Ok y'all, I usually DM, but I cook with the warlock. If you are looking for a front liner or striker, choose pact of the blade, fey or celestial patron, and definitely get either poison spray or chill touch, because they got buffed like crazy. If you want to be a sniper/blaster, I can't help you because I play my warlocks like a paladin, but probably pact of the tome, and choose fey patron for the mobility, and pick up eldritch blast. If you want to be anything else, (supporter, scout, etc) choose pact of the chain because it's broken (investment of the chain master can give your familiar resistance to all damage!) and tentacle boi patron for free charm spells or infernal because edgy demon boi.
Start pact of the chain, take imp or sphinx of wonder, let it fight for you. Maybe retrain out of pact of chain in a few levels depending on the campaign once they are no longer OP.
But a good combo in the right campaign is. Pact of the chain(imp) it is invisible, decent at hiding and has devils sight. Have a decent stealth of your own. Go great old one. At level 5 take gaze of two minds. Cast spells from imps location which can be a room ahead of you. If you restrict yourself to enchantment/illusion spells you can remain hidden as you don't need to use V/S components. The imp does not lose invisibility as its not casting the spell, depending on the spell it may need to reposition so its location is not known. But a lot of enchantment/illusion spells wont have a visible effect leaving its location so it may not need to move. And a tiny, invisible, hiding, flying being is pretty hard to locate. You have to be within 60 feet of the imp to cast a spell through it, but 60 feet is usually multiple rooms away, so not exactly the first place they would look for a spell caster when spells are going off in their room given most spells require some kind of line of effect.
I'm on the record of saying if abused this can break a game. Yeah a good DM and all that, but I generally try to avoid making the DM have to come up with a Dudeicus rule, their job is hard enough. And I will say it comes with the bonus of when you don't abuse it, when its used your DM doesn't have the baked in counter so it is more effective. If you use it all the time every lair will have x contingencies just to deal with you.
As a general rule though the silent casting feature of the GOO is either alright, being mostly a counterspell blocker, or in more social or intrigue based games, incredibly powerful. The type of campaign really swings how huge no V/S components is.
I think a fun combination is being able to get a lot of origin feats. Being able to get lucky, skilled and a MI to get guidance can make the warlock a decent secondary skill monkey. Another great combo will always be hunger of hadar + devil sight + repelling blast, combine repelling blast with frost bolt and you can keep someone who has 30 movement speed perpetually stuck in the same spot inside hunger of hadar for the rest of their short lives.
Ok y'all, I usually DM, but I cook with the warlock. If you are looking for a front liner or striker, choose pact of the blade, fey or celestial patron, and definitely get either poison spray or chill touch, because they got buffed like crazy. If you want to be a sniper/blaster, I can't help you because I play my warlocks like a paladin, but probably pact of the tome, and choose fey patron for the mobility, and pick up eldritch blast. If you want to be anything else, (supporter, scout, etc) choose pact of the chain because it's broken (investment of the chain master can give your familiar resistance to all damage!) and tentacle boi patron for free charm spells or infernal because edgy demon boi.
Is this a joke post? I was following until they said celestial. I was a little skeptical about the patron choice for a melee build, but I kept reading. Then this person recommends poison spray and chill touch for a warlock front-liner because apparently "they got buffed like crazy". I just need to speak up now.
Poison spray might do a D12 of damage, but this alone is definitely not enough to make it a good cantrip, even with the slight buffs. It was a really bad cantrip in 2014 because it had awful range (10 feet), it had a con saving throw to just completely avoid the damage, and even if the enemy/monster failed the save, there was a decent chance that they were resistant or immune to poison damage anyway. Now this spell has a 30 foot range (not enough of an improvement if you ask me) and is an attack roll (at least it's not a CON save). The damage is still a D12 and is still Poison damage (obviously). There are going to be many monsters who are still immune to it. I'm not even sure why they didn't just suggest the obvious good choice, Eldritch Blast. It might do a D10 instead of a D12(literally 1 dpr less at first), but its range is still way better, its damage type is almost never resisted, and agonizing blast damage actually stacks with it because you will make more attacks rather than have the initial attack just deal more damage.
Chill touch on the other hand was likely more nerfed than buffed, my friend. This cantrip was a great cantrip in 2014 (still may be) that had a great range (120 feet), dealt a D8 necrotic damage, and prevented the target from gaining hit points until the start of your next turn. The spell now only has a range of touch, does a D10 necrotic damage(only 1 more dpr than previous), and prevents them from gaining hit points until the end of your next turn. I don't think this is a big buff because I doubt you were planning on healing them during your turn and previously, if they readied an action to do a healing ability at the start of your turn, it cost them their action and reaction anyway.
Btw, the investment in the chain master resistance feature is definitely not broken. It's basically just an uncanny dodge they have that needs to use your reaction instead of theirs. It can often feel inconvenient to use your reaction that way.
Some suggestions of good warlock patron subclasses for different builds:
Melee/blade; Archfey, Fiend (Good abilities for melee, especially if you want to keep up an armor of agathys)
Ranged/blaster; Archfey, Celestial, Fiend, Great old one (Warlocks just make pretty good blasters in general, lol)
Support/summoner; Archfey, Celestial, Great old one (Good summoning and supportive abilities)
Well if you are going melee range isn't as important for you, and you will be using a lot of invocations so you might not be taking agonizing blast in which case poison spray and chill touch will be good options. And while fiend has some abilities that help with the front line there is nothing wrong with a celestial blade pact though if going celestial id pick firebolt or use sacred flame. Arch fey makes a great blade pact though, its abilities compliment it really well. And finally in early levels pact of the chain is OP, it eventually peters out a bit but has some stupid gimmicks that may keep it OP for a few more levels with investment of the chain master.
So to sum up while I don't necessarily agree with their takes, I don't think they are joke post level off base.
I feel if you are going blade with archfey you have to multi-class for armor and probably weapon mastery. Otherwise you end up having to go high dex (16) and probably go defensive duelist with a rapier which just doesn't do enough damage. Blade fey can go two-weapon fighting with a short sword and a club with shillelagh and still get defensive duelist, but doing that without weapon mastery ends up conflicting with the bonus actions you may want to use for misty steps and you can't use the club the turn you cast shillelagh because it isn't your pact weapon so you don't gain extra attack with the club. At higher levels its probably not an issue with you spending a set up turn with a action cast illusion or enchantment spell that you auto cast misty step as part of and can still cast shillelagh on the club and then on subsequent turns you can attack with the "Finesse weapon" that you need for defensive duelist and your bonus action club strike which I believe would do decent damage, but still wouldn't be great.
Maybe, but you will be teleporting away after the first hit a lot which can reduce damage quite a bit as well, after which you will be invisible for a short time. A decent Ac will double down on that defense though. It is going to be one of those table dependent things with number of encounters/rounds per encounter things determining if you have enough misty steps to get by.
Ok, let me know if this is a good one to use or not, but instead of Investment of the Chain Master to hit with your bonus attack, you take thirsting blade to use one of your extra attacks to attack using just Pact of the Chain.
My current build is:
1: Pact of the Chain
2: Agonizing Blast (Eldritch Blast)
2: Pact of the Blade
5: Eldritch Smite
5: Thirsting Blade
7: Repelling Blast (Wall of Fire)
9: Lessons of the First Ones (Tough)
12: Devouring Blade
15: Witch’s Sight
18: Investment of the Chain Master
Is this a good setup?
Another sort of combo is using Pact of the Chain for advantage in your first attack, then using a multiclass for weapon mastery take a vex weapon like the short sword or rapier and get advantage on the rest of the attacks.
Maybe, but you will be teleporting away after the first hit a lot which can reduce damage quite a bit as well, after which you will be invisible for a short time. A decent Ac will double down on that defense though. It is going to be one of those table dependent things with number of encounters/rounds per encounter things determining if you have enough misty steps to get by.
At higher levels you also have beguiling defense to act as a pseudo uncanny dodge (that actually deals damage).
Ok, let me know if this is a good one to use or not, but instead of Investment of the Chain Master to hit with your bonus attack, you take thirsting blade to use one of your extra attacks to attack using just Pact of the Chain.
My current build is:
1: Pact of the Chain
2: Agonizing Blast (Eldritch Blast)
2: Pact of the Blade
5: Eldritch Smite
5: Thirsting Blade
7: Repelling Blast (Wall of Fire)
9: Lessons of the First Ones (Tough)
12: Devouring Blade
15: Witch’s Sight
18: Investment of the Chain Master
Is this a good setup?
Another sort of combo is using Pact of the Chain for advantage in your first attack, then using a multiclass for weapon mastery take a vex weapon like the short sword or rapier and get advantage on the rest of the attacks.
I am not sure on the tough or the investment. Tough you could trade for lifedrinker, the fact that you are noting wall of fire as a spell you will have I am assuming you will go fiend. Being in melee, if you haven't picked up warcaster, you really are going to want eldritch mind to not lose concentration the other one I would look at is otherworldly leap, it adds a lot of mobility to the fiend warlock allowing you to reposition more for either going into melee with blade or for blasting your opponents through your wall of fire with EB/AB/RB combo. Personally also not a fan of eldritch smites because I feel you have better uses of your slots, but not going to say not to do so because it seems you are heavily focused on dealing some solid damage with your warlock.
My main suggestion if you are going to go that route, take as many of the level 1 ritual spells as you can as part of your spell list so that you still have some solid utility options once you are out of slots. Comprehend languages, detect magic, speak with animals are all really solid and on the Warlock list.
Ok, let me know if this is a good one to use or not, but instead of Investment of the Chain Master to hit with your bonus attack, you take thirsting blade to use one of your extra attacks to attack using just Pact of the Chain.
My current build is:
1: Pact of the Chain
2: Agonizing Blast (Eldritch Blast)
2: Pact of the Blade
5: Eldritch Smite
5: Thirsting Blade
7: Repelling Blast (Wall of Fire)
9: Lessons of the First Ones (Tough)
12: Devouring Blade
15: Witch’s Sight
18: Investment of the Chain Master
Is this a good setup?
Another sort of combo is using Pact of the Chain for advantage in your first attack, then using a multiclass for weapon mastery take a vex weapon like the short sword or rapier and get advantage on the rest of the attacks.
I am not sure on the tough or the investment. Tough you could trade for lifedrinker, the fact that you are noting wall of fire as a spell you will have I am assuming you will go fiend. Being in melee, if you haven't picked up warcaster, you really are going to want eldritch mind to not lose concentration the other one I would look at is otherworldly leap, it adds a lot of mobility to the fiend warlock allowing you to reposition more for either going into melee with blade or for blasting your opponents through your wall of fire with EB/AB/RB combo. Personally also not a fan of eldritch smites because I feel you have better uses of your slots, but not going to say not to do so because it seems you are heavily focused on dealing some solid damage with your warlock.
My main suggestion if you are going to go that route, take as many of the level 1 ritual spells as you can as part of your spell list so that you still have some solid utility options once you are out of slots. Comprehend languages, detect magic, speak with animals are all really solid and on the Warlock list.
Celestial warlock actually. It also has Wall of Fire. Plus, it has Searing Vengeance, allowing me to recover half of my HP when I am downed, hence tough. Also, I do have War Caster. I’ll look into Otherworldly Leap, but i do get soellw like Thunder Step and Far Step.
Hu. I had not considered that, but I suppose it makes sense with the ability to cast rituals. I was never really into Armor of Agethis, and Hellish Rebuke seems a little defensive for something so offensive, right? I think I’ll hang onto Hex and though. Guess that just begs the question which ritual do I leave out?
Ok, let me know if this is a good one to use or not, but instead of Investment of the Chain Master to hit with your bonus attack, you take thirsting blade to use one of your extra attacks to attack using just Pact of the Chain.
My current build is:
1: Pact of the Chain
2: Agonizing Blast (Eldritch Blast)
2: Pact of the Blade
5: Eldritch Smite
5: Thirsting Blade
7: Repelling Blast (Wall of Fire)
9: Lessons of the First Ones (Tough)
12: Devouring Blade
15: Witch’s Sight
18: Investment of the Chain Master
Is this a good setup?
Another sort of combo is using Pact of the Chain for advantage in your first attack, then using a multiclass for weapon mastery take a vex weapon like the short sword or rapier and get advantage on the rest of the attacks.
I am not sure on the tough or the investment. Tough you could trade for lifedrinker, the fact that you are noting wall of fire as a spell you will have I am assuming you will go fiend. Being in melee, if you haven't picked up warcaster, you really are going to want eldritch mind to not lose concentration the other one I would look at is otherworldly leap, it adds a lot of mobility to the fiend warlock allowing you to reposition more for either going into melee with blade or for blasting your opponents through your wall of fire with EB/AB/RB combo. Personally also not a fan of eldritch smites because I feel you have better uses of your slots, but not going to say not to do so because it seems you are heavily focused on dealing some solid damage with your warlock.
My main suggestion if you are going to go that route, take as many of the level 1 ritual spells as you can as part of your spell list so that you still have some solid utility options once you are out of slots. Comprehend languages, detect magic, speak with animals are all really solid and on the Warlock list.
Celestial warlock actually. It also has Wall of Fire. Plus, it has Searing Vengeance, allowing me to recover half of my HP when I am downed, hence tough. Also, I do have War Caster. I’ll look into Otherworldly Leap, but i do get soellw like Thunder Step and Far Step.
Hu. I had not considered that, but I suppose it makes sense with the ability to cast rituals. I was never really into Armor of Agethis, and Hellish Rebuke seems a little defensive for something so offensive, right? I think I’ll hang onto Hex and though. Guess that just begs the question which ritual do I leave out?
Oh you are still using spells from tasha's and xanathar's that does open up the teleporting options. The leap suggestion was also because it doesn't use your concentration like Far step or your spell slots leaving you more open for spells to use like the summon fey, hypnotic pattern and wall of fire (at the 4th and 5th level zone over far step). And I want to be clear I am not suggesting you get all 3 of those ritual spells all at once, but those were 3 options I would keep an open mind about because of the slot limitations. At level 5 if I were going the route you are looking at I probably would have hex, comprehend languages, detect magic, then consider pick your favorites/ what you think will be useful for your team maybe thunderstep if you still need mobility, invisibility if you want to help the team sneak around, fly if getting out of reach is important, dispel magic or remove curse if spell casters or curses are common, fear or hypnotic pattern if you want some AOE control, speak with animals if you think you are going to end up using your slots mostly on thunder step and smites. Celestial has a lot of great situational spells built in with revivify and lesser restoration. Your list becomes very table dependent, just consider what your "go to" combat options are because you are really only going to cast 1 spell in most combats and its probably your concentration spell and the other is usually reserved for your smites, your teleport or your "press in case of emergency" spells.
Once you unlock firewall hex becomes a dubious use, it just doesn't scale as well as firewall or a summon spell and is typically not worth using a pact magic slot on at those higher levels.
I wish its duration was longer but one perk of Armor of Agathys is that it is a visible defense. It is defensive, but if people see you with a glowing blue aura that strikes down those who hit you, they will be motivated not to hit you. And the longer you are up, the more damage you can do. That being said I almost never take it due to its duration and a warlocks limited slots.
I’ll wrap this up; I don’t want to hijak the forum.
I could still take all 3 ritual spells once I get wall of fire and am able to retrain hex; I just don’t see them in the ritual section like they use to be in 2014 spell selection so I want to make sure I am able to still use them in such a way. I’d have to decide between sacrificing hold person or suggestion for invisibility. I could sacrifice some 5th level spells for dispel magic, fly and maybe fear (fear seems a little redundant with hypnotic pattern.)
My final updated spell list include comprehend languages, detect magic, speak with animals, invisibility, suggestion, hypnotic pattern, dispel magic, fly, thunder-step, banishment, charm monster, dream, enervation, hold monster and synaptic static. This does not include all the spells I get just for being a Celestial Warlock.
That’s a good point on Armor of Agathys.
Just so I’m clear, I CAN cast the spells comprehend languages, detect magic and speak with animals as rituals under the 2024 rules, right?
I love warlocks, and I love gishes, sooo... I found out a really powerful low level build for warlocks is a pact of the blade warlock (any subclass) with either true strike, booming blade, or green flame blade (preferably one of the last two). Then take repelling blast and agonizing blast, maybe lance of lethargy if your DM lets you use it the same way the other eldricth blast invocations work now, and use them all on your melee cantrip. You deal weapon damage + 2x Cha mod as well as knock enemy back 10ft and slow their movement.
I also love making a 2024 warlock with a 2014 genie patron, taking misty visions, mask of many faces, actor etc (maybe telepathic later) for crazy creative shenanigans. You can read a million posts on the genie's vessel and how you can use that (especially with pact of the chain) and the ability to assume any form and voice and create 15ft cube illusions at will is amazing.
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I was thinking of playing warlock for a campaign but I don’t know what combo to go with can anyone help me get some ideas?
What kind of warlock do you want to play? Front-line fighter, ranged fire, or something else?
are you wondering about multi-classing, or pact/eldritch invocation combos?
Ok y'all, I usually DM, but I cook with the warlock. If you are looking for a front liner or striker, choose pact of the blade, fey or celestial patron, and definitely get either poison spray or chill touch, because they got buffed like crazy. If you want to be a sniper/blaster, I can't help you because I play my warlocks like a paladin, but probably pact of the tome, and choose fey patron for the mobility, and pick up eldritch blast. If you want to be anything else, (supporter, scout, etc) choose pact of the chain because it's broken (investment of the chain master can give your familiar resistance to all damage!) and tentacle boi patron for free charm spells or infernal because edgy demon boi.
Start pact of the chain, take imp or sphinx of wonder, let it fight for you. Maybe retrain out of pact of chain in a few levels depending on the campaign once they are no longer OP.
But a good combo in the right campaign is. Pact of the chain(imp) it is invisible, decent at hiding and has devils sight. Have a decent stealth of your own. Go great old one. At level 5 take gaze of two minds. Cast spells from imps location which can be a room ahead of you. If you restrict yourself to enchantment/illusion spells you can remain hidden as you don't need to use V/S components. The imp does not lose invisibility as its not casting the spell, depending on the spell it may need to reposition so its location is not known. But a lot of enchantment/illusion spells wont have a visible effect leaving its location so it may not need to move. And a tiny, invisible, hiding, flying being is pretty hard to locate. You have to be within 60 feet of the imp to cast a spell through it, but 60 feet is usually multiple rooms away, so not exactly the first place they would look for a spell caster when spells are going off in their room given most spells require some kind of line of effect.
I'm on the record of saying if abused this can break a game. Yeah a good DM and all that, but I generally try to avoid making the DM have to come up with a Dudeicus rule, their job is hard enough. And I will say it comes with the bonus of when you don't abuse it, when its used your DM doesn't have the baked in counter so it is more effective. If you use it all the time every lair will have x contingencies just to deal with you.
As a general rule though the silent casting feature of the GOO is either alright, being mostly a counterspell blocker, or in more social or intrigue based games, incredibly powerful. The type of campaign really swings how huge no V/S components is.
I think a fun combination is being able to get a lot of origin feats. Being able to get lucky, skilled and a MI to get guidance can make the warlock a decent secondary skill monkey. Another great combo will always be hunger of hadar + devil sight + repelling blast, combine repelling blast with frost bolt and you can keep someone who has 30 movement speed perpetually stuck in the same spot inside hunger of hadar for the rest of their short lives.
Is this a joke post? I was following until they said celestial. I was a little skeptical about the patron choice for a melee build, but I kept reading. Then this person recommends poison spray and chill touch for a warlock front-liner because apparently "they got buffed like crazy". I just need to speak up now.
Poison spray might do a D12 of damage, but this alone is definitely not enough to make it a good cantrip, even with the slight buffs. It was a really bad cantrip in 2014 because it had awful range (10 feet), it had a con saving throw to just completely avoid the damage, and even if the enemy/monster failed the save, there was a decent chance that they were resistant or immune to poison damage anyway. Now this spell has a 30 foot range (not enough of an improvement if you ask me) and is an attack roll (at least it's not a CON save). The damage is still a D12 and is still Poison damage (obviously). There are going to be many monsters who are still immune to it. I'm not even sure why they didn't just suggest the obvious good choice, Eldritch Blast. It might do a D10 instead of a D12(literally 1 dpr less at first), but its range is still way better, its damage type is almost never resisted, and agonizing blast damage actually stacks with it because you will make more attacks rather than have the initial attack just deal more damage.
Chill touch on the other hand was likely more nerfed than buffed, my friend. This cantrip was a great cantrip in 2014 (still may be) that had a great range (120 feet), dealt a D8 necrotic damage, and prevented the target from gaining hit points until the start of your next turn. The spell now only has a range of touch, does a D10 necrotic damage(only 1 more dpr than previous), and prevents them from gaining hit points until the end of your next turn. I don't think this is a big buff because I doubt you were planning on healing them during your turn and previously, if they readied an action to do a healing ability at the start of your turn, it cost them their action and reaction anyway.
Btw, the investment in the chain master resistance feature is definitely not broken. It's basically just an uncanny dodge they have that needs to use your reaction instead of theirs. It can often feel inconvenient to use your reaction that way.
Some suggestions of good warlock patron subclasses for different builds:
Melee/blade; Archfey, Fiend (Good abilities for melee, especially if you want to keep up an armor of agathys)
Ranged/blaster; Archfey, Celestial, Fiend, Great old one (Warlocks just make pretty good blasters in general, lol)
Support/summoner; Archfey, Celestial, Great old one (Good summoning and supportive abilities)
Well if you are going melee range isn't as important for you, and you will be using a lot of invocations so you might not be taking agonizing blast in which case poison spray and chill touch will be good options. And while fiend has some abilities that help with the front line there is nothing wrong with a celestial blade pact though if going celestial id pick firebolt or use sacred flame. Arch fey makes a great blade pact though, its abilities compliment it really well. And finally in early levels pact of the chain is OP, it eventually peters out a bit but has some stupid gimmicks that may keep it OP for a few more levels with investment of the chain master.
So to sum up while I don't necessarily agree with their takes, I don't think they are joke post level off base.
I feel if you are going blade with archfey you have to multi-class for armor and probably weapon mastery. Otherwise you end up having to go high dex (16) and probably go defensive duelist with a rapier which just doesn't do enough damage. Blade fey can go two-weapon fighting with a short sword and a club with shillelagh and still get defensive duelist, but doing that without weapon mastery ends up conflicting with the bonus actions you may want to use for misty steps and you can't use the club the turn you cast shillelagh because it isn't your pact weapon so you don't gain extra attack with the club. At higher levels its probably not an issue with you spending a set up turn with a action cast illusion or enchantment spell that you auto cast misty step as part of and can still cast shillelagh on the club and then on subsequent turns you can attack with the "Finesse weapon" that you need for defensive duelist and your bonus action club strike which I believe would do decent damage, but still wouldn't be great.
Maybe, but you will be teleporting away after the first hit a lot which can reduce damage quite a bit as well, after which you will be invisible for a short time. A decent Ac will double down on that defense though. It is going to be one of those table dependent things with number of encounters/rounds per encounter things determining if you have enough misty steps to get by.
Ok, let me know if this is a good one to use or not, but instead of Investment of the Chain Master to hit with your bonus attack, you take thirsting blade to use one of your extra attacks to attack using just Pact of the Chain.
My current build is:
1: Pact of the Chain
2: Agonizing Blast (Eldritch Blast)
2: Pact of the Blade
5: Eldritch Smite
5: Thirsting Blade
7: Repelling Blast (Wall of Fire)
9: Lessons of the First Ones (Tough)
12: Devouring Blade
15: Witch’s Sight
18: Investment of the Chain Master
Is this a good setup?
Another sort of combo is using Pact of the Chain for advantage in your first attack, then using a multiclass for weapon mastery take a vex weapon like the short sword or rapier and get advantage on the rest of the attacks.
At higher levels you also have beguiling defense to act as a pseudo uncanny dodge (that actually deals damage).
I am not sure on the tough or the investment. Tough you could trade for lifedrinker, the fact that you are noting wall of fire as a spell you will have I am assuming you will go fiend. Being in melee, if you haven't picked up warcaster, you really are going to want eldritch mind to not lose concentration the other one I would look at is otherworldly leap, it adds a lot of mobility to the fiend warlock allowing you to reposition more for either going into melee with blade or for blasting your opponents through your wall of fire with EB/AB/RB combo. Personally also not a fan of eldritch smites because I feel you have better uses of your slots, but not going to say not to do so because it seems you are heavily focused on dealing some solid damage with your warlock.
My main suggestion if you are going to go that route, take as many of the level 1 ritual spells as you can as part of your spell list so that you still have some solid utility options once you are out of slots. Comprehend languages, detect magic, speak with animals are all really solid and on the Warlock list.
Celestial warlock actually. It also has Wall of Fire. Plus, it has Searing Vengeance, allowing me to recover half of my HP when I am downed, hence tough. Also, I do have War Caster. I’ll look into Otherworldly Leap, but i do get soellw like Thunder Step and Far Step.
Hu. I had not considered that, but I suppose it makes sense with the ability to cast rituals. I was never really into Armor of Agethis, and Hellish Rebuke seems a little defensive for something so offensive, right? I think I’ll hang onto Hex and though. Guess that just begs the question which ritual do I leave out?
Oh you are still using spells from tasha's and xanathar's that does open up the teleporting options. The leap suggestion was also because it doesn't use your concentration like Far step or your spell slots leaving you more open for spells to use like the summon fey, hypnotic pattern and wall of fire (at the 4th and 5th level zone over far step). And I want to be clear I am not suggesting you get all 3 of those ritual spells all at once, but those were 3 options I would keep an open mind about because of the slot limitations. At level 5 if I were going the route you are looking at I probably would have hex, comprehend languages, detect magic, then consider pick your favorites/ what you think will be useful for your team maybe thunderstep if you still need mobility, invisibility if you want to help the team sneak around, fly if getting out of reach is important, dispel magic or remove curse if spell casters or curses are common, fear or hypnotic pattern if you want some AOE control, speak with animals if you think you are going to end up using your slots mostly on thunder step and smites. Celestial has a lot of great situational spells built in with revivify and lesser restoration. Your list becomes very table dependent, just consider what your "go to" combat options are because you are really only going to cast 1 spell in most combats and its probably your concentration spell and the other is usually reserved for your smites, your teleport or your "press in case of emergency" spells.
Once you unlock firewall hex becomes a dubious use, it just doesn't scale as well as firewall or a summon spell and is typically not worth using a pact magic slot on at those higher levels.
I wish its duration was longer but one perk of Armor of Agathys is that it is a visible defense. It is defensive, but if people see you with a glowing blue aura that strikes down those who hit you, they will be motivated not to hit you. And the longer you are up, the more damage you can do. That being said I almost never take it due to its duration and a warlocks limited slots.
I’ll wrap this up; I don’t want to hijak the forum.
I could still take all 3 ritual spells once I get wall of fire and am able to retrain hex; I just don’t see them in the ritual section like they use to be in 2014 spell selection so I want to make sure I am able to still use them in such a way. I’d have to decide between sacrificing hold person or suggestion for invisibility. I could sacrifice some 5th level spells for dispel magic, fly and maybe fear (fear seems a little redundant with hypnotic pattern.)
My final updated spell list include comprehend languages, detect magic, speak with animals, invisibility, suggestion, hypnotic pattern, dispel magic, fly, thunder-step, banishment, charm monster, dream, enervation, hold monster and synaptic static. This does not include all the spells I get just for being a Celestial Warlock.
That’s a good point on Armor of Agathys.
Just so I’m clear, I CAN cast the spells comprehend languages, detect magic and speak with animals as rituals under the 2024 rules, right?
Correct. They are ritual spells they have the ritual tag and all spells with the ritual tag can be cast as rituals as long as you know them.
Ok thanks!
and now back to your regularly scheduled forum…
I love warlocks, and I love gishes, sooo... I found out a really powerful low level build for warlocks is a pact of the blade warlock (any subclass) with either true strike, booming blade, or green flame blade (preferably one of the last two). Then take repelling blast and agonizing blast, maybe lance of lethargy if your DM lets you use it the same way the other eldricth blast invocations work now, and use them all on your melee cantrip. You deal weapon damage + 2x Cha mod as well as knock enemy back 10ft and slow their movement.
I also love making a 2024 warlock with a 2014 genie patron, taking misty visions, mask of many faces, actor etc (maybe telepathic later) for crazy creative shenanigans. You can read a million posts on the genie's vessel and how you can use that (especially with pact of the chain) and the ability to assume any form and voice and create 15ft cube illusions at will is amazing.
Why do ships ship cargo and cars carry shipments? Why do we have fingertips but not toetips and can tiptoe but can't tipfinger. These are all the questions of the universe.