Most of the other patrons seem pretty geared towards a specific thing. Fiendlocks and Hexblades are focused on killing things really good, Feylocks are illusionists and charmers...
But the Celestial Warlock's bonus spells and subclass features are split between "healing" and "fire/radiant damage specialist." It's like someone cut the light cleric in half, cut the life cleric in half, and sewed them together as a warlock. Eyeballing it... it doesn't feel like it has enough healing features and spells to be a dedicated healer, nor enough good fire/radiant spells (or a good enough boosts to those spells, radiant soul is objectively worse than other spellcasters' "add spellcasting mod to damage" features) to be a dedicated not-just-EB blaster.
So I guess I have two questions:
Is there something I'm missing here? And...
Which is a better direction to build a Celestial Warlock in: focusing on the radiant and fire damage, or focusing on the healing aspect?
When I played a Celestial Warlock I tended to save my spells for healing or emergencies most of the time and focused on Eldritch Blast or Sacred Flame when my target had cover. I used the ability to heal as a bonus action to bring party members who had been knocked unconscious back up. It wasn’t enough to keep anyone at full HP, but it was enough to almost always keep the entire party conscious and fighting.
I feel like celestial warlock is more like a combat medic than a healer. That healing light feature is great at picking up downed party members, but not great for healing. For my warlock, I took a level of life cleric to make myself a full-fledged healer but really...I'm just a more effective combat medic. Celestial warlocks can really shine by using radiant/fire damage spells, like flaming sphere, that stretch those limited warlock slots out over a battle. You can then cast an EB or sacred flame on the same turn.
You're right in that it's not entirely specialized, but I really like a versatile character that can do a little bit of everything as needed, even if they're not great at anything in particular.
I feel like celestial warlock is more like a combat medic than a healer. That healing light feature is great at picking up downed party members, but not great for healing. For my warlock, I took a level of life cleric to make myself a full-fledged healer but really...I'm just a more effective combat medic. Celestial warlocks can really shine by using radiant/fire damage spells, like flaming sphere, that stretch those limited warlock slots out over a battle. You can then cast an EB or sacred flame on the same turn.
You're right in that it's not entirely specialized, but I really like a versatile character that can do a little bit of everything as needed, even if they're not great at anything in particular.
I like celestial's flexibility; it opens a ton of doors. For example, a barb/lock actually could kind of work. Rage helps AoA stay up longer, and you can use your spell slots for eldritch smite to get a kind of paladin flavor, plus you can heal while raging with healing light which you can't do with many other combos.
Something else celestial can do that other warlocks cannot is exploit flaming sphere + booming blade. Once you have the sphere up, you can booming blade someone, then stick the sphere to it. He can stay there and burn or he can move and eat booming blade. Eitherway, he's taking extra damage. He's probably not going to want to hang out in melee too long, but it might be fun.
There's always the just stand back and nuke option too. Sure, it's a bit plain-jane of a playstyle, but you also get sacred flame which can be situationally justified, even in the face of EB being so good. I think as far as variety goes, I think you can build a celestial warlock to vary it's own playstyle encounter to encounter far easier than any other warlock.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Its personal to the player. You have assigned roles in your head to hex and fiend that you havent wrapped celestial in. And thats great! Whether you choose to play a strict one track character or a frenzied energy driven or short attention span type will edge you toward a choice. Again thats great :)
A fiend patron could be one of limitless possibilities, the warlock's own motivations could be their patrons as a tool or independent enjoying themselves as much as they can before they inevitably pay the price to their patron.
A hexblade as above. Ask yourself why it grants martial knowledge though and how? did it train them as youngster or somehow give them the knowledge of how to endure wearing armor and surviving battle. Or was the pre-warlock a soldier already proficient in arms and armour which begged for eldritch power?
Celestial locks are like that, but I can admit their weird. You have some healing dice you can ignore and just be a blaster lock 'with limited healing'. Or, consider a build that would synergise well with an all fighter / monk party. (all gain something on short rests, you take inspiring leadership at some point and its temp hits, some healing and rest for everyone, past 5th level your 8 hour hex means your two heal option per short rest wont interfere with your EB damage either.) This sort of build works better or players who dont want to be stuck blowing all their spells on healing making them heal bots, you always have EB :)
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Most of the other patrons seem pretty geared towards a specific thing. Fiendlocks and Hexblades are focused on killing things really good, Feylocks are illusionists and charmers...
But the Celestial Warlock's bonus spells and subclass features are split between "healing" and "fire/radiant damage specialist." It's like someone cut the light cleric in half, cut the life cleric in half, and sewed them together as a warlock. Eyeballing it... it doesn't feel like it has enough healing features and spells to be a dedicated healer, nor enough good fire/radiant spells (or a good enough boosts to those spells, radiant soul is objectively worse than other spellcasters' "add spellcasting mod to damage" features) to be a dedicated not-just-EB blaster.
So I guess I have two questions:
Is there something I'm missing here? And...
Which is a better direction to build a Celestial Warlock in: focusing on the radiant and fire damage, or focusing on the healing aspect?
When I played a Celestial Warlock I tended to save my spells for healing or emergencies most of the time and focused on Eldritch Blast or Sacred Flame when my target had cover. I used the ability to heal as a bonus action to bring party members who had been knocked unconscious back up. It wasn’t enough to keep anyone at full HP, but it was enough to almost always keep the entire party conscious and fighting.
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I feel like celestial warlock is more like a combat medic than a healer. That healing light feature is great at picking up downed party members, but not great for healing. For my warlock, I took a level of life cleric to make myself a full-fledged healer but really...I'm just a more effective combat medic. Celestial warlocks can really shine by using radiant/fire damage spells, like flaming sphere, that stretch those limited warlock slots out over a battle. You can then cast an EB or sacred flame on the same turn.
You're right in that it's not entirely specialized, but I really like a versatile character that can do a little bit of everything as needed, even if they're not great at anything in particular.
This is an apt description for lots of warlocks.
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I like celestial's flexibility; it opens a ton of doors. For example, a barb/lock actually could kind of work. Rage helps AoA stay up longer, and you can use your spell slots for eldritch smite to get a kind of paladin flavor, plus you can heal while raging with healing light which you can't do with many other combos.
Something else celestial can do that other warlocks cannot is exploit flaming sphere + booming blade. Once you have the sphere up, you can booming blade someone, then stick the sphere to it. He can stay there and burn or he can move and eat booming blade. Eitherway, he's taking extra damage. He's probably not going to want to hang out in melee too long, but it might be fun.
There's always the just stand back and nuke option too. Sure, it's a bit plain-jane of a playstyle, but you also get sacred flame which can be situationally justified, even in the face of EB being so good. I think as far as variety goes, I think you can build a celestial warlock to vary it's own playstyle encounter to encounter far easier than any other warlock.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Its personal to the player. You have assigned roles in your head to hex and fiend that you havent wrapped celestial in. And thats great! Whether you choose to play a strict one track character or a frenzied energy driven or short attention span type will edge you toward a choice. Again thats great :)
A fiend patron could be one of limitless possibilities, the warlock's own motivations could be their patrons as a tool or independent enjoying themselves as much as they can before they inevitably pay the price to their patron.
A hexblade as above. Ask yourself why it grants martial knowledge though and how? did it train them as youngster or somehow give them the knowledge of how to endure wearing armor and surviving battle. Or was the pre-warlock a soldier already proficient in arms and armour which begged for eldritch power?
Celestial locks are like that, but I can admit their weird. You have some healing dice you can ignore and just be a blaster lock 'with limited healing'. Or, consider a build that would synergise well with an all fighter / monk party. (all gain something on short rests, you take inspiring leadership at some point and its temp hits, some healing and rest for everyone, past 5th level your 8 hour hex means your two heal option per short rest wont interfere with your EB damage either.) This sort of build works better or players who dont want to be stuck blowing all their spells on healing making them heal bots, you always have EB :)