Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Ranger is it any good?

So the problem here is while mages have tons of always hit spells i have a crazy huge chance to miss on my attacks,
While i waste resources to do elemental damage they dont,
Also if there is steam around i cant target anyone while they can just AOE the whole place and thats good enough...

So is there anyone having sucess with rangers? How youre doing it? How you do not look shallow and shabby compared to a Wizard?
How your single target damage compares with melle?

Arrows are pretty crucial for rangers I've found. Your hit rate goes up to 100% when enemies are stunned/knocked down/frozen/etc. So if you use those magic arrows appropriately then the strength of rangers goes up. So far I feel like the role of the ranger is to provide a lot of versatility with minimal skill investment. My ranger is not as powerful as my mages or my 2h warrior, but she's useful in combat with the aforementioned magic arrows and she has points freed up for rogue like abilities. I'd also recommend taking at least a point in scoundrel.

My Ranger is my Rogue (and my maincharacter).

I gave her focus on sneak / pickpoket / lockpicking and let her fight with a bow.
At lvl 6 I invested 1 point in Pyro, so she can summon an elemental.

She is quite good. does average damage and supports my group with her marksman-skills.

My big surprise so far is "Berthold the barrel" who started as a cleric but I found an insane legendary 2hander and great armor, so he is quite a healing tank with a lot of hp and does 150-200 damage per strike at lvl 5

my other 2 chars are mages with 2 schools each. I do not use witchcraft or man-at-arms (except for the first lvl cure)

So pretty much ranger is useful and situanional as i feared.
Not strong as any other classes

All classes are good because you can customise them all.

Melee are somewhat weaker because they need to be in places that sometimes you just want to blow up or electrify and friendly fire is a bummer on those times. A lot of times melee are more of a hinderance than an asset.

Rangers tough are ranged and so they don't have that problem. I normaly use a ranger as a "ranged thief" with all the nasty deeds perks, but ranged with no backstabbing. Have fun crafting special arrows and the ranged combat it's realy cool, Ranger doing damage and special arrows and mages doing CC and AOE debuffs/stuns/slows, etc.


Realy enjoying my ranger especialy because i love crafting aswell

Rangers range is affected by terrain and can potentially be better than a caster (even with far out man).

Special arrows have no recharge and ricochet can do multiple target damage without friendly fire like spells can

rangers have their niche but if it's not your play style you should replace it with another class

I usually like to play my Ranger as more of a utility character. Generally I start them with summon spider to bring a meatshield into play early. Their arrows can be very versatile (fire, poison, knockdown, etc.) and because of that I usually get their crafting skills up so they can make them. Crafting can also be helpful for other reasons so the ranger fills that role.

In my current playthrough my ranger is level 5 I think and won't really out DPS Jahan or two handed Madora. But he brings immense utility and cc into fights which is very, very helpful.

I've been using my ranger as a rogue too and also as a good support for the melee fighters while my mage concentrates on the other mobs mage. Rangers may not be as strong or as powerful as the tanks but I've found having one in the party to be pretty darn indispensable!

is there any henchmen/companion to fullfil the ranger/rogue role to be found trough the campaign?

There are a lot of shadow blade and rogue henchies... Which ones are actually useable is your discretion

Yes, plenty. Just pick one that has the base stats/talents you want and build him up from there however you like.