How to Ranger Basically

Hi, this is AAAAAAAAAAAAA, and I'm here to talk about how to play Ranger, basically.

The "Optimal" Ranger Palette

General Game flow

A sniper that can shoot enemies and support allies from a distance. The type's high ACC makes it adept with ranged weapons. Good for intermediate players.

A Ranger is a ranged weapon specialist. Each Ranged weapon provides a different niche, and allows Rangers to take on a variety of roles in combat at various distances. A typical Ranger palette consists of a chaining weapon (usually a pair of Twin Handguns), a chain breaker weapon, a melee weapon for PP recovery purposes, a weapon with FPS capability for utility or for a damage boost, and some other weapons for utility purposes. A typical ranger game plan revolves around managing distances, PP, and swapping between various weapons as befitting the combat situation.

tl;dr

A sample Ranger Palette

• Weapons
  • BEEEEEEG DAMAGE GO BRRRRR: Shotguns (CS1 or CS2), Grenade Launchers for multi-target bosses (CS1), Crossbows (CS1 or CS2)
  • Press a lot: Twin Handguns, Machine Guns (featuring Meseta Fever), Sazonde ()
  • Infinite Stunlock LOL: Laser Cannons (CS2)
  • This is medal of honor now: Rifles (CS1), Handguns (CS1)
  • Shotguns go brrr: Foverse ()
  • Utility: Anti, Resta, Jellen, Shifta, Deband, Zalure, Slicers, R-Mags, Handguns (CS2)
  • Sample Palette to the right:
    • Crossbow ( Yak Longa Charge Shot I) + Dagger ( Shisoku Tenkai-zan)
    • Machine Gun ( Meseta Fever Charge Shot I) + Wand ( Foverse Zalure)
    • Shotgun ( Barada Maga Charge Shot II)
    • Twin Handgun ( No PA Charge Shot I)
    • Rifle ( Long-Range Shoot Charge Shot I)
    • Rod ( Sazonde, Resta, R+ Shifta, R+ Deband)
• Notable Abilities
  • Full Charge Shot (Ranger Lv2): PUT IT ON AND NEVER TAKE IT OFF
  • Auto Heal Half/Critical (Default): Makes life easier.
  • Healing Item Boost (Hunter Lv2): Makes life even easier.
  • PP Defense Save (Hunter Lv3): Makes Guarding easier.
  • PP Escape Save (All Lv3): Makes dodging easier.
  • Partnership (Vanguard Lv6): Makes your friends stronger.
  • GRM fan (All Lv5): hey, did you know GRM makes almost every ranged weapon in the game?
  • Elemental Hit (Ranger Lv8): If you found a machine gun with burn or poison on it.
  • HP Absorb (All Lv4), PP Absorb (All Lv6): turns out perfect guards are a lot easier when you have way more response time and less attack lag, who'd have thought.
• Tips
  • For chains <20, during a chainbreak, you have the time to squeeze in a full charge shot and a normal charge shot.
  • A held Charge Shot can be cancelled by Evading, Pressing R (to either guard or switch weapons), or opening and closing the palette.
  • Guard reduces damage taken by 70%, and most weapons you'd use (two-handed ranged weapons) can guard, so using it more makes you way more resilient. Perfect Guards are also way easier to trigger since you usually have a lot of time to respond to them.
  • FPS Mode (L + d-pad) gives a huge boost to your damage. It's worth going into if you are on a weapon that can: Rifles, Handguns, and Laser Cannons (if you are using CS1 for some reason). Twin Handguns can too, but neither of their CSs work all that well in FPS mode.
  • Since every attack a Ranger typically uses costs PP, try bringing some melee weapons to help with PP recovery. Slicers are great because they do not require the Ranger to give up the distance between the Ranger and the enemies for PP recover.
    • Triggering Perfect Attacks (pressing either or while the the yellow circle from the last attack matches the button's circle) gives an extra 50% PP regeneration.

Perks and Drawbacks

Perks

• Ranged Weapons provides the player a massive range coverage compared to other types, and allows the player to attack from relatively safe distances. Long Range PAs can be used to further increase the range coverage.
• High Accuracy allows both Melee and Ranged attacks to connect much easier, and allows the player to punch far above their level.
• Rangers needs very little Abilities to function optimally, which allows more room for customization.

Drawbacks

• Ranged Weapons has a lack of chaining method for groups of mobs.
• The best chain-breaker Ranged Weapons often require a specific distance to work well, and may not mesh well with the player's playstyle.
• There's no way to reduce the PP usage for Charge Shots. Combined with the fact that normal attacks on Ranged Weapons also require PP, makes Rangers rather prone to running out of PP.
• Due to reliance on two-handed weapons, may not have enough room on the palette to fit all the elements.

General Tips

• Each Ranged weapon has two different charge shot types, Charge Shot I (CS1) and Charge Shot II (CS2). The charge shot type can be changed for a fee at the Weapons Shop.
  • This is separate from the 2nd stage charge shot provided by Full Charge Shot. Both CS1 and CS2 can use Full Charge Shot.

• The chain number affects the length the chain break period lasts, and therefore the amount of Charge Shots you can get in. Prior to about 20 chains, a chainbreak lasts just long enough to get in 1 Full Charge Shot and 1 1st stage Charge Shot on a normal charge speed and animation (most CS1s). CS2s needs more testing as each CS2 have different animation lengths.
• For some Charge Shot IIs, such as Rifles, there's a bit of time between the charge shot releasing and the hitbox appearing, and this additional startup time may cause the chain to expire before the hits connect, and losing the multipliers it would have had. This also applies for Charge Shot IIs that has a wonky initial hitbox, such as Twin Handguns and Crossbows. It's recommended to bring abilities, such as Foverse, or allies that can maintain the chain until the hits connect.
• A held Charge Shot can be cancelled by Evading, Pressing R (to either guard or switch weapons), or opening and closing the palette.
• Both normal attacks and Charge Shots costs PP, therefore Ranger is quite prone to running out of PP over the course of a mission. To ease the PP recovery period, consider bringing some melee weapons (as they don't cost PP), or type abilities that can help with PP recovery.
  • Note that Charge Shot PP costs are unaffected by either PP Bullet Save or the weapon's PP rates. What you see is what you get. This makes PP reovery options the only way to compensate for Charge Shots' PP costs.
• Since Ranger generally hangs around a fair distance away from enemies, it allows much more time to react to attacks and trigger Perfect Guard or Evasion.
  • Perfect Guard is especially easier since many Ranged weapons are Two-handed, and has a shorter hitlag than melee weapons or TECHNIC weapons.
  • It's also quite important as Evasion costs PP, which can be a major deficit while spamming Charge Shots.
• FPS Mode significantly increases damage produced by the applicable ranged weapons, and also allows sniping for weak spots or from platforms.
  • Being in FPS mode disables the player from moving, guarding, evading, or using items, so try to use it from a relatively safe distance or don't linger too long in it.
  • Auto-heal does not work in FPS mode either, and being Stunned or put to Sleep disables the player from cancelling it, so take extra caution.
• The Effective Attack of a Ranged weapon weighs ACC at 4 times higher than ATK, thus a Tenora weapon (which often has higher ATK and less ACC) would have less effective ATK than others.
• Power Shot, Save Shot, Hit Shot, Buster Shot, and their equivalents all reduces the range of the weapon. Keep that in consideration when equipping PAs, especially on weapons of shorter range.
  • In addition, not equipping a PA on a ranged weapon changes nothing about its normal shot, and is not affected by PA rates or PP rates of the weapon, making doing so a viable choice, with a few exceptions.
• The special effects on a Ranged weapon only applies to its attack, and not its Charge Shots.
  • This also applies to passive effects like HP Affects Power, which makes that trait far less useful than it appears to be.
  • A weapon like shotgun or crossbow, which deals multiple hits per , would have a higher rate of afflicting status aliments than others.
• Weapons gain a large damage boost from matching up Elements, but for Ranged Weapons, which generally fits into different niches, and it may not worth ditching niches just for that damage boost. For example, it's not worth using, say, Grenade Launchers to chain Ice enemies instead of Twin Handguns just because the Grenade happens to be Fire.
  • Consequentially, the player may need to obtain multiple elements of the same weapon or weapons of the same category for use.
  • It may be worth to, before a mission starts, swap all your weapons to match the elements of the enemies in the mission, for maximum effectiveness.

Weapons Introduction

Rifles

Read more: Rifles

Rifles are perhaps the most basic of ranged weapons. Rifles shoots once per press, hits one enemy, and has a normal fire rate, with a moderately high attack score. Charge Shot 1 simply makes a bigger version of the normal shot. It's quite easy and straight forward to use, if a little unremarkable. CS1 also has 3 lock, and 2 hits on the initial impact, making it decent against Bosses, groups of enemies, and single enemies.

What makes Rifle unique, though, is the fact that Rifles has the longest range in the game. It's able to hit just about anything within the game's rendering distance. Combined with its general ease of use, and its access to FPS mode, makes it a good weapon for sniping from very far away, from on a different floor, or in some cases, from a different room altogether.

Rifle CS2 deals 4 hits but in a fixed distance from the player. It can potentially deal good damage, but is rather different from a typical rifle playstyle. It should be noted that the fixed hitboxes can easily miss enemies, and lock-on via L is recommended to track the enemies. Also, if the character is knocked down while dramatically "Real men don't look at explosions", the entire shot cancels, so take extra caution.

Shotguns

Read more: Shotguns

Shotguns are one of the best single-target chain breakers in the game, and one of the biggest reasons to play Ranger.

Shotguns' number of shots (from either or CS) ranges from 3 to 5 based on the level of the PA equipped. A PA with LV21+ is what gives a shotgun its full potential, so make sure to get yourself one.

Its attack deals 3 to 5 hits in a spread fan shape, and deals respectable total damage. It also has a relatively higher status afliction rate, since it hits multiple times, and can be helpful if the weapon has Poison or Burn. However, it only stacks 1 chain, and roots the player in place for a second before they can move again. Since the player has to be fairly close to the enemy for all the hits to connect, this can be risky to use.

Its Charge Shot, on the other hand, is where the money is at. CS2 shoots 3 sets of 3 to 5 shots focused to the front, for 9 to 15 total 1 lock shots. These hits are devastating when used on a single enemy. When totaled up, CS2 shotgun is some of the best chain breakers in the game, and is an amazing asset to Rangers. CS1 only deals 1 set of 3 to 5 1 lock shots, but charges quite fast and consumes half as much PP as CS2, making it a consideration if the player is having issues with PP management.

Note that even though the Charge Shots focuses the shots into a smaller fan shape than the attack, the shots still fan out enough that the player should try to be closer to land all the shots.

Grenade Launchers

Read more: Grenade Launchers

Grenade Launchers are one of the few weapons in the game with inherent 5-lock. With 5-lock on both its and its Charge Shot, a grenade can do quite a lot of work against bosses and large groups of mobs.

However, Grenade shots, unlike almost all other Ranged weapons, does not travel instantaneously. Instead, it has to actually fly for a bit, similar to a Foie cast. The shot only detonates on impact and when it reaches the end of its range. This then causes multiple issues:

• It's possible for enemies to move out of the way before the shot hits them.
• If the aim is off and the shot does not hit the enemies, it can fly past the enemies and detonate without damaging them.
  • Using L for lock-on is recommended for the shots to hit the enemies easier.
• Long-range shot will increase the fly distance of the shot, which makes time and distance it needs to detonate even longer.
  • Firing another shot or swapping weapons while a shot is flying will cancel the in-flight shot.
  • It may be beneficial to use Save Shot or Power Shot to reduce the range of the shot, dependent on play-style.

Note that Grenades has access to the PA Bomma Banga, which allows its to launch the enemies it hits, in exchange for a massive increase in pp consumption and reduction in range. This allows the player to quickly shake off any enemies that got too close, or interrupt the actions of specific enemies.

The Grenade CS1 is essentially a more powerful normal shot, but with knockback attached. It shares the same properties as the normal shot as well. Its 5 lock is quite useful against bosses with multiple locks and groups of small mobs. However, since it's only 1 hit per enemy, it may feel a bit inadequate against a small group of enemies or single targets.

The Grenade CS2 has an incredibly huge PP consumption (120PP normally, 160PP full charged), which renders it almost unusable for most races (for reference, the Male Cast's max PP is 160). Besides the pp consumption, CS2 deals a large number of hits over a sizeable area, and can potentially be devastating.

Laser Cannons

Read more: Laser Cannons

Laser Cannons are similar to rifles, in that it's 1 hit per press, goes in a straight line, and hits once per enemy. However, in exchange for a lower range and a slightly slower fire rate, Laser cannon shots pierces enemies, allowing it to deal damage to all enemies within the line of fire. This makes Laser Cannons better against clustered groups of enemies than rifles, but worse at sniping from long range.

Laser Cannon CS1 shoots a persistent straight line, and deals 4 hits to each enemy within the line of fire. This is quite good if it lands on multiple enemies, and is decent for single target damage, even though it's inferior to Shotgun's single target damage. Since the range of Laser Cannons is fairly low, consider using Long-Range Prism to extend the range of CS1 to make it more effective and less risky to use.

Laser Cannon CS2 shoots a laser that rolls from left of the player to the right, dealing 1 hit for each enemy, and also launches them. While CS2 doesn't deal a lot of damage, it's one of the widest enemy-launching attack in the game, covering a wide distance around the player. It also charges quickly enough to hit the enemies again when they get back up, thus effectively stun lock them until your pp runs out.

Note that PAs do not affect the range of Laser Cannon CS2.

Twin Handguns

Read more: Twin Handguns

Twin Handguns are the bread and butter of Rangers. It's the primary chaining method for rangers, as it deals 2 hits per press, making it chains twice as fast as most other ranged weapons. Although, since both of its hits only hits 1 enemy, it might be a bit inadequate against groups of enemies.

Twin Handguns CS1 deals a total of 4 hits, 2 hits from each gun, and is decent against single targets. Note that, since there's a bit of distance between the hits, with it being two guns and all, it's possible to land the 2 sets of hits on 2 different enemies.

Twin Handguns CS2 deals a total of 8 hits, but they involve the player rolling and then firing multiple shots in different directions. On paper it can deal a ton of damage to a single target, but steering is quite difficult, and it's quite risky to dive in an enemy group to get max damage. It should be also noted that, if the initial hitboxes does not connect, it's possible for a chain to expire by the time the second set of hitboxes connects, rendering the entire charge shot ineffective.

Handguns

Read more: Handguns

Handguns are, to put simply, a Rifle but single-handed. It deals 1 hit per press, hits 1 enemy once, and has a normal fire rate. Its range is about half as long as a Rifle's.

However, being single-handed, handguns allows squeezing in right-hand weapons, for either utility purposes (such as a Wand), or to fit in other weapon types to get past resistances.

A handgun also allows strafing while shooting, which makes it more versatile than some other ranged weapons.

Handgun CS1 is more or less the same as a Rifle CS1, being a bigger handgun shot. Similar to Rifles, it is also fairly decent against grouped mobs and multi-target bosses.

Handgun CS2 heals the player and all allies within the line of fire, and is the only weapon outside of Resta that can heal allies. Its healing is usually worse than a Resta cast, but it costs less PP to use, and can potentially out-range Resta in some setups. Being Charge Shot allows you to use it while running instead of casting while standing in place. Feel free to exchange Resta with it if you wish to invest in less TECHNIC weapons, since those costs more Type Points than Handgun. It also allows you to heal allies without a Lv11+ Resta, which makes it quite handy in early game segments and in Challenge Missions.

Crossbows

Read more: Crossbows

If handguns are single-handed Rifles, Crossbows are single-handed Shotguns. While it only deals 2-3 hits unlike the Shotgun's 3-5, Crossbows makes up with Strafe Shooting capability and a faster firing speed.

Crossbow CS1 1st stage is 3 way piercing, and CS1 2nd stage is 5 way piercing. The Fully Charged 5 way piercing is incredibly good against grouped mobs, as it can hit multiple enemies for multiple hits each, each hit with good damage. However, unlike the Shotgun, Crossbow's CS1 is not focused, and still fans out as it usually does. Therefore, the character must be close to the enemy to lands all the hits on it.

Cross CS2 deals a 3 sets of 3 hits, for a total of 9 hits to an enemy. While the damage is good if all the hits connect, the animation of the CS is quite long, and being attacked at any point during the animation will cancel the rest of the hits. Also, unlike what the lock indicator shows, the 1st set of hits has very short range, and the character needs to be close to the enemy to land those hits.

Machine-guns

Read more: Machine Guns

Unlike all other ranged weapons, Machine-Guns doesn't fire on a press. Instead, the button has to be held down for the Machine gun to fire. The Machine-gun fires continuously, and deals damage at a rather fast rate, making it fairly useful as a single-target chain tool. But in exchange, burns through PP very quickly, and can easily go through the entire PP pool in a dozen seconds or so. It is recommended for the player to test how many shots they can get in on one PP bar, and use Save Shot when necessary to reduce PP usage. Note that Meseta Fever can be used to bypass the PP disadvantage entirely, and is an invaluable chaining tool during the PP recovery period. The meseta cost is around 10 to 15 meseta per shot, making the cost effectively negligible.

While holding , the character is able to strafe, which allows them to follow enemies to a certain extent. However, the character is unable to turn until the shot is cancelled. Try to get in a position that faces a lot of enemies as opposed to shooting a stray enemy on the side.

Machine Gun CS1 deals 4 hits to a single enemy, and launches the enemy on the last hit. It's decent, but usually inferior to other single-target chain breaking methods due to Machine Guns having less effective ATK. It can still provide good damage if Full-Charged on a good Elemental percentage.

Machine Gun CS2 deals 7 hits to a single enemy. It does quite good damage, and counts as Strike damage instead of Ranged damage, which allows it to bypass Ranged Resistances. However, the charge takes longer compared to other charge shots, and its range is basically Melee Range. It takes a bit of getting used to, and can be a bit unwieldy to use at times.

Other Weapon Considerations

TECHNICS

Choice of TECHNIC weapon

Investing into all 3 TECHNIC weapons costs a bit too much, so we gotta pick one and stick to it till we get more type points to waste on inconsequential weapons.

Things to look for on a TECHNIC weapon:

• A Ranger isn't gonna be breaking on a TECHNIC anyway, so the TEC score is more-or-less iirelevant.
  • In the same vein, the PA multiplier on the weapon is also more-or-less iirelevant.
  • Chaining is the primary use of offensive TECHNICs for a Ranger, so make sure the TEC score allows at least 1 damage so it can actually provide chains.
  • A support TECHNIC doesn't care about either PA multiplier or TEC score at all.
• Since Rangers can have issues with PP from time to time, it would be best to find a weapon with low PP consumption to use.
• A Ranger doesn't necessarily need all that many TECHNICs, so only use as many TECHNIC slots as you actually need.

So quick rundown:

• Wands have 2 slots, and is on the right-hand, which allows it to share palettes with left-hand ranged weapons. However, the choices for a low pp consumption wand is limited, but thankfully two of them are Downloadable content and thus very easily accessible.

• Tech-Mags have 2 slots, and is on the left-hand, which allows it to share palettes with any striking weapons on right-hand. T-mags casts the fastest, and there are many choices for low pp consumption T-mags, some of them even going as low as 60% in particular situations. However, T-mags has the lowest Resta recovery out of the three weapons, and has a low enough TEC score that offensive TECHNICs may wind up dealing 0 damage.
• Rods has 4 slots, and takes up both-hands. It has the highest Resta recovery amount, and gives access to the Mr. ecoeco Stick, which is an easily accessible rod with 70% pp consumption. Use if you've got excess weapon slots.

Shifta / Deband / Anti / Resta

It doesn't really matter what game it is, stacking buffs is stacking buffs! Since Ranger only has access to Lv15 TECHNICs, they only have access to Tier 2 Shifta/Deband. Shiftarides and Debandrides provides the same effects as the Shifta/Deband Rangers have access to, and can be used instead to save pp usage, casting time, and potentially a weapon slot. Although, a player can only carry 10 Shiftarides and Debandrides at a time, which lasts for a total of 15 minutes each. 15 minutes is enough for shorter missions, but not enough for longer Open Missions or Tactical Missions. While it's possible to get Shiftarides and Debandrides from item boxes, but is less common than mates and unreliable for resupplying.

It's also a consideration to bring Force Partner Characters, such as Lumia, as they have access to Lv30 TECHNICs for a more powerful buff, but the AI does not apply more than one buff at a time, thus the player should still bring a way to buff themselves to account for the other buff.

Anti doesn't come up super often in single player, as it's only good for removing Burn, Poison, or Virus from the player. Zalure and Jellen statuses can be overwritten by casting Shifta and Deband. Anti is a bit more valuable during Multiplayer play as it can recover allies out of Stun and Sleep.

Resta can be replaced with Mates or Handgun CS2 for Open Missions and some tactical missions, since there are a lot of item boxes that can replenish the player's mate supply. In longer or more difficult missions, bringing Resta would be more preferable.

Foverse

Foverse, after cast, passively deals damage to any enemy within melee-distance for a fixed period of time. While Rangers generally hang around mid to long distance, Foverse can still be quite useful, as it's one of the only tools that allows the player to Chain while Charging a Charge Shot, and combos well with Weapons that needs to be close for maximum effect, such as Crossbows CS2 or Laser Cannons CS1.

Zalure

Lowers enemy defense, so effectively free damage boost. Works from medium range too. Not really any reason not to bring one. Note that since Zalure doesn't do any damage, it would work from any weapon regardless of TEC score.

Sazonde / Sabarta

Deals a total of 5 hits to up to 3 enemies from medium range, and can be stacked 3 times for a total of 15 hits. Sazonde and Sabarta are some of the most effective chaining tools in the game, and stacks with Twin Handguns for even faster chain building. Sazonde and Sabarta have their own quirks.

Sazonde repeatedly launches the enemies it hits, for a total of 5 hits, which can stun the enemies for quite a while. Chaining multiple sazondes can stunlock an enemy indefinitely, which allows many enemies to be dealt with rather safely. However, Sazonde has a fairly steep PP cost, and Ranger has trouble dealing a lot of damage with it due to having less TEC. Launching enemies can also be an issue sometimes, as enemies can be moved out of some weapon, such as Shotguns' effective height. As such, timing is very important for maximizing Sazonde's effects.

Sabarta repeatedly deals damage to the enemies within a fan area from the casting location, for a total of 5 hits. Sabarta has a less PP cost than sazonde, but does not launch the enemies. This allows better compatibility with some weapons, but does not provide the safety of stunlocking from Sazonde. And compared to Sazonde, Sabarta's hitbox is more reliable, and is more effective than particular enemies (Dal Falz Final, for example).

Pick from either Sazonde or Sabarta based on the playstyle and the enemies encountered.

Nagrants

Deals 3 hits, but pierces (i.e. hit every enemy it comes into contact with), and has an incredibly long range (almost as long as Rifles). However, Nagrants have a slightly long casting time, and its attack path is a bit weird: it flies towards to direction the player is facing, when the shot actually appears. If the player turns while casting Nagrants, Nagrants shots can go at different directions, and wasting chains. Compared to Sazonde and Sabarta, Nagrants deals less chains, but is usable from a much wider variety of ranges. Nagrants can also be freely spammed, unlike Sazonde and Sabarta which seems to have a hard limit of three at once (not that you should be spamming it that often).

You should try using Nagrants if you prefer a further away playstyle.

Axe/Twin Claws

Read More: Axes, Twin Claws

Against particularly annoying enemies with Ranged Resistance, it's not unwise to bring Melee weapon to bypass the damage resistances. While any melee weapon can perform, quick shoutout to Axes and Twin Claws, as their high ATK compensates for Ranger's relatively lack of ATK, and Ranger's inherent ACC compensates for the weapon's lack of ACC.

Slicers

Read More: Slicers

Slicers are long-range melee weapons, which makes it a very convenient PP recovery option for Rangers. It swings pretty quickly, it pierces for more effectiveness on groups of enemies, and the player can chain on low pp without having to run up to enemies.

Although, slicers don't chain particularly fast compared to other options, so it's less useful when the player does have enough PP to dip into.

Daggers

Read More: Daggers

Daggers attacks fairly quickly, which makes it a decent PP recovery option. It also provides ACC for its category bonus, which boosts the damage of any left-hand ranged weapons, and provides access to Shisoku Tenkai-zan, a PA with a very long movement that can be used to travel faster than normal.

Daggers themselves don't do much damage, though, and its chain count is a bit lacking compared to other options.

R-Mags

Read More: R-Mags

R-mags are equipped in left-hand, and is used to improve the player's right hand options. It adds free chains, provides additional ATK via its category bonus, which helps compensate for the low chain count or low damage that can be present on right-hand melee weapons.

However, note that since R-mags use TEC, its damage may not be high enough to actually deal any damage, thus not adding any chain count.

Traps

Traps can be used to cheese just about any early-game bosses, since they deal fixed amount of damage without requiring any setup or build from the player. This is made especially easier for Rangers, who has the second highest amount of traps in the game, at 34. Although, since traps don't add to chain, and their damage doesn't scale to enemy health very well, they become yet another option for Rangers while recharging PP.

Special mentions to Burn Traps and Burn Trap EXs, which allows inflicting Burn on specific enemies fairly easily, which adds passive percentage-based damage, thus can be a great help against particularly annoying enemies. Boss Creatures ignore Status Effects, unfortunately.

Note that since Traps don't commonly drop, the amount of Traps per mission is essentially limited, and should be saved for especially troublesome enemies.

Type Abilities

Full Charge Shot

Full Charge Shot allows the ability to charge any ranged weapons to a 2nd stage, adding significantly more damage in exchange for a higher PP.

Always have it on and never take it off.

Charge Shots, or Chain breaks in general, is where the majority of the damage in the game comes from. An improvement to a chain breaker is always welcome, especially one as significant as Full Charge Shot, which usually can add 30% to 50% extra damage.

Always have it on and never take it off.

Elemental Hit

Elemental Hit adds to the proc rate of Status Effects. Of course, it would be best to have it apply to weapons with the best proc rates and most effective status aliment.

Twin Handguns, Shotguns, Crossbows deal multiple hits, and benefits the most from Elemental Hit.

Each Status Effects also has their own advantages and disadvantages. Burn and Poison adds additional, percentage-based damage, and can deal a good amount of damage if it applies early. Do note that the level of the special effect only prolongs the damage period, and does not make it deal more damage or tick any faster. Sleep and Stun immoblizes the enemy for free hits. However, the time period isn't very long at lower levels. Shock makes the enemy unable to attack, for effectively free hits. The time period lasts longer than either Sleep, Stun, or Freeze. Freeze also immoblizes the enemy for free hits. However, freeze only lasts for 3 hits, but it cancels the enemy's current action, which gives it a different niche than sleep and stun.

HP / PP Absorb

Since Perfect Guard is relatively easier on Ranger, using the absorb abilities to make Perfect Guard even more effective is not a bad idea. The amount of HP gained (15%) isn't amazing (for reference, Monomates restore 33% HP), but can still be a big help during longer boss fights or restoring chip damage. On the other hand, the amount of PP gained from PP absorb is pretty significant (15% translates to 30 with 200 max pp), can trigger multiple times in a couple seconds, and allows the player to recover large amounts of PP without breaking the game-flow. Do note that, since using PP absorb relies on being attacked by enemies, it can't necessarily replace other PP recovery options. It's also not usable with single-hand weapons (except Shields).

GRM Freak

GRM Freak adds 10% damage to any GRM-brand weapons, which is a very considerable boost for a one-slot ability, not to mention one that's easily accessible.

Therefore, it's worth sticking as many GRM weapons onto the palette as possible just to reap the benefits of this ability. GRM produces a large variety of Ranged weapons, including Handguns, Twin Handguns, Laser Cannons, Rifles, Machine Guns and Grenade Launchers (up to A-rank), all of which are either Ranger main-stays or important considerations. GRM also produces Sabers, Twin Sabers, Double Sabers, Swords, and Daggers (up to A-rank), for a fairly wide range of Melee weapons to pick from as well.

It's even worth considering extending lower rank GRM weapons just to reap the benefit of this ability.

However, GRM Freak eventually phases out as the player obtains more powerful Kubara weapons that can't quite be replacable by GRM weapons.

Note that Shotguns, regretably, are not produced by GRM in any way.

Race Differences

Human

Human makes for pretty good Rangers. Nothing interesting to really say, though.

The Dark Mirage Blast, Kun'ne, does affect the attack speed of Ranged Weapons, but since Ranged Weapons usually already has a very fast attack animation, the boost is unnoticable in many cases. The most noticable boost it provides is to Grenade Launchers, but it does not affect the flying speed of the bullet, which makes that boost not really useful.

Newman

With pretty high ACC, high max PP and a sky high PP regen, Newman's bullets are basically free, their Charge Shots can be spammed with reckless abandon, and they do pretty good damage on top of that. PP recovery period? Forget that, just spam whatever the heck you like! Also, since Newmans have a higher TEC than ATK, it may be a consideration to replace Rifles for Longbows, even if Rangers do not have access to Lv15+ PAs on them.

Note that Newmans has low HP and low Defense, therefore a lot more reliant on Guarding or Evading to prevent damage, compared to other races. And, since Newmans have low ATK, their damage output is usually lower than that of Casts.

Beast

Well, the race with the lowest ACC definitely sounds like a match made in heaven with Rangers.

Since Beasts have higher ATK, it may be a good idea to rely a bit more on Striking Weapons, since their accuracies are improved thanks to Ranger's bonus to ACC, and is a big help towards PP recovery as Baest has low PP regen. It may also be a good idea to utilize weapons or set bonuses which improves the player's ACC, such as Daggers or Handguns, and avoid weapons with low built-in ACC, such as Machine Guns. Also avoid TEC-based ranged weapons such as Longbows like the plague.

Nanoblast is a massive damage dealer as well, and it may be a consideration to obtain Wild Blast to get more leverage out of it.

Cast

With respectable ATK and the highest ACC, Casts makes the highest damage-dealing Ranger. They are also able to use Striking weapons quite well, and have the a good PP regen to maintain the constant usage of PP on ranged weapons. Many SUV Weapons also work quite well with Ranger's preferred distance, and provides additional support capabilities for Casts.

However, while Casts have a good PP regen, it's not quite good enough to support Charge Shot spamming, so some consideration for PP recovery is a good idea. And, since Casts have very low Max PP, they should avoid using attacks that costs a lot of PP, such as Grenade Launchers' CS2 and various TECHNICs.

Deuman

Good news, deumans have good ACC and good ATK so they can do quite good damage off ranged. Infinity Blast can also do quite a lot of damage, even if it's a little awkward to use.

Bad news is, deumans are stuck with the worst pp regen in the game, with a very unimpressive max PP. As such, PP recovery is very important for Deumans, as is saving pp. Try to avoid using things that costs too much pp, such as Power Shot or Elemental Shot PAs. Save Shot lowers the range of the weapon, which makes the choice between pp and range an important decision to make. Note that, the high PP percent rates of a ranged weapon (such as most Tenora brands, at 110% PP usage) can be avoided by not equipping any PA. Try to avoid using more shots than necessary, and utilize PP recovery options often.

Also, deumans have the worst defense and HP of all other characters. Combined with deumans' general lack of pp, dodging and guarding can be a bit rough, and Perfect Guard is an incredibly important resource. Half Defense also has a lot of potential, especially combined with the use of Auto-heals Abilities.

Notable Early Game Weapons

Laser Pannon

The earliest access to Laser Cannon CS2, which can help a lot with cheesing difficult rooms. Easy to drop as well.

Is quickly made obselete if you are using Downloadable content, though.

Super Conductive Rifle

Tied for the ranged weapon with the longest range in the game, Yoko's rifle can do pretty absurd stuff like shooting enemies that aren't even rendered in the player's field of view. Attach Long Ranged Shoot for even more stupidity.

Having a super long weapon (or Rifles in general) isn't really necessary, though. But it's funny.

Frost Shot

Has a whopping 50% freeze infliction chance, and allows the player to essentially freeze lock enemies that aren't particularly resistant to aliments.

Falls off later as many enemies becomes more resistant to aliments, though.

Super Railgun

Tied for the ranged weapon with the longest range in the game, Misaka's hand can also do pretty absurd stuff like shooting enemies that aren't even rendered in the player's field of view. Attach Long Ranged Shoot for even more stupidity.

Note that unlike the Super Conductive Rifle, the railgun also has the distinction of having the highest pp consumption in the game, at 200% PP. This means that equipping almost any Photon Arts on it is questionable, as it massively increases the PP usage per . (PP consumption is unchanged from normal if you don't equip any Photon Arts.

As a handgun, though, the railgun is more versatile than a rifle. It's also possible to equip the Railgun with Charge Shot II for absurdly ranged healing.

Various Replica Weapons

Replica weapons are low-rank high-level weapons that can be bought from the shop. While they are convenient to use, they are offset by their 110% PP usage and 90% PA damage, which makes them far weaker than their legitmate counterparts. For melee and Technic weapons, anyway. For Ranged weapons, though, their drawback can be very easily avoided by simple not equipping a Photon Arts, which allows the player to make full use of their upsides.

Where to go from here

Increase your type level, get better gear, etc. Noted here is a few important items to take note of while you are levelling.

There aren't any particularly worthwhile type abilities on Ranger from Type Level 8 up until Type Level 40. Therefore, it's a good idea to dip into other Types for some more abilities.

Special shoutout to PP Bullet Save, which only affects Ranged Photon Arts. Meaning, the stuff you put on . In other words, the most it does is reduce your rifle s from 12 pp to 9pp or something. Not worth it for 2 slots.

In terms of weapons, with the exception of a handful of weapons, most weapons in the same category functions in similar fashion. Thus, it's a viable choice to extend lower-rank weapons to fill in the gaps before you obtain an appropriately leveled high rank weapon. Extended low rank weapons are usable from Lv80, and are up to par statwise until Lv120 or Lv130. It's also recommended use generic branded weapon for extend, as they are easily obtainable. It's fairly simple to get a set of them in every element, and also simple to get them to 50% element, by buying like ten and performing Weapon Synthesis using them. They are also compatible with brand based damage abilities.

Some of these handful of weapons are mentioned down below:

Kamui: A dagger that's very poor stats-wise, but notable for its set bonus that heavily increases player base ACC. Combined with the Dagger's inherent category bonus to ACC, Kamui can be used to heavily improve the damage of the player's left-hand Ranged Weapon. It also provides the player with access to Shisoku Tenkai-zan for movement purposes.

Twin Heaven Punisher: Arguably the best Ranged weapon in the game, the Twin Heaven Punisher is worth a special mention, despite being very far late-game. Picture Twin Handguns, that fires Grenade Launchers shots, at 60% elemental rate. Since it requires MAI Tickets instead of being dropped, it's worth start collecting them as soon as you can.

Shooting Drive: The longest Grenade Launcher in the game, which....is not necessarily a good thing. It flies for longer, which it means it spends longer flying (since the flying speed is unchanged), and it's a lot more punishing than normal if it misses. To minimize the punishment from missing the shot, Shooting Drive would then require the player to play at a different range than normal Grenade Launchers, and potentially less effective as the shot would take more time to hit. Anyway...just mess around with it and see how you like it.

Massacre Bunker: The shortest Grenade Launchers in the game, as well as the shortest Ranged weapon in the game, and it has a very poor effective ATK, even when compared to a Grenade 30 levels below it. All these seems really terrible, right? Well, the Massacre Bunker also has a 70% pp usage, which, combined with the relatively fast firing speed provided by a short range, makes it a good utility option to use with Bomba Banga. This Photon Art has a great chance of launching anything it hits, which allows the player to very easily shake off any enemies next to them. Both of the usual downsides of the attack, a massive range reduction and a massive PP usage, are both somewhat mitigated by the Massacre Bunker's properties. This weapon is useless for any other purpose, though.