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Hi Flutes, I just wrapped up a short arc playing a Monster Slayer Ranger last night. I was using the Tasha's version of the Ranger. I was blown away by the class, I was a skirmisher build as opposed to a sniper build. I would have to argue that ranger is one of the most overlooked classes on 5e. The amount of variability that is at your disposal is absurd. Much recommend, would play again.

One feat that I'll add if you're playing a Tiefling or a Dark Elf is Eldritch Adept for Devils Sight. That essentially lets you have always-on advantage while you have your Darkness spell up. Pair that with CE and SS, and that's a lot of attacks that are hitting a lot more reliably. (Though admittedly, this does work better on a Fighter, because they get more ASI's).

I think sometimes people think of rangers as fighters with a bow and they are not. They are a martial support class that has various means of supporting a party. These are my suggestions for Rangers. Some are agreements with you but they are marked with a * and have some other notes. Ritual caster Wizard - As a half caster, more spells are useful and the ones that come with Wizard augment the Ranger from spell one. You can start off with two spells and why not start off with Find Familiar. Find Familiar is an very on brand spell as even the Ranger class pages has an owl on it. Second (more for flavor then not) get Alarm. Alarm is great for securing the rest areas, preventing thieves from easily borrowing stuff or even just knowing that the bad guy that you tied up is out and about. Other good spells in the first level are good, a couple of creative second level spells and you can get them all; but once you get to the level 3 spells this pick really shines. Tiny hut (it is a magic tent), Phantom Steed, water breathing and then Telepathic Bond. All on Brand and all really useful and you can get even more. Just takes - time and cash. Since you can’t get plate so you have some cash to spare right. Fey Touched* - This feat could have been custom made for the Ranger. The odds on pick is Silvery Barbs. If not just because you likely did not add to much to your Wisdom and this helps deal with that guy that made the save just crit you to not - and then advantage back at them. Also, (if your DM allows) Gift of Alacrity because of you can get to “win” Initiative you can set the battle field or make it impossible for your Gloom Stalker to ever fail to have his/her pick of who to remove from the battle. And if you get surrounded or need a better place to snipe from you are just one Misty Step away from being where you want to be. Mobile* - Thanks to Tasha a Ranger gets a bit more movement (Roving) but also climbing and swimming speed. Get the most out of it by adding 10’ speed to those new movements you have and you get the benefit of magnifying Zephyr strike, Gloomstalker’s burst range and any Ranger can reposition drop dead easily. You are almost unstoppable. Skulker - Most people just give a look to the second part of the feat were you don’t loose advantage but for rangers it is Better then that. Yes Rangers sometime are all about perception. This skill makes it so that even the insanely common dim light will not stop you seeing them. Before you think “ but Darkvision” listen up, darkvision only makes darkness in to “dim light” and that means disadvantage in your perception rolls and -5 in your passive perception. Also, this is helpful (even for wood elven) this gives you that ability to hide in more situations so you can get the most out of your likely choice of Stealth skill. (And if you multi into Rogue you are welcome) Gift of the metallic Dragon - This is for Beastmaster and Drakewarden rangers for the most part with honorable mention for other rangers. First, most Rangers given a choice of Goodberry and Cure Wounds are getting berry and this giver them the more powerful healing option when they need it. This feat can help with that; but that is not why we are here. When you are Drake warden or a beastmaster it is likely hard to get ways to help them for AC boosts . Thanks to this your Companion creature have a small taste of the shield spell to help it they are just barely hit. Of course this could come up multiple times a day and as a half caster even if you got shield spell, using it will drain your slots. Sometimes you just need to add more a couple of points to ac do save yourself recasting your friend. So it is for these subclasses that this makes my list. Chef - This is always a very theme centric feat and a low level helpful one too. The idea of the person that works with animal feeding them or a rescuer giving food to a lost person they have found is iconic. Also, I think most DM will let you make that Animal handling check a lot more often if you give them food - helped us domesticate dog so there is that. Also, you already are going to be able to get the meal in the wild so may as well give everyone more hit points then they recover there hit dice in a short rest when you don’t have a bard to help with that. (This half feat also helps event out stats so I would be criminal not to include it.) Inspiring Leader - This is a reach but a useful one if you can fit in that 13 Charisma. With a party full of friends, companion animals, summoned animals and familiars, the ability to give the a small buff of temp hit points will come in handy. Just remember that the summons creatures that can last an hour but don’t heal and a ranger can be understand by them. So after they take some damage in a fight and the next one may happen soon- give them a pep talk and get them ready for the next fight. Also, don’t forget you don’t have to stop moving to do this. Apply liberally. Prodigy, Skill Expert and skilled - of all the martial classes, the Ranger is the king 👑 of skills -starting with 3. If you don’t have a rogue or you want to be the party face or just want to be the most Rangerist Ranger that ever took to the Range these options are for you. You can even get persuasion, that way when you have to talk to your fellowship and urge them into fighting hopeless odds, they may like it. Gift of the Gem Dragon (low level conditional) this is my lowest pick because it is mostly useful in a Tier 1-2 campaign which is a survival campaign and where you as an archer may be unable to completely control distance. It is not guaranteed. Even if they come back if you do that damage it will really help you end that fight (t1-2) but it is a half feat and lowest on my list.

Piercer feat is amazing

My current character is a Thri-Kreen (big spider) Swarm Keeper (thousands more spiders). He has 2 hand crossbows for dual wielding, so there is no need for CE, and he has an 18 AC with a Shield and Chameleon Carapace. On average, 20 DPR at 3rd level and 30 at 5th (both with Hunter’s Mark thrown in before battle).

Fey wanderer ranger Crusher feat and choosing the druidic warrior style to get shillelagh and magic stone, so both make bludgeoning damage, if shoot the stone with the sling is less range but can combine with sharpshooter Good on this is those attacks use only wisdom, and the fey wanderer get to add your wisdom mod to charisma checks, so is basically an wisdom-only build, can add constitution as second stat and use medium or heavy armor, with a club or quarterstarff both make same damage since shillelagh so you can use a shield and can be bulky ranger outlander who push people away, even from afar with magic stone, since is an attack and is affected by Crusher to move targets hitted, good to knockdown watchtowers-enemies

I'm a fan of Medium Armor Master. This means Ranger's moderately high DEX (16-17) can take a backseat for either STR or WIS builds & while building towards Stealth & high AC. Ranger's Tasha's-kit: Deft Explorer's features can help bring that Stealth front & center starting with Expertise (Stealth) & Roving. Then, hopefully, getting to wear Dragon Scale Mail.

I've used Gloomstalker but I've honestly had the most fun as a BeastMaster(Tasha's) and Fey Wanderer. The Swarmkeeper is fun as well but the campaign died. The only one i used a crossbow with is the gloomstalker. strength for the BM as well as longbow. Longbow for the FW. But also it allows we to play the face and still dump my charisma

I will also add a counter, just to promote discussion. I personally think that the conflict between Crossbow Expert and Ranger's Bonus Action options is less of a flaw in subclass design, and more of a flaw in the design of the two major feats in question: Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert. Those two feats essentially nullify most benefits a subclass can give you by simply being too powerful. It makes variety in builds difficult, because it's almost required to take them both. Not only does that limit your style options, but it also costs you 2 valuable ASI's, which Rangers don't have many of, especially for a MAD class. An option (or two) that is so much better than everything else is worse for the game than several options that are relatively equal in power, but force you to choose what is the best for the situation at hand. There's my hot take. If you're interested in how I would personally fix this problem, Treantmonk has a video that describes an excellent option. It's about three house rules that he intends to use in his games going forward, and I highly recommend checking it out.

3 Things: (1) I think that the importance of Wisdom is dependent on the subclass you choose. Gloomstalkers, for example, want a good Wisdom cause it benefits their initiative. It also depends on if you're playing in a campaign that plans on going all the way to level 20 (and where you don't want to multiclass). That level 20 ability is reliant on Wisdom. (2) I'd argue that it's a poor choice to go Crossbow Expert with a Gloomstalker because the range of the hand crossbow is so limited. Close range means you're easily going to be in Lit areas and you lose the massive benefit of Umbral Sight (advantage to attack/disadvantage to be attacked). You want to be in darkness - at night, in dungeons, or caves, in the underdark - which means distance. And that favors the Longbow. That also frees up your bonus action for other things and saves you a feat. (3) You should probably have a set of feats that will be good for every class and not include those in the top 10 unless it has something specific to offer the class you're talking about - Lucky, Fey Touched, Alert, and Tough for example.

Those who say rangers are weak are stuck in the old meta and haven't really checked what xanathars and especially tasha's brought to the table for rangers. rangers now are arguably the best non-full caster class in the game which puts them at #6-7 among all the classes in the game which is good for the middle rank. here's the top 5 feats i use on my optimized ranger builds: 1. feytouched- great for rounding out an odd wis score for caster-type rangers like beastmasters. it's especially useful for beastmasters/drakewardens as they can use this to pick up dissonant whispers/command to generate opportunity attacks for themselves, their pet and their summon. 2. piercer/gunner/elven accuracy- great way to round out an odd dex score. piercer is of particular note for those gloomstalker/assassin builds while elven accuracy is of particular note for gloomstalker/hexblade crit-fisher builds. 3. ritual caster- great way to diversify the ranger's spellcasting plus giving them access to the useful find familiar, phantom steed and unseen servant for combat. 4. crusher- great way to round out a STRangers odd str score. forced movement is so useful in 5e currently. 5. sharpshooter- this is a staple of how to improve martial dmg. of course it'll be here.

i just have to throw in polearm master and sentinel in here, specially if your dm allows you the UA Tunnel Fighter fighting style. A Str Ranger is really Unique as a melee since u have a lot of AoE potential with the Hunter Subclass. u can just fight of Hordes of Monsters on your own.

How about some dual wield options. I know two-weapon fighting is nerfed to crap in 5e but I'd love to build on a 5 attack per round beast master ranger at level 11

As gloomstalker ranger alert sounds so tempting. But I need to increase my wisdom

Unpopular opinion: Not a fan of Crossbow Expert or Sharpshooter for pigeonholing the Ranger. I'm glad they're neutering them in the new 2024 update. Hopefully it goes through publishing.

Sharpshooter is the best feat for a ranged ranger. Crossbow Expert is poor without it (no range), and in my view an unnecessary choice in general for most Rangers, who have such great options for their bonus actions with their class features, spells (11 bonus action spells to choose from!) and often subclass features too.

Doesn't judge Sharpshooter for being a feat not everyone would take because they don't use a bow but deducts Elven Accuracy for being racial dependant. 10/10 brain function.

Ooof right off to a terrible start. "Elven Accuracy, I don't place it higher because, you are not always going to be an elf for one thing" What. the. F*** is that kind of an argument? You also aren't a great weapon user so should Great Weapon Master get points deductions because not everyone is swinging a Maul? A car should get a lower review because not everyone drives a car? Please rate each feat as if it is actually applicable, in which case, Elven Accuracy is S-tier.