From gigantic evil statues to wolf-man hybrids, no enemy is too strong for the Ranger in Path of Exile 2.
While long-ranged classes might have the advantage of being safe during combat, they usually require sharp reflexes and heavily punish players’ mistakes more than melee classes in Path of Exile 2.
Although playing a class like this may sound daunting, we’ve got you covered. This guide explains all you need to know about the best Ranger build, going through important topics such as how to play Ranger, best skills and best equipment to use.
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How to play Ranger in Path of Exile 2
In general, Ranger is the classic bow user and developer Grinding Gear Games spiced it up a little bit by giving this class a few special arrows. When playing Ranger using this build, the gameplay loop is pretty simple and it revolves around using two skills. First, Lightning Rod. You want to use it to place as many arrows as possible on the ground. Next, you want to fire Lightning Arrows at enemies close to the arrows on the ground. This will trigger a ricochet effect that will cause lots of Lightning damage to enemies and make large packs disappear after a couple of Lightning Arrows.
To make this small but effective combo work, you want to always walk while shooting Lightning Rods and try to group them. By doing so, you create a deadly area where enemies will take dozens of hits in sequence. You also want to lure enemies to where you place the rods. If you just keep walking forward, most enemies will be out of the area covered before you can hit them. When facing bosses, use the initial moments of the fight to set the rods up and burst them once they stop in the middle of the arrows.
This is the core rotation for this build. Once you have unlocked Herald of Thunder, packs of enemies will die faster since the sequence of Lightning Arrows is followed up by lightning coming from the sky. In boss fights, you want to always cast the Electrocuting Arrow to create burst windows.
Path of Exile 2 Best Ranger skills
The main skill rotation of this build involves two early abilities, making them the most important ones and top priority when it comes to upgrading skills. Lightning Rod is your starter in most cases and the main source of your damage. As mentioned, by using it and adding support skills such as Scattershot you cover the arena with electrical arrows. While enemies are damaged when they fall, most of the damage comes when you use the second ability, Lightning Arrow. The reaction between these two abilities makes them a deadly combination.
To complement your rotation, you want to unlock two other abilities. One is the Electrocuting Arrow. When you use this ability, your character performs a jump over a single enemy and shoots an arrow on them. This arrow stays on the enemy for a while and you can charge it with Lightning attacks. Eventually, the enemy is electrocuted and immobilized for a few seconds. Alongside this one, you want to use the Herald of Thunder, which you obtain by using an Uncut Spirit Gem, and hit enemies with powerful lightning when you kill shocked foes.
With our main skill rotation out of the way, we can talk about secondary and utility abilities. Both Toxic Growth and Gas Arrow are solid options to have as secondary damage sources. They inflict a damage-over-time effect on enemies, slowly reducing their lives. On the other hand, a great skill to have for emergencies is the Escape Shot, which, as the name says, should be used to jump away from enemies and it might even freeze them.
Path of Exile 2 Best Ranger passive skills
Considering that we want to shoot deadly lightning arrows at foes and make them disappear before they can get near our quite fragile bodies, it goes without saying that our priority is to look for nodes that increase damage output. Among the options in the Ranger’s passive skill tree, we can find nodes like Elemental Damage and Shock Chance and Harness the Elements near the beginning of the tree.
A little bit further into the tree, you want to look for nodes such as Shock Effect and Frazzled. Both increase the magnitude of Shock, which means that enemies take more damage from this effect. Since we want to inflict Shock as much as possible to proc a whole array of effects, it makes sense to grab these.
On a more general note, it is important to spend passive skill points on evasion and elemental resistances later in the game. As you progress in the game, regardless of how strong you are, enemies will inevitably throw a million elemental attacks at you and staying long enough to shoot your first arrows will depend on your defensive stats.
Path of Exile 2 Best Ranger weapon
When playing Ranger, you will be in trouble without a strong bow and a good quiver. Unlike other classes, Ranger’s damage output depends a lot on the synergy between these two pieces of equipment. Since we aren’t going to name specific weapons, you should focus on looking for certain attributes to make this build work.
There are a few solid bows in the game, but regardless of the type you’re using, you want to have increased Physical Damage and add Lightning Damage. These two rolls boost your overall damage which is unquestionably good for any build. In case you aren’t finding a single weapon with both attributes, give priority to Physical Damage until you lay hands on a better one. If you can find a weapon that gives Attack Speed in addition to these damage boosts, you’re set.
Now that you have a great bow to use, it’s time to find the right quiver for your deadly arrows. In general, you can prioritize the same rolls that we stipulated for the bow. More Physical Damage and Lightning Damage is not a bad idea. You may want to have a quiver with some utility like gain Life per enemy killed or boost different stats with rolls like increased Projectile Speed.
Path of Exile 2 Best Ranger armor
The swift Ranger, while fighting from a safe place, must be carrying light armor to escape from danger when it reaches them. Evasion is the type of defense you want to focus on for this build, but it is not a problem if you have a little bit of armor and energy shield. Depending on what you need, you might have to invest passive points or wear pieces of equipment that increase Strength or Intelligence.
When it comes to rolls, your gear set is an extension of your weapon. Physical Damage and Lightning Damage are top priority, but, since we are talking about armor, you definitely want to have these two rolls followed by another extremely important bonus: Maximum Life. All classes in Path of Exile 2 benefit from having a larger pool of HP to keep them alive long enough to use their skills.
Later in the game, survivability becomes an important topic to be worried about. Besides having gear that increases your life, you want to have Elemental Resistances in them as well. It becomes more common than you expect to be surrounded by enemies shooting poisonous arrows, floating ice orbs, and fireball at you. So you need to pump all elemental resistances. Another attribute that affects your chances of surviving is increased Movement Speed. Being fast enough to escape from mechanics is key to staying alive.
Path of Exile 2 Best Ranger accessories
In Path of Exile 2, a ring or amulet with the right rolls might turn you into a god. The chances of finding them are, however, low. But we can still run common ones as long as they offer good bonuses for our build. While you don’t have the best-in-slot version of any of the accessories, consider having more than one copy in your stash to change them as you see fit.
Like with other pieces of equipment, you want to run rings and amulets that increase Maximum Life and Elemental Resistances. These are basic defensive rolls that you won’t regret investing in. As you go through the game, you may want to add to this list items with the Mana Regeneration bonus. Ranger is heavily focused on quickly casting multiple skills to keep high damage output, which might dry your Mana pool if have no means to recover it in addition to your flask.
Talking about flasks, you want to have a belt with bonuses that increase the overall healing and that recover charges over time. Range is quite squishy which means that it doesn’t take much to see half your life disappearing when surrounded by enemies. A quick and potent healing helps get you back on your feet. And since some fights last longer than we all wanted, your flasks refilling during the encounter might be what you need to finally beat a boss.
Good luck playing as a Ranger in Path of Exile 2!
