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The same can be said of any job, except MNK, DRG, WAR, DRK etc. (kidding), but RNG is an incredibly unique job in that it has the capacity to deal damage very effectively, and at a low cost (well, enmity-wise), if done appropriately and intelligently. This intelligence is probably the most important aspect of ranger: knowing how to control one’s enmity, and knowing when such control is necessary. Unlike every other damage-dealing job, RNG has the ability to evade all damage, and this is, arguably, its greatest contribution, though its damage-dealing capabilities are certainly not to be ignored. It is however, the only job that requires you to “pay” for your damage. You will need to purchase not only food, like every other DD, but also ammo.


Wide Scan: There isn’t much to say about wide scan without stating the obvious. It’s used for locating mobs or NPCs . It can be useful in timed events where you need to know exactly where the mobs are.

Alertness: Such a weird job trait. Use sneak/invisible.

Accuracy Bonus: Hurray for this trait! At level 86+ this provides an astounding +60 accuracy/ranged accuracy. There are few situations where you will need to eat food other than red curry/pot-au-feu as accuracy is much easier to cap on RNG than other jobs.

Rapid Shot: 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% (essentially snapshot +25), 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: Alright! So now you can be the only guy who remains asleep after poisonga goes off.

Dead Aim: 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. 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: Another great trait, although this can be somewhat useless if you’re unable to remain in the sweet spot, or are continually pulling hate. At 98+ this provides a 7% boost to damage. This is not a boost to ranged attack, but rather a direct increase to damage. Like with dead aim, you can simply multiply your damage by 1.07 to determine the boost.
Any equipment enhancing true shot increases the damage boost. +1 true shot is equivalent to a 2% damage boost.

Conserve TP: 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 25 TP, conserve TP would have to generate a full 25 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 scout’s beret +2 procs.

Recycle: Occasionally you will use no ammunition, 5% chance per merit. At one point in time, this was just a gil-saver, but now it’s almost become a necessity due the scout’s beret +2 augment. The trait itself is nothing extraordinary, but, as you will in the gear section, it is incredibly powerful with scout’s beret +2 equipped. Now a job trait!
(augmented)
Adds +1 TP per shot per merit. It is NOT store TP. If you have 5/5 merits, you simply add +5 TP on to each shot. It can proc on each hit of a multi-hit weapon skill.
Any equipment enhancing recycle increases its activation rate. Scout’s beret +2 + merits are enough to cap.

Snapshot (Merit): Reduces delay by 2% per merit. Note that the delay is 2:1, just so there is no confusion. Whenever we talk about +5 snapshot, we are actually talking about a 10% delay reduction. This trait is an absolute necessity. You simply can’t call yourself a RNG if common sense didn’t tell you to merit this. Any melee would jump at the chance for free haste.
(augmented)
Adds 1% double shot per snapshot merit. Double shot does not need to be active.
Instead of listing every single enhances snapshot piece of gear, I’ll simply include the ones worth using in the equipment section. Any piece of gear with enhances snapshot simply reduces ranged attack delay.


Eagle Eye Shot: We all know how crappy this SP ability is. Personally, I don’t find it quite as horrible as everyone seems to think. It’s a nice zerg tool, and, if you’re about to wipe with the mob at 1%, it can be the occasional life-saver. That said, it’s not nearly as powerful as many other SP abilities, and it can miss… (don’t try to use it if double weak).
(augmented)
Increases damage by 20%.


Sharpshot/Barrage: I figured I’d group these two together as that is how they probably should be used.
Sharpshot increases ranged accuracy by quite a large amount. You can basically hit anything in the game, including incredibly evasive mobs, with this up, and have almost perfect (95%) accuracy. The exact value is difficult to discern as it is impossible to determine a mob’s evasiveness using /check (which only compares accuracy, not ranged accuracy). This is one area where some testing might be useful. This ability also eliminates the distance penalty as it relates to accuracy. Unfortunately, unlike WAR’s aggressor, this ability only lasts for one minute.
*Hunter’s pants image here*
Barrage has two purposes: to deal damage, and to increase TP beyond 100. Thus, barrage should always be used directly after a WS. Do not use barrage if you are already over 100 TP, or near 100 TP, as it is a waste of TP generation. Make sure you have enough ammo equipped, or it will only use as many bullets/arrows/bolts as you have remaining. The most significant (and annoying) thing regarding barrage is that the sequence of shots stops once one of the shots misses. Thus, if your first shot in a barrage sequence misses, all of the other shots will miss as well. This is why barrage is usually used in conjunction with sharpshot.

– with Barrage +1.
Adds one additional shot to barrage each.

Camouflage: This ability provides -25 enmity while in effect. Generally, I find it fairly useless as it does not work with either barrage or weapon skills, which are really the only two situations you would ever use it. Assuming a 5-hit build, you can shoot 4 times with -25 enmity, and then it’s gone (after WS). According to the JP Vanafest, if used in conjunction with decoy shot, the ranger will generate no hate.

Increases duration of camouflage.

Shadowbind: An almost un-resistible bind. There are very few NMs that can resist it. It’s great for avoiding certain SP abilities like hundred fists or chainspell. Simply bind the mob and run. If you have multiple RNGs, it’s a great recovery tool as well. You can rotate shadowbinds until everyone is unweak.

Increases bind duration from 30s to 40s.

Velocity Shot: SE gave this to RNGs after they nerfed them to hell. It did a pretty good job of returning RNG to their former glory. Overall though, it’s one of the most powerful abilities in the game. It’s like a last resort you can keep on full-time. It provides a ranged attack/pDIF boost, as well as snapshot +5. As glorious as it is, there isn’t too much to say about it here. Basically, just keep it on full-time, unless you plan on using a kraken club/meleeing. Along with all its wonderful benefits are a few detriments as well: slow +15% and attack -15%.

Increases ranged attack/pDIF boost and snapshot boost (+5 snapshot/-10% delay).

Unlimited Shot: This ability used to be useful before double shot came along. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t see any use for this currently. It shares its recast with double shot, so, basically, don’t use it.

The next shot will receive the “sweet spot” bonus from any distance.

Double Shot: While this ability obviously increase your TP damage over time, it’s also incredibly useful for generating TP as well, considering how slow RNGs attack. This is going to sound like a minor detail, but it should always be used following a WS, as you will then have the opportunity to make the most of it. Double shot cannot proc on a WS, thus if you use it before a WS, you will suffer a slight delay before being able to fully utilize it.

Enhances Double Shot: increases the proc rate of double shot.

Bounty Shot: This ability still strikes me as odd. I think everyone would have assumed COR would get this over RNG, but here we are. It is equivalent to TH2, and has the ability to increase the TH level currently present on the mob, much like a THF’s regular hits. The chance of increasing TH decreases drastically at higher levels. It’s fairly easy to achieve TH4.

Enhances Bounty Shot: increases the TH level of bounty shot from 2 to 3.

Decoy Shot: 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.

Flashy Shot (Merit): This ability increases your enmity on your next ranged attack, and removes the level difference penalty, and thus, is only useful against high level mobs. It will have no effect on low level mobs, assuming capped ranged attack. With a 10 minute recast, the ability is fairly lackluster. It’s good for an epeen moment, but you would be much better off using your merits on something else.
(augmented)
Removes 20% of the distance penalty per merit level.

Stealth Shot (Merit): This ability can be useful for non-relic users who need to mitigate the enmity generation from their weapon skills. I still find it fairly useless though, considering its 5 minute recast. It’s not going to make much of a difference to reduce the enmity of 1 weapon skill out of 20.
(augmented)
-5 enmity per merit level.

Flashy/Stealth Shot: Both abilities only work on single ranged attacks, thus they only proc on the first hit of barrage. They will work on eagle eye shot. See merit section for details on exactly what you should merit.


You have three ranged weapon choices: Crossbow, Bow, or Gun. Each has their benefits/detriments.


These tend to be the cheapest in terms of ammo and are great to use on low level content where you’d rather not toss gil. Their real utility, however, is in their status bolts, specifically acid/oxidant bolts. In situations where an entire alliance is beating on a foe, using a crossbow can actually trump both bow and gun. The defense down effect is decently potent at 12.5%. It does not stack with angon however, so don’t plan on using them with DRGs around.

Side-note for crossbows: Unfortunately, crossbows do not have access to any low-hate weapon skills, which makes them difficult (not impossible) to use in a lot of endgame content.



/WAR: This support job has the greatest potential for damage; however, it has many draw backs, the main being that if you pull too much hate, you’re likely dead, especially if you have berserk up. That’s why annihilator/yoichi provides such a great advantage to RNG. Annihilator/yoichi RNG can spam their respective relic weapon skills without worrying about pulling hate. Thus, if you have annihilator/yoichi, this will be your support job 95% of the time. Note that fencer does work on ranged attacks and ranged weapon skills, so make sure you do not use a staff!

/SAM: Obviously the main reason for using this support job is for the store tp, though you do get access to a few other benefits, such as Hasso, Seigan/Third eye, Meditate. It’s quite easy to achieve a 4-hit (even 3-hit with sam/tact rolls) on RNG nowadays (especially with the recent recycle buff) so this support job isn’t quite as useful as it once was. Seigan/Third eye can also be a life-saver. I remember tanking salvage chariots back at 75 with seigan/third eye on RNG… so if there are any situations where you going to be under constant attack, this support job may be your best choice.

/DRG: This support job is only useful for long fights where capping hate might be an issue. High jump removes 30% of your enmity. It's basically essential for non-relic users, and useful even for relic users depending on how long the battle takes. Unfortunately, you lose a lot of damage potential, so only use this support job if you absolutely have to.

/COR: Rare usage, but if quick draw is needed, there really isn’t much difference between COR and RNG in terms of quick draw damage. COR has access to better gear, but RNG has much higher base damage. It’s also worth noting that hunter’s roll can be very effective, even with COR as a support job. If you need a ridiculous amount of accuracy, /COR is your best option. You’ll also earn the gratitude of your fellow party members.

/BLM /RDM /SCH: I grouped these three together because they’ll always be used for the same reason: wildfire. If there is no one to cast firestorm on you, /SCH will be your best option. Otherwise, /BLM will provide you the best damage. /RDM is only slightly worse, but also provides magic defense bonus.

/DRK: Useful for kraken club RNGs. Double attack severely gimps kraken club’s tp generation, so /WAR is not a good idea. Your next best option is /DRK with last resort.

/NIN: The only reason to use this support job over /SAM is if the mob is constantly wiping third eye. This support job is for survival only. If you have to use it, then you do have the opportunity of dual wielding.


Fortunately, RNG merits are pretty simple, and there are very few situations where you’d want to deviate from the norm. Nonetheless, I’ll discuss each individually, and why you would or wouldn’t want to merit them.

Group One:

Scavenge Effect (increases chance of recovering ammo): The exact effects of this are still unknown, simply because we don’t know what the base chance of recovering ammo is. It won’t directly improve your RNG in any way, but it will save you gil. There really isn’t much else to merit in this category, so don’t feel like a miser if you decide to merit it.

Camouflage Recast: I wouldn’t recommend meriting this, although fights against certain NMs, such as the chapuli delve NM, might benefit from this slightly. Those without yoichi/anni will also benefit more from camouflage. It’s really not going to make that much of a difference though, considering how quickly camouflage wears off.

Sharpshot Recast: Personally, I’ve found a lower recast on sharpshot to be useful for timed events like legion, but most RNGs use sharpshot in conjunction with barrage, so the lower recast won’t make any difference.

Rapid shot rate: Absolute necessity. 5/5

Conclusion: Sharpshot 5/5 and Rapid shot 5/5 if the lower recast on sharpshot is beneficial to you. Otherwise, you can really merit whatever you want, as long as rapid shot is 5/5.

Group Two:

Stealth shot/Flashy shot: See JA section please. These job abilities aren’t necessarily bad, it’s just you absolutely need to merit both recycle and snapshot to 5/5.

Snapshot: 5/5. Free haste. Enjoy it. Your delay for ranged attacks will be permanently reduced by 10%.

Recycle rate: 5/5. See job trait section. This is an absolute necessity with scout’s beret +2.

Conclusion: No combination other than snapshot 5/5 and recycle 5/5 makes any sense for this category.


The biggest difference between RNG and any other melee job is the lack of an auto-attack function; that is, to shoot, you must always enter a /shoot command to the game. You can still auto-attack with your melee weapon of course, but that is almost entirely insignificant, except if you’re using a kraken club. Because you have to manually enter the /shoot command, human error will actually affect the overall delay of your ranged attacks, as well as lag. If you enter the command too early, there is slight delay before you can enter it again (as with any command). If you enter it too late, then obviously you’ve wasted some amount of time. I won’t go into detail about exactly when to enter the command, because it’s something you’ll become accustomed to on your own. The basic rule of thumb is to enter the command as your character is putting away the ranged weapon.
There are two main approaches to playing RNG, which will vary depending on the mob or event: full-blown DD, and reserved DD.

Full-blown DD is unconcerned with the potential for damage intake, and is used in situations where the mob is either non-threatening, or incapable of damaging you (fanatic’s drink/perfect defense). In full-blown DD mode, you are unconcerned with enmity and thus can use your most powerful weapon skills/abilities without consequence. In full-blown DD mode, you’ll generally want to be spamming last stand.

Reserved DD mode can be further broken down into two approaches, one for those who own a relic weapon, and one for those who don’t. In either approach, one is constantly conscious of one’s enmity and attempts to avoid pulling hate. Reserved DD mode is used in situations where the mob is severely threatening, or it is inconvenient to move the mob. Do not underestimate this inconvenience either. In most events, there will be lots of silly melees running around, and you’ll prolong the battle significantly if they can’t hit the mob.

With relic: This mode is pretty easy, and is why most people upgrade a ranged relic. Once you have access to a weapon skill that is, relatively speaking, hate-free, you rarely have to worry about pulling hate, especially with the use of decoy shot. Coronach is slightly more useful than namas arrow here, simply because its aftermath adds an additional -20 enmity. Both weapon skills, however, should keep the mob off of you, as long as you make liberal use of decoy shot, and position yourself appropriately.

Without relic: This mode is more challenging to play because RNG tends to unload some pretty powerful weapon skills. It’s simply hard not to pull hate. The best thing you can do is make liberal use of decoy shot and stop shooting if the mob is moving around a lot. One of the benefits of not having an auto-attack is being to control one’s firing frequency. Don’t keep shooting if the mob is already running at you…

Kraken club: This is technically full-blown DD mode, but it’s played significantly differently. In kraken club mode, you will no longer shoot for tp, but melee instead. The situations in which you will use kraken club mode are exactly the same as full-blown DD mode. In any situation where you are capable of meleeing the mob (and surviving), kraken club mode is the absolute best option. It’s an incredibly powerful tool. There isn’t much else to say about this mode. It’s a simple of matter of watching your tp rise and spamming your weapon skill macro every couple seconds. The one major difference is you will not be using velocity shot for obvious reasons. This will change the body equipment you use for your weapon skills.

Distance Penalty: RNGs are penalized in both accuracy and damage depending on how far away from the mob they are. The further away from the mob, the lower your accuracy, the worst being 24.9 yalms. Damage depends partly on your weapon. Bows perform best at ~12, crossbows ~8, and guns ~6. Any further/closer than that and ranged attack will be lowered slightly. Note that the penalty is ONLY to ranged attack, so if your pDIF is capped, the penalty will not affect your damage.


My personal spellcast can be found on my guildwork page. Group=RNG is what you'll want to look for within the XML. Link: http://guildwork.com/characters/ffxi/bismarck/helel/spellcast

FOR DELVE ONLY:

You need, at the minimum, 2 macros. One macro to swap to precast gear, and another macro to shoot and swap to tp gear.

Precast macro:
/sc set precast

Shoot macro:
input /raw /shoot <t>
/sc set tp

Now, to shoot, you need to hit your precast macro first, then your shoot macro quickly after, not too quick or the gear won't swap. I 'highly' recommend using blinkmenot. It's much easier to see when shot finishes.

You can add some additional macros, such as an accuracy set, etc.

FOR ANYTHING ELSE WHERE SE'S SERVERS DON'T SUCK:

You need only 1 macro:
/sc set precast
/shoot <t>

In spellcast you will need a midcast rule that looks something like this:

I included the aftercast delay to try to compensate for lag, but you can take it out and it will still work fine.


Generally, the formulas for ranged damage are exactly the same as melee, however the terms themselves are calculated differently. For example, ranged attacks use fSTR2 instead of fSTR, which greatly influences the effectiveness of strength. My purpose in this section is not necessarily to assist one in calculating damage (though you certainly can), but to translate precisely what these terms mean in relation to increasing your damage output.

For basic physical attacks and weapon skills: Damage = Base Damage x pDIF

pDIF: Basically the difference between your attack and the mob's defense (your attack/mob's defense = pDIF), which is also subject to level correction, however I think this correction has been removed for SoA mobs? Ranged pDIF caps at 3.0, which is much higher than melee. This means that attack buffs have a much greater impact on increasing ranged damage than melee (assuming cap or near cap pDIF). It also means that ranged damage requires more buffs to cap. *more on damage variation here, ranged attack, etc.*

Base damage (ranged attack): base damage of weapon + ammo damage + fSTR2. Interestingly, when pDIF is capped, ranged damage will be exactly the same for every shot and weapon skill. So, if you're interested in knowing how much total damage you can do, you can simply multiply base damage by 3.0, assuming no level correction.

fSTR2: (your STR - monster VIT+4)/2. Compare this to melee fSTR, ((your STR - monster VIT)+4)/4, and you can see the difference (divided by 2 instead of 4). STR is thus much more effective for ranged attacks than melee. Depending on how much VIT the monsters has, STR is usually equivalent to a 52-60% weapon skill modifier. The closer your STR value is to the mob's VIT, the greater the impact of STR (closer to 60%, and even higher if STR is low relative to mob's VIT). The closer you approach fSTR2 cap, the less impact STR has (closer to 52%).
fSTR2 cap: (weapon base damage/9 + 8)*2 (annihilator (99) would have a cap of (76/9 +8)*2 = 32). Ammo is NOT factored in! Thus guns have the lowest fSTR2 cap.

Store TP Calculations:
For anyone interested in store TP calculations, the process is basically, ((100-(tp gained from weapon skill))/(x-1))-5

x is the x-hit build you're aiming for. You need to subtract 1 because weapon skill counts already as 1 hit. The -5 is the TP gained from scout's beret.

(100-15.1)/4 - 5 = 16.2
(yoichi gives 15.1 TP per hit)

That formula gives you the amount of TP you need per hit. Then you need to divide that amount of TP by the amount of TP you normally get without any store TP.

16.2/15.1 = 1.08 (always round up here, otherwise you will be left with 99 TP occasionally).

Thus you need 8 store TP for 5-hit build with yoichi+beret +2, assuming no store TP in your weapon skill build.

15.1 * 1.08 = 16.3

(16.3 + 5)*4 = 85.2

85.2 + 15.1 = 100.3

Critical Hit Rate Calculations:

dAGI affects RNG critical rate, not dDEX.
dAGI is (your AGI - mob's AGI)
Crit Rate = +floor( dAGI÷10 )%


Thank you for reading! I'll be adding more stuff obviously, but I figured I'd post this for now, since it's way overdo.