Improving the DPS of a Dex echo knight

[Spiritchaser]

This isn’t optimal, but I’d like to make it as solid as I can.

Race has to be Yuan to (yes really) and it will be point buy (so low Dex to start)

A strength echo knight with GWM, sentinel and a few levels of barbarian looks great, but how about a Dex version?

Role is High mobility melee(ish... it’s an echo knight) striker and single target control with sentinel.

The control will be solid, and the AC will be as well, but the damage? Maybe not so much.

Ideas:

mix in swashbuckler for sneak attack dice, and with the way echo knight works, likely get more opportunity sneak attacks than normal as well

Mix in some spell caster for shadow blade. Stats probably work best for sorcerer, though war wizard or abjurer might work well too.

Has anyone tried anything like this?



Any other suggestions?

[Dork_Forge]

With Dueling your DPS is actually very respectable just using a Rapier, you'll be getting the additional echo attacks (so you'll want at least a +3 Con to get any real use out of it). You might want to pick up something like Hex or Hunter's mark to ramp your DPS, as a Fighter your damage primarily comes from the sheer number of attacks you'll be making (so it may be worthwhile to go TWF depending on how big your dip ends up being).

I personally don't see Rogue boosting your DPS a significant amount unless you can force a lot of AoO since you'll just be adding 1-2d6 per turn for a significant delay in Fighter (maxing Dex is more important for Echo Knights then most Dex builds because it makes your Echo harder to get rid of) and you're not getting as much out of Cunning Action as you usually would (Disengage and Dash is mitigated by being able to just swap places with your Echo).

[Spiritchaser]

I can see the utility of hex or hunter’s mark, but with a two level dip into warlock for enough castings of hex, one would be as well to spam eldritch blast. I do see the advantage of hexblade here, with everything in cha, though the bonus action starts getting very crowded.

My goal for a melee striker would be to exceed warlock DPS by enough of a margin that when one discounts lost DPS for turns spent out of range, turns spent zoned out by environmental or spell effects or turns spent chasing, one still ends up being competitive with that baseline.

Now maybe you can add something back in for opportunity attacks, and certainly you can consider controls (particularly if they are more workable than what a warlock gets) but basically if what you do is hit then you should be hitting that hard or harder.

A strength fighter with GWM and a source of advantage can do that.

A strength echo knight with 2 levels of barb can do that very very well.

I’m curious to know if anyone has built a Dex echo knight That can also operate that well.