If you want to be an archer, you're better off being a fighter, maybe even a rogue.
If you want to be a dual wielder, you're better off being a rogue or fighter.
If you want to make use of spells with Wisdom, you're better off being a cleric or druid.
If you want good combat use from summons, you're better off being a wizard or druid.
If you want to engage in stealth shenanigans, you're better off as a rogue.
Even you, maker of this thread, said yourself that in the run where you played as ranger, you didn't actually play as ranger.
You played as a multiclass creation that had ranger in it. It's not the same thing.
You did Gloomstalker + Assassin for stealth shenanigans, presumably.
I'll bet the Assassin levels end up mattering more, but either way BG3 is certainly bigger on creating multiclass amalgamations than 5e ever was. 5e, simply put, allowed multiclassing but one was never really *meant* to. BG3 it feels like you're meant to.
In any case if you want to compare classes to each other, compare one-class builds, not multi-class amalgamations.
Would you do a run as just gloomstalker, with no rogue levels?
With all of rangers mechanics being done better by someone else, the reason's left for taking it are narrative. Maybe I prefer the idea of one loyal pet (granted the game diminishes that by making the beastmaster companion a changable fey spirit summon instead of an actual permanent companion like it should be) to the idea of just spawning a little horde of summons as a wizard or druid.
That said if you want to be a sort of hybrid character without multiclassing to create it, that's kind of what the ranger is for. Similar to Paladin, in that respect.
Honestly I feel like Ranger and Paladin may have been originally created for the purpose of giving players an excuse to have higher Wis / Cha on a martial class, for perception and dialogue. Now we just need a class that is the martial's excuse for taking Int.
As far as multiclass builds go, I might add some Hunter to an archery Fighter for horde breaker, gloomstalker to assassin perhaps (so I'd be rogue-ranger, not ranger-rogue, at least in mentality)
