Slight mistake, If you pick up warcaster at level 1 then you can't go fighter at all because you dont meet the prerequisite. Also for those who keep bugging me about EB, yes I can do this. mobile.twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/908469121502736384
Fighter should still be picked first just to unlock heavy armor & shield proficiencies, though. Wisdom saving throw proficiency is good, but it can be taken as a feat later, and you'll still have the Con saving throw.
@@Spiceodog I do think the echo is magical in nature so it doesn't take damage. "A nonmagical object that isn't being worn or carried also takes the damage if it's in the spell's area."
If you take both you can repel them as soon as they reach the echo. Now you don't have to worry about melees at all instead of after they walk away. That leaves it open to attacks. Read them both it works. After all why would they avoid it if they can kill it.
@@Sir-Pleiades I prefer 2 levels in Fighter just for the Action Surge, that way my Wizard can eventually still get Spell Mastery and cast infinite Misty Steps and Feather Falls.
@@theuncalledfor fighter dip for action surge only gets better due to the way action surge is worded. Because you get 2 action surges at character level 17
@@donovangunther4538 Action Surge lets you cast two full spells, not just cantrips, leveled spells, in a single turn. And it recharges on a short rest. I don't care if my wizard never gets two Action Surges, he can cast a ninth level spell and an eighth level spell on the same turn, RAW!
But you have to remember that a lot of rulling for it is... not clear. Tabletop advise that you first talk with your DM if the stuff works like that becasue it's Mat Mercer class and guy is great DM but he makes dog shit mechanical stuff.
I made a shadar kai shadow sorcerer echo knight with platemail and a pike... With all the specific feats, racial and class features, choice of spells and choice of meta magic I have at my disposal I'm so freaking optimized my enemies want to 🤮 😅😂🤣
PAM and Crusher with a Quarterstaff can do one 5ft push per turn. Like Sneak Attack, you get to use the Crusher push again on an opponent’s turn, so it’ll combo well with PAM opportunity attacks. It’s a less extreme version of something similar to this. More like the old Forcelance than the new Echo Knight version, but still pretty cool. Almost like thick Boba Fett swinging his gaffi stick. The combo doesn’t need to invest heavily into spell casting to function at a basic level. Just two feats, so it’ll work as early as level 4 if you start with a feat. Something probably worth getting is Dueling fighting style for some solid damage on your own turn with the PAM bonus attack. Battlemaster might be an option for some OK burst damage and then just holding the line. Maybe go Paladin for Improved Divine Smite at higher levels-you could go straight class Pally and non-optimize, but still have a lot of fun with reactions and pushing. Sentinel feat also adds in well, since 0 speed on an enemy after a 5ft push might be enough. Or go Eldritch Knight for Warcaster Booming Blade reactions. BB with the staff is closer to RAI for polearm attacks even if Eldritch Blast is ok RAW. Variant Human or Custom Lineage and 6 levels in Fighter gets you all 3 feats. Pushing someone away and maybe they have to trigger the BB secondary damage to get into melee isn’t too shabby, but it gives the DM more choices and a much smaller distance to cover than two 10ft pushes.
I would really love for more set ups for it. Even if it fails, there's one thing (out of the many I want to do) that really could end enemies with proper teamwork. And that's Hold Person and Hold Monster, being able to use those as a reaction is something I've wanted to do, but that I haven't done yet. It might not be the best strategy, but hey, getting possibly more milage of the paralyzed before the enemies turn (I assume they succeed the save, my luck is horrible) sounds tempting to really ruin day of whatever you are fighting. And yes crits are only for people within 5 feet, but hey, I play mostly gishes so...
This sounds like an amazing build. I'll certainly have to look into it when I get around to starting this in another campaign. Right now, though, I'm getting back into the DM chair with my Tuesday group, so it's time to nearly TKP my players each game, just to keep things interesting. 😈
My favorite use is Command, because the Grovel command makes them fall prone and end their turn. And since it's an opportunity attack, they're doing this right in front of you.
One of my favorite moments in game was when my friend who was playing a Warlock used his warcaster reaction to mental prison a really big enemy who was trying to flee. It was fucking awesome. 👌
See this kind of thing is why I love optimizing. Taking a feature you’d think of as minor or just a bonus, and making the build around it. It becomes something unique to your character while still being effective. Sincerely, -A guy who plays a suturefly companion beastmaster ranger
There is an interesting later build option you could take revolving around the additional warlock invocations of grasp of hadar and lance of lethargy, at higher levels with additional eldritch blasts you get HUGE control of wherever your enemy is at all times, being able to move it both away and towards you, you get a lot of crowd control and synergy with any other casters and environmental hazards in combat with the added benefit of reducing your targets speed until the end of your next turn, essentially forcing them out of combat for the entire combat
Quick note: you can't frighten enemies via your form of dread on an opportunity attack, as the feature says that you can do it "Once on each of *your* turns".
right!? first thing i thought of too. i've ran a couple undead warlocks (one melee multiclass, one straight class). Took war caster on both. Our table (including me) read that feature as a once per (your) turn effect. not as part of your reaction. To compare, sneak attack says, "...once A turn" allowing you to trigger it on opportunity attacks. Love it when "super optimized" builds use a busted 3rd party subclass and then just completely overlook RAW
@@theangler1922 ill admit i hardly watched it. i built this same guy right after undead warlock came out. (slight differences of course as i didnt know about the "famous ghostlance") but then i kept reading about this build and decided to check it out only to find its something ive done before. Its fairly good, but i have no idea whats so special about it and i played it in a 9 month long campaign. sure it offers decent control, but most of the control comes from just the base warlock. with this build, you have a middling DC at best. many enemies of decent strength are immune to fear or have resistances. so you have MAYBE a 50% chance to cause fear on a single grunt per turn, big deal. Im not trying to belittle anyone, but for all the hype around this build, i dont get it, its a meh build at best
@@theangler1922 I undertand all of that, as ive played it before lol. I was responding to the guy above me who i had incorrectly assumed had watched and understood the video himself. But i came here after reading dozens of people talking about how amazing it is on forums. And the fact treantmonk and pack tactics made a video on it, i had my hopes up. Its just a repelling blast warlock thats a fraction better than baseline and needing a busted 3rd party subclass to do it. And i hardly ever build a warlock without repelling blast as i love it. Im not trying to be an a$$, i just read SOOO much hype and from personal experience, its meh. Now for flavor, go for it. I usually choose flavor over optimized anyway. I did a straight Fathomless with Lance of Leth, repelling blast, and agonizing blast. Feels like it fits a very similar profile but doesnt require any saving throws and hits more reliably. and since straight class, get ASI and invocations much faster. It pretty much guarantees locking down any melee enemy of your choice, Even a Terrasque. worst case, a dip into a cleric or fighter gets you your armor if really needed. overall a stronger build IMO.
@@theangler1922 1 level dip vs 3 levels, huge difference and if you cant understand that i cant help you. and while the echo does have utility but nothing that other effects or spells cant do. Plus, fathomless has utility too, just different. I know cuz ive played 40-50 hours with the echo knight subclass. get pact of the chain and you just covered about every "utility" thing the echo can do. The echo dies constantly too to any attack which sure is fine, or AoE. and yes there is the whole "since it is an object it doesnt get effected by AoE" but if you rule that essentially nothing effects echo knights except for direct martial attacks, its completely broken. And that isn't a good build. Gives a couple extra attacks and can occupy space but cant be effected by a fireball? Im genuinely happy my DM didnt rule it that ay as its frankly idiotic if you have an IQ above 60. it's a busted subclass from a 3rd party publisher. If you rolled echo knight into "official" subclases, i dont think there is much doubt its arguably the most busted subclass there is (not best class, just subclass) There are dozens of broken 3rd party classes that blow this away. And your defense is all the stuff the echo can do is what makes this build work. I mean the subclass was built purely for NPCs in Mercer's setting and we act like it's a comparable build option 🤪 . I mean if your table just lets players pull busted subclasses in with zero common sense, then good for you little buddy, but im glad im not at that table. BYE!
I’ve been waiting on this video ever since he teased it last month. So glad it’s finally finished and even better than I thought. Well done, as always Kobold you are very quickly becoming one of my favorite D&D optimization build channels. Keep up the good work.
I love the distinction between creature and object with the echo knight. Taking Devils Sight as an invocation and casting Hunger of Hadar would allow you to push a creature into the circle, put your echo knight inside where it suffers no effects and can use your reaction at advantage to keep enemies inside taking cold and acid damage while they have disadvantage on all attack rolls and can’t cast many spells.
@@ShakeTonMilshake Hunger of Hadar doesn’t produce magical darkness. It’s an inky void. Not even truesight can see through it. Only tremorsense and blindsight. Many many people get this wrong.
I love this. I have been eyeing the echo knight to play. I might just build one with a 2 level dip in warlock for all shenanigans this offers. You sir are a scaly treasure.
I love this idea and the mechanics behind it! This video is already a couple of years old so you didn't have access to some of this but here is one of my takes on a more modern variant: Take the Polearm Master feat and use a halberd so that your reach is now 10 feet, and take the new Path of the Giant subclass for Barbarians so that your reach increases by 5 feet. This means your total reach is now 15 feet. You also become Large if you are medium or smaller. This actually matters as 15 feet reach on a medium creature covers 48 squares around you on a grid, and 15 feet reach on a large creature covers 60 squares around you on a grid. You reach remains the same, 15 feet, but because a large creature takes up a 4x4 area on a grid it allows you to cover/reach more squares... where even more enemies could have a chance to enter your reach and trigger an AoO. You're also gonna need to be able to cast Eldritch Blast with the invocation Repelling Blast at the very least (you're probably gonna also want Agonizing Blast). When an enemy breaches your 15 foot bubble of reach you get an AoO. Now I should mention here that you would also need Warcaster to switch from using an AoO to casting a spell with our reaction. Cast Eldritch Blast and push the enemy back 10 feet so they are now 25 feet away. Since you need at least 3 levels in Barbarian and a way to cast Eldritch Blast with the Repelling Blast invocation you are probably gonna need 2 levels in Warlock also. Overall this will mean you are a minimum of a 5th level multiclass (Barb 3/Warlock2) and your Eldritch Blast will have two beams which means you could leave your enemy standing 35 feet away... on their turn... as a reaction. How much of their movement did they use to get to within 15 feet of you before you 'blasted them away' and how much do they have left after finding themselves 35 feet distance from you?
I feel like this manifest echo combo works really well with the earth genie warlock which gets spike growth and deals a little bit of extra damage which is bludgeoning so if you wanted you could take crusher for more pushing.
Amazing video as always Kolbold. Question though: what's your opinion on Genie Pact warlock for this build instead of undead. I building this right now actually and was looking at warlock 3 fighter 3 then sorcerer to get spike growth and possibly crusher feat for more movement eventually. Do you think this has merit over undead?
Genie lance works too. Its a better straight warlock build. Like its up to you at the end of they day! Whats brilliant about this is it works with a lot of things and Im glad you noticed the genie way because I remember many months ago we talked about it.
Usually I see it recommended as the second invocation to take after Agonizing Blast. It's true that some players stop after Agonizing Blast, but if you invest into EB beyond that, then Repelling Blast is typically the next one you'll get, and often the _only_ other EB invocation you'll get. It's unfortunate that Grasp of Hadar and Lance of Lethargy can't be stacked with multiple beams like Repelling Blast can, but TBH it would probably be overkill if you could stack them all together.
I can definitely see DM's ruling that the attack has to originate from the echo, since the only reason you get opportunity attacks is because they're turning their back and running away from you; "you" being the echo. I read this as you attacking from the echo's space. Even if that was the ruling, Sentinel would still work, and so would Booming Blade! The Echo Knight alone is crazy good! Can't wait to try some variation of this build, I love the roleplay opportunities! You are a living nightmare, conjuring shadows and blasting people. 😄
Actually sentinel only works if you also have to cast from the echo's space, since otherwise you have to make an arbitrary distinction between if your feats are only applied to you, your echo or if there is a specific list for each... Which is not how the manifest echo feature is written.
Since the echo knight is an object, you can interact with it as an object, including grabbing it and using it as an improvised weapon (a club or a boulder, depending on size) and using it to beat the caster for a minimum of 1d4+str bonus, problably more, depending on how close your echo resembles a weapon your enemy has proficiency with.
this is what i would of been doing if a player tried to use this build on me. "ok so the enemy Barb picks up your echo and bashing you with your own echo" prevents triggering the entire build.
This is my current build and it's so cool. Although I went Dragonborn for my race and started as a fighter for backstory purposes, I'm currently at level 6 and am fully online sans sorcerer levels. I'm going to be going all in on DSS for the. Unfortunate I won't be level 9 until I finally get web, but the synergy here is just too absurd. I have no problem letting the other PCs in my party get access to absurd spells and damage, if it means I get to completely and utterly control the battlefield.
I love the echo knight and wanted to use it somehow. This is hilariously interesting, but it seems you need a dm that is willing to get nitty gritty with all the nuances
The echo could reasonably be dealt with by catapult, but it depends how the dm rules it's weight. It is solid in that it can attack and fill a space, but it is a translucent grey image so it can't weight that much. If it is ruled to weigh between 1 and 5 pounds it could be catapulted by an enemy wizard to either attack your party or simply fling it 90 feet away, destroying it without a save.
Unless echoes are a common quantity in the game world, most monsters I would take it would be unfamiliar with just what the echo is, be it another creature or an illusion or something else. But provided they know it's an object either during the fight itself or because they were aware of its capabilities before hand, a melee monster could just use an item interaction to pick up the echo and walk towards the party without provoking opportunity attacks and overall not sacrificing action economy. Alternativey, they could throw it away, which would either be part of their item interaction or might require an attack as determined by the DM.
Wanted to comment here to endorse the build as I got to use it in a one-shot, it's really great! Personally I really like taking warlock 3 for the imp familiar then going rest sorcerer. Divine is great for the cleric list, clockwork is great too for the flexibility but personally I would choose lunar subclass. The spells aren't all that great but 6th level lunar boons feature helps stretch out those sorcery points for when you wanna quicken an eldritch blast or subtle a big spell you can't afford to be counterspelled. *or you could beg your DM for a bloodwell vial, that could be called minmaxing
Im happy you had fun! Theres many build opportunities in this single build so theres a lot of replay value. I still haven't found a build thats as unique as this.
Love echo Knight (but that creature/object nonsense is hanky). In our games we changed up the echo to match the pet classes like Drake warden and beast master. Having a moderately bulky echo makes for a much more enjoyable gameplay experience (for both player and DM). Even added that every second attack gains advantage if striking the same enemy between yourself and the echo on top of the level 7 echo avatar feature.
If it eats an enemy's attack, that's still an attack that you or one of your party members didn't take. You can resummon it as a bonus action at no cost, so this is actually a decent tanking ability. If enemies always try to kill your echo, then while you might not get to use it as much, it's actually probably being more useful by mitigating attacks.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I have been told before that if you’re holding a whip and have war caster you can cast a spell at someone who leaves your 10 foot whip range or your 5 foot fist range because op attacks triggers for leaving the weapons range, and not for leaving 5 foot range. So holding a whip means you threaten a wider variety of movement around you in a larger area. But reading echo knight this doesn’t work on your echo because manifest echo does specify that the op attack triggers for leaving 5 feet of the echo, even though the echo would be able to make that attack with a weapon with reach, the reach doesn’t extend the range of the echo’s op attack. But if you have war caster you might as well hold a whip yourself. Even if you lack proficiency, it is a tool to make the threat of your op attacks cover a larger area. My clerics use it, so that they can walk up to someone with a 5 foot reach and command, if the command works they stay still and get an op attack, and if it fails they walk away and take no op attack. Having proficiency in the whip is redundant. It’s just there so I can chain commands
“This build doesn’t work with gnomes!” Hah, Pack Tactics is getting into character! Jokes aside, this build seems like fun. Might go the route of Fighter 3/Warlock X someday.
I actually took a bit of inspiration from this and went 17 levels Arcane Trickster Rogue and 3 level Echo Knight Fighter. This character was probably the slipperiest I've ever used. Because of the Steady Aim Feature from Tasha's together with the ability to cast Invisibility, Minor Illusion and Mage Hand Ledger Domain, I can pretty much use the Echo as a stand in for my character in fights while they hide in plain sight, cast spells to mess with the enemy and let my Echo pretty much constantly slam enemies with Ranged Sneak Attacks. If you're wondering where Minor Illusion comes in, I usually use it as a sort of camouflage to blend into the background once I'm out of line of sight and then use the hide action while remotely attacking with my Echo over and over again lol
This is assuming enemies don't simply pick up the echo as part of their turn and move it with them, preventing an attack of opportunity. As you mentioned, the echo is an object, so phb 190: "You can also interact with one object or feature of the environment for free, during either your move or your action. For example, you could open a door during your move as you stride toward a foe, or you could draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to attack." Admittedly, I would reserve this counter for intelligent enemies, but it's worth mentioning.
@@PackTactics lol, that's very true! But it's not a grapple and it seems to follow RAW. You can even go a step further: have your PC stand on the echo. No grappling or object interaction required and infinite flight. Hmmm, am I missing something, or did we discover a new broken strategy?
Just did some more digging. Apparently, any object or magical force must have a carrying capacity specified (mage hand, bigby's hand, etc) or it defaults to not being able to carry anything. Since the echo has no such description, it can't carry anything, hence my original point of it being movable as an object interaction is still valid.
This video is still super helpful! I was trying to see would work. I Just realized things I can do with jumping while grappling creatures and dropping them to the ground, then falling on them. At least 3 lvls of echo knight are going it o that build. hahahaha!
I think getting warlock 5th level is definitely something to consider even if you continue to go for sorcerer simply to get agonising blast simply due to how often you will be using eldritch both as actions and reactions
I accidentally made a character like this after seeing your echo knight video, except I went aberrant mind sorcerer level 5 after getting war caster and echo knight from fighter. Dissonant Whispers is fun.
I’m building something similarish for my next campaign 6 Echo Knight, 14 first vampire warlock (Grim Hollow) It’s for a darker campaign and I’m very excited to play it.
I would have picked Bane, a level one spell available to Undead Locks with the expanded spell list availability, or use Entangle if Strixhaven Backgrounds are permitted by the DM, having the Quandrix Student Initiate Feat being able to pick up Entangle as a first level spell or sleep if Entangle is the AoE CC you wanted to pick up with the first level wizard spell to get (Although many would like to have taken FF spell to gain an owl familiar to gain advantage over, or pick a hawk to be able to use Dragon's Breath with a 15 feet cone in an air attack)
Something I notice is that this strategy only works against melee enemies. Enemy casters and archers should be perfectly happy to sit next to your echo and shoot at your party. With this in mind, it might be worth varying your tactics. Eldritch Spear and Spell Sniper pushes the range of your Eldritch Blast out to 600 feet, which should outrange most enemies. With Repelling Blast, you can just keep blasting them backwards in order to keep them from ever getting close enough to shoot anything your direction. Sadly, our echo can't exist that far out from us, but that doesn't mean we can't still make use of it. We still have a 30 to 60 foot teleport, which we can use to create even more distance, or to reposition ourselves, as needed. The other option is to still pick up Booming Blade, and then we can just teleport into melee with enemy casters/archers. I actually have an eldritch sniper build that is genielock 7 / dragon sorc 6, using Genie's Wrath to add fire or cold damage to EB, which in turn gets to add more damage from the dragon sorc's Elemental Affinity (essentially a flat +11 to DPR, since you will almost always hit with at least one beam). Also stacks Eldritch Spear, Spell Sniper, and Distant Spell to get those truly long range sniper shots. I could probably fit 3 levels of Echo Knight in there in order to make this tactic work when engaging over short distances.
doing this with dao genie warlock + the feats crusher, the spell spike growth and enough sorc levels instead of fighter level for quicken is fun. quicken spike growth, push them 20ft then pull them 10ft then crusher then 5ft. If they walk up, do it again! that's 35ft moved, more at higher levels, and if you double it to 70ft with your reaction, it's what, 4d10+16+28d4+10 or so, depends on your level. Pretty fun, considering you don't even use outside help yet
Small comment: Fireball/firestorm also affects the echo, as it sets all objects on fire that aren't worn or carried. As being on fire should deal some damage to the object and the echo only has 1 HP it destroys the echo
Sorry but that is incorrect. Fireball states "It ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried." Nowhere does it state that an echo is flammable, so it would not be destroyed. Plus, there's no solidified rules on the damage being set on fire does.
"It ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried." This is more up to the DM if a translucent, gray image is flammable but in my book no.
Im not sure if things like desintigrate or shatter would affect the echo, they specify "Non-magical objects" I'm guessing the echo is magical btu the DM might rule otherwise.
I do not see "being on fire" or "burning" as a condition in my books, do you have a reference on what page it is defined? In case this condition exists I'd agree that the echo would be immune. I'd also agree that it is DM decision (as many things in 5E) whether or not the image is flammable, it might rely on how the image is flavored. However I do think there is a reasonable rules arguement that it should be flammable. Items in general do not specify whether they are flammable, so one might argue that objects are flammable unless they have immunity to fire damage. Quoting from the rulestext for object stats: "When time is a factor, you can assign an Armor Class and Hit Points to a destructible object. You can also give it immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities to specific types of damage. " Thus, when an objects defenses become relevant for combat (e.g. because it gets fireballed and its continued existance is important to the adventure) the DM decides what hitpoints the item (e.g. grappling hook) has, how much AC and which immunities (e.g. fire, thus making it not flammable, or nonmagical slashing because a sword won't cut through solid metal). However, the rules for the object "echo" regarding combat are already defined in the feature as its combat relevance is expected. While AC and HP and (condition) immunities are defined, no additional immunities like fire immunity (making it not flammable) are specified. I thus conclude that it can take damage from fire, making it flammable. Otherwise one could argue that it also is immune to (nonmagical) bludgeon/piercing/slashing damage, as a hologram style echo from the past cannot be affected by mundane weapons. It is also true that there are no rules for items being on fire, however I'd say that at least 1damage/round (enough to kill the echo) would be around the minimum if considering rules where burning IS defined (e.g. fire elemental 1d10, oil 5 flat, web 2d4), who all deal considerable damage per round.
Proposal, Genie warlock, scales much better as a full warlock since it has good abilities athigher levels and while it s not a frighten on eldritch blast if you take crusher you can push enemies in the air, therefore throwing them on the air, doing extra damage and making them prone, all without the save that dread form allows or the need for any action or resource to set up the ability, it does make a feat hungry build even hungrier, probably forces a feat race so you can be online by 6 but imo scales much better as it gets around legendary resistances and still limited enemy movement greatly
Hey kobold, what do you think about a rogue/echo knight build? If rogues weren't slippery enough give them free teleports and you can always sneak attack on opportunity attacks so optimizing to get more seems pretty great. Also, depending on interpretation, if your character is hidden I think you could manifest echo and sneak attack on the same turn Rogue: I will pick the lock. Echo knight: don't bother. Echo goes through the door, blind swaps and opens the door.(obviously not always ideal and If the door is say padlocked on a brace bar you still have to pass a pick test But that situation is an I possible lock picking otherwise) .
This makes sense to me. At the very least, the Echo-Rogue has far fewer objections and questionable interpretations than the Echo-Warcaster build described in this video. The Echo-Rogue is using both a class feature and a subclass feature as intended, just at the same time. Even if a DM can object to the combo, he or she should not because it's clearly rules as intended. In contrast the Echo-Warcaster is nowhere close to rules and intended and stands on shaky ground if read as rules as written.
Tips for DMs struggling to challenge an Echo Knight > Have one enemy archer hold their attack for when the Echo appears > Destroy Echo immediately > Profit
Tips for Echo Knights struggling to keep their echo alive > Summon your echo as a bonus action > Have it eat an attack instead of one of your party members > Tanking
@@Dinictus I don't remember exactly what I was implying when I made the comment, but I think that may have been my point. The echo is free to resummon, so you're basically spending a BA to negate one attack, maybe more if the enemy misses the echo. It's not a terrible trade, honestly, though it kind of depends what you're fighting. TBH, if the enemy isn't trying to kill your echo, then you're not making your echo dangerous enough. It's kind of similar to how I feel about Booming Blade; the point is not to get extra damage when the enemy moves, but to put them in a situation where not moving is worse than taking the extra damage. These kinds of tactics are all about stabbing the enemy with Morton's Fork, i.e. giving them nothing but bad options to choose from. No matter what they do, you win.
Not sure about the grapple part. You reduce the enemy movement to zero. As soon as the grapple breaks it's movement is no longer zero. At no point does it state it's zero for the rest of the turn. The condition also ends if an effect removes the grappled creature from the reach of the grappler or grappling effect, such as when a creature is hurled away by the thunderwave spell.
Great video as always. could you share your thoughts on the spell hunger of Hadar? many online builds praise it, but I don't see how it is in any way the equal of the other top tier aoe 3rd level spells
Thanks for the video! But... Isn't there a better option for our warlock subclass? See i was thinking what if taking the genie pick? That way if we keep picking warlock level, we end up with Limited wish which is quite powerfull
reread the Echo Knights ability it’s triggers an Opportunity attack so it ignores the rule about “when someone or something moves you without using your Movement, action, or Reaction” so you could trigger the Opportunity attack on your own turn, I was going to also say something about how war caster can only attack them but it dose work if you use all the blasts on them
@@cjslime8847 Hmm, it seems like the rules for opportunity attacks themselves might forbid this. It specifically calls out the Disengage action, but that's not the only way to avoid taking an opportunity attack. Forced movement is also called out as not provoking opportunity attacks. If forced movement works for echo OAs, then it would mean that the Disengage action wouldn't prevent an OA from the echo, either. Maybe.
@@Greywander87 yes I agree but it says what dose not activate an Opportunity attack, and yes the wording as if your in the echos space might be used to in enforce the rules but since you can more then 5 feet of reach the 5 feet rule really makes the echo strange
@@cjslime8847 No, it seems there's a discussion on this. Basically, every rule that interacts with opportunity attacks specifically only interacts with opportunity attacks that are "provoked". The echo ability is the only time an opportunity attack isn't "provoked". If "provoke" is an important keyword, then nothing that interacts with opportunity attacks interacts with the echo ability. Not Warcaster, not the Disengage action, and not the exception made for forced movement. If "provoke" _isn't_ an important keyword, then it essentially behaves as any other opportunity attack, which means forced movement doesn't work, but Warcaster does. TL;DR, we either get unavoidable opportunity attacks, or we get ghost lancing. Either way, the echo breaks OAs.
The only thing is, that you can't use eldritch blast with war caster once you get multiple beams. It isn't just that you can only target that one creature, the spell itself has to only have the ability to target a single creature. Since you can technically target a different creature with each beam then you can't use EB with war caster.
@@cusillo6976 oh, huh, I just found a sage advice that says they can, though I could have sworn I read a different SA/actual in book text that specifically mentioned Eldritch Blast past level 5 is not viable for war caster. I stand corrected lol.
I feel like reaction Eldritch Blast should be a Warlock Subclass option already, maybe allowing you to use your bonus action to ready an Eldritch Blast or sth. like that
Isn't there a flaw in this build that is big? Wouldn't getting multiple beams that can target multiple people then invalidate Eldritch Blast for War caster? I guess that bullet point can be interpreted as you only going all in on that creature but you can't war caster Fireball even if it would only get that one creature so guess up to your DM in the end. But by RAW don't think this works.
You're confusing it with Twinned Spell, which says that in order to be eligible for it, a spell must be incapable of targeting more than one creature at the spell's current level. Warcaster only states that it must only target the creature that provoked the OA, without ever restricting what the spell used would normally be able to target.
Thanks for clarification. The wording is similar to twinned spell but not exact. So guess you sadly still can't do fireball still since that targets a point vs a creature.
Love the build idea! Always trying to look for fun ways to play a sword and beam build (even if the sword is just there for aesthetic sometimes). I'm curious, you can go 3 fighter/ x warlock, but how would this build work regarding ASI progression? If for example we would say a campaigns max level is 10, would this build still be viable, it only getting one ASI at level 7 (3 level fighter and getting ASI with warlock at 4) or would the lack of getting an asi hinder this build?
@packtactics Does the Ghostlance work in Baldur's Gate 3? As you are a fan of both I imagine you've tried? If not would love to hear. Mods required obviously.
Id point out one thing missing from this explanation that was completely overlooked is that in warcaster states "When a hostile creature's movement provokes an opportunity attack from you". The opportunity attack is not being provoked from you, but from your echo". The creature is not moving away from your space but from your echo. Otherwise it should say when a creature provokes an opportunity attack.... To me this breaks the use of warcaster as the creature is not provoking it from you but from your echo. It's 2 different rules interacting and which takes precidence. It's clearly stating you attack as if you were in the echos space. But then you argue you are able to cast a spell from your space as you are not making the opportunity attack but casting a spell instead to bypass that restriction. But clearly the creature is not provoking the attack from you as you are not close to it and so can't cast a spell as the opportunity attack.
From warcaster: When a hostile creature's movement provokes an opportunity attack from you, you can use your reaction to cast a spell at the creature, rather than making an opportunity attack. The spell must have a casting time of 1 action and must target only that creature. From echo knight: When a creature that you can see within 5 feet of your echo moves at least 5 feet away from it, you can use your reaction to make an opportunity attack against that creature as if you were in the echo's space. Let's break it down. Seeing as you have one reaction per round, if you can make an opportunity attack you can use either feature. The echo knight feature specifically allows you to make attacks from the echos' space. For the opportunity attack to trigger, the creature must willingly move through or away from the area you can reach in melee; this includes the area around your echo. So if the creature moves away from your echo you can pull-off an opportunity attack as per the echo knight feature. The warcaster feat then allows you to convert that opportunity attack reaction to cast a spell at the creature instead. Finally, the echo knight feature allows you to cast that spell from the echos' position AS IF you were in the echo's space. This allows the use of booming blade (but not sneak attack, unless you just make a normal attack of opportunity) from either your space or the echos'.
@@reson8 I'm sorry but at no point does it say you can use either feature. One says the opportunityattack must come from you. The other says you can make an opportunity attack as if you are in the echos space. With all that being equal, you can't make an opportunity attack through the echo and still be in your space. You cant have the eldritch blast come from your space. I dont see the confusion here. If you want to use a cantrip, its from the echos space. Not yours. It's crystal clear on that. In addition warcaster states the opportunityattack must be provoked from you. You cant just overlook that. If you are going RAW, the opportunityattack is not being provoked from you. I would allow the cantrip but it is being made at disadvantage if it is a ranged one. The ranged one cannot eminate from your space if you are provoking the opportunity attack from the echo.
@@reson8 I think you are missing something, I am saying that if you cast eldritch blast it must be made with disadvantage, the first bolt at least if using repelling blast. That is the issue I have. According to both packtactics and the creator of this character, the eldritch blast will come from you and not the echo. this is clearly wrong. They believe that they can overlook the wording for the echo feature and just apply the wording from warcaster at the saem time overlooking the wording from warcaster which states the opportunity attack must come from you. They are mangling the rules in every possible way to make something work that simply cant work the way they want.
@@robertlynch1834 Hi Robert. Good response! I agree with you mostly on your first reply but the echo knight feature allows you to make an opportunity attack from the echo's space as if you were there (assuming the OA comes from that location). If your attack is ranged, whether normal or from a ranged spell via warcaster, that attack is at disadvantage unless you have another feature allowing you to make ranged attacks in melee without it (ie: crossbow expert).
@@reson8 yes we agree on that. But my complaint was that packtactics says that you can eldritch blast FROM your location when an opportunity attack is triggered from your echo without disadvantage. This is clearly incorrect as we both agree here. When you make an opportunity attack from your echo, you are in your echos position so you would have disadvantage. If you watch the video you will see the justifcation used and it is clearly incorrect on using the rules. Under no circumstances can you make a ranged attack from your echos position WITHOUT disadvantage without the nessecary feat. They dont have that feat. The say warcaster overrides that rule allowing ranged attack from your position.
I decided to add 10lv rogue swashbuckler and phantom steed and find familiar to chase my enemies and deal sneak attack damage from either me or my echo as long my familar can keep up and see us. With mounted combatment in case there's more than one enemy. So my own version of the strategy is to have me attack first then have my echo chase after them assuming they are frightened. With investing into dex instead plus swashbuckler, i will most likely act first. Then it's just time to clean them up with green flame blade, eldtrich blast or any other spell.
Here's something interesting and I'm not certain of the order of operations. Starting from within 5ft of the Echo a creature you can see moves 5ft away from the Echo. In this instance from your features you can use your reaction to make an opportunity attack. So in this situation the creature did NOT provoke an opportunity attack, you USED your reaction to make an opportunity attack. If you declare you are making this specific opportunity attack, your reaction is used AND in the wording the creature did not provoke an opportunity attack. In Warcaster specifically, "If a hostile creature's movement provokes an opportunity attack from you..." The difference is with echo knight you may be able to use a reaction to make an opportunity attack that has not been provoked if a creature moves away from your echo. Just on this stipulation RAW or RAI I'm not sure this is or is not abusing the rules a little bit. If the echo knight intended to work this way it would have been easy to write it differently to make sure it would work with Warcaster. "When a creature that you can see within 5ft of your echo moves at least 5ft away from it, that creature provokes an attack of opportunity from you as if you were in the echo's space" In this wording you can clearly see this would 100% work no question, and it's very different from the actual wording of the echo knight, which would mean it's a grey area.
The definition of an opportunity attack means that a creature willingly moves through or away from an area 5ft around your character (further with Polearm master). It's the proximity of that movement which 'provokes' the opportunity attack, not whether they are blowing raspberries or insulting your mother along the way. If you are able to, you can then use your reaction to make the opportunity attack from either your characters' location or the echos'.
That's an interesting build idea, but i've had a thought of how it could be taken to a whole other level. The only thing limiting it is being able to make just a single reaction per turn in combat. But there is at least one way i've found that can surpass it, but it takes 17 levels in Warlock until it gets online. First, scratch the fighter levels so we can get 17 Warlock levels ASAP. Pick Hexblade patron or Pact of the Blade for martial weapon proficiency (not actually required, it's just to get proficiency with polearm reach weapon), get a polearm with reach. Get Polearm Master, War Caster and Repelling Blast as in this build for the same reason as in the video. Then pick Shapechange as your Mystic Arcanum for level 9 spell. Use it to turn into a Marilith. On top of being a total beast in melee with tons of resistances, she has an interesting feature: Reactive. The marilith can take one reaction on every turn in combat. So unless i'm misunderstanding something with one of the interactions, you can use that combo to make an attack of opportunity against an unlimited number of opponents trying to reach you. And with Marilith being a large monster, and with you using a reach weapon, it means that you control an area 20 ft in size (or 36 squares, 4 that you occupy yourself, 12 adjacent to yourself and extra 20 from using a weapon with Reach) you become essentially unassailable by anyone trying to hurt you in melee. But it gets better, as an action Marilith can teleport at will to any unoccupied space up to 120 ft, so even if by some miracle someone manages to reach you, and maybe try locking you down with a grapple you can just pop away when your turn comes. And to add insult to injury, War Caster also gives you an advantage to saving throws for maintaining concentration ;). And that's just a foundation, you can add anything you like to it. You can pick a different patron or pact boon, add any multiclass, feat, etc.
I can see an easy loophole for an unwilling DM. The third bullet point for manifest echo says you can make an opportunity attack as if you were in the echo's space, which suggests what is triggered is an opportunity attack for the echo, not an opportunity attack for you. For example, both you and the echo have enemies within 5 feet, if the enemy moves out of the range of the echo, you could not, then, make an opportunity attack against the enemy in your own range just because you have an opportunity attack action granted by your echo, the reaction would have to come from the echo against the enemy in their range that is creating the opportunity. And since echos can only take opportunity attacks, not cast spells, there's no way to cast a spell that originates from the echo's space, since war caster says you would be exchanging an opportunity attack action for a spell cast action. Now, thematically, the echo knight is described as warping around a battlefield to attack enemies from all sides, so there's an argument to be made that the way by which echos get this opportunity to attack is that the knight momentarily makes the echo's potentiality into reality by momentarily swapping places with the echo in order to make a physical attack from that space before swapping back. This would suggest that you could cast spells from an echo's location because it would be your reality occupying that space at that moment, not your potentiality, which means you get an opportunity attack action for yourself in that space, which you could then exchange for a spell cast action with war caster. However, this still undermines the build, as you would still have to cast the spell from the echo's space, not your own, which would generally knock enemies toward you rather than away from you. Alternatively, you could argue that the knight has expanded awareness of their echo's conditions, since their connection with dunamis grants them an awareness of other potentialities. The knight is aware of the echo's opportunities, even if they may or may not capitalize on them. In this way, the knight is directly aware of opportunity attack potentials for the echo and can have the opportunity to react personally to them, not just have the echo react. However, the DM could then argue that that level of awareness is something only granted by the echo avatar ability, which would require you to be blind and deaf. Anyway, I definitely think RAI is that opportunity attack for the echo must be executed by the echo, so even if you got away with the echo casting EB from its position, which isn't unprecedented since familiars can perform remote casting, it still greatly undermines the build from a reaction economy standpoint. Cool idea, though.
It doesn't say anywhere that echo's can't cast spells. In fact, echo's can't really do anything by themselves; they act as a portal through which the PC can attack/move. The echo doesn't attack, the PC does. The echo doesn't move, the PC moves it. Likewise the echo doesn't cast spells, the PC casts them from the echos' location.
@@reson8 Right, I covered that. The issue is that the PC needs to be casting spells from their own location to generally repel enemies away from themselves rather than toward themselves. If the enemy moved past the echo in the direction of the PC the enemy would be between the echo and the PC when the spell was cast, which would repel the enemy closer to the PC rather than further away.
@@QuesoCookies This is true, but in that scenario you wouldn't cast anything which would push the enemy closer to you (unless there was some fun stuff like a lava pit between you) you'd just do a normal attack of opportunity, a different spell, or maybe nothing at all.
Actually the target doesn't lose the grappled feature. If you have a method at range to grapple they remain so. There is literally a tattoo to do that 15 feet away.
Shouldn’t catapult affect an Echo as well? It is an object that isn’t affected by gravity, which means it has no weight so it’s less than 5 pounds. Catapult will essentially be an instant off button for any echo as they only have 1 HP, little tip for any fellow DMs with an Echo Knight in the party
This has inspired a less optimal but pretty fun-sounding idea for a build: the mirror blade. Basically, Bladesinger with echo knight multi class that uses things like Blur, Mirror Image, and other magic to make copies, or the illusion of copies of himself. Is it the strongest? No. But it might be fun to see how many false selves I can create!
@@Greywander87 maybe so. Cleric isn't the best for dipping imo, unless you're after something very specific (i.e. Bless, really). But a variant might be Trickster Rogue dip for some sneak attack dice when you've got them turned around and fighting the wrong 'you'!
I'm getting at this build very late in the game but I have a question: Can the Repelling blast effect trigger the opportunity attack through Echo Knigth's Manifest Echo (thrid bullet point)? I know forced movement doesn't trigger opportunity attacks (as stated in the basic rules) but the wording is different enough between the two sources that makes me question if Manifest Echo trumps this. Does anyone know the answer?
what about hexblade/echo knight? so u can focus harder on charisma when related to damage etc... and progress in any of those 2 clases look cool to me, ill try to figure out a build like that.
Kobold: always target the spellcaster Reminds me of my eldritch knight who was literally built to kill mages. We were rolling for stats I think my stats were (after racial ASI) 18 8 11 11 16 7 I had polearm master as a vuman, at 4th level I took alert because my dex was terrible and I wanted to go before the enemy mage, at level six I upped my con and wisdom and level 8 I took resilient wisdom (you'll see why in a second) and at level 12 I took the tough feat (which is not a go to feat for me but I only had 12 con and was getting dropped a lot) My go to strategy was Turn 1: use all my movement I could without provoking AOOs, then misty step right next to the spellcaster, attack and action surge, all attacks went against the caster. If the caster died on the first turn I still used action surge and then took the dodge action. I would then shout out to the bard to drop a hypnotic pattern danger close (this is why I had 18 wis and proficiency in wisdom saves) Turn 2: misty step and dodge Was it the strongest build ever? No, not even close. But I was good at what I did
I haven't got that far in the video yet and I haven't checked to see if this will actually work, but warcaster could allow a player to use their reaction to cast hold person on an enemy trying to escape and thus cancel out the rest of their turn
Slight mistake, If you pick up warcaster at level 1 then you can't go fighter at all because you dont meet the prerequisite. Also for those who keep bugging me about EB, yes I can do this. mobile.twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/908469121502736384
Eh, who actually uses prerequisites?
Fighter should still be picked first just to unlock heavy armor & shield proficiencies, though. Wisdom saving throw proficiency is good, but it can be taken as a feat later, and you'll still have the Con saving throw.
@@MyLittlePonyTheater You dont need heavy armor for this build and you get shield proficiency anyways.
You made another mistake I think. Shatter can kill the echo too
@@Spiceodog I do think the echo is magical in nature so it doesn't take damage.
"A nonmagical object that isn't being worn or carried also takes the damage if it's in the spell's area."
Someone: *thinks polearm master for reaction attacks*
Kobold: "and I took that personally"
If you take both you can repel them as soon as they reach the echo. Now you don't have to worry about melees at all instead of after they walk away. That leaves it open to attacks. Read them both it works. After all why would they avoid it if they can kill it.
I love the shenanigans this build enables. It’s not often you see a dedicated caster take a full 3 levels in Fighter.
3 LVL in fighters is always good just for Action surge and some cleric with some class like the Cavaliers for the taunt is really good.
@@Sir-Pleiades
I prefer 2 levels in Fighter just for the Action Surge, that way my Wizard can eventually still get Spell Mastery and cast infinite Misty Steps and Feather Falls.
@@theuncalledfor fighter dip for action surge only gets better due to the way action surge is worded. Because you get 2 action surges at character level 17
@@donovangunther4538
Action Surge lets you cast two full spells, not just cantrips, leveled spells, in a single turn. And it recharges on a short rest.
I don't care if my wizard never gets two Action Surges, he can cast a ninth level spell and an eighth level spell on the same turn, RAW!
@@donovangunther4538 Not really, because Action Surge in the Fighter table explicitly says when you get those extra uses.
Excellent build and video! The use of the war caster + echo knight is novel!
But you have to remember that a lot of rulling for it is... not clear. Tabletop advise that you first talk with your DM if the stuff works like that becasue it's Mat Mercer class and guy is great DM but he makes dog shit mechanical stuff.
I made a shadar kai shadow sorcerer echo knight with platemail and a pike...
With all the specific feats, racial and class features, choice of spells and choice of meta magic I have at my disposal I'm so freaking optimized my enemies want to 🤮
😅😂🤣
This feels like a prestige class. I wonder if there’s non optimized but perfectly balanced and capable that also feel completely unique
PAM and Crusher with a Quarterstaff can do one 5ft push per turn. Like Sneak Attack, you get to use the Crusher push again on an opponent’s turn, so it’ll combo well with PAM opportunity attacks. It’s a less extreme version of something similar to this. More like the old Forcelance than the new Echo Knight version, but still pretty cool. Almost like thick Boba Fett swinging his gaffi stick.
The combo doesn’t need to invest heavily into spell casting to function at a basic level. Just two feats, so it’ll work as early as level 4 if you start with a feat. Something probably worth getting is Dueling fighting style for some solid damage on your own turn with the PAM bonus attack. Battlemaster might be an option for some OK burst damage and then just holding the line. Maybe go Paladin for Improved Divine Smite at higher levels-you could go straight class Pally and non-optimize, but still have a lot of fun with reactions and pushing. Sentinel feat also adds in well, since 0 speed on an enemy after a 5ft push might be enough.
Or go Eldritch Knight for Warcaster Booming Blade reactions. BB with the staff is closer to RAI for polearm attacks even if Eldritch Blast is ok RAW. Variant Human or Custom Lineage and 6 levels in Fighter gets you all 3 feats. Pushing someone away and maybe they have to trigger the BB secondary damage to get into melee isn’t too shabby, but it gives the DM more choices and a much smaller distance to cover than two 10ft pushes.
I'd love to see a deeper dive on War Caster and how to get max use out of that, perhaps that is something I can dig into myself.
You can do aaaaaloooot, its an untouched topic really.
I would really love for more set ups for it. Even if it fails, there's one thing (out of the many I want to do) that really could end enemies with proper teamwork.
And that's Hold Person and Hold Monster, being able to use those as a reaction is something I've wanted to do, but that I haven't done yet.
It might not be the best strategy, but hey, getting possibly more milage of the paralyzed before the enemies turn (I assume they succeed the save, my luck is horrible) sounds tempting to really ruin day of whatever you are fighting.
And yes crits are only for people within 5 feet, but hey, I play mostly gishes so...
I prefer saving my reactions for absorb elements/shield/counter spell/held spells/ silvery barbs when not banned.
This sounds like an amazing build. I'll certainly have to look into it when I get around to starting this in another campaign. Right now, though, I'm getting back into the DM chair with my Tuesday group, so it's time to nearly TKP my players each game, just to keep things interesting. 😈
I loved listening to how genuinely excited you are about this. Really fun builds and great vid as always.
I've only gotten to use it a few times, but its pretty funny using warcaster to drop bestow curse on somebody.
My favorite use is Command, because the Grovel command makes them fall prone and end their turn. And since it's an opportunity attack, they're doing this right in front of you.
One of my favorite moments in game was when my friend who was playing a Warlock used his warcaster reaction to mental prison a really big enemy who was trying to flee. It was fucking awesome. 👌
Oh I was hoping there'd be a "But Kobold" shirt. I'll be getting that one!
To me thats the coolest thing for sale lol
@@PackTactics It's been ordered. Looking forward to getting it in a few weeks.
See this kind of thing is why I love optimizing. Taking a feature you’d think of as minor or just a bonus, and making the build around it. It becomes something unique to your character while still being effective.
Sincerely,
-A guy who plays a suturefly companion beastmaster ranger
There is an interesting later build option you could take revolving around the additional warlock invocations of grasp of hadar and lance of lethargy, at higher levels with additional eldritch blasts you get HUGE control of wherever your enemy is at all times, being able to move it both away and towards you, you get a lot of crowd control and synergy with any other casters and environmental hazards in combat with the added benefit of reducing your targets speed until the end of your next turn, essentially forcing them out of combat for the entire combat
Quick note: you can't frighten enemies via your form of dread on an opportunity attack, as the feature says that you can do it "Once on each of *your* turns".
right!? first thing i thought of too. i've ran a couple undead warlocks (one melee multiclass, one straight class). Took war caster on both. Our table (including me) read that feature as a once per (your) turn effect. not as part of your reaction. To compare, sneak attack says, "...once A turn" allowing you to trigger it on opportunity attacks. Love it when "super optimized" builds use a busted 3rd party subclass and then just completely overlook RAW
@@theangler1922 ill admit i hardly watched it. i built this same guy right after undead warlock came out. (slight differences of course as i didnt know about the "famous ghostlance") but then i kept reading about this build and decided to check it out only to find its something ive done before. Its fairly good, but i have no idea whats so special about it and i played it in a 9 month long campaign. sure it offers decent control, but most of the control comes from just the base warlock. with this build, you have a middling DC at best. many enemies of decent strength are immune to fear or have resistances. so you have MAYBE a 50% chance to cause fear on a single grunt per turn, big deal. Im not trying to belittle anyone, but for all the hype around this build, i dont get it, its a meh build at best
@@theangler1922 I undertand all of that, as ive played it before lol. I was responding to the guy above me who i had incorrectly assumed had watched and understood the video himself. But i came here after reading dozens of people talking about how amazing it is on forums. And the fact treantmonk and pack tactics made a video on it, i had my hopes up. Its just a repelling blast warlock thats a fraction better than baseline and needing a busted 3rd party subclass to do it. And i hardly ever build a warlock without repelling blast as i love it. Im not trying to be an a$$, i just read SOOO much hype and from personal experience, its meh. Now for flavor, go for it. I usually choose flavor over optimized anyway.
I did a straight Fathomless with Lance of Leth, repelling blast, and agonizing blast. Feels like it fits a very similar profile but doesnt require any saving throws and hits more reliably. and since straight class, get ASI and invocations much faster. It pretty much guarantees locking down any melee enemy of your choice, Even a Terrasque. worst case, a dip into a cleric or fighter gets you your armor if really needed. overall a stronger build IMO.
@@theangler1922 1 level dip vs 3 levels, huge difference and if you cant understand that i cant help you. and while the echo does have utility but nothing that other effects or spells cant do. Plus, fathomless has utility too, just different. I know cuz ive played 40-50 hours with the echo knight subclass. get pact of the chain and you just covered about every "utility" thing the echo can do. The echo dies constantly too to any attack which sure is fine, or AoE. and yes there is the whole "since it is an object it doesnt get effected by AoE" but if you rule that essentially nothing effects echo knights except for direct martial attacks, its completely broken. And that isn't a good build. Gives a couple extra attacks and can occupy space but cant be effected by a fireball? Im genuinely happy my DM didnt rule it that ay as its frankly idiotic if you have an IQ above 60. it's a busted subclass from a 3rd party publisher. If you rolled echo knight into "official" subclases, i dont think there is much doubt its arguably the most busted subclass there is (not best class, just subclass) There are dozens of broken 3rd party classes that blow this away. And your defense is all the stuff the echo can do is what makes this build work. I mean the subclass was built purely for NPCs in Mercer's setting and we act like it's a comparable build option 🤪 . I mean if your table just lets players pull busted subclasses in with zero common sense, then good for you little buddy, but im glad im not at that table. BYE!
@@theangler1922 oh come on little buddy, i was having fun getting paid reading your funny rants 😁
I’ve been waiting on this video ever since he teased it last month. So glad it’s finally finished and even better than I thought. Well done, as always Kobold you are very quickly becoming one of my favorite D&D optimization build channels. Keep up the good work.
I love the distinction between creature and object with the echo knight. Taking Devils Sight as an invocation and casting Hunger of Hadar would allow you to push a creature into the circle, put your echo knight inside where it suffers no effects and can use your reaction at advantage to keep enemies inside taking cold and acid damage while they have disadvantage on all attack rolls and can’t cast many spells.
Devil’s sight can’t penetrate Hunger of Hadar.
@@brannenpfister2579it’s magical darkness, so yes it can
@@ShakeTonMilshake Hunger of Hadar doesn’t produce magical darkness. It’s an inky void. Not even truesight can see through it. Only tremorsense and blindsight. Many many people get this wrong.
I love this. I have been eyeing the echo knight to play. I might just build one with a 2 level dip in warlock for all shenanigans this offers. You sir are a scaly treasure.
This is a great build and I'm hyped to try it out one day. Great video Pack Tactics : )
I love this idea and the mechanics behind it! This video is already a couple of years old so you didn't have access to some of this but here is one of my takes on a more modern variant:
Take the Polearm Master feat and use a halberd so that your reach is now 10 feet, and take the new Path of the Giant subclass for Barbarians so that your reach increases by 5 feet. This means your total reach is now 15 feet. You also become Large if you are medium or smaller. This actually matters as 15 feet reach on a medium creature covers 48 squares around you on a grid, and 15 feet reach on a large creature covers 60 squares around you on a grid. You reach remains the same, 15 feet, but because a large creature takes up a 4x4 area on a grid it allows you to cover/reach more squares... where even more enemies could have a chance to enter your reach and trigger an AoO.
You're also gonna need to be able to cast Eldritch Blast with the invocation Repelling Blast at the very least (you're probably gonna also want Agonizing Blast). When an enemy breaches your 15 foot bubble of reach you get an AoO.
Now I should mention here that you would also need Warcaster to switch from using an AoO to casting a spell with our reaction. Cast Eldritch Blast and push the enemy back 10 feet so they are now 25 feet away. Since you need at least 3 levels in Barbarian and a way to cast Eldritch Blast with the Repelling Blast invocation you are probably gonna need 2 levels in Warlock also.
Overall this will mean you are a minimum of a 5th level multiclass (Barb 3/Warlock2) and your Eldritch Blast will have two beams which means you could leave your enemy standing 35 feet away... on their turn... as a reaction. How much of their movement did they use to get to within 15 feet of you before you 'blasted them away' and how much do they have left after finding themselves 35 feet distance from you?
I feel like this manifest echo combo works really well with the earth genie warlock which gets spike growth and deals a little bit of extra damage which is bludgeoning so if you wanted you could take crusher for more pushing.
Amazing video as always Kolbold. Question though: what's your opinion on Genie Pact warlock for this build instead of undead. I building this right now actually and was looking at warlock 3 fighter 3 then sorcerer to get spike growth and possibly crusher feat for more movement eventually. Do you think this has merit over undead?
Genie lance works too. Its a better straight warlock build. Like its up to you at the end of they day! Whats brilliant about this is it works with a lot of things and Im glad you noticed the genie way because I remember many months ago we talked about it.
I'm always surprised by how many players don't take repelling blast. Especially after they e seen how effectively I've used it for battlefield control
100% agree. Very underrated invocation.
In general just repelling blast enemies into Hunger of Hadar is so much fun
Usually I see it recommended as the second invocation to take after Agonizing Blast. It's true that some players stop after Agonizing Blast, but if you invest into EB beyond that, then Repelling Blast is typically the next one you'll get, and often the _only_ other EB invocation you'll get. It's unfortunate that Grasp of Hadar and Lance of Lethargy can't be stacked with multiple beams like Repelling Blast can, but TBH it would probably be overkill if you could stack them all together.
Would love to see a follow-up video to this. Most fun I've had playing DND was this build.
Great idea. Undead fits the ghostlyness of the echo as well!
If I set the speed to 1.5 it goes at a reasonable pace. I was having Michael Lehrer flashbacks at first. Love the videos now.
I can definitely see DM's ruling that the attack has to originate from the echo, since the only reason you get opportunity attacks is because they're turning their back and running away from you; "you" being the echo. I read this as you attacking from the echo's space. Even if that was the ruling, Sentinel would still work, and so would Booming Blade! The Echo Knight alone is crazy good!
Can't wait to try some variation of this build, I love the roleplay opportunities! You are a living nightmare, conjuring shadows and blasting people. 😄
Actually sentinel only works if you also have to cast from the echo's space, since otherwise you have to make an arbitrary distinction between if your feats are only applied to you, your echo or if there is a specific list for each... Which is not how the manifest echo feature is written.
im confused why are the comments slap full of people talkinjg about the echo knight on a rougue build?
This is such an excellent build. I am looking forward to playing thus
Since the echo knight is an object, you can interact with it as an object, including grabbing it and using it as an improvised weapon (a club or a boulder, depending on size) and using it to beat the caster for a minimum of 1d4+str bonus, problably more, depending on how close your echo resembles a weapon your enemy has proficiency with.
this is what i would of been doing if a player tried to use this build on me. "ok so the enemy Barb picks up your echo and bashing you with your own echo" prevents triggering the entire build.
cool build and i LOVE that you clearly say "intents and purposes" lol
I waited for this, I love your style of videos
Oooh, I've been waiting for this since it was teased.
This is my current build and it's so cool. Although I went Dragonborn for my race and started as a fighter for backstory purposes, I'm currently at level 6 and am fully online sans sorcerer levels. I'm going to be going all in on DSS for the. Unfortunate I won't be level 9 until I finally get web, but the synergy here is just too absurd.
I have no problem letting the other PCs in my party get access to absurd spells and damage, if it means I get to completely and utterly control the battlefield.
WHOOOOOOOOOOOO SO HYPED, I LOVE THIS BUILD!
I love the echo knight and wanted to use it somehow. This is hilariously interesting, but it seems you need a dm that is willing to get nitty gritty with all the nuances
The echo could reasonably be dealt with by catapult, but it depends how the dm rules it's weight. It is solid in that it can attack and fill a space, but it is a translucent grey image so it can't weight that much.
If it is ruled to weigh between 1 and 5 pounds it could be catapulted by an enemy wizard to either attack your party or simply fling it 90 feet away, destroying it without a save.
Unless echoes are a common quantity in the game world, most monsters I would take it would be unfamiliar with just what the echo is, be it another creature or an illusion or something else. But provided they know it's an object either during the fight itself or because they were aware of its capabilities before hand, a melee monster could just use an item interaction to pick up the echo and walk towards the party without provoking opportunity attacks and overall not sacrificing action economy. Alternativey, they could throw it away, which would either be part of their item interaction or might require an attack as determined by the DM.
Wanted to comment here to endorse the build as I got to use it in a one-shot, it's really great! Personally I really like taking warlock 3 for the imp familiar then going rest sorcerer.
Divine is great for the cleric list, clockwork is great too for the flexibility but personally I would choose lunar subclass. The spells aren't all that great but 6th level lunar boons feature helps stretch out those sorcery points for when you wanna quicken an eldritch blast or subtle a big spell you can't afford to be counterspelled.
*or you could beg your DM for a bloodwell vial, that could be called minmaxing
Im happy you had fun! Theres many build opportunities in this single build so theres a lot of replay value. I still haven't found a build thats as unique as this.
I’m playing a ghostlance next weekend. Seems like a really awesome build!
How did you flavored it?
Love echo Knight (but that creature/object nonsense is hanky). In our games we changed up the echo to match the pet classes like Drake warden and beast master. Having a moderately bulky echo makes for a much more enjoyable gameplay experience (for both player and DM). Even added that every second attack gains advantage if striking the same enemy between yourself and the echo on top of the level 7 echo avatar feature.
If it eats an enemy's attack, that's still an attack that you or one of your party members didn't take. You can resummon it as a bonus action at no cost, so this is actually a decent tanking ability. If enemies always try to kill your echo, then while you might not get to use it as much, it's actually probably being more useful by mitigating attacks.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I have been told before that if you’re holding a whip and have war caster you can cast a spell at someone who leaves your 10 foot whip range or your 5 foot fist range because op attacks triggers for leaving the weapons range, and not for leaving 5 foot range. So holding a whip means you threaten a wider variety of movement around you in a larger area.
But reading echo knight this doesn’t work on your echo because manifest echo does specify that the op attack triggers for leaving 5 feet of the echo, even though the echo would be able to make that attack with a weapon with reach, the reach doesn’t extend the range of the echo’s op attack. But if you have war caster you might as well hold a whip yourself. Even if you lack proficiency, it is a tool to make the threat of your op attacks cover a larger area. My clerics use it, so that they can walk up to someone with a 5 foot reach and command, if the command works they stay still and get an op attack, and if it fails they walk away and take no op attack. Having proficiency in the whip is redundant. It’s just there so I can chain commands
“This build doesn’t work with gnomes!”
Hah, Pack Tactics is getting into character!
Jokes aside, this build seems like fun. Might go the route of Fighter 3/Warlock X someday.
I actually took a bit of inspiration from this and went 17 levels Arcane Trickster Rogue and 3 level Echo Knight Fighter. This character was probably the slipperiest I've ever used.
Because of the Steady Aim Feature from Tasha's together with the ability to cast Invisibility, Minor Illusion and Mage Hand Ledger Domain, I can pretty much use the Echo as a stand in for my character in fights while they hide in plain sight, cast spells to mess with the enemy and let my Echo pretty much constantly slam enemies with Ranged Sneak Attacks.
If you're wondering where Minor Illusion comes in, I usually use it as a sort of camouflage to blend into the background once I'm out of line of sight and then use the hide action while remotely attacking with my Echo over and over again lol
Man I had this build in my head for a while it’s so cool
This is assuming enemies don't simply pick up the echo as part of their turn and move it with them, preventing an attack of opportunity.
As you mentioned, the echo is an object, so phb 190:
"You can also interact with one object or feature of the environment for free, during either your move or your action. For example, you could open a door during your move as you stride toward a foe, or you could draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to attack."
Admittedly, I would reserve this counter for intelligent enemies, but it's worth mentioning.
Then you get another case where you yourself can just pick up the echo with object interaction and fly off.
@@PackTactics lol, that's very true! But it's not a grapple and it seems to follow RAW.
You can even go a step further: have your PC stand on the echo. No grappling or object interaction required and infinite flight.
Hmmm, am I missing something, or did we discover a new broken strategy?
Just did some more digging. Apparently, any object or magical force must have a carrying capacity specified (mage hand, bigby's hand, etc) or it defaults to not being able to carry anything.
Since the echo has no such description, it can't carry anything, hence my original point of it being movable as an object interaction is still valid.
This video is still super helpful! I was trying to see would work.
I Just realized things I can do with jumping while grappling creatures and dropping them to the ground, then falling on them. At least 3 lvls of echo knight are going it o that build. hahahaha!
I think getting warlock 5th level is definitely something to consider even if you continue to go for sorcerer simply to get agonising blast simply due to how often you will be using eldritch both as actions and reactions
wow what a cool build. I'll have to try it if I get the chance.
I hope “except gnomes” becomes a reoccurring theme.
IT'S HERE!!!!
I accidentally made a character like this after seeing your echo knight video, except I went aberrant mind sorcerer level 5 after getting war caster and echo knight from fighter. Dissonant Whispers is fun.
Definitely a contender for my next character for a campaign. It's already decided I'm playing a kobold, it's just what class/build I play with it.
I’m building something similarish for my next campaign 6 Echo Knight, 14 first vampire warlock (Grim Hollow)
It’s for a darker campaign and I’m very excited to play it.
I'd love another video applying this concept to Trickery Domain Clerics. 👍
I would have picked Bane, a level one spell available to Undead Locks with the expanded spell list availability, or use Entangle if Strixhaven Backgrounds are permitted by the DM, having the Quandrix Student Initiate Feat being able to pick up Entangle as a first level spell or sleep if Entangle is the AoE CC you wanted to pick up with the first level wizard spell to get (Although many would like to have taken FF spell to gain an owl familiar to gain advantage over, or pick a hawk to be able to use Dragon's Breath with a 15 feet cone in an air attack)
Something I notice is that this strategy only works against melee enemies. Enemy casters and archers should be perfectly happy to sit next to your echo and shoot at your party. With this in mind, it might be worth varying your tactics. Eldritch Spear and Spell Sniper pushes the range of your Eldritch Blast out to 600 feet, which should outrange most enemies. With Repelling Blast, you can just keep blasting them backwards in order to keep them from ever getting close enough to shoot anything your direction. Sadly, our echo can't exist that far out from us, but that doesn't mean we can't still make use of it. We still have a 30 to 60 foot teleport, which we can use to create even more distance, or to reposition ourselves, as needed. The other option is to still pick up Booming Blade, and then we can just teleport into melee with enemy casters/archers.
I actually have an eldritch sniper build that is genielock 7 / dragon sorc 6, using Genie's Wrath to add fire or cold damage to EB, which in turn gets to add more damage from the dragon sorc's Elemental Affinity (essentially a flat +11 to DPR, since you will almost always hit with at least one beam). Also stacks Eldritch Spear, Spell Sniper, and Distant Spell to get those truly long range sniper shots. I could probably fit 3 levels of Echo Knight in there in order to make this tactic work when engaging over short distances.
doing this with dao genie warlock + the feats crusher, the spell spike growth and enough sorc levels instead of fighter level for quicken is fun. quicken spike growth, push them 20ft then pull them 10ft then crusher then 5ft. If they walk up, do it again! that's 35ft moved, more at higher levels, and if you double it to 70ft with your reaction, it's what, 4d10+16+28d4+10 or so, depends on your level. Pretty fun, considering you don't even use outside help yet
Can't wait to try this out someday, love the vid!
So this is Coffeelock + Echo Knight. Thats... strangely effective. Neat.
On dnd beyond I believe all cantrips increase in power in regards to your player level, not the class level.
also coffeelocking, or just tealocking, is a cool addition to this
Small comment: Fireball/firestorm also affects the echo, as it sets all objects on fire that aren't worn or carried. As being on fire should deal some damage to the object and the echo only has 1 HP it destroys the echo
Sorry but that is incorrect. Fireball states "It ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried." Nowhere does it state that an echo is flammable, so it would not be destroyed. Plus, there's no solidified rules on the damage being set on fire does.
"It ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried." This is more up to the DM if a translucent, gray image is flammable but in my book no.
It's immune to all conditions. Being on fire is a condition last I checked.
Im not sure if things like desintigrate or shatter would affect the echo, they specify "Non-magical objects" I'm guessing the echo is magical btu the DM might rule otherwise.
I do not see "being on fire" or "burning" as a condition in my books, do you have a reference on what page it is defined? In case this condition exists I'd agree that the echo would be immune. I'd also agree that it is DM decision (as many things in 5E) whether or not the image is flammable, it might rely on how the image is flavored. However I do think there is a reasonable rules arguement that it should be flammable.
Items in general do not specify whether they are flammable, so one might argue that objects are flammable unless they have immunity to fire damage.
Quoting from the rulestext for object stats: "When time is a factor, you can assign an Armor Class and Hit Points to a destructible object. You can also give it immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities to specific types of damage. "
Thus, when an objects defenses become relevant for combat (e.g. because it gets fireballed and its continued existance is important to the adventure) the DM decides what hitpoints the item (e.g. grappling hook) has, how much AC and which immunities (e.g. fire, thus making it not flammable, or nonmagical slashing because a sword won't cut through solid metal). However, the rules for the object "echo" regarding combat are already defined in the feature as its combat relevance is expected. While AC and HP and (condition) immunities are defined, no additional immunities like fire immunity (making it not flammable) are specified. I thus conclude that it can take damage from fire, making it flammable. Otherwise one could argue that it also is immune to (nonmagical) bludgeon/piercing/slashing damage, as a hologram style echo from the past cannot be affected by mundane weapons.
It is also true that there are no rules for items being on fire, however I'd say that at least 1damage/round (enough to kill the echo) would be around the minimum if considering rules where burning IS defined (e.g. fire elemental 1d10, oil 5 flat, web 2d4), who all deal considerable damage per round.
Damn, I love contemplating fantasy physics.
Cool...my like on the video was number 1,000!! Yay! Oh, and VERY fun video, by the way. Planning on using this build next game.
Proposal, Genie warlock, scales much better as a full warlock since it has good abilities athigher levels and while it s not a frighten on eldritch blast if you take crusher you can push enemies in the air, therefore throwing them on the air, doing extra damage and making them prone, all without the save that dread form allows or the need for any action or resource to set up the ability, it does make a feat hungry build even hungrier, probably forces a feat race so you can be online by 6 but imo scales much better as it gets around legendary resistances and still limited enemy movement greatly
Now I want to see an EK Moon Druid. Phantom, teleporting bears and elementals!!
Hey kobold, what do you think about a rogue/echo knight build? If rogues weren't slippery enough give them free teleports and you can always sneak attack on opportunity attacks so optimizing to get more seems pretty great. Also, depending on interpretation, if your character is hidden I think you could manifest echo and sneak attack on the same turn
Rogue: I will pick the lock. Echo knight: don't bother. Echo goes through the door, blind swaps and opens the door.(obviously not always ideal and If the door is say padlocked on a brace bar you still have to pass a pick test But that situation is an I possible lock picking otherwise)
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This makes sense to me. At the very least, the Echo-Rogue has far fewer objections and questionable interpretations than the Echo-Warcaster build described in this video.
The Echo-Rogue is using both a class feature and a subclass feature as intended, just at the same time. Even if a DM can object to the combo, he or she should not because it's clearly rules as intended.
In contrast the Echo-Warcaster is nowhere close to rules and intended and stands on shaky ground if read as rules as written.
More builds please!!! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
I read the title and was honestly expecting something with the ability to summon a mount with a lance like medieval ghost rider.
Tips for DMs struggling to challenge an Echo Knight
> Have one enemy archer hold their attack for when the Echo appears
> Destroy Echo immediately
> Profit
Tips for Echo Knights struggling to keep their echo alive
> Summon your echo as a bonus action
> Have it eat an attack instead of one of your party members
> Tanking
@@Greywander87 Yeah I fail to see how this is a problem lol, job eating at least one attack well done.
@@Dinictus I don't remember exactly what I was implying when I made the comment, but I think that may have been my point. The echo is free to resummon, so you're basically spending a BA to negate one attack, maybe more if the enemy misses the echo. It's not a terrible trade, honestly, though it kind of depends what you're fighting. TBH, if the enemy isn't trying to kill your echo, then you're not making your echo dangerous enough. It's kind of similar to how I feel about Booming Blade; the point is not to get extra damage when the enemy moves, but to put them in a situation where not moving is worse than taking the extra damage. These kinds of tactics are all about stabbing the enemy with Morton's Fork, i.e. giving them nothing but bad options to choose from. No matter what they do, you win.
Not sure about the grapple part. You reduce the enemy movement to zero. As soon as the grapple breaks it's movement is no longer zero. At no point does it state it's zero for the rest of the turn. The condition also ends if an effect removes the grappled creature from the reach of the grappler or grappling effect, such as when a creature is hurled away by the thunderwave spell.
Great video as always. could you share your thoughts on the spell hunger of Hadar? many online builds praise it, but I don't see how it is in any way the equal of the other top tier aoe 3rd level spells
Thanks for the video! But... Isn't there a better option for our warlock subclass? See i was thinking what if taking the genie pick? That way if we keep picking warlock level, we end up with Limited wish which is quite powerfull
reread the Echo Knights ability it’s triggers an Opportunity attack so it ignores the rule about “when someone or something moves you without using your Movement, action, or Reaction” so you could trigger the Opportunity attack on your own turn,
I was going to also say something about how war caster can only attack them but it dose work if you use all the blasts on them
Oh dang. I'm sure that isn't intended, but...
@@Greywander87 rules as written
@@cjslime8847 Hmm, it seems like the rules for opportunity attacks themselves might forbid this. It specifically calls out the Disengage action, but that's not the only way to avoid taking an opportunity attack. Forced movement is also called out as not provoking opportunity attacks. If forced movement works for echo OAs, then it would mean that the Disengage action wouldn't prevent an OA from the echo, either. Maybe.
@@Greywander87 yes I agree but it says what dose not activate an Opportunity attack, and yes the wording as if your in the echos space might be used to in enforce the rules but since you can more then 5 feet of reach the 5 feet rule really makes the echo strange
@@cjslime8847 No, it seems there's a discussion on this. Basically, every rule that interacts with opportunity attacks specifically only interacts with opportunity attacks that are "provoked". The echo ability is the only time an opportunity attack isn't "provoked". If "provoke" is an important keyword, then nothing that interacts with opportunity attacks interacts with the echo ability. Not Warcaster, not the Disengage action, and not the exception made for forced movement. If "provoke" _isn't_ an important keyword, then it essentially behaves as any other opportunity attack, which means forced movement doesn't work, but Warcaster does.
TL;DR, we either get unavoidable opportunity attacks, or we get ghost lancing. Either way, the echo breaks OAs.
Literally a stand user build like some sort of Ball Breaker style of a stand
Papi chulo pack tactics
The only thing is, that you can't use eldritch blast with war caster once you get multiple beams. It isn't just that you can only target that one creature, the spell itself has to only have the ability to target a single creature. Since you can technically target a different creature with each beam then you can't use EB with war caster.
It still works, you can use EB warcaster so long as the beams all target the one creature.
@@cusillo6976 oh, huh, I just found a sage advice that says they can, though I could have sworn I read a different SA/actual in book text that specifically mentioned Eldritch Blast past level 5 is not viable for war caster. I stand corrected lol.
I feel like reaction Eldritch Blast should be a Warlock Subclass option already, maybe allowing you to use your bonus action to ready an Eldritch Blast or sth. like that
Sometimes you annoy me but you 100% had me laughing this time. Love this build.
wow I wanted to make an echo knight anyways but this is so cool
Isn't there a flaw in this build that is big? Wouldn't getting multiple beams that can target multiple people then invalidate Eldritch Blast for War caster? I guess that bullet point can be interpreted as you only going all in on that creature but you can't war caster Fireball even if it would only get that one creature so guess up to your DM in the end. But by RAW don't think this works.
You're confusing it with Twinned Spell, which says that in order to be eligible for it, a spell must be incapable of targeting more than one creature at the spell's current level. Warcaster only states that it must only target the creature that provoked the OA, without ever restricting what the spell used would normally be able to target.
mobile.twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/908469121502736384
Thanks for clarification. The wording is similar to twinned spell but not exact. So guess you sadly still can't do fireball still since that targets a point vs a creature.
@@jsolen522 fireball also doesn’t only hit the moving target ofc.
Here's the vote for a kobold build:
You are a meanie. I like playing both the gnomes and the kobolds
Love the build idea! Always trying to look for fun ways to play a sword and beam build (even if the sword is just there for aesthetic sometimes). I'm curious, you can go 3 fighter/ x warlock, but how would this build work regarding ASI progression? If for example we would say a campaigns max level is 10, would this build still be viable, it only getting one ASI at level 7 (3 level fighter and getting ASI with warlock at 4) or would the lack of getting an asi hinder this build?
You can check the full build article for all the in-depth decisions.
@packtactics Does the Ghostlance work in Baldur's Gate 3? As you are a fan of both I imagine you've tried? If not would love to hear. Mods required obviously.
Id point out one thing missing from this explanation that was completely overlooked is that in warcaster states "When a hostile creature's movement provokes an opportunity attack from you". The opportunity attack is not being provoked from you, but from your echo". The creature is not moving away from your space but from your echo. Otherwise it should say when a creature provokes an opportunity attack.... To me this breaks the use of warcaster as the creature is not provoking it from you but from your echo. It's 2 different rules interacting and which takes precidence. It's clearly stating you attack as if you were in the echos space. But then you argue you are able to cast a spell from your space as you are not making the opportunity attack but casting a spell instead to bypass that restriction. But clearly the creature is not provoking the attack from you as you are not close to it and so can't cast a spell as the opportunity attack.
From warcaster: When a hostile creature's movement provokes an opportunity attack from you, you can use your reaction to cast a spell at the creature, rather than making an opportunity attack. The spell must have a casting time of 1 action and must target only that creature.
From echo knight: When a creature that you can see within 5 feet of your echo moves at least 5 feet away from it, you can use your reaction to make an opportunity attack against that creature as if you were in the echo's space.
Let's break it down.
Seeing as you have one reaction per round, if you can make an opportunity attack you can use either feature.
The echo knight feature specifically allows you to make attacks from the echos' space.
For the opportunity attack to trigger, the creature must willingly move through or away from the area you can reach in melee; this includes the area around your echo. So if the creature moves away from your echo you can pull-off an opportunity attack as per the echo knight feature.
The warcaster feat then allows you to convert that opportunity attack reaction to cast a spell at the creature instead.
Finally, the echo knight feature allows you to cast that spell from the echos' position AS IF you were in the echo's space. This allows the use of booming blade (but not sneak attack, unless you just make a normal attack of opportunity) from either your space or the echos'.
@@reson8 I'm sorry but at no point does it say you can use either feature. One says the opportunityattack must come from you. The other says you can make an opportunity attack as if you are in the echos space. With all that being equal, you can't make an opportunity attack through the echo and still be in your space. You cant have the eldritch blast come from your space. I dont see the confusion here. If you want to use a cantrip, its from the echos space. Not yours. It's crystal clear on that. In addition warcaster states the opportunityattack must be provoked from you. You cant just overlook that. If you are going RAW, the opportunityattack is not being provoked from you. I would allow the cantrip but it is being made at disadvantage if it is a ranged one. The ranged one cannot eminate from your space if you are provoking the opportunity attack from the echo.
@@reson8 I think you are missing something, I am saying that if you cast eldritch blast it must be made with disadvantage, the first bolt at least if using repelling blast. That is the issue I have. According to both packtactics and the creator of this character, the eldritch blast will come from you and not the echo. this is clearly wrong. They believe that they can overlook the wording for the echo feature and just apply the wording from warcaster at the saem time overlooking the wording from warcaster which states the opportunity attack must come from you. They are mangling the rules in every possible way to make something work that simply cant work the way they want.
@@robertlynch1834 Hi Robert. Good response! I agree with you mostly on your first reply but the echo knight feature allows you to make an opportunity attack from the echo's space as if you were there (assuming the OA comes from that location). If your attack is ranged, whether normal or from a ranged spell via warcaster, that attack is at disadvantage unless you have another feature allowing you to make ranged attacks in melee without it (ie: crossbow expert).
@@reson8 yes we agree on that. But my complaint was that packtactics says that you can eldritch blast FROM your location when an opportunity attack is triggered from your echo without disadvantage. This is clearly incorrect as we both agree here. When you make an opportunity attack from your echo, you are in your echos position so you would have disadvantage. If you watch the video you will see the justifcation used and it is clearly incorrect on using the rules. Under no circumstances can you make a ranged attack from your echos position WITHOUT disadvantage without the nessecary feat. They dont have that feat. The say warcaster overrides that rule allowing ranged attack from your position.
I decided to add 10lv rogue swashbuckler and phantom steed and find familiar to chase my enemies and deal sneak attack damage from either me or my echo as long my familar can keep up and see us. With mounted combatment in case there's more than one enemy.
So my own version of the strategy is to have me attack first then have my echo chase after them assuming they are frightened. With investing into dex instead plus swashbuckler, i will most likely act first. Then it's just time to clean them up with green flame blade, eldtrich blast or any other spell.
Here's something interesting and I'm not certain of the order of operations. Starting from within 5ft of the Echo a creature you can see moves 5ft away from the Echo.
In this instance from your features you can use your reaction to make an opportunity attack.
So in this situation the creature did NOT provoke an opportunity attack, you USED your reaction to make an opportunity attack.
If you declare you are making this specific opportunity attack, your reaction is used AND in the wording the creature did not provoke an opportunity attack.
In Warcaster specifically, "If a hostile creature's movement provokes an opportunity attack from you..."
The difference is with echo knight you may be able to use a reaction to make an opportunity attack that has not been provoked if a creature moves away from your echo.
Just on this stipulation RAW or RAI I'm not sure this is or is not abusing the rules a little bit.
If the echo knight intended to work this way it would have been easy to write it differently to make sure it would work with Warcaster.
"When a creature that you can see within 5ft of your echo moves at least 5ft away from it, that creature provokes an attack of opportunity from you as if you were in the echo's space"
In this wording you can clearly see this would 100% work no question, and it's very different from the actual wording of the echo knight, which would mean it's a grey area.
The definition of an opportunity attack means that a creature willingly moves through or away from an area 5ft around your character (further with Polearm master). It's the proximity of that movement which 'provokes' the opportunity attack, not whether they are blowing raspberries or insulting your mother along the way. If you are able to, you can then use your reaction to make the opportunity attack from either your characters' location or the echos'.
That's an interesting build idea, but i've had a thought of how it could be taken to a whole other level.
The only thing limiting it is being able to make just a single reaction per turn in combat. But there is at least one way i've found that can surpass it, but it takes 17 levels in Warlock until it gets online.
First, scratch the fighter levels so we can get 17 Warlock levels ASAP. Pick Hexblade patron or Pact of the Blade for martial weapon proficiency (not actually required, it's just to get proficiency with polearm reach weapon), get a polearm with reach. Get Polearm Master, War Caster and Repelling Blast as in this build for the same reason as in the video. Then pick Shapechange as your Mystic Arcanum for level 9 spell. Use it to turn into a Marilith. On top of being a total beast in melee with tons of resistances, she has an interesting feature:
Reactive. The marilith can take one reaction on every turn in combat.
So unless i'm misunderstanding something with one of the interactions, you can use that combo to make an attack of opportunity against an unlimited number of opponents trying to reach you. And with Marilith being a large monster, and with you using a reach weapon, it means that you control an area 20 ft in size (or 36 squares, 4 that you occupy yourself, 12 adjacent to yourself and extra 20 from using a weapon with Reach) you become essentially unassailable by anyone trying to hurt you in melee.
But it gets better, as an action Marilith can teleport at will to any unoccupied space up to 120 ft, so even if by some miracle someone manages to reach you, and maybe try locking you down with a grapple you can just pop away when your turn comes.
And to add insult to injury, War Caster also gives you an advantage to saving throws for maintaining concentration ;).
And that's just a foundation, you can add anything you like to it. You can pick a different patron or pact boon, add any multiclass, feat, etc.
Polearm and war caster don’t mix. Warlocks don’t get shapechange. Maraliths don’t have reach weapons. Also they don’t cast spells🤦♀️
I can see an easy loophole for an unwilling DM. The third bullet point for manifest echo says you can make an opportunity attack as if you were in the echo's space, which suggests what is triggered is an opportunity attack for the echo, not an opportunity attack for you. For example, both you and the echo have enemies within 5 feet, if the enemy moves out of the range of the echo, you could not, then, make an opportunity attack against the enemy in your own range just because you have an opportunity attack action granted by your echo, the reaction would have to come from the echo against the enemy in their range that is creating the opportunity. And since echos can only take opportunity attacks, not cast spells, there's no way to cast a spell that originates from the echo's space, since war caster says you would be exchanging an opportunity attack action for a spell cast action.
Now, thematically, the echo knight is described as warping around a battlefield to attack enemies from all sides, so there's an argument to be made that the way by which echos get this opportunity to attack is that the knight momentarily makes the echo's potentiality into reality by momentarily swapping places with the echo in order to make a physical attack from that space before swapping back. This would suggest that you could cast spells from an echo's location because it would be your reality occupying that space at that moment, not your potentiality, which means you get an opportunity attack action for yourself in that space, which you could then exchange for a spell cast action with war caster. However, this still undermines the build, as you would still have to cast the spell from the echo's space, not your own, which would generally knock enemies toward you rather than away from you.
Alternatively, you could argue that the knight has expanded awareness of their echo's conditions, since their connection with dunamis grants them an awareness of other potentialities. The knight is aware of the echo's opportunities, even if they may or may not capitalize on them. In this way, the knight is directly aware of opportunity attack potentials for the echo and can have the opportunity to react personally to them, not just have the echo react. However, the DM could then argue that that level of awareness is something only granted by the echo avatar ability, which would require you to be blind and deaf.
Anyway, I definitely think RAI is that opportunity attack for the echo must be executed by the echo, so even if you got away with the echo casting EB from its position, which isn't unprecedented since familiars can perform remote casting, it still greatly undermines the build from a reaction economy standpoint. Cool idea, though.
It doesn't say anywhere that echo's can't cast spells. In fact, echo's can't really do anything by themselves; they act as a portal through which the PC can attack/move. The echo doesn't attack, the PC does. The echo doesn't move, the PC moves it. Likewise the echo doesn't cast spells, the PC casts them from the echos' location.
@@reson8 Right, I covered that. The issue is that the PC needs to be casting spells from their own location to generally repel enemies away from themselves rather than toward themselves. If the enemy moved past the echo in the direction of the PC the enemy would be between the echo and the PC when the spell was cast, which would repel the enemy closer to the PC rather than further away.
@@QuesoCookies This is true, but in that scenario you wouldn't cast anything which would push the enemy closer to you (unless there was some fun stuff like a lava pit between you) you'd just do a normal attack of opportunity, a different spell, or maybe nothing at all.
This build works with any race *except for Gnomes!*
Of course it was a Kobold enjoyer who would say so.
Actually the target doesn't lose the grappled feature. If you have a method at range to grapple they remain so. There is literally a tattoo to do that 15 feet away.
Shouldn’t catapult affect an Echo as well?
It is an object that isn’t affected by gravity, which means it has no weight so it’s less than 5 pounds.
Catapult will essentially be an instant off button for any echo as they only have 1 HP, little tip for any fellow DMs with an Echo Knight in the party
"I played the old version a few tines, and had a blast..." you mean eldritch blast
Forcelance build.
@@PackTactics im joking, uou didnt have a blast, you had an eldritxh blast
@@shotgunridersweden Oh, my bad lol
This has inspired a less optimal but pretty fun-sounding idea for a build: the mirror blade. Basically, Bladesinger with echo knight multi class that uses things like Blur, Mirror Image, and other magic to make copies, or the illusion of copies of himself.
Is it the strongest? No. But it might be fun to see how many false selves I can create!
Trickery cleric dip?
@@Greywander87 maybe so. Cleric isn't the best for dipping imo, unless you're after something very specific (i.e. Bless, really).
But a variant might be Trickster Rogue dip for some sneak attack dice when you've got them turned around and fighting the wrong 'you'!
Ignoring the build, I like the flavor.
Scary warlock that makes a ghostly partner.
I'm getting at this build very late in the game but I have a question:
Can the Repelling blast effect trigger the opportunity attack through Echo Knigth's Manifest Echo (thrid bullet point)?
I know forced movement doesn't trigger opportunity attacks (as stated in the basic rules) but the wording is different enough between the two sources that makes me question if Manifest Echo trumps this.
Does anyone know the answer?
what about hexblade/echo knight? so u can focus harder on charisma when related to damage etc... and progress in any of those 2 clases look cool to me, ill try to figure out a build like that.
Kobold: always target the spellcaster
Reminds me of my eldritch knight who was literally built to kill mages.
We were rolling for stats
I think my stats were (after racial ASI)
18
8
11
11
16
7
I had polearm master as a vuman, at 4th level I took alert because my dex was terrible and I wanted to go before the enemy mage, at level six I upped my con and wisdom and level 8 I took resilient wisdom (you'll see why in a second) and at level 12 I took the tough feat (which is not a go to feat for me but I only had 12 con and was getting dropped a lot)
My go to strategy was
Turn 1: use all my movement I could without provoking AOOs, then misty step right next to the spellcaster, attack and action surge, all attacks went against the caster. If the caster died on the first turn I still used action surge and then took the dodge action. I would then shout out to the bard to drop a hypnotic pattern danger close (this is why I had 18 wis and proficiency in wisdom saves)
Turn 2: misty step and dodge
Was it the strongest build ever? No, not even close. But I was good at what I did
BRO I JUST CAME UP WITH THIS SAME BUILD TONIGHT AND FOUND YOUR VIDEO, THANK YOU
This is so cool
I haven't got that far in the video yet and I haven't checked to see if this will actually work, but warcaster could allow a player to use their reaction to cast hold person on an enemy trying to escape and thus cancel out the rest of their turn
Cancel if he fail the save but he's also paralyzed meaning it's a Auto Crit with advantage on attack roll and fail every Dex save.
Does the pole arm master trick in with the force lance build still work or no?