Ranger Merits

Hello! it's about time to start working on ranger merits and i just can't make up my mind. i know im going to go 6/8 on archery & marksmanship(i'll have 8/8 great katana for samurai), but my question is group 2 merits. Snapshot 5/5 is obvious but i cant decide on how i should work Flashy Shot and Stealthy Shot in. I'll mainly use ranger for events and not so much for merit situations since i have samurai. I was thinking 2/5 Flashy Shot and 3/5 Stealthy Shot. {please}{help me out!} thank you^^

Except if you WS as early as you can in the fights (or have poor tanks and/or you have enmity+ merit/gear) ... 1-2 Stealth Shot should be enought.
Additionnal Steath Shot won't reduce the recast delay (always 5 min recast), but will add enmity -10 to the effect. Most of the times, you won't use this ability twice on same monster, so it would allow a extra un-noticed WS.

On the other hand, more Flashy Shot merit reduce the Flashy Shot recast (allowing to use it more often). Great as finishing move, as you can use final blow WS earlyer.

I can't recommend meritting Stealth Shot at all. Flashy Shot, while increasing enmity gain, also increases the damage you do to the target. If you're fighting an HNM, it will be even more useful than when fighting, say, a Greater Colibri. It basically turns your target into an EM for the next hit, with all the DEF and VIT to go with it. Great for things like Kirin (LV92) where RNG already excels. I'm 5/5 Snapshot and 5/5 Flashy Shot and haven't looked back.

In my opinion, taking Flashy Shot past Lv.1 is rather pointless. It's ok for that e-peen SS of your damage, but even with 5/5 merits, its still at an awkward 10min recast. Very few mobs these days last more than 10min for you to use this JA more than once. Not to mention the immense hate that you are going to generate on your WS or Barrage.

I went 5/5 Snapshot, 1/5 Flashy Shot and 4/5 Stealth Shot, and I truly recommend this; having a JA that allows my WS or Barrage to have -40 Enmity, EVERY 5 MIN, is absolutely amazing.

The thing about that, though, is you could say the exact same thing for Stealth Shot. Not many monsters live more than five minutes.

Nobody has mentioned this yet, but Recycle merits can give you 25%. 1/4 shots are free. That's quite a lot when you think how many bullets or arrows a Ranger gets through. Not even directly connected to the expense; I would find that amount of Recycle useful for not having to camp AH for bullets, since nobody bothers to make them on Garuda.

I don't personally have Recycle merrited, but let's not overlook it entirely! 25% money saved on the second most expensive job would be a positive plus in some people's eyes.

I have Snapshot 5/5 and Flashy Shot 1/5; I won't finish this category until my other jobs don't have any priority merits left. Right now I can better spend my merits than finishing RNG Group 2 off just for the sake of it. For you, it would then be fair to say that asides from Snapshot and unlocking Flashy Shot, RNG Group 2 isn't really that incredible a choice of merits.

Recycle is great for ppls who don't use Rng often because they no have gil for ammo. I personnaly think it's a cheap merit: not making you a better Rng, but saving you money (ya, I have one, and I'll replace with something else when I can).

some ppls think flashy shot is useless, some ppls think stealth shot is useless. I think both are usefull if you use them well. Not getting hate can allow to do more damage over time, so I think it IS usefull.

Best answer for 1st poster is: try 1 of each, and test it. see if ya like flashy Shot, and if Stealth shot enmity- doing much a difference.

Don't merit marksmanship just do 8/8 Arch.

Ignore this stupid advice. Merit Marksmanship if you're inclined to use a gun. Toe for toe, stat for stat, Guns > Bows. It's just more expensive,
and generally harder / more expensive to gear.

thank you for the responses. I'm still going back and forth. as for Recycle merits im also a believer that it wont make you a better ranger. i knew the cost of ranger when i started and have accepted it as a money pit^^.

and i'll definetly merit archery and marksmanship, that was never a question.

edit: SE needs to increase the amount of combat skill merits^^ i want archery AND marksmanship 8/8 ; ;

IIRC -enmity caps at 50%.
~Kanican

However:

So techincally -40% from stealth shot + -4 from bucc's belt + -7 from Novia earring + -2 from scout's braccae, + -3 from scout's socks and youre sitting on -56% enmity. Unless your tanks suck ***, youre NOT going to be pulling hate. So yes the advice to merit stealth shot is VERY good advise.

should i merit it more than flashy shot is what i mean. 3/5 stealthy shot for -30 enmity and 2/5 flashy shot since any more than 1 merit will only reduce cool down?

This is not bad advice, if your a good player Bow > Gun. Delay on gun buttfucks its usefullness for RNG. You can fire off more arrows then bullets and do more dmg over time, but if your fighting something thats gonna die fast then gun wins yes, but not by much. At Ixion Bow > Gun.

Id recomend Archery 8/8, Flashy shot & Stealth shot 5/5, Rapid shot 5/5 and do Camo recast 5/5 if thats an option i havnt looked recently, it reduces enmity of Ratt while its up. Recycle is crap, dont waste your time on it unless your poor in which case you should'nt play RNG anyway. Dont let anyone tell you different, im either on PLD or RNG daily for years believe me.

That is entirely false. The one thing that makes guns stronger than bows is it outputs a superior DoT. Weapon skills will never be as high as bow weapon skills, but the difference isn't enough to compensate for the difference in DoT the guns output. This is assuming we're talking about Hellfire +1 compared to Vali's / Eurytos.

There is more than one way of playing a job, though, and simply being on the job for most of your FFXI career doesn't make your opinion fact. We could argue about this, but there's not much point. I'm just encouraging you not to provide the OP with false 'facts' that you assume are correct because you live on the job.

There is nothing about being a good player that changes the damage your bows or guns will do. Comments like that are really pretty and all, but ultimately irrelevant.

Of course, that's putting aside the fact you're wrong anyway...

^

Why's that, then? I can't think of anything skill based that would make a bow better than gun. Or are you simply saying that unless people don't do something you're way (because you're a good Ranger, yeah?) then they're bad players?

It would depend entirely on what you want to use Ranger on. What sort of endgame activities do you do? Enmity should only really be a concern to a RNG if you're doing events where pulling hate will generally get you or others killed. There isn't much point merriting Stealth Shot if you only merit on RNG, or campaign or something, since the enmity minus is essentially going to waste.

Whereas Flashy Shot can be used on everything to effect, reccuring uses of which would benefit anyone except the most die-hard "fight high level things" RNG. I go RNG to things like Dynamis & Limbus & Einherjar, and I can safely say one enmity reduced WS is going to make hardly any difference for me. Only if I started to go RNG to things like kings or znm would I consider stealth shot.

Flashy Shot all the way, imo. Maybe 1/5 Stealth just to unlock it.

i will mainly use it for sky gods, kirin, not really dynamis so much. i wont use it to merit, thats for sure. id rather just use samurai for that.

And completely disregard Snapshot merits?? What the ***...

Furthermore, I don't see why people would merit Camouflage instead of Unlimited Shot recast, that is, if you have a PPA or GMB, which if you have Bow you should get, and if you got an Obow, you should ALSO get.

If you are just unlocking it but have no intention of using it, why bother wasting 3 merits on it?

To the OP, you won't regret meriting Stealth Shot to 4/5, trust me. And you'll still have Flashy Shot 1/5 for whenever you feel like doing a massive WS.

i unfortunaly do not have a ppa anymore, i shot it at a fortification in campaign on accident. the ***of it is, is that i missed! i should be able to just walk up and pick it back up right??

Can it be confirmed that camo reduces enmity for ranged attacks while its up?

hmm quite alot of argueing about something that doesnt matter, some situations gun > bow some bow > gun to say one way or the other is to be think headed. fact is use what you like better cuz you wont always be doing the same fights/bosses.

as far as flashy vs stealth i would split them personally stealth shot is nice considering most "harder" fights you will store up tp, hence WS at the start of the fight. now i cant speak for all rngs but pld's sentinel flash voke reprisal wont hold hate off my first sidewinder. now add stealth shot to the mix and we are fine. at the end of the day its all abot our DPS. flashy shot as stated is really nice for high lvl mobs mainly kill shots. i can only recall using flashy shot 2 times in 1 mob maybe 1 or 2 times and it was only cuz i managed to go and die >.>

i would confirm this, seems to work pretty good in some situations. only problem is only works vs sight mobs and requires you to shoot from the side or behind, and doesnt work with WS'.

Nah... It's a permanent boost irrelevant of position or mob's detection. Camouflage up = reduced enmity on any ranged attacks.

Because you could still use it? -_-

It isn't strong enough to keep hate off you if you WS an HNM before tanks get hate. In which case, imo anyway as a tank and a RNG, you'd deserve to die anyway.

I generally tend to only use Ranger for Ixion, so it's my only point of origin for deciding it's merits. It also depends on your play style, choice of subjob, and what weapon you use as to how you should merit.

I personally am almost always /war with an E.bow, and our Ranger party always consists of at least one BRD (double minuet) and one COR (chaos/hunters). Yes, I do pull hate often. But I play with good PLDs who are immediately casting Cure IV on me when I pull hate, which is often. Because of this, I rarely die from pulling hate (normally I only die when I'm not paying attention and get blasted by a spear or something).

I would personally recommend capping merits on Flashy Shot, simply for the recast. If you've got a group that can successfully defeat Ixion, you shouldnt have a problem spamming this ability every ten minutes. With zerk, warcry, double minuet, chaos/hunters roll... Flashy Shot is good for 1700~ sidewinders on Ixion. Putting that up Ixion's *** every ten minutes is more than worth the merits you'd spend on it.

Stealth Shot is a great merit as well, which I normally stack with Barrage. The idea here would be the more merits in it the better it is, but capping it may not be possible with your other merits. At a very minimum, get at least one merit in it so it's unlocked and available for use.

Snapshot is great if you have merits available. Your DoT from ranged attacks will largely increase, and you will gain TP faster. The only drawbacks here is enmity generation.

Recycle, as others have said, is simply a money thing. It's not gonna make you a better Ranger, it will only conserve your ammo and save you money. If you dont use Ranger a lot or are overly concerned about expenses, this is great to merit.

As far as Group 1 merits go, Ranger really only got one good merit here: Rapid Shot. Go ahead and cap it. Only other things worth meriting in this category would be Camouflage recast, simply for the enmity down feature during standard ranged attacks. Be aware that Camouflage does not stack with weaponskills before you start spending merits on it. Some rangers might choose to merit Unlimited Shot recast if they use rare/ex ammo during weaponskills, like PPAs or Heavy Shells.

As for your other merits... they'll largely be affected by your playstyle and other jobs/merits as to what you can do with them. Main job Rangers should consider capping Archery and/or Marksmanship, depending on which weapon you use most. STR merits, just like most DD jobs, will do the most for you as far as attributes go. Consider Enmity down merits if your other jobs allow it.

This guy's an idiot, on par with Raelia and his dumbass DRK ramblings. It shames me to be playing the same job as people like this.

Do the opposite of what Naten says. Gun WILL always, always, always be better in every situation, provided you can shell out the gil for the ammo. Even relic-wise, Annihilator beats the hell out of Yoichinoyumi. And the more Rapid Shot/Snapshot gear you have, the more effective gun will be over time, compared to bow.

@ Wooooodum i think your miss understanding me, for camo it will wear off with 1 shot if your in mobs line of sight. and yes stealth shot will stop you from pulling hate after a well geared pld uses sentinel flash voke reprisal, not before if thats what you thought i meant. i also have rng and nin and pld on brothers char. and if you dont believe me unlock it and try it yourself.

@ Enternius I completely disagree guns down time isnt that cool in merit pt or einherjar when your changing targets very fast. give credit when its deserved.... but if your so convinced aswell please post some SS of your dmgs or a parse log from a merit pt and a hnm if you can. im curious to see what your dmg output is

It doesn't, though I literally just WS'd Odin in front and it stayed on. If this is true the only explanation is someone else pulled hate just as I WS'd, but then he didn't turn. As for Stealth Shot, simple misconception, I thought you meant something else. :)

interesting i may have to try that, i know ws' should take it off every time and i have never had it stay up while in the front

From what we've (that is, the RNGs in my shells) have gathered, there's a lower chance of it staying on for WS's. Our assumption is it's connected to how much enmity you 'conserve', since it seems to stay on a lot for throwing attacks...

Of course that could just be rubbish, I haven't had time to test it yet.

I've never, not once, had Camouflage stay on after a weaponskill. I've tried it a thousand times, and it's never been any different no matter what direction I'm at in relation to the mob.

Regular ranged attack, yeah that's happened a ton. Weaponskill? Never. In fact I've never known anyone I play with to have it stay on after a weaponskill, either. And this is from a player who has used and watched Rangers literally every single day at Ixion since the day they made that update to Camo. I would imagine if it were possible, we'd have seen it happen at least once during the extensive amount of time we've spent using it. But again, it's never happened.

I've had it happen once, as has a friend. We always use Camouflage on WS's if the recast is up... And both of us use RNG quite a lot. So it could well be the chance of staying on after a WS is pretty damn low.