Best combat maneuvers? (Battle master)

[bc56]

I'm planning on playing a ranged battle master fighter. What are some of the best combat maneuvers to take?

I currently have Trip Attack and Disarming Strike.

[Specter]

Precision Strike is too good to pass.

For Disarming, you want to make sure one of your friends picks thecweapon or kicks it away, otherwise it's kinda moot.

[trctelles]

Trip attack is not that great for archers, you will be giving yourself disadvantage to attack the prone target. If your party has more melee characters, it can be useful for control, but for you, it's bad.

Precision attack is good if you have Sharpshooter too. With Archery fighting style + this, you completely negate the -5 most of the time you use it.

Parry is great for DEX fighters, it help negating a lot of damage.

Disarming attack is good only if you have an ally that can kick the weapon away, otherwise, it's kinda meh, it will only add the damage.

Menacing attack is great for ranged. If they fail the WIS save, you get to kite them quite effectively.

Commander's strike is good if you have a Paladin or a Rogue that deal more damage than you in a single attack (remember that you forgo ONE attack, so this is better after lvl 5, you use your bonus action AND the ally use their reaction). If you don't have one of these in your party, it's a bad manuever.

[Saggo]

Trip attack is not that great for archers, you will be giving yourself disadvantage to attack the prone target. If your party has more melee characters, it can be useful for control, but for you, it's bad.

A ranged Battlemaster can use Trip Attack to knock flyers out of the sky. A unique trick not many can do, making it a great choice for archers.

[UnderwaterAir]

Commander's Strike.
If you have a rogue or another big hitter. This is easily one of the best.

Feinting Attack.
At will advantage on attack is also huge.

Precision Attack.
Again, action economy is important in DND combat. This makes it easier to get hits. If it's a higher level target and you've noticed that you've had issues hitting it use this over Feinting. If you multiclass Rogue then Feinting might be better a lot of the times.

Riposte.
I only don't like this because it requires enemy action to miss on you. That said, giving you attack on enemy turn is amazing. How good is it? If you look through the items there is only one item that comes to mind that would give you a similar ability. And that is the Sword of Answering. A legendary weapon that doesn't even guarantee you'll be able to equip it if you find it. This also increases economy for you by possibly giving you an extra attack through the turn.

Trip Attack.
This is for your allies if you have melee players that can get to range. Giving everyone advantage on attack through the turn is invaluable. Being able to put on a bow and land a shot onto a flying target to knock them down? Awesome. Or throw an axe up at them, whatever.

Disarming Attack.
Depending on the situation this can be invaluable. A few scenarios I've played into have made this one of my first picks if I go Battle Master.
Say an evil wizard is focusing his power to open a portal and summon a bunch of demons. Disarming attack, if it lands, force his concentration AND attempt to remove his staff from him. Even in a roleplaying scenario this is so good. You get attacked by a group and disarm their leader, then hold him at sword point and tell him to tell his group to surrender because you're not there to hurt anyone, you're just trying to get through or needed some information, etc.

[Citan]

I'm planning on playing a ranged battle master fighter. What are some of the best combat maneuvers to take?

I currently have Trip Attack and Disarming Strike.
Good choice. I'll add Precision too, because Sharpshooter as others said already.
Last one I'd suggest Menacing Strike: it's in my view plain better than Goading Strike, with the only caveat that frightened only works within line of sight, whereas Goading Strike is sure to last all the duration. Besides that, Goading Strike just affects attack rolls, and only on other targets than you, whereas Frightened affects all attack rolls and all ability checks.

It's especially dandy on a ranged Battlemaster because in addition to that, creature cannot come closer to you, useful for example to help people flee a fight with you standing ground a bit longer to cover for them. :)

[bc56]

The character is a Goblin, so I was just going nimble escape every turn and stay out of melee, so I am not concerned about melee maneuvers like feint and riposte.

I chose trip for the ability to rob enemies of movement, to give allies adjacent them advantage, and to drop flyers.

I'm currently thinking about taking precision and menacing at 7th level, especially because my 6th level feat will be sharpshooter.

[Spiderguy24]

The character is a Goblin, so I was just going nimble escape every turn and stay out of melee, so I am not concerned about melee maneuvers like feint and riposte.

I chose trip for the ability to rob enemies of movement, to give allies adjacent them advantage, and to drop flyers.

I'm currently thinking about taking precision and menacing at 7th level, especially because my 6th level feat will be sharpshooter.

Nimble escape will help open up your options quite a bit, but as a ranged battle master myself (who also does some melee combat because character reasons) I suggest taking Parry for those moments when an enemy gets a lucky hit on you. That has saved my butt quite a few times, and if you don't multiclass into rogue and take it to 5, you will pray to it all the time. Hell, it's even completely negated an enemy from doing any damage to me once, but that was due to a lucky roll.

[Beelzebubba]

Riposte.
I only don't like this because it requires enemy action to miss on you.

It's also melee only. Same with Parry, Lunging, and Sweeping.

[Eric Diaz]

For Disarming, you want to make sure one of your friends picks thecweapon or kicks it away, otherwise it's kinda moot.


Disarming attack is good only if you have an ally that can kick the weapon away, otherwise, it's kinda meh, it will only add the damage.

Couldn't you do this yourself, with object interaction?

[bc56]

Couldn't you do this yourself, with object interaction?

By Raw, yes. However, not all DMs would allow it, and I'm attacking at range anyway.

[trctelles]

If you're disarming someone at range, I don't see how you can use the free object interaction, since the weapon fall at the enemy feet... It doesn't make much sense, how can you "kick away" something you're not near enough to kick...

[bc56]

If you're disarming someone at range, I don't see how you can use the free object interaction, since the weapon fall at the enemy feet... It doesn't make much sense, how can you "kick away" something you're not near enough to kick...

That was my point. You may have misinterpreted.