NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Asisreo" data-source="post: 8122904" data-attributes="member: 7019027">I was assuming a heavy crossbow with archery fighting style, but if we want to maximize damage at absolutely all costs for the Ranger, I'll use the Two-Weapon Fighting Style. The Ranger himself now does 2d6+8 damage, which turns into 15. 15+14.5 is 29.5 damage, still outdamaging the strength Ranger. Even better, if they fail the save, they do 26 damage, which is still stronger than the Sword and Board Ranger. They do contribute damage and, likely, contributes an extra HP pool that enemies will use their actions on to down them. If they don't, great, keep hitting them with your beast. If they do, the beast will take the damage and only minimally reduce the DPR of the entire team. For instance, if the heavy crossbow Ranger (the first one I used), had their Wolf Spider setup doing 24 damage in a round and the enemy decides to target the Wolf Spider. They've done 20 damage that could've hit the wizard or cleric or Paladin. If they down them, oh no! Now the Ranger is doing 15 damage now without HM. They've used up likely a whole turn to reduce the DPR of the entire party by 9. If they instead focused their efforts on the Ranger himself, the Paladin, the Wizard, or the Cleric, he could have reduced the DPR by a whole 20-30 damage a round. Answer: Because the enemy may also have good Ranged Attacks. At this level, most enemies should have decent ranged options that at least threaten the squishier backliners. A party doesn't even need good ranged options. Even if they are doing much more damage using Melee attacks, the safety of the Ranged Attacks make using lesser-damage Ranged Attacks much more efficient. If your party is extremely melee-dependent, one of them can prone them to give everyone advantage on the enemy again. Also, the Ranger doesn't get Entangle. Not selling anything to you since you are so adamant about the beastmaster even though its clear you probably never played one to their full potential. I'm selling it to those people that are on the fence and are seriously considering playing it but don't want to be the butt of jokes by a couple of internet commentors. These points have never been carefully scrutinized and I'm willing to do so. I've done the math and the Beastmaster's damage regularly outdamages the majority of Ranger builds repeatedly. Getting the Help Action is not the best part of a beastmaster. They really don't need it to be good at all, its just a nice bonus. Even if your Sword and Board Ranger actually did more damage than the Wolf Spider TWF Ranger (which it doesn't even if the pass the save), they still get an extra pool of HP and the means to spread their damage across 2 bodies in separate locations. So no, Find Familiar is not a replacement for a beastmaster's companion, and most other Rangers do not have better damage than the Beastmaster. Also, I grabbed Magic Initiate to use Sanctuary, so its not illegal.</blockquote>

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