Doing so allows it to outpace just about any damage spell the Hexblade has access to. The best thing to do is wait until crits to use the smite so you can double your damage dice. The tradeoff is of course the number of times the hits actually land, but that can be mitigated with the famous Devil’s Sight + darkness combo and tends to matter less at higher levels.Įldritch Smite is another resource that melee/ranged Hexblades can use to boost their damage output over EB builds. When melee/ranged Hexblade builds are able to utilize Feats such as Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter to provide boosts in damage, they can end up outputting more damage than EB builds. So, when does a ranged/melee build become more optimal than an EB build? When Feats get brought in. As discussed in our Hexblades Builds, melee/ranged Hexblades require a lot more resources in order to keep their damage on par with their EB counterparts. On top of this, the only invocation that is actually “required” to optimize EB Hexblade builds is Agonizing Blast. The fact that e ldritch blast has 120ft range, deals 1d10 damage, has a great damage type, stacks with levels, and is a cantrip makes it a pretty hard feature to beat. For some reason, the smites that Hexblade warlocks get access to are also concentration which negates them as useful spells to use in combat.īelow is a chart comparing the damage output of melee, ranged, EB Hexblade builds:Īs you can see, the Hexblade warlock builds using e ldritch blast can certainly outpace melee Hexblade builds, even with all of the benefits the Hexblade subclass provides melee/ranged Warlock opportunists. One of the Warlock’s best spell, hex, is concentration.Casting a 1st-level shield with a 3rd-level spell slot feels bad man. shield, blur, and blink, while great defensive spells, don’t scale with levels. Warlocks have limited spell slots and can only cast them at the highest available slot.The Expanded Spell list that Hexblades get is pretty horrendous. The medium armor, shields, and the Hexblade Curse provided by the subclass are also beneficial if you want to stay at a distance and use a ranged weapon or eldritch blast. The Hexblades benefits do not solely benefit melee Warlocks. This brings melee/ranged Hexblade builds from Multiple-Ability Dependent (MAD) to Single-Ability Dependent (SAD). The biggest boon of the Hex Warrior trait allows Hexblades to add their CHA bonus to weapon attack rolls and damage, instead of STR and DEX. The Hex Warrior class feature gives access to armor, shields, and maintainable ability scores all at 1st level. The Hexblade solves a lot of problems that casters usually have when dipping their toes into weapon combat. Hexblades are held to similar restraints as typical warlocks in terms of spellcasting, but their Hex Warrior feature allows them to make weapon attacks their CHA, rather than STR or DEX. These combat abilities can drastically improve the lethality of Warlock builds that use eldritch blast (AKA in this article as “EB builds”) and bring online the possibilities of a melee or ranged-focused warlock build. Hexblade Warlocks are warlocks that, in their pact with their patron, gain access to additional combat abilities. Full customization and control of your character, none of the flipping through hundreds of pages to reference obscure rules. So not only could you have access to Detect Magic at will, but you could also have access to Leomund’s Tiny Hut, or Rory’s Telepathic Bond, or other very powerful ritual spells, all without needing to do anything except transcribe them into the Book of Shadows.D&D Beyond can help create your characters by making choices using a step-by-step approach. Running the gamut of rituals and not needing to expend a spell slot is pretty powerful. Wizards typically get access to every ritual spell by default, with a few exceptions, but the Book of Ancient Secrets spells lets Warlocks truly have all of them. This essentially gives a Warlock access to every ritual spell in the game. Warlocks can add additional rituals to their Book of Shadows through adventures by finding and transcribing them. Warlocks don’t start off with ritual casting, so having the ability to take every ritual spell and free up spell slots could potentially provide a Warlock with more flexibility than a Wizard.īook of Ancient Secrets is easily one of the most versatile options to take, and is only available to Pact of the Tome Warlocks.Īny 1st level spell with the ritual tag from any spell list can be written into a Warlock’s Book of Shadows, and doesn’t count towards the amount of spells a Warlock knows. This Invocation is the next step up from Pact of the Tome.
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