Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Minmaxed Archer

Before someone else butchers their plagiarised form of my build again by trying to apply tabletop rules to BG3, this is how you'd build the highest damage archer under BG3 rules. Though it's a quadclass at most here rather than the pentaclass it is in tabletop.

Primary: Gloom Stalker 5 (Take these first)
Secondary Classes: Assassin 3 then Spores Druid 2, in that order
Finisher: Either Gloom Stalker 7 or Fighter 2 or Assassin 5
Race: Any

You will only ever get one ASI at level 4 Gloom Stalker, which must go into Sharpshooter because elevation matters a lot. It goes without saying the Fighting Style should be Archery.
Required stats: 8 Str, 16 Dexterity, 16 Wisdom
Optional stats: You can get more Constitution if you want, though if you're positioned correctly you're unlikely to be hit anyway so this is more for keeping Hunter's Mark up against stray shots. I'd recommend dropping points into Int or Cha for the skill checks this game loves so much.

How it works:
With Spores Druid 2, you can raise a 8tHP shield that gives you +1d6 Necrotic per hit. This normally only buffs melee attacks in tabletop and gives rise to the strength-based Druidin build there, but for some reason it works with ranged attacks in BG3 as well.
Get yourself blessed by a party member to make Sharpshooter land more reliably.
Gloom Stalker 5 gives you two shots normally, and a third on the first turn of combat that gives you +1d8 damage on top of the usual damage..
When initiating combat before being seen, you'll fire one shot with advantage from stealth that autocrits due to Assassin adding Sneak Attack, then get back that shot due to Assassin, before the first turn proper starts. That's 2d8 + 6d6 + 13 (43) off the bat.
Then stick bonus action Hunter's Mark and shoot the three times for the first 'surprise' turn, dealing 2d8 + 4d6 + 13 (36) twice and 4d8 + 4d6 + 13 (45) for the third. At this point before anyone else except your Cleric and your MC have taken any actions, you've already deleted 160 HP on average, possibly less if you missed.
On later turns you will hit 1d8 + 2d6 + 13 (24.5) twice, with a 2d6 (7) floating sneak you can stick on either attack. If you really need to you can use the bonus action to hide to get advantage for sneaking, but often your party members when positioned correctly can qualify for this for you. Anyway, 56 damage ish per turn after that, using bonus actions to either shift Hunter's Mark or to hide to qualify for Sneak.

Fighter 2 gets you Action Surge, which doubles your first turn damage (+117) once per short rest, and can also get you +1 AC from the fighting style and Second Wind, which combined with the spores from Spores Druid means you'll basically never really need the healing from the short rest button even though the rest of your party will. In most cases, the 277 damage here deletes any boss, though it's more likely you'll delete 4 targets instead of 1 boss in most encounters as most boss class fights are enforced dialogues that don't really allow Surprised to apply to avoid this kind of BS.
Gloom Stalker 7 gets you proficiency to both Intelligence and Wisdom saving throws, on top of the Strength and Dexterity you start with, as well as a third level 2 spell slot, which is good for Longstrider, Darkvision, Spike Growth or Protection from Poison.
Assassin 5 gives you one additional 1d6 die on Sneak Attack, allows you to get Resilient Con if you want (in which case leave Con as an odd number), 18 Dex if you want , and halve incoming damage with Uncanny Dodge once per turn, allowing you to have a higher chance of not having Symbiotic Entity broken.

If you do this correctly and position yourself well, it's possible to delete most encounters from 18m away quite easily on the highest difficulty before enemies have any option of doing anything except Dash (possibly through a Spike Growth field if you prefer that to Hunter's Mark).

The problem is the missed RP opportunities from dialogue you can get from walking into the encounter's range, but if you're not planning to parley anyway you can always shoot first and shoot more later.

You are also warned that using ridiculously broken builds like this may detract from gameplay, and you may want to use tamer partly optimized builds like heavy armour monks or pure spores druids instead so there's some level of challenge.

Very nice. I did not know about the Druid thing. I have gone 5/3 Gloomstalker/Assassin. I think I am going Champion 4 for the last 4 because I enjoy crits (and grits too).

One issue, Taking sharpshooter. Low ground gives at most a -2 to hit where sharpshooter gives a -5, so Add 10 to damage with a -15% to hit overall (loss of low ground penalty) if you are low ground. Equal ground it's a straight -25% to hit for the +10 damage. At lower levels this is Bad, as in Really Really BAD.

Vs say putting your first feat into ASI you can easily get an additional +1 to both Damage and Hit. Bow's are finesse weapons so dex based for both to hit and damage. Comparison of the two and simple number crunching says the ASI does more for you simply because you WILL hit more often. For any archer build your going to want at least 2 feats (1 ASI, 1 sharpshooter) so any build for a Ranger Gloom Stalker or Rogue Assassin or even a multiclass requires at least 4 levels in a second class or 8 as a Ranger. That does leave 4 levels to play with so your basic build is totally viable. But Sharpshooter at lv4 is unwise, ASI at 4th lv feat, the question comes then do you go for your rogue levels or get a 5th Ranger for the extra attack (IMO 5th in ranger) If you go 5th in ranger you delay the sneak attack/assassinate til 8th vs 7th (a trade off I'm willing to make)

What I'm NOT willing to make is trade of -25% hit chance and 10 damage For The +1 to hit and Damage. At Mid levels (5-9) that -5 to hit can really bite you in the arse, enemy's start to get better AC's at that time. Hence making it even worse than just the basic number crunching does. I really don't know of a boss at mid levels where I'd rather have the damage over the to hit. Where your run of the mill mobs might fall easier at mid levels if you hit (and that can be a big IF even with karmic dice) with Sharpshooter, the consistent damage from a better chance to hit usually serves you better.

Simply put ASI should always be your FIRST feat for almost any class. At mid levels you'll need the bonus to your to hit over the damage bonus. What good is that +10 to damage when your to hit chance takes a -5. Sharpshooter with your standard Archery Ranger setup brings you down to a +2 to hit in most instances, vs the +8 you'll pull with a 19 dex. Even if I have low ground penalties I'm still looking at a +6 to hit which means I'll hit more often even with low ground than with Sharpshooter as my first feat. If I only get a 5 to 1 improvement in hit's it serves me better in the long run on damage. Because you not only loose that bonus of 10 damage, you loose ALL damage if you miss. The best burst damage build will almost always loose out over a consistent damage build with a -25% fudge factor built in like Sharpshooter gives you. Once you get to higher levels and get some decent gear Sharpshooter is required IMO, but NOT UNTIL THEN. Without the gear and levels a -25% hit chance at low levels is just bad even with the added damage.

Fighter 12. 3 attacks, 4 feats, you're good.

Sharpshooter at level 4 is fine, you just need to turn it off occasionally.

Just do the math with your average damage multiplied by your accuracy and compare with and without sharpshooter. I find that 40% and above chance with sharpshooter is better than 65% without. If you can obtain advantage or get to high ground it gets even better for sharpshooter.

Its just stupidly powerful, and if you dual wield hand crossbows its just broken. Don't ask me how you reload any crossbow that fast let alone two single handed ones. That was one great thing about Pillars of Eternity and their firearms, you had one hell'uva alpha strike but you were swapping to something else afterwards.

Level 12 fighter has dex 20 and athlete by level 6 if you started 17 dex.

@Ashvins you make a lot of assertions - "At lower levels this is Bad, as in Really Really BAD"; "But Sharpshooter at lv4 is unwise"; "the consistent damage from a better chance to hit usually serves you better"; "Simply put ASI should always be your FIRST feat for almost any class"' "If I only get a 5 to 1 improvement in hits it serves me better in the long run on damage"'; "The best burst damage build will almost always loose out over a consistent damage build with a -25% fudge factor built in like Sharpshooter gives you"' "Without the gear and levels a -25% hit chance at low levels is just bad even with the added damage".

However you don't provide any support for these claims. So let's do, as you say, some "simple number crunching" and answer the question you pose - "What good is that +10 to damage when your hit chance takes a -5"? Let's find out if just hitting more means the ASI will in fact do more for you.

First, some assumptions - you're using Dual Hand Crossbows, you're dealing 1d6+1d4+5 damage. Since you, like all good explorers, carry around a candle you drop, turn on, and then dip your crossbows in before starting combat. You also bought the Gloves of Archery, thus the additional +2 damage, for a total of 7-15 damage, average 11, before Sharpshooter or the ASI. This is in my opinion pretty realistic for around level 4. If you haven't dipped your weapon or gotten the Gloves of Archery, obviously that favors Sharpshooter more, as it represents a higher percentage of your damage.

First, neutral, no high or low ground, no advantage or disadvantage. Spoilers just because it's a block of text.

Now, the above is assuming standard shots, obviously low ground shooting up is better for Sharpshooter, and since better to hit numbers favor sharpshooter, so is high ground shooting down (you just move up the chart a bit more). However, it also assumes you aren't leveraging the most valuable thing you can obtain - Advantage. Let's say, for example, you have a party member webbing enemies, or blinding them, or attacking from hidden, or guiding bolt, or using certain pieces of equipment like the Risky Ring, and so on and so forth. Let's rerun the numbers again and see how they fair. Spoilers again just because it's a block of text.

Now, that's the numbers, but let's review some other reasons why Sharpshooter is far, far better than those numbers even might indicate:
1) It's often less about "amount of damage dealt" and more about "average actions to kill a target". If I am attacking an enemy with 18 HP (not uncommon at that stage of the game), I need to hit them TWICE with the ASI vs ONCE with Sharpshooter. Now, if say with Sharpshooter my hit chance dropped from 75% chance to 50% chance, that means I'll need to shoot at them 2x on average, but without it 2x is the *best case*, and typically I'll need more. From an action economy standpoint, Sharpshooter represents more whole targets dead, more consistently.
2) Overkill is absolutely a thing, but because Sharpshooter is toggleable, if you don't need the bonus (they only have 7 hitpoints say) or the enemy only has a few HP left, you just toggle it off, and don't suffer the miss chance. As such it has the tools built in to adapt to the situation as needed.
3) Sharpshooter is better when you're doing better things (like getting advantage, highground, shooting at hittable targets), while the ASI is better when you're doing worse things (like shooting with disadvantage, or against very hard to hit targets). As such it rewards good play, instead of rewarding performing maneuvers that don't offer much return in the first place. Cool, the ASI represents .7 more average damage when shooting at something needing a 19 to hit, for a whopping average return on your action of 1.8 damage. But if that's all you're getting, is that the best use of your action anyway?

How realistic are any of those numbers, anyways? Remember, we need a 10 to hit (before ASI or sharpshooter) before the ASI closes the gap, 15 to hit before it offers a significant advantage. Well, by level 5, your proficiency should be +3. your Dex is at least +3, you're a Ranger so you have +2, you should have +1 weapons, and you control your own positioning so there's little to no reason not to have high ground for +2. However given that it's conditional (as is low ground, *any* elevation difference is a 2 point difference for Sharpshooter) let's call it +1. That's +10 to hit overall, meaning you need an AC of 20 before they *even out*, and an AC of 25 before the ASI is pulling ahead. There are only 2 bosses in all of Act 1 *or Act Two* that hit the lower of those two targets, and one of them, let's just say that hitting him with arrows isn't exactly the best way to approach the fight. 22 bosses, however, are substantially below that target, meaning Sharpshooter is better against them. If someone casts Bless on you? The ASI is worse on every single boss, to say nothing of the common enemies throughout Act 1 and 2, where it's always better, often by large margins (expected damage +50% kind of margins).

Now, there's certainly merit to the idea that the ASI helps in tons of other ways - better AC, Dex Saves, Stealth and Sleight of Hand, better Dex is great! However, from a *damage output* standpoint, which is what this build ostensibly seeks to maximize, it is absolutely not superior. I took Sharpshooter with my Gnome Thief at 4, and the next dozen play sessions were filled with "OMG" "WTF" "Svirf makes me feel very inadequate" "That's disgusting" and so forth, as I took out 2+ targets pretty much every turn, and it hasn't really changed much since. They would be up against a tough foe, technically a boss, and would say "wait I think I have a plan" only to follow it up with "nevermind, or I just wait for Svirf to go and he kills it in one turn". Seriously, it's that gross, 70 damage in a turn if they all hit (and it's not that uncommon if you're setting up combat right) will win you a lot of fights in the early game, and very quickly at that. Just wanted to provide some counterperspective, outside the number crunching, from lived experience. I hope any of that wall of text helps.

In terms of the OP, I disagree with the idea of this being the highest damage Archer, on two counts -
1) While it's great in Alpha Strike situations, you seem to be using Bows instead of Dual Hand Crossbows, so you're just missing a lot of damage in general. This means even the Alpha Strike isn't *that* much better than vs Thief with that setup
2) You overvalue a conditional 1d6 necrotic

For 1:
Vs what I would normally do (Thief Rogue 4 / Gloomstalker 5 / Champion Fighter 3)
Alpha Strike - We'll drop a candle, light and dip it before attacking, but won't bother with Hunters Mark. We're using the Risky Ring for higher crit chance, so out of our 5 attacks, we can assume 1 will crit (even assuming no other crit gear, which we absolutely take with this build) at a 19% crit chance per shot. The reactions will be set to auto apply Sneak Attack to that attack (otherwise we apply it on the last hit of the round, but that happens rarely and we can always use a certain Illithid power if it's crucial so I think it's fair). We thus deal 6d6+2d4+14 on that attack (39 damage), and 1d6+1d4+14 (20 damage) on the other 4, for 119 damage in the first round.

Subsequent rounds, we deal 4 attacks at 20 damage each plus the sneak attack, so 87 damage per round (100 if we get a crit), meaning we've surpassed the damage output by the end of round 3. This is of course ignoring, as you did, the Gloves of Archery, Ring of Acid, and so forth. The more incremental damage boosts which apply though, the more a build with more attacks (and this has 2 more per round) benefits from those damage boosts to pull further ahead. We can certainly apply Hunter's Mark if we want for even more damage, but it takes 6 attacks on a target before it evens out in value (ignoring the other + damage options) so most targets aren't worth it to apply it towards them because they won't live long enough. Adding in the plus damage stuff, we can easily hit 150+ in the ambush turn and 120+ on just a normal turn, not even accounting for crits.

This is assuming it's not a forced dialogue fight, since if it is, this build deals more damage from round 1 onwards rather than round 3 onwards.

For 2:
The +1d6 damage vs +1 to crit; when attacking with Advantage (as you often are, should be basically always, Sharpshooters operating at range both can afford to and benefit from something like the Risky Ring) you go from a 9.75% crit rate to a 19.75%. With Rogue levels, any crit represents +10 damage at a minimum, realistically more like +15. Get a second +1 from another source (options exist) and you're at a 27% crit rate, which is obscene. Meanwhile, the split between Druid and Fighter means you're missing a feat if you want Action Surge (and you do). So you're sitting at 16 rather than 18 Dex, meaning -1 to hit and -1 damage; the -1 to hit hurts more than the -1 damage but even just the damage piece means the +1d6 is really only +2.5 net damage on subsequent rounds. Average damage wise, it just doesn't work out favorably, and it gets less favorable the more damage you stack, and BG3 has a *lot* of damage you can stack.

i can't speak for anyone else, but this is the first I'm seeing of 'your build', and I certainly am not plagiarizing it in the first place, much less butchering it. It's a cool build for nova strikes, but it's not imho optimized for that purpose, and definitely does not qualify as the highest damage archer overall. There are a couple decisions I genuinely don't get though- why go Ranger first instead of Rogue? You lose out on Expertise, and trade in a Dex save bonus for a Wis save bonus. But if you're invisible (as you frequently are, basically as needed) the only effects which will commonly hit you target your Dex save anyway, so that seems worse to me. Second, why are you pumping Wis so hard? What are you casting with it where you really want the DC to be higher, to where you're prioritizing it so much? Just curious, hoping to understand where you're coming from with those decisions a bit better.

there is a bow in act 1 that also adds your str bonus to damage... it doesn't show correct on the ui tool tip but the damage is added so D8+1 [magic] + str + buffs
it will work with this build by equiping the club from tower in main or off hand [sets str to 19]

ranger beast master is rly good, give you 2 bears on level 11 that can tank for you, got hunter mark and 2 attacks

If you're building a min/maxed archer, you wouldn't go with a STR build, you'd be going with a DEX build. Straight classed Fighter (Battlemaster) or straight classed Rogue (thief), equip either with dual handcrossbows for the best archer. Max out your dex.

The Fighter version uses maneuvers at range combined with the off-hand attack; Rogue version uses sneak attack at range making use of their 2nd bonus action/round for extra attacks.

Add in magic hand crossbows, gloves/rings that give extra ranged damage, magic arrows and you have a powerful archer that can either deliver massive sneak attack at range or trip/disarm foes from a distance (meaning they take longer to reach you and do so without their weapon). There's even an item that gives enemies disadvantage to resist your battlemaster manuevers.

Avoid the mistake of multi-classing the rogue (you get far greater sneak attack damage single-classed, and more than make up for whatever a second class would add).

@HarmAssassin there are absolutely merits to the single classed thief (at will invisibility in broad daylight, and *especially* Reliable Expertise), but damage output is not a part of that. Gloomstalker or Fighter 2 for better alpha strike potential, anything 5 for an extra attack, any or all of those will pay off far more than the extra sneak attack damage. After all sneak attack is only once per turn, and it's only 3.5 per 2 levels on average. It's nice for crits and auto-crits don't get me wrong, but an extra 4d6 sneak attack damage, or 14 extra average damage per turn, is unlikely to be better than an extra attack, and especially not the potential for multiple extra attacks (via action surge, Gloomstalker Ambush, Haste, etc). This is even before you consider overkill, total targets eliminated, and so forth.

Min maxed Ranger build for anyone interested:

Class 1: 5 Hunter with colossus slayer

Class 2: 2 Spore Druid

Class 3: 4 Fighter

Class 4: 1 War Domain Cleric

Stats: 21 or 27 strength, 20 dex, 16 wisdom


Weapon: Titanstring Bow for extra strength damage

Helmet: Diadem of Arcane Synergy for +3 damage (wisdom modifier) to all our attacks

Cloak: Shade-slayer cloak for the extra crit range when hidden

Chest: The Graceful Cloth for the +2 to dexterity

Melee 1: Knife of the Undermountain King for the extra crit range and rerolling of 1 and 2 damage rolls

Melee 2: Rhapsody for the extra +3 to attack and damage rolls

Ring 1: Caustic Band for +2 acid damage or Risky Ring for advantage

Ring 2: Strange Conduit Ring for 1d4 damage when concentrating on a spell

Amulet: Broodmother's Revenge if using Caustic Band for 1d4 poison damage for 3 rounds when healed, or Fey Semblance Amulet for advantage on saving throws if using Risky Ring

Gloves: Helldusk for 1d6 fire damage to attacks

Elixir: Hill Giant (21 strength) or Cloud Giant (27 strength)


To summarize we have 1d8 + 1(weapon) + 5(dex) + 8(str) + 3(wis) + 2 (caustic band) + 3 (Rhapsody) + 10 (sharpshooter) = 33-40 damage + 1d6 (hunters mark) + 1d4(strange conduit ring) + 1d6 (Helldusk) + 1d6(Symbiotic Entity) + 1d4 (Broodmother's Revenge)= 38-66 damage per shot, or 76-132 per turn. However, we aren't done because Colossus Slayer scales with the Titanstring. So we end up with 76-132 + 1d8+8 = 85-148 damage per turn.


Pure Fighter can do 1d8 + 1(weapon) + 5(dex) + 8(str) + 2 (caustic band) +3 (rhapsody) +10 (sharpshooter) = 30-37 + 1d6 (Helldusk) = 31-43 per shot or 93-129 damage per turn. However their crit range will be slightly higher due to using a different helm.

None of these builds are even close to being optimal.

You aren’t using any of the GOD MODE items from act 3 that trivializes all encounters even on tactition. I will make a post about some of my God Mode builds later on