D&D (2024) Ranger 2024 is a bigger joke than Ranger 2014:

Minigiant

Legend
Supporter
Treantmonk has been doing some very simple class optimization, breaking each down into a species-less basic build with no subclass and then a basic build with a subclass and comparing all the classes for single-target damage per round. He is not making only damage-dealing options, just realistic options. Which sometimes means choosing a defensive feat, even though he's not tracking defense, because realistically that's what he'd do if he were actually making a character sometimes. For instance he's not choosing Savage Attacker as his origin feat, even though it increases damage a bit, because it's not generally a good choice. He's done Monk, Rogue, Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, and now Ranger (and will get to the others with Warlock next).

Somewhat surprisingly he had found up until this point that all of them do roughly similar damage to each other. Barbarian was best in tier's 1 (levels 1-4) and 2 (levels 5-9), fighter was best in tiers 3 (levels 10-14) and 4 (levels 15-20), but overall they're all pretty competitive with each other and perfectly viable and all tracked relatively close to each other, which Treantmonk took as a good sign.

Until he got to the ranger. Which, so far with his simple builds, isn't holding up great beyond tier 1 and really doesn't work past tier 2. Not when he builds it focused on two-weapon fighting. Not when he changes the build to focus instead on ranged fighting. Not with adding a subclass. None of his simple tweaks are holding up, and yes this includes using spells to add to damage just like he did with the Paladin, though in a relatively simplistic way with Hail of Thorns.

Of course none of that is conclusive. Others will build a better version I am sure, and he's not trying to perfectly optimize everything. And maybe he made a mistake, or made a bad comparison, or made mistakes in some other builds he is comparing to. And maybe Ranger does better as a multi-target attacker and not a single-target attacker.

But I'd say it's not a good sign for the new ranger, so far.

The core issue is that treeantmonk assumes four combats and one short rest between long rest.

The Ranger since first edition has always been built off of two tropes in combat


1) Sustain Damage
2) Switch Hitting (Good at both range and melee)


When Your assumptions are based on having only a few short combats with no disruption in your combat ability every turn then the ranger is going to look bad.

The ranger was always built on having good but not the best damage every turn with little to no disruption of this.

Evidence of this is in fourth edition where the ranger was the best striker because it had these strongest at will attack in the game in Twin Strike. Other classes can burn powers and spells to do more damage but the twin striker will always eventually catch up.

In 2024, barbarian paladin, and every gish are built off of burst damage. Help them fight and campaigns with few encounters per long rest. Fighter and Ranger are both sustain damage switch hitters so they suffer in those kind of campaigns. The main difference is that fighters have some classes that can tilt them to burst damage if needed.

Ranger does not have a burst damage subclass anymore now that gloomstalker has been changed.
 

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Mistwell

Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
The core issue is that treeantmonk assumes four combats and one short rest between long rest.

The Ranger since first edition has always been built off of two tropes in combat


1) Sustain Damage
2) Switch Hitting (Good at both range and melee)


When Your assumptions are based on having only a few short combats with no disruption in your combat ability every turn then the ranger is going to look bad.

The ranger was always built on having good but not the best damage every turn with little to no disruption of this.

Fighters and Rogues are also built with those same assumptions and came out just fine. Fighter even ended up the most powerful in later tiers. His rogue build was as good at melee or ranged, he just assumed ranged because of their lower AC and hit points.
 

Minigiant

Legend
Supporter
Fighters and Rogues are also built with those same assumptions and came out just fine. Fighter even ended up the most powerful in later tiers. His rogue build was as good at melee or ranged, he just assumed ranged because of their lower AC and hit points.
The Rogue and Fighter scale with base attack or sneak attacks.

The Ranger scales with spellls.

I don't know his DPR calc due to it being a private patreon video RN. However does he change spells per level, stack spells, and burn spells for extra DPR? As well as switch hit?
 

Mistwell

Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
The Rogue and Fighter scale with base attack or sneak attacks.

The Ranger scales with spellls.

I don't know his DPR calc due to it being a private patreon video RN. However does he change spells per level, stack spells, and burn spells for extra DPR? As well as switch hit?

Yes, he changes spell levels and burns extra spells and stack spells as much as any other half caster he has tested (using about 50% of spell slots for damage). He does not switch hit o the ranged attacker given it's single target damage, and the ranged attacker actually did a bit more I think so it's just a longbow and spells for that. But he had a two weapon fighting one that switched stuff to use weapon masteries, along with spells. Just...none of it kept up with anyone else.
 

Minigiant

Legend
Supporter
Yes, he changes spell levels and burns extra spells and stack spells as much as any other half caster he has tested (using about 50% of spell slots for damage). He does not switch hit o the ranged attacker given it's single target damage, and the ranged attacker actually did a bit more I think so it's just a longbow and spells for that. But he had a two weapon fighting one that switched stuff to use weapon masteries, along with spells. Just...none of it kept up with anyone else.
Interesting.

Anyway. Doesn't matter to me. Ranger is not just DPS to me. It's reliability.

Melee fighters, barbarians, paladins suffer against very mobile enemies. And TM's Rogue heavily uses steady aim which also slows down the rogue. And ranged fighters are limited in melee.

The Ranger on other side can switch from LA to range without extreme dropping inspections and still can if they burn a lot of resources go into defense. Oh while keeping their skills up.

A TWF Ranger can now pull a flying enemy down to the floor without losing a lot of damage due to being able to swap to a longbow and casting ensnaring strike.
 


Yes, he changes spell levels and burns extra spells and stack spells as much as any other half caster he has tested (using about 50% of spell slots for damage). He does not switch hit o the ranged attacker given it's single target damage, and the ranged attacker actually did a bit more I think so it's just a longbow and spells for that. But he had a two weapon fighting one that switched stuff to use weapon masteries, along with spells. Just...none of it kept up with anyone else.
He explicitely tells us that his calculation is single target damage.

If the ranger was higher than the rogue or fighter or paladin or barbarian or even equal, we had a bigger problem.

One thing in the twf ranger: he chose not to get dual wielding feat, because hebassumed switching targets regularly with hunter's mark. Which usually a good idea. But if single target is your main concern, switching hunter's mark should be a non issue as multitarget damage is better dealt with area damage spells than single target attacks.
A good attack routine could be using hunter's mark and conjure volley in the first round and then attacking 4 times with hunter's mark. And whenever you have tonswitch targets, cast an area damage spell again.

I still think at some point. Level 20 latest, removing concentration from hunter's mark would feel great and seems balanced enough. If your cpastone relies on that spell, please allow it to be used all the time.
Maybe even removing concentration at level 13 will be exactly the bump the ranger needs... but maybe it will catapult it from bottom to top immediately. Which might go back to what I mentioned first, as it might amount to +4d6/4d10 single target damage on top of everything else.
 

Mistwell

Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
He explicitely tells us that his calculation is single target damage.

If the ranger was higher than the rogue or fighter or paladin or barbarian or even equal, we had a bigger problem.

One thing in the twf ranger: he chose not to get dual wielding feat, because hebassumed switching targets regularly with hunter's mark. Which usually a good idea. But if single target is your main concern, switching hunter's mark should be a non issue as multitarget damage is better dealt with area damage spells than single target attacks.
A good attack routine could be using hunter's mark and conjure volley in the first round and then attacking 4 times with hunter's mark. And whenever you have tonswitch targets, cast an area damage spell again.

I still think at some point. Level 20 latest, removing concentration from hunter's mark would feel great and seems balanced enough. If your cpastone relies on that spell, please allow it to be used all the time.
Maybe even removing concentration at level 13 will be exactly the bump the ranger needs... but maybe it will catapult it from bottom to top immediately. Which might go back to what I mentioned first, as it might amount to +4d6/4d10 single target damage on top of everything else.
I think it's because he is assuming the single target dies. And yes, it's single target. So if you disagree, maybe run the numbers with your method? They're so far behind according to the analysis that I still think they will be behind all the others. But maybe not.
 

I think it's because he is assuming the single target dies. And yes, it's single target. So if you disagree, maybe run the numbers with your method?
I don't disagree with him in general.
It is just a reminder that he makes certain assumption that may be true or not.
If you are fixated on damage numbers, do it yourself.

I just assume in fights against a single enemy (which does happen quite a bit in our games, after the minions are dead), you will have a few more bonus actions left to attack, because HM sticks on a target and you don't need your bonus action anymore, especially after level 13.
In a fight against a dragon with low level kobold minions, casting HM on the dragon on round 1 and then conjure volley on the kobolds might be a good start. After that, dual wield the dragon to death if you are a hunter or so.
Also, I think treantmonk forgot to cast magic weapon as a level 4 spell every fight. That should also increase the damage quite a bit. Especially when you remember that you can attack 3 times with your main hand.
They're so far behind according to the analysis that I still think they will be behind all the others. But maybe not.
The (base) rogue has no area of effect ability at all. So comparing the ranger to the rogue against a single target is not totally fair (as treantmonk mentions).


I am curious about full caster (especially bard) sustained single target and area damage. If the ranger in the end lies between the bard and the rogue, goal achieved.

Just a reminder: I think at least the capstone needs to remove concentration from HM, so it becomes a real capstone ability.
 

Ok. Lets do some numbers.

I won't get defensive duellist, if my only concern is doing damage in tier 3. I will recast HM if it is broken.

Stats at level 1:
Dex 17
Wis 14
Con 14
Str 12

Up to level 3, same as treantmonk.

Level 4:
An extra 2d6+4 with 0.6 accuracy. If it hits, it allows carrying advantage from vex over to the next round. So about 7.5 damage per round used. Lets assume BA attack every other round. +3.5 damage. (about 19 dpr)

That +3.5 damage will stay on top of Treant monk's numbers till level 8 where it increases to about +4.

Edit. Magic weapon comes into play at level 5.

On level 9, I'll cast magic weapon with level 2 slots for +1/+1. With 1 hour no concentration duration, I'd assume it is up at least half the time on the main weapon.
Probably amounts to +2 DPR if extra accuracy is considered.

Edit: you can already cast it at level 3 and add +2/+2 to damage.

On level 13 losing HM is no concern anymore. Also MW is now +2/+2 in half the fights, +1/+1 in the others.

(edit: you probably have mw up all the time at +2/+2)

So I guess your hunter's mark damage is usable every round, accuracy goes up to 0.7, so that extra attack alone does 2d6+7 damage per round. I'd assume one every turn except for the first.
So for a 4 round fight it is about +7.5 dpr over treantmonks calculations from this attack alone. Then add in extra accuracy for the 2 other main hand attacks, which is probably +4 damage (total +10.5) This is for half the fights. For the others I assume it is about +2 damage for normal attacks, +6.5 damage for the BA attack (+8.5). On average this is a total of +9.5 over his calculations.

For level 20 the extra attack does 2 more damage on a hit. With 0.7 accuracy (magic weapon is +2/2 for all attacks now, maybe +1 for the off hand) and advantage, that is 1.8 damage more than before. So about 9.5 extra damage. Probably about +5 damage for the other attacks. So about +14.5, probably even 15 damage over treantmonks calculations.

This assumes 4 round fights against a single big target like a dragon etc. And that the extra attack is the one without vex. And I didn't even think to facor in that the first attack would have extra accuracy if the vex attack hits.

Actually I think, this time treantmonk was not really trying to maximise dpr.

For the optimized build, I'll probably not go the fey wanderer route nor the beastmaster route as I have not enough bonus actions to spare.
I'll probably just use the hunter and am happy, that I can add +1d8 damage every turn. (+4.5 damage) and some defenses.

Overall I guess the hunter ranger will sit comfortably at about 65 DPR just using hunter's mark and magic weapon.

Edit: I did an error... Magic weapon is level 2. So beginnng level 9 the ranger should have +2/+2 most of the time.
 
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