One D&D Eldritch Knight Fighter Build Guide – 2025 Update
Learn the best build for the Eldritch Knight Fighter with full leveling guides, full spell lists, and easy to navigate sections to only read what you need!
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For all D&D guides on Nat1gaming, they only use the main sourcebooks (Player’s Handbook, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything) as well as Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos (mostly for Silvery Barbs) as those tend to be the most commonly used books at tables. Always be sure that if you’re following a guide that you’re adhering to your tables rules about what sourcebooks you are allowed to follow.
Any spell, class, feature, or other game item that is linkable on this website is covered by the 5th edition Open Games License and will be in the Player’s Handbook, but not everything in the Player’s Handbook will be linked to. All other materials that aren’t linked to are from other sourcebooks or aren’t allowed to be linked to per the 5th Edition Open Games License, so please refer to the appropriate sourcebooks for that information.
For the purposes of this guide, it will be assumed that you would not be multiclassing. While multiclassing can be excellent for many of these, this is for those who want to play the build all the way through in the same class. Guides that use multiclassing will be separate from these.
For spellcasters, you may notice substantial overlap between the spell lists of builds with the same base class. This is due to each guide utilizing a generically good spell list and not considering extenuating factors that will influence how you particularly sculpt your spell list. When creating your own spell list, you should take into account the campaign setting, what spells any other party members are capable of casting, potential overlap (ritual spells tend to overlap so it’s rare you need multiple people capable of casting them), or potential shortcomings in the parties total spell list. While this guide can definitely help point you in the right direction for crafting a spell list, you should use your judgement and preferences to figure out what spells make the most sense for your character.
To that end, please refer to the Spell List and Spell Tier list for any substitutions you’d want to make to the build.
Why Eldritch Knight Fighter?
You are a Fighter, but you can spellcast! What’s not to love? While you would think you’re giving up a lot for the ability to spellcast, the Eldritch Knight abilities just tend to be pretty strong anyway making this an incredibly powerful subclass that gives you nearly all the advantages of the typical Fighter coupled with the utility of a spellcaster!
Eldritch Knight Fighter Abilities Ranked
War Bond (Level 3) – D Tier – While this ability is really cool, it isn’t that useful. Few enemies will disarm you and very rarely do you need to summon your weapon. Creative players may find something to do with this (selling your weapon then recalling it), but I wouldn’t count on this being a great ability or anything.
Cantrips & 1st Level Spells (Level 3) – A- Tier – Getting spells as a fighter? Incredible! Wizard cantrips and spells are very strong, and even when you’re limited in how many of them you can cast, now that the school restriction has been lifted, Eldritch Knights are going to be extremely strong.
War Magic (Level 7) – B Tier – Weaving a cantrip into your normal attacks will generally just be a flat, but good damage boost with something like Booming Blade. However, you could get fancy and get something like Blade Ward if that serves you better which is some nice versatility.
2nd Level Spells (Level 7) –