Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Best character builds - for you (spoilers)

Archer

Abillity Points:
Equal Dex and Perception

Essential Skills:
Max Tenebrium
Max Expert Marksmen
2 Scoundrel
5 Hiding

Optional Skills
3 Crafting
Max Lucky Charm

Essential Talents:
Quickdraw
Bully
Guerrilla

Optional Talents:
Glass cannon
Elemental Ranger

Ability Points: Equal Dex and Perception because Dex doesn't actually increase your basic attack damage. It increases your chance to hit more than perception does, but perception gives your more crit chances which is what makes the archer so damage strong.

Warning: in my hard playthrough, I found myself having to use bless or the Accuracy stance a lot until the last 1/4th of the game.

Skills:
When you start, make sure you have 1 point in Scoundrel and pick up Fast Track and Walk in Shadows. Max Expert Marksmen as fast as humanly possible, or delay it a little bit get 3 in crafting; crafted arrows and crossbows are really good until about mid way through the game. After that get your 2nd point in scoundrel. You get 2 points in Scoundrel to bring the Scoundrel charm skill down to 6 AP, I haven't tried the newly patched Trip (no longer requires a dagger), but it also fits perfectly in this build.

Optional Skills:
I decided to make my archer my crafter because crafted arrows are awesome in the first half of the game. I also opted to max out lucky charm to help counter the lower hit chance of hard mode.

Essential Talents:
Quickdraw is essential; 'nuff said. Keep in mind though that if you follow my advice and use a crossbow in the beginning of the game, getting Quickdraw is about the time you want to drop your crossbow for a a bow. Bully is awesome for your archer, buy every antler you see and craft knockdown arrows for the enemies that get too close. Also, Boulder Bash is a skill I'd suggest you teach your mage because it is seriously OP. Guerrilla is amazing late-game; doubles your damage for 1 AP. Also, always end your turn hiding; the 1 AP that you're already using to double your damage increases your damage even further by reducing the amount of AP you have to use to move away from enemies/fire/etc.

Optional Talents:
I played on Hard and I didn't want to risk Glass Cannon, you will literally get 1 shotted by anything and everything. Definitely take Glass Cannon on normal. Take Elemental Ranger! Most people will tell you not to because they don't like seeing the light blue number when they're trying to damage their enemies, but in the long run this damage will deal more damage than it heals so it is worth it.

After you get all of your essential skills and talents and the optional talents of your choice, don't even think about picking getting anything else up! From Here on your visit the Demon and trade in all your Talent and skill points for more dex and perception. If you ever make it to a point in the game where you always have 90+ chance to hit at all times, stop putting points into dex and just since them into perception for more crit.

Playstyle:
The first half of the game, you want to spam Poison and Fire arrows for huge AoE damage, and static cloud arrows for aoe stuns. When you get quickdraw and Tenebrium weapons, your ability to crit with basic attacks and the 3AP cost will pull ahead of elemental arrow spamming. When you get max hide, your damage skyrockets and you require 0 babysitting from the other 3 members of your team.