What Are some Decent Archery build good Dpr and some utility [Archive]

Man_Over_Game

2019-04-10, 12:01 PM

Combine Ranger 3+ with some levels into Land Druid.

You can:

Wildshape twice per Short Rest
Get 3 cantrips.
Get seven level 1 spell slots to use throughout the day.
Prepare a number of spells equal to 2 + your Wisdom Modifier.
Know 3 Ranger spells.
Enhance your attacks with Bonus Action archery spells, like Entangling Shot, Hail of Arrows, or Hunter's Mark.

An archery-focused utility specialist.

Or, alternatively, go Inquisitive Rogue with Sharpshooter. You can spot your target with Insight to get Sneak Attacks at any range, then use your bow for some long-ranged sniping. Pick up one level into Fighter for better armor, Longbows, and the Archery Fighting Style, and it's a pretty amazing non-magical sniper.

They're both effectively the same thing, but the Druid/Ranger makes a better scout and survivalist, and has more tactical options, when the Rogue/Fighter deals more damage, has better range, and provides more in social/trap events.

Nosta

2019-04-10, 04:51 PM

Man_Over_Game

2019-04-10, 05:08 PM

For the rogue fighter what should the first 7 levels look like?

I'd probably go Rogue 1 (for the extra skills), Fighter 1, Rogue the rest of the way. If you want some extra burst damage, pick up a second level of Fighter after Rogue 3 so that you can get Action Surge. That way, you can "Ready" your action to attack the following turn, getting two sniper-sneak attacks in the same round.

So it'd look like this:

Rogue
Fighter
Rogue
Rogue
Rogue
Fighter

Rogue X

If you want a little more utility and versatility in combat, pick up another Fighter level for Battle Master or Arcane Archer at level 7. If you're a Variant Human, you can afford to delay your 4th Rogue level for the early Fighter upgrades.

dgnslyr

2019-04-10, 05:18 PM

Scout fighter is pretty good compared to Battlemaster, I think. It adds the wilderness skills that you'd expect from a ranger, and although the maneuver list is shorter, it covers most of the important bases. You get a lot of attack bonuses to consistently land Sharpshooter power shots, and you're still free to take Crossbow Expert, so combined with Action Surge you can get a huge volume of hard-hitting fire if you have advantage from ambushing someone that hasn't yet acted. At level 5, that's potentially 5 shots from a hand crossbow with +10 Sharpshooter damage on each bolt, all with high attack, advantage, and Precision Attack to patch up weak rolls, and advantage on Initiative means it's pretty likely to happen.

LudicSavant

2019-04-10, 05:29 PM

Fighters make fantastic archers in 5e. Battle Masters, Samurai, and EKs in particular.

Why are Samurai good archers?
Sharpshooter scales with the number of attacks you get, and Samurai get buckets of attacks. Even more than most Fighters.
Archery style is fantastic.
SAD + extra ASIs + Elegant Courtier means that you have tons of feats. Basically, being SAD gives you +2 ASIs compared to a point buy character who wants to max 2 stats, being a Fighter gives you another +2 ASIs, and Elegant Courtier means you don't have to drop a feat on Resilient (Wisdom) which means it's basically another extra ASI.
Fighting Spirit is a reliable source of ranged Advantage, which is generally a fair bit harder to get than melee Advantage. And getting Advantage on all of your attacks with Archery+Sharpshooter+Elven Accuracy makes for some mean damage.
Elegant Courtier gives you some utility, but so does all of those extra ASIs. You can easily afford to throw in things like Ritual Caster, for example.

Shadar-Kai is an especially good race for them, because you get all of the things that usually make elves good (including Elven Accuracy access), plus a resistance to a common damage type and a bonus action that gives you Resistance and a teleport that can't be counterspelled, which means you can do with things like being stuck in a Wall of Force.

Battle Masters also have tons of good options for archery. For example, Goading Attack will give the enemy Disadvantage against everyone except you... the non-glass kiting guy on the back line peppering them with arrows! And Menacing Attack will prevent them from moving closer to you!

For Rogues, you want to be an Arcane Trickster. The Haste/ready trick makes for surprisingly high ranged DPR, and they can give themselves Advantage and sneak attack at range.

Benny89

2019-04-11, 09:20 AM

Best Archers/Range builds are Fighters- period. You can't compete with their accuracy and DPR, especially due to Precision Attack or Advantage on demand which are two main builds for range fighters:

1. The infamous Vuman Crossbow Expert (Feat level 1), Sharpshooter, 20 DEX Battlemaster. At level 11 he has 4 attacks per turn with 1d6 + 15 each, precision strikes d10 dice to convert miss to hit, action surge to nova for 7 attacks, archery style +2 to hit, more ASI. It's DPR machine and basically a benchmark of DPR in 5e. It's the easiest basic powerbuild in game. You use Hand crossbow here btw. You also have no penalty in melee range (gun-kata baby) and you have manouvers, like trip target, frighten him etc. One of great combos is when someone comes to melee you (good luck) - one attack Trip to prone him and then rest of attacks from 5ft with advantage because prone.

2. Wood Elf Samurai Fighter with Sharpshooter, Elven Accuracy and 20 DEX. At level 11 he has 3 attacks per turn 1d8 + 15, archery style +2. As bonus Action he can use Fighting Spirit to give himself super advantage on his turn. Combine that with Action surge and you have 3x per day (or once per combat after level 10) 6 attacks with super advantage. Mechanically more boring to play as you not have much more than shooting and you don't have manouvers like Battlemaster.

Both are best Archers in game.

Mechanically when it comes to DPR and damage- Crossbow Battlemaster is better than Samurai Archer, it's just math. Elven Accuracy is good but Precision Strike is only applied when you know you missed after you see roll. Difference is not huge, but that + extra attack makes BM better. When it comes to utility- Samurai is better as he get's bonus to Persuasion, free proficiency in WIS (something you need to take on ASI as BM) and access (if wood elf) to Wood Elf Magic which is awesome feat for supporting your team. Choice is yours but overall both are awesome. I prefer BM as Superiority Dices are better than Fighting Spirit but both will make rest of your team jealous of your damage.

Those are best range builds. After level 11/12 you can multiclass them into many different combos, most popular being 3 Gloom Stalker/5 assassin for tons of utility and increased Nova. Or 4 Gloom Stalker and 4 Assassin to grab that last ASIs.

Other good builds:

Some will tell you that Valor Bard is best which is not true. Valor can only achieve 4 attacks per turn and that is eating resources and casting spell, while Fighter can have 4 attacks as default just by being BM Crossbow Expert. BM has precision strikes and Archery style and Action Surge and he recharges on short rest. Valor doesn't come online till level 10, before that being vastly inferior archer to Fighter and after that- still inferior.

Hexblades xbow experts are ok, but they need to setup themselfs, wasting at least 1 turn before they work at max efficiency (using Darkness/Shadow of Moil, Hex/Curse etc.), while Fighter starts to work at max DPR/Dmg from 1 turn, always being ready and ahead of damage of other range builds simple because they don't need to waste 1 turn on anything but doing dmg.

Rangers are also ok, but same problem. They can't get even close to fighters till they get level 17 and Quiver spell, at at 17 Fighter will have double Action Surge which will out-DPR everything anyway. But if you like Rangers I recommend Revised Ranger- either Hunter or Deep Stalker. The sole +4 dmg to humanoids will keep their damage nice when combined with Sharpshooter and they have Archery Style too. So they are definitely valid option. And they get advantage on first turn. If PHB ranger- meh, not good option. Only Revised.

So yeah, if you want mechnicaly best range build- it's Fighter. No competition.

If you want more thematic, I would take Revised Ranger. If you want gish range character- Hexblade with Pact of Blade and Improved Pact Weapon, though setups will cost you DPR but it's fun. If you want to be best marksman in game - Fighter, hands down.

jaappleton

2019-04-11, 09:26 AM

Revised Ranger is amazing, especially with a hand crossbow, Crossbow Expert and the Gloomstalker Conclave.

If you are restricted to OFFICIAL material only... Sharpshooter can do a lot. For level 7, I like Fighter 5 with two levels or Archfey Warlock. You get Faerie Fire and Hex as your spells, you can pump out some serious damage, especially if Sharpshooter is in the mix.

Fighter 5 / Light Cleric 2 (or War Cleric) is also worth considering. With Light you get Warding Flare to help defensively, Faerie Fire, Bless and Healing Word. Or go War and get +10 to hit as Channel Divinity and Divine Weapon to do an extra 1d4 Radiant on your attacks (which isn’t reliant on a specific target, unlike Hex or Hunter’s Mark).

strangebloke

2019-04-11, 10:06 AM

Okay the real story here is that any class can be an archer and have some utility. The Archery style, the Sharpshooter the Crossbow Expert feat, and the elven accuracy feat are all nice, but not compulsory. There are even some decent barbarian archer builds.

But of these, the best-supported are:

Fighter 1/Valor Bard x - Pick up swift Quiver at level 11. Take sharpshooter. Kill everything and get 9th level spells and have expertise.
Ranger - While the high level features are kind of meh, the ranger combines awesome spellcasting (better than the paladin, IMO) with some devastating bonuses to ranged combat. High level Hunter Ranger can get 5 sharpshooter attacks every single round, which is as many as a fighter. Low Level hunter ranger can get four a round by level 5 which is better than a fighter. Gloomstalker has better utility options, having awesome stealth and better spellcasting.
Fighter - Samurai with elven accuracy is simple, powerful, and deady. Battlemaster is more efficient. As with all fighter builds, you can choose to spec into more utility via feats or you can spend more on boosting your damage numbers. Sharpshooter is a must-have, Crossbow Expert is optional. Eldritch Knight has far more flexibility and defensive potential than either.
Rogue - Rogues with Crossbow Expert are the best rogues. The nice thing here is how little work it takes to get the whole build together. Pick rogue, pick Crossbow Expert, go to town. Scouts are suppose to be the 'ranged rogue' class and they're alright, but arcane tricksters are just better than everyone else, period. Thieves are underrated, but don't really get any bonuses to ranged combat.

Kensei's with longbows can sorta do good damage, but they'd generally prefer to be fighting in melee.

Ancestral Guardian barbarians can debilitate a boss monster from range, but once again they'll generally want to be in melee.

Hexblades are sort of passable at range, but honestly you're better just going valor bard.

Dr. Cliché

2019-04-11, 10:25 AM

What about the Arcane Archer? Shouldn't it be the go-to subclass for this sort of thing?

LudicSavant

2019-04-11, 10:28 AM

Mechanically when it comes to DPR and damage- Crossbow Battlemaster is better than Samurai Archer, it's just math.

Not that I necessarily doubt this, but do you happen to actually have that math available?

Elven Accuracy is good but Precision Strike is only applied when you know you missed after you see roll. Difference is not huge, but that + extra attack makes BM better.

So, actually crunching numbers, the chance of a level 20 BM hitting AC 19 while burning d12 Precision Attacks on every missed attack with a +13 to hit and Sharpshooter -5/+10 is 80% without Advantage. (Also, on a standard 8 attack Action Surge, they'll need to burn 4 superiority dice to achieve that 80% accuracy with Precision Attack). They won't be able to do this at least once per combat per standard adventuring day.

The chance of a level 20 Samurai doing the same with Fighting Spirit / Elven Accuracy is 87.5% chance to hit. They'll be able to do this at least once per combat per standard adventuring day.

Also, if they're both using a heavy crossbow, the Samurai's DPR is 160.3 (320.6 if they use Strength Before Death). The Battle Master using all their superiority dice on Precision Attacks has a DPR of 133.4

Damon_Tor

2019-04-11, 10:30 AM

My favorite "death from afar" build is some combination of Battlemaster, Assassin and Gloomstalker. You can choose which levels of which according to taste. Fighter gets you more attacks, Ranger 11 gets you more spells, Rogue gets you more skills.

Man_Over_Game

2019-04-11, 10:37 AM

What about the Arcane Archer? Shouldn't it be the go-to subclass for this sort of thing?

The Arcane Archer has combat utility, but lacks any non-combat tools. I'd say the Arcane Archer is actually better than the Battlemaster in terms of raw power, but the Battlemaster is more consistent and versatile.

For example, melee combat for an Arcane Archer is a setback, but to the Battlemaster it's his second favorite method of killing people.

Benny89

2019-04-11, 10:37 AM

Not that I doubt this, but do you happen to actually have that math available?

So, actually crunching numbers, the chance of a level 20 BM hitting AC 19 while burning d12 Precision Attacks on every missed attack with a +13 to hit and Sharpshooter -5/+10 is 80% without Advantage. (Also, on a standard 8 attack Action Surge, they'll need to burn 4 superiority dice to achieve that 80% accuracy with Precision Attack). They won't be able to do this at least once per combat per standard adventuring

The chance of a level 20 Samurai doing the same with Fighting Spirit / Elven Accuracy is 87.5% chance to hit. They'll be able to do this at least once per combat per standard adventuring day.

Also, if they're both using a heavy crossbow, the Samurai's DPR is 160.3 (320.6 if they use Strength Before Death). The Battle Master using all their superiority dice on Precision Attacks has a DPR of 133.4

If you look through 3d6 on reddit you will find tons of AnyDice maths.

I will qoute you summary from someone who does math like that all the time:

"You will turn about 80% of misses in a day into hits with precision attack.
Without elven accuracy the Samarui will turn 25% of his total attacks into additional hits. With elven accuracy it's about 35-40%.

This still makes precision attack better and that's without factoring in the difference in going crossbow expertise vs going elven accuracy.

So let's do an actual analysis at level 11.

BattleMaster 11 vs Samauri 11.

I'll assume 6 combats a day that last 4 rounds each."

In short- Samurai can't chose when to use advantage to offset miss. When you use Fighting Spirit - you use them for all attacks, even those which would hit anyway.

While Battlemaster will only use Precision Strike to offset miss into hit. If you will use Precision Strike to offest only misses that are off 1-4 points - you can turn 80-90% of misses into hits.

So Samurai may actually hit more in a turn when it comes to Fighting Spirit but BM will hit more consistently during few turns as he doesn't burn all dices in advance of a roll. He sees roll and can decide whenever it's worth ot try to offet it or not.

If you test in combat Samurai vs BM in only first turn- Samurai can come on top, however if you do the same comparison for combat that last 2-4 turns (the average in 5e is 3-4 turns) BM will overall have better DPR as he will be consistent. Once you burnt Fighting Spirit you are left in combat with just normal 3 attacks.

It's also worth to note that it heavy depends on how much combat you have. If you have like 2 combats per day allowing Samurai to burn 3x Fighing Spirit in a row- Samurai may come on top, but BM will also have 2 short rests and can also burn all dices in one turn if he needs to.

However in more realistic day where you have like 4-6 combat and they are not cake walks- BM dpr will come on top because of consistency.

And there is also party aspect- if you get advantage from your team (faerie fire, entangle/web and so on) your fighting spirit is giving you nothing. While Battlemaster with Precision Strike and on top of that advantage? Man....

Man_Over_Game

2019-04-11, 10:38 AM

So it's effectively the difference between the Wizard and the Warlock. Makes sense.

LudicSavant

2019-04-11, 10:41 AM

If you look through 3d6 on reddit you will find tons of AnyDice maths. Please provide the actual link to what you're quoting?

Benny89

2019-04-11, 10:49 AM

Please provide the actual link to what you're quoting?

There is no AnyDice link from thread with this quite but I know the guy and he does math like that all the time. I sent you PM with link. You can ask him for AnyDice results yourself.

Vogie

2019-04-11, 10:51 AM

Arcane Archer as a dip is a great addition to a Pact of the Blade Warlock build, commonly called a "curse archer".

The Arcane Shots act as additional smites, Shadow Arrow can act as a single-target Darkness, and everything resets on a short rest. Warlocks fill in the utility with spell, at-wills from cantrips & invocations.

You can also take any strong archer build, and add 2 levels of War Wizard. You gain handfuls of spells, are a ritual caster, can have a familiar, add Intelligence to your initiative, and have a reaction that gives either +2 to AC or +4 to a saving throw. When your action is used to fire arrows, there is essentially no Downside to Arcane Deflection. If anyone gets in your face, a Shocking Grasp will act as attack/disengage combo, allowing you to catch your range

Benny89

2019-04-11, 11:10 AM

So it's effectively the difference between the Wizard and the Warlock. Makes sense.

Between Samurai and BM? That is pretty fair comparison, though not fully. One is more reliable through many combats and has better, consistent DPR (short rest slots + Eldricht Blast spam) while other is more bursty and doesn't like many combat encounters and any decision of burning resources is risky as maybe it wasn't most efficient in this combat.

Though when it comes to versatility BM is the Wizard here because of battle maneuvers and Samurai is Warlock as he pretty much only spam one thing :).

Zuras

2019-04-11, 11:11 AM

What level do you plan to start at/play to?

For a flexible archer build, your main base options are Fighter and Ranger. Both give you an excellent foundation through 5th level, and taper off at higher levels.

Ranger provides great benefits through 5th level, but gets lackluster after that. Fighter similarly doesn’t give you anything game changing (unless you need extra ASIs for feats) from levels 6-10, but then gives you that 3rd extra attack at 11, which is amazing.

Either way, I would recommend you take 5 levels in Fighter or Ranger first, then multiclass.

Good Archer subclasses:
Fighter—Battlemaster, Samurai and Arcane Archer.

If your DM hates the Sharpshooter Feat, go with Arcane Archer. Otherwise, Battlemaster and Samurai are much better at abusing the Sharpshooter -5/+10 power attack.

Ranger—Hunter, Gloomstalker, Horizon Walker.

Hunter works the best if you don’t plan on multiclassing, as you pick up Volley at 11th.

As far as builds go:

Gloom Stalker 5/Battle Master 3 is awesome, and provides you something useful at every level up, and gives you a disgusting first turn Alpha Strike if you need it. 5 attacks on turn 1 at 7th level (Gloom Stalker + Action Surge) is no joke. Hunter and Horizon Walker provide similar benefits, but with Sharpshooter Gloom Stalker provides the largest potential alpha strike.

Battle Master 5/Mastermind Rogue 3 also works well as a Green Arrow style fighter, using trick arrows and giving allies consistent advantage from range.

If you want to double down on your first turn alpha strike, 3 levels of Rogue Assassin also works really well.

I have personally played the Gloom Stalker/Battlemaster with Sharpshooter, and it was awesome, and have seen Gloom Stalker/Assassins that worked great as well. Also, I’ve played entire campaigns with single classed Battle Master and Hunter archers, and they both were great, although the ranger had far more out of combat utility.

wilhelmdubdub

2019-04-11, 11:18 AM

try scout rogue, at level 3 you get a reaction to move half of your speed without provoking opportunity attacks, double proficiency in nature and survival.
for races wood elf for mask of the wild, or try air genasi to be able to hide underwater indefinitely or levitate to a vantage point

LudicSavant

2019-04-11, 11:37 AM

There is no AnyDice link from thread with this quite but I know the guy and he does math like that all the time. I sent you PM with link. You can ask him for AnyDice results yourself.

Some notes on FrogReaver's analysis:
- FrogReaver does not appear to account for the fact that the Samurai has about triple the crit-rate of the Battle Master using Precision Attack.
- FrogReaver is comparing specifically at level 11. The Battle Master slows down after level 11, while the Samurai has some of their big DPR boosters still on the horizon.
- FrogReaver doesn't list a few things I would need in order to reverse engineer his work (for example, I don't know what AC he's up against).
- Over a DMG standard adventuring day (6 encounters / 2 short rests) a Samurai can manage 8 Fighting Spirits, while a Battle Master will manage 15 Precision Attacks.

Edit: Sitting here trying to reproduce / reverse engineer his conclusions, I'm actually really curious how he arrived at "Precision Attack turns 80% of your misses during the day into hits."

Benny89

2019-04-11, 01:27 PM

Some notes on FrogReaver's analysis:
- FrogReaver does not appear to account for the fact that the Samurai has about triple the crit-rate of the Battle Master using Precision Attack.
- FrogReaver is comparing specifically at level 11. The Battle Master slows down after level 11, while the Samurai has some of their big DPR boosters still on the horizon.
- FrogReaver doesn't list a few things I would need in order to reverse engineer his work (for example, I don't know what AC he's up against).
- Over a DMG standard adventuring day (6 encounters / 2 short rests) a Samurai can manage 8 Fighting Spirits, while a Battle Master will manage 15 Precision Attacks.

Edit: Sitting here trying to reproduce / reverse engineer his conclusions, I'm actually really curious how he arrived at "Precision Attack turns 80% of your misses during the day into hits."

As I said you have to ask him about it. He proved me wrong in other threads already with numbers so I can at least trust that at least he knows more than me when it comes to math.

Actually he says that crit chance gives Samurai slight edge but not enough.

I agree that BM slows at level 11. However, it's worth to note that generally levels 1-11 are more likely to happen than levels 12-20, but that is irrelevant.

LudicSavant

2019-04-11, 04:30 PM

Responding to a PM from Benny extending the above discussion (reposted here with his permission):

Btw. ignoring FrogReaver as I am myself math noob- what your calculations are telling you in terms of Samurai vs BM? It's always worth to hear from more than one source to verify info you get.

Okay, so I actually did all of the math and it gives me different results than FrogReaver, but I was holding off on replying until I could run my math past a mathematician colleague of mine (who also happens to play D&D) to check my work (just in case I had missed something). He just now got back to me and confirmed that my calculations are (as far as he can tell) correct.

Now Frog's leaving out many of his variables, so I have to make some assumptions. DMG says CR 11 standard AC is 17. And a level 11 character will have 3 ASIs, so we can assume they're max Dex and Sharpshooter. And you'll have +4 prof + 5 Dex + 2 Archery -5 Sharpshooter (+6 to hit).

Given this, Fighting Spirit will turn 75% of misses into hits, not 35-40%. And it will apply to a minimum of 33 attacks over a 6 4-round encounter / 2 short rest adventuring day (per Frog's assumptions), providing ~12 miss-to-hit conversions, ~3 crit conversions, and up to 80 hit points. More if anyone ever uses Haste or something.

How about Precision Attack? Well... this one, we actually CAN'T give a flat rate for how many misses it turns into hits, because there's an element of player choice. For example, if you opted only to use Precision Attack when you missed by 1, it would turn 100% of misses into hits (but this probably wouldn't occur 5 times per short rest). If you used it on all cases where you miss by 10 or less, it'd turn only 60% of misses into hits.

And of course, there's the fact that these 15 Precision Attacks represent basically the entirety of the BM's resources. By contrast, the Samurai has Elegant Courtier (which is basically an extra ASI) and a big ol' mound of extra hit points (for perspective, a level 11, 14 Con Fighter has 92 hit points).

tl;dr
- 75% of misses turn into hits from Fighting Spirit, not 35-40%. You can expect it to convert 12 attacks per day into hits at level 11.
- Precision Attack has a variable miss conversion rate, not 80%.

___

As for seeing conclusions before, keep in mind that there are some common, oft-repeated statistics mistakes, like people getting the Monty Haul problem wrong or thinking that Bless is equivalent to +2.5 to hit, even though it isn't. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21786060&postcount=13) Just because you see a conclusion frequently doesn't necessarily mean that it's accurate. Statistics is notorious for being unintuitive to laymen.

Alucard89

2019-04-12, 08:25 AM

I am HUGE fan of Wood Elf Samurai Archer build. Elven Accuracy + Sharshooter + 20 DEX + Wood Elf Magic is something I enjoy to play!

I mean imagine you have 600ft effective range. I remember once we were to fight a group of local bandit company that were terrorizing locals. My party ambushed them during day on open field. While I was 500ft away on a hill with all my arrows around me.

I can't tell you how epic I felt when I shot 6 arrows from 500ft away and hitting every one of them due to Elven Accuracy :). Killed leader instantly.

Also it was the build where I could feel like real wood elf archer. I had Wood Elf Magic for extra flavour, extra movement and +10 to stealth for whole team.

Also the Samurai aspect was joy roleplay. And since our team had Druid there were tons of opportunities for me to use Elven Accuracy because of his CC spells.

I highly recommend it. I this is little underrated build but it works so well together. The synergies are great and free RES (WIS) on level 7 is basically extra ASI, so with Samurai you get ASI on level 4,6,7,8. That is 4 ASI on level 8.

EDIT: Also on level 14 I would like to take Mounted Combatant feat and ride on mount around battlefield shooting arrows with my max 600ft range. No melee can get to me and I can direct all direct attacks to hit me instead of my mount (MC feat!).

I imagine multiclassing after 12 to Gloom Stalker and Assassin would be great as it was mentioned, especially Cunning Action goes so well with wood elf racial: Mask of the Wild + Pass Without Trace from Wood Elf magic + bonus action hide.

LudicSavant

2019-04-12, 08:33 AM

I am HUGE fan of Wood Elf Samurai Archer build. Elven Accuracy + Sharshooter + 20 DEX + Wood Elf Magic is something I enjoy to play!

I mean imagine you have 600ft effective range. I remember once we were to fight a group of local bandit company that were terrorizing locals. My party ambushed them during day on open field. While I was 500ft away on a hill with all my arrows around me.

I can't tell you how epic I felt when I shot 6 arrows from 500ft away and hitting every one of them due to Elven Accuracy :).

Also it was the build where I could feel like real wood elf archer. I had Wood Elf Magic.

Also the Samurai aspect was joy roleplay. And since our team had Druid there was tons of opportunities for me to use Elven Accuracy because of his CC spells.

I highly recommend it. I this is little underrated build but it works so well together. The synergies are great and free RES (WIS) on level 7 is basically extra ASI, so with Samurai you get ASI on level 4,6,7,8. That is 4 ASI on level 8.

I agree, this is a rock-solid build that scales well throughout the game and provides a reliable DPR core for any party (as well as good utility!). It's also very easy to play. Kinda like a stronger Champion.

Wood Elf is a great choice, both due to their base racial abilities and access to Wood Elf Magic for utility (which they can easily afford, due to being SAD and having a mass of ASIs). Wood Elf Magic will grant you Guidance, which you can just spam to boost all your ability checks (including Initiative), as well as Pass Without Trace to set up ambushes and the like.

Other great choices include the Shadar-Kai and Eladrin. The main highlight is of course their un-counterspellable teleportation, which helps you get out of things that otherwise really muck up Fighter archers like Wall of Force. Or just disengage as a bonus action. Or port up to a good sniper perch. Teleportation is just good.

Alucard89

2019-04-12, 08:45 AM

I agree, this is a rock-solid build that scales well throughout the game and provides a reliable DPR core for any party (as well as good utility!). It's also very easy to play. Kinda like a stronger Champion.

Wood Elf is a great choice, both due to their base racial abilities and access to Wood Elf Magic for utility (which they can easily afford, due to being SAD and having a mass of ASIs). Wood Elf Magic will grant you Guidance, which you can just spam to boost all your ability checks (including Initiative), as well as Pass Without Trace to set up ambushes and the like.

Other great choices include the Shadar-Kai and Eladrin. The main highlight is of course their un-counterspellable teleportation, which helps you get out of things that otherwise really muck up Fighter archers like Wall of Force. Or just disengage as a bonus action. Or port up to a good sniper perch. Teleportation is just good.

Which book is Shadar-Kai and Eldarin from?

Also it's worth to say that if you start with 10 CHA and 16 WIS as Wood Elf samurai and take proficiency in Persuasion you will have +3 from WIS bonus to Persuasion, making you a decent party face when needed or it will just help you in cases where you can solve situation with Persuasion. This also makes your fighter more enjoyable to role play during some social scenarios like events, gatherings, seducing, romancing, keeping conversations going, being able to blend in more during for example royal party and so on.

Also if you don't need Wood Elf Magic (or plan to multicass to Rogue anyway for Stealth Expertise) you can take Resilent (DEX). You have even stat by them, however you end up at level 12 with character that has:

Proficiency in CON saves, proficiency in DEX saves, proficiency in WIS saves and proficiency in STR saves. Making your defenses vs spells really really strong.

If you multiclass to Gloom Stalker, take Control Flames as cantrip from Wood Elf Magic. This way you can use it to "turn off" fire sources and create some darkness corner/place for yourself to position and you have advantage on all your attacks as you are invisible for both enemies that have and do not have darkvision, abusing elven accuracy even more. If you are fighting in dark places (dungeons, tombs etc.) Hunter's Mark is really great to use as you have advantage from Umbral Sight's in darkness.

LudicSavant

2019-04-12, 09:32 AM

Which book is Shadar-Kai and Eldarin from? Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.

Also it's worth to say that if you start with 10 CHA and 16 WIS as Wood Elf samurai and take proficiency in Persuasion you will have +3 from WIS bonus to Persuasion, making you a decent party face when needed or it will just help you in cases where you can solve situation with Persuasion. This also makes your fighter more enjoyable to role play during some social scenarios like events, gatherings, seducing, romancing, keeping conversations going, being able to blend in more during for example royal party and so on. Yep. And if you took Guidance, that'll add to your Persuasion, too! :smallsmile:

Also if you don't need Wood Elf Magic (or plan to multicass to Rogue anyway for Stealth Expertise) you can take Resilent (DEX). You have even stat by them, however you end up at level 12 with character that has:

Proficiency in CON saves, proficiency in DEX saves, proficiency in WIS saves and proficiency in STR saves. Making your defenses vs spells really really strong. Yeah. One of the things about the "Resilient" feat is that you can only take it once, so not only are you saving a feat by not taking Res (Wis), you're opening up the possibility to take Res (Dex). And then you can have a character with proficiency in Strength, Wisdom, Constitution, and Dexterity saves, and have Indomitable and Lucky (which stack with each other). Ironclad saves across the board at tier 3/4.

If you multiclass to Gloom Stalker, take Control Flames as cantrip from Wood Elf Magic. This way you can use it to "turn off" fire sources and create some darkness corner/place for yourself to position and you have advantage on all your attacks as you are invisible for both enemies that have and do not have darkvision, abusing elven accuracy even more. If you are fighting in dark places (dungeons, tombs etc.) Hunter's Mark is really great to use as you have advantage from Umbral Sight's in darkness.

Yeah, I think Control Flames is often underestimated. For example, it basically turns a hooded lantern into light with brightness equivalent to the third level Daylight spell. The "Light" cantrip can't do that. And it has no verbal components, and you can make it look like torches are naturally flickering out in the wind or the like, so it has great stealth uses.

Whether your goal is lighting the place up or keeping enemies in the dark, Control Flames is handy.

Zuras

2019-04-12, 10:12 AM

I agree with your Wood Elf Samurai analysis. Probably my favorite archer and I've played other Fighters, Rangers, Rogues, a Valor Bard, Hexblade, and a Kensei as archers. Also made a Shadar-Kai Samurai version that I haven't played yet. Samurai isn't flashy, but it gets the job done and has an old school vibe just like Champion.

I play a Battle Master archer too, but I find them reliant on short rests a lot of days and of course I like to use other maneuvers besides Precision Attack all the time, so it's not always there for Sharpshooter.

I agree that a Samurai or Battle Master Archer can provide excellent DPR & utility by level 6, after picking up a couple of feats, but the build doesn’t provide much utility until you can spend that ASI on Wood Elf Magic. If you are looking for utility earlier than that (Original Poster was asking about Level 3/5/7 examples, I believe), what multi-class would you recommend?

A Rogue dip, especially with a plan to eventually go 3 levels in and take the Scout subclass, seems both strong and thematic. Anyone have experience with that type of build (Wood Elf Samurai/Scout)?

Alucard89

2019-04-12, 10:32 AM

I agree that a Samurai or Battle Master Archer can provide excellent DPR & utility by level 6, after picking up a couple of feats, but the build doesn’t provide much utility until you can spend that ASI on Wood Elf Magic. If you are looking for utility earlier than that (Original Poster was asking about Level 3/5/7 examples, I believe), what multi-class would you recommend?

A Rogue dip, especially with a plan to eventually go 3 levels in and take the Scout subclass, seems both strong and thematic. Anyone have experience with that type of build (Wood Elf Samurai/Scout)?

Well, if numbers crunching is not the goal here then Wood Elf Samurai is a good candidate to multi class into Druid. At level 12 take +2 WIS and then at level 16 +2 WIS again. You will only have 8 levels of Druid but with 20 WIS it would provide quite decent ways of utility, like Fearie Fire, Engtangle, Speak with Animals, Enchance Ability, Hold Person, Pass without Trace, Conjure Animals etc.

Not that much direct power but a lot of nice utility.

If we skip Fighter- I think Valor Bard and Hunter Ranger is good idea for Archers that also have a lot of utility but not as much DPR and Nova as Fighters. And it takes longer for them to be fully online, unless you start as Vumans and skip elven accuracy.

LudicSavant

2019-04-12, 10:49 AM

I agree that a Samurai or Battle Master Archer can provide excellent DPR & utility by level 6, after picking up a couple of feats, but the build doesn’t provide much utility until you can spend that ASI on Wood Elf Magic. If you are looking for utility earlier than that (Original Poster was asking about Level 3/5/7 examples, I believe), what multi-class would you recommend?

A Rogue dip, especially with a plan to eventually go 3 levels in and take the Scout subclass, seems both strong and thematic. Anyone have experience with that type of build (Wood Elf Samurai/Scout)?

Try an Arcane Trickster archer build. Use your familiar or Cunning Action to give yourself Advantage and shoot people. Take Elven Accuracy for the crit rate and, well, not missing (seriously, you don't want to miss your main attack as a Rogue).

Later on you can use Haste on yourself and Ready an attack to get two sneak attacks, both with Advantage if you play your cards right. Surprisingly good DPR (though you won't be able to match the likes of Samurai Action Surges).

LudicSavant

2019-04-12, 08:53 PM

Some quick DPR comparisons (all vs AC 19 at level 20. No "assuming hits" nonsense here). All results are rounded to the nearest tenth. All calculations done with this tool, and provided my variables so you can replicate results: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?582779-Comprehensive-DPR-Calculator-(v2-0)

There are a lot of calculations here so hopefully I didn't have a typo somewhere. Please correct me if I did.

First, the Sorcerer/Hexblade's EB combo from "Boss Damage Combination at Max Level" from this guide (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?596310-GUIDE-The-Sorlock-%96-Guide-to-the-tormented-divine-soul-with-Xanathar-s-Divine-Soul(17)-Hexblade(3)). Note that the guide's calculation doesn't take into account hit chance and the like. I did.
Round 1 (EB+HC): 45.1 DPR
Round 2 (EB+HC+Hex): 55.6 DPR
Round 3+ (EB*2+HC+Hex): 111.2 DPR
Average DPR if they get 3 full rounds of blasting the same target (and only in that case, because everything takes bonus actions to change targets, and you can't prebuff any of this): (45.1+55.6+111.2)/3 = 70.6 DPR

Fighter 1 / Arcane Trickster 19 (Max Dex, Elven Accuracy, Sharpshooter), using Haste/Ready and Versatile Trickster/Familiar granting Advantage with a Heavy Crossbow: 108.7 DPR
Without Haste (resourceless, no reaction): 54.3 DPR
With a reaction (such as from an Order Cleric giving them 1 weapon attack): 108.7 DPR.

Arcane Trickster 20 (Max Dex, Elven Accuracy):
Haste Ready or Reaction: 98.7 DPR
No off-turn sneak: 49.3 DPR

Samurai 20 (Sharpshooter/Crossbow Expert/Elven Accuracy/Max Dex):
Fighting Spirit / Rapid Strike: 85.4 DPR
FS / RS / Action Surge: 160.3 DPR
FS / RS / AS / Strength Before Death: 320.6 DPR

Note that the Samurai in particular scales incredibly well with buffs / teamwork due to AS, RS and SBD. Let me give you an idea of how well:
FS/RS/Elemental Weapon (1 hour buff, cast at 7th level): 133.45 DPR.
FS/RS/Action Surge + Elemental Weapon: 248.1 DPR
FS/RS/Action Surge + Elemental Weapon + Holy Weapon (they stack, but two different party members need to do it): 333.8 DPR

FS/RS/AS/EW/SBD: 496.2 DPR
FS/RS/AS/EW/HW/SBD: 667.6 DPR
FS/RS/AS/EW/HW/SBD/Haste: 744.7 DPR

So uh, yeah. Cast a buff on your local Samurai today. It's good value for your spell slot/Concentration. (I seriously feel like accounting for teamwork is overlooked WAY too often in character optimization threads. The Samurai scales really well with teamwork due to their features basically acting as a force multiplier for every die that gets added to them).

(Note: I'm usually the one playing the buffer here, so I often calculate who in the party is best to buff ^^;;)

Shuruke

2019-04-13, 07:52 AM

I recently played a utility archer that although probably lower in dpr than other builds had a strong amount of utility.
Its a little MAD for sake of needing good int for saves and cha you'll want cha at +2 or so

But for levels you have 2 choices

Level 3
Fighter 3 grabbing arcane archer
Bard 3 for shadow
Or a split of fighter 2 bard 1

Level 5
After getting one up to 3 get levels in the other. 3 Fighter arcane archer 2 bard gives jack of all trades and song of rest
Inverslly 2 fighter for accuracy and action surge and 3 bard gives whisper and take enhance ability for advantage on attacks then next turn action surge and use shadow feature inspiration

Level 7
Fighter 3 bard 4

Me personally I rushed bard 5 for short rest recharges on inspiration
I also didn't tale more than 3 levels fighter

I got up to level 11 in that campaign and had some really cool moments with shadow arrow and the beguiling arrow.
My bard level 4 asi went into dex/int to round them up off of being odd
Had started tiefling so only really had +2's until then

I also didnt take sharpshooter because my Dm doesn't use cover much and I wasnt interested in the -5+10