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I hit level 20 with the ranger. We had some rangers in the 15 to 16 range, but this if the first ranger played to 20. They do surprisingly well in high level encounters.
Flurry archer is pretty brutal. The machine gun archery with only a -2 to -4 on attacks with a major striking weapon, property runes, and gravity bow eats up hit points.
Blindfight with Masterful Hunter with a +4 circ bonus to seek with a Legendary Perception and a perception item makes their ability to locate invisible targets pretty amazing.
Then shoot them with Blindfight makes invisibility and Hidden mind not near as bad as it for most characters.
They can attack from close up or up to 240 to 300 feet away with no penalty which lets them hit fliers easier than most classes with archery.
The Shared Prey is powerful working with another martial.
Their saves are solid with Master Fort and Legendary Perception. They can focus their stats very nicely on Str, Dex, Con, and Wisdom.
Ranger proved to be a very potent and powerful class at across most levels. Better than I expected given they have a lag point in the middle levels.
And the free action Swift Prey when rolling initiative is a big game changer. Makes Hunt Prey management much easier.
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Never seen one in very high level play. Their 1 action fly can be very useful in low to mid levels.
But their Hunt Prey management can be a pain. You never actually lose (since your flurry makes up for the action spent to hunt prey) except in the very rare cases that you need to hunt prey twice in a single round but it comes out in the wash as of little value a huge amount of the time.
Shared Prey is kinda awesome too.
I think they're a solid martial, albeit lagging a little behind the martial kings (Barbarian, Fighter, Exemplar).
I just wish they got a little more naturey stuff in their chassis as opposed to having to spend very valuable feats on it.
Did a flurry ranger (melee, str primary) up to L20, which was brutal combined with a rogue partner, both with opportune backstab. Didn't go for shared prey, no other marshal which did multiple attacks, but double prey solves the hunt prey issues. Agile weapons (dogslicer), sneak attack, runes, a bard in the party makes for one hell of a meat grinder. Effective on every levels. Haste helps with movement or yet another attack.
Backup bow was also nice to have for long range attacks.
In my opinion one of the best damage dealers in the game, if not the best.
Have GMed/played a few rangers at this point, and despite being stuck at low levels with them due to either Society limitations or slow-moving campaigns, I've never been disappointed in their performance. Rolled a (somewhat ill-advised) melee precision ranger, and she wound up feeling like a weird magus-monk combination: lots of set up for that initial high impact strike, but as soon as everything was in place, she'd have a fairly liberal action economy for the back half of the encounter. This jack-in-the-box-esque combat flow was pretty satisfying, and different from the other martials I've fiddled around with.
What's especially interesting to me is how Ranger Discourse has evolved over time. Early in PF2's life cycle, it was hailed as *the* boss killer. Then, things swung the other way into this really obnoxious "why should I even play a ranger when the fighter exists" refrain, and once that eventually settled down, the ranger just sort of hovered around mid-tier in popularity/efficacy rankings for a while: reliable, but not exciting. Now, with more people finishing campaigns and hitting high levels with it, positivity is on the rise.
My own journey with the class has been more of a slow rise in appreciation. At first, I had no interest in it, as the "optimal" turn flow looked stupendously boring, and I had zero interest in the class fantasy. Then I started to fidget with a build of my own (flurry with gill hook for reach-grapple-strike shenanigans), and while it didn't immediately grab me, I nonetheless didn't hate it. It wasn't until ranger #2 (melee precision lady, again hardly minmaxxed, mostly just built for style points) that I truly began to enjoy the class, and now with SF2 content on the table, I like it better as a stealthy sniper than the actual sniper operative.
Dunno how useful this'll be to the conversation at hand--I'm a "feels over reals" guy, largely ignoring hard statistics in favor of subjective piloting experience--but I like rangers, so I felt the need to yap.
I just wish they got a little more naturey stuff in their chassis as opposed to having to spend very valuable feats on it.
As someone who hasn't gotten around to playing a Ranger myself (but has always had it on my "well, maybe next time" list of classes), this part always bugged me-I always see talk about Ranger being "the nature guy", but then I look and the nature stuff felt like it borders on incidental to the more broad "focus-target monster hunter" side of the class. Made me wish they'd at least done something like bolt on a bonus skill scaling for a choice of survival or nature, if nothing else.
Other than that, Ranger being powerful at level 20 seems to track. My impression of the class from reading it, and seeing a friend play one at level 1-4, has pretty much always been that it's... Kinda boring-but-functional at lower levels? I'd never be mad to see one. It gains some action fiddliness compared to Fighter or Barbarian, in exchange for a broader weapon toolbox. Then it looked like it rapidly starts ramping up in cool-factor when it get its fancier toys that really juice its features at the mid (10~ish) levels.
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From my experience, the Ranger is quite good post-level 17 when they get their masterful hunter upgrade and all the feats that push them towards their specific playstyle, but before then they feel like they come up a little short. It's not a huge gap, but to me there is a noticeable difference nonetheless between low-level and high-level Rangers because of it.
Did a flurry ranger (melee, str primary) up to L20, which was brutal combined with a rogue partner, both with opportune backstab. Didn't go for shared prey, no other marshal which did multiple attacks, but double prey solves the hunt prey issues. Agile weapons (dogslicer), sneak attack, runes, a bard in the party makes for one hell of a meat grinder. Effective on every levels. Haste helps with movement or yet another attack.
Backup bow was also nice to have for long range attacks.
In my opinion one of the best damage dealers in the game, if not the best.
I took Shared Prey and Double Prey which let's you share your Hunter's Edge when you hunt prey which works great against single targets. We had a fighter in the group as the Ranger was acting as the rogue trapfinder character, so they worked well together. Absolutely hammer melee and ranged set up since Shared Prey works with melee and ranged characters from any distance. The ranger archer can hammer from long distance so even dragons and fast fliers and movers are not safe from them when trying strafing tactics.
Blindfight is so powerful at high level. We deal with Hidden Mind and 4th level invis to disappearance a lot. High level ranger archers laugh at those spells even from flying casters trying to hit us with AOE from range. With a super high reflex save and maxed out dex, they even often laugh at casters trying to hit them with AOE from afar.
With Canny Acumen, they the end the game with Legendary Perception, Master Fort, Legendary Reflex, and Master Will saves.
And that flurry archer does do a lot of damage. When hasted they can churn off 5 shots a round with a -4 penalty at most. They eat up bosses and mooks, especially when you toss a heroism on them.
Then you can build up stealth real high due to the high dex.
They have a tremendous amount of stuff going for them.
Just to add to the ranger getting Legendary Perception at 15th level. This means they qualify for True Perception (constant truesight) with their 19th level general feat...
Just to add to the ranger getting Legendary Perception at 15th level. This means they qualify for True Perception (constant truesight) with their 19th level general feat...
Unfortunately as the true seeing off of that is 6th-rank, it has basically already fallen off against on-level foes and illusion effects. Sure, it's good against regular invisibility, but plenty of high level sneaky creatures have other, higher ranked, effects instead.
Just to add to the ranger getting Legendary Perception at 15th level. This means they qualify for True Perception (constant truesight) with their 19th level general feat...Unfortunately as the true seeing off of that is 6th-rank, it has basically already fallen off against on-level foes and illusion effects. Sure, it's good against regular invisibility, but plenty of high level sneaky creatures have other, higher ranked, effects instead.
It's not going to work against boss monsters or casters, but it's still fairly good against mooks.
It uses your Legendary Perception as a ranger to counteract and counteracts one level higher on a regular success which would be up to a 7th level spell. The spell DC can get lower on mooks making it so you have a higher chance to crit.
I find it is a worthwhile expenditure of a general feat to gain permanent truesight.
Just don't expect it to overcome high level boss monsters or casters. There isn't much better to take at those high levels if you have Legendary Perception.
The Shared Prey is powerful working with another martial.
Yes always was. It gets lost in many white room analyses of the class.
What reaction did you use for the Ranger?
The Shared Prey is powerful working with another martial.Yes always was. It gets lost in many white room analyses of the class.
What reaction did you use for the Ranger?
Nothing most of the time. Sometimes the free action Stag Helm magic item. I had Cunning Dodge on my Mercurial Mantle, but didn't get to use it too often.
I tended to stay far away and skirmish.
Did you have any good reaction ideas someone could add to a good ranger build from range?
Did you have any good reaction ideas someone could add to a good ranger build from range?
Not really. Its a hard question. A Flurry Archer Ranger would not be a natural build for me.
Target of Opportunity from Marshal, but that is party dependent.
Tiller's Aid to make Aid just a reaction.
???
Did you have any good reaction ideas someone could add to a good ranger build from range?Not really. Its a hard question. A Flurry Archer Ranger would not be a natural build for me.
Target of Opportunity from Marshal, but that is party dependent.
Tiller's Aid to make Aid just a reaction.???
Same for me. They don't have a lot of good reactions for range. I think the designers know the main advantage of ranged attacks is range, so they limit the good reactions for archers and spellcasters at range.
This was my first flurry ranger. I played a ranger low level before and they had such a lag after level 5 and even more after level 10 that I didn't care for them much. I decided to stick it out and after level 15 things started to pick up and the ranger became stronger again.
Ranger archer is probably the best martial I've seen for dealing with fliers and invisible attackers regardless of distance.
Ranged flurry archer can be devastating at high levels.
My main complaint is that it can get very repetitive because you just stand in place and spend all your actions shooting in 80% of encounters.
I used to not mind that, but as I've gotten older it's started to bother me.
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Ranged flurry archer can be devastating at high levels.
My main complaint is that it can get very repetitive because you just stand in place and spend all your actions shooting in 80% of encounters.
I used to not mind that, but as I've gotten older it's started to bother me.
Upside is if you are playing a flurry ranger they do what they say on the Tin. If that calls to the primal hunter then this is a feature not a bug.
But for others yeah I cast arrows ever action can get a bit dull but they are REALLY GOOD at it so at least you feel useful/effective.