Life buffs [and spectral throw] make early game easier

nevermind

I prefer faster proj, both for the nonexistant cost increase and lowered roa delay. I cant imagine added cold would be fun to try to support from lvl 12 until composite with the increased aura reserve costs either.

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SlixSC wrote:

I'm just not sure if you should get Primal Spirit at lvl 13 (earliest possible)

Should be getting it at lvl 10 (doubling back through attack speed line after ballistic mastery) to guarantee being able to use wrath immediately and to help alleviate mana issues.

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tagpt wrote:

You can grab Primal Spirit at lvl 10 so you have enough Int to run a lvl 1 Wrath which also gives you more time to get a Lapis by lvl 13:
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIBAdFiWpXIoSKiQK_rxKLfmPT4

Alternatively, you can grab it by level 13:
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIBAdFiWpXIoSKiQKfUr-vEotwV35j0-P7I

I usually don't bother getting Heart of Oak. You have to go glass cannon to make the ranger work. Going glass cannon also helps with mana issues.

I did a test run a few days ago and i agree with Slix.
Right when you get the aura at lvl 10 its amazing because 2 hits is enough to kill anything even with shitty gear.

When you start lvling RoA (which you kinda want) and use a support gem you start having huge mana issues in act 2 which slows you down considerably unless you have amazing gear.

Makes racing as Ranger even more frustrating than it already was...

Edit: I picked Added Cold because its higher dps than Faster Proj but the multiplier is also higher. I wonder if FProj is a better option: 14 vs 18 mana per attack.

Yeah, that's a good point, I think I'll skip Heart of Oak in the future and just go take the primal spirit route instead.

As for added cold vs. faster proj... I think the right answer is neither (added cold only if you have good gear and can two shot mobs, else I don't think you can sustain added cold and an aura). Added Cold is a very insignificant damage increase and almost increases the mana cost by roughly 50%, maybe faster proj is viable because it doesn't really increase the mana cost all that much but I don't think it makes a huge difference either way. The more I think about it, it seems that ranger support gems in general were always pretty trash. Never really thought about it before tbh, but it's just another one of these annoying things about ranger.

@Slix
My point is you can take 2 Paua rings. They allow you ~one more attack each.
Then you lose HP early on(I assume you are switching back to corals in the a2 zones), this means you might need a different path-->EV+Life and this path does less damage.

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Sorry I genuinely don't understand what you are trying to say here. Are you implying that white weapon at merveil equals good RNG for you?

Of course not but thats my usual RNG.
I switched to more flexible weapon options because of horrible drops.

My regular act 1 races have 2-4 Transmutes, some ids, scraps,tps and whetstones and approx 1 alt.
Everything else is luck.
I even started picking the entire Merc/Brutus drops so I obtain one more Transmute Orb.

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Ballistic Mastery - Heart of Oak - Finesse - Primal Spirit - Aspect of Eagle

What do you think?

I wouldn't take oak, also I would take the direct Attack speed path.
If I need really need some life I will take the 18% EV +12 hp node and you still have 1 more point.
Entering the duelist/shadow(depends on duration of the race) area should be the goal.
I believe entering the Shadow tree might be the better option in 1.00

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Edit: I picked Added Cold because its higher dps than Faster Proj but the multiplier is also higher. I wonder if FProj is a better option: 14 vs 18 mana per attack.

Only in 60min races.
On RoA you take FProj as Weaver Reward.
Pierce LMP Melee Splash and Fork don't help you at all.

first ranger run 22,8 1h23 for vaal kill with whitish gear, start as reave. It's not competitive by any means but I was chatting a bit, and had 2 loading crashes due to release success.

Taking poison arrow over burning arrow was a mistake, I don't know if poison traps are going to be worth it.
I feel a bit better than before in regular races, I had like 50roa by merveil where I usually did vaal kill with that value, I'm okay with the new mana cost of wrath, it's only something you feel against blues and then it depends if their type allows you to drag them accross the map

I'm going to do some runs today and see if all these complaints are justified. Personally I think Slix may have fallen into a bit of an exaggerated panic, but we'll see.

I am a little concerned as I didn't think roa cost 12 mana as a base (been cleaving too long). Thought it was like 10.


Pam you start with reave? Jesus... Maybe I'm just terrible, but the amount of time I lose on losing reave charges to desync and stun locked as a result since I can't get damage on groups is more than the time I lose on muling, plus I get an extra ring and a guaranteed second mana pot.



Anyway... gonna do a few runs later and report back.

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Hilbert wrote:

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Edit: I picked Added Cold because its higher dps than Faster Proj but the multiplier is also higher. I wonder if FProj is a better option: 14 vs 18 mana per attack.

Only in 60min races.
On RoA you take FProj as Weaver Reward.
Pierce LMP Melee Splash and Fork don't help you at all.

From 1.0.0 patch notes:

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The "Sharp and Cruel" and "Sever the Hand" quests in Merciless now offer rare items as rewards, rather than Skill or Support Gems.

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EDIT: LOL I Can't read. It's only in merciless. Leaving it here anyway though. XD

OK so did one untimed run to get a feel for the auras and just break the rust, not important.

Did a second run

Got movement speed boots off Hailrake, and made a 32 min Merveil on a white quiverless shortbow. Not too shabby, the new wrath helps a LOT in evening out terrible bow rng.

My next weapons were a 10% ias composite, followed by 19%q 25%ipd recurve. Found 1-15 lit damage gloves in chambers. Didn't run a support gem because I forgot, but you could easily run faster proj, as it only boosts mana cost by 1. You can forget about added cold, I'm pretty sure, as running that tended to be rough even pre-aura nerf.

Ended up making a 1:15 Vaal kill. Rng was average with a slight lean to terrible. Map rng was average.

I'd have to say the new reservation isn't too bad, it's manageable. Once you start hitting bigger mana pots, the stutter step style of play becomes more difficult as your mana fills up fully quick, promoting more of a turret playstyle. This can be tricky when facing dangerous archer packs (western, wetlands snakes, caverns...).


Overall, the buff to wrath more than makes up the bit of tripping up that will happen when it comes to mana management. I foresee a potential issue when it comes to docks, as you'll be getting stunned and having to reposition a lot, which can really mess up your mana pot management, but we'll see.



I'm more curious whether cleave would still be competitive, if not better than bows. It took a huge hit, but you never know, and I do NOT feel like running those practice runs.

I accept that I was at least partially wrong, I'm happy about all the input though, I think racing will change alot next season so it's good that we at least discuss the viability of some skills and classes.

As for Cleave, I talked to Rithz and he tested it on I think Duelist (not sure, Duelist or Shadow) and said it was significantly worse. Cleave Templar got double-nerfed so I don't think that's still an option. As for ranger/shadow I really don't know, it will be alot worse than pre-patch, but is it better than bows? Who knows.

edit: Man I just did another test run and had 28 min cavern of anger time but I massively desynced into a pack of red exploders, would have been somewhere in the range of 30-31 min merveil kill time, so I take back everything I said, it seems pretty viable to race as ranger now. I guess I should run my oos macro in test runs aswell, that was really frustrating.

I actually used a strategy that Rithz suggested, so I can't take any credit for that. You mule spectral throw on scion, then either use spectral throw on a two-hander if you find one thats really good or you switch to RoA, so you basically can choose between two handers spectral throw and rain of arrows, depending on whatever weapon you can find. Later on I suppose you could spec into ranger one-hander nodes and run spectral throw with two one-handers, if you find two, otherwise you just go down the bow path.

That actually seems to be the new go-to race strategy for ranger, at least in my opinion. Would really appreciate some feedback.

edit2: And jesus is spectral throw overpowered early on, I killed hellrake with just one white rusted sword in basically no time. Muling Scion is pretty fast aswell, because you can ST down hillock in basically no time.

I still think shadow kills Hillock faster.

ST got higher costs and you need the perfect distance so hillock will be hit several times on the point of return.
Especially on Turbo races it seems to be far too hard get the correct distance.