Ranger

A bow specialist who scouts, marks and shoots at range, including at targets standing in other rooms.

The Ranger is the only class that reliably kills things it is not standing next to. Its bow can reach two rooms away provided the shot runs in a straight line, and the whole kit is built around that reach: scout the corridor ahead, pick a target out of what you find, nock an arrow, and put it into something that has not yet worked out where you are. When a marked enemy charges you, the tempo changes and you are racing to get one more shot away before it arrives. That tension between distance and closing time is the class.

Be aware that the Ranger's skill list is currently very small. A prune in 2026 cut the catalogue back to a seven skill core, and what remains is the shooting loop plus Scout, with the wider wilderness kit that the class was designed around not presently in the game. What is there works, and it is a genuinely distinct way to fight, but there is far less of it than the other combat classes have. Ranger is also a promoted class rather than a starting one. It needs a completed Warrior or a completed Rogue behind it, meaning one taken to level 100, and completions are recorded against your account rather than against a single character, so a Warrior finished on one character unlocks Ranger for another. On top of that you must be level 100 yourself when you join, and a guildmaster has to admit or induct you, since there is no ranger guild entrance to walk into. Joining resets you to level 1. Guild ranks run Tracker, Hunter, Warden, Beastmaster and Guildmaster.

Resources#

SP is the only resource, and by the standards of other classes the costs are trivially low. Load costs nothing at all, Fire costs 15 SP, and even Mark of Death at level 80 is only 45 SP. The limiting factor on a Ranger's damage is not the SP bar but the loading cycle, since your bow holds one arrow and every shot has to be replaced before you can fire again.

Loading is where the real cost sits. It takes two seconds and it is interruptible: take damage or try to move and you have to start over, and while it runs you are marked as busy and cannot act. Standing in the open reloading is how rangers die. Quick Reload at level 88 finally breaks that pattern by refilling the bow and returning 5 SP every time you land a kill, which is what lets a high level ranger chain targets without pausing.

You must have a bow wielded for any of this to work. Load will refuse outright if you do not.

Rangers wear leather armour. Plate, mail and cloth are barred, and any gear with no category set is open to everyone.

Talent Trees#

Marksmanship#

The bow line and the bulk of the class. Load and Fire form the basic cycle, Hunter's Mark and Mark of Death sharpen it, and Quick Reload removes the reload pause once kills start landing. The two marks do not stack with one another, so at high level you are choosing between a sustained 20% bonus that ignores cover and a single doubled shot on a one minute cooldown.

Wilderness#

Survival and utility. In its pruned state this is Scout, which reads the rooms around you for creatures and items without your having to walk into them, and Mark Target, the cheaper and weaker of the two marking skills. Scout is the skill that makes ranged targeting usable at all, since it is how you find and number the things you are about to shoot.

Skills#

Marksmanship#

Wilderness#

Playing a Ranger#

The sequence is scout, mark, load, fire, and you should learn it in that order because that is the order the levels give it to you. Scout at 9 lists what is around you along with a number for each creature, and Mark at 12 lets you commit to one of them by name, by partial name, or by the number Scout printed. Once a target is marked it stays marked as it moves, so long as it remains in range, which means you can track something through adjacent rooms and keep shooting at it.

Range works in whole rooms. Your own room is always available, adjacent rooms are always available, and rooms two away only count if the path to them runs dead straight, because arrows do not turn corners. That single rule is the tactical heart of the class. A long corridor is a killing field. A room full of doglegs is nearly useless to you. Learn to fight in the former and to fall back into it when you find yourself in the latter.

The opening levels are thin and slightly awkward, since you have Load at 1 but nothing to fire until 3, and no way to find distant targets until 9. Expect to fight in your own room with the load and fire cycle until Scout arrives, at which point the class starts behaving as intended. Get a bow you are happy with early, because without one wielded you have no skills at all.

From the twenties on, Hunter's Mark is the skill that changes fights. Twenty per cent extra damage for thirty seconds costs 20 SP and twelve seconds of cooldown, which is cheap enough to open every serious fight with, and the fact that it ignores cover matters more than the damage on awkward ground. Mark Target still has a place as the cheap option on trash, but on anything that will survive more than a few arrows the stronger mark is worth the extra SP. Remember the two do not stack, and neither does Mark of Death at 80, which is a burst tool for a single decisive shot rather than something to keep running.

In a group, treat yourself as backline damage that also does the party's eyes. Nobody else can look two rooms ahead without walking into what is there, so scouting the route is your job and it is a genuinely valuable one. You have no healing, no tanking tools and no crowd control beyond the pressure of being shot at, so let a warrior or paladin take the front. If something reaches you, you are in trouble: your reload is interruptible, and a ranger in melee is a ranger who cannot shoot. Back up, break line of sight if you must, and get the distance back before you try to load again.