How much does flight help the ranger?

Question

If this was already asked, I didn't see it, so if this is a duplicate, then sorry.

How much better does a ranger get if given the ability to fly? Like, for monks or barbarians usually not much changes, because you need to be in melee range of the opponent to hit them anyways, but with things like wizards flight allows a retreat to keep enemies away from you as you cast whatever spells you want from a distance.

I'm wondering how much a ranger would benefit from flight, on a scale of monk-wizard, or 1-10 if that's easier to understand. Like, if I want to play a ranger, am I better off doing so with a flying race?

Answer 1

A lot?

I mean, everything's better if you can fly.

But how to measure.

An unofficial tool, the Detect Balance spreadsheet, gives flight between 16 to 24 points, depending on the specifics of the flight. For comparison, it gives 16 points to giving +1 to all scores and 20 points to a choice of feat. So it considers flight roughly equivalent to a +1 in everything, or a free feat.

Flight is always good. Even very limited flight, per the spell or, for instance, the gem dragonborn's Gem Flight, which allows you to fly for a minute, is situationally very useful. It doesn't really matter the class, everyone likes the mobility that flight provides.

You say:

Like, if I want to play a ranger, am I better off doing so with a flying race?

There's no objective measure for "better off". Decide what seems most fun.

Also, it might matter whether you're playing with 2014 races, or 2024 species.

Finally, if I recall correctly from other questions, you played a pixie in a previous game, and could fly. That should give you some idea of how useful flight is.