Best archer build, all material allowed

Litania · Dec 14, 2016

I posted this on the general thread, then I realised all the optimisers hang out here!
Have people been crunching the dpr numbers? I have been considering playing a high dpr archer as a change of pace from my utility casters. I'm more concerned about mid levels, I'll never see the fighter's 4th attack (and maybe not even the 3rd)

Just off the top of my head:

-battle master with sharpshooter and crossbow expert (maneuver damage + bonus action attack)

-sharpshooter subclass (does the minus action bonus damage make up for the loss of bonus action attack?)

-arcane archer (I love them but the magic arrow damage is offset by the fact they must use bows. Of course phasing arrow can make up for this on occasion)

-Eldritch knight (eventually they get haste and can use better weapons than handbow)

-revised ranger hunter (how does colossus slayer + hunters mark compare?)

-revised ranger deep stalker + assassin (extra attack on first turn, advantage on initiative, auto crits. Oh my!)

-battlemaster\ranger + war cleric (one of few ways to get bonus damage attack with bows, extra d8 on weapon attacks and +10 to hit via channel divinity to offset sharpshooter)

in all of this there's also the possibility to pick up familiar for advantage to attacks and hex.

What is the general consensus?

mellored · Dec 14, 2016

More attacks (multi-attack, hunter 3, crossbow expertise, action surge) * more damage (dex, sharpshooter) * more accuracy (precision strike, advantage, bless).

But the "best" depends on your exact level.

for instance.
battlemaster 5/rogue 1 > battlemaster 6 = battlemaster 5/ranger 1.
battlemaster 5/hunter 3 > battlemaster 5/rogue 3 > battlemaster 8
battlemaster 11 > battlemaster 8/hunter 3 > battlemaster 8/rogue 3.

Also on your allies. A few levels of shadow sorcerer can get advantage on the cheap, but if someone else casts greater invisibility on you, those levels are wasted. Same thing with bless.
It also affects how much you need to defend youself as you can't do any damage if your dead (favors crossbow expertise for melee).

Also on the situation. Do you have a turn to cast bless/darkness before battle is initiated? Are battles long, or short. Is there lots of cover (favors sharpshooter).

Though a few easy ones.
crossbow expertise > hex/hunters mark.
Rogue > War cleric (1d6 each turn > 1 extra hit per short rest). *Unless you have 2 other allies who can also benefit greatly from bless.
And if you want a familiar, chain warlocks can also get darkness+ devils sight for advantage. Though again, shadow sorcerer.

hejtmane · Dec 15, 2016

Straight Fighter Human Variant SharpShoter and Handcrossbow hands down wins and of course archery fighting style

Take HC first then SS (you can reverse order but I think it works out better HC first) at 4th take the other at 6 and 8 asi

Hand crossbow gets you a free bonus action attack pretty straight forward from there

SO if you take HC first

1st level 2 attacks (action surge 3)
5th level 3 attacks (action surge 5)
11th level 4 attacks (action surge 7)

I had player with Action surge at 8th level (we do rolled stats) did 96 damage with action surge note he did not miss a shot which was unusual but hey some times the dice are good

The way to look assuming max dex is this
3.5 +5 +10=18.5 average damage win you hit
You want to maximize the # of shots with the build hence straight fighter and Battle master for more damage

We had another one it was high damaging but played different and not quite the build above but it was a concept build a sniper build so bow for more distance only feat SS
But they went Ranger 5 (Colossal slayer) rest rogue for sneak attack

Bonus action Hunters mark never do the -5 +10 unless you hit on the first attack that way you apply sneak attack if the monster already damage you get to add Colossal
4.5 +5 +13.5 (maybe +4.5) +3.5 hunters mark
if you hit then you take the -5/+10 shot 4.5+5 +10+3.5 (+4.5 if not applied on first hit)

Rinse repeat so in 2 shots you can average 49 damage on two hits even with sneak attack it will not catch the fighter build but if you want a high damaging concept around stealth or sniper build it fits the fun factor and is still pretty darn big on the dpr

Yunru · Dec 15, 2016

Personally I like:
Fighter 11/Cleric 1/Sorcerer 5/Ranger 3

Between Crossbow Expert, (quickened) Bless, Horde Breaker you're making between 4 and 5 attacks each turn at -0.5 accuracy (on average) and +10 damage per shot.

Blue · Dec 15, 2016

The new ranger is quite nice and in the front half of the pack, but isn't broken in terms of archery. I have experience with Hunter through 7th with a crossbow expert build and 3-4 attacks (depending on hordebreaker) doing d6+9 against a favored enemy before hunter's mark is nice. (18 dex point buy, +1 hand crossbow) Puts me a little below our Oath-of-Emnity GWM divine smitting paladin, but he has to close to melee. I'd be doing more damage if I also had SS, but I was holding off for my next ASI.

With the first round advantages, the revised deep stalked ranger is a nice replacement for hunter. It's first round only, but it's guaranteed unlike hordebreaker, and you don't have to dilute that extra attack to another foe. Frankly, the hordebreaker 7th and 11th are a bit underwhelming vs. normal attacks, while Deep Stalker wisdom save and redo a miss are much more interesting. If I was rebuilding my current ranger-based archer I'd go for this.

You mention paring it with assassin, but I don't see a lot of synergy. They overlap in the ability to get advantage first round, so that doesn't bring anything to the table, and the free crits are based around surprise, not going first. That's an entirely separate thing. Past the advantage of first round it also limits your targets if you want to go against one with an adjacent ally to add on a touch of sneak attack damage. Finally both Crossbow Expert and Rogue will be competing for your bonus action.

Fighter on the other hand is an excellent chassis. Action Surge, extra ASIs (great when going for 2 feats and 20 DEX), etc. Battlemaster maneuvers do a lot more than just DPR, they are a fantastic add. I think a lot more than EK, though part of it is how deep in fighter you want - BM is front loaded in terms of superiority dice and you can get a lot quickly. EK you see more at the higher levels if you want to stay pure fighter. Champion is probably the weakest of the three if the only die is a d6 for hand crossbow to double during a crit.

Since you said anything allowed, the new Fighter (Samuria) would let you get advantage on six rounds of attacks per short rest. (Well, three pairs of rounds per short rest to be more exact.) Great for landing sharpshooter. I think battlemaster is probably the choice I'd go for, but Samurai might win in white room theory DPR.

Zene · Dec 15, 2016

My math may be wrong, and I'm only using AL-legal sources, but I recently crunched the numbers and found the following to be the best build I could find (with some specific quirks, noted below):

Battlemaster 11/Ranger 3/War Cleric 1/AT Rogue 5. Vhuman with Xbow Expert, picking up Sharpshooter at 4, then using the 3 remaining ASIs to max dex and then pick up lucky or alert.

Build progression goes:

-Battlemaster to 4

-then War Cleric 1 (because I have a staff of swarming insects, which requires a full caster class to use. But once I have it, I can use a setup round and one charge of the staff to create advantage for ranged attacks for the next 10 minutes, no concentration required. Meanwhile I can setup Divine Favor for more damage or Bless for +hit)

-then Battlemaster to 11 (for extra attack 1 and extra attack 2)

-then Ranger to 3 (for Horde breaker, plus hunter's mark is an upgrade from divine favor)

-then the rest in Rogue for the sneak attack dice. I decided to go with AT subclass for access to Minor Illusion, Shield/Find Familiar (not sure which), and an extra multiclass caster level. But YMMV, if you get a lot of surprise round opportunities Assassin would be a better choice.

The plan is to save sneak attack and maneuver dice damage for either the first crit or the last attack (if no crits) of the round. If I didn't need the caster level for the staff, I'd probably go fighter 5 --> hunter 3 --> fighter 11, to get Hunter's Mark and Horde Breaker earlier.

Going EK instead of Battlemaster was tempting, since I'd be able to Haste myself at L14. But when I crunched the numbers, the bonus damage of Maneuvers + hunter's mark was strictly better than the extra attack I'd get from Haste (and I may still get lucky and find a caster willing to hook me up with it), and required less Fighter levels, opening up more Rogue levels and more Sneak Attack dpr.

CapnZapp · Dec 16, 2016

X-posted from the other thread:

Just off the top of my head:

-battle master with sharpshooter and crossbow expert (maneuver damage + bonus action attack)

CapnZapp said:
This is a straightforward path to great overall performance. In fact, it's probably so good it breaks the entire game (why go melee when you can do this?!)

Essentially, this turns your crossbow archer into a melee character with 120 ft reach!
And not only that, you get the same übercrazy damage potential as a greatweapon wielder! Sure you don't have a d12 damage die, but who cares when you never waste an attack for want of an eligible target.

Don't use your battlemaster maneuvers for extra damage, though. You'd be better off using Precision Attack (to turn misses into hits), enabling you to use the Sharpshooter -5/+10 part on scarily high ACs.

Since you obviously will attack monsters set up so you have advantage, you should find that even with the -5 from Sharpshooter, you will nearly always hit when you need to roll around 10 on the d20. (the 50% miss chance first shrinks to 25% from advantage, then to 15% from, say Guidance, then into low-single digit numbers if you apply Precision Attack judiciously. If you also have Lucky, you could go entire days without missing a single shot. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is true power! (In fact, we're looking at 4d6+60 damage each round... )

(Sharpshooter is so broken it isn't even funny, but I must admit it is kind of hilarious to read about those poor saps flailing about trying to deny it)

Forget about the fighter's 4th extra attack. You get four attacks already at 11th level (since you're effectively dualwielding here - making a bonus action attack every round)

In fact, that's not the end of it. You can gain a fourth attack already at level 8! (Fighter 5 for two attacks, Crossbow Expert for bonus action attack, and Ranger 3 for Hordebreaker - encountering adjacent enemies is very common). Obviously Fighter 6/Ranger 4 is probably a more realistic target, since it's two more ASIs, but still - faster than Fighter 11!

This means you'll commonly do five attacks at level 15, if that's included in your "mid-levels".

Six if you set up a reliable way of making opportunity attacks. (Not saying this is actually worth it, but War Caster enables you to make your opportunity attack using a cantrip, which nicely scales even with you not having any spellcasting levels. But a feat that lets you make a 3d10 opportunity attack even with no melee weapon in hand is nothing to sneeze at...)

I haven't more than casually browsed the UA subclasses, but I have not seen anything worth a powergamer's time. (I would love if I was educated otherwise) The build above is pure PHB.

Zene · Dec 16, 2016

Hah CapnZapp great minds think alike, apparently. Good point on using precision over maneuvers.

A couple notes:
-By Guidance you mean Bless, right?
-You say you'll obviously attack with advantage... isn't that usually tough to do from range? Not sure if I'm missing something here.

Coyote81 · Dec 16, 2016

For damage levels what do you guys think of using Arcane archer piercing arrow in a surprise attack with the assassin crit buff and sharpshooter -5 +10? Seems like a really solI'd surprise nova on multiple enemies.

CapnZapp · Dec 17, 2016

Zene said:
Hah CapnZapp great minds think alike, apparently. Good point on using precision over maneuvers.

A couple notes:
-By Guidance you mean Bless, right?
-You say you'll obviously attack with advantage... isn't that usually tough to do from range? Not sure if I'm missing something here.

Our group shoots at Monk-stunned foes. I'm sure you can find a way to set up advantage yourself

Remember, this guy doesn't need "range". Consider him a melee combatant, only with a "reach" of 120 ft.

If a monster appears in the distance and it's too dangerous for the monk to go there, obviously he shoots without advantage (and without -5/+10). On the other hand, doing any damage at that distance is still way better than what the swordguys can do...

Point is:

Ranged < Melee
Unless the rules actively limit and penalise ranged.

WotC have kept this ball in play ever since first edition, but this time, they've apparently forgotten about the need to actively repress ranged combat for melee to be a good minmax choice.

They've simply dropped the ball - I can count to six or seven changes between 5E and 3E that all remove useful checks on ranged.

Best archer build, all material allowed

Litania

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mellored

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hejtmane

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Yunru

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Blue

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Zene

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CapnZapp

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Zene

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Coyote81

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CapnZapp

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