Help with Warlock build?

[NutellaCrepe]

Hey everyone,

I'm trying to create a backup character in case mine dies in ToA or if we start a new campaign afterward. The party is lvl 10, though I'd need to know how to build this character from scratch anyway. I always leaned towards martial classes but I'm interested in warlock. Specifically, an EB build which seems similar to martial classes. This would be my first "spellcaster" character. I retired a ranger, currently playing a battle master.

I'll take any advice into consideration. I'd consider multiclassing but I'm not sure that I want to.

Patrons: Archfey (Cool theme, fun spells), Celestial (No dedicated healer in the party), Hexblade (Less for the theme, more for the armor/shield to boost my AC) or Raven Queen (UA - Turning into your raven seems like fun). I'm not really interested in the other patrons thematically despite knowing how good the Fiend is.

Races: V Human (feat), Half-Elf (obvious choice) or Changeling (18 Char at lvl 1 + change appearance)

Pact: I'm more interested in the Pact of Chains than the Pact of Tome. That's in part because I like the idea of getting an Imp and feel a bit overwhelmed by the options that Tome gives you.

Feats: I like the idea of Cross Bow expert to negate the disadvantage in melee, which would work well with repelling blast. Elven Accuracy if half-elf, Spell Sniper/Warcaster seem good too. But that's a whole lot of feats and I can't get them all without hindering myself too much.

I think I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed by the many combinations and options here and I'm looking for some advice from plays who know what works and what does not. Any suggestion or comment helps, thanks!

[sayaijin]

Warlock has a lot of options, and EB is a great primary plan as it keeps you on par with a lot of melee classes with the agonizing blast invocation.

If you're looking to optimize then sadly hexblade is going to be the best. I personally like celestial a lot for the free quasi-healing words you get from healing light, especially if there's no healer in the party. Although hopefully you are accounting for flavor here too - would you rather be enslaved to an angel/deity or some accursed weapon?

Do you plan to be a back line control/support mage, or be in the thick of it? If the former, then crossbow expert and warcaster are less valuable and something like inspiring leader would be great for someone with high charisma.

[KorvinStarmast]

Although hopefully you are accounting for flavor here too - would you rather be enslaved to an angel/deity or some accursed weapon?

I serve a Titan of my deity. That's my Celestial patron. he's good to me, when he bothers to call ... which is almost never.

[Willie the Duck]

I think I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed by the many combinations and options here and I'm looking for some advice from plays who know what works and what does not. Any suggestion or comment helps, thanks!

Combinations and options are what the warlock is all about. It is the build-a-bear class of 5e.

If you specifically want an EB build, then I think the first thing is that, yes, Crossbow expert is probably a great option (there are all sorts of other options, from being a Hexblade to being a tomelock with Shillelagh and a SCAG cantrip to having a bunch of keepaway abilities like Shocking Grasp or Armor of Agithis, but this solves the whole thing in one feat.

Second, despite how much ink it gets on these boards, if you aren't intending to us hexblade to go a wholloping with the two cha-based weapon attacks (plus hexblade's curse), don't take Hexblade. Moderately armored is a perfectly reasonable feat choice -- if you even need it considering that you are pushing people away, and you are starting at 10th level, so you can have it and XBE from the get-go -- and all the other patrons have such interesting things.

Beyond that, the EB build is relatively low invocation and spell cost, which means you can have a secondary gig doing something else. Want to be an infiltrator? Mask of many Faces. Discount Druid? Beast Speech. Pick a focus and likely there is a way to do it.

[micahaphone]

Going against the grain of typical warlock advice:

Hex isn't worth it at higher levels of play. EB w/ Agonizing does enough damage on its own and your concentration is too precious for a dps increase.

Granted, I'm playing a warlock in a party of 3, so maybe you'll fare better with more party members.

Generally, I use one spell slot for an aggressive damage over time or control spell (Fear, Hunger of Hadar, Sickening Radiance, etc), and keep one spell slot for emergency defense (Armor of Agathys, Dimension Door). In between these, shooting away with eldritch blast keeps the dps flowing.

[Maxilian]

Well, it depends a lot on your playstyle but i will give you some info of certain things:

1-For the Raven Queen Warlock, the Raven does not count as a familiar, for the sake of Find Familiar spell (or the Pact of the Chain), so you can have 2 familiars basically.

2-Pact of the Tome allows you to get rituals spells if you take the invocation for it, that will let you take Find Familiar spell, letting you get some of the benefits that the Pact of the Chain would have given you.

3-Celestial Warlock have the best in game in combat healing of all classes with the invocation (Gift of the Ever-living ones), letting all your self-heal be at maximum value (makes for an interesting Damage sponge warlock)

[Kemev]

Ok, so if you want a long-ish build walkthrough...

If you've never played a caster before, this is a good opportunity to try it out. You're starting at 10, so you get some fun options without having to suffer the low level slog. And warlock's got way less information to sort through than a prepared spell build, so this is the perfect on-ramp.

I'd recommend avoiding Hexblade, or some kind of crossbow nonsense; you're going to be back in the martial mix. I would also avoid Archfey (I feel like it tilts towards multiclassing; it's very powerful at low levels, but tapers off quickly without a second partner class).

For your preferences, that leaves Raven Queen or Celestial. Either way, I'd take the familiar. Pact of the Tome + Book of Secrets is a little more powerful, but you don't want to do the bookkeeping, so don't. (It's not like you're gimping yourself.) With RQ it is moderately weird that you get dual familiars, but it's also a chance to take 2 ravens and RP as low level Odin, which is majorly awesome. I think you've identified the pros of the Celestial warlock, so you can decide from there. Oddly enough, there are some similar functions between their two spell lists, with RQ being more cold damage, and Celestial more fire damage. If you haven't already, comparing the two might help make up your mind.

As far as races, you got more options than you might realize. I think you can scratch human off the list; if you're not a combatant, the feat isn't as good. Same for Changeling; it's mechanically worse than half-elf (remember, you have the option to Disguise Self at will with the Mask of Many Faces invocation, so the actual changing part is kinda redundant), although it has some fun story potential.

Half-elf is obviously great; besides the ability scores, the +2 skills of your choice is really good (one drawback of Warlock is that your skill list is weirdly bad for being a skillful character). The other +2 Cha races are worth a second look though: Tiefling, Aasimar, Yuan-Ti. Tiefling gets the best spells, and fire resistance is great. Yuan-Ti gets advantage vs. magic, which is also great, and poison immunity, which is pretty good, but at the cost of weaker spells. Your DM might also reasonably disallow Yuan-Ti for being monsters. Aasimar is mechanically the least satisfying, but it does vibe story-wise if you choose Celestial. Drow is ok too; it's a fan favorite with solid additional spells and racial feats.

I know a lot of players gloss over it, but for Warlock it's worth taking the time to think through your background and skills. You don't get expertise like Rogue/Bard, however, with Beguiling Influence (see below) you do end up with as many skills proficiencies. Plus, being Charisma-based makes you an ideal party face. If you decide against Beguiling influence, any background that gets Deception is decent (Charlatan, Criminal). Ordinarily, I would recommend taking Beguiling Influence and taking either Sage or Urchin. Sage gets a couple extra languages; Urchin gets better dungeon crawling skills. The deciding factor may be whether you have extra point to spare in Dex or Int. Keep in mind that depending on how your DM handles ToA, face skills might not be super relevant. The other option is to take any background that gets you Perception, because you're going to roll it all the damn time.

Talking about skills leads neatly into invocations... The only invocation you're locked into is Agonizing Blast. If you don't take this, your patron will disown you, and the other Warlocks will say mean things about you behind your back. Also to your face. And what could you do about it? Nothing. You didn't take Agonizing Blast.

If you end up choosing a Celestial patron, you're also locked into Gift of the Ever-Living Ones. This invocation is the reason to choose Celestial + Pact of the Chain. It's a very unusual caster combo, in that you are extraordinarily more resilient than almost any other character short of a Totem barbarian.

Past that, there are a few types of invocations you can cross off. You're not a Bladelock, so you don't need anything related to melee combat. Similarly, you don't need any of the other Eldritch Blast invocations; these are secretly also geared towards combat builds with the War Caster feat. I might be swimming against the tide when I say this, but I would not take Devil's Sight either. You might see a lot of recommendations that Devil's Sight + Darkness is the best combo ever, but it hampers the other characters in your party, and is usually very frustrating for the real people at the table. Do not do this.

Out of the remaining options, my personal favorites are Beguiling Influence, Ascendant Step, Mask of Many Faces, and Misty Visions. Except for Ascendant Step, these are all narrative based powers, which may be less useful for ToA. Since you're dungeon crawling, I might look at detection-oriented powers like Eldritch Sight and Ghostly Gaze, and a couple 1-shot effects like Dreadful Word or Minions of Chaos, which could swing an encounter gone bad (hi, it's ToA! all encounters will go bad).

Last you pick your spells. This is a bit of a farce; a level 10 warlock knows 10 spells, but can only cast 2 per short rest. So most of those spells are... irrelevant? That might be harsh, but you might not use everything you pick, and that's ok. At this point in the walkthrough, you've made a lot of choices already, so it's hard for me to advise on specifics. I would go with these general guidelines:

- For cantrips, you're taking Eldritch Blast and whatever utility effects strike your fancy. I like Prestidigitation, Mage Hand, and Minor Illusion, but it's not really a life or death decision. Except for Eldritch Blast, which you will take.

- For your actual spells, pick a couple options to DEVASTATE combat encounters. I agree with micahaphone -- Hex is not your option here. You're not looking to pick up a couple extra d6s... you need spells that will yield immediate, dramatic ways to reshape combat in your teams favor. Between RQ and Celestial, you're looking at spells like Ice Storm, Cone of Cold, Flame Strike, and Wall of Fire. If you decide on a different Pact, the role you're looking to fill is high damage, persistent effects that scale up damage at higher spell slots.

- Pick 3-4 options to solve narrative encounters. For better or worse, you're probably metagaming on these, 'cause you know how your DM thinks and I don't. If you've chosen Celestial, you might pick Cure Wounds and Restoration here, to help keep the rest of your party going. Something like Dispel Magic or Remove Curse fits as well; it's something that can restore a party member, or potentially disarm a magical trap. You could also pick spells to help solve puzzles... think something that could generate a useful clue like Comprehend Languages, or a deus ex machina spell like Contact Other Plane.

- Pick 1-2 "emergency valve" options. Sometimes you need to cut your losses, retreat, and regroup. These should be defensive oriented spells that let you escape a bad situation. I know some players like Armor of Agathys, but for a caster build, if you're getting hit, something has gone awry. I'd rather have a mobility based option to supplement Ascendant Step... something like Misty Step, Gaseous Form, or Dimension Door.

- Pick a couple options that seem fun. I dunno what these are, but this is an RPG, and you should feel empowered to pick spells that satisfy you as a player and that make sense for the story you're building for your character.

The only thing I haven't covered is feats, and these depend a lot on how you're assigning stats (are you rolling? is this a point buy?) and also your race. With an ordinary array or average rolls, you're probably looking at an ASI for +2 Cha, and a half feat to get you to Cha 20. The racial feats are strong options here, especially if you ended up with an odd value in Cha, where one of the racial half-feats like Elven Accuracy or Flames of Phlegethos puts you to a +1 mod. If you rolled high or started with a generous point buy method, starting Drow and going for Drow High Magic is a strong option as well.

Again, I'm sort of assuming you're going for a spell-slinging Raven Queen or Celestial pact build, and so the other feat to consider is Elemental Adept (either cold or fire, respectively). It's off the beaten path for most warlock builds, but making the most out of your limited spell slots is really important, and it works well in this particular build. Once you hit level 12, you have more options that open up... don't overlook utility feats like Dungeon Delver or Observant. The extra opportunities to defeat traps and solve puzzles will typically be worth far more than a bonus to a secondary ability score.