So I wanna try a SORlock. I have a few ideas for fun concepts when it comes to Sorcerer Type characters and I find Meta-magic to be quite a fun little ability.

I also like the idea of a Warlock Dip to have those quickened Eldritch Blasts with Agonizing Blast.

For RP purposes I like the idea of going into Warlock around level 5 of Sorc BUT this is where i'm stuck

1. I cant pick what Sorc Origin to Go, I'm kinda leaning towards Shadow Sorc and taking Warcaster as a Vhuman starter feat. This removes my need to take Devils Sight and means that the only 100% needed is Agonizing Blast, this means I'll probably take the other one that does the 10ft of pushback That said none of the abilities really assist the blasterlock style that i'd be going for....Though to be honest none of the sorc origins do this at all

2. I don't know if I want to go 2 or 3 levels of Warlock. I'm leaning towards 2 levels since I'll get most of what i'm after in those 2 levels its only the Pact I miss out on and none of those are particularly amazing as such. I'm leaning towards Hexblade for the dip as for 2 levels it seems to give by far the most (shields and Med armour and hexblades curse is nothing to scoff at, that said in terms of a visual holding a shiled casting spells is kinda odd to me, but none of the other 2 level dips are really even close to as good) I like the idea of a 2 level dip also becuase it means that i still get the subclass capstone.

3. After boosting my CHA to 20 which to me is 100% first priority as I level It really opens me up to grabbing feats. While not one I really usually love I think Spell Sniper Could be fun since on any big map at higher levels (11) I could be pushing opponents back 40-60 Ft per round of i quicken a EB which means that the distance may actually come up. Other option is of course I instead go a half elf and grab elven accuracy early on and Warcaster later

4. To those who have played SORlocks, do you find your power drops off significantly or do you think the class works really well with only a tiny dip?

Thanks

Sorlock machine gunners have to be careful with their 'ammo', i.e. sorcery points.  There's never enough to go full Rambo, especially since you lose a point every time you take a warlock level.  If you're doing the shadow sorcerer, their subclass features are SP hungry to boot.  Umbral Form eats a full third of your machine gunner ammunition, assuming you're somehow fortunate enough to reach 20.

If, like most campaigns, you end up capping out around (or below) 10ish?  Consider taking the third level in warlock.  Seems counterintuitive, but that means you get second-level Pact Magic slots you can then digest for four additional SP per short rest.  Even without going full Coffelock, that's a lot more ammunition recovery than you'll have with only first-level Pact slots, which means you can use the ammo you do have more freely.  Three free cantrips from any spell list via Pact of the Tome is always cool, and since you're not interested in Devil's Sight you can take either Aspect of the Moon so your dark, edgy sorkablastah never needs to sleep, or you can take Book of Ancient Secrets to gain extensive ritual casting abilities that allow you to conserve spell slots you can then turn into ammo for the machine gun.

The third warlock level does delay sorcerer progression, but if the character's primary objective is SUPPRESSING FIAH-level Eldritch Blast spam rather than obtaining higher levels of magic, I strongly recommend it.  Three levels of warlock also leaves just enough room that if your sorcerer does reach 20th level, you still get your ninth-level spell and spell slot.  No Umbral Form, but if you're casting Darkness with SP, Quickening Eldritch Blasts, and the like, you won't want to kill six SP on turning into a shadow all that often anyways.  Or at least I wouldn't.

I wouldn’t worry about the Pact of the Tome since Sorcerers already start with as many Cantrips as a 10 level Warlock. And a Pact of the Blade will also probably not net any more value than a Rod of the Pact Keeper (unless you can claim “counts as” to make that your Pact Weapon). But Pact of the Chain will open up a lot more opportunities for your character compared to the other two IMO.

Try to get hold of a copy of The Compendium of Forgotten Secrets - awakening (Genuine Fantasy Press) and do some home brewing. (use feats as a workaround).
I'm currently playing a warlock/sorcerer 8/4 build on that book

Another way to take it could be to grab Draconic bloodline for the built in Armor of Shadows and the increased HP. Being able to fly down the road and gaining an elemental resistance for an hour for 1 SP would be nice (though that resistance will be tied to your draconic ancestry). That would mean that you'd need Devil's Sight for dark vision with a v. Human and may not be worth it if you want the control from repelling blast. 

Another consideration for the warlock class would be the Fiend for the temp HPs when you kill something. They'll max out at 7 or 8 depending on whether you go warlock 2 or warlock 3, but could be a welcome HP boost to a primarily d6 character and double as a source of "healing". 

Otherwise, your proposal of Shadow Sorcerer and Hexblade is solid. I'd probably follow Yurei's advice about going Warlock 3 if for no other reason than to get the improved slots. If you're sold on agonizing Blast and Repelling Blast, then pact of the tome does lose some appeal since the rituals requires an invocation. Pact of the chain gains more value at that point since you'll already have 6 cantrips and may not want 3 more. The scouting with an invisible imp alone will be helpful before getting into the combat hijinks that everyone loves about familiars.

The combination of darkness, medium armor, and the possibility of a shield would make your defenses solid and may make the considerations from the other options a bit superfluous, plus you'll have better melee options for those inevitable moments when you'll have to engage in melee without having to dedicate cantrips to that purpose. 

The Undying’s always-on Sanctuary effect can be very valuable in an undead-heavy campaign, and being able to Spare the Dying as a non-healer will come up once or twice I’m sure. I would put it up there with Fiend and Hexblade as one of the best splash-and-forget warlock features to pick up.

Shadow sorcerer’s Darkness trick is going to compete with your stated intent to spam EB with sorcery points, be advised. Devils Sight is far more versatile, so I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it, even if you roll a Shadow sorcerer.

Oh wow lots of replies

Thanks to you all, so due to starting night shift tonight ive stayed up all night and to keep my mind going i did a lot of reading

I agree whole heartedly that shadow sorc is very sp intensive which is the flat out opposite of what i want. Hounds cool but that's a loss of quicken, this and with this and advise from here and many guides im now leaning towards

Divine soul 17/hexblade 3 half elf (drow)

Agonizing blast/devils sight

Pact of the chain

As much as i like playing a human the half elf drow is almost perfect.  4 stat increases, darkness spell for free alone is almost enough, but elven accuracy is amazing and all thats worth more than the feat early on.

Divine soul gives some cool spell picks but for the most part doesnt hurt my sp at all to yse their stuff

Ab/devils sight for the darkness combo

And pact of chain. So i already get like 6 cantrips early on. I dont really need more than 2 damage ones (eb and i like to have a save one like toll of the dead) so i already have my utility so tome is a bit overkill, im also part of a party who have some of what i take and i dont wanna hog all spell chances. On the other hand i get an imp for chain.... a familiar who can talk, turn itself into a raven, who can turn invisible and can fly...... like holy hell that is a lot to pass up for 3 extra cantrips

I personally prefer features to spell slots (I’m a terrible caster), so I’d nudge that to Divine Soul 14/Hexblade 6 myself (that Specter is cool, and it’s another invocation and better pact slot levels). But that isn’t just a feature trade off, it’s also a delay of sorcery point progression so... up to you :p

Heh, aww.  I was honestly kinda digging the Shadow/Hex combination.  Not only powerful but also actually kinda thematically unified, which is heckin' weird for most Sorlocks.

I do love Pact of the Chain.  A lot of warlock players consider it to be absolutely worthless because imps don't deal assloads of damage to Ancient Elder Superdragon Illithiliches, never quite figuring out that raw damage is not the point.  If you can figure out how a half-drow is favored by the gods with an evil imp companion and powers of darkness from the Shadowfell, do it up.I will point out that if you're hoping to go infinite ham with a Quickened Eldrtich Blast every turn, nothing is going to hold up.  At no point in that character's existence can it afford to be profligate with sorcery points.  Shadow Darkness is a cool trick, and what a lot of folks end up realizing when they get into playing anything with warlock levels is that Eldritch Invocations are worth their weight in platinum. 

Devil's Sight is more versatile than Eyes of the Dark, but EotD gets the job more-or-less done and lets you take amazing invocations like Mask of Many Faces, Misty Visions, Gift of the Ever-Living Ones (though that's better on a Divine Soul), Aspect/Book...there's so much awesome stuff even at just level 1 to 3 Invocations that wasting a selection on Devil's Sight just for the Darkness/Devil combo seems so limiting.  Yeah, that combo is powerful, but Darkness interferes with maintaining concentration on Hex, and if you're trying to go for Maxximom Deepz, Hex is essential.

If you're doing Divine Soul, consider dropping Devil's Sight for Gift of the Ever-Living Ones to maximize the self-heals from your healing pool and using Darkness as cover.  Don't shoot from inside it - move in and out of your Darkness bubble to manage attacks on your turn rather than fishing for Devil's Sight.

Thank you so much for your tips and tricks

They are amazing and this character is still a work in process, the shadlow sorc/hexblade is still looking good tbh but ill continue to play

Happy to help.  I know a lot of folks talk up the Darkness/Devil's Sight combo real hard, and it is potentially quite powerful.  From game experience, I can say that unless you're actively pushing that combo pretty hard, Devil's Sight is useful but not an enormous game changer for most DMs  Outside of sitting in your own darkness, I haven't been in a lot of situations where the DM managed to play up the light level rules properly enough for Devil's Sight to be a big edge.  If your sorlock is also a stealthy sneaky sort who doubles as the rogue's understudy - or who's taking over for the rogue your party doesn't have, which is something a shadow sorcerer can do pretty well with the right background - then Devil's Sight is great. 

I simply caution people against assuming it's the most amazing invocation ever, especially if you end up playing Divine Soul.  At that point, being able to maximize any healing you give yourself through your pool and some nicked cleric spells makes you surprisingly durable and lets you make more efficient use of that resource, so Gift of the Ever-Living Ones becomes very hard to pass up.  You can do with a level 1 or 2 Cure Wounds on yourself what you'd have to burn a level 3 or 4 to do for anybody else.

...and I only just remembered that Divine Souls don't get a floating d6 healing pool like the other Cleric Lites.  My mistake.  Heh, nevertheless.  While that does dilute Gift of the Ever-Living Ones a bit, it's still worth considering if you end up on a Divine Soul with a solid spread of healing spells.

Heres a question

If i do go shadow sorc and therefore dont take devils sight is it even worth going half elf drow over half high elf for an extra cantrip or wood half elf for extra 5ft of movement? 

Id lean towards high so i can get mending or something utility based over an attack since they use my int over cha but im not 100% sold

With Sorc 17/Warlock 3, you will end up with 8 Cantrips anyway. You only need, maybe 3 attack Cantrips for what you want, EB as the obvious one, and 1 or 2 “Save vs” Cantrips (2 for a variety of save and damage types or area of effect). That leaves you 5 more for anything you want.

You might honestly want to consider regular Half Elf for the Skills. If you go Wood Half-Elf, you could also take the Wood Elf Magic feat if you really, really wanted to.

Hmm...

So.  Bit of theorycraft here, under the assumption that this is a half-drow Divine Soul sorcerer.

Assuming one can get to the levels where this matters, what if we flip the script a bit?  Do a Divine Soul/Celestial patron Sorlock, take Celestial warlock to 7?  At that point, assuming 4 levels of Sorcerer as a minimum, one single Pact slot provides all four sorcery back on a short rest, and one gets 4 invocations rather than 2.  Plenty of room for Devil's Sight there, and the character is free to use their SP pretty heavily in combat since they can burn Pact slots to get it back.  This also means the character gets 8d6 it can spend as it pleases for Knockoff Healing Words via Celestial Light, and it gets Light and [Tooltip Not Found] from half-drow and the bonus pair from Celestial.  Eleven total cantrips, which even a slobbering cantrip maniac like me would consider sufficient.

It's less focused on Agonizing Doink minigun, but you still get two minigun rounds per short rest, improved ability to regain SP, a lot more invocations, and better overall healing in exchange for fewer rounds in your magazine and reduced sorcerous casting.  Might be worth investigating, depending on your eventual character concept.

Pact boon, 1 extra spell known and raising your 2 warlock spell slots to 2nd are not worth the extra level of Sorcerer.  Ever.   Giving up too much to get it.  Usually giving up spell points, known sorcerorr level and at least 1 spell slot, usually higher than 2nd

It seems your going for power so I would say high, but I personally don’t care about power much and think that drow are awesome and fit with shadow, si do tha

I repectfully disagree

The 18 abilities of sorc shadow and divine soul can largely be replicated by spells and burn those all so valuable sorc points

The pact boon cannot.  The 4 sorc points per short rest cannot. In fact that lvl in warlock basically grants me the sorc capstone

The pact of the chain gives a very fun rp tool also arguably better than those level 18 abilities... were i losing my lvl 9 spell i agree but i do not agree that 18 sorc 2 warlocl is the only way to go

i ment high as in high elf.

First, there is a difference between "at level 20" and "throught the play".   You seem to only be concerned about level 20, while my original comparison was a throughout play comparison, where it was a clear advantage to warlock 2/sorc 18. 

Second, pact boons are NOT better than or harder to replicate than a 18th level abilities.  Pact of the Chain is an improved Familiar and Find Familiar is a 1st level spell.  Basically, Pact of the Chain is maybe the equivalent of a 4th level spell.   Pact boons are basically worth 2 feats, and so are most subclass abilities.  But we are talking about the 18th level class ability so it is actually slightly BETTER than a pact boon.  The only time Pact Boons become better than a subclass ability is if you use it as a pre-req for invocations.   But you only get 2, of minimal level and you already want Agonizing Blast.  So no, the pact boon is not worth it.

Let's look at level 20 only.

Sorceror 17/Warlock 3 vs Sorc 18/War 3

Advantages for S17/W3

• +1 hp on average
• Pact Boon
• 1 warlock spell known
• 2 first level spell slots upgraded to 2nd level spell slots

Advantage S18/W2 

• +1 SP
• Sorc Origin feature (Divine: Bonus Action, 1/long rest, recover half max hp if hp below 50%,  Shadow: Umbral form for 1 minute costing you 6 sorcer point)  These abilities can be approximated by spells etc, but they are high level abilities, effectively granting you something similar to a 6th or 7th level form.
• 1 5th level spell slot

Clearly the Sorceror has advantages on spell slots, adding a single 5th level spell slot is better than upgrading 2 1st level slots into 2 2nd level slots.  

A single extra HP and a single extra warlock spell of 1st or 2nd level is clearly not worth the extra SP.

That leaves the question will your Pact Boon be worth the Sorc Origin feature.  As I said earlier, Umbral Form and Unearthly Recovery are comparable if not better than then any of the Pact Boons.

For me it is clear, the 17/3 build is better than the 18/2 build.  I see no contest at all.

I don't see it as being so clear-cut.  Even at lower levels, which was also my assumption, the third level of warlock provides significant benefits.

Let's assume level 12 as an end point, since that's the common "End Of Module" mark for every goddamned module Wizards produces, seems a reasonably fair 'endgame lite' level.  This leaves us a split between 10/2 and 9/3 to compare.

The tenth level of sorcerer grants:
>one additional Metamagic selection, and one additional Sorcery point to use on metamagic.
>one additional fifth-level spell slot, regained on long rest.
>One additional cantrip known, one additional spell known (11 total).

That is, admittedly, a very big level for sorcerers.  It's hard to skip tenth level and gaining both your third Metamagic option and your final sorcerer cantrip.  Honestly a bigger choice for many sorcerous origins than their 18th-level origin features.

The third level of warlock grants:
>Access to second-level warlock spells (two known maximum)
>Second-level Pact Magic slots
>Pact Boon (and thus Boon-specific Invocations, one known maximum)

The benefit for the warlock level feels a lot less impactful measured against sorcerer 10 rather than sorcerer 18, but I'd argue it depends on how you're intending to play.  if you're intending to use the Pact Magic spell slots primarily as fuel to regain more sorcery points, then a single short rest gives you back 4 points rather than 2, putting you one up on the 10/2 split.  Access to second-level warlock spells would be more impactful if the only 'warlock but not sorcerer' I could spot at second level is Flock of Familiars.  Still, you don't technically lose a spell - 10th Sorcerer gives you one additional spell known, 3rd Warlock does the same.  it's a lower-level spell, but that's most of what one casts anyways.

Pact Boons are a much bigger deal than 'two feats', given that they also unlock access to boon-specific Invocations.  One thing to keep in mind is that neither sorcerers nor warlocks have native access to ritual casting; Book of Ancient Secrets fixes that and allows the sorlock to conserve even more spell slots they can turn into ammunition for the machine gun.  A Divine sorcerer or Celestial warlock can double the expected effect of any self-targeted healing spell with Gift of the Ever-Living Ones, on top of also maximizing hit dice they spend during the short rests they want to be taking anyways.  There's also the intangibles from a familiar that has an Intelligence score at or above human standard and with the ability to fly and turn invisible at will.

The choice isn't a crystal clear 'sorcerer is always better!', it's a 'what do you value more?'  In my case I value the improved SP recovery on short rest from beefier Pact Magic slots and the expanded capabilities of Tome or Chain over the once-a-day fifth level slot or the extra daily SP.  Losing the Metamagic choice and the cantrip does hurt, but by that point you've got seven cantrips - ten if you picked up Tome - so the cantrip hurts a bit less.  It's definitely a debate to be had, but there's pros on either side.