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When talking about using your spell slots to stack the field with minions, I'm surprised you didn't touch on Animate Dead. If your DM lets you have enough short rests, you can grab an army of skeletons, and have them do the fighting for you. I mean, it's the lazy approach to combat, but... Warlock. You sold your soul to be lazy. ...Also, last I checked, Multiclassing doesn't give you saves, since if it did, someone could just multiclass twice and gain all saves.
@@LucanVaris I could have been clearer in the video, but multiclassing gets you the saves of the starting class. So a Sorc/Warlock gets you the CON save proficiency!
@@DnDShorts That's what I thought you might have meant, but it sounded like you were insinuating that starting Warlock, _then_ going Fighter or Sorcerer, would still net you those saves.
Unrelated criticism I have to say while it's in my mind... Instead of Big -stripper- Pecks, Sculpted Physique works better and actually suggests nine abs are involved.
for the third tip: "When you gain a level in Warlock you can choose one of the warlock spells you know and replace it with another spell from the warlock spell list, which also must be of a level for which you have spell slots." you CAN get non-scaling spells, just swap them later though some spells like Hypnotic Pattern are so good you don't care
If your DM allows it, at lower levels the Ring of Spell Storing works great with this; you can load up the ring with spells you currently have access to but intend to switch out, then level and get your new spells too.
Hypnotic pattern should be dropped once you get Sickening Radiance though, as the damage sickening radiance does outweighs hypnotic pattern which is going to fall off soon as more and more creatures are immune to charm. But you could also wait until you have access to 5th level spells before doing that so you have Hold Monster, which will work on everything. Such a shame Warlocks don't get Confusion very easily... At least you have Banish at 4th level.
There is also the optional rule that really makes Charisma casters a little easier to play which allows you to do the silly "replace 1 spell per level up" to "replace 1 spell per long rest". Still gives you a restriction to one spell a day but at least you could grab a situational spell here and there like Water Breathing or something.
@@KHBogWitch I think that the most importent thing is that players and DM are on same page even before session 0. If you as player have some idea how you want to build your chatacer and DM dont allow then if this is a big thing for you then is better to find new DM.
@@KHBogWitch but that's unneccessary, since spell scrolls exist. And, eventually you'll use those spells stored in your Ring of Spell Storing. I can just find spell scrolls or go to the local mage's college.
Another good tip: pick up arcana proficiency so you can always be making spell scrolls. They don’t use spell slots and you can still make use of lower level spells like hex that get outclassed at higher levels
@Minotaur of Malice The issue is downtime is super, SUPER rare in official modules unless you have travel rules. And even if you do have downtime, it also takes awhile to make anything beyond 3rd level in a spell scroll due to the rarity table time/cost thing. Basically once you reach Tier 2(5-9) or Tier 3(10-14) play, the levels where you have the resources and IC knowledge to scribe spell scrolls, MOST official modules such as Frostmaiden/Avernous/Tomb/ext will not give you enough downtime to scribe scrolls without DMs specifically changing the time restraints in the campaign setting as your often on a massive, massive time crunch during these periods.
Exactly! Lots of 1st or 2nd spells should be on scrolls. To stimulate scroll uses we homebrewed that every class can use scrolls. But if you dont have the spell on your spell list it's an Arcana check DC 15+spell level and failling is really bad. If you fail you take 1d12 dmg per spell level and roll a wild magic effect.
One of my fave tricks is taking any race with a flight speed and the Eldritch Spear invocation. Machine-gunning a foe at medium range is fun; machine-gunning them from 300ft in the air is hillarious!
There once was a warlock called Howard, Whose spells were demonically powered, He'd cast *_Hadar's_* *_Hunger,_* Then *_Sleep,_* so we'd slumber, And laugh as our flesh was devoured. ... In hindsight, Howard was kind of a jerk.
When you discuss multiclassing into Sorcerer and Fighter for constitution saving throws, are you saying that you would start as those classes and multiclass out of them, or that multiclassing into them gives you saving throw proficiencies?
@@madscientist7126 you don't gain multiclass proficiencies unless they are explicitly given out at lvl 1. So you have to start as a fighter to get the fighter proficiencies
Side note for Book of Ancient Secrets Vs Ritual Caster; RC lets you choose one classes ritual spells that you are able to learn, BoAS lets you learn *any* ritual spell you happen across, which also means you can trade spells with the Wizard in the party to provide some utility for spells which benefit from multiple castings, and give the Wizard a bit of a safety net if your DM is the kind of monster who tries to destroy their spellbook.
IMO Wizards should always protect themselves with Enduring Spellbook. It's common, doesn't require an attunement and protects their spellbook from most common ways of destruction. Then again if your DM is hell-bent on messing with them in such a way, they either won't give them Enduring Spellbooks to begin with or will try to destroy it through some means other than fire, water or wear-and-tear... So in that case yeah, what you said would be a great way to ruin the DM's plans. Provides some flavorful RP about caster camaraderie as well. As to BoAS vs RC, BoAS is obviously superior for a Warlock, but if you go for another Pact Boon, RC is still a great choice.
I have played a tomelocke who litterly just sat around and copied all my wizards spells and this very thing was so clutch as when there spell book got stolen they weren't completely screwed as I had banked a handful of there utility
Honestly, my Warlock concept was gonna go for BOAS. I liked the idea of the group chilling in a tavern, then I snap my fingers, summon my book, looking through stuff or noting it down. :)
There’s also the classic ‘Cage of Death’ at higher levels: Sickening Radiance and Forcecage. Enemies melt. For extra asshattery with it, have your Wizard or Sorceror buddy be the one casting Radiance. Be a Fathomless Warlock, and now drop Evard’s Black Tentacles plus your tentacle in the cage.
@@IchigoShinagami Yeah, I just kind of stumbled onto Sickening Radiance, and then when I heard about the Forcecage interaction, I lol'ed hard for about a minute.
One thing I would like to add as a Warlock enthusiast is that every time a Warlock levels up they can replace one spell they know with a different spell as long as it is of the same level of spell slots they have. That means that you could take a spell like Hunger of Hadar, and then replace it with something more useful like Shadow of Moil once you get 4th level spell slots. The same also goes for you Eldritch Invocations, meaning you could take something like Armor of Shadows and replace it with something else after you take a level into Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer, for instance.
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Divine soul (DS) is the superior option. You just keep Armor of Shadows for the 13+dex AC, then get to use Bless if you're lawful aligned for DS, or Heal Wounds if Good. Personally, I would take Bless since I'd be Lawful Evil, like a proper Genie.
I actually really like taking the Mire the Mind invocation as a Warlock to get the Slow spell. It's such a strong debuff, let's party in on the fun, and it pairs nicely with Eldritch Blast when it's starts shooting more beams.
I completely recommend that whenever you level warlock, swap a spell to a higher level one, preferably of a similar use. (Command/charm person -> suggestion -> Hypnotic pattern) is a good example of that kind of progression that you should always be doing. Always be upgrading your tool kit.
A simple combo is the cheese grater: Take the Dao Genie Warlok and use Spike Growth in combination with Agonizing Blast, Grasp of Hadar and Repelling Blast (eldritch blast Invocations) for big damage + CC You can also throw in the Crusher feat, to send them flying by angling the attacks ... or for the simple extra forced movement~
How does the crusher feat help your eldritch blasts? It only affects bludgeoning damage attacks. Edit: Ah, dao genie adds bludgeoning damage to one attack per turn, gotcha.
You gotta buy scrolls. No better bang for your buck. Keep a couple extras of your favorite control/buff/debuff in your pocket. Grab a bunch of low level stuff like faerie fire you can even grab a bunch of counterspells and fireballs if you want to. After level 11 the cost is worth it every time.
I actually never nabbed Agonizing Blast with one of my Warlocks. Initially he was an Undead Warlock, so I could potentially double the amount of damage I did with my Eldritch Blast, but after an event in the campaign, became a Celestial Warlock. The build I made for him was more of a support and utility build. Putting it simply, the only ones that died were those that I didn't have their name in my book.
A very key Invocation you missed about Eldritch Blast in your "Demon Gun" section..Eldritch Spear, combined with the feat Spell Sniper. Eldritch Spear increases the base range of the blast to 300ft, and Spell Sniper doubles that giving you a 600ft cantrip that ignores up to 3/4 cover with no disadvantage to the range. Only a very tiny number of high level spells (a.k.a. very limited shots per day) or a Longbow user with Sharpshooter can hit that kind of range and accuracy.
Archfey Warlock + Wild Magic Sorcerer is insanely good. Extremely evasive, and you can just spam wild surges because of the spell slot farming. If you're taking this build, getting a Feywild Shard is a must. Satyr is an amazing race for this build because of all the Face skills as well as being a Fey race that fits thematically well.
@@AI_Revolution13 Prior to a Short Rest, turn your Sorcery Points into Sorcerer Spell Slots, then your Warlock Spell Slots into Sorcery Points, and then those Sorcery Points into Sorcerer Spell Slots. Proceed to take your Short Rest. Upon doing so, you'll recover your Warlock Spell Slots. Rinse and repeat for each Short Rest. Once you Long Rest, you lose all your farmed Spell Slots. According to RAW in the DMG, you only need *a* rest. It doesn't matter if it's long or short. So by proxy, you can ignore an 8-hour Long Rest and instead take 8 Short Rests, farming spell slots the whole time. There *IS* a limit to spell slots you can farm, based on your level, and you cannot do it during downtime unless the DM allows it, as downtime doesn't have individual rests as legitimate activity in the DMG. Additionally, ignoring Long Rests means you cannot recover Hit Dice, so you're risking your health in exchange for those spell slots.
I really enjoy running a support Warlock. Ran a Fathomless Warlock with a mostly martial party, with reducing enemy movement and throwing out other situational stuff for support was really rewarding.
@@blindbrad4719 it’s super good with Fathomless because your tentacle does cold damage, and irrespective of it it actually HARMS the enemy, they lose 10 feet of movement for being hit. Adding Lance of Lethargy, Repelling Blast, and Grasp, and you can ping pong enemies around, and one poor bastard loses another ten feet of movement because he got hentaied.
Reminder for the Coffeelock: take the Healer feat to recover health without hit dice, and take Divine Soul Sorcerer levels first in order to maximize your sorcery point limits.
Better yet, go Divine Soul plush Celestial patron for the Cokelock! Greater restoration gets rid of a level of exhaustion and consumes 100gp of diamond dust for material component.
@@jemm113 You don’t need Celestial patron; Divine Soul gets Greater Restoration. And since you are taking sorcerer first, your sorcery point limit increases, allowing you to make more and higher spell slots.
@@jemm113 You don't need Greater Restoration. The idea that you need Greater Restoration (or some other way to reduce Exhaustion) for Coffeelock to work most likely revolves around the (optional) rule about foregoing long rests from XGtE (which is what gives Exhaustion in context of Coffeelock). Specifically, the wrong interpretation of those rules. Because all you need to bypass that rule is to be sleepless. So just play an Elf (or some other sleep-less race/lineage) or take Aspect of the Moon Eldritch Invocation. Because the "no long rest = exhaustion" rule is actually about lack of sleep. It literally says so in the first paragraph. In clear-cut wording indicating that it's RAI, because at one point it says "If you want to account for the effects of sleep deprivation use these rules." And that rule is in a larger section dedicated to, lo and behold, sleep. So the interpretation that this rule counts for foregoing long rests and not just foregoing sleep right off the bat requires cherry-picking the first paragraph out under the pretenses of "it's just RP", even if that "RP" explicitly states the design purpose of this rule. And instead it focuses on the "strictly mechanical" parts of the rules and how the second paragraph opens with "Whenever you end a 24-hour period without finishing a long rest". Which is still flawed, for more than one reason. First of all, by that same "logic" characters that don't need to breathe can still suffocate because the rule about suffocation doesn't explicitly exclude them (it's almost as if WotC expected players not to be idiots and be able to operate in the context of a given rule). Secondly, the third and last paragraph of this rule is also "mechanical" and yet it reiterates that it is about sleeping. Finally, you can just look at what long and short rests even are. A long rest is at least 6 hours of sleep. And the rest can be spent on light activities. And a short rest is at least one hour of light activities. So if you don't need to sleep, all that's left in a long rest is 2 hours of light activity. Which is the exact same thing you'd be doing while chaining short rests (and you'd be chaining them for more than just 2 hours anyway, because you'd fill the entire 8 hour time the rest of the party spends on their long rest with your short rests).
@@Jyggalag actually the sleep rules in Xanathar prevent features that allow you to forgive sleep from letting you bypass long rests. The rule specifically calls for you to make the con save after not taking a [long rest]. The flavor of the rule says it’s about creatures needing to sleep but any character despite any abilities to the contrary still require taking long rests or getting exhaustion. And no DM worth their salt would just allow an aspect of the moon coffeelock to just get infinite spell slots since it would completely upset the balance of the entire party. The thing about suffocation is that being able to breathe underwater explicitly allows you to use water as a medium to breathe in thereby bypassing the suffocation rules. The rest rules are explicitly telling you to take long rests and all of the sleep bypass mechanics still have mechanics for you to take long rests. Ergo you still need to rest. And again any DM worth their salt would count short rest spamming as a long rest with the sleep bypass mechanics since they explicitly allow you to perform light tasks in place of sleeping for those 6-8 hours.
i like the Undead Warlok with chain familiar and the E Invocatcion "Gift of the ever-living ones" with a multiclass fighter to always gets max healing while having Help action with my imp-visible familiar and getting everyone i hit scared of me
You missed the Bar/Loc tank with Gift of the Ever-Living Ones XGtE57 Whenever you regain hit points while your familiar is within 100 feet of you, treat any dice rolled to determine the hit points you regain as having rolled their maximum value for you. If you make you familiar a Pseudodragon you also get Magic Resistance.
Imps have that as an optional thing in the Monster Manual, and are much better scouts. They literally urn invisible and shapeshift however you want. I once got the entire party out of jail by having the Imp familiar shapeshift into a rat, turn invisible, then sneak through a dwarven prison to the evidence locker, and eat all the evidence against us. Witness statements, sworn testimonies, arrest warrants, the works. You have an invisible scout drone that can map out dungeons ahead of time with ease.
Huuh actually for the Pseudodragon RAW you don't get it, because it is a fey/celestial/fiend that takes the form of one, you need a actual pseudragon then make a familiar pact with it to get that
@@arashbeheshtiro7799 Magic Resistance isn't tied to the creature type, but to the creature itself. As per RAW: "...the familiar has the statistics of the chosen form, though it is a celestial, fey or, fiend (your choice)" (PHB 240) Only the monster type changes, none of its other statistics. Pseudodragon is an outlier, most dragons don't have Magic Resistance (they have Legendary Resistance instead), but nearly all fey, and a number of celestials and fiends have the trait.
Pseudodragon's Magic Resistance does not extend to the warlock. You can perceive through the familiar's senses, have the familiar speak with your voice, increase HP gains, use your DC for its special abilities, make an attack, deliver your touch spell, but no invocation allows you to benefit from Pseudodragon's Magic Resistance.
Witch bolt is a good one for taking on a single powerful target as its continuous concentration so you can cast that then on following turns hit the same target with eldritch blast
Seriously, why the hell does nobody talk about the DARKNESS + DEVIL'S SIGHT combo that allows you to basically clutch pretty much every combat encounter?
Becaus your other partymembers don't have Devil's Sight and a lot of spells require you to see the target and all range attacks are with disadvantage and wont work against blindsight which some enemies have?
If you want to multiclass a Warlock, you want Bard. A healing spell, and ample utility spells all in one, plus extra skills and some nice class features.
My warlock has 3 levels into armorer artificer I have heavy armor, a mind sharpener that allows me to keep concentration spells up to 4 times a day. The second infusion can be either an armor that prevents me from being knocked prone or a +1 to my spells both for damage and to hit (which include my eldritch blast) The last known infusion is to make the pot of awakening Also the yuan-ti (pre-nerf) race coupled with the witherbloom student background makes the character a beast
One thing the warlocks get that most of the other casters don't is access to light armor, and that means you can pick up the moderately armored feat to get proficiency in medium armor and shields along with a +1 to strength or dexterity. This gives you a rather amazing AC at early levels. Additionally, if you are playing a Hexblade warlock you can get the heavily armored feat to roleplay as a paladin.
I’m playing a celestial warlock multi classing with as a divine soul sorcerer. I have soooo many cantrips. I ended up getting the healer feat so I can be a bigger healer.
Useful Warlock items even for when your dm offers downtime ultra rarely: 1.Rod of the Pact Keeper: restore a warlock spellslot. Also higher spell attack bonuses and spell save DC. Crucial when you can't afford your spell to fumble. 2.Ring of Spell Storing: can keep a bunch of low level spells at hand or one big spell. Basically spellscrolls if your dm doesn't give a lot of free time or treasure. Best thing is that it can be easily recharged if you make it to short or long rest with spellslots. 3.Pearl of Power: an additional 3rd level spellslot once per long rest. Sometimes you don't know what spell you'll need, so it's useful. Ideally, having a Rod of pact keepet and two Rings of spells storing is the goal. 10 extra spell levels would even allow for some blasting, acting like much more expendable spellslots. Rod of pact keeper lets you have an extra spell slot in a clutch.
My personal favorite thing to do with a warlock is to play a warforged, and at 4th level pick up the moderately armored feat which means with half plate and a shield I am rocking a 20 AC without any spells buffing it on a full caster. This is what I did for my Genie warlock, and it was amazing especially when I started using dimension door to blast people from 500ft away with 600ft range eldritch blasts.
I will say, spells that last a lot longer through one casting are fantastic, definitely go for them. But an up-casted fireball can also significantly change the battlefield in the course of one turn, especially when things to turn around quickly. Ive had players use it to not only change the number of enemies on the board, but they’ve also convinced me that a blast that powerful (especially when up-casted) should be able to do reasonable environmental damage. They’ve used it to do things like start avalanches, collapse non-reinforced caves or tunnels, set enemy ships on fire quickly while eliminating other members of the crew and forcing people to dive overboard, etc. With how strong it is, its still really good to have in your back pocket if you ever need a literal grenade. That being said, I can see most warlocks skipping it as a spell choice entirely for something like a Horn of Blasting or a Wand of Fireballs or one of those necklaces with the blasting pearls instead. Maybe even a spell scroll option, just more free magic that doesnt require them to actually take it
Repelling Blast and Grasp of Hadar are free, infinitely useable forced movement that has no save or size limit. Warlocks therefore benefit tons from investing in spells that exploit this-- Spike Growth and Wall of Fire if you can get them, but Web, Sickening Radiance or even Hunger of Hadar can do amazing things from shoving foes into danger.
Flock of familiars scales with spell slots, +1 familiar per spell slot above. It's a good scouting spell with 1 hour duration and 1 mile distance to see through your familiar's eyes or senses.
@@DnDShorts Find Familiar can still be worth it since you only cast it when your familiar is dead. But getting it via Ritual Caster, Book of Ancient Secrets, or Pact of the Chain is much better.
A rogue with the shadow touched feat is one of the most overpowered combos allowing easy sneak attacks that crit easier if you take the assassin subclass. I found this out first hand as a player that loves making my dm cry.
I recall pairing lance of lethargy with repelling blast on my fathomless warlock, I was a devious little battlefield controlling caster, some enemies had 0 movement on their turn :P
This is where warlocks shine. Every full casting class can get some form of massive damage concentration spell. Warlocks are the only ones that can regularly push foes BACK INTO the damage zone. IMHO (and I play warlocks 90% of the time) repelling blast is the best invocation, hands down... And only gets better if there are more casters in the party. (bonus mention: it combines best with aoe spells that do damage "when a creature enters or starts it's turn", such as cloud of daggers, black tentacles, or moonbeam.)
Paladin Warlocks are my preferred killing machines. Being able to EB while things are far away then as they get close finishing them off with a smite or two is fantastic!
9:15 Actually, when multi-classing you don't gain profiency in saving throws, there is a chart in the phb, on average when a character multi-classes they get profiency in armor or weapons, maybe skills if you multi class into rogue or bard
I believe they said pick Sorcerer for your 1st level, so you gain the proficiencies in Saving Throws, and then multi into Warlock for the armor proficiencies.
5:55 i agree BUT hex is amazing because in a way, it does scale, because you get more bang for you buck as you get more eldritch blast rays. You are essentially multiplying eldritch blast damage by 1.5 with each cast of hex. Also you can keep hex out longer at higher levels too. If you have a spell slot before a short rest, find a rat or bug you can hex and kill right away. Then you can still have hex without a spell slot after youre done with the rest.
Eh, that strat requires a DM that would allow that. It also doesn't get around the fact that it eats up your concentration. Which should be used for more impactful spells as you level up. Not to mention that it eats up a known spell. So it's fine at lower levels. But kind of like hunter's mark, it's a trap option past tier 1 play. It's not worth blocking the concentration spells you need to use to get the most out of your slots.
I have an amazing warlock build for demon gun, so your feats are spell sniper and Meta Majic Adept (distance spell and subtle spell), and the only invocations you need are agonizing blast and eldrich spear but I do like having repealing blast as well, so with eldrich blast with spear is 300ft, then double it because of spell sniper for 600ft, then double it again because of distance spell for 1200ft of range on a single eldrich blast.
Something else Warlock players should know: Niche spells are your best friend. As you level up, you very quickly end up with a lot more spells known than you have spell slots. This means you can afford to take all those extremely powerful but extremely situational spells that other casters often pass up because they rarely come up. Spells like Earthbind and Intellect Fortress, which are usually not very good but they outright win specific encounters, make perfect sense to take "just in case" because you have so much space on your spell list. Conversely though, when you reach 11th level and start getting Mystic Arcanum spells, the opposite is true. You only get one Mystic Arcanum of each level, it can never be switched out or used to upcast a lower level spell, and you get to cast it once per day for the rest of your life. So for your 6th+ level spells, you need to pick stuff that you know you will want to cast every single day. These spells should be super reliable, and always have a use. Mass Suggestion and Forcecage are prime examples. Each one can win a lot of combat encounters on its own, and each has its own out of combat utility as well. Once you get to 17th level, even the much-maligned Foresight should be given a close look as a Mystic Arcanum option, because even though it's not the strongest 9th level spell, it's always always useful. You will never not cast Foresight if you have it.
Glibness also guarantees a 19 on charisma checks, which includes counter spell, so your 5th levelled pact slots can always do away a BBEGs 9th level spells, it's another consideration.
@@DoomsdayR3sistance I don't often see multiple 9th level spells from enemies in a single hour, and it requires some prediction to set up. I'm not saying it's not worth considering, especially as a traditional caster, but if I was going to take Glibness as a Warlock, it would be for its social uses rather than for counterspell, because on a social character it's much more likely to come up every day. But, being an 8th level spell, it's competing with a lot of weak options. I'd say its main competition is probably Dominate Monster, for its sheer reliability. There will never be an adventuring day when Dominate Monster isn't at least a little bit handy. Given that you only ever get one 8th level spell, that seems like the most important thing to me.
I went the celestial, pact of the chain and gift of the ever living one invocation. This means that whenever you spawn your familiar from pact of the chainand are within 100 feet of all your healing rolls are counted as max. This is absolutely insane with cure wounds and the celestial healing pool of dice ability, as cure wounds will always heal 13 hitpoints (this is only at lvl 1 tho lol, and as long as u have +5 on charisma) and the dice from the pool will always heal for 6. Insanely broken support build, especially with the fiendish vigour invocation and armour of arthygus spell. Edit: at lvl 4, sacrifice the skill improvement to get the feat gift of the metalic dragon. This lets you cast cure wounds once without expending a spell slot, and u can use a reaction to yourself or a teammate getting hit to boost your/their a/c by your proficiency modifier.
I’m currently playing a level 3 blood hunter and I chose the order of the profane soul, pact of the undying one. Getting access to hex and armor of Agathys on a martial class is going to be huge. Being able to hex a target and blast away at them with my hand crossbow multiple times a round is going to make for a very deadly single target striker.
Oooph. Can't say I agree with a lot of this advice, especially the advice about spells that scale. Misty Step in particular being on that list is a good example of where utility cannot be understated. Even if you're doing the Feytouched tango to get Misty Step and Hex for free, having it and other 'good effect but not level improvement' can really help out in practice. And lordy, by no means feel like you HAVE to take Eldritch Blast. It's great, but there really are other ways to do damage in practice, and always remember that party synergy is one of those ways.
Alongside Agonizing Blast, Misty Visions has got to be one of the highest utility invocations. Yes, concentration. But it has a 10 minute duration and you can move it to any location within range on each turn after you cast it. Also, unlike Minor Illusion, it can be a creature and it can be animated when you move it. The number of ways you can use this to hide things or generate a distraction is nearly endless. At very minimum, you should be able to use it for your group to make ranged attacks with advantage periodically.
I created an Abjuration Wizard/Dao Genie Warlock build made for casting non-concentration spells to become unhittable and extremely tanky (Armor of Agathys, Sanctuary, Mirror Image, and Shield/Silvery Barbs we’re my go-to spells.)
I know the community calls it heresy, but I like to play warlocks without Eldridge blast. This is such a creative, customizable class that it just rubs me the wrong way that every warlock is designed to spam the same cantrip over and over again. Not shaming people who use it, E.B is easily the best damaging cantrip, no contest. But I like building my warlocks without it. Still, great video, very well thought out, and a few tips for me to keep in mind next time I roll up a character in my favorite class. Thanks buddy!
I've built a Great Old One warlock for an upcoming one-shot who is built entirely around screwing with people's minds, via illusions, psychic projections, and mind control, while operating from the shadows. So I deliberately avoided 'flashy' spells like Eldritch Blast because a crackling blast of energy isn't exactly subtle.
yeah same, Warlock is the class I've probably played the most but after my first full campaign with one I got totally sick of EB. I like running my warlocks as super manipulative tool box casters who have a spell/incantation for any social encounter. The incantation that lets u cast disguise self at will, mixed with the one that lets you create any illusion in your hand + an extremely high charisma means I can basically get anyone to believe anything I do and say outside of combat. I have driven more than a few DMs crazy this way
Same. I developed a hexblade vengeance pallock that was more of an espionage field agent for a Neutral god (Silvanus rocks). Went with all the knowledge/appearance change abilities a warlock could offer instead of the flashy/noisy stuff. Amazing how effective the character was at fighting/infiltration/spying. And negating troublesome personalities.
I have a warlock that doesn't have Eldritch Blast, he is a support-focused pack of the talisman-Archfey warlock/collage of eloquence bard. His main attack spell is Ray of Frost...
Grasp of Hadar is so fun if you can fly. Just zip up 30 ft and blast away. Each beam pulls them towards you up in the air. Then the get falling damage. It's really fun to pull bow snipers out of trees or off walls as well.
@@whydidiwatchthis5174 or if you and your DM don't know how to play. My first character was a Cleric and I put all of my stats not in Wisdom, but he still was a strongest member of the party
@@GhizTheKobold Sanctuary drops the second you deal damage with Spirit Guardians. It doesn't drop if you make an attack roll, it drops when you cast spells on others *or deal damage*
I made a coffeelock hexblade and I gotta say, darkness turns into the only spell you'll ever need. Took pact of the blade. Invocations were devil sight, eldritch smite and improved pact weapon. Having infinite spell slots means eldritch smite, which can now be used at range, is insanely strong. I like to add thirsting blade as my last invocation to do 2 of them in 1 turn
Flock of familiars DOES in fact scale. And its quite useful. Imagine have 6 familiars all flying around performing the Help action for every member in you party during combat to give them all Advantage on their attacks.
I'm currently playing a hexblade/barbarian in a Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign, with the one barb level just for unarmored defense and rage. Pact of the Blade and all that. I'm a Goliath with the fisherman background, and my pact weapon is usually a trident. It's the most fun I've ever had as a player, and it's hilarious running around as an unarmored Goliath Barbarian with 13 str/20 cha lmao. My party calls the build "flexblade."
A multiclass I've been having a lot of fun with is Hexblade Echo Knight. Started at lvl 3 with 2 fighter 1 warlock (for backstory reasons) then proceeded to get to F2W4 before taking that third fighter level. Pact of the Blade, of course. My tiefling HexEcho (name is not final...) wields a magical glaive and my "alpha strike" can deal 5D10 + 2D6 + 61 for an average of 95.5 damage. 5D10 comes from the 5 attacks I can do myself, 2 attacks per turn, doubled for action surge, +1 for my echos attack, 2D6 from an expelling of branding smite, and +61 comes from 40 from the glaives damage (does D10+8) and +21 from hexblades curse.
I actually plan on playing a straight dragonborn undead warlock, he focuses on fear effects so he has spells like summon undead and fear. I am taking agonizing blast, but most of my invocations will not be going towards EB
You can probably still go sorcerer level 1 for the level 1 slots and con save. Shield is great no matter the tier of play! Shadow is pretty good for free darkvision and death protection. Draconic for keeping the hp comparable to a d8 and permanent 13+Dex armor which is as good as +1 studded leather. Though admittedly the draconic bloodlines don’t mesh too well with Dragonborn’s due to the shared resistances between similar ancestries. This is mitigated by higher levels letting you spend sorcery points for immunity for a minute.
Be sure to go with the Fizban Dragonborn options, if your DM allows it. Metallic dragonborn get the option to incapacitate enemies in a 15 ft cone or knock them prone. Or you go with Gem ancestry for a rare resistance to force, psychic or thunder damage, and a reliable way to dish out the same.
To the first question: I don't plan on doing anything besides warlock, but if I did starting with a level in sorcerer would be my best bet To the second one: I am playing a Topaz dragonborn because of how much I like topaz dragons and multiple other elements, plus it is thematic for my character
@@ericharrison4067 very understandable, I have gotten my fair share of all classes, but I grew up playing primarily warlocks. Though I do have a bit over 6 years of 5e under my belt at this point. I’ve always loved the warlock concept.
My favorite combo: Hexblade + Eldritch Knight = a living magical curb-stomp with a sword that's basically a part of you now. Also good: the Faerunian messiah that is Celestial + Divine Soul; you can play the part of a cleric or paladin if your party is lacking one while bitch-slapping anything unholy. By the way, why is Misty Step bad, but Far Step good?
Because misty step is once, and far step is once per turn for a minute. It's misty step x10 and for twice the distance. Either way you're using a 5th level slot, so pick the better one.
It may be MAD but I want try a warlock/bladesinger wizard Blsdesingers let you cast a cantrip as part of extra attack, meaning in addition to all the Eldritch beams you also get a weapon attack. Pair this with crossbow expert for a bonus action attack with a hand crossbow. Make it your hexblade weapon and you can use chr to shoot Meaning at level 7 1 watlock/6 wizard it'll be 4 attacks, 1d10+chr x2, and 1d6+chr x2 And that obey goes up as you get more beams And later you could add sharpshooter to the hand crossbow too All without any spell slots While also having all the options of a normal wizard
I've got a 6th level half-drow Raven queen warlock with a two-level twilight cleric dip... Heavy armor, healing touch with find familiar, and 10 cantrips (3 cleric, 3 warlock, 3 pact of tome, and one drow magic)... Role playing went from devout follower, to 'put your money where your mouth is' follower. First lock I've played, and I'm loving it.
Fire genasi has two spells at level 3 as well. The cantrip produce flame And burning hands once per day Currently playing a fire genasi of the genie pact of chains. I get 2 natural spells A house that I can store shit in A pet who can communicate with me and scout about (I've chosen pseudodragon.. before peeps start saying how crap it is, it's already helped resolve a combat in 1 round simply by flying over to the target and stinging it making the druid fall unconscious and a gladiator npc finished the job in one round.)
7:28 reminds me of Megumin from Kono Suba... uses fireball cause "nothing else can quell the fire that burns throughout my soul" and passes out right after.
The thing with agonizing blast is that it's not really as flavorful as some of the other things. Sure, I could add 5 to my damage... Or I could get both Repelling Blast and Grasp of Hadar, get a friend to cast Spike Growth, and deal an extra 4d4 damage instead of just 5, with lots of extra flavor added in.
That's situational, takes a full round to set up and against really fast enemies or flying enemies your damage would be pitiful. Plus it's 5 damage on every hit of eldritch blast which is about the same as the 2d4 from spike growth with several added asterisks cause like i said it's not gonna work in every situation. The only time it may be better is if your dm allows repelling blast and grasp of hadar to activate on the same hit. I personally know two DMs that don't allow this. If you want to build a cheese grater you're better off using crusher to pull towards you before level 5 via variant huma or custom lineate and at level 2 pick up agonizing blast and also repelling bladt.
@@crunchevo8974 It's not 2d4 in this case, it's 4d4. Spike Growth deals 2d4 per 5 feet of movement through the spikes and Invocations that add movement to EB move the enemy by 10 feet. And since multiple beams of EB are separate hits, you can move an enemy multiple times. The only caveat is that unlike Repelling Blast Grasp of Hadar has "once on turn when you hit" in its wording, so depending on where the enemy stands in regards to the spikes you may only grate them 3 times instead of 4 even if you have 4 beams of EB. But that's still 12d4. But that's still an average of 30 damage compared to 20 of 4 hits of Agonizing Blast. Then again you could always combine them for a bonus of 50 (on average).
As soon we hit level 4, my current build will slowly come online. I don't know how good it will be, but the idea was: 3 level Bard at the start and at least 3 level in Warlock. Then only take support/debuff spells as well as Investment of the Chain Master and, best case, never deal damage myself again. Either my familiar or my party will handle the killing, while I try to make moving, evading and attacking hell for the enemies.
I want to multiclass bard and warlock. Go bard for 3 skills of my choice, college of lore or whispers eventually for extra fun at some point. Spec into warlock for mask of many faces invocations and take pact of the tome. Idk how many levels to take in each but essentially I want to make a character that is obsessed with getting knowledge from everywhere so she focuses on espionage and trickery to do it. Go far enough into bard for magical secrets mayhaps and just be an all around pain in the ass lol.
New earth genasi with its bonus action blade ward/prof is a nasty contender for a fiend pact pain-tank. Armour of Agathys + fire shield + shadow of moil + resistance to s/b/p is soooo much pain for anyone who manages to hit you.
My favorite sorlock is shadow/hexblade with the stixhaven background and the hexblood lineage. Hexblood gives you hex and disguise self, and the strixhaven background gives you extra spell options plus a free feat that gives you 2 more cantrips and a 1st level spell.
I would disagree with Tip 3, Warlocks are the only casters that CAN afford to blast. Because you have those 2 spellslots every other combat and have the lowest opportunity cost for damage spells since the control tools you do have are VERY limited compared to the other full casters. Also Synaptic static goes BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
This is one of the most variable parts of playing a warlock. How often does your party short rest and how often does combat occur? These factors totally change how the class plays, and that is the chief reason why many dislike it. If the party never short rests, or the DM never gives you a chance to, you have to be very conservative with your slots. In those conditions, tip 3's advice is sound. And yeah, synaptic static ignores all of this.
I am the only character in our group who is able to do aoe damage - and Fireball should be a good damage option for Curse of Strahd given how good Burning Hand has been on the way to level 5.
Aside from Hexblades, there are also Necromancers who don't need Eldritch Blast. Warlock 11 / Necromancer 9 and you can raise a few hundred undead with a few days prep, especially if you're an elf.
I do love me some barbalocks. Take for example: 12 fire genie warlock/8 barbarian Ancestral Guardian half-orc with piercer and the orcish fury racial feat wielding a pike/lance. You'll have reach if they hit anyone else they'll do less than half damage (depending on the wording/interpretation you could use the lvl6 feature also for yourself), if they hit you they'll take fire shield + AOA damage if you crit you'll do 6 weapon dice worth + 12d8 from a critted eldritch smite + a fly speed. Another 1 is celestial warlock (10 to 14 lvls) with pact of the chain and it's full heal invocation + bear barb/beast barbs (rest of the lvls, but we are mostly here for extra attack with the new shifter race that has a bonus action bite that is 4 attacks per turn) claws for frontline healing of course there are also some cool options with zealot barb or bear barb + Great Old One. Not to mention how useful fathomless warlock is great is for builds that lower movement speed and slasher are great that it can even make the Wild Magic Barb with the right roll (the one that turns your surroundings into diffecult terrain in a radius of 15 ft) usable. If UA is allowed at your table consider 14 lvls of giant barb + 6 lvls of undead warlock (undead warlock is also great on plenty of other builds) with the new dragonborn and the dragon fear racial feat. I'm probably missing some other combo mc's here, but you get the gist of it.
To your comment about demon RoboCop, I used the armorer artificer multi-class with two levels of fighter, and the rest into warlock to make the Doom Slayer
I’d love this with all the other classes or spellcasters too! Maybe explore the blood hunter by Matt mercer or some of his homebrew subclasses too they are great!
One of my fave combos is being a Hexblade, getting the Devil’s Sight invocation, and casting Darkness on myself, and just waging into battle where I have advantage and enemies have disadvantage on all attacks 😁
My favorite class to multi class with Warlock is Paladin. Start with three levels in Paladin and then take two levels in Warlock. Really fun when it comes to Green Flame Blade and Searing Smite
I made a Marid Genielock Barbarian. Focusing on Genie Warlock. In our first combat I did 30 damage to an enemy without hitting it because my 2nd level Armor of Agathys lasted for 3 hits.
Telekinetic is a cool feat to take with Warlock. Lets you increase Charisma (or Intelligence or Wisdom) by 1, gives you mage hand if you didn't have it, and if you did, it now reaches 60ft, and it's invisible in both cases. You can also telekinetically shove or pull an enemy 5ft as a bonus action. I used this with the fly spell to reach an enemy up above and pull them off a ledge, but it's also useful for getting rid of a close-combat enemy so that you can flee or cast a spell without disadvantage.
My current favorite Warlock build is my Tactical Warlock. Multi-classing with the Sea Sorcerer from Unearthed Arcana gives me a curse I can place on targets hit with a cantrip (Eldritch Blast) that adds abilities to spells that: deal Lightning damage (more damage), cold damage (reduce movement by 10'), or causes forced movement (move an extra 15'). Eldritch Blast with Lance of Lethargy to reduce movement 10' and curse the target, then summon a watery tendril from the Fathomless Patron which can hit the same target and reduce movement another 10' plus deal Cold damage triggering the curse causing the target to reduce another 10'. Add in Repelling Blast and I get to move targets around like a chess board. This is all accomplished by level 3
Did a VERY fun Bladelock build both mechanically & especially thematically--a Celestial Bladelock who made an oath to Bahamut. He was origionally a slave born & raised in a Dao's mine/palace (the Dao are Earth Genies & the worst kind of all 4 Genie types) as a guard. An adventuring party showed up to storm & destroy the Dao's operation, kill the Dao & free all of the captives. The party was lead by both a Divine Paladin and a Life Cleric of Bahamut as well. Inspired by both, he went to their temple & made a pact--divine power in exchange for service so that he could one day return to the Elemental Plane of Earth & run his own crusades. I ran a level 1 Earth Genasi (Monsters of the Multiverse version) fighter, level 19 celestial warlock with pact of the blade. Ran Green Flame Blade to dish out 4D8+13 damage a turn on single targets or 7D8+21 on adjacent targets as well as Agonizing Blast smacking enemies for 3D10+12 at range. He could heal himself every turn as a bonus action &/or use his damage resistance cantrip as a bonus action 8 times a day lasting for 2 rounds. Theory crafting him at level 20 he'd get the Epic Boon of Fortitude, turning each of his healing die into 1D6+4
Just a quick clarification, if you want Con saves from Fighter or Sorcerer you have to take those classes first before Warlock as you don't get saving throw proficiencies from multiclassing. Also, I highly suggest pairing Warlock with Bard if you want to help with healing and filling some holes in a party's ability set. Plus I just think a Warlock casting Dissonant Whispers is fun flavor.
My favorite Warlock build was a Hexblade Warlock where I refused to take Eldritch Blast, it forced me to make a really creative build that could heal the party and was a literal murder machine
A good race to choose for warlock is the drow. They get dancing lights as a cantrip and both faerie fire and darkness. If you take the drow high magic feat in xanathars you can get detect magic AT WILL, levitate(which is super good),and dispel magic.
Step 1: lv5 bladelock lv1 devine soulcerer (6 total) Step 2: Be able to cast spirit guardians with the cleric spell list Step 3: Pick up sentinel (and maybe polearm master if your a vuman/tco) Step 4: Cast spirit guardians, armor of Agathys, mage armor. Then walk up to a infinite swarm of enemies and watch them pop like bubbles
I'm sorry, but how is mage armor adding any value here? Bladelock means you have access to medium armor. Which doesn't stack with mage armor. Also, I'm afraid that armor of agathys doesn't add much here either. Since it only works if you're hit, and if you want to be hit, you shouldn't case mage armor even if you're forgoing your medium armor. The only thing really adding value here is spirit guardians.
@@piranhaplantX I, actually forgot HW gives you medium armor proficiency. . . Neat AOA is mostly just to deal with any actually decent threats that make their way into the battle, and to rub some salt into your DM's wound. This is just me talking about a character I played that I found super effective and now that I think of it the main aspects of the biuld is Sentinel + Spirit guardians if I'm being honest.
When I go for an eldritch blast warlock, I take eldritch spear (sets eldritch blast range to 300 ft) and the spell sniper feat (doubles the range of all cantrips with a range) and lastly repelling blast so that I can knock people out of trees from 600 feet.
![A Crap Guide to D&D [5th Edition] - Warlock](/img/n.gif)
If I had a clue what I was doing I would have made the MUNK PACK collaboration in a Monk video. Get your 20% discount at Munk Pack with code DNDSHORTS right here! thld.co/munkpack_dndshorts_0622
When talking about using your spell slots to stack the field with minions, I'm surprised you didn't touch on Animate Dead.
If your DM lets you have enough short rests, you can grab an army of skeletons, and have them do the fighting for you.
I mean, it's the lazy approach to combat, but... Warlock. You sold your soul to be lazy.
...Also, last I checked, Multiclassing doesn't give you saves, since if it did, someone could just multiclass twice and gain all saves.
@@LucanVaris I could have been clearer in the video, but multiclassing gets you the saves of the starting class. So a Sorc/Warlock gets you the CON save proficiency!
@@DnDShorts That's what I thought you might have meant, but it sounded like you were insinuating that starting Warlock, _then_ going Fighter or Sorcerer, would still net you those saves.
Unrelated criticism I have to say while it's in my mind... Instead of Big -stripper- Pecks, Sculpted Physique works better and actually suggests nine abs are involved.
If you are mainly a Sorcerer take a level in Wizard.
Wizards can put higher level spells into their spellbooks.
Sorcerers can use those spells.
for the third tip:
"When you gain a level in Warlock you can choose one of the warlock spells you know and replace it with another spell from the warlock spell list, which also must be of a level for which you have spell slots."
you CAN get non-scaling spells, just swap them later
though some spells like Hypnotic Pattern are so good you don't care
If your DM allows it, at lower levels the Ring of Spell Storing works great with this; you can load up the ring with spells you currently have access to but intend to switch out, then level and get your new spells too.
Hypnotic pattern should be dropped once you get Sickening Radiance though, as the damage sickening radiance does outweighs hypnotic pattern which is going to fall off soon as more and more creatures are immune to charm. But you could also wait until you have access to 5th level spells before doing that so you have Hold Monster, which will work on everything. Such a shame Warlocks don't get Confusion very easily... At least you have Banish at 4th level.
There is also the optional rule that really makes Charisma casters a little easier to play which allows you to do the silly "replace 1 spell per level up" to "replace 1 spell per long rest". Still gives you a restriction to one spell a day but at least you could grab a situational spell here and there like Water Breathing or something.
@@KHBogWitch I think that the most importent thing is that players and DM are on same page even before session 0. If you as player have some idea how you want to build your chatacer and DM dont allow then if this is a big thing for you then is better to find new DM.
@@KHBogWitch but that's unneccessary, since spell scrolls exist. And, eventually you'll use those spells stored in your Ring of Spell Storing.
I can just find spell scrolls or go to the local mage's college.
Another good tip: pick up arcana proficiency so you can always be making spell scrolls. They don’t use spell slots and you can still make use of lower level spells like hex that get outclassed at higher levels
@Minotaur of Malicethey take to long to make
I abused this, combined with proficiency in the forgery kit, so I was always selling incredibly realistic fake scrolls.
Is this something you could do as a genie warlock inside the lamp whilst someone else carries you?
@Minotaur of Malice The issue is downtime is super, SUPER rare in official modules unless you have travel rules. And even if you do have downtime, it also takes awhile to make anything beyond 3rd level in a spell scroll due to the rarity table time/cost thing.
Basically once you reach Tier 2(5-9) or Tier 3(10-14) play, the levels where you have the resources and IC knowledge to scribe spell scrolls, MOST official modules such as Frostmaiden/Avernous/Tomb/ext will not give you enough downtime to scribe scrolls without DMs specifically changing the time restraints in the campaign setting as your often on a massive, massive time crunch during these periods.
Exactly! Lots of 1st or 2nd spells should be on scrolls. To stimulate scroll uses we homebrewed that every class can use scrolls. But if you dont have the spell on your spell list it's an Arcana check DC 15+spell level and failling is really bad. If you fail you take 1d12 dmg per spell level and roll a wild magic effect.
One of my fave tricks is taking any race with a flight speed and the Eldritch Spear invocation. Machine-gunning a foe at medium range is fun; machine-gunning them from 300ft in the air is hillarious!
Builds like this are why flying races tend to be banned at a lot of tables. ;P
Eldritch spear more like eldritch sniperrifle
take spell sniper and distant spell for the hilariously over killed 1200ft sniper rifle
@@emmettbrolly4338 Good gods... that's almost as broken as 3.5e's "God's Apocalyptic Fidget Spinner" combo 😬
or, just genielock
There once was a warlock called Howard,
Whose spells were demonically powered,
He'd cast *_Hadar's_* *_Hunger,_*
Then *_Sleep,_* so we'd slumber,
And laugh as our flesh was devoured.
... In hindsight, Howard was kind of a jerk.
I like howard
@@ChaoticTrapper JUSTICE FOR HOWARD!
When you discuss multiclassing into Sorcerer and Fighter for constitution saving throws, are you saying that you would start as those classes and multiclass out of them, or that multiclassing into them gives you saving throw proficiencies?
@@madscientist7126 i want to know too
@@madscientist7126 you don't gain multiclass proficiencies unless they are explicitly given out at lvl 1. So you have to start as a fighter to get the fighter proficiencies
Side note for Book of Ancient Secrets Vs Ritual Caster; RC lets you choose one classes ritual spells that you are able to learn, BoAS lets you learn *any* ritual spell you happen across, which also means you can trade spells with the Wizard in the party to provide some utility for spells which benefit from multiple castings, and give the Wizard a bit of a safety net if your DM is the kind of monster who tries to destroy their spellbook.
IMO Wizards should always protect themselves with Enduring Spellbook. It's common, doesn't require an attunement and protects their spellbook from most common ways of destruction. Then again if your DM is hell-bent on messing with them in such a way, they either won't give them Enduring Spellbooks to begin with or will try to destroy it through some means other than fire, water or wear-and-tear... So in that case yeah, what you said would be a great way to ruin the DM's plans. Provides some flavorful RP about caster camaraderie as well.
As to BoAS vs RC, BoAS is obviously superior for a Warlock, but if you go for another Pact Boon, RC is still a great choice.
I have played a tomelocke who litterly just sat around and copied all my wizards spells and this very thing was so clutch as when there spell book got stolen they weren't completely screwed as I had banked a handful of there utility
Honestly, my Warlock concept was gonna go for BOAS. I liked the idea of the group chilling in a tavern, then I snap my fingers, summon my book, looking through stuff or noting it down. :)
@@captianbacon Nice.
Best part of Agonizing Blast is that it scales and adds to each bolt of agonizing blasts adding +20 to the overall assault.
if you multiclass a warlock/ sorcerer/fighter you can action surge + quickened spell to cast true strike 3 times in a turn.
That's psychic damage to me if a player did this in a game of mine.
@@alextrollip7707 kills all enemies at once!
There’s also the classic ‘Cage of Death’ at higher levels: Sickening Radiance and Forcecage. Enemies melt. For extra asshattery with it, have your Wizard or Sorceror buddy be the one casting Radiance. Be a Fathomless Warlock, and now drop Evard’s Black Tentacles plus your tentacle in the cage.
Turn out, the enemy is immune to level 6 and lower with CON save of 19
I call it "The Microwave"
Also, it's one of the few options Celestial Warlocks can trigger their extra Radiant damage with.
@@IchigoShinagami Yeah, I just kind of stumbled onto Sickening Radiance, and then when I heard about the Forcecage interaction, I lol'ed hard for about a minute.
@@justnoob8141 Damn Rakshasa.
“You sold your soul to satan…”
Celestial warlock:” I’ll ignore that..”
Lucifer is an angel...
Same as Divine Soul Sorcerers. People forgetting such a thing as evil gods exist. Divine doesn't mean good.
@@Noobie2k7 does a warlock patron even have to be evil? I probably won’t be allowing evil PCs in my upcoming game, so I gotta know
@@HippoEnjoyer no
@@HippoEnjoyer nah, my current warlock is an evil character but his celestial patron is good.
One thing I would like to add as a Warlock enthusiast is that every time a Warlock levels up they can replace one spell they know with a different spell as long as it is of the same level of spell slots they have. That means that you could take a spell like Hunger of Hadar, and then replace it with something more useful like Shadow of Moil once you get 4th level spell slots.
The same also goes for you Eldritch Invocations, meaning you could take something like Armor of Shadows and replace it with something else after you take a level into Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer, for instance.
Divine soul (DS) is the superior option. You just keep Armor of Shadows for the 13+dex AC, then get to use Bless if you're lawful aligned for DS, or Heal Wounds if Good. Personally, I would take Bless since I'd be Lawful Evil, like a proper Genie.
I actually really like taking the Mire the Mind invocation as a Warlock to get the Slow spell. It's such a strong debuff, let's party in on the fun, and it pairs nicely with Eldritch Blast when it's starts shooting more beams.
the only problem with Mire the Mind is that it uses a spell slot. I's still call it a worthy trade-off
Given the massive debuff you can cause with Slow to everything within a 40 foot cube, it's definitely worth the spell slot.
I completely recommend that whenever you level warlock, swap a spell to a higher level one, preferably of a similar use. (Command/charm person -> suggestion -> Hypnotic pattern) is a good example of that kind of progression that you should always be doing. Always be upgrading your tool kit.
A simple combo is the cheese grater:
Take the Dao Genie Warlok and use Spike Growth in combination with Agonizing Blast, Grasp of Hadar and Repelling Blast (eldritch blast Invocations) for big damage + CC
You can also throw in the Crusher feat, to send them flying by angling the attacks ... or for the simple extra forced movement~
And Genie has Hover/Flight so send them 15ft up for a lil bit more dmg and let them fall, with "prone" at the end.
How does the crusher feat help your eldritch blasts? It only affects bludgeoning damage attacks.
Edit: Ah, dao genie adds bludgeoning damage to one attack per turn, gotcha.
Dao Genie you make with one attack per round extra bludgeoning dmg based on your PB. Edit: i was to late
R.a.w. being moved doesn't count as movement. Consult your GM beforehand to ensure hilarity.
eldritch blast is force, crusher triggers on bludgeoning
You gotta buy scrolls. No better bang for your buck. Keep a couple extras of your favorite control/buff/debuff in your pocket. Grab a bunch of low level stuff like faerie fire you can even grab a bunch of counterspells and fireballs if you want to. After level 11 the cost is worth it every time.
I actually never nabbed Agonizing Blast with one of my Warlocks. Initially he was an Undead Warlock, so I could potentially double the amount of damage I did with my Eldritch Blast, but after an event in the campaign, became a Celestial Warlock. The build I made for him was more of a support and utility build. Putting it simply, the only ones that died were those that I didn't have their name in my book.
A very key Invocation you missed about Eldritch Blast in your "Demon Gun" section..Eldritch Spear, combined with the feat Spell Sniper. Eldritch Spear increases the base range of the blast to 300ft, and Spell Sniper doubles that giving you a 600ft cantrip that ignores up to 3/4 cover with no disadvantage to the range. Only a very tiny number of high level spells (a.k.a. very limited shots per day) or a Longbow user with Sharpshooter can hit that kind of range and accuracy.
Archfey Warlock + Wild Magic Sorcerer is insanely good. Extremely evasive, and you can just spam wild surges because of the spell slot farming. If you're taking this build, getting a Feywild Shard is a must. Satyr is an amazing race for this build because of all the Face skills as well as being a Fey race that fits thematically well.
I have a question, how does slot farming work on a War/Sor multi class build?
@@AI_Revolution13
Prior to a Short Rest, turn your Sorcery Points into Sorcerer Spell Slots, then your Warlock Spell Slots into Sorcery Points, and then those Sorcery Points into Sorcerer Spell Slots.
Proceed to take your Short Rest. Upon doing so, you'll recover your Warlock Spell Slots. Rinse and repeat for each Short Rest.
Once you Long Rest, you lose all your farmed Spell Slots. According to RAW in the DMG, you only need *a* rest. It doesn't matter if it's long or short. So by proxy, you can ignore an 8-hour Long Rest and instead take 8 Short Rests, farming spell slots the whole time.
There *IS* a limit to spell slots you can farm, based on your level, and you cannot do it during downtime unless the DM allows it, as downtime doesn't have individual rests as legitimate activity in the DMG. Additionally, ignoring Long Rests means you cannot recover Hit Dice, so you're risking your health in exchange for those spell slots.
@@carumsarene Awesome reply, thanks for the info.
Flock of Familiars DOES scale up. From 3 buddies up to 6, meaning you can have you and 2 allies each have 2 help actions performed on them each turn
I really enjoy running a support Warlock. Ran a Fathomless Warlock with a mostly martial party, with reducing enemy movement and throwing out other situational stuff for support was really rewarding.
Would and a genie suit this build? I want to build one around the satellite Cannon.
@@blindbrad4719 it’s super good with Fathomless because your tentacle does cold damage, and irrespective of it it actually HARMS the enemy, they lose 10 feet of movement for being hit. Adding Lance of Lethargy, Repelling Blast, and Grasp, and you can ping pong enemies around, and one poor bastard loses another ten feet of movement because he got hentaied.
And if you want to fight in melee using CHarisma without being Hexblade, take the Pact of the Tome and grab Shillelagh.
Or get melee cantrips like Shocking Grasp - with the added benefit that you can get out of melee better since shocked enemies lose their Reaction.
Or you could pick a melee cantrip that scales with level.
@Sebastian of current thing is valid Not a cantrip, but right idea.
@Sebastian of current thing is valid Multiclass yes, not sure of you could give it to someone else.
I don’t get why so many people like shillelagh. It doesn’t scale and it’s not like you get extra attack with it. It’s kinda a trap can’t rip to take.
Reminder for the Coffeelock: take the Healer feat to recover health without hit dice, and take Divine Soul Sorcerer levels first in order to maximize your sorcery point limits.
Or the Cocainelock at higher levels depending on which of the two classes you choose to have divine origins.
Better yet, go Divine Soul plush Celestial patron for the Cokelock! Greater restoration gets rid of a level of exhaustion and consumes 100gp of diamond dust for material component.
@@jemm113 You don’t need Celestial patron; Divine Soul gets Greater Restoration. And since you are taking sorcerer first, your sorcery point limit increases, allowing you to make more and higher spell slots.
@@jemm113 You don't need Greater Restoration. The idea that you need Greater Restoration (or some other way to reduce Exhaustion) for Coffeelock to work most likely revolves around the (optional) rule about foregoing long rests from XGtE (which is what gives Exhaustion in context of Coffeelock). Specifically, the wrong interpretation of those rules.
Because all you need to bypass that rule is to be sleepless. So just play an Elf (or some other sleep-less race/lineage) or take Aspect of the Moon Eldritch Invocation. Because the "no long rest = exhaustion" rule is actually about lack of sleep. It literally says so in the first paragraph. In clear-cut wording indicating that it's RAI, because at one point it says "If you want to account for the effects of sleep deprivation use these rules." And that rule is in a larger section dedicated to, lo and behold, sleep.
So the interpretation that this rule counts for foregoing long rests and not just foregoing sleep right off the bat requires cherry-picking the first paragraph out under the pretenses of "it's just RP", even if that "RP" explicitly states the design purpose of this rule. And instead it focuses on the "strictly mechanical" parts of the rules and how the second paragraph opens with "Whenever you end a 24-hour period without finishing a long rest".
Which is still flawed, for more than one reason. First of all, by that same "logic" characters that don't need to breathe can still suffocate because the rule about suffocation doesn't explicitly exclude them (it's almost as if WotC expected players not to be idiots and be able to operate in the context of a given rule). Secondly, the third and last paragraph of this rule is also "mechanical" and yet it reiterates that it is about sleeping.
Finally, you can just look at what long and short rests even are. A long rest is at least 6 hours of sleep. And the rest can be spent on light activities. And a short rest is at least one hour of light activities. So if you don't need to sleep, all that's left in a long rest is 2 hours of light activity. Which is the exact same thing you'd be doing while chaining short rests (and you'd be chaining them for more than just 2 hours anyway, because you'd fill the entire 8 hour time the rest of the party spends on their long rest with your short rests).
@@Jyggalag actually the sleep rules in Xanathar prevent features that allow you to forgive sleep from letting you bypass long rests. The rule specifically calls for you to make the con save after not taking a [long rest]. The flavor of the rule says it’s about creatures needing to sleep but any character despite any abilities to the contrary still require taking long rests or getting exhaustion.
And no DM worth their salt would just allow an aspect of the moon coffeelock to just get infinite spell slots since it would completely upset the balance of the entire party.
The thing about suffocation is that being able to breathe underwater explicitly allows you to use water as a medium to breathe in thereby bypassing the suffocation rules.
The rest rules are explicitly telling you to take long rests and all of the sleep bypass mechanics still have mechanics for you to take long rests. Ergo you still need to rest.
And again any DM worth their salt would count short rest spamming as a long rest with the sleep bypass mechanics since they explicitly allow you to perform light tasks in place of sleeping for those 6-8 hours.
Fighter 2/ Warlock 2/ Sorcerer 3. Quicken Spell + Eldritch Blast + Action Surge. Tulock did it twice, I will do it at every opportunity.
i like the Undead Warlok with chain familiar and the E Invocatcion "Gift of the ever-living ones" with a multiclass fighter to always gets max healing while having Help action with my imp-visible familiar and getting everyone i hit scared of me
unholy shieeeet this sounds amazing
Loving that you're getting access to such a variety of sponsorships. Hope that continues to be the case for you.
You missed the Bar/Loc tank with Gift of the Ever-Living Ones XGtE57
Whenever you regain hit points while your familiar is within 100 feet of you, treat any dice rolled to determine the hit points you regain as having rolled their maximum value for you. If you make you familiar a Pseudodragon you also get Magic Resistance.
Imps have that as an optional thing in the Monster Manual, and are much better scouts. They literally urn invisible and shapeshift however you want. I once got the entire party out of jail by having the Imp familiar shapeshift into a rat, turn invisible, then sneak through a dwarven prison to the evidence locker, and eat all the evidence against us. Witness statements, sworn testimonies, arrest warrants, the works.
You have an invisible scout drone that can map out dungeons ahead of time with ease.
I dont get that, would you mind explaining it? :) Thanks
Huuh actually for the Pseudodragon RAW you don't get it, because it is a fey/celestial/fiend that takes the form of one, you need a actual pseudragon then make a familiar pact with it to get that
@@arashbeheshtiro7799 Magic Resistance isn't tied to the creature type, but to the creature itself. As per RAW: "...the familiar has the statistics of the chosen form, though it is a celestial, fey or, fiend (your choice)" (PHB 240) Only the monster type changes, none of its other statistics.
Pseudodragon is an outlier, most dragons don't have Magic Resistance (they have Legendary Resistance instead), but nearly all fey, and a number of celestials and fiends have the trait.
Pseudodragon's Magic Resistance does not extend to the warlock. You can perceive through the familiar's senses, have the familiar speak with your voice, increase HP gains, use your DC for its special abilities, make an attack, deliver your touch spell, but no invocation allows you to benefit from Pseudodragon's Magic Resistance.
On the scaling spells I have found Guiding Bolt on my Celestial Warlock is fantastic. So much fun.
Witch bolt is a good one for taking on a single powerful target as its continuous concentration so you can cast that then on following turns hit the same target with eldritch blast
Seriously, why the hell does nobody talk about the DARKNESS + DEVIL'S SIGHT combo that allows you to basically clutch pretty much every combat encounter?
Becaus your other partymembers don't have Devil's Sight and a lot of spells require you to see the target and all range attacks are with disadvantage and wont work against blindsight which some enemies have?
Because your dm could... well should start doing it too
Everyone talks about this all the time it’s like step one of warlock breaking.
If you want to multiclass a Warlock, you want Bard. A healing spell, and ample utility spells all in one, plus extra skills and some nice class features.
Warlock multiclasses well with any charisma casting class. You can be a hexblade paladin or a coffeelock or even go for 3 in one combos.
My warlock has 3 levels into armorer artificer
I have heavy armor, a mind sharpener that allows me to keep concentration spells up to 4 times a day.
The second infusion can be either an armor that prevents me from being knocked prone or a +1 to my spells both for damage and to hit (which include my eldritch blast)
The last known infusion is to make the pot of awakening
Also the yuan-ti (pre-nerf) race coupled with the witherbloom student background makes the character a beast
One thing the warlocks get that most of the other casters don't is access to light armor, and that means you can pick up the moderately armored feat to get proficiency in medium armor and shields along with a +1 to strength or dexterity. This gives you a rather amazing AC at early levels. Additionally, if you are playing a Hexblade warlock you can get the heavily armored feat to roleplay as a paladin.
I’m playing a celestial warlock multi classing with as a divine soul sorcerer. I have soooo many cantrips. I ended up getting the healer feat so I can be a bigger healer.
Useful Warlock items even for when your dm offers downtime ultra rarely:
1.Rod of the Pact Keeper: restore a warlock spellslot. Also higher spell attack bonuses and spell save DC. Crucial when you can't afford your spell to fumble.
2.Ring of Spell Storing: can keep a bunch of low level spells at hand or one big spell. Basically spellscrolls if your dm doesn't give a lot of free time or treasure.
Best thing is that it can be easily recharged if you make it to short or long rest with spellslots.
3.Pearl of Power: an additional 3rd level spellslot once per long rest. Sometimes you don't know what spell you'll need, so it's useful.
Ideally, having a Rod of pact keepet and two Rings of spells storing is the goal.
10 extra spell levels would even allow for some blasting, acting like much more expendable spellslots.
Rod of pact keeper lets you have an extra spell slot in a clutch.
My personal favorite thing to do with a warlock is to play a warforged, and at 4th level pick up the moderately armored feat which means with half plate and a shield I am rocking a 20 AC without any spells buffing it on a full caster. This is what I did for my Genie warlock, and it was amazing especially when I started using dimension door to blast people from 500ft away with 600ft range eldritch blasts.
This also works for bards btw
I will say, spells that last a lot longer through one casting are fantastic, definitely go for them. But an up-casted fireball can also significantly change the battlefield in the course of one turn, especially when things to turn around quickly. Ive had players use it to not only change the number of enemies on the board, but they’ve also convinced me that a blast that powerful (especially when up-casted) should be able to do reasonable environmental damage. They’ve used it to do things like start avalanches, collapse non-reinforced caves or tunnels, set enemy ships on fire quickly while eliminating other members of the crew and forcing people to dive overboard, etc. With how strong it is, its still really good to have in your back pocket if you ever need a literal grenade.
That being said, I can see most warlocks skipping it as a spell choice entirely for something like a Horn of Blasting or a Wand of Fireballs or one of those necklaces with the blasting pearls instead. Maybe even a spell scroll option, just more free magic that doesnt require them to actually take it
Repelling Blast and Grasp of Hadar are free, infinitely useable forced movement that has no save or size limit. Warlocks therefore benefit tons from investing in spells that exploit this-- Spike Growth and Wall of Fire if you can get them, but Web, Sickening Radiance or even Hunger of Hadar can do amazing things from shoving foes into danger.
Flock of familiars scales with spell slots, +1 familiar per spell slot above. It's a good scouting spell with 1 hour duration and 1 mile distance to see through your familiar's eyes or senses.
my bad, forgot that it did! I was thinking of regular Find Familiar!
@@DnDShorts Find Familiar can still be worth it since you only cast it when your familiar is dead. But getting it via Ritual Caster, Book of Ancient Secrets, or Pact of the Chain is much better.
A rogue with the shadow touched feat is one of the most overpowered combos allowing easy sneak attacks that crit easier if you take the assassin subclass. I found this out first hand as a player that loves making my dm cry.
I recall pairing lance of lethargy with repelling blast on my fathomless warlock, I was a devious little battlefield controlling caster, some enemies had 0 movement on their turn :P
This is where warlocks shine.
Every full casting class can get some form of massive damage concentration spell.
Warlocks are the only ones that can regularly push foes BACK INTO the damage zone.
IMHO (and I play warlocks 90% of the time) repelling blast is the best invocation, hands down... And only gets better if there are more casters in the party.
(bonus mention: it combines best with aoe spells that do damage "when a creature enters or starts it's turn", such as cloud of daggers, black tentacles, or moonbeam.)
Paladin Warlocks are my preferred killing machines. Being able to EB while things are far away then as they get close finishing them off with a smite or two is fantastic!
9:15 Actually, when multi-classing you don't gain profiency in saving throws, there is a chart in the phb, on average when a character multi-classes they get profiency in armor or weapons, maybe skills if you multi class into rogue or bard
I believe they said pick Sorcerer for your 1st level, so you gain the proficiencies in Saving Throws, and then multi into Warlock for the armor proficiencies.
5:55 i agree BUT hex is amazing because in a way, it does scale, because you get more bang for you buck as you get more eldritch blast rays. You are essentially multiplying eldritch blast damage by 1.5 with each cast of hex. Also you can keep hex out longer at higher levels too. If you have a spell slot before a short rest, find a rat or bug you can hex and kill right away. Then you can still have hex without a spell slot after youre done with the rest.
Eh, that strat requires a DM that would allow that. It also doesn't get around the fact that it eats up your concentration. Which should be used for more impactful spells as you level up. Not to mention that it eats up a known spell.
So it's fine at lower levels. But kind of like hunter's mark, it's a trap option past tier 1 play. It's not worth blocking the concentration spells you need to use to get the most out of your slots.
I have an amazing warlock build for demon gun, so your feats are spell sniper and Meta Majic Adept (distance spell and subtle spell), and the only invocations you need are agonizing blast and eldrich spear but I do like having repealing blast as well, so with eldrich blast with spear is 300ft, then double it because of spell sniper for 600ft, then double it again because of distance spell for 1200ft of range on a single eldrich blast.
Something else Warlock players should know: Niche spells are your best friend.
As you level up, you very quickly end up with a lot more spells known than you have spell slots. This means you can afford to take all those extremely powerful but extremely situational spells that other casters often pass up because they rarely come up.
Spells like Earthbind and Intellect Fortress, which are usually not very good but they outright win specific encounters, make perfect sense to take "just in case" because you have so much space on your spell list.
Conversely though, when you reach 11th level and start getting Mystic Arcanum spells, the opposite is true. You only get one Mystic Arcanum of each level, it can never be switched out or used to upcast a lower level spell, and you get to cast it once per day for the rest of your life. So for your 6th+ level spells, you need to pick stuff that you know you will want to cast every single day. These spells should be super reliable, and always have a use.
Mass Suggestion and Forcecage are prime examples. Each one can win a lot of combat encounters on its own, and each has its own out of combat utility as well. Once you get to 17th level, even the much-maligned Foresight should be given a close look as a Mystic Arcanum option, because even though it's not the strongest 9th level spell, it's always always useful. You will never not cast Foresight if you have it.
Glibness also guarantees a 19 on charisma checks, which includes counter spell, so your 5th levelled pact slots can always do away a BBEGs 9th level spells, it's another consideration.
@@DoomsdayR3sistance I don't often see multiple 9th level spells from enemies in a single hour, and it requires some prediction to set up. I'm not saying it's not worth considering, especially as a traditional caster, but if I was going to take Glibness as a Warlock, it would be for its social uses rather than for counterspell, because on a social character it's much more likely to come up every day.
But, being an 8th level spell, it's competing with a lot of weak options. I'd say its main competition is probably Dominate Monster, for its sheer reliability. There will never be an adventuring day when Dominate Monster isn't at least a little bit handy. Given that you only ever get one 8th level spell, that seems like the most important thing to me.
I went the celestial, pact of the chain and gift of the ever living one invocation. This means that whenever you spawn your familiar from pact of the chainand are within 100 feet of all your healing rolls are counted as max. This is absolutely insane with cure wounds and the celestial healing pool of dice ability, as cure wounds will always heal 13 hitpoints (this is only at lvl 1 tho lol, and as long as u have +5 on charisma) and the dice from the pool will always heal for 6. Insanely broken support build, especially with the fiendish vigour invocation and armour of arthygus spell.
Edit: at lvl 4, sacrifice the skill improvement to get the feat gift of the metalic dragon. This lets you cast cure wounds once without expending a spell slot, and u can use a reaction to yourself or a teammate getting hit to boost your/their a/c by your proficiency modifier.
I’m currently playing a level 3 blood hunter and I chose the order of the profane soul, pact of the undying one. Getting access to hex and armor of Agathys on a martial class is going to be huge. Being able to hex a target and blast away at them with my hand crossbow multiple times a round is going to make for a very deadly single target striker.
Oooph. Can't say I agree with a lot of this advice, especially the advice about spells that scale. Misty Step in particular being on that list is a good example of where utility cannot be understated. Even if you're doing the Feytouched tango to get Misty Step and Hex for free, having it and other 'good effect but not level improvement' can really help out in practice. And lordy, by no means feel like you HAVE to take Eldritch Blast. It's great, but there really are other ways to do damage in practice, and always remember that party synergy is one of those ways.
I played a Warlock Hexblade + Rogue Swashbuckler multiclass, it's actually quite decent and quite fun to play.
A bit of advice from a person who mains warlocks, if you take the eldritch spear invocation you can pretty much get a free sniper rifle
Alongside Agonizing Blast, Misty Visions has got to be one of the highest utility invocations.
Yes, concentration. But it has a 10 minute duration and you can move it to any location within range on each turn after you cast it. Also, unlike Minor Illusion, it can be a creature and it can be animated when you move it. The number of ways you can use this to hide things or generate a distraction is nearly endless.
At very minimum, you should be able to use it for your group to make ranged attacks with advantage periodically.
Hexblade /Divine Soul sorcerer : Eldritch blast machine gun that can cast spirit guardians. Making you a threat at all possible ranges.
I created an Abjuration Wizard/Dao Genie Warlock build made for casting non-concentration spells to become unhittable and extremely tanky (Armor of Agathys, Sanctuary, Mirror Image, and Shield/Silvery Barbs we’re my go-to spells.)
1:50
This will have you casting more than your party's wizard.
Me: that's because my party's wizard is dead.
I know the community calls it heresy, but I like to play warlocks without Eldridge blast. This is such a creative, customizable class that it just rubs me the wrong way that every warlock is designed to spam the same cantrip over and over again. Not shaming people who use it, E.B is easily the best damaging cantrip, no contest. But I like building my warlocks without it. Still, great video, very well thought out, and a few tips for me to keep in mind next time I roll up a character in my favorite class. Thanks buddy!
Most times I drop it as well. I go with whatever is thematic with the character. Normally, eldritch blast doesn't fit.
@@zeekeno823 I don't know who you are, but I respect you.
I've built a Great Old One warlock for an upcoming one-shot who is built entirely around screwing with people's minds, via illusions, psychic projections, and mind control, while operating from the shadows. So I deliberately avoided 'flashy' spells like Eldritch Blast because a crackling blast of energy isn't exactly subtle.
yeah same, Warlock is the class I've probably played the most but after my first full campaign with one I got totally sick of EB. I like running my warlocks as super manipulative tool box casters who have a spell/incantation for any social encounter. The incantation that lets u cast disguise self at will, mixed with the one that lets you create any illusion in your hand + an extremely high charisma means I can basically get anyone to believe anything I do and say outside of combat. I have driven more than a few DMs crazy this way
Same. I developed a hexblade vengeance pallock that was more of an espionage field agent for a Neutral god (Silvanus rocks). Went with all the knowledge/appearance change abilities a warlock could offer instead of the flashy/noisy stuff. Amazing how effective the character was at fighting/infiltration/spying. And negating troublesome personalities.
I have a warlock that doesn't have Eldritch Blast, he is a support-focused pack of the talisman-Archfey warlock/collage of eloquence bard. His main attack spell is Ray of Frost...
Grasp of Hadar is so fun if you can fly. Just zip up 30 ft and blast away. Each beam pulls them towards you up in the air. Then the get falling damage. It's really fun to pull bow snipers out of trees or off walls as well.
Cleric is an already overpowered class, so could you make 5 tips for them?
Spirit Guardians + Sanctuary + Dodge Action
Pretty OP with the right enemies, but don't abuse it, if you don't want your DM to bomb you with AOE
"Just don't believe anyone who says Clerics should be healers, they're literally the best casters in the game"
It's only strong if you and your DM don't know how to play...
@@whydidiwatchthis5174 or if you and your DM don't know how to play. My first character was a Cleric and I put all of my stats not in Wisdom, but he still was a strongest member of the party
@@GhizTheKobold Sanctuary drops the second you deal damage with Spirit Guardians. It doesn't drop if you make an attack roll, it drops when you cast spells on others *or deal damage*
I made a coffeelock hexblade and I gotta say, darkness turns into the only spell you'll ever need. Took pact of the blade. Invocations were devil sight, eldritch smite and improved pact weapon. Having infinite spell slots means eldritch smite, which can now be used at range, is insanely strong. I like to add thirsting blade as my last invocation to do 2 of them in 1 turn
Flock of familiars DOES in fact scale. And its quite useful. Imagine have 6 familiars all flying around performing the Help action for every member in you party during combat to give them all Advantage on their attacks.
I'm currently playing a hexblade/barbarian in a Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign, with the one barb level just for unarmored defense and rage. Pact of the Blade and all that. I'm a Goliath with the fisherman background, and my pact weapon is usually a trident. It's the most fun I've ever had as a player, and it's hilarious running around as an unarmored Goliath Barbarian with 13 str/20 cha lmao.
My party calls the build "flexblade."
A multiclass I've been having a lot of fun with is Hexblade Echo Knight. Started at lvl 3 with 2 fighter 1 warlock (for backstory reasons) then proceeded to get to F2W4 before taking that third fighter level. Pact of the Blade, of course.
My tiefling HexEcho (name is not final...) wields a magical glaive and my "alpha strike" can deal 5D10 + 2D6 + 61 for an average of 95.5 damage.
5D10 comes from the 5 attacks I can do myself, 2 attacks per turn, doubled for action surge, +1 for my echos attack, 2D6 from an expelling of branding smite, and +61 comes from 40 from the glaives damage (does D10+8) and +21 from hexblades curse.
Consider the following:
Hecho (pronounced hecko).
There’s a lot of questions I have about this but the first one is “ how do you get an extra attack if your only a level 3 fighter?
You know what's funny, I'm in the middle of making a warlock right now when I stumbled across his video 🤣
I actually plan on playing a straight dragonborn undead warlock, he focuses on fear effects so he has spells like summon undead and fear. I am taking agonizing blast, but most of my invocations will not be going towards EB
You can probably still go sorcerer level 1 for the level 1 slots and con save. Shield is great no matter the tier of play! Shadow is pretty good for free darkvision and death protection. Draconic for keeping the hp comparable to a d8 and permanent 13+Dex armor which is as good as +1 studded leather. Though admittedly the draconic bloodlines don’t mesh too well with Dragonborn’s due to the shared resistances between similar ancestries. This is mitigated by higher levels letting you spend sorcery points for immunity for a minute.
Be sure to go with the Fizban Dragonborn options, if your DM allows it. Metallic dragonborn get the option to incapacitate enemies in a 15 ft cone or knock them prone. Or you go with Gem ancestry for a rare resistance to force, psychic or thunder damage, and a reliable way to dish out the same.
To the first question: I don't plan on doing anything besides warlock, but if I did starting with a level in sorcerer would be my best bet
To the second one: I am playing a Topaz dragonborn because of how much I like topaz dragons and multiple other elements, plus it is thematic for my character
I’m hyped as someone who plays almost only warlocks
As am I, though I haven't gotten to play much I struggle in making my character concepts NOT be warlocks
@@ericharrison4067 very understandable, I have gotten my fair share of all classes, but I grew up playing primarily warlocks. Though I do have a bit over 6 years of 5e under my belt at this point. I’ve always loved the warlock concept.
My favorite combo: Hexblade + Eldritch Knight = a living magical curb-stomp with a sword that's basically a part of you now.
Also good: the Faerunian messiah that is Celestial + Divine Soul; you can play the part of a cleric or paladin if your party is lacking one while bitch-slapping anything unholy.
By the way, why is Misty Step bad, but Far Step good?
Because misty step is once, and far step is once per turn for a minute. It's misty step x10 and for twice the distance. Either way you're using a 5th level slot, so pick the better one.
It may be MAD but I want try a warlock/bladesinger wizard
Blsdesingers let you cast a cantrip as part of extra attack, meaning in addition to all the Eldritch beams you also get a weapon attack.
Pair this with crossbow expert for a bonus action attack with a hand crossbow.
Make it your hexblade weapon and you can use chr to shoot
Meaning at level 7 1 watlock/6 wizard it'll be 4 attacks, 1d10+chr x2, and 1d6+chr x2
And that obey goes up as you get more beams
And later you could add sharpshooter to the hand crossbow too
All without any spell slots
While also having all the options of a normal wizard
Warlock: I conjure the Glock of the Depths
Paladin: I conjure the Divine Shotgun
Wizard: Warning, nuking is not legal, worldwide.
I've got a 6th level half-drow Raven queen warlock with a two-level twilight cleric dip... Heavy armor, healing touch with find familiar, and 10 cantrips (3 cleric, 3 warlock, 3 pact of tome, and one drow magic)... Role playing went from devout follower, to 'put your money where your mouth is' follower. First lock I've played, and I'm loving it.
Identify is one of the best rituals
That also has a 100gp material component
but the component isn't consumed
@@SimonClarkstone it's not but getting your hands on it may be a pain in a lot of campaigns.
Yeah. I'm wondering how we're going to manage for the current one, but the DM says there'll be something.
Fire genasi has two spells at level 3 as well.
The cantrip produce flame
And burning hands once per day
Currently playing a fire genasi of the genie pact of chains.
I get 2 natural spells
A house that I can store shit in
A pet who can communicate with me and scout about
(I've chosen pseudodragon.. before peeps start saying how crap it is, it's already helped resolve a combat in 1 round simply by flying over to the target and stinging it making the druid fall unconscious and a gladiator npc finished the job in one round.)
7:28 reminds me of Megumin from Kono Suba... uses fireball cause "nothing else can quell the fire that burns throughout my soul" and passes out right after.
Hex + Eldritch blast is a must, surprised it wasn't mentioned x3
The thing with agonizing blast is that it's not really as flavorful as some of the other things. Sure, I could add 5 to my damage... Or I could get both Repelling Blast and Grasp of Hadar, get a friend to cast Spike Growth, and deal an extra 4d4 damage instead of just 5, with lots of extra flavor added in.
That's situational, takes a full round to set up and against really fast enemies or flying enemies your damage would be pitiful.
Plus it's 5 damage on every hit of eldritch blast which is about the same as the 2d4 from spike growth with several added asterisks cause like i said it's not gonna work in every situation.
The only time it may be better is if your dm allows repelling blast and grasp of hadar to activate on the same hit. I personally know two DMs that don't allow this.
If you want to build a cheese grater you're better off using crusher to pull towards you before level 5 via variant huma or custom lineate and at level 2 pick up agonizing blast and also repelling bladt.
@@crunchevo8974 It's not 2d4 in this case, it's 4d4. Spike Growth deals 2d4 per 5 feet of movement through the spikes and Invocations that add movement to EB move the enemy by 10 feet.
And since multiple beams of EB are separate hits, you can move an enemy multiple times. The only caveat is that unlike Repelling Blast Grasp of Hadar has "once on turn when you hit" in its wording, so depending on where the enemy stands in regards to the spikes you may only grate them 3 times instead of 4 even if you have 4 beams of EB. But that's still 12d4. But that's still an average of 30 damage compared to 20 of 4 hits of Agonizing Blast.
Then again you could always combine them for a bonus of 50 (on average).
Idk if anyone else said it but Flock of familiar definitely does have an upcast effect. You get additional familiars per slot level
As soon we hit level 4, my current build will slowly come online.
I don't know how good it will be, but the idea was: 3 level Bard at the start and at least 3 level in Warlock. Then only take support/debuff spells as well as Investment of the Chain Master and, best case, never deal damage myself again. Either my familiar or my party will handle the killing, while I try to make moving, evading and attacking hell for the enemies.
I'll keep your tips regarding the spell sclaing in mind!
I want to multiclass bard and warlock. Go bard for 3 skills of my choice, college of lore or whispers eventually for extra fun at some point. Spec into warlock for mask of many faces invocations and take pact of the tome. Idk how many levels to take in each but essentially I want to make a character that is obsessed with getting knowledge from everywhere so she focuses on espionage and trickery to do it. Go far enough into bard for magical secrets mayhaps and just be an all around pain in the ass lol.
New earth genasi with its bonus action blade ward/prof is a nasty contender for a fiend pact pain-tank.
Armour of Agathys + fire shield + shadow of moil + resistance to s/b/p is soooo much pain for anyone who manages to hit you.
I was thinking to make my new character a Warlock and boom you drop this video
My favorite sorlock is shadow/hexblade with the stixhaven background and the hexblood lineage. Hexblood gives you hex and disguise self, and the strixhaven background gives you extra spell options plus a free feat that gives you 2 more cantrips and a 1st level spell.
I would disagree with Tip 3, Warlocks are the only casters that CAN afford to blast. Because you have those 2 spellslots every other combat and have the lowest opportunity cost for damage spells since the control tools you do have are VERY limited compared to the other full casters.
Also Synaptic static goes BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
This is one of the most variable parts of playing a warlock. How often does your party short rest and how often does combat occur? These factors totally change how the class plays, and that is the chief reason why many dislike it. If the party never short rests, or the DM never gives you a chance to, you have to be very conservative with your slots. In those conditions, tip 3's advice is sound.
And yeah, synaptic static ignores all of this.
I am the only character in our group who is able to do aoe damage - and Fireball should be a good damage option for Curse of Strahd given how good Burning Hand has been on the way to level 5.
Aside from Hexblades, there are also Necromancers who don't need Eldritch Blast. Warlock 11 / Necromancer 9 and you can raise a few hundred undead with a few days prep, especially if you're an elf.
I do love me some barbalocks. Take for example: 12 fire genie warlock/8 barbarian Ancestral Guardian half-orc with piercer and the orcish fury racial feat wielding a pike/lance. You'll have reach if they hit anyone else they'll do less than half damage (depending on the wording/interpretation you could use the lvl6 feature also for yourself), if they hit you they'll take fire shield + AOA damage if you crit you'll do 6 weapon dice worth + 12d8 from a critted eldritch smite + a fly speed.
Another 1 is celestial warlock (10 to 14 lvls) with pact of the chain and it's full heal invocation + bear barb/beast barbs (rest of the lvls, but we are mostly here for extra attack with the new shifter race that has a bonus action bite that is 4 attacks per turn) claws for frontline healing of course there are also some cool options with zealot barb or bear barb + Great Old One.
Not to mention how useful fathomless warlock is great is for builds that lower movement speed and slasher are great that it can even make the Wild Magic Barb with the right roll (the one that turns your surroundings into diffecult terrain in a radius of 15 ft) usable. If UA is allowed at your table consider 14 lvls of giant barb + 6 lvls of undead warlock (undead warlock is also great on plenty of other builds) with the new dragonborn and the dragon fear racial feat.
I'm probably missing some other combo mc's here, but you get the gist of it.
To your comment about demon RoboCop, I used the armorer artificer multi-class with two levels of fighter, and the rest into warlock to make the Doom Slayer
I’d love this with all the other classes or spellcasters too! Maybe explore the blood hunter by Matt mercer or some of his homebrew subclasses too they are great!
Blood Huner is still just Mercer's half-a$$'ed rip-off of Witchers.
One of my fave combos is being a Hexblade, getting the Devil’s Sight invocation, and casting Darkness on myself, and just waging into battle where I have advantage and enemies have disadvantage on all attacks 😁
My favorite class to multi class with Warlock is Paladin. Start with three levels in Paladin and then take two levels in Warlock. Really fun when it comes to Green Flame Blade and Searing Smite
I added bear totem barbarian to that and mainly use spell slots for smiting.
I made a Marid Genielock Barbarian. Focusing on Genie Warlock. In our first combat I did 30 damage to an enemy without hitting it because my 2nd level Armor of Agathys lasted for 3 hits.
Telekinetic is a cool feat to take with Warlock. Lets you increase Charisma (or Intelligence or Wisdom) by 1, gives you mage hand if you didn't have it, and if you did, it now reaches 60ft, and it's invisible in both cases.
You can also telekinetically shove or pull an enemy 5ft as a bonus action. I used this with the fly spell to reach an enemy up above and pull them off a ledge, but it's also useful for getting rid of a close-combat enemy so that you can flee or cast a spell without disadvantage.
I like the production in this one you've earned my submission .
My current favorite Warlock build is my Tactical Warlock. Multi-classing with the Sea Sorcerer from Unearthed Arcana gives me a curse I can place on targets hit with a cantrip (Eldritch Blast) that adds abilities to spells that: deal Lightning damage (more damage), cold damage (reduce movement by 10'), or causes forced movement (move an extra 15'). Eldritch Blast with Lance of Lethargy to reduce movement 10' and curse the target, then summon a watery tendril from the Fathomless Patron which can hit the same target and reduce movement another 10' plus deal Cold damage triggering the curse causing the target to reduce another 10'. Add in Repelling Blast and I get to move targets around like a chess board. This is all accomplished by level 3
Did a VERY fun Bladelock build both mechanically & especially thematically--a Celestial Bladelock who made an oath to Bahamut. He was origionally a slave born & raised in a Dao's mine/palace (the Dao are Earth Genies & the worst kind of all 4 Genie types) as a guard. An adventuring party showed up to storm & destroy the Dao's operation, kill the Dao & free all of the captives. The party was lead by both a Divine Paladin and a Life Cleric of Bahamut as well. Inspired by both, he went to their temple & made a pact--divine power in exchange for service so that he could one day return to the Elemental Plane of Earth & run his own crusades.
I ran a level 1 Earth Genasi (Monsters of the Multiverse version) fighter, level 19 celestial warlock with pact of the blade. Ran Green Flame Blade to dish out 4D8+13 damage a turn on single targets or 7D8+21 on adjacent targets as well as Agonizing Blast smacking enemies for 3D10+12 at range. He could heal himself every turn as a bonus action &/or use his damage resistance cantrip as a bonus action 8 times a day lasting for 2 rounds. Theory crafting him at level 20 he'd get the Epic Boon of Fortitude, turning each of his healing die into 1D6+4
Just a quick clarification, if you want Con saves from Fighter or Sorcerer you have to take those classes first before Warlock as you don't get saving throw proficiencies from multiclassing.
Also, I highly suggest pairing Warlock with Bard if you want to help with healing and filling some holes in a party's ability set. Plus I just think a Warlock casting Dissonant Whispers is fun flavor.
My favorite Warlock build was a Hexblade Warlock where I refused to take Eldritch Blast, it forced me to make a really creative build that could heal the party and was a literal murder machine
I love your energy! These are my favourite D&D videos by far.
A good race to choose for warlock is the drow. They get dancing lights as a cantrip and both faerie fire and darkness. If you take the drow high magic feat in xanathars you can get detect magic AT WILL, levitate(which is super good),and dispel magic.
Just want to pop in and say that Flock of Familiars does scale! It's +1 Familiar per spell level beyond 2nd.
Step 1: lv5 bladelock lv1 devine soulcerer (6 total)
Step 2: Be able to cast spirit guardians with the cleric spell list
Step 3: Pick up sentinel (and maybe polearm master if your a vuman/tco)
Step 4: Cast spirit guardians, armor of Agathys, mage armor. Then walk up to a infinite swarm of enemies and watch them pop like bubbles
I'm sorry, but how is mage armor adding any value here? Bladelock means you have access to medium armor. Which doesn't stack with mage armor.
Also, I'm afraid that armor of agathys doesn't add much here either. Since it only works if you're hit, and if you want to be hit, you shouldn't case mage armor even if you're forgoing your medium armor. The only thing really adding value here is spirit guardians.
@@piranhaplantX I, actually forgot HW gives you medium armor proficiency. . . Neat
AOA is mostly just to deal with any actually decent threats that make their way into the battle, and to rub some salt into your DM's wound.
This is just me talking about a character I played that I found super effective and now that I think of it the main aspects of the biuld is Sentinel + Spirit guardians if I'm being honest.
I played a Celestial warlock that used Fire bolt (through pact of the tome) because I didn't want to use eldritch blast
When I go for an eldritch blast warlock, I take eldritch spear (sets eldritch blast range to 300 ft) and the spell sniper feat (doubles the range of all cantrips with a range) and lastly repelling blast so that I can knock people out of trees from 600 feet.
Magnificent Content! Bravo!