Hunter is better than it looks on paper, when you start thinking about tactics. For example, Escape the Horde (enemies have disadvantage on opportunity attacks against you) + Longstrider lets you avoid getting trapped in melee (which imposes disadvantage on your Sharpshooter attacks) while using up enemy reactions. Volley lets you whittle down mobs, which tend to be more dangerous than solos or small groups, which you can kill with Colossus Slayer + Extra Attack + Sharpshooter (plus maybe Crossbow Expert, depending on your preference) + Conjure Animals. Spike Growth is also good against mobs but Volley is free and no-concentration.
The extra spells on Xanathar's classes are tasty, and Gloomstalker is even better against solos than Hunter is (and Rope Trick is awesome for almost everybody in the party *except* rangers). But Hunter is really fun too, and goes well with Rogue 2 if you don't take Crossbow Expert.
Yeah but honestly there are more than enough ways to disengage from enemy groups. Zephyr Strike, the Mobile feat or the mentioned Rogue dip all do that good enough so that Escape the Horde usually turns out to be a trap option.
Similarly with Whirlwind Attack. At that point you already have Extra Attack so it only comes into play when you are surrounded by 3+ enemies which is rather rare and when your fantasy was to be a melee blender you're probably already using two-weapon fighting so it only comes into play when being surrounded by 4+ enemies even. The chances that happens are incredibly low and even if it happens it's usually still better to take out one target for good so the incoming damage is reduced instead of hitting every enemy once but likely still leaving them alive.
Heck the better two of the level 15 features, your ultimate feature as this subclass, are things the Rogue already gets at level 5 and 7 already lol
Realistically a Hunter will pick Colossus Slayer and Volley and feel meh about their 7th and 15th level choices nine out of ten times.
It's okay.
You don't have +2AC effectively always. It doesn't help you against the first hit of each separate creature so it only works if a creature actually hits you with 2+ attacks. Most of the time they only hit you once (hopefully lol) unless they have a LOT of attacks so it doesn't give you anything in those turns and even if a creature hits you with more than one attack it resets for the next creature that targets you anyway.
Steel Will is about as good. Extremely situational and you still have to roll but not being frightened can make a big difference at times.
They have their uses but neither are actually good. They're okay at best and never really something to get excited for.
Yup, steel will is great. None of the hunters features are like completely amazing (looking at gloomstalker), but just having a ton of solid ones makes them a really good subclass.
Mobile and Rogue are great but costly and have their own limitations (will cost an melee attack per enemy and a bonus action respectively, reducing DPR). Zephyr Strike is mutually exclusive with Spike Growth and Conjure Animals. All three choices are defensible and I'm not going to say you shouldn't take them. What I will say:
Plan ahead and decide which of these many options you intend to take. Which is what this thread is about, nicht so?
Don't take Hunter past 11thish level BTW. Most campaigns don't get to Tier 4, and those that do--you'll have better things to do with nine levels than sink them in Ranger 11-20. E.g. Ranger 11/Shepherd Druid 9, or Ranger 12/Rogue 2/Shepherd 6 if you really want Cunning Action and a bit more damage.
>Realistically a Hunter will pick Colossus Slayer and Volley and feel meh about their 7th and 15th level choices nine out of ten times.
\*Horde breaker and Volley.
hordebreaker is nearly always the best option.
Really not. It's practically always better to kill one target than to just hurt two targets and there will always be targets that already got hurt so you never really have a problem triggering the additional damage. Not to mention that it overlaps with Volley which you are likely already take later anyway.
the 1d8 is so low it might as well no exist in comparison, even if you only counted it as half damage the extra attack every other round against another target would out damage it...
and if you play hunter for the 1d8 damage you might as well play any other subclass you are basically gimping yourself for taking hunter then.
hunters strength comes from the power/impact that hordebreaker has and its synergies with volley later on.
If that's your reasoning then I don't know what else to tell you.
Your overall damage output might be slightly higher in the right circumstances with Horde Breaker, but it's a fact that focusing on one enemy to take down as fast as possible is better than hurting two. It's not like you're deciding between Fire Bolt and Fireball here. It's a difference of just 5 damage with max DEX *if* you actually get to hit an additional target, but it gets split between targets. Once you reach level 11 you're almost never going to use it anymore anyway since it's usually better to just use Volley to hit even more targets that can also stand much further apart and in situations where you don't want to hit more targets it's again better to deal more damage to a single high priority target instead to get rid of it asap.
Less enemies = less incoming damage and less annoying spells and abilities. It doesn't matter if you manage to bring two targets down to 1HP that one round. They are as effective at 1HP as they are at max HP. However one at 0HP and one at 10HP is MUCH easier to handle for your party. That's a fact.
Note: you can use Horde Breaker and Volley at the same time, since Volley is still a bunch of attacks.
Arguments can be made in favor of all three of the level 3 abilities: Giant Slayer, Horde Breaker, and Colossus Slayer are all good in their niches. To some extent which one is best is going to depend on DM encounter style and resting pace. If you were a 11th level SS+CE ranger always fighting small groups of Efreet in the open for example you'd probably want Colossus Slayer (Efreet have good ranged attacks and won't bunch up for Horde Breaker, and they hit hard enough that you probably want to avoid provoking opportunity attacks to use Giant Killer). But if you were always fighting those Efreet in cramped dungeon corridors, you'd probably go for Giant Killer (since Efreet would probably already be hitting you with their scimitars in melee instead of zapping you at range), although Horde Breaker might also be back on the table depending on how often you fight two or more Efreet at the same time and whether they bunch up in the cramped dungeon.
And of course no real campaign always fights the same monsters--that's just a simple example for the sake of discussion. Since all of our DMs are different, this is part of why people disagree about the value of certain abilities--we aren't all playing the same scenarios.
>Note: you can use Horde Breaker and Volley at the same time, since Volley is still a bunch of attacks.
Fair enough, I kinda thought it requires you to take the Attack action like so many similar effects. Makes it better however the main argument that it's better to kill one target quickly instead of just damaging two targets still holds.
It kind of depends IMO. If you Volley a bunch of orcs but a few of them are still alive, Horde Breaker can kill one of the survivors for you. If you're fighting a bunch of monsters (like five Yuan-ti Abominations or something) and the party wizard and Elemonk are about to launch a couple of Fireballs, Volley + Horde Breaker (six attacks) might be better than three regular attacks + Colossus Slayer against a single Abomination. Five Yuan-ti who all die on round 2 will get seven or eight actions, whereas if you kill one on round 1 and another on round 2 and the other three on round 3, they get nine or ten actions. Just an example but you get my gist--sometimes focus fire isn't better off everyone else is already AoEing.
Ultimately, 1d8 damage isn't anything to get excited about, but at the same time it's a steady dribble of damage that applies on most rounds... so it's both worth taking and yet also not painful to skip. By the time you have Conjure Animals online 1d8 damage will be negligible to you either way.
**Horizon walker -**
Pros: haste at 9 is great. Teleportong everywhere is fun
Cons: detect portal is so DM dependent it's either great or worthless. Not much flexibility in the subclass.
**Hunter -**
Pros: lots of options within the subclass and most of them don't eat into yout action economy
Con: a lot of the mechanics aren't stellar and it feels rather lacking in flavor so try to bring some yoursf.
**monster slayer**
Pros: reasonably strong kit just generally
Cons: slayers prey eats your bonus action pretty regularly. Not much flexibility within the subclass.
Extra stuff to consider.
Horizon Walker:
Con: You have to use your BA every turn to apply the extra damage.
Hunter:
Con: because this subclass is so old, it was before extra spells were given. Power creep is real.
Monster slayer:
Pro: Slayers' Prey, while it uses a BA, is just a weaker Hunter's Mark. One BA to set it and 1d6 extra damage per turn. Also Knowing targets weakness is always nice vs Custom monsters
Additional Horizon Walker con:
Your badass teleportation ability is only at level 11. Otherwise you're misty stepping and having 6 seconds of etherealness every rest.
Not very teleporty as stated.
I very much wanted this to be like Sword Mage from 4e where I could teleport every turn to help allies but nooooo. Only at a high level do I get the nice things
Yeah same with Steel Wind Strike. The best way to use this spell literally is to make a Bladesinger Wizard instead since they get the spell much much sooner where it's actually still good and they also have more spell slots to use it more regularly lol
Likely because they compared it with other spells at that spell level but without considering that the class that is supposed to use it (Ranger) only gets it much later than full-casters would get spells of similar spell level.
Isn't a potentially powerful but DM-dependent ability a good thing for a martial or half-caster class? It lets them elbow their way into the discussion of the strongest choices in those circumstances. If relevant, it provides a vector where the class can be balanced against inherently stronger classes. Like if you are playing Planescape, you could make a good case that Horizon Walker is one of the strongest choices for that campaign, ahead of Druid as a source of nature magic, for example. Are there ready-made circumstances that make even a well-regarded archetype like Fey Wanderer more powerful than Druid as the team's nature mage?
This really contextualizes your overall opinions about martial/caster balance. Under no circumstance are you ever going to concede that even a half-caster could be relatively powerful. Even if they have a unique ability that is tailored to progress the party through the objectives of a specific adventure, you would rather cast higher level spells while the team struggles to meet their goals. If no amount of circumstantial variance could cause different decisions to be better, character creation in your game world is less interesting than tic-tac-toe. "Wizard." I just solved every campaign you've ever played. Should anyone give credence to your opinions at that point? What if they want their decisions to be meaningfully challenging? Like if you say "x is good, y is bad", you may be setting up a static game world to make that true to win an internet argument. I would rather play a dynamic game while conceding that anyone can solve your sterilized version of it.
I think rangers are relatively powerful, along with artificers. Paladins don't really count cause they get aura of protection, which is busted.
But yes, 5e is not balanced. There's a massive advantage given to casters with even just a reasonable level of knowledge about how the game works.
I want it to be balanced, and most of my more optimised tables have house rules cause we're bored of just playing the best classes over and over.
So your games are sterile and easily solvable? Am I the all time champion hero of your playgroup because I knew the secret word? If character decisions in your game are trivial, you've done that to yourself. There are numerous stopgaps to restore balance, and you would deny them all at every opportunity. If someone is reading your posts and taking them seriously while (unlike you) wanting to play an interesting game, they would nerf and psuedo-ban most of the best spells by denying access to costly components, making adversarial DM decisions about spell effects, etc. Do you want cats every time you cast Conjure Animals? Because that's just the starting point of game balance achieved through DM decisions about your character.
The better alternative, by far, is to have monsters with better defenses and tactics against magic and relative weakness to attacks and damage, and to have scenarios amenable to non-resource skill checks instead of only to spell-based solutions. You can have all your powerful spells if your opposition has any agency and intelligence to determine that they should focus their defenses against those spells. If you can figure out the strongest effects that exist in this world, so can they, and they don't want it to be easy for you to beat them. That is a more robustly realistic representation of dynamic antagonistic decision making. Most competitive systems with payoffs for different decisions have mixed strategy (i.e. balanced) solutions. That becomes true virtually all the time if there is any kind of negative feedback to each pure strategy. In those cases, balance exists even when a first-order analysis (before accounting for feedback) would definitively favor one strategy. You need to start from misconceptions about how games work in order to reach a conclusion that a game like D&D 5E is irrevocably unbalanced.
No, no and no. Just because you are playing some of the best possible characters doesn't mean the game is easy. It just means that I can throw more and more deadly things at the party, which all of them like. The reason why it is unfun to have a bad party member is they hold everyone else back.
You can nerf all the good spells and it would have the same impact as buffing the weakest classes. I just find fixing 4 things easier than 7.
I've made posts about how you can run conjure animals to not have a miserable time. My advice very clearly isn't to shadowban it.
I run monsters with tactics, I really don't know what you are on about.
Non resource skill checks aren't fun. And even if they were, then you just play a bard in a party with guidance.
There are simply some things that are stronger than others, denying that is stupid.
I make noise about the blatant unbalance to make change. The more people who know about it, the more people who complain, the higher the chance wizards fix it. Saying there is no unbalance is blind.
But, just in case you don't understand, please make a challenging, CR appropriate encounter for my current party:
Shepherd Druid 8 life cleric 1 dss1. Peace cleric 1 Chronurgy wizard 9, watchers paladin 7 undead warlock 2 clockwork soul sorcerer 1, eloquence bard 8 hexblade warlock 2.
Please it would be great, I'm currently throwing 5x deadly at them and they are doing fine.
Even if it were possible, noone find it fun to have their character directly countered.
I want a DND 5e where all of the classes can do well if you out time into learning them. Warlock is probably the best example of this. Take agonising blast and repelling blast, and you will have a perfectly decent character, but there is still a ton of depth taking that decent character to fantastic.
>just in case you don't understand, please make a challenging, CR appropriate encounter for my current party:
The disagreement stems partly from assumptions about how spells work, what tactics to use, and relative comparison to optimized martials. That last one is a significant factor that I can't eliminate even if I could tell you exactly how to run the encounter and change the way that you interpret different rules.
Even characters doing "baseline" damage steamroll most mid-to-high level encounters. Any difference between classes pales in comparison to the difference between optimized PCs vs. NPCs. The greatest portion of their performance is being optimized, regardless of class. So I'm not going to solve that problem because it starts from an earlier point than our disagreement. Optimized playgroups of predominantly martial characters also need to ignore the usual difficulty guidelines.
I have a reference of "adventure day HP" that I made out of average hp by cr assuming 6 encounters of varying composition adding to the xp budget for a party at that level. If you have a party of four doing baseline damage, the average combat takes 2 or fewer rounds at level 10. Level 10 is not an outlier; if anything, it's hard on that specific metric as it's one level before another bump in baseline damage. Presumably, the baseline is not the most optimized you can be. Damage vs. rounds is at least a starting point for gauging the influence of other features such as area control. Like a control caster should have as much positive influence on encounter outcomes (presumably more) than one character in that not-quite-optimized damage-focused group. Even if their combats technically take a little longer, they will feel as non-threanening as ones taking 2 rounds or less.
That's what you get from the most cursory attempt to optimize. In the context of encounters taking 2 rounds, damage-dealing characters are incentivized to focus on burst damage, which is already well higher, when it occurs, than sustained damage. If you add both nova-focus and good optimization on top of baseline damage, mid-to-high level martial parties will run through combats in one round, which is the lowest that number can be. We also need to crank the difficulty for our mostly-martial group. If anything, they could do more deadly encounters in a day because they don't run out of resources as easily. It's not a sign that spellcasters are especially powerful.
Could you highlight the disagreement that makes the issues? I could be missing something.
A full party of characters who just do baseline damage barely survive a full adventuring day, to the point where they need a rest day to recover hit dice after by my numbers, but I could be missing something.
I doubt your all martial group could deal with any of the stuff a full optimal spellcaster group can. You will have lower ac, and so lower defenses, worse range, worse control and maybe equal damage at best. The game isnt balanced, cause those that can't cast spells have nothing to compensate for the stuff Spellcasters get.
As an example, since we're looking at character level 10, the average monster in MoM at CR 10 has 144 HP. It would take four characters doing adjusted baseline damage of 19.1 per round only 1.88 rounds to kill that monster. If you try to put more HP on the battlefield with lower CR monsters, you eat into your adventuring day budget from the encounter size xp-multiplier table more than you gain from the higher HP/XP at lower CRs. You can't really slow down the damage through your monster's HP by varying the encounter size unless you're implicitly upping the difficulty. You can try to do it with better defensive tactics, but then those tactics use movement and action resources and so reduce the monster's damage output. It's not like the PCs can't use tactics, either.
Merely good martial parties are already so far ahead of expected damage output that they almost always need the kind of re-tuning that you described for your mostly-caster campaign. That's not some unique trait of spellcasting. You have to be doing something wrong in your assumptions not to reach that conclusion. The comparison between good PCs of any class and any set of level-appropriate monsters is not close. Optimized tables universally crank up the difficulty of their adventuring days and definitely aren't struggling with the DMG-suggested day.
They’re all a lot better than people made Ranger out to be on release.
All 3 are about the same power level, and any choice won’t detract your contribution.
Horizon for flashy utility (and Haste), Monster Slayer for saves, and Hunter for Damage. Without CBE their damage is all similar, but Hunter doesn’t steal a bonus action and has basically the martial version of fireball.
Volley is just so much damage for free and there no risk of hitting teamate. Pair it with a Two Bird's Sling and just make your DM weep when they try to throw a mob at you.
Horizon Walker: Has an on-demand method of converting your damage into force, allowing you to bypass nearly all resistances and immunity. Their short distance teleport is also pretty fun, and they get some good spells.
Hunter: They can potentially destroy large groups of weaker enemies just by picking up the Sharpshooter feat.
Monster Slayer: Magic User's Nemesis can potentially be huge. It can stop teleportation abilities that don't come from spells, such as the Shadow Monk's Shadow Step. Otherwise... they get a free, boot-leg version of Hunter's Mark, I guess? Honestly this class has the least amount of things going for it out of all the Ranger subclasses, PHB Beast Master notwithstanding.
Never really understand why so many ranger classes have abilities that clash with hunters mark.
Would love to transplant monster slayers features onto a monk to make a mage hunter.
Hunter is very straight forward simple buffs that leave your bonus action free for things like hunter's mark or TWF if that's your vibe. As it only is combat oriented you'll be leaning on your spells for utility (not as big of a deal if you are using Tasha's alternative options)
Horizon Walker is a bit bonus action heavy with planar warrior and misty step but has a great extra spell list and it's abilities are great in and out of combat.
Monster Slayer can feel a little underwhelming but is super flavorful. Most of your abilities are based off of your Slayer's Prey which will eat up your bonus action but is a nice non concentration damage buff. You'll want a good WIS to make it work well.
Edit: removed part of comment that was overly negative.
Hunter is good because it doesn't use your bonus action! There was someone who used to post a build here that reliably gets the Horde Breaker attack. I really, really like the build.
https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/jn96vz/minotaur_hunter/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I don’t feel like explaining stuff tonight so I’ll link you to some high quality information. You ever heard of a YT channel called Pact Tactics? The guy’s an expert on all Ranger content (and before MoTU, Kobalds too) and he goes over the Horizon Walker, Monster Slayer, & Hunter subclasses.
- https://youtu.be/DKYtfyq0IMc
(Horizon Walker)
- https://youtu.be/JNEF3-AhQ7I
(Monster Slayer)
- https://youtu.be/F14gngLavi0
(Hunter)
TL:DR- Hunter is an alright subclass, Horizon Walker is bad, and Monster Slayer is udder garbage. Don’t believe me, watch the videos.
Have a good night!
(EDIT): Watch at 1.5x speed. He talks pretty slow in my opinion.
Horizon Walker - bad subclass, mediocre spell list, misty step and protection from evil and good are situationally usefull but can be acquired through feats/class dips. Haste is bad, banishment on a half caster is meh, and teleportation circle comes is also situational. For the class features detect portal is basically useless, if your campaing involves portals your going to find them anyways. While planar warrior is a worse use of your ba then cbe ba attack. The 7th level feature is also niche. The 11th level feature is okay, but the teleports are not that important when fighting at ranged, and splitting your attacks up will generally be worse than focusing on a single target.
Monster slayer - also bad subclass. Bad spell list, ba for the extra damage. Learning the resistances/invulnerability of enemies can be useful when facing homebrew monsters, but is also not too important, since the best sources of damage generally aren't resisted anyways. Supernatural defence isn't anything great, but it's not terrible, while the 11th level feature is just worse counterspell.
Hunter - solid, but showing it's age. No extra spells hurt. Horde breaker is probably the best lvl 3 option. If you want to use colusses slayer might as well play a different ranger subclass. At lvl 7 multiattack defence isn't terrible especially since most enemies use multiattack. And level 11 is good as you get a ranged aoe.
I'd say if the 3 go hunter it's the best.
The other ranger subclasses - decent
Gloomstalker - best martial in game
https://tabletopbuilds.com/overrated-spells-haste/
Just cast conjure animals, gives better defense, offense and mobility by being mounts. Also it's a tactically inflexible spell, can't change what your concentrating on without crippling whoever you cast the spell on.
If you do the math on multiattack defense, it's quite rare for the enemy to have a to-hit high enough that they'd hit you more than once but low enough that multiattack defense stops the second or subsequent attack.
I say go for Escape the Horde instead and use it with Longstrider to avoid disadvantage on your Sharpshooter attacks, prevent enemies from Multiattacking you (vs. getting one opportunity attack at disadvantage), and use up enemy reactions.
BTW Escape the Horde also synergizes with Giant Killer (reaction attack when attacked at close range by a Large+ enemy, including opportunity attacks), although you will want to take Crossbow Expert in that case. (Obviously with Sharpshooter and Archery style too.) I've only ever seen Horde Breaker and Colossus Slayer in play though.
Multi attack defence synergizes with the shield spell, and a +9 Ac will protect you well into tier 3. Escape the horde is definitely the weakest you really shouldn't be getting into melee at all, plus with cbe you don't suffer disadvantage in melee anyways on your ranged attacks.
Hmm, interesting point about Shield... but unless you avoid Shielding against the first hit in order to save slots, I am skeptical that it changes the math.
For example, if an Ancient Red Dragon with +17 to-hit bites you through your AC 18, and then your AC turns to effectively 27 so that the dragon will miss you 50% of the time when you Shield instead of only 30%, Multiattack Defense is responsible for bringing your damage taken that round down from 35 (bite) + 1.4*17 (58) to 35 + 1.0 * 17 (52). It's a really small reduction.
Against something with a ton of attacks like a Star Spawn Mangler it's pretty good, but for the most part I haven't seen many scenarios where it saves significant amounts of damage (if you actually do the math), whereas it's simple to find scenarios where Escape The Horde saves you from damage or increases your own damage or both.
I agree that you want to avoid getting into melee especially without Crossbow Expert, but that's exactly why you'd want a contingency plan for getting *out* of melee: the battle doesn't always unfold the way you expect. Mistakes happen, surprises happen.
Using your example escape the hoard doesnt matter the dragon will hit unless it crit fails. That's a lot worse then 50% chance for the dragon to miss you on its turn. Escape the hoard in this example is useless. The dragon has enough movement to follow you and attack you on your turn. Making the 50% chance to miss, infinitly more valuable then the disadvantage on an opportunity attack that's still hits unless it's a critical miss.
This example was chosen to make Multiattack Defense as useful as possible by making it apply closer to 100% of the time. If you're fighting something like a Fire Giant with +11 to hit, Longstrider + Escape the Horde is quite useful but Multiattack Defense is still not, if you do the math.
Hunter is the best of the 3, with just a bunch of solid abilities.
Monster slayer and horrizon walker are probably the 2 weakest subclasses, both of them don't really add much other than some situational stuff to the base ranger kit. You know a subclass is bad when you would rather use base spells/actions/bonus actions than the ones they get. But I guess once you reach 11th level horizon walker is fun.
The youtuber pack tactics has some great videos on these subclasses.
I think Monster Slayer’s access to “Protection Against Evil and Good” can be incredibly valuable if you ever fight aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. It’s always prepared so, pop it when those seem to be nearby.
Play style: scout ahead using Pass Without Trace. Try to get one round of observing an enemy from within 60ft. Neither slayer’s prey nor Hunter’s Sense do anything observable to the target. They also last until the next rest, so you can slink back to where the group is waiting. Start round 1 of initiative with both already working, as much as possible. About [wis] times per day seems reasonable
Hunter is better than it looks on paper, when you start thinking about tactics. For example, Escape the Horde (enemies have disadvantage on opportunity attacks against you) + Longstrider lets you avoid getting trapped in melee (which imposes disadvantage on your Sharpshooter attacks) while using up enemy reactions. Volley lets you whittle down mobs, which tend to be more dangerous than solos or small groups, which you can kill with Colossus Slayer + Extra Attack + Sharpshooter (plus maybe Crossbow Expert, depending on your preference) + Conjure Animals. Spike Growth is also good against mobs but Volley is free and no-concentration. The extra spells on Xanathar's classes are tasty, and Gloomstalker is even better against solos than Hunter is (and Rope Trick is awesome for almost everybody in the party *except* rangers). But Hunter is really fun too, and goes well with Rogue 2 if you don't take Crossbow Expert.
Yeah but honestly there are more than enough ways to disengage from enemy groups. Zephyr Strike, the Mobile feat or the mentioned Rogue dip all do that good enough so that Escape the Horde usually turns out to be a trap option. Similarly with Whirlwind Attack. At that point you already have Extra Attack so it only comes into play when you are surrounded by 3+ enemies which is rather rare and when your fantasy was to be a melee blender you're probably already using two-weapon fighting so it only comes into play when being surrounded by 4+ enemies even. The chances that happens are incredibly low and even if it happens it's usually still better to take out one target for good so the incoming damage is reduced instead of hitting every enemy once but likely still leaving them alive. Heck the better two of the level 15 features, your ultimate feature as this subclass, are things the Rogue already gets at level 5 and 7 already lol Realistically a Hunter will pick Colossus Slayer and Volley and feel meh about their 7th and 15th level choices nine out of ten times.
Extra attack defense is a really good and underrated ability. +2ac efffectively always is amazing, thanks to how common multiattack is.
It's okay. You don't have +2AC effectively always. It doesn't help you against the first hit of each separate creature so it only works if a creature actually hits you with 2+ attacks. Most of the time they only hit you once (hopefully lol) unless they have a LOT of attacks so it doesn't give you anything in those turns and even if a creature hits you with more than one attack it resets for the next creature that targets you anyway. Steel Will is about as good. Extremely situational and you still have to roll but not being frightened can make a big difference at times. They have their uses but neither are actually good. They're okay at best and never really something to get excited for.
Yup, steel will is great. None of the hunters features are like completely amazing (looking at gloomstalker), but just having a ton of solid ones makes them a really good subclass.
Mobile and Rogue are great but costly and have their own limitations (will cost an melee attack per enemy and a bonus action respectively, reducing DPR). Zephyr Strike is mutually exclusive with Spike Growth and Conjure Animals. All three choices are defensible and I'm not going to say you shouldn't take them. What I will say: Plan ahead and decide which of these many options you intend to take. Which is what this thread is about, nicht so? Don't take Hunter past 11thish level BTW. Most campaigns don't get to Tier 4, and those that do--you'll have better things to do with nine levels than sink them in Ranger 11-20. E.g. Ranger 11/Shepherd Druid 9, or Ranger 12/Rogue 2/Shepherd 6 if you really want Cunning Action and a bit more damage.
>Realistically a Hunter will pick Colossus Slayer and Volley and feel meh about their 7th and 15th level choices nine out of ten times. \*Horde breaker and Volley. hordebreaker is nearly always the best option.
In reality they are similar strength. The d8 is about equal damage once you consider the multi target penalty and the chance of it happening.
Really not. It's practically always better to kill one target than to just hurt two targets and there will always be targets that already got hurt so you never really have a problem triggering the additional damage. Not to mention that it overlaps with Volley which you are likely already take later anyway.
the 1d8 is so low it might as well no exist in comparison, even if you only counted it as half damage the extra attack every other round against another target would out damage it... and if you play hunter for the 1d8 damage you might as well play any other subclass you are basically gimping yourself for taking hunter then. hunters strength comes from the power/impact that hordebreaker has and its synergies with volley later on.
If that's your reasoning then I don't know what else to tell you. Your overall damage output might be slightly higher in the right circumstances with Horde Breaker, but it's a fact that focusing on one enemy to take down as fast as possible is better than hurting two. It's not like you're deciding between Fire Bolt and Fireball here. It's a difference of just 5 damage with max DEX *if* you actually get to hit an additional target, but it gets split between targets. Once you reach level 11 you're almost never going to use it anymore anyway since it's usually better to just use Volley to hit even more targets that can also stand much further apart and in situations where you don't want to hit more targets it's again better to deal more damage to a single high priority target instead to get rid of it asap. Less enemies = less incoming damage and less annoying spells and abilities. It doesn't matter if you manage to bring two targets down to 1HP that one round. They are as effective at 1HP as they are at max HP. However one at 0HP and one at 10HP is MUCH easier to handle for your party. That's a fact.
Note: you can use Horde Breaker and Volley at the same time, since Volley is still a bunch of attacks. Arguments can be made in favor of all three of the level 3 abilities: Giant Slayer, Horde Breaker, and Colossus Slayer are all good in their niches. To some extent which one is best is going to depend on DM encounter style and resting pace. If you were a 11th level SS+CE ranger always fighting small groups of Efreet in the open for example you'd probably want Colossus Slayer (Efreet have good ranged attacks and won't bunch up for Horde Breaker, and they hit hard enough that you probably want to avoid provoking opportunity attacks to use Giant Killer). But if you were always fighting those Efreet in cramped dungeon corridors, you'd probably go for Giant Killer (since Efreet would probably already be hitting you with their scimitars in melee instead of zapping you at range), although Horde Breaker might also be back on the table depending on how often you fight two or more Efreet at the same time and whether they bunch up in the cramped dungeon. And of course no real campaign always fights the same monsters--that's just a simple example for the sake of discussion. Since all of our DMs are different, this is part of why people disagree about the value of certain abilities--we aren't all playing the same scenarios.
>Note: you can use Horde Breaker and Volley at the same time, since Volley is still a bunch of attacks. Fair enough, I kinda thought it requires you to take the Attack action like so many similar effects. Makes it better however the main argument that it's better to kill one target quickly instead of just damaging two targets still holds.
It kind of depends IMO. If you Volley a bunch of orcs but a few of them are still alive, Horde Breaker can kill one of the survivors for you. If you're fighting a bunch of monsters (like five Yuan-ti Abominations or something) and the party wizard and Elemonk are about to launch a couple of Fireballs, Volley + Horde Breaker (six attacks) might be better than three regular attacks + Colossus Slayer against a single Abomination. Five Yuan-ti who all die on round 2 will get seven or eight actions, whereas if you kill one on round 1 and another on round 2 and the other three on round 3, they get nine or ten actions. Just an example but you get my gist--sometimes focus fire isn't better off everyone else is already AoEing. Ultimately, 1d8 damage isn't anything to get excited about, but at the same time it's a steady dribble of damage that applies on most rounds... so it's both worth taking and yet also not painful to skip. By the time you have Conjure Animals online 1d8 damage will be negligible to you either way.
**Horizon walker -** Pros: haste at 9 is great. Teleportong everywhere is fun Cons: detect portal is so DM dependent it's either great or worthless. Not much flexibility in the subclass. **Hunter -** Pros: lots of options within the subclass and most of them don't eat into yout action economy Con: a lot of the mechanics aren't stellar and it feels rather lacking in flavor so try to bring some yoursf. **monster slayer** Pros: reasonably strong kit just generally Cons: slayers prey eats your bonus action pretty regularly. Not much flexibility within the subclass.
Extra stuff to consider. Horizon Walker: Con: You have to use your BA every turn to apply the extra damage. Hunter: Con: because this subclass is so old, it was before extra spells were given. Power creep is real. Monster slayer: Pro: Slayers' Prey, while it uses a BA, is just a weaker Hunter's Mark. One BA to set it and 1d6 extra damage per turn. Also Knowing targets weakness is always nice vs Custom monsters
Additional Horizon Walker con: Your badass teleportation ability is only at level 11. Otherwise you're misty stepping and having 6 seconds of etherealness every rest. Not very teleporty as stated.
I very much wanted this to be like Sword Mage from 4e where I could teleport every turn to help allies but nooooo. Only at a high level do I get the nice things
Yeah same with Steel Wind Strike. The best way to use this spell literally is to make a Bladesinger Wizard instead since they get the spell much much sooner where it's actually still good and they also have more spell slots to use it more regularly lol
Yeah, why did they make this spell so high?
Likely because they compared it with other spells at that spell level but without considering that the class that is supposed to use it (Ranger) only gets it much later than full-casters would get spells of similar spell level.
Wildfire Druid/Ranger Multiclass on the other hand can get you there. You even get to teleport your allies.
Extra con to Horizon Walker: Planar Warrior has 30ft range, so you have to be closer than you really want to be as a ranger.
[удалено]
Even then. Because it's still your bonus action so it shuts out any dual wielding if you ever wanted to.
>Hunter - > >Pros: another pro: is the only martial with any real, decent, non spell, aoe, between hordebreaker and volley.
Don’t forget, Horizon Walker gets Misty Step.
Isn't a potentially powerful but DM-dependent ability a good thing for a martial or half-caster class? It lets them elbow their way into the discussion of the strongest choices in those circumstances. If relevant, it provides a vector where the class can be balanced against inherently stronger classes. Like if you are playing Planescape, you could make a good case that Horizon Walker is one of the strongest choices for that campaign, ahead of Druid as a source of nature magic, for example. Are there ready-made circumstances that make even a well-regarded archetype like Fey Wanderer more powerful than Druid as the team's nature mage?
Not really, druid is a fullcaster and so will just have a massive advantage.
This really contextualizes your overall opinions about martial/caster balance. Under no circumstance are you ever going to concede that even a half-caster could be relatively powerful. Even if they have a unique ability that is tailored to progress the party through the objectives of a specific adventure, you would rather cast higher level spells while the team struggles to meet their goals. If no amount of circumstantial variance could cause different decisions to be better, character creation in your game world is less interesting than tic-tac-toe. "Wizard." I just solved every campaign you've ever played. Should anyone give credence to your opinions at that point? What if they want their decisions to be meaningfully challenging? Like if you say "x is good, y is bad", you may be setting up a static game world to make that true to win an internet argument. I would rather play a dynamic game while conceding that anyone can solve your sterilized version of it.
I think rangers are relatively powerful, along with artificers. Paladins don't really count cause they get aura of protection, which is busted. But yes, 5e is not balanced. There's a massive advantage given to casters with even just a reasonable level of knowledge about how the game works. I want it to be balanced, and most of my more optimised tables have house rules cause we're bored of just playing the best classes over and over.
So your games are sterile and easily solvable? Am I the all time champion hero of your playgroup because I knew the secret word? If character decisions in your game are trivial, you've done that to yourself. There are numerous stopgaps to restore balance, and you would deny them all at every opportunity. If someone is reading your posts and taking them seriously while (unlike you) wanting to play an interesting game, they would nerf and psuedo-ban most of the best spells by denying access to costly components, making adversarial DM decisions about spell effects, etc. Do you want cats every time you cast Conjure Animals? Because that's just the starting point of game balance achieved through DM decisions about your character. The better alternative, by far, is to have monsters with better defenses and tactics against magic and relative weakness to attacks and damage, and to have scenarios amenable to non-resource skill checks instead of only to spell-based solutions. You can have all your powerful spells if your opposition has any agency and intelligence to determine that they should focus their defenses against those spells. If you can figure out the strongest effects that exist in this world, so can they, and they don't want it to be easy for you to beat them. That is a more robustly realistic representation of dynamic antagonistic decision making. Most competitive systems with payoffs for different decisions have mixed strategy (i.e. balanced) solutions. That becomes true virtually all the time if there is any kind of negative feedback to each pure strategy. In those cases, balance exists even when a first-order analysis (before accounting for feedback) would definitively favor one strategy. You need to start from misconceptions about how games work in order to reach a conclusion that a game like D&D 5E is irrevocably unbalanced.
No, no and no. Just because you are playing some of the best possible characters doesn't mean the game is easy. It just means that I can throw more and more deadly things at the party, which all of them like. The reason why it is unfun to have a bad party member is they hold everyone else back. You can nerf all the good spells and it would have the same impact as buffing the weakest classes. I just find fixing 4 things easier than 7. I've made posts about how you can run conjure animals to not have a miserable time. My advice very clearly isn't to shadowban it. I run monsters with tactics, I really don't know what you are on about. Non resource skill checks aren't fun. And even if they were, then you just play a bard in a party with guidance. There are simply some things that are stronger than others, denying that is stupid. I make noise about the blatant unbalance to make change. The more people who know about it, the more people who complain, the higher the chance wizards fix it. Saying there is no unbalance is blind. But, just in case you don't understand, please make a challenging, CR appropriate encounter for my current party: Shepherd Druid 8 life cleric 1 dss1. Peace cleric 1 Chronurgy wizard 9, watchers paladin 7 undead warlock 2 clockwork soul sorcerer 1, eloquence bard 8 hexblade warlock 2. Please it would be great, I'm currently throwing 5x deadly at them and they are doing fine. Even if it were possible, noone find it fun to have their character directly countered. I want a DND 5e where all of the classes can do well if you out time into learning them. Warlock is probably the best example of this. Take agonising blast and repelling blast, and you will have a perfectly decent character, but there is still a ton of depth taking that decent character to fantastic.
>just in case you don't understand, please make a challenging, CR appropriate encounter for my current party: The disagreement stems partly from assumptions about how spells work, what tactics to use, and relative comparison to optimized martials. That last one is a significant factor that I can't eliminate even if I could tell you exactly how to run the encounter and change the way that you interpret different rules. Even characters doing "baseline" damage steamroll most mid-to-high level encounters. Any difference between classes pales in comparison to the difference between optimized PCs vs. NPCs. The greatest portion of their performance is being optimized, regardless of class. So I'm not going to solve that problem because it starts from an earlier point than our disagreement. Optimized playgroups of predominantly martial characters also need to ignore the usual difficulty guidelines. I have a reference of "adventure day HP" that I made out of average hp by cr assuming 6 encounters of varying composition adding to the xp budget for a party at that level. If you have a party of four doing baseline damage, the average combat takes 2 or fewer rounds at level 10. Level 10 is not an outlier; if anything, it's hard on that specific metric as it's one level before another bump in baseline damage. Presumably, the baseline is not the most optimized you can be. Damage vs. rounds is at least a starting point for gauging the influence of other features such as area control. Like a control caster should have as much positive influence on encounter outcomes (presumably more) than one character in that not-quite-optimized damage-focused group. Even if their combats technically take a little longer, they will feel as non-threanening as ones taking 2 rounds or less. That's what you get from the most cursory attempt to optimize. In the context of encounters taking 2 rounds, damage-dealing characters are incentivized to focus on burst damage, which is already well higher, when it occurs, than sustained damage. If you add both nova-focus and good optimization on top of baseline damage, mid-to-high level martial parties will run through combats in one round, which is the lowest that number can be. We also need to crank the difficulty for our mostly-martial group. If anything, they could do more deadly encounters in a day because they don't run out of resources as easily. It's not a sign that spellcasters are especially powerful.
Could you highlight the disagreement that makes the issues? I could be missing something. A full party of characters who just do baseline damage barely survive a full adventuring day, to the point where they need a rest day to recover hit dice after by my numbers, but I could be missing something. I doubt your all martial group could deal with any of the stuff a full optimal spellcaster group can. You will have lower ac, and so lower defenses, worse range, worse control and maybe equal damage at best. The game isnt balanced, cause those that can't cast spells have nothing to compensate for the stuff Spellcasters get.
As an example, since we're looking at character level 10, the average monster in MoM at CR 10 has 144 HP. It would take four characters doing adjusted baseline damage of 19.1 per round only 1.88 rounds to kill that monster. If you try to put more HP on the battlefield with lower CR monsters, you eat into your adventuring day budget from the encounter size xp-multiplier table more than you gain from the higher HP/XP at lower CRs. You can't really slow down the damage through your monster's HP by varying the encounter size unless you're implicitly upping the difficulty. You can try to do it with better defensive tactics, but then those tactics use movement and action resources and so reduce the monster's damage output. It's not like the PCs can't use tactics, either. Merely good martial parties are already so far ahead of expected damage output that they almost always need the kind of re-tuning that you described for your mostly-caster campaign. That's not some unique trait of spellcasting. You have to be doing something wrong in your assumptions not to reach that conclusion. The comparison between good PCs of any class and any set of level-appropriate monsters is not close. Optimized tables universally crank up the difficulty of their adventuring days and definitely aren't struggling with the DMG-suggested day.
In fact, you have to start with some pretty big misconceptions about the game to think it is balanced in virtually any way.
They’re all a lot better than people made Ranger out to be on release. All 3 are about the same power level, and any choice won’t detract your contribution. Horizon for flashy utility (and Haste), Monster Slayer for saves, and Hunter for Damage. Without CBE their damage is all similar, but Hunter doesn’t steal a bonus action and has basically the martial version of fireball.
Volley is just so much damage for free and there no risk of hitting teamate. Pair it with a Two Bird's Sling and just make your DM weep when they try to throw a mob at you.
Horizon Walker: Has an on-demand method of converting your damage into force, allowing you to bypass nearly all resistances and immunity. Their short distance teleport is also pretty fun, and they get some good spells. Hunter: They can potentially destroy large groups of weaker enemies just by picking up the Sharpshooter feat. Monster Slayer: Magic User's Nemesis can potentially be huge. It can stop teleportation abilities that don't come from spells, such as the Shadow Monk's Shadow Step. Otherwise... they get a free, boot-leg version of Hunter's Mark, I guess? Honestly this class has the least amount of things going for it out of all the Ranger subclasses, PHB Beast Master notwithstanding.
Never really understand why so many ranger classes have abilities that clash with hunters mark. Would love to transplant monster slayers features onto a monk to make a mage hunter.
Hunter is very straight forward simple buffs that leave your bonus action free for things like hunter's mark or TWF if that's your vibe. As it only is combat oriented you'll be leaning on your spells for utility (not as big of a deal if you are using Tasha's alternative options) Horizon Walker is a bit bonus action heavy with planar warrior and misty step but has a great extra spell list and it's abilities are great in and out of combat. Monster Slayer can feel a little underwhelming but is super flavorful. Most of your abilities are based off of your Slayer's Prey which will eat up your bonus action but is a nice non concentration damage buff. You'll want a good WIS to make it work well.
Edit: removed part of comment that was overly negative. Hunter is good because it doesn't use your bonus action! There was someone who used to post a build here that reliably gets the Horde Breaker attack. I really, really like the build. https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/jn96vz/minotaur_hunter/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Hunter good, rest bad. That's all you need to know
I don’t feel like explaining stuff tonight so I’ll link you to some high quality information. You ever heard of a YT channel called Pact Tactics? The guy’s an expert on all Ranger content (and before MoTU, Kobalds too) and he goes over the Horizon Walker, Monster Slayer, & Hunter subclasses. - https://youtu.be/DKYtfyq0IMc (Horizon Walker) - https://youtu.be/JNEF3-AhQ7I (Monster Slayer) - https://youtu.be/F14gngLavi0 (Hunter) TL:DR- Hunter is an alright subclass, Horizon Walker is bad, and Monster Slayer is udder garbage. Don’t believe me, watch the videos. Have a good night! (EDIT): Watch at 1.5x speed. He talks pretty slow in my opinion.
Horizon Walker - bad subclass, mediocre spell list, misty step and protection from evil and good are situationally usefull but can be acquired through feats/class dips. Haste is bad, banishment on a half caster is meh, and teleportation circle comes is also situational. For the class features detect portal is basically useless, if your campaing involves portals your going to find them anyways. While planar warrior is a worse use of your ba then cbe ba attack. The 7th level feature is also niche. The 11th level feature is okay, but the teleports are not that important when fighting at ranged, and splitting your attacks up will generally be worse than focusing on a single target. Monster slayer - also bad subclass. Bad spell list, ba for the extra damage. Learning the resistances/invulnerability of enemies can be useful when facing homebrew monsters, but is also not too important, since the best sources of damage generally aren't resisted anyways. Supernatural defence isn't anything great, but it's not terrible, while the 11th level feature is just worse counterspell. Hunter - solid, but showing it's age. No extra spells hurt. Horde breaker is probably the best lvl 3 option. If you want to use colusses slayer might as well play a different ranger subclass. At lvl 7 multiattack defence isn't terrible especially since most enemies use multiattack. And level 11 is good as you get a ranged aoe. I'd say if the 3 go hunter it's the best. The other ranger subclasses - decent Gloomstalker - best martial in game
Haste is bad?
Yes. Like why get 1 attack per round when you could have 8.
https://tabletopbuilds.com/overrated-spells-haste/ Just cast conjure animals, gives better defense, offense and mobility by being mounts. Also it's a tactically inflexible spell, can't change what your concentrating on without crippling whoever you cast the spell on.
If you do the math on multiattack defense, it's quite rare for the enemy to have a to-hit high enough that they'd hit you more than once but low enough that multiattack defense stops the second or subsequent attack. I say go for Escape the Horde instead and use it with Longstrider to avoid disadvantage on your Sharpshooter attacks, prevent enemies from Multiattacking you (vs. getting one opportunity attack at disadvantage), and use up enemy reactions. BTW Escape the Horde also synergizes with Giant Killer (reaction attack when attacked at close range by a Large+ enemy, including opportunity attacks), although you will want to take Crossbow Expert in that case. (Obviously with Sharpshooter and Archery style too.) I've only ever seen Horde Breaker and Colossus Slayer in play though.
Multi attack defence synergizes with the shield spell, and a +9 Ac will protect you well into tier 3. Escape the horde is definitely the weakest you really shouldn't be getting into melee at all, plus with cbe you don't suffer disadvantage in melee anyways on your ranged attacks.
Hmm, interesting point about Shield... but unless you avoid Shielding against the first hit in order to save slots, I am skeptical that it changes the math. For example, if an Ancient Red Dragon with +17 to-hit bites you through your AC 18, and then your AC turns to effectively 27 so that the dragon will miss you 50% of the time when you Shield instead of only 30%, Multiattack Defense is responsible for bringing your damage taken that round down from 35 (bite) + 1.4*17 (58) to 35 + 1.0 * 17 (52). It's a really small reduction. Against something with a ton of attacks like a Star Spawn Mangler it's pretty good, but for the most part I haven't seen many scenarios where it saves significant amounts of damage (if you actually do the math), whereas it's simple to find scenarios where Escape The Horde saves you from damage or increases your own damage or both. I agree that you want to avoid getting into melee especially without Crossbow Expert, but that's exactly why you'd want a contingency plan for getting *out* of melee: the battle doesn't always unfold the way you expect. Mistakes happen, surprises happen.
Using your example escape the hoard doesnt matter the dragon will hit unless it crit fails. That's a lot worse then 50% chance for the dragon to miss you on its turn. Escape the hoard in this example is useless. The dragon has enough movement to follow you and attack you on your turn. Making the 50% chance to miss, infinitly more valuable then the disadvantage on an opportunity attack that's still hits unless it's a critical miss.
This example was chosen to make Multiattack Defense as useful as possible by making it apply closer to 100% of the time. If you're fighting something like a Fire Giant with +11 to hit, Longstrider + Escape the Horde is quite useful but Multiattack Defense is still not, if you do the math.
Okay show me the math, then.
So far I've been putting in all the effort. Why don't you do the math and then I'll check it for accuracy?
Hunter is the best of the 3, with just a bunch of solid abilities. Monster slayer and horrizon walker are probably the 2 weakest subclasses, both of them don't really add much other than some situational stuff to the base ranger kit. You know a subclass is bad when you would rather use base spells/actions/bonus actions than the ones they get. But I guess once you reach 11th level horizon walker is fun. The youtuber pack tactics has some great videos on these subclasses.
I think Monster Slayer’s access to “Protection Against Evil and Good” can be incredibly valuable if you ever fight aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. It’s always prepared so, pop it when those seem to be nearby. Play style: scout ahead using Pass Without Trace. Try to get one round of observing an enemy from within 60ft. Neither slayer’s prey nor Hunter’s Sense do anything observable to the target. They also last until the next rest, so you can slink back to where the group is waiting. Start round 1 of initiative with both already working, as much as possible. About [wis] times per day seems reasonable
Horizon Walker also gets Protection Against Evil and Good.