Baldur's Gate 3: Best Gloom Stalker Ranger Build (2024)

Builds in Baldur's Gate 3 can get complicated quickly. With so many options between classes, races, and the vast plethora of magical items, keeping track of your build can become exhausting. When it comes to the Gloomstalker Ranger, the progression is thankfully much simpler than your average wizard or sorcerer.

Prioritizing Critical Hit ratios and raw damage from any point on the field, the Gloomstalker Ranger is a deadly striker class you won't want off your team. Getting your ranger off the ground is thankfully easy, but if you want to make sure you elevate your ranger from a moderate damage dealer to a battlefield critical god, you'll want to follow this guide closely.

Best Gloomstalker Ranger Starting Race And Background

A Gloomstalker Ranger will always benefit from any class with high mobility, meaning that the Wood Elf is always a solid and popular choice. However, there's a second (much better) class that often goes unnoticed by builds: the Half-Orc.

Why Half-Orc? Two Words: Savage Attacks.

Savage Attacks - When you land a Critical Hit with a melee weapon attack, your damage dice are tripled instead of doubled.

As such, this build will focus on maximizing Critical Hit chance through the use of multiple actions for a crippling damage monster.

The best background for a Gloomstalker will likely be any that ties in with Dexterity. Urchin is the best Background for a Gloomstalker, but others include:

• Charlatan (+ Deception, Sleight of Hand)
• Criminal (+ Deception, Stealth)
• Entertainer (+ Performance, Acrobatics)

Best Gloomstalker Ranger Ability Scores, Feats, And Subclass

See Also

Baldur's Gate 3: How To Beat Malus Thorm Without FightingRanger Class Guide: Best Builds and Subclasses | Baldur's Gate 3 (BG3)｜Game8How to Beat Malus Thorm (House of Healing) | Baldur's Gate 3 (BG3)｜Game8Baldur's Gate 3: Wie man Malus Thorm besiegt - BlengaOne

The number one focus for your stats should be Dexterity, giving you both a high starting DC and damage output. You'll increase it by +1 with an Ability Score Upgrade as well as Constitution, adding to your survivability in melee combat.

Wisdom and Charisma are interchangeable at 12 and 14 in whichever you prefer for your style. If this character is the one doing most of the talking, Charisma should be prioritized. If not, increasing your Wisdom will increase your Spell Save DC for Ensnaring Strike.

As a Ranger, your first major choice will be in your starting feats. We recommend:

• Favoured Enemy: Bounty Hunter
• Natural Explorer: Wasteland Wanderer (Fire)

Later, you'll need to choose a fighting style. There are two styles we will be taking for this build due to its multiclass, and which style you choose should be determined by who else is in your party (e.g., if you need a melee striker vs. ranged attacker). Choose one:

• Two-Weapon Fighting: Add ability modifier to off-hand attacks
• Archery: Increase Ranged weapon attack hit by +2

Multiclassing As A Gloomstalker Ranger

The Gloomstalker Ranger should absolutely be multiclassed for this broken build to take it all the way to the finish line. Once you reach Level 3 and gain your Gloomstalker class, you'll want to multiclass into Rogue and, later, Fighter.

The multiclass progression of this build entails the following:

The variation in this build depends on the role your Gloomstalker needs to fill. There are two divergences in pathing for this build:

1. Archer or Melee Striker - Depends on what you need in placement. Archer will rely on Sharpshooter to deal immense damage from afar but does miss out slightly on benefits from Half-Orc, while Melee Striker takes Dual-Wielder for lowering Critical Hit chance even lower.
2. Battlemaster or Champion Fighter - Overall utility versus further Critical Hit threshold reduction. Do you need your ranger to knock enemies Prone with Battlemaster or kill them quickly with an even lower Critical Hit minimum? Choose Battlemaster for increased field utility and base damage increase and Champion if you want to lower the Critical threshold further.

Best Gloomstalker Ranger Spells

See Also

Baldur's Gate 3: How To Beat Malus Thorm

You will not often be using spells as a Gloomstalker Ranger, so choosing them will not be a great focus for this build. If you choose something else that deviates from the list above, don't fret.

Many of the spells included, like Ensnaring Strike, will be rare uses that give you a slight edge in specific circ*mstances. In general, the only spell you will get constant use from is Hunter's Mark - a top priority on this list.

Best Gloomstalker Ranger Equipment

The equipment of a Gloomstalker Ranger focuses on lowering the Critical Hit requirement and increasing output damage for a deadly striker-class attacker. While this build is geared more toward a frontline melee unit with high AC, it can also work exceptionally well as a midline archer.

The armour itself is optimized to ensure that no penalties against your Stealth occur while maximizing Armour Class potential.

In weapons, this build has a large range of options. But the most important is the Knife of the Undermountain King, giving not only a lowered requirement for Critical Hits but also a free reroll on hits.

After is the Blood Thirst weapon, applying Vulnerability to enemies for Piercing damage. As this build deals only Piercing damage at its core, this is a highly useful skill that will double your damage output before you've even tripled it for a Critical Hit.

Gontr Mael seems like the obvious choice at first, but it actually doesn't perform as well in this build as the Dead Shot. In our opinion, it's much better to have another support character cast Haste as the bow's Celestial Haste means you can't use Hunter's Mark. This frees Gontr Mael for another character who needs it more.

How To Use A Gloomstalker Ranger - Battle Tips, Strategy, And Analysis

This is one of the rare builds that no matter where you place the Gloomstalker Ranger, you'll never go wrong.

With access to equipment that improves mobility and the Disengage and Dash bonus action feats, this build is an extremely versatile fighter that can easily switch between roles as the situation calls. Adaptable to melee and ranged combat, this build will likely be a key part of any battle.

Although absolutely deadly as an archer (and never to be underestimated), this build does excel slightly better at melee combat. Here's a breakdown of what a Turn One with Gloomstalker Ranger looks like.

1. Optional: Cast Hunter's Mark on beefy target
2. Make melee Dread Ambusher Attack
3. Make two main hand weapon attacks; one with Sneak Attack
4. Make one-to-two off-hand attacks
5. Action surge for two more main hand weapon attacks

That brings the total of attacks on Turn One to six or seven attacks. If you use Haste, that number can improve all the way to 11 possible attacks (or eight, if you're in Honour Mode).

With a Critical Hit minimum of 14 (Champion) or 15 (Battlemaster), you have an approximate 25-30 percent chance of dealing triple damage with any melee attack and double with ranged and spell.

Stacked with the application of Vulnerability to Piercing with Blood Thirst, Sneak Attack, Hunter's Mark, the Legacy of the Master gauntlets, and the Caustic Band, you'll be dealing well over a hundred damage on your first turn. Scary, right?

In essence, your strategy is to go absolutely wild against your enemies with a barrage of merciless attacks. If you can poison a weapon or drink a potion before battle, all the better. This is the kind of build you can solo Baldur's Gate 3 with - a boss killer.

As you play, we do recommend keeping these tips in mind:

• Always remember to set up your Sneak Attack by sneaking in or setting a party member in melee with your target.
• Don't forget Hunter's Mark is there and deals an additional 1d6 damage with every attack.
• Poisons go a very long way with this build; we recommend applying them before battle.

Have fun absolutely destroying your enemies in a single turn.