About half of the deer I’ve killed I’ve been on the ground. That being said my ladder stands are typically 16-20 feet and I’ll go 25 feet or so with a climber if it lets me see a little farther. Being in a stand above their line of sight gives you a definite advantage though for sure. This past season I was moving a stand and the bottom ladder was rusted and rotted out so I decided to take that section out and put the now 10’ tall stand up and hunt out of it anyway. I had 5 deer around the bottom of that stand the morning I decided to hunt out of it. It felt like I was standing about back level to them and they milled around for 45 minutes or so. Made me a huge believer in getting above their line of sight.
