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
