This is a question comparing the 3rd level features of the Hunter and Fey Wanderer subclasses. Basically, which do you feel is most useful? More fun to play with? This will probably differ based on whether your ranger’s fighting style. I wanted to compare them since both features add additional damage dice (or attack) but under different conditions.
Here are the features below so you don’t have to go searching for them:
Hunter’s Prey
At 3rd level, you gain one of the following features of your choice.
Colossus Slayer
Your tenacity can wear down the most potent foes. When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, the creature takes an extra 1d8 damage if it’s below its hit point maximum. You can deal this extra damage only once per turn.
Giant Killer
When a Large or larger creature within 5 feet of you hits or misses you with an attack, you can use your reaction to attack that creature immediately after its attack, provided that you can see the creature.
Horde Breaker
Once on each of your turns when you make a weapon attack, you can make another attack with the same weapon against a different creature that is within 5 feet of the original target and within range ofyour weapon.
Dreadful Strikes
3rd-level Fey Wanderer feature
You can augment your weapon strikes with mind-scarring magic, drawn from the gloomy hollows of the Feywild. When you hit a creature with a weapon, you can deal an extra 1d4 psychic damage to the target, which can take this extra damage only once per turn.
The extra damage increases to 1d6 when you reach 11th level in this class.
So in terms of pure weapon damage Hunters prey is better, but a Fey Wanderer is probably the funnest class to play IME period.
A FW is a more powerful subclass overall, depending on the party and the game it can be the most powerful Ranger and most powerful "martial" period (with Swarmkeeper and Gloomstalker also in that discussion). I put martial in quotes because at high levels FW is more of a Gish.
Dreadful strikes is a nice boon, but here are the things that make FW awesome:
1. Beguiling Twist is AWESOME! This is the most fun subclass ability of any subclass period. Start with an odd wisdom and get shadow touched and cause fear early (level 1 on a variant human). Open with cause fear and whenever anyone saves twist it and move it to another. upcast it on two then twist it back as a charm on the one you are meleeing. You can also go dragonborn and dragonfear feat or leonin, but shadow touched/cause fear is my favorite way to solo it before Fey Reinforcements. When Fey Reinforcements comes online you are throwing out charms every turn and then twisting them if the enemy saves. It is even better if you have an enchanter in the party or party members that are throwing charm/fear.
2. Fey Reinforcments - Summon Fey with no concentration, then twist it everytime someone makes a save against your Feys' charms, which each one of them does every single turn in addition to attacking. This ability, combined with 3rd level slots and beguiling twist is an awesome combination, you are controlling and you are putting down damage and if you go nova the amount of control and damage increases every turn. 4 turns into a fight and every turn you and your 3 Feys are making a total of 5 attacks, casting what are essentially 3 short duration charm monsters (without advantage to the saves) and laying down a long-duration firghten or charmed if one of them saves. That is with only using two 3rd level slots.
3. Misty Step
4. With a background with charisma skills and a 14 Charisma you can be a better face than a Bard.
Thanks for your insight and opinion! Part of the reason I asked this is because I’m playing a Hunter Ranger 5/Swashbuckler Rogue 5. It’s definitely not an optimized build but fun as a skirmisher and persuader for the party. Horde Breaker almost never comes into play so I was considering what it would be like if I switched subclasses (I’m not big into optimizing damage. I just want to be able to use an ability if I have it)
Fey Wanderer on a cha rogue can make an extremely powerful skills machine. Adding your wisdom to your cha skills plus another skill. It has very nice synergy. Damage wise you also have the option of getting dreadful strikes multiple times by hitting multiple enemies with extra attack.
There are ways to tactically setup hordbreaker but it takes teamwork and specific build choices.(push and pull abilities, other field control,reach weapons)And some dms focus on low enemy counts.instead taking bigger hp bags for easy management. This leads to decreasing hordebreaker options.(sometimes better than dreadful strikes)
Generally colossus slayer is considered the easiest to use of the other two and it feels pretty consistent. With multi attack you should be able to get it most rounds (making it better than dreadful strikes.)
It's hard to get good value out of giant slayer. Only take if you're sure that's what you want and your dm knows you expect to fight bigger creatures.(never better than dreadful strikes)
Thanks for putting into perspective why horde breaker has been less useful. Even with a reach weapon, we’ve definitely had fewer large enemies as we’ve leveled up. I’ve never even considered giant slayer, tbh. It’s the only one of the three that uses up part of your action economy which, in my opinion, makes it worse than the other options
potentially a rogue or "per turn damage build" could get value out of giant slayer because its a "different turn" but its like a mini sentinel feat. Really you'd be better off with the sentinel Feat because it gives you as the player better control.
so, if you are stuck with hordebreaker I suggest talking to your team about ways of forcing two enemies next to each other. spells like moon beam, cloud of daggers, spike growth. fighting in tight spaces, warlock using eldritch blasting to force enemies to be next to each other.
remember with multi attack you could possibly shove (if you have the bonus) one character next to another and still use your second (and possibly third) attacks to get "horde breaker." if two enemies are next to each other with both your attacks you could get 1 regular attack and one free attack on each turning 2 attacks into 4. This even works with a ranged weapon as long as they are next to each other.
one trick that also could be used is Non-dual wielding(the penalty only applies to the bonus action attack not regular off hand ones.). a whip in one hand and a shortsword or rapier in the other if someone leaves your 5ft reach OP attack. if someone leaves your 10ft reach OP attack. as long as an enemy is still next to another when the op attack occurs you can get hordebreaker. sentinel also helps if you have some one enter your reach while next to another target.
The only issue I see there is that horde breaker specifies you can use it once on “one of your turns” so really it’s only once per round. Opportunity attacks wouldn’t proc it. Otherwise a good idea!
The only issue I see there is that horde breaker specifies you can use it once on “one of your turns” so really it’s only once per round. Opportunity attacks wouldn’t proc it. Otherwise a good idea!
you are right I haven't actually played a hunter in a few years...... so I was going from memory and didn't fully re-read even though you posted it. I Never should do that with 5e my bad. still alot of the tactics apply.
No worries! Always good to explore different possibilities. My character is not very strong so I don’t know how often he’ll be able to shove a creature but you did give me an idea! We have a party member that likes to grapple enemies so maybe I can get him to move enemies around for me to make horde breaker happen more often.
That said, how consistently do you need to set up horde breaker for it to be “worth it” compared to other options? I’m pretty sure I could switch features if I wanted but I’m asking the forums so I’m sure about what I want before causing trouble for my DM, haha
This is a question comparing the 3rd level features of the Hunter and Fey Wanderer subclasses. Basically, which do you feel is most useful? More fun to play with? This will probably differ based on whether your ranger’s fighting style. I wanted to compare them since both features add additional damage dice (or attack) but under different conditions.
Here are the features below so you don’t have to go searching for them:
So in terms of pure weapon damage Hunters prey is better, but a Fey Wanderer is probably the funnest class to play IME period.
A FW is a more powerful subclass overall, depending on the party and the game it can be the most powerful Ranger and most powerful "martial" period (with Swarmkeeper and Gloomstalker also in that discussion). I put martial in quotes because at high levels FW is more of a Gish.
Dreadful strikes is a nice boon, but here are the things that make FW awesome:
1. Beguiling Twist is AWESOME! This is the most fun subclass ability of any subclass period. Start with an odd wisdom and get shadow touched and cause fear early (level 1 on a variant human). Open with cause fear and whenever anyone saves twist it and move it to another. upcast it on two then twist it back as a charm on the one you are meleeing. You can also go dragonborn and dragonfear feat or leonin, but shadow touched/cause fear is my favorite way to solo it before Fey Reinforcements. When Fey Reinforcements comes online you are throwing out charms every turn and then twisting them if the enemy saves. It is even better if you have an enchanter in the party or party members that are throwing charm/fear.
2. Fey Reinforcments - Summon Fey with no concentration, then twist it everytime someone makes a save against your Feys' charms, which each one of them does every single turn in addition to attacking. This ability, combined with 3rd level slots and beguiling twist is an awesome combination, you are controlling and you are putting down damage and if you go nova the amount of control and damage increases every turn. 4 turns into a fight and every turn you and your 3 Feys are making a total of 5 attacks, casting what are essentially 3 short duration charm monsters (without advantage to the saves) and laying down a long-duration firghten or charmed if one of them saves. That is with only using two 3rd level slots.
3. Misty Step
4. With a background with charisma skills and a 14 Charisma you can be a better face than a Bard.
Thanks for your insight and opinion! Part of the reason I asked this is because I’m playing a Hunter Ranger 5/Swashbuckler Rogue 5. It’s definitely not an optimized build but fun as a skirmisher and persuader for the party. Horde Breaker almost never comes into play so I was considering what it would be like if I switched subclasses (I’m not big into optimizing damage. I just want to be able to use an ability if I have it)
Fey Wanderer on a cha rogue can make an extremely powerful skills machine. Adding your wisdom to your cha skills plus another skill. It has very nice synergy. Damage wise you also have the option of getting dreadful strikes multiple times by hitting multiple enemies with extra attack.
There are ways to tactically setup hordbreaker but it takes teamwork and specific build choices.(push and pull abilities, other field control,reach weapons)And some dms focus on low enemy counts.instead taking bigger hp bags for easy management. This leads to decreasing hordebreaker options.(sometimes better than dreadful strikes)
Generally colossus slayer is considered the easiest to use of the other two and it feels pretty consistent. With multi attack you should be able to get it most rounds (making it better than dreadful strikes.)
It's hard to get good value out of giant slayer. Only take if you're sure that's what you want and your dm knows you expect to fight bigger creatures.(never better than dreadful strikes)
Thanks for putting into perspective why horde breaker has been less useful. Even with a reach weapon, we’ve definitely had fewer large enemies as we’ve leveled up. I’ve never even considered giant slayer, tbh. It’s the only one of the three that uses up part of your action economy which, in my opinion, makes it worse than the other options
potentially a rogue or "per turn damage build" could get value out of giant slayer because its a "different turn" but its like a mini sentinel feat. Really you'd be better off with the sentinel Feat because it gives you as the player better control.
so, if you are stuck with hordebreaker I suggest talking to your team about ways of forcing two enemies next to each other. spells like moon beam, cloud of daggers, spike growth. fighting in tight spaces, warlock using eldritch blasting to force enemies to be next to each other.
remember with multi attack you could possibly shove (if you have the bonus) one character next to another and still use your second (and possibly third) attacks to get "horde breaker." if two enemies are next to each other with both your attacks you could get 1 regular attack and one free attack
on each turning 2 attacks into 4.This even works with a ranged weapon as long as they are next to each other.one trick that also could be used is Non-dual wielding(the penalty only applies to the bonus action attack not regular off hand ones.). a whip in one hand and a shortsword or rapier in the other
if someone leaves your 5ft reach OP attack. if someone leaves your 10ft reach OP attack. as long as an enemy is still next to another when the op attack occurs you can get hordebreaker. sentinel also helps if you have some one enter your reach while next to another target.The only issue I see there is that horde breaker specifies you can use it once on “one of your turns” so really it’s only once per round. Opportunity attacks wouldn’t proc it. Otherwise a good idea!
you are right I haven't actually played a hunter in a few years...... so I was going from memory and didn't fully re-read even though you posted it. I Never should do that with 5e my bad. still alot of the tactics apply.
No worries! Always good to explore different possibilities. My character is not very strong so I don’t know how often he’ll be able to shove a creature but you did give me an idea! We have a party member that likes to grapple enemies so maybe I can get him to move enemies around for me to make horde breaker happen more often.
That said, how consistently do you need to set up horde breaker for it to be “worth it” compared to other options? I’m pretty sure I could switch features if I wanted but I’m asking the forums so I’m sure about what I want before causing trouble for my DM, haha