The best archer/range DPR build?

[Valorant]

So what is in your opinion the best range dpr\archer build in 5e right now? There is quite a lot great builds now:

1. Crossbow expert elven accuracy sharpshooter hexblade. Easy advantage from devils sight\shadow of moil, range smites, sad cha, full caster
2. Classic xbe ss battlemaster. Now with dip into Artificer can use shield + self reloading hand crossbow. Manouvers, archery fighting style
3. Samurai EA SS archer mixed with gloomstalker and assassin. Super high nova, worse DPR than battlemaster probably.
4. Post Tasha contender : Kensei monk archer able to shoot with bonus action with ki.
5. Hexbard (Valor or swords) with 1/19 split. Xbe + SS and access to spells like greater steed, holy weapon/haste, simulacrum and tenser transformation. Late game DPR machine.

So what's your pick?

[Mitchellnotes]

It may be helpful to identify what you are looking for in the build. Is this anyone who does damage at range or someone who uses sharpshooter well? If you are looking more broadly, then sorlock could also be included and rogues could be a contender as well.

[Frogreaver]

So what is in your opinion the best range dpr\archer build in 5e right now? There is quite a lot great builds now:

1. Crossbow expert elven accuracy sharpshooter hexblade. Easy advantage from devils sight\shadow of moil, range smites, sad cha, full caster
2. Classic xbe ss battlemaster. Now with dip into Artificer can use shield + self reloading hand crossbow. Manouvers, archery fighting style
3. Samurai EA SS archer mixed with gloomstalker and assassin. Super high nova, worse DPR than battlemaster probably.
4. Post Tasha contender : Kensei monk archer able to shoot with bonus action with ki.
5. Hexbard (Valor or swords) with 1/19 split. Xbe + SS and access to spells like greater steed, holy weapon/haste, simulacrum and tenser transformation. Late game DPR machine.

So what's your pick?

Are you only worried about level 20 or the whole journey there?

[Valorant]

It may be helpful to identify what you are looking for in the build. Is this anyone who does damage at range or someone who uses sharpshooter well? If you are looking more broadly, then sorlock could also be included and rogues could be a contender as well.

Sorry for not being clear. I mean mundane builds that use range weapons for attacks. Sharpshooter is just natural pick for them

[Valorant]

Are you only worried about level 20 or the whole journey there?

Whole journey. Level 20 build don't make much sense anyway

[Mitchellnotes]

There is another recent thread - "A Study In Optimized Ranged Builds" that talks a lot about this. Man_Over_Game surfaced soul knives (bonus action attack getting +dex to damage, stacking both dueling and thrown weapon styles), and with a couple fighter levels, it does seem solid. Doesn't scale well with high level magic items though (since I don't know of anything that would increase the to hit or damage of the soul knife in terms of magic weapons)

[Frogreaver]

Whole journey. Level 20 build don't make much sense anyway

Full campaign arc id say SS+CBE fighter as not much competes with his damage through tier 2.

[Keravath]

I find a fighter has the edge due to the extra ASI at level 6. A variant human can have xbe+ss and 20 dex by level 8 while every other build is at least level 12 if not later. Fighter also has the Archery fighting style which is extremely useful for any ranged build but particularly an SS one.

Fighter also picks up an additional attack at level 11 for a total of 4 each turn.

You can also multiclass a fighter with warlock for the darkness+devils sight option. Cleric for bless and other cleric spells. Artificer for a few spells and infusions (repeating shot is particularly attractive for this build). Lots of options.

[Valorant]

I find a fighter has the edge due to the extra ASI at level 6. A variant human can have xbe+ss and 20 dex by level 8 while every other build is at least level 12 if not later. Fighter also has the Archery fighting style which is extremely useful for any ranged build but particularly an SS one.

Fighter also picks up an additional attack at level 11 for a total of 4 each turn.

You can also multiclass a fighter with warlock for the darkness+devils sight option. Cleric for bless and other cleric spells. Artificer for a few spells and infusions (repeating shot is particularly attractive for this build). Lots of options.

All true! But I want to point out that Samurai is also online level 8 with 4- Elven Accuracy +1 Dex (18), 6: SS, 8: +2 Dex. Since samurais don't take xbe and start with 17 Dex.

[Man_Over_Game]

There is another recent thread - "A Study In Optimized Ranged Builds" that talks a lot about this. Man_Over_Game surfaced soul knives (bonus action attack getting +dex to damage, stacking both dueling and thrown weapon styles), and with a couple fighter levels, it does seem solid. Doesn't scale well with high level magic items though (since I don't know of anything that would increase the to hit or damage of the soul knife in terms of magic weapons)

To be fair, you're dealing psychic damage that gains damage every 2 levels. You're going to be hard-pressed finding a magic item that makes someone outdamage you with that build, they'll need it just to keep up.

[stoutstien]

There is another recent thread - "A Study In Optimized Ranged Builds" that talks a lot about this. Man_Over_Game surfaced soul knives (bonus action attack getting +dex to damage, stacking both dueling and thrown weapon styles), and with a couple fighter levels, it does seem solid. Doesn't scale well with high level magic items though (since I don't know of anything that would increase the to hit or damage of the soul knife in terms of magic weapons)

The soul knifes already has one of the best attack roll boosters in the game at lv 9 with honing blade which is the only real allure for most magical weapons for the class.

[Valorant]

To be fair, you're dealing psychic damage that gains damage every 2 levels. You're going to be hard-pressed finding a magic item that makes someone outdamage you with that build, they'll need it just to keep up.

That soul knife build is interesting but looking at DPR calculator it won't outdamage SS builds like EA samurai or Battlemaster SS xbe. However its great to finally see Rogues having some solid DPR build since they don't usually scale well compare to other martials. I wonder if soul knife wording was intended

[Man_Over_Game]

That soul knife build is interesting but looking at DPR calculator it won't outdamage SS builds like EA samurai or Battlemaster SS xbe. However its great to finally see Rogues having some solid DPR build since they don't usually scale well compare to other martials. I wonder if soul knife wording was intended

I'd say so. Otherwise, they could have just worded it to have the Attack Action create a soul knife in each open hand and have the player use normal Dual Wield rules. Now, I think the way they have it is completely stupid, but it does seem intentional.

[Hael]

Full campaign arc id say SS+CBE fighter as not much competes with his damage through tier 2.

Depends what you mean by damage and by ranged. Various gishes have ranged summon options that combined can output more. Also there are push/pull options with things like eldritch blast + invocations into wall of fire/spike growth. And of course there are multiclass versions that dip into fighter (gloomstalker/fighter) that are going to win at certain levels and lose at others.

But yes generally speaking the pure martials tend to pass each other the dpr baton in tier1-2 (rogue, gloomstalker, kensai, battlemaster) until it starts getting into multiclass and gish land in tier3-4.

[Keravath]

All true! But I want to point out that Samurai is also online level 8 with 4- Elven Accuracy +1 Dex (18), 6: SS, 8: +2 Dex. Since samurais don't take xbe and start with 17 Dex.

True. However, I find Elven Accuracy rarely useful unless the character has a good way to generate advantage on their attacks. In the case of the samurai, they get three turns with advantage for the entire adventuring day. It is better than nothing and costs their bonus action. It means that for 3 combat rounds their 2 attacks will likely hit.

However, a battlemaster fighter will have 3 attacks with the hand crossbow on every combat round for the entire adventuring day and still has precision strike and other maneuvers to maximize the impact of those attacks. In addition, the superiority dice start at 4 uses/short rest and increase to 5 uses at level 7 - compared to 3 uses/long rest for the samurai ability.

The bottom line is I would still rank the battlemaster fighter higher than the samurai ... but both are better with reliable ways to generate advantage at their disposal (in that case the elven accuracy can be a decent investment - though it is only incrementally better than the advantage the character already has in order to trigger elven accuracy).

[Valorant]

True. However, I find Elven Accuracy rarely useful unless the character has a good way to generate advantage on their attacks. In the case of the samurai, they get three turns with advantage for the entire adventuring day. It is better than nothing and costs their bonus action. It means that for 3 combat rounds their 2 attacks will likely hit.

However, a battlemaster fighter will have 3 attacks with the hand crossbow on every combat round for the entire adventuring day and still has precision strike and other maneuvers to maximize the impact of those attacks. In addition, the superiority dice start at 4 uses/short rest and increase to 5 uses at level 7 - compared to 3 uses/long rest for the samurai ability.

The bottom line is I would still rank the battlemaster fighter higher than the samurai ... but both are better with reliable ways to generate advantage at their disposal (in that case the elven accuracy can be a decent investment - though it is only incrementally better than the advantage the character already has in order to trigger elven accuracy).

I think the point of samurai archer is big nova combining EA + SS + Action Surge for big opener. Before level 11 that is 4 attacks that will almost always hit for 1d8 + 15 per shot without any party buffs. On level 10 they get 1 fighting spirit per initiative roll meaning they can delete one crucial target pretty much per opening fight. So on level 11 they open every fight with huge 6d8 + 90 nova without any crit or buffs. Also looking at DPR calculator from @LudicSavant samurai EA has much higher accuracy for his attacks when using Fighting Spirit. It also worth to mention that Samurai gets free RES (Wis). But I agree that xbe will have better on average DPR per adventuring day, especially before lvl 10 and he can fight in melee.

I think Xbe BM is more like assault class with AR-15 with mid-long-cqc range balance while EA archer seems more like .50 cal sniper

[Man_Over_Game]

True. However, I find Elven Accuracy rarely useful unless the character has a good way to generate advantage on their attacks. In the case of the samurai, they get three turns with advantage for the entire adventuring day. It is better than nothing and costs their bonus action. It means that for 3 combat rounds their 2 attacks will likely hit.

However, a battlemaster fighter will have 3 attacks with the hand crossbow on every combat round for the entire adventuring day and still has precision strike and other maneuvers to maximize the impact of those attacks. In addition, the superiority dice start at 4 uses/short rest and increase to 5 uses at level 7 - compared to 3 uses/long rest for the samurai ability.

The bottom line is I would still rank the battlemaster fighter higher than the samurai ... but both are better with reliable ways to generate advantage at their disposal (in that case the elven accuracy can be a decent investment - though it is only incrementally better than the advantage the character already has in order to trigger elven accuracy).

I think math agrees with you, too. I believe the Samurai gets about +40 total damage from features in an average expected adventuring day*, while the Battlemaster gets anywhere from +50 to +90 from his features (depending on whether you're spamming Riposte every turn). On the flipside, we didn't take the THP of Fighting Spirit into account, so they might be a lot closer in power if you're looking at more than just damage.

*The calculations were done with level 5 characters with 3 encounters, 3 rounds each, with a Short Rest between each Encounter.

[Hael]

I think math agrees with you, too. I believe the Samurai gets about +40 total damage from features in an average expected adventuring day*, while the Battlemaster gets anywhere from +50 to +90 from his features (depending on whether you're spamming Riposte every turn).

The calculations were done with level 5 characters with 3 encounters, 3 rounds each, with a Short Rest between each Encounter.

Samurai is much more of a late game build, relative to other martials. It’s fantastic with legendary bows and with teammates that provide advantage. BMs are strictly better for most other situations, in particular the usual tier2 play.

[Gignere]

Samurai is much more of a late game build, relative to other martials. It’s fantastic with legendary bows and with teammates that provide advantage. BMs are strictly better for most other situations, in particular the usual tier2 play.

Also with the Tasha’s maneuver quick toss + net, you can basically build the EA + longbow / musket build with a BM. Although the advantage isn’t guaranteed like FS but you can potentially do it many more times per day. Also the restrain condition would also give advantage to your party members.

If a party member gives you advantage you would quick toss a dart with -5/+10 instead so you even get the bennies of CBE without grabbing CBE.