Attack Range: A Picture Story

One of the finer details of the game which I quietly pointed out in my "Did You Know?" post months ago is that the attack range of different rangers vary. In my own gameplay, I mostly memorized their ranges in relation to each other, and that's how you'll find I described them throughout most of my posts. But our Taiwanese Line Rangers friends have now unmistakably shown us how ranges differ by putting 39 rangers on display! (Valid as of the time of this writing.) Contained within the box is their article interpreted in English.

    This article comes from: LINE Rangers台灣社團
    Authors: 黃郁弘，小為
    Photo Editor: 黃郁弘，小為
    Revision: 小為
    Testing Team: 鈺，楊濟安，Hsingju Wu，ShawTim Liu，黃名揚，標準兔，黃郁弘

In their article, "Attack Distance Measured: 39 Team Members," they took 39 4-star and 5-star rangers and with a ton of time, feathers, and screenshots later... lined them up in one incredible picture of ascending attack range. I'm not going to say anymore -- seriously, just click on the link! Scroll down and look at the picture. It tells a thousand words. Note: the testing group all have 100% treasure achieved in Skyscraper zone's Far-reaching Insight which increases attack range. 

Picture below is a translated table of the rangers quantified by range. Click to enlarge view.

Ok, cool, right? Of course. They also shared one really keen finding. Honey the speedy bee ranger has the same range as Sol. But she has an interesting attack animation: she arches back and then lurches forward to sting the enemy. They found that when Honey arches backward, it's not "just" animation; her position actually shrinks backward, taking her out of immediate enemy hit range. When she swings forward to sting, she is back in melee hit range again. So it is possible for Honey to avoid being the first target to be attacked when she swings back and forth! Weird. I wonder if the same sort of swinging motion applies to Dwight, whose attack animation is quite a lot of space. 

They also pointed out that Songster Cony is actually a pretty good ranger because her long range (quantified at 11) gives her a lot more survivability over other choices like Opera James. At max level, Ola Brown's DPS-to-cost ratio is almost identical to that of KSM (140 vs. 146). But Ola Brown's attack range is unprecedented for splash attackers and his attack speed is incredibly fast, making him a truly great asset to the team. 

The set of pictures at the bottom of their article show the difference in various rangers' standing distance between having the Skyscraper area treasure at 0% and 100%. They used Friends' rangers to illustrate the difference. (Edit: By the way, this means that when you use your Friends, no treasure benefits apply to their rangers.)

Range is really quite important to keep in mind as you progress through the more difficult stages. Sindy makes herself invaluable as a freely available ranger in so many stages because of her ability to out-range enemies. In the same way, Witch Cony is also a very good choice but with less DPS. Ola Brown can reportedly solo the first 80+ stages due to both his very far reaching ball and his high attack speed. Why is Dumpy such a high impact single target unit with such a low cost? Because he is relatively short range with relatively little HP, making him vulnerable to death. Clara and Opera James are two of the most closely related free rangers, but why does Clara cost so much more while doing less damage even though Opera James has longer range? Clara's value lies in the fact that she is obtainable 72 stages before Opera James and sometimes move speed is more highly valued than sheer DPS (Players who were around for the original version of stage 84 will know what I mean!).

In almost every ranger vs. ranger comparison, there is a reason for why one stat is low and another stat is high, justifying their various cost and cooldowns. Attack range is one very relevant stat to compare. Hope that this was illustrative and useful.