Lets have some fun! Lets say you have a character thats level 8 with 18 in charisma. How would you build your warlock to make the Eldritch Blast be as effective as possible damagewise?
I'd take the Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast, and Relentless Hex Eldritch Invocations, the 1st level spell Hex, and the Lucky Feat. The Lucky Feat is to re-roll any misses.
That would be 2 bolts, each of which would do 1d10 + 1d6 + 4 damage and the Relentless Hex invocation would allow an additional +4 damage each round. Technically the Relentless Hex damage isn't part of the Eldritch Blast, but it would stack with everything else.
The total damage, assuming 2 hits, would be 2d10 + 2d6 + 12, or anywhere from 16 to 44 HP of damage per round.
Once per turn, you can deal an extra 2d6 damage to one creature you hit with an spell attack if you have advantage on the attack roll. You don’t need advantage on the attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemy isn’t incapacitated, and you don’t have disadvantage on the attack roll.
Adding that feat as well might help if you either get advantage or foes adjacent to each other
Relentless Hex is a teleport. Perhaps you mean maddening Hex. And surprise spellcasting is inofficial, isn't it?
In addition to agonizing blast you only have the general ways to increase damage: The hexblade's curse, for example. Or the racial feat of the Aasimar that lets you add your level to damage once per Turn for a minute. You could also get the invocation that allows you to Cast bestow curse and use that to increase damage.
I prefer Spell Sniper feat, Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast, Eldritch Spear, and Lance of Lethargy, the latter being not especially important and strictly worse than the UA version, Frost Lance. Bump Cha to 20 if possible. That's only 1d10+4 (or 1d10+5 if you can max Cha) per bolt, but it has a range of 600 feet and each hit pushes the target back 10 feet--which, if you have a very kind DM, does 1d6 falling damage. It's more impressive with Frost Lance, in which case you could keep a single enemy with no more than 30 feet of speed stuck for as long as it takes you to kill it. It's also more impressive at 2nd level, when you're outshooting everyone but the variant human fighter (or ranger) with Archery, Sharpshooter, and a heavy crossbow for enemies within 400 feet and a longbow for enemies 401-600 feet away, though you only have Spell Sniper (because of course you're a variant human; hey, min-maxers are good for the old "humans are more common than other races" theory!), Agonizing Blast, and either Repelling Blast or Eldritch Spear at that level, so never mind.
Well, that rambled a bit and I can't seem to find a good paragraph break. Sorry about that.
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
GOO patron, get the ability to push and pull with your eldritch blast. Set up some Tentacles, and then manipulate all the enemies until they're stuck in the danger zone. Repeat as necessary.
1: Get at least 3 levels of Sorcerer. (Probably go 4 if you want to max the damage)
2: Get Agonizing Blast and any other invocations that involve EB . (Probably repelling blast because you want to keep them off you as much as possible with this build)
3: Play as an Aasimar for the racial feat where it adds damage to your first hit, at the amount of your level (so for you +8).
4: Play as a Hexblade, so you get Hexblade's Curse (+ your proficiency bonus for each hit, crit on 19,20).
Ok, so here is how it works:
Round 1: Activate Aasimar feat and Hexblade's Curse (sucks that you don't get to attack but if you stick to the back line, you should be fine)
Round 2 and beyond: You do EB as your action then quicken EB as a bonus action...so that would be 4 shots at level 8. Each one that hits has a +3 damage due to HC and the first one has an extra +8 due to Aasimar feat. So if you bumped your CHA to a +5 by then, then you will have 1d10+16, 1d10+8, 1d10+8, 1d10+8, which averages to 62 points of damage a round if you hit on all of them (and the damage is either force or radiant, least resistant damages in the game).
The caveat: If you went 4 levels of Sorcerer, you will be out of sorcerer points after 2 rounds of doing the quickening. You will have to alternate rounds of EB and converting spells into points as a bonus action with the double EB through quickening. Even on the recharge rounds, you are averaging 35 points of damage if they both hit (which easily keeps up with the heavy hitters of the group).
First, take the Hexblade patron, and use Hexblade's curse. Choose these invocations:
Agonizing Blast, Maddening Hex, Relentless Hex, Sign of Ill Omen.
The Relentless Hex is to make sure you're in range to use Sign of Ill Omen, which is a touch spell. After that, it's a done deal.
1d10+1d8+11, twice per round.
How are you getting +11?
My concern with Sign of Ill Omen is that you have to get into touch range and you have to have the creature fail a Wisdom saving throw...a lot could go wrong there.
I do like the Maddening Hex idea, that is a nice touch.
First, take the Hexblade patron, and use Hexblade's curse. Choose these invocations:
Agonizing Blast, Maddening Hex, Relentless Hex, Sign of Ill Omen.
The Relentless Hex is to make sure you're in range to use Sign of Ill Omen, which is a touch spell. After that, it's a done deal.
1d10+1d8+11, twice per round.
How are you getting +11?
My concern with Sign of Ill Omen is that you have to get into touch range and you have to have the creature fail a Wisdom saving throw...a lot could go wrong there.
I do like the Maddening Hex idea, that is a nice touch.
Maddening Hex and Agonizing Blast both add your CHA bonus (+4 each); Hexblade's Curse adds your Proficiency bonus (+3).
First, take the Hexblade patron, and use Hexblade's curse. Choose these invocations:
Agonizing Blast, Maddening Hex, Relentless Hex, Sign of Ill Omen.
The Relentless Hex is to make sure you're in range to use Sign of Ill Omen, which is a touch spell. After that, it's a done deal.
1d10+1d8+11, twice per round.
How are you getting +11?
My concern with Sign of Ill Omen is that you have to get into touch range and you have to have the creature fail a Wisdom saving throw...a lot could go wrong there.
I do like the Maddening Hex idea, that is a nice touch.
Maddening Hex and Agonizing Blast both add your CHA bonus (+4 each); Hexblade's Curse adds your Proficiency bonus (+3).
Right, but maddening hex is a one time add, not per shot...so the first shot might be 1d10+1d8+11, but the next one is 1d10+1d8+7.
First, take the Hexblade patron, and use Hexblade's curse. Choose these invocations:
Agonizing Blast, Maddening Hex, Relentless Hex, Sign of Ill Omen.
The Relentless Hex is to make sure you're in range to use Sign of Ill Omen, which is a touch spell. After that, it's a done deal.
1d10+1d8+11, twice per round.
How are you getting +11?
My concern with Sign of Ill Omen is that you have to get into touch range and you have to have the creature fail a Wisdom saving throw...a lot could go wrong there.
I do like the Maddening Hex idea, that is a nice touch.
Maddening Hex and Agonizing Blast both add your CHA bonus (+4 each); Hexblade's Curse adds your Proficiency bonus (+3).
Right, but maddening hex is a one time add, not per shot...so the first shot might be 1d10+1d8+11, but the next one is 1d10+1d8+7.
Don't forget to try and pick up a Rod of the Pact Keeper is possible. Even a +1 to hit would be hugely beneficial, and not even counting the spell slot recovery.
Half-Elf: +2 CHA and access to a certain feat which is...
Elvish Accuracy Feat: +1 to CHA and whenever you have ADV on attack rolls using INT, CHA, WIS, or DEX instead of rolling 2 die you roll 3! We can assure that we get advantage on it by blinding the enemy using
Blindness/Deafness: We can blind the enemy seeing (pun not intended) that they fail a CON save, which will give us ADV on attacks against it (and DIS against us as a bonus).
Hex: For that extra spicy D6, we can also impose DIS on CON checks/saves so Blindness/Deafness goes off without a hitch
Hexblade Patron: You can use 'Hexblade's Curse' to deal extra damage equal to your Prof Bonus (3 atm), if you kill the person you are cursing you will gain 12 hp back, when attacking the cursed enemy both 19 and 20 will Crit on attack rolls!
Agonizing Blast: Your Eblast deals extra damage equal to your CHA mod (4 atm).
Repelling Blast: Your Eblast bolts will knockback 10ft a piece
Lance of Lethargy: Reduces enemy movement by 10 ft.
Warcaster: You can gain ADV on concentration checks (which is handy for Hex), and when someone provokes an opportunity attack, you can cast EBlast at them!
So seeing that you use point buy, you can get CHA to 15, and raise it to 18 from Half-Elf and Elvish Acc. Next we get Blindness/Deafness, so we can have adv on eblast(which is 3 die instead of 2). Eblast will deal 2d10 on it's own, 2d6 from hex, and an extra 14 from agonizing blast and hexblade's curse. We get Crit damage twice as often, deal knockback, 10 ft reduced movement, and will heal HP once we kill the enemy. Leaving us with:
2d10+2d6+14, but seeing that we crit 1 out of 10 rolls and we have double ADV on both EBlasts, that leaves us with a 60% chance of one critting, and a 9% chance of both critting (I'm not sure if this would cause the hex, hexblade curse, and agonizing blast to double too). But we will also heal when we get our kill, deal knockback, and we can fire off EBlast whenever someone walks by us! And granted that we reduce movement by 10 and knockback 20, any enemy with 30ft or less worth of movement cannot approach you seeing that you hit both eblast bolts a turn (which is pretty likely granted our +6 to hit, and triple advantage!)
*Extra Note* This should be viable in Adventure's League as I only used Xanathar's Guide as a supplement.
I like the Elven Accuracy feat idea...except the blind/deaf part. At higher levels many creatures can’t be blinded or their CON save is so high, you don’t have a chance. If you multiclass with a paladin, you can do vow of enmity and get advantage automatically against a single target (limited but good boss tactic).
As for Hex...it doesn’t affect SAVES, just CHECKS. I didn’t realize that at first either but it has its merits (grappling and STR checks).
Everything else I think most agree are standard requirements to max out EB...Never thought about Elven Accuracy...good call!!!
Thank you! I realized just a bit earlier on Hex not affecting saves lol however you can take Pact of the Chain to get a familiar as a 'Help Action Slave' to allow at least 1 of your eblast bolts ADV. You would probably want an owl since they have the Flyby feature.
First, take the Hexblade patron, and use Hexblade's curse. Choose these invocations:
Agonizing Blast, Maddening Hex, Relentless Hex, Sign of Ill Omen.
The Relentless Hex is to make sure you're in range to use Sign of Ill Omen, which is a touch spell. After that, it's a done deal.
1d10+1d8+11, twice per round.
There is an aspect you're missing:
When you make a ranged attack with a weapon, a spell, or some other means, you have disadvantage on the attack roll if you are within 5 feet of a hostile creature who can see you and who isn't incapacitated.
If you're close enough to deliver a touch spell, you're most likely (depending on your reach) within 5ft, so your spell is at disadvantage. Since you're using Relentless Hex to pursue your prey you cannot count on flanking to cancel that out. So unless you can counteract the disadvantage, I don't think this combo works as hoped.
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Lets have some fun! Lets say you have a character thats level 8 with 18 in charisma. How would you build your warlock to make the Eldritch Blast be as effective as possible damagewise?
I'd take the Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast, and Relentless Hex Eldritch Invocations, the 1st level spell Hex, and the Lucky Feat. The Lucky Feat is to re-roll any misses.
That would be 2 bolts, each of which would do 1d10 + 1d6 + 4 damage and the Relentless Hex invocation would allow an additional +4 damage each round. Technically the Relentless Hex damage isn't part of the Eldritch Blast, but it would stack with everything else.
The total damage, assuming 2 hits, would be 2d10 + 2d6 + 12, or anywhere from 16 to 44 HP of damage per round.
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Adding that feat as well might help if you either get advantage or foes adjacent to each other
Relentless Hex is a teleport. Perhaps you mean maddening Hex. And surprise spellcasting is inofficial, isn't it?
In addition to agonizing blast you only have the general ways to increase damage: The hexblade's curse, for example. Or the racial feat of the Aasimar that lets you add your level to damage once per Turn for a minute. You could also get the invocation that allows you to Cast bestow curse and use that to increase damage.
Oh sorry, had HomeBrewed ticked off when editing a character. Might explain why I saw that feat
I prefer Spell Sniper feat, Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast, Eldritch Spear, and Lance of Lethargy, the latter being not especially important and strictly worse than the UA version, Frost Lance. Bump Cha to 20 if possible. That's only 1d10+4 (or 1d10+5 if you can max Cha) per bolt, but it has a range of 600 feet and each hit pushes the target back 10 feet--which, if you have a very kind DM, does 1d6 falling damage. It's more impressive with Frost Lance, in which case you could keep a single enemy with no more than 30 feet of speed stuck for as long as it takes you to kill it. It's also more impressive at 2nd level, when you're outshooting everyone but the variant human fighter (or ranger) with Archery, Sharpshooter, and a heavy crossbow for enemies within 400 feet and a longbow for enemies 401-600 feet away, though you only have Spell Sniper (because of course you're a variant human; hey, min-maxers are good for the old "humans are more common than other races" theory!), Agonizing Blast, and either Repelling Blast or Eldritch Spear at that level, so never mind.
Well, that rambled a bit and I can't seem to find a good paragraph break. Sorry about that.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
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GOO patron, get the ability to push and pull with your eldritch blast. Set up some Tentacles, and then manipulate all the enemies until they're stuck in the danger zone. Repeat as necessary.
Here is something I have done:
1: Get at least 3 levels of Sorcerer. (Probably go 4 if you want to max the damage)
2: Get Agonizing Blast and any other invocations that involve EB . (Probably repelling blast because you want to keep them off you as much as possible with this build)
3: Play as an Aasimar for the racial feat where it adds damage to your first hit, at the amount of your level (so for you +8).
4: Play as a Hexblade, so you get Hexblade's Curse (+ your proficiency bonus for each hit, crit on 19,20).
Ok, so here is how it works:
Round 1: Activate Aasimar feat and Hexblade's Curse (sucks that you don't get to attack but if you stick to the back line, you should be fine)
Round 2 and beyond: You do EB as your action then quicken EB as a bonus action...so that would be 4 shots at level 8. Each one that hits has a +3 damage due to HC and the first one has an extra +8 due to Aasimar feat. So if you bumped your CHA to a +5 by then, then you will have 1d10+16, 1d10+8, 1d10+8, 1d10+8, which averages to 62 points of damage a round if you hit on all of them (and the damage is either force or radiant, least resistant damages in the game).
The caveat: If you went 4 levels of Sorcerer, you will be out of sorcerer points after 2 rounds of doing the quickening. You will have to alternate rounds of EB and converting spells into points as a bonus action with the double EB through quickening. Even on the recharge rounds, you are averaging 35 points of damage if they both hit (which easily keeps up with the heavy hitters of the group).
First, take the Hexblade patron, and use Hexblade's curse. Choose these invocations:
Agonizing Blast, Maddening Hex, Relentless Hex, Sign of Ill Omen.
The Relentless Hex is to make sure you're in range to use Sign of Ill Omen, which is a touch spell. After that, it's a done deal.
1d10+1d8+11, twice per round.
DICE FALL, EVERYONE ROCKS!
How are you getting +11?
My concern with Sign of Ill Omen is that you have to get into touch range and you have to have the creature fail a Wisdom saving throw...a lot could go wrong there.
I do like the Maddening Hex idea, that is a nice touch.
Maddening Hex and Agonizing Blast both add your CHA bonus (+4 each); Hexblade's Curse adds your Proficiency bonus (+3).
DICE FALL, EVERYONE ROCKS!
Right, but maddening hex is a one time add, not per shot...so the first shot might be 1d10+1d8+11, but the next one is 1d10+1d8+7.
Ah, good catch there.
DICE FALL, EVERYONE ROCKS!
Don't forget to try and pick up a Rod of the Pact Keeper is possible. Even a +1 to hit would be hugely beneficial, and not even counting the spell slot recovery.
Good point, I forgot about that! I will have to remember that one as well.
My Build:
Half-Elf: +2 CHA and access to a certain feat which is...
Elvish Accuracy Feat: +1 to CHA and whenever you have ADV on attack rolls using INT, CHA, WIS, or DEX instead of rolling 2 die you roll 3! We can assure that we get advantage on it by blinding the enemy using
Blindness/Deafness: We can blind the enemy seeing (pun not intended) that they fail a CON save, which will give us ADV on attacks against it (and DIS against us as a bonus).
Hex: For that extra spicy D6, we can also impose DIS on CON checks/saves so Blindness/Deafness goes off without a hitch
Hexblade Patron: You can use 'Hexblade's Curse' to deal extra damage equal to your Prof Bonus (3 atm), if you kill the person you are cursing you will gain 12 hp back, when attacking the cursed enemy both 19 and 20 will Crit on attack rolls!
Agonizing Blast: Your Eblast deals extra damage equal to your CHA mod (4 atm).
Repelling Blast: Your Eblast bolts will knockback 10ft a piece
Lance of Lethargy: Reduces enemy movement by 10 ft.
Warcaster: You can gain ADV on concentration checks (which is handy for Hex), and when someone provokes an opportunity attack, you can cast EBlast at them!
So seeing that you use point buy, you can get CHA to 15, and raise it to 18 from Half-Elf and Elvish Acc. Next we get Blindness/Deafness, so we can have adv on eblast(which is 3 die instead of 2). Eblast will deal 2d10 on it's own, 2d6 from hex, and an extra 14 from agonizing blast and hexblade's curse. We get Crit damage twice as often, deal knockback, 10 ft reduced movement, and will heal HP once we kill the enemy. Leaving us with:
2d10+2d6+14, but seeing that we crit 1 out of 10 rolls and we have double ADV on both EBlasts, that leaves us with a 60% chance of one critting, and a 9% chance of both critting (I'm not sure if this would cause the hex, hexblade curse, and agonizing blast to double too). But we will also heal when we get our kill, deal knockback, and we can fire off EBlast whenever someone walks by us! And granted that we reduce movement by 10 and knockback 20, any enemy with 30ft or less worth of movement cannot approach you seeing that you hit both eblast bolts a turn (which is pretty likely granted our +6 to hit, and triple advantage!)
*Extra Note* This should be viable in Adventure's League as I only used Xanathar's Guide as a supplement.
I like the Elven Accuracy feat idea...except the blind/deaf part. At higher levels many creatures can’t be blinded or their CON save is so high, you don’t have a chance. If you multiclass with a paladin, you can do vow of enmity and get advantage automatically against a single target (limited but good boss tactic).
As for Hex...it doesn’t affect SAVES, just CHECKS. I didn’t realize that at first either but it has its merits (grappling and STR checks).
Everything else I think most agree are standard requirements to max out EB...Never thought about Elven Accuracy...good call!!!
Thank you! I realized just a bit earlier on Hex not affecting saves lol however you can take Pact of the Chain to get a familiar as a 'Help Action Slave' to allow at least 1 of your eblast bolts ADV. You would probably want an owl since they have the Flyby feature.
Alternately, go with the Fey Pact and pick up Faerie Fire as a 1st level spell.
Or just cast Hold Person, then attack with Eldritch Blast from 5 feet away for the automatic crits.
DICE FALL, EVERYONE ROCKS!
There is an aspect you're missing:
If you're close enough to deliver a touch spell, you're most likely (depending on your reach) within 5ft, so your spell is at disadvantage. Since you're using Relentless Hex to pursue your prey you cannot count on flanking to cancel that out. So unless you can counteract the disadvantage, I don't think this combo works as hoped.