Planar warrior(level 3) It’s a great use of the Rangers bonus action. While it’s limited to 30ft and requiring sight of the targeted creature, it reliably increases damage for the next hit on that turn. It scales up at level 11 to 2d8 which is a decent damage increase. Then there’s the fact that all of that next weapon attacks damage type changes to force and thus bypasses many resistances and immunities. Ethereal step(level 7) Being able to cast etherealness as a bonus action is great, even if it’s only for the rest of that turn. While this ability can be used to scout through walls, it can also be used tactically in combat. You can use this ability after you’ve made your attacks to place move yourself through cages and walls. You can also use this ability to escape being grappled, restrained, or swallowed by large creatures. Recharging on a short rest is pretty great too. Distant strike (level 10) This ability is basically an unlimited short range teleportation option both in and out of combat. The ability simply states you need to take the attack action to enjoy the benefits of the short range teleportation. No weapon required, no hit required, and no requirement to even target a creature with the attack. So by the time you reach the level requirement for this feature you can teleport two 10ft increments for just attacking open air. This ability is shutdown if you are blind though. Also, teleporting 10ft high causes 1d6 damage to yourself when you fall, and you are prone as a result of that damage. This feature also synergizes with the haste spell on its list, since the action given can also be used to teleport if used to attack. If this feature is used with the ethereal step feature you can move farther by attacking to teleport while in the ethereal plane if you have 30ft of movement. This is due to the ethereal plane making all movement count as difficult terrain while inside. There’s also the fact that while it the ability relies on you taking the attack action, each teleport happens before the attack takes place. This means almost all ranged attacks could be made without worrying about close range disadvantage if good character placement being followed. Spectral defense (level 15) While comparable to the rogues uncanny dodge, this feature has key differences. Uncanny dodge requires sight of the attacker, while spectral defense does not. Uncanny dodge specifically halves damage, while spectral defense gives resistance to all of the triggering hits damage types. This detail matters as if the damage is made with multiple types of damage types, those types have the chance to roll odds and rounding down. This may halve damage twice to be rounded down, vs the once with uncanny dodge. All of these features add up to quite an effective character type that is hard to pin down in most situations.
Planar warrior has pretty bad anti synergy with distant strike. Planer warrior has you focus one one target, where and distant strike wants you to do the opposite. If you miss your first attack, you're stuck between losing an extra attack or having wasted your bonus action, it's fairly poorly designed imo. Add to that that the ranger often has stuff to do with their bonus action, the horizon walker being no exception.. It makes for a pretty bad feature imo... It's not terrible, but it's certainly not very good. Etheral step is a cool ability, but perhaps a bit too lmited, profeciency number of uses would be perfectly fine I think. Distant strike is one of the coolest abilities in the game, but I'm not sure most DM's would allow you to "attack air" in order to teleport outside of combat.
@@ayf449 Absolutely. By making it a passive, not only does it allow you to freely use distant strike, it also frees up your bonus action I still think it's a shame that the coolest feature of the subclas (distant strikes) comes online so late though.
@MaMastoast that is very true unfortunately.. If distant strike was given at level seven inserted of 11 (or heck even 3 but i guess that's too much to ask for) it would have made this class honestly everyone's favorite right up there with gloom walker. And so the Ethereal step is given at level 11 but instead of it being 6 seconds per short rest. Maybe have five or ten minutes a day or per long or short rest? Or perhaps minutes = 1/2 your ranger levels per rest or day that way to could scale up and make it something fit level 11. Perhaps at level 15 you can also grab people with you idk.. Honestly I'm a new by to all of this and sorry for the wall of text but I'm eager to know what you think? Would it be and overkill? Or other classes are doing far more at these levels?
@@ayf449 I think we look at more recent subclasses, we tend to see that the defining features are presented when the subclass is chosen. Obvious example is the Gloomstalker and drakewarden for the ranger, but also the rune knight and ech knight for the fighter. Taking that into account, I would absoutely argue for some version of distant strikes being accessed at level 3. Perhaps the extra strike would be a later addition along with another buff to the feature. I mean, let's have a look at what the horizon walker gets at level 3 right now. A detect portal ability which is essentially useless most of the time, and a 1d8 damage bonus action.. Achieving atlast a 1d6 damage through your bonus action is extremely easy as a hunter, so the force damage type is the only worthwhile thing in the entre level 3 skillset.. quite pityful really. So yea, basically, I'd absoutely add distrant strikes to level 3.
Teleport BACKSTAB!, bonus Teleport Backstab again!, and the last attack Teleport BACKSTAB! DM: Frak You. *burns your character sheet in front of you, and laughs maniacally*
Horizontal Walker is pretty much my favorite Ranger Archetype. Everyone is simping for the Gloom Stalker and here I am fantasizing about playing a Talion-like ranger in 5e.
The teleportstion at lvl 11 is godly for pure bow rangers, or perhaps even closer range ones like slings and the like so you can more often make use of the within 30feet bonus damage
I've been looking up peoples take on Horizon Walker, and this one felt the most informative without being complete negatives. I'll be playing a 10th lvl campaign and just went LVL3 in H-W and LVL7 in Wizard Bladesinger. I've got access to earlier spells, spell slots, and can use a cantrip on top of a regular weapon attack. I'm a bit low on HP but I'm liking the roleplaying aspect of understanding different planes and gearing myself to fight off planar foes.
So, I love to support pages that aren't as big if they are good. Yall won me over with the very first dad joke "horizon walker Texas ranger " bwhahahah awesome!!
I've started a new campaing with my friends, and picked Horizon Walker Elf. He Looks really powerful, not OP, but he hits hard with sharpshooter feat. But, you've said, that RP value is not that much, so... Read this, because i think, that my ranger lore is nice. Valen (his name) is 600 YO. He was Feywild Guardian about 300 years ago. Level 20 Horizon Walker. But... He messed up with some bad guys. Some evil deity captured him, and tortured for about 300 years. Later, it abandoned him in Saltmarsh. He is now weird, depressed and schizophrenic, that is trying to pick up pieces, and uncover, who he really is. What do you think guys?
300 years of torture? Yikes. Makes me think a bit of Tokyo Ghoul, but even more extreme. Sounds like a lot of potential RP gold from a background. Let us know how it progresses! Thanks for watching!
@@URGE my plan is, that he is not learning new things. Level up in this case is a piece of his own history, that Will come to his head as a Flashback. Level 3 Will be like Portal, Wilderness, Energy. For his own good, there is a druid in party, and she is giving him some positive, Feywild vibrations. See ya later champs, I Will write you more info about him later, while we Will progress more!
Some interesting backgrounds could be Sailor, Urchin or Soldier (depending on what direction you want to go and the campaign setting). Some other options if you are using books outside of the PHB could be something like Archaeologist or Anthropologist. A couple races I would suggest are Wood Elf or Aarakocra/Grung (if your DM allows it). Good Luck and thanks for watching!
@Zach Bowman The essential thing about a Horizon Walker is the Planar travel. A good DM can take you to the Earth Plane and have a good time. You pickup value Allies this way. As in making friends with Elementals or if you’re evil trapping them in a ring or something similar. I’ve always played a good character. But remember that the deeper you go into any of the Four Elementals Planes the more violent it will get.
That was done to fix Hunter subclass. XtgE subclasses do not need Favoured Foe to be good. They just need to get their subclass features before the ribbon feature improvements.
but it does, you can start combat with that or hunters mark on your first turn and then next turn use the subclass feature and you get the 1d8 and 1d4 because the favored foe is a concentration like ability so all you have to do is set up just like you did before lvl3.
melee attack twice, ethereal step to avoid attack of opportunity at 7th level, at 11 lvl distant strike with ranged weapon, bam bam bam, then ethereal step and move for added hiding at the end of your turn?
lord imagine a fighter with action surge mc literally warping around like some mad man hitting everything at the same time by the time you finish. Needless to say I feel motivated with this idea
It reads like they get the extra damage for the turn not just one attack. There needs to be a comma or something in the sentence. At least thats what i get when i read it.
I like this one, except for the teleports mechanics, it should've just been 30 feet per turn. The mechanics of needing to attack several creatures to do the thing just doesn't make in character sense, its way too gamey.
I disagree. The idea seems to be that you're basically doing the "Nightcrawler attacks everybody in close-quarters one after the other while blinking to them"-maneuver. That feels very "cinematic" to me, for lack of a better term, not very game-y.
I also disagree. That’s breaks the game giving you a free misty step every attack is insane. In combination the whole 11th level increase is great enough to cover all weak points to what you’re saying, but being able to teleport 30 ft each attack, get a third attack, and then also do 2d8 force damage is sooooo broken.
I disagree as well. Most characters already have a 30 ft movement speed, the tp is just a straight upgrade to move between targets without illiciting attacks of opportunity. Being able to move up to 60 ft per turn and attack three targets without taking any attacks of opportunity is crazy.
As a person currently playing it's okay. Detect Portal has not mattered in my campaign, but that's whatever. Planar warrior is great, but because it directly conflicts with Hunter's Mark, it will delay max damage potential and, depending on your party make up, will me you aren't close enough to use. Sure you have teleport to get close, but that uses your bonus action again. This class does help you get out of situations readily, but, like most ranger classes, you feel like you aren't doing any damage until at least 11 level in this class. I love this character, but the class is eh.
I disagree on the damage front. Assuming that you're playing an archer character, Rangers are actually doing some of the highest single-target damage in the game between levels 2 and 4 (only really beaten by martial dual wielders and Rogues, both of which fall off at level 5) - and pretty much *the* highest single-target damage in the game between levels 5 and 11 (when Fighters get their 3rd attack). And even at the level 11+ area, Rangers are still doing great damage, depending on their subclass and how often you manage to get their "3rd attack" off (especially looking at the Gloom Stalker and Horizon Walker here). What Rangers lack is great "nova"-damage (which is only really relevant if you're playing with a bad DM who only has 1 or 2 relevant fights per long rest - in which case *nothing* beats traditional casters and Sorcerers are essentially gods) and completely spell-less damage in super-long adventuring days (talking about 15+ encounters with 4-5 short rests here, in these rare cases, nothint beats Fighters and Warlocks).
I also disagree, I’m playing in a party with a Wizard, a paladin, and a rogue, and I probably have the highest DPS per round. Besides the nova the paladin gets, the massive spells our wizard gets, and the sneak attacks our rogue gets. When I stack hunters Mark with planar warrior, I’m doing 2d8+ 1d6+ 7 at 4th level with the fighting style dueling
Weaponizing your Bonus Action is ALWAYS a good thing. ;) And additional mobility is great for an archer-type ranger. If only the Ranger wasn't such a cr*p class to begin with ...
Planar warrior(level 3)
It’s a great use of the Rangers bonus action. While it’s limited to 30ft and requiring sight of the targeted creature, it reliably increases damage for the next hit on that turn. It scales up at level 11 to 2d8 which is a decent damage increase. Then there’s the fact that all of that next weapon attacks damage type changes to force and thus bypasses many resistances and immunities.
Ethereal step(level 7)
Being able to cast etherealness as a bonus action is great, even if it’s only for the rest of that turn. While this ability can be used to scout through walls, it can also be used tactically in combat. You can use this ability after you’ve made your attacks to place move yourself through cages and walls. You can also use this ability to escape being grappled, restrained, or swallowed by large creatures. Recharging on a short rest is pretty great too.
Distant strike (level 10)
This ability is basically an unlimited short range teleportation option both in and out of combat. The ability simply states you need to take the attack action to enjoy the benefits of the short range teleportation. No weapon required, no hit required, and no requirement to even target a creature with the attack. So by the time you reach the level requirement for this feature you can teleport two 10ft increments for just attacking open air. This ability is shutdown if you are blind though. Also, teleporting 10ft high causes 1d6 damage to yourself when you fall, and you are prone as a result of that damage. This feature also synergizes with the haste spell on its list, since the action given can also be used to teleport if used to attack. If this feature is used with the ethereal step feature you can move farther by attacking to teleport while in the ethereal plane if you have 30ft of movement. This is due to the ethereal plane making all movement count as difficult terrain while inside.
There’s also the fact that while it the ability relies on you taking the attack action, each teleport happens before the attack takes place. This means almost all ranged attacks could be made without worrying about close range disadvantage if good character placement being followed.
Spectral defense (level 15)
While comparable to the rogues uncanny dodge, this feature has key differences. Uncanny dodge requires sight of the attacker, while spectral defense does not.
Uncanny dodge specifically halves damage, while spectral defense gives resistance to all of the triggering hits damage types. This detail matters as if the damage is made with multiple types of damage types, those types have the chance to roll odds and rounding down. This may halve damage twice to be rounded down, vs the once with uncanny dodge.
All of these features add up to quite an effective character type that is hard to pin down in most situations.
Planar warrior has pretty bad anti synergy with distant strike. Planer warrior has you focus one one target, where and distant strike wants you to do the opposite. If you miss your first attack, you're stuck between losing an extra attack or having wasted your bonus action, it's fairly poorly designed imo.
Add to that that the ranger often has stuff to do with their bonus action, the horizon walker being no exception.. It makes for a pretty bad feature imo... It's not terrible, but it's certainly not very good.
Etheral step is a cool ability, but perhaps a bit too lmited, profeciency number of uses would be perfectly fine I think.
Distant strike is one of the coolest abilities in the game, but I'm not sure most DM's would allow you to "attack air" in order to teleport outside of combat.
@@MaMastoast sooo of planar warrior was passive for one successful attack per turn, would you say that makes it better?
@@ayf449 Absolutely. By making it a passive, not only does it allow you to freely use distant strike, it also frees up your bonus action
I still think it's a shame that the coolest feature of the subclas (distant strikes) comes online so late though.
@MaMastoast that is very true unfortunately..
If distant strike was given at level seven inserted of 11 (or heck even 3 but i guess that's too much to ask for) it would have made this class honestly everyone's favorite right up there with gloom walker.
And so the Ethereal step is given at level 11 but instead of it being 6 seconds per short rest. Maybe have five or ten minutes a day or per long or short rest?
Or perhaps minutes = 1/2 your ranger levels per rest or day that way to could scale up and make it something fit level 11.
Perhaps at level 15 you can also grab people with you idk.. Honestly I'm a new by to all of this and sorry for the wall of text but I'm eager to know what you think? Would it be and overkill? Or other classes are doing far more at these levels?
@@ayf449 I think we look at more recent subclasses, we tend to see that the defining features are presented when the subclass is chosen.
Obvious example is the Gloomstalker and drakewarden for the ranger, but also the rune knight and ech knight for the fighter.
Taking that into account, I would absoutely argue for some version of distant strikes being accessed at level 3. Perhaps the extra strike would be a later addition along with another buff to the feature.
I mean, let's have a look at what the horizon walker gets at level 3 right now. A detect portal ability which is essentially useless most of the time, and a 1d8 damage bonus action.. Achieving atlast a 1d6 damage through your bonus action is extremely easy as a hunter, so the force damage type is the only worthwhile thing in the entre level 3 skillset.. quite pityful really.
So yea, basically, I'd absoutely add distrant strikes to level 3.
Teleport BACKSTAB!, bonus Teleport Backstab again!, and the last attack Teleport BACKSTAB!
DM: Frak You.
*burns your character sheet in front of you, and laughs maniacally*
@sum body back stab and sneak attack are pretty much the same thing. Lol
This feels like the ranged sneak attack in ac odyssey
You can multiclass this with Monk to make Minato.
Thanks... I start playing a H/W Ranger Centaur in Theros campaign tomorrow... Saved me some reading.
Horizontal Walker is pretty much my favorite Ranger Archetype. Everyone is simping for the Gloom Stalker and here I am fantasizing about playing a Talion-like ranger in 5e.
I'm new to D&D and I always thought this subclasses is pretty interesting
The teleportstion at lvl 11 is godly for pure bow rangers, or perhaps even closer range ones like slings and the like so you can more often make use of the within 30feet bonus damage
I've been looking up peoples take on Horizon Walker, and this one felt the most informative without being complete negatives. I'll be playing a 10th lvl campaign and just went LVL3 in H-W and LVL7 in Wizard Bladesinger. I've got access to earlier spells, spell slots, and can use a cantrip on top of a regular weapon attack. I'm a bit low on HP but I'm liking the roleplaying aspect of understanding different planes and gearing myself to fight off planar foes.
My sister plays an eladrin horizon walker so she has movement for days.
My sister got stuck in the dryer
@@michaelvaldez9367 lmfao
So, I love to support pages that aren't as big if they are good. Yall won me over with the very first dad joke "horizon walker Texas ranger " bwhahahah awesome!!
I've started a new campaing with my friends, and picked Horizon Walker Elf. He Looks really powerful, not OP, but he hits hard with sharpshooter feat.
But, you've said, that RP value is not that much, so... Read this, because i think, that my ranger lore is nice.
Valen (his name) is 600 YO. He was Feywild Guardian about 300 years ago. Level 20 Horizon Walker. But... He messed up with some bad guys. Some evil deity captured him, and tortured for about 300 years. Later, it abandoned him in Saltmarsh. He is now weird, depressed and schizophrenic, that is trying to pick up pieces, and uncover, who he really is.
What do you think guys?
300 years of torture? Yikes. Makes me think a bit of Tokyo Ghoul, but even more extreme. Sounds like a lot of potential RP gold from a background. Let us know how it progresses! Thanks for watching!
@@URGE my plan is, that he is not learning new things. Level up in this case is a piece of his own history, that Will come to his head as a Flashback. Level 3 Will be like Portal, Wilderness, Energy. For his own good, there is a druid in party, and she is giving him some positive, Feywild vibrations.
See ya later champs, I Will write you more info about him later, while we Will progress more!
I've heard the same trope you've described in nearly exact detail several times.
Was high llevel, stripped of memories and power, etc.
I play mine as a wood elf with the mobile feat and is basically an agent of Mordenkainen.
Side note: turning an entire attack into force damage works really well with sneak attack
I didn’t even know this stuff exists
What background do you guys think synergizes best or fills in gaps best for this subclass? Any race suggestions?
Some interesting backgrounds could be Sailor, Urchin or Soldier (depending on what direction you want to go and the campaign setting). Some other options if you are using books outside of the PHB could be something like Archaeologist or Anthropologist. A couple races I would suggest are Wood Elf or Aarakocra/Grung (if your DM allows it). Good Luck and thanks for watching!
@Zach Bowman
The essential thing about a Horizon Walker is the Planar travel. A good DM can take you to the Earth Plane and have a good time. You pickup value Allies this way. As in making friends with Elementals or if you’re evil trapping them in a ring or something similar. I’ve always played a good character. But remember that the deeper you go into any of the Four Elementals Planes the more violent it will get.
The problem I have is how this bonus action stuff doesn't work great with the variant rangers Favoured Foe feature.
That was done to fix Hunter subclass. XtgE subclasses do not need Favoured Foe to be good. They just need to get their subclass features before the ribbon feature improvements.
but it does, you can start combat with that or hunters mark on your first turn and then next turn use the subclass feature and you get the 1d8 and 1d4 because the favored foe is a concentration like ability so all you have to do is set up just like you did before lvl3.
What level can you use the teleportation?
I have a question. If you are a HW and a Black Hag cast Nightmare Haunting. Can you detect that, due to the nature?
melee attack twice, ethereal step to avoid attack of opportunity at 7th level, at 11 lvl distant strike with ranged weapon, bam bam bam, then ethereal step and move for added hiding at the end of your turn?
How long does Eatharl step work like does it finish end of your turn or end of the combat round
If u are hasted, shouldnt u able to do distant strike upto four times
lord imagine a fighter with action surge mc literally warping around like some mad man hitting everything at the same time by the time you finish. Needless to say I feel motivated with this idea
It reads like they get the extra damage for the turn not just one attack. There needs to be a comma or something in the sentence. At least thats what i get when i read it.
The oxford comma IS important.
Can we get celestial warlock?
We are going through Xanathers in order right now, so we will be getting to it soon(ish)! Thanks for watching!
Detect planar portal is an action?! With limited uses?! Why, Wizards, why?
Don’t forget it only has a mile range
I like this one, except for the teleports mechanics, it should've just been 30 feet per turn. The mechanics of needing to attack several creatures to do the thing just doesn't make in character sense, its way too gamey.
I disagree. The idea seems to be that you're basically doing the "Nightcrawler attacks everybody in close-quarters one after the other while blinking to them"-maneuver. That feels very "cinematic" to me, for lack of a better term, not very game-y.
I also disagree. That’s breaks the game giving you a free misty step every attack is insane. In combination the whole 11th level increase is great enough to cover all weak points to what you’re saying, but being able to teleport 30 ft each attack, get a third attack, and then also do 2d8 force damage is sooooo broken.
I disagree as well. Most characters already have a 30 ft movement speed, the tp is just a straight upgrade to move between targets without illiciting attacks of opportunity. Being able to move up to 60 ft per turn and attack three targets without taking any attacks of opportunity is crazy.
As a person currently playing it's okay. Detect Portal has not mattered in my campaign, but that's whatever. Planar warrior is great, but because it directly conflicts with Hunter's Mark, it will delay max damage potential and, depending on your party make up, will me you aren't close enough to use. Sure you have teleport to get close, but that uses your bonus action again.
This class does help you get out of situations readily, but, like most ranger classes, you feel like you aren't doing any damage until at least 11 level in this class. I love this character, but the class is eh.
I disagree on the damage front. Assuming that you're playing an archer character, Rangers are actually doing some of the highest single-target damage in the game between levels 2 and 4 (only really beaten by martial dual wielders and Rogues, both of which fall off at level 5) - and pretty much *the* highest single-target damage in the game between levels 5 and 11 (when Fighters get their 3rd attack).
And even at the level 11+ area, Rangers are still doing great damage, depending on their subclass and how often you manage to get their "3rd attack" off (especially looking at the Gloom Stalker and Horizon Walker here).
What Rangers lack is great "nova"-damage (which is only really relevant if you're playing with a bad DM who only has 1 or 2 relevant fights per long rest - in which case *nothing* beats traditional casters and Sorcerers are essentially gods) and completely spell-less damage in super-long adventuring days (talking about 15+ encounters with 4-5 short rests here, in these rare cases, nothint beats Fighters and Warlocks).
I also disagree, I’m playing in a party with a Wizard, a paladin, and a rogue, and I probably have the highest DPS per round. Besides the nova the paladin gets, the massive spells our wizard gets, and the sneak attacks our rogue gets. When I stack hunters Mark with planar warrior, I’m doing 2d8+ 1d6+ 7 at 4th level with the fighting style dueling
Weaponizing your Bonus Action is ALWAYS a good thing. ;) And additional mobility is great for an archer-type ranger. If only the Ranger wasn't such a cr*p class to begin with ...