Hybrid Warlock/Swordmage

[ShaggySpellsword]

Something to consider: Go with Con/Int (start with them both at LEAST 16) but then be an ASSAULT swordmage anyway. Make sure you pick up Eldritch Strike as one of your at-wills. That way, whenever you Aegis and Curse someone, and they attack someone else, you get to use your Eldritch Strike as your MBA, and since it's a Warlock power, it gives you an opportunity to activate your Warlock damage if you haven't yet that round.

Keep Int and Con high for decent defenses and HP.

This is a build that would certainly benefit from Hybrid multi-classing: There are lots of good options for Hybrid Talent. Pact seems like a near no-brainer so you get something for killing those marked people.

 

[kerbarian]

Something to consider: Go with Con/Int (start with them both at LEAST 16) but then be an ASSAULT swordmage anyway. Make sure you pick up Eldritch Strike as one of your at-wills. That way, whenever you Aegis and Curse someone, and they attack someone else, you get to use your Eldritch Strike as your MBA, and since it's a Warlock power, it gives you an opportunity to activate your Warlock damage if you haven't yet that round.

The build works well for both shielding (high Con) or assault (strong MBA with Eldritch Strike). I was inclined to go with shielding because it's a guaranteed result. Let me see how the numbers actually work out, though...

Say you have a 60% chance of hitting, so there's a 60% chance that your curse damage was used up on your turn. For assault, if your aegis target hits an ally, you get to teleport and make an MBA. Eldritch Strike's average damage would be 0.6 * (1d8 + 5 + 0.4 * 1d6) = 6.5. So shielding would prevent 10 damage, and assault would deal 6.5 damage, on average.

I'm still inclined to go with shielding, but assault's damage would scale faster than the amount of damage prevented by shielding. Once the character has a decent magic weapon and some damage feats, assault could be a good choice.

 

[kerbarian]

A new thought here: use an incendiary dagger (from the sorcerer article in Dragon 385). It gives +1 vs. reflex and +2 fire damage. Almost all of this character's attacks are vs. reflex, and the primary at-will -- Hellish Rebuke -- is fire damage.

At level 1, curse + aegis + Hellish Rebuke would give:
+6 vs reflex for 2d6 + 7 damage, then either another 1d6 + 7 or prevent 10 of the target's damage.

The only disadvantage is reduced damage with Eldritch Strike, since it would be 1[W] with a dagger instead of a longsword.

 

[keterys]

I've had a swordmage/warlock in my group for a bit - level 7 through 14 so far.

You'll find that there's at least a decent chunk of the time that you end up not making a warlock attack during a turn. Also at least a decent amount that you don't even get your swordmage aegis on a target all that quickly, due to action requirements.

It works pretty decently, as hybrids go.