So our group is doing Descent into Avernus and we just turned level 6. I made a half elf(Normal Variant) hexblade. I picked up warcaster at level 4 for Advantage on concentration saves(Thinking I would have to do more Con checks). Really thinking I should have picked up PAM or GWM to make the usual PAMLock , but melee is pretty much covered by our party(paladin/fighter, cleric, bard/rogue, monk/fighter, monk and me) Thinking I should proceed as a support melee/caster? I have a feeling I'm going to end up being in the back EB spamming.
Stats: STR-14, Dex-16, Con -17, Int- 10, Wis- 14, Cha- 18 (We rolled for stats)
Current invocations are Agonizing Blast, Thirsting Blade and Maddening Hex
Cantrips: Booming Blade, Minor Illusion and Eldritch Blast
Spells: AoA, Hex, Misty Step, Hunger of Hadar, Counterspell
Should I ASI CHA to 20 or Feat @ Level 8? If Feat which one should I take? Thoughts on Spells?, Invocations? Multiclass to Sorceror(never played) for more casting Flexibility? Any help would be appreciated.
Yah I have looked at rpgbot and all over the internet. Seems most builds for hrxblades are pamlocks, sorlocks or paladinlock. I want to stay strictly warlock, like I said b7t party has melee basically covered so probably spellcasting flexibility, and choice of spells invocations, feats input would be nice
I've found spell sniper really useful on my lock as we have a bunch of melee as well so I get to ignore the cover the barbarian is providing to whatever he is fighting when I'm hiding in the back line. I'm not playing a hexblade though, so I guess I was expecting to hang in the back. Overall though I usually say get stat to 20, but if the Ac of all your enemies is effectively 2 higher due to all the melee spell sniper may be a better choice.
honestly for Avernus I'd go for the stupidly long range Eldritch Blast, Spell Sniper and Eldritch Spear, and if you're willing go for the sorcerer dip to really make it a stupid range. along with the slow/repel you can keep one person outside of reach of your party really easily, you move them back by 40' and slow them by 10', effectively cutting 50' off of their movement, if you target 1 creature (at max effectiveness, that you won't have) but even if you only have 2 blasts, 20' movement back and 10' reduction in speed is nothing to turn your nose up at. :)
Keeping certain foes away from your party can make a huge difference.
Yeah there are a lot of wide open plains so a 600 foot range on your eldritch blast could come in handy, but you probably would not need more than 240.
if you need a 600' range on EB, wouldn't it be always at disadvantage due to vision? I like the idea of the extended range and being able to control at range, but seems a little impractical if constantly at disadvantage.
Depends on lighting, but with spells there is no disadvantage range like bows or something. But if its dark or something and past your dark vision range I guess. I don't remember if Avernus had specific rules for that. Even if they were you'd get 3-4 rounds of attacks at disadvantage, that's a lot of damage you wracked up even with disadvantage before they even engage you. like I said I think 600 is overkill, but we fought a lot of battles at a pretty long potential range.
So we just turned Level 8 and I have many decisions to make. My role has become more support caster/blaster. Due to Eldritch Versatility I have the option of changing my pact boon now. Wondering if i should switch from Pact of the Blade to Pact of the Tome for the extra spells, and ritual casting from Book of Ancient Secrets invocation? Should bump my Charisma to 20, or take a feat such as Elven accuracy, or Eldritch Adept?
Personally, in terms of changing to tomelock to better fit your role, if you were to switch, I would suggest taking sacred flame as one of the tome cantrips in order to help against undead and maybe some fiends you might meet, as well as possibly retraining one of your warlock cantrips to booming blade so you don't entirely lose out on charisma-based weapon attacks. And if you are switching, grab Ancient Secrets as soon as you can, the earlier you have it, the more likely you are to find scrolls you can add.
In terms of ASIs and feats, i would generally suggest maxing out your charisma first, unless it is currently at an odd number, in which case take elven accuracy or something else to boost it to an even number, then increase it to 20. Generally maxing out your primary stat/stats is better than going for feats for spellcasters, since it determines the effectiveness of most of the things you can do.
If you're using Pact of the Blade summon a "double-bladed scimitar" as your pact weapon. It's does 2D4 as your primary attack, and then D4 as a bonus action, allowing to you stack all the damage bonuses you get from features and spells. Basically it gives you most of the best feature from Polearm Master without a feat. Spirit Shroud is the best damage boost option once level 3 spell slots become available. 3 attacks can stack 6D8 radiant damage when your spell slots reach level 5.
So our group is doing Descent into Avernus and we just turned level 6. I made a half elf(Normal Variant) hexblade. I picked up warcaster at level 4 for Advantage on concentration saves(Thinking I would have to do more Con checks). Really thinking I should have picked up PAM or GWM to make the usual PAMLock , but melee is pretty much covered by our party(paladin/fighter, cleric, bard/rogue, monk/fighter, monk and me) Thinking I should proceed as a support melee/caster? I have a feeling I'm going to end up being in the back EB spamming.
Stats: STR-14, Dex-16, Con -17, Int- 10, Wis- 14, Cha- 18 (We rolled for stats)
Current invocations are Agonizing Blast, Thirsting Blade and Maddening Hex
Cantrips: Booming Blade, Minor Illusion and Eldritch Blast
Spells: AoA, Hex, Misty Step, Hunger of Hadar, Counterspell
Should I ASI CHA to 20 or Feat @ Level 8? If Feat which one should I take? Thoughts on Spells?, Invocations? Multiclass to Sorceror(never played) for more casting Flexibility? Any help would be appreciated.
If it's just help to optimize your build, I find this really helpful:
https://rpgbot.net/dnd5/characters/classes/warlock/
If you would like specific help, what is your party having trouble with?
Yah I have looked at rpgbot and all over the internet. Seems most builds for hrxblades are pamlocks, sorlocks or paladinlock. I want to stay strictly warlock, like I said b7t party has melee basically covered so probably spellcasting flexibility, and choice of spells invocations, feats input would be nice
I've found spell sniper really useful on my lock as we have a bunch of melee as well so I get to ignore the cover the barbarian is providing to whatever he is fighting when I'm hiding in the back line. I'm not playing a hexblade though, so I guess I was expecting to hang in the back. Overall though I usually say get stat to 20, but if the Ac of all your enemies is effectively 2 higher due to all the melee spell sniper may be a better choice.
honestly for Avernus I'd go for the stupidly long range Eldritch Blast, Spell Sniper and Eldritch Spear, and if you're willing go for the sorcerer dip to really make it a stupid range. along with the slow/repel you can keep one person outside of reach of your party really easily, you move them back by 40' and slow them by 10', effectively cutting 50' off of their movement, if you target 1 creature (at max effectiveness, that you won't have) but even if you only have 2 blasts, 20' movement back and 10' reduction in speed is nothing to turn your nose up at. :)
Keeping certain foes away from your party can make a huge difference.
Yeah there are a lot of wide open plains so a 600 foot range on your eldritch blast could come in handy, but you probably would not need more than 240.
if you need a 600' range on EB, wouldn't it be always at disadvantage due to vision? I like the idea of the extended range and being able to control at range, but seems a little impractical if constantly at disadvantage.
Depends on lighting, but with spells there is no disadvantage range like bows or something. But if its dark or something and past your dark vision range I guess. I don't remember if Avernus had specific rules for that. Even if they were you'd get 3-4 rounds of attacks at disadvantage, that's a lot of damage you wracked up even with disadvantage before they even engage you. like I said I think 600 is overkill, but we fought a lot of battles at a pretty long potential range.
So we just turned Level 8 and I have many decisions to make. My role has become more support caster/blaster. Due to Eldritch Versatility I have the option of changing my pact boon now. Wondering if i should switch from Pact of the Blade to Pact of the Tome for the extra spells, and ritual casting from Book of Ancient Secrets invocation? Should bump my Charisma to 20, or take a feat such as Elven accuracy, or Eldritch Adept?
Personally, in terms of changing to tomelock to better fit your role, if you were to switch, I would suggest taking sacred flame as one of the tome cantrips in order to help against undead and maybe some fiends you might meet, as well as possibly retraining one of your warlock cantrips to booming blade so you don't entirely lose out on charisma-based weapon attacks. And if you are switching, grab Ancient Secrets as soon as you can, the earlier you have it, the more likely you are to find scrolls you can add.
In terms of ASIs and feats, i would generally suggest maxing out your charisma first, unless it is currently at an odd number, in which case take elven accuracy or something else to boost it to an even number, then increase it to 20. Generally maxing out your primary stat/stats is better than going for feats for spellcasters, since it determines the effectiveness of most of the things you can do.
If you're using Pact of the Blade summon a "double-bladed scimitar" as your pact weapon. It's does 2D4 as your primary attack, and then D4 as a bonus action, allowing to you stack all the damage bonuses you get from features and spells. Basically it gives you most of the best feature from Polearm Master without a feat. Spirit Shroud is the best damage boost option once level 3 spell slots become available. 3 attacks can stack 6D8 radiant damage when your spell slots reach level 5.
Replace Maddening Hex with Improved Pact Weapon.