I am working on a warlock build for my next campaign and I am having trouble finding feats that would apply and boost Warlock's eldritch blast damage output. This is because Warlock is not a traditional spell caster from PHB and I am unsure which feats would apply to EB as its a ranged touch attack. What are some of my options for EB feats and at what level they would come into play?
[RPG] What are some feats that are required to maximize eldritch blast damage output
dnd-3.5eeldritch-invocationswarlock
Related Solutions
I was thinking about this too, so here's my build (added an additional Feat from your houserules):
Lvl 4 Tiefling, Archfey Tome Warlock
This build points to forgive the melee and AC options for a more focused caster. I liked your idea of an hybrid, but seems to me that it really needs to be an hexblade, going in the direction of the other classical builds around. Tiefling adds some interesting features, while allowing to reach 20 CHA on lvl 4, increasing the overall effectiveness and chance to hit of the few spells you can cast.
By Lvl 4 you have:
- Cantrips: Eldritch Blast, Minor Illusion, Vicious Mockery, Thorn Whip, Shocking Grasp, Thaumaturgy, Friends
- Lvl 1 Spells: Hex, Sleep, Faerie Fire
- Lvl 2 Spells: Hold Person, Phantasmal Force
- Hellish Rebuke 1\day (2d10)
- Fire Resistance
- Agonizing and Repelling Blast
I chose Archfey over Old One for several reasons:
- Spells: Dissonant Whispers and Tasha's seems kinda redundant to me, especially when you can get Hold Person at lvl 4. Sleep it's an excellent spell vs. low level mass enemies, it has no concentration and grows with spell slots. Faerie Fire can grant advantage to the entire party vs one or more hard targets. Both pacts have Phantasmal Force which is a great disable for low int enemies and fun to use too.
- Pact Powers: Fey Presence is an area disable which fits more the theme than Telepathy granted by Old One. At lvl6 Entropic ward is fine, but Misty Escape is simply awesome.
Invocations: I'd go to PimpMyBlast just because this is your only reliable source of damage in a lot of situations where CC or forced movement are not options - If all CCs fails, if you want to blast that minion in the backrows not worthy a spell, in long fights, ecc.. But if you like, you can forgo one of the blast invocations to get rituals, which can give you a bit more flexibility and a Familiar.
Feats: i'd really like going first at all costs with this build, so i'll take Alert. A well placed Sleep or Hold person the first round is no joke. Otherwise Moderately Armored can give you better ac with a shield, but going melee will require War Caster too to be a viable option.
Ability scores in order of importance: Max Cha, High Dex, High Con, Mid Wis, Low Int, Low Str
Role: cc\secondary caster
Playstyle: Disable high treat enemies as soon as you can. Use forced movement (Blast, Thorn Whip) to generate AO from allies and reposition enemies at your vantage. Minor Illusion to modify battlefield (covers, false gaps, ecc), Vicious Mockery to help ally, Shocking Grasp to disengage, Thaumaturgy\Friends as social tool.
Progression: At lvl5 you can get the infamous Devil's Sight + Darkness combo which can transform you into a walking nightmare of disabling madness, very hard to target. Lots of tactics here, disabling sight with plain movement is a powerful option, plus you attack with advantage; just take care of LOS of your allies. If you want more utility you can always get Rituals. Darkness is 1/day from Tiefling so you can also get a lvl 3 spell. While patron's spells are not that great, at lvl 3 you have 2 strong area disables (Fear and Hypnotic Pattern) and Counterspell, which is really useful if you are the only caster in the party.
Here is Lvl detailed progression:
lvl 1
Tiefling: +2 Cha, +1 Int, Thaumaturgy
Patron Fey: 1-turn Area disable
Spells: 0 - Eldritch Blast, Minor Illusion; 1 - Hex, Sleep
lvl 2
Invocations: Agonizing + Repelling
Spells: 1 - Faerie Fire
lvl 3
Pact of the Tome: Vicious Mockery, Thorn Whip, Shocking Grasp
Spells: 2 - Phantasmal Force
Tiefling: Hellish Rebuke 1/day
lvl 4
Spells: 0 - Friends; 2 - Hold Person
Feats: Alert (from houserule 4th lvl)
Hex Damage Applies on Each Attack
As you stated in your question, the description from Hex states:
Until the spell ends, you deal an extra 1d6 necrotic damage to the target when you hit it with an attack.
There is no limit to the number of attacks that you can apply this damage to, thus you can apply it to both attacks that you make with Eldritch Blast (or for both melee attacks if you are Pact of the Blade with the Thirsting Blade invocation)
As a reminder, on page 193 the PHB states:
Making an Attack
Whether you're striking with a melee weapon, firing a weapon at range, or making an attack roll as part of a spell, an attack has a simple structure.
And for further clarification on page 194 it states:
If there's ever any question about whether something you're doing counts as an attack, the rule is simple: if you're making an attack roll, you're making an attack.
As you are making 2 different attack rolls (one for each Eldritch Blast) these are 2 separate attacks and so you are able to add Hex damage to each of the rolls.
How the Dice Work
So from the examples that you gave in your question, assuming you hit both times:
- If you roll 19 and 19 on your attack rolls, you will deal 1d10 + 1d6 for each hit (EB damage plus Hex damage), for 2d10 + 2d6 total damage
- If you roll 19 and 20 on your attack rolls (in either order), you will deal 1d10 + 1d6 for the normal hit and 2d10 + 2d6 for the critical hit (doubling all damage dice), for 3d10 + 3d6 total damage
- If you roll 20 and 20 on your attack rolls, you will deal 2d10 + 2d6 for each hit (doubling all damage dice), for 4d10 + 4d6 total damage!
Hope that helps!
Best Answer
Strictly speaking, the single feat that amplifies the damage of eldritch blast the most is Eldritch Claws from Dragon vol. 358. That gives you a pair of claw attacks that deal damage equal to your unarmed strike + your eldritch blast, so you get to apply your eldritch blast damage twice in that situation. You can increase this by using Rapidstrike and Improved Rapidstrike from Draconomicon, which would get you four and then six attacks. Alternatively Beast Strike from Dragon vol. 355 would let your unarmed strike damage include your claw damage (which means your unarmed strikes would do unarmed strike damage + unarmed strike damage + eldritch blast damage, so doubling your unarmed strike damage). Since these are just regular unarmed strikes, you can perform a regular attack routine with them, and benefit from anything that gives bonus attacks or whatever.
A clawlock is a very specific build, though, and has some serious trade-offs—you’re melee, you’re making non-touch attacks, and so on. You need a bunch of feats just to make it work at all. It’s not compatible with eldritch essences or blast shapes. And on top of that, eldritch glaive from Dragon Magic is a blast shape, so you can take that as one invocation and get up to four attacks with eldritch blast damage, and it’s at reach and it’s a touch attack, so that starts to make Eldritch Claws look pretty poor in comparison (it is much harder to optimize eldritch glaive though, so with the enough investment Eldritch Claws is far superior).
Another sort of oblique feat that will do more to improve your eldritch blast damage more than any other is, arguably, Shape Soulmeld (strongheart vest) from Magic of Incarnum. The strongheart vest gives you “Constitution ability damage reduction” 1, that is, any Constitution damage dealt to you is reduced by 1. This is relevant because the hellfire warlock’s hellfire blast deals 1 Constitution damage to you when you use it, and hellfire blast adds up to +6d6 damage to eldritch blast (Fiendish Codex II). The rules for hellfire blast says it doesn’t work if you’re immune to Constitution damge, but strongheart vest doesn’t make you immune, it just reduces the damage by 1 (which happens to be enough to be safe with hellfire blast). RAW, it works, realistically, check with your DM first. (If it doesn’t, the other solution is to dip a level of binder from Tome of Magic for Naberius, who gives you ability damage fast healing to heal the damage up immediately.)
For more direct feat-based improvements to eldritch blast damage, Quicken Spell-like Ability (Monster Manual) and Maximize Spell-like Ability (Complete Arcane) are both potent, but limited in usage, since each can only be used 3 times per day. Note that eldritch blast counts as a 1st-level spell, per the Complete Arcane errata, which allows you to take these at the earliest-possible level.
For more direct “add some damage to your eldritch blast” effects, remember that as a “weapon-like spell,” you can use various options for ranged attacks. Your best single-feat option is Mortalbane from Book of Vile Darkness, which will add +2d6 damage to your eldritch blast 5 times per day. It doesn’t work on Constructs, Outsiders, or Undead, but still, that’s a lot of potential targets.
But with three feats (which is a ton but nonetheless), you could take Martial Study (something from Shadow Hand), Martial Stance (assassin’s stance), and Craven. Martial Study and Martial Stance are from Tome of Battle and allow you to pick up the maneuvers from that book without having levels in those classes, and assassin’s stance gives you +2d6 sneak attack damage. No 5/day limitation like Mortalbane, but the targeting restrictions are worse and you have to deny the target Dex to AC somehow, which is a pain. Craven is from Champions of Ruin, and adds your character level in extra damage to sneak attack, so your +2d6 becomes +2d6+level, which is pretty good. However, Craven has a massive drawback in that you are not allow fear immunity while using the feat, which also precludes mind-affecting immunity. At low-to-mid levels, it doesn’t matter since you can’t get those things anyway, but at mid-to-high levels they become available and then near-mandatory, which makes Craven very painful at that point. Still, there are some levels at which assassin’s stance and Craven are going to be the largest damage boost you can find.
Beyond that, the only other feats that are decent sources of direct improvements to eldritch blast damage are Psionic Shot and Greater Psionic Shot from Expanded Psionics Handbook (or here). Those will add +2d6 or +4d6 damage, respectively, but you need to be psionic (which might require the Wild Talent feat), and then you can only do it once per encounter, effectively, unless you take Psionic Meditation (which painfully requires Wis 13).