10. Rangers - Carebear

Carebear ranger gives it all to his team and to his companion. He doesn't do much damage personally, but he offers a number of valuable controlling options and his pet is a beast.Role: third-line controller + damage dealer/tankRace: Wood Elf – since rangers are the kings of the long-distance combat, the elvish racial works best for them. You can try other races too, of course, Hearth Orlans will do fine, Boreal Dwarves also, but Elves are the best.Stats (the Deadfire Archipelago bonus included):M 10C 8D 20P 19I 18R 3Lots of intelligence so our stuns last as long as possible, fast and precise attacks so we're giving as much of those stuns as we can. No offensive and staying power, but that's what our wolf is there for – this build totally wants an assault companion. Besides, bows allow us to fight from afar and we can always learn some stealth for the sake of better combat initiation.Weapon of Choice: arquebus/arbalest early on, War Bow Borresaine in the mid-game, any kind of a Hunting Bow in the late game – guns stop being effective in the mid-game for pretty much everyone, but for rangers there's an even greater incentive to go for the bows. It doesn't appear until late into game, but it's a really strong one so even if you chose some other option, you'll want to respec eventually. BTW, as this ranger is fully support himself, you don't want to spend Durgan Steel on his weapons.Talents and ability choices:1st level: Wounding Shot – previously, rangers tended to go Marked Prey, but that was nerfed into giving just 20% extra damage instead of 40%. It's still not that horrible, but we need Wounding Shots more – even if they don't really do that much damage (their bleeding damage is very strong with the arquebus, true, too bad that the arquebus itself is so weak; for everything else it's rather negligible), they enable the Predator's Sense. Which is very important early on, especially as there won't be much other options of its activation.2nd level: Resilient Companion – got even better than it were because it began to scale as the game goes. So it starts as extra 3 DR at the level 2, it ends as 7 DR at the level 14. Coupled with your pet's basic DR grow, this is what provides the most of its tankiness. So we grab it as fast as possible – DR 12 wolf at level 2 is not something that early game foes can easily chew through.3rd level: Predator's Sense – even on high levels, when pet will have 300% or so damage, it's still quite noticeable. 300% to 350% is a 16% of actual damage output increase, that's great anytime. And, of course, it's even better here and now. Activating it is the main issue – Wounding Shots are nice, but that's just 12 seconds in total. So you'll have to ask your casters for help – Priests and Ciphers can't really offer anything on low levels, but Wizards and Druids have some good ones. Druids especially – pretty logical for them to be friends with rangers. Later on, Rogue's Deep Wounds might come in handy – I guess you can even rush them a bit, but that depends on their build, really. If level 5 Dirty Fighting is crucial for them, you don't want to sacrifice that. Also, Goldpact Knight paladins may try to take the Flames of Devotion upgrade, but that's for the stupid builds mostly – for everyone else, Lay on Hands is too important to skip. Eventually, items will provide good opportunities to any party (say, Rotfingers and their AoE damage ability, but ring of Combusting Wounds can be nice too) so it's not that grand of a problem. It's just more pleasant to have an early solution.4th level: Vicious Companion: we take this over the merciless one because, in the end, 15% damage and 3 DR reduction pretty much equals 30% damage gained, but Vicious is just more reliable. It's not hard to enable sneak attack, but why even bother with enabling? Otherwise, more power to your pet.5th level: Vicious Aim: we've delayed it to level 5 because there's no much point to our shooting before we gain Borresaine. And that definitely won't happen before this level. Anyways, 10 accuracy is a nice crit booster, and let's not forget the elvish bonus and the high perception we've got. Our shooting speed is mediocre, of course, but at this stage of the game it's the pet who gives the most to the party so it's not that scary.6th level: Faithful Companion: we'd love to develop our pet's aggressive capabilities further and further, but this takes precedence. We're at the stage of the game where we will encounter charming/confusing foes really often and given our pet's miniscule will, going into those battles without this talent will be annoying as hell. After all you've invested into your critter, you definitely don't want to fight him.7th level: Stalker's Link: Borresaine loves extra accuracy, hence we get it. Takedown might look solid, but it's done with your pet's 5 Int at the moment so the duration of the prone is only half as long as it seems. But even if it was full, it still would've been rather mediocre. Driving Flight is sorta ok, but not that reliable – this thing has a wonky area of effect so hitting those extra targets takes lots of effort. Other stuff is decent, but not that critical for this build. So we go into something that improves our stunning.8th level: Merciless Companion: now it's the time for it. Decent damage bonus, of course.9th level: Binding Roots: while stuck is not the best disable ever, this thing has three things going for it. First, it has five casts and a fast casting rate. Meaning that, should you wish to, you can burn through all five in a very rapid succession. That can be very helpful at the start of the really tough battles. Second, the duration here is rather extreme – not a lot of 42 second disables in the game (and against fully melee enemies it's not that far away from being a full disable – just cast them while they're away from your party). Third, it targets reflexes – that's sorta rare for disables. And reflexes are the easiest defense to bring down. Hobble/Blind are common and easy to inflict, Paralyze/Petrification are rarer but, for the majority of monsters, they simply nullify their reflexes. So it's not only easy to hit with the Roots, it's easy to crit with them too. Leading to one minute disable time. That's way too much utility to ignore.10th level: Marksman. Weapon Focus is better, but it's just to save you one respec – while at this stage we're still sporting Borresaine...11th level: Stunning Shots: comes lvl 11 and we switch for the Hunting Bow. Just to allow us to apply more of these shots. Keep in mind that they stun only if your pet also attacks the target – coordinate your efforts properly. But it's all worth it – stay lightly armored and you will attack once every 3 seconds with your hunting bow while having good chance to cause 3 second stun with each hit. It's not exactly a permanent control option, but it's a lot of utility gained. Much better than both Master's Call (that requires tedious micro to set up it properly and the payoff is not that great) and Play Dead (it sounds cute, but you'd rather knock out your foes cold so they don't even have a chance to chew on your pet).12th level: Weapon Focus: Peasant. Lenas Er is a really good one if you don't mind against lying. If you do – it's either persistence or the soulbound bow. Just attach the soulbound earlier on in this case so you've already unlocked it.