How to play as the Ranger: the best ways to build a deck, what to use and what to avoid
Basics
Little Red Riding Hood has long been the only girl who has dared to go into the forest with hunters. Over time, she became more agile and earned more gold from her prey. Perhaps one day she will achieve her dream of building her grandmother a house, no longer being cold and hungry.
The Ranger is the second class in Night of the Full Moon. Action is a resource that the Ranger has in abundance. So are cards that poison your enemies, make you quick as a flash, or discard the cards in your hand to devastating effect.
This guide will cover various strategies, as well as blessings that the Ranger can use to her advantage as she riddles enemies with holes or uses deadly poisons to bring them down.
Note: “Diaries Mode” in this guide refers to this checkbox, which activates cards and monsters from the game’s second mode, Red Hood Diaries.
Opens a chest. Cooldown of 4 combats.
If you decline the card, the chest vanishes forever– make sure you really don’t want whatever’s inside. Use on cooldown.
Become immune to all damage. Lasts 1 turn. Cooldown of 2 combats.
Use when the opponent is about to use a massive burst (such as Priest’s Misfortune) or when you are near death.
Gain 2 Action. Restore 3 health when you play an action card. Cooldown of 3 combats.
A great ability for both survival and offensive purposes.
Deck Archetypes
Level-up priorities: Equip Slots>Action>Cards>Gold=HP
The use of Action+1, Draw a Card cards to draw your whole deck, usually followed by a Backstab or Pursuit to deal high amounts of damage. Requires deck culling to be most effective.
Changes in Diaries Mode: Nothing, really. Diaries Mode tends to do better with the deck below.
Very similar to the above deck, but uses equipments such as Longbow to deal plenty of 1-damage hits until the opponent is down. Bleeding is a great way to improve this deck’s damage output.
Changes in Diaries Mode: Sharp Blade from the Sealed Memories is a godsend, as is Secret Sabre. Dagger Master is great if you’re running Longbows, which is made easier by Agile Shooting.
Poison cards, combined with Dodge cards, prevent your enemy from hitting you while you stack more poison on them.
Changes in Diaries Mode: Nothing really changes. Ancient Magic Wand may be helpful for getting Counter cards, but that’s about it.
Many of the Ranger’s cards have an additional caveat containing “If this card is discarded by other effects…” Lunacy, Spring Cleaning, and Bind Wounds abound for this deck.
Changes in Diaries Mode: Nothing changes.
Diaries Mode only.
In Diaries Mode, the Ranger is given plenty of Action cards that allow her to obtain cards from every other class (except for Soul Hunter). The deck is comprised mostly of cards that generate more cards, and as such, you will need plenty of Action to play all of them.
Also contained in this archetype are Be Learned and Amazing Antiques. Note that for the purposes of the deck, “this game” refers to the entire run, not to any specific fight.
Note: Archaeological Tools is currently bugged. It will not cover the cost of a card properly, and will only sometimes make a card free.
Blessings
This will only detail blessings that the Ranger, or a few other classes, can learn. All-class blessings are usually good if nothing else applies to your deck.
Note that many blessings are unlocked through Hard mode.
LIGHTNING REFLEXES
Effect: When you dodge, deal 6 lightning damage.
Explanation: Has the same effect as an Equipment, Smart Flying Knife.
Usage: Only if you’ve got enough Dodge to go around.
SECRET WEAPON
Effect: When you draw the last card in your deck, deal damage equal to the number of cards you have.
Explanation: This can trigger twice if Bind Wounds is used to discard and then draw the last cards in your deck after this has triggered once.
Usage: Draw, Action+1 cards abound.
CHEESE TRAP
Effect: Your Equipment cards deal +1 damage.
Explanation: Does not affect Poison Dagger.
Usage: The Longbow, Wraith Blade, and Dorlach cards absolutely slap with this blessing.
RALLY HORN
Effect: When you use an Action card, use an Attack from your deck.
Explanation: None needed.
Usage: Can be good if you have a metric ton of Supports and Swift Strikes, or if you just want your Poisons to activate even when they’re not in your hand.
METEOR DARTS
Effect: At the end of your turn, create Meteor Darts until your hand is full.
Explanation: Meteor Darts deal 1 damage and give you +1 Action.
Usage: Gives you more Action to work with. Can be quite good. Also, give them to the Tryst Man. The Beggar, on the other hand, will steal these.
MAKE THE SAME
Effect: Duplicate the first Action card you use each combat.
Explanation: The copy is Temporary, and disappears after use.
Usage: It depends on what your starting hand ends up being.
WILD FIRE
Effect: The Action cost of cards in your starting hand is reduced by 1.
Explanation: None needed.
Usage: Again, depends on the starting hand, but usually quite good for Ranger.
HEMOSTATIC BANDAGE
Effect: Heal 1 every time you use an action card.
Explanation: None needed
Usage: Not as useful as other potential blessings.
SPIDER POISON
Effect: Apply 2 Poison at the start of each turn.
Explanation: 2 Poison will continue to build after each turn.
Usage: Only with the Poison/Dodge decks, but very solid with those decks.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE
Diaries only.
Effect: At the start of each combat, gain a random treasure card.
Explanation: “Treasure card” refers to antique cards such as Antique Cross.
Usage: Archaeological Tools deck, not much else
FENCING
Effect: Deal +1 damage.
Explanation: None needed
Usage: The “draw every card in your deck” deck greatly benefits from this, as do the Longbow, Wraith Blade, and Dorlach.
TRAMPLE
Effect: The first time you deal 10 or more damage, that damage is doubled.
Explanation: None needed
Usage: Will usually apply to Backstab, Pursuit, or a high amount of Poison damage.
PREPAREDNESS
Effect: Hand size +1, equipment slots +1. You discard every card in your hand at the end of your turn.
Explanation: None needed.
Usage: Discard decks love this.
MAGIC LAMP
Effect: When you draw a card from an empty deck, get a random temporary card.
Explanation: None needed
Usage: Can be fun, but usually less viable than other options.
WEAPON MASTER
Effect: +1 equipment slots, all equipped cards are copied into your deck at the start of a fight.
Explanation: Yes, all of them.
Usage: The +1 slot can be nice, but several Ranger decks rely on not having extra cards.
DAGGER MASTER
Diaries only
Effect: When your equipments deal damage, deal 1 damage.
Explanation: This is distinct from the effect of Cheese Trap/Fencing, as this is a separate attack that will (notably) trigger Bleeds.
Usage: Longbow/Wraith Blade/Dorlach-based decks love this, especially with Bleeds.
MYSTERIOUS BUSINESSMAN
Diaries only.
Effect: Get a random card from any class for each 7 cards you play.
Explanation: The card cannot be a Soul Hunter card.
Usage: Archaeological Tools deck
UNIDENTIFIED ANTIQUES
Effect: Get a random Equipment card.
Explanation: One that the Ranger can normally get.
Usage: If you don’t like the card you get, you can exit back to the main menu and the choice will be undone. The card will remain the same.
PIGSKIN BACKPACK
Effect: +2 equipment slots, -1 Action
Explanation: None needed
Usage: The Action tends to be a better choice for Ranger, but this isn’t entirely unusable.
BOOK OF WEAPONS
Effect: +1 equipment slots, all monsters equip a Dirk.
Explanation: None needed.
Usage: The downside isn’t too bad. Take this if the other blessing looks bad.
TWO-BLADED SWORD
Effect: Take and deal +1 damage.
Explanation: None needed.
Usage: A Dodge deck can get away with using this with little penalty, and the +1 damage is very nice for the “Draw All Cards” deck, as well as the aforementioned equipments.
FORBIDDEN ENCHANTMENT
Effect: +2 slots, draw 1 less card at the start of a combat.
Explanation: None needed.
Usage: Can mess with Wild Fire’s effect, but otherwise the drawback isn’t too bad.
GO INTO HIDING
Effect: Max hand size +1. You discard a card when you take damage on your enemy’s turn.
Explanation: None needed.
Usage: Can be beneficial for a Discard Cards deck.
