I think what OP was asking, is what now longer works in 2024, and I'll point out the most obvious one is builds that relied on things from 1st level subclasses, such as cleric or warlock. Technically Warlock replaced Hexblade with Pact of the Blade for doing Charisma based attacks, so it's not entirely broken but with Hexblade itself being level 3, things like Paladin/Warlock are unlikely to be dipping that far into Warlock.
EB spam was on the low end of damage in 2014, they upped melee damage a lot making the gap far bigger than before and adding a size limit to repelling blast they weakened the battlefield control side which made it viable in 2014. We will have to wait and see in play but i suspect the gap between melee and eldritch blast in damage will be large enough people will feel like they are not really contributing with the EB spam especially in boss fights with larger opponents.
I am going to say that Eldritch Blast is not broken, melee was broken since it did less damage than ranged options like Eldritch Blast while potentially needing a highly level of investment and going into a more dangerous part of the battlefield which from a risk/reward standpoint makes legitimately no sense.
As a warlock you can still cast hex, use Eldritch Blast and agonizing blast for 1d10+CHA+1d6 damage per ray which is pretty decent given how number of rays scale, Warlock now gets 1 or 2 additional pact spell casts per day which does give a bit more freedom to cast some of the more powerful/impactful spells.
EB even with hex in 2014 did less damage than melee options, not massively less but less. Now the gap is much larger. Whether it is too large remains to be seen. Personally I suspect it is. And its not warlock over all I am saying is broken as pact of the blade is probably too good.
edit to add and im not saying melee didn't need a boost, it did. But the gap is petty massive now, and when gaps get massive people just don't use the worse option.
I think what OP was asking, is what now longer works in 2024, and I'll point out the most obvious one is builds that relied on things from 1st level subclasses, such as cleric or warlock. Technically Warlock replaced Hexblade with Pact of the Blade for doing Charisma based attacks, so it's not entirely broken but with Hexblade itself being level 3, things like Paladin/Warlock are unlikely to be dipping that far into Warlock.
EB spam was on the low end of damage in 2014, they upped melee damage a lot making the gap far bigger than before and adding a size limit to repelling blast they weakened the battlefield control side which made it viable in 2014. We will have to wait and see in play but i suspect the gap between melee and eldritch blast in damage will be large enough people will feel like they are not really contributing with the EB spam especially in boss fights with larger opponents.
I am going to say that Eldritch Blast is not broken, melee was broken since it did less damage than ranged options like Eldritch Blast while potentially needing a highly level of investment and going into a more dangerous part of the battlefield which from a risk/reward standpoint makes legitimately no sense.
As a warlock you can still cast hex, use Eldritch Blast and agonizing blast for 1d10+CHA+1d6 damage per ray which is pretty decent given how number of rays scale, Warlock now gets 1 or 2 additional pact spell casts per day which does give a bit more freedom to cast some of the more powerful/impactful spells.
EB even with hex in 2014 did less damage than melee options, not massively less but less. Now the gap is much larger. Whether it is too large remains to be seen. Personally I suspect it is. And its not warlock over all I am saying is broken as pact of the blade is probably too good.
edit to add and im not saying melee didn't need a boost, it did. But the gap is petty massive now, and when gaps get massive people just don't use the worse option.
This is only an issue if you assume all a warlock can do is Eldritch Blast which is false, and most melee weren't beating Eldritch Blast without a feat in later tiers of play, where feats were a optional/variant rule to begin with in 2014. Sure fighter could but Barbarian (zealot could) and Monk struggle and paladin without spells or divine Smite couldn't.
Now you have archfey misty stepping out of danger doing potentially 2d10 damage to surrounding enemies, fiend still gets fireball and gets temp HP more easily, and then there is magical cunning and invocations like fiendish vigor. Even without Eldritch blast getting any buffs, Warlock still feels healthier than it was in 2014. Of course if you go back to Hexblade for Hexblade's curse, it still does more Eldritch Blast damage.
where bladelocks are brought down in the new rules is in feats. The melee feats cost them charisma since they provide melee ASI. Going SAD has a price of admission now as you'll lack the feat support OR you'll be losing out on CHA increases. Additionally, warlocks will be losing out on the armor and shield they're no longer getting from hexblade.
These changes also impact certain other classes too. The paladin dip to go SAD falls down for the same reason; you're losing your feat support or stat support. DW can be impacted because pact weapon can only work with one weapon not both (going tome with shillelagh and a club might solve that though).
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I think what OP was asking, is what now longer works in 2024, and I'll point out the most obvious one is builds that relied on things from 1st level subclasses, such as cleric or warlock. Technically Warlock replaced Hexblade with Pact of the Blade for doing Charisma based attacks, so it's not entirely broken but with Hexblade itself being level 3, things like Paladin/Warlock are unlikely to be dipping that far into Warlock.
EB spam was on the low end of damage in 2014, they upped melee damage a lot making the gap far bigger than before and adding a size limit to repelling blast they weakened the battlefield control side which made it viable in 2014. We will have to wait and see in play but i suspect the gap between melee and eldritch blast in damage will be large enough people will feel like they are not really contributing with the EB spam especially in boss fights with larger opponents.
I am going to say that Eldritch Blast is not broken, melee was broken since it did less damage than ranged options like Eldritch Blast while potentially needing a highly level of investment and going into a more dangerous part of the battlefield which from a risk/reward standpoint makes legitimately no sense.
As a warlock you can still cast hex, use Eldritch Blast and agonizing blast for 1d10+CHA+1d6 damage per ray which is pretty decent given how number of rays scale, Warlock now gets 1 or 2 additional pact spell casts per day which does give a bit more freedom to cast some of the more powerful/impactful spells.
EB even with hex in 2014 did less damage than melee options, not massively less but less. Now the gap is much larger. Whether it is too large remains to be seen. Personally I suspect it is. And its not warlock over all I am saying is broken as pact of the blade is probably too good.
edit to add and im not saying melee didn't need a boost, it did. But the gap is petty massive now, and when gaps get massive people just don't use the worse option.
This is only an issue if you assume all a warlock can do is Eldritch Blast which is false, and most melee weren't beating Eldritch Blast without a feat in later tiers of play, where feats were a optional/variant rule to begin with in 2014. Sure fighter could but Barbarian (zealot could) and Monk struggle and paladin without spells or divine Smite couldn't.
Now you have archfey misty stepping out of danger doing potentially 2d10 damage to surrounding enemies, fiend still gets fireball and gets temp HP more easily, and then there is magical cunning and invocations like fiendish vigor. Even without Eldritch blast getting any buffs, Warlock still feels healthier than it was in 2014. Of course if you go back to Hexblade for Hexblade's curse, it still does more Eldritch Blast damage.
Warlock is healthier now because pact of the blade got so much love. It did not get any love and in fact lost love in EB. And i'm sorry feats being optional is a straw man, almost everyone used feats. And sure you could design a fighter or barbarian to not care about damage and then fall behind, but then DPR is not your goal. That is like saying Warlocks did crap damage because you could choose not to take agonizing blast and never cast spells like hex. And yes the 2014 monk sucked, but a pretty basic rogue build backstabbing people easily outpaced the warlock at most levels. While i am not a huge treantmonk fan, but he used warlock+agonizing+hex as the baseline damage to be considered decent at DPR. Which meant you had to exceed it to be considered good, and it was not hard to exceed that with most martial DPR builds.
And yes a warlock can do other things, 2 spells per short rest. I like that design for the class in 2014 as EB with battlefield control felt satisfying enough that I did not feel the need to use my spells much. But if EB is falling behing enough then I'll feel the need to use my spells more often decreasing the odds I will have them in many important fights where you will then flail weakly with EBs, EBs that wont shove your enemy as they are huge.
Warlock is healthier now because pact of the blade got so much love. It did not get any love and in fact lost love in EB. And i'm sorry feats being optional is a straw man, almost everyone used feats. And sure you could design a fighter or barbarian to not care about damage and then fall behind, but then DPR is not your goal. That is like saying Warlocks did crap damage because you could choose not to take agonizing blast and never cast spells like hex. And yes the 2014 monk sucked, but a pretty basic rogue build backstabbing people easily outpaced the warlock at most levels. While i am not a huge treantmonk fan, but he used warlock+agonizing+hex as the baseline damage to be considered decent at DPR. Which meant you had to exceed it to be considered good, and it was not hard to exceed that with most martial DPR builds.
And yes a warlock can do other things, 2 spells per short rest. I like that design for the class in 2014 as EB with battlefield control felt satisfying enough that I did not feel the need to use my spells much. But if EB is falling behing enough then I'll feel the need to use my spells more often decreasing the odds I will have them in many important fights where you will then flail weakly with EBs, EBs that wont shove your enemy as they are huge.
Pact of the blade was unusable in 2014, it wasn't until hexblade came a long that it was usable at all, so it needed it. Eldritch Blast is not doing less damage than in 2014, and most melee builds aren't doing significantly more damage than in 2024 (but we will see where optimizers get it), the only issue is a few weapon properties, like the nick property but repelling blast is already giving the same benefit as the push property which is similarly limited by size and no size restriction on repelling blast was over-powered, no way it should be able to move a Tarrasque but previous rules allowed that.
I will admit that two-weapon fighting and nick property seem way too powerful right now, vex also gives too much. Cleave on a polearm, like a glaive, seems to be the only way to beat out that. This seems more of an issue of those doing too much and not EB doing too little. Overall, even without taking pact of the blade, Warlock still seems healthier too me than back in 2014. Each subclass feels improved from what I see and that gives more, Archfey esp with those spell slot free misty steps that can do additional effects such as damage.
You know what I wish? I wish that you folks can stick with a definition on the word "broken". At one time someone says something is broken, meaning it is lacking in some way. Then another time people refer to broken as being OP and can thus "break the game". 🤷🏿‍♂️
I am going to say that Eldritch Blast is not broken, melee was broken since it did less damage than ranged options like Eldritch Blast while potentially needing a highly level of investment and going into a more dangerous part of the battlefield which from a risk/reward standpoint makes legitimately no sense.
A dissenting opinion: Ranged combat makes no sense since most combat occurs in small rooms & hallways or in situations where the enemy is ambushing you where the enemy can easily get into melee and impose disadvantage on all your ranged attacks. Plus ranged characters have lower AC (b/c no shield and no heavy armour) and usually lower hit points. Why would you ever play a ranged character unless you got a damage boost to make up for your fragility and increased risk of taking AoO from the enemy?
Range is king!
Even in a small room, simply being more than 5' from someone allows ranged attacks. Range builds are dex based. Dex controlls to hit bonus/damage/dex saves/many useful abilities/AC bonus/Initiative bonus. There are feats that allow you to use ranged attacks in melee range without disadvantage. Ranged attacks can damage/kill enemies before they get close enough to melee you, and most monsters don't have ranged attacks.
Melee builds have to wait for the enemy to get near them before they can be effective, but generally get fewer attacks/round that what will be coming their way, receive more damage than they can dish out, and have the shortest life expectancy of any role within the group. Even a melee build is far better off going with a Dex build than a Str build, in which case they might as well have gone ranged instead.
Also keep in mind that regardless of character AC, the monsters will ALWAYS be able to hit. In order to keep encounters "challenging" a DM will choose monsters with higher to hit bonuses if the group has higher ACs. Those higher to hit bonuses also come with higher damage as well. Even if the DM doesn't use monsters with higher to hit bonuses, but rather just increases the number of enemies in each encounter, that means more chances for the enemy to score a crit each round.
Just as in real life, you have a better chance of surviving combat if it is ranged, and if you can damage/kill your opponents before they can reach you.
Every table is different, but in the three campaigns i'm currently in (and every campaign i've seen going back decades), over time fewer and fewer characters go with melee builds, while more and more go with ranged builds. Ranged builds live longer.
Given DW was a second class citizen in 2014, I'm not super concerned about it being a bit better in damage now. there are still reasons to take heavy weapons; they have better control than do light weapons. Now it's a choice, DW for pure damage throughput, or...heavy weapons for more utility. Before it was just take heavy weapons and the feats to support them, or be inferior in every way.
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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.
You know what I wish? I wish that you folks can stick with a definition on the word "broken". At one time someone says something is broken, meaning it is lacking in some way. Then another time people refer to broken as being OP and can thus "break the game". 🤷🏿‍♂️
People use the word broken in poor context. overpowered and broken are not the same. Overpowered is simply that...a better option than everything else. Broken...breaks the game mechanics. People tend to say broken when they mean overpowered.
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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.
Pact of the blade was unusable in 2014, it wasn't until hexblade came a long that it was usable at all, so it needed it.
Why do you say that? Is bladesinger, valor bard, and swords bard unplayable because they don't use your spellcasting ability modifier for the weapon attack rolls? For that matter is Paladin unplayable because it doesn't use it's spellcasting ability for its weapon attacks?
Warlocks do not need to focus on their CHA, a ton of their spells don't rely on saving throws : Hex, Armor of Ag, Invisibility, Misty Step, Fly, Spirit Shoud, Dimension Door, Shadow of Moil, conjuring fiend/undead spells, Far Step, Scying (largely), etc....
Plus Pact of the Bladelocks can always Smite with their spellslots instead.
Honestly, with the change to weapon feats, I kind of expect lots more 2024 Bladelocks to not focus on CHA than we currently have with Hexblade, because they need a high DEX for their AC and they'll get some ASIs for DEX/STR for free with their weapon-focused feats.
Even a melee build is far better off going with a Dex build than a Str build, in which case they might as well have gone ranged instead.
Why would a melee build be better off going Dex? Melee-Dex builds have worse ACs and much much worse damage than STR. (in 2014).
Ranged attacks can damage/kill enemies before they get close enough to melee you, and most monsters don't have ranged attacks. Also keep in mind that regardless of character AC, the monsters will ALWAYS be able to hit. In order to keep encounters "challenging" a DM will choose monsters with higher to hit bonuses if the group has higher ACs.
Why is this not also true of range? If the party is all ranged the DM will pick enemies that either have amazing move speed so they can always get into melee with the ranged attackers or with powerful ranged attacks.
There are feats that allow you to use ranged attacks in melee range without disadvantage.
Removing the DisAdv on ranged attacks costs a feat - sure archers might want that feat anyway but for spellcasters it is definitely a costly tax.
Melee builds have to wait for the enemy to get near them before they can be effective, but generally get fewer attacks/round that what will be coming their way, receive more damage than they can dish out, and have the shortest life expectancy of any role within the group.
Only if the enemies focus fire on them them Melee builds are much tougher than ranged builds because of Paladin and Barbarian who both effectively have double the hit points of any other class. If as per your previous statement that enemies will always be able to hit the party, then a party of tough melee characters will last much longer as a group than one exclusively made from fragile ranged characters.
Just as in real life, you have a better chance of surviving combat if it is ranged, and if you can damage/kill your opponents before they can reach you.
That will never happen though because the DM will not run encounters where the enemy dies before it can touch the party. And again as per my previous post 90% of encounters are in areas so small that the opponents can reach you on their first turn no matter what you do.
there are still reasons to take heavy weapons; they have better control than do light weapons.
Light vs Heavy doesn't really matter for two weapon fighting though? With the DW feat you can make 2 attacks with any non-two handed weapon and 2 attacks with Light weapons every turn (assuming you have Extra Attack).
This means you can get Push (warhammer), Topple (trident/quarterstaff), Slow (Javelin/Whip), Sap (War Pick/morningstar/spear/mace/longsword), Vex (rapier/shortsword) or Nick(scimitar/light hammer/dagger) with Two-weapon fighting.
The only WM that are exclusive to heavy weapon fighting are Graze and Cleave. Nick is better than Cleave, and Vex is equal or better than Graze.
This is such an interesting psychological phenomenon. The size of enemies, the con-saves of enemies, etc... seem to constantly change depending on the argument the person wants to make. Stunning Strike sucks because Con saves are so high vs Topple is great we'll be proning enemies on the first hit and getting the rest at advantage. Grappling is great now that Monks can use it with Dex vs Repelling Blast sucks because all the enemies will be Huge (monks cannot grapple a Huge enemy either).
Pact of the blade was unusable in 2014, it wasn't until hexblade came a long that it was usable at all, so it needed it.
Why do you say that? Is bladesinger, valor bard, and swords bard unplayable because they don't use your spellcasting ability modifier for the weapon attack rolls? For that matter is Paladin unplayable because it doesn't use it's spellcasting ability for its weapon attacks?
Warlocks do not need to focus on their CHA, a ton of their spells don't rely on saving throws : Hex, Armor of Ag, Invisibility, Misty Step, Fly, Spirit Shoud, Dimension Door, Shadow of Moil, conjuring fiend/undead spells, Far Step, Scying (largely), etc....
Plus Pact of the Bladelocks can always Smite with their spellslots instead.
Honestly, with the change to weapon feats, I kind of expect lots more 2024 Bladelocks to not focus on CHA than we currently have with Hexblade, because they need a high DEX for their AC and they'll get some ASIs for DEX/STR for free with their weapon-focused feats.
100%
This can't be said enough; blade pact was 100% viable without hexblade. It just happened to work best with bows. There were limitations, primarily due to your weak armor, but it was easy. Dex based weapons worked best because you wanted to pump that AC as much as possible, but it was doable. The thing is, you just have to not pump cha. That's where most people misunderstand the old blade lock. they think you HAD to have a high cha to play a warlock which simply is not true. You simply didn't cast a whole lot of spells in melee and focused on hitting things with your weapon while using your slots with the eldritch smite invocation.
That's how bladelocks are still going to roll. Once people start running into issues of the feats they want buffing their melee stats, they're going to go the same route: they're going to leave their cha at 13 and pump str for heavy weapons. 13 char will be required to open multi-classing. Paladin's an obvious choice, because they'll want str for heavy weapons and wearing heavy armor (assuming that starting with paladin is the pick) anyways. Invest in str, and drive on. Eldritch smite cares not what your charisma score is, and unlike divine smite, is still a free action, and IIRC will stack with divine smite, so if you level up paladin a bit too, you should be able to dump a divine and eldritch smite into the same attack. You'll just need to have both paladin and warlock slots to do so. Just ignore the ability to use your cha for your weapon attacks, that's going to primarily thing bards use for their own blade dips.
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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.
Pact of the blade was unusable in 2014, it wasn't until hexblade came a long that it was usable at all, so it needed it.
Why do you say that? Is bladesinger, valor bard, and swords bard unplayable because they don't use your spellcasting ability modifier for the weapon attack rolls? For that matter is Paladin unplayable because it doesn't use it's spellcasting ability for its weapon attacks?
Warlocks do not need to focus on their CHA, a ton of their spells don't rely on saving throws : Hex, Armor of Ag, Invisibility, Misty Step, Fly, Spirit Shoud, Dimension Door, Shadow of Moil, conjuring fiend/undead spells, Far Step, Scying (largely), etc....
Plus Pact of the Bladelocks can always Smite with their spellslots instead.
Honestly, with the change to weapon feats, I kind of expect lots more 2024 Bladelocks to not focus on CHA than we currently have with Hexblade, because they need a high DEX for their AC and they'll get some ASIs for DEX/STR for free with their weapon-focused feats.
100%
This can't be said enough; blade pact was 100% viable without hexblade. It just happened to work best with bows. There were limitations, primarily due to your weak armor, but it was easy. Dex based weapons worked best because you wanted to pump that AC as much as possible, but it was doable. The thing is, you just have to not pump cha. That's where most people misunderstand the old blade lock. they think you HAD to have a high cha to play a warlock which simply is not true. You simply didn't cast a whole lot of spells in melee and focused on hitting things with your weapon while using your slots with the eldritch smite invocation.
That's how bladelocks are still going to roll. Once people start running into issues of the feats they want buffing their melee stats, they're going to go the same route: they're going to leave their cha at 13 and pump str for heavy weapons. 13 char will be required to open multi-classing. Paladin's an obvious choice, because they'll want str for heavy weapons and wearing heavy armor (assuming that starting with paladin is the pick) anyways. Invest in str, and drive on. Eldritch smite cares not what your charisma score is, and unlike divine smite, is still a free action, and IIRC will stack with divine smite, so if you level up paladin a bit too, you should be able to dump a divine and eldritch smite into the same attack. You'll just need to have both paladin and warlock slots to do so. Just ignore the ability to use your cha for your weapon attacks, that's going to primarily thing bards use for their own blade dips.
Beyond that it's not hard to get 2x 16s and a 14 as your starting stats with Point Buy. You can easily play a bladelock with 16 CHA, 16 DEX, and 14 CON at level 1. Which gives you a respectable AC = 12+3 = 15 with light armour, and a decent spell DC for using blast (1/2 damage on successful save) spells even if you never increase your CHA. Add on Tough from Lessons of the First Ones, Weapon Mastery and either Dual Wielder or Defensive Duelist to get you to 18 DEX and you're in a fine position.
Agree with you. I think bladelocks are in a good place, and the change sort of soft-nerfs the all too easily 1 level warlock dip to become SAD. Strength, which I thought was highly undervalued before, is now going to be far more useful for anyone looking for a weapon mastery that isn't sap, vex or nick (off the top of my head) due to the feat support. DW /requiring/ two weapons coupled with DW increases makes that far more difficult to work out being SAD with charisma. Charisma SAD DW isn't impossible, but is going to cost you, Charisma with weapons also costs you your mastery feats ASI bonus, which is a high price of entry.
Honestly, I like that. I like that there's going to be meaningful choices and I can't just get everything for cheap.
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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.
This is such an interesting psychological phenomenon. The size of enemies, the con-saves of enemies, etc... seem to constantly change depending on the argument the person wants to make. Stunning Strike sucks because Con saves are so high vs Topple is great we'll be proning enemies on the first hit and getting the rest at advantage. Grappling is great now that Monks can use it with Dex vs Repelling Blast sucks because all the enemies will be Huge (monks cannot grapple a Huge enemy either).
Repelling blast does not suck because of it, but its a definite weakness and if staying competitive relies on it, you wont feel competitive in the fights where you can't use it. And yeah grapple has a similar issue so if the monk is only staying pace with others due to grapple it will suck in those fights.
Pact of the blade was unusable in 2014, it wasn't until hexblade came a long that it was usable at all, so it needed it.
Why do you say that? Is bladesinger, valor bard, and swords bard unplayable because they don't use your spellcasting ability modifier for the weapon attack rolls? For that matter is Paladin unplayable because it doesn't use it's spellcasting ability for its weapon attacks?
Warlocks do not need to focus on their CHA, a ton of their spells don't rely on saving throws : Hex, Armor of Ag, Invisibility, Misty Step, Fly, Spirit Shoud, Dimension Door, Shadow of Moil, conjuring fiend/undead spells, Far Step, Scying (largely), etc....
Plus Pact of the Bladelocks can always Smite with their spellslots instead.
Honestly, with the change to weapon feats, I kind of expect lots more 2024 Bladelocks to not focus on CHA than we currently have with Hexblade, because they need a high DEX for their AC and they'll get some ASIs for DEX/STR for free with their weapon-focused feats.
Bladesinger and Valor bards got additional melee benefits, Warlock got basically none. Bladesinger gets the ability to replace an attack with a cantrip and bladesong itself increases AC for the Wizard, Valor bards got medium armour, got combat inspiration, additionally Bards gets magical secrets so could pick up spells that just straight up were not available to warlock too boost melee damage.
In 2014, you have to take pact of the blade, which was straight up inferior to tome, Hexblade was a requirement to be doing viable damage with melee attacks as a Warlock, it is more than just CHA, it added hexblade's curse, which is straight up better than Hex and it gave medium armour. There was basically no reason to be going into melee instead of just using eldritch blast.
EDIT: forgot too note, but also an important note, Valor Bard also got buffed, basically with the same cantrip extra attack as Bladesinger, so seems WotC thought Valor Bard also needed a buff. Additionally nothing about Valor Bard made it specifically melee, unlike Pact of the Blade which is limited to only melee weapons, without improved pact weapon. So a Valor Bard can just as easily pick up a bow and remain at range.
Just because hexblade was strictly better, didn't mean 2014 bladelock was not viable. It was perhaps not optimal, but it was functional and playable.
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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.
Just because hexblade was strictly better, didn't mean 2014 bladelock was not viable. It was perhaps not optimal, but it was functional and playable.
I didn't say it wasn't playable I said it wasn't usable, which is decidedly a much different term with a much different meaning.
Usability relates to how easy something is too use and pact of the blade was not easy too use because of how effectively subpar it was. Because using the weapon from Pact of the Blade was less effective and efficient than just using eldritch blast, you had too massively spec into the weapon to a point where you might as well have just been a eldritch knight fighter or a paladin instead.
EDIT: You effectively need CHA, STR, DEX and CON which was insanely MAD, since Warlock AC is low and armour is limited to light you needed DEX, you needed a weapon worth and also lowered the risk, which really put it too Polearms but those need STR. You need CON for more survivability and then obviously you need CHA since you're still a warlock. It's way too MAD, and requires way too much specialization in feats to then make it potentially do more than just using Eldritch Blast with Agonizing Blast and Hex. Potentially you can mitigate it by multiclassing but as I said earlier, an easier choice is just to play an entirely different class, so pact of the blade needed the buff.
So while it could still be played, it was hard to build around and use effectively at all, as such, it's usability was terrible.
EB even with hex in 2014 did less damage than melee options, not massively less but less. Now the gap is much larger. Whether it is too large remains to be seen. Personally I suspect it is. And its not warlock over all I am saying is broken as pact of the blade is probably too good.
edit to add and im not saying melee didn't need a boost, it did. But the gap is petty massive now, and when gaps get massive people just don't use the worse option.
This is only an issue if you assume all a warlock can do is Eldritch Blast which is false, and most melee weren't beating Eldritch Blast without a feat in later tiers of play, where feats were a optional/variant rule to begin with in 2014. Sure fighter could but Barbarian (zealot could) and Monk struggle and paladin without spells or divine Smite couldn't.
Now you have archfey misty stepping out of danger doing potentially 2d10 damage to surrounding enemies, fiend still gets fireball and gets temp HP more easily, and then there is magical cunning and invocations like fiendish vigor. Even without Eldritch blast getting any buffs, Warlock still feels healthier than it was in 2014. Of course if you go back to Hexblade for Hexblade's curse, it still does more Eldritch Blast damage.
where bladelocks are brought down in the new rules is in feats. The melee feats cost them charisma since they provide melee ASI. Going SAD has a price of admission now as you'll lack the feat support OR you'll be losing out on CHA increases. Additionally, warlocks will be losing out on the armor and shield they're no longer getting from hexblade.
These changes also impact certain other classes too. The paladin dip to go SAD falls down for the same reason; you're losing your feat support or stat support. DW can be impacted because pact weapon can only work with one weapon not both (going tome with shillelagh and a club might solve that though).
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
Warlock is healthier now because pact of the blade got so much love. It did not get any love and in fact lost love in EB. And i'm sorry feats being optional is a straw man, almost everyone used feats. And sure you could design a fighter or barbarian to not care about damage and then fall behind, but then DPR is not your goal. That is like saying Warlocks did crap damage because you could choose not to take agonizing blast and never cast spells like hex. And yes the 2014 monk sucked, but a pretty basic rogue build backstabbing people easily outpaced the warlock at most levels. While i am not a huge treantmonk fan, but he used warlock+agonizing+hex as the baseline damage to be considered decent at DPR. Which meant you had to exceed it to be considered good, and it was not hard to exceed that with most martial DPR builds.
And yes a warlock can do other things, 2 spells per short rest. I like that design for the class in 2014 as EB with battlefield control felt satisfying enough that I did not feel the need to use my spells much. But if EB is falling behing enough then I'll feel the need to use my spells more often decreasing the odds I will have them in many important fights where you will then flail weakly with EBs, EBs that wont shove your enemy as they are huge.
Pact of the blade was unusable in 2014, it wasn't until hexblade came a long that it was usable at all, so it needed it. Eldritch Blast is not doing less damage than in 2014, and most melee builds aren't doing significantly more damage than in 2024 (but we will see where optimizers get it), the only issue is a few weapon properties, like the nick property but repelling blast is already giving the same benefit as the push property which is similarly limited by size and no size restriction on repelling blast was over-powered, no way it should be able to move a Tarrasque but previous rules allowed that.
I will admit that two-weapon fighting and nick property seem way too powerful right now, vex also gives too much. Cleave on a polearm, like a glaive, seems to be the only way to beat out that. This seems more of an issue of those doing too much and not EB doing too little. Overall, even without taking pact of the blade, Warlock still seems healthier too me than back in 2014. Each subclass feels improved from what I see and that gives more, Archfey esp with those spell slot free misty steps that can do additional effects such as damage.
You know what I wish? I wish that you folks can stick with a definition on the word "broken". At one time someone says something is broken, meaning it is lacking in some way. Then another time people refer to broken as being OP and can thus "break the game". 🤷🏿‍♂️
Range is king!
Even in a small room, simply being more than 5' from someone allows ranged attacks. Range builds are dex based. Dex controlls to hit bonus/damage/dex saves/many useful abilities/AC bonus/Initiative bonus. There are feats that allow you to use ranged attacks in melee range without disadvantage. Ranged attacks can damage/kill enemies before they get close enough to melee you, and most monsters don't have ranged attacks.
Melee builds have to wait for the enemy to get near them before they can be effective, but generally get fewer attacks/round that what will be coming their way, receive more damage than they can dish out, and have the shortest life expectancy of any role within the group. Even a melee build is far better off going with a Dex build than a Str build, in which case they might as well have gone ranged instead.
Also keep in mind that regardless of character AC, the monsters will ALWAYS be able to hit. In order to keep encounters "challenging" a DM will choose monsters with higher to hit bonuses if the group has higher ACs. Those higher to hit bonuses also come with higher damage as well. Even if the DM doesn't use monsters with higher to hit bonuses, but rather just increases the number of enemies in each encounter, that means more chances for the enemy to score a crit each round.
Just as in real life, you have a better chance of surviving combat if it is ranged, and if you can damage/kill your opponents before they can reach you.
Every table is different, but in the three campaigns i'm currently in (and every campaign i've seen going back decades), over time fewer and fewer characters go with melee builds, while more and more go with ranged builds. Ranged builds live longer.
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
Given DW was a second class citizen in 2014, I'm not super concerned about it being a bit better in damage now. there are still reasons to take heavy weapons; they have better control than do light weapons. Now it's a choice, DW for pure damage throughput, or...heavy weapons for more utility. Before it was just take heavy weapons and the feats to support them, or be inferior in every way.
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
People use the word broken in poor context. overpowered and broken are not the same. Overpowered is simply that...a better option than everything else. Broken...breaks the game mechanics. People tend to say broken when they mean overpowered.
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
Why do you say that? Is bladesinger, valor bard, and swords bard unplayable because they don't use your spellcasting ability modifier for the weapon attack rolls? For that matter is Paladin unplayable because it doesn't use it's spellcasting ability for its weapon attacks?
Warlocks do not need to focus on their CHA, a ton of their spells don't rely on saving throws : Hex, Armor of Ag, Invisibility, Misty Step, Fly, Spirit Shoud, Dimension Door, Shadow of Moil, conjuring fiend/undead spells, Far Step, Scying (largely), etc....
Plus Pact of the Bladelocks can always Smite with their spellslots instead.
Honestly, with the change to weapon feats, I kind of expect lots more 2024 Bladelocks to not focus on CHA than we currently have with Hexblade, because they need a high DEX for their AC and they'll get some ASIs for DEX/STR for free with their weapon-focused feats.
Why would a melee build be better off going Dex? Melee-Dex builds have worse ACs and much much worse damage than STR. (in 2014).
Why is this not also true of range? If the party is all ranged the DM will pick enemies that either have amazing move speed so they can always get into melee with the ranged attackers or with powerful ranged attacks.
Removing the DisAdv on ranged attacks costs a feat - sure archers might want that feat anyway but for spellcasters it is definitely a costly tax.
Only if the enemies focus fire on them them Melee builds are much tougher than ranged builds because of Paladin and Barbarian who both effectively have double the hit points of any other class. If as per your previous statement that enemies will always be able to hit the party, then a party of tough melee characters will last much longer as a group than one exclusively made from fragile ranged characters.
That will never happen though because the DM will not run encounters where the enemy dies before it can touch the party. And again as per my previous post 90% of encounters are in areas so small that the opponents can reach you on their first turn no matter what you do.
Light vs Heavy doesn't really matter for two weapon fighting though? With the DW feat you can make 2 attacks with any non-two handed weapon and 2 attacks with Light weapons every turn (assuming you have Extra Attack).
This means you can get Push (warhammer), Topple (trident/quarterstaff), Slow (Javelin/Whip), Sap (War Pick/morningstar/spear/mace/longsword), Vex (rapier/shortsword) or Nick(scimitar/light hammer/dagger) with Two-weapon fighting.
The only WM that are exclusive to heavy weapon fighting are Graze and Cleave. Nick is better than Cleave, and Vex is equal or better than Graze.
This is such an interesting psychological phenomenon. The size of enemies, the con-saves of enemies, etc... seem to constantly change depending on the argument the person wants to make. Stunning Strike sucks because Con saves are so high vs Topple is great we'll be proning enemies on the first hit and getting the rest at advantage. Grappling is great now that Monks can use it with Dex vs Repelling Blast sucks because all the enemies will be Huge (monks cannot grapple a Huge enemy either).
100%
This can't be said enough; blade pact was 100% viable without hexblade. It just happened to work best with bows. There were limitations, primarily due to your weak armor, but it was easy. Dex based weapons worked best because you wanted to pump that AC as much as possible, but it was doable. The thing is, you just have to not pump cha. That's where most people misunderstand the old blade lock. they think you HAD to have a high cha to play a warlock which simply is not true. You simply didn't cast a whole lot of spells in melee and focused on hitting things with your weapon while using your slots with the eldritch smite invocation.
That's how bladelocks are still going to roll. Once people start running into issues of the feats they want buffing their melee stats, they're going to go the same route: they're going to leave their cha at 13 and pump str for heavy weapons. 13 char will be required to open multi-classing. Paladin's an obvious choice, because they'll want str for heavy weapons and wearing heavy armor (assuming that starting with paladin is the pick) anyways. Invest in str, and drive on. Eldritch smite cares not what your charisma score is, and unlike divine smite, is still a free action, and IIRC will stack with divine smite, so if you level up paladin a bit too, you should be able to dump a divine and eldritch smite into the same attack. You'll just need to have both paladin and warlock slots to do so. Just ignore the ability to use your cha for your weapon attacks, that's going to primarily thing bards use for their own blade dips.
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
Beyond that it's not hard to get 2x 16s and a 14 as your starting stats with Point Buy. You can easily play a bladelock with 16 CHA, 16 DEX, and 14 CON at level 1. Which gives you a respectable AC = 12+3 = 15 with light armour, and a decent spell DC for using blast (1/2 damage on successful save) spells even if you never increase your CHA. Add on Tough from Lessons of the First Ones, Weapon Mastery and either Dual Wielder or Defensive Duelist to get you to 18 DEX and you're in a fine position.
Agree with you. I think bladelocks are in a good place, and the change sort of soft-nerfs the all too easily 1 level warlock dip to become SAD. Strength, which I thought was highly undervalued before, is now going to be far more useful for anyone looking for a weapon mastery that isn't sap, vex or nick (off the top of my head) due to the feat support. DW /requiring/ two weapons coupled with DW increases makes that far more difficult to work out being SAD with charisma. Charisma SAD DW isn't impossible, but is going to cost you, Charisma with weapons also costs you your mastery feats ASI bonus, which is a high price of entry.
Honestly, I like that. I like that there's going to be meaningful choices and I can't just get everything for cheap.
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
Repelling blast does not suck because of it, but its a definite weakness and if staying competitive relies on it, you wont feel competitive in the fights where you can't use it. And yeah grapple has a similar issue so if the monk is only staying pace with others due to grapple it will suck in those fights.
Bladesinger and Valor bards got additional melee benefits, Warlock got basically none. Bladesinger gets the ability to replace an attack with a cantrip and bladesong itself increases AC for the Wizard, Valor bards got medium armour, got combat inspiration, additionally Bards gets magical secrets so could pick up spells that just straight up were not available to warlock too boost melee damage.
In 2014, you have to take pact of the blade, which was straight up inferior to tome, Hexblade was a requirement to be doing viable damage with melee attacks as a Warlock, it is more than just CHA, it added hexblade's curse, which is straight up better than Hex and it gave medium armour. There was basically no reason to be going into melee instead of just using eldritch blast.
EDIT: forgot too note, but also an important note, Valor Bard also got buffed, basically with the same cantrip extra attack as Bladesinger, so seems WotC thought Valor Bard also needed a buff. Additionally nothing about Valor Bard made it specifically melee, unlike Pact of the Blade which is limited to only melee weapons, without improved pact weapon. So a Valor Bard can just as easily pick up a bow and remain at range.
Just because hexblade was strictly better, didn't mean 2014 bladelock was not viable. It was perhaps not optimal, but it was functional and playable.
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
I didn't say it wasn't playable I said it wasn't usable, which is decidedly a much different term with a much different meaning.
Usability relates to how easy something is too use and pact of the blade was not easy too use because of how effectively subpar it was. Because using the weapon from Pact of the Blade was less effective and efficient than just using eldritch blast, you had too massively spec into the weapon to a point where you might as well have just been a eldritch knight fighter or a paladin instead.
EDIT: You effectively need CHA, STR, DEX and CON which was insanely MAD, since Warlock AC is low and armour is limited to light you needed DEX, you needed a weapon worth and also lowered the risk, which really put it too Polearms but those need STR. You need CON for more survivability and then obviously you need CHA since you're still a warlock. It's way too MAD, and requires way too much specialization in feats to then make it potentially do more than just using Eldritch Blast with Agonizing Blast and Hex. Potentially you can mitigate it by multiclassing but as I said earlier, an easier choice is just to play an entirely different class, so pact of the blade needed the buff.
So while it could still be played, it was hard to build around and use effectively at all, as such, it's usability was terrible.