Frenzy - Evasion Ranger - Anarchy League

[MonTy]

In the Anarchy League, I'm currently running a Bow Ranger.

-Single Target I'm using Frenzy

One of the best Single Target skills you can use, but is better with Elemental Damage due to causing elemental effects, and faster. Still a great source of single target damage if you're a physical ranger.

-AoE I'm using Split Arrow / Rain of Arrows (depending on the need)

Both are incredible skills. Split arrow is essentially a LMP without having your damage reduced. Rain of Arrows is great for when you need to target down specific mobs, such as those dreaded Necromancers. In fact Rain of Arrows is so good, some rangers only use that skill. I had a Rain of Arrows ranger that made it to 68 using Point Blank, which increase your damage by 50% but forces you be in closer range. I didn't mind that as long as I had decent armor, resistances, and when free for all loot was the norm it was great for getting your gear.

-I'm also running Bear Trap (I'm less than impressed with this... I wish I had a fire Trap.)

Whoa, I'm surprised. This skill has incredible physical damage, higher than your frenzy bow, and stops monsters in their tracks. At level 18 it does 1671–2339 damage. You can have two Bear Trap gems supported with Added Fire and lay down six traps. That's a lot of pain before a Mob can even think about getting to you.

-Decoy Totem It's... no Skeleton Totem

Nope. As soon as you're able to trade for Spell Totem (I think Rangers are the only class that doesn't get it as a quest reward), go for skelly totems.

Ok, as far as the build goes, I would focus on three things, health, damage, and evasion. Your damage will most likely not be as high as elemental route, so you'll need a decent physical bow and passive. Second is that when you get hit, you'll get hit harder than an armor based character, so you'll want a higher life pool. And the most obvious is that you'll want the major evasion keystones.

I'll have you know, I used one of my total character respecs to make a build extremely similar to yours. I had amazing gear, five linked high physical damage bow, five linked 1300 evasion chest, and other good equipment. I still could not kill as fast as an Elemental based character, nor could I survive as well as an armor based one. But it was fun, I had to be on my toes and actually try to dodge attacks. Constantly hit and run, which is why I highly recommend Frenzy. The faster you attack the faster you can move. I did respectable damage and was able to run maps, so in no way is it a dud of a build.

Should I continue to press to get the 6th Frenzy Charge? 3 more points and I will be there. (which would be 2 more levels, since I have another skill point quest in the very near future)

Or, should I start fleshing out some major HP upgrades?

I almost always choose HP until the very end of the game. All my character level up getting resistances, health, and major keystones. Then flesh out damage passives when you hit 60+.

If I were to give up the idea of acrobatics and Evasion, and use another stat that I didn't gimp myself on, what would you do? I've been leaning more towards armor / Evasion in my thoughts on this, but I figured I would get some info from people. What would you do for defenses with a ranger?

IMO if you were to ever do a evasion based character, now would be the time. The Ranger class excels at very little, but it does have great physical damage and evasion passives right from the start. In my opinion you'll have more success late game if you just get Iron Reflexes, you can then focus on Armor and Evasion passives, not to mention more open passives for Health and Damage. But your skill tree would be significantly different. I personally make a themed character and stick with it, it's fun seeing how far I can get. Will this be your character that will blaze through end-game maps? Probably not. But it's a fast, fun, hit and run type of character.