Ranger Guide by Radiënt: Aim for Perfection/Job

==Knowing the job | Choosing your race |  Support job |  Equipment |  Update notes==

Knowing the job
If you are a ranger, you are expected to do four things: dealing damage, pulling, tracking certain monsters or NPCs and landing "winds" on gods. Assuming tracking monsters and NPCs and landing winds are obvious, this sub page will cover all the abilities and traits, weapon choices and endgame roles.

Job Abilities
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Eagle Eye Shot
This is the Rangers special, also known as two-hour ability or EES (Eagle Eye Shot). It's a damage move, suitable for the damage dealing role as a Ranger. It starts out awesome, possibly the most powerful damaging ability... till higher levels. When you gradually level up, every job gets stronger and gain access to more powerful equipment, abilities and weapon skills, but Eagle Eye Shot remains the same from level 1 to 75. Long story short, this is basically a highly accurate Sidewinder/ Slug Shot. Like a weapon skill, it consumes ammo and has a TP return if it connects, but you're only limited to one use every two hours unless reset with special items or abilities.

Sharpshot
This ability increases your ranged accuracy, but the exact amount is not known however. It is often combined with weapon skills or barrage. Personally I'd combine it with Barrage, please see Barrage on this page for further explaination.


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Scavenge
This is the job ability for I'm-too-poor-to-afford-crafting-materials-to-make-my-own-ammo kind of Rangers. It just gives you a chance to find an item, depending on the zone you get crafting materials for bolts, arrows or bullets. Supportive, damage and enhancing wise it does completely nothing (besides lifting a [b]slight[/b] amount of stress on your wallet)

Camouflage
I suppose it resembles scavenge a bit. It just makes you invisible, undetectable for sight aggressive monsters. It sort of saves you gil, you won't have to use a prism powder then. But duration isn't very reliable. It can wear off the moment you use it or it can last for quite a while.

Barrage
This is your second real offensive job ability. Though the description is a bit misleading: "Fires multiple shots at once". This is not completely true. Yes, you do fire multiple arrows in one shot, dealing damage equal to those shots and gaining TP equal to those shots. But no, it's technically not all at once. Instead you fire one arrow at a time, if one shot misses, the remaining ones will not be fired. Meaning: if you miss the first shot, you won't fire the remaining ones.

Shadowbind
People consider this the NM claiming ability, which I completely agree with, but I rather utulize it as save-the-puller's-sorry-ass-abillity by binding a link. Shadowbind, like the name implies, binds the target. It never misses and always binds for it's maximum duration unless it's an NM. The only way Shadowbind "misses" is due to bind immunity or the target is already bound.

Velocity Shot
This is a godsent from Square-Enix after the notorious "ranger-nerf". Velocity Shot increases your Ranged attack and Ranged Attack Speed, much like Snapshot, but in exchange your (melee) Attack and  Attack Speed is lowered as well. It's samiliar to berserk, but you can both now when you reach level 45.

Unlimited Shot
Not as cool as it sounds, Unlimited Shot will prevent the next ammo consumption from a regular ranged attack or weapon skill. It is often used combined with Patriarch Protector's Arrow, or also known as PPA. But please be careful not to have that arrow equiped while utulizing an ability, it does not prevent arrow consumption like it does with weaponskills or regular shots.

Merit: Stealth Shot
Stealth Shot is plain and simple: it reduces enmity (hate generation) for the next ranged attack you perform. No you're not being all sniper like, you're still standing there, it just makes less hate (one way or another). You need 22 merits (220.000 experience points) to cap out on this merit ability, but frankly, don't bother spending even 1 merit on it.

Merit: Flashy Shot
The very opposite of Stealth Shot, it generates additional enmity instead. However, as a big plus it removes the level difference penalty between you and the target, very useful for "zerg fights" against high level monsters. It has a huge recast time on it sadly, lowest you can get it to is down to 10 minutes and you won't even be needing it any more after that.


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Job Traits
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Wide Scan
Only two jobs have this job trait: Beastmasters and  Rangers. Like the name implies, it scans the area for monsters and NPCs, making finding specific monsters or NPCs alot easier. Battlwise,however, it does nothing. You can access this by going to your map and select the "Wide Scan" option. You can also track monsters or NPCs then, an arrow will appear on your radar, indicating in which direction it is now.

Alertness
I'll be short and quick: it's crap. But incase you have your why-and-how questions: It reduces the chances to be detected by monsters, how it exactly works, who knows. But don't rely on this, it won't save your life, not today, not tomorow.
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Accuracy Bonus
As the name implies, this trait increases your accuracy. I can't think of any thing to crack this down so I'll just end it here.

Resist Poison
It gives you a small chance to completely resist the poison spell. Again, I wouldn't bet on it.



Rapid Shot
This is sort of the "haste" trait for Rangers, although the natural proc rate is rather low: ~5%. The description says it can make a ranged attack instantly fire, this is not completely true, it just greatly reduces (about 85% I guess) a ranged attack. Your TP gain for that shot remains the same however, allowing you to get a quick TP boost for that one hit while dealing the same damage.

Merit: Recycle
Rangers don't get any form of Haste, Snapshot however gives you the same effect. You can get up to -10% ranged attack delay with this and it stacks with Velocity Shot, allowing you to shoot quicker and deal more damage over time.

Merit: Recycle
Once again another gil saving ability, or rather, trait, you can get for Ranger. Recycle is a passive Unlimited Shot, but unlike Unlimited Shot it has a chance to nullify ammo consumption, depending on your equipment and merits spent. You can have up to 50% chance for this to proc, think about the gil you save!


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Stats and Focusses
Explaining what each stat does for ranger. Coming soon...

Ranged vs Melee
Pointing out the differences between ranged weapons and melee weapons. Coming soon...

The Archer
Explaining good and bad points about bows. Coming soon...

The Marksman
Explaining good and bad points about crossbows Coming soon...

The Gunslinger
Explaining good and bad points about guns Coming soon...