Best ranger spells for melee?

[Spacehamster]

One of my group wants to make a mountain dwarf two handed weapon ranger with the gloom stalker subclass, he is not that familiar with the system so wanted to be able to help him with spell advice, like what’s the best spell for a melee ranger of each level?

Hunters mark as level one feels like a given, but not that familiar with the ranger list and especially not with the newer spells from splat books, so any help would be neat. :)

[Tanarii]

Level 1 spells:
Ensnaring Strike, Longstrider, Zephyr Strike are all pretty core to a melee ranger.
Jump might be useful. Depends on how much you use terrain elements, especially difficult terrain.
Fog Cloud is great anti archer if you've house ruled to fix the broken rules for firing on targets that can't see but also can't see you. It's good anti caster vs spells that require vision regardless.
Later on Absorb Elements.

Level 2 has Healing Spirit, Pass without Trace, Silence and Spike Growth.

Level 3 has Conjure Animals, Wind Wall, and a lot of utility spells.

One thing they'll have to watch out for is concentration checks. Rangers don't get native Con saves and aren't necessarily con secondary. That's especially an issue if you're going into melee and using Conjure Animals. Plinking the caster is a great counter to that spell.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Absorb Elements (never not get this on any character ever)
Zephyr Strike

I'm not really seeing anything else on the Ranger list that would help with melee. Consider multiclassing with Cleric, using the Forge or War domain, or even the Twilight domain from UA.

[Asisreo1]

Make sure you're using thrown weapons. That way, spells like conjure volley and lightning arrow will still work. I think a spear/javelin would be a good weapon to grab.

[Chronos]

My ranger was ranged, but the spells I had were:
1: Hunter's Mark, Goodberry, Ensnaring Strike
2: Pass Without Trace, Spike Growth
3: Wind Wall, Conjure Animals


Hunter's Mark will be your bread-and-butter combat spell. An extra d6 to every attack, for probably multiple encounters, for a single first-level spell, is great, and even more so when you're making more attacks, as a two-weapon ranger will be. Sometimes there will be something else that's even better in a particular combat, but more damage is always useful, so if you have nothing better to do, use that.

Goodberry is amazing. My ranger was in a party with two clerics, and he still healed more damage than either of them, all due to this one spell. The berries last for 24 hours, so every night when you go to bed, you use up all of your spell slots on Goodberry, and have them available for free all the next day, at basically no spell slot cost (since you're only using the slots you didn't need anyway). Also, if your table rules that you can feed one to an unconscious ally like you can with a healing potion, then you can distribute them so every party member has one or two, and so has the means to pop up downed party members.

I was a little disappointed with Ensnaring Strike, but it might be better on a melee ranger. The problem with using it at range is that the condition is most useful against things without ranged attacks, or whose ranged attacks are weaker than their melee. But those are precisely the things that tend to have good Str saves. On the other hand, as a melee character, you'll be wanting to use it against things with powerful ranged attacks, to prevent them from getting away, and those things tend to have poor Str saves.

Pass Without Trace is extremely valuable. Even in a system like 3rd edition, +10 to the entire party's stealth would have been good. Now, with bounded accuracy, it nearly guarantees successful stealth from everyone. There's a lot you can do in an hour of not being noticed.

Spike Growth is good crowd control. Put it between you and enemies that are trying to close with you, or on the other side of enemies that are trying to flee, or right on top of enemies that are trying to reposition in combat. At the very least, they'll be slowed and take some damage. There are also some combos, if any of your allies have abilities that force movement (the "cheese grater").

Wind Wall has multiple uses. In addition to stopping ranged weapons and some spells, you can also use it as a selective-targeting area of effect damage spell. Note that your party's ranged attackers can step forward through it, shoot, and then step back.

Conjure Animals wasn't as useful for me, because my group has a houserule limiting summons to a single creature at a time, so as to avoid slowing down play. But it still offers a lot of options.

To sum up, I'd call Goodberry, Hunter's Mark, and Pass Without Trace essential. The others are decent choices, but you might find something else to be better.

EDIT: I should also mention that this is for core-only, which you're obviously not doing if the ranger is a gloomstalker. I can't offer an informed opinion on non-core spells.

[djreynolds]

Make sure you're using thrown weapons. That way, spells like conjure volley and lightning arrow will still work. I think a spear/javelin would be a good weapon to grab.

Right soften' up first.
Something like hail of thorns lasts a minute.

Combat might be spread out... maybe you kill someone with one attack move and then throw javelin with hail of thorns on your next turn.

[Tanarii]

For a melee ranger, hunters mark should be a hard pass.
- if you're TwF, which is the common for a melee ranger, your bonus action is already spoken for. The dps gain is marginal unless every fight is a boss fight, due to switching.
- you will lose concentration on it. Often. Concentration is a real issue for melee Rangers.

Been there, done that, switched to ensnaring strike. On two different melee Rangers, both of whom were melee.

Conjure animals can be worth dealing with the concentration issue once a day or so, you can switch up and use your animals as blockers and really skirmish. Hunters mark just isn't worth the hassle.

Edit: if you're not buying that, let the player try and find out for themselves. They can always switch out at the next level up.

[Asisreo1]

For a melee ranger, hunters mark should be a hard pass.
- if you're TwF, which is the common for a melee ranger, your bonus action is already spoken for. The dps gain is marginal unless every fight is a boss fight, due to switching.
- you will lose concentration on it. Often. Concentration is a real issue for melee Rangers.

Been there, done that, switched to ensnaring strike. On two different melee Rangers, both of whom were melee.

Conjure animals can be worth dealing with the concentration issue once a day or so, you can switch up and use your animals as blockers and really skirmish. Hunters mark just isn't worth the hassle.

Edit: if you're not buying that, let the player try and find out for themselves. They can always switch out at the next level up.
In general, I agree. I'm playing a melee-ish ranger now with two-weapon fighting with handaxes and I know I might lose concentration quickly. It's an okay damage boost, though.

I generally don't cast spells in combat as a melee ranger, though. Ensnaring Strike is really good but I only get it 3 times (I'm level 4) in a day and they must make strength saves. Then again, I've recently been fighting alot of beefcakes for enemies so I can't wait to harass a spellcaster with it. Disadvantage on dex saves is sweet with a spellcaster on our side.

[Chronos]

If Hunter's Mark is bad because it's a bonus action and concentration, then why is Ensnaring Strike the spell you're switching to instead?

[Asisreo1]

If Hunter's Mark is bad because it's a bonus action and concentration, then why is Ensnaring Strike the spell you're switching to instead?
I don't think it's horrible as a bonus action. The concentration bit is important because with Ensnaring Strike, the person you're engaged with has worse action economy and disadvantage on their hits. It also automatically does a d6 which is pretty reliable. Like I said, you'll generally want to target a spellcaster with it because they won't be strong enough to counter it.

[Tanarii]

If Hunter's Mark is bad because it's a bonus action and concentration, then why is Ensnaring Strike the spell you're switching to instead?
Because it enhances skirmishing.

[Specter]

Considering combat spells only, these seven make a nice addition to any melee ranger (I'm assuming 4 spells go towards utility):

- Ensnaring Strike: Verbal components only (perfect for TWF), Strenght save (good against all non-hulking monsters), 1 minute duration (possible damage of 10d6 with one spell), upcastable (increasing the damage accordingly). Underrated gem.
- Hail of Thorns: Basically Ranger's version of smite. It's meant for ranged characters, but he can just throw an axe at them and still get the effect.
- Silence: situational, but can shut down spellcasters completely.
- Conjure Barrage: Average damage, but a 60-foot cone is huge, and can possibly affect all your foes in battle.
- Protection from Energy: if you know what you're going to face, accept no substitute.
- Guardian of Nature: Advantage on attacks plus 1d6 extra damage. Pretty good.
- Conjure Volley: 40-foot-radius cylinder means 4 times as much area as a Fireball. If you win initiative, you can damage all your opponents with one action.

[Chronos]

The thing with Conjure Barrage and Conjure Volley is that, by the time you get them, the full casters will have spells that absolutely put them to shame, from relatively much lower level slots. Cone of Cold, for instance, has a comparable area of effect to Conjure Volley, and the same amount of damage, but a 5th-level spell slot is no big deal for a 17th-level full-caster. And that's only if you absolutely need that very large area of effect: Quite often, the third-level Fireball will do the job just as well.

Conjure Barrage, meanwhile, does the same damage as Wind Wall (which you can even take yourself, at the same level), which can still hit widely-separated enemies, or can also hit enemies clustered in with your allies, and has utility beyond doing damage.

Or, as a ranger, you can do area-effect damage at will, using your 11th-level feature. The area's much smaller, but you can just do it again the next turn to catch any creatures you missed.

[jk7275]

For a melee ranger, hunters mark should be a hard pass.
- if you're TwF, which is the common for a melee ranger, your bonus action is already spoken for. The dps gain is marginal unless every fight is a boss fight, due to switching.
- you will lose concentration on it. Often. Concentration is a real issue for melee Rangers.



I just started a melee ranger with the gloom stalker subclass and the 2nd time I made a melee ranger. For the 1st one I didnt think ensnaring strike would be useful as most fights were against creatures large or bigger. They were strong and had advantage on the save. My 2nd ranger is a variant human with polearm mastery, for him hunter's mark may or may not be a mistake.

As for the mountain dwarf what is the rest of the party? What are you fighting? Is he going to take the war caster vs resilient con feats?

Is the DM using this variant rule for rangers
"Whenever you finish a long rest, you can replace one spell you learned from this Spellcasting
feature with another spell from the ranger spell list. The new spell must be the same level as the spell you replace."

[Specter]

The thing with Conjure Barrage and Conjure Volley is that, by the time you get them, the full casters will have spells that absolutely put them to shame, from relatively much lower level slots. Cone of Cold, for instance, has a comparable area of effect to Conjure Volley, and the same amount of damage, but a 5th-level spell slot is no big deal for a 17th-level full-caster. And that's only if you absolutely need that very large area of effect: Quite often, the third-level Fireball will do the job just as well.

Conjure Barrage, meanwhile, does the same damage as Wind Wall (which you can even take yourself, at the same level), which can still hit widely-separated enemies, or can also hit enemies clustered in with your allies, and has utility beyond doing damage.

Or, as a ranger, you can do area-effect damage at will, using your 11th-level feature. The area's much smaller, but you can just do it again the next turn to catch any creatures you missed.

- The comparison shouldn't be between you and full casters, but between all your damage options. If you can attack two enemies and deal ~25dmg or cast a spell on 6 and deal ~40dmg, you always do the latter.

- In the case mentioned, the guy would be a meleee ranger. Whirlwind Attack is very lackluster compared to Volley and not compatible with two-weapon fighting unless the DM allows it.

[Chronos]

- The comparison shouldn't be between you and full casters, but between all your damage options. If you can attack two enemies and deal ~25dmg or cast a spell on 6 and deal ~40dmg, you always do the latter.
No, not always, because you need to use a spell slot for it, and your spell slots are a much scarcer resource than those of a full caster. At the time you get 3rd or 5th level spells, you have to pick and choose very carefully what encounters you're going to use those spell slots on, but at those same levels, the full casters can throw around spells of those levels like candy.