Let's talk about Ranger: What to Shoot.

This has been a long time coming, and I still don't feel that comfortable talking about it but I need to do this so I might as well dive right in. This post is the beginning in a series of Ranger articles, because there is just too much to talk about for Ranger in just one post, or even a couple.

I will say it right now, and this might change in a couple of days but I am not positive that it will so I am going to say it anyway: Ranger is one of the most complicated jobs in the game. It is complicated because of the gearing, it is complicated because of the amount of hate that it can quickly generate, it is complicated because of the wide variety of ways to play it, and it is complicated because it is the only job that essentially does not have auto-attack. There may be jobs that are more busy than Ranger, or require more gear than Ranger, but there are no jobs that have three viable weapon builds before you consider subjobs or even their main weapon slot.

Ok, if Ranger is so complicated where do you start a discussion about Ranger? I think the best place to start is deciding what you are going to be shooting at things. All three of the potential options are viable in reality, and there is a lot of preference that is involved in this decision-making process. I believe there are three relatively easily accessible end-game weapons for each of the builds and I will go over each of them. The most important thing to remember is that I am approaching this from a "On the cheap" perspective. There may be better, more expensive or harder to get weapons available, but if you are reading this guide for information on how to gear your Ranger you may not have access to these yet. The options that I am suggesting are ones that should be available to anyone that just hit 75.

Archery: Selene's Bow

The Selene's Bow really is an easy to get alternative to the Eurytos' Bow. There are two things that make it stand out; the damage and, oddly enough, the longer delay. The damage is pretty high for a bow, even higher than a Eurytos' Bow, and this means more damage per shot and more damage per WS. The longer delay is actually good because it makes it that much easier to get to an X-hit build, either 6 or 5 depending on what sub job you want to use. We will get into gearing for a 6 or 5 hit build in another post.

There are of course other alternatives to the Selene's Bow, like the Eurytos' Bow like I mentioned above, as well as the Fay Gendawa when it is properly augmented. As for ammunition I think Demon Arrows are great here. They can get a bit pricey but if you can get them while they are low they can have a very good/shot ratio. For WS, you can use Kabura Arrows which are nice, but can get to be very pricey. Some people even like to use Kabura for building TP, but this is really expensive and isn't really something I would encourage. Finally, try picking up a Patriarch Protector Arrow too, but be careful with it and don't just shoot it off without Unlimited Shot up. :)

Crossbow: There is a lot more variety when it comes to good Crossbows, but when it comes to the best it is always going to be the Othinus' Bow. It has the highest damage for a Crossbow in the game, but it also has the highest delay. Hell, it's damage and delay are even better than Annihilator. I think the stats on the O Bow may be a relic from a past time in FFXI when the programmers had something else planned for the stats in the game, because it is radically out of line with other crossbows in the game. While the delay is higher, it still isn't that bad and it increases your TP per shot meaning you can get WS more often with more Store TP.

The ammo options for Crossbow are two-fold. You can go with the traditional Darksteel Bolt build, which will next you very good damage but it is still rather expensive. I am not positive what the comparison is to Kabura Arrows, but Demon Arrows are a better fill in than what you have after Darksteel Bolts. The traditional alternative are Holy Bolts. The thing about Holy Bolts is that it requires a different build than normal, meaning you need more gear with more MND on it to increase the additional effect. This is up to you, one is very cheap but has a lot more variation in damage, the other is pretty expensive but has much more reliable damage. For WS you can still use Darksteel Bolts, or you can use a Gold Musketeer's Bolt for when Unlimited Shot is up.

Guns: This is where my knowledge really lacks because I have never been willing to give up the gil necessary to get to the extra damage that Gun builds can offer. That being said, there are several decent Guns that are available to RNG but Hellfire +1 really stands out with good base stats and good additional stats. A Murderer might be an option too, but I don't really know how well compare. In the end these guns are very strong because of their high damage ammo, not so much because of their individual stats.

The ammo for guns is even more limited than Crossbows or Bows. I would assume the default are Silver Bullets. This is a very expensive option but it is the way to go for Guns I assume. You could use Steel Bullets too, but I think that would actually be more expensive for less damage on most servers. Your WS can still use Silver Bullets because those are the highest damage bullets out there, and there is no CP reward bullet either.

The Culverin? Skip it for now, that is almost worth another post in itself.