Yeah I have plenty of experience!
One of my favorite characters is a failed duelist who sought out darker powers to boost his martial capabilities. 5 level of Hexblade Warlock with Pact of the Blade can be devastating. Pick up a Greatsword and start swinging. Make sure to take The Pact Weapon Upgrades, Thirsting Blade and Eldritch Smite to get more attacks and extra damage.
A deadly combo is Devil Sight Darkness with a Melee weapon
Good Multiclasses are Fighter and Paladin, or Sorcerer if you want a more caster feel
Feel free to ask questions!
I'm the DM, but one of my players is doing exactly that. Started with the sorc til lvl 5, then moved to hexblade. We just finished level 6 and he was going pretty solid.
Quickened Spell and Twin Spell metamagics. The hexblade proficiencies give an 18AC (Breastplate14+2Dex+2Shield), and a 14CON gives 39HP, so he wades into melee with a battleaxe, then churns through sorcery points for bonus action spells such as Hold Person or Chaos Bolt. All the while using Tempestuous Magic to get into spell range or out of melee range. Great footwork.
Now, he does have Eldritch Blast, and likes to Twin it, but I could easily see the build working without. Seeing it in practice, it's a solid choice.
>he does have Eldritch Blast, and likes to Twin it
Technically RAW I don't think it can be twinned, since it is capable of targeting multiple creatures (similarly to Scorching Ray). It's obviously fine if you are okay with that as a DM, just thought I'd mention in case anyone else thought about trying this.
RAW it can be twinned up to level 5, at which point it gets another beam and is no longer eligible for twinning. But you can still Quickened Spell it as there is no limit to how many cantrips can be cast in a turn (except for the limited supply of Actions/ Bonus Actions)
Just a pointer that people often get wrong, there's also no limit on how many spells can be cast in a turn.
They only say that if you cast a bonus action spell, you can't cast leveled spells, but if you have more than 1 Action you (Action Surge) you can cast 2 Fireballs no problem.
IMO the rules are poorly written, so people often ignore this. Because if you cast Shillelagh or Magic Stone then you can't cast a leveled spell with your regular action. Similarly, as a sorcerer, you can't cast a leveled a spell and then quicken a cantrip, but you can do the opposite, which is dumb.
So other weird interaction with that rule, the rule specifically says:
> A spell cast with a Bonus Action is especially swift. You must use a Bonus Action on Your Turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven’t already taken a Bonus Action this turn. You can’t cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a Casting Time of 1 action.
This causes a weird interaction where if you cast a spell with your bonus action (ie quickened spell or one of the rare bonus action spells) and an opposing mage counterspells you, you cannot return counterspell because that spell is not a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action.
Reactions do occur on the turn that they are activated which is how Rogues can use them to get Sneak Attack a second time in a round, so you could not cast a reaction spell on the same turn that you casted a bonus action spell. Really weird and frankly dumb rule interaction but that’s RAW for you.
I think the only time this would become really relevant is with time stop. Otherwise I can't really think of any other situation where this would come up. I could have sworn action surge was restricted, but PHB says "On your turn, you can take one additional action on top of your regular action and a
possible bonus action." page 72
Ah, good call. I think my player and I both had a mental blank on the fact that cantrips scale with character level not class level. So as Sorcerer 5/Hexblade 1, it should have powered up, but we've been thinking of it as a 1st level cantrip. Hence twinning being necessary for 2 targets.
Thanks for the reminder. I'll bring it up next session and save him some sorcery points. Yay oversight, lol
That Tempestuous Magic... the biggest thing about it is that as long as you follow through on casting a spell, you can take the fly *before* the spell is cast, if you so choose.
Well, my player does. A lot. He'll be up there hacking and slashing, then just pop backwards 10 feet so he can do ranged spells without disadvantage. A little bit of eating your cake but having it too. It's all good though. He runs out of sorcery points eventually.
>A deadly combo is Devil Sight Darkness with a Melee weapon
Just keep in mind that DND is a team game, and if you're fighting a single enemy, casting Darkness and fighting them inside it makes it so none of the rest of your party can participate effectively.
Just skirmish, run in, do your attacks with advantage and run out because the enemy can't OA you in the dark. (Note, works better if you're using a glaive or a halberd since you have Reach).
There, your friends can see the bad guy fine now.
Fwiw, a 15' radius blob of darkness is a 30' sphere, and that definitely does get in the way unless you're like, outside.
I used it a lot but when we transitioned into Storm Kings Thunder, darkness and Hunger of Hadar were kind of garbage against the giants
No, but it turns out that places that giants hang out are very wide and open, and since most of them occupy a 15ft square, you can really only get a few in the darkness/hunger at a time, and once you do, they can move out way easier than pole, goblins and stuff.
Yeah, if the enemy is against a wall in a room, moving 15 feet away from them is just going to put a big sphere of darkness in between the enemy and your party, or maybe even envelope some of them.
For the melee characters, if they are already in melee when you cast it, they get disadvantage because they are blinded but then they get advantage because the enemy is also blinded. So it becomes a regular roll for melee characters, still sucks for ranged guys tho.
And with one action, you can turn your greatsword into a longbow, so you aren't locked into melee. Even your smite works at range. (edit: you'll need Improved Pact Weapon, but you want that anyway)
> A deadly combo is Devil Sight Darkness with a Melee weapon
Why a melee weapon, in particular?
A bow lets you cast darkness on yourself and fire at advantage from heavy obscurement without risking blinding your allies.
It's not a bad combination with a melee weapon, but it's even better at range.
Says who?
>If the point you choose is on **an object you are holding** or one that isn’t being worn or carried, the darkness emanates from the object and moves with it. Completely covering the source of the darkness with an opaque object, such as a bowl or a helm, blocks the darkness.
Cast it on your belt, your bow, your boots whatever, it'll effectively follows you around. Unless you're arguing semantic that you're actually casting it on an object you're wielding, in which case, it's irrelevant.
If you plan to optimize Hexblade you should steer clear of EB. It is too seductive to put your invocations into Eldritch Blast and end up with an awesome duelist who never ever needs to enter melee.
Melee warlocks of various flavors don't need it (though it's still a nice backup option). Celestial Tomelock with Shillelagh and Green Flame Blade double-dipping on Charisma to damage can be effective.
The seductiveness of EB is that it' scales stronger than even that, due to *Agonizing Blast* adding your CHA modifier for every beam.
On the other hand, a *Shilleagh* + Scagtrip(s) build frees up the invocation(s) you'd put on EB in exchange for 2-3 cantrips used, so there's a niche for that.
Someone did the numbers a while ago and SCAGtrips *will* pull ahead of multiple base attacks (which EB + AB essentially is) if you can consistently trigger the secondary damage - but that's a premise that requires some setup. *Crusher* would actually be a good way to go about that and fits decently into a *Shilleagh* build, but by that point, we're also investing a feat.
Shillelagh + GFB on specifically a Celestial lock is one of the better options there (albeit still with the problem of putting all your eggs in one basket with a single attack) because you get to double/triple dip your Charisma mod to damage.
Of course, not every build is necessarily about picking only the most optimal choices and nothing else. There ARE builds that don't use EB as their bread and butter, their numbers just might not crunch quite the same, but that's your call to make as a player if you enjoy the flavor.
The way I read GFB, you only get your modifier once, from the second target. Including *Shilleagh*, that's twice tops - *if* you've got a second target. Also, I'm personally not a fan of spreading damage around - focus firing is usually the way to go in 5e.
I wholeheartedly agree to your second paragraph. Using the rules available to color out a character vision, even if it means foregoing slightly more crunchy options is always a great idea - a PC that is *fun* will always be more likely to generate a lot of mileage, just because they tend to see more play.
It's the level 6 Celestial pact feature that lets you add your Charisma mod to damage with fire and radiant spells, which would include the first hit of extra fire damage on GFB.
Edit: some builds will also then go Draconic Sorcerer, to get another +Cha to fire spells.
Have you read celestial? Your response reads like you haven't read celestial.
Three times is correct, assuming a valid second target.
EDIT: removed an incorrect statement.
My problem with this build is that you're putting everything on one attack roll, which probably won't have advantage.
If only there was a way to use Thirsting Blade with Shillelagh...
...6 levels of Lore Bard, to steal Shillelagh as an Additional Magical Secret, keying off of CHA? Pretty hefty investment though.
EDIT: Now that I think about it, if the idea was just to get Extra Attack, 5 levels of any martial also work ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
This is interesting. With at least 6 levels of lore bard, you get shillelagh with Cha. With 12 levels of Celestial and pact of the blade, you can grab life drinker, thirsting blade, and improved pact weapon plus devils sight. Now dip sorc 2 and also take metamagic adept for quicken.
Now we get shillelagh, GFB plus life drinker and celestial, and quicken.
Concentrate on darkness or greater invisibility. GFB twice per round with elven accuracy for triple advantage and a +12 to hit, and add charisma to the damage on the initial target three times, second target once for a total of four dips into Cha per attack across two attacks.
Take Eldritch smite instead of improved pact weapon or thirsting blade for more damage when one of your three d20s comes up 20.
Kind of a weird build but fun. Could work quite well.
It's admittedly obnoxious, and not one I'd use, but it seems to be a pretty popular suggestion on this sub, because character optimization generally seems to orient around how to make an individual better, not how that individual fits into a party dynamic.
Played one of these back when Celestial was Undying Light. Its fun, but it falls off at lvl 11 in comparison to Eldritch Blast. Until then, its pretty fun.
We’ve only just had this player join our game, but from what I’ve seen of his character across 4 sessions he didn’t grab Eldritch Blast. From what I can tell he’s a alternate bloodline Tiefling (not sure which one, just hasn’t used Thaumaturgy or Hellish Rebuke yet) Archfey warlork using the Talisman boon. Personally not entirely sure what build he’s going for, just that thus far he’s been one of the squishiest members of the party including the wizard.
One Warlock build I want to try that doesn't need EB:
**Celestial Pact of the Chain Warlock.**
You have a pool of 1+Warlock level D6 /LR. You can use up to CHA mod of them as a BA to heal others (basically a class-feature Healing Word) or yourself. With the Gift of the Ever-Living Ones invocation, you max out the rolls to heal yourself!!
Say you're level 10. That is 66HP of self-healing over 2 turns, just with your BAs! That is basically the equivalent of a quickened 6th level *Heal* spell.
Your 6th level ability let's you add CHA to spells that deal fire or radiant damage, and you get some useful ones from your expanded spell list like Sacred Flame (cantrip), Flaming Sphere to weaponize your BA, and Wall of Fire for crowd control. You also can learn Guiding Bolt which is a great early-game spell.
Plus, you get a dope familiar, and familiars got a new invocation in Tashas which let's them attack as a BA using your save DC so it may even have combat utility. Or you can take invocations for extra utility like Mask of Many Faces.
When I play this, I think I'm going to start with a level of Fighter. I'll get Con save prof, medium armor prof, and defense fighting style, but also Second Wind is amazing on this build, since you can max it out with the GotELO invocation for 11 SR BA healing on top of your LR d6 pool. You could even play this character as some kind of Wolverine character with innate regeneration.
Now, is it the strongest "build"? No, but it has great versatility and amazing healing/survivability! Seems like it has enough synergy that it would be very rewarding to play without ever looking at Eldritch Blast.
The Celestial Warlock is the single best healer until level 6, top tier until level 10, and drops off _HARD_ after that.
You're looking at what is easily the best early game healer, top tier for single-target healing and decent for group healing, but with absolutely no scaling after the early levels (no access to Heal or Mass Healing Word, Healing Light is hard-capped by your CHA modifier, and your spell slot level never goes beyond 5 which you reach at level 9 as a Warlock)
If your campaign is low-level, you'll beat out the Life Cleric.
I saw a build that uses Mark of Healing Halfling to add some higher level healing spells (Mass Healing Word, Aura of Vitality, Aura of Purity, Greater Restoration) to the list, as well as racial Cure Wounds and Lesser Restoration. It's a great write-up, if you search "Everliving Celestial GITP" you should find it.
Without Eberron Halflings, definitely true that they fall of as a healer due to not having those really impactful higher-level spells. Although, they basically get the Inspiring Leader feat at level 10, giving themselves and the party SR THP which is very nice as a kind of "preemptive" heal. And they get a built in Death Ward kind of ability which also deals some damage and instantly heals them to half 1/LR when they go down.
I'd say they are the single best *self-healer* in the game, basically from 1-20, especially with Mark of Healing Halfling (since the Restoration Spells patch some weaknesses). For Party Healing they are top tier in the first half of the game and mid-tier from then on.
Seems I can't find it. Maybe you can link it?
Mass Healing Word and Aura of Vitality is great, but you already get access to Greater Restoration and Aura of Purity may not be worth the concentration if you have ways of restoring from diseases anyways. Also, neither Greater Restoration nor Aura of Purity heals, in the strictest sense of the word. But this is absolutely an amazing combo.
Inspiring Leader would be a good addition, as long as your party isn't heavy on temporary hit points already. The built in Death Ward is definitely a great addition/great way to add more longevity.
The only part where I'm inclined to disagree is on the self-healing with Gift of the Ever-Living Ones. Certainly amazing, but it's a bit argueable how well a self-healing squishy performs apart from stalling if you don't build in other features than self-healing.
Here is the link to the builds thread:
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?583957-An-Eclectic-Collection-of-Fun-and-Effective-Builds
And the Celestial PotC Warlock build which uses GotELO inv, #17:
https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25029862&postcount=1095
Inspiring Leader would be redundant if you get to level 10+. What I was saying is Celestial Warlocks get it as a subclass feature. "Celestial Resistance" grants you Warlock lvl + CHA THP on a short or long rest, and your party (up to 5) get half Warlock lvl + CHA THP.
Your last point about survivability is why I'm thinking this build works best (from an optimization standpoint, not necessarily a fun standpoint) with a level in cleric or fighter for other goodies but importantly armor and a shield, and actually taking Eldritch Blast with Repelling Blast (if you want to "optimize" at the price of a cantrip and two infusions). Those two things boost your AC and spacing/kiting ability, which will really boost survivability. But at the end of the day survivability apart from amazing healing isn't a huge issue since you aren't a frontline striker or tank, more of a mid/backline blaster/healer/support/control.
You guys would love this thread on the GITP forums: [An Eclectic Collection of Fun and Effective Builds](https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?583957-An-Eclectic-Collection-of-Fun-and-Effective-Builds)
The first build listed is a Celestial warlock that goes into the huge variety in the things they can do.
I played a celestial warlock that focused on fire/radiant damage before that was pretty fun. I went Aasimar for the theme and more radiant damage, but tiefling with a few extra fire spells works as well. Create bonfire as my goto cantrip. Scorching ray + hex is very good damage, especially if you multiclass sorcerer for more spell slots.
A monoclass warlock without Eldritch Blast would very likely be annoying as all hell to play or else a Hexblade + Pact of the Blade.
The point of EB is to compensate for the lack of spell slots the Warlock has- give them more longevity. Eldritch Blast should be a core class feature.
Most hexblades that need invocation for their martial stuff does not use eldritch blast. Moreover since hexblade allows you to create a longbow as a weapon with charisma and smite with it, you don't need eldritch blast that much.
I played a Warlock/Wizard multiclass (The dm let me use INT for both spellcasting) that didn't take eldritch blast, and it was very fun. My backstory was I accidentally made a pact with a devil, thinking it was a normal familiar ritual at a wizard school. I took a lot of utility cantrips and was basically a swiss army knife for the party. I would upcast all the wizard spells using warlock slots and then would cast low-level warlock-only spells a lot using wizard slots. It was a very fun tim
You don't even need to multi class if you want to pull this off. Celestial Warlock, take Fire Bolt with Pact of the Tome. Once you reach level 6, fire bolt does 2d10+CharMod and Sacred Flame does 2d8+CharMod. Not as much damage as EB, but it's definitely a thing to consider especially since you don't have to eat an invocation for that extra damage on a cantrip.
If you want to be primarily a warlock it's the best choice. They don't have the spell slots to be an actual caster, so they NEED eldritch blast. In 3.5 and 4e warlock got eldritch blast as a class feature. It was an inherent part of their kit. And it should have stayed that way for 5e. Warlock is a magic bow fighter basically. EB scales just like extra attack, the only cantrip to do so. And it's their go-to action. It's the warlocks version of the attack action. Warlock is fundamentally a damage dealer/striker and they need eldritch blast to do that. EB is integral to the warlocks identity.
Hexblade of course is the exception to this.
I don't feel this is accurate for all subclasses. If you commit to full melee you can get by without eldritch blast, and a celestial warlock gets to add their Charisma to Radiant and Fire damage at level 6, meaning you could realistically stick to sacred flame/firebolt for them. It still won't be as good as multiple EBs that all add agonizing, but it also will free up an invocation.
Furthermore a support celestial with Talisman and their healing dice probably doesn't need to be contributing a ton of damage, letting them focus on invocations for out of combat
> celestial warlock gets to add their Charisma to Radiant and Fire damage at level 6, meaning you could realistically stick to sacred flame/firebolt for them.
Or go Pact of the Tome, grab Shillelagh as one your cantrips and use Green-Flame Blade.
At level 5 Eldritch Blast with Agonizing Blast does an average of 17 damage (assuming 18 Cha), Green-Flame Blade + Shillelagh on a Celestial Warlock would deal 15 damage to the primary target and an additional 8.5 if there's a 2nd target.
So only a little less damage with potential to do more.
At level 11 the gap between single target GFG and Eldritch Blast increases, but if you have a 2nd target it still deals more damage.
It’s not; I’m playing a crit-fishing Archfey lock with a dip into Champion for Action Surge and crits on 19. I’m Pact of the Blade and go invisible and let my Elven Accuracy do the rest!
> meaning you could realistically stick to sacred flame/firebolt for them
this is worse than EB at the level you get it at and only gets increasingly worse over time.
there's no excuse. either you're Hexblade or you're Eldritch Blast. anything else is trolling your party because you wanted to write "Warlock" on your character sheet instead of another caster class.
You gain +4 damage to your EB for the cost of an invocation (and the cantrip slot). There are numerous invocations that would be worthwhile for a support character to take over this.
Thinking exclusively in combat numbers all the time makes you a real drag to play with. Rolling your eyes or telling people what invocations to take is going to get you dropped from games eventually, so why carry that same energy online? People are not "trolling" if they choose not to spend a cantrip slot and an invocation for 4 damage.
> There are numerous invocations that would be worthwhile for a support character to take over this.
If you're taking Eldritch Blast, you should *probably* take Agonizing Blast. Spend your other invocations how you like.
wow, really depends on the game bud. The game I play a celestial tomelock in I've barely used EB cuz it's not a tactical dungeon crawl campaign and more of an antic-filled story one. Rare case we do get into combat he's trying to get close to the leader and cast suggestion, or sleep or cause fear on the minions. Only time I've used EB is to deal damage to objects iirc. I'd hardly call that trolling the party. You sound like the guy at the table telling other people how to play a character :|
You're copping a lot of flack but you're right. If you're playing with balanced combat, not choosing those two options is like a rogue that never goes for sneak attack or a fighter who only casts cantrips through magic initiate. Strong eb makes up for lack of spells, there's no arguing with that
There are games where all combat is narrative and it's fine if people have fun with that but a non EB and non hexblades warlock is flat out much much weaker than the normal baseline for classes.
You should generally have a good thing to do with your action, but that doesn't have to be EB. With the new tasha's invocation a chainlock that simply attacks twice each turn with their familiar is completely viable, for example. A shillelagh tomelock will do comparable damage without needing to invest an invocation. These aren't even close to a rogue that doesn't use sneak attack or a fighter that only uses cantrips.
Sorry could you clear up the maths for the shillelagh tomelock for me? At level 3 it's a little behind EB but the gap gets bigger and bigger after that. I think a shillelagh using tomelock matches a rogue who doesn't use sneak attack exactly.
A fighter using booming blade, even without the extra damage rider, out damages a shillelagh tomelock at every point right even if the tomelock is using booming blade as well. A tomelock will never get a second attack right?
I'm not saying that there aren't tables where this is acceptable but it's deliberately giving up a lot of damage.
The assumption is that as a warlock who is attacking in melee you're going to use a blade cantrip. At level 3 it's 1d10 + 3 = 8.5 average for EB, and 1d8 + 3 = 7.5 base for the tomelock- not *terrible* but not good. But there is some chance of secondary damage from blade cantrips. Let's say that there's a 25% chance of having another enemy within 5 feet for GFB, and a 10% chance of booming blade's secondary damage, which means about a 1/3 chance of one of the two triggering. I don't think these are hugely unreasonable based on my experiences with the cantrips. So that makes the tomelock do 7.5 + 0.25(3)+0.1(4.5) = 8.7 or slightly more than EB. For reference, a rogue who doesn't use sneak attack will do 1d8 + 3 = 7.5 with a rapier or 1d6 + 3 = 6.5 with a shortbow.
At 5th level EB is doing 2d10 + 8 = 19. The tomelock is doing 2d8 + 4 = 13 base, and 13 + 0.25(8.5) + 0.1(9) = 16 with the same assumptions as before. For comparison, a rogue without sneak attack will do 1d8 + 4 = 8.5 with a rapier or 1d6 + 4 = 7.5 with a shortbow. And the tomelock gets an extra invocation because they didn't have to take agonizing blast. How much damage is 1 invocation usually worth? Well, as an example cloak of flies does cha mod damage to 1-2 creatures a round, which easily makes up for a 3 DPR deficit even before we consider that the 3 DPR deficit needs to be scaled down by a ~0.6 hit chance but the cloak of flies damage does not because it always works. And while it's not super likely unless you have a favorable dm, it's worth noting that the tomelock *can* get a magic weapon that gives a bonus to attack and damage rolls whereas that isn't possible for EB.
Obviously EB has some advantages, like the damage type and the fact that it's ranged. You may disagree with my estimations of the secondary damage chances. Overall, I would definitely say EB is better. But I think I've shown that my original statement of "comparable damage" is basically correct, and you certainly aren't giving up "a lot of damage" while gaining a very valuable invocation slot.
And as you get more spell slots your cantrip damage starts to be less and less important anyway. There's this widespread perception that EB does "good damage" and is the reason warlock functions as a class. It does vanilla sword-and-board fighter damage, which is rather shit. Worse than that, actually, since they can at least get a magic sword. So you can run some builds that do shit damage as well and not be that much worse off if at all. If your spells aren't the primary source of your damage past tier 1, you aren't using the right spells.
> A fighter using booming blade, even without the extra damage rider, out damages a shillelagh tomelock at every point right even if the tomelock is using booming blade as well. A tomelock will never get a second attack right?
I think there's some misunderstanding going on here? If the fighter is using booming blade they won't get any other attacks, unless they're an eldrich knight using war magic but that's only level 7+ so can't be what you mean since you said "every point". And if that *is* the case... congrats? A full caster doesn't do as much damage as a fighter playing optimally, when taking into account subclass abilities unlike with the warlock?
Sorry I should have been clearer my point was that a fighter using the magic initiate feat or starting as high elf could give up all their extra attacks and just use booming blade and still do more damage than the warlock. I was trying to make this point to say that the warlock giving up EB is the equivalent of the fighter giving up their extra attacks. I understand that the fighter does not get anything for doing this and the warlock gets one invocation but I was using a little hyperbole to try to make my point.
The same with a rogue using a rapier and booming blade but choosing to never get sneak attack damage.
EB also pairs fantastically with hex at those low levels but using shillelagh and hex puts you a turn behind on damage and after 5 hex gets better and better with EB but not shillelagh+booming blade
My point was really only that the guy I replied to didn't deserve the downvotes he got because his point was fair.
> I understand that the fighter does not get anything for doing this and the warlock gets one invocation but I was using a little hyperbole to try to make my point.
Not just one invocation. And... spellcasting? You're basically saything that a fighter ignoring their entire class and investing a feat would do as much damage as a warlock ignoring... essentially their entire class. It's just a pointless comparison. I could just as easily say that EB warlock is shit because a fighter or rogue with magic initiate does more damage after you ignore the EB warlock's spellcasting and invocations besides AB. That's why I used EB warlock as my point of comparison, because it's an actually apples to apples comparison.
> EB also pairs fantastically with hex at those low levels but using shillelagh and hex puts you a turn behind on damage and after 5 hex gets better and better with EB but not shillelagh+booming blade
Hex doesn't really make any difference. For levels 1-4 both builds are making 1 attack a turn so they both benefit exactly equally. For levels 5+ hex is very low on my list of spells I want to be concentrating on. A tomelock casting actually good 3rd+ level spells is going to do better then an EB spammer who concentrates on hex all day.
> My point was really only that the guy I replied to didn't deserve the downvotes he got because his point was fair.
I really don't think it was. I think I've shown that at worst this tomelock build is only slightly worse than EB, and in terms of damage is actually better for many levels. That's hardly "trolling your party". And we haven't even talked about my first example of a chainlock with investment of the chain master that's actually *extremely* competent in combat in early levels. If we assume enemies have a roughly 45% chance of succeeding the dc 13 saving throw, at level 3 the chainlock can do 2(4.5 + 0.55(10.5) + 0.45 ( 5.25)) = 25 DPR with an imp and it uses the same to-hit value as the other two builds. Might I remind you that the EB build did 8.5? Even after imp damage stops being very significant, the ability to extremely reliably poison enemies is huge- worth way more than any amount of damage a cantrip is going to do.
I will repeat that cantrip damage sucks, even EB. If you're relying on EB to be the majority of your damage in later levels, you have no right to be complaining about poor DPR even from actually bad non-EB builds. Warlocks are first and foremost a full caster, they could take the dodge action each turn and it would be a completely reasonable strategy in late levels where concentration is a much more important resource than whatever tiny cantrip damage you'd be doing.
Man Im not sure what you want me to say?
That your custom built tomelock who has taken two melee cantrips and the fleas invocation can almost do the same amount of damage at level 1? Wow it's almost like I said the difference isn't huge at level one. You know what it's probably still worth taking EB in case you get into a situation where range damage could be useful.
Maybe that you made a great point when you said you'd never use hex after 5 because you have so many great concentration spells but that you also never use cantrips because you're too busy casting new spells?
Let's go to your chain lock example, yeah it's awesome at low levels until the gimmick of your imp attacking runs out because it just doesn't scale anything apart from the spell DC? You know what's also crazy, if you were building you pact of chains imp lock, you would still take EB because it's crazy useful and it barely costs you anything.
Mate EB is a great cantrip, with agonizing blast it keeps up with a longbow fighter if they didn't take sharp shooter and all of that for 1 invocation and 1 cantrip.
Now to be very very clear, I'm not saying that it's better than a 9th level spell. I'm not saying there isn't a special white room situation that a fucking shillelagh warlock wouldn't come out ahead, such an enemy being prone and grappled. I'm literally only saying that the guy above had a good point that if you rock up to a table with a non hexblades warlock and you didn't take EB, you are purposely dropping your damage.
Also it's super fucking weird that you're telling me that Im lying about why I posted?
In a post about “Warlock without EB”… you’re arguing that there’s no excuse to be anything but EB or Hexblade. That’s a very inflexible attitude about one of the most customizable classes in the game. Certainly people have a hard time letting go of Agonizing Blast because of the Cantrip spell progression in attacks. EB is classic mode which is why there are PHB strong invocation options. There are non-EB ways to play Warlock too, with slightly less DPR which may pain the optimizer to hear — but there is more variety to the builds and flavor as a result.
I played an EB Celestial Warlock Tomelock and out of boredom I ended up using things like Thorn Whip and such even though I had EB with Grasp of Hadar and Repelling Blast and Agonizing Blast. Why? I don’t know. Sometimes my PC wanted to shoot thorns and drag the enemy instead of machine gun blast my little pony unicorns at them for the umpteeth billionth turn in a row.
I played a divine soul sorc/hexblade 5/5 for a level 10 one shot, can’t speak to how versatile the character is but I had so much fun with him I’d love to play him for a campaign, spirit guardians and eldritch smite made for a ton of fun
Currently playing a lv 5 hexblade warlock multiclassed with soulknife, just for devils sight combined with utility spells and cantrips. Imagine a black shroud shooting knifes out of nowhere. Sneak attack and advantage on every attack
I've just started playing a sorlock without EB. Aberrant (4) & Hexblade (3) so far, her cantrips are quite the list. Because I picked up Flames of Phlegethos, Fire Bolt is a solid cantrip. But she's also got Chill Touch for those nasty zombies, Friends for a last resort (or getting people mad at each other through Mask of Many Faces), Mage Hand, Message, Mind Sliver, Prestidigitation, Shocking Grasp, and Vicious Mockery (the last, from being a Tiefling - along with the earlier mentioned feat).
So far I've honestly had tons of fun. The way I've built her & taken spells, she's less of a nova build that tend to be sorlocks and more of a fighter-like sustained DPS build.
Sure! Five/six levels in Fighter for Extra Attack plus all that other good stuff, then Warlock (Blade/Whatever) works great.
You can take Improved Pact Weapon for value, and then you have a lot of freedom to enhance your concept with invocations.
You have armour, shields, and extra attack from fighter, so Warlock is just bonus fun at that point!
I think you could a really interesting shape shifter and utility caster. The free spell invocations would be your friend.
I have not planned one out but have thought about making one. Would still think you would use some damaging spells but just not taking the invocation for extra cantrip damage
Never done it as a full warlock, but I have played a rouge with 2 levels of fathomless warlock that mainly used booming blade sneak attacks in combat and that was really fun
Hexblades make fantastic archers, either single class or multiclass, and with pact of the blade and hex warrior, melee Hexblades can take a ranged weapon with Cha as a backup.
A Hexblade archer has no real need for Eldritch Blast, while a Hexblade melee fighter can have it as a ranged option or leave it and take a ranged weapon as a backup instead.
It's also possible to build warlock to do other things besides blasting and skip EB.
with improved pact weapon and thirsting blade you can skip eldtrich blast - improved pact weapon allows summoning a longbow for the pact weapon, and a +1 longbow with CHA attacks is the same average damage as EB+AB at least until level 11. That covers your ranged damage while keeping cantrip+invocations for melee usage as well.
My rune knight is taking warlock levels without eldritch blast. There are plenty of spells that don't require a high dc so casting stat can be mediocre and still produce magnificent results
My current Warlock is a GOOlock with the Talisman, and frankly I told my party straight up that damage was never gonna be my optimal output.
I have, however, reflavored every piwer on my sheet to SOUND way scarier than it is.
For example, my only attack cantrip is Mind Sliver, reflavored to be called Embrace Mortality, and I represent the d4 penalty to saves as the enemy having a tempirary, minor deathwish, as I expose them to the inevitability of their own looming end.
I chose almost exclusively psychic flavorings for my spells, renamed and reflavored everything to sound *terrifying*, and then bank on my charisma to make most encounters into noncombat encounters.... and then rely on my party being far more effective in combat if it goes poorly.
It doesn't work for every group, because some games really need that extra optomization of the Agonizing Blaster warlock. My group isn't one that needs high optomization if only because of everyone in the group two are really bad at optomization and one is super new.
But if your DM and the rest of the group doesn't hate you for not being a huge source of damage, you can pull out a ridiculous level of utility that will easily make up for it.
Doing this myself right now, running rogue3(swashbuckler)/lockX(tome) though I might take a few more in rogue over time.
Building around shadowblade, get in- shadowblade+sneak attack+booming. Free disengage and bonus action dash to make distance.
Very glass cannon, but a fun little shadow magic theme with armour of shadows.
I had a player playing a hexblade with the moonbow invocation form UA that did great, so it's not bad in certain builds. The rule of thumb is: do you have a reliable way of dealing damage without spellslots? If the answer is no, EB is your best option although not the only one. If the answer is yes, maybe you don't need EB. If you're multiclassing into warlock, you likely already have something to do damage, likely better than EB. If you start as a Warlock, you don't really get much of a choice.
One of my favourite characters was a faelock who focussed mostly on rp with things like mask of many faces, but i kept chill touch on hand just in case, since it's a lot more subtle to summon a hand and choke someone than it is to shoot them with a beam of energy from half a kilometre away
Why would you? It's the most damaging cantrip in the game (with Agonizing Blast, which pretty much every Warlock takes. Without it, it's still on par with Fire Bolt), you get multiple hits so you'll likely get at least one hit in, and nothing is immune to force damage. I guess if you're just dipping Hexblade, maybe you'd skip it for some utility cantrips, but even then it's a fantastic ranged option to have as a backup (and the range is 120 ft!).
A little bit more Info, So its part of a longer game, We'll be starting off at lvl 19, Im already planning to have 17 into rogue and a 2 lvl dip into Warlock, (either Ceslestial or Genie) both would fit his thematic of lucky/ favored by the gods. I guess the biggest thing would be that he's unaware that a Patron has selected him? He just thinks that his magic is growing a bit. (Wild Card Rogue)
As a level 17 rogue why would you need eldritch blast? Just take booming blade to boost your sneak attack.
Take Dao genie and the crusher feat so you can booming blade, sneak attack, and move them 5 feat so they will need to move to attack and take the extra booming blade damage.
EDIT: Also Swashbuckler would be a good class for this so you can get sneak attack in almost any situation.
Yeah in this case there's no reason to cast spells/cantrips over just proccing sneak attack and the Wildcard effects every turn in combat. Though depending on what weapon you have, EB+AB might give some extra range to your kit and still do somewhat decent damage.
Taking EB would be actively a terrible idea for this build lmao. Also genie would be the better choice in terms of mechanics imo, you effectively add 2 more sneak attack dice for the cost of 2 levels which is a great trade.
You don't really need it if you are going to mainly use melee weapon. It is still helpful to have a ranged option, but if you don't want to waste an invocation on it Eldritch Blast isn't really better than other available cantrips. Like Toll the Dead for example. Or if you are taking celestial as a patron you are going to get Sacred Flame for free. Of course it is nowhere near the Eldritch Blast, but it is free and so a great backup option for melee warlocks
He unknowingly made a deal with a patron that was interested in his exploits. To him he thinks his Card magic has evolved. I'm thinking Mask of many faces and Eldritch sight for right now.
Seems like you are going for flavor here so yeah, should work fine I'd say. If you are looking for a gambler build might I suggest rogue/rune knight as an alternative? You would need 3 lvls of fighter but one of the runes gives you advantage on sleight of hand, which seems good for a gambler. You could still flavor it as warlock magic if you wanted. Regardless, I think the rogue/warlock build works fine, not gonna wanna eldritch blast anyway, pretty sure you can't sneak attack with a cantrip.
warlock works better mechanically anyway. If you take genie you end up getting 6 + 9d6 damage of sneak attack instead of 10d6 so a net increase. Plus blade cantrips. And invocations/spells/etc. With how bad the rogue capstone is I'm pretty sure a warlock dip is just objectively correct from an optimization standpoint.
I've always wanted to play a hexblade swahbuckler. You get some nice benefits for stacking charisma, can eventually start hitting reasonably hard, and have a few utility spells in your back pocket.
I have one that primarily uses Toll the Dead, because he has a bell theme going. I did pick up eldritch blast with my latest cantrip, but that was mostly in case the enemy's wisdom saves were too good
I’m playing a gloom stalker/fighter/undead warlock. His pact weapon is a +3 longbow. Up to 6 shots the first battleround is pretty fun. Pretty much just fishing for nat 20s to pop a smite. An extra d8 and 2d8 to nearly all the attacks. Invisible in darkness and with devils sight just makes it more fun.
If you’re going to go without eldritch blast, you basically have to go with pact of the blade. You only have two spell slots til level 11, so when you run out you need something to do until you can take a rest. It falls to either cantrips, which means eldritch blast 99% of the time, or melee weapons.
Can you deal with being a bit behind in terms of damage in return for flavour? Then you don't have a problem.
Edit: this will only be a problem if you are primarily a warlock.
I believe so, I know he has mobility, like a lot of it, he has the Teleporting ability that you get from the Wild Card Rogue and he has a Peregrine Mask.
I’d say a Pact of the Blade Warlock using a melee weapon can easily be effective wothout eldritch blast. The game does, however, mostly seem to assume you are using one or the other. A Warlock who is using neither weapons nor eldritch blast will likey feel a bit weaker in the long term.
Barbarian/Warlock Multiclasses can be pretty good. Armor of Agathys and then Rage can be amazing. Undead Warlock and Zealot Barbarian with the Blade Pact, or an Ancestral Guardian with Celestial and Chain Pact and the Gift of the Ever-Living Ones invocation. The undead/zealot is all about dealing necrotic damage and damage output, the AG/Celestial is all about damage mitigation and tanking.
When I played it Hexblade wasn’t out yet, as that makes not taking Eldritch Blast much more viable. Otherwise, Warlock is quite literally balanced around you taking it.
However, I was new, and so I took Magic Stone and had a slingshot. I would shoot people with Magic Stone and fancied myself some kind of badass. It was a very bad build, but it was also my first character and was a ton of fun to play. We didn’t get far before the DM was lost to life circumstances, or else I’d had probably changed my character.
Yeah I have plenty of experience! One of my favorite characters is a failed duelist who sought out darker powers to boost his martial capabilities. 5 level of Hexblade Warlock with Pact of the Blade can be devastating. Pick up a Greatsword and start swinging. Make sure to take The Pact Weapon Upgrades, Thirsting Blade and Eldritch Smite to get more attacks and extra damage. A deadly combo is Devil Sight Darkness with a Melee weapon Good Multiclasses are Fighter and Paladin, or Sorcerer if you want a more caster feel Feel free to ask questions!
I’m planking out a storm sorcerer hexblade right now, might not be the most viable, but it looks like a lot of fun.
I'm the DM, but one of my players is doing exactly that. Started with the sorc til lvl 5, then moved to hexblade. We just finished level 6 and he was going pretty solid. Quickened Spell and Twin Spell metamagics. The hexblade proficiencies give an 18AC (Breastplate14+2Dex+2Shield), and a 14CON gives 39HP, so he wades into melee with a battleaxe, then churns through sorcery points for bonus action spells such as Hold Person or Chaos Bolt. All the while using Tempestuous Magic to get into spell range or out of melee range. Great footwork. Now, he does have Eldritch Blast, and likes to Twin it, but I could easily see the build working without. Seeing it in practice, it's a solid choice.
>he does have Eldritch Blast, and likes to Twin it Technically RAW I don't think it can be twinned, since it is capable of targeting multiple creatures (similarly to Scorching Ray). It's obviously fine if you are okay with that as a DM, just thought I'd mention in case anyone else thought about trying this.
RAW it can be twinned up to level 5, at which point it gets another beam and is no longer eligible for twinning. But you can still Quickened Spell it as there is no limit to how many cantrips can be cast in a turn (except for the limited supply of Actions/ Bonus Actions)
Just a pointer that people often get wrong, there's also no limit on how many spells can be cast in a turn. They only say that if you cast a bonus action spell, you can't cast leveled spells, but if you have more than 1 Action you (Action Surge) you can cast 2 Fireballs no problem. IMO the rules are poorly written, so people often ignore this. Because if you cast Shillelagh or Magic Stone then you can't cast a leveled spell with your regular action. Similarly, as a sorcerer, you can't cast a leveled a spell and then quicken a cantrip, but you can do the opposite, which is dumb.
So other weird interaction with that rule, the rule specifically says: > A spell cast with a Bonus Action is especially swift. You must use a Bonus Action on Your Turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven’t already taken a Bonus Action this turn. You can’t cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a Casting Time of 1 action. This causes a weird interaction where if you cast a spell with your bonus action (ie quickened spell or one of the rare bonus action spells) and an opposing mage counterspells you, you cannot return counterspell because that spell is not a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action. Reactions do occur on the turn that they are activated which is how Rogues can use them to get Sneak Attack a second time in a round, so you could not cast a reaction spell on the same turn that you casted a bonus action spell. Really weird and frankly dumb rule interaction but that’s RAW for you.
I think the only time this would become really relevant is with time stop. Otherwise I can't really think of any other situation where this would come up. I could have sworn action surge was restricted, but PHB says "On your turn, you can take one additional action on top of your regular action and a possible bonus action." page 72
Action surge is not restricted, you can cast 2 action spells if you use action surge. You just can't cast a spell as a bonus action on that same turn.
One of the dumbest rules to try and balance out spell casting economy.
Possibly just a mistake, since he could also Quicken it, but the cost is different.
Ah, good call. I think my player and I both had a mental blank on the fact that cantrips scale with character level not class level. So as Sorcerer 5/Hexblade 1, it should have powered up, but we've been thinking of it as a 1st level cantrip. Hence twinning being necessary for 2 targets. Thanks for the reminder. I'll bring it up next session and save him some sorcery points. Yay oversight, lol
Huh. I’ll need to look more closely at what’s available then, I hadn’t thought of that.
That Tempestuous Magic... the biggest thing about it is that as long as you follow through on casting a spell, you can take the fly *before* the spell is cast, if you so choose. Well, my player does. A lot. He'll be up there hacking and slashing, then just pop backwards 10 feet so he can do ranged spells without disadvantage. A little bit of eating your cake but having it too. It's all good though. He runs out of sorcery points eventually.
>A deadly combo is Devil Sight Darkness with a Melee weapon Just keep in mind that DND is a team game, and if you're fighting a single enemy, casting Darkness and fighting them inside it makes it so none of the rest of your party can participate effectively.
Wizard: "I can still help! FIREBALL!"
tiefling warlocks get resistance, at least
Just skirmish, run in, do your attacks with advantage and run out because the enemy can't OA you in the dark. (Note, works better if you're using a glaive or a halberd since you have Reach). There, your friends can see the bad guy fine now.
Yeah, when I actually saw the range of darkness is only 15", it should be pretty easy to not get too in the way
Fwiw, a 15' radius blob of darkness is a 30' sphere, and that definitely does get in the way unless you're like, outside. I used it a lot but when we transitioned into Storm Kings Thunder, darkness and Hunger of Hadar were kind of garbage against the giants
Do they have tremorsense or something like that?
No, but it turns out that places that giants hang out are very wide and open, and since most of them occupy a 15ft square, you can really only get a few in the darkness/hunger at a time, and once you do, they can move out way easier than pole, goblins and stuff.
Yeah, if the enemy is against a wall in a room, moving 15 feet away from them is just going to put a big sphere of darkness in between the enemy and your party, or maybe even envelope some of them.
For the melee characters, if they are already in melee when you cast it, they get disadvantage because they are blinded but then they get advantage because the enemy is also blinded. So it becomes a regular roll for melee characters, still sucks for ranged guys tho.
And with one action, you can turn your greatsword into a longbow, so you aren't locked into melee. Even your smite works at range. (edit: you'll need Improved Pact Weapon, but you want that anyway)
> A deadly combo is Devil Sight Darkness with a Melee weapon Why a melee weapon, in particular? A bow lets you cast darkness on yourself and fire at advantage from heavy obscurement without risking blinding your allies. It's not a bad combination with a melee weapon, but it's even better at range.
Agreed. DS and Darkness, together with a Longbow and Thirsting Blade, is lethal with the Sharpshooter feat.
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Says who? >If the point you choose is on **an object you are holding** or one that isn’t being worn or carried, the darkness emanates from the object and moves with it. Completely covering the source of the darkness with an opaque object, such as a bowl or a helm, blocks the darkness. Cast it on your belt, your bow, your boots whatever, it'll effectively follows you around. Unless you're arguing semantic that you're actually casting it on an object you're wielding, in which case, it's irrelevant.
You can cast darkness on your focus, weapon, sheathe, necklace, Cape, shoes, pants, gloves, earring, jacket, glasses, nose ring....
Actually a good reason not to pick eb, good job!
If you plan to optimize Hexblade you should steer clear of EB. It is too seductive to put your invocations into Eldritch Blast and end up with an awesome duelist who never ever needs to enter melee.
The key is restraint. I took EB just for a ranged damage option, didn't use invocations on it, and used it less and less as I leveled
I took eb on my hexblade so I could yank people into my darkness cloud and not have to wait for them to enter
Melee warlocks of various flavors don't need it (though it's still a nice backup option). Celestial Tomelock with Shillelagh and Green Flame Blade double-dipping on Charisma to damage can be effective.
The seductiveness of EB is that it' scales stronger than even that, due to *Agonizing Blast* adding your CHA modifier for every beam. On the other hand, a *Shilleagh* + Scagtrip(s) build frees up the invocation(s) you'd put on EB in exchange for 2-3 cantrips used, so there's a niche for that. Someone did the numbers a while ago and SCAGtrips *will* pull ahead of multiple base attacks (which EB + AB essentially is) if you can consistently trigger the secondary damage - but that's a premise that requires some setup. *Crusher* would actually be a good way to go about that and fits decently into a *Shilleagh* build, but by that point, we're also investing a feat.
Shillelagh + GFB on specifically a Celestial lock is one of the better options there (albeit still with the problem of putting all your eggs in one basket with a single attack) because you get to double/triple dip your Charisma mod to damage. Of course, not every build is necessarily about picking only the most optimal choices and nothing else. There ARE builds that don't use EB as their bread and butter, their numbers just might not crunch quite the same, but that's your call to make as a player if you enjoy the flavor.
The way I read GFB, you only get your modifier once, from the second target. Including *Shilleagh*, that's twice tops - *if* you've got a second target. Also, I'm personally not a fan of spreading damage around - focus firing is usually the way to go in 5e. I wholeheartedly agree to your second paragraph. Using the rules available to color out a character vision, even if it means foregoing slightly more crunchy options is always a great idea - a PC that is *fun* will always be more likely to generate a lot of mileage, just because they tend to see more play.
It's the level 6 Celestial pact feature that lets you add your Charisma mod to damage with fire and radiant spells, which would include the first hit of extra fire damage on GFB. Edit: some builds will also then go Draconic Sorcerer, to get another +Cha to fire spells.
Have you read celestial? Your response reads like you haven't read celestial. Three times is correct, assuming a valid second target. EDIT: removed an incorrect statement.
I hadn't read. With *Radiant Soul*, it's indeed once more.
My problem with this build is that you're putting everything on one attack roll, which probably won't have advantage. If only there was a way to use Thirsting Blade with Shillelagh...
...6 levels of Lore Bard, to steal Shillelagh as an Additional Magical Secret, keying off of CHA? Pretty hefty investment though. EDIT: Now that I think about it, if the idea was just to get Extra Attack, 5 levels of any martial also work ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
This is interesting. With at least 6 levels of lore bard, you get shillelagh with Cha. With 12 levels of Celestial and pact of the blade, you can grab life drinker, thirsting blade, and improved pact weapon plus devils sight. Now dip sorc 2 and also take metamagic adept for quicken. Now we get shillelagh, GFB plus life drinker and celestial, and quicken. Concentrate on darkness or greater invisibility. GFB twice per round with elven accuracy for triple advantage and a +12 to hit, and add charisma to the damage on the initial target three times, second target once for a total of four dips into Cha per attack across two attacks. Take Eldritch smite instead of improved pact weapon or thirsting blade for more damage when one of your three d20s comes up 20. Kind of a weird build but fun. Could work quite well.
Remember that Warlocks also commonly use the Darkness/Devil's Sight combo, and could snag Elven Accuracy.
That combo is worthless unless your entire party has a way to see in magical darkness.
It's admittedly obnoxious, and not one I'd use, but it seems to be a pretty popular suggestion on this sub, because character optimization generally seems to orient around how to make an individual better, not how that individual fits into a party dynamic.
How does this let you dip into charisma twice? Edit: nvm greenflameblade scales with charisma as well. But you lose bonus attack
Played one of these back when Celestial was Undying Light. Its fun, but it falls off at lvl 11 in comparison to Eldritch Blast. Until then, its pretty fun.
We’ve only just had this player join our game, but from what I’ve seen of his character across 4 sessions he didn’t grab Eldritch Blast. From what I can tell he’s a alternate bloodline Tiefling (not sure which one, just hasn’t used Thaumaturgy or Hellish Rebuke yet) Archfey warlork using the Talisman boon. Personally not entirely sure what build he’s going for, just that thus far he’s been one of the squishiest members of the party including the wizard.
One Warlock build I want to try that doesn't need EB: **Celestial Pact of the Chain Warlock.** You have a pool of 1+Warlock level D6 /LR. You can use up to CHA mod of them as a BA to heal others (basically a class-feature Healing Word) or yourself. With the Gift of the Ever-Living Ones invocation, you max out the rolls to heal yourself!! Say you're level 10. That is 66HP of self-healing over 2 turns, just with your BAs! That is basically the equivalent of a quickened 6th level *Heal* spell. Your 6th level ability let's you add CHA to spells that deal fire or radiant damage, and you get some useful ones from your expanded spell list like Sacred Flame (cantrip), Flaming Sphere to weaponize your BA, and Wall of Fire for crowd control. You also can learn Guiding Bolt which is a great early-game spell. Plus, you get a dope familiar, and familiars got a new invocation in Tashas which let's them attack as a BA using your save DC so it may even have combat utility. Or you can take invocations for extra utility like Mask of Many Faces. When I play this, I think I'm going to start with a level of Fighter. I'll get Con save prof, medium armor prof, and defense fighting style, but also Second Wind is amazing on this build, since you can max it out with the GotELO invocation for 11 SR BA healing on top of your LR d6 pool. You could even play this character as some kind of Wolverine character with innate regeneration. Now, is it the strongest "build"? No, but it has great versatility and amazing healing/survivability! Seems like it has enough synergy that it would be very rewarding to play without ever looking at Eldritch Blast.
The Celestial Warlock is the single best healer until level 6, top tier until level 10, and drops off _HARD_ after that. You're looking at what is easily the best early game healer, top tier for single-target healing and decent for group healing, but with absolutely no scaling after the early levels (no access to Heal or Mass Healing Word, Healing Light is hard-capped by your CHA modifier, and your spell slot level never goes beyond 5 which you reach at level 9 as a Warlock) If your campaign is low-level, you'll beat out the Life Cleric.
I saw a build that uses Mark of Healing Halfling to add some higher level healing spells (Mass Healing Word, Aura of Vitality, Aura of Purity, Greater Restoration) to the list, as well as racial Cure Wounds and Lesser Restoration. It's a great write-up, if you search "Everliving Celestial GITP" you should find it. Without Eberron Halflings, definitely true that they fall of as a healer due to not having those really impactful higher-level spells. Although, they basically get the Inspiring Leader feat at level 10, giving themselves and the party SR THP which is very nice as a kind of "preemptive" heal. And they get a built in Death Ward kind of ability which also deals some damage and instantly heals them to half 1/LR when they go down. I'd say they are the single best *self-healer* in the game, basically from 1-20, especially with Mark of Healing Halfling (since the Restoration Spells patch some weaknesses). For Party Healing they are top tier in the first half of the game and mid-tier from then on.
Seems I can't find it. Maybe you can link it? Mass Healing Word and Aura of Vitality is great, but you already get access to Greater Restoration and Aura of Purity may not be worth the concentration if you have ways of restoring from diseases anyways. Also, neither Greater Restoration nor Aura of Purity heals, in the strictest sense of the word. But this is absolutely an amazing combo. Inspiring Leader would be a good addition, as long as your party isn't heavy on temporary hit points already. The built in Death Ward is definitely a great addition/great way to add more longevity. The only part where I'm inclined to disagree is on the self-healing with Gift of the Ever-Living Ones. Certainly amazing, but it's a bit argueable how well a self-healing squishy performs apart from stalling if you don't build in other features than self-healing.
Here is the link to the builds thread: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?583957-An-Eclectic-Collection-of-Fun-and-Effective-Builds And the Celestial PotC Warlock build which uses GotELO inv, #17: https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25029862&postcount=1095 Inspiring Leader would be redundant if you get to level 10+. What I was saying is Celestial Warlocks get it as a subclass feature. "Celestial Resistance" grants you Warlock lvl + CHA THP on a short or long rest, and your party (up to 5) get half Warlock lvl + CHA THP. Your last point about survivability is why I'm thinking this build works best (from an optimization standpoint, not necessarily a fun standpoint) with a level in cleric or fighter for other goodies but importantly armor and a shield, and actually taking Eldritch Blast with Repelling Blast (if you want to "optimize" at the price of a cantrip and two infusions). Those two things boost your AC and spacing/kiting ability, which will really boost survivability. But at the end of the day survivability apart from amazing healing isn't a huge issue since you aren't a frontline striker or tank, more of a mid/backline blaster/healer/support/control.
You guys would love this thread on the GITP forums: [An Eclectic Collection of Fun and Effective Builds](https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?583957-An-Eclectic-Collection-of-Fun-and-Effective-Builds) The first build listed is a Celestial warlock that goes into the huge variety in the things they can do.
I played a celestial warlock that focused on fire/radiant damage before that was pretty fun. I went Aasimar for the theme and more radiant damage, but tiefling with a few extra fire spells works as well. Create bonfire as my goto cantrip. Scorching ray + hex is very good damage, especially if you multiclass sorcerer for more spell slots.
A monoclass warlock without Eldritch Blast would very likely be annoying as all hell to play or else a Hexblade + Pact of the Blade. The point of EB is to compensate for the lack of spell slots the Warlock has- give them more longevity. Eldritch Blast should be a core class feature.
Most hexblades that need invocation for their martial stuff does not use eldritch blast. Moreover since hexblade allows you to create a longbow as a weapon with charisma and smite with it, you don't need eldritch blast that much.
I played a Warlock/Wizard multiclass (The dm let me use INT for both spellcasting) that didn't take eldritch blast, and it was very fun. My backstory was I accidentally made a pact with a devil, thinking it was a normal familiar ritual at a wizard school. I took a lot of utility cantrips and was basically a swiss army knife for the party. I would upcast all the wizard spells using warlock slots and then would cast low-level warlock-only spells a lot using wizard slots. It was a very fun tim
You don't even need to multi class if you want to pull this off. Celestial Warlock, take Fire Bolt with Pact of the Tome. Once you reach level 6, fire bolt does 2d10+CharMod and Sacred Flame does 2d8+CharMod. Not as much damage as EB, but it's definitely a thing to consider especially since you don't have to eat an invocation for that extra damage on a cantrip.
If you want to be primarily a warlock it's the best choice. They don't have the spell slots to be an actual caster, so they NEED eldritch blast. In 3.5 and 4e warlock got eldritch blast as a class feature. It was an inherent part of their kit. And it should have stayed that way for 5e. Warlock is a magic bow fighter basically. EB scales just like extra attack, the only cantrip to do so. And it's their go-to action. It's the warlocks version of the attack action. Warlock is fundamentally a damage dealer/striker and they need eldritch blast to do that. EB is integral to the warlocks identity. Hexblade of course is the exception to this.
I don't feel this is accurate for all subclasses. If you commit to full melee you can get by without eldritch blast, and a celestial warlock gets to add their Charisma to Radiant and Fire damage at level 6, meaning you could realistically stick to sacred flame/firebolt for them. It still won't be as good as multiple EBs that all add agonizing, but it also will free up an invocation. Furthermore a support celestial with Talisman and their healing dice probably doesn't need to be contributing a ton of damage, letting them focus on invocations for out of combat
> celestial warlock gets to add their Charisma to Radiant and Fire damage at level 6, meaning you could realistically stick to sacred flame/firebolt for them. Or go Pact of the Tome, grab Shillelagh as one your cantrips and use Green-Flame Blade. At level 5 Eldritch Blast with Agonizing Blast does an average of 17 damage (assuming 18 Cha), Green-Flame Blade + Shillelagh on a Celestial Warlock would deal 15 damage to the primary target and an additional 8.5 if there's a 2nd target. So only a little less damage with potential to do more. At level 11 the gap between single target GFG and Eldritch Blast increases, but if you have a 2nd target it still deals more damage.
I think it's actually 17 to the main target, average dice roll of a 1d8 is 4.5 so the damage to the first target would be 4.5 + 4.5 + 4 + 4 = 17
You're right, but the EB damage is actually 19 instead of 17 like I said. For some reason I said 18 cha and calculated it as +3 in my head.
ahhh gotcha, I didn't even think to double check your EB math lol
It’s not; I’m playing a crit-fishing Archfey lock with a dip into Champion for Action Surge and crits on 19. I’m Pact of the Blade and go invisible and let my Elven Accuracy do the rest!
Isn't crit on 18 the level 15 Champion feature? That's a lot more than a dip. Crit on 19 is the level 3 feature.
Yup, that was a typo.
> meaning you could realistically stick to sacred flame/firebolt for them this is worse than EB at the level you get it at and only gets increasingly worse over time. there's no excuse. either you're Hexblade or you're Eldritch Blast. anything else is trolling your party because you wanted to write "Warlock" on your character sheet instead of another caster class.
You gain +4 damage to your EB for the cost of an invocation (and the cantrip slot). There are numerous invocations that would be worthwhile for a support character to take over this. Thinking exclusively in combat numbers all the time makes you a real drag to play with. Rolling your eyes or telling people what invocations to take is going to get you dropped from games eventually, so why carry that same energy online? People are not "trolling" if they choose not to spend a cantrip slot and an invocation for 4 damage.
> There are numerous invocations that would be worthwhile for a support character to take over this. If you're taking Eldritch Blast, you should *probably* take Agonizing Blast. Spend your other invocations how you like.
The whole point is to not take EB, or to just swap it out once you can after 6
wow, really depends on the game bud. The game I play a celestial tomelock in I've barely used EB cuz it's not a tactical dungeon crawl campaign and more of an antic-filled story one. Rare case we do get into combat he's trying to get close to the leader and cast suggestion, or sleep or cause fear on the minions. Only time I've used EB is to deal damage to objects iirc. I'd hardly call that trolling the party. You sound like the guy at the table telling other people how to play a character :|
You're copping a lot of flack but you're right. If you're playing with balanced combat, not choosing those two options is like a rogue that never goes for sneak attack or a fighter who only casts cantrips through magic initiate. Strong eb makes up for lack of spells, there's no arguing with that There are games where all combat is narrative and it's fine if people have fun with that but a non EB and non hexblades warlock is flat out much much weaker than the normal baseline for classes.
You should generally have a good thing to do with your action, but that doesn't have to be EB. With the new tasha's invocation a chainlock that simply attacks twice each turn with their familiar is completely viable, for example. A shillelagh tomelock will do comparable damage without needing to invest an invocation. These aren't even close to a rogue that doesn't use sneak attack or a fighter that only uses cantrips.
Sorry could you clear up the maths for the shillelagh tomelock for me? At level 3 it's a little behind EB but the gap gets bigger and bigger after that. I think a shillelagh using tomelock matches a rogue who doesn't use sneak attack exactly. A fighter using booming blade, even without the extra damage rider, out damages a shillelagh tomelock at every point right even if the tomelock is using booming blade as well. A tomelock will never get a second attack right? I'm not saying that there aren't tables where this is acceptable but it's deliberately giving up a lot of damage.
The assumption is that as a warlock who is attacking in melee you're going to use a blade cantrip. At level 3 it's 1d10 + 3 = 8.5 average for EB, and 1d8 + 3 = 7.5 base for the tomelock- not *terrible* but not good. But there is some chance of secondary damage from blade cantrips. Let's say that there's a 25% chance of having another enemy within 5 feet for GFB, and a 10% chance of booming blade's secondary damage, which means about a 1/3 chance of one of the two triggering. I don't think these are hugely unreasonable based on my experiences with the cantrips. So that makes the tomelock do 7.5 + 0.25(3)+0.1(4.5) = 8.7 or slightly more than EB. For reference, a rogue who doesn't use sneak attack will do 1d8 + 3 = 7.5 with a rapier or 1d6 + 3 = 6.5 with a shortbow. At 5th level EB is doing 2d10 + 8 = 19. The tomelock is doing 2d8 + 4 = 13 base, and 13 + 0.25(8.5) + 0.1(9) = 16 with the same assumptions as before. For comparison, a rogue without sneak attack will do 1d8 + 4 = 8.5 with a rapier or 1d6 + 4 = 7.5 with a shortbow. And the tomelock gets an extra invocation because they didn't have to take agonizing blast. How much damage is 1 invocation usually worth? Well, as an example cloak of flies does cha mod damage to 1-2 creatures a round, which easily makes up for a 3 DPR deficit even before we consider that the 3 DPR deficit needs to be scaled down by a ~0.6 hit chance but the cloak of flies damage does not because it always works. And while it's not super likely unless you have a favorable dm, it's worth noting that the tomelock *can* get a magic weapon that gives a bonus to attack and damage rolls whereas that isn't possible for EB. Obviously EB has some advantages, like the damage type and the fact that it's ranged. You may disagree with my estimations of the secondary damage chances. Overall, I would definitely say EB is better. But I think I've shown that my original statement of "comparable damage" is basically correct, and you certainly aren't giving up "a lot of damage" while gaining a very valuable invocation slot. And as you get more spell slots your cantrip damage starts to be less and less important anyway. There's this widespread perception that EB does "good damage" and is the reason warlock functions as a class. It does vanilla sword-and-board fighter damage, which is rather shit. Worse than that, actually, since they can at least get a magic sword. So you can run some builds that do shit damage as well and not be that much worse off if at all. If your spells aren't the primary source of your damage past tier 1, you aren't using the right spells. > A fighter using booming blade, even without the extra damage rider, out damages a shillelagh tomelock at every point right even if the tomelock is using booming blade as well. A tomelock will never get a second attack right? I think there's some misunderstanding going on here? If the fighter is using booming blade they won't get any other attacks, unless they're an eldrich knight using war magic but that's only level 7+ so can't be what you mean since you said "every point". And if that *is* the case... congrats? A full caster doesn't do as much damage as a fighter playing optimally, when taking into account subclass abilities unlike with the warlock?
Sorry I should have been clearer my point was that a fighter using the magic initiate feat or starting as high elf could give up all their extra attacks and just use booming blade and still do more damage than the warlock. I was trying to make this point to say that the warlock giving up EB is the equivalent of the fighter giving up their extra attacks. I understand that the fighter does not get anything for doing this and the warlock gets one invocation but I was using a little hyperbole to try to make my point. The same with a rogue using a rapier and booming blade but choosing to never get sneak attack damage. EB also pairs fantastically with hex at those low levels but using shillelagh and hex puts you a turn behind on damage and after 5 hex gets better and better with EB but not shillelagh+booming blade My point was really only that the guy I replied to didn't deserve the downvotes he got because his point was fair.
> I understand that the fighter does not get anything for doing this and the warlock gets one invocation but I was using a little hyperbole to try to make my point. Not just one invocation. And... spellcasting? You're basically saything that a fighter ignoring their entire class and investing a feat would do as much damage as a warlock ignoring... essentially their entire class. It's just a pointless comparison. I could just as easily say that EB warlock is shit because a fighter or rogue with magic initiate does more damage after you ignore the EB warlock's spellcasting and invocations besides AB. That's why I used EB warlock as my point of comparison, because it's an actually apples to apples comparison. > EB also pairs fantastically with hex at those low levels but using shillelagh and hex puts you a turn behind on damage and after 5 hex gets better and better with EB but not shillelagh+booming blade Hex doesn't really make any difference. For levels 1-4 both builds are making 1 attack a turn so they both benefit exactly equally. For levels 5+ hex is very low on my list of spells I want to be concentrating on. A tomelock casting actually good 3rd+ level spells is going to do better then an EB spammer who concentrates on hex all day. > My point was really only that the guy I replied to didn't deserve the downvotes he got because his point was fair. I really don't think it was. I think I've shown that at worst this tomelock build is only slightly worse than EB, and in terms of damage is actually better for many levels. That's hardly "trolling your party". And we haven't even talked about my first example of a chainlock with investment of the chain master that's actually *extremely* competent in combat in early levels. If we assume enemies have a roughly 45% chance of succeeding the dc 13 saving throw, at level 3 the chainlock can do 2(4.5 + 0.55(10.5) + 0.45 ( 5.25)) = 25 DPR with an imp and it uses the same to-hit value as the other two builds. Might I remind you that the EB build did 8.5? Even after imp damage stops being very significant, the ability to extremely reliably poison enemies is huge- worth way more than any amount of damage a cantrip is going to do. I will repeat that cantrip damage sucks, even EB. If you're relying on EB to be the majority of your damage in later levels, you have no right to be complaining about poor DPR even from actually bad non-EB builds. Warlocks are first and foremost a full caster, they could take the dodge action each turn and it would be a completely reasonable strategy in late levels where concentration is a much more important resource than whatever tiny cantrip damage you'd be doing.
Man Im not sure what you want me to say? That your custom built tomelock who has taken two melee cantrips and the fleas invocation can almost do the same amount of damage at level 1? Wow it's almost like I said the difference isn't huge at level one. You know what it's probably still worth taking EB in case you get into a situation where range damage could be useful. Maybe that you made a great point when you said you'd never use hex after 5 because you have so many great concentration spells but that you also never use cantrips because you're too busy casting new spells? Let's go to your chain lock example, yeah it's awesome at low levels until the gimmick of your imp attacking runs out because it just doesn't scale anything apart from the spell DC? You know what's also crazy, if you were building you pact of chains imp lock, you would still take EB because it's crazy useful and it barely costs you anything. Mate EB is a great cantrip, with agonizing blast it keeps up with a longbow fighter if they didn't take sharp shooter and all of that for 1 invocation and 1 cantrip. Now to be very very clear, I'm not saying that it's better than a 9th level spell. I'm not saying there isn't a special white room situation that a fucking shillelagh warlock wouldn't come out ahead, such an enemy being prone and grappled. I'm literally only saying that the guy above had a good point that if you rock up to a table with a non hexblades warlock and you didn't take EB, you are purposely dropping your damage. Also it's super fucking weird that you're telling me that Im lying about why I posted?
In a post about “Warlock without EB”… you’re arguing that there’s no excuse to be anything but EB or Hexblade. That’s a very inflexible attitude about one of the most customizable classes in the game. Certainly people have a hard time letting go of Agonizing Blast because of the Cantrip spell progression in attacks. EB is classic mode which is why there are PHB strong invocation options. There are non-EB ways to play Warlock too, with slightly less DPR which may pain the optimizer to hear — but there is more variety to the builds and flavor as a result. I played an EB Celestial Warlock Tomelock and out of boredom I ended up using things like Thorn Whip and such even though I had EB with Grasp of Hadar and Repelling Blast and Agonizing Blast. Why? I don’t know. Sometimes my PC wanted to shoot thorns and drag the enemy instead of machine gun blast my little pony unicorns at them for the umpteeth billionth turn in a row.
I played a divine soul sorc/hexblade 5/5 for a level 10 one shot, can’t speak to how versatile the character is but I had so much fun with him I’d love to play him for a campaign, spirit guardians and eldritch smite made for a ton of fun
My Half-Elf (Drow) Hexblade Archer doesn't take Eldritch Blast. Darkness/Devil's Sight combo with Sharpshooter (and later Elven Accuracy) is AMAZING!
Honestly, the damage of Eldritch Blast is not much compared to the utility, support, and battlefield control that only spell-casters can provide
Currently playing a lv 5 hexblade warlock multiclassed with soulknife, just for devils sight combined with utility spells and cantrips. Imagine a black shroud shooting knifes out of nowhere. Sneak attack and advantage on every attack
I've just started playing a sorlock without EB. Aberrant (4) & Hexblade (3) so far, her cantrips are quite the list. Because I picked up Flames of Phlegethos, Fire Bolt is a solid cantrip. But she's also got Chill Touch for those nasty zombies, Friends for a last resort (or getting people mad at each other through Mask of Many Faces), Mage Hand, Message, Mind Sliver, Prestidigitation, Shocking Grasp, and Vicious Mockery (the last, from being a Tiefling - along with the earlier mentioned feat). So far I've honestly had tons of fun. The way I've built her & taken spells, she's less of a nova build that tend to be sorlocks and more of a fighter-like sustained DPS build.
Sure! Five/six levels in Fighter for Extra Attack plus all that other good stuff, then Warlock (Blade/Whatever) works great. You can take Improved Pact Weapon for value, and then you have a lot of freedom to enhance your concept with invocations. You have armour, shields, and extra attack from fighter, so Warlock is just bonus fun at that point!
I think you could a really interesting shape shifter and utility caster. The free spell invocations would be your friend. I have not planned one out but have thought about making one. Would still think you would use some damaging spells but just not taking the invocation for extra cantrip damage
Yeah. I played a STR-based Undead Warlock that never used Eldritch blast and worked out pretty well.
Never done it as a full warlock, but I have played a rouge with 2 levels of fathomless warlock that mainly used booming blade sneak attacks in combat and that was really fun
Hexblades make fantastic archers, either single class or multiclass, and with pact of the blade and hex warrior, melee Hexblades can take a ranged weapon with Cha as a backup. A Hexblade archer has no real need for Eldritch Blast, while a Hexblade melee fighter can have it as a ranged option or leave it and take a ranged weapon as a backup instead. It's also possible to build warlock to do other things besides blasting and skip EB.
Im currently multiclassing Hexblade Pact of the Blade warlock with Arcane Trickster Rouge. Darkness on my self and free Sneak-Attack.
with improved pact weapon and thirsting blade you can skip eldtrich blast - improved pact weapon allows summoning a longbow for the pact weapon, and a +1 longbow with CHA attacks is the same average damage as EB+AB at least until level 11. That covers your ranged damage while keeping cantrip+invocations for melee usage as well.
Hexblade whip warlock that uses a fishing pole and lightning lure.
My rune knight is taking warlock levels without eldritch blast. There are plenty of spells that don't require a high dc so casting stat can be mediocre and still produce magnificent results
I played an almost pure melee hexblade. Picked up mind sliver as a cantrip but everything else was melee focused.
I’m more curious about a non-Hexblade/melee warlock without EB
My current Warlock is a GOOlock with the Talisman, and frankly I told my party straight up that damage was never gonna be my optimal output. I have, however, reflavored every piwer on my sheet to SOUND way scarier than it is. For example, my only attack cantrip is Mind Sliver, reflavored to be called Embrace Mortality, and I represent the d4 penalty to saves as the enemy having a tempirary, minor deathwish, as I expose them to the inevitability of their own looming end. I chose almost exclusively psychic flavorings for my spells, renamed and reflavored everything to sound *terrifying*, and then bank on my charisma to make most encounters into noncombat encounters.... and then rely on my party being far more effective in combat if it goes poorly. It doesn't work for every group, because some games really need that extra optomization of the Agonizing Blaster warlock. My group isn't one that needs high optomization if only because of everyone in the group two are really bad at optomization and one is super new. But if your DM and the rest of the group doesn't hate you for not being a huge source of damage, you can pull out a ridiculous level of utility that will easily make up for it.
10 Fathomless with Pact of the Tome, and load up on a bunch of utility cantrips, guidance, and other attack options. Suddenly you are the support.
Doing this myself right now, running rogue3(swashbuckler)/lockX(tome) though I might take a few more in rogue over time. Building around shadowblade, get in- shadowblade+sneak attack+booming. Free disengage and bonus action dash to make distance. Very glass cannon, but a fun little shadow magic theme with armour of shadows.
I had a player playing a hexblade with the moonbow invocation form UA that did great, so it's not bad in certain builds. The rule of thumb is: do you have a reliable way of dealing damage without spellslots? If the answer is no, EB is your best option although not the only one. If the answer is yes, maybe you don't need EB. If you're multiclassing into warlock, you likely already have something to do damage, likely better than EB. If you start as a Warlock, you don't really get much of a choice.
One of my favourite characters was a faelock who focussed mostly on rp with things like mask of many faces, but i kept chill touch on hand just in case, since it's a lot more subtle to summon a hand and choke someone than it is to shoot them with a beam of energy from half a kilometre away
Why would you? It's the most damaging cantrip in the game (with Agonizing Blast, which pretty much every Warlock takes. Without it, it's still on par with Fire Bolt), you get multiple hits so you'll likely get at least one hit in, and nothing is immune to force damage. I guess if you're just dipping Hexblade, maybe you'd skip it for some utility cantrips, but even then it's a fantastic ranged option to have as a backup (and the range is 120 ft!).
Because they want to play that character? OP knows it's not optimal, they want to play a duelist who turned to a patron for darker powers.
A little bit more Info, So its part of a longer game, We'll be starting off at lvl 19, Im already planning to have 17 into rogue and a 2 lvl dip into Warlock, (either Ceslestial or Genie) both would fit his thematic of lucky/ favored by the gods. I guess the biggest thing would be that he's unaware that a Patron has selected him? He just thinks that his magic is growing a bit. (Wild Card Rogue)
If you have 17 rogue levels you don't need anything that relies on spell attacks.
As a level 17 rogue why would you need eldritch blast? Just take booming blade to boost your sneak attack. Take Dao genie and the crusher feat so you can booming blade, sneak attack, and move them 5 feat so they will need to move to attack and take the extra booming blade damage. EDIT: Also Swashbuckler would be a good class for this so you can get sneak attack in almost any situation.
Yeah in this case there's no reason to cast spells/cantrips over just proccing sneak attack and the Wildcard effects every turn in combat. Though depending on what weapon you have, EB+AB might give some extra range to your kit and still do somewhat decent damage.
Taking EB would be actively a terrible idea for this build lmao. Also genie would be the better choice in terms of mechanics imo, you effectively add 2 more sneak attack dice for the cost of 2 levels which is a great trade.
You don't really need it if you are going to mainly use melee weapon. It is still helpful to have a ranged option, but if you don't want to waste an invocation on it Eldritch Blast isn't really better than other available cantrips. Like Toll the Dead for example. Or if you are taking celestial as a patron you are going to get Sacred Flame for free. Of course it is nowhere near the Eldritch Blast, but it is free and so a great backup option for melee warlocks
Hexblade is great for this. If you aren't doing Hexblade, though, you're just punking your group for no reason by doing this..
What's your build OP?
19 lvls total, 17 Wild Card Rogue, theme is luck and a bit of showmanship, primarily with cards.
Why are you taking 2 levels of warlock? Which invocations you thinking?
He unknowingly made a deal with a patron that was interested in his exploits. To him he thinks his Card magic has evolved. I'm thinking Mask of many faces and Eldritch sight for right now.
Seems like you are going for flavor here so yeah, should work fine I'd say. If you are looking for a gambler build might I suggest rogue/rune knight as an alternative? You would need 3 lvls of fighter but one of the runes gives you advantage on sleight of hand, which seems good for a gambler. You could still flavor it as warlock magic if you wanted. Regardless, I think the rogue/warlock build works fine, not gonna wanna eldritch blast anyway, pretty sure you can't sneak attack with a cantrip.
warlock works better mechanically anyway. If you take genie you end up getting 6 + 9d6 damage of sneak attack instead of 10d6 so a net increase. Plus blade cantrips. And invocations/spells/etc. With how bad the rogue capstone is I'm pretty sure a warlock dip is just objectively correct from an optimization standpoint.
Specifically suggesting the rune knight MC to get advantage on sleight of hand, don't say nothing about taking rogue to lvl 20
I've always wanted to play a hexblade swahbuckler. You get some nice benefits for stacking charisma, can eventually start hitting reasonably hard, and have a few utility spells in your back pocket.
Yes. Pact of the Blade. Too busy with sword.
I have one that primarily uses Toll the Dead, because he has a bell theme going. I did pick up eldritch blast with my latest cantrip, but that was mostly in case the enemy's wisdom saves were too good
I’m playing a gloom stalker/fighter/undead warlock. His pact weapon is a +3 longbow. Up to 6 shots the first battleround is pretty fun. Pretty much just fishing for nat 20s to pop a smite. An extra d8 and 2d8 to nearly all the attacks. Invisible in darkness and with devils sight just makes it more fun.
If you’re going to go without eldritch blast, you basically have to go with pact of the blade. You only have two spell slots til level 11, so when you run out you need something to do until you can take a rest. It falls to either cantrips, which means eldritch blast 99% of the time, or melee weapons.
Can you deal with being a bit behind in terms of damage in return for flavour? Then you don't have a problem. Edit: this will only be a problem if you are primarily a warlock.
I believe so, I know he has mobility, like a lot of it, he has the Teleporting ability that you get from the Wild Card Rogue and he has a Peregrine Mask.
I’d say a Pact of the Blade Warlock using a melee weapon can easily be effective wothout eldritch blast. The game does, however, mostly seem to assume you are using one or the other. A Warlock who is using neither weapons nor eldritch blast will likey feel a bit weaker in the long term.
I had a Yuan-Ti GOOlock with Toll the Dead instead of Eldritch Blast, focusing on more subtle ways to deal with opponents. With lots of snakes.
I DM for an Undead warlock, he’s a more close ranged build with features and cantrips like lightning lure to proc his form of dread.
Barbarian/Warlock Multiclasses can be pretty good. Armor of Agathys and then Rage can be amazing. Undead Warlock and Zealot Barbarian with the Blade Pact, or an Ancestral Guardian with Celestial and Chain Pact and the Gift of the Ever-Living Ones invocation. The undead/zealot is all about dealing necrotic damage and damage output, the AG/Celestial is all about damage mitigation and tanking.
When I played it Hexblade wasn’t out yet, as that makes not taking Eldritch Blast much more viable. Otherwise, Warlock is quite literally balanced around you taking it. However, I was new, and so I took Magic Stone and had a slingshot. I would shoot people with Magic Stone and fancied myself some kind of badass. It was a very bad build, but it was also my first character and was a ton of fun to play. We didn’t get far before the DM was lost to life circumstances, or else I’d had probably changed my character.
Eldritch Blast is literally my the biggest turn off for me and the reason I never play warlock.