Ranger Guide

[mudkipzjm]

I saw that there was a ranger guide made, but it was from 2011 and pretty outdated, so I decided to try to make a new one. Feel free to add or correct me if I'm wrong or missing anything. Here's a list of some general items you'll want.

Dark Meteor 

This is probably the best AOE weapon in the game, at least damage-wise. It'll have no problem taking out a whole room in mere seconds. The downfall to it is that it can be extremely expensive. There's alternatives such as Iron Faust, Charge Arms, and Baranz Launcher. Cannon Rouge is good, too, but it's combo locked. 

Frozen Shooter

An eccential for anyone playing RA. It's a single target rifle with and 100% change to freeze if the special hits. It's easy to farm one with a decent amount of hit and if you're too lazy for that, then they are pretty cheep to buy, too. Snow Queen is the same but it's projectile pierces. The downfall to it though is that it's combo locked. I use the one I have to freeze more that one Gibble in tower and such. 

Pyscho Raven

It's an over-powered mechgun that only males can use. It has the most amount of ATP of any mechgun in the game. Even with no stats, it does a pretty hefty amount of damage. Alternatives to it would be Guld Milla, Mille Matreux(please don't spam the special though, lol), Dual Bird, Rage De Feu/Glace, Master Raven/Last Swan.

Yasminkov 9000M

It's a mechgun with rifle range. It's ATP is pretty low, but with DTs you can add a special. Most people add charge and demon to theirs and trust me, they're pretty nice to have. You can also get charge Vulcan's with hit, but they're mechgun range and just not as good.

Arrest Needle

Spread Needle upgraded with Proof of Sonic Team. It has a lot of ATA, and a decent amount of ATP to boot. Really nice for AOE crowd control and damage. 

Zalure S-Rank

Zalure S-rank is pretty nice to have for any class that doesn't get JZ. You could also consider getting a Jellen S-rank, so you can jellen all of the more dangerous enemies and Gal Gryphon.

TypeSH/SHOT

Shot that doesn't have a special when you get it. It can have a special put on by a gm. Most people put Demon/Hell on theirs and they're pretty nice to have for AOE demon/hell.

Single Target Hell Weapon

There's so much choices for a single target hell weapon for a ranger. There's Asteron Striker, Yasminkov 2000,3000,7000(and 9000 if you're kush), Le Cogneur , Hell Laser/Gun, Type Ri/RIFLE, S-Rank Needle, Fake Rianovs, and probably a lot more that I'm forgetting. I personally prefer Yasminkov 7000 for it's auto-aim but it's all down to personal preference. 

Heaven Striker

Rifle Range gun with a berserk special that has handgun range. Pretty nice to have for long range damage, but can be tricky to use if you aren't paying attention. Could also use Daylight Scar, which are under-rated berserk daggers that have massive DPS potential.

Excalibur/100 souls

Saber with bezerk or Spirit if it's 100 souls that can target up to 3 mobs. Nice to have for damage and the Vol Opt glitch if you're a RAmarl and is also a great Lizard killer for EP 4. If you're RAmar and want to do the vol-opt glitch, you can use Power Glove.

Ultima Reaper

Scythe with extended range and can target up to 15 mobs. It's a really useful weapon for hell or damage if you don't have many other weapons and is another great Lizard slayer for EP 4. Can also use weapons such as S-Beat's Blade and Yamigarasu.

Other Possible Choices. 

Holy Ray - Rifle with Arrest

Bringer's Rifle - Rifle with Demon's. Can add up to 50 hit with PCs.

Inferno Girasole - Improved Girasole with more ATP.

Rambling May - Shot for Females that fires two bullets at once.

Clio - Wand that extends Zal Range, useful for RAmarl.

Parsols - Can extend JZ/SD/Resta/Anti ranges depending on which one you have, useful for RAmarl.

Twin Blaze - Has Gifoie special. Really useful for stopping charging enemies.

 

 

 

For your Shield/Frame there's the usual get-up that most people want.

Armor

Sonicteam Armor is what most people want/use. It has 500 evp/def and it has +80 to all resistances. Stupidly OP and just as stupid to get a hold of if you don't already have it. There's alternatives like Wedding Dress, Dress Plate, Kroe's Sweater, Attribute Plate, Sweetheart, Lieutenant Mantle, Samurai Armor

Shields

Red Ring is what you want to use. It boosts all stats and gives 20 ATA. It's not too bad to get a hold of but alternatives are From the Depths, Gratia, God's Shield "Koiryu", Anti-Dark RIng, Safety Heart, Ranger Wall.

On the subject of Gratia, it's actually a very close 2nd to Red Ring if you're a cast. It has pretty nice resists, plus it gives 30 ATA if you're using a Yasminkov-series weapon. 

Units

Depending on the max-stat mag plan you use, here are some units you might want.

Adept, Centurion/Ability, Centurion/Battle, v101, Cure/Confuse and Freeze, Heavently/Battle, Centurion/Arms, Centurion/Resist, Trap Search, Cure/Freeze, Confuse, Paralysis, Shock, etc., v801.

Having a set of Noob/HPs is pretty nice too, because it raises your base max HP by 600 if you use 4. lolrip

 

Game play Tips:

As a ranger, you have the most options for crowd control and damage. It's really important when playing with others that you make sure everything dangerous is immobilized(Flowers, Gibbles, Ill GIlls, etc). If you're behind something that blocks them, then it's okay to demon's/dps them to death. I know DM spamming might be fun, but please only do it when it's optimal. DMing a Gibble to death really isn't great gameplay. A variety of weapons can be a RA's best friend. I'm not saying use different weapons just because "lol dm spam sux xd", but I'm saying use whatever weapon type is appropriate for the situation that you're in. Lastly, because Sega is good at coding video games, there's a glitch/bug where if you are attacking the same mob as someone else, one or both of the damages end up getting cancelled. Most people refer to that as Damage Cancel (DMC). That's why you have have gotten yelled at for spamming Divine Punishment or spamming techs, since those are notorious for DMCing people. A great way to avoid this is to attack something different than others if possible. If you see someone attacking a mob, move on to the next one, don't go attacking the same thing they are if you can avoid it.

Tl;Dr: Frozen Shooter/AN > Demon/DPS to death > Repeat. Don't DM spam. Attack different things than others and don't tech spam/DP spam.

 

Anyways, as I said earlier, feel free to add or correct me if I got some information wrong.

Edited November 6, 2017 by mudkipzjm

[Fyrewolf5]

There are some other things to add, as well it would be nice if you went into a tad more detail about differences between options (i.e. dark meteor is great for bosses, charge arms/baranz launcher are similar but arms has more targets and is better for large low aoe groups, iron faust has unique properties, Cannon Rouge easily overcomes manual evasion so it hits moving/flying targets, etc.)
Rianov 5 is not a single target hell weapon. Special is lesser tier ohko, it's only dark, and the attack pierces, which is the most important part about it. It's used for the pierce effect with normal/hard attacks much more than for the special.
Excal is also a great lizard killer in ep4, sometimes better than praying to rngesus for hell to work on sub-desert lizards(especially yowie), where a good native excal can combo kill them more consistently.
Four No0b/hp give 350 + however many hp mats you have not yet used, so between 350-600.

There are a lot of things that still deserve a mention too, like charge gatlings/vulcans (these are still great weapons before you get more expensive yasminkovs), Master Raven and Last Swan, Inferno Girasole, Daylight Scar, Rambling May (female), Jellen S-Ranks for cast as well as other potential S-Ranks, Holy Ray, Bringer's Rifle, Slicer of Fanatic, Rainbow Baton / Diska of Braveman / Slicer of Vengeance, Fake Rianovs / Type RI/Rifle (potential custom special lasers in addition to the mentioned yas3k/7k/LeCogneur), S-Beat's blades (hell daggers), Clio (ramarl zal range), the various Parasols (Females, strong sacrificial partisans with support tech boosts, Rico's Parasol is male only clone of Tyrell's Parasol), Twin Blaze (incredibly useful for cast), as well as shields like God's Shield Kouryu(40efr/40eic/40eth/0edk/0elt, pb/create), Ranger Wall(20ata, lvl 41, 15/15/18/0/0), Combat Gear(35atp, 0 resist), From the Depths(20/32/40/28/28, random confuse), Safety Heart(25/25/25/0/0, 30ata to rambling may, synergy with sweetheart), Tripolic Reflector(~20% resist elemental attack, 22/28/22/7/7), etc. (rangers can use many different shields easily), and many many other armors like Attribute Plate (5/5/5/20/25), Brightness Circle (0/0/0/25/20), Crimson Coat (10/10/10/14/14, boosts some red weapons), D-Parts 1.01 (35atp 0/0/0/15/35), Lieutenant Mantle(trap vision, 6/6/6/16/12), Sacred Cloth(cure/paralysis, 0/0/0/15/20, Samurai Armor(50lck, god/battle, agito boosts, 11/11/0/0/0), Vampire Cloak (30lck, 0/15/0/32/0), Spirit Garment(tp regen, 0/0/0/20/25), Sweetheart(female, boosts atp near males, 2/2/2/10/10, more resists with safety heart), Thirteen (DoB Boosts, 2/2/2/16/8), Stealth Suit (0 resist, removes weapon switch delay), (probably should have mentioned which have notably high or notably low dfp and/or evp, but I'm too lazy right now), and some other units like cure/shock, cure/paralysis, pb/increase, v801, divine protection, etc.. A select few of these things are lower level options / easier alternatives to options (like ranger wall for early ata), but most can be considered top-tier options in their own right imo.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Fyrewolf5

[mudkipzjm]

I really should improve this and make this a bit better, since I see a lot of new people coming around. I anyone has suggestions, feel free to write them.

[Exotic]

I'd edit the formatting. Kinda hard to read on a white background.

[Ragol99]

Burning visit under alternatives to Dark meteor is missing. Maybe cover some of the S-rank specials on needles for rangers outside jellen or zalure. Such as hell beszerk demon blizzard etc.(all can be very nice at times) Even weapons such as sil dragon slayer or great fairy sword are fun to use toys for a RA(since they can use these as well + pre halloween or post halloween new players might not have access to UR for episode 4) Another ones S-rank hell scythe this is misses at times but I have used one and it works good if no UR. Maybe touch on Yas 3000h or the NUG zooka(deals some hilariously high damage with charge in areas in ultimate it works in) Hope some of this proves useful @mudkipzjm

[mudkipzjm]

4 minutes ago, Ragol99 said:

Burning visit under alternatives to Dark meteor is missing. Maybe cover some of the S-rank specials on needles for rangers outside jellen or zalure. Such as hell beszerk demon blizzard etc.(all can be very nice at times) Even weapons such as sil dragon slayer or great fairy sword are fun to use toys for a RA(since they can use these as well + pre halloween or post halloween new players might not have access to UR for episode 4) Another ones S-rank hell scythe this is misses at times but I have used one and it works good if no UR. Maybe touch on Yas 3000h or the NUG zooka(deals some hilariously high damage with charge in areas in ultimate it works in) Hope some of this proves useful @mudkipzjm

Ah this was made back before most of that existed. I'm not going to list every weapon that might be useful. This is mostly just a general guide so new rangers know what kind of weapons they should be aiming for. 

[Ragol99]

Just now, mudkipzjm said:

Ah this was made back before most of that existed. I'm not going to list every weapon that might be useful. This is mostly just a general guide so new rangers know what kind of weapons they should be aiming for. 

Yeah some of this is very new or minor details most will figure out on their own. I do feel though burning visit belongs on the Launcher/shot/zooka weapon slot. Its really powerful better then things like cannon rouge for some bosses especially a maxed one(not to expensive compared to DM or even IF either so great alternative for maxed or nice one)

[Soly]

27 minutes ago, Exotic said:

I'd edit the formatting. Kinda hard to read on a white background.

It was probably because it was copied from the dark theme....

I have removed the styling on it so it grabs your current theme's colors

[foiexx]

Yikes, is this how you write your school papers? @mudkipzjm Still love ya. <3 You need some hooked on phonics, boo.

[mudkipzjm]

 

5 hours ago, foiexx said:

Yikes, is this how you write your school papers? @mudkipzjm Still love ya. <3 You need some hooked on phonics, boo.

If I knew I was going to get graded on this, i would have written it a bit more professionally lmao.

[Shiga321]

Pretty good guide. Getting people ready. 

Just one thing really to throw in.

WHERE'S THE V502?!

Increase to hell and ultilities. Must have for efficient runs. 

Had to throw that in there. Good job tho.  

[cbjohnson2010@live.com]

What does AOE stand for?

[Lipelis]

2 minutes ago, cbjohnson2010@live.com said:

What does AOE stand for?

Area of Effect