I agree fully. Level 20 builds are for the most part theoretical. This is why I do builds level by level rather than just jumping to the end. I'm a big believer that the best builds are effective throughout their career.

Thank you for this summary

Why ? Eldritch Blast Archery refluffed would be better nas easier

heitor bittencourt netto. Pretty much because you can eldritch smite on a bow hit. On crits this gets doubled.

If oathbow found this build supercharges.

I realize this is old and you may know this already, but I don't think you need to buy the heavy crossbow or the longbow, because Pact of the Blade allows you to conjure a weapon with an action and Improved Pact Weapon lets you change the shape into a bow. Unless I am misunderstanding the rules.

OMG YES!!!!

Agreed

.

A simpler solution for this is making 2 character sheets, one at level 12, one at level 20. Or even multiple of them.

@@Warchoon I actually am pretty happy with how it worked out in this vid.

Pp

SmugLookingBarrel I agree. I would start Fighter 1 and pick up Fighter 2 at level 14. Fighter 3 if I want to go all-in on crit-fishing. Then the rest in Whisper Bard for spell slots and additional crit-power.

Personally I would go with arcane Trickster after 12. The DEX is already there, advantage is already taken care of for sneak attack every turn and the sneak attack damage would stack with the Eldrich smite damage for super crazy damage on crits. Also arcane Trickster gets a few spell slots we can use for actual spell casting. At level 3 you can get shield or silvery barbs since this character really doesn't have anything it can do with it's reaction and later you can get misty step.

It will also be against a prone target.

@@Teamflavwardog Hex warrior lets you use charisma for both your pact weapon and hex weapon and this applies to any weapon summoned by your pact regardless of its type. Hex warrior is actually restricted to one handed weapons rather than melee weapons, so you could use a hand crossbow or sling with it.

Stormwind?

killcat1971 I like that. Much more thematic.

Good news is this is now AL legal under the Historical Campaign rules

I’ve played a game where everyone had Devil’s Sight. It got boring real quick. Eventually you either roll through every encounter as a giant black ball, or the DM had only use monsters with tremor sense/blind sight or use tons of dispel. It warped the campaign so much that eventually we all agreed to retcon the characters and take different Invocations.

@@M0ebius oh, dang. That's nuts

You can do it with Hexblade curse which adds your proficiency bonus to damage

If I understand your point, the first bullet point of hexblade curse adds proficiency to your damage. Other features allow its use with a ranged weapon , that is also a pact weapon.

@@acm4bass Hexblade curse affects all attacks against the targeted creature, regardless of how you are attacking. I think you are mixing up Hexblade Curse and some of the features of Hex Warrior.

@@TreantmonksTemple Oh good point forgot about that feature I always mix it up with hex damage

Sorcerer and Warlock are very effective as a multiclass. I would think the multiclass will serve better at that mid-high level range, but remember you are sacrificing access to those highest level spells, so it's a double edged sword.

With Devil's sight you can see the enemy so they aren't invisible

Iwin 12 This is correct, and the reason why I feel like complaints about Darkness messing up the party is overblown. If your team is primarily ranged characters, it can get annoying. If your team is melee heavy, it makes no difference.

damn

Many DMs would rule that it was clearly an illusion the instant you fired a missile out of it. So you'd get advantage on your first attack, and would have to recast to get defensive benefits.

@@MsNathanv Not if it was fog or darkness rather than a wall...

​@@MsNathanvBut the illusion isn't instantly dispelled once it makes physical contact with something, is it? If not, then the wall is still opaque. And if you want to keep the illusion believable, have it be a cloud of fog. Those are permeable, so you essentially get a mini Fog Cloud spell on demand. Especially so if you DM still lets you have it be one way

Clever

This build was specifically to test the viability of straight Hexblade. I'm not sure it's the most optimal build, but it seems viable at least.

Valor Bard Archer is an average Archer at best, but jeez you didn't even take Swift Quiver did you? What's the point of Valor Bard Archer without that spell?

It's okay in some circumstances, but Tricksy Fey darkness doesn't specify that it can't be seen through with darkvision (and Crawford has suggested that intent was for darkvision to work.) Still good when enemies lack darkvision; good for a gloomstalker, with darkvision invisibility. I believe there are also some summonable greater demons with darkness.

Hexblades can use any pact boon except astral chain

The other pact boons (especially tome) are better, I agree. But hexblade is easily the strongest warlock subclass

tl;dr: Conquest Paladin 20. Comes online at 6th level, Improves at 9th level, becomes INSANE at 18th and literally God-tier at 20th level. I'm not Chris and this is 4 months later, but the best control-dps tank build i can think of is a straight 20 level conquest paladin. Why Conquest Paladin? You're a paladin so you get the great paladin DPS/novas as well as their armor proficiency. Plate+Shield = AC 20. Conquest because Aura of Conquest, Channel Divinity: Conquering Presence, Scornful Rebuke and Invincible Conqueror and Path spells like Fear, Hold Person, Spiritual Weapon, Bestow Curse, Dominate Person and Cloudkill. Aura of Conquest causes enemies who are frightened of you to have 0 movement speed. As stated above, you have access to a few different fear options. - Wrathful Smite: single-target damage-primer/fear. Bonus action to prime your weapon. If you hit a weapon attack in the next minute, they take an extra d6 of psychic damage and more importantly, make a wis save or be frightened while you concentrate (up to 1 minute). After the initial fail, they have to make a Wis CHECK (which frightened condition gives disadvantage to), not save, to break the fear effect. Solid single-target fear effect. - Channel Divinity: Conquering Presence: Force everything you choose in 30 ft to make a Wis save or be frightened for 1 minute, repeat the save at the end of every turn. It's just straight up decent AoE fear if you decide to not use your Channel Divinity to basically guarantee a hit with Guided Strike. - Fear: THE go-to fear applicator for a Conquest Paladin after 9th level. It's a 30-ft Cone of terror. Normally, you'd just make them drop whatever they're holding and dash away. But you're a conquest paladin. As long as they're in the Aura of Conquest, they're not running anywhere and they just dropped their items and can't do anything with their action but dash uselessly and they can't repeat their save until you leave line of sight. They literally just have to watch as you or your allies kill them. You've just shut down anything not immune to fear. Nothing will break morale faster. Not to mention spells like Destructive Wave for free AoE knockdowns/damage and Holy Weapon for a guaranteed 2d8 more damage on every hit. Need more defense instead? Shield of faith on yourself instead for an unwavering AC 22 bulwark of terror. Invincible Conqueror is the capstone and oh boy, is it a doozy. Take an action to become an LIVING GOD of WAR for 1 minute. Gain resistance to all damage. Make a 3 attacks every time you take the attack action. Crit on a 19-20. There's nothing bad here. This all gets more absurd with magic items, too. As many others can confirm, there's MANY more options out there, but the Conquest Paladin is definitely my favorite. :)

Alexander Maxwell I always use custom backgrounds and roll for gold.

Well, at high levels you are mostly just using your slots for crit smiting, so the full spell list while important is some situations, wasn't the focus of the video.

You would have to take Crossbow Expert to fire multiple bolts.

@@M0ebius i am fully aware of that.

Nice! Have made an assumption of which invocations you've used, it looks like the your crossbow can deal more damage than Eldritch blast (buffed by agonizing blast). Feat choices are awesome. The only question is: Is this a pure Hexblade or a multiclass?

@@richardshelley143 pure hexblade

Though, technically the lvl 12 invocation "lifedrinker" is the last thing you actually need, aside 14th level hexblade feature. Afterwards you are able to multiclass, if you want. Fighter or ranger because of fighting style or sorcerer because of spellcasting.

Arcane Trickster is Int based, right? Wouldn’t Battle Smith Artificer be better than Warlock for that?

@@SunLovinSolaire yes arcane trickster is int based, so I wouldn't use those spells for offence, but more for utility. I don't know much about the battlesmith, but the character was basically build around mask of many faces and using eldritch smite

@@lidular fair, can never get enough Utility.

Big Big fan of your channel btw

That sounds pretty interesting; I might look into that in the morning. I know I’m this video he intentionally went single-class, but that might be a pretty nice option if you wanted to multiclass. I might look at the Eldritch Knight instead though; a couple of low-level slots for Shield/Absorb Elements, along with a Familiar and some extra cantrips are pretty juicy on a Warlock...

This is why you take shadow of moil as well.

And knocking prone is optional

@@theonlymatthew.l yeah, I think they probably didn't to avoid paladin/bard magical secret: swift quiver combo or some other shennanigans. honestly I wouldn't mind if they let smite work on ranged weapons if they gave the ranger heavy armour prof

darkness doesn't cripple the party, unless you have a barbarian or another class that relies on advantage. If you are in darkness, and do not have devils sight, the advantage from being an unseen attacker, and the disadvantage from being blinded cancel each other out

or blind sight

It's a bit circumstantial. A wizard will have a familiar they're probably using for Help-action advantage. A barbarian will want to Reckless Attack. And any melee martials will want to OA. But if, for example, you are fighting something inivisible, you might as well *all* be invisible. And many otherwise frightening bad guys are neutered without vision to anything they want to target (or to any squares to which they want to misty step!)

Darkness disables many spells because a lot spells requires sight.

It's my favorite pact and yes. Not for a Gish build though.

At 11 you get Tenser's Transformation, which is much better. Recently finished 1-12lvl campain with Bladesinger. I maxed out Dex, had very good AC(Haste,Shield,Song) and decent damage (still outclassed with flame tongue "fighters"), but at 11 damage output becomes a lot more impressive, while maintaining good AC (using BS 10lvl ability instead of Shield to maintain concentration). 13 and 14 levels give one more Transofmation per day and nice additional boost to dmg with every attack. Main problems are 1) hp pool (Before 10 i was one-shoted two times with criticals and broke concentration after 10 even with Con Save Profiency at 12) 2) hard control. At this levels there is a lot of monsters, who have Save or Lose Concentration abilities, which shut down your best Tenser's Transformation for a day.

@@ST1mAPB Not really. The ability to wear armour is useless, the Extra Attack does nothing as you already have one, and you don't get any of the benefits of Haste. Advantage on your attacks *is* good, but can be gotten easier other ways. 4d12 damage (6d12 if dual wielding) is good, but not worth the chance at gaining a level of exhaustion.

@@BlackTempleGaurdian 6d12 per round, and advantage, and 50 thp, and Str&Con Save profiency. Also it is 6 rolls for critfishing. Exhaustion is bad, but most of the time you use it for the last/most climatic battle this day. Haste don't give u advantage and with no good bonuses to damage before 14lvl your attacks is not impressive. At 5-6 levels sometimes i was actually happier with Blur/Protection from GoE, than Haste and at 7-10 Gr.Invisibility is a good choice. Haste is ridicolous only if your master is kind to you to give Flame Tongue. P.S. Also our second evocation wizard casted Haste on me sometimes in Transformation, cause he was tossing firebals most of the time.

I like the mix, though I would be likely to go Warlock first just to get things up and running beforehand. You lose 1 skill proficiency doing it that way, but I don't consider that a huge loss here.

@@TreantmonksTemple In a similar vain, thoughts on making it; 12 levels hexblade warlock, 3 levels assassin rogue, and 5 levels champion(or battle master) fighter?

That's the way I see it. It's like squeezing a wish out of an Efreeti. You better dot every i.

There are clickable links to the builds in the video description below the video for all my build guides.

Yep, next Friday. The shadow cometh...

Yes. I am very interested in shadow sorcerer

You guessed right

Drow magic does not use pact magic, so darkness doesn't reduce your smites

Alexander Maxwell By the time you maxed out Charisma and get all the combat feats the game is almost over. It’s a nice-to-have feat.

Doesn't work with Devil's Sight, unfortunately.

Nothing, they are awesome. It is just that many people overlook them, because some multiclasses or hexblade dips can be even better

I played a Warlock of the Great Old One with Minor Illusion, Misty Visions and Mask of a Thousand Faces with the Actor feat. I had lots of fun with it, the concept was that nobody knew what the actual character looked like, sounded like, or even what race/gender they were (or their actual name). Constantly morphing into different looks and personalities with his visions appearing everywhere. Pact of the chain, and the familiar was an Imp (DM allowed me to reskin into this black slimy mini octupus thing) that would always be changing forms as well. Was casting constantly. However, it was the same tricks over and over, so yeah, I get what you're saying.

Treantmonk's Temple That build sounds fun for a few sessions. Over the course of a long campaign though I don’t think I could do it.

@@M0ebius The campaign wasn't a long lasting one, it's one of those campaigns where the DM ran out of steam. I think we went from level 4 to level 8 - maybe 10 sessions.

Nicholas May How is that any different from how it reads right now?

@@M0ebius I think I was commenting on somthing else and selected the wrong post

You can cast Hex with a 5th level slot for a 24hr duration. You can cast it in your first combat of the day on a target within range. It is a bonus action to switch it from the last target that dropped to 0hp to a new target on a later turn.

I mean, Forge Cleric get you heavy armour proficiency, ability to get a +1 on a weapon or +1 AC, War or Arcane Cleric also being a possibility

I would probably take Rogue, if I could take it at first level. you get your choice from that expansive skill list, choosing the most skills allowed at first level in the game, expertise, and a d6 of sneak attack.

Shadow of Moil causes "heavy obscurement" that the caster can see through but others cannot see through. Not sure if trueseeing can see through it but devils sight won't.

Thanks for sharing this I was just trying to figure out that very thing :)