Where does the 5e hexblade fall compared to other versatile heavy hitters like Lore/Valor bards, Divination/Lore Master wizards, Avatar mystics, and revised rangers with Sharpshooter?
Can a hexblade's ranged damage output alone compete against Sharpshooters?
Underpar in every single aspect in comparison to them.
They do a bit more burst damage than valor bards, but 2 spell slots isn't worth it.
Then why does /5eg/ love them so much and consider them overpowered?
Because they are multiclassing.
Because they're really anime, by virtue of being warlocks they're nowhere near underpowered. Saying /5eg/ loves something means nothing because it's not a hivemind. People are just wrong.
How does a hexblade 2/paladin 4 or a hexblade 3/paladin 3 compare to a GWM paladin 6?
Because /5eg/ is mechanically illiterate. They have been since the game's release, they still are.
Can someone back up claims with some math?
Because I called bullshit
This. While valor bards are going to do more dps the Hexblade fits most of the anime tropes that a lot of people love. Go pact of chain to get a notKyuubi with magical girl mage armor at will and a bonded weapon, go pact of blade and get a shapeshifting weapon that can become up to +3 with invocations and can become almost any weapon you want and you retain proficiency in it, go tomelock and now you can ritual cast/extra cantrip for support and get some Cardcaptor Sakura powers down the line.
Also this /5eg/ bitches about them because technically they're not broken in themselves, they're a moderately good dip class and make melee burst DPS Coffelocks insane between pact of blade or tome. Go Divine Soul for cleric spells or Storm Sorcerer for extra damage on thunder/lightning and burst with booming blade+thundering smite+eldritch smite+hexblade curse. It's situational sure and while other classes have reliable dps it comes down to the versatility of the combinations. Revised Rangers are good but they're not going to get a lot of spells and good healing, avatar mystics are as their name implies Avatar the last airbender but they can run out of PP and their ranged options are predictable and easily counterable by a GM who isn't playing braindead mooks. Hexblades open up a can of worms because you can be the ultimate gish with the right build going heavy dps, or moderate DPS plus heals/buffs, metamagic, and the ability to cheese spell points/warlock slots to the point that you'll never really run out of spells. Of course that's just the basic UA material and 1PP stuff, don't even get them started on the homebrew stuff that's circulated around via Reddit dumps, Critical Role, etc.
Badly. You still dont have multiattack. with the paladin lvl 5 things look up. Depending on how retarded you are to be inclined to use darkness and go crit fishing it actually works well, also helps a bit with MAD and gives you a bit more options when you run out of smites.(namely eldritch blast)
in any case, i playing a Paladin lvl 8 with GWM simply because i like two handers. but if you are looking for optimal shit and stuff, Most damage from paladin comes from smite so its more important to hit. Try PAM instead so you can smite more in one turn.
They can get it at level 5, when most classes get extra attack, but as an invocation that requires them to take pact of the blade. However pact of the blade got a buff in the new errata because if you're a pactblade hexblade then you can make any weapon (including the originally banned two-handed weapons so hello greatswords, longbows, and battleaxes) your bonded type, hit&damage with charisma, and make them magical as in +1 to +3. Invocations can make or break them but it also allows a wimpy 8STR character to wield/use a greatsword like a 18-20 STR paladin by sheer charisma of being a magical girl/boy.
Only up to +1. They removed the +2 and +3 invocations.
Just read it properly. i'm answering user's multiclass question. But you bring something important that i didnt told him. If he really wants to go Hexblade/Paladin and use a two handed weapon, he will need hexblade lvl 3, which will delay his second attack by one more lvl, and at this points, is probably worth to pick up a 4th level to get a feat later.
>anime
I thought that /5eg/ was so staunchly anti-anime that they have a janitor on their side who deletes any anime OP pics?
What about hexblade 2/paladin 6 or hexblade 3/paladin 5 vs. paladin 8 with PAM?
I thought that /5eg/ kept on saying that warlock/paladins were overpowered because of smites even if short rests were 1 hour long.
>Saying /5eg/ loves something means nothing because it's not a hivemind.
Hexblade/Paladin is way better. The pure paladin will have a better nova if the hexblade dont crit but that is it. at this point, you are only losing 1 smite, you get cantrips, spell slots on short rest, use charisma on attacks, its just too good. A paladin lvl 9 would secure a better nova in exchange for all the versatility that 2-3 warlock lvls bring.
Warlock 2/3 Paladin x. It at least gives some use to your short rest, but is not that good. If you want to abuse short rest/smite, go Warlock x Paladin 2. Hexblade is also good to do this.
I built my Warlock/Paladin to go shield and board, with the Dueling fighting style for +2 damage. Built it before the Xanafar came out and only now realized the change with pact of blade that makes the hex warrior apply to all weapons created from pact. Did I fuck up?
Only if you are planning to use PAM/GWM. without feats in play, there is not much difference in damage between Two Handed weapons x Dueling.
Friendly reminder that white room theorycrafting is for bad kids who don't know how to game for effect.
If you brought some minmaxed great weapon fighter Paladin/Hexblade to my table, I'd seriously question how that combination is supposed to make sense in any setting. After that, I'd very pointedly make sure that the actual difficulty of using a gigantic two-handed sword as a primary weapon were represented. Getting your shit tangled in branches and not being able to fight especially well in narrow spaces is a bitch, and that's not even to mention the many, many times it's helpful for an adventurer--who is generally speaking not a typical soldier type in 99% of games--to have a free hand to hold a torch, a rope that keeps them from falling to their death, the reins of a wagon's horses, etc.
White room min-maxing is easy to punish without any special effort. Just don't play a game that is a series of context-free, boring white rooms and min-maxing shit fails almost instantly.
Is it really worth dipping hexblade 3 levels just so you can do Cha-based PAM and/or GWM?
What's the upside over being a regular single classed paladin with PAM and/or GWM?
What does a real comparison between hexblade 3/paladin 5 vs. paladin 8 look like?
And why are you being mean to any melee guy with a 2 hander, even barbarians, fighters, and paladins?
Because an uncomfortably large amount of builds can only benefit from a brief dip into hexblade warlock
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait a minute, you need Strength 13 to do multiclassing with paladin.
Doesn't that defeat the point of dumping Strength and doing Charisma with hexblade? What's the point by then?
But if you're a paladin, wouldn't you wait until after level 6 to go warlock dipping? Is 2 levels in hexblade really better than 2 more paladin levels?
>expecting minmaxers to actually adhere to the rules
Isn't the point of min-maxing to adhere to rules.
>punish a player for using two handed weapons
so basically "don't play a barbarian"
That's cool, so long as every other person at the table, especially those playing casters, are similarly inconvenienced and made to feel the consequences of their class choices.
Alright, so I think I've got this.
Hexblade isn't something you dip early on.
Hexblade is something you dip if you're already, like, a paladin 6 with PAM, so you can get the bonus action curse, and the short rest spell slots. And it's not just a "dip," you take hexblade levels for the rest of your build.
Did I get it right this time?
That's certainly viable
Paladin 6/Hexblade 14, Paladin 15/Hexblade 5, Paladin 11/Hexblade 9, there's a lot of ways to mix the classes
I have a soft spot for hexblades because my first 5e character was a hexblade based on Olgierd from Heart of Stone. But I have no idea if they're OP or not.
Honestly, I'm playing a Hexblade in a friend's campaign and it's going pretty well. It's exactly what I want out of a gish class:
>Magic weapon to cast spells
>Spells mainly focused on utility/support rather than blasting
>Can use spell slots to augment attacks a la paladin smites
>A (sub)class that actually plays into sword and board really well
>Don't have to be MAD
Honestly, the only problem I can perceive with them is that last part, but even then it isn't any worse than other casters. I think the smaller hit die and the lack of spell slots are what really balance them out, which is why multiclassing with them gets kind of unwieldy, especially with something like a sorcerer/paladin
Won't some of the paladin levels be dead levels?
I don't even get the point of the dip. Okay, sure, you are more SAD, but... your defenses still don't key off of CHA. You'll still need at least 14 in STR or DEX, so at best it means a few more points in CON. It's just not that great and I'm not sure why people are so buttblasted about it.
So /5eg/ is saying that the REAL reason to dip hexblade is so you can multiclass sorcerer and Quicken Spell on SCAG cantrips.
How does this work and is the build really that strong?
How does hexblade 3/sorcerer 2 with that kind of build compare to paladin 5?
Why do you need 14 Str?
>Why do you need 14 Str?
I thought full plate requires 14 Str to not tank your movespeed, but I checked and it actually requires 15.
Hexblade exacerbates the issue Warlock has where it's best spent as a 1-3 level dip to get all of the juiciest bits. A few levels into Hexblade is dense and worthwhile for almost any class. This has been a problem with Warlock since the edition started, since it's very front-loaded, most of its best features are class agnostic, Charisma is such a prevalent stat, and all of its later levels are barren.
Additionally, Hexblade suffers the same issue as the SCAG cantrips. In trying to make a fix for Blade being the worst pact, Wizards of the Coast continues to just make solutions that make Eldritch Blastlocks even stronger. They won't come right out and actually fucking fix Blade because that would entail them admitting they fucked up in the first place, and the designers have a history of showing that they absolutely refuse to do that (which is part of why Revised Ranger likely won't become official, anymore, according to that one podcast).
A pure Hexblade that NEVER dips out of Warlock is probably fine. They won't be absurdly overpowered. They'll be much stronger than other pure Warlocks and will probably be a high-tier class that will do damage comparable to martials while being a proper caster. However, a Hexblade/Sorcerer or Hexblade/Bard or even a Hexblade/Paladin will be absolutely busted. And those aren't the only classes that have synergy with it, just the ones with the most.
>However, a Hexblade/Sorcerer or Hexblade/Bard or even a Hexblade/Paladin will be absolutely busted.
Hokay, write one up at level 6 will you and let's do comparisons.
One level in Hexblade gets
>Two cantrips
>2 spells known and a spell slot that recharges on a short rest (and can be used to cast spells from other classes)
>shield and wrathful smite in their expanded spell list (probably the best options of any of the Patrons)
>a pseudo-hex that gives them Champion's unique enhanced crit range and bonus damage that scales with character level, not class level
>proficiency with medium armor, shields, and martial weapons, and the ability to use Charisma instead of Strength or Dexterity to attack (allows Sorcerer, Bard, and Paladin to be SAD) with the caveat that the weapon must be two-handed (though this caveat goes away if you choose Blade later)
A second level gets invocations, such as
>the ability to make Eldritch Blast now effectively a one-handed longbow with better range and the potential to have as many attacks as a Fighter with possible bonus invocations (though it doesn't get SS or Archery)
>magical darkvision that allows you to do Darkness shenanigans
>several options of decent but not amazing at-will spells
>you also get another spell known and another spell slot
A third level gets your Pact Boon which can be
>an invisible minion that can give you magic resistance
>a book that gives you three cantrips and, with one invocation, allows you to ritual cast (though rituals keys off of Warlock levels)
>the ability to use two-handed weapons with Charisma and access to combat-focused invocations
>you also get another spell known and your two short rest spell slots are now second level
It's no secret that Warlock is amazing for multi-classing. Sorlock and Palalock are two of the biggest meme builds in the entire system because they're good. Hexblade is even worse about it than the other Patrons. The proficiencies alone are amazing for Bard/Sorcerer. A Bard with EB and medium armor now has decent AC and damage competitive with most martials, without any reliance on a resource, on TOP of being full casters.