Shadowlance: Echo Sorlock Machine Gun (5e Optimized Character Build)

Build Concept

This build looks to squeeze maximum amounts of damage out of the Eldritch blast cantrip, going far beyond the traditional sorlock package by using War Caster and Echo Knight to cast Eldritch blast as a reaction in addition to the action and bonus action casts. In tier 4 play, the build will consistantly deal an average of over 300 damage per turn without any leveled spells after setup.

Build Summary

Recommended Race: Custom Lineage, grabbing War Caster at level 1.

Recommended Stat Spread (Point Buy): Str 8, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 15 (+2)

- Level 1: Fighter 1 - Con save proficiency, Defense Fighting Style, Medium Armor and Shields
- Level 2-3: Hexblade 1-2 - Hexblade's Curse, Eldritch Blast, Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast, Shield spell, Hex
- Level 4-5: Fighter 2-Echo Knight 3 - Action Surge, Manifest Echo
- Level 6-15: Divine Soul Sorcerer 1-10 - Quickened Spell, Fey Touched (for Faerie Fire), Spirit Shroud, Charisma 18 and 20, 1st-5th level spell slots
- Level 16: Hexblade 3 - 2nd level pact slots
- Level 17-20: Divine Soul 11-14 - 6th-7th level spell slots

Alternate Paths

Rather than grabbing a feat at level 1, you could go for a race with a natural flying speed and delay stat and feat progression. You could also go for an elf or half-elf to pick up Elven Accuracy rather than Fey Touched if you know you will be granted advantage by an ally. Or you could go for a Tortle or Loxodon to be able to dump Dexterity. War Caster is extremely critical to the build though, and not picking up a feat will mean that you are not online before level 9.

Damage Calculations

The plan for the build is to manifest our echo and place it within 5 ft. of our enemies while we make some distance. Either the enemies decide to spend their turns killing our echo, thus removing them temporarily from the action economy, or they move away from the echo - triggering an attack of opportunity. Through War Caster, we can replace the effect of Manifest Echo with the ability to cast a spell as a reaction. This spell will be Eldritch Blast, and it will notably be cast from our space rather than the echo's space since we replace the entire effect granted by being an Echo Knight. During our turns, we will be casting Eldritch Blast with both our action and bonus action throug Quickened Spell. This means that we will be slinging 3 blasts in tier 1, 6 blasts in tier 2, 9 blasts in tier 3 and 12 blasts in tier 4 every turn if things go our way.

Below is a analysis of our expected sustained damage per round for six rounds at different levels. I assume that the character uses Font of Magic to exchange spell slots for sorcery points to allow Quickened Spell each turn. I am not including Action Surge or critical hits in the maximum damage.

- Level 6: 2 action Blasts, 2 reaction Blasts, Hex, Hexblade's Curse, Action Surge once -> 58.57 average damage against AC 10, 44,53 average damage against AC 15, 88 maximum damage.
- Level 9: 2 action Blasts, 2 bonus action Blasts, 2 reaction Blasts, Hex for low AC, Faerie Fire for high AC, Hexblade's Curse, Action Surge once -> 107,70 average damage against AC 10, 78,01 average damage against AC 16, 144 maximum damage.
- Level 13: 3 action Blasts, 3 bonus action Blasts, 3 reaction Blasts, lv.3 Spirit Shroud for low AC, Faerie Fire for high AC, Hexblade's Curse, Action Surge once -> 189,53 average damage against AC 10, 143,03 average damage against AC 17, 252 maximum damage.
- Level 17: 4 action Blasts, 4 bonus action Blasts, 4 reaction Blasts, lv.5 Spirit Shroud, Hexblade's Curse, Action Surge once -> 324,01 average damage against AC 10, 238,75 average damage against AC 18, 444 maximum damage.
- Level 20: 4 action Blasts, 4 bonus action Blasts, 4 reaction Blasts, lv.5 Spirit Shroud, Hexblade's Curse, Action Surge once -> 375,31 average damage against AC 10, 273,85 average damage against AC 18, 498 maximum damage.

Build Summary

So, there are some ifs and maybes with this build. If our opponents don't trigger our War Caster spells, the DPR drops by a third - and if we use Spirit Shroud we need to stick very close to the enemy during their turns to maximize damage. Also, due to us making so many attacks, Hexblade's Curse becomes a large amount of damage quite quickly - and we will probably not be facing enemies that can withstand our damage output for several turns very often. All these things mean that the numbers are likely a bit inflated compared to what you might expect to see in reality at your table.

However! In the scenarios where we are not maximizing our damage we are still winning. The enemy chooses not to trigger our Echo? Then they have given up either their action or their mobility. The enemy can't survive our damage output so we lose out of Hexblade's Curse? Well, if they're dead there is no real problem.

With these disclaimers in mind. I would still like to highlight the absurd amounts of damage we are dealing, and the fact that we are only using a single spell slot to do this - and the fact that we can do this turn after turn! Sure, we might need to remanifest our echo or generate extra sorcery points from time to time, and we can only Action Surge once. But we will keep melting things for a long, long time before we need to regroup.

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