Guide

Centurion Class : Ranger

Disclaimer:
This article aims to answer all questions a new Ranger might have. It will be updated frequently to reflect changes brought by patches and new revelations regarding class mechanics. Skill and translation inconsistencies due to the current status of the game, its localization and skill databases will be corrected post-launch. Questions, corrections and additions (especially from the to do list) welcome.

* Table of Contents

* 1 Class Description
* 2 Class Overview
o 2.1 Attributes and Stats
o 2.2 Weapons
o 2.3 Armor
o 2.4 Role in PvE
o 2.5 Role in PvP
o 2.6 Range
o 2.7 Kiting
* 3 Abilites
o 3.1 Signature Skills
o 3.2 Stigma Skills
o 3.3 Traps
o 3.4 Self Buffs
o 3.5 Crowd Control
o 3.6 Transformations
* 4 Character Customization
o 4.1 Race
o 4.2 Gear
o 4.3 Manastones
o 4.4 Godstones
o 4.5 Titles
o 4.6 Professions
* 5 PvE
o 5.1 Builds
o 5.2 Rotations
o 5.3 Consumables
o 5.4 Leveling
* 6 PvP
o 6.1 Builds
o 6.2 Strategies
o 6.3 Consumables
* 7 Miscellaneous frequently discussed topics
o 7.1 Instant abilites
o 7.2 Autoshot
o 7.3 Jumpshot
o 7.4 Movement Modifiers
o 7.5 Melee
o 7.6 Retreating Slash
o 7.7 Early Levels
o 7.8 Cost Factor
o 7.9 WASD vs. Click-to-Move
* 8 Useful Macros
* 9 Links
* 10 Media
* 11 Ranger Specific Patch Notes

1 Class Description - taken from the offical PowerWiki:

A Ranger is a Daeva with exceptional archery skills. Not only can it expertly wield a bow, but also a sword and dagger for close combat. The Ranger is also a master with various traps, making it both a formidable opponent on its own and a valued member of any group. Being skilled in both long and short range attacks combined with the ability to manipulate traps makes the Ranger able to adapt easily to nearly any situation. However, arrows and trap ingredients can become costly which makes the Ranger one of the more expensive classes.

Being as faithful as any other class, the Ranger turns to the Empyrean Lords for inspiration. While an Elysean Ranger looks toward Vaizel, the Lord of the free spirit, Asmodian Rangers accept Triniel, the Lord who controls death, as their model.

2 Class Overview

2.1 Attributes and Stats
Rangers on creation have the following base attributes:
Power: 100 - affects physical damage
Health: 100 - affects hit points and recovery rate
Agility: 115 - affects evasion, parry and block rates
Accuracy: 115 - affects chance to hit and critically hit rate (the manastone that increases Accuracy does not affect this attribute, it affects the stat with the same name found under your offensive stats)
Knowledge: 90 - affects spell damage and hit rate
Will: 90 - affects mana pool and mana recovery rate

In addition there are the following statistics that can be modified by gear and manastone choices:
Attack: affects physical damage
Accuracy: used to calculate chance to hit with weapons or abilites (this is not the same as the atttribute above with the same name)
Crit Rate: used to calculate chance to score a critical hit. For every 10 critical rating, you gain roughly 1% critical strike chance. After you achieve a critical hit rating of 440, you need 20 critical rating per 1% increase (called the soft-cap). Also, your critical hits have a chance to knockback your opponent.
Attack Speed: delay between auto-attacks, also affects casting animation speed
Speed: movement speed
Magic Boost: affects magical damage
Magic Accuracy: used to calculate chance to hit with spells

Physical Defense: affects physical damage taken from melee and ranged attacks
Evasion: chance to dodge a physical attack
Block: chance to block
Parry: chance to parry
Magical Resistance: chance to resist damage or debuffs from spells
Fire/Wind/Water/Earth Resistance: affects damage taken from spells

2.2 Weapons
A Ranger can wield one-handed swords and daggers starting from level 1, dual-wield at level 5, and can learn to use bows at level 10.

2.3 Armor
A Ranger can wear cloth and leather armor, as well as all types of head armor pieces. You should prefer leather over cloth.

2.4 Role in PvE
Rangers are physical ranged damage dealers. We provide good DPS as well as several Crowd Control abilites. However currently the general assumption is that our DPS is lower than those of most other DPS classes. Due to the lack of combatlog parsing this is still up for debate and you should keep in mind that the majority of players currently complaining about Ranger damage output have only experienced low-level gameplay.

2.5 Role in PvP
Rangers excel at burst damage from range and their unique ability to decrease any healing done to an opponent makes them a vital addition to any PvP group. With our burst damage, CC abilites, stealth and snares, Rangers are also excellent at solo PvP, but rely heavily on kiting the opponent.

2.6 Range
Rangers have long-, medium-, and short-distance shots at 25m, 20m, and 15m respectively, with most abilites having a 25m range. Range is increased by a level 25 passive skill, and is increased by an additional 10% while in flight. There is no dead-zone or minimum range.

2.7 Kiting
A Ranger relies heavily on kiting in PvE as well as PvP, which means using your abilites like Entangling Shot, Spike Trap and various stuns to maintain enough range to your opponent to be able to deal damage while keeping him from reaching you. There are different ways to achieve this, but due to Aion's movement modifiers (see 7.4) strafing and back-pedaling is not recommended. Jump-shots (7.3) and being able to abuse auto-shot/auto-facing play an important role in maximizing your effectiveness.

See Kirua's Kiting Guide for details.

3 Abilites

3.1 Signature Skills
Traps: Unique to Rangers, traps grant access to an additional source of burst or DOT damage, snares and roots. They can be used effectively in PvE, but are not reliable in PvP because they can be avoided by a skilled opponent.
Self Buffs: Rangers get access to several, short-duration self buffs that increase his avoidance or damage output signifcantly while they last.
Stealth: The Scout's base hide ability grants us limited stealth capacites, while not as good as those of the Assassin.
Entangling Shot: This early available ability is your main snare and can be used while moving (its animation doesn't cause you to become immobilized like other skills).
Silence Arrow: Prevents the target from casting spells for a short period of time, making it an invaluable tool while fighting casters and especially healers.
Sleep Arrow: Puts the target to sleep for 12 seconds, effectively removing them from combat for the duration or until dispelled. Can also be used as a spell interrupt.
Awl Arrow: Unique to the Ranger class, this chain ability debuffs the target's physical defense and the healing it receives for a short time, making it invaluable in PvP.
Retreating Slash: This ability pushes the Ranger 25m backwards, out of the target's range. It can be used while equipped with a bow, but you have to be in melee range.

3.2 Stigma Skills - displaying highest available rank

Basic Sigmas
Arrow Deluge
Breath of Nature
Focused Shots
Nature's Resolve
Retreating Slash
Silence Arrow
Sleep Arrow
Snare Trap - Snare Trap
Sniper Stance
Trap of Clairvoyance - Trap of Clairvoyance
Trap of Slowing Elyos / Asmodian
Bow of Blessing
Bestial Fury
Holy Arrow (Elyos)
Deadly Arrow (Asmodian)

Advanced Stigmas
Explosion Arrow
Gale Arrow
Mistral Absorb Vitality
Resolution of Hunter
Arrow of Fury
Raging Wind Arrow

3.3 Traps
Trap: Spike - Trap: Spike
Poisoning Trap - Poisoning Trap
Trap: Explosion - Trap: Explosion
Snare Trap - Snare Trap
Trap of Clairvoyance - Trap of Clairvoyance
Trap of Destruction - Trap of Destruction
Trap: Spike Bite - Trap: Spike Bite
Trap: Sandstorm - Trap: Sandstorm

3.4 Self Buffs
Aiming
Dodging
Strong Shots
Hunter's Eye
Focused Shots
Devotion
Focused Evasion
Tactical Retreat
All-Seeing Eye
Sniper Stance

3.5 Crowd Control
Sleep Arrow
Silence Arrow
Entangling Shot
Snare Trap - Snare Trap
Trap: Spike - Trap: Spike

3.6 Transformations
There are two different kinds of transformations:
DP skill: Elyos - Asmodian
This is our 2000 DP skill and currently lasts 1 minute (buffed to 2 minutes in a future patch).
For the other transformation you need to buy a reagent that is sold by a job supplier (where you also buy seeds for your traps): Elyos - Asmodian
This is just a travel form, either as a Zaif or a Karnif depending on your faction, and since it consumes a reagent it can be expensive to use it frequently. There are two different levels per form, with level 1 increasing speed by 20% and level 2 by 30%.

4 Character Customization

4.1 Race
While some skills differ depending on your faction, the differences are mostly minor and will not make or break your gameplay.
Also keep in mind that apparently the way to aquire certain titles is different for the two factions, so a particular good title might be harder to get depending on your race.

4.2 Gear

4.3 Manastones
When it comes to manastones, socketing critical physical hit stones is widely regarded as being most effective up to around 440 critical strike (which is the soft cap, additional crit will be subject to diminishing returns). After you reach 440 crit, use attack or HP/resists (for PvP).
Rangers usually are not the first target in group fights and their survivability is good enough to enable you to socket offensively.

4.4 Godstones
Godstones can only be used on weapons and add a chance to proc an additional effect on each attack. You can find an incomplete list here: God Stones - Enhancement Items - Aion

4.5 Titles
The most beneficial titles for a Ranger are those that increase our speed or flight speed, as well as damage. Out of all currently known titles, the following are probably the most interesting ones:

Elyos
Bottled Lightning +3% Speed - from Lightningfoot Tuka - Quests - Aion
Honorary Black Cloud +5% Speed - from Jakurerk's Opportunity to Make it Big - Quests - Aion
Heroic +4 Physical Critical Hit, +1 Physical Att, +1% Atk Speed - from [Group] Confrontation with Asmodian Army General - Quests - Aion
Owner of the Dragon Sword +52 Maximum HP, +3 Flight Time, +3% Flight Speed, +6% Speed - from [Group] The True Owner of the Dragon Sword - Quests - Aion

Asmodian
Postal +4% Speed - from [Infiltration] Elim Of Elysea - Quests - Aion
Wheeler-Dealer +5% Speed - from Contract of Black Cloud Traders - Quests - Aion
Heroic +52 Maximum HP, +3 Flight Time, +3% Flight Speed, +6% Speed - from [Group] Confrontation with Elysean Army General - Quests - Aion

4.6 Professions
There is no single best profession for your character and you also need to keep in mind what professions you have access to through friends and guildmates. For both factions, Sewing provides you with the ability to craft leather armor, Handicrafting grants access to bow recipes as well as rings or necklaces. Cooking and Alchemy enable you to craft your own consumables.

5 PvE

5.1 Builds
5.2 Rotations
5.3 Consumables

5.4 Leveling
10-16: You start out with only two ranged attacks, Snipe being your main source of damage and Entangling Shot your snare. You want to open up with Snipe, Entangling Shot, then turn around and kite the mob. Use Snipe as soon as its cooldown finishes, keep Entangling Shot up as much as possible. If the mob is low on HP you can finish it off with melee. For hard (named) mobs, you can use a Spike Trap to root it, or your DP Mau Transformation for faster run and attack speed, as well as damage.
16-19: At 16 you get Arrow Strike, your first ranged chain skill. Open up with Snipe, turn around and start kiting, you can use Arrow Strike while running even if you're turned away from the mob. Again, keep Entangling Shot up all the time, finish low HP mobs off in melee.
19-25: At this point our killing speed starts to get better. You get Stunning Shot which can do a lot of damage, but the chance isn't very high. It also has lower range than your other shots, so start out with Snipe -> Arrow Strike and use Stunning Shot when the mob gets closer.
At 20 you should do your Stigma Quest so you can equip the Arrow Deluge Stigma Stone. While its range and damage is low on single targets, it fits nicely into your rotation when all other shots are on cooldown.
You could also get Sleep Arrow in case you get involved in PvP, or if you get adds.
25-28: This is where killing speed really picks up. Rupture Arrow is a chain ability to use after Stunning Shot and also has a chance to deal a lot of damage, knocking the target back as well. After you did some of the Abyss quests, you can try to find a quiet spot in the Lower Abyss and grind. Abyss mobs give increased XP and also reward AP. If you're grinding, get mana potions in addition to mana treatment so you never have to regen.
At 27 you can hit the Upper Abyss and grind on level 30 mobs for very good XP.
28-31: At 28, additional quests in Eltnen/Morheim open up that are worth doing. You can also keep grinding in the Upper Abyss. You should now have Spiral Arrow, which only has a 10% chance to become usable after Arrow Strike, but it hits for a decent amount of damage.

6 PvP

6.1 Builds
6.2 Strategies
6.3 Consumables

7 Miscellaneous frequently discussed topics

7.1 Instant Abilites
There is no global cooldown in Aion. To make up for this and to prevent spamming, most abilites that don't have a cast time (like Ranger shots) are limited by their animation, during which you are immobilized. This is not a bug, but a design decision. It can, however, be countered by abusing jumpshots.

7.2 Autoshot
Note: In the current version autoshot is bugged so it will turn itself off seemingly random after using an ability. This is supposed to be fixed in later versions.
Autoshot (aka the Attack button from your actions tab) is worth keeping on your hotbar and easily reachable for kiting purposes. While it turns itself off automatically when you are not facing your target, there is a kiting method that involves running in a forward direction away from your opponent, jumping and hitting autoshot in order to cause your character to briefly turn towards the target and fire a shot while maintaining direction away from the target.

7.3 Jumpshot
While seen as an exploit by some players, jumpshot has been declared working as intended by the developers. It is used to cancel the animation of certain skills that would otherwise leave you immobile for its duration. This is a huge boon to kiting, but requires a lot of practice.
To initiate a jumpshot, use an ability while jumping when you reached the peak of your jump or are already on the downward movement again. This can be practiced without moving, but is more effective to maintain a certain direction.

7.4 Movement Modifiers
According to the official PowerWiki, whenever you move into a direction you gain the following boni/mali:

Forward:
+10% Physical Damage
+10% Magic Damage
-20% Physical Defense
-20% Magic Damage (Note: probably typo, should be -20% Magic Defense)

Backward:
+500% to Parry
+500% to Block
-70% Physical Damage
-40% Movement Speed

Left/Right Strafe:
+300% to Evasion
-70% Physical Damage
-20% Movement Speed

However, these values are not commonly accepted, and it is unclear if they affect both melee and ranged damage, and both autoattacks and abilites. The ingame character profile does indicate the boni and mali, but not their respective values. With the limited confirmed knowledge we have about this matter, maintaining a forward movement while kiting is recommended in order to maximize damage.

A quick experiment on a level 23 Ranger over 24 autoattacks, no abilities, same mob level & type for each attempt gave:
average 78.20 damage while standing still
average 54.20 damage while running backwards
average 90.54 damage while running forwards

Of course the sample size is too low, but it should give a rough idea of the damage increase forward movement while kiting provides.

7.5 Melee
While Ranger continue to gain melee abilities throughout their career, engaging in melee combat becomes less attractive the higher level you get. Using melee abilites can increase effectiveness during the lower levels (10-16 or even 10-19) to finish a mob, due to the limited ranged abilites we get before level 19.

7.6 Retreating Slash
While the usefulness of this skill is up for debate (it does use up a Stigma slot afterall), it does work with a bow equipped as long as you get in melee range to use it. You don't need a melee weapon equipped to use it.

7.7 Early Levels
Rangers start out as the Scout archetype and do not gain the ability to use a bow before level 10. Up to level 16, or arguably level 19, we don't have a lot of ranged abilites which will negatively impact our kill speed while leveling, so that a lot of Rangers prefer to use a mix of ranged and melee abilities.
Also, Rangers are considered underpowered compared to other DPS classes in the low-levels, but will pick up at around level 25, they are also considered the slowest leveler.

7.8 Cost Factor
While it is true that we do have to pay for arrows and trap materials, the cost factor is not as bad as people make it sound. Arrows are extremely cheap and stack up high enough so they don't impact inventory management.

7.9 WASD vs. Click-to-Move
Wether you use WASD movement or Click-to-Move probably depends on personal preference or your previous MMO history. Although there are arguments going on which one is better, due to the nature of Aion's kiting with its movement modifiers, maintaining a forward movement at all times is actually encouraged as opposed to other popular games where you tend to strafe while kiting. Keep this in mind when choosing a movement style. Personally I think a mix of the two is probably good, but in the end you should use what works best for you.

8 Useful Macros

- to be added

9 Links

Aion: PowerWiki
Ranger - Skills - Aion
Ranger - AionSource.com
Ranger - HellBound - Aion Gaming Guild and Community
Terhix' Stigma Calculator - Ranger

10 Media

YouTube - AION - Ranger new class intro - Ranger class intro
YouTube - Aion 25 Ranger PvE - Ranger 25 pve jumpshots (beta, HD)
YouTube - Aion Asmodian Ranger 40 - 42 PvP Movie Vol.1 - Ranger 40-42 group and solo pvp by xMinDeathx (korean, HD)
YouTube - Aion Ranger Movie - Ranger 30 pve, duels and group pvp (korean)
Aion CB5 Ranger Ganking - a few clips of ganking people in the Abyss, mostly solo, lvl 25-30
YouTube - Aion PvP Closed Beta #5 - Ranger (Part 1) - mostly rifiting, ganking slightly lower level opponents but always outnumbered

11 Ranger Specific Patch Notes

Open Beta Patch (1.5) - 04.09.2009
Quote:

* Movement speed is decreased while using Sniper Stance in flight.
* A problem with using the Sandstorm Trap skill in the air has been addressed.
* If an opponent has been immobilized due to Binding Arrow or Shock Arrow skills, the status is no longer affected by the one-time use of physical healing potion.
* Shock Arrow has been changed to have the same effect as Shackle Arrow.
* [Ancient Stigma] Condor’s Arrow and Deadly Arrow have been changed to have the same effect as [Ancient Stigma] Brightwing Arrow and Holy Arrow.
* Vaizel’s Arrow and Triniel’s Arrow skills have been changed to cast skills.
* The cooldown time of Stunning Shot has been reduced from 18 seconds to 12 seconds.
* The cooldown time of Rupture Arrow has been reduced from 32 seconds to 24 seconds.
* The See-through Eye skill book has been added.
* A problem with not being able to evade the Assassin’s Ambush skill while using Focused Evasion has been addressed.

* New skills and stigmas:
* Level 45 - Bestial Fury I - Bow’s attacking distance decreases by 15m, but physical attack and attack speed increase.
* Level 45 - Gale Arrow - A physical damage skill that can be used while moving. (Requires: Retreating Slash
* and Breath of Nature)
* Level 45 - Speed of the Wind - Increases player’s movement speed by 18% for 1 minute. (Requires: Blunt Trap)
* Level 45 - Explosive Arrow - A physical damage skill that inflicts powerful damage. (Requires: Bow of Blessing
* and Focused Shots)
* Level 45 - Hunter's Might - For 10 seconds, 2 attacks have a greater chance of a critical hit but the bow attack range decreases by 5m. (Requires: Arrow Deluge)
* Level 50 - Heart Shot - A physical type skill with high damage and chance of critical hit. (Requires: Gale Arrow and
* Frenzy of the Wind)
* Level 50 - Lethal Arrow - A physical skill with very high damage. (Requires: Explosive Arrow
* and Hunter’s Might)

to do:
- implement sections 5 and 6 (probably post-launch)
- expand section 4