Joshua Randall
Legend
(Why I am posting a 4e character optimization thread here in 2021? Because I was going through some old files, came across this, and felt the desire to share. Enjoy!)
Eladrin Swordmage Advance (ESA) is a feat that allows you to make an MBA as a free action against an enemy you teleport adjacent to with Fey Step. Which is a fun and reasonably optimized ways to get some extra damage on the swordmage -- effectively this lets you make an attack as (part of) a Move Action in addition to your normal Standard Action attack.
ESA is particularly good on a Swordmage with Aegis of Assault, who functions as somewhat of a Striker in addition to his official Defender role designation.
A while back I was noodling with a character and started to wonder how many different times I could use ESA in one encounter. Effectively this turns into "how many different times can I re-use Fey Step (and thus trigger ESA)".
There are a variety of feats that allow you recharge Fey Step (below).
Ubiquitous Step and Renewed By Blood have triggers that are within our control: drop to 0 Power Points, and kill an enemy under Warlock's Curse. Let's come back to Feral Fey Step later, and start with this realizations:
We need to have both the Psionic Augmentation class feature and count as a Warlock to take both of these feats.
Now, Swordmage + Warlock = SwordLock is a well established Hybrid combination. Swordmage is one of those classes that loses very little by Hybriding, and Warlock brings a ton of amazing powers to the table. Warlock also brings Eldrich Strike to use as our MBA, which alleviates the need for Intelligent Blademaster or some other workaround to get a good MBA.
So that's easy enough: we'll be a SwordLock and thus gain access to the Renewed By Blood feat.
To obtain the Psionic Augmentation (PsiAug) class feature, we can take the multiclass feat Awakened Potential, which specifically states that we gain PsiAug:
And in case there was any confusion, the feat even calls out that we explicitly qualify for other feats that require the PsiAug class feature. Great!
We just need to pick which of [Ardent | Battlemind | Psion] we want to count as. After a lot of noodling, we pick Ardent because it gives us an easy way to spent 1 Power Point (PP) on something useful.
So now we're a SwordLock MC (multiclass) Ardent.
We can already use ESA 3x per Encounter:
The other way to spend a PP is, of course, to augment a psionic power. As alluded to above, in my opinion Ardent has the power that is easiest to use and actually pretty good, namely Ire Strike. However, Ire Strike is really only useful when we can Augment 2 it so that the ally to whom we grant an attack can be anywhere within 5, rather than adjacent to both you and the enemy being targeted.
So far we only have 1 PP as a MC Ardent (from the Awakened Potential feat). But we can easily pick up another PP with 4e's gift to power gamers everywhere, Themes. Specifically the Noble Adept from Dark Sun Campaign Setting, which gives us 1 PP at 1st level.
Now we have 2 PP and we can Augment 2 our Ire Strike.
Of course to even have Ire Strike we need to take the feat Psionic Dabbler, which lets us swap an encounter power for an augmentable at-will power of the same level or lower.
For a long time, this is as far as I took my ESA shenanigans: SwordLock MC Ardent. Sadly with no way to also be a Primal class to pick up Feral Fey Step.
Or so I thought.
Because I had played Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) for so long, I overlooked an entire swathe of feats that are not legal in LFR, but are perfectly legal in a home campaign. Specifically, Eberron provides the Paragon Path that enables overly complicated builds: Traveler's Harlequin.
Just by worshipping a particular Eberron deity, we can take this Paragon Path that lets us multiclass to our heart's content. And with this breakthrough, we can now be both MC Ardent and MC... some Primal class.
As it turns out, our best Primal class to MC into is Barbarian. Its MC entry feat gives us back skill training (to compensate for needing Bluff to get into Traveler's Harlequin) as well as a once per day damage boost.
And with that, our journey to the cheesy side of ESA is complete. We can now use ESA 4x per encounter:
Also: because we're going to be teleporting all over the play with Fey Step, Aegis of Assault, and various Warlock powers, we may as well also pick up teleport gear to increase our teleport distance and gain various other bonuses. Take a look at 'Bamf - A Teleporter's Guidebook' for some ideas.
Here's the character at level 11.
At level 12 we can take Expertise or some other normal optimizer feat. Or we can throw optimization to the wind and take Feywild Protection to make our defenses even more ridiculous when we Fey Step, which we will be doing 3-4 times per encounter.
And there you have it! Eladrin Swordmage Advance shenanigans.
In case you're wondering, I have played various versions of this character and while she is never going to be mistaken for an extremely optimized build, 'porting all over the board whacking people is great fun.
I hope you've enjoyed this trip down 4e memory lane.
Eladrin Swordmage Advance (ESA) is a feat that allows you to make an MBA as a free action against an enemy you teleport adjacent to with Fey Step. Which is a fun and reasonably optimized ways to get some extra damage on the swordmage -- effectively this lets you make an attack as (part of) a Move Action in addition to your normal Standard Action attack.
ESA is particularly good on a Swordmage with Aegis of Assault, who functions as somewhat of a Striker in addition to his official Defender role designation.
A while back I was noodling with a character and started to wonder how many different times I could use ESA in one encounter. Effectively this turns into "how many different times can I re-use Fey Step (and thus trigger ESA)".
There are a variety of feats that allow you recharge Fey Step (below).
Ubiquitous Step and Renewed By Blood have triggers that are within our control: drop to 0 Power Points, and kill an enemy under Warlock's Curse. Let's come back to Feral Fey Step later, and start with this realizations:
We need to have both the Psionic Augmentation class feature and count as a Warlock to take both of these feats.
Now, Swordmage + Warlock = SwordLock is a well established Hybrid combination. Swordmage is one of those classes that loses very little by Hybriding, and Warlock brings a ton of amazing powers to the table. Warlock also brings Eldrich Strike to use as our MBA, which alleviates the need for Intelligent Blademaster or some other workaround to get a good MBA.
So that's easy enough: we'll be a SwordLock and thus gain access to the Renewed By Blood feat.
To obtain the Psionic Augmentation (PsiAug) class feature, we can take the multiclass feat Awakened Potential, which specifically states that we gain PsiAug:
And in case there was any confusion, the feat even calls out that we explicitly qualify for other feats that require the PsiAug class feature. Great!
We just need to pick which of [Ardent | Battlemind | Psion] we want to count as. After a lot of noodling, we pick Ardent because it gives us an easy way to spent 1 Power Point (PP) on something useful.
So now we're a SwordLock MC (multiclass) Ardent.
We can already use ESA 3x per Encounter:
- once with our normal use of Fey Step
- once when we drop to 0 PP, with Ubiquitous Step
- and once when we kill a warlock's cursed enemy, with Renewed by Blood
Dancer's Slippers Level 7 Uncommon
Your feet glide across the ground, letting you reposition yourself when an enemy's attack goes wide.
Feet Slot 2,600 gp
Power (Augmentable)
Trigger: An enemy misses you with an attack.Daily (Free Action)
Effect: You shift 1 square.
Augment 1: You regain the use of this power but cannot augment it again during this encounter.
Published in Psionic Power, page(s) 158.
The other way to spend a PP is, of course, to augment a psionic power. As alluded to above, in my opinion Ardent has the power that is easiest to use and actually pretty good, namely Ire Strike. However, Ire Strike is really only useful when we can Augment 2 it so that the ally to whom we grant an attack can be anywhere within 5, rather than adjacent to both you and the enemy being targeted.
Ire Strike
You feel anger rising within you, and you empower a nearby ally to strike.
At-WillAugmentable, Psionic
Standard Action Melee 1
Target: One enemy
Effect: One ally adjacent to you can make a melee basic attack against the target as a free action. If the attack hits, the target has vulnerable 2 to all damage until the end of your next turn.
Augment 1
Effect: As above, but the vulnerability is only to psychic damage and equals 1 + your Charisma modifier.
Augment 2
Effect: One ally within 5 squares of you can use a free action to shift to a square adjacent to the target and then make a melee basic attack against it. If the attack hits, it deals 1d8 extra damage to the target, and the target has vulnerability to all damage equal to 1 + your Charisma modifier until the end of your next turn.
Published in Player's Handbook 3, page(s) 25.
So far we only have 1 PP as a MC Ardent (from the Awakened Potential feat). But we can easily pick up another PP with 4e's gift to power gamers everywhere, Themes. Specifically the Noble Adept from Dark Sun Campaign Setting, which gives us 1 PP at 1st level.
Now we have 2 PP and we can Augment 2 our Ire Strike.
Of course to even have Ire Strike we need to take the feat Psionic Dabbler, which lets us swap an encounter power for an augmentable at-will power of the same level or lower.
For a long time, this is as far as I took my ESA shenanigans: SwordLock MC Ardent. Sadly with no way to also be a Primal class to pick up Feral Fey Step.
Or so I thought.
Because I had played Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) for so long, I overlooked an entire swathe of feats that are not legal in LFR, but are perfectly legal in a home campaign. Specifically, Eberron provides the Paragon Path that enables overly complicated builds: Traveler's Harlequin.
Just by worshipping a particular Eberron deity, we can take this Paragon Path that lets us multiclass to our heart's content. And with this breakthrough, we can now be both MC Ardent and MC... some Primal class.
As it turns out, our best Primal class to MC into is Barbarian. Its MC entry feat gives us back skill training (to compensate for needing Bluff to get into Traveler's Harlequin) as well as a once per day damage boost.
And with that, our journey to the cheesy side of ESA is complete. We can now use ESA 4x per encounter:
- once with our normal use of Fey Step
- once when we drop to 0 PP, with Ubiquitous Step
- once when we kill a warlock's cursed enemy, with Renewed by Blood
- and once when we drop to bloodied, with Feral Fey Step
Also: because we're going to be teleporting all over the play with Fey Step, Aegis of Assault, and various Warlock powers, we may as well also pick up teleport gear to increase our teleport distance and gain various other bonuses. Take a look at 'Bamf - A Teleporter's Guidebook' for some ideas.
Here's the character at level 11.
At level 12 we can take Expertise or some other normal optimizer feat. Or we can throw optimization to the wind and take Feywild Protection to make our defenses even more ridiculous when we Fey Step, which we will be doing 3-4 times per encounter.
And there you have it! Eladrin Swordmage Advance shenanigans.
In case you're wondering, I have played various versions of this character and while she is never going to be mistaken for an extremely optimized build, 'porting all over the board whacking people is great fun.
I hope you've enjoyed this trip down 4e memory lane.
