Eldritch Blast

Eldritch Blast is an attack mode available to Warlocks and Acolytes of the Skin. When you toggle any of the Eldritch Blast Shapes (such as Eldritch Blast: Focused), your basic attack changes into a ranged magical attack. It does not cost spell points or hit points; only time, much like swinging a weapon. However, unlike swinging a weapon, the Blast does not benefit from the attack speed boost of a Haste spell. You deal basic Eldritch Blast damage (usually force) and additionally pact damage (often elemental).

Standard Warlock's Eldritch Blast deals 1d8 Force damage at level 1, and increases by +1d8 at Warlock level 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20; for a total of 6d8 at level 20. Acolyte of the Skin gets a different progression: 2d8 Force damage at level 1 and an additional +2d8 at levels 6, 12 and 18 for a total of 8d8 at level 18. Enemies don't get a saving throw to resist this part of your damage.

Baseline Effects

• Eldritch Blast is treated as a 9th level Evocation spell with the Force spell descriptor.
  • As it is considered a harmful spell, effects that trigger on harmful spellcast will be applied by Eldritch Blast. A list of such effects is here: On-Spellcast Procs.
• Eldritch Blast scales with Force Spell Power, Spell Critical chance, and Spell Critical damage.
  • Utterdark Blast changes Eldritch Blast to instead deal Evil damage, and scale with Evil Spell Power, Spell Critical chance, and Spell Critical damage.
    • Evil damage is affected by MRR.
    • Utterdark Blast doesn't actually change Eldritch Blast's spell descriptors. Enabling it does not allow you to activate Alignment or Evil spell triggers.
  • Piercing Blast changes Eldritch Blast to instead deal Piercing damage. It still scales with Force Spell Power, Spell Critical chance, and Spell Critical damage.
    • Piercing damage is affected by PRR, but is effective against magically resistant targets.
• Eldritch Blast is not affected by metamagic feats or caster level. Toggled Metamagic feats do not grant their bonuses. (EG: An active Maximize does not improve Eldritch Blast damage.)
• Eldritch Blast is unaffected by Antimagic or Spell Resistance, and does not have a save to resist its damage.
• Eldritch Blast is affected by Arcane Spell Failure. Warlock spells are naturally immune to Arcane Spell Failure in Light Armor, and thus so is Eldritch Blast.
• Firing your first Eldritch Blast slows you down. Continuing to fire Eldritch Blast afterwards does not slow movement.

Additional interactions

Category	Effect
Appearance	Your weapons and shield disappear from view, although graphical effects such as Orb Glow or Cosmetic weapon auras remain. Sacred Fist's Imbue remains visible while Eldritch Blasting, mixing a silvery-blue flame in with your existing Blast glow.
Blast Behavior	Eldritch Blasts are not weapon attacks, and thus may not interact with certain breakable objects. In such a situation, disable your Eldritch Blast Shape to progress. As Eldritch Blasts replace all weapon attacks, you will need to disable your Shape to hit ranged target levers. Scrolls and Wands interact strangely with Eldritch Blast. Wands will take priority over Eldritch Blast, and equipped Scrolls may prevent Eldritch Blast from being fired.needs verification
Artificer Runearms	You may charge and fire Runearms independently of your Eldritch Blast. Firing Runearms does not interrupt your blast's attack sequence. Runearm Imbue damage does not boost your Eldritch Blast.
Wild Mage Wild Surge	Eldritch Blast can trigger Wild Surge, even if it does not hit anything. "Touch of Chaos" applies its Chaotic damage to each enemy hit with Eldritch Blast. It propagates through Chain, Cone, and Beam shapes. "Hammer Time" applies its knockdown to each enemy hit with Eldritch Blast. It propagates through Chain, Cone, and Beam shapes.

Pacts

Each Warlock must select a Pact at level 1. This is another a toggle feat. When enabled at level 1, it does 1 damage.

• Standard Warlock's Eldritch Blast deals an additional 1d6 damage for each even Warlock level, for a total of 10d6 at level 20.
• Acolyte of the Skin gets a different progression: +2d6 Pact dice at level 1, an additional +2d6 Pact dice at levels 6, 12 and 18 for a total of 8d6 at level 18.

Pacts always scale with 100% of the appropriate Spell Power, Spell Critical chance and Spell Critical damage. Shapes which increase Eldritch Blast scaling do not affect Pact damage.needs verification

Each pact deals different damage type and can be mitigated by a saving throw:

• Fey: Sonic / Reflex half, Evasion negates
• Fiend / True Fiend: Fire / Fortitude half
• Great Old One: Acid / Will half
• Celestial: Electric / Reflex half (Bug: Patch notes say Will save, In game goes off of Reflex Save)
• Abyss: Negative / Fortitude half
• Carceri Storm: Cold / Will half (Bug: Patch notes say Reflex save, In game goes off of Will Save)
• Dark Powers: Evil / Will half

The DC for the pact damage is the same as a ninth level evocation spell: 19 + charisma modifier + evocation focus effects.

In terms of damage sequence, your Pact damage affects a target first, followed by Blast damage and finally the Spiritual Retribution Imbue (if you have it).

Despite dealing elemental damage, Pact damage is not considered a spell in of itself, and does not trigger effects such as Fire Savant's Conflagration.

• Effectively, Pacts do not add Spell descriptors to the Blast they're attached to.
• An exception to this is Mantle effects, which have been hardcoded as shown below.

Increasing Eldritch Blast damage

Eldritch Blast Dice

Each additional "Blast Die" improves your base Eldritch Blast damage by 1d8.

Sources of bonus Blast Dice

Source	Limitations	Number of bonus dice
Dhampir Dark Bargainer Tier 3: Vampiric Blast	Essence stance	+1 bonus die
Epic Eldritch Blast	Epic Feat: Requires 12+ Warlock	+2 bonus dice, bonus +1 per 2 Epic or Legendary levels
Tainted Scholar Core 5: Blood Component		+1 bonus die
Tainted Scholar Core 6: Heretical Lore		+1 bonus die
Tainted Scholar Tier 4: Penetrating Blast	Essence stance	+1 bonus die
Tainted Scholar Tier 5: Eldritch Power		+2 bonus dice

Pact Dice

Each additional "Pact Die" improves your base Pact damage by 1d6.

Sources of bonus Pact Dice

Source	Limitations	Number of bonus dice
Deck of Many Curses: Curse of the Pact	Deck Curse	+1 bonus die
Dhampir Dark Bargainer Tier 3: Vampiric Blast	Essence stance	+1 bonus die
Epic Pact Dice	Epic Feat: Requires 12+ Warlock	+1 bonus dice, bonus +1 per 2 Epic or Legendary levels
Keeper of the Curse 5-piece set bonus	Filigrees	+3 bonus dice
Pact choice at level 1		+1 base damage
Power in Pact items		+x bonus dice, determined by item
Tainted Scholar Tier 1: Strong Pact		+1 bonus die
Tainted Scholar Tier 2: Strong Pact		+1 bonus die
Tainted Scholar Tier 3: Strong Pact		+1 bonus die
Tainted Scholar Tier 4: Strong Pact		+1 bonus die

Additional damage with Eldritch Blast

• Spiritual Retribution from Tier Four of the Enlightened Spirit tree adds 1d6 Light damage per Imbue Die to your Eldritch Blasts. This damage scales with Light Spell Power, Spell Critical Chance, and Spell Critical Damage.
• Greater Hunger from Tier Four of the Soul Eater tree adds 2d6 Chaotic damage to your Eldritch Blasts on targets affected by your Consume ability. This damage scales with Chaos Spell Power, Spell Critical Chance, and Spell Critical Damage.
• Drink Their Fear from Tier Four of the Acolyte of the Skin tree adds 1d6 Fire damage per Pact Die to your Eldritch Blasts on targets that are Afraid. This damage scales with Fire Spell Power, Spell Critical Chance, and Spell Critical Damage.
• As Eldritch Blasts are considered harmful spells, effects that trigger on harmful spellcast will be applied by Eldritch Blast. A list of such effects is here: On-Spellcast Procs.
• _{It goes without saying, but switching to Focused or Ennervating Shadow Blast Shape will also increase damage, due to having a higher Spell Power scaling and no Pact Die penalty.}

Shapes

Different Eldritch Blast shapes have different behaviors, enabling them to be specialized for different purposes. You may gain additional Shapes by purchasing them from Warlock enhancement trees.

Focused (basic attack)

• Fires a fast moving projectile without homing. This projectile may hit only a single target.
• Scales with 170% Spell Power, does not affect Pact Dice.
  • The default Eldritch Blast option. Focused shape is best suited for dealing with single, powerful targets, such as quest or raid bosses.

Chain (Tainted Scholar enhancements Tier 2)

• Fires a fast moving projectile without homing. Upon the projectile hitting a valid target (enemy, breakable, destroyable object), it jumps to up to two more nearby targets.
• Scales with 100% Spell Power, reduces your number of Pact Dice by one.
  • The chain bounce is instant and cannot miss, ignores invisibility/hiding entirely and has an unexpectedly large range. It is best suited for dealing with small groups of scattered enemies, such like in outdoor quests or wilderness explorer areas.

Cone (Soul Eater enhancements Tier 3)

• Fires a short cone of damage in front of the caster. This cone may hit any number of targets, and hits a significant distance both above and below the area targeted.
• Scales with 100% Spell Power, reduces your number of Pact Dice by one.
  • The cone's splash enables this shape to have the a huge amount of potential damage, although leveraging this puts its user at a greater risk than other Blast Shapes. It is best suited for large groups of enemies, such as in more modern dungeons.

Enervating Shadow (Tainted Scholar enhancements Tier 4)

• Fires a fast moving projectile with homing. This projectile may hit only a single target, and has a 10% chance to inflict a negative level on hit.
• Scales with 170% Spell Power, does not affect Pact Dice.
  • An 'upgraded' version of Focused, Enervating Shadow's homing has issues with pathing around obstacles, and occasionally cannot home strongly enough to catch particularly fast enemies. Negative levels also have limited effectiveness in higher difficulties, where enemies tend to recover from them quickly. It is best suited for dealing with single, evasive enemies, where the built-in homing can help compensate for their movement.

Aura (Enlightened Spirit enhancements Core 1)

• While toggled on, automatically pulses a field around the user that deals Eldritch Blast damage at a steady interval. Unlike all other shapes, you may attack with weapons while this shape is active.
  • Eldritch Aura fires once every five seconds at baseline, before improving to once every four, three, and two seconds after taking Enlightened Spirit cores 3, 4, and 5 respectively.
• Scales with 100% Spell Power, does not affect Pact Dice.
  • This shape is meant to be used in tandem with weaponry, providing additional passive damage to an area around you. It is better suited to tanks and melee characters over traditional casters, and the perks associated with this shape provide durability to better survive in such situations. It is best suited for when you are in the thick of combat, and actively swinging a weapon.

• Notes:
  • This shape remains active if toggled within a public (city) area. While in a public area, only you can see your aura's pulses.
    • Eldritch Aura cannot deal damage within public areas, including to targets such as training dummies.
  • This shape has an additional, hidden trait. Upon dealing damage with a weapon, your next few pulses of your Aura gain all Spell descriptors while dealing their damage. Although uses for this are limited, it is quite effective at triggering Epic Destiny mantles.

Beam (Acolyte of the Skin enhancements Tier 3)

• Fires a penetrating beam that deals damage to all enemies it touches. This beam may hit any number of targets, and has slightly reduced range compared to Focused Shape.
• Scales with 125% Spell Power, reduces your number of Pact Dice by one.
  • This shape cannot penetrate crates or other breakables and is rather narrow. It requires significant effort to line up targets to damage more than one at a time: treat this shape as a version of Improved Precise Shot. It is best suited for sniping lines of chasing enemies: target the furthest enemy for the best effect.

Claws (Acolyte of the Skin enhancements Tier 5)

• Swipe forwards with eldritch claws, dealing damage in an area. These claws may hit any number of targets.
• Scales with 200% Spell Power, does not affect Pact Dice.
  • This 'shape' is tied to a temporary buff, which lasts for 30 seconds and has a 3 minute cooldown. It additionally does nothing if you do not have another Eldritch Blast stance active.
    • The duration of the transformation increases by 5 seconds per Acolyte of the Skin core, for up to 1 minute of duration.
    • As this stance effectively overrides another active Eldritch Blast shape to function, it is not recommended to use Eldritch Claws with a Blast Shape that reduces Pact Dice, as it will inherit the reduction.
  • Between being locked to a T5 and the (at best) 33% uptime of the transformation, Claws is sadly not reliable to serve as a main blast damage shape. Its best usage is as a defensive utility, relying upon the temporary fire immunity granted by the buff, rather than as a source of damage. At best, it attacks slightly faster than other Blast shapes, and deals slightly more base damage, at the cost of low uptime and high risk.

Essences

The following essence stances can also be used in conjunction with the shape toggles above, although essences are mutually exclusive.

Utterdark Blast (Tainted Scholar enhancements Tier 2)

• While this Essence stance is active, Eldritch Blast deals Evil damage instead of Force. As such, it begins to scale with Evil Spell Power, Spell Critical chance, and Spell Critical damage.
  • Despite dealing Evil damage, it can affect Evil creatures. Enemies specifically must be immune or resistant to all Evil damage to resist this effect.
  • Evil damage is affected by MRR.

Faltering Blast (Tainted Scholar enhancements Tier 3)

• While this Essence stance is active, Eldritch Blast has a 10% chance to slow enemy movement by 50% for 6 seconds. This does not affect bosses.
  • Damage remains Force.

Penetrating Blast (Tainted Scholar enhancements Tier 4)

• While this Essence stance is active, Eldritch Blast deals Piercing damage instead of Force. You gain an extra Eldritch Blast die.
  • Piercing damage is effective against magically resistant targets and deals full damage to Golems.
  • Piercing damage is affected by PRR, but is not affected by DR.

Vampiric Blast (Dhampir Dark Bargainer Tier 3)

• While this Essence stance is active, Eldritch Blast heals you for 1d3 Positive Energy. You gain an extra Eldritch Blast Die and extra Pact Die.
  • If you have Deathly Bite and are in Undead Form, the healing is instead 1d3 Negative Energy.
  • Damage remains Force.

Eldritch Blast SLAs

Certain Warlock enhancements 'treated like a spell' even further, providing access to SLAs that scale with Eldritch Blast directly.

As proper SLAs, they can have Metamagics applied to them, more specifically Empower, Maximize, Intensify and Quicken. They do not cost spell points to use, but do have a cooldown.

Blast SLAs ignore your currently active shape, instead using their own shape. They inherit any Pact dice reduction caused by your currently active shape.

Eldritch Blast SLAs are affected by Arcane Spell Failure.

Tainted Scholar Blast SLAs may additionally can have Heighten, Enlarge and Embolden applied to them.

Fiendish Glare (Acolyte of the Skin enhancements Tier 3)

• Deals an additional 1d6 Evil Damage on hit. [8/6/5] second cooldown.

  Details: 100% Spell Power scaling. Small conical AoE. Has a _{<50%needs verification} chance on damage to apply Afraid to targets without a save. Shares a cooldown with Cleave.

Glare of the Pit (Acolyte of the Skin enhancements Tier 5)

• Deals an additional 4d6 Evil Damage on hit. [8/6/5] second cooldown.

  Details: 100% Spell Power scaling. Small conical AoE. Has a _{<50%needs verification} chance on damage to apply Afraid to targets without a save. Shares a cooldown with Great Cleave.

Eldritch Burst (Enlightened Spirit enhancements Tier 3)

• Deals an additional 1d6 Light Damage on hit. [8/6/5] second cooldown.

  Details: 100% Spell Power scaling. Self-targeted AoE. Shares a cooldown with Cleave.

Spirit Blast (Enlightened Spirit enhancements Tier 5)

• Deals an additional 4d6 Light Damage on hit. [8/6/5] second cooldown.

  Details: 100% Spell Power scaling. Self-targeted AoE. Shares a cooldown with Great Cleave.

Eldritch Wave (Soul Eater enhancements enhancements Tier 5)

• Fires three Eldritch Blasts in quick succession. 8 second cooldown.

  Details: 150% Spell Power scaling. Large conical AoE. Damage is slightly delayed between hits.

Stunning Blast (Tainted Scholar enhancements Tier 2)

• Stuns a target for 12 seconds on a failed Fortitude save. Save DC is 10 + Charisma Modifier + Warlock level. 6 second cooldown.

  Details: 150% Spell Power scaling. Single projectile. Costs [6/4/2] Depravity to activate.

  Accepts Heighten, Enlarge and Embolden to increase save DC. For the purposes of Heighten, this is a level 4 Warlock spell. Heighten may raise this spell's DC by up to 2 at level 16 Warlock.

Eldritch Ball (Tainted Scholar enhancements Tier 5)

• Fires a ball that explodes on impact. Does not appear to have a save. 6 second cooldown.

  Details: 150% Spell Power scaling. Fireball-like AoE. Costs [12/8/4] Depravity to activate.

  Accepts Heighten, Enlarge, and Embolden, but as this SLA has no save, Heighten nor Embolden provide any benefit.

Compatibility with epic mantles

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tonquin (DDO Forums) : We have modified the following Destiny Mantles to work with Eldritch Blast under these circumstances: EA Angelic Form: Fire damage now triggers on Fiend eldritch blasts hitting an enemy Wrathful Form: AoE flames now trigger off Fiend eldritch blasts hitting an enemy Angelic/Wrathful Form: Cinders now trigger off of fiend eldritch blasts hitting an enemy Magus Flash of the Eclipse: Cold damage now triggers off Carceri eldritch blasts hitting an enemy Flash of the Eclipse: Negative damage now triggers off of Abyss eldritch blasts hitting an enemy Flash of the Eclipse: Shattermantle now triggers off of either carceri or abyss warlock blasts hitting an enemy Primal Thorn: Acid damage now triggers off of Great Old One eldritch blasts hitting an enemy Heart: Fire damage now triggers off of Fiend eldritch blasts hitting an enemy Storm: Electric damage now triggers off of celestial eldritch blasts hitting an enemy Storm: Cold damage now triggers off of Carceri eldritch blasts hitting an enemy Storm: Sonic damage now triggers off of Fey eldritch blasts hitting an enemy

Further Observations:

• Draconic Incarnation's Mantle can be applied by matching Pacts:
  • Black: Great Old One
  • Blue: Celestial
  • Red: Fiend/True Fiend
  • Green: None
  • Shadow: Abyss
  • White: Carceri

• Shiradi Champion's Mantle can be applied by any Pact, or lack thereof. It best suits Fey or Dark Powers.
  • For Warlocks using Dark Powers as their Pact, Stay Good or Stay Strong are likely their best available Mantles.

• Fatesinger's Mantle can be applied by any Pact, or lack therof. It best suits Fey.

• Utterdark Blast does not allow Eldritch Blast to trigger the Light damage portion of Exalted Angel's Angelic mantle.
• Eldritch Blast (Be it regular, Utterdark, or Penetrating) does not trigger the Force damage portion of Primal Avatar's Thorn mantle.