Praxium matchup guides: vs Rangers

What is this guide for?

This guide serves as an attempt to break down the PvP matchup against Rangers at a thorough, general level, while keeping the majority of tactics on the bottom shelf. It is intentionally guild agnostic, makes no assumptions around MT or other optional includes, and does not attempt to be the end-all-be-all when it comes to strategy against the guild in question.

Where are Rangers strong?

• Pulsing invisibility and stealth prime
• Good warding against both physical and elemental
• Easy-to-maintain bonuses
• Easy access to elemental damage
  • Melee -> brawling = electrical
  • Ranged -> dual loaded initial shots = cold or electrical
• High damage alpha strike
  • Dual loaded SK-enhanced arrows

What are their likely builds?

• Stats
  • Heavy emphasis on the Magic/ offensive contest
    • All of the Ranger's primary debilitations are keyed to the Magic/ contest. This includes Deadfall, Harawep's Bonds, Curse of the Wilds, etc...
    • Most Rangers will spend most of their stat points on WISDOM, as it serves as Primary in the Magic/ contest.
      • A capped/near-capped Ranger will likely aim for 140-150 base Wisdom to ensure these debilitations land.
    • A secondary emphasis on Discipline
      • Losing access to your wards (via dispels) and casting (via Sanyu Lyva or Huldah's Pall) is crippling to any magic user.
        • A capped/near-capped Ranger will likely aim for 130-140 base Discipline to ensure continuity of wards and spellcasting.
        • Note that Wisdom serves as the Secondary stat in the /Willpower contest, providing extra cushion when punching up against folks dead-set on removing your wards/spellcasting.
      • A tertiary emphasis on Reflex or Stamina
        • Depending on what other guilds the Ranger in question fight most, they will most commonly spend their reminder TDP's on either Reflexes or Stamina. Reflexes if they fight predominantly against Thieves, Traders, Warrior Mages, and Barbarians. Stamina if they fight predominantly against Empaths or Warrior Mages.
• Scroll spells
  • Awaken
    • Rangers have no native access to anti-stun. Awaken is mana native and a natural gap filler. This also covers anti-unconscious.
  • Redeemer's Pride
    • Rangers want to protect their wards against dispel and maintain their casting abilities. Since each of those debils target /Willpower, this is a must-include. REPR is Elemental, which is the easiest mana type for living magic users to sorcerously use. As an added benefit, it also protects against Fear (see Thieves and Barbarians).
  • Variable third slot
    • There are no other obvious "must fill" gaps in the Ranger's toolkit. They have native access to +balance, auto-stand, and most of the desirable buffs. Common third slot spells include:
      • Any hard CC targeting /Fortitude
        • All Ranger hard CC's target /Reflexes. If these are being resisted due to target statting, a Ranger's ability to apply damage goes way down. Examples of this include Arc Light and Dazzle, both of which also rely on the Magic/ offensive contest.
      • Any AoE soft CC debilitation
        • Rangers have minimal access to soft CC debilitations that target multiple opponents. When fighting 1v2 or 1v3, a soft CC like Tremor, which also utilizes the Magic/ contest.

What are they trying to do?

• Engage with initiative
  • Pulsing invisibility and stealth prime means that the Ranger largely gets to choose their engagements. They pick when the fight starts, and how it starts.
• Out-alpha their opponents
  • A dual-loaded SK-enhanced shot against a debilitated target hurts a lot. This will regularly chunk their target's vitality by 30-50%, depending on what type of arrows they are using. Winning a fight is a lot easier when you are starting with that kind of vitality advantage, before your opponent is able to respond.
• Minimize the return damage
  • RITS is a great ward that forces people to change the way they counter-engage. It will eat the first hit above a defined threshold, and since most folks try to hit back with their best ability in their toolkit, they often waste their best ability.

How do you win?

• Minimize their alpha strike
  • Since a Ranger's alpha strike is predicated on hitting for maximum damage with a dual loaded, SK-enhanced longbow attack, holding your shield in your off-hand and stancing Shield + Evasion is your best option in minimizing the incoming damage.
  • Extensive testing shows that holding/stancing Shield against a Ranger reduces their initial damage by ~25%. If they continue to rely on ranged damage instead of swapping to melee, you will continue to mitigate a significant portion of the damage for the rest of the fight.
  • Note, Rangers have no native access to DFA TM or weapon attacks, which is one of the primary use cases where people stressed alternative stancing in the past.
• Work around RITS
  • While it is tempting to counter-punch with your best ability right away, make sure to trigger RITS before you activate that ACM or cast that TM spell.
  • Use an on-demand ability like MANEUVER PALMSTRIKE that does not do exceptional damage, but will connect with more than enough damage to trigger RITS. Then immediately follow-up with your pre-targeted TM and/or ACM chain.
  • When RITS' block-a-hit functionality is down, Ranger's are surprisingly squishy. ETC is a good ward that does a little bit of everything, but it is balanced around a Ranger's ability to completely mitigate hits every so often. As a result, its mitigation is not best-in-class.
• Grapple them
  • One of the primary reasons people think Rangers are far tankier than they actually are is the pulsing invisibility and/or hiding when combined with RITS. You trigger RITS and get a hit or two in, but Blend pulses, and by the time you see the Ranger again their RITS is back up, eating another hit.
  • Grappling causes invisibility to not pulse and for the HIDE verb to be locked out. A Ranger in the open is a Ranger that you can hit more consistently, target more reliably, and visually track the progress of your damage.
• Nuke the room
  • If you are unable to grapple the Ranger, nuking the room with area affect TM or Debil spells is an acceptable fallback. These do not rely on seeing your target, and so will not be interrupted by pulsing invisibility and/or hiding.
  • Environment depending (i.e. don't do this in the middle of town), TOGGLE AOE ALL is a helpful pre-fight setting change if you know the fight is coming. Landing debils regardless of whether or not you have re-faced/re-engaged the Ranger that previously moved from the room while invisible and returned in an unengaged state is a good thing. Just make sure to toggle the setting back to your normal behavior after the fight, and avoid collateral damage during the fight.
• Stat for /Reflexes
  • A Ranger's native hard CC is completely tied to hitting a target's /Reflexes contest. By stacking Reflex and/or Agility as a tertiary stat, you completely remove (or at least reduce) their ability to debilitate you.
• Do *not* leave the room
  • SK is designed in such a way that a Ranger gets an empowered attack off once per target per five minutes...unless that target leaves the room. When the target leaves the room, the timer is reset and the Ranger is ready for another empowered attack against the same target.
  • In a prolonged fight, you nuking the room and forcing the Ranger out is a superior option when attempting to buy yourself some breathing room.