Ranger Guide

Basics

A Ranger's Place

Sometimes armed with a bow, sometimes with a hammer, sometimes with a staff, another weapon or even their pet, Rangers have a number of useful roles, including setting traps to defend a location, using their multitude of interrupts to keep a caster under pressure, or simply piling on the damage with their high powered bow combined with preparations and Nature Rituals. Having extraordinary elemental protection in their armor and equipped with a number of stances, many choose to join the melee either with a weapon or with touch-based skills. Ranger animal companions are often brought as another body for blocking or as an eventual corpse for allied necromancers to use. Some rangers forsake damage with a bow and preparations to focus on their pet entirely with pet attacks and calls. These 'proper beastmasters' are rare however.

Being a Ranger
Due to their distance attacks, fairly good armor, and variety of defensive stances, rangers have a relatively high survivability in battle. Meanwhile, they can be focused to shut down a target or to spread their damage out.
A focused build either has high-powered attacks coupled with preparations and enchantments to further increase the damage or interrupts to keep their target helpless. As arrows can be dodged, snares are extremely useful to keep arrows from straying as are skills that decrease arrow flight time. Snares can be used defensively as well to kite an opponent. This works especially well against warriors who may chase uselessly after you while you pelt them with arrows if they have no way of removing the snare. High-powered rangers often will team up with each other and focus attacks in order to create a damage spike.
On the other hand, a ranger may choose to spread the damage. Barrage is a powerful tool at accomplishing this, and it may be very useful against clumps of mobs in PvE as well as taking out clumps of minions or ritualist's Binding Rituals. In the Jade Quarry mission, a single Barrage ranger can often take out entire quarries and guardposts if positioned correctly. Another way to spread the damage is by spamming conditions. Using preparations such as Apply Poison or Melandru's Arrows or by using a fast recharging attack such as Poison Arrow or Crippling Shot, the ranger can cycle through targets, taking one shot at each before moving onto the next. However, if spamming conditions, beware of monks using skill such as Martyr that can quickly render the technique useless.
Occasionally, a ranger will focus on strengthening his or her pet. Pets can perform just about any task the ranger can do, but in melee form. However, the pet does follow an AI algorithm, and thus timing skills or coordinating targets can be more difficult than if done with the bow equivalent. Also, by placing points into Beast Mastery, the ranger often must sacrifice either its own offense (in the way of Marksmanship) or defense (Expertise stances or Wilderness Survival healing). The advantages of bringing a pet is that they provide another attacking body for free, they can body block while allowing the ranger to stay at range, they are often ignored in PvP and thus can often catch a caster off guard, they can be buffed to be extremely durable, and they can provide a corpse for Necromancer skills or the Warrior's "I Will Avenge You!". At 16 Beast Mastery also, pet attacks can deal damage that can match, even exceed with some pet attacks, the damage of a warrior.
In many zones, trappers are in demand. Traps are unique to the ranger and mostly occupy the Wilderness Survival attribute. Each trap causes some condition and usually some damage to any hapless foe that walks over them. Traps can be stacked, allowing their usually small damage to be compounded and multiple conditions to be inflicted simultaneously. A well organized group of trappers can even take on many of the most difficult zones in the game simply by setting traps then pulling enemies over them. In PvP, traps are often used to create defensive zones. Since rangers are often on the lower end of a player's priority, the easily interruptable nature of traps is less of an issue. Expertise is extremely useful for heavy trap use as are skills to decrease recharge time (such as Serpent's Quickness) or prevent interruption (such as Mantra of Resolve). See the General trapping guide for more details on being a trapper. Traps may be useful to rangers who aren't specializing in the category for their conditions, but they shouldn't be relied on for heavy damage if not stacked with other traps.
Nature Rituals must be used with care. All are global in the sense they affect both friend and foe. Thus, one should only bring and use them when they are certain their team will have the greater advantage of the effects. They are most effective when they augment the strategy your team is using or cover a weakness your team may have. For example, Favorable Winds is great on a team with numerous bow rangers, whereas Fertile Season may act as spike defense for a pressure focused team. Rituals such as Frozen Soil must be used with great care, as they will often end a PvP match quickly, but not always in favor of the team who placed them. In PvE, know what foes you will be facing, as they often focus on one or two strategies that may occasionally benefit from your spirits. For instance, if you know that the monsters that you are up against are resistant to fire damage, packing a spell such as winter for your group's elementalists could tilt the battle in your favor

Attribute Distribution

Beast Mastery:
This attribute is a must for beastmasters, but rarely needed for any other purpose. Without increasing it, a pet is about as useful as the corpse it will provide when it dies. However, be aware there are non-pet related skills here that may be of specialized use.

Expertise:
This attribute is essential for most uses of the ranger. Having only three pips of energy regeneration, Expertise is required for spamming attack skills or traps without running out of energy. In addition, most of the best defensive stances a ranger has are based on Expertise.

Marksmanship: Bows and most bow attacks rely on this attribute. Most rangers use a bow and require a good number of points into this attribute. However, touch rangers and trappers often forgo this attribute and carry energy granting equipment instead.

Wilderness Survival:
Many of the utility skills of a ranger can be found in this attribute. Self-healing Troll Unguent, most traps, poison-inflicting skills, and a number of nature rituals can be found here.

Equipment

Armor & Runes
All Ranger armor is a mid-grade 70 with an extra 30 against elemental damage, providing them excellent defense against enemy elementalists and moderate protection against physical damage. Armor can be further focused against fire, cold, or lightning. The cold-protective armor may be especially useful when using Winter whereas the fire protection may be helpful if using Greater Conflagration. Stance armor is also particularly useful for those who can keep them up consistently.

Weapons
Bows come in various forms, and a ranger should carry different bows for different situations. Shortbows have a short flight time and fast reload speed, making them good for close combat or trying to get as much damage shot out as possible. Recurve Bows have short flight times, like the Shortbow, making them good interrupt bows (Skills which increase arrow speed, such as Read the Wind, make these two bows almost instant interrupters). Longbows and flatbows on the other hand are slower and more inaccurate but have a very long range. These bows are extremely useful for pulling, and even non-rangers in PvE should carry one for that purpose. Other bows fall between, and a ranger should decide which bow to use based on range, reload speed, and accuracy.

Combat Tactics

Offensively, try to take the highest ground possible that gives you the best view at your enemies. Higher ground allows you to shoot farther and thus gives you a great advantage against foes below you. However, in PvP, foes may hide under the bridge you are on or run far enough away to prevent you from hitting them, thus depending on your role, you may need to sacrifice height for a clear path to chase a running foe. Also, the closer you are, the less flight time your arrows have, so if accuracy is important, you may need to close some distance.
The best defensive tactic available to a ranger is to keep your distance. Distance is your friend, as with the exception of armor-ignoring spells and enemy rangers and paragons, little can damage you if you can keep away from them. If you have a bow, you should be running around the outskirts of battle, not in the middle of it. However, melee is often inevitable, so don't rely on distance to always protect you. Defensive stances are incredibly useful, especially against foes unprepared to circumvent them. However, many foes in PvP come prepared with skills that cannot be blocked , so be ready.