"A lot of DMs handwave somatic components." I see what you did there :)

Another reason to go with a strength hexadin is that the hex spell can potentially help you grapple on top of potentially dealing more damage, and the duration is really nice for conserving spell slots

I really like the Hexadin because of how absolutely free the character is at 7th or 8th level. Once you hit level 7 (or 8, if you wanted Invocations), the world is your oyster. Snag those 2 Paladin levels for ASI, Commit fully to Paladin or Warlock, pick up Sorcerer or some triple synergy, pick up Bard for offbrand synergy(?), go Fighter to hit stuff good, Rogue to do silly magic stealth tank garbage, have that Wisdom pumped to go Ranger to be a Gloomstalker ninja paladin, pump Intelligence to build your Hexa-Iron Man suit, or just grab something ridiculous for the campaign. The basic platform of Hexadin is so self sufficient, that you can do really neat stuff off of it, and it's loosely optimized enough to contribute to optimized parties, yet not overshadow unoptimized parties.

One minor 'combo' that you recommended but didn't point out is that at low levels you can use command to make them approach, then polearm master to attack them when they get in reach, which is great when someone is too far away to actually hit on a turn, but you can move close enough that they can move up to you.

I play a "Belmont-like" character using Hexblade / Oath of the Watchers that uses a chain whip as her primary weapon. It's awesome to play and was one of the best whip builds I could think of. The DM authorize me to change the damage type of my chain whip to bludgeoning and I am now able to use the crusher feet with great enjoyment.

Thanks for doing what you do. I remember creating a Dwarven Zen Archer Monk in Pathfinder based off one of your guides, many years ago! Keep up the awesome work!

A good way around the warcaster is to use arcane focus quarterstaff. It won't be piercing but it is a arcane focus and you can cast through it and your divine focus can be a amulet and what not.You'll be doing the same amount of damage and still be able to use the bonus action attack.

YEEEEES perfect timing! I've got a session zero for a game I'm going to hexadin for in 5 hours and I'm gonna be strapped. Ty for all the insights

You are a gift to the community, keep up the good work!

If you don't care too much for hexblade (like I do), but you do like combining warlock and paladin. I like a combination of undead warlock (minimum of 1 but the levels 6 feature works nicely as well) and conquest paladin (minimum of 3, but getting the lvl 7 aura works nicely).

Thanks for all your paladin videos in the past few months! You made quite a few mentions of multiclassing the paladin with bard throughout this video and - while we’ve gotten your take all the different permutations of warlock, sorcerer, and paladin - we haven’t been lucky enough to see how you would multiclass a bard/paladin. I know you have a lot of videos planned and probably don’t need more suggestions to add to your plate, but I would love to see what your brain could come up with pairing these two. Glamour’s Mantle of Inspiration could really serve a lot of the same purposes as misty step (and pairs *beautifully* with Find Steed), for instance.

I love that you’re updating all these builds.

This video came at a good time for me. I am planning on playing a Radiant Consumption Aasimar with some planned levels in Celestial Warlock 10/Divine Soul Sorcerer 8/Paladin 2. The build alongside war caster, polearm master, and sentinel let you double smite booming blade as both a regular attack an on opportunity attacks, and enemies caught in your area of influence take constant persistent damage from radiant consumption, cloud of flies, and spirit guardians, which gets buffed by the celestial warlock's level 6 feature. All 3 classes/subclasses also have a lot of innate healing so you can stay alive easily since you dont need your action to attack really due to how often you can use your reaction to do so. Lots of utility, survivability, and damage. Never underestimate quickened spell hold person into green flame blade double smite. With thirsting blade you would still get two attacks in per turn as well, and agonizing blast gives you consistent ranged dps, especially when you transmute an eldritch blast into radiant or fire to add double charisma damage to each hit you make.

Thank you for the basic hexadin layout! I’m running this tomorrow for our new campaign. Only difference is choosing Oath of Vengeance (rolled some great stats, so dex/initiative is not a problem). Can’t wait to play, first time paladin!

Been waiting for this one. Excited to see how it goes.

Super stoked to see this. My favorite PC is a Conquest 18/Hexblade 2. Super tanky, control/support with a shield, defensive fighting style, repelling blast, War Caster, and Inspiring Leader who flies an (alpha) peryton. Loses some efficiency, but God what a fun character.

One of my Higher level build preferences is to Hexblade 5 so you can also deliver an Eldritch Smite, get Improved pact weapon, and a Utility Invocation. You also can upsize your Polearm and then go with GWM for higher Melee damage. I generally Start Pally 1, then take 1 in warlock, go 7 more levels in Pally, then 4 more levels of Warlock, and Finish with Pally

I love the Aasimar on this build mostly because if you go with protector/Radiant Soul you get that extra mobility of flight at a lower level. I also love how good it gets just going up the levels but the point of getting to choose where the character goes at level 7 (in option 3) is particularly party composition friendly.

My favorite Hexadin build is Oathbreaker Paladin to 7 for aura of hate, and then Hexblade Warlock all the way to 13 for all the juicy warlock invocations and higher level spellcasting. If you combine summon spells such as Summon Undead and eventually Summon Fiend with your aura of hate, they can put out quite a nice bit of damage and of course you eventually get access to Lifedrinker which essentially means all your attacks are adding three times your CHA to the damage rolls. A normal spear attack at 20th level would be doing 1d6+15 damage and maintain the bonus to hit wihtout any pump spells.

Hilarious as I was literally looking at a fighter/warlock or a paladin/warlock for an upcoming campaign. (Warlock being the prime class though). Still might take ideas/concepts from this build!

Doesn't the Watcher Oath directly contradict a Warlock class dip? Doesn't it directly break the Loyalty oath: "Never accept gifts or favors from fiends or those who truck with them. Stay true to your order, your comrades, and your duty". Not all Hexblade patrons are fiends but they often aren't good or with good intent. You can always reflavor that stuff but i think it's worth taking into account as Oaths and following them has always been a core theme with the Paladin

I think the extra level in warlock provides so much more versatility and damage due to invocations and 2nd level spell slots that the extra ASI at level 20 isn't relevant enough

I had no idea Polearm Master had been erratad to include spears. Neat.

Awesome video as always bud. I'd love to see an effective Gentleman Thief build. One who steal via stealth or words, BN thinking about it a lot for my next play through.

I don't handwave somatic components, but I let spellcasters add _more_ components to a spell than is required. This means if a character has no hands free but is wielding something they can use as a spellcasting focus, they can add an M component to the spell and replace it with the focus, so can perform the S component with the hand holding the focus. Adding extra components doesn't really do much outside that, but if someone wants to speak a verbal incantation when they cast Minor Illusion that won't make the spell any less effective, and if a character wants to stretch a spell beyond its normal limits for story purposes, increasing the casting time and adding a consumed costly material component helps the DM fiat feel justified.

My preferred Hexadin is Oath of Conquest so you can channel divinity to freeze all the baddies within 10 feet of you in place and just wail on them. I like going to 5/6 level hexblade so you can get Counterspell and improved smite and the hadar invocation to pull enemies closer.

Be cautious when using the Abjure the Extraplanar Channel Divinity while on the mount provided by either the Find Steed or Find Greater Steed spell.

I'm a little surprised at the suggestion at the start of the video of starting warlock and using medium armour? Saying that's "easier" on ability scores? You still need 13 STR to multiclass into Paladin. 13 STR to multiclass and 14 DEX for medium armour is 5 points for the STR, and 7 points for the DEX (12 total). By comparison 15 STR is 9 points of pointbuy. Only needing one stat is just a lot easier on the ability scores.

I love the build. The invocations for Warlock level 2 can skyrocket Eldritch Blast ranged damage and several invocations can be very fun. Level 3 and Pack of the Blade is fun thematically and both pact slots being level 2 is pretty good. Not at the cost of Pali levels early game. Fun build : Level 1 Pali, Level 2 Hexblade one, Level 3 Pali two (smite and style), Level 4 Sorc 1. Every level afterwards goes Sorc (natural progression) unless story wise there is a reason to take an Oath or your Hex patron temps you in game.

I've tried Hexadins out in a few one shots and really enjoyed them. It might not be optimal, but I do like to get up to Hex 3 for the invocations and extra spells, but also Blade Pact so I can use a greatsword or glaive with Charisma.

Playing an oathbreaker/hexblade tiefling and it's awesome! Double charisma stacking due to aura of hate and the hexblade and i've got a +10 base damage at 20 CHA, with duelist and the hexcurse i can reach +16 dmg before any dice is rolled. For defence, 20+ AC (25 with shield spell) and Darkness paired with devil's sight to give advantage to my attacks and disadvantage to enemies so i can go critfishing for some good smite. The perfect Black Knight....also raising undeads time to time just for the taste.

I am playing a Hexblad 5 Paladin 2 and then I will go the rest of the campaign picking up sorcerer levels. That way I can have lots of spells both for control or smites. That way you can do tons of damage and an excellent support caster.

One more option for hexadin is to take the Fey Touched Feat. Can give an extra charisma point, plus it gives misty step, and one extra spell/cantrip. Combine that with polearm master and sentinel and you have a heavy damage dealer that can just jump around the battlefield out of arms length. All but impossible to hit with a melee attack, and hard to keep away from.

Im playing a Hexadin and even though I’m still level 3 my plan is to use elven accuracy and hex blades curse with divine smite and eldritch smite to make things go boom. Practical? Not often. But is it fun to roll way to many dice? YES

Not truly a hexadin but I'm partial to a 1 warlock/2 paladin/14 Swords bard, if we're building to L20 (not that many campaigns get that far) the other 3 levels are up to you but the versatility offered by the higher bard slots and the flourishes, I quite enjoy. Got to play this in a L20 dungeon crawl through the dead body of a god baby filled with high level monsters and had a blast.

Armor of Agathys in the only spell you're unable to cast with spear and sheild in hand once you've taken War Caster. Like another commenter mentioned, I'd recommend using a staff (quarterstaff) over a spear until you reach level 13 and get War Caster. It's a focus and it has the same damage and uses, minus the thrown property (which I doubt will come into play much) and bludgeoning damage under piecing.

with this build having so many attacks i love going oathbreaker for the extra damage from the aura, especially with a 2 lvl fighter dip

The Bursting strike: Bounus action :Eldritch smite + Divine smite + Green Flame Blade with quickened spell + branding smite. Action 1-2 Branding smite/ 1 action with green flame blade and Branding smite. Then rinse and repeat

Trying to plan out my Baldur's Gate 3 character and this is helpful! So far we know that the max level is 12 and the pact of the blade is getting the charisma attack bonus (no hexblade subclass) so was thinking an even 6/6 split but would need at least 3 warlock levels for pact of the blade. 8/4 might be better though just for the stat improvements

If you don't already have one I think a video on what spells paladins can share with their mounts is a topic worth discussing. I haven't found anyone who talks about it and the spells you share with your mount can drastically change your gameplay, in fact I've made a build centered around this where the mount alone can actually stay above baseline most of the game.

i really like the level 5 and 6 paladin levels, and im a fan of getting them as soon as possible. because of that i like to start with 16 strength and charisma (vuman). then go polearm master and war caster because i do play at tables that care about free hands for spells lol. my favorite hexadin ive played went 7 levels oathbreaker paladin then 1 hexblade, then back to paladin. i didnt get my first charisma boost till paladin 8, which meant i wasnt pressured to take hexblade any sooner to boost my primary wrapon stat.

The problem with Green-Flame blade is not only an extra attack. But you can’t use your PAM bonus action attack after you cast a spell RAW. So this is another problem like casting eldritch blast with spear + shield.

I think 3 levels of Warlock will be better damage. 3 warlock allows you to take the pact of the blade so can use the heavy polearms and thus take GWM. It's not even an extra feat since we can drop war caster for GWM and pickup Eldritch Mind as an invocation if we're worried about concentration. You can combine an elvish race for elven accuracy with the vengeance paladin's vow of emnity to compensate for the -5 to hit. If you have vow of emnity and hexblade's curse up at the same time against the same target, they are completely screwed. You also get 2nd level pact magic slots which makes it so you can use those for divine smite more liberally.

A great way to get around the str requirement for plate is to try and pick up mithril plate. Granted, you don’t get the up to +3 bonus from normal magical plate, but on the flip side you also don’t suffer disadvantage on stealth rolls, which is great if you’re in a group that tries to optimize around surprise.

"A lot of DMs hand-wave somatic components" ...ironic

I played a hexadin a while back and it was some of the most fun i've ever had playing this game! For my race i picked half-elf and picked up elven accuracy at level 5. Combine that with the expaned crit range from hexblade's curse and the advantage i got from the vencence paladin meant that i crit more often than not! I know that crit fishing isn't really optimal but it's really fun!

I think the Strixhaven Backgrounds and the GuildMasters Guide to Ravnica Backgrounds add extra versatile from extra spell options.

Watchers is a good because of the 7th lvl aura (counterspell is always nice too) but if you have a nice DM that will get you access to Sentinel Shield or Weapon of Warning then you could go a different Oath. My DM is awesome for these, because they're uncommon items he gives me a choice of possibly finding a different rare item as I level up, or enhancing the current items I have (so Sentinel Shield could add a +1 to AC or Weapon of Warning could add +1 to attack and dmg on top of what they already do) and when reaching higher lvls he gives opportunity again to enhance them further to match say a very rare item equivalent.

I'm a 2/1 hexadin in my new campaign. The plan was full paladin but I had a roll that led to a magic weapon that is cursed (sword of veneagence). I'm sticking paladin the rest of the way, unless the DM decides my actions are my attuned to the sword and then it is a hexblade level instead. It isn't for everyone, but it has really upped the immersion for me. And the first time I fail the curse DC I imagine the party will get a surprise 😂

I would like to see how you would do a Shepherd Druid now with the new summoning spells. Love the channel. I've been a long time subscriber!

For Shield and Absorb Elements, I would allow if hands are full and a shield was actually being held. Flavor wise it makes sense

I started my character at hex 2, and was really tempted to go full paladin after, but Pact of the blade is too tempting and lets me ignore eldritch blast until level 11. The only multiclass I've been considering recently is bard for just 1 level at character level 4, which gives me 4 huge benefits: 2 1st level spell slots a day to justify using shield spell, 2 extra cantrips to support my out of combat utility (including booming blade), 4 extra spells known for support and utility, and 4 uses of bardic inspiration. I feel like that's a lot of bang for your buck for a single level dip on an otherwise pure hexblade build. Any multiclass is a tough pill to swallow though.

FYI: When you do your 2nd level dip into warlock, if you buy a staff arcane focus at the next town (common/starting equipment 5gp) you can use that as your primary weapon instead of spear and that gets around the juggling required for casting, is treated like a quarterstaff in combat (which works with the pole arm mastery feat). Spell casting Components (p203 of PHB): Material components "A Character can use a component pouch or SPELLCASTING FOCUS (see Chapter 5) in place of the components for a specified spell ... A spellcaster must have a hand free to access these components but it CAN BE THE SAME HAND that he or she uses TO PERFORM SOMATIC components" Under warlock Spellcasting ability: (p107 of PHB) "You can use a spellcasting focus (found in chapter 5) for your warlock spells Ch5. Adventuring Gear. Under Arcane Focuses: Crystal, orb, rod, STAFF, wand. Staffs as quarterstaff in combat. Dungeon Masters Guide P140 "Unless a staff's description says otherwise, a staff can be used as a quarterstaff" Polearm master feat specifies "Attacking with a glaive, halberd or quarterstaff" QED: At level 2 if you buy an staff arcane focus, you can wield it as a quartstaff dealing 1D6 blunt damage, enabling your polearm master feat. you can make it your hex weapon, you can wield it and your shield and cast warlock spells without needing to use your free action to drop & pick up weapons. Thus enabling casing Shield on reaction. As well as using your Charisma modifier for the to hit and damage bonuses.

It should be noted that while war caster does apply here, since the build wields a weapon, it would not work with, for instance, a wizard with two wands, since the wands would not be considered weapons or shields.

My take on full hands casting is that if one of those things is a potential focus (Shield with an emblem for cleric/paladin, Staff for arcane casters or druid) it works. yes, I know foci are supposed to replace material components and not be usable for spells that don't require them, but I don't care.

My ideal build was 6 levels Paladin, 14 levels warlock. High level magic plus most of the main benefits of paladin at level 20 with great power scaling. 1 level Paladin, 6 levels of Warlock. 5 levels of Paladin. The rest in Warlock. You become super powerful at level 2 and even more so at level 3. The spells and such you end up being able to cast keep you powerful and you don't have to share spell slots with Hex. Eldritch blast keeps your damage up no matter what but pushing things into smites makes you super dangerous at most ranges.

Here is something I did in my current campaign, I'm actually a 5th level sorlock but it could work with hexadin, Bonus action: Wrathful Smite, Action: Booming Blade, (big) IF you hit and IF the enemy fails a wis save, but it's a dice game, you should be used to that. Summing up potential damage assuming you hit and the enemy failed the saving throw: 1d8 weapon damage (longsword) 1d8 thunder damage (booming blade) 1d6 psychic damage (wrathful smite) then on the enemy's turn it has to flee, activating the booming blade for extra 2d8 damage + you might want to spend your reaction for OA So it is up to 5d8 + 1d6 in one turn + one opponent being controlled with fear spending one first level spell and one cantrip, you might get better results with extra attack + smite or at least more reliable damage but I think this 2 spells have a great synergy and I think the effect is fun

One of my favorite characters I've played was an aasimar Hexblade who was convinced she was a Paladin cause of the talking sword she pulled out of her temples vault. Wonderfully naive but good hearted girl. Eventually did reroll to Hexadin though.

A comment in regards of 12:00 - green flame blade. I think RAW if you use the cantrip then you’re not using a melee attack, hence you should not be able to use the bonus action of polearm master. It’s the same principle of not being able to use as OA green flame blade since it’s a spell attack until you get warmaster!

Love that we finally got the Hexadin Build from you. Under what circumstances would you consider going for Warlock 3 or 4 to pick up Pact Blade and go to town with a Glaive and Great Weapon Master? Or would you rather not postpone Paladin levels any longer? Anyways, great video!

I had and idea for a hexadin. was a pureblood yuan ti (magic resist and cool backstory) that found a weapon that keeps pressing him to be a good person. A devotion/celestial combo. imagine your character learning how to be a good person from their weapon

Ruby of the war mage slapped on the end of that spear helps until you get war caster. I'm also a stickler for that rule.

I built a Hexadin around a Vorpal Great Sword. Back when any character could have Legendary Items, I managed to trade my way to a Vorpal Greatsword on a level 5 Hexadin. Paladin 2, Hexblade 17, then last level in Paladin. Went a half elf for Charisma, and Elven accuracy. Being able to use of an accuracy with a Vorpal Greatsword and easy ways warlocks get advantage led to slaughter.

You can get away with a 13 in STR if you use a Dwarf as your race. Their speed is not affected by wearing heavy armor. You would still need the 13 to multiclass out of Paladin still though.

Another use of Lay on Hands, but especially at lower amounts of Paladin levels, is to heal people at 0hp by one point. Specifically, using this on a party member that is after you in initiative, but before any other enemies, is a way you can spend one of your actions to grant one to them. Obviously, things like Healing Word and other bonus action options are usually tactically better, but sometimes you just *really* need the Wizard or Cleric to cast a particular spell or something. My Paladins usually save 3-5 points of their Lay on Hands for this purpose, and reserve the rest as a high-value immediate heal.

I was going to go a Hexadin with more levels in Hexblade so I could stack Divine and Eldritch smites but decided to go full Hexblade with Polearm master for my DM's sanity since he might have had to rework some bosses just to account for me

Was thinking of this, without 15 str, using steed. Just a rough level 1.

Nice!

Not that big of a deal, but isn't green flame blade almost useless with polearm master because green flame blade doesn't use the attack action and trigger polearm master. Not that there better options for combat, but a utility cantrip could be nice.

What is your take on going Wood Half Elf for a hexadin? the 35 ft movement would afford us to go 13 strength and still end up at the dwarven 25ft of movement wearing plate, and also we would be able to pick up Elven Accuracy to fish more effectively for crit smites.

If you take 3 levels of hexblad you can take Improved Pact Weapon, allowing you to use your pact weapon as a spell casting focus, removing the need for using a feat for warcaster

I think elf or half elf is pretty good too for the elven accuracy

hi! is it possible to grab warcaster after polearm master and then grap the crusher feat? my idea is to attack with the spear as an action, then use the bonus action to attack with the butt of the spear. since this damage is bludgeoning, it would trigger crusher and the foe would be pushed 5 feet. if it triggered the opportunity attack, then you'd reaction cast booming blade.

Polearm bonus and reaction probably should be hex weapon too

I've done the reverse, two levels of Paladin and then straight Warlock Hexblade. I probably would have returned to Pally if the campaign had lasted past level 9.

What i've noticed with alot of optimal parties facing a DM who wants to challenge them, the aura of protection typically only benefits the paladin as an optimal party typically plays at range and scatters after the start of the fight. what happens is when they stick to the paladin is the DM is incentivized to use an aoe effect and even if they save they typically take half dmg. or worse if they fail the save and it's some sort of debuff or control effect. if the party members are not clumped together, then only 1 party member has to roll a save (preferably the paladin) and the others don't have to roll saves and take half-dmg. so imo, the value of aura of protection isn't as good in optimal parties. except of course if the paladin is L18. the watcher's aura however is indeed very good and imo why the watcher is a top 4 paladin subclass and is the best aura the paladin has. it's perfectly advantageous to start off clumped around the paladin for the initiative boost then disperse. in practice this aura feels like adding an extra turn or 2 at least to your party as it's not always the case that the whole party's initiative rolls are higher than all the enemies. going ahead of enemies means you can burst them down or control them before they do anything harmful to the party. personally, i'd rarely use heavy armor. i'd rather tradeoff that +1 ac for a +2 to initiative and dex saves (half-plate + 14 dex).

"A lot of DMs hand-wave somatic components." How did this joke just slip out and go unnoticed?

Planning on a hexadin in our next campain in a few month. We run strict components, so War caster is a must (wich then again really nicely works with Melle cantriups at least) ANother quirk of the hexadin: VarHuman/CustomLineage Hexadin cant take War Caster at level 1 becasue they get spells at level 2...

I think straight 6 Paladin is better; I don't think delaying extra attack/aura of Protection is worth the +1 to hit/damage (and even +2 after level 4) especially if you aren't going GWM. You may also have access to str increasing items at that point which would let you go straight Paladin instead.

Hey @Treantmonk's Temple What would be best build/class to play a campain where the rule is to build character in a New beyond account with no source books added other than whats free

I feel like the optimizer community really should just set up like 10-15 tables of people running against a few standard neutral bosses recording dpr per turn to get an average of the actual dpr for builds. Like the base classes first and then common multi-class builds next. It should be roughly a bell curve and it could probably be done in like a few hours on discord each time it was scheduled.

Quest log updated: Hexadin video complete! 😉

Can you do a Genie Warlock build with multiclassing potentially to try and optimize it?

I feel like it wouldn’t be terrible to take Variant Human with 16 Str 16 Cha instead of 15/17, and starting Straight Paladin for 8 levels. PAM at 1, Warcaster at 4, meaning 8 is your first ASI, so the time you’ll get up to a +4 Cha bonus. Level 9 would be Hexblade. That gets the feats and good defensive and utility Paladin features ASAP, and a +4 mainstat bonus for attack rolls isn’t necessarily any later than a different class order with the same feat picks. I think if I were taking hexblade early, I’d probably want to start with a half-feat and Custom Lineage for 18 Cha from the start. If it was only a +3 Cha bonus, I just don’t know that there’s a high enough gain over a non-hexblade Paladin. That said, you do get Hex, and that’s solid damage at low levels, so a benefit to any early Lock level… hrm… ++edit++ Half-feat early instead of Warcaster also justifies early Hexblade, too…

I had a question about the shield spell somatic components interaction you mentioned. I recall that a holy symbol could be on a shield and count as a casting focus? Wouldn't that allow the paladin to cast the spell while their hands were full? I thought this was a unique aspect of the Holy Symbol as a focus that applied to paladins and clerics who often have shields consuming one hand. Failing that couldn't they use a staff as a focus with polearm master. I am probably getting my rules mixed up but I thought either of those options allowed for the use of somatic components in this case. Cheers!

Their is a uncommon magic item call ruby of the war mage that make ur weopon counted as an arcana Focus witch mean if it's don't have a cost u can cast the spells and more importantly. Since the weapon is now an arcan focus u can us it to make The somatic component for your spells

I think I went 3 levels hexblade for great weapons but I like the build. Side note: do you have a paladin/bard guide?

Hi so I'm currently playing a hexadin who already has a 20 charisma and inspiring leader, do you reccomend any other feats besides War Caster that would be good for them? For reference I am using medium armor and wield a double-bladed scimitar. Thanks!

Not sure how option 2 is easier on the ability scores. You need 13 STR and 13 CHA to multiclass into or out of Paladin. So if you're dexterity based, you need 13 STR, 14 DEX, 14 CON, and 16+ CHA. Option 2 seems to make it more MAD than before.

What would you prefer at a table that doesn't allow custom lineage - variant human for the feat or half-elf for the stats?

I was Just thinking of Hexadin these days. How much viable Is an oathbreaker with Lance and mounted combatant with 2 hexblade levels?

I always consided war caster to be obligatory for hexadins, for the Shield spell (not otherwise castable with weapon & shield, & yeah the tables I play at are strict about somitics for Shield at least), opportunity attack booming or green flame blade, and advantage on concentration vs. Damage. My tables also generally don't allow custom lineage. Between that and needing to take warcaster asap, hexadins ime are extremely asi starved for most of their career, falling behind both pure paladins and pure hexblades in dpr due to postponing either or both of attack stats & weapon feats. Still very strong characters, but yeah, noticeable tradeoffs.

I wouldn't give away my bonus action attack for a Green flame blade damage to a 2nd target. Better just attack it with your stick :)

instead of warcaster you can go 3 level hexblade and get improve pact weapon

what about adding another class like fighter, specifically echo knight to lv 3

Probability crit with hexblades curse is 10% BTW. I notice you used the additional damage from it but not the additional crit in your dpr calculation. Also that goes up to 19% with advantage

but what about the Optimal Hexorcadin: A multiclass of 1 Warlock (for Hex Warrior), 3 Sorcerer (for Metamagic options), and 16 Paladin? ;)

How do you feel about a 15 in Con to start, with a +1 from Resilient feat, ending with a 16?

Why go with a spear rather than glaive or some other? +2 AC with shield is nice, but if you can cast shield and have heavy seems the d10 would be preferred. Something else I’m missing?

why not go 3 hexblade and take pact of the blade, so you have access to reach heavy weapon as your pact weapon. Meaning you do have a free hand during combat to cast shield (without needing warcaster) since heavy require 2 hand when you WIELD them, so when you do the attack, during other turns you can hold it with only one hand.