Best feats for a ranged Hunter Ranger / Assassin mc

[Spacehamster]

Sharpshooter + alert should be the most important feats you can get for this right?
Alert should let you attack with advantage the first round most fights from the assassin level 3 feature
which also helps to get more crits even when not surprising the enemy + helps mitigate the
-5 / + 10 from sharpshooter.

Is there any other feats that are really good for the Hunter/Assassin? Were thinking mobile or
skulker would fit the bill.

[Mors]

It is not a feat, but the best thing you could do is take 2 lvls of fighter for the Action Surge for one big Assasinate round.

Other than that, you need crossbow expert for attacking one more time with a hand crossbow. Along with Sharpshooter and Alert are the thre most important feats to take, as you also say.

After you max your Dex, you can also consider Magic Initiate and take Hex from Warlock and some cantrips of your choice.

Skulker is great until you have your extra attack. This means that it is not suitable for your build, since I take for granted that you will take extra attack, from ranger 5 most probably, unless you mc into fighter 5.

[Spacehamster]

It is not a feat, but the best thing you could do is take 2 lvls of fighter for the Action Surge for one big Assasinate round.

Other than that, you need crossbow expert for attacking one more time with a hand crossbow. Along with Sharpshooter and Alert are the thre most important feats to take, as you also say.

After you max your Dex, you can also consider Magic Initiate and take Hex from Warlock and some cantrips of your choice.

Skulker is great until you have your extra attack. This means that it is not suitable for your build, since I take for granted that you will take extra attack, from ranger 5 most probably, unless you mc into fighter 5.

He is not a crossbow user and bonus action already has too much competition(moving hunters mark and cunning action) so it would be a wasted feat mostly plus I have always had a distaste for hand crossbows, longbow any day of the week, he is a sniper after all not a close quarters shooter. :) what does extra attack have to do with making skulker worse, it's a stealth and scouting improving feat? At least it's the "no disadvantage on perception and attacks in low light situations" that I'm after. :)

Were thinking 2 fighter levels at first but don't really fit the characters personality. :)

[djreynolds]

Maybe observant. Pretend you are so focused on hiding and picking your shot, that you can't actively perceive stuff, but your passive perception is so high so you know that there's a rat about to chew on your leg and ruin your shot and you can kick him away or there is a wizard trying to divine your location because they heard you were in town and were going to kill her boss.

Otherwise, I might skip sharpshooter when you are trying to place that big shot or take martial adept for precision, to make sure that shot lands and the -5 of sharpshooter doesn't gimp it and even magic initiate so you can cast bless on yourself, sorry hunter's mark but I must land this shot.

[Mors]

Sharpshooter is mandatory for ignoring partial cover, I assume that it will not be used for damage when assasinating.

Fair enough, crossbow expert is still a damage boost but you can live without if you prefer longbows.

The second benefit of Skulker is more useful when you have only one attack per round. If you have more, you will almost certainly hit the enemy at least once, so your position will be revealed. The other benefits are fine but worth less than an ASI.

Fighter is a huge assasinate damage boost and it is one of the most neutral classes concept-wise, it is a real shame to ignore him. You can even roleplay that you never left your ranger class, you just put emphasis on honing your martial skils. I would probably aim in something like Assasin Rogue 3 / Hunter Ranger 5 / Fighter 2 for your first 10 lvls, poaching assasinate frm rogue, extra attack from ranger and action surge from fighter. Fighter can also come even sooner if you favor more the action surge assasinate burst from the more consistent extra attack.

[EvilAnagram]

Remember that Crossbow Expert lets you make ranged attacks up close.

Alert is probably more important than Sharpshooter because of your Assassin feature, but you're right about them being the most important.


Fighter is a huge assasinate damage boost

How so? You only get the one critical hit, don't you?

[Mors]

How so? You only get the one critical hit, don't you?

ASSASSINATE
Starting at 3rd levei, you are at your deadliest when you
get the drop on your enemies. Vou have advantage on
attack rolls against any creature that hasn't taken a turn
in the combat yet. In addition, any hit you score against
a creature that is surprised is a criticai hit.

According to assasinate description, any hit you make during the assasinate round is a critical hit. So in order to maximise the assasinate damage you need to a lot of attacks + action surge + load your attack with dices. A rogue 3 / fighter 2 with Action surge makes 2 critical hits with action surge (3 with crossbow expert), a rogue 3 / fighter 5 makes 4 critical hits with action surge (5 with crossbow expert). In addition, a battlemaster fighter can add d8 with maneuvers that get doubled in every attack, as long as he has superiority points. A typical fighter at 5 lvls will have 4 s.p., which means + 8d8 extra damage assuming every hit connects. And of course sneak attack gets doubled too (this only adds to the first attack that hits though). Ranger gives a d8 from collosus slayer that gets doubled as well as hunter's mark. A melee assasin can take lvls in paladin in order to make double-diced divine smites.

[EvilAnagram]

Fair enough. It seems pretty damn strong.

[Shining Wrath]

How common are magic items? With Medium Armor Master you can get up to AC 18 with half plate, improving slightly over the 17 with studded leather, and not lose stealth; but if there's a decent chance for finding magical half plate in your campaign, MAM might be worth the investment.

[Mors]

Fair enough. It seems pretty damn strong.

As far as I know, it is the single strongest combination you can do in the game for achieving maximum single-target damage in a round. It is balanced by being situational and only be able to be used once per battle at most.

[Spacehamster]

How common are magic items? With Medium Armor Master you can get up to AC 18 with half plate, improving slightly over the 17 with studded leather, and not lose stealth; but if there's a decent chance for finding magical half plate in your campaign, MAM might be worth the investment.

Doubt 1 AC will make that much of a difference when you are so mobile thanks to wood elf + cunning action + possibly mobile feat later. :)

[coredump]

I disagree with most of the advice here...

You need your stat bumps. You need to get Dex to 20, and the more you MC, the longer that takes, and usually the fewer ASI you get.

First, you need to be realistic about Assassinate. All going first does is give you advantage, while nice... having a really high attk bonus is also good, and helps with every attack, every round.
The auto-crits are only if you go first *and* have surprise. DMs differ, but in my experience, getting surprise is fairly rare. (Adventurers are using the ones invading, the ones moving toward the set positions....harder to surprise someone that way.)

Now, if your DM lets you get Surprise on a regular basis, then cool. BUt IME its a nice perq, but nothing to be relied upon.
Also, for the times you do get to 'set up' and get the drop on someone, ask if your preparedness could give you advantage on the init roll.

Anyway.... Alert is nice, but I would want to get to 20 Dex first. Sharpshooter is the only 'required' feat. The range and lack of cover is worth a lot, and when you can use the -5/+10 its a nice bonus.

My advice is Ranger5/Rogue5, in however you choose, a case can be made for just about any order. I want VHuman, so at this point I had 20 Dex and Sharpshooter, as a wood elf, you will still have Dex 18.

At this point, there are options. Staying pure rogue is okay. I think I will go Battlemaster 3, then finish rogue. But you really want your next ASI.... so likely head to Rogue 8, then decide.

But skip Alert until your Dex is 20.... see if you can track down a Weapon of Warning, or something else that gives a boost to init rolls.

[tieren]

Sharpshooter + alert should be the most important feats you can get for this right?
Alert should let you attack with advantage the first round most fights from the assassin level 3 feature
which also helps to get more crits even when not surprising the enemy + helps mitigate the
-5 / + 10 from sharpshooter.

Is there any other feats that are really good for the Hunter/Assassin? Were thinking mobile or
skulker would fit the bill.

If you don't want to MC into fighter for the BM manuevers you could take the martial adept feat to get precision shot for when it is really important you not miss,

[Spacehamster]

I disagree with most of the advice here...

You need your stat bumps. You need to get Dex to 20, and the more you MC, the longer that takes, and usually the fewer ASI you get.

First, you need to be realistic about Assassinate. All going first does is give you advantage, while nice... having a really high attk bonus is also good, and helps with every attack, every round.
The auto-crits are only if you go first *and* have surprise. DMs differ, but in my experience, getting surprise is fairly rare. (Adventurers are using the ones invading, the ones moving toward the set positions....harder to surprise someone that way.)

Now, if your DM lets you get Surprise on a regular basis, then cool. BUt IME its a nice perq, but nothing to be relied upon.
Also, for the times you do get to 'set up' and get the drop on someone, ask if your preparedness could give you advantage on the init roll.

Anyway.... Alert is nice, but I would want to get to 20 Dex first. Sharpshooter is the only 'required' feat. The range and lack of cover is worth a lot, and when you can use the -5/+10 its a nice bonus.

My advice is Ranger5/Rogue5, in however you choose, a case can be made for just about any order. I want VHuman, so at this point I had 20 Dex and Sharpshooter, as a wood elf, you will still have Dex 18.

At this point, there are options. Staying pure rogue is okay. I think I will go Battlemaster 3, then finish rogue. But you really want your next ASI.... so likely head to Rogue 8, then decide.

But skip Alert until your Dex is 20.... see if you can track down a Weapon of Warning, or something else that gives a boost to init rolls.

Well his stats are 16/20/18/16/18/14 so no need for stat rises. ^.^

[Corran]

From a quick look, I dont think I saw it being suggested, and I am surprised. You need the feat lucky.

Lucky and alert are the go-to feats for any (or at least most) assassins. It also works well with the SS aspect of your build, potentially turning misses into big hits. Anyway, especially if you are planning on using SS on your surprise hits, you should really invest on this feat.

ps: Remember, assassinate relies heavily on initiative. Being able to reroll a bad initiative roll with lucky can make a difference. Generally it is a good feat for anyone. It is better for assassins or GWM/SS. It is even better for assassins who are also GWM/SS.

[djreynolds]

Sniper or machine gun?

Sniper is a one shot man/woman

Every level not rogue, you SA isn't increasing. That's big.

Imagine a rogue 17/ BM 3. He's got archery style +2, precision 1d6 or 1d8 to hit, and 9d6 for SA. He is a one shot deal, but with assassinate it could be auto-crit. That's big damage. Basically 9d6 x2, just sneak attack damage

Is that extra attack needed? Its just minus 1d6 for that extra attack. But if you miss that first shot, you may still sneak attack but you may not be able to apply assassinate as that arrow that just whizzed by putting everyone on their toes.

I like ranger, but you may not need him. Hunter's mark extra 1d6 is at the cost of possibly acquiring death strike. This costs 17 levels of rogue, but its 9d6 x4, right? Double damage. Double the auto crit

I know the builds that utilize the ranger's volley, fighter's action surge, and assassinate and that, take till level 16 to come online.

A valor bard can get two attack and swift quiver as well by level 9. Both have dex and chr. Not bad.

[Spacehamster]

Sniper or machine gun?

Sniper is a one shot man/woman

Every level not rogue, you SA isn't increasing. That's big.

Imagine a rogue 17/ BM 3. He's got archery style +2, precision 1d6 or 1d8 to hit, and 9d6 for SA. He is a one shot deal, but with assassinate it could be auto-crit. That's big damage. Basically 9d6 x2, just sneak attack damage

Is that extra attack needed? Its just minus 1d6 for that extra attack. But if you miss that first shot, you may still sneak attack but you may not be able to apply assassinate as that arrow that just whizzed by putting everyone on their toes.

I like ranger, but you may not need him. Hunter's mark extra 1d6 is at the cost of possibly acquiring death strike. This costs 17 levels of rogue, but its 9d6 x4, right? Double damage. Double the auto crit

I know the builds that utilize the ranger's volley, fighter's action surge, and assassinate and that, take till level 16 to come online.

A valor bard can get two attack and swift quiver as well by level 9. Both have dex and chr. Not bad.

Well first off I am an multiclass fetishist and I think getting 1(potentially 2 with horde breaker) auto crits outweighs 2 sneak attack die, and level 17 is far off anyways while the ranger assassin comes online decently early, level 8 you got both sub classes and level 9 you can choose alert to go fully online. :)

Also like the idea at level 5 ranger to get the +10 stealth to the entire party for an hour spell is pretty neat. :)

[djreynolds]

Well first off I am an multiclass fetishist and I think getting 1(potentially 2 with horde breaker) auto crits outweighs 2 sneak attack die, and level 17 is far off anyways while the ranger assassin comes online decently early, level 8 you got both sub classes and level 9 you can choose alert to go fully online. :)

Also like the idea at level 5 ranger to get the +10 stealth to the entire party for an hour spell is pretty neat. :)

I like your builds, they are always very cool.

But check out the fighter scout archetype from UA. Awesome, especially for what you want. The parry maneuver, not the same as the BMs, lets you add your superiority die to your AC and if they still hit you take half damage. And you get precision and then you can like add to your skill checks. But the parry maneuver is awesome, IMO, because you can still kill the old fashioned way, slice the throat and if you get caught can just fight your way out. So dump the battle master, and grab scout archetype for 3 levels, way better investment and at 3rd level you get 3 extra skills.