Duo Honour Mode Character. Warlock/Abjuration Wizard – Tank Mine.
First let me preface this by saying this build is expected to finish Honour mode Solo.
Essentially, the object of this build is to either allow mobs to attack you and kill themselves while doing it, or to one-shot most things with a combination of debuffs and magic-missle. Almost any attack (Whether by you, or the mobs on you) will cause stacks of reverberate that will sap their stats (The most important of which is Constitution and thereby their HP total) and lead to more one-shots. Start by casting Armor of Agothys at the highest level available, then your other defensive spells to give yourself as many Arcane Ward stacks as your current level will allow. Ensure that you keep a constant Blade Ward buff active, this not only halves the damage that you would receive, but because of how it stacks against your other damage reduction, you’ll essentially receive 0 damage toward your Temporary Hitpoints. Most of the time (Nearly all of the time) they will kill themselves just trying to attack you.
Once you are topped off with Arcane Ward stacks, focus down the problematic enemies – Activate Aluve, use Hexblade’s curse, and use the highest level Magic Missile you can muster. Because of Hexblades Curse, you’ll do increased damage with every missile, and multiple instances of damage will trigger multiple effects. You’ll also be doing radiant damage, creating orbs, and placing reverberate stacks on them simultaneously.
In the early stages focus on defense (As it will double as offense anyway) and slowly work your combo’s in. Shatter, Booming Blade, and Thunderwave will create stacks of reverberate also and have the potential to remove large packs of enemies at once (With the exception of booming blade, which I reserve for the more stubborn enemies). Bone Chill is for use with problematic mobs that like to heal, particularly in Act 2. Counterspell, is important to get rid of mind-affecting spells and to buff your arcane ward stacks mid-combat, Glyph of Warding is predominately used for the same thing – except it does amazing AOE damage. Fireball and Wall of Fire are there to remove fodder before tough fights, and there are plenty of CC worked into the spells list to provide you with options to allow you the ability to isolate certain mobs. Banishment, Hold Monster, Hold Person, even Confuse are excellent for this.
Fire shield and Haste are additions that simply make things go quicker (No pun intended). With fire-shield you are adding damage to the already considerable damage enemies will be taking when they attack you (Between AoA and The Fleshmelter Cloak (Not to mention the conditions they will be afflicted with for hitting you in the first place) and Haste allows you to not only get into position to target specific enemies but it allows you to cast multiple instances of Magic-Missile per turn, essentially ensuring that you can remove any one particular enemy at any given time.
There is plenty of utility to be had as well. Mage Hand is there to throw water giving mobs the wet condition (Which in turn triggers other conditions) and allows you to maximize damage when they strike you, or when you use your Lightning or Cold based spells. Misty Step allows you a get out of jail free card, and Long Strider ensures that you never get too stagnant after the fight has begun.
The biggest weakness was critical hits vs spells, which is virtually negated by the static ability of the Darkfire Shortbow (Fire/Frost Res), if Lightning becomes a problem you can always exchange coruscation ring for the Lightning Res/Electrocution immunity as well – and your Wis is high enough to ward off most mind-affecting spells especially with the help of elixers.
