Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Ranger with bow and dual weapons

I was playing around with this earlier. You actually get consistently better damage (along with the increased AC) running a rapier and shield than you do with duel scimitars. The main reason is hunters mark. You get big additional damage from that thing, but it consumes a bonus action to use. Because of that you won't get to make an offhand attack if you use it in the same turn. Makes the additional +2 on your off hand from two weapon style basically worthless as most enemies you encounter beside a few bosses will not last to a second round (also a chance you will lose concentration and need to recast) for you to actually use an offhand attack on them. Meanwhile if you pick dueling you get a +2 on all your main hand attack rolls. Dueling also applies when wielding a shield for a valuable +2 to AC. More AC means it's less likely hits will break your hunters mark as well. As you pointed out rapiers also have higher base damage than scimitars too so a constant +2 on a main hand rapier majorly outperforms an occasional +2 on an offhand attack from a scimitar. Even without dueling the mainland rapier will still do better assuming you are striking a target under your hunters mark.

If hunters mark worked differently or rangers had an additional bonus action like a thief and you could consistently get in an off-hand attack to proc an additional hunters mark hit dual scims would then outperform rapiers. They don't though so if you make a ranger rapiers are the way to go. Roving rapier ranger knights.