Fey Charger

[Meta]

Is the arcane slasher/fey charger build dead? I haven't kept up with new material, so I'm a little out of the loop on what's still possible after it was originally errated to oblivion. If impossible, is there a way to reasonably re-errata it to sub 300 DPR whilst maintaing the feel of the build?

[Sol]

Is the arcane slasher/fey charger build dead? I haven't kept up with new material, so I'm a little out of the loop on what's still possible after it was originally errated to oblivion. If impossible, is there a way to reasonably re-errata it to sub 300 DPR whilst maintaing the feel of the build?

You can absolutely still do either of these things, they're just not remotely broken, nor do they particularly meaningfully contribute to the damage capability of a build.

Most sources of damage-on-teleporting (which is iirc what Arcane Slashing refers to)(such as Long Night Scion, Hellfire Teleport) are now 1/turn. The only exception i'm aware of is the level 30 feature of the Prince of Hell Epic Destiny.

Fey Charge is now limited to 5 squares of teleport distance, and uses your Fey Step if you miss.

Almost any build has room for 1-2 extra feats to throw onto it, and these are otherwise still totally decent PP/EDs, so the opportunity cost of adding this stuff on is fairly low, it's just not really build-defining.

There's a couple of builds I could suggest to match the original flavor somewhat, but it would help if you would explain what specifically you enjoyed about the original flavor/playstyle.

[Kurald Galain]

There's a level 10 warlock utility power that allows you to teleport at will. It's only one square though so you'll need items to boost that. Then, the swordmage probably has the most teleport attacks. That should get you started

[Meta]

Toying around with building a warlock for an upcoming 4e campaign. Played a 1-30 with the same group a few years ago and fights were pretty difficult. We were pretty optimized and had to be. Tiefling Conlock is my go to atm, but still got a month till game time. Probably pick up that dagger that boosts tps for sidestep, yeah. Or the damage and teleport one for hellish rebuke synergy.

I was a Paladin and the face/leader in the last so looking to mix it up and maybe be a little less well rounded. Teleporting around for damage evokes an omnislash sort of feel for me and seems pretty neat.

[DragonBaneDM]

Prince of Hell seems like it would suit you nicely, too.

[Sol]

While you can somewhat accomplish the feel of an arcane slasher with a pure conlock, swordmages have the most fun teleport+attack moves.

Int|Con Assault Swordmage/Infernal Warlock is an exceptionally good hybrid. Eldritch Strike both saves you a feat because it's a valid MBA and allows you to roll curse damage as part of your assault aegis reaction.

PP is wide open.

Ghost Blade has a decent F11 if you plan on teleporting a lot (CA with weapon attacks against one target each time you teleport), and insubstantial is a pretty decent way to create a catch-22 with your mark/punishment. The D20 is basically omnislash.

Malec-Keth Janissary is pretty mediocre except for the potentially build-defining F16 that lets you add any vulnerability abuse you want, which makes Elemental Pact compelling for your warlock half.

Sword of Assault is excellent, but Eldritch Strike already solves the MBA problem and does so in a potentially superior fashion, because it qualifies for curse damage rolls. The main draws, then, are the ability to use a double-tap on a charge (Lightning Clash!) and the ability to use one of your at-wills as a minor 1/enc.

For ED, both Prince of Hell and Arcane Sword are pretty great.

It's worth noting that the combination of Arcane Sword and Sword of Assault could let you use Lightning Bolt Charge at-will, as well as as your Assault Aegis reaction attack and as a minor action 1/enc, which is IMO better than 10 fire damage/teleport, but optimizing around level 30 is pretty silly anyway.

[Meta]

Thanks for the ideas folks. I'll look into ghost blade, I'm not terribly impressed by any of the warlock PPs anyways.

[Waddacku]

If going Ghost Blade, consider Shadar-kai. You can easily run around insubstantial for a huge chunk of every battle.

[bloodshed343]

If you go with a tiefling, consider an Int/Cha Long Night Scion. The damage and slow on teleport will come into play every turn, and often off-turn, so it becomes a big damage boost. Plus you'll pop minions like a boss.

Ghost Blade is pretty bad. You can get CA by flanking really easy with an at-will teleport, and helm of teleportation does the same thing.

You definitely want to go elemental pact. With Gloves of Eldritch Admixture + Arcane Admixture you can utilize both frost and fire wind blade cheese. At level 11 you can twofold pact and pick up Mind bite Scorn to with an offhand rod of ulban to add psychic vulnerability tapping which should easily give you the best MBA in the party.

For ED I suggest Radiant One so you can add another damage type and retrain your Arcane Admixture feat to cold damage and replace your gloves with gloves of ice for a nice damage bonus or change your curse damage to lightning to make use of yet another damage type.

For encounter powers, pick reactions such as dimensional vortex, Sword chaser assault, dating rebuke, and Delban's Deadly Attention. That way you can use Eldritch Strike every round to keep your dpr up.

[Waddacku]

You've got the pacts backwards there, you pick up Elemental at 11 with Twofold Pact so you actually get the boon and at-will. You only want Sorcerer-King for prereqs, so go get that Mindbite Scorn from early on.

[bloodshed343]

You've got the pacts backwards there, you pick up Elemental at 11 with Twofold Pact so you actually get the boon and at-will. You only want Sorcerer-King for prereqs, so go get that Mindbite Scorn from early on.

Yes, this.

[Meta]

Interesting. I am familiar with most MBA optimization but I can't help but feel stacking damage types and their best feats is just a little too far along the cheese scale for my palette. I will check out hybridizing and tweaking Eldritch Strike. Hellish Rebuke and Assault Swordmage feels like it could be good eventually too.

Still not settled on anything specifically, so ideas still welcome, and thanks a lot!

[masteraleph]

Interesting. I am familiar with most MBA optimization but I can't help but feel stacking damage types and their best feats is just a little too far along the cheese scale for my palette. I will check out hybridizing and tweaking Eldritch Strike. Hellish Rebuke and Assault Swordmage feels like it could be good eventually too.

Still not settled on anything specifically, so ideas still welcome, and thanks a lot!

Hellish Rebuke, of course, can be one of the kings of cheese if you really want- find a way to damage yourself just a little bit, and automatically get the next damage instance.

[Meta]

Hellish Rebuke, of course, can be one of the kings of cheese if you really want- find a way to damage yourself just a little bit, and automatically get the next damage instance.

Yeah there's a fair bit of Warlock stuff that does that. Thankfully it's once a round(?) now so I'm not playing with too much fire

[bloodshed343]

Interesting. I am familiar with most MBA optimization but I can't help but feel stacking damage types and their best feats is just a little too far along the cheese scale for my palette. I will check out hybridizing and tweaking Eldritch Strike. Hellish Rebuke and Assault Swordmage feels like it could be good eventually too.

Still not settled on anything specifically, so ideas still welcome, and thanks a lot!

You could also do it with far less cheese using only cold damage. Use the Long Night Scion and Eldritch Strike to double tap cold vulnerability for 40+int extra damage. The elemental pact vulnerability explicitly stacks with lasting frost.

Adding fire makes it better. It lets you use a fire wind blade to double tap fire vulnerability and use the long night scion slash to double tap cold for 7 +30 + 8 + 10 free damage at epic. This is only slightly better than cold by itself, but it's better.

Adding radiant doesn't do anything but make your damage harder to resist unless you have a morning lord in the party.

Adding lightning doesn't help without gifts for the queen.


So really, playing the build with just cold or just cold and fire would be fine. You probably don't want to miss out on Mindbite Scorn and rod of ulban though, just to get around resistances.

[Meta]

Why would I want to start as a sorcerer-king pact as a hybrid? It seems like all of the riders involve spending fell might that I don't have.

Nevermind, mindbite scorn obviously.

Could I make do with Fire and Psychic types only? Does anything have resistance to those two?

[bloodshed343]

Why would I want to start as a sorcerer-king pact as a hybrid? It seems like all of the riders involve spending fell might that I don't have.

Nevermind, mindbite scorn obviously.

Could I make do with Fire and Psychic types only? Does anything have resistance to those two?

If you want the Arcane slasher build, which is damage on a telepprt, you have to add in cold, since long night scion is a cold themed path.

Cold and psychic would work fine, and frees you up to use an accurate dagger as a weapliment.

Get yourself a rakshasa claw as a familiar. You'll need an offhand incisive dagger when you teleport, an offhand Rod of Ulban when you attack, an offhand Orb of Nimble Thoughts when you roll initiative, and a free hand when it's not your turn. Rakshasa claw and disembodied hand let you juggle implements.