I'm a DM and player of course; I've played with Warlocks, and has a player who is playing a warlock. In one of my campaigns I'm a level 10 wizard along with a level 10 warlock companion.
I feel like I completely overshadow the Warlock, like to a substantial degree--enough so that I often don't use my familiar just so there can be value to his play. My wizard feels like cheat-mode--there's nothing the Warlock can do that the Wizard can't also do, or do better (am I wrong here though?)
In my own campaign where I have a player playing a warlock--it's like this: Eldritch Blast...Eldritch Blast....Eldritch blast. Such to the point that the other players laugh whenever its her turn, because basically Eldritch Blast is most of what she does in combat.
I've looked and researched, and I can't figure out what makes anyone choose a warlock at all (especially over a Wizard) Hexblade I understand, but what about the other subtypes?
It just seems so boring and limited--but maybe I'm missing something? Looking for feedback!
I think its more that wizards are ridiculously broken. What does any class being to the table when you have a wizard,. That fighter, what do they do every round, oh attack, attack, attack, lol how funny. It just is more obvious when the thematics of the two classes are similar like wizard to warlock.
Level 10 is probably the single worst warlock level, though tier 2 in general has this problem: you don't get a third spell slot until 11, which severely restricts your options, and you also get your first mystic arcanum at 11.
That said, what's your groups' adventuring day look like? More than any other class except maybe Monk, the Warlock is designed for the assumed "6-8 encounters with a couple of short rests" day. The more you diverge from that, the worse the warlock fares. (Unless you get more short rests, but that's very unusual.) Lots of encounters but no short rests? Warlock has to conserve their juice. Only one or two encounters? Warlock can let it go willy-nilly, but so can everybody else, and everybody else has more to go off with, because it's supposed to last them a full day.
I've looked and researched, and I can't figure out what makes anyone choose a warlock at all (especially over a Wizard) Hexblade I understand, but what about the other subtypes?
First and foremost, because they want to play a Warlock. Effectiveness doesn't enter into it for most people, nor should it. Warlocks (and all the classes, really) are effective enough that you don't feel useless, unless somebody else is heavily optimizing. It's a class with a lot of obvious role-playing potential, and a built-in source of drama and complications.
It's also got a lot of potential to reward creative play. Eldritch blast spam comes with a side of tactical positioning control, which works as a force multiplier on your and everybody else's area-denial spells. Very few things are more fun than continuously booting people back into your Hunger of Hadar. Pact of the blade (all, not just hexblade) is a melee fighter with spell backup. I've never really looked hard into the other two pacts, but a powered-up familiar has obvious potential, I just don't know if it lives up to it. There are also clever tricks one can work with regardless of pact and patron. (Darkness and Devil's Sight is one I see talked about a fair bit.)
Yes, I know all the classes can reward clever play, but the Warlock may have a greater need for creativity than most.
Also, are these Warlock players using Hex? I've become increasingly convinced that Hex is a trap and a bad piece of design. It may be great for numerically optimal play, but it's death for fun -- you always cast it, you can't use a concentration spell, and it barely does anything except give you bigger plusses. (This also applies to Hunter's Mark.) It's telling that they gave Hexblades a non-slot version of hex, and that's because they can't afford the slotted one.
Level 10 is probably the single worst warlock level, though tier 2 in general has this problem: you don't get a third spell slot until 11, which severely restricts your options, and you also get your first mystic arcanum at 11.
That said, what's your groups' adventuring day look like? More than any other class except maybe Monk, the Warlock is designed for the assumed "6-8 encounters with a couple of short rests" day. The more you diverge from that, the worse the warlock fares. (Unless you get more short rests, but that's very unusual.) Lots of encounters but no short rests? Warlock has to conserve their juice. Only one or two encounters? Warlock can let it go willy-nilly, but so can everybody else, and everybody else has more to go off with, because it's supposed to last them a full day.
I've looked and researched, and I can't figure out what makes anyone choose a warlock at all (especially over a Wizard) Hexblade I understand, but what about the other subtypes?
First and foremost, because they want to play a Warlock. Effectiveness doesn't enter into it for most people, nor should it. Warlocks (and all the classes, really) are effective enough that you don't feel useless, unless somebody else is heavily optimizing. It's a class with a lot of obvious role-playing potential, and a built-in source of drama and complications.
It's also got a lot of potential to reward creative play. Eldritch blast spam comes with a side of tactical positioning control, which works as a force multiplier on your and everybody else's area-denial spells. Very few things are more fun than continuously booting people back into your Hunger of Hadar. Pact of the blade (all, not just hexblade) is a melee fighter with spell backup. I've never really looked hard into the other two pacts, but a powered-up familiar has obvious potential, I just don't know if it lives up to it. There are also clever tricks one can work with regardless of pact and patron. (Darkness and Devil's Sight is one I see talked about a fair bit.)
Yes, I know all the classes can reward clever play, but the Warlock may have a greater need for creativity than most.
Also, are these Warlock players using Hex? I've become increasingly convinced that Hex is a trap and a bad piece of design. It may be great for numerically optimal play, but it's death for fun -- you always cast it, you can't use a concentration spell, and it barely does anything except give you bigger plusses. (This also applies to Hunter's Mark.) It's telling that they gave Hexblades a non-slot version of hex, and that's because they can't afford the slotted one.
Hex works if your DM lets you cast it and then rest and then you are willing to drop it as soon as you want to use another spell. That way it is a free cast. But I've seen on here a lot of DMs wont allow rest casting with warlocks despite that with it they are still less powerful than a basic wizard.
Also, are these Warlock players using Hex? I've become increasingly convinced that Hex is a trap and a bad piece of design. It may be great for numerically optimal play, but it's death for fun -- you always cast it, you can't use a concentration spell, and it barely does anything except give you bigger plusses. (This also applies to Hunter's Mark.) It's telling that they gave Hexblades a non-slot version of hex, and that's because they can't afford the slotted one.
Hex works if your DM lets you cast it and then rest and then you are willing to drop it as soon as you want to use another spell. That way it is a free cast. But I've seen on here a lot of DMs wont allow rest casting with warlocks despite that with it they are still less powerful than a basic wizard.
And the fact that you want to jump through those hoops (and be in tier 2 before it's an option) reinforces the argument that Hex is bad.
That said, it works as is. You get to do extra damage, often a lot of extra damage. It just makes Warlocks dull. I made a Warlock in my very first 5e game, didn't notice Hex was an option, and never missed it. (I was also joining an existing game at level 14, so my experience was atypical.)
So, I'm not seeing anything that defends the Warlock as a decent class.
One point about the social options seems pretty valid: Chr based is nice for RP, but, is there anything a Warlock can do that a Wizard can't do?
"I think its more that wizards are ridiculously broken. What does any class being to the table when you have a wizard,. "
The wizard is is just a fundamental niche class, like a tank, or cleric. It's crowd control mastery at its best. I actually think the Wizard class should be split into two classes: one DPS focused and another crowd control focused.
But I don't think its about the Wizard being overpowered, the Warlock just casts the same spell over and over and over in combat. Even the druid is substantially improved.
So ...so far maybe 1 reason the warlock isn't awful (RP potential), no other reasons? I was really hoping I was just missing something since I've never played one, but maybe not?
So, I'm not seeing anything that defends the Warlock as a decent class.
One point about the social options seems pretty valid: Chr based is nice for RP, but, is there anything a Warlock can do that a Wizard can't do?
"I think its more that wizards are ridiculously broken. What does any class being to the table when you have a wizard,. "
The wizard is is just a fundamental niche class, like a tank, or cleric. It's crowd control mastery at its best. I actually think the Wizard class should be split into two classes: one DPS focused and another crowd control focused.
But I don't think its about the Wizard being overpowered, the Warlock just casts the same spell over and over and over in combat. Even the druid is substantially improved.
So ...so far maybe 1 reason the warlock isn't awful (RP potential), no other reasons? I was really hoping I was just missing something since I've never played one, but maybe not?
Well you haven't really answered the questions.
I will do my best. So Warlocks have better at will casting because they can cast in social situations and exploration situations and simply recover their spells. They have the best at will damage of any caster with Eldritch blast. And they can cast more spells than any caster in a day given enough rests. But most of their power is still put into those rests. As was said if you only do 1 encounter a day and have no short rests than all short rest classes, including and especially the warlock, have no point in existing in the game. Wizard vs Warlock would be no different than Barbarian vs Monk or Ranger/Paladin vs Fighter. There isn't much of a point to play a fighter without short rests or multiple combats compared to playing a paladin who gets better social skills and is able to do more damage with smite spells. But as soon as short rests are brought in the fighter's action surges and second winds being recovered as well as subclass abilities like battle master all recovering really help it outlast the paladin.
Multiple combats and encounters per long rest are meant to allow short rest classes to shine as they have to be less conservative from encounter to encounter and force long rest characters to be conservative because they can't blow everything in one go and expect to be ready for what comes next. If you aren't playing the game in a way that allows the warlock to routinely get 2 short rests (in the current balance of the game) than the warlock is going to be underpowered. If you are playing it in a way that allows the warlock to do this, than it will throw out more big spells per day than the wizard and will have stronger cantrips than the wizard while also providing good social skills.
Also, are these Warlock players using Hex? I've become increasingly convinced that Hex is a trap and a bad piece of design. It may be great for numerically optimal play, but it's death for fun -- you always cast it, you can't use a concentration spell, and it barely does anything except give you bigger plusses. (This also applies to Hunter's Mark.) It's telling that they gave Hexblades a non-slot version of hex, and that's because they can't afford the slotted one.
Hex works if your DM lets you cast it and then rest and then you are willing to drop it as soon as you want to use another spell. That way it is a free cast. But I've seen on here a lot of DMs wont allow rest casting with warlocks despite that with it they are still less powerful than a basic wizard.
And the fact that you want to jump through those hoops (and be in tier 2 before it's an option) reinforces the argument that Hex is bad.
That said, it works as is. You get to do extra damage, often a lot of extra damage. It just makes Warlocks dull. I made a Warlock in my very first 5e game, didn't notice Hex was an option, and never missed it. (I was also joining an existing game at level 14, so my experience was atypical.)
Not really, its just that it is a first level spell and its competing against some insanely powered 3rd plus spells. In tier one you don;t need to do that because the spells you compete against are minor enough in power the 1d6 damage is worth it. and for the most part just as interesting. But compared to fear etc its just not. In tier 2 plus its extra damage and a minor debuff for free until you come across an encounter where you want to use something else.
That being said it probably can use some buffs to make it more interesting. Something simple like the enemy does not need to be dead to shift the hex and allow the warlock to swap the stat it hexes when its shifted to a new target or with a bonus action. That should be part of its upcasting. Upcasting for warlocks just needs some more oomph in general, their class is centered around it and the few warlock only spells there are either don't upcast or don't upcast well enough. Not that it will happen in 5.25 but that might have been a interesting class feature for warlocks something where when they upcast spells more happens than normal. At the end of the day they are still one of the better classes in the game. They just look bad compared to wizards which are the top class in the game with only bard in the running against them for that top slot.
"I think its more that wizards are ridiculously broken. What does any class being to the table when you have a wizard,. "
The wizard is is just a fundamental niche class, like a tank, or cleric. It's crowd control mastery at its best. I actually think the Wizard class should be split into two classes: one DPS focused and another crowd control focused.
But I don't think its about the Wizard being overpowered, the Warlock just casts the same spell over and over and over in combat. Even the druid is substantially improved.
They may be a fundamental niche class, but they are far ahead of every other class except maybe bard in being the most powerful class in the game. Warlocks have a similar vibe and feel to them so when in the same party unless you get a lot of short rests they will look worse in comparison. Sure being able to cast change self at will in some specific encounters or campaign styles may let a warlock shine, but more often than not a single cast is enough and the wizard will just have enough spells that it does not matter. But they look fine compared to a druid as the druids spell list just is not as impressive as a wizards, so begin able to cast 15 leveled spells compared to the warlocks 2 is not as impressive for the druid. But the warlock should at level 10 be casting more than just eldritch blast. They do have 2 5th level slots. Any time a fight warrants more than basic DPR they should be using them. And when they have used them all they should try to get a short rest. They should be able to cast one big spell per fight and then get a rest. As generally every couple fights people will normally rest to get back hit points and other basic resources.
But instead of comparing the to your wizard how do they look compared to the fighter, barbarian, rogue etc. Odds are they stack up fine outside some serious min maxing discrepancies, they may eldritch blast all the time like the rogue sneak attacks all the time. the rouge will have skills vs the warlocks spells and invocations.
So, I'm not seeing anything that defends the Warlock as a decent class.
One point about the social options seems pretty valid: Chr based is nice for RP, but, is there anything a Warlock can do that a Wizard can't do?
A bunch of spells and spell-like effects that they can do all day. (See in the dark, levitate, etc.)
Tactical positional control on a free spell.
Said free spell is also the single best damaging cantrip, more-or-less capable of keeping up with a melee character.
Now, most of their coolest stuff is invocations and subclass benefits, but they can also cast 6+ 5th level spells over the course of a "normal" adventuring day.
"I think its more that wizards are ridiculously broken. What does any class being to the table when you have a wizard,. "
The wizard is is just a fundamental niche class, like a tank, or cleric. It's crowd control mastery at its best. I actually think the Wizard class should be split into two classes: one DPS focused and another crowd control focused.
That's less a niche and more "do everything". If you could peel off the DPS from a wizard, your new DPS caster class would be in direct competition with the warlock.
But I don't think its about the Wizard being overpowered, the Warlock just casts the same spell over and over and over in combat.
Obviously they can, but they don't have to. The warlock is no more an eldritch blast class than wizard is a fireball machine. Yes, Eldritch Blast is often their workhorse, because they are kind of a DPS class, but they're still quite flexible. That warlock I mentioned above's most effective spell was probably Banishment. EB was what I did when I didn't need to do anything else. (Or when I was playing "knockback for fun and profit").
So, seeing some of the replies here I feel like is a good defense, but not exactly a reason for why I'd say the warlock is great on its own without any multiclassing. But let's take a look at The Genie!
At first and second level, the genie is already a really good ranged attacker. With Genie's wrath, hex, and EB, you're looking at a 4 of minimum damage should the hit land, and 7 once AB is added at lvl 2. That alone is solid, and that's just talking about the minimum rolls of both hex and EB. Wizards don't hit that high on resourceless damage, unless we're talking niche examples (i.e. bladesingers, but even then there are caveats).
At third level, you could go pact of the chain. Now,OP mentioned forgoing the use of their familiar tto help their warlock friend out, but a warlock's familiar is just far and away superior in almost every important category. Imps have hands, and therefore can interact with items like potions RAW. Imps can also fly and go invisible. Should you want, as a genie you can retreat into your tiny vessel and have your familiar carry it to some far off place. Effectively speaking, you can fly once a day in tier 1. That's pretty huge, and a wizard can't do that.
Later on, a genie (or any warlock really) could access the invocation "voice of the chain master" and make their familiar a wayyy better scouting and espionage tool than anything the wizard has. I mean, if you're entering a dark cave, few things are a better candidate to scout than the imp who can fly, is invisible, and can see in the dark via devil sight. Thanks to the invocation, a warlock can afford to sit at their inn, sipping on tea while their imp could be miles away scouting the cave the party is considering exploring later on.
Speaking of espionage, the warlock could also do this with relative ease. With invocations like mask of many faces, you could build your warlock as an infiltrator. You could take the actor feat as part of your build, because it offers a +1 to charisma. Thanks to being a charisma based class, skills like deception and persuasion could be built with proficiency or even expertise with today's options. Don't like the Actor feat? Skill Expert is right there and is just as effective if not more so. Wizards aren't doing this anytime soon, certainly not as easily or as well.
And of course, there are the spells. Warlocks have acces to hypnotic pattern like any good caster, they can cast synaptic static, . You can, to a certain degree, build and play like a controller. One spell slot per encounter can suffice, and in my experience it often has. In situations where control is not the best option, warlocks can also summon shadowspawn or summon greater demon at least to help out with action economy with a good degree of effectiveness.
At 10th level, guess what? The genie can have everyone in the party can get in the vessel for a short rest in 10 minutes. Catnap exists, sure, but that only targets half the number of Sanctuary Vessel, and has more risks since targets have to be asleep whereas with the vessel, they don't, and again, the imp can carry the vessel for that time and continue traveling.
All of this can be done on one character! That's why warlock is still worth playing and still worth keeping as a purebred.
I wanted to note that hex can still be a great spell at higher levels for warlock depending on how you are "building" your warlock. If you make the warlock to take advantage of a lot of non-concentration spells like fireball(fiend), armor of agathys, synaptic static and the like than keeping hex up between fights and keeping it up through rests essentially allows a small buff extra spell to compliment your blasts
I just think its your table. I'm playing a warlock, and in the early levels I was the best damage dealer in our group. Playing a chainpact with an imp gives me options a wizard cannot do.
The warlock uses CHA to put all their resources into. So you will be better than anyone save the bard in RP. In our game, some of the harder challenges the DM throws at us are social encounters. Whenever that comes up, guess which character is being leaned on to take charge?
The invocations are often overlooked. Many of the good ones are at-will. Things like Gift of the Ever Living Ones means you heal way faster than the rest of your group. On a short rest when you can spend hit dice to heal that can be critical. And you want short rests already. Other classes have to burn resources to do these things.
Nobody thinks twice when the martials attack each round, so never get the hate on EB. I'm doing d10+5 with three attacks per round. Oh and I'm using Repelling Blast to kite someone, and none of this is costing me a single resource. I'm good with that each round, and my battlefield control caster loves that I do it well.
Play what you like, but I don't have the same experience playing a warlock.
I just think its your table. I'm playing a warlock, and in the early levels I was the best damage dealer in our group. Playing a chainpact with an imp gives me options a wizard cannot do.
The warlock uses CHA to put all their resources into. So you will be better than anyone save the bard in RP. In our game, some of the harder challenges the DM throws at us are social encounters. Whenever that comes up, guess which character is being leaned on to take charge?
The invocations are often overlooked. Many of the good ones are at-will. Things like Gift of the Ever Living Ones means you heal way faster than the rest of your group. On a short rest when you can spend hit dice to heal that can be critical. And you want short rests already. Other classes have to burn resources to do these things.
Nobody thinks twice when the martials attack each round, so never get the hate on EB. I'm doing d10+5 with three attacks per round. Oh and I'm using Repelling Blast to kite someone, and none of this is costing me a single resource. I'm good with that each round, and my battlefield control caster loves that I do it well.
Play what you like, but I don't have the same experience playing a warlock.
Maybe, sort of. I think its wide spread enough the its your table thing doesn't work well. All the uproar about people not doing short rests which is why they wanted to make warlocks a 1/2 caster class shows its pretty wide spread. I hated that design, and still think they were looking at it backwards. The problem isn't the warlock didn't get enough resources its that full casters have far too many resources, so many that outside rare campaigns that follow the stated guidelines, resources other than hit points are a meaningless concept past level 5. Never running out of arrow shots, or eldritch blasts is super cool if the wizard ever ran out of leveled spells.(at least remove their short rest recharge, that steals a lot of the warlocks gimmick) That being said I think the warlock can still work fine in those campaigns, just like the fighter does. Just speak up for yourself and asks for rests when needed. I'd like to think most people play with people they are friendly with so it should not be an issue. Sure certain campaign points it wont make sense, but you are not storming the castle every session. But from my reading outside one person whose campaign is apparently non stop you can never take a break, most people just felt awkward asking for a rest when they ran out of spells. I do think they could have trimmed the short rests time down a bit. maybe not 4es 5 minutes, but 20 minutes, something where people felt it was something not as disruptive or hard to pull off. Though I'll note everyone understands it when the wizard/cleric do the same for a long rest. And no one complains when the fighter wants a short rest to get back some hit points. For some reason its just the warlock where people feel awkward asking for a rest.
I just think its your table. I'm playing a warlock, and in the early levels I was the best damage dealer in our group. Playing a chainpact with an imp gives me options a wizard cannot do.
The warlock uses CHA to put all their resources into. So you will be better than anyone save the bard in RP. In our game, some of the harder challenges the DM throws at us are social encounters. Whenever that comes up, guess which character is being leaned on to take charge?
The invocations are often overlooked. Many of the good ones are at-will. Things like Gift of the Ever Living Ones means you heal way faster than the rest of your group. On a short rest when you can spend hit dice to heal that can be critical. And you want short rests already. Other classes have to burn resources to do these things.
Nobody thinks twice when the martials attack each round, so never get the hate on EB. I'm doing d10+5 with three attacks per round. Oh and I'm using Repelling Blast to kite someone, and none of this is costing me a single resource. I'm good with that each round, and my battlefield control caster loves that I do it well.
Play what you like, but I don't have the same experience playing a warlock.
Maybe, sort of. I think its wide spread enough the its your table thing doesn't work well. All the uproar about people not doing short rests which is why they wanted to make warlocks a 1/2 caster class shows its pretty wide spread. I hated that design, and still think they were looking at it backwards. The problem isn't the warlock didn't get enough resources its that full casters have far too many resources, so many that outside rare campaigns that follow the stated guidelines, resources other than hit points are a meaningless concept past level 5. Never running out of arrow shots, or eldritch blasts is super cool if the wizard ever ran out of leveled spells.(at least remove their short rest recharge, that steals a lot of the warlocks gimmick) That being said I think the warlock can still work fine in those campaigns, just like the fighter does. Just speak up for yourself and asks for rests when needed. I'd like to think most people play with people they are friendly with so it should not be an issue. Sure certain campaign points it wont make sense, but you are not storming the castle every session. But from my reading outside one person whose campaign is apparently non stop you can never take a break, most people just felt awkward asking for a rest when they ran out of spells. I do think they could have trimmed the short rests time down a bit. maybe not 4es 5 minutes, but 20 minutes, something where people felt it was something not as disruptive or hard to pull off. Though I'll note everyone understands it when the wizard/cleric do the same for a long rest. And no one complains when the fighter wants a short rest to get back some hit points. For some reason its just the warlock where people feel awkward asking for a rest.
To add on to this I have often said that you can, and probably should, adjust short rests to fit your campaign and gameplay pace. If the table is only having 1 or 2 fights per 24 hour day making long rests take 2 or 3 days and having short rests be 8 hours puts more strain on the long rest classes and allows the short rest classes to shine as the pace of the adventure is typically a little slower. This also works well if you allow things like crafting and other downtime activities during the 2 to 3 day long rests to bring in and encourage more downtime activities in such adventures. This makes every decision and every spell cast by both short rest and long rest classes more meaningful while also helping the gameplay balance of the table all while keeping the pace and tension of an adventure built around 1 or 2 fights a day.
If your game is a bit more fast paced and massive dungeon crawls reducing short rests to 5 minutes and long rests to an hour, but still only allowing 1 long rest per 24 hour period, could still allow short rest classes to shine. Tons and tons of short rests aren't needed but adjusting the resting rules to fit the type of adventure should be encouraged more.
The thing about warlocks is you can build/play them to be very ineffective. Warlocks have a lot of bad options that can result in a weak PC. There are extremely bad subclasses, spell choices, invocations can result in a character that isn't in the same league as other classes. Warlocks also have to be more mindful of resource management than other classes. If you are too wasteful or too stingy with slots vs how often you short rest your impact will be minimal.
Pros: Repelling blast -Nothing allows you to move enemies around like this, no save, multiple targets, for up to 40ft of push at lv17. This can act like a disengage for your allies, push enemies back into spells or off terrain. EB+hex+agonizing is only decent damage, but if you factor in the positioning it allows, it makes the cantrip good instead of just ok, and gives warlocks a unique style of play.
Hunger of Hadar -Blinds everything inside a 20ft radius that is rough terrain, with no save and does up to 4d6 per turn. Blind gives advantage for all attackers and disadvantage on all attacks. Couple this with repelling blast to keep enemies inside.
Other EB invocations: -lance of lethargy, -10 speed, for keeping targets in AoE, especially when there is difficult terrain. -grasp of hadar, when you need to pull instead of push.
All of this, blind, repostions and slows have no saves. The EB stuff does need to hit but you get mutiple shots that can hit multiple targets
The Good Invocations: -Book of ancient secrets Pact of the tome and book of ancient secrets can give you guidance/resistance and find familiar. You can put your familiar in someone's pocket and cast guidance/resistance though the familiar. Or just cast it on the familiar and have +d4 to perception/stealth while scouting. The rituals for the book of ancient secrets can be from any class so you can pick up really useful things that wizards can't, like speak with animals, silence and commune. What makes it unique is warlocks don't need to prep the rituals like cleric/druids so they can have highly situational rituals that clerics/druids will never have prepped. Things like commune with nature, skywrite, animal messenger, meld into stone, detect poison, etc probably aren't going to be prepped unless you happen to know you need it a day in advance, while a warlock can have all of them. (Also the phantom steed ritual can give the warlock a mount that can dash for 200ft of movement which allows them to position to knock things around to where you want them with repelling blast)
At will spells invocations: -Having some spells, even low level ones as free casts can be incredibly powerful and fun to play with -disguise self/ alter self -detect magic (yes it's a ritual but having it on all the time instead of only when you have 10 spare min and already think there is something magical around is incredibly impactful) -invisibility
The good subclasses: Genie, fathomless, hexblade, and to some extent fiend all have some exceptions features that add more than most wizard subclasses.
The thing is you get so much of what makes warlocks good with just 2 levels and most of the benifit with 5 levels. After that you get so much more from multiclassing then you do from going all warlock that it's really hard to justify.
I've played both Warlock and Wizard to teir 3 of play. Imo one area where Warlocks can feel more effective is when exploring a dungeon at level 5+. In a dungeon you can have lots of small enouters every other room you enter. In that scenario EB will do more damage than lower level spell slots, (and knocks stuff around). Wizards don't really have a great option here. Cantrips are weak, and low slots do the same damage as scaled cantrips. AoE damage and CC can be ok but still dont do great damage and tend to be hard to place in small rooms. If you are using slots for encountrs like this you will run out fast.
Warlocks are ridiculously dependent on the player that is using them. Regardless, I don't see many people denying that compared to most other classes, they have very few resources, and can only do so much in any given situation. While they can be built to fill certain niches extremely well and have probably the most variety, they don't fill a lot of typical roles, or at least not well. They sorely lack in versatility, they usually don't output very impressive damage, their spell list is generally pretty mediocre, and unless you're a Hexblade, you aren't all that useful in martial situations. Still, calling them useless in all scenarios is a reach, considering just how much synergy they have in certain situations with party members, and in multiclassing. They have some really amazing subclasses (Celestial, Hexblade, Genie) that can make up for a lot of the weaknesses that the base Warlock carries around. They're definitely going to feel unimpressive compared to other classes that can cast more than 3 leveled spells per rest, and can cure cancer, but that isn't a reason to overlook the power that they can tote in a lot of situations, especially with certain builds.
Warlocks should really be compared to the other half casters like Artificer/Ranger/Paladin. They have a number of attacks/damage closer to a fighter with EB+AB+Hex while also having limited spell access. When compared to Bard/Sorc/Wizard they may have access to similar spells, but the playstyle is more like the half casters due to the limited slots.
Warlocks are ridiculously dependent on the player that is using them. Regardless, I don't see many people denying that compared to most other classes, they have very few resources, and can only do so much in any given situation. While they can be built to fill certain niches extremely well and have probably the most variety, they don't fill a lot of typical roles, or at least not well. They sorely lack in versatility, they usually don't output very impressive damage, their spell list is generally pretty mediocre, and unless you're a Hexblade, you aren't all that useful in martial situations. Still, calling them useless in all scenarios is a reach, considering just how much synergy they have in certain situations with party members, and in multiclassing. They have some really amazing subclasses (Celestial, Hexblade, Genie) that can make up for a lot of the weaknesses that the base Warlock carries around. They're definitely going to feel unimpressive compared to other classes that can cast more than 3 leveled spells per rest, and can cure cancer, but that isn't a reason to overlook the power that they can tote in a lot of situations, especially with certain builds.
So this is kind of a weird take to me. The warlock can not do a lot of casting in any given situation. But they know far more spells than they can cast in any situation meaning they can tool themselves to be great in many different situations. But their not going to have a bunch of different tools for those situations. They will have their go-to strategy in combat with maybe 1 back-up strategy. Than after that all of their spells will be tooled towards exploration and social pillars and various utility. They don't have a huge utility list, but it is still there.
As an example A fey lock at level 10 can get its go-to combat spells of fear or hypnotic pattern and synaptic static, have back up spells like dispel magic and counter spell, and that is only 4 of their known spells and none of their invocations. After that the rest of the known spells can all be for various situations, suggestion, dimension door, charm person, fly, invisibility, seaming, dream, maybe.
The warlock can have a big tool box with a lot of spells that say "in case of x use y" and they are good to go. While still having a go-to in combat because it isn't like they are going to include "never used" strategies.
This is in stark contrast to a sorcerer who has so much more slots and spell casting than they know spells and thus will need a spell to be generally good in a lot of different situations rather than something that is tooled specifically for a situation.
In general, every time someone tells me a warlock can't utility cast I scratch my head and wonder what they are doing with their other 5-7 spells known.
Yeah, some of these takes are making me think people either don't play warlocks much or aren't building them right.
You are a built in party Face, and you have invocations that could make you insanely good at it. You are only dependent on CHA for your spell DC, and for your attack modifier for EB, which you also can pile damage on with one invocation. Depending on your pact and patron, you can be especially versatile in whatever role you want to provide in your group. Short rests exist for a reason. Your warlock can have a bunch of those situational spells in their back pocket for "what if" scenarios and still get a ton of mileage out of base abilities. You should look to empty the tank in any dangerous combat, knowing in an hour you are back at full power.
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Howdy!
I'm a DM and player of course; I've played with Warlocks, and has a player who is playing a warlock. In one of my campaigns I'm a level 10 wizard along with a level 10 warlock companion.
I feel like I completely overshadow the Warlock, like to a substantial degree--enough so that I often don't use my familiar just so there can be value to his play. My wizard feels like cheat-mode--there's nothing the Warlock can do that the Wizard can't also do, or do better (am I wrong here though?)
In my own campaign where I have a player playing a warlock--it's like this: Eldritch Blast...Eldritch Blast....Eldritch blast. Such to the point that the other players laugh whenever its her turn, because basically Eldritch Blast is most of what she does in combat.
I've looked and researched, and I can't figure out what makes anyone choose a warlock at all (especially over a Wizard) Hexblade I understand, but what about the other subtypes?
It just seems so boring and limited--but maybe I'm missing something? Looking for feedback!
I think its more that wizards are ridiculously broken. What does any class being to the table when you have a wizard,. That fighter, what do they do every round, oh attack, attack, attack, lol how funny. It just is more obvious when the thematics of the two classes are similar like wizard to warlock.
Level 10 is probably the single worst warlock level, though tier 2 in general has this problem: you don't get a third spell slot until 11, which severely restricts your options, and you also get your first mystic arcanum at 11.
That said, what's your groups' adventuring day look like? More than any other class except maybe Monk, the Warlock is designed for the assumed "6-8 encounters with a couple of short rests" day. The more you diverge from that, the worse the warlock fares. (Unless you get more short rests, but that's very unusual.) Lots of encounters but no short rests? Warlock has to conserve their juice. Only one or two encounters? Warlock can let it go willy-nilly, but so can everybody else, and everybody else has more to go off with, because it's supposed to last them a full day.
First and foremost, because they want to play a Warlock. Effectiveness doesn't enter into it for most people, nor should it. Warlocks (and all the classes, really) are effective enough that you don't feel useless, unless somebody else is heavily optimizing. It's a class with a lot of obvious role-playing potential, and a built-in source of drama and complications.
It's also got a lot of potential to reward creative play. Eldritch blast spam comes with a side of tactical positioning control, which works as a force multiplier on your and everybody else's area-denial spells. Very few things are more fun than continuously booting people back into your Hunger of Hadar. Pact of the blade (all, not just hexblade) is a melee fighter with spell backup. I've never really looked hard into the other two pacts, but a powered-up familiar has obvious potential, I just don't know if it lives up to it. There are also clever tricks one can work with regardless of pact and patron. (Darkness and Devil's Sight is one I see talked about a fair bit.)
Yes, I know all the classes can reward clever play, but the Warlock may have a greater need for creativity than most.
Also, are these Warlock players using Hex? I've become increasingly convinced that Hex is a trap and a bad piece of design. It may be great for numerically optimal play, but it's death for fun -- you always cast it, you can't use a concentration spell, and it barely does anything except give you bigger plusses. (This also applies to Hunter's Mark.) It's telling that they gave Hexblades a non-slot version of hex, and that's because they can't afford the slotted one.
Hex works if your DM lets you cast it and then rest and then you are willing to drop it as soon as you want to use another spell. That way it is a free cast. But I've seen on here a lot of DMs wont allow rest casting with warlocks despite that with it they are still less powerful than a basic wizard.
And the fact that you want to jump through those hoops (and be in tier 2 before it's an option) reinforces the argument that Hex is bad.
That said, it works as is. You get to do extra damage, often a lot of extra damage. It just makes Warlocks dull. I made a Warlock in my very first 5e game, didn't notice Hex was an option, and never missed it. (I was also joining an existing game at level 14, so my experience was atypical.)
So, I'm not seeing anything that defends the Warlock as a decent class.
One point about the social options seems pretty valid: Chr based is nice for RP, but, is there anything a Warlock can do that a Wizard can't do?
"I think its more that wizards are ridiculously broken. What does any class being to the table when you have a wizard,. "
The wizard is is just a fundamental niche class, like a tank, or cleric. It's crowd control mastery at its best. I actually think the Wizard class should be split into two classes: one DPS focused and another crowd control focused.
But I don't think its about the Wizard being overpowered, the Warlock just casts the same spell over and over and over in combat. Even the druid is substantially improved.
So ...so far maybe 1 reason the warlock isn't awful (RP potential), no other reasons? I was really hoping I was just missing something since I've never played one, but maybe not?
Well you haven't really answered the questions.
I will do my best. So Warlocks have better at will casting because they can cast in social situations and exploration situations and simply recover their spells. They have the best at will damage of any caster with Eldritch blast. And they can cast more spells than any caster in a day given enough rests. But most of their power is still put into those rests. As was said if you only do 1 encounter a day and have no short rests than all short rest classes, including and especially the warlock, have no point in existing in the game. Wizard vs Warlock would be no different than Barbarian vs Monk or Ranger/Paladin vs Fighter. There isn't much of a point to play a fighter without short rests or multiple combats compared to playing a paladin who gets better social skills and is able to do more damage with smite spells. But as soon as short rests are brought in the fighter's action surges and second winds being recovered as well as subclass abilities like battle master all recovering really help it outlast the paladin.
Multiple combats and encounters per long rest are meant to allow short rest classes to shine as they have to be less conservative from encounter to encounter and force long rest characters to be conservative because they can't blow everything in one go and expect to be ready for what comes next. If you aren't playing the game in a way that allows the warlock to routinely get 2 short rests (in the current balance of the game) than the warlock is going to be underpowered. If you are playing it in a way that allows the warlock to do this, than it will throw out more big spells per day than the wizard and will have stronger cantrips than the wizard while also providing good social skills.
Not really, its just that it is a first level spell and its competing against some insanely powered 3rd plus spells. In tier one you don;t need to do that because the spells you compete against are minor enough in power the 1d6 damage is worth it. and for the most part just as interesting. But compared to fear etc its just not. In tier 2 plus its extra damage and a minor debuff for free until you come across an encounter where you want to use something else.
That being said it probably can use some buffs to make it more interesting. Something simple like the enemy does not need to be dead to shift the hex and allow the warlock to swap the stat it hexes when its shifted to a new target or with a bonus action. That should be part of its upcasting. Upcasting for warlocks just needs some more oomph in general, their class is centered around it and the few warlock only spells there are either don't upcast or don't upcast well enough. Not that it will happen in 5.25 but that might have been a interesting class feature for warlocks something where when they upcast spells more happens than normal. At the end of the day they are still one of the better classes in the game. They just look bad compared to wizards which are the top class in the game with only bard in the running against them for that top slot.
They may be a fundamental niche class, but they are far ahead of every other class except maybe bard in being the most powerful class in the game. Warlocks have a similar vibe and feel to them so when in the same party unless you get a lot of short rests they will look worse in comparison. Sure being able to cast change self at will in some specific encounters or campaign styles may let a warlock shine, but more often than not a single cast is enough and the wizard will just have enough spells that it does not matter. But they look fine compared to a druid as the druids spell list just is not as impressive as a wizards, so begin able to cast 15 leveled spells compared to the warlocks 2 is not as impressive for the druid. But the warlock should at level 10 be casting more than just eldritch blast. They do have 2 5th level slots. Any time a fight warrants more than basic DPR they should be using them. And when they have used them all they should try to get a short rest. They should be able to cast one big spell per fight and then get a rest. As generally every couple fights people will normally rest to get back hit points and other basic resources.
But instead of comparing the to your wizard how do they look compared to the fighter, barbarian, rogue etc. Odds are they stack up fine outside some serious min maxing discrepancies, they may eldritch blast all the time like the rogue sneak attacks all the time. the rouge will have skills vs the warlocks spells and invocations.
A bunch of spells and spell-like effects that they can do all day. (See in the dark, levitate, etc.)
Tactical positional control on a free spell.
Said free spell is also the single best damaging cantrip, more-or-less capable of keeping up with a melee character.
Now, most of their coolest stuff is invocations and subclass benefits, but they can also cast 6+ 5th level spells over the course of a "normal" adventuring day.
That's less a niche and more "do everything". If you could peel off the DPS from a wizard, your new DPS caster class would be in direct competition with the warlock.
Obviously they can, but they don't have to. The warlock is no more an eldritch blast class than wizard is a fireball machine. Yes, Eldritch Blast is often their workhorse, because they are kind of a DPS class, but they're still quite flexible. That warlock I mentioned above's most effective spell was probably Banishment. EB was what I did when I didn't need to do anything else. (Or when I was playing "knockback for fun and profit").
So, seeing some of the replies here I feel like is a good defense, but not exactly a reason for why I'd say the warlock is great on its own without any multiclassing. But let's take a look at The Genie!
At first and second level, the genie is already a really good ranged attacker. With Genie's wrath, hex, and EB, you're looking at a 4 of minimum damage should the hit land, and 7 once AB is added at lvl 2. That alone is solid, and that's just talking about the minimum rolls of both hex and EB. Wizards don't hit that high on resourceless damage, unless we're talking niche examples (i.e. bladesingers, but even then there are caveats).
At third level, you could go pact of the chain. Now,OP mentioned forgoing the use of their familiar tto help their warlock friend out, but a warlock's familiar is just far and away superior in almost every important category. Imps have hands, and therefore can interact with items like potions RAW. Imps can also fly and go invisible. Should you want, as a genie you can retreat into your tiny vessel and have your familiar carry it to some far off place. Effectively speaking, you can fly once a day in tier 1. That's pretty huge, and a wizard can't do that.
Later on, a genie (or any warlock really) could access the invocation "voice of the chain master" and make their familiar a wayyy better scouting and espionage tool than anything the wizard has. I mean, if you're entering a dark cave, few things are a better candidate to scout than the imp who can fly, is invisible, and can see in the dark via devil sight. Thanks to the invocation, a warlock can afford to sit at their inn, sipping on tea while their imp could be miles away scouting the cave the party is considering exploring later on.
Speaking of espionage, the warlock could also do this with relative ease. With invocations like mask of many faces, you could build your warlock as an infiltrator. You could take the actor feat as part of your build, because it offers a +1 to charisma. Thanks to being a charisma based class, skills like deception and persuasion could be built with proficiency or even expertise with today's options. Don't like the Actor feat? Skill Expert is right there and is just as effective if not more so. Wizards aren't doing this anytime soon, certainly not as easily or as well.
And of course, there are the spells. Warlocks have acces to hypnotic pattern like any good caster, they can cast synaptic static, . You can, to a certain degree, build and play like a controller. One spell slot per encounter can suffice, and in my experience it often has. In situations where control is not the best option, warlocks can also summon shadowspawn or summon greater demon at least to help out with action economy with a good degree of effectiveness.
At 10th level, guess what? The genie can have everyone in the party can get in the vessel for a short rest in 10 minutes. Catnap exists, sure, but that only targets half the number of Sanctuary Vessel, and has more risks since targets have to be asleep whereas with the vessel, they don't, and again, the imp can carry the vessel for that time and continue traveling.
All of this can be done on one character! That's why warlock is still worth playing and still worth keeping as a purebred.
I wanted to note that hex can still be a great spell at higher levels for warlock depending on how you are "building" your warlock. If you make the warlock to take advantage of a lot of non-concentration spells like fireball(fiend), armor of agathys, synaptic static and the like than keeping hex up between fights and keeping it up through rests essentially allows a small buff extra spell to compliment your blasts
I just think its your table. I'm playing a warlock, and in the early levels I was the best damage dealer in our group. Playing a chainpact with an imp gives me options a wizard cannot do.
The warlock uses CHA to put all their resources into. So you will be better than anyone save the bard in RP. In our game, some of the harder challenges the DM throws at us are social encounters. Whenever that comes up, guess which character is being leaned on to take charge?
The invocations are often overlooked. Many of the good ones are at-will. Things like Gift of the Ever Living Ones means you heal way faster than the rest of your group. On a short rest when you can spend hit dice to heal that can be critical. And you want short rests already. Other classes have to burn resources to do these things.
Nobody thinks twice when the martials attack each round, so never get the hate on EB. I'm doing d10+5 with three attacks per round. Oh and I'm using Repelling Blast to kite someone, and none of this is costing me a single resource. I'm good with that each round, and my battlefield control caster loves that I do it well.
Play what you like, but I don't have the same experience playing a warlock.
Maybe, sort of. I think its wide spread enough the its your table thing doesn't work well. All the uproar about people not doing short rests which is why they wanted to make warlocks a 1/2 caster class shows its pretty wide spread. I hated that design, and still think they were looking at it backwards. The problem isn't the warlock didn't get enough resources its that full casters have far too many resources, so many that outside rare campaigns that follow the stated guidelines, resources other than hit points are a meaningless concept past level 5. Never running out of arrow shots, or eldritch blasts is super cool if the wizard ever ran out of leveled spells.(at least remove their short rest recharge, that steals a lot of the warlocks gimmick) That being said I think the warlock can still work fine in those campaigns, just like the fighter does. Just speak up for yourself and asks for rests when needed. I'd like to think most people play with people they are friendly with so it should not be an issue. Sure certain campaign points it wont make sense, but you are not storming the castle every session. But from my reading outside one person whose campaign is apparently non stop you can never take a break, most people just felt awkward asking for a rest when they ran out of spells. I do think they could have trimmed the short rests time down a bit. maybe not 4es 5 minutes, but 20 minutes, something where people felt it was something not as disruptive or hard to pull off. Though I'll note everyone understands it when the wizard/cleric do the same for a long rest. And no one complains when the fighter wants a short rest to get back some hit points. For some reason its just the warlock where people feel awkward asking for a rest.
To add on to this I have often said that you can, and probably should, adjust short rests to fit your campaign and gameplay pace. If the table is only having 1 or 2 fights per 24 hour day making long rests take 2 or 3 days and having short rests be 8 hours puts more strain on the long rest classes and allows the short rest classes to shine as the pace of the adventure is typically a little slower. This also works well if you allow things like crafting and other downtime activities during the 2 to 3 day long rests to bring in and encourage more downtime activities in such adventures. This makes every decision and every spell cast by both short rest and long rest classes more meaningful while also helping the gameplay balance of the table all while keeping the pace and tension of an adventure built around 1 or 2 fights a day.
If your game is a bit more fast paced and massive dungeon crawls reducing short rests to 5 minutes and long rests to an hour, but still only allowing 1 long rest per 24 hour period, could still allow short rest classes to shine. Tons and tons of short rests aren't needed but adjusting the resting rules to fit the type of adventure should be encouraged more.
The thing about warlocks is you can build/play them to be very ineffective.
Warlocks have a lot of bad options that can result in a weak PC. There are extremely bad subclasses, spell choices, invocations can result in a character that isn't in the same league as other classes.
Warlocks also have to be more mindful of resource management than other classes. If you are too wasteful or too stingy with slots vs how often you short rest your impact will be minimal.
Pros:
Repelling blast
-Nothing allows you to move enemies around like this, no save, multiple targets, for up to 40ft of push at lv17. This can act like a disengage for your allies, push enemies back into spells or off terrain. EB+hex+agonizing is only decent damage, but if you factor in the positioning it allows, it makes the cantrip good instead of just ok, and gives warlocks a unique style of play.
Hunger of Hadar
-Blinds everything inside a 20ft radius that is rough terrain, with no save and does up to 4d6 per turn. Blind gives advantage for all attackers and disadvantage on all attacks. Couple this with repelling blast to keep enemies inside.
Other EB invocations:
-lance of lethargy, -10 speed, for keeping targets in AoE, especially when there is difficult terrain.
-grasp of hadar, when you need to pull instead of push.
All of this, blind, repostions and slows have no saves. The EB stuff does need to hit but you get mutiple shots that can hit multiple targets
The Good Invocations:
-Book of ancient secrets
Pact of the tome and book of ancient secrets can give you guidance/resistance and find familiar. You can put your familiar in someone's pocket and cast guidance/resistance though the familiar. Or just cast it on the familiar and have +d4 to perception/stealth while scouting.
The rituals for the book of ancient secrets can be from any class so you can pick up really useful things that wizards can't, like speak with animals, silence and commune. What makes it unique is warlocks don't need to prep the rituals like cleric/druids so they can have highly situational rituals that clerics/druids will never have prepped. Things like commune with nature, skywrite, animal messenger, meld into stone, detect poison, etc probably aren't going to be prepped unless you happen to know you need it a day in advance, while a warlock can have all of them.
(Also the phantom steed ritual can give the warlock a mount that can dash for 200ft of movement which allows them to position to knock things around to where you want them with repelling blast)
At will spells invocations:
-Having some spells, even low level ones as free casts can be incredibly powerful and fun to play with
-disguise self/ alter self
-detect magic (yes it's a ritual but having it on all the time instead of only when you have 10 spare min and already think there is something magical around is incredibly impactful)
-invisibility
The good subclasses:
Genie, fathomless, hexblade, and to some extent fiend all have some exceptions features that add more than most wizard subclasses.
The thing is you get so much of what makes warlocks good with just 2 levels and most of the benifit with 5 levels. After that you get so much more from multiclassing then you do from going all warlock that it's really hard to justify.
I've played both Warlock and Wizard to teir 3 of play. Imo one area where Warlocks can feel more effective is when exploring a dungeon at level 5+. In a dungeon you can have lots of small enouters every other room you enter. In that scenario EB will do more damage than lower level spell slots, (and knocks stuff around). Wizards don't really have a great option here. Cantrips are weak, and low slots do the same damage as scaled cantrips. AoE damage and CC can be ok but still dont do great damage and tend to be hard to place in small rooms. If you are using slots for encountrs like this you will run out fast.
Warlocks are ridiculously dependent on the player that is using them. Regardless, I don't see many people denying that compared to most other classes, they have very few resources, and can only do so much in any given situation. While they can be built to fill certain niches extremely well and have probably the most variety, they don't fill a lot of typical roles, or at least not well. They sorely lack in versatility, they usually don't output very impressive damage, their spell list is generally pretty mediocre, and unless you're a Hexblade, you aren't all that useful in martial situations. Still, calling them useless in all scenarios is a reach, considering just how much synergy they have in certain situations with party members, and in multiclassing. They have some really amazing subclasses (Celestial, Hexblade, Genie) that can make up for a lot of the weaknesses that the base Warlock carries around. They're definitely going to feel unimpressive compared to other classes that can cast more than 3 leveled spells per rest, and can cure cancer, but that isn't a reason to overlook the power that they can tote in a lot of situations, especially with certain builds.
Warlocks should really be compared to the other half casters like Artificer/Ranger/Paladin. They have a number of attacks/damage closer to a fighter with EB+AB+Hex while also having limited spell access. When compared to Bard/Sorc/Wizard they may have access to similar spells, but the playstyle is more like the half casters due to the limited slots.
So this is kind of a weird take to me. The warlock can not do a lot of casting in any given situation. But they know far more spells than they can cast in any situation meaning they can tool themselves to be great in many different situations. But their not going to have a bunch of different tools for those situations. They will have their go-to strategy in combat with maybe 1 back-up strategy. Than after that all of their spells will be tooled towards exploration and social pillars and various utility. They don't have a huge utility list, but it is still there.
As an example A fey lock at level 10 can get its go-to combat spells of fear or hypnotic pattern and synaptic static, have back up spells like dispel magic and counter spell, and that is only 4 of their known spells and none of their invocations. After that the rest of the known spells can all be for various situations, suggestion, dimension door, charm person, fly, invisibility, seaming, dream, maybe.
The warlock can have a big tool box with a lot of spells that say "in case of x use y" and they are good to go. While still having a go-to in combat because it isn't like they are going to include "never used" strategies.
This is in stark contrast to a sorcerer who has so much more slots and spell casting than they know spells and thus will need a spell to be generally good in a lot of different situations rather than something that is tooled specifically for a situation.
In general, every time someone tells me a warlock can't utility cast I scratch my head and wonder what they are doing with their other 5-7 spells known.
Yeah, some of these takes are making me think people either don't play warlocks much or aren't building them right.
You are a built in party Face, and you have invocations that could make you insanely good at it. You are only dependent on CHA for your spell DC, and for your attack modifier for EB, which you also can pile damage on with one invocation. Depending on your pact and patron, you can be especially versatile in whatever role you want to provide in your group. Short rests exist for a reason. Your warlock can have a bunch of those situational spells in their back pocket for "what if" scenarios and still get a ton of mileage out of base abilities. You should look to empty the tank in any dangerous combat, knowing in an hour you are back at full power.