Path of Exile 2 is tough, a much more challenging affair than most other ARPGs. The Ranger was the third class I played, and let me tell you—if you're looking for a leg up to handle the difficulty, you've come to the right place. After being on the struggle bus for days, especially with my Chronomancer, playing a Ranger was easy breezy and I thoroughly enjoyed blasting everything to bits.

The community's had enough time now to come to a few conclusions about how Rangers should be built, and honestly it's very straightforward. You get your main damage gem in the very first zone, and can easily ride it all the way to the endgame with very little difficulty. Here's how.

Best Ranger skills and support gems for the early game

These are the skills and support gems I recommend grabbing for the Ranger.

Lightning Arrow

• Martial Tempo: Supported skills have 25% more attack speed
• Pierce: Projectiles from supported skills pierce an enemy. Projectiles from supported skills deal 30% less damage if they’ve pierced an enemy

You pick up Lightning Arrow in the very first area of the game, and it's your main damaging skill. It converts some of your physical damage to lightning, and then chains to a couple other targets, doing full lightning damage. Martial Tempo adds attack speed and makes the skill more cozy to stick and move with, in addition to boosting DPS. It also offsets the reduction you'll get from Heavy Ammunition later. 

Pierce lets us vastly improve our damage against packs, as not only will you be piercing, but every time you pierce through and hit another monster it'll trigger more chains.

Lightning Rod

• Scattershot: Supported skills deal 20% less damage, but fire two additional projectiles. Supported skills have 20% less attack speed
• Primal Armament: Supported skills deal 25% more weapon elemental damage

Lightning Rod acts as a force multiplier for Lightning Arrow, and is the one in your one two punch. It shoots an arrow (three with Scattershot) that sticks in the ground, and any chaining lightning effects in the area create bursts of lightning damage. With this you create nasty killing fields—drop one or two casts of this down, then spam Lightning Arrow and watch everything disintegrate.

Escape Shot

• Frost Nexus: Supported skills create chilled ground for 4 seconds when they freeze an enemy
• Holy Descent: Supported skills create consecrated ground for 4 seconds on landing

This ability is your get out of jail free card. With it, you'll jump up in the air and sail away from all those beetles or skeletons that just surrounded you, freezing them in place and creating chilled ground. With Holy Descent socketed, you'll also create a nice little zone when you land that will help you regenerate the health you just lost. Use this if you get in too deep and it'll give you some breathing room to hit a potion and get back in the action.

Herald of Thunder

• Lightning Infusion: Supported attacks gain 25% of damage as extra lightning damage. Supported attacks deal 50% less cold and fire damage
• Innervate: Attacks gain 35% of damage as lightning damage for 3 seconds on killing a shocked enemy with supported skills

When you kill the King in the Mists in act one and unlock your first chunk of spirit and spirit gem, use it to get Herald of Thunder. This adds additional damage in the form of bolts from the sky when you kill shocked enemies, which you'll do a lot. Lightning Infusion adds more damage, and despite the confusing wording Innervate will proc off Herald kills, adding another layer of damage in the form of a temporary buff.

Freezing Salvo

• Hourglass: Supported skills deal 40% more damage, but have +10 seconds added to cooldown
• Cold Infusion: Supported attacks gain 25% of damage as extra cold damage. Supported attacks deal 50% less fire and lightning damage

At level 12 you'll unlock a new tier of skill gems, including Freezing Salvo. You'll use this as an additional damage source but only periodically—it accumulates charges over time, only hitting for full strength every ten seconds or so. This makes it a natural fit for the Hourglass support, since you're waiting to use it anyhow. Slam this on big packs or staggered bosses for huge damage. 

Orb of Storms

• Unleash: Supported skills gain a seal every so often, up to 2. Supported skills are unsealed when you cast them, reoccurring for each seal lost. Supported skills deal 50% less damage when reoccurring
• Overabundance: Supported skills have +1 to limit. Supported skills have 50% less skill effect duration
• Chain: Supported skills chain +1 times. Supported skills chain 100% more times. Supported skills deal 50% less damage with hits

This skill is the secret sauce, the new technology that puts this build from very strong to truly busto. You don't really use orb as a damaging skill, but as a triggering mechanism for your Lightning Rods on big targets. After putting down a huge pile of rods, hitting Orb of Storms will trigger them all a bajillion times, shotgunning the boss for obscene burst damage. Note: do not level this skill up! Leave it low so you don't get overwhelmed by the Intelligence requirement. Again, the damage of orb doesn't matter, it's just triggering tons of bursts from your rods.

Ranger stat priorities

Here are the stats you'll need from gear and passives to destroy the game as a Ranger:

This list should essentially read dexterity, dexterity, dexterity. You'll need a ton for your skills, it adds to your evasion rating, and increases your accuracy. Get enough intelligence to use Orb of Storms, and if you find some strength randomly on stuff at least it'll give you a bit more life.

Movement speed on boots should be your absolute first priority when it comes to defenses. It makes traversing huge areas quicker, helps you evade skillshots, and gives you better damage windows once you scoot to safety. You'll be looking for the usual life and resistances on most of your gear, preferably on evasion bases. 

Ranger takes good advantage of evasion, and later on you can use Wind Dancer to multiply it further and the Acrobatics keystone on the tree to dodge even undodgeable slams from bosses and rare monsters.

Lightning Arrow, despite being a lightning oriented skill, predominantly scales off physical damage. Ideally you'll want some combination of the above skills on your bow to really take advantage of that. Attack speed increases damage and helps us avoid getting stuck in attack animations, and having extra arrows is a huge force multiplier.

Best Ranger passive skills to grab early

My mantra, established in the swirling mists of the distant past, is that dead mobs do no damage. The best defense is a good offense, and our passive points will almost exclusively be used on damage. Movement speed, resistances, and good positioning will be all the defense you need.

Grab Vile Wounds and Clean Shot first, before passing through Eagle Eye on your way to the cluster with Heavy Ammunition and Careful Aim. It's worth noting that you won't get any benefit from the pierce chance on Clean Shot since you're socketing the Pierce support, but it's still worth it for the projectile damage. Then head over to Ricochet, passing through Remorseless. I also recommend picking up the four projectile small nodes to the north of Remorseless for even. More. Damage.

After grabbing all this, it's time for a journey. We'll take travel nodes all the way to Maiming strike, which makes things much more cozy by slowing down our enemies. The additional pierce in the bow cluster is a huge upgrade for big packs. Finally, take another trip to the 25 dex notable proficiency. This will set you up to upgrade your skills into the midgame without having to worry too much about dex on gear, which is huge for quality of life.

Best Ranger gear

There are two main things to consider with your gear after making sure you have as much movement speed on your boots as you can. Is my bow good enough? And am I continuing to get life and resistances? Make sure you're looking for bows with the affixes I listed above, and remember that the vendors restock every time you level up, so check them often. If you're having a really tough time you can gamble on a bow, but be careful not to incinerate all your gold.

The dualstring base is an incredible upgrade, adding an additional arrow from the implicit. Try and find a decent one of these as soon as you can, and it's worth spending your first few exalted orbs on the trade site to secure one if you don't find it in the wild. 

Movement speed boots are a must, keep your flasks up to date, and get life and resistances on all your gear. The closer you are to max res in fire, cold, and lightning the better, and any chaos res you can find is huge. Now go out there and zap some monsters.