Building a Hunter with a bow

[13ones]

Evening folks

So what I'm looking to do is pretty simple.

I know the Outflank and melee Hunter characters are really strong, I've seen as much in a few games I've both GMd and played. [Pre nerf Primal Companion Hunter was TERRIFYING] but I'm looking for a little something different. A ranged build. A character relying more on ranged combat and smart positioning than charging around the map and flanking with a giant beast. My GM friends are catching on to it and really throwing a lot of awkward maps with poor charge lanes around.

So where do I even start with this? Do I build basically a ranger with a soup'd up animal companion? Or would going a ranger just be flat out better?

[Psyren]

Yes, this is possible to optimize. Your main concern are the Teamwork feats - as you noted, there aren't many that are useful for a ranged/melee combination. I thus recommend the Divine Hunter archetype, which trades them for a Cleric Domain - these give you useful domain powers (e.g. War[Tactics] or Animal[Feather]) as well as adding the domain spells to your spells known for free.

From there you go with standard archery optimization (e.g. Rapid Shot, Manyshot, Deadly Aim etc.) as well as animal companion optimization (Evolved Companion, Distant Spell Link.) Also, don't forget that Hunters can teach their animal companions Skirmisher tricks. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/ranger/archetypes/paizo---ranger-archetypes/skirmisher) Many won't apply to your companion but there are some gems there like Tangling Attack and Surprise Shift.

[Florian]

You actually can do funny things with a Hunter besides going tag-team melee.

A rather amusing variant can be Monk (Zen Archer) 3/Hunter (Divine Hunter) 2+ with the feats Expanded Studies and Boon Companion.

Beides reducing the class to be reliant on WIS > STR/CON > DEX > rest and giving a slew of bonus feats, it´ll also allow to switch between regular archery and using spells for control and still stay effective.

[Ssalarn]

When the Hunter first came out, I played around with some mid-op ranged builds. This was one of the first I put together-




Race: Human
Starting stats: STR 14 DEX 18 CON 10 INT 10 WIS 14 CHA 10
Starting Trained Skills: Handle Animal, Knowledge (Nature), Perception, Spellcraft, Stealth, Survival
Main Weapon: Composite Longbow
Melee Weapon: Glaive-Guisarme
Feats:
1) Point-Blank Shot
Human 1) Weapon Focus (Longbow)
Bonus 2) Precise Shot
3) Rapid Shot
Bonus 3) Intercept Charge
5) Broken Wing Gambit
Bonus 6) Wounded Paw Gambit
7) Deadly Aim
9) Manyshot
Bonus 9) Coordinated Shot
11) Clustered Shots
Bonus 12) Enfilading Fire
13) Snap Shot
15) Improved Snap Shot
Bonus 15) Improved Spell Sharing
17) Greater Snap Shot
Bonus 18) Distracting Charge
My Animal Focii: Mouse and/or Tiger, as appropriate. If there's a lot of mobile enemies, I may go with Bear to enhance my survivability.
Pet: Probably Big Cat
Pet Tricks (in order taken): attack, attack, come, defend, down, guard, heel, tangling attack (skirmisher), menace, aiding attack (skirmisher), maneuver (bull rush), track, hateful attack (skirmisher), detect, rattling strike (skirmisher), distracting attack (skirmisher)
Pet Focii: Probably Bull and Tiger, though again, if I'm running into enemies with a lot of AoE attacks I'll probably use Mouse until the AnC gets Evasion on their own.

So you cover all the must-have archery feats, your WIS scales enough to ensure you've always got the appropriate spells available to you, and your cat acts as a mobile buffer/debuffer and damage machine, keeping you as open as possible so you can continue to attack unhindered. Gravity bow is obviously a staple spell. I don't think it's quite as deadly as the melee version, but it's got the full archery spread with enough tricks to keep the to-hit very viable, and Ranger spells on a 3/4 caster chassis means that you've got a lot of great options for customizing how you keep your damage up.

[Buenaventura]

I'm using something similar at the moment, but with "Eye for talent" for a tiger with INT 4 at the start, and cat friend as a trait to have a free bonus to stealth (don't have the English name for the talent I get at hand). I'll take the weapon focus later, when I'd need it for a talent in your list, and shift the other talents. It's a Rise of the Runelords campaign, so I won't get to level 20 anyway.

About your pet trick selection:
Why hateful attack? Hunter doesn't have favored enemies, pet also doesn't have them, so it seems useless to me.
Why bull rush? Without the talent the pet will get AoO against it, which I'd rather avoid when possible.

[Pugwampy]

I think you can make a better archer using the fighter class. You will have more feats to play with .

There are great options in the advanced players guide for archers .

[Buenaventura]

Yeah, but we had that already (fighter built for archery, died with the group in a random encountered dragons breath).
And I wanted a ranged class that can heal a little bit, since we were missing that (rest is sorcerer who wants to be dragon disciple, black sword magus and bloodrager) ... so, the choices were limited. ;-) Was torn between witch and hunter, more or less.

[Florian]

With that party? Go Witch!

[Buenaventura]

Too late, level 2 already and exploring the smuggler tunnels below the glas works.
Maybe in the next group after we die to something else, last time it was Ma Graul. ;-)

Why a witch? Maybe I don't get their 'thing', didn't really click for me. Maybe because I was reading too much about orc witch doctor and trying to figure out how to fit an half orc into a group with an aasimar, and then dropped the idea of a witch completely. Can they actually heal, or just use the cauldron hex to craft healing potions?

[Ssalarn]

I'm using something similar at the moment, but with "Eye for talent" for a tiger with INT 4 at the start, and cat friend as a trait to have a free bonus to stealth (don't have the English name for the talent I get at hand). I'll take the weapon focus later, when I'd need it for a talent in your list, and shift the other talents. It's a Rise of the Runelords campaign, so I won't get to level 20 anyway.

About your pet trick selection:
Why hateful attack? Hunter doesn't have favored enemies, pet also doesn't have them, so it seems useless to me.
Why bull rush? Without the talent the pet will get AoO against it, which I'd rather avoid when possible.


Gonna be honest, not entirely sure what I was thinking when I selected Hateful Attack... Maybe I was thinking of some kind of shenanigans with hunter's howl (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advancedPlayersGuide/spells/hunterSHowl.html#hunter's-howl)?

For combat maneuvers in general- Dirty Fighting (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/dirty-fighting-combat) is an awesome feat for an animal companion who's bumped their Int to at least 3, since it lets them act as though they have Dex 13, Int 13, Combat Expertise, and Improved Unarmed Strike for the purposes of meeting the prerequisites of the various improved combat maneuver feats, as well as feats that require those improved combat maneuver feats as prerequisites. Even without the free "qualify as if" perks, it opens up combat maneuvers in general if your pet can flank up with an ally, which is usually just good tactics.

[Florian]

Why a witch? Maybe I don't get their 'thing', didn't really click for me. Maybe because I was reading too much about orc witch doctor and trying to figure out how to fit an half orc into a group with an aasimar, and then dropped the idea of a witch completely. Can they actually heal, or just use the cauldron hex to craft healing potions?

Besides having native access to a lot of cleric spells, they have an archetype that swaps out one Hex for the channel energy class feature. That makes healing easy as pie with that class.