GH-GH-GH-LS and repeat. This is working well, and meant I could put Fortify on the LS (along with Frostbite curse on hit), freeing up a slot on the GH for something else (I haven't decided what yet. Will probably depend on gear once I get into 6L territory).

Have also taken the Combat Control notable passive so that exerts don't get wasted on the leap slam.

But yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing how it works in maps!

Thanks!

Tyls.

That's true - Ice crash is really clunky. Sunder I love the new animation - but it's even more clunky, and no freeze. Tectonic Slam is nice but you need the endurance charges which is very tough on Ranger.

As you used to say: freeze is king. Being able to freeze is just too good to pass up.

Shock and Ash are great, but not as great as Freeze. And you can even add Shock easily to melee builds these days with Wake of Destruction (or Cold Conduction I guess). And Ash is still very restricted.

Oh I love Earthshatter as well. But I love Raider even more - and doing Earthshatter on Raider is not that great =(.

These days I just find I'm not into the other classes at all. I'm Raider through and through (even if she sucks and hardly has any identity). Maybeee I will play Chieftain once in a while but that's pretty much it.

I've literally been wanting to play Staff ranger since 1.0 days. Lol I still remember the epicness of Gale Song. With the nerf to dual wield and 2H'ers buffs - this is a great time to try it and your build looks great!

I've been away for a while but interesting possibilities are opening up in the game thanks to keystones and clusters. I've been dabbling here and there but mostly spend my time in Path of Building lol. This league though I have quite a few builds I'm theorycrafting for Raider in particular I want to try her with Rage, Berserk and adding overleech from the new keystone.

Anyway I'll be keeping an eye on this build because I absolutely love it!

ya i'll definitely be working to optimize this build completely this league, but it'll take awhile for me.

ya with glancing blows on the tree and raider being (what i've said for a very long time now) what i think to be the most defensive ascendancy in the game, we can almost get back to pre 1.3 days where you have max block + evasion + high dodge and essentially never get touched. couple that with freezing the game and well...

im super looking forward to making raider a super tank and maybe giving her some more respect that she madly deserves.

It's worth noting that so far dealing with Harvest packs has been incredibly satisfying - it's basically a massacre! Warcry, smash, smash, everything dead! :D

I've always liked Raider, and I've always liked staves.

Have been jumping back and forth between builds and wanted to try something melee and came across this post. I've downloaded the POB (I'm not great at builds myself), so gonna follow this and see how it turns out.

I've been doing SSF and found a decent unique 2H sword that's helping the early leveling process, I'm going with frost blades for now just to help leveling speed.

Are you choosing staves primarily for the extra defensive layer, or is there a specific staff you think would work with this build? What about using a 2H melee (sword axe or mace), would that work with a Raider GH?

Noticed you didn't try to grab Tribal Fury (or annoint it). Is it too far away? I feel like it would give so much QoL that its too important to pass off. Also, how come onslaught ascendancy over frenzy charge ascendancy?