Hi, I've been tinkering with the eldritch blast cantrip and I found it to be quite OP with the right multiclass and dips. and I wanted to know if this is legit from a mechanical standpoint.
Fighter lvl2 for Action surge
Warlock lvl 2 agonizing blast (+Charisma mod to damage for eldritch blast) and repelling blast
sorcerer lvl 16 quickened spell +metamagic
so damage wise when you reach lvl 17 you can use eldritch blast does 4D10 damages so with action surge quickened spell and hex I get something like that 3x(4x(1D10+1D6+5)) for a max damage of 180 force damage + 72 necrotic damage and a push of 120 feet just for the fun of it (that can also translate to 1d6 bludgeonig fall damge/10feet with the right position and a levitate assist )
is it legit? I can't find anything in the PHB that counter this.
You can't use Quickened Spell and hex in the same round.
You can, however, spend a round casting hex and eldritch blast, then in all following rounds that you don't need to curse a new target cast eldritch blast three times to maximize damage potential. Edit to add clarity: assuming use of both Action Surge and Quickened spell.
Action Surge and Quickened Spell both use bonus action. So you could do one or the other, but not both.
That's not true. Action Surge does not use any sort of action, it lets you take a second Action on your turn. So you can use both Action Surge and Quickened spell on the same turn, but you still have to adhere to the rule about being limited to your other spells cast that turn being cantrips with a 1 action casting time when you cast any spell as a bonus action.
A thing to keep in mind: each beam requires a separate attack roll, so the average damage drops significantly.
It's not as significant of a drop as it might seem, since each attack roll can also score a critical hit, and each benefits from damage boosters that would only apply once if it were a single attack roll or a saving throw-based spell.
A thing to keep in mind: each beam requires a separate attack roll, so the average damage drops significantly.
It's not as significant of a drop as it might seem, since each attack roll can also score a critical hit, and each benefits from damage boosters that would only apply once if it were a single attack roll or a saving throw-based spell.
A thing to keep in mind: each beam requires a separate attack roll, so the average damage drops significantly.
It's not as significant of a drop as it might seem, since each attack roll can also score a critical hit, and each benefits from damage boosters that would only apply once if it were a single attack roll or a saving throw-based spell.
In fact, there's no drop at all. The expected values of one 4d10 attack and four 1d10 attacks are exactly the same. I'll be using E[X] to mean the expected value of some random variable X.
Let's start with the basics: the EV of one fair die is just the average of all possible rolls: E[1d10] = (1 + 2 + ... + 9 + 10)/10 = 5.5.
For multiple dice, we can just add up their individual EVs because of a handy property of expected values called linearity. So E[4d10] = 4 * E[1d10] = 4 * 5.5 = 22.
The expected value of an attack is the weighted average of its outcomes, which are:
You score a critical and roll double the damage dice with probability 0.05
You score a normal hit with probability p - 0.05
You miss and deal no damage with probability 1 - p
So the expected value of an attack is:
(0.05)E[dice * 2] + (p - 0.05)E[dice] + (1 - p)0 this last part goes away because 0 * x is 0
= (0.05 * 2)E[dice] + (p - 0.05)E[dice] because of linearity
= (0.10 + p - 0.05)E[dice] because of the distributive property of multiplication and addition
= (p + 0.05)E[dice]
In other words, the EV of an attack is the EV of the damage dice times your hit rate plus 5% from crits. So,
At Fighter 2, you only get one action surge per short rest. So, if you spend your first round casting Hex and one casting of Eldritch blast, yes, you can get that much damage for round 2, but only for round 2. Then you don't have any more action surges. Now you're down to just eldritch blast + hex and a quickened eldritch blast + hex.
The 120 feet of pushing/pulling is just flat out not possible. The invocations that let you push or pull specify that it can only be once per round. You can push or pull one creature 10 feet. If you take both invocations, you can push 10 feet and then pull them 10 feet, but now you've used up both invocations that you get at Warlock 2 on a plan that is of dubious usefulness.
Another thing to take into account is that multiclassing across three classes really screws up your over-all power level. You're gonna miss a bunch of ASI's, meaning it's a strong possibility it's gonna take you a really long time to get your casting stat up high enough to be reliably hitting your target with all of your beams. Assuming you start with Warlock 2, then Fighter 2, then all of your Sorc levels, you're gonna be level 8 the first time you get an ASI.
Also, counting this damage up using max damage is foolish, since in practice you will almost never get max damage on both your d6 and your d10 for every blast.
Trying to cheese every last damage point out of eldritch blast generally just doesn't pay off past a certain point. A Sorcerer with a Warlock dip, a Warlock with a Sorcerer dip, or just a Sorc with Spell Sniper for Eldritch Blast are all better ideas than blowing 2 levels on Fighter and losing evocations/spell levels/ASIs in the process just so you can get 1 extra casting of EB on your 2nd round.
Also for cheese value, once upon a time, there was a plain champion fighter (lvl 12) with a dragon slaying sword (+3d6), he was hiting a dragon that was lit up by fairy fire.
It doesn't work that way. The Artillerist feature you're referring to, Arcane Firearm, only adds 1d8 damage to one damage roll of the spell and it must be an Artificer spell, which Eldritch Blast is not.
Hi, I've been tinkering with the eldritch blast cantrip and I found it to be quite OP with the right multiclass and dips. and I wanted to know if this is legit from a mechanical standpoint.
Fighter lvl2 for Action surge
Warlock lvl 2 agonizing blast (+Charisma mod to damage for eldritch blast) and repelling blast
sorcerer lvl 16 quickened spell +metamagic
so damage wise when you reach lvl 17 you can use eldritch blast does 4D10 damages so with action surge quickened spell and hex I get something like that 3x(4x(1D10+1D6+5)) for a max damage of 180 force damage + 72 necrotic damage and a push of 120 feet just for the fun of it (that can also translate to 1d6 bludgeonig fall damge/10feet with the right position and a levitate assist )
is it legit? I can't find anything in the PHB that counter this.
You can't use Quickened Spell and hex in the same round.
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Hm? I'm pretty certain Action Surge doesn't require your Bonus Action to use.
A thing to keep in mind: each beam requires a separate attack roll, so the average damage drops significantly.
My bad. I haven't played a fighter yet, but I swore it did. Just checked and I am mistaken.
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thanks for all the answers warlocks do seem pretty badass ^^
So the expected value of an attack is:
In other words, the EV of an attack is the EV of the damage dice times your hit rate plus 5% from crits. So,
What about 2 fighter
2 warlock
10 wizard (evocation) + int mod to damage
6 sorcerer meta magic quicken
Evocation wizard bonuses largely wouldn't apply to eldritch blast.
You could get another 3d8 from artillerist lvl5.
Some things OP is not taking into account:
At Fighter 2, you only get one action surge per short rest. So, if you spend your first round casting Hex and one casting of Eldritch blast, yes, you can get that much damage for round 2, but only for round 2. Then you don't have any more action surges. Now you're down to just eldritch blast + hex and a quickened eldritch blast + hex.
The 120 feet of pushing/pulling is just flat out not possible. The invocations that let you push or pull specify that it can only be once per round. You can push or pull one creature 10 feet. If you take both invocations, you can push 10 feet and then pull them 10 feet, but now you've used up both invocations that you get at Warlock 2 on a plan that is of dubious usefulness.
Another thing to take into account is that multiclassing across three classes really screws up your over-all power level. You're gonna miss a bunch of ASI's, meaning it's a strong possibility it's gonna take you a really long time to get your casting stat up high enough to be reliably hitting your target with all of your beams. Assuming you start with Warlock 2, then Fighter 2, then all of your Sorc levels, you're gonna be level 8 the first time you get an ASI.
Also, counting this damage up using max damage is foolish, since in practice you will almost never get max damage on both your d6 and your d10 for every blast.
Trying to cheese every last damage point out of eldritch blast generally just doesn't pay off past a certain point. A Sorcerer with a Warlock dip, a Warlock with a Sorcerer dip, or just a Sorc with Spell Sniper for Eldritch Blast are all better ideas than blowing 2 levels on Fighter and losing evocations/spell levels/ASIs in the process just so you can get 1 extra casting of EB on your 2nd round.
Also for cheese value, once upon a time, there was a plain champion fighter (lvl 12) with a dragon slaying sword (+3d6), he was hiting a dragon that was lit up by fairy fire.
6 hits at advantage with a 19+ crit.
Ended with 8d10+24d6+24
It doesn't work that way. The Artillerist feature you're referring to, Arcane Firearm, only adds 1d8 damage to one damage roll of the spell and it must be an Artificer spell, which Eldritch Blast is not.
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Only one damage roll, but you cast it three times, hence the 3d8. Didn't think about the artificer spell only restriction.
Three attacks means three damage rolls.
Multiclassing into fighter requires Str 13 so you will have some trade offs there.
You only cast it once (the Cast a Spell action) but create 1 to 4 blasts, each blast requires it's own damage roll.
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