The Hunter, an often overlooked and forgotten subclass that was shipped alongside Beast Master in the Player’s Handbook. Unlike the Fey Wanderer, who is probably the most forgettable due to not really having any notable features, I find the Hunter is often forgotten due to everyone’s incessant hatred for Beast Master even though they always use Beast Master incorrectly, and also continue to dunk on Ranger’s feature as a whole without taking a look at the good features Ranger has.
Small rant aside, Hunter being above Beast Master is pretty close, due to Beast Master’s little tricks that it can do, whereas Hunter is fairly straightforward to utilize. But without further ado, let’s take a look.
Hunter’s Prey – Level 3
“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 of your weapon.”
A very solid start at 3rd level. “Solid” actually describes pretty much all of Hunter’s features.
– Colossus Slayer is very straightforward in its usage: It’s a bonus damage feature. Since focus firing is optimal and as such means you’re pretty much always dealing damage to something below its hit point maximum, you will generally always be able to apply this bonus damage. Sadly doesn’t scale, but it’s free bonus damage regardless.
– Giant Killer is a fairly situational feature. You aren’t often fighting Large creatures at this level (though it does get a bit more useful as the levels progress), and you really don’t want to be the target of attacks generally, usually making yourself difficult to hit by staying at range and utilizing cover to protect yourself. That said, the reaction attack is kind of okay and isn’t restricted, so it’s a fourth attack sometimes. Not a pick you should be going for though. Would probably be better if it was just when facing a creature of a size class larger than you, since playing as a Small size race is already a good move.
– Horde Breaker is another solid option to take, competing with Colossus Slayer. While focus fire is optimal, this allows you to maintain your focus fire while also dealing some extra damage to other targets, making clean up of monsters easier as you progress along targets. Hordes of monsters are fairly common, so this feature will usually see plenty of use. However, if you don’t personally find this to your taste or your DM prefers to use single targets for encounters, stick with Colossus Slayer.
In short, your good options are Colossus Slayer or Horde Breaker, choosing whichever suits your tastes more: Colossus Slayer to whittle down single targets just a little bit faster, or Horde Breaker to maintain focus fire while making mopping up other monsters besides the main target easier.
Defensive Tactics – Level 7
“At 7th level, you gain one of the following features of your choice.
– Escape the Horde. Opportunity attacks against you are made with disadvantage.
– Multiattack Defense. When a creature hits you with an attack, you gain a +4 bonus to AC against all subsequent attacks made by that creature for the rest of the turn.
– Steel Will. You have advantage on saving throws against being frightened.”
A set of good options for defense.
– Escape the Horde is the weakest of these three. While making opportunity attacks harder to hit you is good, you rarely want to be in a position for opportunity attacks to be made against you in the first place, and if are, you may be better off Disengaging to stay alive. However, if you constantly find yourself in these close-range situations where you constantly need to worry about opportunity attacks, this is a fair feature to choose.
– Multiattack Defense is very close to basically being a better version of Escape the Horde. Multiattack is a common feature among monsters, and even more so as levels get higher, so being able to have a fair level of defense against consecutive attacks is great, especially since this works against ranged attacks as well. Like Escape the Horde though, it’s best to avoid getting into situations where you need this feature by constantly weaving in and out of cover or capitalizing on a caster’s or your own control spells. When you do end up in the given situation though, this can save your life more than Escape the Horde. +4 to your AC is quite a bit, after all.
– Steel Will is a good well-rounded choice if you don’t find yourself being attacked very commonly. Frightened is a debilitating condition, cutting our damage quite a bit should we be affected by it, and having advantage on saving throws against it is great to have, especially since Ranger does not have proficiency in Wisdom saving throws. That said, Frightened is not always going to be present, and if you think that taking attacks is more overall worrisome than Frightened, then take Multiattack Defense.
Main options here are either Multiattack Defense or Steel Will. As stated at the end of Steel Will, choose one or the other based on how many things taking that feature may solve – Multiattack Defense if you commonly get attacked, or Steel Will if you want to prevent having your damage cut.
Multiattack – Level 11
“At 11th level, you gain one of the following features of your choice.
– Volley. You can use your action to make a ranged attack against any number of creatures within 10 feet of a point you can see within your weapon’s range. You must have ammunition for each target, as normal, and you make a separate attack roll for each target
– Whirlwind Attack. You can use your action to make melee attacks against any number of creatures within 5 feet of you, with a separate attack roll for each target.”
Speaking of multiattacks, it’s high time we get ours. There’s really only one good choice here, and I think you might be able to tell just from reading.
– Volley if you couldn’t tell is the good choice. Since you want to be fighting at ranged, it is logical you’d take the ranged booster. Of course, Volley itself isn’t just because it’s the only option, it’s also because it is quite decent in its effect. All creatures within 10 feet of a point can be quite a lot of targets to shoot, granting you a good spread of damage. Due to focus fire being optimal, you use this to mop up minions or enemies you know will die quickly. Remember to power attack the attacks with Sharpshooter!
– Whirlwind Attack is the feature we pretend doesn’t exist. Might as well call this feature “Volley.” While Whirlwind Attack does actually have decent damage potential, unlike Volley, it doesn’t cover a very large area, and in order to get any mileage out of Whirlwind Attack, you have to get way too close for comfort, and in a group of enemies no less, generally causing us to take a ton of damage, even if we guard ourselves with Multiattack Defense (and the amount of monsters needed to get mileage would make Escape the Horde not that great either).
No choices here, just take Volley and be pretend Whirlwind Attack doesn’t exist.
Superior Hunter’s Defense – Level 15
“At 15th level, you gain one of the following features of your choice.
– Evasion. When you are subjected to an effect, such as a red dragon’s fiery breath or a lightning bolt spell, that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on a saving throw, and only half damage if you fail
– Stand Against the Tide. When a hostile creature misses you with a melee attack, you can use your reaction to force that creature to repeat the same attack against another creature (other than itself) of your choice.
– Uncanny Dodge. When an attacker that you can see hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to halve the attack’s damage against you.”
Your feature choice here is completely up to you, each has their merits.
– Evasion will help protect against bursts, especially at this level where AoEs from enemies that target DEX saves are fairly common. Unlike the other classes that get Evasion, this is pretty useful on Ranger since it pairs nicely with Absorb Elements due to most AoEs being an elemental damage type covered by Absorb Elements.
– Stand Against the Tide is a bit weird, as we don’t generally want to be in melee at all. If you do end up in melee though, this can be used to let your would-be killer end up bonking some other nearby enemy instead of you. Keep in mind you only have one reaction though, so consider whether it’s worth using or not, such as if you’re anticipating an AoE and need your Absorb Elements.
– Uncanny Dodge is probably the overall weakest of the three options since it only works against a single attack. However, it is resourceless, so it gets that. That said though, it eats up your reaction, so as with Stand Against the Tide, you need to consider the situation at hand and whether you need your reaction for something else or not. In addition, keep in mind pretty much every enemy at this level has multiattack, and that Uncanny Dodge explicitly works against things that make attack rolls, nothing else.
Your choices here simply depend on what you’re experiencing at this point. Choose Evasion if you’re looking for a general purpose choice that synergizes with Absorb Elements, Stand Against the Tide if you find yourself often ending up within breathing distance of enemies, or Uncanny Dodge if your DM for some reason likes throwing single attack instead of multiattack creatures.
Conclusion
A good subclass overall with no glaring weaknesses. Hunter can output decent damage, has decent defenses, and none of its features are particularly useless, which is helped by offering multiple choices each level. I would like it if you could change your choices at the end of a long rest or after a level-up to aid in flexibility, but the current state of Hunter works well enough.
In general, I wish more people remembered Hunter was a subclass that existed, and would utilize it more. Tabletop Builds actually published a build that spotlights Hunter, which I’d recommend taking a look at.
Now that Hunter is done and Swarmkeeper covered, we are know reaching the peak of Ranger subclasses, the ultimate damage dealer, and the subclass that is better than the entirety of Fighter: Gloom Stalker.
Stalking in the shadows,
– Mistral Umaimon
Mistral's Swarmkeeping 