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Playstyle: Eldritch Blast with the action and attack multiple times with an offhand weapon.
This was a fun playstyle that I used for my first Tav in April 2024, Tav Starbright, and it occurred to me that there's an underlying archetype that can be used for several builds.
My Tav mostly used dual hand crossbows, with the Knife of the Undermountain King and The Baneful.
Because we're attacking with the off hand, need to bind a main weapon and then switch them.
Build Concept
Classically, it's 4/4/4 Champion, Thief, and Warlock for three Feats, or 5 Warlock for level 3 spells.
Built as:
- 1-2 - Warlock 1-2 to get EB working with extra damage
- 3 - Fighter 1 to get extra damage (still str/dex) on the offhand
- 4-6 - Rogue 1-3 to get a second offhand attack
- 7-8 - Warlock 3-4 to get Charisma scaling on the offhand and a first feat
- 9 - Rogue 4 for a feat
- 10-12 - Fighter 2-4 to round it out
Respec when you get the Ring of Arcane Synergy because you want Charisma on top.
- start with Rogue if you want expertise
- start with Fighter if you want Heavy Armour
- Warlock always third.
Core Build Components
- Eldritch Blast, naturally, which can come from Warlock or Spell Sniper
- Fast Hands, for extra offhand attack. Turns out that these three levels of Rogue are the only mandatory levels in the build.
- Two-Weapon Fighting, most easily from Fighter or Gloves of the Balanced Hands. Also available with two levels of Ranger or three levels of College of Swords Bard.
Semi-optional components:
- Ring of Arcane Synergy is perfect for this playstyle, adding to mêlée damage after a cantrip.
- Dual Wielder feat if you've got non-light non-heavy weaponry in mind
- Knife of the Undermountain King increases Critical Hit chance for EB too!
- Diadem of Arcane Synergy is useful if binding a condition-inflicting weapon like The Baneful
Comprehensive Multiclassing Guide
Often requires respeccing at somepoint to ensure that Charisma is the spellcasting attribute of the most recent class. Especially if you want parts of it to come 'online' earlier and to enable RP dialogue options.
Although martial classes and Pact of the Blade offer Extra Attack, we don't need it for this playstyle. Also, many obvious class features only proc off of an attack or action, rather than being useful bonus actions.
Base build components
Warlock 0-3 levels
- 3 levels for Pact of the Blade
- 2 levels for Agonising Blast
- 1 level for Eldritch Blast
- 0 levels if getting EB from the Spell Sniper feat.
Spell Sniper could be worth taking regardless because it increases critical hit chance, which means 27% chance of at least one EB beam critting each turn by character level 10.
Fighter 0-2 levels
- 2 levels for the famous Action Surge
- 1 level for the requisite fighting style
- 0 levels if using the Gloves of the Balanced Hands
Rogue 3 levels
- 3 levels to get the extra bonus action from Thief
Obviously, a fourth level gets you another feat, but at its core these leave 4-9 levels for the multiclass.
Barbarian
Not much reason to go for this, except for RP reasons. Can't blast when raging, so one option is to use up rage charges and then switch modes. The otherwise useful Reckless Attack requires an attack action, and doesn't work with offhand.
Bard
Although the College of Swords is one source of Two-Weapon Fighting, all of those fancy flourishes require an attack action and don't work with offhand. So, let's go with College of Lore.
6 Bard for Magical Secrets, 3 Rogue, 2 Warlock, 1 Fighter. Could go 4 Rogue for a feat if using the gloves.
Stats: Cha, Dex, Con.
Built as:
- 1-2 - Warlock 1-2 to get EB working with extra damage
- 3-5 - Rogue 1-3 to get a second offhand attack
- 6-11 - Bard 1-6
- 12 - Rogue 4 for a feat
Only need to respec if you get the gloves before 6.
Cleric
Druid
Fighter
If you're going Fighter you're here for the feats and might as well double down on crits.
Built as:
- 1-4 - Fighter 1-4, Two-Weapon Fighting, Champion, Spell Sniper.
- 5-8 - Rogue 1-4
- 9-12 – Fighter 5-8 for two feats
We lose Agonising blast by not having 2 levels in Warlock, and if we take EB via a feat it'll scale off of our current (?) spellcasting ability, which is 100% Int here. Arcane Synergy will also add current spellcasting modifier to weapon damage.
Gear:
- Knife of the Undermountain King (Act 1.5 Crêche)
- Deadshot (Act 3 Fitz)
That gear, plus Champion and Spell Sniper, mean that EB will crit on 16-20 and the offhand attack will crit on 17-20.
- 73% chance of at least one critical hit per turn