Ranger Skills

[Huggles the Cat]

What are some of your ranger skill sets? I'm currently working on a finalized ranger build and am very undecided about what skills I'd like my ranger pawn to have most of the time (Great Gamble swapped in for dragon farming). I'm currently using Tenfold Fury, Deathly Arrow, and Invasive Arrow. Though I've recently been made aware of Fearful Din's strong damage (lesser Blast Arrow) on direct impact to a target. I'm now uncertain if I should be swapping it in. I generally try to have at least one aid skill (dazzle blast, body binder, etc.) and would like some feedback from people with extensive ranger pawn use. Also, feel free to list your own preferred skill sets.

Dagger*
Cutting Wind
Hundred Kiss/Dazzle Blast
Advanced Trigger

Longbow*
Tenfold Flurry
Deathly Arrow/Great Gamble
Crippling Arrow/Body Binder/Fearful Din

[Karathrax]

Hmm, you're gonna get a long answer. Wall o' text incoming...

My personal preferred skill setup for a Ranger is Tenfold Flurry, Cutting Wind and 100 Kisses.

A Ranger with no daggers will substitute kicking for dagger use. They won't use their bow proportionately more, because the AI will insists that it manage its stamina wisely (Great Gamble being the exception), and profligate bow use means a bigger impact on its stamina pool.

A Ranger with Tenfold Flurry as its only bow skill will still use its single-shot. The AI, instead of rotating its skill selection between one of two or three skills will only use Tenfold, when it selects a skill as the appropriate response to a particular scenario, because that's the one skill that's available.

I'm personally not convinced that the pawn AI will deliberately select a skill for specific use unless there's an elemental weakness involved; none of the Ranger bow skills have an inherent element, therefore the battle call 'It's weak to fire' will prioritize Toss and Trigger/Advanced Trigger or Dazzle Hold/Dazzle Blast if available from its daggers. I'd rather have the Ranger shoot instead of closing in to make a dagger strike, thankyouverymuch, so I don't ever equip those skills. I'm also still not convinced they deliberately use Instant Reset correctly.

I also personally don't care for debilitation setups on pawns; I'm an efficient killer and have no need for Torpor, so that means I'm loading out for power.

Regarding third-tier skills on a Ranger... I have strong opinions about them and refuse to use either bow or dagger rings. Third tier skill rings force the AI to select those skills with significantly higher frequency, and in the case of bow skills, it causes Tenfold Flurry to almost vanish from the pawn's choices. The negative effect on the bow is that the pawn will almost always open battle by charging a bow skill instead of firing Tenfold or spamming the normal shot, effectively taking the pawn out of action if the enemy is killed by the other party members before the skill completes its charge.

If I wanted a pawn to close in for dagger fighting, I'd hire a Strider instead; a Ranger is intended to be artillery, not a melee fighter. Third tier dagger skills will cause a Ranger to close in for dagger work more frequently, and I'd rather they didn't do that.

That said, if one really wants a Rusted bow setup on a Ranger, equip a Corkscrew Arrow ring and use only Spiral Arrow as the bow skill. There is very little power behind the shot, however, since the arrow strikes the victim repeatedly, the Rusted Bow's debilitation has a significantly higher percentage rate to proc. Tenfold can also effectively deliver debilitations, but you won't see the pawn using it that much, if at all, due to the influence of that third-tier ring.

[Huggles the Cat]

Originally posted by Karathrax:

Regarding third-tier skills on a Ranger... I have strong opinions about them and refuse to use either bow or dagger rings. Third tier skill rings force the AI to select those skills with significantly higher frequency, and in the case of bow skills, it causes Tenfold Flurry to almost vanish from the pawn's choices. The negative effect on the bow is that the pawn will almost always open battle by charging a bow skill instead of firing Tenfold or spamming the normal shot, effectively taking the pawn out of action if the enemy is killed by the other party members before the skill completes its charge.

I never knew about the third tire abilties having higher priority. That's really interesting to learn.

[Kobi Blade]

I use the same types of skills regardless of vocation.

X: Power Attack
Y: Crowd Control
B: Stun

[Karathrax]

Originally posted by Mr.Huggles:

Originally posted by Karathrax:

Regarding third-tier skills on a Ranger... I have strong opinions about them and refuse to use either bow or dagger rings. Third tier skill rings force the AI to select those skills with significantly higher frequency, and in the case of bow skills, it causes Tenfold Flurry to almost vanish from the pawn's choices. The negative effect on the bow is that the pawn will almost always open battle by charging a bow skill instead of firing Tenfold or spamming the normal shot, effectively taking the pawn out of action if the enemy is killed by the other party members before the skill completes its charge.

I never knew about the third tire abilties having higher priority. That's really interesting to learn.

Yup. Third-tier rings are great for a Strider, because the third-tier skills specifically enhance their power skills. Ranger, not so much. Reaper's Arrow is indeed deadly, but I don't want a Ranger to spam Reaper's Arrow at the expense of Tenfold because of its lengthy charging time.

[Huggles the Cat]

Originally posted by Karathrax:

Originally posted by Mr.Huggles:

I never knew about the third tire abilties having higher priority. That's really interesting to learn.

Yup. Third-tier rings are great for a Strider, because the third-tier skills specifically enhance their power skills. Ranger, not so much. Reaper's Arrow is indeed deadly, but I don't want a Ranger to spam Reaper's Arrow at the expense of Tenfold because of its lengthy charging time.

When you say they are higher priority, is that saying they are chossen over normal attacks or just over other skills? I'm wondering if just having Reaper's Arrow and no other bow skills plus one thrid tire dagger skill would negate the spam since it's all they have.

[Karathrax]

When you say they are higher priority, is that saying they are chossen over normal attacks or just over other skills? I'm wondering if just having Reaper's Arrow and no other bow skills plus one thrid tire dagger skill would negate the spam since it's all they have.

They're chosen over all other skills, if stamina permits.

What you'd see is a Ranger who uses Reaper's Arrow and the third-tier dagger skill to the near total exclusion of all other skills. If that's what you want, then go for it-- but remember that the dagger skill ring is going to cause the AI some confusion because it does know that the best range for a Ranger's bow is from 9 meters to 25 meters away from the target, and the imperative to close in to use the dagger skill from the other third-tier skill ring would be in direct conflict with that.

[BoredGamersLife]

If you want ranger to be effective as a NPC then you would need to unequip the daggers so they can use the long bow a lot.

[Huggles the Cat]

Originally posted by Knavez:

If you want ranger to be effective as a NPC then you would need to unequip the daggers so they can use the long bow a lot.

If you read what Karathra wrote, you'd know that just makes them kick a lot. I trust what he says since he's a very well informed writer for the wiki.

[Paradox]

Originally posted by Mr.Huggles:

If you read what Karathra wrote, you'd know that just makes them kick a lot. I trust what he says since he's a very well informed writer for the wiki.

She* said. You don't want to be getting on her bad side by mistaking her gender - trust me on this.

[Huggles the Cat]

Originally posted by Paradox:

Originally posted by Mr.Huggles:

If you read what Karathra wrote, you'd know that just makes them kick a lot. I trust what he says since he's a very well informed writer for the wiki.

She* said. You don't want to be getting on her bad side by mistaking her gender - trust me on this.

How am I going to know her gender or sex?

[Kobi Blade]

Originally posted by Mr.Huggles:

Originally posted by Paradox:

She* said. You don't want to be getting on her bad side by mistaking her gender - trust me on this.

How am I going to know her gender or sex?

Why should gender or sex matter anyway.

With the right behaviour Ranger will use bow often, I rarely see my Ranger paw using daggers.

[Paradox]

Originally posted by Mr.Huggles:

How am I going to know her gender or sex?

I said that in jest. Well, the mistaking the gender part anyway - not so much the bad side part

[Karathrax]

Gender is pretty much irrelevant, we are all gamers here.

Hmph. Anyway.

That's correct, good inclinations can act as a filter on the knowledge that's systematically unlocked via a pawn's Bestiary, but they will be overridden by third tier rings, too.

Theoretically, a 100% knowledgeable pawn doesn't need inclinations, but I can't personally attest to that with regard to Rangers as I still haven't done that experimentation; I liked my console sorcerer pawn better with inclinations after running her for quite some time with none.

[Huggles the Cat]

Originally posted by Karathrax:

Gender is pretty much irrelevant, we are all gamers here.

Hmph. Anyway.

That's correct, good inclinations can act as a filter on the knowledge that's systematically unlocked via a pawn's Bestiary, but they will be overridden by third tier rings, too.

Theoretically, a 100% knowledgeable pawn doesn't need inclinations, but I can't personally attest to that with regard to Rangers as I still haven't done that experimentation; I liked my console sorcerer pawn better with inclinations after running her for quite some time with none.

I'm curious what inclinations you normaly take for a ranger. I've been experamenting with Challenger, Mitigator, Pioneer, and Utilitarian in various combinations (keeping utilitarian out of primary since knowledge is only around 60-70%) but can't seem to find a good combination for both mobs and boss monsters. Once archers, mages, and weaklings are killed, the pawn can't seem to make up it's mind about possitioning/attacking, and spends a lot of time wandering (probably looking for good vantage points of attack). Is this typical of a ranger in training or is my inclination set just needing better set-up?

*edit: I don't wander the battle field either, so i'm not sure where the pawn learned to walk around aimlessly.

[Karathrax]

Is this typical of a ranger in training or is my inclination set just needing better set-up?

TBH, I've noticed that in all Rangers I've rented on PC, and that of my own. My console pawn doesn't do that, neither does my senior alt pawn, a Sorcerer. They are both Utiltarian/Challenger/Mitigator. I've discussed this with other console players with long-term experience comparing the performance of their new pawns on PC (not just Sorcerer and/or Ranger), and more than one has noted that difference between their console pawns and their PC pawns... the console pawns seem to be more on point, in that they dither less.

My theory is that maybe kill counts and/or hours invested in the pawn may play a part in that. Given that my console's main pawn has somewhere around 2800 hours in the save file and the assumption that his kill counts are extremely high given his age and high popularity, uhhhhhhh IDK if I want to invest the necessary time to try to duplicate that to test my hypothesis.