UA Revised Ranger - Melee

[Mandalore108]

I'm going to be creating a variant human Beast Conclave Ranger for an existing campaign. He'll be starting at lvl.11 and using a dire wolf companion who I can use as a mount(DM has allowed this) but I'm having trouble deciding on his combat style. I was thinking of the following:

1. TWF style with the dual wielder feat. He'd be using two rapiers. I'd also keep a hand crossbow/thrown weapons for some spell attacks.

2. Defense style with polearm master and sentinel feats. He'd be using the glaive or halberd with hand axes for certain spells.

I know #2 is more MAD but #1 could also lead to more instances of me breaking down and using ranged attacks.

I could use some advice on which fighting style would be the best or just most fun for a Beast Conclave melee ranger.

Any suggestions besides my two would also be welcome.

[PeteNutButter]

I'm going to be creating a variant human Beast Conclave Ranger for an existing campaign. He'll be starting at lvl.11 and using a dire wolf companion who I can use as a mount(DM has allowed this) but I'm having trouble deciding on his combat style. I was thinking of the following:

1. TWF style with the dual wielder feat. He'd be using two rapiers. I'd also keep a hand crossbow/thrown weapons for some spell attacks.

2. Defense style with polearm master and sentinel feats. He'd be using the glaive or halberd with hand axes for certain spells.

I know #2 is more MAD but #1 could also lead to more instances of me breaking down and using ranged attacks.

I could use some advice on which fighting style would be the best or just most fun for a Beast Conclave melee ranger.

Any suggestions besides my two would also be welcome.

GWM works excellently with PAM, and mounted combat works well with GWM, as the advantage against medium or smaller foes can offset the -5 to hit. That's 3 feats though, and doing that would leave you at 16 starting str, assuming point buy.

If you are ok with staff and shield you could rock Mounted combatant and go PAM and shield. So you can attack twice (often with advantage), but use your High AC to protect your mount via mounted combatant.

[Mandalore108]

GWM works excellently with PAM, and mounted combat works well with GWM, as the advantage against medium or smaller foes can offset the -5 to hit. That's 3 feats though, and doing that would leave you at 16 starting str, assuming point buy.

If you are ok with staff and shield you could rock Mounted combatant and go PAM and shield. So you can attack twice (often with advantage), but use your High AC to protect your mount via mounted combatant.

Would Sentinel also be a good choice or does GWM have better synergy?

Also, I'll probably skip on mounted combatant as I want the wolf to take some hits. Though the advantage would be nice.

[Hudsonian]

It seems to me that most of the good spells for a ranger do not require a ranged weapon. You would have some pretty great battlefield control, or ongoing damage from non-weapon spells. Depending on your party it seems like you would always want to keep a Cure Wounds or goodberry on hand, and you have access to hunters mark which increase the damage for both you and your companion. Add plant growth, Spike Growth, and Conjure Barrage (only requires ammunition) and you've got some pretty deadly spells. (Although you will be hurting for Concentration.

What spells are you wanting to pull back and use anyway?

[PeteNutButter]

Would Sentinel also be a good choice or does GWM have better synergy?

Also, I'll probably skip on mounted combatant as I want the wolf to take some hits. Though the advantage would be nice.

You don't have to force attacks to hit you. It's just an option, if he is getting low. The advantage is the real money in that situation.

Sentinel is good with PAM for the potential lock out of a foe that was trying to come in for melee. It's only useful on once per round, and after that you'll be taking some OAs if you want to get out of reach to do it again, since you'll want to close the distance for your puppy to attack.

So basically you force one melee opponent to use his ranged attack on round one if you hit his AC and he doesn't himself have reach. I'd say it's better on another character that would be ok with keeping 10 feet or more away, but you'd lose too much damage if your pet didn't attack. Also the backing off every round strategy really makes you a BAD tank, since foes can go after squishies, and nullifies the other half of sentinel.

TL;DR: PAM is great. Sentinel is great. So its fine. The synergy ability is a little wasted on this character.

[Mandalore108]

You don't have to force attacks to hit you. It's just an option, if he is getting low. The advantage is the real money in that situation.

Sentinel is good with PAM for the potential lock out of a foe that was trying to come in for melee. It's only useful on once per round, and after that you'll be taking some OAs if you want to get out of reach to do it again, since you'll want to close the distance for your puppy to attack.

So basically you force one melee opponent to use his ranged attack on round one if you hit his AC and he doesn't himself have reach. I'd say it's better on another character that would be ok with keeping 10 feet or more away, but you'd lose too much damage if your pet didn't attack. Also the backing off every round strategy really makes you a BAD tank, since foes can go after squishies, and nullifies the other half of sentinel.

TL;DR: PAM is great. Sentinel is great. So its fine. The synergy ability is a little wasted on this character.

Got it, thank you.

Either way I'll definitely be taking PAM now and I'll decide on the others later.

[Mandalore108]

It seems to me that most of the good spells for a ranger do not require a ranged weapon. You would have some pretty great battlefield control, or ongoing damage from non-weapon spells. Depending on your party it seems like you would always want to keep a Cure Wounds or goodberry on hand, and you have access to hunters mark which increase the damage for both you and your companion. Add plant growth, Spike Growth, and Conjure Barrage (only requires ammunition) and you've got some pretty deadly spells. (Although you will be hurting for Concentration.

What spells are you wanting to pull back and use anyway?

After reading what you said I guess I don't need to pull back for any magic attack.

[Hrdven]

2. Defense style with polearm master and sentinel feats. He'd be using the glaive or halberd with hand axes for certain spells.
.

A ranger with a glaive? Really?
Can you imagine a guy living in a forest carrying an halberd all around?

[Mandalore108]

A ranger with a glaive? Really?
Can you imagine a guy living in a forest carrying an halberd all around?

I'll be flavoring it as a spear.

Think San from Princess Mononoke who rides a wolf wielding a spear.

[Foxhound438]

A ranger with a glaive? Really?
Can you imagine a guy living in a forest carrying an halberd all around?

Yeah, honestly. Polearms IRL are (were) massively powerful weapons, and no less so if you happen to be in a forest.

Also, to OP: GWM is going to be really good if you have a dire wolf, since it can knock things prone to give you advantage, and then you in turn stand next to the thing to give the wolf advantage as well. Reach is kind of wasted here, as both require you to be within 5', but none the less +10 damage on 2 attacks for effectively no drop in accuracy is great.

[Mandalore108]

Before I go ahead with this build I just wanted to make sure of the following since no one mentioned it:

TWF is suboptimal in pretty much every regard?

[Jacquerel]

TWF is fine, you won't suck if you use TWF, but it's suboptimal in that it is basically never the best choice, so in that regard it's less than optimal.

The benefits of TWF for a Ranger are a higher chance per turn to trigger Colossus Slayer (but you're a beast mastery ranger not a hunter ranger so this doesn't apply) and more times to trigger Hunter's Mark, as well as potentially slightly higher AC if you take the Dual Wielder feat (but this feat is not as good as the options for larger weapons). It's also good for more reliably triggering Sneak Attack if you multiclass into Rogue.
The downsides are that you have a lot of bonus action spells and abilities (like Hunter's Mark) so won't even get to use that bonus action attack every turn anyway, and worse feat support (GWF and PAM are well known for being extremely powerful, Dual Wielder is not), and just in general a slightly lower damage output.

You can do TWF and it will work out fine, but you will have a slightly lower potential damage ceiling than you would if you were using a single, bigger weapon.
If you want to do TWF because it's really cool then absolutely do it, you'll be alright. If slight mathematical superiority is more important to you, don't, it's a slightly worse option.

[EvilAnagram]

PAM or TWF feel pretty necessary when you play Beast Conclave. Nothing sucks worse for a martial character than missing your one chance to hit in a round. In the specific case of the TWF v. Quarterstaff and shield, the latter is a bit more MAD, and the damage dice are smaller, but you get 1 extra AC. The reaction attack for PAM doesn't matter because your Dire Wolf will attack with your reaction.