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Arsenal Chaplin Warpriest is the best archer in terms of expected damage, but my personal favorite is an Eldritch Archer Magus. They can cast spells while full attacking.
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Ravener Hunter Sanctified Slayer Inquisitor. I think Arsenal Chaplin was the best before this new inquisitor archetype.
My level 8 ravener rolls 2x for init at +14 and attacks for +18(+manyshot)/+18/+18/+13 for 1d8+11+2d6. If they are flat-footed he adds an additional 10d6 sneak attack. Crit on 19-20.
He also has enough magic and skills to help both in and out of combat.
A Zen archer is reliable damage, not so much for tricks. They get a few but they're widely spaced in levels.
Top damage goes to the arsenal chaplain warpriest, second to an inquisitor. 6 level casting can include a fair amount of tricks for either. An eldritch archer magus, an occultist or a grenadier alchemist (using explosive missile) is basically made of tricks by comparison.
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Ravener Hunter Sanctified Slayer Inquisitor. I think Arsenal Chaplin was the best before this new inquisitor archetype.
My level 8 ravener rolls 2x for init at +14 and attacks for +18(+manyshot)/+18/+18/+13 for 1d8+11+2d6. If they are flat-footed he adds an additional 10d6 sneak attack. Crit on 19-20.
He also has enough magic and skills to help both in and out of combat.
Break that down Ragoz
What are you defining as best?
Most damage? Fighter archer, Molthuni Arsenal Chaplain Warpriest, and Inquisitor have the most DPR.
In terms of versatility, the Warpriest and Inquisitor has spells. But the Inquisitor also has a good number of skill points and class abilities to enhance those skills.
Overall, I think Inquisitor makes the best archer in terms of being well rounded, versatile, and dealing damage.
It may not be the best "pure" archer, but [fighter or ranger or inspired blade swashbuckler]* 1/wizard 6/eldritch knight 2/arcane archer 3/eldritch knight +8 is IMO the best archer/caster combination (+17 BAB and spell progression as a 17th level wizard to have access to 9th-level spellcasting).
Eldritch archer magus 7/arcane archer 3**/magus +10 can pull even more tricks with casting spells through arrows: Ranged Spellstrike with ranged touch spells (and touch spells as well with the Reach Spellstrike arcana) or Imbue Arrow with area of effect spells. However, the wizard/eldritch knight/arcane archer has many more (slots and on the spell list) and higher level spells.
*- fighter for the bonus feat, ranger for Favored Enemy and use of spell trigger items (wands of cure light wounds, wands of longstrider, wands of barkskin, etc.) from the ranger spell list, or swashbuckler to take Fencing Grace at 1st level
**- note that Enhance Arrows (Elemental) stacks with Arcane Pool (on the bow), as long as you don't try to add the same element type to both the arrows and bow
I think the warpriest is better early levels but the inquisitor pulls out ahead imo. Never heard of the Ravener until now, seems really nice but at level 7 the sanctified slayer does 2D6 sneak attack damage, not sure where Ragoz is getting the 10d6. I'm assuming the battle mystery with Warsight and weapon mastery. Pretty nice.
I went the feather domain and picked up a animal companion. At level 9 I have +10 init and first round is casting divine favor...with a ring of tacitical precision (improved spell sharing) So I get +4 to hit and damage and the Velociraptor gets +3 for 5 rounds (most things will be dead by then) and the companion rushes in with pounce So +14 Bite 1d6+12, 2 claws +14 1d4+12 and 2 talons +14 1d8+12. Thats before I can put out a arrow. (I keep a bunch of pheromone arrows but rarely used) Next round the velociraptor is back to attack and I can start shooting With bane he is hitting with +21 (manyshot) +21/+16 1d8+2d6+17. I have litany of sloth/companion to intercept anything that gets close to me. With Friendly fire maneuvers I bypass allies giving the enemies soft cover. Also cluster shot and adamantine arrows. Next level I could get greater invisibility to gain my +3D6 sneak attack.
Haunt Collector Occultist with the Trappings of the Warrior Panoply (bucklers say explicitly they don't interfere with archery.) Take Transmutation and Abjuration as your level 1 implements, something with a bad resonant bonus at 2nd level (conjuration is handy) and haunt it for the champion's seance boon (+2 damage), then take the panoply at level 6 and you're now a full BAB 6-level caster.
You're tight on feats (ideally you're an elf or half-elf for the FCB) but you're absurdly versatile and your damage is really high.
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I think the warpriest is better early levels but the inquisitor pulls out ahead imo. Never heard of the Ravener until now, seems really nice but at level 7 the sanctified slayer does 2D6 sneak attack damage, not sure where Ragoz is getting the 10d6. I'm assuming the battle mystery with Warsight and weapon mastery. Pretty nice.
I went the feather domain and picked up a animal companion. At level 9 I have +10 init and first round is casting divine favor...with a ring of tacitical precision (improved spell sharing) So I get +4 to hit and damage and the Velociraptor gets +3 for 5 rounds (most things will be dead by then) and the companion rushes in with pounce So +14 Bite 1d6+12, 2 claws +14 1d4+12 and 2 talons +14 1d8+12. Thats before I can put out a arrow. (I keep a bunch of pheromone arrows but rarely used) Next round the velociraptor is back to attack and I can start shooting With bane he is hitting with +21 (manyshot) +21/+16 1d8+2d6+17. I have litany of sloth/companion to intercept anything that gets close to me. With Friendly fire maneuvers I bypass allies giving the enemies soft cover. Also cluster shot and adamantine arrows. Next level I could get greater invisibility to gain my +3D6 sneak attack.
I wonder if the ravener would be better taking the wood mystery. Wood bond is like playing a full Bab archer. Wood armor has no max dex which is great for the build.
Ravener is pretty cool, that is my pfs character which I've been playing for about 5 years. Retrained once, scared to do again, plus the companion can't be beat
My best Archer Build: Gunslinger with the Drunken Brawler, Drunkard's Recovery, Accelerated Drinker, and Iron Liver feats. Maybe dip into Monk to get Drunken Master and Fast Drinker, too.
Don't forget your tactical turtleneck.
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Breakdown from above:
The character is a garuda blooded aasimar.
He took charged by nature: battle mystery gaining warsight and weapon mastery.
His feats are: point blank, precise, rapid, teamwork feat allied spellcaster, deadly aim, weapon focus, improved critical, ranger style manyshot, and demon hunter.
Traits: deadeye bowman and reactionary
His cunning initiative gives him 6 dex + 5 wis + 2 reactionary + 1 ioun stone to init.
He uses a rod to extend heroism and has boots of speed to haste as needed.
He tries to study the enemy before breaking invisibility if possible. With study bane and sneak attack he does: 1d8 longbow + 4 Deadly + 2 enhancement + 2 bane + 2 study + 1 point blank + 2d6 bane + 2d6 sneak attack per attack.
Bab + Many + Rapid + Haste + (bab-5) attacks per round.
Total is: 5d8+55+20d6
My actual favorite archer can't be built anymore and used early entry rules. He's my highest level pfs character at 16.. I want a chance to play him again so bad.
He is currently wizard 2 / eldritch knight 10 / Arcane archer 4.
Breakdown from above:
The character is a garuda blooded aasimar.
He took charged by nature: battle mystery gaining warsight and weapon mastery.
His feats are: point blank, precise, rapid, teamwork feat allied spellcaster, deadly aim, weapon focus, improved critical, ranger style manyshot, and demon hunter.
Traits: deadeye bowman and reactionary
His cunning initiative gives him 6 dex + 5 wis + 2 reactionary + 1 ioun stone to init.
He uses a rod to extend heroism and has boots of speed to haste as needed.
He tries to study the enemy before breaking invisibility if possible. With study bane and sneak attack he does: 1d8 longbow + 4 Deadly + 2 enhancement + 2 bane + 2 study + 1 point blank + 2d6 bane + 2d6 sneak attack per attack.
Bab + Many + Rapid + Haste + (bab-5) attacks per round.
Total is: 5d8+55+20d6
My actual favorite archer can't be built anymore and used early entry rules. He's my highest level pfs character at 16.. I want a chance to play him again so bad.
He is currently wizard 2 / eldritch knight 10 / Arcane archer 4.
You do realize that Sneak Attack will only apply on the first attack with your bow unless you're using Greater Invisibility, which isn't available until 10th level. At which point, monster often have easy ways of seeing invisibility.
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You do realize that Sneak Attack will only apply on the first attack with your bow unless you're using Greater Invisibility, which isn't available until 10th level. At which point, monster often have easy ways of seeing invisibility.
Of course. I also realize my roll twice take the better +14 bonus to initiative means I go first and they are flat-footed because they haven't acted in combat and thus get sneak attacked by each attack.
Sneak attack is just an extra bonus now and then on top of all this. I already average 126 before it is added.
I'd say inquisitor because both warpriest and it are doing enough damage that it's overkill but the inquisitor has much more to do outside of combat.
Fighter is also doing a bonkers amount of damage (less than the above though) but I don't see it being close to the inquisitor outside of combat.
His feats are: point blank, precise, rapid, teamwork feat allied spellcaster, deadly aim, weapon focus, improved critical, ranger style manyshot, and demon hunter.
Are you taking improved critical just to get the 19-20 crit range? Or has something else already increased the crit range that this is increasing further?
I have a 1/2 Orc Inquisitor [Santified Slayer] 11 is PFS. He can easily hit 250 drp.
Class grants many combat and out of combat options. He is really fun to play.
He took charged by nature: battle mystery gaining warsight and weapon mastery.His feats are: point blank, precise, rapid, teamwork feat allied spellcaster, deadly aim, weapon focus, improved critical, ranger style manyshot, and demon hunter.
Also, did you take warsight or weapon mastery first?
Whats ranger style manyshot? If its the one from the ranger class how did you pick it up?
Sanctified slayer gets a few slayer talents, which can in turn get ranger combat styles.
Oh! I see its listed as Ranger Combat Style. Man that was a long chain to follow. Thanks!
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His feats are: point blank, precise, rapid, teamwork feat allied spellcaster, deadly aim, weapon focus, improved critical, ranger style manyshot, and demon hunter.Are you taking improved critical just to get the 19-20 crit range? Or has something else already increased the crit range that this is increasing further?
19-20. It is granted by weapon mastery for free.
I take warsight first but this isn't required.
Wouldn't him retraining as a wizard mean he couldn't qualify for the prestige class?
Arcane Archer grants martial weapon proficiency. It is an old prestige class and this is rarely seen on prestige classes now.
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Yes I get that. But in order to become that you need profiency in bows. Which a wizard doesn't get.
So the problem remains the same. You can't qualify for either, and can't retrain out and still expect it to work.
Basically by being a wizard and no longer a magus you can't know bows.
Because you cant know bows you can't use weapon focus.
Because you can't use weapon focus you can't be an arcane archer.
Because you can't be an arcane archer you can't have martial weapons.
Because you can't have martial weapons you can't be an eldritch knight.
So retraining to wizard AFTER qualifying would disqualify. You can't use the proficiency of a class you can't qualify for to qualify for it.
That's like saying you have BAB 7 but arcane archer gives you +1 So you qualify for it's +8 prereq
Edit: I get that just getting bow proficiency fixes a lot of this
Oh. I see. I was just answering how I qualify for eldritch knight like someone asked. I have an Opalescent white pyramid (longbow) granting martial weapon proficiency and weapon focus for arcane archer.
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I want to play a Awesome Archer Character but i am not sure what one to do. I wand high Damage and other tricks as well.
Questions:
1) Are you looking for actual archery (i.e., you want to be Robin Hood or Legolas, etc), or just the ability to be good at ranged combat?
2) What is the power-level of your game? Are you playing from 1st-level and expect to still under 10th with a year of play? Does you GM permit every splatbook in the game?
(Archers are good, but cannot compare to Spamflyingmonster or Dazingchainacidlighting builds in the high-level game.)
3) What "tricks" are you looking for? Skills? Dabbler magic? A charisma score that doesn't actively repulse the opposite sex?
(Archers are good, but cannot compare to Spamflyingmonster or Dazingchainacidlighting builds in the high-level game.)
what are those things?
Ragoz, I was under the impression you had to take the Slayer Trick: Ranger Combat Style once before. The second time you get it, then you are eligible to pick manyshot.
It's not just the level requirement, I think. You could just replace the ranger combat style with another lowbie feat, and pick up manyshot, but you wouldn't be able to until next level (9).
Also, with manyshot, you couldn't get SA with the additional bolt, but that's no big deal.
Grandlounge, while Wood would eventually give a total of +5 bonus to all attacks (not quite as good as full BAB, no extra attacks, qualifying for stuff, etc, but still good), I believe battle would be better.
At level 8, wood only gives +1 to attack more, and grants wood armor for 8 hours. As his dex bonus is +6, he could wear mithral chain shirt for +4 armor forever, for about 1k gold. And then, he can reroll his init, and get Improved Critical. He'll eventually get a lot better with init (which helps his SA), and get another +1 to hit. So you make off with another +3 to hit, but lose a large boost to initiate related things.
Back to Ragoz, I assume you study in surprise round, bane in first (if you decide you need it. After all, you'll only get 8 rounds a day)? As both use swift actions.
However, I am concerned with this character to hit bonus. Damage is good, unless the entire attack misses. From my math, against an average CR 8 monster, about half your attacks miss. Sure, you could opt out on a lot of optionals (rapid shot, deadly shot), but then you're damage output isn't as good, and you'll still miss plenty. Against a boss, however, I don't see how you'll be very effective at damage much at all.
But I'm not sure if I've factored everything in.
Actually, I'm pretty sure I haven't. Forgot about Heroism. There's probably a lot of small bonuses that make it all up that I didn't account for.
Yeah, you use your surprise round to cast your "Channel Vigor" to get +4 to ranged attacks. If you're up against a boss, hopefully you still have a Heroism going.
+6 BAB, +6 DEX, +1 Weapon Focus, +2 Studied, +2 Bane, +2 Enhancement, -2 Rapid Shot, -3 Deadly Aim, +4 Channel Vigor, +1 Haste, +2 Heroism.
Against a boss, when you need to unleash, you get +20 to hit (+21 when within 30 ft.).
So, CR +4 (CR 12 here), average AC is 27. You'd hit on a 7+. 6+ if within 30 ft.
You'd miss about 1/3 of the shots.
22.5 average damage, plus about 15 damage if the manyshot attack hit.
So, if math is right....an average of a bit over 60 damage of actual hit and done damage against an average CR 12 enemy on the first round, dropping his HP by about a third.
Just thought, it'd be much better in this instance to drop the deadly aim, for increased chance to hit.
And that's a very challenging enemy.
I'm just doing math for math's sake, so I'm gonna stop now.
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Grandlounge, while Wood would eventually give a total of +5 bonus to all attacks (not quite as good as full BAB, no extra attacks, qualifying for stuff, etc, but still good), I believe battle would be better.
At level 8, wood only gives +1 to attack more, and grants wood armor for 8 hours. As his dex bonus is +6, he could wear mithral chain shirt for +4 armor forever, for about 1k gold. And then, he can reroll his init, and get Improved Critical. He'll eventually get a lot better with init (which helps his SA), and get another +1 to hit. So you make off with another +3 to hit, but lose a large boost to initiate related things.
Every iteration after the first has 25% less value where accuracy especially on a 3/4 BAB class that is taking a -4 to all attack is valuable in every fight that has stakes.
*Caveat is the wood bonus does not stack with Inspire Courage so it is worthless if there is a bard, as is Channel Vigor.
The problem with battle is that you eventually have most of the benefits of Weapon Mastery covered. Rogue talent for Weapon Focus, use a spell or feat for Improved crit/keen.
I normally like the roll multiple time ability but improved initiative is fine on this build. With a good initiative get you sneak attack which helps your action economy. If you're high in initiative order swift bane, then full attack, that causes study go up automatically and would be best. If you are not at the top of the initiative you should be casting divine favor or divine power and swift study. Those spells are better than Channel vigor at any level other than 7 and 8 or always better with fate's favored. You can then use that third level spell slot for keen edge.
AC math
You don't seem to be considering the full effect of the armor.
Wood Armor
At level 11 you have +8 armor +7 dex (+4 start +1 level +2belt)= +15
Level 11 with a chain shirt:
+4 armor +6 dex (max) = +10
Now you have to make up 5 AC. + 3 armor + 1 ring, + 1 amulet that is 13 000 gp saved.
But watch what happens when the wood mystery buys a ring and amulet (4000). The next 2 cheapest bumps to AC are an ioun stone for 5000gp and 7000gp for the armor. Now you're at a deficit of 21000GP.
Add to this DR and the continued scaling and you are getting a for that mystery.
*Another caveat none of this matters if you play a AC dump archer.
You are correct, I, apparently, didn't fully read the wood armor description. It is considerably better than I initially thought.
And, very true about Channel Vigor not being nearly as good as the other two spells. You take a drawback to gain another trait, slot in Fate's Favored. Now a level 1 spell is giving the same attack bonus, but also giving +4 damage (once you hit CL9). When you hit level 10, now you can cast a Lv4 spell that does the same thing, but also grants temp. hp, and gives you another attack (saving you from burning boot duration), and the bonuses will keep getting higher as you level (max +7 to hit/damage).
With the initiative thing, remember too that you always act in the surprise round. That means you can bring up one swift action thing (like study) and cast Divine Favor/Power.
Next round, bring up bane and full attack, usually with an initiative high enough to grant sneak attack.
The two feats aren't really that great, in my opinion. But that wouldn't be why I picked battle.
But, with high wisdom, ranks in perception, you might act in a lot of surprise rounds anyway. High initiative, you still get sneak attack. Consider me convinced, I think Wood would be the better pick.