A lightning ranger build (suggestions needed)

I always wanted to make some sort of lightning ranger build, so I got to think about it and wanted to see if you can help with that. What do YOU think would be most effective lightning-based shooter build and if you could also suggest some equipment you think could work the best with it -- that would be awesome!

Some things I have in mind are:
-

Strafe/multishot Bowazon with some sort of lightning dmg bow
-

Burst of Speed Sin with ofc lightning bow
-

Lightning Mastery Sorc also with lightning bow
-

Holy Shock or

Conviction Pala ranger (HS +

Windforce?)

-Dream helm,

Griffon's Eye (I would assume that Dream is still better),

Thundergod's Vigor, upped socketed

Skystrike, upped socketed

Langer Briser,

Hellrack (not really pure lightning), Harmony, Wrath,

Ormus' Robes,

Tal Rasha's Adjudication,

Highlord's Wrath, 2 Tancred's items (boots+body?),

Hwanin's Blessing, 2 Milabrega's items (body+helm => does that work for partial set bonus?),

The Stone of Jordan
-Lightning dmg charms and Sunder
-Lightning dmg jewels and facets (armor + helm fully faceted?)

Now what combos would be good I have absolutely 0 clue. Any suggestions? How would you build it by avoid using any other offensive skill (well except auras)?

I'll be honest, I doubt you will not be able to play in hell with your build.

Helmet : Dream
Chest : Duress to add some real damage without the physical damage being increased.
Gloves : you need IAS so 2/20
Weapon : You have to focus the fastest bow to counter low lightning damage. So forget crossbows.

Rest in IAS, lightning damage and FRW.

Please forget Milabrega lol

Lightning facets do affect

Holy Shock aura gained from items, correct? But I'm assuming not much since no synergies...?

RBF will help.

You will many MANY lightning damage small charms.

Tornado_OLO wrote: 1 week ago

RBF will help.

You will many MANY lightning damage small charms.

Thanks! Welp...time to collect lightning damage SCs then I guess

Technically Javazon is a lightning ranged build.

If a thrown weapon, like

Warshrike, is okay, you can experiment with dual Dream, synergized by

Resist Lightning and

Salvation (Paladin) or

Lightning Mastery (Sorceress). The latter could even synergize the Warshrike's

Nova proc.
If you are okay with legacy D2 (not D2R), Project Diablo 2 has just added a new endgame lightning bow:


gameplay

Trang Oul wrote: 6 days ago

Technically Javazon is a lightning ranged build.

If a thrown weapon, like

Warshrike, is okay, you can experiment with dual Dream, synergized by

Resist Lightning and

Salvation (Paladin) or

Lightning Mastery (Sorceress). The latter could even synergize the Warshrike's

Nova proc.

If you are okay with legacy D2 (not D2R), Project Diablo 2 has just added a new endgame lightning bow:


gameplay

Lol that bow is such a cheat. Im not a fan of Project D2 because it has many of these unbalanced things in it. A lot of good too, but just the unbalanced stuff kicked the fun out of it imo. Prefer normal d2 over it but fun change from time to time.

Trang Oul wrote: 6 days ago

Technically Javazon is a lightning ranged build.

If a thrown weapon, like

Warshrike, is okay, you can experiment with dual Dream, synergized by

Resist Lightning and

Salvation (Paladin) or

Lightning Mastery (Sorceress). The latter could even synergize the Warshrike's

Nova proc.

If you are okay with legacy D2 (not D2R), Project Diablo 2 has just added a new endgame lightning bow:


gameplay

Tbch I watched a lot of Project D2, never pulled me in as something I would play myself... But yeah, there are some ridiculous things as @Semirotta stated. Not only for those reasons, PD2 seems waaay to complicated but even that is not repulsive it's just the thing that in D2/D2R lightning ranged doesn't really exist so I wanted to see if I can make it work somehow.

Yeah you could say that Javazon is lightning ranged build but I'm part of that group that's disappointed they didn't put an actual lightning bow/cbow skills along side fire/cold ones. And about

Warshrike, I was indeed thinking of something like that as well... To go even further I was thinking of something like that on a Barb (to go even more off off-meta) but I guess since you would use only 1 weapon then Pala also works + you can bump those synergies! I need to really think about what I actually want to do. Maybe I'll just take 1 build, go thru entire game normally see how it works if it doesn't feel good -- delete it and then try next one, then if needed next one etc.

Maybe I do all of those experimenting on the offline tho because there I can really go bonkers with all the different runewords and when I find that 1 build that might actually work I'll know what exact things I need to get/make and then work on that.

Small charms can have 2-99 lightning damage. If you fill your inventory with those, any other sources of regular lightning damage becomes irrelevant.

What boost this light damage:

Lightning Mastery,

Conviction, IAS, facets, and

Pierce.

I'd probably go with sorc, maxed light mastery, 5x facetted

Chu-Ko-Nu, Infinity Merc, razor tail as

Belt, 20 IAS gloves, Wisdom helmet (more

Pierce), 4x facets in armor.

That will put you at around 1-16K light damage every 11 frames with 66%

Pierce and sundered enemies down to 33 light res.

You can also run

Energy Shield, max

Static Field, and use

Enchant to boost your attack rating.

It won't be too much fun since you hit targets one by one but the damage will be decent decent.

Alternatively, you can go with a

Strafe/multi-shot ama with similar equipment. Replace Wisdom with

Griffon's Eye.

I think the Bowadin would be the weakest of the 3 builds.

And a completly different idea: Necro with summons and maxed

Lower Resist.

vued wrote: 6 days ago

Small charms can have 2-99 lightning damage. If you fill your inventory with those, any other sources of regular lightning damage becomes irrelevant.

What boost this light damage:

Lightning Mastery,

Conviction, IAS, facets, and

Pierce.

I'd probably go with sorc, maxed light mastery, 5x facetted

Chu-Ko-Nu, Infinity Merc, razor tail as

Belt, 20 IAS gloves, Wisdom helmet (more

Pierce), 4x facets in armor.

That will put you at around 1-16K light damage every 11 frames with 66%

Pierce and sundered enemies down to 33 light res.

You can also run

Energy Shield, max

Static Field, and use

Enchant to boost your attack rating.

It won't be too much fun since you hit targets one by one but the damage will be decent decent.

Alternatively, you can go with a

Strafe/multi-shot ama with similar equipment. Replace Wisdom with

Griffon's Eye.

I think the Bowadin would be the weakest of the 3 builds.

And a completly different idea: Necro with summons and maxed

Lower Resist.

Those are some great inputs! Thanks a lot for your suggestions!

Semirotta wrote: 6 days ago

Lol that bow is such a cheat. Im not a fan of Project D2 because it has many of these unbalanced things in it.

Why? You need to max

Lightning Fury synergies and

Strafe, and both the proc rate and skills' levels are rather low (compared to a dedicated Javazon build). It's definitely not another Mosaic (speaking of unbalanced things...).

The ranger term is usually used for paladin + bow. Max

Holy Shock, it's synergy, and go to town. To beat hell difficulty though you probably need Faith bow I think.

Widowmaker might be ok against non-li. The other ideas you have maybe could work IDK but the lightning damage part will be minor at least later in the game.

Skystrike is a decent early game bow for leveling. Sorc with a bunch of lightning charms might work idk but would be hard to aquire enough good ones.

I started a lightning ranger / pally and got him through a1 but got sidetracked. I used

Zeal as backup since I didn't have enough leech to survive some areas and needed a shield. Maybe I could try him as a lightning throw pallyzon to stay true to the idea. It's a fun challenge build at least.

Dual Dream pally with a thrown weapon is pretty good damage, but I found that you don't regenerate your weapon fast enough to be very effective

If you want strictly bows, then I agree with above^. Single Dream does very little damage at lvl 15. With native

Holy Shock you can get to lvl 35+ AND wear griffon's, which is real damage. Your pulse damage won't be as strong as dual Dream, but at least it won't be useless like single Dream

Speaking of mods, there is a really good sorc bow build that procs

Chain Lightning in BTdiablo, if you are interested