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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FrogReaver" data-source="post: 7523093" data-attributes="member: 6795602">I'm good with exploring that question, though I don't think my melee heavy and ranged heavy designations are really all that different of a way of analyzing the issue.  I would disagree with that take.  From level 1-4 a dual wielding ranger without hunters mark does better damage than a longbow ranger using hunter's mark.From levels 5-10 the longbow ranger WITH hunters mark will just slightly edge out the Dual Wield ranger not using hunters mark.  Or perhaps a more apt comparison.  The Sword and Board ranger with the +2 damage fighting style that uses hunter's mark.  For low levels the difference is 1d8+1d6+5 vs 1d8+1d6+3.  At level 5 it becomes 2d8+2d6+12 vs 2d8+2d6+8.  Archery style will bring things a little closer, but the sword and shield fighter still has an edge on damage (although not on uptime with hunter's mark).  Most importantly, despite the slight differences in damage output all these builds I'm describing are doing nearly the same damage as each other and have the same initiative and the normal difference of a shield in AC.  The only thing the ranged Ranger has over the melee Ranger comes down to whether you view ranged as being inherently better than melee and I don't have that view.  In fact I would argue that in a 5 person party you would want 3 melee and 2 ranged preferably over 2 melee and 3 ranged.  (one would be melee heavy and the other ranged heavy as per my earlier description).  Melee characters tend to take the brunt of the damage, spreading that damage over 3 melee characters is much preferable to spreading it over 2.Thanks, I actually think it puts melee slightly on top, but I'll settle for my argument causing you to reevalute just how much better you think ranged is than melee.  That's probably the most important thing that can come of this conversation.  I can agree with that, though the key to melee playing as I describe is to spread out some too but to stay within at least about 30 ft of your nearest melee ally.  Maybe even 15-20ft would be more advisable.  Melee Characters also should spread the enemies out in different levels.  Once the first enemy and PC melee engage the other melee PC's should typically look for targets beyond his position that are still within that movement of him.  I don't see ranged characters necessarily spreading out much more than I'm describing melee characters doing above, though it is possible for them to do, I'm not sure that is actually more optimized (barring them fighting a dragon or some other enemy known to be able to produce large AOE's)One added bonus in AOE context is melee characters have enemies intermixed with them making it harder to land an aoe like fireball on them without hitting the enemies allies.  That's my reasoning on AOE attacks.</blockquote>

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