Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Ranger vs Warlock... Thoughts?

My experiences with classes differ. I don't however play multiplayer, so I have to use all four party members myself. The party consists usually of Shadowheart (Thunder domain) and Gale (Evocation Wizard), my main (kind of Sorlock) and one other (Astarion as ranged Fighter/Rogue, Jaheira as melee Fighter 12 or Dex based Bard/Paladin/Cleric mix or Minsc as tanky Fighter/Barbarian). The biggest damage in fights usually comes from my Sorlock. Shadowheart or Gale can only compete if they waste many spell slots (although the Thunder domain allows for a very spell slot efficient play).

I found Wyll as pure Warlock relatively strong in early levels, in EA. I don't like him in the release version and never had him in the party. My first char was a Ranger, and I always found him lacking in several aspects. No build of any subclass satisfied me, despite fascinating theoretical performance, and in the end my archer was mainly a Fighter. The Ranger is not bad, there are just several better alternatives. I experimented a lot with Astarion in my current playthrough, trying all combos of Ranger with everything, in the end he is ... a Fighter/Rogue with hand crossbows.

I also experimented a lot with Warlock in this run, as for the first time since start of EA my main is a magical caster. However I am a victim t fthe multiclassing virus, so I never played a pure Warlock. The big advantage of Warlock is of course that no spell slots are needed for reliable damage. If you don't know in advance how fights will go (I'm playing Act 3 more or less first time, and in Honour mode), that is a precious feature. A Ranger can do this too, but a Warlock can do more damage easier. Problem is, if you want a crit build, there is only a restricted amount of items available to do it right, and it is easier to do it on Warlock than on Ranger. Why is it bad if doing damage is an easy task?

So, Warlock or Ranger? Neither of them, I would say. A Sorcerer or a Fighter might always be better. I'm very comfortable with Sorcerer/Warlock (which can do quite a damage) or Fighter/Ranger. If it is Warlock or Ranger, I don't see a clear favorite, both have strong and weak sides. I don't understand why you prefer the Ranger so clearly.


"Genies" was a careless use of a digital English dictionary, sorry. I wanted to have the plural of genius, and found geniuses or genii sounding strange, so I took a third word I read in the context without further control. Wrong choice.

I don't think that playing a Ranger is so difficult. You are shooting and have some spells, and possibly use a minion with some interesting abilities and lacking mobility (compared to strong minions of the Cleric or Wizard). What is so much more complicated than playing Warlock? BTW, in my opinion no class (except some Druid builds maybe) is that difficult to play.

Obviously those who are advising against Ranger are doing so for reasons other than Gameplay; Horde Breaker means Ranger has more attacks than Fighter at all levels below 11 or at worst the same number. Hunter Ranger scales better with available damage sources, both gaining earlier access to stat dumps (Sharpshooter), better access to advantage granting conditions and effects (including but not limited to ensnaring strike), and better endgame gear support. Enhance Leap is an incredible mobility tool, you get heavy armor proficiencies, the list goes on and on. I'd definitely recommend Hunter Ranger over Warlock, especially if doing Warlock straight up.

That said, Warlock synergizes well with Ranger (no save push effects line up enemies for Horde Breaker), and pushing folks around is a good time so I don't hate having one in the party by any means. Personally I like Warlock 6 / Paladin 6 for "free" (short rest recovery) smites of reasonable power. Storm Sorc is undoubtedly more powerful than an EB based Warlock, but there's no universe in which Fighter is more powerful than Ranger. Hope that helps.

Sounds a bit like theory. How does a Hunter (or even Beastmaster) Ranger get better access to advantage than a Fighter? You really use Ensnaring Strike instead of Hunters Mark? On casters it might work well. Maybe they changed Horde Breaker but when I tried it, it was quite awful and quite seldomly possible. If it was appliable, it were mostly not the affected chars you wanted to prioritise for damage. Anyway, it's not nearly as good as three attacks and Action Surge. A Champion Fighter falls a bit behind, but Battlemaster and Eldritch Knight are better than any Ranger build.

Warlocks can do more damage and give more safety than Rangers, just saw that in my Honour mode playthrough. Repelling Blast is one of the least interesting Warlock abilities however.

Beastmaster gets a spider that can web effectively at will, it's one of the best advantage granting methods in the game (and can be quite reliable in conjunction with reverb), but I was referring to Warlock not fighter, and that's somewhat irrelevant since I'm advocating for Hunter rather than beastmaster. Even then it was rather glib, I wasn't considering the Devil's Sight / Darkness combo which is exceptional for granting advantage (albeit at the cost of the efficacy of the rest of your team vs that target).

As to ensnaring strike vs Hunters Mark, they're not even close in my eyes. Hunters Mark gives +3.5 damage per subsequent hit at the cost of consuming a bonus action that could've been used to shoot them. Let's say you've got a 70% chance to hit, and are using Sharpshooter and deal on average 20 damage, that means you need to hit them 4 times subsequently before it becomes worth it. The more damage you do per hit, the worse it gets to give up an attack for that marginal damage increase. Ensnaring Strike, you're moving your chance to hit from 70% to 91% (average 14 to average 18.2), *and* improving the hit chance of the rest of your party, *and* improve your crit rate in a way which gets better the higher your crit range is (5% to 10% if on 20, 10% to 20% if on 19, etc). Advantage is one of the most powerful effects in the game, the additional damage from hunter's mark is... nice I guess? I suppose it has some upside synergy with the strange conduit ring in that you get a concentration effect while it's not actively up, but Longstrider can also do that as a ritual cast, so even then it's not really my cup of tea.

As to action surge, you can always dip Fighter 2 if it's that important to you. It's ok; before 11 it's an extra 2 attacks 1/short rest (not bad, but not as useful as Horde Breaker even if you're not actively working on getting the positioning lined up), after 11 it's 3 extra attacks 1/short rest and they've got 3 attacks consistently as compared to 3 attacks inconsistently so indeed it's better single target damage. By then though you either have Action Surge if you really want it, or have Volley, which can represent far more than that situationally and especially if you're pushing people around via shoves, repelling blast, and tempest cleric chicanery to clump them up, which has advantages not just for your ranger but also your storm sorc and any other AOE damage dealers. Fighter has better single target damage than ranger, true. Not as good as an optimized Barb or Monk or especially Bard, but better than Ranger. Ranger blows them out of the water in terms of total damage output though if you put even a little effort into positioning.

Warlock total damage output and safety vs Ranger, that hasn't been my experience at all. But hey, glad you like them, my experience has been that they're fun and can pull of some cheesy and cool tricks, but they're squishy, low damage output, and low out of combat utility compared to most other classes; I honestly feel they're one of the weakest classes in BG3 if not *the* weakest, but maybe I'm building them wrong. If you found them to be exceptional in your playthrough, how did you build them and what kind of gear were you using?

But Rangers get very few spell slots, I find relying on them not very promising. Hunter's Mark is meh, but at least you can use it (most often) in several fights till the next long rest. I don't like to long rest often.

You can get advantage from several sources (items for example), I prefer each group member rely on their own if possible. As a pure damage dealer, I think Fighter is still better. In my party, from Act 3 onwards, there is no place for both of the classes however, as I need a Paladin and already have a Cleric and Wizard (all three way stronger than Fighter or Ranger) and don't like to play Fighter or Ranger. BTW I'm talking about Honour mode, in normal modes it's a bit different.

Warlocks can outdamage Rangers relatively easily. At least in Honour mode. With Darkness and Hunger of Hadar they have fantastic area spells. Rangers as Beastmasters have at least access to Darkness and are probably more versatile for the group. Comparing Sorcerer or Wizard with Warlock abilities or Warlock multiclasses to Rangers or Ranger multiclasses would be of course quite unfair, Rangers/Ranger multiclasses cannot compete by far.

In the end I would go by the flavour of the class. Do you want physical or magical strikers, do you like the Ranger nature theme, can you live with depending on a possibly evil master as source of power, do you like minions? A Warlock is not a good class for minions.

Do you know Aestus_RPG, one of the most informed Youtubers making content about BG3? I don't agree with anything, a lot remains personal preference, but he gives good insight in class relations in my opinion, and I concur with him concerning Rangers, Fighters and Warlocks at least.