So I've been playing a melee STR ranger with heavy armour and a great weapon and have been loving it so far. My spells like web have provided me great utility while having heavy armour and a maul has allowed me to survive and dish out decent damage.
I'm a LVL 5 swarmkeeper ranger, so my bonus action is usually spent on hunters mark, and the piercing swarm ability allows up to up my damage per round.
However, I am worried that as we progress through the campaign, my character will be overshadowed, as I've heard Rangers do not scale well, and after the multi-attack and access to LVL 2 spells I got at LVL 5 I'm not sure what else the ranger class has to provide for me. So I'm thinking of multiclassing but to what?
My options are barbarian, druid, fighter, cleric, monk or rogue.
I've been thinking fighter for the great weapon fighting style and action surge. But I don't know.
So I've been playing a melee STR ranger with heavy armour
How? Racial feat?
and a great weapon and have been loving it so far. My spells like web have provided me great utility while having heavy armour and a maul has allowed me to survive and dish out decent damage.
I'm a LVL 5 swarmkeeper ranger, so my bonus action is usually spent on hunters mark, and the piercing swarm ability allows up to up my damage per round.
Alright.
However, I am worried that as we progress through the campaign, my character will be overshadowed, as I've heard Rangers do not scale well, and after the multi-attack and access to LVL 2 spells I got at LVL 5 I'm not sure what else the ranger class has to provide for me. So I'm thinking of multiclassing but to what?
We can't well-analyze Ranger breakpoints without more information than you're sharing - we need, at a minimum, both your statline (you need to be DEX 13 WIS 13 to multiclass and you presumably have decent STR and CON, which only leads to questions, frankly, taken as a sum) and which optional Ranger features you've taken from Tasha's. But since you've basically told us you spent a feat on heavy armor, please make sure to tell us your race and what feats you have, to avoid surprises.
My options are barbarian, druid, fighter, cleric, monk or rogue.
What the hell is your CON and how are you maintaining concentration on spells like hunter's mark and web?
I've been thinking fighter for the great weapon fighting style and action surge. But I don't know.
Barbarian and Monk are incompatible with your current playstyle in heavy armor. Rogue isn't but won't play nicely with your Maul (Rogue plays much better with sword-and-board). That's half your subclass list thrown out out the gate.
Will your DM let you have access to non-metal heavy armour, like WOTC has suggested they should? If not, Druid is also incompatible with your playstyle. If it is compatible, bear in mind that Cleric 1 is better than Druid 1 for essentially any conceivable purpose - for a Druid dip to do any real work for you, you need at least 2 levels in it so you can have a subclass.
Cleric can be excellent, depending on playstyle - for example, a 1-dip into Peace Cleric is one of the best 1-dips in the game. Fighter doesn't need to subclass to be good because Action Surge is so amazing, but Fighter 1 is usually not worth it in most builds, so like with Druid, you should consider it a 2+ dip. However, since you've reached Ranger 5, you want to avoid Fighter 5 at all costs. so 2-4 (likely 2-3, as Fighter 4 is a nearly dead level except for the ASI - a Ranger level is usually better).
In terms of fighting style, the great weapon fighting style is absolute garbage on all possible builds unless your DM follows the PHB RAW over the SAC. You should judge all styles by how they compare to Defense, since Defense works with 100% of builds. GWF style (SAC rules) is not as good as Defense. PHB RAW can be good with enough dice rolled, but I don't know if a non-Paladin can reach the sheer number of dice you need to roll to make it worthwhile.
NOTE: Neither version of the GWF style will let the style work on your swarm damage, for the same reason that your swarm damage can't crit but can hurt werewolves regardless of weapon: your swarm doesn't deal attack damage.
But we desperately need to know your statline to go into depth. Your claim that you use Web to good effect without using the Swarmkeeper push is strange and means we can't even really guess what your Wisdom is.
Thanks for the reply I appreciate the help. The web was useful once when multiple enemies were in a bottleneck, it's not a mainstay of my build just an example of how I like having the options of ranger utility spells like web and fog cloud. I kinda overplayed web's usefulness I guess, I was just excited I got it to work lol.
Our DM gives everyone a bonus feat at LVL 1 because he hates variant humans. So I'm a half orc and my bonus feat was heavy armor
My stats are:
STR (Total) 18
DEX (Total) 14
CON (Total) 14
INT (Total) 6
WIS (Total)14
CHA (Total) 5
For Tasha's replacement options I took everything except favoured foe, choosing to use hunters mark instead and keep my favoured enemy.
At LVL 2 I took defence as my fighting style
At 4th level I took an ability score improvement to bump my STR and CON to even numbers.
I just hit LVL 6 now and I'm trying to decide if multiclassing is worth it. Maybe 3 levels in Champion Fighter improve my Crit chance (with my Half-Orc savage attack crit ability, that might be worth it?) Anyways, I think that covers your questions, if ya got others just let me know.
Staying ranger isn't a bad option. Some Dms like to nerf options though but even then they hold thier own.
Conjure animals goes pretty far.
And believe it or not poison harvesting can add some first round damage if you have access often enough. (Cordon of arrows for sustainable melee) Hopefully you have a favorite enemies that gives better access. You could ask your dm about buying a flying snake or pack spider.
I would consider not sticking to hunter's mark as much. A simple swarm shove+spikegrowth usually gets more damage than hunter's mark.(especially if your team can use it too)Hunter's mark still might be the right option sometimes.
Tactics become more important at higher levels. Web can be good but melee fighting tends to make you loose concentration faster.
So I've been playing a melee STR ranger with heavy armour and a great weapon and have been loving it so far. My spells like web have provided me great utility while having heavy armour and a maul has allowed me to survive and dish out decent damage.
I'm a LVL 5 swarmkeeper ranger, so my bonus action is usually spent on hunters mark, and the piercing swarm ability allows up to up my damage per round.
However, I am worried that as we progress through the campaign, my character will be overshadowed, as I've heard Rangers do not scale well, and after the multi-attack and access to LVL 2 spells I got at LVL 5 I'm not sure what else the ranger class has to provide for me. So I'm thinking of multiclassing but to what?
My options are barbarian, druid, fighter, cleric, monk or rogue.
I've been thinking fighter for the great weapon fighting style and action surge. But I don't know.
How? Racial feat?
Alright.
We can't well-analyze Ranger breakpoints without more information than you're sharing - we need, at a minimum, both your statline (you need to be DEX 13 WIS 13 to multiclass and you presumably have decent STR and CON, which only leads to questions, frankly, taken as a sum) and which optional Ranger features you've taken from Tasha's. But since you've basically told us you spent a feat on heavy armor, please make sure to tell us your race and what feats you have, to avoid surprises.
What the hell is your CON and how are you maintaining concentration on spells like hunter's mark and web?
Barbarian and Monk are incompatible with your current playstyle in heavy armor. Rogue isn't but won't play nicely with your Maul (Rogue plays much better with sword-and-board). That's half your subclass list thrown out out the gate.
Will your DM let you have access to non-metal heavy armour, like WOTC has suggested they should? If not, Druid is also incompatible with your playstyle. If it is compatible, bear in mind that Cleric 1 is better than Druid 1 for essentially any conceivable purpose - for a Druid dip to do any real work for you, you need at least 2 levels in it so you can have a subclass.
Cleric can be excellent, depending on playstyle - for example, a 1-dip into Peace Cleric is one of the best 1-dips in the game. Fighter doesn't need to subclass to be good because Action Surge is so amazing, but Fighter 1 is usually not worth it in most builds, so like with Druid, you should consider it a 2+ dip. However, since you've reached Ranger 5, you want to avoid Fighter 5 at all costs. so 2-4 (likely 2-3, as Fighter 4 is a nearly dead level except for the ASI - a Ranger level is usually better).
In terms of fighting style, the great weapon fighting style is absolute garbage on all possible builds unless your DM follows the PHB RAW over the SAC. You should judge all styles by how they compare to Defense, since Defense works with 100% of builds. GWF style (SAC rules) is not as good as Defense. PHB RAW can be good with enough dice rolled, but I don't know if a non-Paladin can reach the sheer number of dice you need to roll to make it worthwhile.
NOTE: Neither version of the GWF style will let the style work on your swarm damage, for the same reason that your swarm damage can't crit but can hurt werewolves regardless of weapon: your swarm doesn't deal attack damage.
But we desperately need to know your statline to go into depth. Your claim that you use Web to good effect without using the Swarmkeeper push is strange and means we can't even really guess what your Wisdom is.
Thanks for the reply I appreciate the help. The web was useful once when multiple enemies were in a bottleneck, it's not a mainstay of my build just an example of how I like having the options of ranger utility spells like web and fog cloud. I kinda overplayed web's usefulness I guess, I was just excited I got it to work lol.
Our DM gives everyone a bonus feat at LVL 1 because he hates variant humans. So I'm a half orc and my bonus feat was heavy armor
My stats are:
STR (Total) 18
DEX (Total) 14
CON (Total) 14
INT (Total) 6
WIS (Total)14
CHA (Total) 5
For Tasha's replacement options I took everything except favoured foe, choosing to use hunters mark instead and keep my favoured enemy.
Like the idea i love Ranger and I have been trying to figure out cool things to do with them.
Staying ranger isn't a bad option. Some Dms like to nerf options though but even then they hold thier own.
Conjure animals goes pretty far.
And believe it or not poison harvesting can add some first round damage if you have access often enough. (Cordon of arrows for sustainable melee) Hopefully you have a favorite enemies that gives better access. You could ask your dm about buying a flying snake or pack spider.
I would consider not sticking to hunter's mark as much. A simple swarm shove+spikegrowth usually gets more damage than hunter's mark.(especially if your team can use it too)Hunter's mark still might be the right option sometimes.
Tactics become more important at higher levels. Web can be good but melee fighting tends to make you loose concentration faster.
In terms of combat, I think your best option is to stay Ranger. That said if you want to multiclass I would go with fighter.
Pick up a 2nd flighting style, I think I would take blind fighting or superior technique and go Eldritch Knight for more spells and cantrips.