Hexblade Rework Feedback Megathread

[Drowboy]

Lv 11 on live server : 2 Curses. 10 dmg total. (Perhaps even more, I haven't reached 11 yet).
Lv23 on PGCC : 4 Curses and Hex of +1 dmg. 12 dmg total, 24 in case of crit (with a x2). Decent. But you smoked all of your feats. You also have to crit to make it decent.

As someone running an epic hexblade on live: most higher level enemies have enough random elemental DR that you get dropped down to nothing, and anyone with a competent gearset in PVP (or a favored soul) will take none as well.

PGCC version isn't blockable. I'd rather have that. The numbers could maybe be tweaked one upward (or even build that into the hex of +damage one), but I'd rather see that stay the same and have the regen one, which feels extremely thematic, built into the base curse weapon.

[jomonog]

Ive been playing around with it a bit in PGCC and still think its a bit underwhelming both as deep hex builds and as a dip. Agree that heavy hex seems a bit feat starved and defenses are bad, although you can start piling on damage i guess.

As a 5 dip on most builds I'd still usually prefer fighter as you net more damage from EWS and gain a feat with only 4 fighter levels. if youre a charisma build you're most likely got a build that wants to take BG or paladin instead to get access to divine might and divine shield as well as dark blessing. Really only see it being a good dip for a melee favored soul where you can get some more damage as well as some boosts to saves.

Might make it too op, but if you want to go all in on the damage theme it would be cool if it got divine might (not shield or turning) somewhere along the path...maybe not in first five levels as that would be pretty strong, but even gated at level 8 or something would be cool

[cantalyssa]

Lv 11 on live server : 2 Curses. 10 dmg total. (Perhaps even more, I haven't reached 11 yet).
Lv23 on PGCC : 4 Curses and Hex of +1 dmg. 12 dmg total, 24 in case of crit (with a x2). Decent. But you smoked all of your feats. You also have to crit to make it decent.

As someone running an epic hexblade on live: most higher level enemies have enough random elemental DR that you get dropped down to nothing, and anyone with a competent gearset in PVP (or a favored soul) will take none as well.

PGCC version isn't blockable. I'd rather have that. The numbers could maybe be tweaked one upward (or even build that into the hex of +damage one), but I'd rather see that stay the same and have the regen one, which feels extremely thematic, built into the base curse weapon.

I do think that the damage bypassing resistance is a phenomenal addition, same with it now being multiplied.

My only issue is with how it now scales. 2 damage, even if it doesn't get resisted, just is not good enough to take a feat if your going deep hexblade because you lose out on so much by not taking other things.

I may be slightly biased, because I think just standard +damage is boring (not interactive) so do keep that in mind too. At the minimum the elemental damage should scale (maybe 1 per 7 levels) and the pos/negative can do the same (at 1 to each per 14 levels) to make me ever want to think of trading a hex for an elemental curse.

It just seems to me that, as someone above stated, going more than a 5 dip is just... Bad.. With these changes to its scaling (at least compared to how other classes play out - good bonus feats, relevant spells etc)

[garrbear758]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I've been pretty busy with life so this has sat on PGCC for a little longer than I originally intended. I'll be making a few changes based on all your feedback then hopefully be pushing it live sometime in the next few days (no promises).

[Drowboy]

Will there be another testing period for the tweaks or is it straight to live?

(And because I'm nosey, what sort of tweaks are they?)

[garrbear758]

Will there be another testing period for the tweaks or is it straight to live?

(And because I'm nosey, what sort of tweaks are they?)

Straight to live.

-Curse weapon will be 24 hours again
-Looking at the damage numbers again and potentially making some adjustments
-Maaaybe making curse of blood free. I'm still on the fence about this one.

[a shrouded figure]

Free blood curse would easily tip the scales for me.

5 fighter

as much as +6 damage (affected by DI/DR)
+2 pre epic feats
+1 AC
-1 epic feat (EWS)


5 hex

4 damage (no matter what)
+1 AB (-1AC to opponents)
Dark Blessing
Familiar (15 lockpick isn’t terrible to have around)
(Maybe life steal, TBD)
Plus a little secret bonus

Granted 6 fighter fixes the issue of -1 epic feat but i was just looking at apples to apples. You could also consider 4 fighter for -1 epic feat, no armor, and only 1 pre epic feat.

I’d personally argue that for a 5 level dip, hex is going to be tough to beat.

[cantalyssa]

-Maaaybe making curse of blood free. I'm still on the fence about this one.

That would be a most welcome addition. What has you on the fence about it, and how might we be able to persuade you? I can roll for it, if you'd like.

As a side note, the bug I PM'd you about is still occurring on the PGCC (In regards to dark blessing being lost)

Free blood curse would easily tip the scales for me.

5 fighter

as much as +6 damage (affected by DI/DR)
+2 pre epic feats
+1 AC
-1 epic feat (EWS)


5 hex

4 damage (no matter what)
+1 AB (-1AC to opponents)
Dark Blessing
Familiar (15 lockpick isn’t terrible to have around)
(Maybe life steal, TBD)
Plus a little secret bonus

Granted 6 fighter fixes the issue of -1 epic feat but i was just looking at apples to apples. You could also consider 4 fighter for -1 epic feat, no armor, and only 1 pre epic feat.

I’d personally argue that for a 5 level dip, hex is going to be tough to beat.

It should be noted that the free vampiric would only be +1, which is pretty negligible as far as dips go. It's a nice quality of life addition though, helps reduce cost of healing kits.

Also, I think it's good to be rewarded adequately for a 5 level dip, compared to what certain 3 level dips can give in comparison.

Fighter 5 does have merit though, because it gives you a good number of free feats so more customization options are available for you

This change would really help a majority of hexblade (23+ levels) because it reduces the number of "mandatory" picks we have, especially with how hard the damage numbers were reduced (*Pending possible incoming scaling) and puts the curse weapon more on par with Blade Thirst (which can, by the way, also be cast on friends weapons to give it +5, where curse weapon can not be!)

[Drowboy]

Blade Thirst (which can, by the way, also be cast on friends weapons to give it +5,

I always forget they can do this. Is there any chance of hexblade being given a way to enchant 2 of their own weapons, to open up more dual wielding options?

[garrbear758]

Blade Thirst (which can, by the way, also be cast on friends weapons to give it +5,

I always forget they can do this. Is there any chance of hexblade being given a way to enchant 2 of their own weapons, to open up more dual wielding options?

Dual wielding yes. Casting on others no

[Sombricimos]

Lv 11 on live server : 2 Curses. 10 dmg total. (Perhaps even more, I haven't reached 11 yet).
Lv23 on PGCC : 4 Curses and Hex of +1 dmg. 12 dmg total, 24 in case of crit (with a x2). Decent. But you smoked all of your feats. You also have to crit to make it decent.

As someone running an epic hexblade on live: most higher level enemies have enough random elemental DR that you get dropped down to nothing, and anyone with a competent gearset in PVP (or a favored soul) will take none as well.

PGCC version isn't blockable. I'd rather have that. The numbers could maybe be tweaked one upward (or even build that into the hex of +damage one), but I'd rather see that stay the same and have the regen one, which feels extremely thematic, built into the base curse weapon.

That being said, the reason Hexblade had a decent damage output before was due to the Monk Quarterstaff 10 APR build.
Evidently, with 10 APR, you have way more occasions to proc the curses. This could be wrong as it's the only build I tried on PGCC back then.

In addition, DEX builds have the DEX mod added to their AC.
Going STR rather than DEX, you'r supposed to sacrifice survivability for damage. Well, not in case of Hexblade. Going STR, you have less APR (than dual-wield), which means less damage, and less AC anyway.
To be clear, on a single attack you have more damage as STR. But in a round, DEX wins everyday.

The aim was also to make crits work with curses. Well, DEX builds can crit too, and with twice as much APR as a STR build, you have way more chances to crit, too.

5 APR(considering Haste) compared to 10 is a huge gap, especially on a build based around "procs". and it's not a +15% physical that's gonna do much to fill the gap for STR.
So. Half as much APR. Why not twice as much damage on curses if hard STR mod > hard (or even soft?) DEX mod.
Of course, it is clearly not as simple as what I just wrote. This was a very "drafty" opinion, and probably very wrong too, but you get the idea.

[Drowboy]

Apparently offhand weapon cursing is en route, and well-

The rest of that is more a 'ye olde quarterstaff' or 'ye olde non-sticky combat hurts strengthers' problem than a hexblade problem, I'd suppose? Which hits, I'm afraid, basically everything that runs melee right now, with a couple exceptions.

[Sombricimos]

Well, yeah. It's mostly the quarterstaff, again. I have to agree on this one lmao.

But in the end it's gonna be yet another Quarterstaff class when it could be.. anything but a quarterstaff class :/

[dallion43]

Some thoughts.

Can Dark Blessing on hex be changed to something +X(saves?) if less then 11cha or non pal/bg?
Similar to Harper Paragon? maybe +1uni. Or work similar to divine grace at least.
That will allow more dip diversity.

Curse of Blood, if free should be locked behind higher lvl then a dip.

[mjones3]

You can't actually take less than 11 Cha as hexblade on start. Not unless you take a Malus to Cha after getting to the starting area

[cantalyssa]

Some thoughts.

Can Dark Blessing on hex be changed to something +X(saves?) if less then 11cha or non pal/bg?
Similar to Harper Paragon? maybe +1uni. Or work similar to divine grace at least.
That will allow more dip diversity.

I think giving +unisave to a base class, that requires no feats or skills to take, for a dip would make it incredibly powerful. To take Harper/Zhentarim you need several feats and skill to do it AND you need an application to get a token for them.

Curse of Blood, if free should be locked behind higher lvl then a dip.

I personally think 5 levels is a sufficient amount of investment to get a +1 vampiric weapon. Your standard dip is pretty much half that.

[AstralUniverse]

I think the main problem with this class is lack of charisma scaling. You can sit on 14 charisma, which doesnt cost a lot in creation and still sit on a lot of dex, dip monk, access gear, sit on a lot of wisdom too, you're full bab, screw casting, but you can also cast if you want, and there's really no drawback from doing that.

the only scaling with charisma that really matters in terms of balance (because you dont technically need more than 14 cha to cast) is teh Dark Blessing. But if you're gearing cha only for that, you better off gear unisave instead.

Over all, I think there should be some relation between the curses/hex effectiveness or duration or anything at all, and Charisma.

[Drowboy]

Literally nothing else cripples itself like that, and the 'wisdom, monk' thing is, once again, not a hexblade problem, but an everyone problem.

[Kuma]

i am very keen to see how these updates shift hexblade, I've got a sick idea i'm sitting on until this lil update

[Drowboy]

Mega curious if malediction is going to make it's way to the pgcc. As described I guess it's more of a universal hexblade icing ability, though?

Also, since it keeps coming up: has any thought been put to giving qstaff the business on these, the way spellsword and div might kind of did?

[Dreams]

Overall feedback so far:

- It is confusing as Snuggle a Bugbear to get my head around Hexblade right now. Every resource of information has something different or wrong for what is appearing in game vs on the PGCC vs what is supposedly changing soon(tm).

- The spellbook seems entirely thematic and really can be overlooked without any downside other than the 6,000ish gold cost of a wand to replace it.

- The class doesn't seem to really work by itself. I'm finding that every time I try something with a heavy Hexblade investment, I could just be better off doing the same concept but with a Spellsword or as a Bard.

I could be totally missing something but overall this is the impression I'm getting.

[cantalyssa]

Overall feedback so far:

- It is confusing as Snuggle a Bugbear to get my head around Hexblade right now. Every resource of information has something different or wrong for what is appearing in game vs on the PGCC vs what is supposedly changing soon(tm).

- The spellbook seems entirely thematic and really can be overlooked without any downside other than the 6,000ish gold cost of a wand to replace it.

- The class doesn't seem to really work by itself. I'm finding that every time I try something with a heavy Hexblade investment, I could just be better off doing the same concept but with a Spellsword or as a Bard.

I could be totally missing something but overall this is the impression I'm getting.

I did notice yesterday that the proposed changes from a month ago on PGCC have been reverted to what is currently on the live servers for whatever reason (Specifically the 6/level scaling which really sucks because 5/level feels a lot nicer).

But I agree with your other points. Deep Hexblade is pretty bad in comparison to Spellstaff/QuarterRanger/Bard. I think the intent behind the Hexblade was to make it more of a decent "dip" class for 5 levels, but even then it's still pretty bad for what is given from something like 3 monk

[Seven Sons of Sin]

I think all of the new classes (favoured soul, swashbuckler, hexblade, shaman, cavalier, loremaster) could do with an increase in powerful to make them tempting enough to stray from the established norms. Or maybe the problem is that none of them have unique gear, which adds another strike against them.

I don't see what would be problematic if Hexblade scaled every 4 levels.

I don't like the design of being locked out of curses/hexes, and being forced to choose. While I know it makes potentially two hexblades play differently, it's already at the point where the stronk are highlighted and others are downplayed.

[Drowboy]

At the risk of suggesting a rework mid-rework,

How about to reward investments, you pick a 'source' at a relatively low level with the better payoff at higher levels?

For example, ehhh..

Hexblade Source: Pact Magic
Gains a weakened, scaling eldritch blast
Scaling On-summon familiar buffs to kind of emulate summons
Higher levels add damage to [pact type] damage (cold for fey, fire for infernal, acid for abyssal?), you gain that type of damage free after 10 or so levels.

Hexblade Source: Blood Magic
Small amount of physical DR
Boosted blood curse regen
Higher level adds damage to hypocrisy, you gain that feat free after 10 or so levels.

Hexblade Source: Innate
Boosted spells per day/spells known
Can trade hexblade bonus feats for spell focuses
Gets a couple 5th and 6th level slots at high levels, for metamagic
Can select 1 (one) ESF-style ability like a loremaster secret.

etc. Might do a little to make them a bit more impactful while also explaining what in the world hexblades are supposed to be doing lorewise.

Edit: probably a simpler version would be like. Source type: X. Gives [x, y, z] at 15, 20, 25.

[Beard Master Flex]

The class appears to be bugged on the Test Sever at the moment.