(there's no punchline)

Don't mind the buffs I've let fall off >.>

Damn, that is one big ass gnoll. And that sergeant is laughably small. LOL... this reminds me that I wanted to change the "sprinter" champion trait to "scrappy" (tiny, hits fast, but less hp, too).

How ya like ranger so far? Ive got beasty 2handers and the 68 bow, so kinda tempted to make one but not real sure. Is bow dmg significant or is it mainly just autoattack like shm and war?

Here's my 2c based on playing my 89 ranger:
Most of your damage comes from melee autoattack. Rapid shot, the skill you spam and the primary 'bow' skill doesn't do much damage, but it activates procs. For example if you take Ignite 20pt you get 30% chance for fire damage from your arrows, and Spirit of the Wolf talent gives lightning procs on arrow attacks. They're ~5% or less damage each on single target. The bummer is they're so spread out on the tree you need to waste a bunch of points to get them all for mediocre damage upgrade. Also the bonus to ignite damage is useless so you basically spend 24 points for 5-8% dmg. May as well put 20 pts in the Rapid Shot and be done with it.

Right now I'm messing around with all points in the 1st talent row for the 5th autoattack (from snare). That might be the best for the setup I'm using with Flamebelcher, because the proc is sweet and it hits hard. My logic is going from 4 to 5 autoattacks is ~20% more damage instead of 10-15% from the fire and lightning arrow bonuses.

The other bow attack is Trueshot Arrow, on a 30sec timer. It's no where near as awesome as Flying Kick is since you can't modify it with a broken stat like ac on boots. I don't use it very often.

That said, just doing melee and Rapid Shot without any arrow skills, I can do 10-12k dmg on single targets with pretty decent gear and a 2h.

But ya...you're basically a warrior with different skills.

Yeah, as Tezl said it's very automated, especially once you get all your skills in order and some decent gear. I pull from stealth (as a halfling) with snare just to have the debuff running and then spam D til the screen is full at which point I Volley to get some nice spread damage on everything. From here I almost entirely have to spam D as auto attack, Parry Procs and Lightning procs annihilate everything on the screen. If I get a really nasty Champ I will tend to use Trueshot Arrow and I always use it on a boss as it clips off like 80% of their health in some cases. With the Life Leech I have as well as the Regen from the 20point Warder's Rift bonus I don't really ever even look at my health, unless I'm around mobs who fear. In this case I just play it a little safer til I'm through the zone but even this can be remedied with gear that has a decent amount of status/fear reduc on it. I see a lot of people running a build that buffs lightning specifically but I don't really even see the point in that as typically the lightning proc is like 3-8% of my damage done total so I've been going for Physical damage modifiers as well as the obvious +crit/crit damage and main stats. I don't have the perfect gear on him by any means but I absolutely trash everything I come into contact with so the class seems pretty powerful over all. I haven't even gotten to max the Ignite talent to test out the explosions yet but as I progress on this guy I plan fully to test out a lot of talent combinations so we'll see. I think this might be the next guide I write but I may not if Lost_Maps build ends up being just about the best thing out there.

TL;DR Yeah, it's pretty fun with the OP gear I know you've collected.

I had a similar experience doing max-screen pulls while leveling up, but once I get in to Hell difficulty I had to slow it down to 1 at a time. The only time I have problems now is long fears/stuns, so that's probably what I'll focus my gearing on now.

Well thats kindve what I was fearing. Doubt I will make a ranger, too much like warrior which is.. I mean kindve enjoyable with the reactive skills? Kindve.

Have done wiz->monk->shm->war so far. Monk is the clear winner and most enjoyable for me. Shm and war kindve close but warrior is more active (due to reactive skills) and more button pushing so thats more enjoyable for me. Wiz was fun until you hit hell and then not fun at all. To be fair I havent touched the wiz since.. many many upgrades but casters seem pretty bad in general.

May try mage with the changes make them less bad though. Or enchanters. Infinite combos could be cool.

Yeah I don't enjoy not being able to chain very well so I haven't enjoyed the Necro as much in Hell which is what I feel like it will be for the Wiz. What's the shaman like? I've been interested in hearing what all the Wis casters and Paladins are like but no one has really talked about any of them much. Cleric/Druid/Shaman I mean.

Well, they do have bloodlust.

Shaman is pretty cool. Mainly autoattack DPS (+5 attacks i think) but the buffs they can do and heal spell allow for more gear options. You dont need to worry about dex (or even strength really) and life leech is less important. Meaning more room for crit, crit damage, or straight survivability. Their poisons can be some what significant and their pet can be a decent tank/offtank. Has a heal over time thats not too shabby in health regen and provides a serious melee boost.


Haven't put a couple of upgrades on the shm but thats only because war is a little more involved when it comes to pushing buttons. And I do like pushing buttons.

Tried a poison build to utilize all the +poison % gear there are tons of every where and it was just.. really really bad. Swapped to a hybrid build at the cost of +1 autoattack and it was comparable but.. autoattack still won.

Has a decent heal but if I'm choosing an autoattack build at this point warrior wins out but its close. War can break out of awfulness but cant really heal aside from triage and life leech. Shaman's heal is pretty decent but cant break out of awfulness.

I've heard druids are just straight up OP while leveling up but hit their ceiling way early and hell isnt much fun. Clerics I really have no clue on.

Casters in general need better chaining potential. I figured necro was similar to wiz in the whole 'yeah hell chaining isnt going to happen'

I would argue that warrior is just fine the way it is for healing though there is an emphasis on life leach that other classes don't need to rely on. A lot of their healing is slow 'Hots' but with the control they bring to a fight and the high hitpoints they tend to have - its fine IMO. In my limited experience shaman tend to perform badly in an ambush.


Warrior healing :
-avenging strike - very small Hot over 6 seconds - can have 100% uptime
-triage - heals more if you are hurt
-spell reflection - this will return a boat load of hps and fury and if you spec in it, its cooldown is halved (12 seconds) and does decent AOE damage

Control:
A bash that lasts 3.5 seconds and hits up to 3 targets with a cool down of 12 secs (wut!!?)
AOE 100% accurate shockwave/stun on a 24 sec timer.

Add in two different damage debuffs and almost as much invulnerability uptime as a monk


Might not be five pulling in Hell but not all classes can expect to do that anyways.

As I haven't played a Warrior passed 6 I can't say that they don't rely on Leech more, but from my experience both Monk and Ranger perform much better with adequate levels of Leech to smooth out over all damage taken.