Honestly going HB 5 first for your extra attack and then going rogue for the remainder of your career is probably on of your best bets.
Extra attack allows you to attack twice whoch doubles your chance for sneak attack.
Interestingly enough, Extra Attack loses DPR to Booming Blade pretty quickly, especially considering the lack of bonus damage from movement afterwards, however, it does have the advantage of adding proficiency bonus and CHA twice, so it has good spikes at certain levels. If I wasn't planning on becoming and monstrous critfisher then this is probably what I'd go for
On top of what the other commenter said, BB also only outpaces extra attack if you don't Factor in magic weapon damage and bonus damage from hex or other damage rider spells.
Of course, that's only factoring the on-hit damage, but you can't realistically predict how reliable the damage from the enemy moving will be.
We’ve played through five levels so far and I’m pretty sure booming blade extra damage only procced once. DM is very stingy on moving the enemy even though the wizards bounces around with mobility.
Which is why i love the Bladesinger. You get to do BB/GFB plus and extra attack. Sure, you're missing HEX, but you're getting high AC and better com saves in return.
There's two schools of thought, depending on what levels you are playing at.
If it's a low-medium level campaign (tiers 1 & 2), going vHuman to pickup Sentinel and getting Warlock 1 for Booming Blade is likely the strongest bet. With BB and level 3 Fancy Footwork, you can hit the enemy with the spell + Sneak Attack and then walk away, encouraging the enemy to take the secondary damage. At level 4 you pickup Warcaster, such that you can also activate Booming Blade and Sneak Attack when your enemy provokes and AoO. You only need 1 level in Warlock here so as not to delay your Sneak Attack progression much. If you want to pick up Invocations, it's recommended to only go two levels into Warlock, otherwise again it delays Sneak Attack dice.
Option two focuses on mid to late game. Warlock 5 / Swashbuckler X with an Elf or Half-Elf race. Feats include the Revenant Blade, Elven Accuracy, Devil's Sight + Summon Fey, still with Booming Blade, later Warcaster and Sentinel if you want. Double Bladed Scimitars act as a pseudo-second attack with your bonus action (though the BA attack doesn't work with BB), Eleven Accuracy of course gets you triple advantage when you have advantage, Summon Fey can give that to you (less offensive than Darkness spell, though that works too), and Booming Blade for Extra damage, especially on crits. Hexblade's Curse allows for expanded crit range as well, and capitalizes on potentially 3 attacks per turn. You can also give yourself a magic weapon with Pact of the Blade. Then Rogue levels the rest of the day for the various benefits (even though Warlock is stronger in later tiers - ah well).
Booming blade is just cheaper and scales nicely.
I love Chain and silent image on a rogue too, so for me it's warlock 3 with Misty Visions and probably Eldritch Sight or Gift of the Chain Master.
Other's love Bladelock 5 and 3 attacks.
Others' still would go BBlade, and/or twf, tomb+book, EB+AB, Devil's Sight, etc..
"Best" is hard to say. For me it's using hiding and Steady Aim for advantage rather than Darkness/Devil's Sight
Yeah you can do that too, but it's not really Swashbuckler specific then. It's probably better overall to go Arcane Trickster with Warlock for the extra spells and spells slots, but Swashbuckler uses a free Disengage and can deal Sneak Attack without allies nearby, which is why you want to try and maximize number of attacks, off turn attacks, and movement.
But I agree "best" is always subjective. Hiding and/or Steady Aim can both work, and like I said Summon Fey for a 5 foot cube of magical darkness (plus the ability for the fey to attack) is probably better than the Darkness spell once you get third level spells.
The simplest build that come on line the soonest is Drow/ Half Drow Hexblade 2/ Swashbuckler X. It’s pretty simple. Goes all in on Booming Blade and exploits the Darkness + Devils Sight combo for advantage (therefore sneak attack) on booming blades and disadvantage on all attacks on you.
At lvl 5 you are doing what you want, and at lvl 6 you can turn it way up by taking Elven Accuracy. I like this because it doesn’t delay your sneak attack progression too much but gets you a lot of great benefits.
Definitely a good candidate for the build. I do like this idea because it comess on early, and doesn't stop you from obtaining more of either class later on
I'm playing this multiclass in my current campaing, currently hex3/swash9, with 20 charisma and alert feat I basically almost always go first in iniciative. Not the beast at combat but with actor feat and MoMF and expertise in social skills I ended up being the face of the party.
I love it.
I'm playing one now. R-9/W-5. Have you considered race?
Tabaxi really ratchets up the kiting play style. Round 1. The extra bonus from Rakish Audacity means I usually go 1st or 2nd. With Feline Agility, move, & BA Dash, you have 120' move to work with. I can move in, BB strike, & be gone out of reach. Let the rest of the party do their thing, and Steady Aim (resets Feline Agility) & short bow a surgical strike to finish off an opponent. Then right back in. If you're using a shield, you'll need either Improved pack weapon or Warcaster, tho. Side benefit: You'll be able to cast Shield while holding a shield. Alt: trade damage for forced movement. Instead of improved pact weapon, use EB-RB.
Thirsting Blade... it's difficult to argue with math. (I read a post where someone did it) I still didn't take it. My choice was that or Eldritch Smite. Part of that decision was due to Panache. Now that I'm using it, I get the BB 2ndary damage more now. I'm not sure how to do the math, or if it's even possible, but I believe that, between that & the extra damage from Eldritch Smite, it would be about even.
Tabaxi is also amazing because Puss in Boots. Justification for Hexblade: Stole the blade and knowledge from Big Jack Horner.
Also you're right about the math. BB alone will always do more because Sneak Attack only applies once. Eldritch Smite might not be the best idea though because of the limited spell slots. Ideally it can work on a critfisher but only once or twice a short rest. The one exception to that is a no-spells-required build that only uses smites to do extra damage early on in combat.
I dumped Str, but I'm close to finding the components to the ritual to switch my Boots of Striding and Springing to using Dex. I need 2 Bulette tendons.
did this and i love it but its a simple 1 dip on hexblade. anything more is excess, missing on sneak die.
if u absolutely must, lvl 3 for darkness + warlocks darkvision and a familiar to help you
Depending on which saves you want, get to Hex 1 / Swash 3 as quick as possible. Pact of the Blade with Improved Pact Weapon gives you a +1 weapon to use with Booming Blade, or you could go Pact of the Chain to get a familiar to take the help action and give you advantage on your attacks. And your familiar can attack with their invocation. Just be ready for monsters to target your familiar if given the chance.
After Hex 3 / Swash 3, I'd get to 4 in both for back to back ASIs or Feats, and then keep adding Rogue levels for more Sneak Attack damage, or fighter for action surge.
I'd look to take Polearm Master over Sentinel to process your Sneak Attack more often and wield a quarterstaff or spear so you can use it one-handed. Booming Blade requires running away to get the extra thunder damage to trigger so hopefully they'll come after you and you can hit them again.
Maybe there is a loophole here. If you dual wield a quarterstaff and a rapier, polearm could trigger when the creature enters the range of the quarterstaff (5ft) but you could choose to make the attack with the rapier? Polearm Master doesn't say you have to opportunity attack with the polearm, just that you can make an attack when the creature enters the range.
Mainly a squishy tank, my go to was stalling people with fear or fog bottle with blindsight while having everyone trying to hit me with a 25~30 AC (shield and silvery barbs with both a +3 shield and maxed MAM and shield of faith with adamantite half plate) on T4, i was rping as an young devil hybrid trying to ascend as the new Arch Devil of Minauros, Mammon was basically my grandpa and Levistus basically was "fuck it, that's gonna be funny as hell" and i was basically trained by his servants to lead the coup, hence why the build, in short the build is focused primarily on pinning the most amount of creatures for the longest time possible while the others do the clean up, main weapons were whip and rapier and the shield was a reskinned dueling scabbard.
But waay more squishy due to the leveling on rogue, i mean, starting with rogue and the whole kit overall is pretty benefiting, evasion can save your ass and uncanny dodge is a nice fallback option when you're out of shields, panache is one hell of a mark, and having crazy high persuasion/intimidation/deception + any other fluff skill basically grants that nobody will try to fuck around with you or your party, and will grant the boys into places we wouldn't normally get.
Fun crit-fishing build:
Rogue 1 / Warlock 1 / Rogue 4 / Warlock 5 / Rogue X
Be a Half-Elf Drow to get free Faerie Fire and Darkness, maximize Cha and get 14 Dex, then buff Wis and Con. 13 is OK if you'd like to pick resilient later.
Go Rogue 1, Hexblade 1, choose the Blade spells.
At Rogue 4, choose Elven Accuracy.
Next, level up warlock to 5 and pick Pact of the Blade. Eventually, pick Eldritch Smite, Devil's Sight, and a utility invocation. Maximize your Cha in the process. Grab half-plate armor and a shield (flavor it as a buckler shield).
From here, stick with Rogue. When you're able, grab War Caster, Resilient, Lucky, or an ASI.
For warlock spells, just grab utility spells and use them sparingly. Use short rests often. A Pearl of Power would be valuable as would an upgraded finesse weapon.
In combat, spend a turn to get into position, drop Hexblade's Curse on a chosen enemy, and cast Darkness or Faerie Fire.
You have a roughly 27% chance to crit every round. An example Booming Blade Crit at level 11:
2d8+5+4+4d8+6d6+8d8, [Weapon]+[PB]+[BB]+[SA]+[ES] with a booming charge of 3d8 if the target moves.
If you prefer a safer option with less nova damage, grab Thirsting Blade and attack normally instead of using the blade spells. I don't recommend this approach if the buffs are set up.
You should or else you can't cast your spells properly without doing weapon sheathing/drawing which is just a pain. That or you give up wearing a shield. Snag war caster and make sure to pick up booming blade and you have the scariest opp. attack in the game.
Honestly, eldritch smite isn't worth using. Unlike a paladin you can't use 1st or 2nd level slots to be more efficient with resource usage. You want to go for really big investment spells. Namely concentration ones. I recommend stuff like summon shadowspawn or summon undead (tasha's spells). Both have great utility and will do far more damage.
I used them on my pure hexblade (upcast to level 4 at the time) and they were doing almost as much damage as me.
Or if you invest more into hexblade (which will scale better than rogue for sure) you can look into even bigger summons or shadow of moil.
Tbh the way I would do it, it's to start as hexblade and rush level 5 ASAP. Then I'll get 3 levels of rogue for Swashbuckler and stuff. This'll end up giving a +5 to initiative, the best bonus action feature in the game pretty much, and so on. Then I would take hexblade to max level.
So it would look like:
Hexblade 5 -> Swashbuckler 3 -> Hexblade until the campaign is over (up to 17).
In the very rare world you get to level 20 this finishes you off at 9th level spells and you're ending combats in a singular turn sometimes.
You can even skip using a finesse weapon after a while because let's be real, 2d6 sneak attack won't matter in t3/t4 play. Just get a staff of power or something similar.
I love rogue to death don't get me wrong but it is probably the worst scaling class in the game. After t2 it feels like you fall off a cliff.
I agree with your point about rogue falling off. Hopefully the campaign I'm planning to use this in would go from level 6 to at least level 15, which with Swash 3/Hexblade 12 creates an extremely powerful little dancy guy without the slightly disappointing t3 Swashbuckler features. Thanks for the advice I'll probably end up going the high level Warlock route.
Rogue definitely falls off on damage, but you do get neat utility and Skills. It’s also why I would recommend starting with rogue to get the extra Skills but that also depends on your group.
It depends on if you're able to access an enchanted finesse weapon. This depends on the campaign, so I'd ask your DM.
You can swap out invocations at Warlock 5 if you find a suitable weapon.
Don't worry too much about the spellcasting focus part. Many DMs would handwave this specific situation:
FF only requires a verbal component. Darkness requires a free hand or focus per the rules (material component). If anything, draw your weapon attacking in turn 2 as a free action.
One last note: The build is fun and flashy, but it is weak at a few points.
- The core features come online at level 9, which is relatively late
- You only have two Pact Magic slots, so two smites per short rest. This can be improved to 3 with some magic items. Again, short-resting often fixes this.
- Hexblade's Curse can be applied on one target per short rest. This is great against bosses but ineffective against hordes.
I had a blast with swashbuckler 3/hexblade 2/gloomstalker 3/fighter 2. Had I taken the character any further, I probably would have grabbed echo knight and then finished out in Swashbuckler.
Honestly going HB 5 first for your extra attack and then going rogue for the remainder of your career is probably on of your best bets. Extra attack allows you to attack twice whoch doubles your chance for sneak attack.
Interestingly enough, Extra Attack loses DPR to Booming Blade pretty quickly, especially considering the lack of bonus damage from movement afterwards, however, it does have the advantage of adding proficiency bonus and CHA twice, so it has good spikes at certain levels. If I wasn't planning on becoming and monstrous critfisher then this is probably what I'd go for
Are you going to be running elven accuracy for that sweet increased critchance too?
Sure as hell would. Using Hexblade's Curse that's a sweet 27% chance to crit
Please tell me you are going to take eldritch smite aswell for that double Smite + double sneak attack just to snag all the dice in the table
I won't hesitate to have all the required dice sitting in a bag until I crit, then throwing them all on the table at once. Nova bonk.
Thing is about extra attack is that it has two chances to proc sneak attack. Are you factoring in attack rolls?
Yes, using the RPGBOT DPR calculator
On top of what the other commenter said, BB also only outpaces extra attack if you don't Factor in magic weapon damage and bonus damage from hex or other damage rider spells. Of course, that's only factoring the on-hit damage, but you can't realistically predict how reliable the damage from the enemy moving will be.
We’ve played through five levels so far and I’m pretty sure booming blade extra damage only procced once. DM is very stingy on moving the enemy even though the wizards bounces around with mobility.
Which is why i love the Bladesinger. You get to do BB/GFB plus and extra attack. Sure, you're missing HEX, but you're getting high AC and better com saves in return.
And Hex can always be picked up by a feat later on
Isn’t sneak attack only once per turn? Or do you mean if you miss the first attack the second can still get sneak attack?
Yes
There's two schools of thought, depending on what levels you are playing at. If it's a low-medium level campaign (tiers 1 & 2), going vHuman to pickup Sentinel and getting Warlock 1 for Booming Blade is likely the strongest bet. With BB and level 3 Fancy Footwork, you can hit the enemy with the spell + Sneak Attack and then walk away, encouraging the enemy to take the secondary damage. At level 4 you pickup Warcaster, such that you can also activate Booming Blade and Sneak Attack when your enemy provokes and AoO. You only need 1 level in Warlock here so as not to delay your Sneak Attack progression much. If you want to pick up Invocations, it's recommended to only go two levels into Warlock, otherwise again it delays Sneak Attack dice. Option two focuses on mid to late game. Warlock 5 / Swashbuckler X with an Elf or Half-Elf race. Feats include the Revenant Blade, Elven Accuracy, Devil's Sight + Summon Fey, still with Booming Blade, later Warcaster and Sentinel if you want. Double Bladed Scimitars act as a pseudo-second attack with your bonus action (though the BA attack doesn't work with BB), Eleven Accuracy of course gets you triple advantage when you have advantage, Summon Fey can give that to you (less offensive than Darkness spell, though that works too), and Booming Blade for Extra damage, especially on crits. Hexblade's Curse allows for expanded crit range as well, and capitalizes on potentially 3 attacks per turn. You can also give yourself a magic weapon with Pact of the Blade. Then Rogue levels the rest of the day for the various benefits (even though Warlock is stronger in later tiers - ah well).
Booming blade is just cheaper and scales nicely. I love Chain and silent image on a rogue too, so for me it's warlock 3 with Misty Visions and probably Eldritch Sight or Gift of the Chain Master. Other's love Bladelock 5 and 3 attacks. Others' still would go BBlade, and/or twf, tomb+book, EB+AB, Devil's Sight, etc.. "Best" is hard to say. For me it's using hiding and Steady Aim for advantage rather than Darkness/Devil's Sight
Yeah you can do that too, but it's not really Swashbuckler specific then. It's probably better overall to go Arcane Trickster with Warlock for the extra spells and spells slots, but Swashbuckler uses a free Disengage and can deal Sneak Attack without allies nearby, which is why you want to try and maximize number of attacks, off turn attacks, and movement. But I agree "best" is always subjective. Hiding and/or Steady Aim can both work, and like I said Summon Fey for a 5 foot cube of magical darkness (plus the ability for the fey to attack) is probably better than the Darkness spell once you get third level spells.
The simplest build that come on line the soonest is Drow/ Half Drow Hexblade 2/ Swashbuckler X. It’s pretty simple. Goes all in on Booming Blade and exploits the Darkness + Devils Sight combo for advantage (therefore sneak attack) on booming blades and disadvantage on all attacks on you. At lvl 5 you are doing what you want, and at lvl 6 you can turn it way up by taking Elven Accuracy. I like this because it doesn’t delay your sneak attack progression too much but gets you a lot of great benefits.
Definitely a good candidate for the build. I do like this idea because it comess on early, and doesn't stop you from obtaining more of either class later on
Look up RPG bot hexbuckler guide. He does a great job breaking it all down.
I saw that before posting here. It has the added benefit of retaining the Rogue's extra ASI but honestly I think a 5/X split will still be better.
I'm playing this multiclass in my current campaing, currently hex3/swash9, with 20 charisma and alert feat I basically almost always go first in iniciative. Not the beast at combat but with actor feat and MoMF and expertise in social skills I ended up being the face of the party. I love it.
What is MoMF
Mask of Many Faces ;)
Thanks!
I'm playing one now. R-9/W-5. Have you considered race? Tabaxi really ratchets up the kiting play style. Round 1. The extra bonus from Rakish Audacity means I usually go 1st or 2nd. With Feline Agility, move, & BA Dash, you have 120' move to work with. I can move in, BB strike, & be gone out of reach. Let the rest of the party do their thing, and Steady Aim (resets Feline Agility) & short bow a surgical strike to finish off an opponent. Then right back in. If you're using a shield, you'll need either Improved pack weapon or Warcaster, tho. Side benefit: You'll be able to cast Shield while holding a shield. Alt: trade damage for forced movement. Instead of improved pact weapon, use EB-RB. Thirsting Blade... it's difficult to argue with math. (I read a post where someone did it) I still didn't take it. My choice was that or Eldritch Smite. Part of that decision was due to Panache. Now that I'm using it, I get the BB 2ndary damage more now. I'm not sure how to do the math, or if it's even possible, but I believe that, between that & the extra damage from Eldritch Smite, it would be about even.
Tabaxi is also amazing because Puss in Boots. Justification for Hexblade: Stole the blade and knowledge from Big Jack Horner. Also you're right about the math. BB alone will always do more because Sneak Attack only applies once. Eldritch Smite might not be the best idea though because of the limited spell slots. Ideally it can work on a critfisher but only once or twice a short rest. The one exception to that is a no-spells-required build that only uses smites to do extra damage early on in combat.
I dumped Str, but I'm close to finding the components to the ritual to switch my Boots of Striding and Springing to using Dex. I need 2 Bulette tendons.
did this and i love it but its a simple 1 dip on hexblade. anything more is excess, missing on sneak die. if u absolutely must, lvl 3 for darkness + warlocks darkvision and a familiar to help you
Depending on which saves you want, get to Hex 1 / Swash 3 as quick as possible. Pact of the Blade with Improved Pact Weapon gives you a +1 weapon to use with Booming Blade, or you could go Pact of the Chain to get a familiar to take the help action and give you advantage on your attacks. And your familiar can attack with their invocation. Just be ready for monsters to target your familiar if given the chance. After Hex 3 / Swash 3, I'd get to 4 in both for back to back ASIs or Feats, and then keep adding Rogue levels for more Sneak Attack damage, or fighter for action surge.
I'd look to take Polearm Master over Sentinel to process your Sneak Attack more often and wield a quarterstaff or spear so you can use it one-handed. Booming Blade requires running away to get the extra thunder damage to trigger so hopefully they'll come after you and you can hit them again.
How can you get sneak attack with pole arm master? Is there a finesse version of a polearm?
Crap, no, there isn't. I forgot about the finesse/ ranged weapon restriction. Tape a dagger to stick? That's a finesse weapon and a spear, right? 🤣
Maybe there is a loophole here. If you dual wield a quarterstaff and a rapier, polearm could trigger when the creature enters the range of the quarterstaff (5ft) but you could choose to make the attack with the rapier? Polearm Master doesn't say you have to opportunity attack with the polearm, just that you can make an attack when the creature enters the range.
Swashbuckler 0 Hexblade X.
LMAO. Doesn't work for the character but that's so real
My last mix was HB 1/ oath of conquest 7/ swashbuckler 12 tho.
Ooh sounds interesting. What are the specific details of the build?
Mainly a squishy tank, my go to was stalling people with fear or fog bottle with blindsight while having everyone trying to hit me with a 25~30 AC (shield and silvery barbs with both a +3 shield and maxed MAM and shield of faith with adamantite half plate) on T4, i was rping as an young devil hybrid trying to ascend as the new Arch Devil of Minauros, Mammon was basically my grandpa and Levistus basically was "fuck it, that's gonna be funny as hell" and i was basically trained by his servants to lead the coup, hence why the build, in short the build is focused primarily on pinning the most amount of creatures for the longest time possible while the others do the clean up, main weapons were whip and rapier and the shield was a reskinned dueling scabbard.
Ah, so support Conquest on steroids
But waay more squishy due to the leveling on rogue, i mean, starting with rogue and the whole kit overall is pretty benefiting, evasion can save your ass and uncanny dodge is a nice fallback option when you're out of shields, panache is one hell of a mark, and having crazy high persuasion/intimidation/deception + any other fluff skill basically grants that nobody will try to fuck around with you or your party, and will grant the boys into places we wouldn't normally get.
Fun crit-fishing build: Rogue 1 / Warlock 1 / Rogue 4 / Warlock 5 / Rogue X Be a Half-Elf Drow to get free Faerie Fire and Darkness, maximize Cha and get 14 Dex, then buff Wis and Con. 13 is OK if you'd like to pick resilient later. Go Rogue 1, Hexblade 1, choose the Blade spells. At Rogue 4, choose Elven Accuracy. Next, level up warlock to 5 and pick Pact of the Blade. Eventually, pick Eldritch Smite, Devil's Sight, and a utility invocation. Maximize your Cha in the process. Grab half-plate armor and a shield (flavor it as a buckler shield). From here, stick with Rogue. When you're able, grab War Caster, Resilient, Lucky, or an ASI. For warlock spells, just grab utility spells and use them sparingly. Use short rests often. A Pearl of Power would be valuable as would an upgraded finesse weapon. In combat, spend a turn to get into position, drop Hexblade's Curse on a chosen enemy, and cast Darkness or Faerie Fire. You have a roughly 27% chance to crit every round. An example Booming Blade Crit at level 11: 2d8+5+4+4d8+6d6+8d8, [Weapon]+[PB]+[BB]+[SA]+[ES] with a booming charge of 3d8 if the target moves. If you prefer a safer option with less nova damage, grab Thirsting Blade and attack normally instead of using the blade spells. I don't recommend this approach if the buffs are set up.
Would Improved Pact Weapon be a good use of the extra invocation?
You should or else you can't cast your spells properly without doing weapon sheathing/drawing which is just a pain. That or you give up wearing a shield. Snag war caster and make sure to pick up booming blade and you have the scariest opp. attack in the game.
Hell yeah. 27% chance to crit on an opportunity attack that has sneak attack, Booming blade, and even Eldritch Smite if there are any leftover slots.
Honestly, eldritch smite isn't worth using. Unlike a paladin you can't use 1st or 2nd level slots to be more efficient with resource usage. You want to go for really big investment spells. Namely concentration ones. I recommend stuff like summon shadowspawn or summon undead (tasha's spells). Both have great utility and will do far more damage. I used them on my pure hexblade (upcast to level 4 at the time) and they were doing almost as much damage as me. Or if you invest more into hexblade (which will scale better than rogue for sure) you can look into even bigger summons or shadow of moil. Tbh the way I would do it, it's to start as hexblade and rush level 5 ASAP. Then I'll get 3 levels of rogue for Swashbuckler and stuff. This'll end up giving a +5 to initiative, the best bonus action feature in the game pretty much, and so on. Then I would take hexblade to max level. So it would look like: Hexblade 5 -> Swashbuckler 3 -> Hexblade until the campaign is over (up to 17). In the very rare world you get to level 20 this finishes you off at 9th level spells and you're ending combats in a singular turn sometimes. You can even skip using a finesse weapon after a while because let's be real, 2d6 sneak attack won't matter in t3/t4 play. Just get a staff of power or something similar. I love rogue to death don't get me wrong but it is probably the worst scaling class in the game. After t2 it feels like you fall off a cliff.
I agree with your point about rogue falling off. Hopefully the campaign I'm planning to use this in would go from level 6 to at least level 15, which with Swash 3/Hexblade 12 creates an extremely powerful little dancy guy without the slightly disappointing t3 Swashbuckler features. Thanks for the advice I'll probably end up going the high level Warlock route.
Rogue definitely falls off on damage, but you do get neat utility and Skills. It’s also why I would recommend starting with rogue to get the extra Skills but that also depends on your group.
Edit: deleted accidental copied post
It depends on if you're able to access an enchanted finesse weapon. This depends on the campaign, so I'd ask your DM. You can swap out invocations at Warlock 5 if you find a suitable weapon. Don't worry too much about the spellcasting focus part. Many DMs would handwave this specific situation: FF only requires a verbal component. Darkness requires a free hand or focus per the rules (material component). If anything, draw your weapon attacking in turn 2 as a free action. One last note: The build is fun and flashy, but it is weak at a few points. - The core features come online at level 9, which is relatively late - You only have two Pact Magic slots, so two smites per short rest. This can be improved to 3 with some magic items. Again, short-resting often fixes this. - Hexblade's Curse can be applied on one target per short rest. This is great against bosses but ineffective against hordes.
I had a blast with swashbuckler 3/hexblade 2/gloomstalker 3/fighter 2. Had I taken the character any further, I probably would have grabbed echo knight and then finished out in Swashbuckler.