MMORPG.com's Josh Price takes this quick look at his early experiences playing a Ranger in NCsoft's Aion.

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.

Read An Intro to the Ranger

Nice post :)

Playing a ranger myself but haven't been playing much cause the lack of time ..

But I really look forward to level my ranger after I read your thread .. gj

Ranger of Aion: a lesson how NOT to make classes.

Below 20 imba too weak, above imba too strong.

Ridiculous.

Playing a Ranger myself in release...had played a gladiator and ranger in CB/OB and enjoyed both, but hearing all the good feedback for rangers post level 19 made me want to stick it out.  I'm up to level 15 now and enjoying him, although he is difficult to solo all the time due to his general squishy-ness.

Going to look into this weapon enhancing thing when I get home tonight.  Thanks for the tip.

-G

Good news because I started a ranger and was thinking of going back to chanter do to ranger bordem.  I will now stick it out and to see what lvl 20+ brings.  Thanks for the encouragement.

Nice post on a class I rarely see. Ranged combat isn't my style, so I went assassin, but many of the problems are similar. Keep in mind you can use a bow as a 'sin, as well.

I don't want to sound evil or anything, but you get stunning shot at 19.  16 is that rapid fire skill.  Forgot the name.

 That's right Stunning Shot is at 19. I find the cd's a bit too long for a ranger on sword and bow skills. it's not like they are doing any amazing damage where they need a longer cd then a mage skill.  I am killing stuff as fast or faster with a lev 13 Spirit Master as I do with a lev 18 Ranger ; I take a tenth of the damage and I don't have to run around like a chicken with it's head cut off to avoid taking damage.   I am hoping for bigs things with a ranger but in watching higher lev rangers they really don't seem to be doing any kind of amazing damage.  They do seem to have a lot of shut downs against casters later.  

So up to lev 18 it seems to be a kite alot class which is hard because your targets reset  if you go to far out of their pathing area.  Meaning that you might have lost half of your health to the target and they reset back to full.  Using swords on things around your level means taking alot of damage and hoping that you don't aggro anything else to dirt nap you.  Weapon swapping is ok but you risk pulling aggro from other mops and/or your target resetting.   Also, the sword attacks and bow attacks are on the same cd which is annoying because alot of times you swap to swords and can only use auto attack, and vice versa.  If you like more challenging game play esp. for the first 19 levs roll a ranger.   At this point I am not understanding the longer cooldowns, the cd's  overlapping,  the lack of damage.  Versus casters; even a clerics damage is as good and the mage class blows ranger damage off the map.  Keep in mind this is talking to lev 18. 

Yeah, I realized a while back that I mixed up Arrow Strike & Stunning Shot's level.  Oh well.

Sorry for nitpicking, but you also called the class 'Hunter' in one of the later paragraphs.  An honest mistake, but not helping the "wow clone" mentality some have toward Aion =/.

Well, I personally blame MMORPG editors for not catching that one, it was something I was doing during early on in OB but have since broken myself of it, though violently.

Started a Ranger, like him so far, kind of grindey at his current level of 12. Good to know it get's better down the road. Thanks for the info. :-)

I can speak only for all classes up to 15 (I have - so far, as I love to level all classes nearly at same time - only 2 lv. 17, both mages, rest 16 except ranger and gladiator), but so far the worst of the worst is ranger. Just bad. Damage (upgrades or not) from bow is just silly. Class specific abilities not even to mention.

For me is terrible design flow if somebody has to play ranger as assassin up to 19 or so. Or if some class is ridiculously weak nearly up to half of levels.
 

Ok, of course is possible I need to "learn" the class, maybe I’m not playing right ... but then this should be problem for me with all classes ... but it is not. Only ranger. So far the most disappointing class is ranger. Despite I'm forcing myself to play it. Have tryed differetn approach ... nothing work. Again, ok, .... always somebody is first and somebody last ... but ranger last place lags terribly behind its predecessor.

Originally posted by pre_mar

Ok, of course is possible I need to "learn" the class, maybe I’m not playing right ... but then this should be problem for me with all classes ... but it is not. Only ranger. So far the most disappointing class is ranger. Despite I'm forcing myself to play it. Have tryed differetn approach ... nothing work. Again, ok, .... always somebody is first and somebody last ... but ranger last place lags terribly behind its predecessor.

No, it's not that, at least not entirely; the Ranger in Aion is, for a ranged archetype, sadly lacking in ranged skills in the early game; things don't start to get better until you get Arrow Strike I at 16 -- your first ranged chain -- then Stunning Shot I at 19; until then, you're going to feel a bit like Sir Robin, shooting and running away shooting (if you try to stay as a ranged attacker). On  the other hand, learning to use the knuckles in the combat mechanics is extremely helpful to Rangers -- jumpshotting and weaving -- and your mid teens is a good place to practice.

Both jumpshotting and weaving take advantage of the timing of attacks to eliminate getting rooted in place while an attack animates, letting you a) attack faster, and b) keep moving (to keep up your distance from your target as well as get the combat modifiers for moving). When you move forward, you get a bonus to your physical attack; you'll see a white up-chevron displayed behind your character when you have a weapon out and have the bonus active. It lasts for a second or two after you stop, so you can't move, stop, then run through all your attacks, and expect to get the bonus for all of them.

Jumpshotting is taking advantage of animations being interrupted when you land from a jump. This works best if you use the left+right mouse buttons to move forward, because it is less finger-juggling. Basically, all you need to do is jump, release any movement key/mouse buttons, hit the key for an attack that would normally root you (like '1' for your autoattack), then as soon as you land, press the movement buttons again. Done in the right order (the game has to see you 'stop' by releasing the movement control while you're in the air), you'll turn and fire your attack while you're still coming down from your jump, and when you land, the animation is interrupted and you can keep moving, while the attack still goes off. It's pretty easy to do with the autoattack, harder with the other ones (Swift Shot and Stunning Shot). Arrow Strike and Entangling Shot you don't get rooted for, so you can fire these on the run and don't need to jumpshot them.

Weaving takes advantage of the fact that once the autoattack starts, it takes effect much quicker than the full animation; you can start your autoattack, if you watch your combat log when you start an autoattack, you will see the actual damage report before the animation completes; at that point, you can hit another skill, and the autoattack animation will stop, replaced by the skill animation -- but since the attack's already gone off as far as the server is concerned, you get a slight speedup on your attack rate.

If you look up 'jumpshot' and 'weaving' on pretty much any Aion site, you'll find a discussion with video examples of how to make both of these work -- and in the low to mid teens, you've got plenty of time to practice.