RPing Direction:
Astarion has embraced his potential and transcended Cazador without the need to rely on the same methods of his former lord. Making full use of his Vampiric repertoire, he is as charming as he is deadly, and whomever he preys will be left helpless. He has no need to Ascend, save for missing sunlight or wanton whims.
Combat Tips:
- Disable the Dual Attack toggle, because it’s important to manage the order of Actions and Bonus Actions.
- Risky Attack allows you to use Sneak Attack without sneaking. 9/10 times, you will have Attack Advantage, triggering the passive effects of your Main and Off-Hand Weapons for additional damage.
- I’ll often have Gale Dual Cast Draconic Elemental Weapon (from Drakethroat Glaive) onto Astarion’s weapons at camp for additional elemental damage on each of them. Pick anything other than Fire since Infernal Touch already grants that.
- Be mindful that your Main Hand will deal additional damage if the target is at 1/2 or less health. It is sometimes best to attack with it AFTER your Off-Hand because of this.
- It’s often better to Melee and the spells are mostly there for Vampiric flavor. However, Illusion Quickening will trigger after a Weapon Attack, allowing to cast those Spells as a bonus action should you ever find the need to. Psychic Leech further feeds into this for more Vampiric flavor.
- Mobile Flourish will allow you to teleport to a target after it’s hit and pushed. This could save you the need to use Cunning Action: Dash. Be careful though, because the initial push from the attack might, annoyingly, move the target out of teleportation range.
- Alternatively, you can pull targets toward you instead. It’s not listed, but the Hellfire Engine Crossbow grants the action Reposition Malefactor. Confusingly, it might preview the action as a push, but it does in fact, pull things towards you.
- After taking any non-Off-Hand Weapon Attack, Sneak Attack gets disabled. Not sure why.
- You can make 2 Main Hand Attacks and 2 Off-Hand Attacks on any turn (if your Actions and Bonus weren’t used for other things. With Action Surge, you can squeeze out 2 more Main Hand Attacks on a single turn until a short rest for a total of 6 attacks.
