I love this guy. He's so easy to listen to

Ranger is my favourite class imo

Devoted FIghter Sharpshooter Ranger ("Hunter"), Rifle: The Red Hand. Spam fighter's Penetrating Strike and just 1 shot almost everything with the huge +5 pen between the Strike and Devoted on top of the Rifle's already high pen stat.
Wear Maia's armor and use Acina's Tricorn for very quick reload on top of passives and ideally a chanter nearby with Sure Hand Illa. To cap out have a Barb's frenzy totem and you have a machine gun.

Alternatively use the Spearcaster Arbalast and perma-stun any mob in the game including the dragons. (Be sure to use the Modal and the Pinning enchantment.)

I kinda like ranger but I feel like the companion ranger is just such a standout compared to a player choices.

I kinda disagree with the assessment of the ranger but I do agree with how its ranked. It does make for a nice challenge for players because its very viable even single class at potd not necessarily with solo play though. Thats also because the game itself is quite forgiving. That said the point of the ranger isnt just to make a ranged specialist, its to stack accuracy through its many accuracy bonus abilities and passives and can crit very consistently if built right.
- I tried a single class ghostheart that would use crossbows, and bosses would just not be able to do anything because of constant interrupts. Heartseeker gets kinda good for the enfeebled but along with that there are 3 multishot weapons in the game you could apply enfeebled on a larger area with this ability. Also if i recall you can apply poisons with that as well. Multishot weapons also work great with twin shot so your normal 3 shot weapon becomes 6. You can basically strip concentration with the multishot crossbow.
- Melee rangers are more than viable, most active offensive abilities can be used with ranged or melee weapons except for those in PL 8 & 9.
- Just to defend the arcane archer, its the subclass that lets you do something that Maia simply isnt built for, and thats crowd control, particularly with the imbued web and pull of eora. It also has an advantage over mages in that it can cast those effects without cast times. Also the imbue effects are affected by driving flight applying them twice. Even thrice with a weapon with bounce of which there are three in game. Three fireballs in a group near instantly is nothing to scoff at even with the penetration bug which you can kinda overcome anyway with the proper companions. Ive had my bleak arcane archer shepherd evaporate entire groups with this.
- In multiclassing, you stack accuracy so casters can benefit especially ciphers and their disintegrate.
- The savage is potentially good too since barbs stack action speed boosts and rangers accuracy so a warbow using savage can fire pretty quickly and hit and crit. The multishot ice warbow savage is one of the earliest builds with this and is kinda viable post ice bow nerf. Also, supposedly some shenanigans apply with icebow and mageslayer barb since the on crit aoe counts as a melee attack, you can apply the mageslayers debuff with it.

You are a machine...crazy. I like ranger despite it being underwhelming. It'S nice to have an animal companion.

Elf on the poster: I'm already red and yellow!!! It's almost impossible to do it civilly!!! Take this as a fact!!! It's almost impossible to do it civilly. Hehe. Good luck, happiness, health, and success to you, comrade video creator, creators and authors of the game, and to all of you!!! Everything will be fine with you all. The main thing is: work hard no matter what, look at documents, contracts, and so on, so you can easily spot bacteria, maintain determination, kindness, hope, and soul, and pray a lot to everyone and everything, and everything will be fine. Good luck, happiness, health, and success to you, comrade video creator, creators and authors of the game, and to all of you!!!

8:35 Also for those interested in Arcane Archer the imbue abilities do not benefit from PL scaling so the damaging imbue abilities will not have enough penetration to be useful on higher difficulties at higher levels. The community patch mod on PC fixes this and without that, whether you don't want to download a mod or you're on console, you should avoid Arcane Archer.

rn i'm playing a priest of berath on my rtwp pillars 1 stream, will transfer the save to pillars 2, and then after i finish pillars 2 i'll circle back to 1 with turn based and play as a melee ranger, same with 2, but i'll multiclass with druid for the theme, by then it will probably be 2027, and they'll probably do an anniversary update with an updated turn based mode

Ranger is a class i love but i have to say is the worst one by far due to how poor the companion performs at potd, instead of being a resource becomes a liability. Maia is the only good option due to the fact the red hand arquebus is just too good compared to other ranged weapons. this said by itself ranger is absolutly miserbale if not multiclassed. the active tree is terrible and half of the passive tree is related to pets whos only job is to stay away from the fight to not die in 2 hits and give ranger penalty. On top most enemy have high piercing armor if not full immunity making ranger even worse.