Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Colossus Slayer vs Horde Breaker

Thanks so far for your insights. I have to clarify though that at the moment I'm not interested in other Ranger subclasses, because then I would tend to a future Gloom Stalker dip and the question of a Hunter or Beastmaster would not arise for me. I'm really interested in figuring out what will fit my playstyle better between a Colossus Slayer & Horde Breaker Hunter. You're probably missing some info on that, which I'll add now:

My current party has a Thief, Valour Bard, Battle Master and Berserker. I will replace the Berserker by a Hunter for an second playthrough later on.

My desired party would be as follows:

1. Thief (Level X) / Saboteur or Grenadier (Level X) --> Dual Wield Hand Crossbow Gunner in synergy with first strike openers via Smoke Powder Bombs etc. pp.
2. Bard of Whispers (Level 3 dip) / Elemental Monk (Level X) / Storm Sorcerer (Level X) - Jack of all Trades --> caster / support
3. Battle Master (Level 5) / Battle Smith (Level 7) -->Crossbow Sharpshooter
4. Bloodhunter (Level 2 dip) / Hunter (Level X)--> Longbow Bounty Hunter for flavor
(5. Warlock (Level 2 dip) / Necromancer (Level X) --> Eldritch Blaster)

My Bounty Hunter will be a Zariel-Tiefling just for flavor. I will stay true to my playstyle from the first two games and play a ranged combat party that can tank or switch to melee combat if necessary. The main strategy is to mow down everything beforehand with ranged anyway. Hopefully when the party size gets increased I can play an additional Necro and also summon Skeletons to distract the enemies and keep them at a distance. I'm not sure about playing with the Steel Defender. It depends. If they create really nice Steel Defender pets (I like Golems), I might not use an extra Necro at all.... Otherwise, I'm more interested in the Battlesmith class itself than, what I've seen / read so far, ugly Steel Defenders... I assassinate most melee enemies with my Rogue or just by, I'll call it "diagonal shooting". This means that you normally have a disadvantage in ranged attacks on melee enemies that are directly in front of you. So I don't shoot the enemies directly in front of me, I shoot the ones that are near a party member further away, and my party members in turn shoot the ones that may be surrounding me to get around this malus. I haven't even really had to use crowd control like Web or Spike Growth yet. I have also hardly used Void Bulbs so far. I admit that in my recently completed first playthrough, there were really few situations for the Horde Breaker. Even if Colossus Slayer is boring, it will be (more) effective. The decision still remains a tough one.