Calling all rangers, questions and wonderings

[dwaynedays]

Hey everyone im a longtime original pso fan (haven't touched anything after that really mostly the fees to play put me off) and I have a few questions here now that im lv 20.

I chose ranger as I did in original pso and im confused about a few things at the moment gonna put it in number list so its easier to answer.

1. I keep hearing assault rifles are heavily preferred over launchers or at least that seems to be the huge consensus. Now im using launchers yet because they seem to have a huge damage boost over rifles, im just wondering when this changes as it seems there are quite a few rifles I cant even equip yet that I see in the player shops. To put it into perspective my launcher does 308 damage and AR damage doesn't seem to even get near that yet.

2.I've been pumping ability and rng atk into my mag, more ability than ratk though. I believe its a 19-12 split atm. Is that ok or is it still too early game to worry much about that

3.If I decide to go launcher will my damage be horrible and will it prevent people from wanting to group with me.

4.Im the cyborg race (sorry I dont remember X_X) is that a bad choice for ranger?

5. What client do you get the extra skill points from I believe its 5 of them and at what level?

I think that's all I have at the time thanks for your help!

[XionAsuka]

Little tired at 7 AM, but here's my 2 cents. Don't accept it as fact, some of these are merely my opinion.

1. Rifles are reliable due to their high versatility from PA's. An attack that effectively shoots 15 times, a grenade shell, a shotgun blast, a homing barrage (that requires manual aiming), a piercing shot, and a highly damaging sniper shot. All of these allow the assault rifle to fit a veriety of situations. Ontop of that, you can shoot while moving, something that can help greatly in some situations.

The Launcher indeed has very high DPS, but it locks you down with each shot. In addition, you may draw the attention of something best left on someone else. If you do, hope your dodging skills are up to snuff. There's a good number of great skills for Launcher. Divine Launcher does absurd damage, but can be a bit disruptive to Hunter comboes. A good alternative might be the aerial flak shot whose name I can't remember. Also, the triple grenade blast, which doesn't cause knockdown, I think. Also, the multi-cracker blast is really good for breaking enemy parts and rooting some annoying enemies in place.

2. R-Attack and Ability are alright. It should give you Fornax, which is more or less the Ranger-geared Mag. Once you get it, then you need to worry about what you want it to become: Pure shooting (Cepheus), Hybrid Strike/Shoot (Tucana), or Hybrid Shoot/Tech (Caelum). I myself went with Caelum for the unique look and PB.

3. Launchers always stay very damaging. You just need to learn how to use it around teammates. Like I mentioned above. don't use Divine Launcher on a Hunter's target or you may interrupt their comboes. However, if they're getting swarmed, it may not be a bad idea to use it to bust them out of trouble. Use your disgression (?) and judge when to best use your skills. If you're worried about being disruptive with Divine Launcher, use the air-burst or triple grenade attacks instead.

tl;dr, don't walk around nuking everything and thinking you're promoting good use of the Launcher. Be mindful of teammates and choose the best times to use it!

4. CAST is perfect for Ranger due to naturally high R-Attack (I think the highest of the other two, actually...), though any race can be a Ranger.

5. Lisa, the CAST girl with the creepy eyes (<3 her). And I believe it's at... 30-35? Probably 30 first. You need to kill 7 big-head Rappies (They're rare spawns on all planets), and 5 Dark Ragne's, all with a Launcher. They need to be level 21 and up.

[QueenVernice]

Great post. I'm just starting with my ranger myself and I feel a little panicked over my mag. I read on another forum that the armor requirement for later leveled sets are far too high with just base R-Def.

I'm starting to think that I should start investing on R-Def for my mag? I'm not sure. I've been feeding my mag nothing but range weapons and it's at level 17 atm. 13 R-Atk and 4 Ability. What would be a good spread and what should I probably feed it to get there?

Any help? :[

[dwaynedays]

These photon arts, are they learned? Or will they show up when I equip a weapon that supports them. Asking because I only have like 4 for rifles

[soulpimpwizzurd]

if you want decent armor parts but you want the most RATK as possible, just don't give a shit about the high end parts. as a ranger chances are high you'll have just enough ability to equip the sub/stamina part that increases HP by +50. at first i thought otherwise, but playing with hp+ equipment is basically the best defense in this game. defense does not help that much at all.

plus, the hp+50 sub units already have decent defense, and can be max grinded to +10 to have the same def as the 9 star def units AND give you +50 hp. a nice unique quirk about sub units too is that they are nicely well rounded. they excel in one stat modestly (say, striking), and the other two stats are the same defense but at a decent amoount (range def and tech def.)

so yeah, that's what i'm doing. i have 3 hp+50's all with vol souls. even though striking atk doesn't benefit any of my other classes as i main hunter, +210 HP makes me pretty much never die. also, mates heal %'age wise, so your self heals last longer as well.

technically speaking though, hopefully you'll be playing properly enough so you don't get hit much often in the first place. but it's good insurance, and allows you to be more bold and less afraid in some situations, like if you're soloing the panthers.

[dwaynedays]

See I dont understand quite all the lingo yet like 50hp sub unit and vol souls on them

[10011408V3.9]

See I dont understand quite all the lingo yet like 50hp sub unit and vol souls on them

They're affixes to the gear beyond the baseline (or increased via grinding) defense/offensive stats on the gear. If you've played stuff like WoW this would be similar to enchanting gear (make the sword set people on fire, etc).

[dwaynedays]

Yeah I did play wow for awhile. I've browsed the affixing guide on here I guess ill check that out more in depth thank you

[dwaynedays]

Started dabbling with ARs damage when weak bullet is on compared to not seems about the same so far (only 1 point in it) Im lv 18 and was doing about 40 damage each hit on vol dragon with my regular attack and about 200ish with my PAs. Doesnt seem too solid so far but I managed to not get hit at all and I haven't begun to understand affixes yet so Im sure when I get into that it'll help

Anybody got anymore ranger help or advice

[SirGouki]

I've not gone ranger very long, but I have figured this much out:

Assault rifles are usually higher Damage Per Second, but LOWER Burst damage (meaning you'll get lower numbers per hit). This is because they shoot 3 round bursts, and are faster firing rate (you don't have to wait as long to push the button again). They are more useful for soloing single targets, but you can take take out a medium sized group fairly quickly if you focus on one target at a time (use the under-barrel grenade launcher PA to stop enemies from advance on you).

Launchers are higher Burst Damage, but lower DPS due to firing MUCH slower. The plus to them is that the always hit for area damage instead of focused damage. This is good for crowd control effects. If a massive group is coming towards your party, its quicker for you to jump up, hit them with paralyze shot or confuse shot, and start damaging them all, than it is for a force to since they don't have skills specifically for causing ailments (just a chance to trigger it with their spells by default). You don't have to charge your attacks where forces would to cover the same area. It is also useful because you can launch enemies into the air (or knock them out of the air) which will allow hunters to close on a target, and forces more time to charge their spells.

Gunslices are also good. You learn all the same PAs with them that a hunter does. You lose the roll but get a short dash. You can also JA off of switching between gun mode and sword mode, and do moderately high DPS (but again, low burst damage). This is actually the weapon I most use on my hunter, since when its used correctly, you can generate tons of damage in a short time frame and the PAs I use on it will all hit multiple targets if they are close enough. Just keep in mind that the more damage you do, and the quicker you do it, the more likely enemies are going to come after you, even if a hunter has warcry up.