Horizon Walker Clarification

[Rannan]

So I've been looking at Horizon Walker for my ranger and I'm not sure how well it'll work. A lot of people praise it and say it's great when built correctly, but I've also seen people saying that you're better off just going straight ranger. From what I've read, ranger 8, rogue 2, HW 10 seems to give the best benefits for favored terrains and terrain mastery.

Let me back up a minute. I started as a ranger archer, and was planning on taking Monstrous Mount and getting a griffin for pounce and rake. Then I started looking into prestige classes and HW looked pretty cool and seems like it'll do well with a ranger. However, for it to be fully optimized (and a bit ridiculous if the math is correct), it looks like I'll take 8 levels of ranger (I'm assuming for the second favored terrain), 2 levels of rogue for Terrain Mastery, and 10 levels of HW for all that good stuff. Additionally, I'll take the Extra Rogue Talent feat and take multiple Terrain Mastery to get multiple +2 to ALL my favored terrains, correct?

When done properly it is supposed to end up with around +20-22 to hit, damage, init and more. However, will that make up for the loss of combat feats and the loss of a pet? I get that I could still have a pet, but a level 8 pet when your several levels higher is kind of useless, so I would give half of my bonus to my group instead to optimize group damage.

I've also heard of people using Favored Enemy to coincide with the bonuses, but it seems shaky. One person said that by designating the enemy as whatever your Favored Enemy is will give you the terrain bonus as well but I don't understand why or how that works.

Can anyone shed any light on a HW focused around an archer ranger and how well it'll work in a PFS setting? I assume great because PFS usually takes place in less terrains than a homebrew game or anything, so you can really stack the favored terrains.

[BigNorseWolf]

This is more of an advice thing, you're in the organized play section of the boards (which more or less tops out at 11, so you may want a different perspective)

[Rannan]

Oh alright. I'll try to get it moved then. I figured I would ask in the PFS section because it's a PFS campaign rather than just PF. I know there are some scenarios and modules for level 12+ characters , so I'm hoping my GM wants to do those or I can try to find another group that does once we get to that point.

[Rannan]

This thread is the one that mentioned using Favored Enemy with the Favored Terrain for massive damage to any one enemy but I didn't understand the way they explained it. To me the bonuses from Favored Terrain shouldn't come attached to Favored Enemy but I might be missing something.

For PFS games, would Urban, Mountain, Forest, and Underground be the best options for Favored Terrain? Possibly Plains as well?

And if I put Instant Enemy on someone and use Hunters Bond, will it give them half of the total for that particular enemy, or nothing if he isn't normally one of my favored enemies? And now that I'm looking at it, a level 8 or 9 animal companion will just be a glass cannon. Their health will be for a level 8/9, but they share FE and FT, so they would have a +20/22 to a bunch of things like damage, hit, and init as well, correct?