Throwing Stars, Magic, Arrows & Bullets ?

In late fourth job, you get a skill called Ninja Storm, which when maxed has a 100% to push monsters away from you.

 

Have you tried jumping before lucky 7?

 

Creating distance between you and the mobs are the only counter you have as a ranged player.

 

I'm confused, isn't this part of playing a ranged attacker? Unless you expect monsters in the game to just stand still and let you shoot them.

Anyway you could find maps that are wider and less narrow so you have spots to shoot them safely. Narrow maps = bad, for example cave of evil eye and ludi towers are not viable grinding spots. Ludi teddies and WR for example have "sniping spots" where you can just stand and shoot in peace.

 

As a thief, once you get haste, you should be good to jump over most mobs and then continue to hit things from afar. Haste will also make it a lot easier to maintain distance between you and other mobs. You'll eventually get flash jump which is arguably the best mobility tool in the game.

Archers get the ability to push monsters away. This is a passive thing on bows and is then augmented by an active skill called power knock back. At level 70, you get arrow rain which can be used at close range. You'll also get mortal blow, a passive skill that will sometimes (at a random chance) make your close range hit fire a single, strong arrow at an enemy.

I've not played Corsair, but I know they get a similar mobility tool to flash jump and an ability that improves their move speed.

 

Flying and swimming mobs suck on ranged with their wonky hitboxes. I'd try to just stick to flat maps with slow mobs. Voodoos are nice in the Haunted Mansion, it's a bit addicting for me to try and kill all of the spawns in a wave, so it's a good place to practice fast-paced mobility and killing. :^) Free heartstoppers too.

I noticed the hitboxes of a lot of the Ghost Ship mobs change when they're doing their animations too, which gets annoying with the punching. At least outside of the ship in MP3 there are loads of safespots.

The best you can do is push through and wait for your new best friend Flash Jump. It'll send you a league away from whatever is bothering you where you can just throw hot death at everything in your wake.

The Gunslinger's Recoil Shot is great for that too. It was the second skill I built on my dude knowing most everything else was trash.

 

Getting haste and flash jump will make a world of difference. On earlier levels you'll just have to rely on jumping away from the mob, turning around midair and using lucky seven. It'll at least increase the distance between you and the mobs while you still attack. Getting max haste will make this work even better and you'll usually hit as long as the mobs aren't directly underneath you while you're jumping. Map layout is also super important for ranged classes. You wanna look out for relatively large map that have mobs bundled together on platforms and safe spots for you to snipe from. Think of maps like Lower Ascent or that hidden map in Kerning City with the octopus and blue mushrooms. Again having flash jump for a map like Lower Ascent makes navigating these safe spots so much faster.