Banishing Eldritch Blast

Warlocks are basically a dps class with some tricks thrown on there. They get a whopping 2 spell slots for most of the game people play and limited spell selection and nova ability compared to a full caster. Spamming cantrips is what they do for the most part. Remove their damage and I question mechanically why you'd want to play one over a refluffed bard. Much like a fighter spamming weapon attacks, EB IS a large part of the classes identity and utility to a party. You may as well be saddling a high level fighter with a heavy crossbow because it isnt fair bows get extra attacks.

I just made EB a class feature and gave agonizing blast for free.

clearstream said:

My motive for reviewing the spell at all comes from vocal player concerns. We have two Warlock players. One of them has played their character from level 1 right through to level 11. The other joined at level 4 and played through to level 12 from there. I think their experiences are worth listening to.

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Can you articulate more? It mostly sounds like someone has a weak build and is upset the other player deals more damage.

I played in a group with two warlock Rogue multiclass and a shadow Monk with arcane initiate. All three were spamming eldritch blasts and it was boring. In the end, I ditched Eldritch blast for Firebolt and Green Flame Blade instead.

I think the cantrip should be a scaling class feature rather than a scaling spell to discourage high DPR dipping and other ranged warlock cantrips should be able to benefit from certain invocations as well.

Pauln6 said:

I played in a group with two warlock Rogue multiclass and a shadow Monk with arcane initiate. All three were spamming eldritch blasts and it was boring. In the end, I ditched Eldritch blast for Firebolt and Green Flame Blade instead.

I think the cantrip should be a scaling class feature rather than a scaling spell to discourage high DPR dipping and other ranged warlock cantrips should be able to benefit from certain invocations as well.

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Well pretty much I can see most any group where everybody or most choose z similar dpam-one-thing build would be dull. I can imagine three "archer sharpshooters" in nine group turning into the same kind of grind each time, given the limited options they all selected.

But that's not the bow and arrows fault.

To me, removing EB from the warlock is like telling a fighter all weapons higher than 1d8 damage (including from versatile) have been removed from the game. They can get by without it, but you're taking away a major component of the class.

As others have said,, in general a caster takes 1 primary combat cantrip, a back-up combat cantrip, and the rest are utility cantrips. My current wizard has 3 combat cantrips (Acid Splash, Firebolt, and Toll the Dead), but he's a war wizard who wants to have the best option for the situation (multiple targets, range, or wounded).

5ekyu said:

Well pretty much I can see most any group where everybody or most choose z similar dpam-one-thing build would be dull. I can imagine three "archer sharpshooters" in nine group turning into the same kind of grind each time, given the limited options they all selected.

But that's not the bow and arrows fault.

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Variation in subclasses can make the same class feel different, we have an axe wielding war Cleric and a rapier wielding trickster and they play nothing alike. We had an Arcane trickster pact of the chain fey pact Warlock and a Swashbuckler shadow pact Tome Warlock and they played exactly the same in combat due to the strength of eldritch blasts.

Something I've always done: when a spell has multiple attacks or projectiles with a single casting, I make the player pick the targets ahead of time.

Example: magic missile. you have 4 missiles and 3 targets...who do you target?

I do this so they can't spread the damage out perfectly on each target. "one missile hit. Is he dead? no? ok, I hit him with a second. Is he dead? yeah? ok, I hit the next target."

I do this with scorching ray and it works for EB. Probably won't change the EB spamming but it might add a bit of strategy to casting it...dunno.

EB was worse in 3e because cantrips used to cost slots and suddenly this new class came out with 'at will' cantrips. I found it a bit lame. But now everyone has 'at will' cantrips, so it's not as bad. But still, I see where you are coming from.

Pauln6 said:

Variation in subclasses can make the same class feel different, we have an axe wielding war Cleric and a rapier wielding trickster and they play nothing alike. We had an Arcane trickster pact of the chain fey pact Warlock and a Swashbuckler shadow pact Tome Warlock and they played exactly the same in combat due to the strength of eldritch blasts.

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You've also got 2 multiclass rogue/warlocks... yeah, they're going to play similarly unless someone feels like gimping themselves to satisfy some kind of variety quota. Their rogue levels must have been low, because weapon+sneak attack should be outpacing eldritch blasts. If they were pure rogues they'd be spamming sneak attacks for that matter.

Warlocks spam. They only get a few spell slots at a given time, and few spells known. EB being overpowered is a FEATURE to make up for the warlock's other shortcomings. It doesnt need to be balanced against other combat cantrips because if a wizard/cleric/bard wants to dump a full days worth of spells in an encounter they can. If you want variety in what they spam, the solution isn't to drag EB down to acid splash's level. Though unless the person doing the spamming is bored, people should really just mind their own business and be grateful the spamming player finishes their turn quickly lol.

ehren37 said:

You've also got 2 multiclass rogue/warlocks... yeah, they're going to play similarly unless someone feels like gimping themselves to satisfy some kind of variety quota. Their rogue levels must have been low, because weapon+sneak attack should be outpacing eldritch blasts. If they were pure rogues they'd be spamming sneak attacks for that matter.

Warlocks spam. They only get a few spell slots at a given time, and few spells known. EB being overpowered is a FEATURE to make up for the warlock's other shortcomings. It doesnt need to be balanced against other combat cantrips because if a wizard/cleric/bard wants to dump a full days worth of spells in an encounter they can. If you want variety in what they spam, the solution isn't to drag EB down to acid splash's level. Though unless the person doing the spamming is bored, people should really just mind their own business and be grateful the spamming player finishes their turn quickly lol.

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Yes lol, the Warlock is, in some respects, the champion of spellcasters. There is plenty of room for that. It would just be nice if other cantrips could be enhanced so that using other cantrips doesn't feel like a sub par option.

They were both level 3 rogues so sneak attack was just gravy if they were caught in melee.

Elfcrusher said:

I skipped most of 3e and all of 4e, so I didn't know what a D&D warlock was when I came back during Next. I landed in a forum discussion at WotC where folks were saying that EB defines the Warlock; it wouldn't be a Warlock without EB, etc. When I asked what this "Eldritch Blast" was, all I could gather was that it was just like a bunch of other spells, but did Force damage.

Really? THAT'S the class's signature spell? It just does damage that is sort of like elemental damage but isn't an element? I thought that was just ridiculously lame and weak. And I still think so.

Thirdly, from an RP/lore/storytelling perspective I find it improbable and problematic that every single entity in the multiverse that signs pacts with mortals shares the ability to grant this one exceptionally powerful 0-level spell, but otherwise the spell is (almost entirely) non-existent. It just doesn't make any sense. If this were true about a spell that somehow was related to the signing of pacts I would get it. But it's just a very effective blast spell.

So, yeah, I kind of hate EB....

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To expand on what [MENTION=71699]clearstream[/MENTION] was saying, when the Warlock first came out in 3.5 Eldritch Blast and Invocations were THE defining feature of the class. Unlike any other spellcasters in that edition, they did not cast spells. Rather they had access to a small number of spell-like abilities that could be used at will. For the evolution of spellcasters in future editions, I would argue it was a turning point because it was the first time a player could reliably cast spells (or at least feel like they were casting spells since they were really spell-like abilities) at will without using resources. You may recognize this as the At-will powers in 4th edition and the cantrips in 5e. And while the original warlock had a number of different powers they could achieve with invocations, a large number of them specifically increased the utility of the Eldritch Blast. As a result, I would have expected the designers to make Eldritch Blast more of a class feature of the Warlock rather than a cantrip due to their relationship.

To put it another way, in previous editions Eldritch Blast to the Warlock was akin to Sneak Attack for the Rogue. In fact, I would argue that the Rogue is a better point of comparison for the Warlock than either the Wizard or the Sorcerer. If we do this, then lets compare Sneak Attack to Eldritch Blast / Agonizing Blast for level 11 characters with a +5 bonus in their relevant stat. On average, a Rogue's sneak attack will deal 30.5 damage to a single enemy using a rapier. Assuming all three blasts hit, a Warlock will deal 31.5 damage. This doesn't account for criticals. A Rogue's sneak attack damage will be more of a swing, but whereas the Rogue only needs to hit once for that damage, a warlock will need to hit 3 times but deal more reliable damage. Additionally, the rogue does not need any additional ability investment for this amount of damage, while the Warlock needs to sacrifice an invocation. But then again, the rogue needs to meet certain circumstantial conditions to get sneak attack, while the Warlock can do this at will.