Could Slayer's Prey actually be OP on earlier levels? [closed]

Question

Since Slayer's Prey is basically a Non Concentration Hunter's Mark and you can stack another spell with it, what are the most powerful combos possible in each Tier of play since Lv3? Like combining SP with Zephyr Strike, Lightning Arrow or Spike Growth, would it be considered "OP" from the initial tiers of play, and how it keeps up on higher levels?

Answer 1

No, because it's not a non-concentration Hunter's Mark.

Slayer's prey is, pound for pound, weaker.

Slayer's prey:

Starting at 3rd level, you can focus your ire on one foe, increasing the harm you inflict on it. As a bonus action, you designate one creature you can see within 60 feet of you as the target of this feature. The first time each turn that you hit that target with a weapon attack, it takes an extra 1d6 damage from the weapon.

Hunter's Mark:

You choose a creature you can see within range and mystically mark it as your quarry. Until the spell ends, you deal an extra 1d6 damage to the target whenever you hit it with a weapon attack, and you have advantage on any Wisdom (Perception) or Wisdom (Survival) check you make to find it. If the target drops to 0 hit points before this spell ends, you can use a bonus action on a subsequent turn of yours to mark a new creature.

Slayer's prey has the significant drawback that it's only the first weapon attack per turn rather than for each weapon attack, so it doesn't benefit from extra attack(s), two-weapon fighting, crossbow expert, etc. This puts it behind Hunter's Mark if you took any of those latter options, and continues to fall behind as you pick up extra attacks.

Before the rest of the answer, this isn't to say that slayer's prey is bad: it doesn't require concentration (so it can stack with Hunter's Mark) and has payoff later in the subclass, but in terms of sheer damage output going toe-to-toe with Hunter's Mark, it only stacks up if you're making exactly one weapon attack.

Slayer's prey isn't competing with Hunter's Mark.

It's competing with other 3rd level ranger class abilities. As Guybrush McKenzie mentioned, slayer's prey doesn't exist in a vacuum: it's competing with things like colossus slayer

When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, the creature takes an extra 1d8 damage if it’s below its hit point maximum. You can deal this extra damage only once per turn.

or gathered swarm:

Once on each of your turns, you can cause the swarm to assist you in one of the following ways, immediately after you hit a creature with an attack:

• The attack's target takes 1d6 piercing damage from the swarm.
• [...]

Hunter's Mark is a generally-accessible item in a ranger's toolkit, and that ranger will typically have a 3rd level class skill that also offers some sort of damage bonus. Slayer's prey has pros and cons relative to those other skills, but it will not, singlehandedly, skew the balance to a problematic degree.

It has mixed synergy with your listed options.

Slayer's prey doesn't have the same scaling potential as Hunter's Mark, but neither of them really synergize with the spells you've listed. Using Hunter's Mark means that you can't use these spells as they require concentration, but at that point you're basically asking "is downgrading 1d6 per attack to 1d6 per turn worth my concentration slot" and that becomes very dependent on specific encounter dynamics. If you didn't specifically mean the concentration aspect, since rangers have other similar abilities that grant a non-concentration damage boost:

Zephyr Strike has middling synergy.

Zephyr Strike grants

advantage on one weapon attack roll on your turn

which will help guarantee the bonus damage from slayer's prey, but is not a particularly powerful combo.

Lightning Arrow has no synergy.

With Lightning Arrow, you

Make the attack roll as normal. The target takes 4d8 lightning damage on a hit, or half as much damage on a miss, instead of the weapon’s normal damage.

and while it has an AoE effect, it's an AoE effect as consequence of a weapon attack rather than being a weapon attack:

Whether you hit or miss, each creature within 10 feet of the target must make a Dexterity saving throw. Each of these creatures takes 2d8 lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

Spike Growth has no synergy.

Spike Growth does not involve weapon attacks, so it has no overlap with slayer's prey.