How do I

[Darkling Glory]

<walks in and waves>

Good morning everyone! :)

It's me again and I have more questions . . .

<glances apprehensively at adeyke and crosses his fingers>

In lieu of Holy Aim, why not use Fanaticism? That way instead of just having increased attack rating, I would have increased damage, increased attack speed and increased attack rating.

Looking ahead to Hell and Physical Immunes and other high resistance creatures, would Conviction lower their resistance and defense enough to permit an arrow to do significant damage? Again, I know my amazon can burn down PI's, but can a paladin generate enough damage, without Holy Aim or Fanaticism, to do away with the creatures of Hell?

A possible build:
Holy Fire = 10
Holy Freeze = 20
Holy Shock = 10
Fanaticism = 10
Conviction = 10
Salvation = 20
(87 skill points used, including prerequisites.)
With the remaining skill points being distributed where they will be most advantageous.
Note: This build will include a Holy Aim mercenary and 3 to 7 +skill adders, depending upon how lucky I am.

Criticisms? Suggestions?

<sits down, gets comfortable and waits>

[adeyke]

The problem is that you can only have one of the auras on at a given time (exception: Hand of Justice bow gives you holy fire). You'd have to ask yourself when you'd be likely to use which aura, and if it'll actually work well in that situation.

For example, you have points in holy fire, holy freeze and holy shock. When would you use which? Are all of these just against physical immunes? Would it be holy freeze against most monsters and holy fire/shock against cold-immunes or would it be holy shock against most monsters and holy freeze/fire against lightning immunes?

With the skill points spread thin like that, I think you'd be disappointed with the effectiveness of each of the individual auras. Given +7 skills and the skill assignment you posted, holy fire would do 184-211 damage, holy freeze would do 755-767 damage and holy shock would do 1-1,360 damage. You might as well forget about the holy fire. It can be a good skill if you have a lot of points in it and the resist fire synergy, but not with what you posted. The other two auras would also really benefit from more points in skill and single-resist synergy.

If you do drop the holy fire, it'll actually be better to split the points you have in salvation between resist fire and resist lightning. As is, 20 points in salvation give +140% to holy freeze and +80% to holy shock. If you instead assigned 10 points to resist cold and 10 points to resist lightning, you'd have +150% to holy freeze and +120% to holy shock, which would be strictly superior, and would give you a passive +5% max resist coldghtning.

However, your planned build also has fanaticism. When would you use this? Would this be your primary aura, or would you just use it against monsters that are immune or highly resistant to the elemental ones? There are some issues here. If you have enough AR from equipment and your merc, you don't need the AR from fanaticism. If you don't have enough AR and thus need the AR from fanaticism, you'll be missing a lot when you switch to the elemental auras. The same goes for the speed bonus. And if you use the fanaticism for physical damage, you'd want a high-damage bow. However, with the other auras, you might prefer a fast bow or a bow with a lot of elemental damage. This, however, could be addressed by having the alternate bow on the weapon switch.

You also have points in conviction. If you could have this together with a different aura, it'd be great. You can't, though. So if you use the conviction to break immunities, lower resistances and reduce defense, you'll be missing the other auras that would let you actually deal damage. Conviction is great if you have a lot of elemental damage from your attack, but not if you rely on a different aura for dealing damage. Unless you have a lot of elemental damage on your equipment, you wouldn't be gaining a lot of benefit from the conviction.

Anyways, these are just some things to think about.

[Assur]

Hi

Damagewise Fanatism is the aura of choice, with Holy Shock as the elemental backup, because it does the biggest damage. With Fanatism as the primary aura you don't need a Holy Aim Merc, I would suggest you get an act 2 merc in NM with the Holyfrost aura to deal with PI/LI monsters.

It's a bit of a cokkiecutter, but very effective.

good karma

P.S. Alternatively you could stick with the Holy Aim merc and just equip a mean 2-h weapon in your weaponswitch and put one point into Vengeance

[Darkling Glory]

<wanders back in and stops in his tracks> ;)

Hello. Looks like I have some homework to do.

<slowly reads through the "build" responses, ponders for a moment, then reaches into his backpack and pulls out a tree-trimmer>

Let me see if I understand all of this information.
1) Take the 10 points out of Holy Fire and put them into Holy Shock.
2) Take the 30 points out of Conviction and Salvation and put 15 points each in Resist Cold and Resist Lightning.
3) Fanaticism is retained for its Damage, A/R and IAS boosts.

<quickly counts> Thats only 84 skill points! You're telling me this is going to be a stronger build and save me 3 skill points at the same time? Thats not too shabby. :lol:

Rest assured, by clvl 94, both Cold Resist and Lightning Resist will both be at 20.

<glances toward adeyke> Are my numbers looking better now? I had planned on using Fanaticism as my main aura until situations dictated the need for an element specific attack. Thus explaining my choosing fire. I remember all those "ghosties", everywhere in Hell, being Lightning Immune and Freeze Arrow draining mana, much too fast.

<turns to Assur, a little stunned>There is a "cookiecutter" ranger build? I realize there are other rangers out there, but I didn't realize there was a standard ranger build. Is there a thread to this build somewhere? :o

A little equipment specificity: I have a Goldstrike, a Widowmaker and a "diamonded" WWS. Will these be acceptable NM and Hell bows or should I seek elsewhere?

And a question: Is a Windforce (amazon only) or is it for public possession? This may be a dumb question, but I have never seen a Windforce. I have only heard of and about this mythical bow of dreams. :P

I guess thats it for this go around.

Once again, I want to thank everyone for their support and contributions in helping me get this build right.

--DG

[Assur]

<turns to Assur, a little stunned>There is a "cookiecutter" ranger build?&nbsp; I realize there are other rangers out there, but I didn't realize there was a standard ranger build.&nbsp; Is there a thread to this build somewhere?&nbsp;&nbsp; :o

Hi

There used to be a very good ranger guide over at dii.net, but it seems to have been annihilated! :(

Fanaticism is such a good aura, most Palas use it as a primary aura. Holy Shock does the biggest damage of all elemental offensive auras and since you can get Holy Frost from a merc (or an expensive runeword) and get Holy Fire from an other runeword go with Holy Shock! (My experience, Holy Shock does minimal damage, big trouble, Holy Shock does max dam: 4 boss packs + around 50 undead wiped out in about 2 seconds :blink: /act 2 NM/).

The big question is, will you put points into melee skills or are you going to be a "pure" ranger?

good karma


P.S. Your equipment seems to be all-right

[ShadowHM]

Hi

The biggest concern over that build has already been addressed by adeyke - namely, no skill points in the skills that synergize with your elemental damage.

I would be tempted, myself, to eschew Fanaticism altogether. The AR bonus from your Blessed Aim mercenary *should* make up for the loss of the bonus from Fanaticism. And your mercenary can hand out the physical damage for you. This would allow you to maximize the damage from Holy Freeze and Holy Shock much sooner, and then allow you to place points in either Salvation for further synergies or Blessed Aim for the passive AR bonus. You would have three forms of damage so that dual immune bosses would go down.

Windforce is a bow that is available to all classes. One of the benefits of it, however, is useless to a Ranger, as you will not need the mana steal on it at all.

Wizendraw is a very nice bow for delivering Holy Freeze, and should be relatively easy to come by. The mod that lowers enemy cold resistance would be of enormous benefit, and the hidden AR bonus on its Magic Arrows (admittedly only slvl 5, but every little bit helps) would both help a Ranger considerably.

I recall you mentioning that you have a Witchwild String available. This would be a fine bow for delivering your Holy Shock. The two sockets might best be filled with Shael runes to improve your speed of delivery. It too has a hidden AR bonus from the Magic Arrows (slvl 20, so a 181% bonus to AR) to aid your accuracy in delivering the Holy Shock. While the Amplify Damage will not go off often, when it does your mercenary will certainly benefit. And who can argue with the benefit of the extra resists the bow carries?

Another benefit of using the two above mentioned bows is attribute points. Even fully upgraded, the maximum strength you would need to wield them is 97 points. A Windforce (for example) needs 134 strength to wield. You would then have more points available to place in Dexterity and Vitality.

Best wishes and may you have fun. :)

[Caaroid]

It seems that your widowmaker does not touch the heart of the men in this forum. Well, I don't have one, but my enchantress believes that she needs one. I think that if you can collect enough mana leech, the ability to shoot guided arrows should make this bow ideal, at least for the elemental attacks. In case you use physical attacks, a windforce could be better (someone offered me one for perfect gems... then said that I need 4 chars full of them to get the bow, so no, no windy for me either). Widowmaker has the disadvantage of relatively low damage and high requirements, but Guided arrow is guided arrow.

[ShadowHM]

Ooops !

I usually try to avoid mentioning specific gear items in my suggestion lists. I did this time, and since I already broke my pattern....

Widowmaker is indeed a fine bow to deliver elemental damage. ITD plus fairly hefty AR bonus on the magic arrows, plus that extra ability to deliver a Guided Arrow make it a good bow for an Elemental Ranger.

The bad part is that the Guided Arrows do need mana and Rangers usually need to pump other attributes. An Enchantress usually has a lot of Warmth, so doesn't suffer the same problem.

[Assur]

Hi

@ Shadow, I thought that if your weapon has ITD you don't have to worry about AR? My BF Assa has been using Moonfall, and is now using Hexfire and I think that I now hit my targets much more often, though I miss the Meteor.

confused

[ShadowHM]

There is a thread here that gives a good explanation.

The short answer is that even with an ITD weapon, you need AR. :)

[Assur]

Thanks.

I'm still sticking with my PrayerMerc :D , I like a merc that can tank NM Diablo.

good karma

[ShadowHM]

Can't say as I blame you. :)

On the other hand, Enchant gives a nice AR boost anyway, so your Enchantress may well not need any further aid in that department, eh?

[Assur]

Can't say as I blame you.&nbsp; :)

On the other hand, Enchant gives a nice AR boost anyway, so your Enchantress may well not need any further aid in that department, eh?

Um, it's a BF Assa. You know, the evil twin-sister ;)

No Seriously, there is better stuff out there, I know, I just don't find it :blink:

good karma

[Darkling Glory]

<storms in and glares around>
Alright! Who forgot to mention Raven Claw? :angry:
I stumbled around for three levels (15 to 18), with a hunter's bow that had sinfully large poison stats, playing "shoot and run" with all the beasties and thinking I am doing good. Hah! <_<
Every time I would think, "there has to be better than this", I would compare the "green" bow to the "puny" Raven Claw and the unique would wind up as the "switch" bow. The numbers couldn't lie. :o
While stepping out into the desert for the first time, I accidentally bumped the "W" key, unbeknownst to myself. Needless to say, my first encounter with a bunch of throwers was eye-opening. Beasties were exploding and dieing everywhere.
We, my newly-acquired act 2 mercenary and myself, killed so many scarabs, so fast, we had a bar-b-que on the sand. When we retired for the night, after too much mayhem and too many tequillas, he wandered off mumbling something about trying to find the beach . . . :lol:

IMHO at level 15, Raven Claw rocks. Ignore the stats and give it a try.

Oooo!!! Oooo!!! I just had an idea for a amazon . . .

<runs off into the night>

[Assur]

Hi

It kind of reminds me of elfonlyinn

>it hurts and stings<

good karma


P.S. You're a Pala, you should trust in Zakarum and not put your trust in artefacts, which are anyway only created by foolish mortals :D

[Darkling Glory]

Good point Assur! I am sure my poor, misguided paladin will be doing penance sometime, somewhere, for his lapse of focus. :lol:

Excuse my ignorance, but who is elfonlyinn? :huh:

[Caaroid]

If you want to do hellforge runs, thus need to rush characters to level 40... build an enchantress, and give raven to your tiny chars. They can clear out cow level in less than 2 minutes by themselves...

[Assur]

http://elfonlyinn.keenspace.com/

[Darkling Glory]

Ah . . . thank you.

My first reaction was, "An elf on what (elf on lyinn (what the heck is lyinn???))???" :blink:

My second reaction was, "It must be an account name with a odd spelling of Elven Lion (elfon lyinn)." :huh:

I'm glad you cleared that up. :D

[patriach]

Hi,

I might be a bit late, but I agree that fanaticism aura complements rangers really well. Now if Bilzzard would allow Crescent moon runeword work on bows....