I have to kick off this playtest report with a few caveats:
1. Way of the Wicked is a weird AP. Sometimes you get days between encounters, sometimes you have no equipment, sometimes you can circumvent difficult combats with stupid tricks. This is definitely not a "go into 4 rooms a day, kill what's in them, take the loot" test.
2. The party consists only of the Slayer and a bomber Alchemist. In light of this, I took the Slayer in a ranged/switch-hitter direction. I know what a ranged Ranger feels like from past experience, and I wasn't ever going to get flanks anyway. I saw the ranged talents and decided to test out the ranged Slayer knowing that it will likely be a minority build, but one that seems to be encouraged by those talents.
3. It's almost a stealth party. At higher levels it will be.
4. 25 point buy. This feels like excess compared to the PFS strictures.
So far the Slayer has been performing decently. He's much like a straight up Ranger with respect to combat, the only relevant difference being his Favored Target, which I have yet to get an opportunity to use in combat. I have yet to find a time I would rather have +1/+1 instead of a second arrow, especially considering that I may very well end up attacking a new target every round. The most use I got out of Favored Target was as a free bonus to Sense Motive outside of combat.
I had a hard time finding a Talent to select. The basic tactic is to go first, shoot a flatfooted guy twice, and then just ignore SA the rest of the combat. Because of this, and because of the natural effects of dex, my init mod is huge and I tend to go first. That makes Snap Shot only guarantee something I usually do anyway, and can't be combined with any form of multiple shots. Surprise Attack is similar, there's almost always something I want to shoot that I act before. Half the time, there isn't even a surprise round, or I'm unable to act in it. I like the focus on initiative, surprise rounds, and catching enemies flatfooted, I just don't believe the talents for it are actually worth taking as it stands. For those curious, I ended up taking Combat Trick, and then Weapon Training (weapon focus) at 4.
I could give a blow by blow, but that's unnecessary. All he did was shoot things. Sometimes, that was great, sometimes I just wished I had another alchemist throwing bombs. I didn't feel underpowered so much as I felt lackluster. I knew exactly what I was doing every turn: shooting, or moving and shooting. Rangers get to sometimes add Favored Enemy, Barbarians can Rage, Fighters...well, there's a reason I don't play Fighters.
Suggestions: Improve the range-focused talents to be more useful. Sniper's Eye would be nice, if I could ever rely on ranged sneak attacks to begin with but this early on I cannot. Snap Shot and Surprise Attack only let me have a marginally greater chance of getting to apply my whopping 1d6 SA at level 3 for one attack. Deadly Range doesn't do much for me since it's a very rare time that a fight starts with at more than 30' but less than 40'.
Make it so that Favored Target is a swift action with some drawback. Maybe it lowers AC a la charging, maybe it's a number of times a day until level 10, but it's just not a worthwhile combat action under any circumstance I've encountered.
It's been said a thousand times, but Bluff as a class skill to take advantage of the Favored Target bluff bonus would be cool.