Ranger class underwhelming but useful

[Vile Dog]

Reading the recommendations of other players , I made one of my main heroes a ranger expecting her to be the main damage dealer. At level 14 and access to master level ranger skills, I find the ranger build weak. Very far from the dps Madora and my rogue deal. The CC arrows the ranger has access are useless...I almost never use them. The AP cost of shooting arrows are high, same as Madora 4 AP. However Madora rocks with insane damage and powerful CC knowckdown abilities. Madora's damage is only matched by the rogue who I added 2 levels of Man-to-Arms as well coupled with 10 strength. My rogue at level 14 is finished, maybe next goal is flurry. 4th character is Jahan with specials in all 5 magic schools. He is pure buff-debuff-CC character with 13 speed. However, the ranger is not useless even if so low damage dealer. SHe is very skillful from bargaining to charisma, main crafter and blacksmith, sneak, loramaster... all maxed, perception of 15 with items, some bow. At level 14 this party is very stronk. Game is cakewalk.

If Madora is your choice, Leadership is a must on her early. Back her up with Leadership on the ranger to skill level 4. It is very important your party starts first in combat in order to activate defenses buffs etc. Jahan is key too, as the high caster, aim him at level 4 in all schools, dont pursue level 5 except geo and witchcraft. Dont underestimate shops, with the right gear Jahan has almost as much health as Madora. My rogue also is with 1000 health at 14 level (with Water of Life these values jump to 1500). Nothing can bring you down. If any problem just drink a full potion if worried. My ranger just watches the fun at the frontline from afar shooting 2 pathetic arrows on her turns. I love the ranger class but in this game she is outperformed by fighter and rogue. The rogue and Madora on top of this have access to spider skill...just for variety.

I think this party is strong because of excellent gear. But gear is very expensive so make sure you have bargain on the ranger to afford excellent items from shops. Yes shopping is a big drag in this game, hate it, but the gear is serious boost.

Biggest challenge so far was Boreas. But because I was confused by those 4 statues and lost too much time destroying them. After I destroyed them, Boreas fell in 2 turns when I concentrated on him all the damage.

[Vile Dog]

Originally posted by Belhedler:

As you can see everything is listed in the damage details too:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1427574388

Yes I see it "Par Enrage + 50 %" with equipped bow.

The game description of enrage doesn't explicitly say that enrage works on melee weapons only. I simply believed that it does work only on melee.

Then my ranger needs 10 strength to be able to activate it successfully. She is already at 8, Encourage gives + 1, almost there.

It does not stack with Oath of desecration I read somewhere.

[Belhedler]

Originally posted by ogidog:

The game description of enrage doesn't explicitly say that enrage works on melee weapons only. I simply believed that it does work only on melee.

The wiki says Melee is required[divinity.wikia.com]. Nothing more, nothing less.

Originally posted by ogidog:

It does not stack with Oath of desecration I read somewhere.

But the numbers say otherwise (it's the line just above Rage). Well there are high enough nevertheless.

[Vile Dog]

Originally posted by Belhedler:

Originally posted by ogidog:

The game description of enrage doesn't explicitly say that enrage works on melee weapons only. I simply believed that it does work only on melee.

The wiki says Melee is required[divinity.wikia.com]. Nothing more, nothing less.

Originally posted by ogidog:

It does not stack with Oath of desecration I read somewhere.

But the numbers say otherwise (it's the line just above Rage). Well there are high enough nevertheless.

Confirmed enrage and oath of desecration stack

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1429768296

[musashi]

Originally posted by Belhedler:

...

good thread we got here. I was roling an archer and I find your tips for the class very useful to venture on tactician mode.

[Belhedler]

Hi musashi,

Are you going to go the mass-slow-bully-buffed-aoe-of-hell ranger route? Haven't tried it, still I'm interested in any return of experience with it. You just need a mage to advance and cast a (powerful enough) Mass-slow before using max buffed Rain of Arrows (Rage[ranger] + Power stance[ranger] + Oath[other - tank is fine]). On the paper, it looks absolutely badass and probably destroys all ennemies in one attack (on your first turn). My guess is it will deal about 3700 damage per ennemy, armor and resist deduced, at level 22 with last crafted weapon.

[musashi]

Originally posted by Belhedler:

Hi musashi,

Are you going to go the mass-slow-bully-buffed-aoe-of-hell ranger route? Haven't tried it, still I'm interested in any return of experience with it. You just need a mage to advance and cast a (powerful enough) Mass-slow before using max buffed Rain of Arrows (Rage[ranger] + Power stance[ranger] + Oath[other - tank is fine]). On the paper, it looks absolutely badass and probably destroys all ennemies in one attack (on your first turn). My guess is it will deal about 3700 damage per ennemy, armor and resist deduced, at level 22 with last crafted weapon.

Good day.

your ranger route looks epic, I want to try it and the other tips you mentioned in your comments. Do you think I should lvl up STR asap for a better armor and the rage buff or go for DEX early on and wait to get some gear bonuses?

[Vile Dog]

The ranger is relatively safe from enemies because there will be other heroes ahead of him who will one way or another impede the enemies progress towards the ranger. The ranger can wear light armor and even can afford low constitution. It won't be too easy for enemies to bypass stronger heroes on the front like a warrior and a nasty rogue who will be stopping them, not to mention your mage will be an oppostion to overcome before they reach your ranger.

[Vile Dog]

In my experience, if you concentrate only on the ranger and how to make him epic without visualizing the other 3 heroes, you may find problems later on. You have to make all 4 of them matter on the battlefiled. One's weakness compensated by another hero's strengths.

Once I experimented with 4 mages. Too boring. Then with 4 warriors, too strong and too boring...like an avalanche, shortest fights ever just 2-3 turns. Only then I decided to try them all in one team and that is my current gameplay at level 15 by now.

[musashi]

Originally posted by ogidog:

In my experience, if you concentrate only on the ranger and how to make him epic without visualizing the other 3 heroes, you may find problems later on. You have to make all 4 of them matter on the battlefiled. One's weakness compensated by another hero's strengths.

Once I experimented with 4 mages. Too boring. Then with 4 warriors, too strong and too boring...like an avalanche, shortest fights ever just 2-3 turns. Only then I decided to try them all in one team and that is my current gameplay at level 15 by now.

good point. I plan on running a badass ranger and a witch-mage. Compensate the lack of an initial tanker by CCing with summons. And if the team doesn't work make some tweaks with that cheatengine rar.

edit: keeping the same amount of points

[Vile Dog]

If by badass you mean dps I am going to disappoint you a little bit that the ranger will likely not be as badass as some other builds like Madora or the rogue. The competition who is baddest badass is between rogues and 2-handers. But the ranger is likely not in this category. True at level 5 rain of arrows looks awesome but it is one of few skills. But a pure ranger turns out to be a jack of all trades with plenty of points to allocate to non-combat intensive abilities, from craftsmanship to personality, nasty deeds etc. The ranger fills in the gaps good for me. Even Jahan and the rogue have double hitpoints than my ranger, yet my ranger is not much in danger at all. You build your party good, then you will be fine.

Leadership. Take leadership on some of the characters. If you start first in combat you have won the battle already. I always go with leadership in the party and save myself trouble. I even raise Leadership on the ranger to back-up Madora.

I have seen guides on rangers which probably make the ranger very powerful but they all make no sense to me. Like giving magic to the ranger. I don't get it, the ranger has one one job only - to shoot arrows and I don't see a ranger casting buffs or spells.

Some say that ranger's biggest asset are the CC arrows themselves. Granted. But in my play I very rarely use them. Because the other 3 party members all have CC abilities as their primary and it turns out to be enough. Now if you have a weak CC party, then the ranger's arrows will matter more I guess. Arrow don't scale so effect is not guaranteed, a risky business to assign major CC to a ranger only.

[Belhedler]

Originally posted by musashi:

Do you think I should lvl up STR asap for a better armor and the rage buff or go for DEX early on and wait to get some gear bonuses?

I see two viable strategies:
1) your ranger won't pump PER. In this case, pump STR up to the minimum requirement for Rage (STR 10) instead of PER. It's a safe route but need another guy to take care of the spotting thing (thief seems the best for this due to ability points on other builds - especially the tank requires a balanced amount of abilities to be efficient so keep him PER-free at all cost)
2) ranger with PER and STR. You need to carefully balance both and raise DEX enough for the crafted bow requirement (beware it's quite high compared to traded and loot bows). You need to pump +DEX, +PER and +STR items asap. Tourmented soul can add +2 STR/+2 STR to your bow. This is handy considering the attribute requirements. I would suggest you do it in two steps: first you raise your PER and DEX to requirements, DEX being more important than PER. At level 12 you start raising STR as well up to the requirement. You'll end up with attributes close to the one of my screenshot after respecing. Then invest in Mans-at-arm up to Rage. It will cost 3 ability points, 6 is safer for the 2 AP point for Rage. But you'll have Adrenaline from the Scroundrel skill tree to cope with the AP need if necessary (this ranger is a one-shot killer so get the maximum AP during the turn you are going to unleash hell on your ennemies, that is the first one if done correctly, and then take a turn of respite)

[Belhedler]

Originally posted by musashi:

Compensate the lack of an initial tanker by CCing with summons.

Beware summons are weak endgame. They get easily destroyed by Kill summon skill and brute force but are easily dispendable and rather cheap to pull into the fight.

[Vile Dog]

When Belhead says PUMP into strength, he doesn't really mean pumping attribute points on even levels really. In fact, you need just allocate a single point there to 6 on start, or sometime later. Because Encourage gives +1, and more importantly there are many items...be it rings, amulets, belts etc which give strength. So combined you will reach 10 easily.
DEX is more useful to ranger. Belhead brought it to attention here before, that each point of DEX increases damage by 5 %. Certainly a bow is dex-dependent weapon and benefits from higher dexterity.
Perception also benefits rangers indirectly by improving their hit chance over distance with a bow. Makes perfect sense to make a ranger the main trap spotter. Rogue can be alternative spotter too mainly because rogues don't require too much dex as their backstabs are automatic criticals. Yes more dex will give the 5% boost to daggers too but rogues already highly benefit from backstabbing. Rather put those scarcity attributes to constitution and speed and strength to make the rogue more durable and frontliner, in fact dual spec him into rogue-warrior. Leave the ranger be the spotter. The rogue is already highly in deficit of attribute points he has to be allocating to 3 branches but the reward is highly versatile rogue.

[musashi]

Originally posted by Belhedler:

Originally posted by musashi:

Do you think I should lvl up STR asap for a better armor and the rage buff or go for DEX early on and wait to get some gear bonuses?

I see two viable strategies:
...

ty for the advice. To compensate for the missing PER, I took a +2 perception bonus on the ranger. Which also adds to the 'burn eyes' skill of the witch. Do you think scoundrel's sneak can be useful for this team?

[Belhedler]

I don't rely on sneak. But it has its use. Better use the Walk in shadows skill of the Scoundrel. These are the Scroundrel novice skill you should take: Fast Track, Winged Feet and Walk in Shadows. By level 15, you forget Fast Track and take Adrenaline instead. Due to your core high DEX, there will be no issue with activation. Walk in Shadows lasts less than sneak but is garanteed sneaking even at 0 range and is a free stealing ticket. It can be used in combat to escape a deadly situation, 5 turns is a lot during combat. Mandatory cheap skill. Also there is a quite rare crafting component adding +1 sneak to each armor part it is applied (one component used for each) so even then you could rely on these: it's the dark matter essence which is rarer than the other 4 but still available through stores and loot with a bit of luck. You'll have to keep your gear long enough for it to be worthwhile.