hong said:
My warrior/ranger is now 14th, and basically a bow specialist. A more experienced player would probably have gone ranger/warrior, but it's been working okay so far.
I tinkered with a Warrior/Ranger, but could never figure out if the warriors armor penetration affected bows. I think it does. The other advantage is higher Armor.
Ranger/Warrior, you get more spell points and Expertise lowers the cost of skills you do use. Truthfully, I think Warrior Ranger adds some to the mix, but Ranger/Warrior doesn't add much of anything (you're not melee, don't have the armor, and useful skills are lacking).
Necromancers tend to be high maintenance if you go the minion route, so I haven't actually chosen a second class for my pre-searing ranger-9.
Haven't you picked up Alesia, the monk henchperson? She's been invaluable so far for my solo adventuring. I can't imagine doing some of the big mob fights without some form of healing.
I have healers, and Hero Healers are great. You can select which skill they use too...
But, what I mean is, when you have to safeguard Big Bob Redshirt, and all he wants to do is charge forward... I can't heal him, and don't know how to reliably get my Heroes to heal him. They heal me just fine, but even their group healing doesn't help Allies.
Yeah. For me, I tend to play it exactly the way I play NWN: select target, begin attack sequence, let the AI take over.

Tactics for me is basically choosing which target to attack, and activating skills when things get hairy. Oh, and kiting once in a while, to cut the big mobs down to size.
One of the bigger changes for me was finally figuring out how to "call" a target, so the entire group attacks one, then reassign to the next, rather than them getting scattered and spreading attacks out. Henchmen tend to swarm so it's not as big a deal, but there it is.
Holding down Control highlights all the bad guys, double clicking "calls" it and they focus.