Making rangers shine!

Then, imo, wildshape is useless to a mid to high level druid.

 

yes. wild shape - even into a hill giant - is utterly useless. It is only something to be done if you are willing to sacrifice combat ability for the fun of becoming an animal/giant.

 

A wondrous item that expands the choices of a druid's wild shape ability.

 

In ToEE it is really mostly useless. That's because bears normally have improved grab and own melee. The only way I get it to work for me, is by giving my druid top mental stats and dumping the physical stats. As soon as you can wildshape and take natural spell (i.e. level 6) you have a decent stats again. And then you realize that all your gear (i.e. your periapt of wisdom) doesn't work anymore... what am I saying?? It's utterly useless.

 

I've always been fond of these characters that have to be carefully planned and developed, especially in PnP. Rangers, rogues, druids, wizards and clerics are, by my opinion, the most interesting to play (apart from prestige classes).
But, as i've played them a lot, i definitely thing rangers are the of the most overrated class. They lack BaB, without ambidexterity feat TWF is not nearly as good as it could be, their spellcasting is trivial especially considering the lvl they get it. Animal companions suck in comparison to druids... Druids, my favorite and most versatile class really outshine them (good spellcasting, animal companion is great support, shapeshifting...).
In addition, i hate using ranger as an archer. That is meybe the biggest mistake in DnD 3/3.5. The lack of adequate feats and any special archer ability for rangers is really a drawback. It would even be better for them to receive precise shot as a second ranged feat... or a chance to add dx, wis or something else to dmg.. Fighter or rogue can easily make better archer.

BMO, when combining with rogue, druid, monk, cleric or fighter in order to make a support character, chosing ranger levels makes sense.