Explosive arrows are awesome later in the game. It fires pretty fast and throws out LOTS of damage.
Put lots of Dex in a ranger, as it influences how much damage you do on critical hits, level Way of the Ranger to max, it's pure awesome to run around with it running.
I'd go for an explosive arrow/critical hit ranger who has Way of the Ranger max. Throw enchantments on the bow that increase damage (+100 magic, +100 normal, +11% critical chance in FoV are pretty nice, you can do around 10.000 damage per critical hit later (with Ranger Strength and Way of the Ranger)). Increase that critical-increaser as well, a 60+% chance to crit is pretty nifty.
Forget confusion, imo it does not work with ranger skills anyway and boss enemies are immune (and normal ones will die easily enough).
Life tap is awesome for a ranger. Get int until you have like 200 or 300 mana (you'll know when it works for your current skills and stuff you want to use), mana eff up to 5 is a pretty good thing. Use it to counter the increased mana-usage of your skills as you increase them.
Life tap is something that will work like a breeze around 3 or so points. I had a ranger with lots of vitality, life tap, and that was also equipped for fast regen... I never gobbled a mana potion in the later game. Vitality is good as life tap converts 10% of your vit to mana - the more you have, the more mana you get. If you have lower str, it's also good to have more HPs to absorb damage.
Str is not that necessary. I'd say: get some (regeneration) but not too much.
Imo: Do not bother with Poison Arrows or Stunning.
