Summary

Strength	Agility	Will	Knowledge	Resourcefulness	Health
10	20	10	10	25	90

The ranger is fast with high resourcefulness. Excels at looting, killing NPCs and dealing ranged damage in PVP. Works for both solo and party play, though you’ll want to play differently. Either way, you have to play carefully as your main advantage comes from getting the first shots in during a fight.

Your damage and effectiveness is almost entirely tied to your weapon. Buying a white or better bow will make a huge difference. You’ll always want Quickshot which benefits the longbow most making it generally the best option. Look for agility enhancing items for more speed and strength enhancing items for more damage. Physical damage and true damage are also good stats to look for on gear.

Solo

Take Enhanced Hearing perk and play cautiously. You move & loot quickly, you can clear NPCs with little risk of damage. Your worst threat is a rogue as you can generally flee from anyone else if needed. Most melee enemies can’t attack you if on a different elevation, abuse this and aim for the head from safety.

For other perks take Sharpshooter and then decide between spears & fast traps or more ranged damage.

Party

Get spears whenever able and take the Spear Proficiency perk. This gives you a good option when your team closes with enemies and friendly fire danger gets high. Take a sword when you can’t get a spear.

Prioritize ranged damage perks and skills. Focus on setting up ambushes and supporting teammates. Having a cleric or wizard to buff helps a ton. Place traps on choke points to protect flanks. Having a free campfire is a nice plus for party play as well.

Weapons

Perks

Perks	Solo	Party
Ranged Weapons Expert	Very Good	Very Good
Sharpshooter	Very Good	Very Good
Enhanced Hearing	Excellent	Good
Nimble Hands	Very Good	Very Good
Trap Expert	Very Good	Fair
Crossbow Mastery	Terrible	Terrible
Kinesthesia	Good	Good
Spear Proficiency	Good	Good
Tracking	Poor	Poor

Ranged Weapons Expert – Good solo Very Good in party- Recommended for most builds for the extra damage on every hit. Can be traded for utility.

Sharpshooter – Very Good – 15% more damage is huge, almost always recommended unless you are struggling to connect headshots.

Enhanced Hearing – Excellent Solo, Good in party – Knowing where your enemies are before they know where you are is a huge advantage if you can utilize it well. Use it to setup ambushes or keep your distance. Can be difficult to distinguish friends from enemies footsteps but if careful is still a big advantage in party.

Nimble Hands – Very Good – Faster shooting is great in every scenario just a matter of measuring against utility. For a solo sneaky ranger you may skip it.

Trap Expert – Good Solo, Fair in party – Substantially reduces installation time for traps. Traps can be disastrous for your victim. If they don’t notice them it’s an easy kill while they try to break free and if they do it still blocks the space. However, since traps are pricey and you’re generally only saving a few seconds a match with this perk it’s less valuable than damage IMO.

Crossbow Mastery – Terrible – If you take this and drop all the bow specific perks they make crossbows usable. However with the long reloads it just doesn’t make sense. Light crossbows do less damage than a longbow and have a longer reload with the relevant perks. Windlass crossbow has the highest single point damage of any ranged weapon but it takes so long to reload even with perk it’s not a great option. Plus it immobilizes you during reload and almost none of the skills apply to it.

Kinesthesia – Good – New perk with the December playtest. Is helpful in combat but personally prefer damage perks to it. Worth taking if going for no utility perks. Being able to back up that much faster while taking shots can help but generally isn’t going to change a fight.

Spear Proficiency – Good solo, Very Good party – Spears are excellent, good attack animations allow for high damage head hits while your enemies are at a slight distance. Given the +10 damage it does make for a better close range option than a sword. You still want to keep distance from proper melee classes but can save you in a pinch or give your team more options in a push.

Tracking – Poor – In my experience the trails don’t last long enough to be relevant. Hearing footsteps has been far more useful for keeping track of enemies.

Skills

Field Ration	Good
Quickshot	Excellent
Quick Fire	Very Good
Multishot	Poor
True Shot	Fair

Field Ration – Good – Three uses per match, resets with campfire. Great for starting out and learning the game, between them and the free campfire you get you can sustain yourself through a lot. Once you are more experienced replace with Quick Fire or True Shot.

Quickshot – Excellent – Three full damage arrows in rapid succession which refills your quiver instantly. Works best with longbow as they have highest damage but it is worth taking with any bow. Great for clearing NPCs and in PVP. Has a 30 second cooldown with no further limit. Extremely deadly if stacked with Cleric and/or Wizard damage buffs.

Quick Fire – Very Good – My recommended secondary skill once you can survive consistently without field rations. Also applies to quiver reload speed.

Multishot – Poor – Resets quiver but then fires all of them, hard to hit with more than 1 arrow as the arc is so wide. Can be an option for enemies that get right on top of you but other skills are better.

True Shot – Fair – Wish you had a gun? Forget about ballistics and leading targets, just point and click. Can be used to great effect when shooting at range. However with Dec playtest removing the large open spaces this has much more limited application now.