Every once and a while you'll catch one right in the nuts and you best be paying attention (as a ranger at least). I have died like 5 times today from it by simply not paying attention.

No lie. I was actually wondering if he upgraded Iron Maiden's damage in Hell, because it has killed me 3 times today already because I was not paying attention.

Once you get enough life steal as a ranger it's no problem, even on 99 Innoruuk. I just plow right through it now hehe. Then again, I drop the final Hell bosses in under 15 seconds these days so maybe it doesn't have time to register haha.

Morrow, what was your gear farm strat? I got to hell around level 70 (I think) and I am getting destroyed by the tiered bosses. At level 82ish I can't even take down the Princess and Xicotl in Mistmoore without getting chain feared and owned. I've got Nagafen and Vox ready to pull, but my trusty warder's Rift tactic where chain cast it and heal through their DPS while whittling down the dragon no longer works. My DPS has been as high as 2400 (chain crits, single mob) but sustained single target is more like 1000-1500. Any suggestions? I saw that you are using a 2h? Did that only make sense b/c of the haste? One thing is for sure, upgrades are few and far between. And my major main hand upgrade was destroyed during a level 3 upgrade (my max for upgrades).

I've always used a 2H because 99% of a Ranger's DPS is coming from abilities that use your Bow and 2handers are just what I've had drop for me that have the best stats. I got a 12% critical strike Ribcracker early on and was using it until level 80ish when I got the Jarsath Battle Sword, but now I use a Cranium Basher (lots of attack haste and stats) but my attack haste is now way over capped. Basically my gear farm all snowballed in one day. I was in Nightmare farming Plane of Fear (I'd broken into Hell, but found it a bit hard) and I got a piece or two, but I wasn't getting much great loot, so I moved on. I did Unrest in Hell for the Magic Resist and went straight for the bosses, and I dunno, just sort of plowed through them and famed Fear.

Most of my gear (all but 2 pieces) were required level 20ish unique. But when I got the Jarsath Battle Sword I saw how big of a deal life leech and attack speed are and I started killing much faster, it snowballed until I found more uniques with attack speed and life leech and now I can literally kill nonstop level 97's without even looking what I'm doing. I spam 1-2-3 and D for pull next mob and play Star Wars Assault Team on my phone haha. Fear can be a bitch and I will almost die if it hits and I can't life leech back to full life before it fades, but I rarely die anymore and am up to 100k gold. Just find attack speed and life leech and a good bow. I was using a level 25 bow into my high 70's. Now all my equip is unique elite cept for rings. I'd farm Nightmare Plane of Fear until you get a couple decent elite uniques. You want your attack speed capped (60% asap) and around 20-30 life leech. Those are the 2 most important things, then crit and resists.

I've stayed alive through many a fears because Volley was going off and Volley will keep me at full life every time. My trueshot arrow heals about 3-5 bubs as well.

I tried to give it a distinct look because of how nasty it is. And it was nerfed!

I think that it might be because I switched some gear around. I use to have my equipment geared towards crit, had it up to about 70% crit I think, then I switched to attack haste, and when I got that up to the 60% cap is when I ran into the Iron Maiden. Even with 35 life leech that thing shredded me if I didn't pay attention hehe. Now I have gone a more balanced gear, about 55% crit and about 50% attack haste, with my buffed attack power around 1500. So that should help the Iron Maiden mobs, lol the fact that you nerfed it just makes it all the more hilarious.

How is this even possible? I've been trying to stack and it heals less than half a bulb. Is there one item that does the majority of the heavy lifting in regards to heals?

Well that also tends to be against 3 mobs, but even with just 1 mob it heals at least over a bubble of life. I have 30 life leech atm, but sometimes only 20 because I use an experience gain staff now from time to time. It's just from having very high damage. Your Ranger's abilities are based off your bow's damage/delay ratio so when you have 60% attack speed and a 59/39 bow the ratio is crazy high and you hit so hard that you are spammed with +30-85 HP per hit and with Trueshot around 9 +250-500 HP. I was using a random Elite Rare bow I found on a merchant though before I started finding good elite unique bows and that was only like 29/39 at first and then 37/39 etc. Once you start getting your attack speed and physical damage/crit up, with 20+ life leech you'll see a huge difference. And yeah, when I found that 2hander with 10 life leech and 10 attack haste it started making a huge difference.

Items like this make a huge difference:

Just keep at it, you'll find one decent item and it will snowball.

c

My 72 Ranger is working his way through Nightmare and Iron Maiden is beginning to hurt. He hasn't died yet, but the way things are going, it's just a matter of time. The higher your DPS, the faster Iron Maiden will get you killed, which is kind of a disincentive to level a DPS class...

Perhaps you could make IM more obvious? You know that Ranger crowd control spell, Warder's Rift, which puts a dark sphere around the cc'd mob? Maybe do the same thing for IM except that the sphere would be red or something? That would give the player an extra second or two and probably save countless lives. Think of the children!

Iron Maiden does a percentage of the mob's intelligence, so it's really just like a heavy duty, short-term damage shield.

Oh, it's not a percent of your DPS? Thanks, that makes me feel better. (I have to admit that I am hopelessly lost when it comes to game mechanics, stats and so on. I just hit mobs in the groin until they keel over...)

It used to be, but I nerfed it because reflect is almost always impossible to implement without being OP or borked in some fashion. Btw, next update you'll see a new iron maiden animation. Should be extremely obvious.

Thanks, look forward to it!

I noticed the indication last night. Well done!