Dark Ranger (Warcraft III)

A cunning Hero, adept at manipulating opponents. Forcibly raised from the dead, the former Rangers of Quel'Thalas enjoy nothing more than sowing dissension and hatred within the enemy ranks. Attacks land and air units.

Anya Eversong, Nara Pathstrider, Anthis Sunbow, Clea Deathstrider, Cyndia Hawkspear, Mira Shadewither, Amora Eagleye, Siren Ghostsong, and Somand Wayfinder.

The Dark Ranger is an interesting Hero as she can perform many roles for the player. Outside of the staff of silence (which is rarely seen in many matches), she is generally the only unit who can prevent spellcasters from supporting their allies. She's often the third Hero for professional Undead players if a Tavern is available, since her silencing capability can easily change the tide of a battle and her Dark Minions make excellent fodder for the Death Knight's Death Pact and the Lich's Dark Ritual.

Silence generally takes second priority over the first spell given to her, due to a lack of enemy spellcasters early-game. Increasing Silence's potency increases both the duration and AoE of her spell, allowing her to take down more spellcasters.

Black Arrows allow works similarly to the Priestess of the Moon's Searing Arrows, though any targets she kills with them also generates a dark minion (skeleton warrior) if they were killed under the effects of the arrow. The minion is considerably weaker than a raised Skeleton Warrior, and is generally not recommended for Undead players to start with this skill first.

Life Drain is essentially the same as the Blood Mage's Mana Siphon. It's generally recommended to invest into this skill first if she is your starting Hero, because it allows her to handle stronger creep camps early in the game. If she's your second or third Hero, it's better to invest into Black Arrows instead.

Charm is perhaps one of her best skills - she can essentially bring any unit into the player's fray. While this doesn't work as well on creeps (since all the good creeps are level 7 and higher), she can reduce the enemy army slightly by stealing one of their more powerful units like Tauren. Alternatively, she can also work much like a permanent Banshee by stealing an enemy worker and accessing their tech tree - though such opportunities are rare and generally ill-advised.

The Dark Ranger is classified as an Undead hero so a Death Knight can help heal her if necessary.

• Stops all enemies in a target area from casting spells.
• The area of effect and duration increase with level.

Silence is an awesome anti-magic spell. It's great on enemy Heroes to prevent them from using their special abilities. However, be reminded that the Silence ability will last a shorter duration on enemy Heroes than their units due to Hero Resistance.

If you see a large pack of spellcasters use Silence on them rather than an enemy Hero. If you can get both, that is even better!

Dispel or use an Anti-Magic shell with a unit that isn't caught in Silence's radius.

• Counters

• Adds extra damage to attacks.
• Units killed while under the effect of Black Arrow will turn into Dark Minions.

Notes: Only units that create corpses can spawn Dark Minions.

This adds a passive "Claws of Attack"-style bonus onto the Dark Ranger, much like the Searing Arrows from the Priestess of the Moon. In small battles you should conserve the mana and only use when a creep is about to die. Mark down ground targets who are being attacked by the Dark Ranger so they die faster and generate a dark minion to quickly overwhelm the enemy. In more hectic battles the extra damage adds nicely over time. Note that ground targets killed under Black Arrows' effects won't leave a corpse behind.

Remember that in order to get the Minion, the target needs to get hit by the arrow and killed within 3 seconds to generate the minion. Attacking every enemy on the field and then waiting for them to die will not work.

• Absorbs the life essence of a target enemy unit by taking hit points from it every second and giving them to the Dark Ranger. Also applies the current rank of the Black Arrow debuff to the target.

This is useful for healing your Dark Ranger. The ability will keep draining hit points until the target is at a distance of 80. If your Dark Ranger is at full health when you use this skill, you aren’t getting good use out of it. Let the Dark Ranger take some damage while creeping and then heal her with Life Drain. That extra tanking could help your other units survive the crucial early battles.

This spell is a "leash" spell must be maintained to get the full effect. If the enemy passes out of range or the Dark Ranger is hit with a disable, the spell will end prematurely.

• Counters

• Takes control of a target enemy unit.
• Charm cannot be used on Heroes, or creeps above level 5.

• Charm can collect essentially any unit that isn't spell-immune - meaning players can steal something like a Mountain Giant (assuming it doesn't have Resistant Skin) to strain the enemy even further as they spent a lot of resources to train one.
• The main drawback of Charm is its high mana, especially as you'll be using it while fighting the enemy. Make sure she has mana potions on hand to ensure her reserves do not fall down.
• Like the possession skill of the Banshee, Charm can take the player over the 100 food limit cap. However, this will prevent a player from reviving a slain Hero or training more units.
• If creeps still linger on the map, try to Charm the most useful creeps possible (e.g a Gnoll Overseer for its Command Aura), since the strongest (and generally the best) creeps are above level 5.

• See Warcraft III Dark Ranger quotes