Strongest Build For Ranger Right Now ?

[LUCKYRODEO]

Thank you :) playing currently with one other friend so Lone Wolf works for me... just looking for whats gonna win me that end game ;) haha

[Chaoslink]

I’d recommend an elemental ranger focus. Basically your standard ranger with magic buffs to adapt to anything. For attributes, you’ll want finesse to cap and wits, a few memory for abilities and spells.

For skills you’ll want 3 huntsman, max Warfare, 1 Geo, 1 Scoundrel and the rest can go ranged. You can swap ranged for anything else you might want for support spells should you wish.

Craft together a Geo and Scoundrel skillbook for Venom Coating early game and use that alongside elemental arrowheads. These buffs stack. Then you’ll want a bow/crossbow with innate magic damage, crafted magic like poison, a magic tune and the talent Elemental Ranger (deals 20% extra weapon damage as magic based on the element the enemy you’re hitting is standing in.

You’ll be dealing both damages simultaneously with this build, so it synergies with anything and is hard to fight against because the target needs to be able to absorb or mitigate both types of attacks.

[LUCKYRODEO]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

I’d recommend an elemental ranger focus. Basically your standard ranger with magic buffs to adapt to anything. For attributes, you’ll want finesse to cap and wits, a few memory for abilities and spells.

For skills you’ll want 3 huntsman, max Warfare, 1 Geo, 1 Scoundrel and the rest can go ranged. You can swap ranged for anything else you might want for support spells should you wish.

Craft together a Geo and Scoundrel skillbook for Venom Coating early game and use that alongside elemental arrowheads. These buffs stack. Then you’ll want a bow/crossbow with innate magic damage, crafted magic like poison, a magic tune and the talent Elemental Ranger (deals 20% extra weapon damage as magic based on the element the enemy you’re hitting is standing in.

You’ll be dealing both damages simultaneously with this build, so it synergies with anything and is hard to fight against because the target needs to be able to absorb or mitigate both types of attacks.

Thank you so much for this in depth response ! I'll go about doing that... as long as I am not doing poison damage ( he is a skeleton ) as that would heal him. haha

[MULTIPASS]

I'm not en expert, but I'd say it depends on whether your friend is going for a mage/magic type build, or physical.

--------------------------

If physical, it's pretty simple.

Race: Fane (for time warp), Sebille (for flesh sacrifice), or Human (for increased critical chance).

Talents: Lonewolf, Executioner, Hothead, and options like Far Out Man or Arrow Recovery etc.

Attributes: High finesse and wits, enough memory for your skills (should be relatively low on a physical ranger), and some constitution for survival.

Skills: Maximum warfare, ranged, and scoundrel. Rank 3 in huntsman to meet skill requirements (or up to 5 later on if you want the last tier of skills). Rank 2 in aero for teleport, evasion, nether swap, evasion aura. As a lone wolf you'll have enough left over to take some other utility skills or get another skill to max rank. You may also want a few points for pyromancy buffs or necro utilities.

Abilities:

Teleport, uncanny evasion, nether swap, evasion aura.

Most of the huntsman skills, except ones you don't find useful.

Peace of mind, haste.

Chicken claw, chameleon cloak.

Adrenaline, cloak and dagger.

Death wish, living on the edge, shackles of pain, infect.

Enrage, challenge.

You won't have enough memory for ALL of this, probably, but these are recommendations to choose from.

----------------------------

For magic, the only build I'm familiar with is the venom ranger:

Race: same as above, but I prefer Sebille for frequent extra action points you'll need for buffing.

Talents: Lonewolf, Executioner, Torturer, Hothead, Elemental Ranger.

Attributes: same deal as physical, but you'll need more memory.

Skills: Maximum geomancer, ranged, and scoundrel. Rank 2 aero, rank 3 huntsman. Some warfare - you could possibly take all 10 ranks here, since your attacks will almost always have a physical component, but it's not the focus of the build. Sometimes it would help against enemies with little to no physical armor, other times you will waste damage on physical armor you probably won't be breaking. I'm playing around with raising pyro in the later part of the game and using the explosive trap skills. Your goal is to deal high magic damage in bursts to help your mage buddy.

Abilities:

Teleport, uncanny evasion.

Fortify, impalement, worm tremor, venom coating, venom aura, some form of poison surface.

Huntsman attacks, take a selection. You'll need elemental arrows.

Peace of mind, haste, firebrand, optional: explosive trap and mass traps.

Adrenaline, chloroform, cloak and dagger.

Enrage, challenge.

Again, don't try to take all of these. Try them and use what works for you.

Essential to this build are elemental arrowheads, venom coating, venom aura, adrenaline, some form of poison surface. Worm tremor is extremely strong with torturer and should not be overlooked. You should also try to learn how to use reactive shot with this build, to get some free attacks after your turn due to how many action points you'll spend on buffing.

Enchant your weapon with poison by combining it with an ooze barrel or other poison source. The damage will scale with your geomancy.

[LUCKYRODEO]

Originally posted by Clone Trooper OG-8172:

I'm not en expert, but I'd say it depends on whether your friend is going for a mage/magic type build, or physical.

--------------------------

If physical, it's pretty simple.

Race: Fane (for time warp), Sebille (for flesh sacrifice), or Human (for increased critical chance).

Talents: Lonewolf, Executioner, Hothead, and options like Far Out Man or Arrow Recovery etc.

Attributes: High finesse and wits, enough memory for your skills (should be relatively low on a physical ranger), and some constitution for survival.

Skills: Maximum warfare, ranged, and scoundrel. Rank 3 in huntsman to meet skill requirements (or up to 5 later on if you want the last tier of skills). Rank 2 in aero for teleport, evasion, nether swap, evasion aura. As a lone wolf you'll have enough left over to take some other utility skills or get another skill to max rank. You may also want a few points for pyromancy buffs or necro utilities.

Abilities:

Teleport, uncanny evasion, nether swap, evasion aura.

Most of the huntsman skills, except ones you don't find useful.

Peace of mind, haste.

Chicken claw, chameleon cloak.

Adrenaline, cloak and dagger.

Death wish, living on the edge, shackles of pain, infect.

Enrage, challenge.

You won't have enough memory for ALL of this, probably, but these are recommendations to choose from.

----------------------------

For magic, the only build I'm familiar with is the venom ranger:

Race: same as above, but I prefer Sebille for frequent extra action points you'll need for buffing.

Talents: Lonewolf, Executioner, Torturer, Hothead, Elemental Ranger.

Attributes: same deal as physical, but you'll need more memory.

Skills: Maximum geomancer, ranged, and scoundrel. Rank 2 aero, rank 3 huntsman. Some warfare - you could possibly take all 10 ranks here, since your attacks will almost always have a physical component, but it's not the focus of the build. Sometimes it would help against enemies with little to no physical armor, other times you will waste damage on physical armor you probably won't be breaking. I'm playing around with raising pyro in the later part of the game and using the explosive trap skills. Your goal is to deal high magic damage in bursts to help your mage buddy.

Abilities:

Teleport, uncanny evasion.

Fortify, impalement, worm tremor, venom coating, venom aura, some form of poison surface.

Huntsman attacks, take a selection. You'll need elemental arrows.

Peace of mind, haste, firebrand, optional: explosive trap and mass traps.

Adrenaline, chloroform, cloak and dagger.

Enrage, challenge.

Again, don't try to take all of these. Try them and use what works for you.

Essential to this build are elemental arrowheads, venom coating, venom aura, adrenaline, some form of poison surface. Worm tremor is extremely strong with torturer and should not be overlooked. You should also try to learn how to use reactive shot with this build, to get some free attacks after your turn due to how many action points you'll spend on buffing.

Enchant your weapon with poison by combining it with an ooze barrel or other poison source. The damage will scale with your geomancy.

Love this too so thank you :)

my friend is going DeathKnight ( Knight building into necromancy later ). Thoughts with that in mind on focus ? He is physical with later going into magic...

[MULTIPASS]

I think all the necromancy spells deal physical damage. Unless he's planning to pick up damage from other elements, you should be fine sticking with physical damage.

As Chaoslink said, the venom ranger could perform very well in any case. It's really fun to play, too.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by UpStream Tugboat:

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

I’d recommend an elemental ranger focus. Basically your standard ranger with magic buffs to adapt to anything. For attributes, you’ll want finesse to cap and wits, a few memory for abilities and spells.

For skills you’ll want 3 huntsman, max Warfare, 1 Geo, 1 Scoundrel and the rest can go ranged. You can swap ranged for anything else you might want for support spells should you wish.

Craft together a Geo and Scoundrel skillbook for Venom Coating early game and use that alongside elemental arrowheads. These buffs stack. Then you’ll want a bow/crossbow with innate magic damage, crafted magic like poison, a magic tune and the talent Elemental Ranger (deals 20% extra weapon damage as magic based on the element the enemy you’re hitting is standing in.

You’ll be dealing both damages simultaneously with this build, so it synergies with anything and is hard to fight against because the target needs to be able to absorb or mitigate both types of attacks.

Thank you so much for this in depth response ! I'll go about doing that... as long as I am not doing poison damage ( he is a skeleton ) as that would heal him. haha

You would be, but later game you can pick up a Pyro spell to replace Venom Coating and use fire instead.

[Chaoslink]

If he’s going knight, you’ve already won really. Just have Uncanny Evasion to dodge him and you can get the wisp spell to teleport around when he attacks you. Then just pepper him. He’ll have high physical and low magic armor, so just do the elemental build and focus magic. You’ll have grenades and other CC later on the wreck him. Hell, you can even charm arrow him and just friendly fire him dead. Just break that magic armor.

Though the endgame duel with lone wolf is basically whoever goes first wins.

[Chaoslink]

In fact, as long as you have enough initiative to go first, you can win the end duel just by worm Tremor + Torturer. He’s a melee build. If you remove his ability to move for 3 turns, you’ll have 3 turns to kill him. Mix that with invisibility (via potion) and cloak and dagger so he doesn’t know where you are, you can follow up by saving AP and using one full turn of AP to delete him.

This game doesn’t do PvP well, it favors first turn so significantly that its too one sided.

[Palumtra]

Polymorph is also a wothy school to invest in, you get extra attribute points from it and it has good spells, especially later on.

Complete list:
https://divinityoriginalsin2.wiki.fextralife.com/Polymorph+Skills

Invisibility: This is a get out of jail for free card most of the time, just br careful not to break it. Since AP you don't spend is carried over to your next turn you can set up a huge turn with this, or just flee/reposition whn things get hairy.

Spread Your Wings: as Huntsman provides significant damage bonus when attacking from high ground you can use this skill to reloacte yourself easily (note that on the turn you want to use it costs 2 AP as opposed tot he other mobility skills which only cost 1)

Skin Graft: Reset all cooldowns (except for abilities that can be used onyl once per combat, like itself). Since you're only bound by cooldowns in this game this is a no brainer if you ask me. Also removes some negative effects as a surplus

Apotheosis: The big lategame skill, boosts all of your main attributes by 5 and makes your Source skills cost no soure for 2 turns. (it costs 3 source points tho so make the best out of it)

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Palumtra:

Polymorph is also a wothy school to invest in, you get extra attribute points from it and it has good spells, especially later on.

Complete list:
https://divinityoriginalsin2.wiki.fextralife.com/Polymorph+Skills

Invisibility: This is a get out of jail for free card most of the time, just br careful not to break it. Since AP you don't spend is carried over to your next turn you can set up a huge turn with this, or just flee/reposition whn things get hairy.

Spread Your Wings: as Huntsman provides significant damage bonus when attacking from high ground you can use this skill to reloacte yourself easily (note that on the turn you want to use it costs 2 AP as opposed tot he other mobility skills which only cost 1)

Skin Graft: Reset all cooldowns (except for abilities that can be used onyl once per combat, like itself). Since you're only bound by cooldowns in this game this is a no brainer if you ask me. Also removes some negative effects as a surplus

Apotheosis: The big lategame skill, boosts all of your main attributes by 5 and makes your Source skills cost no soure for 2 turns. (it costs 3 source points tho so make the best out of it)

While true, always keep in mind that a skill point is more valuable than an attribute point. Getting an extra finesse from Poly isn’t as good as another point in Warfare.

Cloaking can be good for a ranger to evade damage, but more of Poly is situational at best for rangers. Apotheosis isn’t needed because Huntsman source spell are pretty mediocre. Skin Graft could be useful, but isn’t worth the investment of skillpoints when you can just use a skin graft scroll. Archers don’t rely on cooldowns enough to really need it. Spread your wings is... eh. It’s spammable and the surface evasion is good for melee, but it’s more costly on AP than the other self teleports and is limiting because it has an arc it must adhere to. It’s potentially better for newer players who need that extra usage to help correct positioning mistakes, but otherwise tactical retreat and Phoenix dive should be enough and he’ll already have those prerequisite skills to learn those.

[Chaoslink]

Two things to always bear in mind for this game is that 1: Warfare is king for damage scaling for all physical builds. No matter the class, if it deals physical, it wants Warfare. The 5% damage boost from Warfare is unique as it applies to final damage, not base weapon damage. This means that Warfare effectively boosts your main attribute like finesse as well as your base damage.

2: Base damage is generally more valuable than critical damage multiplier. Raising your crit chance is important, but your base damage also increases critical damage as well and you’ll generally get a better result with higher crit chance and high base damage that high crit and crit multiplier. So late game you’ll want Ranged over Scoundrel for damage once Warfare caps.

[abaoabao2010]

Wits. Unless you screwed up MASSIVELY, any lone wolf build can oneshot (or at least hard CC) another lone wolf player, so all you need is to have your turn come up before the other guy's. That's it.