[3.12] New Player Ranger Guide (no spoilers) / Universal Leveling / League Start / Any Ascendancy

This quest has a choice that will impact your build There are 4 outcomes and for 99% of players, there are only 2 good choices.

> Help Alira. This will give you a bit of mana regen, decent added global critical strike multiplier and +15% to all Elemental Resistances. For a new player or first character in a league, this is a really nice option. If you are planning on a crit build later, this is even better.

> Kill all bandits. 2 passive points. This might not sound like much but it is pretty huge late-game. It’s a safe choice for any build. Most build guides will recommend this option.

As long as you pick one of these 2 you will be fine. Option #1 makes life a little easier, so if you are brand new to PoE, maybe that is best for you - your choice. If you regret your choice later you can change but it does cost (20 regret orbs).

While PoE has mechanical defenses like block and evasion, armor etc the best thing that will keep you alive is to not get hit. The best way you can avoid getting hit is simply to be moving. Some skilled players can manually dodge attacks but even if you cannot, just moving will allow you to avoid a huge amount of incoming damage. Don’t standstill. Shoot, move, don’t let the mobs chew your face off.

Also, equality critical, cap your fire, cold and lightning resistances. Press “c” and click the defense tab. See where your resistances are at. Look for gear to get all three of these to as close to 75% as you can. Rings, amulet and belt are a good place to find resistances since they do not have linked sockets, they are easy to swap out when you find an upgrade. You will be fine with resistances <75% in early acts but don’t let the early Acts lead you to think resistances are not essential. As you progress the amount of elemental damage mobs do is going to be calibrated for 75% resistance and you will die, a lot, if you don’t have them capped.

Setting up your controls so they are comfortable and limit repetitive stress injuries is important. If you are a young person you may not think this is important you and you might get lucky, never have an issue but I urge you to take it seriously. I am not a young person (lol) and had few issues but I believe it is because of how I use my computer and play PoE/games. If you feel pain, numbness or discomfort try remapping your controls. Here is how I do it:

Main skill mapped to space bar. (most important)
Secondary skill mapped to the side mouse button.
Move mapped to left mouse click or a keyboard key like "W".

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/
https://poe.ninja/ - Price checking and access to player builds. Incredible resource for researching characters.
https://github.com/PathOfBuildingCommunity/PathOfBuilding/releases - Path of Building Community Fork. Amazing build creation tool.

A decent bow with some physical damage is needed for this guide. Fortunately, there is an easy way to craft it in-game with everything you need dropping commonly.

The base. The bow, white, non-magic, non-rare. Just buy the best bow the vendor in your current Act has. You probably only need 1 green socket which pretty much every bow will have. What you will need:
--> 5 x Blacksmith's Whetstones (or 1 if that is all you have)
--> A magic or rare rustic sash. If you did not find a rare (yellow) rustic sash, you can make one. Buy a white rustic sash from the vendor and use an Orb of Alchemy (alc) on it (right-click orb, left-click sash). If you do not have an alc, you can use an Orb of Transmutation to make it blue, or an Orb of Chance for a magic, rare or even a very small chance of a unique.

Use 4x Blacksmith's Whetstones on the white base (bow) to rais its quality to 20%. If you do this after it is magic or rare, it will cost more Blacksmith's Whetstones.

Now sell the 20% quality bow, 1x Blacksmith's Whetstone and your magic or rare rustic sash to a vendor. It will turn into a magic (blue) bow with an Increased Physical Damage mod! Nice.

Next, use Orb of Augmentation (not alteration!) on it to add an extra random mod. If you are lucky it will be something useful to you but honestly don't hope for much.

Finally, if you have one, use a Regal Orb on the bow to make it rare and add an additional random mod. Again the chances of getting something really good are not good at all, but that’s PoE for you, it is RNG. Take enough chances and it will sometimes pay off.

In this guide, you want 2 items with 4 linked sockets, 3 green and 1 blue and 4 green. Any armor piece can solve this for you but since you will switch out your bow frequently, don’t rely on the links in your bow and don't craft links or sockets on the bow if you can avoid it. Craft on helmets, boots, gloves or body armor.

4-linked items drop staring around Act 3-4. You can craft them with jeweler orbs and fusings but if you are new, I’d recommend sticking with recoloring 4-linked items that drop for you. If you really want to craft sockets make sure your item is item level 25+ (press the alt key to see advanced mods, enable advanced mods in the menu).

Since we want mainly green sockets, look for armor that has a requirement for dex only (best) or dex/int (ok) (str=no) requirements. The requirements weight the color outcomes, dex = green, int = blue and str = red. So an item with strength only requirements will want to roll red sockets and trying to get a 3G1B item is possible but will take a lot of Chromatic Orb!

When you have a 4-linked item with dex only or dex.int requirements use Chromatic Orbs on it till you get the colors that you want. Right-click a chromatic orb and left-click the armor. Repeat till you have the colors you want.

Examples
4 link armor with 25 Dex, 0 Int, 0 Str requirements
On average will take ~4 Chromatic Orbs (but it is RNG, could take more or less)

4 link armor with 20 Dex, 15 Int, 0 Str requirements
~14 Chromatic Orbs

4 link armor with 0 Dex, 0 Int, 20 Str requirements
~1,338 Chromatic Orbs!

Vorici Chromatic Calculator
https://siveran.github.io/calc.html

As of PoE 3.11 Ranger is not considered to be one of the stronger classes in the game. However, it is a fast and fun character to play and has an active, engaging play style. PoE has seen massive power creep over the past number of leagues and while Ranger may be down on power compared to other classes on average, it still has plenty of power.

Similarly, Scourge Arrow, has plenty of power, mob clearing potential and it has an interesting dynamic. Toxic rain is another popular bow skill that is very effective but there is only really one way to build it and personally I find it to be a very boring skill to play. For a new player, the flexibility and engagement of Scourge Arrow is a better option IMHO.

I wanted to play a Wildstrike raider but hated leveling it and gave up. I figured there must be a better way. So I set my goal to spend as few points as possible on the passive tree, so I’d have minimal respec for a different build later and use nothing more than 4 links.

I figure everyone who tries at all will end up with better gear than what I had and spec more passive points into something that benefits the build. So with my limited PoE play skills, no gear, 4 links and a minimal skill point investment in damage - if I can make that work, then it should work for anyone.

The gear I used to test was just to cap resistances, give some flat life and all-in on movement speed. Besides the movement speed, it approximates what you can find on the ground in SSF but probably worse. Except for movement speed, I wanted as much as possible because I tested character development multiple times. So, in essence, I want to see with virtually no investment and max 4-links could I finish the story and not hate it.

Mission accomplished. I leveled 6 different characters at the end of Harvest, trying this and that. You can see my final build here (For reference only, DO NOT USE THIS PoB!. It is just to prove the concept): https://pastebin.com/ZDCJaiMx

How did it do for the final Act 10 encounter? Actually not nearly as bad as I thought it would. I did die a few times but that was down to a lack of skills on my part and being too tired. I know I would have died once even at my best but scourge arrow does a good job of clearing up the area with its exploding pod AoE. Other bosses were harder and slower like the Act 9, 3 mini-bosses and the final encounter was pretty messy lol.

6.5 hours from waking up on the shore to epilogue which is as fast as I level any build. My build had a lot of movement speed so, overall I’d say this character was fairly down on power compared to a proper build. Given the challenge I set, I do not think that is too bad.

Anyone playing this build will have better gear and more passive points spec’ed into useful things, so my build here is about the worst it can get and it still worked.

This is an active build. It has some automation built-in but it will be up to you to make it work. In my opinion that makes for a satisfying playstyle.

Starting off you can use any skill you want but I recommend either split arrow or caustic arrow (See per-act guides below). Once we hit level 28, we will switch to scourge arrow. Scourge arrow is a channeled skill and the longer you hold the button down, the stronger the attack with it. That said, keep your attacks limited to a tap or 1-second channel unless you know it's safe to channel longer. Remember, keep moving, don’t standstill.
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Scourge_Arrow

Passive Tree Review
https://youtu.be/PaA7yM0SsE8

As mentioned in the defenses section, moving is the key to staying alive. Bows are perfect for this. Take a shot, move. Take a shot, move. You have to aim a bit, time it a bit but it is not hard and you get used to the rhythm quickly. In this guide, we have a defensive tool while we are taking the shot (infused channeling) and one when you move (Immortal Call bound to left mouse button). Add in some life from the passive tree, acrobatics/phase acrobatics, evasion and while we are no kind of tank, it has decent survivability.

You can self-craft your weapons and use whatever armor you find as you level. There are zero required uniques and you can craft any bow into something usable.

This build benefits from almost any kind of damage scaling or damage types. If you are spec’ing into poisons, it’s going to work fine. If you want to add elemental damage, it’s going to be good. If you add in physical, it’s going to be good. That is up to you, you can’t really go wrong and it will give you the chance to explore the passive tree and figure out what you want.

For links, we only need 2, 4-linked armor pieces. You can craft these or wait for them to drop. See the crafting section.

This is going to seem like a lot at first. During these first few Acts, there will be a lot of setting up your character. As you progress, there will be fewer changes and gradual gear upgrades and passive tree development. Don’t get overwhelmed and don’t worry about getting everything perfect, everything will work out or be fixable.

Looting. Collect any dropped currency (crafting materials) such as transmutes, orbs of alchemy and blacksmith whetstones etc. You can pick up magic (blue) or rare (yellow) items to use or sell but it's not worth hoarding them or picking up them all. At most fill up your inventory and next time you are in town sell the stuff you can’t use. Unique (orange) items can sometimes be useful but most are not and better sold to vendors to accumulate currency as well. If you find a unique that seems interesting look it up on POE Ninja to see if it is worth anything.
https://poe.ninja
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Currency

Be on the lookout for rare (yellow) rustic sashes that drop and save them. You will want a few of these. We are not going to wear them, so it doesn’t matter what stats they have, these will be used for crafting.

Look for armor with 3 linked green sockets.

Flasks. Flasks are huge in PoE. I generally keep 2 life flasks and 2 mana flask + quicksilver. Upgrade life and mana as you level. In ACT 5 you will get your first utility flasks. By the end of the story, I will have 1 life, 1 mana, 2 utility flasks and always the quicksilver.

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Act_1

Choice: When you first enter the town you pick your starting skills. Read the descriptions and see what you like. It is really down to your preference. You can always buy the others from the vendor if you want to try them.
--> (recommended) Split Arrow. Feels pretty good right out of the box and has good clear speed. Works well till you pick up your main skill later on.
--> Caustic Arrow. Nice area of effect (AoE) makes for a good overall skill and has a similar playstyle to scourge arrow.
--> Galvanic Arrow or Ice Shot. Also good skills.
--> (not recommended). Burning Arrow. This is the skill you started with and this guide won’t really help it work too well as a main skill. If you want you can keep it for boss fights where it is a helpful addition early on.

After you pick your skill, link it to pierce in your stater bow (2 green sockets, linked.
Links: Skill (G) + Pierce (G)

Passive Tree Development. Start by taking the nodes for Evasion and Life heading to Finesse. Through Heart of Oak to Ballistics Mastery and right to Aspect of the Eagle. See tree development in Act 2 for next points. (About 12 skill points spent)

Important side-quest quest choice: Tidal island
(Recommended) Quicksilver flask. Additional move speed. Use it constantly.
(recommended): Mirage Archer Support. When you hit a target with your bow attack, a “mirage” will form over your head and help you fight. This is a great support and helps in many situations providing passive damage.
Lesser poison. Adds chance to poison + chaos damage. Great source of passive damage over time. If you are 100% sure you want to spec into poison, take lesser poison and always use it in your links. This won’t be mentioned again, so just remember to skip one of the other recommended gems for this one. Also, buy Mirage Archer Support from the vendor.

Replace pierce with Mirage Archer in your starter bow.

Links: Skill (G) + Mirage Archer (G)

Quest reward choice: Added Cold Damage Support
Buy: An extra Added Cold Damage Support from the vendor

Quest reward choice: Dash. Dash is a movement skill that will improve as the gem levels. It is an instant skill so you can hold the dash button down and it will trigger when it is ready. Good for avoiding damage in fights as well.

Quest reward choice: Shrapnel Ballista. Great additional damage and pulls attention off of you.

Links: Caustic arrow (G) - Mirage Archer (G) - Added Cold Damage (G) (if you have 3 links)
Links: Shrapnel Ballista (G) - Added Cold Damage (G)
Socketed: Dash

Now you have your starter skill linked to mirage archer and possibly added cold damage if you found 3 green sockets linked armor. Shrapnel Ballista is a nice second skill that drops a turret that fights for you. Drop it as you engage a pack. At some points, it will do all the work for you or pick off strays. You can have up to 3 at a time. Combining the ballistas and mirage archer, you can spend your time avoiding damage or moving ahead in the zone. Ballistas do not last long, so you will have to refresh them in longer fights.

Sidequest reward: Siege Ballista. You can swap Shrapnel Ballista to Siege Ballista if you want. Siege Ballista has a better range and pierce but for my testing Shrapnel Ballista felt stronger. YMMV. Your choice.

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Act_2



Passive Tree Development. From Aspect of the Eagle, take the upper branch for the 2 Bow Attack Speed and Accuracy nodes to Projectile Damage. Down to Aspect of the Lynx. From Projectile Damage head right through Survivalist to the Dexterity node. Down 1 more Dexterity node and we will pick up on tree development in Act 3. (About 22 skill points spent)

Quest Reward Choice
--> (recommended) Herald of Ice. Adds some flat cold damage.
--> Herald of Agony. If you know that you will spec into poison. HoA is possibly best. You should probably look into a HoA build to see what other links to use with it as your build develops.

Quest Reward Choice
--> (recommended): Vicious Projectiles Support. More damage. More better.
--> Elemental Damage with Attacks Support. If you plan on focusing on elemental damage you might prefer this support.
Buy: Faster Attacks Support.

Links: Caustic arrow (G) - Mirage Archer (G) - Added Cold Damage (G) + Vicious Projectiles Support (if you have 4 links)
Links: Shrapnel/Siege Ballista (G) - Added Cold Damage Support (G) + Faster Attacks (G)
Socketed: Dash
Socketed: Herald of Ice (this skill toggles, so make sure you toggle it on when out of town)

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Act_3

Weapon: If you did not craft/find an upgraded bow in Act 2, this would probably be a good time to craft a new one. See the crafting section.

Passive Tree Development. You want 2 things now. More damage and more life, but which do you want first? Your choice:
If you want life, go down and left, to Herbalism first.
If you want damage first, down down and right bottom branch of Bow Damage to Master Fletcher.
Whichever order, just make sure you have both Herbalism and Master Fletcher in the end.
After that, take Acrobatics and go through to Phase Acrobatics.
(About 32 skill points spent)

Be on the lookout for armor pieces with 4 linked sockets with 3 green sockets and 1 blue. AND a second piece with 4 linked green sockets. If crafting sockets, look for good items with dex only or dex/int requirements.

Quest reward choice: Poacher's Mark. Until you have Blasphemy Support later in Act 3 and are level 31+ this gem is not that helpful. Socket it and you can manually cast it if you really want to but that’s a lot of buttons to press with limited benefit. Wait for Blasphemy.

Quest reward choice: Scourge Arrow. This is your main skill now usable at level 28. Replace your starting skill with this one. This is a channeling skill, so the longer you press the button, the stronger the release and more explosive pods it will drop. Generally, it is best used with a tap or 1-second channel.

Buy: Anger
Socket: Anger (R)
Toggle anger on, just like you do with Herald of Ice outside of town.

Side quest choice/Library: Second wind. Link Second Wind to Dash (2 green linked sockets)
Buy: Blasphemy Support (Req. level 31) & Infused channeling (B)

Reshuffle your gems a bit, so they look like this:

Links: Scourge Arrow (G) - Mirage Archer (G) - Added Cold Damage (G) + Infused channeling (B)
Links: Shrapnel/Siege Ballista (G) - Added Cold Damage Support (G) + Vicious Projectiles Support (G) Faster Attacks (G)
Links: Dash (G) - Second Wind (G)
Links: Blasphemy (B) - Poacher's Mark (G)
Socket: Anger (R)
Socket: Herald of Ice (G)

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Act_4

Weapon: From here on out, I would recommend upgrading your bow every 1 or 2 Acts. Keep an eye out for quiver upgrades as well.

Passive tree development: If you do not yet have Acrobatics through to Phase Acrobatics take those. Now your base tree is complete. Except for life, you could not take any new nodes and finish the story! Of course, you will want to take more nodes and it is really up to you what to choose. See the section on Character Development Act 4+ for some ideas

Also, sometime during Act 4 you should consider doing the first part of The Lord's Labyrinth (lab) and pick your ascendancy. The first lab is level 33 and your first time doing it you probably want to be overleveled 40+. What ascendancy should you pick? It is really up to you. See the section Character Development Act 4+ for some ideas.

Quest reward choice: Barrage support (this may be useful if you are using Siege Ballista?). None of the rewards for this quest are that helpful for us. You can try using this with your ballista but I did not prefer it.

Choice: Also during Act 4, starting at Level 31 you can use Blasphemy linked to Poacher’s Mark which is a nice defensive buff. You will have to turn Herald of Ice off to use it. If you need damage more than defense, stick with Herald Of Ice. I went with Blasphemy-Poacher’s Mark.

Defenses.


Interested in building Poison damage?


General Bow Damage and Elemental Damage


Ascendancy Choice

Quest reward choice: Stibnite flask. This will blind nearby enemies and it makes it harder for them to hit you. A very nice defensive flash. Replace one of your extra life or mana flasks with this.

Ok, congratulations you made it! Now as a reward for your success thus far, you just lost a bunch of elemental resistances! So check your elemental resistances and work on regearing to cap them at 75%. If you can’t get them to 75% see if you can survive and upgrade when you can, high-priority. Capped resistances are critical in Act 6 and beyond.

After you complete a quest in Act 6, you will have access to most of the available gems. We are going to take advantage of this and buy Immortal Call. This is a really nice Guard skill and while it is not that well suited to Rangers, it's an essentially free extra layer of defense.
Socket: Immortal Call (R)
Important: Bind your move button (usually left click) to Immortal Call (R). It will trigger automatically when you move now!

At this stage your gems and links should look like this:

Links: Scourge Arrow (G) - Mirage Archer (G) - Added Cold Damage (G) + Infused channeling (B)
Links: Shrapnel/Siege Ballista (G) - Added Cold Damage Support (G) + Vicious Projectiles Support (G) Faster Attacks (G)
Links: Dash (G) - Second Wind (G)
Links: Blasphemy (B) - Poacher's Mark (G)
Socket: Immortal Call (R)
Socket: Anger (R) or Herald of Ice (G)

Your character has what it needs to complete the story. Work on upgrading gear and especially your bow as you progress. When you are relying on items dropped you will almost always have compromises to make. Getting as much life as you can while keeping your resistances capped with gear that has the right sockets and links can be fun or frustrating depending on how you look at it. Unless you really go off the rails bad gear will just make progress slower but you should be able to keep moving forward in the story. If you are getting really stuck, reach out on the forum or https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/ in the Q&A thread.

Where to go from here?

That is the end of this guide. I wanted to help you get through the story and now it is up to you.

Don't worry, further suggestions to be added later.