Good warlock builds

[Dankus Memakus]

I really wanna play a warlock in my campaign but i have no idea what im doing, every warlock ive seen has died super quick and been ineffective. I would prefer to be a bladelock and use either the fey pact, great old one, or celestial from UA. (Celestial is my favorite cuz i love healers) but i may not know what im doing so please help

[Rebonack]

Perhaps more so than any other class, the Warlock can fill just about any party role that needs to be filled.

I would suggest finding out what the other players on planning on doing, and then using your Warlock to fill in any gaps. The Warlock can be the eldritch glue that helps to hold the party together!

If you're dead-set on running a Blade Warlock, I would strongly suggest that you start off with a level in either Fighter or Barbarian. The Blade Warlock is pretty unique in their ability to tank via temporary hit points, either from Armor of Agathys or through the level one Fiend patron ability (which you're apparently not taking). If you'll be using AoA as your temp HP source of choice, I would personally lean toward Barbarian as your 'In' into the martial class. You want people to hit you, but you DON'T want those temporary hit points to go away. Barbarian's damage resistance via Rage is the best way to pull that off.

If you're willing to take the Fiend patron I would definitely go with one level in Fighter. A Fiend Pact of the Blade Warlock in heavy armor is an engine of recovering temp HP that's very difficult to take down. If you go the Fighter/Fiend route, then War Caster and Heavy Armor Master are both strong feat choices.

Also, look into grabbing the Improved Pact Weapon invocation ASAP. The +1 is nice, but the big draw is being able to use your pact weapon as a focus for your spells. If you don't have a focus, then you need a free hand to draw material components for spells/using somatic components. A focus lets you do both with the same hand. This lets you bypass the War Caster tax.

And if you want to make a healing focused Warlock? Celestial with the Create Healing Elixir UA spell and Pact of the Chain is an amazing healer (though obviously not a bladelock). Just equip your invisible familiar of choice with a bandoleer full of conjured healing potions and feed them to allies when they get dropped.

[Dankus Memakus]

Perhaps more so than any other class, the Warlock can fill just about any party role that needs to be filled.

I would suggest finding out what the other players on planning on doing, and then using your Warlock to fill in any gaps. The Warlock can be the eldritch glue that helps to hold the party together!

If you're dead-set on running a Blade Warlock, I would strongly suggest that you start off with a level in either Fighter or Barbarian. The Blade Warlock is pretty unique in their ability to tank via temporary hit points, either from Armor of Agathys or through the level one Fiend patron ability (which you're apparently not taking). If you'll be using AoA as your temp HP source of choice, I would personally lean toward Barbarian as your 'In' into the martial class. You want people to hit you, but you DON'T want those temporary hit points to go away. Barbarian's damage resistance via Rage is the best way to pull that off.

If you're willing to take the Fiend patron I would definitely go with one level in Fighter. A Fiend Pact of the Blade Warlock in heavy armor is an engine of recovering temp HP that's very difficult to take down. If you go the Fighter/Fiend route, then War Caster and Heavy Armor Master are both strong feat choices.

Also, look into grabbing the Improved Pact Weapon invocation ASAP. The +1 is nice, but the big draw is being able to use your pact weapon as a focus for your spells. If you don't have a focus, then you need a free hand to draw material components for spells while ALSO needing ANOTHER free hand to complete somatic components. You don't want to stow your weapon every time you have to cast something with material componets.

And if you want to make a healing focused Warlock? Celestial with the Create Healing Elixir UA spell and Pact of the Chain is an amazing healer (though obviously not a bladelock). Just equip your invisible familiar of choice with a bandoleer full of conjured healing potions and feed them to allies when they get dropped.

I do like that idea for the celestial, but can i still make a functional gish as a pact of the chain

[Rebonack]

You CAN but you would want a Fighter with just a 3-4 level dip in Celestial Warlock, depending on how you feel about missing out on the ASI. If you were going that route, you would probably want to pick up Devil's Sight for some Darkness shenanigans. Darkness would make hitting you excessively difficult for most foes while also giving you advantage on attack rolls against them. Paired with the extra damage from superiority dice or Champion's higher crit chance you'll be critting quite hard or quite often. Toss in the Elven Accuracy feat for even more hilarity.

[jaappleton]

So here's the deal with Warlocks, especially melee focused Warlocks like the 'Bladelock':

You can be effective. Very much so.

But you need to augment your martial prowess through your spells.

You won't go toe to toe with the Barbarian or Fighter. You just won't, you won't match what they can do in terms of swinging a weapon.

You can get close. Pretty damn close.

But they can't cast Mirror Image to boost their defenses, can they? They don't have AoE like Shatter, do they?

I find Bladelocks to be far more rounded in what they can accomplish. Although I must warn you, many people find the spell slots of a Warlock to be INCREDIBLY limiting. A suggested house rule is to use the Spell Point system of the DMG, but on a short rest variation.

For example:

1st Level spells cost 2 points
2nd Level spells cost 3 points
3rd Level Spells cost 5 points

A 5th level Warlock normally has two 3rd level spell slots every short rest. With this variation, you instead have 10 Spell Points every short rest. Essentially, this houserule allows you to cast 1st level slots at 1st level, should you so choose.

[Spacehamster]

War cleric 1, Blade lock 19, heavy armor + couple level 1 cleric spell slots to flesh out the low amount
of slots that warlocks get could work out well maybe?

[rbstr]

There are a ton of effective options for Bladelocks.
If you want to be sneaky-staby Dex-based you can add a bit of Rogue whenever you feel like it. Lots of sneaky options for warlocks - alter self, fey's greater invisibility and so on.
If you want to be a bruiser/str-based you should start with Fighter 1 or maybe Paladin 2. Plenty of good options for defense in the Warlock list.

You can add some more of the martial class or just do on up in warlock.
Of course, Warlock is a full caster, once you start into the higher levels you aren't getting much more melee power. But you'll have high-level spells.

Also, you really can a Dex-based bladelock without the multi-class. You have the light armor proficiency. You can definitely use concentration-free spells like Armor of Agathys and Mirror Image for defense. Fey or Fiend are the way to go with that I think. Just will have to make do with simple weapons until level 3.

[Chunkosaurus]

If you are open to UA. The Raven Queen warlock can make for an effective bladelock with Spiritual weapon backing them up for damage.

[Easy_Lee]

I agree with the fighter dip for blade warlocks. You want armor at low levels if you're anything but a dedicated fiend warlock, and having a shield will help if you go dex-based. Interestingly, you can accomplish much the same with a dip into the revised ranger, as long as you have 14 DEX.

For the sake of this post, I'll assume you want an AL-legal pure warlock with blade-pact abilities who still plays and feels like a warlock.

Sample level 5 build:
Wood Elf Archfey Dex-based Blade Pact Warlock
Invocations: Devil's Sight, Eldritch Sight, Thirsting Blade
Spells: Hex, Blink, Misty Step, Shatter, Gaseous Form, Hypnotic Pattern

Your biggest role is as the eyes of the party. Between eldritch sight, devil's sight, gaseous form, misty step, your dexterity, and the stealth proficiency that you should have, you can safely get just about anywhere and should be able to see everything at all times (detect magic + superior vision).

You shouldn't use Hex often. It's there for when literally all you need to do is beat on something until it dies. All of your other spells are more useful to use in the correct situation. Hypnotic pattern can shut down an entire group of enemies who fail their saves, allowing your party to handle one at a time. Blink will make you a difficult target to hit, since you'll be invulnerable half the time. Misty step lets you escape from foes more easily, or avoid rolling boulders and the like. Shatter is shatter.

For your feat at level 4, Con proficiency is nice when you need to maintain concentration on a spell.

[Dankus Memakus]

Although i like the idea of going with a fighter dip i think i do wanna take all my levels in warlock, just for fun.

[DracoKnight]

Although i like the idea of going with a fighter dip i think i do wanna take all my levels in warlock, just for fun.

If you're allowed to use Unearthed Arcana, look at the Hexblade Patron

[Dankus Memakus]

Okay lets say i also am gonna play human and take a feat at first level, if you could gimme some decent choices there as well.

[DracoKnight]

Okay lets say i also am gonna play human and take a feat at first level, if you could gimme some decent choices there as well.

If I'm playing a Variant Human Bladelock I'm taking Warcaster or Resilient (CON) as my 1st level feat. When you have your Concentration spells up in melee, you'll be happy to have either one.

[Rebonack]

Although i like the idea of going with a fighter dip i think i do wanna take all my levels in warlock, just for fun.

Oof, okay, that limits things a bit more.

In that case I would suggest the Hexblade patron for you. That will allow you to focus fully on Cha/Dex/Con and give you access to Medium armor. Remember that you get healed every time a creature that you Curse dies. Probably worth asking at this point, aside from stabbing things and being a Warlock what do you want this character to do?

I find Bladelocks to be far more rounded in what they can accomplish. Although I must warn you, many people find the spell slots of a Warlock to be INCREDIBLY limiting. A suggested house rule is to use the Spell Point system of the DMG, but on a short rest variation.

For example:

1st Level spells cost 2 points
2nd Level spells cost 3 points
3rd Level Spells cost 5 points

A 5th level Warlock normally has two 3rd level spell slots every short rest. With this variation, you instead have 10 Spell Points every short rest. Essentially, this houserule allows you to cast 1st level slots at 1st level, should you so choose.

I'll throw in my agreement with this one as well. If you can get your DM to allow you to use the spellpoint variant system for the Warlock's casting absolutely do it. Getting punished for picking spells that don't scale with spell level is pretty awful. And most of the Warlock's spells don't scale.

[Dankus Memakus]

Oof, okay, that limits things a bit more.

In that case I would suggest the Hexblade patron for you. That will allow you to focus fully on Cha/Dex/Con and give you access to Medium armor. Remember that you get healed every time a creature that you Curse dies. Probably worth asking at this point, aside from stabbing things and being a Warlock what do you want this character to do?




I'll throw in my agreement with this one as well. If you can get your DM to allow you to use the spellpoint variant system for the Warlock's casting absolutely do it. Getting punished for picking spells that don't scale with spell level is pretty awful. And most of the Warlock's spells don't scale.

A. Im the usual dm in my group so if i ask for spell points theres a good chance it will happen.
B. Im not too sure what i want this character to do yet, im in very early idea stage. I have two weeks before i game next so i wanna take up the full time and build him slow. All i know is ill probably play warlock. I may not play bladelock cuz pact of the chain also sounds kinda fun, but really i havent decided on much yet. Still brainstorming.

[Rebonack]

Nailing down a 'good Warlock build' is hard to do unless you (or we) know what party roles the Warlock is going to be filling. The Warlock is one of the most variable classes in terms of what they can do, but they can't do all of those things at once. It all depends on what their load-out is.

Pick out two or three things you really want the Warlock to contribute to the party. Once you know that, then building them can really get started.

[JakOfAllTirades]

Okay lets say i also am gonna play human and take a feat at first level, if you could gimme some decent choices there as well.

I also avoid multi-classing; it slows down spellcasting progression. So I'd suggest the Moderately Armored feat; lousy armor and poor AC is the BladeLock's biggest weakness, IMHO.

[BW022]

Although i like the idea of going with a fighter dip i think i do wanna take all my levels in warlock, just for fun.

Your call, but it is almost impossible for a bladelock to function in melee in 5E. You can easily find yourself unable to stand in melee and having wasted a lot of ability scores, feats, pact features, invocations, etc. while having to stand back and eldritch blast things.

Warlock has few defensive abilities and precious few defensive spells (or the slots to use them through multiple fights). Light armor builds aren't great. Even with an 18 dexterity, that means AC of maybe 17 with mage armor. You are now limited to finesse weapons. Medium armor (mountain dwarf, feat, or specific patron) isn't much better. It means AC 17 (breast plate + dex) or 19 (add shield), but you then start having stat issues -- high strength, charisma, reasonable dex and con -- and a shield typically means paying the war caster tax in order to cast without hands free. Go for a dex medium armor build, you then pay the medium armor mastery feat tax (just to get to a 20 AC) or you might as well just go 18 dex, mage armor, and shield (19 anyway)

Anyway you cut it, you are paying a lot of feats just trying to get a passable AC. With heavy armor, you can at least get AC 18 or 20 with a low dex.

IMO, try mountain dwarf with a low dex and 17 strength, high constitution, and a 14 charisma. At 4th, take heavily armored. You get a +1 strength and heavy armor. Switch to plate and then use a reach weapon as your pact weapon -- glaive or something. You get a good AC 18 without MAD stats or burning a ton of feats, and polearm lets you keep your distance and makes freeing a hand a bit easier than a shield (with the draw doesn't get).

High charisma is not that necessary for a bladelock. It is good enough for eldritch blasting at range. However, you really don't need it for melee as you'll likely be putting spell slots into hex or defensive spells (armor of agahys, blink, darkness, greater invisibility, etc.)

[jaappleton]

Your call, but it is almost impossible for a bladelock to function in melee in 5E. You can easily find yourself unable to stand in melee and having wasted a lot of ability scores, feats, pact features, invocations, etc. while having to stand back and eldritch blast things.

Warlock has few defensive abilities and precious few defensive spells (or the slots to use them through multiple fights). Light armor builds aren't great. Even with an 18 dexterity, that means AC of maybe 17 with mage armor. You are now limited to finesse weapons. Medium armor (mountain dwarf, feat, or specific patron) isn't much better. It means AC 17 (breast plate + dex) or 19 (add shield), but you then start having stat issues -- high strength, charisma, reasonable dex and con -- and a shield typically means paying the war caster tax in order to cast without hands free. Go for a dex medium armor build, you then pay the medium armor mastery feat tax (just to get to a 20 AC) or you might as well just go 18 dex, mage armor, and shield (19 anyway)

Anyway you cut it, you are paying a lot of feats just trying to get a passable AC. With heavy armor, you can at least get AC 18 or 20 with a low dex.

IMO, try mountain dwarf with a low dex and 17 strength, high constitution, and a 14 charisma. At 4th, take heavily armored. You get a +1 strength and heavy armor. Switch to plate and then use a reach weapon as your pact weapon -- glaive or something. You get a good AC 18 without MAD stats or burning a ton of feats, and polearm lets you keep your distance and makes freeing a hand a bit easier than a shield (with the draw doesn't get).

High charisma is not that necessary for a bladelock. It is good enough for eldritch blasting at range. However, you really don't need it for melee as you'll likely be putting spell slots into hex or defensive spells (armor of agahys, blink, darkness, greater invisibility, etc.)

Hexblade really pokes a hole in your argument.

Though for the other Patrons? With the exception of Fiend, yes, there's some survivability issues.

[Rebonack]

Hexblade really pokes a hole in your argument.

Though for the other Patrons? With the exception of Fiend, yes, there's some survivability issues.

Hexblade was created in a bid to patch melee Warlocks. I'm not a huge fan, since it pigeon-holes Bladelock players into running Hexblade if they won't or can't mutliclass. I'm still an advocate for improving the features granted by Pact of the Blade rather than trying to patch over the actual problem. Chain and Tome both give VERY powerful features without any invocation investment at all. And they get much more powerful with a single invocation. Blade is pretty terrible as a stand-alone feature and needs Hexblade or a martial class dip along with a whole bevy of invocations to start functioning. Even then, it is often wiser just to stand back and toss Eldritch Blast at things.

Unfortunately Warlocks almost always dump wisdom.

[jaappleton]

Hexblade was created in a bid to patch melee Warlocks. I'm not a huge fan, since it pigeon-holes Bladelock players into running Hexblade if they won't or can't mutliclass. I'm still an advocate for improving the features granted by Pact of the Blade rather than trying to patch over the actual problem. Chain and Tome both give VERY powerful features without any invocation investment at all. And they get much more powerful with a single invocation. Blade is pretty terrible as a stand-alone feature and needs Hexblade or a martial class dip along with a whole bevy of invocations to start functioning. Even then, it is often wiser just to stand back and toss Eldritch Blast at things.

Unfortunately Warlocks almost always dump wisdom.

I agree that more needs to be done to make other Bladelocks aside from Hexblade more viable. Something as simple as changing Armor of Shadows to be 16+Dex (a copy of Redemption Paladin's) for Bladelocks would go a LONG way.

[Sigreid]

If you want to be a bladelock, you could consider being a variant human with the inspiring leader feat right from the get go. That can give you, and the rest of your party, a nice buffer of HP that recharges on a short rest. It'll help mitigate the risk of your thuggery.

[Rebonack]

I agree that more needs to be done to make other Bladelocks aside from Hexblade more viable. Something as simple as changing Armor of Shadows to be 16+Dex (a copy of Redemption Paladin's) for Bladelocks would go a LONG way.

It could, though there wouldn't be anything to stop Tome and Chain Warlocks from picking it up. Aside from making Pact of the Blade a requirement, of course. I'm also really leery about giving Bladelocks an even higher invocation tax.

Speaking of Invocation Tax, I would be pretty okay with giving both Lifedrinker and Thirsting Blade the axe and replacing them with Baleful Strike. If you hit something with your pact weapon, you can channel a cantrip through your weapon at it as a bonus action. That would keep their damage output higher than straight EB slinging (reasonable due to the extra danger of melee) without having to load them down with a million features.

Combine that with rolling the UA Improved Pact Weapon invocation into Pact of the Blade and maybe having Armor of Shadows boost up to 16+Dex for Blade Pact ONLY and you would have a pretty solid melee class. With two more or less required invocations at level three (Baleful Strike and Armor of Shadows) it wouldn't be THAT terrible. Just pick up Agonizing Blast and Armor of Shadows at level two and then swap out AB at level three. You're still more vulnerable than an Eldritch Knight would be, but that's perfectly fine. You have stronger spells to make up for it.

[jaappleton]

It could, though there wouldn't be anything to stop Tome and Chain Warlocks from picking it up. Aside from making Pact of the Blade a requirement, of course. I'm also really leery about giving Bladelocks an even higher invocation tax.

Speaking of Invocation Tax, I would be pretty okay with giving both Lifedrinker and Thirsting Blade the axe and replacing them with Baleful Strike. If you hit something with your pact weapon, you can channel a cantrip through your weapon at it as a bonus action. That would keep their damage output higher than straight EB slinging (reasonable due to the extra danger of melee) without having to load them down with a million features.

Combine that with rolling the UA Improved Pact Weapon invocation into Pact of the Blade and maybe having Armor of Shadows boost up to 16+Dex for Blade Pact ONLY and you would have a pretty solid melee class. With two more or less required invocations at level three (Baleful Strike and Armor of Shadows) it wouldn't be THAT terrible. Just pick up Agonizing Blast and Armor of Shadows at level two and then swap out AB at level three. You're still more vulnerable than an Eldritch Knight would be, but that's perfectly fine. You have stronger spells to make up for it.

I meant it in the sense of Armor of Shadows getting an exclusive Pact of the Blade version. Most Warlocks (who don't get Armor some other way, like Race or a Feat) take Armor of Shadows anyways if they can fit it, because Light Armor sucks.

[Dankus Memakus]

Nailing down a 'good Warlock build' is hard to do unless you (or we) know what party roles the Warlock is going to be filling. The Warlock is one of the most variable classes in terms of what they can do, but they can't do all of those things at once. It all depends on what their load-out is.

Pick out two or three things you really want the Warlock to contribute to the party. Once you know that, then building them can really get started.

I kinda wanna be a utility/support caster i also wanna be more of a backup melee fighter. Although people keep saying its not very survivable i do wanna play a bladelock would moderately armored solve that?

Edit: nobody suggest bard. I know that sounds like a bard but i dont wanna play bard.

[jaappleton]

I kinda wanna be a utility/support caster i also wanna be more of a backup melee fighter. Although people keep saying its not very survivable i do wanna play a bladelock would moderately armored solve that?

Edit: nobody suggest bard. I know that sounds like a bard but i dont wanna play bard.

Archfey, Celestial and GOO are all good choices. Going VHuman with the Moderately Armored Feat is an accelerant choice because you can get shield proficiency and Medium Armor. It also means you can cap your Dex at 14, since Medium Armor caps out at +2 Dex.

It still enables you to go Pact of the Tome and take Shillaleigh, which would let you use a Quarterstaff and attack with Booming Blade or Greenflame Blade. That's quite adequate Melee damage, with good AC.

Celestial Pact nets you some Healing, making you kinda like a Paladin in a lot of ways. It also has some solid damaging spells if you want those.

Archfey has a slight focus on some Rogue flavor, charming and controlling people to get what you want.

GOO is more fun the more you embrace it. Those guys can be a ton of if you're the creative type, though mechanically I don't love them.

[Dankus Memakus]

Archfey, Celestial and GOO are all good choices. Going VHuman with the Moderately Armored Feat is an accelerant choice because you can get shield proficiency and Medium Armor. It also means you can cap your Dex at 14, since Medium Armor caps out at +2 Dex.

It still enables you to go Pact of the Tome and take Shillaleigh, which would let you use a Quarterstaff and attack with Booming Blade or Greenflame Blade. That's quite adequate Melee damage, with good AC.

Celestial Pact nets you some Healing, making you kinda like a Paladin in a lot of ways. It also has some solid damaging spells if you want those.

Archfey has a slight focus on some Rogue flavor, charming and controlling people to get what you want.

GOO is more fun the more you embrace it. Those guys can be a ton of if you're the creative type, though mechanically I don't love them.

Does moderately armored give you sheilds? I was never under that impression. I have never taken that feat...or read it

[jaappleton]

Does moderately armored give you sheilds? I was never under that impression. I have never taken that feat...or read it

+1 Str or Dex
+Prof with Medium Armor & Shields

So as VHuman, you could actually start with 13 Dex and gain the +1 from the Feat, setting your Dex at 14. Then focus exclusively on Charisma and Constitution.

[Dankus Memakus]

+1 Str or Dex
+Prof with Medium Armor & Shields

So as VHuman, you could actually start with 13 Dex and gain the +1 from the Feat, setting your Dex at 14. Then focus exclusively on Charisma and Constitution.

That boosts the survivability pretty well then, the question now is, keep medium armor and go dex based or at lvl 4 take heavy be str based

[jaappleton]

That boosts the survivability pretty well then, the question now is, keep medium armor and go dex based or at lvl 4 take heavy be str based

If you aren't going with a 2H weapon, Dex wins unless you're going to a Shield Master.

Dex saves are more crucial than Strength, Dex helps Initiative, Dex helps more skills.