Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - Enhanced Edition Ranger's are useless now.

I've been playing on Tactition mode, and if anything, my Ranger is the MOST USEFUL character in my party. A good crossbow + elemental ranger does nearly as much damage by itself as my 2handers, however I do need to find or buy a good crossbow as the crafted ones are absolute trash (the CR5 crossbow does less damage than the CR4 crossbow, so you can never craft a top-tier version), then upgrade the acquired one with bowstring and essence (for double element). My fighters have to rely on crafted 2h axes, as I have yet to find a 2hand weapon in the game that compares, which means they are limited to a single essence upgrade as well.

The main reason the ranger is good though is my massive stock of special arrows. By going to town every hour and/or levelup and buying every single arrowhead, arrow shaft, tooth, antler, drudinae, silver ore, and some of the less-easily crafted raw arrowheads besides, I've been able to acquire stacks of most of the more useful arrows to use with wild abandon.

Poison Cloud arrows in particular are a favorite. They do FULL weapon damage on impact as pierce (many other arrowheads do half damage), plus poison effect, plus the cloud (which many enemies will waste their turns and half their health trying to escape). More importantly, I am able to make HUNDREDS of them. In fact, I've been using them so much I gave my whole party the Zombie perk so that I can 'cloud my own position, turning my ranger into an AoE healer on top of everything else.

I'll agree that the Ranger doesn't really synergize with other class skills. However, I've found that virtually all of the classes have been completely gutted from what they were at the original release. Relying on weapons and items rather than skills, which is what the ranger does best, seems to be a better way to go now.