UA Hexblade 2025 Feedback

I stated it was a problem was specific to the 5e warlock. When you got both medium armor and shields and a damage bonus from hexblade’s curse that was still effective on eldritch blast. It made you both the best melee build and the best range build. This version is designed to force you into melee range to benefit from most of your features, so a small static increase to armor should be fine. The small static increase to AC shouldn’t make you an objectively better Eldritch blaster like the larger increase and minimum loss of features at range did in 5e. Obviously you could still just stay back and Eldritch blast, but you would be giving up parts of the features offered at every level.

They dont get the same AC unless the creature attacking them is within 10ft. Any ranged enemy that attacks them wouldn’t active accursed shield even if they are engaged with another enemy. This design was intentional. If you want to be a high defense Eldritch blaster you need to go get shield training somewhere else, and most of ways to get shield training would are also giving you redundant armor training.

Also this version doesn’t offer any crit bonuses to Eldritch blast at range like 5e did. Both this and the UA version have weaker versions of hexblade’s curse than 5e. 

Point, but I think the degree it outperforms in melee staying power is still a concern. Medium armor alone runs high enough that at the max you’re effectively getting the full effect of Mage Armor with a +2 DEX mod without actually having to invest in DEX beyond 10. Add in the magic shield, and that’s 17 AC with no DEX mod in all melee at a stage where every other Warlock- working off class/subclass features and a typical non-random stat array- has to invest an Invocation and DEX of 14 to hit 15 AC. The dip in ranged AC is something, monsters seem to heavily favor melee attacks and quite a few ranged options are saves rather than rolls, so I’d still consider melee AC the baseline for comparison. Maybe just the +2 AC works, but practically speaking I think it and Medium Armor creates too much lead on constant staying power.

Quote from Ain_Undos >>

3rd Level Hexblade’s Curse

Your patron curses you with power that creates an accursed miasma around you. It is an invisible 10 ft emanation that empowers curses you cast and hinders your foes.

This is subtly strong. It's now an all day thing. I would change the Miasma to Charisma Modifier or Proficiency Bonus uses per day for a duration of 1 minute. This makes it a bit on par with Bladesong.

Quote from Ain_Undos >>

Accursed Shield. You gain +2 bonus to your AC against any attack that originates within your miasma as long as you aren't wielding a shield or wearing heavy armor. 

...

Your patron grants you the training necessary to effectively arm yourself for battle and power over curses that make you more effective in close quarters. You gain proficiency with martial weapons and medium armor training.

Just to be explicit, with a 14 Dex, this is +5 AC over light armor and + 4 AC over Mage Armor against melee range attacks, but +3 AC/+2 AC in general. Not needing more than a 14 Dex allows for focusing on Con for HP and Concentration saves. 

Quote from Ain_Undos >>

Hex Weapon. Whenever you finish a long rest, you can touch one weapon that you are proficient with. If the weapon is heavy you ignore disadvantage caused by not having the required Strength or Dexterity score.  When you attack with that weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls. As a bonus action you may send the weapon to a pocket dimension or summon it to your hand from that pocket dimension. A weapon returns from the pocket dimension if you die. These benefits last until you finish a long rest. If you have/gain the Pact of the Blade invocation these benefits extend to your pact weapon whether you bond with or conjure it.

If you make this explicitly a melee weapon it pushes the subclass further into melee. Since it is a bit of a ribbon feature, I would consider allowing storing the weapon in the pocket dimension or retrieving it from there as part of any equip or unequip. Note that storing a Pact Weapon in a pocket dimension will end the bond for that weapon. That would allow the user to pull the weapon out of the Pocket Dimension and attack as part of the Attack action. It's not powerful, but it is cool.

Quote from Ain_Undos >> 

Accursed Critical. Any attack roll you make against a target cursed by you that is within your miasma scores a Critical Hit on a 19 or 20 on the d20.

Harrowing Hex. After you cast a level 1+ spell that has a casting time of an action, you can make one attack with a weapon as a bonus action.

Hindering Curse. When you hit a target cursed by you that is within your miasma with an attack roll, the target has disadvantage on its next saving throw before the start of your next turn. 

So Accursed Critical and Hindering Curse layer onto Hex, Bestow Curse, and such instead of solely on Hexblade's Curse (now an emanation)? Be aware, that because you can move the curse with Hex, that's potentially not that limited in use, just in range.

Harrowing Hex could be restricted to melee weapons or Hex/Pact weapons, but the benefits of using a Hex/Pact weapon will probably be sufficient. 

Quote from Ain_Undos >>

Inescapable Hex. If a creature cursed by you starts its turn within your miasma and ends its turn outside of your miasma, but still within 500ft you can teleport to an unoccupied space within 10ft of the creature.

This should cost a Reaction at the least. Some other options:

• creatures that start their turn in your miasma halves their speed until the end of their turn. Could be comboed with the reaction to move towards them.
• If you hit a creature with an opportunity attack with your Hex/Pact weapon while it is within your miasma reduces its speed to 0 until the start of your next turn. (Mini Sentinel)

Like Accursed Critical, Hindering Curse, and Armor of Hexes, it would probably be better for any of these effects to be restricted to a creature cursed by the Hexblade,

Some elements I think are too strong, but I like this a lot better than the UA version.

I wasn’t worried about it Hexblade’s cures being an always on effect because most of the features require you to have cursed the target. Considering warlocks have so few spell slots I was thinking no big deal, but hex extends its duration when cast at higher levels and can change targets, so that is overly useful. Targets will always be cursed. I need to scale that down. Also the pocket dimension had a sentence that read “the weapon stored there is considered 1ft away from you.”  This was an update of a previous attempt and I couldn’t remember why I wrote that sentence. I deleted it but it was important. 

I made changes to it, but not enough to repost it yet. 
Made the Hexblade curse accursed miasma last 1 minute. Limited it to Cha bonus times per long rest. That should fix 90% of the power use problem. Also it’s visible, so intelligent creatures can make observations and decisions about it. 

Dropped medium armor training, improved accursed shield so it provides a bonus equal to your pact magic slot level. So you have to stay warlock til 9th level to get the full +5 benefit. But remember the miasma is limited use now and this +5 does nothing against attacks originating outside of the 10ft emanation. That would include melee attacks from creatures with 15ft reach. 

Made Hex Weapon pocket dimension your inner world so weapons within it are considered in your possession or as physically close to you as possible.

Made Harrowing hex only give you a melee attack with a weapon as a bonus action.

Going to make inescapable hex work like the UA version for free, or teleport as a reaction. Also bring back the UA Hex restoration to allow more uses of Hexblade’s Curses miasma per day. 

Im thinking maybe it should cost a bonus action to create the miasma or I should follow the UA and say it happens when you cast a spell that curses a creature. Only Accused Shield functions when no creature is cursed, so maybe the balance is to make it only work when you cast a spell to curse a creature. I don’t know, open to all suggestions.

Quote from Ain_Undos >>

Here is a version with medium armor and improved defensive abilities compared to the UA. It is very reliant on being within 10ft and hexblade’s curse is really just an aura that other features use. I brought accursed critical down to 6th because I feel that is more important to Hexblade than inescapable hex. I did improve inescapable hex at 14. I did nothing for hindering curse. I think that is meant for an Ally. Or for when you have extra attack you can hit with an attack to trigger hindering curse then attack again and use a smite spell on hit. Honestly it could be argued it works if you use a smite spell on the first hit that triggers hindering curse.  I don’t know if I would use smite spells on a pure warlock. 

3rd level Hexblade Spells

3 Arcane Vigor, Hex, Shield, Wrathful Smite

5 Bestow Curse, Conjure Barrage

7 Freedom of Movement Staggering Smite

9 Animate Objects, Steel Wind Strike

 

3rd Level Hexblade’s Curse

Your patron curses you with power that creates an accursed miasma around you. It is an invisible 10 ft emanation that empowers curses you cast and hinders your foes.

Accursed Shield. You gain +2 bonus to your AC against any attack that originates within your miasma as long as you aren't wielding a shield or wearing heavy armor. 

Hungering Hex. When a creature cursed by you that is within your miasma drops to 0 hit points you regain 1d8+ your Charisma Modifier hit points. 

3rd Level Hex Warrior

Your patron grants you the training necessary to effectively arm yourself for battle and power over curses that make you more effective in close quarters. You gain proficiency with martial weapons and medium armor training.

Hex Weapon. Whenever you finish a long rest, you can touch one weapon that you are proficient with. If the weapon is heavy you ignore disadvantage caused by not having the required Strength or Dexterity score.  When you attack with that weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls. As a bonus action you may send the weapon to a pocket dimension or summon it to your hand from that pocket dimension. A weapon returns from the pocket dimension if you die. These benefits last until you finish a long rest. If you have/gain the Pact of the Blade invocation these benefits extend to your pact weapon whether you bond with or conjure it.

Unyielding Will. When you succeed on a saving throw to maintain Concentration, each creature of your choice in your miasma takes 2d6 Necrotic damage. Once you use this benefit, you can’t do so again until the start of your next turn.

In addition, when you fail a saving throw to maintain Concentration, you can choose to succeed instead, and you gain temp hp equal to 1d10 plus your warlock level. Once you use this feature you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

 

6th Level Malign Brutality

Accursed Critical. Any attack roll you make against a target cursed by you that is within your miasma scores a Critical Hit on a 19 or 20 on the d20.

Harrowing Hex. After you cast a level 1+ spell that has a casting time of an action, you can make one attack with a weapon as a bonus action.

Hindering Curse. When you hit a target cursed by you that is within your miasma with an attack roll, the target has disadvantage on its next saving throw before the start of your next turn. 

10th Level Armor of Hexes

If an enemy that is cursed by you deals damage to  you,  you can use your reaction to roll a d6. You reduce the damage by your Warlock level + the number rolled. If the attack originated within your miasma and you rolled a 5 or 6 you instead take no damage. 

14 Level Master of Hexes

Explosive Hex. When you deal damage to the target cursed by you, you can cause your curse to explode with sinister energy. The target and each creature of your choice in a 30-foot Emanation originating from the target take 3d6 Necrotic, Psychic, or Radiant damage (your choice), and their Speed is reduced by 10 feet until the start of your next turn. Any creature that takes this damage that is in your miasma at the start of their turn takes an additional 3d6 damage of the same type.  Once you use this benefit, you can’t use it again until you finish a Long Rest unless you expend a Pact Magic slot (no action required) to restore your use of it.

Inescapable Hex. If a creature cursed by you starts its turn within your miasma and ends its turn outside of your miasma, but still within 500ft you can teleport to an unoccupied space within 10ft of the creature.

no offense meant, but this  still does not fix the AC problem. Even in this case i would rather take an one lvl dip in ftr/pal to gain medium armor and shield proficiency because this "fix" does not work with a shield and as soon as you get a +1 shield its already better then your version. 99% of all pact of the blade warlocks do a one lvl 1 dip of paladin to fix their AC problem since the warlock 20th lvl ability is so lackluster it is an easy choice.
hexblade in either the presented UA version nor your changes does not offer anything to do it different.
The hexblade imho needs medium armor & shield to be viable without taking a MC dip, if you give it just medium armor you need to do the dip or take lightly armored to get these two and one of your subclass abilities does do nothing ....

Harrowing Hex: is way too early, other subclasses with similiar abilities get this ability way later
Inescapable Hex: this is too OP as an ability, its similiar to a vengeance Paladin lvl 7 ability, but without needing an AoO cost and "teleporting" up to 500' even if the target used a teleport itself without any restriction of use ....

Quote from AlleneOfLeHigh >>

Quote from Ain_Undos >>

 

3rd Level Hex Warrior

Your patron grants you the training necessary to effectively arm yourself for battle and power over curses that make you more effective in close quarters. You gain proficiency with martial weapons and medium armor training.

...

Harrowing Hex. After you cast a level 1+ spell that has a casting time of an action, you can make one attack with a weapon as a bonus action.

 

no offense meant, but this  still does not fix the AC problem. Even in this case i would rather take an one lvl dip in ftr/pal to gain medium armor and shield proficiency because this "fix" does not work with a shield and as soon as you get a +1 shield its already better then your version. 99% of all pact of the blade warlocks do a one lvl 1 dip of paladin to fix their AC problem since the warlock 20th lvl ability is so lackluster it is an easy choice.
hexblade in either the presented UA version nor your changes does not offer anything to do it different.
The hexblade imho needs medium armor & shield to be viable without taking a MC dip, if you give it just medium armor you need to do the dip or take lightly armored to get these two and one of your subclass abilities does do nothing ....

I disagree.

1. The game is balanced against the assumption that you do not have magic items.
2. With a 14 Dex, this would have an AC of 17 and a miasma AC of 19. A great weapon or dual wielding Fighter with a Plate Armor and without the Defense Fighting Style would have an 18 AC. I think this is a great place for the Hexblade to be defensively. The fighter will have slightly better HP, but the Hexblade will have innate healing from Arcane Vigor, Hungering Hex, and potentially Lifedrinker or other Invocations. They are a melee striker, not a tank. This is a pretty solid place for them to be.

I would say Fighter is a better dip for medium armor because you get Fighting Styles and Weapon Masteries. If you can stand a level 3 dip, College of Dance Bard or Armorer Artificer are worth considering for AC (10+Dex+Cha - college of dance, Heavy Armor + Shields for Armorer)

Quote from AlleneOfLeHigh >>

Harrowing Hex: is way too early, other subclasses with similiar abilities get this ability way later

This is the same level that the UA Hexblade gets the exact same ability.

Bladesinger Wizard and College of Valor Bard get a similar ability at level 14, but there are some significant differences:

• At level 6, they got the ability to replace a cantrip with one attack of the Attack action
• The Bard and Wizard version works with Cantrips (so they can do it every turn) while the Harrowing Hex requires a level 1+ spell.
• Casting a level 1+ spell is much harder for a Warlock to do in a useful manner. They can use their Invocation spells, but there really aren't any useful spells there so you'll be relying on their class spell slots mostly. At that level, they have 2 spell slots (effectively 3 per day with Magical Cunning).
• That Bonus Action attack is also competing with other things, like moving the [spell]Hex[/spells] target.

It's much weaker than in the hands of a Wizard or Bard.

Eh, I don't think one Warlock subclass outperforming heavy armor AC is a good vibe- that returns to the issue previously brought up that it will be the massively superior pick for a martial Warlock. Look at the current crop of Warlock subclasses- many of them are designed to provide some degree of staying power, but on a limited use or reactive basis. Warlocks, like every other Gish setup, aren't supposed to be specced to hold the front solo in a party, they're supposed to have the staying power to skirmish alongside dedicated frontliners.

Quote from MyDudeicus >>

I'm not sure why a invocation outpacing a trap option is a bad thing. Armor of shadows is terrible, it has always been terrible outside the 2014 abjurer glitch, unless they errata it it will remain terrible. Pact armor would effectively be a patch for a terrible invocation since they never actually just fix bad things. 

 It is kinda funny how errata only is utilized to fix typos and nerf overpowered stuff like Conjure Minor Elementals, but not to buff underpowered or underutilized stuff. I really wish they would have made Armor of Shadows more worthwhile. Considering Warlock's Light Armor training I would appreciate if they build on top of that, instead of leaning into magical conjured armor/Mage Armor/Unarmored AC.

One reason against implementing such an obvious auto-pick... is exactly because it would be an auto-pick, resulting in more homogenous choices for Invocations and devalue the concept of the modular building blocks that is the Invocation feature.

Quote from MyDudeicus >>

The old hexblade was 99.999999999% taken as a 1 level dip for charisma casters. It was always designed just as a patch for the crap pact of the blade since they seem to be opposed to just fixing mistakes. And honestly its bad design to have the one true sub class for the melee warlock since pact of the blade is there for any warlock. Some flex where one is a bit better is fine, like great old one has no real benefit towards it but fiend and archfey to have some synergy with it. But none of them have so much of a boost that it would be a bad idea to play anything else. Sadly while not technically needed a 1 level dip to a martial is still massively beneficial a defense invocation that is not utter trash would open it up more to those who want to play a pure class warlock. 

But if a sub class is THE path to making a melee warlock they done screwed up and that no longer being the case is a good thing and not a plight upon the very few non dip hexblade players. 

The majority of the complaints I've seen about the 2014 Hexblade is the defensive strength it gives to multiclassers, especially casters, while still improving their caster aspects (MC'ing Fighter was just as easy in 2014, with similar benefits as 2024). Making a Pact of the Armor invocation will not fix that problem. As for pure Warlocks, a major benefit of the subclasses are their expanded spell list because the Warlock's is already so limited. Fiend getting access to Fireball is definitely a big draw of that subclass.

I understand the thinking behind seeing Pact of the Blade and its upgrades and thinking: "All Warlocks can be melee focused, so all subclasses should be able to support that equally." My main problem is the Invocation tax. It simply takes too much investment to build a melee focused Warlock, just to perform at similar levels as a caster in terms of damage and worse in terms of defenses: being melee versus ranged is a major downside to your defenses. The caster Warlock can get by with very few invocation investments, leaving a lot of room for additional casting, passives and utility. If a Medium Armor + Shield invocation were to be introduced, that would just up the defenses of every caster Warlock (and still attract MC'ing) - the melee focused build would still be way behind due to their invocation investments to hit about as hard as the caster, but with a melee weapon.

'

Speaking of trap options like Armor of Shadows, Pact of the Blade and its upgrades for a pure Warlock definitely feels like a trap option in the current landscape. You spend a majority of what makes your class unique in order to build a Fighter that on base have worse defenses and worse damage. What you do have is spells that can amplify either defense, damage, utility, or control, but not all at once - so for most they want to amp their defense so they can survive to deliver their damage, meaning they wont bring much in terms of utility and control.

Caster Warlock don't need to build up their damage option outside picking up Agonizing Blast. They are attacking from range, so they are rarely hit by melee hits that are significantly more damaging than ranged attacks - ergo they take less damage, and they are less disrupted in their Concentration. In other words, their defenses are - or if you can better stomach this, their survivability is - higher than Bladelocks. So they don't need to address this issue as presently as Bladelocks and are vastly more free to utilize Invocations and spells to amplify other aspects of their character and can contribute with utility and control and damage.

'

- "But Bladelocks can still EB!" - then it's not really a Bladelock if your default response is to abandon that melee damage option that you spend a handful of invocations on acquiring and keeping up to snuff. If we're being honest, I would even go for an Invocation that disables Eldritch Blast in order to gain a massive defensive boost that could cement the foundation for the Bladelock surviving and functioning in melee beyond tier 1. I would deal with the lack of a super strong ranged damage option and just pew away with Toll the Dead if I can't get into melee and laugh in my vastly improved durability.

In other words, if you don't give Bladelocks some significant boosts, why would you ever want to go for that (trap) option?

Giving both Bladelocks and Caster Warlocks access to the same defensive boost (across all subclasses) is not changing anything for this evaluation, but it does further strain that invocation tax for the Bladelock.

'

The thing about packaging the Hexblade (or any subclass really) with a significant defense bonus is that you can pair it with benefits that overwhelmingly support the Bladelock. This means if a Caster Warlock ever picks the Hexblade they get a ton of other features that they can hardly use for anything. The draw of the significant defensive boost is balanced out by not getting much else for the caster build - thus the other subclass options still are enticing because they provide more useful features for a caster.

As for Hexblade becoming the default Bladelock subclass... this is already the case for Valor Bards and Bladesinger Wizards. They kept the base support for Bladelock pretty terrible and full of opportunity costs, meaning the Bladelock build is already low on points. If it ever should be of a similar standing as an Eldritch Blast caster, the Bladelock needs a lift. Lifting both at the same time is not going to change that.

And there's nothing that prevents WotC or a partner from making more subclasses that caters to the Bladelock - similar to how Bard have College of Valor and College of Swords. I would have loved if base support for the Bladelock was better, but it simply isn't. The best approach to me is to utilize subclass features to fix this.

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Eh, I don't think one Warlock subclass outperforming heavy armor AC is a good vibe

It doesn't unless you have a specific magic item or are in melee threat range (within the miasma). Even then, add Defense Fighting Style and you have the same AC without conditions. It is a little stronger than I was advocating for, but I don't think it is too strong. At best, without magic items, you are looking at AC 17 in all cases for attacks. 11 feet + away. Attacks originating 0 feet - 10 feet away in your 3 minutes - 5 minutes of miasma per day face an AC of 19.

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

that returns to the issue previously brought up that it will be the massively superior pick for a martial Warlock.

That's not an issue and never was. It was only an issue if it was also the undeniably superior pick for non-martial Warlocks, which I don't think it was in 2014 and this definitely is not. 

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Warlocks, like every other Gish setup, aren't supposed to be specced to hold the front solo in a party, they're supposed to have the staying power to skirmish alongside dedicated frontliners.

Yes, a striker rather than a tank. By tank, I don't mean the tank fallacy of preventing the enemy from attacking the rest of the party, but rather the ability to take attacks and their soak their damage if they hit. A Dual-wielding ranger and Bladesingers are probably a decent comparison for a Hexblades.

• Rangers will be Dex focused and will probably be Light armor for 15 - 17 AC or medium armor for 17 AC and better hit points. They can wield a shield for 19 AC regardless of the attack origin if they need to be more durable.
• Bladesingers get 8 hours of Mage Armor for 13 + Dex modifier for probably AC 15-18, but during Bladesong add their Int Modifier to AC for 1 minute, Int modifier times per day. During Bladesong, the Wizard's AC will probably by 18 - 23.

If you are complaining about this Warlock's AC, are also complaining about the already published Bladesinger AC?

The Bladesinger's defensive abilities are not tied to a single target. Compare the UA Armor of Hexes to Song of Defense. Armor of Hexes can only be triggered by the Cursed target, has no usage restriction and reduces damage by 3-20 damage. Song of Defense can be triggered by anyone, requires a spell slot to be expended and has no other usage restrictions, and reduces damage by 5-45 damage.

Defensively, Bladesingers are classic gishes that significantly outperform Hexblades.