Damage-Dealing Combat-Style: Great Weapon Fighting Weapon: Greatsword Needed Spells/Feats Cantrips: Green Flameblade or Booming Blade 1st-Level Spells: Find Familiar 2nd-Level Spells: Hold Person, 3rd-Level Spells: Haste, Melfs Minute Meteors, Feats: Warcaster, Great Weapon Master
Familiar is not only useful for Roleplaying and Adventure Utility, but for the aid-Action to get Advantage on your -5 Penalty-Hits with Great Weapons. Greatsword is the best Weapon for the Great Weapon Fighting Style. Booming Blade is a Damage based Tank-Utility Spell, that you can Use, if You don't want to go on the Sentinel-Feat. Until you're level 11 the green Flameblade or Booming Blade combo should be better then just making attacks. At Level 10 can try the Attack - Hold Person Combo with Eldritch Strike against Human foe's. Hideous Laughter may be the better Spell, because it can hit nearly any Creature and not only Humans. Once you Reach level 14 you Use Haste on yourself for 4 Attacks/Round. Since this Tactic will give you one Level of Exhaustion, i like the Style of Melf Minute Meteors for additional 4d6 Fire Damage per Round in lesser encounters instead. After making the Attack, you can hurl 2 Meteors at your Enemy as a Bonus-Action, which now has disadvantage against the Saving Throws.
Battlefieldcontrol/Tank Fighting Style: Defense Weapon: Helbard/Glaive Nedded Spells/Feat 1st: Hideous Laughter, shield, absorb Elements, Protection form Evil and Good 2nd: Misty Step, Darkness, Web 3rd: Counterspell, Dispell Magic feats: Polearm Master, Sentinel, Warcaster
Hideous Laughter and Web are fantastic Battlefield Control Spell throughout the entire Game. Web Shines at Level 10 if you can Magage to Lay down the Web and then use one of your Attack to shove your enemies right into it. Misty Step is fantastic for a Sentinel-Build, because Positioning is so important. Just throw your Attacks on a foe and then Step anywhere you need to be to block the way to the soft members of your Party with Reach-Weapons and Sentinel. Darkness protects you or your Members from Ranged Attacks, and Counterspell and Dispell Magic will do their Work against Enemy-Casters.
My EK was meant to be a tank for the team. I don't really like Shield, because the EK has a very limited amount of spell casts. I used Booming Blade for great effect, almost as fun as Sentinel. I used Shield Master to knock down and push around quite a few baddies.
My full build was: Mountain Dwarf (stats rolled, so wont post them here) Eldritch Knight, level 4 Shield Master, level 6 Heavy Armor Master (I would have picked something else after playing with this feat, but it just felt thematic at the time), level 8 Mage Slayer (we were in a campaign where quite a few enemies were spellcasters, it was quite useful).
Then for Spells I went with:
Absorb Elements, Burning Hands, Color Spray, Protection from Evil and Good, Thunderwave
Magic Weapon, Scorching Ray, Shatter
Maybe not the optimal options, but as a melee brawler, he could really aim the Burning Hands and Color Spray, not to mention Thunderwave. Absorb Elements saved his hide a couple of times and allowed to return the love. And PfEaG really was a godsend to his casters on more than one occasion.
You just walked into the fray in Full Plate with a Shield and either bonked everything around, or prevented things from getting to your friendlies. One thing I would change, with the knowledge of an 11 levels long campaign would be, to pick War Caster instead of Heavy Armor Master for that Booming Blade as AoO option and for the advantage on Concentration Saves.
Shield is definitely MORE useful than Absorb Elements. No way would I ever take AE over Shield.
The problems are:
Absorb Elements does not work on all damage types, cuts damage in 1/2 and grants bonus damage to only a melee attack. Also, once you use it it set to a single damage type. Shield usually stops an attack with a to hit roll (or Magic Missile) entirely, and offers continuous full protection for the rest of the round.
If you are a Melee fighter, then you are up close to an enemy - which means any elemental attack is likely going to require a to hit roll, not a save. So Shield will still work against it. Better to try to stop all damage than to cut it in half.
You do not get Absorb until at least 3rd level and by 5th level a Sorcerer or Wizard should have Counterspell, Once they get that, they are VERY likely to counter spells, so again, Absorb Elements cease to be as useful. .
Shield is definitely MORE useful than Absorb Elements. No way would I ever take AE over Shield.
The problems are:
Absorb Elements does not work on all damage types, cuts damage in 1/2 and grants bonus damage to only a melee attack. Also, once you use it it set to a single damage type. Shield usually stops an attack with a to hit roll (or Magic Missile) entirely, and offers continuous full protection for the rest of the round.
If you are a Melee fighter, then you are up close to an enemy - which means any elemental attack is likely going to require a to hit roll, not a save. So Shield will still work against it. Better to try to stop all damage than to cut it in half.
You do not get Absorb until at least 3rd level and by 5th level a Sorcerer or Wizard should have Counterspell, Once they get that, they are VERY likely to counter spells, so again, Absorb Elements cease to be as useful. .
Well, yes and right. Shield protects from attacks and Magic Missile. But it lets any form of AoE right through. It's a good for this not that situation. Both spells are excellent in their role. Since we had no wizards or sorcerers, we had no Counterspell. It was an amazing spell, hands down. Our Warlock had other things to burn spell slots on. And well, not every elemental damage is considered a spell. Allowing yourself to half it is extremely useful.
Pick Lighting Lure and Green Flame Blade as cantrips. After you get INT to at least 18, use your next ASI to get Sentinel. From 7th level onwards, you can use Lightning Lure to force another creature to within 5 feet of another creature you are fighting as a bonus action. Combined with Extra Attack, this is great for both dealing damage and preventing your foes from getting to the squishier people in your party.
What do people think of using Lightning lure to drag combatants to you if they try to go around you and hit the squishies? I have built a WarKnight and get pact of the tome next level, have chosen vicious mockery as one of my cantrips to insult and humiliate warriors and get them to move in on me or at least have disadvantage if they try to ignore me and go after another party member.Lightning lure or thorn whip would be useful to draw more into melee with me. The lightning lure casting mechanics look better for ease of use unless you have the warcaster feat, but it's a strength save rather than a simple attack roll.
In the game I ran on Friday night I had 2 party members step through a door into a Hell hound that knew they were there. The rogue who had disarmed and unlocked the door had resistance to fire, the EK cast Absorb Elements as a reaction. They also made their saves meaning they took 1/4 damage from the breath weapon - taking 5 damage each instead of 21. It was their final fight in a temple of Bane and so the huge reduction in the damage they took made a big difference. The Shield spell would have made no difference nor provide any protection to the EK. Both Shield and AE are good for their role, which is very different and comparing them is pointless because they are used to counter different threats.
high elf race to start with a cantrip for magic based flavor at level 1. Pick between utility or one of your melee weapon cantrips. Racial bonus to intelligence and dexterity. Defense fighting style can offset lack of AC for strength. Dueling becomes incredibly powerful with shadowblade later on. Archery can be very useful for enemies that are eventually going to flee. Dexterity boosts initiative, is usually a more versatile stat than strength in that you can use acrobatics/slight of hand/stealth semi-reliably. Dexterity allows for strong ranged damage options from your longbow.
level 3 allows for Eldritch Knight subclass to be chosen. Shield and absorb elements are powerful 1st level abjuration spells that fit your subclass limitations. Find familiar is a powerful spell that has the potential to stretch out your limited spell slots effectiveness if your familiar survives for a while. Bond with your longbow and either a rapier or short sword/scimitar depending on if you want to dual wield or not. You can pepper an enemy while they close the gap, switch to melee when necessary by dropping your weapon and running into the fray. if you migrate further away from the bow while the enemy tries to flee you can drop your melee weapon, use a bonus action to summon your bow, and pepper them as you give chase.
level 4 you can choose either elven accuracy or fey teleportation. Elven accuracy gives you triple dice on your attack rolls if you have advantage from a source, probably your familiar. It also gives you a floating stat bump between Wisdom, Dexterity, Charisma, or Intelligence. Fey teleportation gives a floating stat to probably Intelligence for this build. It also gives a short rest dependent misty step. Also, since you learn the misty step spell, and the misty step spell is on your spell list, you may expend a 2nd level slot to cast it when you eventually gain them. This effectively adds a spell known while bypassing the Eldritch knights usual spell known limitation.
at 7th level you have a big decision to make. Shadow blade can be swapped in as your schoolless spell known 1 level early at the cost of trading out find familiar. Shadow blade, when combined with your elven accuracy, actually out damages most great weapon master/sharpshooter builds. It scales more effectively than the use of those feats and doesn’t sacrifice accuracy to do so. You can even green flame blade/booming blade with the shadow blade on follow up turns and attack with the shadowblade by itself as a bonus action thanks to war magic.
from there you’re golden, you can pick w/e utility wise since your spells and weapons compliment each other so effectively.
high elf race to start with a cantrip for magic based flavor at level 1. Pick between utility or one of your melee weapon cantrips. Racial bonus to intelligence and dexterity. Defense fighting style can offset lack of AC for strength. Dueling becomes incredibly powerful with shadowblade later on. Archery can be very useful for enemies that are eventually going to flee. Dexterity boosts initiative, is usually a more versatile stat than strength in that you can use acrobatics/slight of hand/stealth semi-reliably. Dexterity allows for strong ranged damage options from your longbow.
level 3 allows for Eldritch Knight subclass to be chosen. Shield and absorb elements are powerful 1st level abjuration spells that fit your subclass limitations. Find familiar is a powerful spell that has the potential to stretch out your limited spell slots effectiveness if your familiar survives for a while. Bond with your longbow and either a rapier or short sword/scimitar depending on if you want to dual wield or not. You can pepper an enemy while they close the gap, switch to melee when necessary by dropping your weapon and running into the fray. if you migrate further away from the bow while the enemy tries to flee you can drop your melee weapon, use a bonus action to summon your bow, and pepper them as you give chase.
level 4 you can choose either elven accuracy or fey teleportation. Elven accuracy gives you triple dice on your attack rolls if you have advantage from a source, probably your familiar. It also gives you a floating stat bump between Wisdom, Dexterity, Charisma, or Intelligence. Fey teleportation gives a floating stat to probably Intelligence for this build. It also gives a short rest dependent misty step. Also, since you learn the misty step spell, and the misty step spell is on your spell list, you may expend a 2nd level slot to cast it when you eventually gain them. This effectively adds a spell known while bypassing the Eldritch knights usual spell known limitation.
at 7th level you have a big decision to make. Shadow blade can be swapped in as your schoolless spell known 1 level early at the cost of trading out find familiar. Shadow blade, when combined with your elven accuracy, actually out damages most great weapon master/sharpshooter builds. It scales more effectively than the use of those feats and doesn’t sacrifice accuracy to do so. You can even green flame blade/booming blade with the shadow blade on follow up turns and attack with the shadowblade by itself as a bonus action thanks to war magic.
from there you’re golden, you can pick w/e utility wise since your spells and weapons compliment each other so effectively.
I am curious why Half Elf over say High Elf? You would get +2 Dex and +1 Int as well as access to both of those feats. Cantrips and Spells as well as the possibility to expand upon them later with the Fey Teleportation feat. Which is btw limited to High Elves and the Aereni and Valenar variants too. Half Elves cannot take it.
EDIT:
Never mind... I misread your starting words, you speak of high elf not half elf... *self kick*
I'm really itching to play an EK that uses a quarterstaff in their Booming Blade - Warcaster - Polearm Master routine. This lets them use Crusher to force movement without a save which has excellent synergy with Booming Blade. Specifically, if the enemy tries to reengage after being pushed by your attack of opportunity they will take the extra damage immediately.
Here's the build:
Race: Custom Lineage (+2 Strength)
Background: Outlander (A warrior shaman and champion of their tribe)
What are your favorite Eldritch Knight strategies? My favorite is casting hold person followed by an action surge.
When the party needs a tank, I like to cast blade ward and do some chip damage with my bonus action. (At 7th level)
Usually Dodge is better for a Strength Fighter than Bladeward, unless your armor class is very low.
Shield however really shines as a 1st level spell.
Damage-Dealing
Combat-Style: Great Weapon Fighting
Weapon: Greatsword
Needed Spells/Feats
Cantrips: Green Flameblade or Booming Blade
1st-Level Spells: Find Familiar
2nd-Level Spells: Hold Person,
3rd-Level Spells: Haste, Melfs Minute Meteors,
Feats: Warcaster, Great Weapon Master
Familiar is not only useful for Roleplaying and Adventure Utility, but for the aid-Action to get Advantage on your -5 Penalty-Hits with Great Weapons. Greatsword is the best Weapon for the Great Weapon Fighting Style. Booming Blade is a Damage based Tank-Utility Spell, that you can Use, if You don't want to go on the Sentinel-Feat. Until you're level 11 the green Flameblade or Booming Blade combo should be better then just making attacks.
At Level 10 can try the Attack - Hold Person Combo with Eldritch Strike against Human foe's. Hideous Laughter may be the better Spell, because it can hit nearly any Creature and not only Humans.
Once you Reach level 14 you Use Haste on yourself for 4 Attacks/Round. Since this Tactic will give you one Level of Exhaustion, i like the Style of Melf Minute Meteors for additional 4d6 Fire Damage per Round in lesser encounters instead. After making the Attack, you can hurl 2 Meteors at your Enemy as a Bonus-Action, which now has disadvantage against the Saving Throws.
Battlefieldcontrol/Tank
Fighting Style: Defense
Weapon: Helbard/Glaive
Nedded Spells/Feat
1st: Hideous Laughter, shield, absorb Elements, Protection form Evil and Good
2nd: Misty Step, Darkness, Web
3rd: Counterspell, Dispell Magic
feats: Polearm Master, Sentinel, Warcaster
Hideous Laughter and Web are fantastic Battlefield Control Spell throughout the entire Game. Web Shines at Level 10 if you can Magage to Lay down the Web and then use one of your Attack to shove your enemies right into it.
Misty Step is fantastic for a Sentinel-Build, because Positioning is so important. Just throw your Attacks on a foe and then Step anywhere you need to be to block the way to the soft members of your Party with Reach-Weapons and Sentinel. Darkness protects you or your Members from Ranged Attacks, and Counterspell and Dispell Magic will do their Work against Enemy-Casters.
EDIT: Corrected my haste-misscalculation.
My EK was meant to be a tank for the team. I don't really like Shield, because the EK has a very limited amount of spell casts. I used Booming Blade for great effect, almost as fun as Sentinel. I used Shield Master to knock down and push around quite a few baddies.
My full build was: Mountain Dwarf (stats rolled, so wont post them here) Eldritch Knight, level 4 Shield Master, level 6 Heavy Armor Master (I would have picked something else after playing with this feat, but it just felt thematic at the time), level 8 Mage Slayer (we were in a campaign where quite a few enemies were spellcasters, it was quite useful).
Then for Spells I went with:
Maybe not the optimal options, but as a melee brawler, he could really aim the Burning Hands and Color Spray, not to mention Thunderwave. Absorb Elements saved his hide a couple of times and allowed to return the love. And PfEaG really was a godsend to his casters on more than one occasion.
You just walked into the fray in Full Plate with a Shield and either bonked everything around, or prevented things from getting to your friendlies. One thing I would change, with the knowledge of an 11 levels long campaign would be, to pick War Caster instead of Heavy Armor Master for that Booming Blade as AoO option and for the advantage on Concentration Saves.
Shield is definitely MORE useful than Absorb Elements. No way would I ever take AE over Shield.
The problems are:
Well, yes and right. Shield protects from attacks and Magic Missile. But it lets any form of AoE right through. It's a good for this not that situation. Both spells are excellent in their role. Since we had no wizards or sorcerers, we had no Counterspell. It was an amazing spell, hands down. Our Warlock had other things to burn spell slots on. And well, not every elemental damage is considered a spell. Allowing yourself to half it is extremely useful.
Pick Lighting Lure and Green Flame Blade as cantrips. After you get INT to at least 18, use your next ASI to get Sentinel. From 7th level onwards, you can use Lightning Lure to force another creature to within 5 feet of another creature you are fighting as a bonus action. Combined with Extra Attack, this is great for both dealing damage and preventing your foes from getting to the squishier people in your party.
What do people think of using Lightning lure to drag combatants to you if they try to go around you and hit the squishies? I have built a WarKnight and get pact of the tome next level, have chosen vicious mockery as one of my cantrips to insult and humiliate warriors and get them to move in on me or at least have disadvantage if they try to ignore me and go after another party member.Lightning lure or thorn whip would be useful to draw more into melee with me. The lightning lure casting mechanics look better for ease of use unless you have the warcaster feat, but it's a strength save rather than a simple attack roll.
Haven’t had the chance to play it yet but was considering lightning lure for an EK build I have.
but if you can get thorn whip it has a better range though less damage but no saving throw.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
In the game I ran on Friday night I had 2 party members step through a door into a Hell hound that knew they were there. The rogue who had disarmed and unlocked the door had resistance to fire, the EK cast Absorb Elements as a reaction. They also made their saves meaning they took 1/4 damage from the breath weapon - taking 5 damage each instead of 21. It was their final fight in a temple of Bane and so the huge reduction in the damage they took made a big difference. The Shield spell would have made no difference nor provide any protection to the EK. Both Shield and AE are good for their role, which is very different and comparing them is pointless because they are used to counter different threats.
Dexterity based Eldritch Knight.
high elf race to start with a cantrip for magic based flavor at level 1. Pick between utility or one of your melee weapon cantrips.
Racial bonus to intelligence and dexterity. Defense fighting style can offset lack of AC for strength. Dueling becomes incredibly powerful with shadowblade later on. Archery can be very useful for enemies that are eventually going to flee. Dexterity boosts initiative, is usually a more versatile stat than strength in that you can use acrobatics/slight of hand/stealth semi-reliably. Dexterity allows for strong ranged damage options from your longbow.
level 3 allows for Eldritch Knight subclass to be chosen. Shield and absorb elements are powerful 1st level abjuration spells that fit your subclass limitations. Find familiar is a powerful spell that has the potential to stretch out your limited spell slots effectiveness if your familiar survives for a while.
Bond with your longbow and either a rapier or short sword/scimitar depending on if you want to dual wield or not. You can pepper an enemy while they close the gap, switch to melee when necessary by dropping your weapon and running into the fray. if you migrate further away from the bow while the enemy tries to flee you can drop your melee weapon, use a bonus action to summon your bow, and pepper them as you give chase.
level 4 you can choose either elven accuracy or fey teleportation. Elven accuracy gives you triple dice on your attack rolls if you have advantage from a source, probably your familiar. It also gives you a floating stat bump between Wisdom, Dexterity, Charisma, or Intelligence.
Fey teleportation gives a floating stat to probably Intelligence for this build. It also gives a short rest dependent misty step. Also, since you learn the misty step spell, and the misty step spell is on your spell list, you may expend a 2nd level slot to cast it when you eventually gain them. This effectively adds a spell known while bypassing the Eldritch knights usual spell known limitation.
at 7th level you have a big decision to make. Shadow blade can be swapped in as your schoolless spell known 1 level early at the cost of trading out find familiar. Shadow blade, when combined with your elven accuracy, actually out damages most great weapon master/sharpshooter builds. It scales more effectively than the use of those feats and doesn’t sacrifice accuracy to do so. You can even green flame blade/booming blade with the shadow blade on follow up turns and attack with the shadowblade by itself as a bonus action thanks to war magic.
from there you’re golden, you can pick w/e utility wise since your spells and weapons compliment each other so effectively.
I am curious why Half Elf over say High Elf? You would get +2 Dex and +1 Int as well as access to both of those feats. Cantrips and Spells as well as the possibility to expand upon them later with the Fey Teleportation feat. Which is btw limited to High Elves and the Aereni and Valenar variants too. Half Elves cannot take it.
EDIT:
Never mind... I misread your starting words, you speak of high elf not half elf... *self kick*
Eldritch Knight 12/ Divination Wizard 8 - Action surge, 6 attacks, then next round Hypnotic Pattern or Bestow Curse for 5 spellslot.
I'm really itching to play an EK that uses a quarterstaff in their Booming Blade - Warcaster - Polearm Master routine. This lets them use Crusher to force movement without a save which has excellent synergy with Booming Blade. Specifically, if the enemy tries to reengage after being pushed by your attack of opportunity they will take the extra damage immediately.
Here's the build:
Race: Custom Lineage (+2 Strength)
Background: Outlander (A warrior shaman and champion of their tribe)
Starting Stats: 17/10/14/10/14/8
1. Fighter 1. Fighting Style (Dueling), Polearm Master
2. Fighter 2.
3. Fighter 3. Eldritch Knight
4. Fighter 4. Warcaster
5. Fighter 5.
6. Fighter 6. Crusher (+1 Strength)
7. Fighter 7.
8. Fighter 8. ASI (+2 Strength)
Equipment: Quarterstaff, Shield, Full Plate
Skills and Tools: Athletics, Insight, Nature, Perception, Survival, Flute
Languages: Common, Sylvan, Primordial
Spells:
Cantrips: Booming Blade, Prestidigitation
Level 1: Shield, Absorb Elements, Find Familiar, Alarm
Level 2: Warding Wind, Darkvision