An Eclectic Collection of Fun and Effective Builds

[LudicSavant]

There are so many warlock builds that say to go celestial (well, the ones that aren’t hexblade).

Can y’all just touch on what makes the celestial so good?

I've got a demonstration of a Celestial Giftlock's capability here, including a link to having a party of just 4 of them doing MaxWilson's challenge dungeon with so much juice to spare that you could have cut the number of short rests down to a tiny fraction of what was offered and still crush it.

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Anyways, Celestial Warlocks are one of the better Warlocks subclasses because...

Celestial Warlocks add a whole lot of extra durability to a party.
Healing Light is usable to yo-yo a huge number of times per day (scaling from 2 up to a whopping 21 uses per day). It also gives you a raw hp pool about the size of Lay on Hands... except as non-spell bonus actions.

On top of that you've got Celestial Resilience giving you a whole bunch of temporary hit points to the whole party every short rest. At level 10 it's 15 hp for you and 9 for 5 party members (or up to 60 hp value total), or up to 180 in a 2 short rest day. At level 20 it's up to 100 hp value total, or 300 in a 2 SR day. Obviously there's a good chance that some of that temp HP will be 'overhealing,' but even so, it's just plain good stuff. Nearly as good as getting the Inspiring Leader feat.

On top of that you've got valuable seat-belt spells (Lesser Restoration, Greater Restoration, Revivify) and Cure Wounds on a short-rest recharge, which means you can use it like a "one hour ritual" (e.g. use them and get the slot back). Essentially letting you more efficiently convert downtime into health and status cures.

As if all that wasn't enough, you've also got Searing Vengeance, which yo-yos yourself (complete with standing up from prone), action-economy free, for fully 50% of your hp, and damages and blinds enemies. Did I mention that was action-economy free?

You even get always-on Resistance to Radiant damage, just because (fun fact: there are slightly more monsters in core+supplements that can deal Radiant damage than can deal Cold damage).

That's all... a lot, and we haven't even talked about the Warlock's base resources yet (spells, invocations, etc). And those can be huge -- Gift of the Ever-Living Ones, Armor of Agathys, Darkness/Devil's Sight, potions administered by a Pact minion, you name it, you can toss that on there. Just spend a half-feat on Moderately Armored, and you are tough as nails. Easily tougher than most martials.

Celestial Warlock expands your role, rather than replacing it
A Celestial Warlock is still good at normal Warlock stuff. Healing Light, Celestial Resilience, and Searing Vengeance don't use up your Actions at all. Searing Vengeance doesn't just make you tougher, it also hurts and blinds the baddies with no save in a broad 65-foot diameter that won't hit allies. And your level 6 feature is basically like the Draconic Sorcerer's elemental damage boost. And Wall of Fire combos very nicely with Repelling Blast, allowing you to really shred Legendary or Magic Resistant creatures with no save hazard combos.

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All that said, other Warlock subclasses are really good too. Hexblade is well-known, of course. Undead Warlock (the Ravenloft version) is only a moderately armored feat away from being a heavy duty remote tank. Genie Warlock gets Wish and such. Even Fiendlock gives a good way to boost d20 rolls, customized Resistance, an exploitable THP mechanic, and a no-save Legendary boss-killer feature at 14.