Ranger or Monk for SSF?

[Max Doge]

Thinking of playing either a Monk or Ranger in SSF league, which one do you guys think would be less gear dependant to try my own budget build?

And which one do people feel has more fun variety?

Only played Merc so far.

[Elgareth]

Purely based around my experience with an SSF monk, I'd say go ranger x-D
Since ranged classes are inherently easier to play, they have a bigger threshold for suboptimal gear.
Monk is playable just fine after you got Ice Strike/Tempest Flurry, but there are some mobs that quickly destroy you and are a mess to kill (those poison spitting zombies with snakes in Act 3 for example).
Rangers just seem to be very strong all around.

[Operation40]

both, because you're far more likely to get drops for other classes than what you're playing currently.

[Rogue]

Have twink gear? If from scratch, ranger is a better choice.

[RedShirt]

Both are very strong later on, but ranger is a lot easier in the beginning. That only means the first 2 acts though, after that most builds come together and you blast through cruel like its nothing.

[HunApo]

Have 94 monk and 95 deadeye.
Leveled deadeye first.
Going through campaign at launch was a breeze, the skills and evasion carried me through with supertrash random gear i found.
Once you hit maps, you start to realize something is off and by the time you hit T11 maps you either have enough evasion to hit 70% with Acrobatics penalty or you are dead constantly.

I sank probably 5-6 times the money into my deadeye and she is nowhere near to my monk.
Deadeye is fastest map clearer and if you have the budget/gear an insane bosser as well, but that budget starts at 100+ divine on trade, not SSF

Monk needs 10 div and basically can do everything, while being unkillable.
The only place i would pick my deadeye over my monk is the Arbiter, because he doesnt have enough time to burst it down to at least half health to avoid the basically guaranteed instaloss if you dont skip phase 1.

[Rogue]

SSF.... means no div or whatever trade for items. So using trade related builds to gauge is bad.

If you copy pasta from meta builds and trade for the needed pieces, obviously...

[Max Doge]

Originally posted by Rogue:

Have twink gear? If from scratch, ranger is a better choice.

No, my mercs were on Standard league and was planning to enjoy the SSF side of things from scratch.

Tried a lot of co-op but did not really enjoy much of it towards the endgame, game seems to have a lot of anti co-op mechanics but that's another topic.

[Drifter]

They are both amazing choices for SSF. They are very easy to gear and are very powerful. It all comes down to what you prefer, ranged or melee? Both have incredibly clear and single target.

I am playing a monk on SSF atm and I am not regretting my choice at all. I am dumpstering all the content: T15s, pinnacle, etc.

Originally posted by Elgareth:

Purely based around my experience with an SSF monk, I'd say go ranger x-D
Since ranged classes are inherently easier to play, they have a bigger threshold for suboptimal gear.
Monk is playable just fine after you got Ice Strike/Tempest Flurry, but there are some mobs that quickly destroy you and are a mess to kill (those poison spitting zombies with snakes in Act 3 for example).
Rangers just seem to be very strong all around.

You need the herald of ice + thunder combo or the ring. Once you have those online, you kill the entire screen. Any mobs that remain, your ice strike dashes to. Monk does not have any issues with any mobs whatsoever.

[HunApo]

Originally posted by Rogue:

SSF.... means no div or whatever trade for items. So using trade related builds to gauge is bad.

If you copy pasta from meta builds and trade for the needed pieces, obviously...

SSF or not, the vast majority plays trade league and that is a good indicator how much you need to sink into a character to get strong.

For a deadeye to be broken strong, you need good weapon, good quiver, good evasion gear, good jewelry.
And im not talking about random trash, but the 1 in a million kind of gear for each slot.

For monk, the only thing that matters is a very strong bodyarmour, to have infinite spirit to have all the spiritgems acitve and thats is all.
You can slowly build it up and still be powerful enough to deal damage and take the hits.

Deadeye will die left and right and lack damage until your gear clicks together and you hit a point where you kill everything off-screen.

[Max Doge]

Originally posted by HunApo:

Have 94 monk and 95 deadeye.
Leveled deadeye first.
Going through campaign at launch was a breeze, the skills and evasion carried me through with supertrash random gear i found.
Once you hit maps, you start to realize something is off and by the time you hit T11 maps you either have enough evasion to hit 70% with Acrobatics penalty or you are dead constantly.

I sank probably 5-6 times the money into my deadeye and she is nowhere near to my monk.
Deadeye is fastest map clearer and if you have the budget/gear an insane bosser as well, but that budget starts at 100+ divine on trade, not SSF

Monk needs 10 div and basically can do everything, while being unkillable.
The only place i would pick my deadeye over my monk is the Arbiter, because he doesnt have enough time to burst it down to at least half health to avoid the basically guaranteed instaloss if you dont skip phase 1.

Yeah, you kinda forgot I was asking from an SSF perspective.

Regarding meta builds I don't mind using them for a bit of inspiration but no real plans to follow everything to the letter without understanding the build concept and stuff.

My own WH lightning build seems to be clearing T10+ very comfortably at lvl 80 and melts bosses with self imposed SSF on Standard league.

[Max Doge]

Btw which class would you guys say is more APM intensive?

I guess that's a big factor for me as well.

Only used WASD on Merc, love it.

[Drifter]

Originally posted by HunApo:

Originally posted by Rogue:

SSF.... means no div or whatever trade for items. So using trade related builds to gauge is bad.

If you copy pasta from meta builds and trade for the needed pieces, obviously...

SSF or not, the vast majority plays trade league and that is a good indicator how much you need to sink into a character to get strong.

For a deadeye to be broken strong, you need good weapon, good quiver, good evasion gear, good jewelry.
And im not talking about random trash, but the 1 in a million kind of gear for each slot.

For monk, the only thing that matters is a very strong bodyarmour, to have infinite spirit to have all the spiritgems acitve and thats is all.
You can slowly build it up and still be powerful enough to deal damage and take the hits.

Deadeye will die left and right and lack damage until your gear clicks together and you hit a point where you kill everything off-screen.

Plenty of people play deadeye in SSF HC, so what you are saying is not true. There are a lot on the higher rankings, so those people played from scratch with little to no gear.

[HunApo]

Originally posted by Wulfmax:

Originally posted by HunApo:

Have 94 monk and 95 deadeye.
Leveled deadeye first.
Going through campaign at launch was a breeze, the skills and evasion carried me through with supertrash random gear i found.
Once you hit maps, you start to realize something is off and by the time you hit T11 maps you either have enough evasion to hit 70% with Acrobatics penalty or you are dead constantly.

I sank probably 5-6 times the money into my deadeye and she is nowhere near to my monk.
Deadeye is fastest map clearer and if you have the budget/gear an insane bosser as well, but that budget starts at 100+ divine on trade, not SSF

Monk needs 10 div and basically can do everything, while being unkillable.
The only place i would pick my deadeye over my monk is the Arbiter, because he doesnt have enough time to burst it down to at least half health to avoid the basically guaranteed instaloss if you dont skip phase 1.

Yeah, you kinda forgot I was asking from an SSF perspective.

Regarding meta builds I don't mind using them for a bit of inspiration but no real plans to follow everything to the letter without understanding the build concept and stuff.

My own WH lightning build seems to be clearing T10+ very comfortably at lvl 80 and melts bosses with self imposed SSF on Standard league.

Again, T10 is nothing, that is where the tutorial part ends.
Go to a fully juiced T15, T16 and let me know how many times you die to oneshots with WH.
Or how well you handle difficulty 4 pinnacle bosses.

The reason monk is superstrong because he has layers upon layers of def, while having insane dmg output (way more broken than the spark stormweavers)

Ranger needs gear not to stay alive, but to kill everything offscreen or be 1 shotted by any random white mob.
And my ranger has 2600+ HP, with capped all res and 75% evasion with acrobatics.

Monk has almost 10k ES and better general dps while being CI, with 80% evasion and 75% phys reduction.

[HunApo]

Originally posted by Drifter:

Originally posted by HunApo:

SSF or not, the vast majority plays trade league and that is a good indicator how much you need to sink into a character to get strong.

For a deadeye to be broken strong, you need good weapon, good quiver, good evasion gear, good jewelry.
And im not talking about random trash, but the 1 in a million kind of gear for each slot.

For monk, the only thing that matters is a very strong bodyarmour, to have infinite spirit to have all the spiritgems acitve and thats is all.
You can slowly build it up and still be powerful enough to deal damage and take the hits.

Deadeye will die left and right and lack damage until your gear clicks together and you hit a point where you kill everything off-screen.

Plenty of people play deadeye in SSF HC, so what you are saying is not true. There are a lot on the higher rankings, so those people played from scratch with little to no gear.

Go check how many deadeye is there in HCSSF and how many infernalist/invoker/bloodmage.
And even those deadeyes are doing ES builds...

Then compare it with SC ladder.

Hint, deadeye is not even top 3 in any of those, because it is a glass cannon.
It has probably the best scaling, but only at superhigh investment (taliing about multiple mirror level of gear)

[Max Doge]

Originally posted by HunApo:

Originally posted by Wulfmax:

Yeah, you kinda forgot I was asking from an SSF perspective.

Regarding meta builds I don't mind using them for a bit of inspiration but no real plans to follow everything to the letter without understanding the build concept and stuff.

My own WH lightning build seems to be clearing T10+ very comfortably at lvl 80 and melts bosses with self imposed SSF on Standard league.

Again, T10 is nothing, that is where the tutorial part ends.
Go to a fully juiced T15, T16 and let me know how many times you die to oneshots with WH.
Or how well you handle difficulty 4 pinnacle bosses.

The reason monk is superstrong because he has layers upon layers of def, while having insane dmg output (way more broken than the spark stormweavers)

Ranger needs gear not to stay alive, but to kill everything offscreen or be 1 shotted by any random white mob.
And my ranger has 2600+ HP, with capped all res and 75% evasion with acrobatics.

Monk has almost 10k ES and better general dps while being CI, with 80% evasion and 75% phys reduction.

Didn't realize T15 was so different, think I've done several maps of T12 which seems fine with maxed res + chaos and virtually zero armor or evasion.

Thinking back now it's been a while since I played a melee class, going back to D4 and D3 previously. So maybe the Monk would really be like a new experience, while Ranger would be more of the same, just bow instead of xbow.