Here is some general information that I have posted elsewhere regarding ranger builds:
Originally Posted by eidolon
The damage only seems to be garbage early, because skeletons have a high resistance vs piercing attacks (bows) and poison.
As far as the Ranger Skills go, there are relatively few that you will use on a regular basis: Ricochet, Precision and Rapture. On the other hand you get access to ~30 different arrow types , which gives makes your char very flexible.

When it comes down to planning your chars, the big question is how difficult do you want your game to be?
There are some mechanics that either don't work as described or are just op:
1) leech + comeback kid
instead of getting killed by physical damage, you will be drop down to 1 HP, bleed a lot and heal back from leech so that ck will trigger again for the next attack.
2) sneak/invisibility after you are done attacking
Enemies will skip their turn if they have no targets in sight
3) crafting
Other than massively upgrading your gear, the biggest upside is adding elemental resistance to your equipment. Depending on your level you can add up to a total of +125% (+100% for chars without shields) elemental damage resistance to your gear, meaning that elemental damage will heal you.
Or you can craft ~3 Voodoo Dolls/level, which deal massive long range physical damage for 0 AP.
4) Seller of Secrets
There is one char in the game that will sell you a +1 attribute and a +3 skillpoint book. This is supposed to be a one time deal, but it will restock every level.
5) Elemental Shield Spells
In addition to their listed effect, these spells will absorb damage from any source equal to your life total.
6)Glass Cannon
The talent works as intended, but is far more powerful than you might first think:
The life adjustments are additive not multiplicative - so on normal you start with +15% HP and GC will decrease your HP to 65%, which is only 43% less than you would have without it. (This is a drawback for hard difficulty though, because it will reduce your hp from 75% to 25% or 1/3 your value without GC).
Also double AP will result in way more than double damage, because you also need AP for stuff like (de-)buffing, summoning, moving, healing.
With the high initiative, archers get a lot of value from a few points in INT, since that allows them to attack fully buffed before your opponents can act. Low level spells that are interesting are
Lvl 1 Geo gives you Midnight Oil (100% chance -saving throws of Slow for Bully), Summon Spider (stats are only affected by your level not your INT), Bless (30% chance to hit)
Lvl 2 Geo gives you Boulder Bash/Fortify and Earth Resistance Shield(doubles your HP)

Lvl 1 Scoundrel has Fast Track, Walk in Shadows and Cloak +Dagger

Lvl 1 Witchcraft has Oath Of Desecration, Blind (close to no immunities) and Bloodletting(Leech) or another summon.
Without essence stacking Absorb the Elements becomes useful and you get a post combat Resurrect on top of it.

and to a lesser extend
Lvl 2 Air could be Invisibility, Become Air, Teleport, Shield and Elemental/Featherdrop(with penalty)

Lvl 1 Water offers Elemental(with penalty), Slow and Water of Life/Freezing Touch

The "jump", teleport and invisibility variants become even more interesting when you are taking the talent Guerrilla for double damage while in Sneak mode.

Since many enemies bleed their own element, Elemental Ranger can become more of a drawback than a bonus. Imo you are better off reducing the variance by not taking this talent.

The dmg/AP of the special arrows is relatively low, so the only ones that I have used on a regular basis were the Silver Arrows to debuff heavily armored opponents.

Archers have a 100% chance to hit vs immobilized targets, meaning that they are best in a party with a caster.