What’s a warlock to do?

[Harrysonford]

Hello! This is intended to be a thread dedicated to helping all warlock players out there. Warlocks have abilities that work more behind the scenes, or simply have few uses. So hopefully all of you can share some tips on how to make your warlock that much better.

-How to defend your party
-Which choices should I make? (Patron, pact boon, spells, invocations)
-What choices pair well with other choices?
-Which areas should I prioritize in?
-Any other tips or tricks you know

Obviously everyone has their own opinions and preferences. This is not meant to tell people what to do, it’s meant to help share any advice you may have for playing a warlock. It’s also supposed to be fun! So even if your advice seems silly, share it! You never know what might help!

So please share any warlock advice you may have!

[Michael7123]

I don't have much time now, but here's a fun trick that you all might be interested that works from level 5 onward, but requires someone else in the party able to cast silence.

On your turn- cast hunger of Hadar centered on an enemy (namely a spellcaster, but if you can get other enemies inside it doesn't hurt anyone but the,). Your ally casts silence on the same area. You now have a 20 foot radius black hole of magical darkness, difficult terrain, cold damage, acid damage, no save allowed blindness, and best of all, the inability to cast spells with verbal components.

Of course, enemies will try to leave the trap, because they probably aren't keen on being in the receiving end of a black hole. That's where three invocations come in, ranked below in level of importance.

1. Repelling Blast

2. Devil's Sight

3. Lance of Lethargy

The first lets you use eldritch Blast to push enemies into the black hole. The second let's you to target those enemies without penalties and push them further into the black hole. The last one slows your enemies movements, making it even harder for them to run out of the black hole.

It's also recommended to have some allies who actually have a strength score worth a damn to wait on open sides of the black hole, and ready the shove action to push any spellcaster back into the black hole. In addition, casting it next to a wall or other area where someone can't escape from is also useful for you.

[MrBig]

Devil’s Sight doesn’t work within Hunger of Hadar.

https://www.sageadvice.eu/2016/04/09/can-a-warlock-with-devils-sight-see-within-hunger-of-hadar/

[Great cthulhu]

In my opinion, your patron should be the great old one choice. Not so good if your just in a dungeon, but in a passive campaign, the choice is very good. At first level, you get to use telepathy when ever you want as a language. Then, get arms of Hadar as a first level spell

[MxKit]

In my opinion, your patron should be the great old one choice. Not so good if your just in a dungeon, but in a passive campaign, the choice is very good. At first level, you get to use telepathy when ever you want as a language. Then, get arms of Hadar as a first level spell

Great Old One is probably my favorite patron, too (maybe tied with Archfey), but to be fair, you can access arms of Hadar at the same level no matter what patron you choose. It might be most flavorful for a GOO Warlock, but it's available to all of them.

One great thing GOO's telepathy does for you, though, is give you the ability to (very creepily) speak to others even if you're playing a Kenku. Kenku don't make great Warlocks, but neither do they make bad ones, and GOO and UA Raven Queen patrons make it very tempting to go that route with one.

One build you can do is to prioritize charming others, and either go straight Warlock or go Warlock/Glamour Bard. (Strictly speaking, you could also go Warlock/Enchanter Wizard, but that build's a lot more MAD and usually not at all worth it.) The Archfey and Great Old One patrons are great for this; if you do multiclass, you want to break from GOO only after 14th level, but you can break from Archfey any time after 10th level. Either way you get Mantle of Majesty, but if you want better Song of Rest and Bardic Inspiration, your second Expertise, and Magical Secrets, go with the Archfey and split things evenly at Warlock 10/Bard 10. (You can grab mass suggestion as your Mystic Arcanum at Warlock level 11, though, so keep that in mind when choosing your build.)

If you don't multiclass, though, both of those classes still make great charmers. The Archfey Warlock gets access to some great enchantment spells, as well as Fey Presence, Beguiling Defenses, and Dark Delirium. The GOO Warlock gets almost as many of those enchantment spells, as well as Create Thrall, which is semipermanent* and has no saving throw. You can also grab either dominate monster or feeblemind at Warlock level 15. And just in general, whatever Warlock or part-Warlock build you're using, be sure to grab the Mask of Many Faces invocation (and the Master of Myriad Forms invocation if you make it up to Warlock level 15).

*"Permanent" with caveats. It can be broken with remove curse or greater restoration, if someone knows enough to think to use that spell on your thrall; it also only works on one humanoid at a time, so if you use it on someone else it ends on the person it had been on before.

Personally, my favorite build right now is the "**** with the enemy" build I'm planning on dropping into a Start At Level 15 game. The character is an Archfey Warlock with Pact of the Chain for access to a familiar that can give advantage; they know the eldritch blast, friends, infestation, and minor illusion cantrips as well as faerie fire, charm person, hex, phantasmal force, darkness, mirror image, suggestion, counterspell, fear, hunger of Hadar, major image, dominate person, sickening radiance, mass suggestion, forcecage, and maddening darkness. Their invocations are Agonizing Blast, Devil's Sight, Master of Myriad Forms, Gift of the Ever-Living Ones, Sculptor of Flesh, Repelling Blast, and Lance of Lethargy. (They're definitely going to be shoving enemies back into hunger of Hadar and lowering their speed every time they try to come out, as Michael suggested above, and this tactic ALSO works with both sickening radiance and maddening darkness.) They do know a few damaging things, obviously, but their major focus is going to be messing with people outside of battle and being a jackass to the enemy during battle. (They'll be learning dream, hallucinatory terrain, an undecided 9th level spell, and Cloak of Flies at later levels, to keep with the pattern.) Maybe not the most optimized, but I know I'll have a blast playing it!

[Oerlaf]

Hello! This is intended to be a thread dedicated to helping all warlock players out there. Warlocks have abilities that work more behind the scenes, or simply have few uses. So hopefully all of you can share some tips on how to make your warlock that much better.

-How to defend your party
-Which choices should I make? (Patron, pact boon, spells, invocations)
-What choices pair well with other choices?
-Which areas should I prioritize in?
-Any other tips or tricks you know

Obviously everyone has their own opinions and preferences. This is not meant to tell people what to do, it’s meant to help share any advice you may have for playing a warlock. It’s also supposed to be fun! So even if your advice seems silly, share it! You never know what might help!

So please share any warlock advice you may have!

DawnForgedCast channel on youtube provided an ultimate healer build, and some of the followers made it level by level build: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pUfBpqHQeqMcjFKW_JBS-57mkBL0J3wG8tUA8yjqX0M/edit that works very well in real combat.
I tried that build in AL (because with Xanathar's this build is AL-legal) and it is indeed very good in defending the party.

At its peak it's Life Cleric 6/Celestial Warlock 14, but in AL I am trying now Life Cleric 4/Celestial Warlock 5, and it's still descent - I don't have to waste healing words on someone KO'd, because I can simply use Healing Light warlock feature. It's not a spell, so it can't get counterspelled (our DM oftern counterspells healing spells), but for the price of lacking synergy with Life Cleric.

Also, if noone gets hurt, Agonizing Repelling Eldritch Blast is quite good. I don't have Rod of the Pact Keeper yet, but at 9th CL it's +8 to hit with eldritch blasts and 1d10+4 force damage that forces positioning, so I can control the crowd.

And healing shines at short rests: When party has a short rest, I can cast prayer of healing twice using my warlock spell slots at the beginning of the short rest which recharge at the end of short rest. That's [3d8+3(Wis)+5(Life's Cleric)] x 2 =6d8+16 points of free healing (average 43) for everyone.

[Feuerphoenix]

Devil’s Sight doesn’t work within Hunger of Hadar.

https://www.sageadvice.eu/2016/04/09/can-a-warlock-with-devils-sight-see-within-hunger-of-hadar/

To be honest, I would ignore this SA. When a warlock player takes an invocation the states "seeing in magical and nonmagical darkness", then I would refer Hunger of Hadar as magical darkness ( it is a spell the creates darkness in the end). Why would you make a difference there anyway?

[Mortis_Elrod]

I like modular eldritch blast builds.

Grabbing all the EB invos + spell sniper makes the warlock very good at moving others around.

Spear + sniper gives huge range

Grasp of hadar is great with lance of lethargy for when you have to chase someone down.

Some effects work from ping ponging so repelling blast + grasp of hadar and lance of lethargy (for when they want to run away) makes an effective back and forth motion.

Sadly kiss of Mephistopheles didn’t make the cut into Xans but you could do something similar with Sorcerer dip and quicken metamagic

[Snivlem]

Hello! This is intended to be a thread dedicated to helping all warlock players out there. Warlocks have abilities that work more behind the scenes, or simply have few uses. So hopefully all of you can share some tips on how to make your warlock that much better.

-How to defend your party
-Which choices should I make? (Patron, pact boon, spells, invocations)
-What choices pair well with other choices?
-Which areas should I prioritize in?
-Any other tips or tricks you know

Obviously everyone has their own opinions and preferences. This is not meant to tell people what to do, it’s meant to help share any advice you may have for playing a warlock. It’s also supposed to be fun! So even if your advice seems silly, share it! You never know what might help!

So please share any warlock advice you may have!

Pick the misty visage invocation that gives you free access to silent image at lvl 2, and you are pretty much good to go. If you have some creativity and a Dm that handles illusions at least half decent this ability is extremely potent. Imagine how strong it would be to have another good 1st. level spell available at will, then realise that unless you have a DM that really hates illusions, silent image is a really good 1st level spell. In a sense - you will be a much stronger illusionist than an illusionist wizard with their puny cantrip andd spell slots will ever be. The biggest problem is that it can get borderline abusive, with the result that your DM ends up nerfing you if you arent't carefull. Also be sure you discuss the spell with your DM before you pick it, so you are on the same page. The downside is it eats your concentration, but having silent image as your concentration instead of for instance hex is a lot more valuable (if your DM isn't nerfing you). Here's a few things you can do that effects combat. Outside of combat the uses are of course limitless.
- Whenever there's a tense situation, such as opening a door to a new room, you can precast an image of yourself or an ally, making the enemy waste an attack on it.
- Create the illusion of a fog concealing yourself and your allies. You and your friends will see through the illusion (you are touching it/interacting with it), your enemies won't. Depending on how your DM interprets the rules, the fog won't even be dispelled if the enemies target the fog with missle weapons, because missles are supposed to pass through fog. Depending on situation and some DM interpretation, this tactic can be even stronger than the darkness/devils sight combo, and you can spam it.
- Create images to scare the **** out of/or mislead your enemies. You can add sounds with your minor illusion cantrip. Ghost may or may not be seen through if shot or even hit (DM interpretation)
- Create the illusion of walls, masking them as proper wall spells. Precast it when you are near a door (and use minor image to make sounds of masonry work or similar to draw them out), sealing the hallway with you and your party behind it. Unless the DM really hates you and all your tricks by now, you should all get a free surprise on the enemy.
etcetc.