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White Lotus Master Riposte is terrible, since you can't use it on marked enemies.  White Lotus Riposte is OK, but you usually won't be able to hit a bunch of enemies at once (even with Sword Burst.

On the rest, I like Strength Through Challenge, it might be better than Hide Armor.

My mistake, I meant to say Master Hindrance. With the 2 hindrance feats, every single square around you and your allies is hindering terrain, which I absolutely love.

Rapid Aegis Reaction I consider a must for all Swordmages. Being able to do it twice makes it a lot more beneficial. Just look at the new Rogue rules. Now that they can SA more than once per round, everybody's saying how broken and amazing they are.

For a half-elf Sigil Carver who multiclasses into warlock, you could try this build.

and you give a good set of reasons why you might want to bring the target closer.

and you give a good set of reasons why you might want to bring the target closer.

If you move a ranged attacker into melee as an interrupt, does its attack now provoke OAs?
If you move a ranged attacker into melee with your adjacent ally, does it now provoke OAs from both you AND your ally? 

and you give a good set of reasons why you might want to bring the target closer.

If you move a ranged attacker into melee as an interrupt, does its attack now provoke OAs?
If you move a ranged attacker into melee with your adjacent ally, does it now provoke OAs from both you AND your ally? 

No, as the trigger already passed without anyone adjacent to take OAs.

A couple of reasons to play a Warlock|Swordmage rather than a Half-Elf Swordmage:

You can play any race you want...  in particular, Dwarf.  Dwarfs are simply, the best defensive race.  As a result of Dwarf, the Warlock|Swordmage actually has more surges (17 vs. 16) and a higher surge value (54 vs. 53) AND you can use your (two) second winds as minor actions.  That's not even mentioning the stableness of dwarfs, which helps when they try to drag you away from your friends.

You're also spending a feat to get that greater number of surges, and a nearly interchangeable healing surge value. I can spend the same feat to get Greater Swordmage Warding before level 14, and pick up other defensive feats later. While a second wind as a minor action is nice for wardens and parties with low healing, it's generally not that great if you've got a competent leader. You're spending two surges with no bonuses, whereas you can have an extra 12d6 of healing with those surges as a bare minimum with a leader.

Stability, I definitely agree. Sigil Carvers want to stay in place. My half-elf uses boots to stick around, but dwarves start from a better place.

Warlock has a surprising number of defensive abilities outside of item buffs to defenses, from Painful Transference (which basically gets you out of one save-ends per encounter for free), to Wakeman's Invokation (a daily which nullifies one hit on you per turn!!), to Ethereal Sidestep (which fixes grab, restrained, and with items allows movement of teleport 6)

Additionally, I think there is the general misconception that the Sliding Swordmage can't handle ranged attackers, or handles them less well than a straight swordmage, which isn't true.  As long as they are marked, and within 5 of you, you simply stuff them inside your Hunger of Hadar and they auto-miss.

I won't deny that those are all good powers, but swordmages get similarly useful powers. Bolstering Warding is better than Painful Transference in battles where nasty conditions get reapplied. Oni's Gift can keep you invisible for much of an entire fight, which definitely keeps defenses up. You can grab Ethereal Sidestep with a power-swap if you want, or stick with multiple encounter teleports (which have better range than ES to start). Ethereal Sidestep is definitely a nice power in that regard.

Hunger of Hadar is not enough for an auto-miss, by the way. Blocking line of sight just means that you have total concealment from the creature. It's also a bit disingenuous to claim that a level 29 daily power is enough to protect you from ranged attackers, especially since the enemies still have to be within 5 squares. Your build didn't make room for Rapid Aegis Reaction or Greater Aegis of Shielding. Both of those can help protect against ranged attackers, though you do need to mark the enemies in the first place.

In D&D perhaps, in Magic, it's a perfeclty valid way, though perhaps not the exact normal way.

1) trigger begins
2) respond
3) trigger resolves

That's right most of the time, BUT, is incorrect if you change something fundamental about the nature of the trigger, or give yourself new ways to react to the trigger in your response.

This is just a hypothetical, but should illustrate my point.
As setup, it's important in this case to know that player A is at 3 life (or any life between 1 and 3).

1) player A plays a red spell.
2) player B already has a card in play that does something when player A plays a red spell.
3) player B plays a card that allows them to draw more cards.
4) Player B looks through the new cards to see if he can do anything else.
5) player B can, so he plays a spell that does 3 damage.
6) player A is now dead.
7) game checks to see if all the stuff on the stack can resolve.  All of player B's stuff does, but none of player A's stuff does, because when it checks, there is no longer a player A.

Painful Transference is an encounter utility that ends an effect as a no-action, which means you can use it when you get dominated or stunned.  Bolstering Warding is a daily utility that ends an effect as a minor action.  How is Bolstering Warding better in any way shape or form than Painful Transference?

It depends on the fights that you typically find yourself facing. If you have more fights per day, but with relatively infrequent nasty status effects (stun, dominate, etc.), then Painful Transference is stronger. If you more often have one fight where a monster has at-will stun (save ends) or dominate (save ends), then the ability to auto-save at the end of each of your turns will discourage the attacker from targeting you in the first place, and decrease the duration of those effects if they do target you and hit.

To clarify, Bolstering Warding is a stance, so it lasts the whole encounter. PT will help for that first time (and will do so 1/encounter the entire day), but Bolstering Warding helps for the big battles that happen less frequently. I'm certainly not claiming that PT isn't good; it's a great utility, but there is another option at that level for a single-class swordmage.

Oni's Gift is pretty good.  The problem with it (other than the fact that it requires a minor), is that as a sustain it can be only used once a turn.  So you attack without invisible, then you sustain to turn invisible, then team monster makes the first attack on an ally, you prevent with CA (and lose invisible), and then you aren't invisible and everything goes normal.  If you sustain in your turn before you attack, you get CA on your main attack, but not for the rest of your turn.

Wakeman's Invocation is totally ridiculous, especially against solos/elites.  They try to hit you.  One of them gets really lucky and gets through your defenses (+2).  You negate the hit by teleporting.  This happens once/turn and doesn't use a minor.  [but it does use your interrupt]

Agreed on Oni's Gift. For this build, which makes a lot of OAs, it's not as good. Giant's Might could be better - it's giving the bonus to melee attacks and damage, adding reach, and giving your allies more squares to be adjacent to you. Of course, it also gives you a little less maneuverability since you take up that extra space.

The interrupt cost on Wakeman's is rougher than a minor, in my opinion. The single-class swordmage has fewer uses for the minor (no curses, fewer items), so it can suck it up. If you go with Rapid Aegis Reaction, then you'll not feel the immediate interrupt cost quite so much.

The Warlock|Swordmage COULD take those swordmage powers, but the warlock ones are better.  That's not even including curse damage 1/turn, temporary hp through infernal pact, a ranged attack that's also a catch-22, and curse/teleport feats/items that give +6 AC/+6 Ref/+4 Fort/+4 Will.

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Despite my overexcited tone (Someone is wrong on the internet!!), I do appreciate your feedback and I'm starting to come around to the Rapid Aegis Reaction boat.  Probably I'd sub out Epic Recovery for it (I think second wind minor action is very strong, but I agree on your leader analysis).  Without Epic Recovery, you don't need Student of the Sword, so that gets another feat (for Strength of Challenge).

Heh. I know I'm on the wrong board for it, but I'm not a big fan of most hybrid combinations from a story perspective. I suspect that the warlock/swordmage version of this character can be more powerful with the proper items and a bit more tweaking, but I like showing that you can get a character which is nearly as effective (and is a little less item-dependent) by going with the half-elf. I do wish that there were a way to get Eldritch Strike as a swordmage other than half-elf trickery, but that seems to be it.

Just to show that I can make a hybrid version of the Sigil Carver as Ultimate Defender, here's a variant with the choice of dwarf replaced with revenant. I had originally done it to try to get Shadow Initiate in paragon and pick up Cursed Shadow for what's essentially a second Hybrid Talent, but there were just too many other good feats.  I'd still like to fit in Greater Aegis of Shielding and Cursed Spells even before I look at Shadow Initiate/Cursed Shadow. I think Repel Charge isn't as useful by the time you get to higher tiers. Enemies are more likely to have reach, and if they don't get adjacent to you, you can't hit them out of the way.

I went with githzerai as the past race to get access to Githzerai Blademaster for more damage (bastard sword and +2/3/4 damage), but if you're more worried about survivability, you could go with dwarf as the past race and pick up Dwarven Durability. Of course, by the time you get Trick of Knowledge, you should be able to get +7 to all saving throws in most encounters. That makes failing two death saves pretty hard to do.

Swordmage Implement Expertise works pretty well for this build. It doesn't affect Hellish Rebuke, Zutwa's Incandescence, and Hurl Through Hell, but it does affect Eldritch Strike (which is the most important power to affect).

The Defiant Boots are much more key for a non-dwarf. Stand Your Ground is enough to keep you near your allies most of the time, but lacking that, you need something to prevent forced movement from destroying your nice aura. Similarly, the Belt of Sonnlinor Righteousness works much better for a revenant than a Diamond Cincture. The Ring of Free Time is somewhat optional, depending on how much time you try to spend dying during each encounter. It is still nice for the extra minor actions; it's a free use of Warlock's Curse or your Aegis of Shielding if nothing else.

 

Nice Build!

Enemies with reach (<7) don't really matter with Repel Charge...  they charge in, make their attack, you hit them and move them 7 squares away, and they miss their attack.  Unless they can just charge again????

It's definitely situational...  it really depends on how well your party "defends" you by cutting off non-charging ways to reach you.

The issue is that your MBA doesn't have reach, and Repel Charge doesn't change the range on your attack. If they charge and don't end adjacent, you don't get to make your MBA to slide them away. By the time paragon comes around, many of the most threatening things that could charge you will have reach.

Penalties don't lose value just because they're not your main schtick.  Protective hex is nice because it's a good -2 that only costs one feat.
Realize that because you are using Eldritch Strike, your Sigil Carver opportunity attacks are inflicting a -2 to hit on your enemies.  This protects your party against opportunity attacks, and creatures that make multiple attacks.  Since you can only make one opportunity attack per creature per turn, this lets your OAs have a more enduring effect on creatures with such creatures.



Except that most of the time (baring catching a bunch of creatures in a Sword Burst), you only get to hit one enemy with an Arcane power.  So you give a single enemy -2 to attack your allies...  I think most of the time that single enemy will just attack you.  Better is something that nerfs ALL enemies.

I think you're missing that Eldritch Strike is an Arcane power, and thus gives an added protection for your allies against ranged attacks with Protective Hex, which is one of 3 weaknesses of this build.  It also helps with the 2nd weakness: Your ability to mark is limited both by range (tactic of stand behind other melee) and by use (1/encounter until overridden or target dies).  You already built with the ability to get a lot of marks out there, why not take advantage of it?

For me as an LFR player it's obviously replacing the Mark of Warding, but for those who are Eladrin or Half-Elf, or whatever, it can easilly replace the Dwarf feat.

I believe you're using Versatile Expertise wrong.  If you want it to apply to heavy blades both for weapon and implement attacks, you need to take heavy blade/heavy blade.  Currently, you use one for your weapon and the other for your implement - and as your incisive dagger is only +4....

Also, while you could argue that having an ally overwrite a single aegis mark out of a multimark set allows you to refresh the mark power even as a hybrid (though this is arguably a bit of RAW abuse) I'm pretty sure that when you reuse your marking ability, anyone who was marked by your aegis mark stops being so.

I believe you're using Versatile Expertise wrong.  If you want it to apply to heavy blades both for weapon and implement attacks, you need to take heavy blade/heavy blade.  Currently, you use one for your weapon and the other for your implement - and as your incisive dagger is only +4....

In perusing the character builder, I came across an interesting fact:  Assassin feats are really good for tank hybrid-warlocks!

In particular:

Killer in the Crowd gives Cover.  All the time.  That's effectively +2 to all defenses for a feat (with the caviat that getting cover from your allies no longer gives you +2).

What do you think?

I think you're misinterpreting Killer in the Crowd. It causes your enemies to give you cover against other enemies, and not provide cover to their allies. The latter isn't too important for you, since you don't have many ranged attacks and most of your close bursts won't run into that issue. The former is nice, but again, only really helps against ranged attacks. You aren't that scared of snipers.

 

??

"You gain cover from your enemies." 

This is ambiguous, but a simple interpretation is that you get cover from your enemies attacks (as opposed to your allies' spells, falling rocks, etc.).  Compare it to another Wizards product:

"When Seht's Tiger enters the battlefield, you gain protection from the color of your choice..."
 
Or the power Creeping Brambles:
"While within the zone, you and your allies gain cover"


Do you have any evidence that your interpretation is correct?

Typically, you see it phrased as "you gain cover against" something, rather than "you gain cover from". For an example of the former, you can check out the Dragonscale Shield.

Saying that you gain cover "from" something leads me to say that your enemies can cause you to gain cover against attacks in the way that your allies or solid objects would.