When Hogwarts Legacy players aren't fighting giant spiders or dark wizards, they'll be facing off against an army of wizard-hating goblins called Ranrok's Loyalists. These goblins use their goblin-made weaponry to assail the player with physical attacks, a much different approach than the Ashwinder and Poacher enemy factions players may be familiar with. Among the ranks of Ranrok's army are Loyalist Rangers, enemies with powerful crossbows that specialize in ranged combat. This makes them quite pesky to deal with, especially when paired with other loyalist enemy types or even enemies from different factions.
On their own, Hogwarts Legacy's Loyalist Rangers are fairly easy to deal with. For the most part, they are one-trick ponies, and they are easily countered when the player can focus their attention on them. The issue is that they usually have quite a bit of backup from other goblins that hate witches and wizards like the player just as much as they do.
What Are Loyalist Rangers?
Aside from explaining how to beat them, the field guide doesn't actually say much about the Loyalist Rangers and their role in Ranrok's army. They can be easily distinguished by the officer's hat that they wear, which in many real-world militaries, tends to indicate some level of authority.
This is entirely speculation, but it's possible that Loyalist Rangers hold a higher rank than most other loyalist enemies, though they are almost certainly beneath the Loyalist Commander. That said, Loyalist Rangers can be found quite frequently any time there is an encounter that includes goblins.
Loyalist Ranger Defenses
Loyalist Rangers have not mastered any kind of shielding charms, meaning they are completely defenseless against whatever spells the player decides to use. Due to their small size and light weight, they are also susceptible to force spells like Accio, Depulso, Descendo, and Flipendo, as well as Control spells like Levioso, Arresto Momentum, Glacius, and Transformation. These enemies also have a debilitating weakness that players can exploit.
Loyalist Ranger Attacks
As mentioned previously, Loyalist Rangers aren't very creative with their attacks, as they only have one attack that they will use repeatedly against the player, a long-range crossbow bolt imbued with corrupted Ancient Magic. This attack is unblockable, so the player must use Hogwarts Legacy's dodge roll to avoid it. Dodging this attack is important because it does a lot of damage if the bolt connects.
Loyalist Ranger Weaknesses
Loyalist Rangers aren't particularly weak to any of the player's spells, but Accio can be helpful to pull them off of advantageous sniping positions and into the range of short-range damaging spells like Incendio. That said, players can use their Ancient Magic Throw to steal a Loyalist Ranger's crossbow bolt and throw it at them or another nearby enemy. To do this, wait until the Loyalist Ranger starts loading their crossbow for their unblockable attack and press R1 (RB on Xbox and Z on PC). This does heavy damage and interrupts their attack.
Naturally, Loyalist Rangers can also easily be dispatched with Petrificus Totalus or an Ancient Magic finisher. For those players that don't shy away from the use of Unforgivable Curses in Hogwarts Legacy, they are also great targets for Imperio since they are usually out of range of other goblins, and their ranged attacks can one-shot many other Loyalist enemies.
Hogwarts Legacy is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S; the Nintendo Switch version is arriving on July 25, 2023.