Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Am I missing something, or is Eldritch Knight just bad?

I do realize a lot of this is down to 5e D&D's class balance rather than anything BG3 specific, but even so- the EK just feels remarkably weak compared to the other fighter options. I tried to make Lae'Zel work as an EK in my current playthrough, and at level 7 I finally just gave up and re-rolled her as a Battlemaster, which seems way better overall.
To be clear, I'm sure you could roll up a MC Eldritch Knight and beat the game with it, but it still feels like it's just worse overall than the other two fighter options.

So, you need an extra attribute (or permanently sacrifice your helmet slot for the warped band), you get a very limited set of spells- never above level 2, that doesn't actually include a lot of stuff like Blur or Hold Person that would be useful for a fighter/caster (I know you can get a few general wizard spells, but it's two total for your character). The offensive spells you get are usually going to be less useful than just attacking, in my experience, and there's very few good buffs on the list. Shield is good, at least?
You can bind a weapon and throw it, but unless it's specifically a thrown weapon, the damage straight up sucks unless you build your entire character around it- I'm doing 5 damage with a bound greatsword, and that's on a character with the Tavern Brawler feat and 19 strength. (there are good thrown weapons, sure, but they work without the EK's Bind Weapon feature and they're only found in act 3- and one only works if you're a dwarf).
You can use a cantrip and attack in the same turn, but I'm struggling to see when you'd be better off doing that instead of just attacking twice- at level 7 Shocking Grasp will do an average of 9 damage a hit, and if your level 7 fighter doesn't do more than that on average with weapon attacks, you've screwed the pooch terribly building them.
At level 10 you can give people disadvantage on saves against your spells, which would be great- except you only have a handful of spells that would benefit, and even with disadvantage on a save, you're *still* probably better off just hitting a target with your weapon as opposed to using Burning Hands or one of the other handful of spells you have that allow a save.

So, as the title says, am I missing something important about how to build and/or play EK well, or do they just genuinely suck as hard as it feels like they do? The best use of them I can find is "fighter that can self-cast Shield and Blur" and that just doesn't come close to comparing to a battle Master fighter, in my experience.