D&D 5E Your best Eldritch Knight?

[ECMO3]

Actually, the Invisibility and Cause Fear is actually from Shadow Touched (it's listed in Feats) .

I had gone the Dexterity route as I thought it would be better for AC and saves and not spread ability scores out too much. I do see though, that it is hitting on damage output.

Why does everyone seem to recommend Booming Blade? I don't see that the damage triggers until the target moves (not via push or forced movement). So unless your somehow moving away from the foe, or moving the foe to force it to come back after you that would be the only way to trigger the damage and you risk the target just standing still and using a ranged attack of some sort for the round. Or am I missing something - shoving attack or some other feature that pushes the foe away?

I had completely missed the Shadow Touched feat.

As far as booming blade there is the main damage (after level 5) and the secondary damage and there are numerous ways to force or encourage movement. Create Bonfire, Spirit Guardians, Dissonant Whispers or any AOE cast by an ally (with DW the damage would come when he tried to move back into combat). Also the Crusher Feat, which I personally would take instead of Defensive Duelist. Also the shield spell is going to be more effective than defensive duelist. Finally there is just having another damage type.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

My memories of fighter/magic-users from 1E/2E most likely is influencing my disdain. Fireball at 13th level or later is just jank.

Our group didn't have access to booming/green-flame blade until recently via Tasha's, as I didn't have SCAG or know about the two spells until recently, and on paper neither seemed very impressive.

The only Eldritch Knight I've seen in actual play until this point was run by, who shall is say, is clueless and often shines at building utterly ineffective characters. So, all of my disdain towards the subclass has so far had been validated.

Makes sense. Two important points to consider.

Eldritch Knight is not a 5e analog of the AD&D fighter/mage. It utterly fails at that due to it being limited to low level spells.

(Because neither the Eldritch Knight nor the Bladesinger really hit that spot for me I made my own Warrior-Mage class with a few subclasses to evoke that classic feel.)

But the Eldritch Knight is a Fighter, and must be compared to other fighters. Battle Master is a good baseline for that.

A major element of its functionality is those SCAG weapon attack cantrips. I don't get a lot out of booming blade, because of the reasons you noted. I think its mostly used tactically. But green-flame blade is incredible. Just math out how it scales. If you have an additional adjacent foe (which is most of the time if you are wading into battle and the DM is throwing multiple foes at you like 5e was designed for) you are always better off using green-flame blade for 2 weapon attacks +scaling primary target damage +scaling secondary target damage, than just making 3 attacks. And depending on your individual setup and gear, you may still be more effective that way at 20th level (though against a single target you would skip that and just make your 4 attacks).

Quick example of at-will damage output of a sword and board 11th level Eldritch Knight with no magic gear.

3 Attacks: 1d8+5+2(fighting style) x3 = 34.5 damage
Green-flame Blade + War Magic: 1d8+5+2(fighting style) x2 +2d8 GFB = 32 damage to primary target, plus 2d8+3 (let's say your Int is only 16) = 12 damage to a secondary target, for a total of 56.5 damage.

 

[Stormonu]

That makes a lot of sense @Sword of Spirit, thanks. I've been working on a custom class as well as the EK didn't hit the notes I expected for a fighter/magic-user combo. I'm seeing this subclass was designed more towards the fighting aspect augmented by spells more than as a utility caster (batman) who could fight.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Quick example of at-will damage output of a sword and board 11th level Eldritch Knight with no magic gear.

3 Attacks: 1d8+5+2(fighting style) x3 = 34.5 damage
Green-flame Blade + War Magic: 1d8+5+2(fighting style) x2 +2d8 GFB = 32 damage to primary target, plus 2d8+3 (let's say your Int is only 16) = 12 damage to a secondary target, for a total of 56.5 damage.

The "no magic gear" is both officially correct and an exceptionally annoying 5e-ism.

If we take a more reasonable +2 weapon (which is the minimum I'd expect for a level 11 character; a rare but unattuned weapon) we're up to 40.5 Vs 36 damage on the primary target plus 12 on the secondary. Halving the secondary target damage as it's not as useful for focus fire we're at 40.5 Vs 42. The EK cantrip's glory time is levels 7-10.

And if we're using for example a Flame-Tongue Longsword (rare, so equivalent to +2 and also appropriate for L11), +2d6 fire damage, requires attunement we're looking at 55.5 damage Vs 46 +12 to the secondary target. Barely worth it.

Just to reiterate @Sword of Spirit has done the analysis exactly how the DMG says, with no assumed magic items. This is a problem with 5e not giving magic item benchmarks.