ranger monster slayer or gloom stalker?

[Cool Hand]

I'm waiting to do a second play-through until we get them

[Thrones]

I am really enjoying the 5 Gloom Stalker / 4 Assassin / 3 Battle Master Archer build. High initiative, advantage on all attacks if going first, manoeuvres, garantueed crits on surprise rounds, incredible burst damage, potentially 8 attacks on round 1. :3

[Panda]

Depends on if you want multiclass or not.
1) Meta 6/4/2 or 5/4/3 with bard/rogue or fighter - gloomstalker.
2) Off Meta better aoe damage - pure hunter, black hole + valley shot = better aoe damage which previous one can still do via special arrows, but exponentially he will be stopped at 5+ enemies cause multiple target arrows cap at 4.

[FunkyMonkey]

Ranger / Rogue pretty much of any combo is one of the strongest characters in the game. Add some Fighter levels if you want, too. My preference is going Gloom stalker 8 / Assassin 4, I like Gloom stalker level 7 feature and I like Ranger spells like Spike growth. Another good one could be Hunter 5 / Thief 7 for more variety.

[Moonbane]

I think its hard to beat the flexibility of a ranged college of swords build. Especially since it isnt dependent on opener suprise round. And is capable of serving as party face as well, especially useful with the player character getting nearly every single skill check thrown their way.
The ranged CoS bard loves helmet of arcane acuity as with a single arrow of many targets they could push their next control spell dc quite high. Which you can bonus action cast with band of the mystic scoundrel.

Not to forget that they can handle lockpicking with expertise too.

[Panda]

Publicado originalmente por Moonbane:

I think its hard to beat the flexibility of a ranged college of swords build. Especially since it isnt dependent on opener suprise round. And is capable of serving as party face as well, especially useful with the player character getting nearly every single skill check thrown their way.
The ranged CoS bard loves helmet of arcane acuity as with a single arrow of many targets they could push their next control spell dc quite high. Which you can bonus action cast with band of the mystic scoundrel.

Not to forget that they can handle lockpicking with expertise too.

Quite a different damage and purposes:
1) Ranged bard is nice, but you have to lvl up charisma unless you are not somehow a party face as a bard - so less damage comparing with ranger or fighter.
2) No free +10% accuracy as a fighting style.
3) Unless we do care about bugged shot aka spend 1 note to shoot the same target twice - bard has less damage than fighter/ranger with titanic bow. (You can’t even use longbow unless race feature/multiclass or gloves, but 1d6 gloves are just better than regular +2, no heavy crossbows either, check what proficiency gives you if you want to use a weapon without it)
4) End game fighter with x6+ hits with sharpshooter and maxed STR and AGI is quite hard to beat, especially since he can also use manoeuvres aka free 1d10 damage + status effect.
Same with black hole + volley spam shot for ranger, it’s stupidly powerful and bard can’t do the same.
So less single target damage than fighter, less aoe damage than ranger.

Lockpicking is fine though, but I prefer just Knock to handle it better.

[Moonbane]

Publicado originalmente por Panda:

Publicado originalmente por Moonbane:

I think its hard to beat the flexibility of a ranged college of swords build. Especially since it isnt dependent on opener suprise round. And is capable of serving as party face as well, especially useful with the player character getting nearly every single skill check thrown their way.
The ranged CoS bard loves helmet of arcane acuity as with a single arrow of many targets they could push their next control spell dc quite high. Which you can bonus action cast with band of the mystic scoundrel.

Not to forget that they can handle lockpicking with expertise too.

Quite a different damage and purposes:
1) Ranged bard is nice, but you have to lvl up charisma unless you are not somehow a party face as a bard - so less damage comparing with ranger or fighter.
2) No free +10% accuracy as a fighting style.
3) Unless we do care about bugged shot aka spend 1 note to shoot the same target twice - bard has less damage than fighter/ranger with titanic bow. (You can’t even use longbow unless race feature/multiclass or gloves, but 1d6 gloves are just better then regular +2)
4) End game fighter with x6+ hits with sharpshooter and maxed STR and AGI is quite hard to beat, especially since he can also use manoeuvres aka free 1d10 damage + status effect.
Same with black hole + volley spam shot for ranger, it’s stupidly powerful and bard can’t do the same

Lockpicking is fine though, but I prefer just Knock to handle it better.

I think you misunderstood ranged bards. College of Swords bards relies on titanstring bow and a strenght booster item so that they can focus their stats for dex and cha. The standard build is 10 CoS and 2 fighter. Once hitting lvl 7, you respec to fighter as first level for con prof and archery, and taking 1 more fighter level for action surge before continuing with sword bard. Ranged Slashing Flourish lets you hit two targets or the same target twice. Double it with extra attack. Then one time more with action surge.
https://gamestegy.com/post/bg3/1543/swords-bard-build

Also, knock doesnt work on the strongest locks.

And Fighters use limited superiority dice too, nothing different from note resources. But yes, eldritch knight bowusers is considered the strongest, but ONLY if they obsessively collect special arrows.

[Panda]

Publicado originalmente por Moonbane:

Publicado originalmente por Panda:

Quite a different damage and purposes:
1) Ranged bard is nice, but you have to lvl up charisma unless you are not somehow a party face as a bard - so less damage comparing with ranger or fighter.
2) No free +10% accuracy as a fighting style.
3) Unless we do care about bugged shot aka spend 1 note to shoot the same target twice - bard has less damage than fighter/ranger with titanic bow. (You can’t even use longbow unless race feature/multiclass or gloves, but 1d6 gloves are just better then regular +2)
4) End game fighter with x6+ hits with sharpshooter and maxed STR and AGI is quite hard to beat, especially since he can also use manoeuvres aka free 1d10 damage + status effect.
Same with black hole + volley spam shot for ranger, it’s stupidly powerful and bard can’t do the same

Lockpicking is fine though, but I prefer just Knock to handle it better.

I think you misunderstood ranged bards. College of Swords bards relies on titanstring bow and a strenght booster item so that they can focus their stats for dex and cha. The standard build is 10 CoS and 2 fighter. Once hitting lvl 7, you respec to fighter as first level for con prof and archery, and taking 1 more fighter level for action surge before continuing with sword bard. Ranged Slashing Flourish lets you hit two targets or the same target twice. Double it with extra attack. Then one time more with action surge.
https://gamestegy.com/post/bg3/1543/swords-bard-build

Also, knock doesnt work on the strongest locks.

This attack is bugged (confirmed since patch 3 I guess, they fixed that in honour mode in patch 6 and broke again with patch 7) and shouldn’t work like that, so yes you can hit 2 different targets, so I’ll skip the part with double hitting single target (it’s like an old warlock with x3 melee attacks, he’s patched at least, just because you are temporarily bugged shouldn’t be a reason to be stronger via bugs), still less damage vs solo target, less damage vs aoe. (Yes he’s also full spellcaster, but assuming that we are talking about physical bard I’ll skip this argument too)

About titanic bard option - if you are using elixir, I don’t understand what’s the purpose to play bard so, bard like a paladin is a “greed” class, he needs both charisma and dex, adding elixir will solve poor str problem, but I don’t see any reason why not just switch to ranger, you will have much more damage, better chance to hit, better overall damage since you have hunter’s mark, (from the start btw, no respec, no “I have no second attack” for the whole level + bloodlust elixir) exponentially more damage vs larger groups since valley shot doesn’t care how many targets in the HUGE radius are.

About hardest locks - you have only one optional location where you can use it, it’s not a like you “have to” have even proficiency to open them, ask lvl 11 rogue (hireling ofc) to crack it, he can’t even fail in end game 31+ dex roll thief set.