Need help optimizing a ranged Hexblade

[ChaseC311]

I'm currently brainstorming character for a campaign to be a part of soon and one of my ideas is that of a painting Hexblade who fights at a range. Their arrows/bolts have bags of paint at the end that burst with color upon impact with the target, their hexblades curse is flavored as them choosing the enemy to be their muse, entertainer background, etc etc. The main issue I'm having is how exactly I should build them. I don't want to fall into being a blastlock, but at the same time when looking at the alternative I had in mind (a hand crossbow build), it seems to require a lot more investment in terms of feats (crossbow expert, sharpshooter, elven accuracy), pact boon and invocations (thirsting blade, improved pact weapon, Eldritch smite, lifedrinker). I'm torn between investing all of those resources into a hand crossbow build and becoming a blastlock to use more of my resources to focus on utility/flavor. Which option would be better if I wanted to deal respectable damage while still sticking to the theme I had in mind and having enough resources left for utility? Is there another way about this I'm missing? Any and all feedback is appreciated

[Gignere]

If I was building a hexblade archer I’d forgo XBE and use the longbow. Hexblade has quite a bit of bonus actions already, hex, hexblade curse, misty step that’s if you don’t pick Shadar Kai or Eladrin as the sub race. So imo XBE is less important on a hexblade.

You probably won’t need improve pact weapon unless your DM is a total d!ck and won’t drop a magical bow. So you really just need SS and EA for feats, and one less invocation. The Eldritch smite invocation is a very high level pick because at low levels you just won’t have the slots to smite.

[solidork]

I think a strict reading of the rules means you can't actually use a Hand Crossbow as your Pact Weapon until you find a magical one, even if you take Improved Pact Weapon. This isn't a problem until you get Thirsting Blade, which requires you to use your pact weapon. I'd handwave that stuff, personally, but your mileage may vary.

It doesn't sound like your character is a soldier or martially inclined, so using an actual weapon might not be part of the fantasy. The "expense" of trying to use a weapon is so high, I'd only do it if you've got a very compelling reason.

Honestly, I'd just use Eldritch Blast. If you want to, you can even flavor your Eldritch Blast as bursting with/leaving behind paint; my very first warlock left behind glitter with his EB, and when I got Agonizing Blast the glitter became corrosive to flavor the extra damage. Playing an artist with Misty Visions and/or Mask of Many Faces seems like a blast, and you can take one of those with Agonizing Blast at level 2 instead of having to wait for level 7+

Regardless of what you decide, give Eldritch Smite a miss - your spells are more useful as actual spells, and knocking them prone is actively bad as a ranged character.

[Corran]

The nice thing about a mid level archer hexblade is that they can nova hard for one round. Ideally you do that in round one to take out a glass canon. You do that by stacking a smite spell (ideally banishing smite which has the potential of the 50 "extra damage" boost) and an eldritch smite. You only need one attack to hit for both to stack, but having two attacks helps a lot with increasing your chances of hitting once. You need a good initiative if you aim to make the best use of this nova (ie take out someone dangerous before they even get a chance to act), and sometimes you will want to "delay" your attack to let one or more allies go before you, because this increases your chances of banishing or killing the target. For both these reasons the lucky feat is a very good add on (ie in the case of delaying it still allows you two chances at hitting with your ready action attack; and of course, it can help with initiative too).

The second nice thing about archer hexblades is that they can knock down aerial threats with their eldritch smite. The size limitation hurts but at least there are no saves or opposed checks, you only need to hit and expend the slot. You wont need this often, but it's a very very nice trick to have on a long range archer.

About dpr, it's as you said. You need lots of investment to match or surpass EB. A good way to up your damage (which is both action economy free and spell slot free), is by trying to gain advantage as often as you can by being unseen. You do that by making use the increased darkvision range of devil's sight against opponents with a smaller darkvision range. Ie, you dont need to be hidden, you just have to be outside their darkvision range when you shoot your arrows. Thisting blade and the sharpshooter feat will help here.
(You can always fall back on the darkness spell which has a decent duration, but slot free and concentration free -and somtimes action free- is a big deal so dont neglect the visibility advantage if you can use it!!!)


A bad thing about ranged hexblades is that they are not very mobile. Not unless they burn precious resources for teleporting. Choosing a race with a resource free teleport or some innate mobility (eg goblin) will help here, but so will being careful with your positioning in the first place (a great passive perception would not go amiss, but it's tricky to include observant in a hexblade archer build IMO). I like adding 2 levels of rogue (eventually going for a 3rd in assassin and go for the double nova potential so that I expand the usefulness of the first round nova to damage dealing in general instead of just for taking out glass cannons). It solves the mobility issue (also helps making use of the curse more often), but the level investment is huge for a fullcaster.

A note on the small range of the curse. Needing to get in close to apply it is a weakness. Thankfully, you dont need to do that. It's nice if you get it to work, but you dont need to. It's something extra and it's ok if you end up not using it. Dont sacrifice the safety of distance easily, cause let me highlight you the obvious, hexblades are veeeeery squishy.


Bottom line. I'd want the following for sure. Devil's sight, improved pact weapon, thirsting blade and sharpshooter for dpr. Thirsting blade, eldritch smite, banishing smite, lucky (and secondarily devil's sight and sharpshooter) for nova (lucky helps with skills too, so bonus). I'd definitely want some way to boost mobility (whether from race or from multiclassing) without using slots for it. And I imagine I'd really want tomb of levistus at some point as a fail-safe. Everything else boosting damage is nice but not essential IMO, at this point I'd feel completely free to go for any choice that would intrigue me, cause the build would have whatever little tactical usefulness I would be ok with. Crossbow expert I would likely avoid, as I am not a fan of the decrease in range.

[Hael]

Theres a pretty famous build by Treantmonk called the hexbow, which is sorta what you want and dovetails with what others are talking about here. Its considered one of the premiere ranged ‘martial’ attackers in the game and is capable of extremely high dpr, especially in tier1 and in tier3-4.

[Kane0]

Eldritch Smite is not limited to melee weapons, but make sure you have some other target or its your last shot for the turn because prone gives you disadvantage.

In fact, you dont have to go hexblade really, you could go with like genie or undead or fathomless. Bonus points if you multiclass into arcane archer for the fighting style, action surge and two grasping arrows per short rest, or battlemaster of course

[DruidAlanon]

Just to echo the others, Eldritch Smite + Longbow + Elven Accuracy + shadow of moil/darkness is the way to go with ranged Hexblade.

-You grab Shield, Hex at 1st, leather armor etc and start with Hand Crossbow

-Pact of the Blade, Improved Pact Weapon, use a Longbow

- At 5th Elven Accuracy & Thirsting Blade, Devil’s Sight


At this point you do well by exploiting the Darkness + Devil's sight to hit with triple advantage. Depending on class (Tiefling, Drow) you can get an extra darkness per day which is quite handy for a Warlock. If you start as human, vhuman, custom lineage etc you get a feat but loose a spell. Equally strong choice, if not even better.


-At 7th you get Eldritch Smite to increase your crit damage (once-twice) and Shadow of Moil as a more versatile Darkness. You can also replace the spells that don't scale with better ones.

-At 9th Sharpshooter

-At 12th Lifedrinker


Discuss with your DM if you can use Tasha's rules on preparing spell scrolls with prof in Arcana and if so do prepare several scrolls with eg Shield or whatever is low level. Store them, sell them, etc. You can also prepare a good amount of darkness in case you loose concentration or multiple encounters without rest.

Get access to magic Longbow and arrows.

You have some space for maddening hex (you'll hex/curse a lot), which is good for some limited aoe and to break conncentration on enemy casters etc. Other choices are viable.

Note: Crossbow expert is a viable alternative, but Longbows are simply better.

[Witty Username]

Theres a pretty famous build by Treantmonk called the hexbow, which is sorta what you want and dovetails with what others are talking about here. Its considered one of the premiere ranged ‘martial’ attackers in the game and is capable of extremely high dpr, especially in tier1 and in tier3-4.

Just as a note Treantmonk has disavowed that build and a few others since it uses darkness + devil's sight combo.
If that is cool with you, great, but if not, its a thing worth knowing ahead of time.

[Hiro Quester]

Just as a note Treantmonk has disavowed that build and a few others since it uses darkness + devil's sight combo.
If that is cool with you, great, but if not, its a thing worth knowing ahead of time.

That's more of a problem for melee builds that want the darkness to encompass them and their enemies.

But a ranged Hexbow can hide up a tree or another out-of-the-way in a 15 ft sphere of darkness, that does not impede the actions of other party members, from which arrows or crossbow bolts emerge to pepper enemies. That seems very viable to me.

[RogueJK]

In fact, you dont have to go hexblade really, you could go with like genie or undead or fathomless.

True. Especially if starting Level 3+, where lack of the Hexblade's martial weapon proficiency doesn't matter as much, since you can jump straight into an Improved Pact Weapon Longbow and be automatically proficient. Though if you don't go Hexblade, then you don't have access to Hexblade's Curse and its expanded crit range, which hurts a little bit on an Elven Accuracy/Eldritch Smite crit-fishing build.

However, Undead Bladelocks in particular works well as weapon builds. And Grave Touched is a nice addition to a crit-fishing build, since when it's active you can choose to roll quadruple dice on a crit. Form of Dread would be even more handy on an Archer, as a Frightened enemy can't close the distance with you.

I haven't played an Undeadlock Archer yet, but I've played a Half Orc Fighter 1/Undeadlock X with heavy armor and a Greataxe, and it worked well. It was an effective melee frontliner, and when Form of Dread + Grave Touched was active could roll 5d12 on a crit, not counting other stuff like Eldritch Smite. An Undeadlock Archer wouldn't even necessarily need the Fighter dip since it doesn't need additional armor proficiency beyond the Warlock's light armor, although dipping Fighter for Archery fighting style would still probably be a good idea, especially if you plan on using Sharpshooter's -5/+10.

[Kane0]

True. Especially if starting Level 3+, where lack of the Hexblade's martial weapon proficiency doesn't matter as much, since you can jump straight into an Improved Pact Weapon Longbow and be automatically proficient.

You can of course start with a crossbow on a warlock, it doesnt matter until extra attack comes into play.