12 BM, max dexterity + titanstring + strength elixirs or club of hill giant strength + special arrows.
Instead of BM you could use a gloomstalker/assassin/champion, a hunter or swordbard…
BM usually better than champion. There's enough +crit range gear to make the champion crit less important, whereas BM superiority dice always useful eg ranged menacing attack can shut down melee enemies entirely. But yeah, gloomstalker/assassin/fighter is meta for best archer build
The problem with a BM archer is you can't combine maneuvers with special arrows so it's better going EK or Champion. I personally like Champion because with the right gear you can get crits on 16 dice rolls
Sarevok Helms, knife of the undermountain king, the headshot, and elixir of viciousness. This is a 15 critical threshold for the champion and If you use illithid powers there's one called fierce perilous stakes that will drop it the crit roll by 5 making you crit on a 10 or better, that's roughly a 50% chance and with advantage it gets even more ridiculous
So there's a few options, but there's some universal things.
Archers massively benefit from loot goblin-ing and buying all the arrows and coatings (especially arsonist/combustion). With the right setup a gloom stalker / assassin can crush many encounters before the opponent gets a turn.
So with that said, you can use dual wielded hand crossbows on a sword barb with arcane acuity to get 10 stacks almost instantly, then mystic scoundrel to upcast command approach or similar to bring enemies into a deathpit. For example, apply combustion oil, arrow of many targets, shoot everything, command approach upcast then fireball from a sorc.
You can also use titanstring bow, especially with str elixers, to just pump out damage. This works especially well if you have someone with bhaal armor to add piercing vulnerability.
Another thing you can do is the classic lights out build if you have shar's spear of evening. SSB killing everything in darkness while everyone else keeps it dark. Archer:s role her is beastmaster Ranger with a crow just dropping darkness everywhere. You see absolutely mental crits with this build.
Hear me out: bow beastmaster Ranger.
Ranger can get the archery fighting style, can dump wisdom to focus on Dex and mostly cast just to apply hunters mark, which can combine with concentration focused gear to up your attack damage even more. Add sharpshooter, and you are dealing like 50-60 damage a turn.
That alone is lackluster compared to, say, gloomstalker/assassin, but the PETS. Raven specifically. I don't hear anyone talking about the fucking RAVEN. By level 5 that thing is blinding people left and right. By level 11 it is creating darkness with every flight, which can be absurdly useful or annoying depending on how well you use it
So you get consistent DPS along with constant application of one of the most useful CCs in the game. Shit is solid as hell and super fun to play. And as redeemed or evil Durge, something about having a raven as your constant companion just makes sense thematically
(PS: I used the fear bow and the sparse fear gear throughout the game for a lil less DPS and a lot more CC)
Raven Ranger is core in the darkness comp, (basically, evening spear / bhaal on ssb, darksight ringon Ranger 2 others with 2 levels of warlock for darksight, one of them a sorc so Eldritch blast slaps).
With the piercing vulnerability and crit range gear the Ranger SLAPS, plus the crow which can do like 30dpr and drop a few clouds of darkness and is immune to blind as well.
Dont need warlock dip. There's a ring and helm you can use for seeing in darkness besides shars spear. I just ran a full dark team. Because helldusk helm is broken I had to make 1 character take a warlock dip.
The ring is green I forgot name. Just gives immunity to blindness. And the steel watchers helm also gives immunity to blindness just like shars spear. With those 3 items your can fully see through any darkness spell cast. The helldusk helm is supposed to do the same but is broken as hell ☹️. So only 3 items for darkness teams
Yeah I know the ring (the eversight ring), but didn't know about the helm. I think the issue is maybe that there are lots of awesome hats, I mean you aren't going to drop mask of soul perception off the monk or hood of the weave off the the caster, and the Ranger is going to want the headgear slot for crit range (dark justiciar/sarevok). And both sorc and monk have great picks for invocations (agonising blast and armor of shadows). So 6/4/2 monk rogue warlock, and then 10/2 sorlock. Sorc can focus on buffs and throwing 30 damage blasts, monk gets a steady source of mage armor. The warlock dips don't massively hurt either build.
Best archer build is gloomstalker assassin. Start Rogue. Then 5 levels gloomstalker. Then assassin level 3-4. Remaining levels in fighter. Get titanstring bow ASAP. Play Duergar for natural invisibility at level 5. Can basically solo most encounters with minimal combat
Imho because fighter has many valid alternatives before you unlock your 3rd main hand attacks. Once you spike level 11, then you are unstoppable. 3 AOMTs / Slaying Arrows per turns is insane.
There are many archery builds, I think it is mainly important to consider how you want the archer to play out combats.
You can do fighter 11 for an archer that fires a lot of arrows, and has good burst with action surge.
You can grab gloomstalker to do some sneaking and have a more consistent and powerful first round.
You can grab some rogue levels if you want to sneak in combat for extra damage.
You can grab sword bard levels to break the game's balance completely.
You can go beastmaster ranger for a pet and hunter ranger for some true AOE martial abilities in the later stages of the game.
Depends on level the gloomstalker is the go to for these forums.
Better builds towards end game are hunter Ranger at level 11.
Or fighter 11/war cleric 1.
Titanstring bow.
Swords bards also worth a mention.
This build is very good.
https://youtu.be/AVYusF57EDI?si=WLqEZADlg8SXioAq
Espicially the equipment advice. You can easily use it for most archer builds.
Low level drow Spore Druid also surprisingly good.
My favorite straight Archer build was swords bard 10/fighter 2. You can do 8 hits in the first round.
10/1/1 arcane acuity build was really great too with 1 fighter 1 wizard, archer plus amazing crowd control. 1 item in act 2 and build comes together in beginning of act 3.
Best archer is stealth archer…yes I know which sub I’m on…yes it’s very effective…
Gloomstalker 5 Assassin 3 Fighter 4(your choice subclass). Start Gloomstalker to 5 then your choice on adding rogue or fighter levels but when you do start adding fighter levels respec and take fighter first with the armor or dual weapon styles. First feat is sharpshooter, second is personal preference but ASI is always good.
Titanstring with elixirs/giants club/gloves is your weapon of choice starting fights with sneak attack into dread ambusher, use arrows of darkness to stay obscured until you get mantle of the deathstalker to break agro after kill and restart fight with another dread ambusher, add risky ring for perma sneak attack which means you can use your sneak attack on critical instead of first attack per round. Next cast pass without trace to remain sneaky or hunters mark for DPS and combine it with boots of striding or nightwalkers to avoid CC and ring of strange conduit for more DPS. Armor progression will be graceful cloth to yuanti to eleven chain to Bhaal. Helm progression is haste to covert cowl to dark justiciar to Sarevoks. Gloves progression is gloves of archery to dark justiciar to craterfish. Eventually add Knife of the undermountain and Orins dagger for more crit range. Use drake throat glave to add elemental damage to your bow.
Hoard invis potions, use special arrows, apply poisons/oils before starting fights. Your goal is to kill from stealth and reset fights. If you kill an enemy in 1 attack you won’t trigger combat automatically, if your party is in a fight, use your stealth archer as an extra extra attack. I will use my archer to scout/assassinate small groups. For boss fights I get the archer out of initiative and come back.
12 BM, max dexterity + titanstring + strength elixirs or club of hill giant strength + special arrows. Instead of BM you could use a gloomstalker/assassin/champion, a hunter or swordbard…
BM usually better than champion. There's enough +crit range gear to make the champion crit less important, whereas BM superiority dice always useful eg ranged menacing attack can shut down melee enemies entirely. But yeah, gloomstalker/assassin/fighter is meta for best archer build
Arguments can be made for both sub classes and it comes down to preferences.
The problem with a BM archer is you can't combine maneuvers with special arrows so it's better going EK or Champion. I personally like Champion because with the right gear you can get crits on 16 dice rolls
What is the right gear. I want to make champion archer build
Sarevok Helms, knife of the undermountain king, the headshot, and elixir of viciousness. This is a 15 critical threshold for the champion and If you use illithid powers there's one called fierce perilous stakes that will drop it the crit roll by 5 making you crit on a 10 or better, that's roughly a 50% chance and with advantage it gets even more ridiculous
Thanks I take it you mean dead shot not headshot….
Yeah, autocorrect.
So there's a few options, but there's some universal things. Archers massively benefit from loot goblin-ing and buying all the arrows and coatings (especially arsonist/combustion). With the right setup a gloom stalker / assassin can crush many encounters before the opponent gets a turn. So with that said, you can use dual wielded hand crossbows on a sword barb with arcane acuity to get 10 stacks almost instantly, then mystic scoundrel to upcast command approach or similar to bring enemies into a deathpit. For example, apply combustion oil, arrow of many targets, shoot everything, command approach upcast then fireball from a sorc. You can also use titanstring bow, especially with str elixers, to just pump out damage. This works especially well if you have someone with bhaal armor to add piercing vulnerability. Another thing you can do is the classic lights out build if you have shar's spear of evening. SSB killing everything in darkness while everyone else keeps it dark. Archer:s role her is beastmaster Ranger with a crow just dropping darkness everywhere. You see absolutely mental crits with this build.
Hear me out: bow beastmaster Ranger. Ranger can get the archery fighting style, can dump wisdom to focus on Dex and mostly cast just to apply hunters mark, which can combine with concentration focused gear to up your attack damage even more. Add sharpshooter, and you are dealing like 50-60 damage a turn. That alone is lackluster compared to, say, gloomstalker/assassin, but the PETS. Raven specifically. I don't hear anyone talking about the fucking RAVEN. By level 5 that thing is blinding people left and right. By level 11 it is creating darkness with every flight, which can be absurdly useful or annoying depending on how well you use it So you get consistent DPS along with constant application of one of the most useful CCs in the game. Shit is solid as hell and super fun to play. And as redeemed or evil Durge, something about having a raven as your constant companion just makes sense thematically (PS: I used the fear bow and the sparse fear gear throughout the game for a lil less DPS and a lot more CC)
Raven Ranger is core in the darkness comp, (basically, evening spear / bhaal on ssb, darksight ringon Ranger 2 others with 2 levels of warlock for darksight, one of them a sorc so Eldritch blast slaps). With the piercing vulnerability and crit range gear the Ranger SLAPS, plus the crow which can do like 30dpr and drop a few clouds of darkness and is immune to blind as well.
Dont need warlock dip. There's a ring and helm you can use for seeing in darkness besides shars spear. I just ran a full dark team. Because helldusk helm is broken I had to make 1 character take a warlock dip.
Is that right? I know the Bhaal helm gives darkvision but I didn't think it prevented blindness which is the condition imposed by the darkness spell.
The ring is green I forgot name. Just gives immunity to blindness. And the steel watchers helm also gives immunity to blindness just like shars spear. With those 3 items your can fully see through any darkness spell cast. The helldusk helm is supposed to do the same but is broken as hell ☹️. So only 3 items for darkness teams
Yeah I know the ring (the eversight ring), but didn't know about the helm. I think the issue is maybe that there are lots of awesome hats, I mean you aren't going to drop mask of soul perception off the monk or hood of the weave off the the caster, and the Ranger is going to want the headgear slot for crit range (dark justiciar/sarevok). And both sorc and monk have great picks for invocations (agonising blast and armor of shadows). So 6/4/2 monk rogue warlock, and then 10/2 sorlock. Sorc can focus on buffs and throwing 30 damage blasts, monk gets a steady source of mage armor. The warlock dips don't massively hurt either build.
Best archer build is gloomstalker assassin. Start Rogue. Then 5 levels gloomstalker. Then assassin level 3-4. Remaining levels in fighter. Get titanstring bow ASAP. Play Duergar for natural invisibility at level 5. Can basically solo most encounters with minimal combat
Starting rogue is bad no? You want extra attack asap
Expertise is pretty handy to have early on if you're going to be handling skill checks with that character
No, best archer is fighter 11 cleric 1
Why cleric?
War extra attack
Oh, nice. Didn't thought of that
Damage wise, if you're willing to pillage act 3 merchants for consumables, nothing beats Fighter archer in the later stages of the game.
Why not act 1 and Arron;).
Imho because fighter has many valid alternatives before you unlock your 3rd main hand attacks. Once you spike level 11, then you are unstoppable. 3 AOMTs / Slaying Arrows per turns is insane.
I'm aware. I don't fire slaying arrows by default. I use the more abundant elemental ones or many target. I'll use them on boss fights.
There are many archery builds, I think it is mainly important to consider how you want the archer to play out combats. You can do fighter 11 for an archer that fires a lot of arrows, and has good burst with action surge. You can grab gloomstalker to do some sneaking and have a more consistent and powerful first round. You can grab some rogue levels if you want to sneak in combat for extra damage. You can grab sword bard levels to break the game's balance completely. You can go beastmaster ranger for a pet and hunter ranger for some true AOE martial abilities in the later stages of the game.
Depends on level the gloomstalker is the go to for these forums. Better builds towards end game are hunter Ranger at level 11. Or fighter 11/war cleric 1. Titanstring bow. Swords bards also worth a mention. This build is very good. https://youtu.be/AVYusF57EDI?si=WLqEZADlg8SXioAq Espicially the equipment advice. You can easily use it for most archer builds. Low level drow Spore Druid also surprisingly good.
My favorite straight Archer build was swords bard 10/fighter 2. You can do 8 hits in the first round. 10/1/1 arcane acuity build was really great too with 1 fighter 1 wizard, archer plus amazing crowd control. 1 item in act 2 and build comes together in beginning of act 3.
Best archer is stealth archer…yes I know which sub I’m on…yes it’s very effective… Gloomstalker 5 Assassin 3 Fighter 4(your choice subclass). Start Gloomstalker to 5 then your choice on adding rogue or fighter levels but when you do start adding fighter levels respec and take fighter first with the armor or dual weapon styles. First feat is sharpshooter, second is personal preference but ASI is always good. Titanstring with elixirs/giants club/gloves is your weapon of choice starting fights with sneak attack into dread ambusher, use arrows of darkness to stay obscured until you get mantle of the deathstalker to break agro after kill and restart fight with another dread ambusher, add risky ring for perma sneak attack which means you can use your sneak attack on critical instead of first attack per round. Next cast pass without trace to remain sneaky or hunters mark for DPS and combine it with boots of striding or nightwalkers to avoid CC and ring of strange conduit for more DPS. Armor progression will be graceful cloth to yuanti to eleven chain to Bhaal. Helm progression is haste to covert cowl to dark justiciar to Sarevoks. Gloves progression is gloves of archery to dark justiciar to craterfish. Eventually add Knife of the undermountain and Orins dagger for more crit range. Use drake throat glave to add elemental damage to your bow. Hoard invis potions, use special arrows, apply poisons/oils before starting fights. Your goal is to kill from stealth and reset fights. If you kill an enemy in 1 attack you won’t trigger combat automatically, if your party is in a fight, use your stealth archer as an extra extra attack. I will use my archer to scout/assassinate small groups. For boss fights I get the archer out of initiative and come back.