Tiefling Warlock|Swordmage/Wizard PP Choice Help

Just hit level 11 on my character. Got a few different options I'm weighing for PP and wouldn't mind input. Build first:

Con/Int even split.
Feats:
Mindbite Scorn
Hybrid Talent (Warding)
Hellfire Blood
MC Wizard
Homebrew power swap (swap 1 daily, enc, utility)
Familiar: Rak Claw
Twofold Pact (Infernal. forgot this in OP)
We get expertise and improved/robust defenses for free.

Theme is Infernal Prince.
At-Wills are now Eldritch Strike, Hellish Rebuke, Sword Burst. Power Selection is pretty standard, favoring fire.

Paths I'm considering:

Master Preserver - tanking up
Sigil Carver - worse than above I think, but good
Evermeet Warlock - to combo with Ethereal Sidestep and eventually Hellfire Teleport.
Simbarch of Aglarond - a weird path but it seems solid, if with a bit of an identity crisis.
Lost Soul - is neat, but its 16f seems really unneeded with pact boon.
Malec-Keth - for... ice damage? lightning? I dunno what would be good to add to psychic+fire.
Traveler's Harlequin - looks funny. I bet there's some sort of fun build possible with all that MCing.
Turathi Highborn - errata'd? Shame the 11f is cha based.
Academy Master - little plain but cool for Sage of Ages. The at-will bonus to hit doesn't stack with theme.

Open to more suggestions or narrowing these down. Thank ya.

Edited twofold pact choice in.

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Originally Posted by Meta

Open to more suggestions or narrowing these down. Thank ya.

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Spellstorm Mage has an interesting encounter power that combos well with Eldritch Strike (or any forced movement, really). And a 50% chance of recharging a daily power each day can't hurt, either.

Have you looked at Planeshaper? Hexer?

I'd get Traveler's Harlequin. Lots of MC feats is fun and some of them are the best feats in the game(Resourceful Leader in particular) - particularly given the home brew power swap feat, you can basically take your pick of the most useful powers in the game.

Note about Warding - an Aversion Staff +1 in your offhand gives you a +2 item bonus to all defenses if you have someone under an effect(mark, curse, etc...) - if you move around a lot, Shadow Walk+that = better than Warding most of the time across the board.

Spellstorm looks decent. I do have a wizard in the party, so the minion popping probably isn't too needed, but it's cool.

Between Quickcurse rod(s) and Armor of Dark Majesty, I find Hexer to be a little redundant with lacking payoff.

Planeshifter is super cool, but we already have a houserule allowing rituals to be cast as a standard action if the player spends a healing surge. I don't know linked portal or the like yet, but I suspect we might need to tweak some rituals to be a little more balanced anyways. So Planeshifter is a big unknown atm.

Harlequin looks neat, but I don't know what feats or power are/is really worth cherry picking. I have access to 2.5 classes worth already. What stands out to you?

Same with Malec. I imagine there's something cool I can do with another damage type, but not sure. Lasting Touch/Wintertouched is pretty boring. Do you know what happened to the Elemental Damage guide from WotC's forum? I swear there was one that focused exclusively on that and it was very detailed. Thanks for your work on the guides, btw.

Thank ya both for the suggestions.

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Originally Posted by Meta

Do you know what happened to the Elemental Damage guide from WotC's forum? I swear there was one that focused exclusively on that and it was very detailed.

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I believe you refer to this: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthr...&prefixid=wotc

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Originally Posted by Meta

Planeshifter is super cool, but we already have a houserule allowing rituals to be cast as a standard action if the player spends a healing surge. I don't know linked portal or the like yet, but I suspect we might need to tweak some rituals to be a little more balanced anyways. So Planeshifter is a big unknown atm.

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Also, Planeshifter is about a lot more than the ritual-as-power business, which is highly situational, at best. That E11 is one of the best early control powers in the game!

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Originally Posted by darkbard

Also, Planeshifter is about a lot more than the ritual-as-power business, which is highly situational, at best. That E11 is one of the best early control powers in the game!

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Sequester is pretty sweet, but a lot of our baddies get the MM3+ treatment of being pretty good against save-ends effects. It's competing with stuff like Silver Fire, so I need to get some mileage out of the other features. I assume Dimensional Cascade inflicts 4d8 lightning, cold, etc, not 1d8 + 1d8 +1d8 + 1d8 but is the ongoing damage 5 or 20?

That's actually not the guide. I believe it was titled something like "It's Elemental: A guide to damage types" and it was focused on only damage type optimization and was more in-depth.

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Originally Posted by MwaO

Note about Warding - an Aversion Staff +1 in your offhand gives you a +2 item bonus to all defenses if you have someone under an effect(mark, curse, etc...) - if you move around a lot, Shadow Walk+that = better than Warding most of the time across the board.

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Sorry forgot to address this. Big Bursts and Blasts are already sort of my bane, and I was planning on wearing Armor of Dark Majesty. I have CA from my shaman's tome expertise a ton, so I don't know if upgrading to Shadow Warlock Armor is worth it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Meta

That's actually not the guide. I believe it was titled something like "It's Elemental: A guide to damage types" and it was focused on only damage type optimization and was more in-depth.

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Err...kind of...

https://web.archive.org/web/20141117...-topic/2584951

I wouldn't ever use it over the mini-guide. Read the disclaimer at the top of the rescue handbook. This specific poster is about 50% of the reason for it.

Feats:
Resourceful Leader
Bravo
Practiced Killer - opens up Cursed Shadow for Shadow Walk without needing to spend hybrid talent and Killer in the Crowd for Partial Cover.
Battle Awareness(needs 13 Str/Wis)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MwaO

Err...kind of...

https://web.archive.org/web/20141117...-topic/2584951

I wouldn't ever use it over the mini-guide. Read the disclaimer at the top of the rescue handbook. This specific poster is about 50% of the reason for it.

Feats:
Resourceful Leader
Bravo
Practiced Killer - opens up Cursed Shadow for Shadow Walk without needing to spend hybrid talent and Killer in the Crowd for Partial Cover.
Battle Awareness(needs 13 Str/Wis)

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Thanks, I liked the big list for looking for fun ideas with Malec, didn't need the opinions or in-depth descriptions, I recognize a good bit of em.

Those entry feats looks pretty neat. What good warlord, fighter, etc feats does that open up for me?

The assassin combo is also cool. Any consensus on whether Killer in the Crowd is permanent cover, or just using enemies as cover? A shame my stealth kinda blows.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Meta

Thanks, I liked the big list for looking for fun ideas with Malec, didn't need the opinions or in-depth descriptions, I recognize a good bit of em.

Those entry feats looks pretty neat. What good warlord, fighter, etc feats does that open up for me?

The assassin combo is also cool. Any consensus on whether Killer in the Crowd is permanent cover, or just using enemies as cover? A shame my stealth kinda blows.

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Options:
Bard's eventually a free MC feat+option for Bardic Ritualist+Multiclass Mastery. And Mantle of Unity is a killer defensive power.
Warlord opens up Reorient the Axis power - which ought to be a killer "Everyone move 4?-9 squares"

There are a number of options. Just in general, MC feats tend to pack some front loaded punch. If you have a 13 Dex, then you can qualify for Monk, which allows you to prevent shifts once per combat with Con Monk's flurry of blows.

Etc...

Killer in the Crowd may have had different intent, but as it is, it gives you cover from enemies for +2 to all defenses. And the entry feat gives access to Ki Foci(+1 Rain of Hammers Ki Focus)+2d8 damage once per encounter with a one-handed weapon+skill+Cursed Shadow = Pretty good 3 feat package...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MwaO

Options:
Bard's eventually a free MC feat+option for Bardic Ritualist+Multiclass Mastery. And Mantle of Unity is a killer defensive power.
Warlord opens up Reorient the Axis power - which ought to be a killer "Everyone move 4?-9 squares"

There are a number of options. Just in general, MC feats tend to pack some front loaded punch. If you have a 13 Dex, then you can qualify for Monk, which allows you to prevent shifts once per combat with Con Monk's flurry of blows.

Etc...

Killer in the Crowd may have had different intent, but as it is, it gives you cover from enemies for +2 to all defenses. And the entry feat gives access to Ki Foci(+1 Rain of Hammers Ki Focus)+2d8 damage once per encounter with a one-handed weapon+skill+Cursed Shadow = Pretty good 3 feat package...

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Yeah the Practiced Killer, Killer in the Crowd and maybe Cursed Shadow feat chain seems the best. It's pretty efficient. MC feats are nice, but being 3 classes and a tiefling mean I already do have a bunch of good feat options. Epic is pretty much entirely decided (hellfire tp, warding curse, cursed spells, rapid aegis reaction, etc.) but I could fit 3 feats in to paragon. Atm my next feat would have probably been fiery blood or maybe superior will/ dispater's iron discipline.

If I go the harlequin PP I think the assassin is the way to do it. Thank ya!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Meta

Yeah the Practiced Killer, Killer in the Crowd and maybe Cursed Shadow feat chain seems the best. It's pretty efficient. MC feats are nice, but being 3 classes and a tiefling mean I already do have a bunch of good feat options. Epic is pretty much entirely decided (hellfire tp, warding curse, cursed spells, rapid aegis reaction, etc.) but I could fit 3 feats in to paragon. Atm my next feat would have probably been fiery blood or maybe superior will/ dispater's iron discipline.

If I go the harlequin PP I think the assassin is the way to do it. Thank ya!

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Don't underestimate Resourceful Leader. If you're in a party with say 5 PCs, odds are you spend about 8 APs/3 combats. If each AP results in 2 attack rolls, you end up with this equation:
16/3*3(or 5/7)

So at Paragon, you'd expect to do about 27 points of front-loaded damage per combat - but it isn't you, it is your friends benefiting from your feat choice. Probably handing out some temp hp as well. Great feat.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MwaO

Don't underestimate Resourceful Leader. If you're in a party with say 5 PCs, odds are you spend about 8 APs/3 combats. If each AP results in 2 attack rolls, you end up with this equation:
16/3*3(or 5/7)

So at Paragon, you'd expect to do about 27 points of front-loaded damage per combat - but it isn't you, it is your friends benefiting from your feat choice. Probably handing out some temp hp as well. Great feat.

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+5 damage is pretty nice on a hit, but we usually need to AP more often against foes we have trouble hitting, so we'll end up with THP a fair bit, and our Shaman spread that around already. You're right, it is pretty nice though and averaging 2 attack rolls isn't too much of a stretch. Maybe I should go over warlord feats.

We're going with Simbarch, and altering the utility power to instead create 'Veils' a la Initiate of the 7fold veil. The healing stuff improves the veils instead. Fits our campaign fluff a little better than Aglarond. Thanks for all the help!