My first character

Hello,

I wasn't quite sure if this is where my post belongs, but I didn't find any better place so here it is. Apologies if it is in the wrong place.

So I am in the middle of leveling my first character and have just reached level 64. I feel like my damage is no where near where it should be to comfortably clear the act 10 area where I level at the moment. I checked many ranger builds before I started leveling my character, but ultimately decided to make my own build based on the builds I looked at.

I am aware that my build at the moment has too little life in it, but I don't know what other problems it might possibly have.

I would love to know if anything is still to be done to save my character or if I have gone past the point of no return and should just start leveling another character, this time following someone else's build.

I estimate my wealth to be around 30c or so, so that's as high as I can go in making changes to my gear.


Here is my skill tree



Here is my gear




The skill I use for clearing is Split Arrow in a 5-link rare bow. The gems are: Split Arrow-Elemental Damage-Pierce-Faster Attacks-Physical Projectile Damage.
I also use hatred on it's own and Herald of Ice with Added Cold damage.

Your character page is private - need to update privacy setting in your profile on the website.

But a few pointers from what I can see so far

- Taking the 'damage' route start is ok for levelling, but you eventually want to respec to take the life and evasion nodes. those damage nodes aren't that efficient and the one thing that the ranger start suffers from is access to life.

- You shouldn't need to grab essence sap if you have the leech nodes near duelist area.

- Split arrow isn't in a great state right now. You can play it, but other skills are stronger right now.

- It's rarely worth using the pierce gem now. Especially if you also grab the pierce cluster. A couple of pierces are plenty anyway, you rarely pierce more than that with a single projectile.

- Your tree in general isn't very efficient. You are missing some of the best clusters, while spending points on things you don't need.

Good news is - tree is nowhere near the worst I've seen, and how it is pathed out, it wouldn't take many respec points. Hopefully you have some from quests, or some unfinished quests that give respec points? Or some regret orbs? If not, you could buy some.

Really need to see your gear too though, as it's not toally clear if you are playing physical or elemental, or how much crit/dmamage you have on gear.

First of all, thank you very much for taking the time to look into my build. I appreciate it!

I have now set my character page to non-private.

I do have some regret orbs in my stash and some quests still uncompleted so I should be able to respec to an extent with no trouble. Back when I made the character I just went around collecting nodes that seemed cool with out thinking about it that much. I did that until around level 40 at which point I took a lengthy break from the game. Now that I've come back, I've tried going physical crit which is still a work in progress since my crit chance is only about 21% or so. Cold damage is my secondary damage source, but I don't know if I should try to go all phys instead and how I would accomplish that.

You also mentioned I skipped some very good clusters and took some not that are not ideal. Could i have some examples, because with my current game knowledge, I don't really know what to substitute with what?

Once more, thanks you for taking the time to help a new player!

Adding on to Carlovski has said:

For what you can do now for your tree:
-Take out 3 points off of "Essence Sap". In the "Piercing Shots" wheel take off points until you get the shortest path to the "Piercing Shots" node. Use the search bar and find Lethality on the tree, you should grab that since you want crit.
-Consider getting "primeval force", "thick skin", and "herbalism".

Some suggestions:
-As a bow user you want mirage archer support somewhere in your clear setup. You can get it from the act 1 or 6+ vendor.
-You might want to consider a barrage setup for bosses while using split arrow to clear mobs

-Since you have 30c:
At level 66 get a Lioneye's Glare. It's a decent leveling weapon near your level. They should be like 1 alc in standard. The downside to this is the low crit on the weapon but it should be a boost in damage to what you have because you haven't really taken any elemental nodes yet.


I'm not too sure about Faster attacks on your 5-link either but I'm not sure what to suggest. Possibly "physical to lightning support" if you ever do conversion.
Faster attacks on your blink arrow is also nice to have to get out of sticky situations.

Thank you for you time!

I will try my best to implement the changes you've suggested. I feel a lot more confident that I will be able to do at least some of the low tier maps once I've gone through with the changes.

Ok, bit easier now we can see your character.
Again, gear wise, some good and some bad but not the worst I've seen.

Firstly, a fairly important and fundamental concept.
Attack builds, and especially bow builds come in 3 kinds (There are also posion or bleed stacking builds, but ignore for now!)

- Pure physical.
- Elemental conversion
- Pure elemental

The first isn't done very often as it's nerly always better to convert at least some damage to elemental.
The first 2 both use a bow with as much physical damage as possible, and take physical damage nodes on the tree. They will try and get +xx physical damage added to attacks on gear when they can.
The third uses a bow with flat elemental damage on it, usually as fast as you can get along with as much flat elemental damage on gear, jewels, heralds and auras as you can.

You have got a mostly elemental damage bow, ele damage boots, rings and belt, but are trying to scale physical on the tree.

You need to to decide what kind of build you want.
Take a look at my Immobow character on https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Carlovski/characters for a very pure elemental character (I wouldn't recommend totally following it, requires some quite specific gear to get going!)

Couple of pointers on your gear

- Don't overemphasize uniques. You should expect most of your gear to be rares with a couple of defining uniques. That build I linked uses a lot of uniques but has to go hugely out of its way to compensate the loss of life and resists.

- There are some really good cheap unique bows, take a look at some of them.

- If you go with a low base crit bow, you will have to use an increased critical strikes gem in your links.

- If you are crit, run a diamond flask. Very little reason not to.

- Helm - Starkonja is a great choice.

- Rings, Bloodboil gives you very little. The rare one is ok as a levelling ring. Sort of thing I end up using till about level 70ish normally.

- Amulet, Karui ward is great for levelling, but should be looking to replace. Something with stats, life, flat damage and crit multi ideally.

- Boots, Wake of destruction are a huge damage boost early on, but by late game it's not that much and you really want more movement speed, life and resists here

- Chest, Nothing really here. You can probably get a decent corrupt 6l very cheaply in standard, or get a unique chest and a linked bow.

- Prismweave, again fantastic for levelling but needs replacing. ideally a stygian vise with life and resists (Ideally elemental damage too, but that's expensive) and a decent jewel. A leather belt, or rustic sash if going physical/conversion will be cheaper to get

- Gloves, Damage, good life and a resist. Not bad actually. You can keep these for a while.

- Quiver, Drillneck is a fine choice. I normally prefer a rare here but can't go wrong on a pierce build with drillneck.

If you are online later when I'm on I'll see if I have any decent archer gear hanging around.

Sorry I totally missed your reply Carlovski! Thank you very much for your critique.

I have been playing the character quite a bit since my last update. I kind of figured out the missmatch between my ele gear and phys build so I went and changed my build. I changed it according to a very interesting build guide I found here on the forum: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2108376

I have also changed my gear substantially to fit the build better. At this point of the playthrough I, once again, find myself facing a problem. I dropped a Tabula Rasa almost right after posting my initial cry for help and have been using it ever since.

At the time I'm writing this I have cleared one t10 map on which I used a alchemy orb. I had no trouble what so ever clearing it. Only trouble I've had with the maps so far is reflect maps, but i've learned to manage. I feel at this point my Tabula and it's lack of any stats is becoming a detriment to me. I have tried to find a 6L armour that would match with the type the build guide I'm following suggest, but had no luck finding one. The build also suggests I should get Oskarm gloves which I plan on doing. That means only my boots and rings will be free for getting res etc. Can I do handle all that with just rings and boots or should I try to get some res on the armour too? Perhaps a Queen of the Forest would fit my needs? Or is yet another unique item bad?

I recently stumbled upon a very nice prophecy which I sealed and sold for 2 exalts so I am now the proud owner of around 270 chaos. My intuition is that I should invest most of that in a body armour, but a nice set of res rings is very tempting too.

Should i perhaps try crafting some items my self to save currency? I have never done anything besides identifying items and am really confused about the crafting system in this game based on what I've seen on YouTube. If crafting the items myself makes more sense, I will try my best to learn the "abc of crafting". What should I do/invest in?

Thank you in advance.

Starting with the crafting question - it's normally always better to just buy what you want unless you either like crafting, or what you want is unavailable or overpriced.
One exception is getting a rare 6l chest. Buying a base and crafting with essences of greed is normally the best bet, and maybe you should do as a tabula upgrade.

That bow is really nice, apart from the lack of attack speed.

Is it https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2108376/page/1 that you are following?
Be aware that he is using some VERY high end gear. One of the things he recommmends, aspect of the spider is not available in standard too.

If you look towards the end of the comments you can see I luckily got a +1 arrow hyrri's demise in bestiary league!
Oskarm are a decent choice, but that build says mostly if you have low crit - your bow is actually a decent crit bow so rare gloves or maligaros (Or shapers touch if you can get enough dex) might be better.

QOTF is not a bad option if you can get your dex up, but firstly if you want move speed, get some move speed boots!
QOTF does have ok stats too, your problem will be getting a linked one or linking yourself. 270 chaos won't be enough. Stick to rares for now.
So first purchase - decent boots, then do your uber lab for a decent enchant.
Next - that right hand ring. It's garbage. Get life, resists and dexterity. If you can get on an opal ring, or one with elemental attacks even better but they will be expensive.
Then buy a cheap 6l armour, either already rolled if you spot a goot one, or just craft with essences of greed. Other option would be to go for dexterity roll (can't remember the name of the essence)

Sort your flasks out!
None of them have quality, and most aren't rolled at all. You NEED bleed removal on at least one flask, and freeze immunity is almost as important normally, but you can ignore while wearing that belt. Others less so but getting a warding flask on a long lasting flask like a stibnite is a good idea for maps with curses.
You then want an instant life flask for 'oh shit' moments - I normally put bleed removal on here.
For your diamond flask, get reduced charges used or extra charges - enough for an extra use on the flask.

You may want to just buy some of these flasks - don't see it as a waste, flasks are incredibly important in PoE.
A wise oak flask would be a good purchase if you can make your cold res highest, or ideally balance all your resistances equally (I have on my build, but it is tricky)
Dying sun is great too, but that's a long term goal (though they are much cheaper in standard)

Tree wise you are looking good. One point though, you still have +30 strength and int nodes allocated. Can't believe you need them using astramentis and that quiver?

Gameplay - You can't run reflect maps on that build. Ever. Don't even try. Either sell the map or re-roll it.
You are probably just fine clearing maps, but I imagine you might be struggling for single target?
You might want to drop point blank, the guide writer is using it because he uses barrage as a single target (like I do in my build) and does so at point blank range. With pure tornado shot you may want to keep a bit of distance.

Thank you for the insight, it really helps to know where to invest my money. I will follow your advice and try to craft a rare 6L and buy new boots and ring. I am also thinking of crafting some elemental damage to my bow. The item that Tora gives you has that option so I'm thinking of using it unless it is better to use essence instead.

I will also fix the flasks. It doesn't come naturally to me to keep them up all time so I tend to just forget their existence, hence why they still suck. I have definately noticed the huge need to stop bleeding and we be happier once that is sorted out.

My intention is to use barrage for single target damage, but I have found that between map tiers 1-10 there are a couple of bosses that I can't face tank (perhaps because of the tabula?) so I haven't done much barraging yet. When I have used it, I have simply replaced tornado shot in my tabula. The set up I have is Ice Bite-TS-GMP-Mirage-Ele Dmg-Added Cold. I have usually also replaced GMP with what ever I happen to have at hand (usually increased crit or phys damage). Is this at all effective setup?

When it comes to reflect maps, I have managed to do them somewhat effectively by aiming my shot away from the mobs so Mirage does the initial damage. After thinning the herd with one mirage shot I have been able to reliably kill the rest of the pack. I also use Yugul and a unique ring that i dropped to help battle the reflects. I can't deny though, reflect maps are a pain and I will propably re-roll them once I feel I have trained clearing them with my method enough. Might have to do one some day so I better know what to do when the time comes :D

Don't touch that bow with an essence! It will re-roll the whole thing!
I'm not sure if/what crafting slots you have open as the shaper mods are confusing, if you pop it in tora's crafting device it will tell you what slots are available.
If there is a prefix available, increased ele damage with weapons probably the best bet. If suffix then crit multiplier (Dex is another option, but multiplier almost certainly better)

If it is a free suffix, eventually I would probably try and exalt it for chance at another shaper mod.

Anti bleed you can normally be quite reactive with, though with vaal pact it will kill you pretty quickly. You should normally see the red blobs first though. But for defensive flasks in general, try and keep them up all the time. You can spam them while clearing really, you will refill quicker than you use.
For boss fights you need to maximise the usage though and not waste charges.

Trick is once you get decent damage on barrage is that you outleech any damage, or more likely kill any bosses before they have chance to kill you.
GMP is actually a good support for barrage, if you don't have extra projectiles elsewhere.
Have you tried path of building? That will give you exact values for your damage when you use various links/gear/tree combinations.

Yeah that method will work for clearing reflect maps, at that level of maps if you really have to, at least for your current damage. Once you have more damage and are running red maps, might not be enough (you could still accidentally one shot yourself potentially, and it isn't worth the risk). Plus it's slow, might as well run more maps in same time and make back the currency to re-roll the map!

That chest is decent, and has a really good evasion roll, dex and the dodge chance which stacks nicely with acrobatics - will be hard to give up, but I'd still recommend going for a high life roll, which is more important than the evasion really, and you can get a lot of life on a chest, and some resists will help your gearing. You cna probably leave for now though.

Mastercrafted life everywhere does catch up on you though, you will be missing 200 or more flat life which translates to 500-600 life. Doesn't sound that much but is often the difference between a one shot or not.
Talking of crafting, those gloves can either have a resist, some dex or attack speed on them. If you are going to replace for a unique pair, don't bother though.

Going back to one of my original points, I strongly recommend respeccing from the start damage nodes to the life ones.
62% evasion (this isn't that good, but a bonus), 12 flat life and 17% increased life is much better than 56% proj damage and 4% attack speed.
You can take the first 2 damage nodes as they are fairly efficient but the next 3 aren't.