Archer Ranger vs. TWF Ranger

[Mercule]

One of the most valuable and underrated resources an archer Ranger has is his hit points and healing surges. To contribute his utmost to the party, the Ranger should be taking hits. If the Ranger sits way back and never gets hit, the rest of the party is going to burn through surges much faster and sometimes not be able to continue.

I've found the best way for the archer Ranger to contribute is to play as close to the enemy as possible. Try to get the Prime Shot bonus as much as possible, entice the enemy to pursue and attack you, end your turn next to an enemy to give an ally flanking, and finally to move adjacent to an enemy marked by a Defender and provoke Opportunity Attacks to trigger the Defender's punishments. Played this way, the +2 AC vs Opportunity Attacks becomes valuable.

Its also far less boring to play the archer that way, and we all know that the worst thing about archer Rangers is how boring they can be.

The one thing hard coded into the system for the Archery style is that it lets you take the Battlefield Archer path, which is still one of if not the best Paragon Path for a bow Ranger.

I still say that the archer Ranger does his best work at point blank range, and at point blank range will make use out of Defensive Mobility. If you can go two consecutive fights without being attacked in 4E, as far as I'm concerned you're doing it wrong.

Now, this sounds like good reasoning. Anyone have other opinions on the archer build?

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Firing a ranged attack at an adjacent enemy marked by a Defender with both Prime Shot and Combat Advantage from flanking, provoking an Opportunity Attack at a -4 penalty(-2 for the mark and +2 to your AC from Defensive Mobility), and triggering the Defenders revenge ability is a very strong tactic. Rangers aren't tanks, but they have good AC and can take a few hits.

I've seen two people play a Ranger that provoked Opportunity Attacks firing at adjacent enemies. They generally did this more than once each battle. When they weren't doing this, they were staying very close, within 2-5 squares. They contributed more to the party's success than Rangers who stood back.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Seems to me if you're a good little striker and doing craploads of damage, enemies should be coming to you, so I don't really agree with casual's argument.

I thought there might be some really cool archer path later on that required the archer option, but if there isn't...why not take the TWF choice? It's nice to have a good backup option anyway. Only seen the PH, so I don't know about Beastmaster, but having your own personal meatshield at least sounds handy for an archer.

I really don't see the need for the Archery bonus feat. A level 1 at will basically lets you move back and fire safely whenever you need to anyway, unless my memory is REALLY bad.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Seems to me if you're a good little striker and doing craploads of damage, enemies should be coming to you, so I don't really agree with casual's argument.

With the range of bows and crossbows, its trivial for a Ranger to stay 7-10 squares back, with his friends standing between the Ranger and the enemies. Craploads of damage or not, you're hard to get to. I've seen people play this way on multiple occasions.

 

[Nifft]

I've seen some good builds with Beastmaster + bow. Take Twin Strike and Predator Strike. Lots of flexibility there.

This also has the advantage of being a "flavor classic", and thereby passing certain DM's smell tests against cheese.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Klaus]

I've seen some good builds with Beastmaster + bow. Take Twin Strike and Predator Strike. Lots of flexibility there.

This also has the advantage of being a "flavor classic", and thereby passing certain DM's smell tests against cheese.

Cheers, -- N

Plus this (and Mark of Handling) open up the PP Vadalis Griffonmaster. Flying artillery!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

If you really don't focus your character around being good in two-weapon fighting as well as archery, I think you won't gain that much from the two weapon style. You actually would have to carry around two decent medium size/versatile melee weapons with a good enhancement and sport a good strength.

Of course, if you want to take toughness and defensive mobility anyway, you might get technically more out of it. But then there is still the chance that some good feat or some paragon path requires you to have the archery style.

 

[Obryn]

The Vadalis Griffonmaster looks cool, but when I was experimenting and statting one up, I realized that there are no Beast powers that give you bonuses for having a Griffon companion.

-O

 

[Klaus]

All of them have. It's called "fly speed".

 

[Cadfan]

Now, this sounds like good reasoning. Anyone have other opinions on the archer build?

The archery build is better.

If you intend to play an archery ranger, there are two styles of play you can go with in combat. You can fight on the front lines, or you can lurk in the back.

If you fight on the front lines, combat mobility is a good feat. Toughness is a good feat too, of course, but chances are you'll want both. The larger off hand weapon is pointless because you're already built to use arrows in melee reach. The paragon path qualification is useful.

If you don't fight on the front lines, combat mobility is pointless. Of course, toughness, while not pointless, certainly isn't that great. The larger off hand weapon is mostly pointless as well, because you've got better options to let you avoid melee and instead use arrows, which should rapidly become a vastly superior choice for you as your feats and magic items focus on improving your ranged attacks. The lack of paragon path qualification can hurt.

So I think that the front line archer wants the archery build, just because Toughness is the only good thing from the other build and that's available for a feat. The back line archer can pick either one, honestly, one way to get toughness and the other for better paragon path choices.

Personally I think the front line archer is the stronger and more useful style by far, so I lean towards the archery option.