Hello there, Elf Hunter.

I happen to enjoy playing rangers quite a bit, but for me to try to PK with them is relatively silly. I like them mainly for the ease of exploring some areas that I could not otherwise explore. Hunters happen to be my favorite for this, too.

1) If I were to choose an Elven race, it would be wood-elf, simply for the major bonuses they seem to get with this particular wilderness class. But my favorite rangers happen to be Felar. High con, High Dex and if you are not playing a hunter, you get bonus claw attacks while wielding your Ranger Staff/Spear.

2) I rarely miss any of the skills I lose as a Hunter. As I said, I tend to play felar, so I don't use axe very often anyway, however I dislike having a harder time defending against it. And I miss blindness scrolls just for the fun of them.

3) And there is no real trick, really that I can think of. I spend a lot of time in my character's early life traveling alone to give me more chance to improve my defenses and they are usually pretty high by the time I get to level 30 or so.

My major complaint about Hunters, however, is the issue of Bows. Whereas half the teenies are running around with Avg 20 or better weapons, Hunters get a hard shaft(no pun intended). If your knowledge of bows isn't good, or at least half-decent, then you are going to be boned hard. I know some obscure bows, but most of those I wouldn't be able to get unless dead or level 30+, more like 40+ in some cases, though. And Fashionbow is a joke. Remove it, there's no point to it. The Damage sucks, it doesn't seem to Prog for healing or anything else, and by the time you can make it, there actually ARE better bows you can get. Bleh.