Expert Marksman skills in Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition are Dexterity-based, allowing player to use their ranged weapons to hit targets from afar. The following are the Skills in this line broken down by their Tiers and recommended Expert Marksman (1-5) Level. Because skill damage is based on weapon damage and skills cannot critical strike, rangers focusing on primarily fighting with Expert Marksman skills should focus on bows and not on crossbows. Increasing dexterity allows for lower cooldowns on all marksman skills.
Novice Expert Marksman Skills
Ranged Precision Stance
Improve chance to hit with
Bows and
Crossbows at the cost of movement speed. (Toggle Stance)
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Action Points: 0
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Cooldown: 2 turns
- Chance to Hit: +30%
- Movement: -50%
- Note: Lasts until cancelled or replaced by another stance.
Ricochet
- Effect: Fire a normal arrow that deals 100% weapon (piercing) damage and then forks off to the next target up to 4 times within 8.0m.
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Action Points: 4
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Cooldown: 4 turns
- Range: 15.0m
- Note: Damage dealt depends on your weapon's damage rating.
Treat Poisoning
- Effect: Cures Poison. Target gains 100% poison resistance for 2 turns.
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Action Points: 2
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Status Effect: 100% chance to set Treating Poison for 2 turns
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Cooldown: 2 turns
- Range: 3.0m
- Recommended Dexterity: 8
Splintered Arrow
- Effect: Fire an arrow that splinters on impact, dividing 250% weapon (piercing) damage over enemy targets in an 8.0m radius.
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Action Points: 7
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Cooldown: 10 turns
- Range: 15m
- Note: Damage dealt depends on your weapon's damage rating.
- Recommended Expert Marksman Level: 2
Adept Expert Marksman Skills
Farseer
- Effect: Grant a target improved sight and +50 chance to hit with ranged weapons for 4 turns. Removes Blinded.
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Action Points: 2
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Status Effect: 100% chance to set Farseer for 4 turns
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Cooldown: 8 turns
- Range: 12.0m
- Note: A higher sight score improves your chance to hit with ranged weapons over longer distances.
- Recommended Dexterity: 10
- Recommended Expert Marksman Level: 2
Survivor's Karma
- Effect: Increase luck and critical chance of you and all around you.
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Action Points: 6
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Status Effect: 100% chance to set Lucky status for 5 turns
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Status Effect: 100% chance to set Karma for 5 turns
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Cooldown: 8 turns
- Radius: 6.0m
- Note: Luck increases your Chance to hit, and improves the odds of finding valuables.
- Recommended Dexterity: 9
- Recommended Expert Marksman Level: 2
Absorb the Elements
- Effect: Decrease armor, but grant higher resistance against all the elements.
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Action Points: 3
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Status Effect: 100% chance to set Elemental Absorption for 5 turns
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Cooldown: 8 turns
- Range: 12.0m
- Armor Rating: -20
- Elemental Resistance: +25%
- Recommended Dexterity: 10
- Recommended Expert Marksman Level: 3
Barrage
- Effect: Fire multiple arrows in a straight line, each dealing 75% weapon (piercing) damage.
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Action Points: 6
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Cooldown: 6 turns
- Range: 15.0m
- Note: Damage dealt depends on your weapon's damage rating.
- Recommended Expert Marksman Level: 3
Infect
- Effect: Infect a target with a vicious disease.
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Action Points: 6
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Status Effect: 100% chance to set Infected status for 4 turns
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Cooldown: 6 turns
- Saving Throws: Bodybuilding
- Range: 10.0m
- Note: Disease lowers target's Constitution by -3 and Bodybuilding ability by -2. Infected has a chance of infecting everyone that comes near the target.
- Recommended Dexterity: 10
- Recommended Expert Marksman Level: 3
Vampiric Arrow
- Effect: An arrow that deals half of your weapon damage, 50% weapon (piercing), that fully heals you over 2 rounds.
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Action Points: 4
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Status Effect: 100% chance to heal 70 Vitality
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Cooldown: 10 turns
- Range: 15.0m
- Note: Damage dealt depends on your weapon's damage rating.
- Recommended Dexterity: 11
- Recommended Expert Marksman Level: 4
Master Expert Marksman Skills
Arrow Spray
- Effect: Fire 16 arrows in a 45 degree arc. Each arrow deals 50% Weapon (piercing) damage.
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Action Points: 7
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Cooldown: 6 turns
- Range: 15.0m
- Note: Damage dealt depends on your weapon's damage rating.
- Recommended Expert Marksman Level: 4
Rain of Arrows
- Effect: Let a shower of piercing arrows rain down on your enemy. Deals 300% Weapon (piercing) damage to each enemy.
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Action Points: 8
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Cooldown: 5 turns
- Range: 15.0m
- Radius: 6.0m
- Note: Damage dealt depends on your weapon's damage rating.
- Recommended Expert Marksman Level: 4
Shrapnel Scatter
- Effect: Target a corpse or a container and make it explode. The flying debris will damage characters around it.
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Action Points: 5
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Special: Blows up your target
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Cooldown: 6 turns
- Range: 15.0m
- Note: Can fork up to 6 times.
- Recommended Dexterity: 12
- Recommended Expert Marksman Level: 4
AnonymousCrossbows' cost 1 AP more to use then bow, slow your move speed and have higher base weapon range and damage and scale crit chance and multiplier, bow scale % damage.
Idk for all the skills but this part is huge when compering with Man-at-Arms for example, Splintered Arrow and Ricochet scale not only from weapon but also from Dexterity.
Now while its true that Bows are superior as Marksman skills and special arrows can never crit (it usually implied that it also ignore hit chance), there are thresholds on what you invest and what you get especially early game.
Some skills got fix AP cost and same go for special arrows. Its possible to find crossbows' 1-4 higher lvl of yours and boost it with lvl 3 crafting and it will be long before needed Bow ability points come but in that time one could be happy to use +1 crossbows' item if found and have fun with AoE bursting damage.
Ranger have huge array of possibility on how to go about things not excluding supplementing with spells or consumables, waiting for perfect storm. If it cost nothing to benefit party, developing instead of rushing and getting no meaningful actions. As game progress rangers will naturally raise steadily. Raising dexterity and finding way for sufficient AP to have meaningful actions is all.
There sure are different ways to go about Rangers and its hardly to be better then coherent party, those things are extras to tinker for some extra fun.
if you want to play an archer, I recommend buying every antler you see
you can turn them into knockdown arrows
they cause crushing damage instead of piercing, so they bypass piercing resistant enemies
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