Finally have a few sessions (Hexblade) under my belt using Hex and Spirit Shroud so a bit of very limited feedback. I am surprised that at lvl 6 I still use Hex quite a bit and Shroud rarely. Being able to keep Hex active for 8 hours is the key as many had mentioned in an earlier post. Since Spirit Shroud uses my concentration and breaks Hex I have been hesitant to cast it. Main issue ( a small one) with Hex is with our DM. Lots of enemy movement and sometimes the enemy I hex moves away from me to another target. This is not the DM moving the Hex away, he just likes to be a bit tactical and use multiple enemies. Then I am forced to follow which means op attacks or move out of melee, also op attacks, and Eldritch Blast.
Spirit Shroud does the same damage as Hex until lvl 9 since damage scales every 2 spell lvls beyond 3rd. Also, I haven't found the reduced movement portion of the spell that useful. I haven't checked but there are probably better spells to select at spell lvl 4 or 5 than going back to a 3rd lvl spell if I retrain back to Spirit Shroud at lvl 9. So my conclusion in general is that Hex works better for me than Spirit Shroud. I'll have to see how Hex holds up further down the road.
So in most campaigns, I would think Hex is better and Spirit Shroud isn't needed as a spell choice. BUT... we are running Curse of Strahd and even though Hex is used more, the radiant damage from Spirit Shroud is very useful against regenerating creatures. Especially with Eldritch Blast's two beams. That means if we are attacking multiple creatures and not focusing on one, I can negate regeneration on two. That can be big if I can stay 10 feet away from two (sometimes tricky). So for this campaign, I'll keep both for the time being.
- - - - - Hex at 3ed level: Target quantity: Single target Duration: 8 hours with concentration Damage: (4) 1d6 necrotic damage Applied to target(s): Added to any attack Casting range: 90 ft Effectiveness range: Infinite Scaleability: Duration increases to 24 hours Bonus effect: Disadvantage to target on ability checks Spell casting requiermets: V, S, M Con: If a target dies with Hex on them, the caster must wait until their next turn to use a bonus action to apply Hex to a new target; the spell can be lost early if concentration is lost or if the Remove Curse spell is used on the target
- - - - - Spirit Shroud at 3ed level: Target quantity: All targets within range Duration: 1 minute with concentration Damage: (5) 1d8 radiant, necrotic, or cold damage Applied to target(s): Added to any attack Casting range: Self Effectiveness range: 10 ft Scaleability: +1d8 damage per spell level over 3ed level (4th level (9) 2d8 damage) (5th level (14) 3d8 damage) Bonus Effect: -10 movement to a creature who starts its turn within 10 ft of the caster Spell casting requiermets: V, S Con: Self upto 10 ft away; The spell can be lost early if concentration is lost
Spirit Shroud feels really op vs Hex to me, as it's more damage (starting at 4th level upto 9th (1d6 vs 1d8 upto 6d8)) at the cost of range and duration, so long as you can make multiple attacks or AOE attacks. If anything, Spirit Shroud feels like a really good spell for melee casters. As long as you can cast a point-blank Magic Missile or Fireball on your next turn (or a multi-target cantrip for the same turn like Acid Splash or Eldritch Blast) you can min-max the bonus Spirit Shroud damage added onto the attack.
- - - - - Hex at 3ed level: Target quantity: Single target Duration: 8 hours with concentration Damage: (4) 1d6 necrotic damage Applied to target(s): Added to any attack Casting range: 90 ft Effectiveness range: Infinite Scaleability: Duration increases to 24 hours Bonus effect: Disadvantage to target on ability checks Spell casting requiermets: V, S, M Con: If a target dies with Hex on them, the caster must wait until their next turn to use a bonus action to apply Hex to a new target; the spell can be lost early if concentration is lost or if the Remove Curse spell is used on the target
- - - - - Spirit Shroud at 3ed level: Target quantity: All targets within range Duration: 1 minute with concentration Damage: (5) 1d8 radiant, necrotic, or cold damage Applied to target(s): Added to any attack Casting range: Self Effectiveness range: 10 ft Scaleability: +1d8 damage per spell level over 3ed level (4th level (9) 2d8 damage) (5th level (14) 3d8 damage) Bonus Effect: -10 movement to a creature who starts its turn within 10 ft of the caster Spell casting requiermets: V, S Con: Self upto 10 ft away; The spell can be lost early if concentration is lost
Spirit Shroud feels really op vs Hex to me, as it's more damage (starting at 4th level upto 9th (1d6 vs 1d8 upto 6d8)) at the cost of range and duration, so long as you can make multiple attacks or AOE attacks. If anything, Spirit Shroud feels like a really good spell for melee casters. As long as you can cast a point-blank Magic Missile or Fireball on your next turn (or a multi-target cantrip for the same turn like Acid Splash or Eldritch Blast) you can min-max the bonus Spirit Shroud damage added onto the attack.
Sorry my friend but you have made a couple of mistakes here.
Firstly, neither Hex nor Spirit Shroud provides any additional damage to Magic Missile, Fireball or Acid Splash. Eldritch Blast is the only example you gave that works with these two spells. This is because both Hex and Spirit Shroud requires an attack that involves a attack roll to trigger therefore ruling out spells that require a saving throw or in the case of Magic Missile which auto hits without needing an attack roll.
Also your scaling of upcast Spirit Shrouds is incorrect, the damage only goes up by 1d8 per two spell levels above 3rd not one.
Spirit shroud is better damage and if you are in melee its range limitation does not matter. But yeah its 1 fight so has its limitations. Personally I'd start with hex before any rest, and switch to spirit shroud if the fight seemed like the extra damage was necessary.
Unless you have a mechanism to avoid disadvantage at 5 ft for ranged attacks, spirit shroud is a no go for most warlocks. 10 ft is just not enough to make it worthwhile. It works great on pact of the blade or crossbow expert players.
Honestly, there are probably better control spells than either of these at this level. Fear, hypnotic pattern, enemied abound. Less damage out, but also less damage in.
Yes, there are a lot of spells that are better if you are going for control, and control is frequently the better option. but if your build is damage these are solid. Hexblade with a two handed sword, the right invocations, heavy weapon master and this will be hitting for 2d6+2d8+21 twice a round, thats buckets of damage when you hit, go pole arm master as well and its 1d10+2d8+21twice with a bonus action 1d4+2d8+21 round 22 and on. And that level of damage you are dishing out the ultimate control effect in the game, death. Now for that to be effective you'd need to come up with some form of advantage, or you can drop 10 points of that damage which is still pretty big. While yes this is level 12 round 2 on a round all hits land you are doing over 100 damage. Now your DPR isn't that as you will likely miss 1/2 the time, but people save vs control effects as well. But I'm also not factoring in crits, possible smites etc.
On non hexblades its not that amazing still if you are within 10 feet for whatever reasons, crossbow expert tanky lock at level 12 that's 3 potential hits for 1d10+2d8+5, which isn't bad just no where near the hexblades damage. And that is where I'd likely focus more on control. But hey heavy weapon master hexblade, go for the damage you are cranking out enough that makes you a solid contributor based on that.
Spirit Shroud gives significantly better damage once your spell slots switch to level 5, but up to that point it's D8 versus D6 which is kind of a wash, falling in Hex's favour because of its duration.
If you build the classic PAM/GWM variant human Hexblade, at level 12 when you get Lifedrinker you can have Improved Pact Weapon, Thirsting Blade, Eldritch Smite, and Lifedrinker up. Eldritch Smite is a bit of a trap since you don't have many spell slots to spend on it, so another invocation is probably just as good. Keep Agonizing Blast of course. Eldritch Mind will help keep your concentration spells up too, so I would take that. If you put Hexblade's Curse on your target, that's as follows using a pact weapon glaive and PAM.
1D10 + 10 (GWM) + 5 (Cha) + 5 (Necrotic, LD) + 4 (HBC) + 1 (IPW) + 2D8, for a total of 1D10 + 25 + 2D8, with 1D4 + 25 + 2D8 from the PAM bonus attack.
That's potentially (if you hit) 2D10 + 1D4 + 75 +6D8 for between 84 and 147 damage per round. If you blow an Eldritch Smite on that turn it adds an additional 6D8 to add between 6 and 48 damage. Minimum 90, maximum 195. Of course if you critical (on a 19 or 20) the numbers become considerably larger.
That is a decent amount of damage, and if I were going into a boss fight I'd be likely to favour Spirit Shroud. However up to that point I'd probably just stick with Hex for the duration of it.
I realize this is just one sub class out of many but Celestial warlocks get to add their chr to damage at 6th. With agonizing blast adding +chr to eldritch blast and spirit shroud adding +chr to spirit shroud at Chr 20 = d10 +5 force + d8 +5 radiant damage per blast. Not too shabby.
I realize this is just one sub class out of many but Celestial warlocks get to add their chr to damage at 6th. With agonizing blast adding +chr to eldritch blast and spirit shroud adding +chr to spirit shroud at Chr 20 = d10 +5 force + d8 +5 radiant damage per blast. Not too shabby.
The celestial thing is only 1x per cast and only on 1 target. It's a max +5 damage total per cast, not on every hit or even every round of a concentration spell, it just on 1 damage roll vs 1 target per spell cast.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Finally have a few sessions (Hexblade) under my belt using Hex and Spirit Shroud so a bit of very limited feedback. I am surprised that at lvl 6 I still use Hex quite a bit and Shroud rarely. Being able to keep Hex active for 8 hours is the key as many had mentioned in an earlier post. Since Spirit Shroud uses my concentration and breaks Hex I have been hesitant to cast it. Main issue ( a small one) with Hex is with our DM. Lots of enemy movement and sometimes the enemy I hex moves away from me to another target. This is not the DM moving the Hex away, he just likes to be a bit tactical and use multiple enemies. Then I am forced to follow which means op attacks or move out of melee, also op attacks, and Eldritch Blast.
Spirit Shroud does the same damage as Hex until lvl 9 since damage scales every 2 spell lvls beyond 3rd. Also, I haven't found the reduced movement portion of the spell that useful. I haven't checked but there are probably better spells to select at spell lvl 4 or 5 than going back to a 3rd lvl spell if I retrain back to Spirit Shroud at lvl 9. So my conclusion in general is that Hex works better for me than Spirit Shroud. I'll have to see how Hex holds up further down the road.
So in most campaigns, I would think Hex is better and Spirit Shroud isn't needed as a spell choice. BUT... we are running Curse of Strahd and even though Hex is used more, the radiant damage from Spirit Shroud is very useful against regenerating creatures. Especially with Eldritch Blast's two beams. That means if we are attacking multiple creatures and not focusing on one, I can negate regeneration on two. That can be big if I can stay 10 feet away from two (sometimes tricky). So for this campaign, I'll keep both for the time being.
- - - - - Hex at 3ed level:
Target quantity: Single target
Duration: 8 hours with concentration
Damage: (4) 1d6 necrotic damage
Applied to target(s): Added to any attack
Casting range: 90 ft
Effectiveness range: Infinite
Scaleability: Duration increases to 24 hours
Bonus effect: Disadvantage to target on ability checks
Spell casting requiermets: V, S, M
Con: If a target dies with Hex on them, the caster must wait until their next turn to use a bonus action to apply Hex to a new target; the spell can be lost early if concentration is lost or if the Remove Curse spell is used on the target
- - - - - Spirit Shroud at 3ed level:
Target quantity: All targets within range
Duration: 1 minute with concentration
Damage: (5) 1d8 radiant, necrotic, or cold damage
Applied to target(s): Added to any attack
Casting range: Self
Effectiveness range: 10 ft
Scaleability: +1d8 damage per spell level over 3ed level (4th level (9) 2d8 damage) (5th level (14) 3d8 damage)
Bonus Effect: -10 movement to a creature who starts its turn within 10 ft of the caster
Spell casting requiermets: V, S
Con: Self upto 10 ft away; The spell can be lost early if concentration is lost
Spirit Shroud feels really op vs Hex to me, as it's more damage (starting at 4th level upto 9th (1d6 vs 1d8 upto 6d8)) at the cost of range and duration, so long as you can make multiple attacks or AOE attacks.
If anything, Spirit Shroud feels like a really good spell for melee casters.
As long as you can cast a point-blank Magic Missile or Fireball on your next turn (or a multi-target cantrip for the same turn like Acid Splash or Eldritch Blast) you can min-max the bonus Spirit Shroud damage added onto the attack.
Sorry my friend but you have made a couple of mistakes here.
Firstly, neither Hex nor Spirit Shroud provides any additional damage to Magic Missile, Fireball or Acid Splash. Eldritch Blast is the only example you gave that works with these two spells. This is because both Hex and Spirit Shroud requires an attack that involves a attack roll to trigger therefore ruling out spells that require a saving throw or in the case of Magic Missile which auto hits without needing an attack roll.
Also your scaling of upcast Spirit Shrouds is incorrect, the damage only goes up by 1d8 per two spell levels above 3rd not one.
Spirit shroud is better damage and if you are in melee its range limitation does not matter. But yeah its 1 fight so has its limitations. Personally I'd start with hex before any rest, and switch to spirit shroud if the fight seemed like the extra damage was necessary.
Unless you have a mechanism to avoid disadvantage at 5 ft for ranged attacks, spirit shroud is a no go for most warlocks. 10 ft is just not enough to make it worthwhile. It works great on pact of the blade or crossbow expert players.
Honestly, there are probably better control spells than either of these at this level. Fear, hypnotic pattern, enemied abound. Less damage out, but also less damage in.
Yes, there are a lot of spells that are better if you are going for control, and control is frequently the better option. but if your build is damage these are solid. Hexblade with a two handed sword, the right invocations, heavy weapon master and this will be hitting for 2d6+2d8+21 twice a round, thats buckets of damage when you hit, go pole arm master as well and its 1d10+2d8+21twice with a bonus action 1d4+2d8+21 round 22 and on. And that level of damage you are dishing out the ultimate control effect in the game, death. Now for that to be effective you'd need to come up with some form of advantage, or you can drop 10 points of that damage which is still pretty big. While yes this is level 12 round 2 on a round all hits land you are doing over 100 damage. Now your DPR isn't that as you will likely miss 1/2 the time, but people save vs control effects as well. But I'm also not factoring in crits, possible smites etc.
On non hexblades its not that amazing still if you are within 10 feet for whatever reasons, crossbow expert tanky lock at level 12 that's 3 potential hits for 1d10+2d8+5, which isn't bad just no where near the hexblades damage. And that is where I'd likely focus more on control. But hey heavy weapon master hexblade, go for the damage you are cranking out enough that makes you a solid contributor based on that.
Spirit Shroud gives significantly better damage once your spell slots switch to level 5, but up to that point it's D8 versus D6 which is kind of a wash, falling in Hex's favour because of its duration.
If you build the classic PAM/GWM variant human Hexblade, at level 12 when you get Lifedrinker you can have Improved Pact Weapon, Thirsting Blade, Eldritch Smite, and Lifedrinker up. Eldritch Smite is a bit of a trap since you don't have many spell slots to spend on it, so another invocation is probably just as good. Keep Agonizing Blast of course. Eldritch Mind will help keep your concentration spells up too, so I would take that. If you put Hexblade's Curse on your target, that's as follows using a pact weapon glaive and PAM.
1D10 + 10 (GWM) + 5 (Cha) + 5 (Necrotic, LD) + 4 (HBC) + 1 (IPW) + 2D8, for a total of 1D10 + 25 + 2D8, with 1D4 + 25 + 2D8 from the PAM bonus attack.
That's potentially (if you hit) 2D10 + 1D4 + 75 +6D8 for between 84 and 147 damage per round. If you blow an Eldritch Smite on that turn it adds an additional 6D8 to add between 6 and 48 damage. Minimum 90, maximum 195. Of course if you critical (on a 19 or 20) the numbers become considerably larger.
That is a decent amount of damage, and if I were going into a boss fight I'd be likely to favour Spirit Shroud. However up to that point I'd probably just stick with Hex for the duration of it.
I realize this is just one sub class out of many but Celestial warlocks get to add their chr to damage at 6th. With agonizing blast adding +chr to eldritch blast and spirit shroud adding +chr to spirit shroud at Chr 20 = d10 +5 force + d8 +5 radiant damage per blast. Not too shabby.
The celestial thing is only 1x per cast and only on 1 target. It's a max +5 damage total per cast, not on every hit or even every round of a concentration spell, it just on 1 damage roll vs 1 target per spell cast.