When the open beta started, I decided to dive head first into the Ranger class, and boy am I glad I did. After having sunk over twenty five levels with both the Assassin and the Gladiator during the previous closed beta events, I must say that I had (and am having)a good time with the Ranger, a rip roarin' good time, even. The class is not without its faults, though. Luckily, most of those faults are only below level twenty. During this time the Ranger can be a bore and a hassle to play, due to a limited number of abilities. But if you're willing to see it through until the late teens, you'll find yourself quickly filling those britches. Some might say that it's like growing into adulthood; let's just hope you're not a late bloomer.

Between the levels of one and ten you're basically, for all intents and purposes, playing an assassin. I actually think that the Ranger should have its own archetype with another ranged physical class and the assassin should have its own sister class, a warden or a thief possibly. Maybe something that could be added for an expansion? You won't even see a bow until level ten, when it is presented to you as a quest reward. You still get new ranks in all of the melee abilities that were used getting this far. I know a lot of Rangers use melee to their advantage due to the lack of archery skills at this level. They will pull and attack with the bow until the mob gets within melee range, then they'll weapon swap to a dagger/sword combo for the finish. This is all well and good, and I'm sure it's a highly viable option for any inclined to proceed down that route, but ultimately, I found myself far too lazy for this.

You may want to consider stopping by the Trade Broker to pick up a good bow, it can greatly assist in making those terrible teens much less terrible. Which brings me to my next point: item enhancement. I'm actually pretty surprised as to how many people were unaware of this game mechanic during the beta phase of the game. Basically, enhancement allows you to break down unwanted gear with extraction tools and use the resulting enchantment stones to upgrade your gear. If you're new to it, you should definitely go track down some information on it and give it a read. The amazingly complicated strategy I used, which became quite successful, was to buy a decent weapon and then upgrade it as I leveled. In my case, I bought a Frozen Bow at about level twelve to use at fourteen. By seventeen, I had upgraded my bow eight times, giving it an additional thirty two points of damage. This extra damage (about a 30% increase), made any it better than just about any subsequent bows for quite a few levels. These upgrades only apply to the physical damage of the bow, any other stats (accuracy, physical crit.) all remain the same. Because of this, by around level twenty these stats may have overtaken my little Frozen Bow by so much that it may have been better to switch to another bow. But, I really wanted to wait until a bow's base damage matched my bow's modified damage, which was found at around level twenty four. Whether this was the most efficient choice, I don't know. I basically just wanted to run around with a brag-worthy weapon for as long as possible.

Playing a hunter during those terrible teens was relatively easy, despite being boring. There is a bit more kiting until sixteen since you have to wait for your only two skills to recharge. At thirteen, you get Spike Trap, which can definitely help snare a target in place if you wanted to get a lot of range on it, or for add control. Aside from that though, the only real lifeline comes in at sixteen when you get Stunning Shot. it is an attack that, as the name would imply, stuns the target--always nifty, although it doesn't seem to be a 100% proc rate. To help its awesomeness further, Stunning Shot has a weird little quirk where it will, on occasion, deal a great deal more damage than it lists on the tooltip, and not just crit damage, but non crit extreme damage. It will either hit for 300-400 or 800-1000. There doesn't seem to be any solid reasoning for this, so I just assume it's one of those nifty bugs that when fixed will make Rangers everywhere shed a tear for. Things are only uphill from there, with new skills being added every three levels. Rotations seem pretty loose this low, your best bet is to just save up anything you can cast while moving for when you're--well, moving.

I definitely look forward to further advancing my little robin hood over time. I also look forward to posting any musings I get during the later levels of the class and anything I do while getting there.

Assuming that you've stuck with the class through its terrible teens, your ranger and you should be having a pretty swell time by 25 (though, in the grand scheme of things, this is still pretty early in the game). Here are some ideas of what's to come or what you should already (maybe) have a pretty good idea about.

Obviously, at 20, you received your first stigma, Arrow Deluge, which leaves you with one stigma slot to go for now. The best option for this second slot is--yeah, you guessed it, Sleep Arrow. This stigma is pivotal in both PvE and small scale PvP (if it's Zerg Vs Zerg like fortress battles, chances are it will just get broken). Here's a decent tip: You can actually sleep an enemy without aggroing it, though it will still attack if you're too close when the sleep wears off. In instances this is especially useful, since you can play hero and sleep a patrol before it comes within range of the group, making for a pretty neat little pause button on their path. At 25 you get access to another essential stigma, yeah, you probably guessed it--again, Silence Arrow. This shot is great for interrupting annoying things like heals and Temporarily Armor Clad (another haphazardly named ability). At 30 your third Stigma slot opens its doors for entry (the fourth is at 40, then the fifth at 50; the advanced stigma quest starts at 45), this slot has a bit more freedom, though most rangers - yours truly included - will recommend Bow of Blessing. When stacked with Devotion, this nice little buff can give you some significant burst to blow things up with.

When your fourth and second to final stigma slot opens up, you have a lot more freedom with what to insert into it. I'm not sure if it's because so few people have made it to 40 to come up with a consensus on what's best, or if I just missed the memo. I think, though, a great stigma to use at this point is Snare Trap, which performs an aerial lockdown on the target. You may have seen other classes who have an aerial lockdown in their base abilities use it with grouping; it's when the monster gets tossed into the air with an electrical effect. If you're especially observant, you may have also noticed this is when your Aerial Wild Shot ability lights up for you to use. This fun little shot has a 0.5 second cooldown, so it can be spammed quite excitingly. And who isn't a fan of a little spam? A note to save a little kinah: By level 40, Snare Trap actually has three available ranks out there to purchase; I settled for getting level 34s rank two, which is a heck of a lot cheaper than level 40s rank three. It hasn't seemed to cause any issues with resists yet as it lands the majority of the time. During its duration, if your trigger finger is fast enough, you can get up to five shots off, dealing anywhere between one and two thousand damage.

Since Snare Trap starts at such a low level, you could decide to equip it at 30 instead of Bow of Blessing. They're both pretty useful, so ultimately it's your decision, but at the end of the day, I'd say Bow of Blessing probably comes out on top. Most of all, though, aerial lockdown annoys the hell out of people in PvP--that should be reason enough to pick it up, be it at 30 or 40.

Gear is obviously one of the main draws of an RPG of any variety, and through your 30s there's no shortage of gear to pour hours into getting. Assuming you've been keeping up with all the quests in The Abyss, you should have accumulated a nice sum of points by your mid to late 30s even if you haven't been actively ganking like a bloodthirsty gerbil. The level 30 blue Abyss gear will probably give you the most bang for your buck, you can get two pieces relatively cheaply. All of the Abyss gear has five sockets, which makes them pretty nifty for stacking Physical Crit. Rating. Those manastones should easily be your highest priority, though if you have to you can substitute Attack stones, which aren't as good for rangers, but still help DPS. Your accessories are a good way to get your crit. rating up too, there's a level 37 crafted necklace that has over 25 rating you should try your best to get your hands on, Fancy Judge's Necklace--another interestingly named item.

At 37, you can start grinding for a blue ring and earring, whose quests start from Alsig Village in Morheim. The quest item you need to grind for from the Lepharists drop from the elite variety, and due to their location, they're rather hard to grind solo by kiting so a group is recommended. The oaths, as they're called, aren't technically a quest item so they can be looted without being on the quest (or purchased from the Broker). There is also a repeatable quest to farm 60 of the non elite Lepharists in exchange for ten of the oaths. This is obviously a pretty easy way to grind it out solo, the 200 oaths required for both the ring and the earring take quite a bit of time to grind, but ultimately--it's worth it.

The last piece I'm going to mention is probably the second most important: boots. Speed increasing boots to boot. There are two options available: a PvP grind and a PvE grind. The first option is to grind out the Abyss boots; these are slightly better but take significantly longer to obtain, and really--there are better things to spend your hard earned Abyss Points on. The other better option, are the Silver Mane boots, whose stats are on par with the Abyss pair, but come equipped with less sockets. The quest for these boots is very similar to the accessories from the aforementioned quests--it requires you to gather Mau Hairs from elite Mau, 100 total. And like the Lepharist oaths they aren't quest items so they can be gathered if you're not on the quest or sold on the broker. A couple of the elite mobs can be killed solo by kiting, the Grapplers and the Pawsoldiers. You need 100 hairs and a random quest item, so it'll keep you occupied for quite some time.

If you take the time and effort (which you should) to get those items, you should be able to get around 385 Crit. Rating, pretty nifty if you ask me. Since the rating begins to diminish at around 440, once you get that high you can begin exchanging crit. manastones for attack ones. Also, I believe it's 10 rating for 1% crit. so by 440, you should be rockin' a hefty 44% crit. if what I've heard is correct--though, considering I did hear it on the internet, there is a significant chance that it is not.

Lastly, and definitely most important--your weapon; there aren't a lot of options available, but there are enough. The best option is the gold bow from Fire Temple, which ultimately isn't worth farming for. One of the best more tangible options is the crafted Worthy Noble Salix Bow. Due to its bonuses, it's better than the durable counterpart at 40 even. If that proves too difficult to attain, the reward for the final campaign quest in Morheim is almost as good. There's also a spy quest down the line at 43 that leads to a gold bow reward, so that is definitely worth doing. I don't have really anything to say about it since I haven't had the chance to do it yet, but it's something to check out for sure.

This should be a good heads up for what's to come as you progress toward the mid to final stages of the leveling grind. Optimizing your gear as much as you can at any given level is recommended for all classes, and if you take the time to equip yourself with all of the gear mentioned, you should be able to easily mow through normal mobs with ease.