Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Is there a point in leveling "ranged"

I'm confused as to if there is any point in putting something into this skill. Since enraged exists as a spell, the crit chance is pretty meaningless since your ranger is usually going to crit.

Per skill point:

ranged: adds 5% damage to all ranged attacks
warfare: adds 5% damage to all physical
huntsman: adds 5% high ground damage
scoundrel: adds 5% crit damage

What exactly is the point in adding to the "ranged" weapon skill when you get 5% damage per point in any of warfare, huntsman and scoundrel? Since when you put points in those skills, you can also use a bunch of other abilities. What would be a reason to ever level it over one of those classes??

I suppose the 5% to all ranged attacks also would effect magic damage, but realistically your ranger is going to do almost entirely physical damage...

There's not really any point prior to maxing Warfare. After that, Huntsman will still yield better results on any fight that allows elevation. For the fights where you either cannot get into a good elevated position, or it would just take too much AP to do so, Ranged starts looking better than it previously did. It all boils down to how often you seem to be caught in flat footed fights.

As a Ranger, there's nothing beyond two points in Scoundrel that you can use skill wise, so other than the movement bonus, I'm not sure why you would pick that over Ranged if the critical bonus is the same.

Enrage is no substitute either, and I don't know why you bothered mentioning it. It costs 2 AP to use and it only lasts a single turn. Plus it has literally no range, so you'd have to be casting it on yourself. That's no replacement for a high natural crit chance.

Scoundrel is not crit chance, it is crit damage. So leveling it further does indeed up your damage if you crit. Which means if you crit, 1 point in scoundrel is doing 5% crit damage AND movement speed while 1 point in ranged does 5% damage. Seems like scoundrel is objectively better to me

Enraged lasts the turn you cast it plus one more, if you cast it on yourself. If you are lone wolf starting your turn with max ap and have some ap boost abilities, this means 6-8 guaranteed crits depending on if you use 3ap skills. You will always do more damage than if you did an extra a 2ap move instead of enraging yourself, unless your crit chance is INCREDIBLY high. You are of course muted but that isn't an issue if you planned on just using weapon skills and basic attacks that turn anyways

You missed out on some crucial elements - Ranged increases both damage and crit chance. It is a matter of how you build your character. High crit chance builds have a higher damage output but will struggle more in the early/mid game. Skills like Ranged and Scoundrel are good in these builds because of the additional crit chance and crit multiplier.

Ranged doesn't add the damage like Warfare does. It's adding less raw damage as well as a crit chance. It's never worth taking prior to maxing out Warfare.

Also, about Enrage; I wasn't considering LW, because IMO that trivializes the game entirely, even Tactician. I knew Scoundrel added a critical bonus, while Ranged added chance too, but for whatever reason I was thinking about the Two-Handed bonus.

Before you read my post, I'd like to note I play only as dual-LW (because I play with my girlfriend and we don't need any NPC meddling around).
Currently playing as a two-hander wielding dwarf (because Baruk Hazad y'all!), and I dunno why you bring up Enrage as a viable option. I only use it if I have been hasted by my companion prior to my turn AND at the same time have atleast three target for a whirlwind. Otherwise it's better just to hit 'em one more time actually, and have a 30%-smth chance of crit (at level 11) anyway.
And tbh, from a melee perspective, there is no point in having warfare higher than 4 for the skills (atleast at my level 11), as two-handed gives me damage AND crit multiplier.

The Two-Handed damage bonus isn't the same as the Warfare damage bonus. That's why. You get less of a damage bonus, but a critical multiplier to go with it. A simple respec will show you as much too. You're going to have spikier damage that route compared to maxing Warfare first. You'll do 50% less critical damage with no investment in Two-Handed, but your base damage will be higher anyway. You'll spend less time with overkill damage on RNG and have a smoother time in general with a higher base.

I agree about not bothering with Enrage in general though. I've always seen it as a waste for any build once they start hitting around the 30% crit chance mark (and you can come close to 100% too), unless it's being cast by another character. But the range on it is so small that it's normally not practical for anyone to cast it other than the character that wants to take advantage of it.

Sanctuary - I appreciate your comments in this thread and others about Warfare being strictly better than some of the other skills like Scoundrel and Ranged. On the basis of what I have read, it was my understanding that this was not the case as far as crit builds are concerned. I have not done the maths myself but will verify it and get back to you. Cheers.

Warfares bonus gets multiplied again with your crit bonus so it's insane damage. My lone wolf ranger killed most of the bosses on the island in one turn. I would go tactical retreat to high ground, flesh sacrifice, elemental arrows on my blood, chameleon, pass turn. Next turn with 8ap, enrage, adrenaline, 4 crits for a kill (honour mode)

My crit chance is already 35% now by itself so i see why late game characters dont need enrage they probably get 80+ quite easily.

Back to the point of the thread though, crit damage does more than the 5% from ranged assuming you crit. Which i think is a pretty good assumption