Welcome to the Forest Ranger. What did you say your name was again? Ah well I guess it doesn't really matter much anyway. I don't know what called you out here, but if you've ever spent any time in the local taverns you've probably heard the jokes about "Ranger Gates" and "Funny Green Men in Tights", well let me tell you this recruit. It's not all show and glimmer, sure we've got the famous few who've made it big for whatever reason. Robin Hood comes to mind, but you're going to be starting out at the bottom and you've still got a lot to learn!

Now Go put on this green hat and tights and let's get started shall we?

A Ranger is a Hybrid Class pulling a few skills from the Warrior Side and from the Druid side. You've got 4 self buffs and a myriad of physical and spell attacks to mix in to your routine.

(If anyone has the levels you get these I'll edit them in if you post below)

[Level 1] Rapid Shot - Strikes a Target 3 Times with a Bow for Physical Damage
[Level 1] Track - Tries to find a high value (ie. Rare) target in the zone to pull
[Level ?] Kick - Kicks them in the shins for physical damage. Goes up as the armor rating on your boots increased. Also has a chance to interrupt spells.
[Level ?] Counter Shot - 15% Chance of Becoming Available every time you take physical damage
[Level ?] Trueshot Arrow - Hits the Target 2 Times for Physical Damage. Gains power as you parry
[Level ?] Faerie Flame - Does magic Damage over time and also increases all damage done to a target by 15% a MUST HAVE
[Level ?] Snare - Reduces a targets mobility and attack speed. Also provides benefits for other skills. Much like Faerie Flame it's good to have it on whatever mob you're fighting.
[Level ?] Light Healing - You're only cure until you get some talents.
[Level ?] Ignite - Direct Magic Damage spell. Combines with Faerie Flame it can become deceivingly powerful.
[Level ?] Warder's Rift - Get out of Jail free Card. Let's you beat on an enemy with taking minimal damage. Also reduces your damage output though.
[Level ?] Weapon Shield - Ripostes all Attacks for 10 Seconds, Your get out of jail free card for melee
[Level ?] Spirit of Wolf - Grants you attack power, mobility, and adds effects to your other skills
[Level ?] Shield of Brambles - Reflects Physical Damage
[Level ?] Feel Like a Cat - Buffs Agility
[Level ?] Thistlecoat - Buffs Armor and Reflects Physical Damage

Talents: I've marked the five I suggest putting 20 points into with a green color.

Kick - Improves kick's damage and interrupt rate - Level 20 Bonus:50% Chance to Disarm Target Reducing Next Attack by 75%
Thistle Coat - Adds a health Bonus to Thistlecoat - Level 20 Bonus: 75% Chance to Reflect Damage
Snare - Converts auto attack into rapid flurry of attacks - Level 20 Bonus: 12% Parry and Riposte
Warder's Rift - Reduce the damage mitigation of Warder's Rift for your own attacks - Level 20 Bonus: Successful Parry Triggers Regen
Counter Shot - Improves Counter Shot's Damage - Level 20 Bonus: Stuns Target for 1.5 Seconds
Trueshot Arrow - Improves Trueshot's Damage - Level 20 Bonus: Ignore Target's Defense
Faerie Flame - Improve Faerie Flame's Damage - Level 20 Bonus: Trueshot Arrow Fires Third Arrow that Hits 3 Targets
Ignite - Improves Ignites Damage - Level 20 Bonus:30% chance Arrows Cause Explosive Damage

Rapid Shot - Improves Rapid Shot's Damage - - Level 20 Bonus: 5% Damage Bonus
Feel Like Cat - Adds Skill Haste to Feel Like Cat Buff - Level 20 Bonus: Increases Number of Volley Shot Arrows by 50%
Spirit of the Wolf - Improves Spirit of Wolf by adding a lightning strike chance to your arrows - Level 20 Bonus: 12 Percent Dual Wield and Double Attack
Volley Shot - Improves Volley Shot's Damage - Level 20 Bonus: Rapid Shot Fires Extra Shot


So Why these Talents?
Simply put, the Ranger can be a powerhouse at times, but at others it seems like the weakest class you can play. They aren't balanced perfectly well, but once you get your skills and know how to use them you can chain most enemies fairly easily while keeping yourself healed. These Talents Assist in that.

Snare allows you to hit an enemy at least 4 times every time you auto attack which happens usually between 3-5 seconds. This can add a lot of physical and potentially elemental damage based on your weapon.
Warder's Rift adds a bonus to snare allowing you to get more attacks in, but the regen is also useful for keeping yourself healed. Light healing will help, but the regen stacks so you can have multiples on at the same time adding back in health as quickly as you're losing it.
Countershot - Rangers have no other stuns and this helps take down the tricky casters in the game.
Spirit of the Wolf - The lightning strikes fairly often and does some nice additional damage
Ignite - Explosive Arrows for extra damage? Sign me up!

Tactics: Will be Edited in Soon

Interesting, I went thistlecoat instead of counter shot for my fifth talent. I'll have to try coutershot.

It was up between thistlecoat, countershot, or volley.

Yeah, it's probably a build that could have improvements. I'm curious to see how much damage the lightning does, because it may be worthwhile just to drop Spirit and go with Thistlecoat instead.

I also went Thistlecoat for the 75% damage reflection.

Can't drop the lightning, i did some testing with my offline ranger with it and it actually does more damage than the explosions (although single target). Lightning is awesome, embrace the lightning.

Meh, I can't tell if the damage reflection does much. I wanted the life. Ranger is a very much regen based class, gotta be able to take that punch before a break lets you regen back.

I agree, I haven't been able to easily discern if the reflect is doing much (or anything) at all.

Dat flurry though..

By the way I just hit Countershot to 20. It's fantastic if you can get it to keep coming up. the 1.5 second stun is fantastic and the fact you can use it while stunned allows you to break a stun lock if it happens.

It's a catch 22 imo, the only time it pops up a lot is when their are a lot of enemies hitting you, when there are a lot of enemies hitting you, stunning 1 of them isn't all that useful.

For Snare levels, how it converts auto-attack into a flurry of attacks...

How does it work exactly? At level 10, it's +2 hits. With mainhand weapon? Does each "hit" have a chance to double attack?

Since our weapons are not our main source of DPS, why would I want this over say Ignite's level 20 bonus of 30% explosive damage? Lightning at 24% and Explosive at 30%, as many arrows as we fire? 3 for Rapid Shot every second, so roughly an Explosive proc every second. Countershot can trigger this. Volley can trigger it 2-5 times statistically almost. Trueshot has a better than 50% chance that it'll proc this.

Up to 3 extra hits of your auto attack, based on mainhand weapon?

Granted 12% Parry and Riposte are nice, but I'll take the chance of another proc.

If you got good enough gear, thistlecoat and warder's rift are kinda redundant. I used a full warrior's set on my Ranger, and used other elite tier set items in other slots. I ended up settling on Gravelord's Crescent for a weapon. I was caught between that and Serrated Blade of War. Gravelord's does more DPS, even though its slower.

I've seen some people knock Ranger in some other topics, but with the right gear/setup you can pull 25-30k DPS in chains which is above average. Ranger is pretty durable too with the right gear. Taking 180 DPS from mobs is not a big deal. I can permanently survive that because my HP leeching. Even when hit with blind. Which is why thistlecoat is redundant. I'm gonna take this class to 99 eventually. My ranger pretty much has BiS gear though. SK for example, can't even do 1/3 of that DPS in BiS gear due to not having a flurry attack.