Hello everyone! Today I will make a guide on what armor and weapons you should use at each stage of the game for the powerful ranged class. This class excels at boss battles due to long range and great single target damage. They have many options, and I will be discussing the best options for each type of ranged weapon that you should use at each major point of progression. No exploits or glitches will be shown here, and I am not the best at the game, so feel free to let me know anything that you might do differently. Lets get into it!
Stage 1: Pre-bosses
For this stage, it is important that you begin by collecting wood and stone to make some arrows. Now your first interest would normally be to craft a wooden bow, but if you ask me, I’d say that it’s a bit better to go and make a bow made of ebonwood or shadewood. Once that’s down, craft yourself some armor and head into a cave system. Be sure to pick up as many grenades and throwing stars as possible, as these are easy to grab and grenades pack quite the punch. If you are confident enough, bouncy grenades deal 5 more damage than normal grenades, so it might be worth hunting down a pink slime if you see one. Grab life crystals as per usual, and try to obtain platinum or gold. Platinum armor actually has the 2nd highest defense of any pre-hardmode armor, second only to hellstone. The pieces themselves are alright, but it gains 4 defense as a set bonus, which can be crucial early on. I also reccomend checking out the ice biome, as you can obtain snowballs and a snowball launcher there, which is an incredible early game ranged weapon. Ice blocks can make ice torches, which in turn create frostburn arrows, which easily outclass flaming arrows with a better damage overall. Once that’s done, find yourself a blowpipe and go to the jungle. Gather stingers and create poison darts, as they will be helpful later on. If you can, also try and find a boomstick, as it is an incredible pre-hardmode weapon that will help you drastically. This also will let the arms dealer arrive, and he will be crucial. Get a minishark from him, as well as as many bullets as you can get. If you have a corruption world, the musket is also a great choice, as it effectively acts like a pre-hardmode sniper rifle with it’s surprisingly high damage output. When this is all done, you should have a standard set of accessories, plenty of guns, and some powerful bows and miscellaneous weapons. Also, if you are confident in your ability to dodge and are fine with sacrificing a little defense, try and get some fossil armor from the desert as it will boost your ranged damage. Now you are ready for the next stage!
Stage 2: Pre-waffle
Now that you are as strong as possible, you should try and face the eye. It should be an easy fight with the boomstick and minishark, and the crimtane/demonite it drops can make you an upgrade for your bow. There isn’t much that opens up specifically after the eye, so your next target will be the eater of worlds or the brain of cthulhu. If you gather fallen stars, jester arrows are extremely effective against both of these bosses. Defeat them to get the next pickaxe option, and now things really open up. after taking them out, there is a chance of a goblin army and a meteor strike occuring. The goblin army allows you to find the goblin tinkerer, but they also can drop the harpoon, a powerful ranged weapon that doesn’t require ammo. As for the meteorite, you can use this to create a star cannon with a minishark and some fallen stars, so purchase an extra gun to use for this. If you have the goblin present by now, take note of which minishark you craft it with. While it would normally be in your best interest to get rid of the one with the worse modifier, that one will also be cheaper to reforge. So if you are going to reforge the one you keep, keep the one with the worse modifier for a cheaper reforge price. I also reccomend saving some meteorite to create meteor bullets, as these can bounce off of walls and pierce one enemy, so they will be helpful for the wall of flesh. These are the best bullets you can obtain in pre-hardmode, so take what you can get. Next up, head over to the dungeon to fight skeletron. He shouldn’t be too hard, and getting to the dungeon grants access to some valuable items. Combine bones from skeletons with some cobwebs to make necro armor, granting you a boost to your ranged damage. The chests also can contain the cobalt shield and the handgun, which will help greatly. The shield makes you immune to knockback, which is vital for a ranger. The handgun can also be upgraded with hellstone to make the phoenix blaster. Don’t forget the shadow key as well! At this point, you should head to the underworld, and gather the items needed to give yourself that final boost in power. Shadow chests can give you the hellwing bow, and the phoenix blaster and hellfire arrows will prove to be indispenseable. If you need some further boosts, you can also try queen bee to get the bee’s knees and some beenades. At this point, you are probably ready to take down the wall!
Stage 3: Early hardmode
So you’ve beaten the wall of flesh, setting your first step into hardmode. It’s a tough transition, as you might find yourself quickly overwhelmed by the newly powered up enemies. First of all, head to the evil biome and break some altars. Be sure to break a few, as this will make the tedious process of hardmode ore mining go much faster. An important tip; Palladium, Orichalcum, and Titanium have better set bonuses, while Cobalt, Mythril, and Adamantite have better stats overall. Gather enough of these to acquire Titanium or Adamantite gear, and set your sights on some weaponry. As a ranger, your best options come from biome mimics. The corrupt and crimson mimics can drop the dart guns, which, given their recent buffs, are extremely powerful all the way up to golem. The hallowed mimics can drop the Daedalus stormbow, which will be extremely helpful for the destroyer, even after it’s nerfs. So now that you have these weapons, another powerful option is the Onyx blaster. Get a shotgun from the arms dealer, and check out a desert. If you don’t have a desert that was taken over with corruption or crimson, then you can simply gather some sand and place it in these biomes. This actually allows dark mummies to spawn on the sand, as long as it’s inside of these biomes. Gather dark shards and some souls of night to accquire this powerful shotgun. Of course, also make sure you head into the skies to kill a few wyverns, and get a pair of wings. While 20 is enough to make one set, I reccomend getting 40 so that you can use the rest of the souls later on to make some further upgrades to wings. Now that that’s all taken care of, gather up ammunition and prepare to take on the mechanical bosses!
Stage 4: Pre-plantera
So the first target should be the Destroyer, as he is relatively easy to cheese with your stormbow and holy arrows, even after the nerf. The souls of might will be vital for getting the megashark, which can actually last you for a long time, possibly even up to the endgame. hallowed bars can upgrade your armor as well, though keep in mind that adamantite armor does have a little bit more defense if I recall. Next up are the twins. Now the souls of sight aren’t used to make any ranged weapons, but if you are going as a hybrid ranger, the optic staff is very useful. Still, always keep a few around to make the pickaxe axe or drax. Next up is skeletron prime, my least favorite boss in the game. This is a tough fight, so be prepared as it gets chaotic quickly. Souls of fright can make the flamethrower, which is alright I guess, but doesn’t really have much use in general. Now that you have all the souls, you can make the next pickaxe and get chlorophyte. Now chlorophyte is actually going to be extremely important, as you should save some to create shroomite gear later. Chlorophyte bullets are also extremely powerful in a lot of situations, though I personally don’t reccomend them for plantera. Gather some life fruits to boost your health and collect lots of chlorophyte. After that, go to a glowing mushroom Biome and get the resources to create a surface mushroom biome. The truffle will sell the autohammer after beating plantera, so you can gain shroomite gear. Also, you can use the hallowed bars to upgrade your star cannon into a super star shooter, which will be a vital upgrade if you have lots of stars. Now you have two options here; if you are really confident in your skills, you could try and beat duke fishron to get the tsunami, which is extremely powerful, but it’s a very difficult battle. Your other choice is to skip that for now and go up against the big plant.
Stage 5: Post golem and the endgame events
So with all of your gear, it’s time to take down plantera. Before starting the battle, clear out a very large open area to fight her in. Make sure that it’s very tall, as the spike balls will not be able to bounce high enough if you build it right. In the fight itself, be sure to keep a distance from her while circling around. Phase 2 can get messy with all of the tentacles, and chlorophyte bullets start to lose effectiveness here. I reccomend using jester arrows with a chlorophyte shotbow, as the piercing combined with shooting several arrows will easily put the pressure on all of the targets at once. With this done, there are two very important NPCs you will need here. The cyborg can now move in, and he can sell you rockets to use with the grenade launcher weapon. It should be noted that plantera will always drop the grenade launcher after defeating her for the first time in a world. Now for the most important part; the truffle. He will sell the autohammer now, so you can convert your chlorophyte into shroomite bars using some glowing mushrooms. This lets you obtain the best ranged armor available at this stage, so it’s extremely important. Now you should go to the dungeon to gain a few more weapons. The main targets are the tactical skeleton, skeleton sniper, and skeleton commando. These will drop powerful weapons, and the sniper can also drop the rifle scope. The commando can drop the rocket launcher, which is incredibly powerful if you are confident in your accuracy. I also reccomend gathering some ectoplasm. This stuff will allow you to craft the summons for the Frost moon and Pumpkin moon, which will yield some powerful weapons. The pumpkin moon will let you get the stake launcher and candycorn rifle, as well as the pumpkin launcher. These are powerful weapons that use alternative ammunitions. You can buy more of these types of ammo from some npcs as long as you have the respective weapons in your inventory. The frost moon allows you to obtain the chain gun, which has the fastest firerate of any ranged weapon, at the cost of low accuracy. This accuracy can be dealt with using chlorophyte bullets, which creates a deadly combination. It also grants the elf melter and the snowman cannon, though they are rather overshadowed. With all of these weapons, you can go to the jungle temple to take down golem, who is always a total pushover. Now you have a few options: you can take down the empress for the eventide, a powerful bow at this stage. You can also go fight the martians to get the xenopopper and electrosphere launcher, or you could try duke fishron if you haven’t yet. When you are all done with these options, you are ready to take down the endgame.
Stage 6: The finale
The final stage of the game is where things get intense. Before we fight the cultists at the dungeon, I should mention that I haven’t talked much about accessories. This is the loadout I reccomend for this stage; Ranger emblem, Terraspark boots, Hoverboard, Recon scope, Molten quiver, Master ninja gear, and the ankh shield. With that done, it’s time to defeat the lunatic cultist. It’s a very easy battle if you know what you are doing, as long as you make sure that when he creates the magic circle, you have to only hit the real one, or else things get crazy. When the cultists are defeated, take the ancient manipulator and head to the base. Locate the vortex pillar and take it down as soon as possible. The vortex fragments will let you create the vortex beater and phantasm, which are extremely powerful endgame weapons. If you find yourself short of fragments, try and take out the other three and combine those fragments to make more vortex ones. Also, make sure that you have an arena prepared to fight the moon lord with, as it is a tough fight without a proper arena. As the final pillar falls, the impending doom approaches. Quickly prepare your potions and buffs as soon as possible. heal up at the nurse and make sure that everything is ready. After the final pillar falls, you will have exactly 60 seconds before the moon lord spawns. The fight is very intense. It is reccomended that you try and make all his weak spots get defeated at around the same time so that it is more consistent to deal with. Once the core is revealed, make sure you keep focusing on dodging while continuously firing nonstop. Once the moon lord is defeated, congrats! You have defeated the final boss of Terraria as the ranger class!
Be sure to let me know anything that you might have done differently in this guide. Apologies if I made some mistakes, but I hope that this guide will help you succeed as my personal favorite class!
