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.
Last edited by GiantOctopodes; 13/09/23 03:27 AM.
