I have been playing an archer2>ranger1>wugushi2>fletcher3 and it’s nowhere near garbage. I really like the playstyle.
Start with zhendu which has a poison resist reduction attribute, throw in all your other poison skills, broadhead every 10sec, magic arrow every 5sec. I’m using mouse mode so it’s fast and precise.
The damage I’m dealing is about 3-6k per tick per skill for every 0.5 and 1 second intervals.
You have plenty of windows for evasive actions while the DoT does the work. It looks like you are just running around all the time but pretty often can attain number 1 for saalus, siauliai and dungeon bosses if your party do not have anyone with +11 practo weapon transcend 5 or something unless you have it too.
For AoE you have gu pot, wugong gu, crossfire, divine machine arrow for rotation, some which you might need to kite a little to gather the mob up. Overall is pretty fun for me and doesn’t feel garbage at all even though on paper it might not give the optimal DPS as compare to other available paths but I feel it’s very practical since you can’t just stand there casting skills all the time.
Edit: to add on, I believe the DoT damage is based on the moment of cast and doesn’t change even if your damage range changes while the DoT is still on going. So ranger’s steady aim and glassmole card effect are pretty good.