Free-to-play Ranged training

Ranging in the free worlds, while having less equipment and features than the member’s world, provides some fun on battling monsters and players who are otherwise be out of reach. While member rangers are revered and considered dangerous even from sight, a well armed ranger of the free world still packs quite some power – enough to bring down an unprepared warrior with full rune armour in a few shots.

This guide will provide the steps and choices of ranging depending on the player style and taste in training.

Weapons
Rangers are advised to wield the best weapon their level can allow and to prepare money to buy the next bow they would need as their level will later allow them to wield. For new players, training arrows and bows are advised to save money at the start, they can replaced with stronger bows later on.

Short bows

The most ideal training weapon for most player. As far as starter’s training is concern, short bows are better as they can shoot faster and have a comparable hit rate as long bows. This makes the short bows the most ideal range weapon for training.

Long bows

Ideal for player-killing rangers, long bows have a much longer range and maximum hit than shortbows. Such long range comes in handy when making an ambush against a distant melee player (who needs to cover some distance before reaching the ranger to attack). It also is useful in hitting players running away from a battle.

However, what the long bow possess in power, it lacks in speed - causing it to fall behind against the short bow in rapid shooting and taking longer time to kill a monster. Long bows are only recommended for players with high ranging level (70 and above) as at this level, the ranger has enough skill in ranging accuracy to shoot accurate enough to make little difference in leveling up between using a short bow or a long bow.

Crossbows

Crossbows are used as a backup ranging weapon and not as a primary training weapon. Bronze bolts are the only crossbow ammunition for free players. Two crossbows are available to free players – the regular crossbow and the phoenix crossbows – both of which have the same stat bonuses. Crossbows have a slower fire rate than a short bow but faster than a long bow. Crossbows, however, tends to deliver slightly higher damage than short bows but long bows surpass the crossbow in terms of range and damage power.

Crossbows allow players to wield a shield on their shield slot, allowing rangers to add up some defences against melee and range attacks. However, wearing shields will also result in ranging penalty with kite shields providing more penalty than a square shield.

Crossbows are considered ideal only for new players or players with low ranging level, especially on the goblins which drop bronze bolts (which serves as ammunition to the crossbows). However, once the player can wield the willow short bow or long bow (at level 20 ranging), the crossbows of the free world becomes obsolete in terms of accuracy and power and would no longer be recommended as a training weapon starting at these level.

Armour
Rangers must wear the best ranging armour their money and level can provide or allow. Most ranging equipment sets are cheaper than their melee counterpart and should be no trouble for most players. Free players can also craft the most basic ranging armour such as the leather chaps up to the hard leather body.

Rangers are advised to get the best full ranging armour from head and body down to vambraces. Better ranging armour not only provides better overall protection from magic, melee, and range attacks, it also provides improve ranging attacks and accuracy, which can be even more helpful in making a hit and raising the ranger’s experience points in ranging. However, ranging armour is weaker to both range and melee attacks than their melee armour counterpart so rangers who were once training on melee must take this weakness as a consideration.

Level 1 – 9 Defence

Recommended set: a cowl, a pair of leather chaps, a pair of leather vambraces and a leather body

Players should get a cowl, a pair of leather chaps, a pair of leather vambraces and a leather body should they be able to acquire these items. These items have no skill requirements. Because these items are made from cowhides, are fairly easy to craft (in Al Kharid which is Lumbridge's neighboring city) and the materials are easy to acquire. For more information about the leather armour and how to craft them, please see their articles and the skill crafting.

Level 10 – 19 Defence

Recommended set: a cowl, a pair of leather chaps, a pair of leather vambraces and a hard leather body

Rangers should replace their leather body with a hard leather body (which is tends to be in high supply in the general stores of Lumbridge, Al Kharid, and Varrock). Alternatively, rangers can craft cowhides into hard leather body when their crafting level is 28 or higher.

Level 20-39 Defence and Ranging

Recommended set: a coif, a leather vambraces, a studded hard leather body, and a pair of studded chaps.

Rangers are recommended to buy a coif, a studded hard leather body, and a pair of studded chaps. The studded hard leather body and the studded chaps can be sold in Varrock though Horvik but these items to be in low supply because only members can craft them and no free-to-play monsters drop these items. The coif can be sold from the Champions Guild (which requires 32 quest points to enter) but the coif can only be crafted by members.

Level 40 or higher Defence and Ranging

Recommended Set: a coif, green dragonhide chaps, and green dragonhide vambraces, green dragonhide body

Players can now use green dragonhide chaps and green dragonhide vambraces, both of which can be sold from the Champion Guild. The green dragonhide body can only be worn after achieving defence and range level of 40 and after finishing the quest dragon slayer. Players who had finished the quest dragon slayer and had fulfilled the minimum level requirements must equip these armour as soon as possible since the full green dragon armour can greatly increase accuracy and protection much more than other free-to-play ranging armour.

Amulet
For most part, amulets are used as an adjunct or as an assistance to the ranger's regular armour and weapon. Amulets are not a must to players in training unless they are in need of defense or faster training since amulets, for most part, end up getting lost when a player dies. While amulets are readily available to wealthier players or players with high crafting and magic level, low level players would find one amulet costing as much as their entire armour in terms of street prices.

Since no store sells enchanted amulets, it is advised that players carrying any amulet must judiciously decide to carry them or not. Also, rangers carrying any amulet be prepared to escape danger.

Amulet of Defense

The Amulet of Defense provides the highest boost of defense against magic, range, and melee attack more than any amulet in free-to-play worlds. This amulet is recommended for players with low defense as well as players trying out new training grounds as these amulets are not expensive and can be crafted faily low crafting level.

If the player desires to fill the amulet slot to practice on new training grounds, especially when fighting stronger monsters, the amulet of defense is advised due to its cost, low crafting requirement to craft one, and its availability in terms of item and raw material to make them.

Amulet of Accuracy

The Amulet of Accuracy may the first or one of the first amulets available to new players or new accounts. This amulet is acquired after completing the imp-catcher quest and provides a fair amount of boost in ranging, as well as magic and melee, attacks. However, many players found the bonuses provided in this amulet mediocere and wealthier players opt for the amulet of power whenever they could get their hands on it.

Amulet of Power

The amulet of power is the most powerful amulet overall in free-to-play world. In terms of ranging, it provides the best ranging bonuses among free-to-play amulets, enough to make a difference in accuracy even with the best ranging equiptment.

The Amulet of Power is recommended for high-level ranging player, and those well-verse in dungeons. However, any player with the amulet of power must be prepared to escape danger quickly to avoid losing this amulet. Also, players "exploring" on new dungeons and places with stronger monsters are not recommended to carry the amulet of power unless they have carried a teleport set of runes to escape the dungeon or area rather than train until their health points drop too low.

Arrows and bolts
For new players, the training arrows are the best as they are free and are the only arrows that cannot be picked up from other players. However, as the ranging level advances and strong monsters to be fought becomes tough enough to withstood the training arrows, players would be advised to get stronger arrows.

Any player wielding an oak bow or stronger bows should be prepared with bronze arrows (sometimes in the hundreds) since the training arrows can only be used with the training bow. Depending on the player’s financial capacity and willingness to spend (stronger arrows are more expensive), the monsters to fight (stronger monsters are more resistant to weak arrows), and the players’ desired result, player can train on any arrows in any amount (adamant arrows being the most powerful available to free players). However, steel arrows are considered as the upper limit as gathering hundreds or thousands of mithril or adamant arrows would be very slow and such amount would cost hundred of thousands of coins for the player.

Bronze bolts

Bronze bolts had their application only to the crossbow - the only bolt and crossbow available to free players, respectively. For most part, this combination of crossbow and bolts are comparable in terms of training result with the combination of training arrows and training bows or the shortbow and bronze arrow. Crossbows are slower in terms of fire rate than a shortbow but with the introduction of training bow and training arrow, many players shun from using crossbows since they can get free arrows from the ranging tutor but crossbows and bolts had be acquired either from shops, monster drops (goblins drop bronze bolts), or other players.