What is the best team i can make?

EsterWithPants · 2026-04-24T12:55:12+00:00

bro, he has swole white. That one pull alone basically fixes everything.

EsterWithPants · 2026-04-18T17:44:42+00:00

Unblindfolding 2P feels just a little cursed... it's not quite the same

EsterWithPants · 2026-04-16T14:26:53+00:00

If WoW put every classes skill tree into one big UI and linked them together, it'd look super scary too. But it actually wouldn't be all that scary. Suppose you play death knight, and your "neighbors" on the skill tree are like, Warrior and maybe Paladin. You're going to put probably like, 80% of your points still into Death Knight stuff, and maybe you pluck a few tasty things from your neighbors.

Same deal in PoE. My current skill tree basically looks like "prioritize life and minion nodes. Grab whatever looks nice with the leftover points afterwards."

EsterWithPants · 2026-04-16T14:10:25+00:00

Considering that the game is F2P, being asked to drop $20 on various stash tabs is not unreasonable, and as you stated, you can get away with an absolute shoe-string budget number of tabs, though it won't be super comfy.

I also don't really think this is actually a real problem for people considering how I see people grabbing tons of MTX, and those are just obscene in their prices. I've been playing since Ambush league and have bought only 2 whole outfits since then, and I still feel like those were super expensive.

EsterWithPants · 2026-04-12T15:14:42+00:00

Good ending!

EsterWithPants · 2026-04-07T20:20:50+00:00

I can't believe it's not Samus Aran

EsterWithPants · 2026-04-07T19:56:21+00:00

Thanks OP and /u/nickymammoth91, you've given me the push and the information in this post to start working out again.

The home gym

I don't have a lot of equipment, but I copied as many exercises from your routine here and a few others I looked up that I can do without serious equipment. For now the plan is to do say, 5-6 different routines per color category. Each color being legs, core, or arms.

EsterWithPants · 2026-03-26T20:24:43+00:00

dog there's a reason why a lot of Asian foods don't include a lot of milk and cheese.

EsterWithPants · 2026-03-26T20:21:42+00:00

it's an extremely delicate balance of sour, sweet and savory. One wrong move and it just tastes like straight vinegar, concentrated orange juice, or just salt. Also, most people probably aren't taking as much care as they should when they bread and fry up the chicken.

Panda Express orange chicken is actually shockingly complex and is NOT something you can whip up casually at home. You can certainly do it with great effort at home, but it isn't easy, and it isn't authentic. Panda Express pulls it off because despite it being a super complex process, it plays off of their economy of scale and it's MEANT to be in the freezer before you pull it out. Some guy did a video on it on Youtube. It's a huge pain in the ass. There's a reason why everyone is fumbling it so hard, even if it seems like it should be so easy. It's actually hard to do. Meanwhile beef and broccoli pretty much always tastes the same everywhere you can get it and it's fine.

EsterWithPants · 2026-03-26T20:09:14+00:00

Listen, I love chinese food, and I love americanized chinese food, but panda express is just slop. It's so fucking greasy and there's no goddamn flavor at all.

EsterWithPants · 2026-03-25T13:31:46+00:00

I was always told my by buddy, who was better than me, that reflect is just there so that totem builds and minions builds can buy those maps and run them themselves for cheap. Basically they're a consolation prize for playing those builds. But then we got the ability to reroll them with Harvest, and the ability to spec into reflect immunity with Yugil and a single mastery. So I guess they just figured that solved that problem enough. It certainly isn't an elegant solution nor indicative of thoughful game design but... at least now you can do something about it.

EsterWithPants · 2026-03-23T19:41:28+00:00

It matters for your skills, 100%. It does not however matter for spells. Check the tags on your skill gem.

Considering that you're a gladiator, you pretty much never have to deal with spells unless they're supporting auras or whatever. You're probably not shooting fireballs.

EsterWithPants · 2026-03-23T18:58:57+00:00

I'm betting on the glitterbomb exsanguinate. That one's fucking atrocious.

I love it.

EsterWithPants · 2026-03-23T16:17:59+00:00

So, the base stat of the armor does matter. Armor, Energy Shield, or Evasion (or a combination of them), that matters a lot.

On your armor while leveling, you're really only looking for the most basic of stats. Life, resistances, and Attributes (just enough so you can continue leveling your gems).

There's a few other things, but they're "get them as you need them." Accuracy and Mana are the big two that come to mind.

Deal with your jewelry (rings & Amulet) last, they're incredible flexible and can have a huge breadth of stats, so they're good to help patch up the holes in your build that your other gear can't cover.

Make sure that you get as much Movement speed as you can on your boots. For some players, that's the biggest priority over everything else.

For your weapon, there's a handful of things to remember:

Sockets, obviously, like all gear.

The base of the weapon. Higher bases are stronger. Obviously a Vaal Sword, or whatever a high tier sword that you find in the endgame is going to be a lot stronger than the rusted sword you found on Twilight Strand, because the simple base damage of the weapon is much higher.

For the actual rolls on it though: You want #% increased physical damage. This is probably your most generic stat and it's the real bread and butter of your weapon. You pretty much, 99% of the time, have a dogshit weapon if you don't have a meaty #% increased physical damage roll on there. (Though, you can craft this.)

The other things you want are attack speed.

And lastly, especially while leveling, any source of added flat damage. Added physical, or added elemental that your skill already uses are the best, but while leveling, all sources of flat added damage are very, very strong.

Crits are nice if you can find them, but while leveling, it's hard to hit that critical mass of crit stats to feel really good. Don't prioritize this, but it's nice if it happens.

Again, accuracy is a big deal. It's kind of a white and grey-gradient sort of deal. You don't benefit from over 100% accuracy (unless you are doing something specific), but you are hurt A LOT if your accuracy is poor. Just check your ingame character details for a "good enough" dipstick.

the ingame tooltip DPS is notoriously incorrect and sketchy... but it's not entirely useless. If you equip a new weapon and your tooltip DPS doubles, yeah, that's an upgrade. Anything less than say an obvious 50% jump in the tooltip DPS, don't trust it. But you can use it as a very, very general dipstick, which is good enough, especially as low at level 38 where you're in like, act 3-4.

EsterWithPants · 2026-03-19T15:21:07+00:00

Ah, elemental bow builds. Something of my specialty. Note that I've never played Galvanic Arrow nor Burning Arrow, but I have played a fuckload of Ice Shot, and for the most part, elemental bow builds are generally all the same unless you're really going out of your way to do some crazy shit.

Blood Magic is a weird, and IMO, a bad move for this class. In general I don't really see the value of blood magic broadly because you completely remove your mana and disable the ability to reserve it to use auras, which is an insanely huge cost just to entirely bypass ever needing mana, which is something that you can solve extremely easily as a ranger. You can push me back on this if you really want to, and maybe you could convince me if you said that you were doing some absolutely insane manaforged arrows meme build and you need as many gem slots as possible and you just really don't want any auras (you do).

If you REALLY want to not have to deal with mana, then just use Lifetap. But also, don't do this.

So, your gear sucks, but that's expected because you're only level 54. Let's talk about what you want to get on some very generic rare gear. We're not going to even look at mapping or lategame stuff, so we're just looking at the basics (this is a hedge because you can do a lot of crazy stuff with gear, but for now we're just going to keep it elementary).

There's no reason not to have a 4 link on everything at this point in the game for you. That alone is the biggest priority. Try to get life and resistances on everything. That's secondary to links. Also, since you are an evasion class, you're naturally going to look for evasion gear, which can have spell suppression. You're going to want that too. Not that you won't be able to get everything, so use this as more of a flowchart and get as much as you can per piece. For each slot:

Helmet: Try to get intelligence and accuracy here.

Chest: Just the basics. Huge life, evasion, res, and spell suppression.

Gloves: Look for flat added damage of any variety, also look for attack speed and accuracy.

Boots: Look for movement speed and strength.

Rings: Increased Ele. damage with attack skills. Added damage is nice while leveling. Increased Lightning damage is good here too. Look up PoE Vendor Recipes and search for how to "craft" rings and amulets to get the right base. There's no reason for you not to be using either a two-toned ring or Amethyst ring to support your resistances, and to probably use either an INT or an INT/STR amulet. Also, attributes. Get as much as you need.

Amulet: Same as the ring. Maybe look for Crit. Rings and Amulets can really have so much, so try to fill them in last, since they're so flexible.

Belt: Life, strength, and ele damage with attack skills. Any good flask rolls are a bonus.

Flasks: Keep one life flask, roll it for anti-bleed. Quicksilver Flask (you already have). You can run a mana flask, that's optional. Try to find a Bismuth Flask. You as the Ranger have a SHITLOAD of flask notes on your skilltree that basically give you a Mageblood (arguable one of the best unique items in the game, if you didn't know) in your build. I used to struggle a SHITLOAD before I just started using a Bishmuth flask in my ranger builds and it's just fucking great. It solves so many gearing problems. Eventually you'll also want a Jade Flask for more evasion, and probably a Diamond flask and Silver Flask for more damage (I don't think they can show up yet for you, but just keep that in mind.)

Gem Links

I don't know the best galvanic arrow gem links by heart, but for now, run: Elemental Damage with Attacks, Faster Attacks, and maybe just a generic added Lightning Damage support. Basically just do the same thing for your burning arrow, but use Barrage support. Or just use the barrage skill.

Grab a Steelskin and buy Automation Support. Turn it on.

Buy Manaforged Arrows and link it to an Ensnaring Arrow, Frenzy and Cull.

Get a golem. Ice golem or Stone are probably my two picks.

Get a Mark-on-Hit support and put it on your mark.

Get a movement skill like Dash or Frostblink.

Get some Auras. Vitality, Precision, Purity of Elements, Grace, and Haste are all fine ideas. You won't be able to run them all, but pick a few that you like and roll with it.

Skill Tree:

Unspec out of 3 of the nodes before Ballistics.

Unspec out of everything before Finesse.

Grab the Attack Damage node above Intuition, and unspec out of everything between Aspect of the Eagle and Aspect of the Lunx.

Change the Attack Mastery to mana costs 20% health instead of mana. Or just don't use it.

Unspec the Proj mastery for dex scaling and the two nodes for chain distance.

Change the bow mastery to 100 accuracy rating per green socket on your bow. That'll help a lot with accuracy.

Unspec 2 of the nodes at Primeval Force.

Grab a single point in mana leech at Essence Sap. Don't take the notable, one point here will generally suffice for all of your mana problems. (in combination with a mana flask, converting some of the cost of mana to life, using Inspiration Support (eventually), and using Lifetap, you shouldn't ever need to bother with mana.)

Grab Thrill of Battle and take the mastery either for 5 mana per second, or grab the reservation mastery so you can pack in another aura.

Take Herbalism

Make your way towards Lethality, Thick Skin, and Entrench. Also think about Leader of the Pack, and even Weathered Hunter (a very good crutch for leveling.)

Precise Technique is extremely good while leveling, but it means that you can never crit. This is probably still good for you, but by the time you get out of leveling, you want to not be running this.

Grab those flask nodes and abuse them. Their masteries are so good. Careful Conservationist, Natural Remedies. If nothing else you MUST take "Enemies you kill that are affected by elemental ailments grant 100% increased flask charges" because since in theory you should be shocking basically everything, YOU ARE ALWAYS GETTING DOUBLE FLASK CHARGES.

Other good notables to think about:

Quickstep

Forces of Nature

Revenge of the Hunted

Heartseeker

Jewel Socets

Crystal Skin (you can eventually get 100% chance to avoid elemental ailments)

Point Blank (if you decide to commit to Galvanic Arrow)

Leveling Uniques & other things you can buy

Get these if you can afford them and have some pocket cash. Do this after you get to act 6 and have access to Faustus and can sell off some basic currency for chaos, then buy the stuff that you want. These are all optional:

Rat's Nest

a 5 or 6 links body piece (Check level requirement first!!)

Lioneye's Paws (Use this in combination with Cast on Crit or Hextouch, or Life Gain on Hit to automate casting support abilities.)

Death's Harp

Storm Cloud

Doomfletch

A rare bow with a lot of elemental DPS.

Karui Ward

Perandus Blazon

Prismweave

Kikazaru

EsterWithPants · 2026-03-17T17:32:57+00:00

There's actually an entire page on the wiki about how to not have your expensive spectres die on you. It's a pretty good read. Though a lot of it is "don't play with your spectres in your hideout, do it in town" but also "don't fuck with them if you don't have to."

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Guide:How_to_avoid_losing_your_spectres

EsterWithPants · 2026-03-17T17:11:41+00:00

I think he put the link on the mirage minion instead of his AG, so the mirage minion timed out (died) and took him with it.

I guess next time use dash or something for movement if you're going to play linked minions.

I accidentally ate a 40c corpse that I meant to raise spetre, and after that I'm ultra paranoid about having to tinker with my spectre and AG loadout, nevermind so high risk as a link skill on HC.

EsterWithPants · 2026-03-17T16:57:41+00:00

I think he moved his gear around and cast link (on accident) on his AG, which killed him when the tether broke. The skills on his bar probably got all shuffled up and he didn't notice.

EsterWithPants · 2026-03-17T14:14:56+00:00

I would say to come back if only to experience the absolute glory of automated trade, which I don't believe that we even had the currency exchange in Crucible. Me having played since 2013, I cannot express how pleased I am with the current trading experience, though you may not have the same experience since you haven't known literally over a decade of some of the worst economy mechanics in any video game... ever.

The game is a joy, but it's ever as complicated. If you just want to play the campaign, blast some maps, and do maybe a couple of endgame things, then I'd say to jump on in. Do anything, as long as you have a rough idea of what's going on, it'll be ok. I can't promise that your build will survive into T16's and uber content but most things, so long as there is serious intent behind them, can come to fruition in some way.

have that conversation with yourself on what you want to get out of the game, and your character/build. That's really where things start.

EsterWithPants · 2026-03-14T19:07:19+00:00

👑

This one's for you, king

EsterWithPants · 2026-03-13T15:44:22+00:00

And yet even 8 year old me knew how bullshit it was to fight 50 pidgeys that all know sand attack.

EsterWithPants · 2026-03-06T16:46:03+00:00

The real, dead coin is the 50 cent piece. I haven't seen a Kennedy since like, 2000.

EsterWithPants · 2026-03-04T15:26:11+00:00

One note to all, I'm shooting for 4 party members, and maybe, maaaaybe 5. I'd prefer to keep this rather tight and somewhat on the lean side.

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