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OK, here's the situation.
Human warlock.

PH says a warlock gets Edrich Blast only.
One of the miniatures/cards created the option of Eldrich Stike (which was never picked up by Arcane power or any of the other printed material I've found, though it is in the character builder) instead of Eldrich Blast. Or a human could have both for whatever reason.

Heroes of Shadow has ShadowClaws.

Could that be used instead, or is that a Binder-only basic?
(which could than be taken as the Human Extra at-will)

Has this ever even come up before?

Oct 14, 2012 -- 9:21PM, WhisperMagellan wrote:

OK, here's the situation.
Human warlock.

PH says a warlock gets Edrich Blast only.
One of the miniatures/cards created the option of Eldrich Stike (which was never picked up by Arcane power or any of the other printed material I've found, though it is in the character builder) instead of Eldrich Blast. Or a human could have both for whatever reason.

Heroes of Shadow has ShadowClaws.

Could that be used instead, or is that a Binder-only basic?
(which could than be taken as the Human Extra at-will)

Has this ever even come up before?

Per PHB, being a warlock means you get Eldritch Blast (which later got modified to be either that or Eldritch Strike, your choice), and your pact determines your other standard at-will power.

However, humans (optionally) get a third at-will power. That could be any Warlock at-will power that is designated as being level 1.

Shadow Claws is so designated. As are Eldritch Blast and Eldritch Strike.

(Some powers, including some at-will powers, introduced in Essentials do NOT have a level number and thus are generally not available except to the specific subclass they are introduced in.)

So, Shadow Claws cannot be used as a basic attack/substitute.

So, does that mean that the Binder build has no basic attack?

Sorry if this seems like a rehash, but it is one of the many questions the format of HoS book caused (and really, any decent editing/proofing/playtesting should have raised the question).


Phased differently: Why is Shadow Claws (which has no pact association) not the same as/interchangable with Eldrich Blast/Strike?

 Because the binder doesn't fill the same role as a regular warlock - they're controllers, not strikers, so they don't actually need a basic attack. 
There's almost never a situation where they wouldn't be using either an encounter power or an at-will rather than a basic attack, so they don't really need an at-will that counts as a basic attack. (Shadow Claws is meant to be a controller power rather than a striker power - sure, the damage is nice, but you don't actually need to hit with it, since the control aspects of the effect happen even if you miss.)
 If a binder finds themselves in a situation where they're in a position to make an opportunity attack against an opponent, they've gotten far too close to the main body of the combat.

Heck, as a striker warlock, I've used Eldrich Strike MBA 4 times between lvl 5 and 17. It came up this weekend, for the first time in 8 months.

Anyway, that solves that problem.

Thanks.