How to survive legion monoliths as a ranger

Have you been frustrated by being 1-shot by legion mobs? Have you repeatedly died to off-screen spear throw or bow shot? Is the advice "git gud just dodge 4head" not working for you?

Well I found a solution that's working for me, and I'm a lazy casual so it's quite foolproof.

That answer is: Vaal Molten Shell.

This is an amazing spell that you can easily charge on trash before opening monolith and then use it for whopping 80% damage reduction while you're killing legion mobs.

When linked with "Increased Duration support" you have around 13 seconds duration which is enough for most builds to mop up any scattered legion mobs.

Downsides:
- can't use Acrobatics as it cuts armor in half
- requires 155 strength (easily fixable with good rolled "Heavy Belt" for most specs, and if you use Headhunter in that slot you're already way out of casual zone so you don't need this advice)
- if you want to stack the most armor you can't use Queen of the Forest as it requires high evasion to function
- lowers the effectiveness of Damage on Full Life support in self cast skill, as you will be hit, unless you have hefty amount of energy shield to soak it up (it's ok to use Bloodrage and Energy Leech setup)

Molten shell requires high amount of armor to function well, the quick-fix way of getting some would be crafting a "Granite Flask of Iron Skin" by alteration spam, then using the flask before popping your Molten Shell / Vaal Molten Shell.

Linking Molten Shell to "cast when damage taken" doesn't help, believe me, if you get 1 shot nothing procs until you're dead, and I was 1 shot through 7k hp (while toying with MOM build 4,5k hp 3k mana, Cloak of Defiance, MOM watcher's eye "10% of damage taken from mana before health" to buff the damage soaked by mana further) in a rank 6 map.

It's best used manually when the legion timer ticks down and you know they're ready to unleash hell.

How to get high amount of armor as a Ranger: Iron Reflexes.

Many Ranger specs already go for Point Blank, Fury Bolts, and other nodes in the vicinity. You can easily adapt most builds by dropping Acrobatics / Phase Acrobatics (5 points) and pathing to Iron Reflexes.

This doesn't disable other sources of dodge like Hyrri's Ire, Quartz Flask, incursion mod boots, Atziri Step, Perfect Form, etc.

This also doesn't disable other sources of evading attacks like blind on hit, dread banner, stibnite flask, flesh & stone, etc. unless you decide to wear Kaom's Roots or similar way of disabling evasion completely.

You can easily get 12-14k armor this way which is matching heavy armored Juggernauts. Especially since many ranger builds path to "scion life wheel" picking Sentinel on the way, and include Bravery for the life bonus, which also gives armor / evasion bonus.

And due to the evasion bonuses from ranger starting area, now "Jade Flask of Reflexes" becomes a buffed up version of formerly mentioned "Granite Flask of Iron Skin", so use that one instead. With my current setup I can hit 9-10k Molten Shell and 27-29k Vaal Molten Shell and it works wonders against predictable windows of vulnerability (like opening a legion).

Also works great against the pesky Syndicate encounters.

This is much better than Steelskin that only absorbs 2k while still requiring the same 155 strength for max level. Legion laughs at 2k, you can find many clips on reddit where Slayers / Berserkers were 1 shot through 6k hp, armor, fortify, endurance charges, basalt flask and whatnot.

You can use Molten Shell and then the Vaal version back to back, without putting Vaal Molten Shell on cooldown. Using it the other way around incurs the cooldown so you have to wait to use normal Molten Shell if you use the Vaal one first. You can see the time and absorb amount remaining in your buff bar, so you can time to use Vaal Molten Shell the moment normal one is about to drop.

If your spec is leech based it's even better because the only enemy of leech specs are 1-shots (and "cannot be leeched" map mods ofc).

A lot of popular Ranger gear is high on evasion and can easily give you heaps of armor with Iron Reflexes, examples are Hyrri's Ire, Kintsugi (I wonder how the passive works for "50% increased evasion rating", with Iron Reflexes you'll be hit all the time, but mostly for small amounts), Cherrubim's Maleficence (for caustic arrow etc.), Farrul's Fur, Starkonja's Head, Devoto's Devotion, Rat's Nest. You can also get lots of evasion on boots like Garukhan's Flight or Atziri's Step.

Crafting rare gear can be a good source too, for example I managed to get 800 armor + evasion combined on a rare helmet by crafting the "70% increased armor and evasion" mod from the bench on a hybrid armor / evasion base.

Keep in mind Soul of Garukhan won't be much good now, but you can pick Gruthkul, Shakari or Ralakesh instead.

If you want to use Timeless Jewel keystone, don't use it next to Point Blank, it will overlap on Iron Reflexes. Best spot to actually use it on now is Acrobatics if you aren't using Lioneye's Fall / claw nodes. If your build includes Lioneye's Fall, next best spot is Perfect Agony and the jewel slot next to Charisma.

Also if full evasion focused playstyle works for you, keep at it!

Unfortunately it didn't for me. I tried to google asnwers "how to survive legion" and "how to not be 1-shot" and tbh didn't come up with much, either on Reddit or here, so thought I'd share my own experiences.

The alternative was Lightning Coil build I've seen Pathfinders use on hardcore thanks to synergy with "reduced elemental damage taken" node, and "phys to elemental" damage taken conversion route, but I felt it was much more restrictive.

P.S. I would be grateful if anyone tried and knows the definite answer of expected behaviour of Queen of the Forest and Kintsugi interactions with Iron Reflexes. My expectations are Queen of the Forest won't give any movement speed and Kintsugi should give more evasion, therefore armor, but I don't have any of these items to test it out.

TL: DR version:
- Vaal Molten Shell MVP
- remove Acrobatics
- pick Iron Reflexes
- use Jade Flask of Reflexes before using Molten Shell / Vaal Molten Shell
- don't die from Legion / Syndicate anymore and enjoy the League!