OK so the idea behind this is to maximize lightning damage per turn to get full use out of the ranger’s swarm of jellyfish, since they only activate one per turn. it’s nothing game breaking so i wouldn’t try soloing honor mode with it, just a build trying to focus on swarmkeeper ranger since i love the extra damage per turn and the ability to fly and be immune to surface effects
Race doesn’t matter for this class, I chose Blue Dragonborn cuz it felt appropriate and the lightning breath is really useful for enemies that approach you when you’re early game, especially after getting the Sparkswall.
Anyway, depending on how many enemies you have, you either start an encounter normally or with a create water ambush. When it’s a bunch of enemies bunched together, start combat with create water into either Chain Lightning or Call Lightning, depending on the difficulty of the enemy. If you can’t start combat like that or it’s just one or two enemies, i recommend using a bonus action to create a mage hand and then using the mage hand to throw water at the enemy (if you can)
as you can see, this build doesn’t have much AC so you want to avoid close combat as much as possible. if i could, i would’ve added one sorcerer level to get either Tempestous Magic to fly away from them, or Draconic Resilience for the extra 3 AC. But then you’d miss out on the immunity to surface effects or chain lightning. You could always replace War Caster with Magic Initiate: Sorcerer to pick up Mage Armor, but i’d much rather have the advantage to con saves for my spells than an extra 3 AC.
my favorite part of this build is it can turn on and work well pretty early because of all the early equipment you can get that deals with lightning charges. The difficult part is choosing between Spellsparker and Joltshooter. Personally, especially because for the first 7 levels we’ll basically be an archer build, Joltshooter works a lot better. Once you get to level 5 and get that extra attack, you can easily get 5 lightning charges to proc the extra 1d8 lightning damage. if you don’t have the Sparkswall yet, I don’t recommend using the Watersparkers as standing in water will make it electrified and that will still shock you. however, if you DO have them, then you’ll be able to proc the extra 1d8 lightning damage per turn as long as you’re standing in water (having another character that can cast create water on you will help). Best part of this set up is when you get to 5 lightning charges, since you’re using the joltshooter, priority is set so that you gain the 2 lightning charges AFTER expending all other lightning charges. making it so you end the turn with 2 lightning charges. so if you have the jolty vest, lifebringer, or protecty sparkswall, those will still remain active during your turn. when you start the next turn, as long as you’re still in water, you’ll start with 4 lightning charges rather than 3 as you’ll still have 1 lightning charge left over from the previous round (lightning charges go down at the start of each of your turns)
if any enemies try to approach you, they’ll be electrified and wet, letting your lightning damage deal double damage (if you started as a dragonborn with lightning breath, this will help)
Alternatively, if you want to focus on being a spellcaster from the start, you can choose the Spellsparkler and simply pick Sanctified Stalker as your Favoured Enemy, giving you access to the cantrip Sacred Flame from the start. This will lesson how much lightning charges you gain per turn, but it will let you multiclass into cleric early as level 5, as the second attack you’d be getting from ranger won’t be as much help. letting you make your own water surfaces rather than relying on a team mate. It will also be better in the long run as you’ll be using this weapon until you get the Markoheshkir in Act 3, saving some gold and letting you level up your cleric and getting better spells a lot earlier. It also gives you the ability to turn undead and maximize your lightning spells just as you’re heading into act 2, which has a lot of undead.
Anyway, I can’t emphasize enough this is not a build i would try to solo honor mode with. Imo, this new ranger subclass works a lot better as a dip into for the extra damage per turn. like it works fantastic with a Bladedancer build for that extra psychic damage. Hoped you enjoy, i’ll work on that Bladedance build i mentioned.
