D&D 5E Warlock, Pact of the Blade, Melee

[Chaosmancer]

Rise long dead thread, rise

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I figure it is this way:

Would you say a eldritch knight is as good as magic user as the same level wizard?

No. The eldritch knight is a fighter who dabbles with magic.

It is the same thing with the bladelock.

You are setting yourself up for disappointment if you compare a caster who dabbles with melee with a full melee class.

The bladelock is good at being a magical assassin. There is no assassin class, so you are comparing subclasses.

I think happiness for a bladelock is like happiness for the eldritch knight. You use your normal gig (melee for the EK and blasting for the BL) most of the time, and pick your spots to use the specialty.

 

[neogod22]

I figure it is this way:

Would you say a eldritch knight is as good as magic user as the same level wizard?

No. The eldritch knight is a fighter who dabbles with magic.

It is the same thing with the bladelock.

You are setting yourself up for disappointment if you compare a caster who dabbles with melee with a full melee class.

The bladelock is good at being a magical assassin. There is no assassin class, so you are comparing subclasses.

I think happiness for a bladelock is like happiness for the eldritch knight. You use your normal gig (melee for the EK and blasting for the BL) most of the time, and pick your spots to use the specialty.

Yes and no. Can a warlock tank as well as a fighter? Probably not, but a person who knows how to play a warlock can easily out damage one. What makes the bladelock special? It's that in every combat situation, he gets to choose which weapon he wants to bring into battle. You can sit back and so am Eldritch Blast all day if you want, but if that's all you're gonna do, why play a bladelock? I don't go into this game wondering which combination will give me the best DPS, I ask myself, what kind of character do I want to play, and how can I make it work?

I love playing my Dwarf bladelock. The first adventure I played with him, I created a Halbert and left a literal circle of death around him as our barbarian tanked the boss, without using Eldritch Blast once. He will always mainly be a melee character, but if I do need to go ranged, he can resort to back to the boring Eldritch Blast., lol.

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[MechaTarrasque]

Yes and no. Can a warlock tank as well as a fighter? Probably not, but a person who knows how to play a warlock can easily out damage one. What makes the bladelock special? It's that in every combat situation, he gets to choose which weapon he wants to bring into battle. You can sit back and so am Eldritch Blast all day if you want, but if that's all you're gonna do, why play a bladelock? I don't go into this game wondering which combination will give me the best DPS, I ask myself, what kind of character do I want to play, and how can I make it work?

I love playing my Dwarf bladelock. The first adventure I played with him, I created a Halbert and left a literal circle of death around him as our barbarian tanked the boss, without using Eldritch Blast once. He will always mainly be a melee character, but if I do need to go ranged, he can resort to back to the boring Eldritch Blast., lol.

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Many moons ago, when the thread started, the basic question was:

Considering characters at the moment and one option is the Warlock. Looks pretty cool. Anyway, I notice Pact of the Blade, which immediately appealed, but the problem I'm having now is I can't see why I'd do that over and above spamming Eldritch Bolt?

Personally I don't care much about DPR machines, but since that is the goal of the thread, my answer is that the OP is not going to find happiness (operationally defined as being a high DPR PC) being a warlock who mostly stabs things. The blade is just like the tome or the familiar, more a source of utility than damage (sometimes it is strategically better to stab someone than blast them).

Since the point of the thread is about DPRing with a blade, perhaps you could provide more insight into your comment "Can a warlock tank as well as a fighter? Probably not, but a person who knows how to play a warlock can easily out damage one." Tell us about how the warlock is leaving the poor fighter in the dust damagewise. I certainly hope it doesn't involve lots of offensive spells....

 

[neogod22]

Again, bladelocks are like Swiss Army Knives and have a weapon for every situation. (At least the STR ones are). A warlocks strength lies in combining their spell and invocation combinations. It's been stated before some good combinations. If you don't have the patience to understand how a warlock works (especially a bladelock) or feel that you would rather sit back and spam Eldritch Blast, then don't play a bladelock. As a matter of fact, with your attitude towards the different pacts, it seems like you really don't understand the warlock at all. So far I have created 3 warlock characters (one of each pact so far) since adventurers league started in 5th edition and am planning my 4th. I can tell you that each pact should be played completely different. If spamming EB is your thing, the pact of the chain, so you can have your pet use the help action, or pact of the tome, so you can learn rituals.

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[MechaTarrasque]

Ask for specifics, get none, but plenty of hostility. Guess that means the value of the specifics wouldn't have been very useful.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I like the idea of a bladelock/monk.

I think if you "dump" str, you can have at least a decent wisdom, for AC.

Were it me, though, I'd go 1lvl paladin.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Also, my blade wielding tomelock/rogue is pretty rad. She stabs real good. There is a smidge of homebrew involved, though

personalky I think the bladelock should just let you turn eldritch blast Into eldritch strike. Or, more elegantly, when you attack with your weapon, you may also cast a cantrip you know that deals damage. You replace one damage die of the spell with you weapon damage, and the spell targets the target of your weapon attack. Otherwise, the spell resolves as normal.

Not sure it it would be balanced, but it would get closer to what I think most people want in a hexblade style warlock Gish

 

[neogod22]

Ask for specifics, get none, but plenty of hostility. Guess that means the value of the specifics wouldn't have been very useful.

It's not hostility, it's frustration that people want to play a think out of the box character but can't do it. If you look at the warlock spell list, and invocation list, you should be able to see connections, like Devil Sight and Darkness. Armor of Agythas at 5th lol gives you 25 Temps, and if anyone so much as touches you while you have at least 1 temp is going to take 25 points of damage. Conjure Elemental as an invocation really boosts your damage. Fireball and circle of death does ARE damage, finger of death does massive damage, power word kill, self explanatory. Is that sufficient for you?

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[mellored]

It's not hostility, it's frustration that people want to play a think out of the box character but can't do it. If you look at the warlock spell list, and invocation list, you should be able to see connections, like Devil Sight and Darkness. Armor of Agythas at 5th lol gives you 25 Temps, and if anyone so much as touches you while you have at least 1 temp is going to take 25 points of damage. Conjure Elemental as an invocation really boosts your damage. Fireball and circle of death does ARE damage, finger of death does massive damage, power word kill, self explanatory. Is that sufficient for you?

A tome-lock or chain-lock can do all those things as well, with a useful pact boon, have 2 extra invocations, and more Cha so less creatures save against you fireball.
Tome-lock with booming blade and shillelagh if you want melee. Easy to trigger since you can hit and run with darkness, as enemies need to see you to make an OA.


The only pact-blade build that works reasonably well is polearm master + great weapon master + devils sight + darkness/greater invisibility (for advantage, and to help get more off-turn attacks). With armor from somewhere (dwarf, fighter 1, or cleric 1).