Ranger Melee!Follow

As a Ranger, you need to stay as far back from the battle scene as possible. A Ranger's defense is a joke. Try to stay away from ever using melee. But if you don't want to listen to my experience, I have seen a few Rangers duel-wielding Axes. It looked pretty cool :P But stick with the bow as much as you can.

Just some comparisons, I'm RNG16 and we're fighting clippers.

DRG hits the Snipper for 8 points of damage.
The Snipper hits PLD for 20 points of damage.
PLD hits the Snipper for 8 points of damage.
Kahlyn's ranged attack hits the Snipper for 46 points of damage.

Later on, I pulled a critical for 70, a Piercing Arrow for 114, and an Eagle Eye Shot for 300.



I carry a sword, but only because I can't equip my Archer's Knife yet (it's in my inventory at all times; I just like staring at it ) and I need to carry SOMETHING, just in case.

I'd say, as long as you have your dagger skill up for later, carry whatever you feel like carrying.

I play a rng/nin and I've tried several different weapon combos. 2 daggers. dagger/sword, dagger/axe, etc... What works best for me is the 2 dagger combo, they don't do much damage but they do help build TP faster. What I do is, wait for my first strike, then start up my bow, then my second strike hits, and lastly I fire the arrow. So basicly I'm getting 3 attacks at a time. Even if I hit with all 3, I usually don't build enough hate for the monster to turn on me, since dagger strikes are not that much. Also, there is a delay between the 3 attack combo, more than enough time for the tank to keep hate. But if you get lucky and get 3 crits in a row, which is pretty cool when that happens, you should have Utsusemi buff on yourself to absorb the first 2 or 3 attacks. Thats plenty of time for the main tank to get hate back. I only recommend to melee if your party is short on melee, if you have 3 or more melee's in your party, its probably best to just hang back and fire away. Another tip, if you do fire from a far, try to choose the opposite side of your casters, you don't want to pull the monsters towards them while they are casting away. Those casters are fragil, they can only take so much:)

Here are my current weapons;
Main: 10/178 +2 Acc Dagger
Sub: 9/183 Poison Dagger
Bow: Hunter's Bow
Arrows: Beetle Arrows 12/90 +5 Range Acc

I swtich to Poison or Iron arrows when I do WS, they are a bit stronger.

Well, hope that helps a bit, good luck:)

Hidesato 24 Ranger/12 Ninja, Valefor
"I'm sure I spelled something wrong, I'm trying to help with a game, not with a college english paper."

use a boomerang

If a mob has an AOE that can kill me in 2 hits i stay far away, but most of the time i get right up to the mob. I do the melee and shoot thing. If you time it right u can get your shot off right after you hit with ur melee attack. I hope they never fix the glitch. The tp build up is all i'm after. When i do barrage i just slide over behind the paladin. When i aggro, i dont ping pong the mob. Most important never let a thief be behind you. Cause he will stap you in the back.

They will use sneak+Trick+viper without telling you. When they do this the hates on you. I almost died cause some thief thought my def was as good as a war. If it does enough damage it takes awhile for the tank to pull it off.

Trick is a thief's ability to transfer the hate to the meleers that is in front of the thief. The thief is tricking the mob, making the mob go after the meleer in front of the thief. So dont stand oppisite of the tank if you ar meleeing.

I'll just point this out... my warrior has 70+ in most weapons, so i usually have almost all weapons maxed in other jobs...

Now, check out Dagger and 1h Axe when you're a ranger...

They're equal. At 17rng/8nin, both are maxed at 51.

Until i get those archer's daggers, methinks i'll stick with axe for soloing purposes... or even to help with melee. (tanks and melee fighters do around 15-25 damage, i do 10 with the axe... and of course, 40+ with the ranged attacks :D)

i might experiment with axes a little though...

If you can maintain hate that easily because the rng is using his melee garbage, kick him out immediately! Rng is not for cheap asses. That's like a war with no money for armor so he has crappy defense so he can't tank or voke.

Oh, i'm not saying axes should replace the archer's daggers... just keep them as handy damage dealing *until* you can get them :)

melee weapons are definitely for stats and tp gaining. Sticking with archer knives are fine, your not in it for the damage. But definitely don't just stand off far pecking at it with a bow, especially if u shoot your bow non-stop. Nothing is more annoying than chasing after a mob when your out of provokes, and it will happen, and sometimes provoke won't even get it off a ranger.

Rangers are bad tanks but keep your armor up to date and u can take at least some of those hits. Never forget you subbed a ninja, you can use utsusemi (blink). stay in melee range and make the tank's job easier.

36 rng/nin
Carbuncle