I play much slower than you, Maylander, so you'll probably finish several more playthroughs before I finish one, but I'm focusing on magic missile and mage blast for offense. I took whirlwind at the beginning, just to bash chests I'll take explosive arrows once I hit 15, but I see no reason for most of the ranger tree. I just keep starting over, which is always my hangup. I love the beginning areas of games. Did you ever increase your potion ability? I was wondering if that would ever prove useful.

Why Magic Missile? Because you can cast it every second and dual-wielding weapons with magic damage should allow you to do ridiculous amounts of damage. I was hitting for 100+ with every missile at level 14. That's without any enchants on the weapons other than what they came with. I'll use a dagger that does 0-1 damage melee if it has a nice magic damage bonus!