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More updated guide by Ahchoo over on BGwiki.

This guide is out of date and likely won't be updated again.

Rangers are skilled sharpshooters that excel at dealing heavy ranged damage from afar. Ranger is capable of conquering just about any content you could care to do in the game. HELMS? Check. Dynamis-D Wave 3? Check. Omen Bosses? Oh yes...

I. The Way of the Ranger
II. Job Traits
III. Job Abilities
IV. Arsenal

V. Gear Sets
VI. Resources
- FAQ
- Credits

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The Way of the Ranger

Welcome to the ranks of the Ranger job class. We're glad you're here. Ranger is a complex class with a variety of abilities and skills that contribute to parties in all tiers of content. We also have a killer fashion sense with our nifty berets and cool tunics.

Job Flag Quest	Artifact Quests
The Fanged One	Sin Hunting
	Fire and Brimstone
	Unbridled Passion

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About the Job

What is the purpose of a ranger in groups?

Ranger's primary responsibility is to deal massive damage from a distance in order to defeat the enemy while staying outside of the radius of horrible death. Alongside our ranged cousins the Corsairs we can pummel enemies with a variety of physical and magical weaponskills for great DPS.

Strengths		Weaknesses
+	Powerful ranged damage	-	Frail defensive capabilities leave us vulnerable to direct attack
+	High accuracy relative to other DPS classes	-	Limited versatility, especially compared to our cousins the Corsairs
+	Numerous tools to control enmity gain	-	Limited AoE capabilities
+	Able to avoid most AoE damage simply by staying out of range ,	-
+	Wide selection of weapons to choose from for any situation	-

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Subjobs

	Warrior Best overall physical ranged subjob. Fencer's TP-bonus directly boosts Last Stand damage. Berserk and Warcry are massive sources of attack. » Fencer I, Attack Bonus I, Berserk, Warcry
	Dancer First choice for dual-wielding, also gives Skillchain damage bonus. Generally the preferred sub job when using Trueflight. Good for doing Abilities objective in Omen. » Dual-Wield II, Skillchain Bonus I, Subtle Blow II, Box Step, Reverse Flourish
	Ninja When the situation calls for Utsusemi for survivability, this is the sub you will want. » Dual-Wield III, Subtle Blow III, Utsusemi
	Dragoon High Jump allows you to dump enmity if you need more of that. Received a buff in October 2019 that gave free 7% WSD. » Attack Bonus I, Ancient Circle, High Jump, WS Damage Boost I
	Samurai Typically only useful when you need 15 extra Store TP to make your X-hit build work. » Store TP, Meditate, Sekkanoki

It is generally unnecessary to sub any job outside of these unless you're meme'ing and want be able to warp yourself out of a bad event with /BLM or something.

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Merit Points

Ranger Merits are pretty straightforward.

Group 1
Scavenge Effect Increases ammo return efficiency by 5%	Not recommended Not really needed in the modern era when Rangers have Recycle coming out of their ears and REMA's that dispense ammunition every hour.
Camouflage Recast Shorten recast time by 10 seconds.	Recommended 5/5 This is a good idea for your other points as Camouflage is a useful enmity tool, probably our best choice after Rapid Shot
Sharpshot Recast Shorten recast time by 10 seconds.	Not recommended Sharpshot is usually used in conjunction with Barrage so not particularly great in my opinion to unsyc those two abilities.
Unlimited Shot Recast Shorten recast time by 10 seconds.	Not recommended Unlimited shot shares a recast with Double Shot but this does not reduce it unless you actually use Unlimited Shot. Which you won't. Pass.
Rapid Shot Rate Increase rapid shot rate by 1%	Recommended 5/5 This makes our shots fire faster and is an essential choice.
Group 2
Stealth Shot Grants an ability where your next ranged attack will generate less enmity. Recast 5 minutes. Reduces enmity by 10.	Not recommended This is not really needed given its long recast, minimal benefit, and our array of other enmity management tools.
Flashy Shot Grants an ability where your next ranged attack will generate more enmity but ignores level difference penalties. Recast 10 minutes. Increases ranged attack by 5 percent.	Not recommended This sounds really cool and good but a 10 minute recast is way too long to be any use to us. Pass.
Snapshot Reduces delay for ranged attacks by 2 percent per point.	Recommended 5/5 This is incredible and you should definitely take 5 points in it.
Recycle Occasionally allows ranged attacks without consuming ammunition. Increases rate of activation by 5 percent per point.	Recommended 5/5 This seems innocuous but when used in conjunction with the Arcadian Beret grants an amazing TP bonus on our attacks. You definitely want this one.

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Job Points

Ranger Job Point categories are kind of hit or miss. Most of them are pretty beneficial to us, however.

#	Job Point Category	20/20 Effect
9	Eagle Eye Shot Effect Increases damage by 3 percent.	+60% damage from Eagle Eye Shot.
7	Overkill Effect Reduces enmity while under the effects of Overkill	Reduces enmity by 20.
4	Sharpshot Effect Increases ranged attack while under the effects of Sharpshot	Increases ranged attack by 40 while Sharpshot is on.
5	Camouflage Effect Increases the critical hit rate of ranged attacks while under the effects of Camouflage	+20% crit rate while Camouflaged
3	Barrage Effect Increases ranged attack while under the effects of Barrage.	Increases Ranged Attack by 60 while the Barrage effect is on.
8	Shadowbind Duration Increases the effect duration of Shadowbind.	+20 seconds on Shadowbind.
1	Velocity Shot Effect Increases ranged attack while under the effects of Velocity Shot.	+40 Ranged Attack while in Velocity Shot.
2	Double Shot Effect Increases the chance of shooting twice while under the effects of Double Shot.	+20% chance to fire two shots while Double Shot is up.
6	Decoy Shot Effect Increases the maximum amount of enmity transferable while under the effects of Decoy Shot.	Increases volatile enmity limit by 300 and the cumulative enmity limit by 100.
10	Unlimited Shot Effect Reduces enmity while under the effects of Unlimited Shot.	-40 Enmity while under the effect of Unlimited Shot.

Ranger Job Point gifts are pretty good. We get a ton of offensive power boosts towards our abilities as well as a healthy dose of Accuracy and Attack.

Job Point Gifts @ 2100 (MAX)
Base Stat Bonuses		Ranger Passive Boosts
Defense	19	Conserve TP	+15%
Attack	60	Velocity Shot	-10% Delay
Evasion	12	True Shot	+8%
Accuracy	60	Dead Aim	+8%
Magic Evasion	31	Barrage	+1 Projectile
Magic Accuracy	31

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Job Traits

Wide Scan

Job Trait Information
Description	Scans the area for monsters, revealing them on the map.
Tier	Level Obtained	Value
I	All Level 1	50, 65 Ym
II	All Level 20	100 Ym
III	RNG1	150 Ym
IV	RNG20	200 Ym
V	RNG40	250 Ym
VI	RNG60	300 Ym
VII	RNG80	350 Ym

Wide scan is a cool trait that lets you scan the map for monsters. Useful to locate monsters or NPCs. So good that SE gave a gimp version of it to all jobs.

Accuracy Bonus

Job Trait Information
Description	Improves the accuracy of physical attacks.
Tier	Level Obtained	Value
I	RNG10	10
II	RNG30	22
III	RNG50	35
IV	RNG70	48
V	RNG86	60
VI	RNG96	73

This trait is awesome. A heap of accuracy/ranged accuracy just for being ranger. Allows you to eat attack food in most situations.

Rapid Shot

Job Trait Information
Description	Occasionally reduces ranged attack delay.
Tier	Level Obtained	Value
I	RNG15	~25%
II	RNG71	~30%

Also another very useful trait. It works somewhat similarly to Conserve MP in that there are two calculations, the first is whether or not it procs, the second is how much the delay is reduced by. You can think of the second calculation like an enhanced snapshot. It can reduce shooting delay by up to 50%, which stacks with whatever snapshot gear you began your shot with. Any gear enhancing rapid shot increases its activation rate. Gear does not affect the delay reduction.

Resist Poison

Job Trait Information
Description	Gives you a slight resistance against poison status.
Tier	Level Obtained	Value
I	RNG20	10%
II	RNG40	15%
III	RNG60	20%
IV	RNG81	25%

Not much to say about this one. Sometimes you can resist poison and get stuck asleep?

Snapshot

Job Trait Information
Description	Reduces ranged attack delay.
Tier	Level Obtained	Value
I	RNG75 {Merits, Group 2, 5 Ranks}	10%

Basically the ranged equivalent of Haste. Does not reduce TP/hit, caps at 70%. As a ranger our goal is to have a total of 70% Snapshot at all times and this gets us 10%.

Recycle

Job Trait Information
Description	Occasionally allows ranged attacks without consuming ammunition.
Tier	Level Obtained	Value
I	RNG20	10%
II	RNG40	20%
III	RNG60	30%

Occasionally you won't use ammo when shooting. It used to be that this one was just a money saver, but thanks to the Arcadian Beret, is now an essential part of the Ranger kit. Arcadian Beret grants 50 TP (with max merits) when recycle proc's so this is huge for us.

Physical Damage Limit+

Job Trait Information
Description	Grants a bonus to maximum physical damage.
Tier	Level Obtained	Value
I	RNG30	+0.1
II	RNG60	+0.2
III	RNG90	+0.3

A nice trait that gives us a boost to our pDIF cap. Basically a straight up boost directly to our damage, also works with weaponskills. This trait is a gravy train with biscuit wheels! To gain major benefit of this you need to have significant +ranged attack buffs on: BRD+COR+GEO e.g.

Dead Aim

Job Trait Information
Description	Improves power of critical hits for ranged attacks.
Tier	Level Obtained	Value
I	RNG50	10%
II	RNG60	20%
III	RNG70	30%
IV	RNG80	35%
V	RNG90	40%
VI	RNG99	45%

Every RNG was happy when they introduced this trait, as RNG criticals used to be quite weak relative to melee. It used to be a simple matter of multiplying your pDIF by 1.25 whenever you scored a critical hit, which translates to regular damage * 1.25 = critical hit damage (assuming pDIF is capped). However, with this job trait you now multiply the bonus from dead aim along with the 1.25 boost to your regular damage, resulting in some pretty ridiculous numbers. The equation at 99 is to simply multiply damage * 1.25 * 1.45 = critical hit damage, or damage * 1.8125 = critical hit damage.

True Shot

Job Trait Information
Description	Grants a damage bonus to ranged attacks performed at an appropriate distance.
Tier	Level Obtained	Value
I	RNG78	3%
II	RNG88	5%
III	RNG98	7%

Another straight up percentage damage boost. Sadly this one has a catch, you have to be at your weapon's optimal range to get the bonus. Not always possible with enemies that have dangerous AoE.

Conserve TP

Job Trait Information
Description	Occasionally cuts down TP cost of weapon skills.
Tier	Level Obtained	Value
I	RNG80	15%
II	RNG91	18%

Probably less useful than it would seem. Ranged weapons tend to generate large amounts of TP intermittently. If you look at a 4-hit build, which would require every hit, including weapon skill, to average around 250 TP, conserve TP would have to generate a full 250 TP for it to increase WS frequency. It does, however, slightly increase your damage from your weapon skill, as you will be weapon skilling from a higher TP value (assuming damage varies with TP). It can increase weapon skill frequency if you have some source of regain, or you get lucky with Arcadian Beret procs.

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Job Abilities

Eagle Eye Shot
LEVEL	1	Delivers a power and accurate attack.
RECAST	01:00:00
	arcadian braccae +3 Gives a 20% damage boost to Eagle Eye Shot

Our first SP ability delivers a high accuracy, low enmity, 5x damage attack. This can penetrate blink and Utsusemi, but can also still miss. Not a very good SP ability compared to some jobs but can be useful for killing a boss at 1%.

Scavenge
LEVEL	10	Searches the ground for items.
RECAST	00:01:00
	orion socks +3 Increases the proportion of recovered/spent ammo by 7%.

It used to be that this skill would just pick up random crap off the ground, but in 2013 SE changed it to pick up ammo you have spent in the zone you are in. It will pick up as many as three different types of ammo as of the April 2019 update. Merits increase the ammo recovery by 5% per merit. This ability is alright for picking up ammo from your REMA if it's on cooldown, but we have capped recycle so we don't need to worry about running out of ammo often.

Sharpshot
LEVEL	1	Grants a large boost (+40) to ranged accuracy.
RECAST	00:05:00
DURATION	00:01:00
	orion braccae +3 Grants +16 to ranged accuracy boost of Sharpshot.

This skill gives us a boost of 40+ ranged accuracy and 40 ranged attack with job gifts. As of April 2019 Sharpshot grants an accuracy cap boost to 99% (up from normal 95%). You want to be using this with Barrage most of the time.

Barrage
LEVEL	30	Fire multiple shots at once.
RECAST	00:05:00
DURATION	00:00:30 or your next ranged attack.
	orion bracers +3 Grants +3 to maximum Barrage projectiles

Barrage lets you fire off a heap of shots in one go, as many as 13 if you have all the gear that boosts it. Each shot grants TP and deals damage if it lands. However, if you miss one shot, all the subsequent shots will be cancelled, hence why we use Sharpshot with this ability.

Camouflage
LEVEL	20	Makes you harder to detect, reduces your enmity gain, and with job points boosts crit rate.
RECAST	00:05:00
DURATION	Varies
	orion jerkin +3 Increases Camouflage duration by 100%

Camouflage reduces the enmity generated by ranged attacks while it is in effect. While ranged weapon skills and abilities will immediately make the effect of Camouflage wear off, normal ranged attacks may still be used and have only a small chance to make the effect of camouflage wear off. With JP this skill also boosts our white damage with an increase to our crit rate. This ability also turns you invisible but I don't recommend using it for that purpose because it is not very reliable.

Shadowbind
LEVEL	40	Roots an enemy in place.
RECAST	00:05:00
DURATION	00:00:30
	orion bracers +3 Increases Shadowbind duration by 16 seconds

Essentially this is a really high quality bind that with a few exceptions always lands. Useful for trying to pump the brakes on those near wipe moments or when you really need to get away from something quickly. Any damage will break Shadowbind.

Velocity Shot
LEVEL	45	Increases attack power and speed of ranged attacks, while reducing attack power and speed of melee attacks.
RECAST	00:01:00
DURATION	02:00:00
	amini caban +2 Velocity Shot gives an additional -9% ranged aiming delay and 9% Ranged Attack
	Belenus's cape Velocity Shot gives an additional -2% ranged aiming delay and 2% Ranged Attack

This is our ranged attack stance. We trade in a bunch of melee power for big boosts to our ranged capabilities. Gives up to 34% reduction in aiming delay outside the Snapshot cap, and a 15% boost to ranged attack and another +40 ranged attack from job gifts. Keep this on all the time unless you are meleeing for some reason.

Unlimited Shot
LEVEL	51	Allows you to perform your next ranged attack without using ammunition.
RECAST	00:05:00
DURATION	00:01:00 or your next ranged attack.
	amini bottillons +2 Eliminates the distance correction for the "Unlimited" shot.

It used to be that we would use this with crazy conquest ammo to do weaponskills, but then SE added Double Shot and basically killed this JA. Forget about it.

Flashy Shot
LEVEL	75 (Merits)	Your next attack will generate more enmity and both have increased accuracy and deal increased damage based on the level difference between you and the target.
RECAST	00:10:00
DURATION	00:01:00 or your next ranged attack.
	arcadian bracers +3 Enhances Flashy Shot effect by removing 20% of the distance penalty per merit level.

This skill has way too long of a recast time and limited usefulness. Use your merits elsewhere.

Stealth Shot
LEVEL	75 (Merits)	Your next attack will generate less enmity.
RECAST	00:05:00
DURATION	00:01:00 or your next ranged attack.
	arcadian socks +3 Enhances Stealth Shot effect by -5 enmity per level.

Even worse than Flashy Shot. Skip this one.

Double Shot
LEVEL	79	Occasionally uses two units of ammunition to deal double damage.
RECAST	00:03:00
DURATION	00:01:30
	arcadian jerkin +3 Double shot occasionally becomes triple shot. The second shot of double shot also gets an 11% damage boost. Also grants 1% chance to proc double shot without the JA up for each merit tier of Snapshot.

Lets you shoot twice in one ranged attack. A great skill with good up time. Great for damage and TP generation. Not much to say about this other than keep it on whenever you can. Benefits greatly from Su3 equipment.

Bounty Shot
LEVEL	87	Increases the rate at which target yields treasure.
RECAST	00:01:00
	amini glovelettes +2 Increases the base level of treasure hunter from 2 to 5.

This lets us put some TH on the mob if no THF is around. Good for contributing to "Abilities" objective in Omen. Successive uses have a chance to increase the level of TH on the mob, similar to how THF proc's their TH.

Hover Shot
LEVEL	95	Increases range attack damage, ranged accuracy and magic accuracy, as well as decreases enmity, when attacking an enemy at range from a location one yalm or more from where you last attacked it.
RECAST	00:03:00
DURATION	01:00:00

This beautiful piece of work was gifted to us by Square-Enix in May 2021. In exchange for moving one yalm between shots we get a stacking buff of +4% damage, +4 magic/ranged accuracy, and some (currently) unknown amount of -enmity. PER STACK Holy shit. This stacks 25 times! The only downside is it resets if you switch to a new target. However, in exchange for doing a little dance between shots you can practically double your damage. Insane. Note: This works with your regular ranged attacks as well as your weaponskills.

Decoy Shot
LEVEL	95	Diverts enmity when launching a ranged attack from behind a party member.
RECAST	00:05:00
DURATION	00:03:00

This ability was a great addition to RNG’s repertoire. It works similar to a constant trick attack effect. Standing behind a party/alliance member allows for the RNG to transfer their enmity to the target PC. According to a dev post on the JP forums, the amount of enmity transferred to target PC is 80%. The RNG thus retains 20% enmity. It is possible therefore, to shirk all enmity by wearing at least -20 enmity in gear. With -20 enmity, the RNG will gain no hate from decoy shot, but the target PC will still only gain 80%. This ability lasts for 3 minutes, with a recast of 5, so, in a fight that requires meticulous enmity control, a RNG must be cautious how much damage they produce in those unprotected 2 minutes. Note: This only works with your regular ranged attacks. It does not work with weaponskills, barrage or any other fun stuff. You will still pull hate and die a horrible death if you go balls out with Last Stand at the wrong time. In May 2021, the ability was updated so the enmity transferred fades over time.

Overkill
LEVEL	96	Increases ranged attack speed and the chance of activating Double/Triple Shot.
RECAST	01:00:00
DURATION	00:01:00

Our final SP ability. Overkill cuts down on the delay by about 50% after Rapid/Snapshot and makes every shot a double (~66%) or triple (~33%) shot. This skill is powerful but not very long lasting. Useful when you need to pump a lot of damage out in a short period of time, like the last 20% of Ou.

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Arsenal

There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Ranger is the king of ranged weapons, as such we can use a variety weapons in our ranged slot including: bows, crossbows, and guns. We also get the benefit of equipping various stat sticks in our main and sub slots that augment our ranged damage dealing capabilities. As of this writing, archery is in sort of a low place and the meta focuses on marksmanship weapons. I will detail a selection of our options below.

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Marksmanship

	Gun	Combat Skill: A+
	Gastraphetes	Mythic Weapon Unlike some jobs, the ranger mythic is incredible. Grants a 30% bonus to Trueflight, our most powerful magic damage weaponskill. Its ammo also grants an extra projectile on Barrage and the weapon itself gives an extra 70 ranged accuracy on Barrage for good measure. As if that wasn't enough, the weapon also comes with 10 Snapshot too. An excellent choice, especially when monsters are vulnerable to light magic damage. A must for any serious ranger. Dispenses: quelling bolt.
	Fomalhaut	Aeonic Weapon An excellent choice in any situation. Fomalhaut provides us with +500 TP bonus which is nice for Last Stand(and most RNG WS except WF) our go-to physical damage weaponskill and also unlocks Ultimate Skillchain properties for us to do Radiance. Not a bad choice for Trueflight if you don't feel like getting a Gastra. Dispenses: chrono bullet.
	Armageddon	Empyrean Weapon The Empyrean AM can be used to strong effect in situations where it is practical maintain. Wildfire has uses when the mob is strong against light but you still need magic damage. +50 AGI is a big boost to a lot of our WS's and makes this a good compromise between Gastraphetes' extreme magical damage and Fomalhaut's superior physical damage. Dispenses: devastating bullet.
	Annihilator	Relic Weapon Often outshined by the flashier Gastraphetes and widespread Fomalhaut, this gun is a lot better than it looks when given the benefit of Rank Points' Coronach %WS dmg and Store TP. This weapon grants us the use of "Coronach" which gives us a good darkness skillchain option and allow you to self light with Last Stand. Its aftermath effect gives -25 enmity (HALF THE CAP ON GEAR!), triple damage on 13% of your shots (can affect barrage and double shot), and +10% ranged attack. It needs Chrono Bullets to really shine, however. Annihilator is a useful tool in any serious ranger's arsenal. Don't sleep on it. Dispenses: eradicating bullet.
	Sharanga	Dynamis-D Weapon The Su5 Dynamis D crossbow can be augmented along three different paths. The unique path is path C which gives boosts to ammo damage and accuracy. Anecdotal testing suggests that this weapon's augments are not worth pursuing. The weapon also has a whopping 20 Snapshot on it which can enable some interesting preshot sets, however.
	Holliday	Dropped from Reisenjima T2 Strophadia. A great pre REMA option if you can roll some good augments for it.
	Doomsday	Dropped from Alluvion Skirmish Cirdas, or purchased from Lorissa for 3 Mellindopt Wings.
	nibiru gun	Dropped from Escha Zitah T2 Sensual Sandy. Low-end Last Stand option.
	Lionsquall	Available from Oboro in Port Jeuno. Not a bad gun to start with, but the materials can be expensive to come by.
	homestead gun	Purchasable for 3,000 Bayld and just a hair better than your sparks gun in Adoulin.
	eminent gun	Probably the first gun you'll have access to if you're newly returned to the game. Buy it from a sparks NPC in the cities, but don't use this longer than you absolutely have to.

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Archery

Bows are not very good right now so I will only list the REMA. Use a bow at your own risk.

	Archery	Combat Skill: A+
	Fail-Not	Aeonic Weapon Fail-not is a good bow, it has the same passive buffs that Fomalhaut has, but bows are not in a great place right now. Gives the best arrows though. A side benefit of Fail-not is that it is a bow that has Magic Damage stat on it so you can make some big numbers in the right situation with Flaming Arrow. Dispenses: chrono arrow.
	Gandiva	Empyrean Weapon Probably the best REMA bow. The tricky thing is that Jishnu's Radiance relies on DEX and crit's instead of raw AGI or MAB like our other weaponskills. Fortunately, stacking up on crit is extremely potent when coupled with the Empyrean Aftermath. Dispenses: Artemis's arrow.
	Yoichinoyumi	Relic Weapon This bow's high point is that it gives a ton of ranged accuracy. Sadly this is not something we need these days. Another bright spot, such as it is, is that Namas Arrow gives us a Distortion option for skillchaining. Skip this unless you are trying to max out your collection of ranger REMA. Dispenses: Yoichi's arrow.

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Melee Weapons
These weapons are not listed in a hierarchy, but as more of a check list of stuff to have based on your build or the situation.

	Weapon	Comments
	malevolence	From Ingrid in Sinister Reign. You are going to want two of these with as much MAB and Magic Accuracy as possible from the augments. Ranger's best choice for boosting magic damage.
	Perun +1	Dropped from UNM Ayapec. This is what you want in your mainhand when doing Last Stand.
	oneiros knife	Use this if you are doing content where you are focused on keeping up Empyrean Aftermath or doing Jishnu's Radiance with your Gandiva
	kustawi +1	Dropped from UNM Glazemane. Can be use in conjunction with or instead of Perun +1 for that extra dab of ranged accuracy or enmity reduction.
	vampirism	Dropped from Teodor in Sinister Reign. Gives a nice boost to Coronach and some MAB if you don't have Malevolence yet, but otherwise not really needed.
	Nusku shield	Dropped from Omen Glassy Craver. Generally the best physical offhand item for ranger.
	Tauret	Upgraded Ambuscade dagger. Gives great Magic Acc for TF/WF and good for meleeing.
	Dolichenus	Upgraded Ambuscade axe. Gives great Magic Acc for TF/WF and good for meleeing.
	Naegling	Upgraded Ambuscade sword. Gives great Magic Acc for TF/WF and good for pretending you're a COR.

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Gear Sets

Ranger needs sets for preshot, midshot, weaponskills, idle, and utility JA's.

TOP TIER	Goals to shoot for, the pinnacle of equipment for ranger. Ultimate weapons, HQ crafted items and expensive augmenting abound.
MID TIER	Decent endgame gear obtainable from things like Geas Fete, Omen, or early waves of Dynamis-D.
ENTRY LEVEL	Low tier gear usually from auction house, ambuscade or unity mobs

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Ranged TP Sets

Our biggest concern with TP sets is being able to weaponskill as much as possible. With capped Recycle and Arcadian Beret augment we get huge TP returns on most of our shots. We also have good accuracy from traits and gear so we can focus on TP gain. White damage generally isn't of interest to us unless we have Gastra, Armageddon, or Gandiva AM3 up, in which case we focus on crit stats during TP phase.

We also want to cap our Snapshot (70%) and then stack as much Rapid Shot as possible in order to fire quickly. For the sets in this section, the "F" number is the level of Flurry buff you have. F0 means you have no Flurry buff (sad panda), F1 and F2 mean Flurry and Flurry II, respectively. Higher levels of Flurry mean you need less Snapshot on your gear.

Preshot Sets
ItemSet 364537	ItemSet 364539	ItemSet 364540
• Taeon: Snapshot/Snapshot • Carmine: Path D • Cape: Snapshot	• Carmine: Path D • Adhemar: Path D • Cape: Snapshot	• Carmine: Path D • Adhemar: Path D • Cape: Snapshot

Gastraphetes Preshot Sets
ItemSet 364541	ItemSet 364542	ItemSet 364543
• Carmine: Path D • Cape: Snapshot	• Carmine: Path D • Adhemar: Path D • Cape: Snapshot	• Carmine: Path D • Pursuers: Path A • Cape: Snapshot

Midshot TP Sets
ItemSet 364775	ItemSet 364777	ItemSet 364778	ItemSet 364776
• Adhemar Hands: Path C • Adhemar: Path C • Adhemar Feet: Path D • Cape: AGI/Racc/STP	• Adhemar: Path C • Herc: AGI/Racc/Ratk • Cape: AGI/Racc/STP

Crit AM3 TP Sets

ItemSet 364791

• Cape: AGI/Racc/CRIT
• Alt Body: Mummu +2

Double Shot
ItemSet 364809	ItemSet 364816
• Cape: AGI/Racc/STP	• Cape: AGI/Racc/STP

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Weaponskill Sets

Trueflight is our most powerful magic weaponskill. It can be used with guns or crossbows if you have completed the associated quest. It is light elemental magic based and hits like a truck when properly geared. Orpheus's Sash and Weatherspoon Ring are the only sources of "Light Affinity" in the game right now and these provide a separate multiplicative (huge) buff to your Trueflight damage. Other starts that improve Trueflight are +% Weaponskill Damage, AGI, and Magic Attack Bonus (MAB). Magic accuracy on gear and augments is also important for higher tiers of content. Due to the formulas, "+Magic Damage" is not nearly as good as the other stats listed previously.

Wildfire is the skill we use when we need magic damage, but the enemy is resistant to light element. TP does not boost this WS's damage at all. It has uses on light/physical resistant enemies however. It shares most of the gear with Trueflight aside from the +TP bonus gear and the Light Affinity items.

Last Stand is our go-to physical weaponskill. It is a two hit physical weaponskill and relies heavily on not missing either shot and having large amounts of ranged attack. Missing isn't much of an issue for Rangers so we prioritize +%WSD, AGI, and Ranged Attack.

Coronach is our relic weaponskill from Annihilator. It is not very powerful, but has a unique aftermath that allows us to generate essentially zero enmity. I have included a set here for reference.

Jishnu's Radiance is the ranged counterpart to Chant-du-Cygne and relies on DEX critical hits for damage. Sadly, it is an Archery skill so it sees limited use, but I have included a set for it incase people want to try.

Flaming Arrow & Hot Shot are special hybrid weaponskills that deal both physical and magical damage. These are two hit weaponskills that rely on both a physical and magical hit to deal damage. With the advent of Hover Shot we can scale these for relatively easy max damage weaponskill hits in the right situations.

Trueflight Sets
ItemSet 364780	ItemSet 364789	ItemSet 364819	ItemSet 364821
• Herc: AGI/MAB/WSD • Cape: AGI/MDmg/WSD • Waist: Obi if SCH buff	• Herc: AGI/MAB/WSD • Carmine Hands: Path D • Carmine Body: Path D • Cape: AGI/MDmg/WSD	• Doomsday: AGI/MAB/WSD • Taeon: AGI or WSD/MAB • Pursuer's: Path A	• Tauret for Macc • Novio if no Moonshade • Alternate Rings

Wildfire Sets
ItemSet 379738	ItemSet 379739	ItemSet 379740	ItemSet 364821
• Herc: AGI/MAB/WSD • Cape: AGI/MDmg/WSD • Waist: Obi if SCH buff	• Herc: AGI/MAB/WSD • Carmine Hands: Path D • Carmine Body: Path D • Cape: AGI/MDmg/WSD	• Doomsday: AGI/MAB/WSD • Taeon: AGI or WSD/MAB • Pursuer's: Path A	• Tauret for Macc • Alternate earrings • Alternate rings

Last Stand Sets
ItemSet 364781	ItemSet 364810	ItemSet 364820
• Herc: AGI/Ratk/WSD • Cape: AGI/Ratk//WSD	• Herc: AGI/Ratk/WSD • Cape: AGI/Ratk/WSD	• Nibiru: Path C

Coronach Set

ItemSet 364822

• Herc: AGI/Ratk/WSD
• Cape: AGI/Ratt/WSD

Jishnu's Radiance Set

ItemSet 364833

• Adhemar: Path A
• Cape: DEX/Ratk/Crit

Flaming Arrow & Hot Shot
ItemSet 379859	ItemSet 379860
• Cape: AGI/MDmg/WSD • Herc: AGI/MAB/WSD	• Cape: AGI/MDmg/WSD • Herc: AGI/MAB/WSD

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Other Sets

Utility Sets
ItemSet 364812	ItemSet 364813	ItemSet 364814	ItemSet 364815

Melee Sets
ItemSet 364975	ItemSet 364977	ItemSet 364973	ItemSet 364974
• Adhemar: Path A or B • Herc: DEX/Acc/TA • /NIN Cape: DEX/Acc/DA • /DNC Cape: DEX/Acc/DW	• Adhemar: Path B • Herc: STR/Acc/TA • Cape: STR/Acc/DA	• Adhemar: Path A or B • Herc: DEX/Acc/TA • Cape: DEX/Acc/CRIT	• Herc: STR/Acc/WSD • Cape: STR/Acc/WSD

Kraken Club Sets
ItemSet 373547	ItemSet 373543	ItemSet 373546
• /NIN Cape: DEX/Acc/DW	• Herc: STR/Acc/WSD • Cape: STR/Acc/WSD	• Herc: AGI/MAB/WSD • Cape: AGI/MDmg/WSD

A level 63 club gets its own section? What the heck? The Kraken Club has a long history in FFXI of being one of the most broken items in the game. While it does comparatively weak damage, it can generate TP aboslutely insanely fast when combined with Malignance Armor from the Lilith HTBF.

The two main uses of this are to spam some of the most powerful weaponskills in the game as fast as possible: Savage Blade and Trueflight. This lets ranger pump out absurd physical and magical damage. For Savage Blade you will need the Accipiter TP Bonus Bow from Magian Trials and the Hauksbok Arrow from Domain Invasion. These items combined with the Store TP, -DT, Meva, and Acc from Malignance make you a viable melee combatant capable of dealing aboslutely devastating damage.

Note: You still need decked out REMA Supports (BRD, COR, GEO) to make this work. Without your supports you are nothing.

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Ambuscade Capes

A Ranger needs 4 capes, 8 or 9 if you have Gandiva and/or want to go clubbing.

#		#
1	TP Cape	2	Last Stand/Entry-Level TF/WF WS Cape
3	TF/WF Cape	4	Snapshot Cape
5	Crit AM3 Cape	6	Jishnu's Radiance Cape
7	Melee TP Cape (DA)	8	Melee TP Cape (DW)
9	Savage Blade Cape

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Mission/Quest Rewards

Adoulin Rings are a special consideration since you can only have one. If you are a dedicated RNG take the Weatherspoon it the best possible ring for Trueflight. Otherwise look at Haverton or Karieyh.

	Reward	Notes
CHAINS OF PROMATHIA	rajas ring	The only option. STP 5 in the ring slot is still close to B.I.S. Great for early leveling/questing.
WINGS OF THE GODDESS	moonshade earring	Always make TP Bonus on this. Very good for TF and Last Stand. Augments: Att/TP-Bonus or MAB/TP-Bonus
SEEKERS OF ADOULIN	Haverton ring	Highest Racc and Snapshot ring available. Good choice if you play a lot of COR too.
	Karieyh ring	WSD is hard to come by in the ring slot. A good choice if you also want to play other DPS jobs in addition to Ranger.
	Weatherspoon ring	Incredible Trueflight ring. Far and away the most powerful ring for Ranger but has limited use on other jobs.

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Resources

⏏

Frequently Asked Questions

Q:	What's the best ranged weapon for RNG right now?
A:	Like everything in this game, it depends on what we are doing. Gastraphetes is incredibly strong, but only in specific cases where trueflight is the best option. Fomalhaut is more powerful in a higher number of use cases and is a much more versatile weapon that plays along better with the current physical DPS meta. That said, if you aren't sure how committed you are to Ranger, I would recommend picking up a Fomalhaut first because 9 times out of 10 you will be in a melee burn party and Fomalhaut + Last Stand takes better advantage of the buffs you will be getting than a Gastra would. You can use Fomalhaut on COR too for the same reasons. TL;DR Fomalhaut is best most of the time and in the most commonly used party/buff setups, but when Gastra+TF is better it is A LOT better.

Q:	What is the Snapshot cap?
A:	70%. Flurry, gifts, gear bonuses and traits all contribute to this total.

Q:	Do I have to spend a billion gil to be a good contributor on ranger?
A:	That's a big NO. If you buy a Fomalhaut for 150mil you can probably spend 300-400mil on the rest of your gear and make a valuable contribution to endgame content. However, a ranger with a billion gil worth of gear will see noticeably higher numbers, so don't think that there is a ceilling to how much gil you can pour into ranger if you want to push the limits, but it's not mandatory unless you're trying to low man or sell content. No amount of gear will make up for lacking in buffs, however.

Q:	Is Snapshot more important than Rapid Shot?
A:	Pursue Snapshot to the 70% cap first, since it's a constant reduction to your aiming delay. Then add as much rapid shot as you can on top of that.

Q:	Why aren't you using Fotia belt/gorget for ____ WS? Isn't +10% WSD better than everything else?
A:	Fotia isn't 10% WSD like other items, it is a buff (+0.1) to something called fTP which is a mathy term in the damage calculations for our weaponskills. Some weaponskills like Trueflight have fTP values as high as 9.67. This means that the buff is substantially less than 10% so we consider other options. Certain multihit weaponskills don't carry their fTP across all hits either which further reduces the value of Fotia gear.

Q:	Which pieces of Artifact, Relic and Empyrean armor do I need to collect/reforge?
A:	All of the Artifact (Head, Body, and Hands are most important), Relic head, legs and body, Empy body and hands.

Q:	My Last Stand damage is low even with high tier sets, what gives?
A:	Last Stand relies heavily on ranged attack stat. It also needs to be buffed to the moon in order to output substantial damage. Geo-Frailty/Fury, Minuet, Chaos Roll, etc. are all important contributors to LS damage. It is also a 2-hit weaponskill so if you are missing one of the shots look at the accuracy requirements for your content.

Q:	What kind of buffs does Ranger need to excel at high end content?
A:	Ranger can receive meaningful buffs from all kinds of jobs: RDM - Flurry II or I if subjob, Distract III and/or Frazzle III GEO - Fury and Frailty for physical, Acumen and Malaise for magic DPS BRD - Some combination of Honor March, Minuets for physical DPS, AGI Etudes for Trueflight. Prelude if you need accuracy on high end content. COR - Samurai's roll and Chaos Roll if physical, Wizard's Roll if doing magic DPS. Warlock's Roll if your Trueflight is getting resisted and Allies's Roll if your attack is capped SCH - Aurorastorm II or I if subjob, Adloquium for TP WHM - Auspice, Boost-AGI. DEX if doing Gandiva - Jishnu's

Ranger Gearswap LUA's
These are links to community made ranger (and other job) gearswaps.
I do not maintain them and they may be out of date.
Use third party programs and addons at your own risk.
Celebrindal's Gearswap

Other Miscellaneous Resources
Ranger Hybrid WS DMG Calculator
Demhar's R15 REMA Commentary

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Credits

This guide is a collection of posts by many people on the ranger forum over the years and is not my own original work.
A list of people who have made sets or contributions I included:

Afania
Ahchoo
Ajirah
Areint
Arislan
Brynach
Capuchin
Celebrindal
Clearlyamule
Comeatmebro
Demhar
Gotenn
Helel
Kaldaek
Merica
Resetti
SimonSes
Snapster
Zanosan
Zeroburning

This guide format and some descriptions and sets were borrowed from Afania and Arislan's COR guide on FFXIAH. Be sure to thank them for their enormous contributions to the ranged DPS community.

The Ranger's Prayer

Our Ammo,
Which art in quivers,
Quelling be thy name.
Thy Recycle come,
Thy Wide Scan done,
In Jeuno as well as Tu'lia.
Give us this day our daily Trueflight,
And forgive us our hate-stealing,
As we forgive weak-ass Tanks.
And lead us not into meleeing,
But deliver us all the Doubleshots.

[ Last Update: March 16, 2023 ]

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