Played my Archer (Flurry) Ranger the other day and he was great. One issue I had to deal with was consistent lesser cover when shooting at my target we had two front line martials always in melee with the enemy. Is there a way for me to avoid this somehow? If there are multiple targets do I need to not focus fire the same enemy and Hunt Prey on another target? Or do I save a move action every round to just get into position and continue focus firing?
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I just want to clarify, cover only applies if a creature is in the way. Whether or not your target is in melee range of any other creature is irrelevant.
That said, yes, most of the time you will have to deal with cover. Moving out to the side so you have clear line of sight is good. I know it feels bad not to attack as much as possible as a flurry ranger, but sometimes one turn of setup pays dividends throughout the rest of the battle.
Is it better to focus fire the same guy as the two front liners and spend a move action, or just target a different guy so I don't have to move and Hunt Prey twice in two rounds?
Invest in athletics and quick jump, get some higher ground. Up a tree, on some large rocks, a balcony or anything to get a clear shot at all your targets. Best part of range is able to target and focus who ever you want, so best to find ways to capitalize on it.
In 2e you are generally better off using 1 action to set up for your attacks and then making 2 attack actions than you are just standing and making 3 attack actions.
A third attack action generally suffers a lot from multi attack penalty, while instead using that action before the other 2 attacks to apply a debuff to the enemy or move to a better position generally adds more to your damage output by making those 2 attacks more reliable.
Is it better to focus fire the same guy
Yes. It's always better to focus your attacks, so as to put adversaries in the ground. Dead foes don't deal damage.
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Dead foes don't deal damage.
Well, most times. A dead ancient dragon that falls 200' on top of you can deal quite a bit of damage. ;)
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Is it better to focus fire the same guy as the two front liners and spend a move action, or just target a different guy so I don't have to move and Hunt Prey twice in two rounds?
The answer isn't always the same. You should always look at the situation and consider your options, rather than having one simple rule of thumb that you always follow. That said, here are some considerations to help make decisions:
* How hard is the enemy to hit? If it's easy, then spending the action to move out of cover isn't always needed.
* How wounded is the enemy? If he's heavily wounded and one more shot could finish him off, do you really need to Hunt or could you just shoot once to kill, then Hunt the next monster instead?
* Who's next in initiative? If the monster is next, then there's a lot of gain in killing it now before it gets to take another action. If the wizard is next then he can probably Electric Arc it to death and you're probably better off switching targets already. And if one of the front row is next, you probably shouldn't be killing the target that's already within his reach.
* What's the most important target anyway? Front row characters typically have to work their way through enemy front row monsters because otherwise those can get to your back row characters. But as an archer, you could be targeting enemies in their back row directly. For example, if you're fighting some orc fighter like types with a low level bard behind them, that bard is making those fighters more dangerous, and your front row can't get there easily. But you could take out the bard. The same logic applies to various enemy spellcasters, enemy healers (!!!) and enemy archers.
In general, the game rewards focus firing, but that shouldn't be taken to an absolute, you should always approach the tactical situation with an open mind. Sometimes you need to split your efforts so that the enemy is also not free to focus fire on one of you.
Another bad habit is focus firing on the boss. That makes a lot of sense if the mooks are summons that'll disappear when the boss dies, but otherwise, it can be a poor move. Because of how the math is set up, mooks often still have a decent chance to hit your team, and those hits add up. But their AC is low enough that you can crit them often, so they're basically glass cannons. While the boss is a legit hard target. So taking out the glass cannons first will reduce the amount of damage your team is taking a lot faster.