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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 7553973" data-attributes="member: 20564">I'd like to look at this assuming a reasonable number of encounters per day.  Let's say 4-6.Caster level 5 is where you just about have enough 2+ level slots to cast Shadow Blade every encounter.  That comes on at character level 9.  But the majority of them are 2nd level castings, so still the 2d8.  At that point you have no slots left over for Shield of Faith or Blur which affects not just survivability but also your ability to avoid damage to keep up your Concentration for Shadow Blade.  You have four 1st level spells that can be used for healing word or false life, but that means you aren't turning them into SP for twin casts.  At that point you have 4 SP, and a cantrip takes 1, so you can do it once in some of the combats per day.So your general attack sequence at 9th is:  2d8 psychic + 1d8 thunder + 3 (avg 16.5 on hit).  A few combats it's 3d8 psychic + 1d8 thunder + 3 (avg 21 on hit).  And you can rarely twincast to do that to two separate targets.  You can also action surge once per short rest.A finesse fight at 9th would be doing two attacks for d8 + 2 (dueling) + 5 (dex) for 11.5 per hit, or 23 per round.  They would also have a better chance to hit (and other benefits) since they would have a 20 Dex instead of 16.  Because of the fighter extra ASI they could have that and still have Mobile.  Studded Leather + 5 Dex is the same AC as Breastplate +2 max Dex and +1 fighting style, so there's no penalty for picking the Dueling Fighting style over  Defense.  Both have action surge. Oh, and that doesn't include any bonuses from their subclass, such as battle master's superiority dice or samurai's advantage & resistance.  And at this point a magic weapon adds more because it will always have 2 attack (4 with surge) as opposed to the build only occasionally beign able to twincast for two attacks, and those prevented from being focus fire since they have to be different targets.  Though shadow blade will do better OA damage on a hit (vs. the fighter's better chance to hit with an OA due to higher Dex).Now, where this build does seem to come into it's own vs. a finesse fighter is the teens.  Enough slots to upcast Shadow Blade and still have plenty to break down into SPs to twincast a lot.  It's got a lot of potential at those levels.I see you've got a level of Warlock at 12th.  One thought to getting enough castings of Shadow Blade for a full day earlier would be to take 3 levels of it since it refreshes on a short rest.  But that's a separate slot advancement so your sorcerer and EK spell levels wouldn't boost it, so you'd need more Warlock levels if you wanted to upcast it.  (Or eventually switch over to sorcerer slots and use these for blur and the like.)</blockquote>

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