Why should we not be worried about the Pact specific invocations?
You realize that what you are saying is similiar to "Don't worry your unique options aren't good enough, it just means you get more of the abilities the other subclasses found worse than their unique invocations"
I get your point, that we can supplement with the general use abilities, but that doesn't feel good since so can everyone else.
It's not supplementing general use abilities for pact restricted abilities. There were not enough pact specific abilities to cover the number of invocations for that to be true. The expectation was always that those other invocations were meaningful and being taken.
I see chain pacts as more of a general practitioner warlock who might go for SLA's or might go for more of those EB enhancements while other pacts are specializing in different directions.
It's also not so much that those other options aren't good enough so much as some people really value rituals. I think they get over-rated for what they actually do, especially because they break concentration and cost using
hex.
Chain pact is the one most likely to actually maintain
hex throughout the day.
As for Gift of the Ever-Living Ones... I'm torn. I like it, but I'm not sure how good it actually is. HD recovery? Great. Healing Word or potions? Minimal impact.
Any healing spell or ability used that affects the warlock. Really good. It's short rest HD use as great like you say, but it's also gone past low-roll protection to maximum results. That has some solid synergy with the self healing celestial warlock.
I would definetly not put it as good as Book of Ancient Secrets, just because the ability to get all rituals is really good. , and I've never really heard someone talking that they wish their Chain pact warlock got better healing. The Chainlock is usually casting from the back row, so they are avoiding a lot of direct fighting anyways, since they really can't take a solid blow in melee combat.
They complain when they drop to 0 hp, however.
Gift of the Ever-Living Ones isn't as flashy but it's definitely good. I find better self healing keeps me alive better than ritual casting.
Meanwhile, not all tome pact invocations are as good as
Book of Ancient Secrets. Comparing
Book of Ancient Secrets to
Chains of Carceri or
Voice of the Chain Master is like comparing
Aspect of the Moon to
Gift of the Ever-Living Ones. Tome pact does not have a lot of must-have invocations either. It's one good one that people equate to the entire pact. Probably because it was the only invocation specific to the pact but that isn't true anymore.
2cp
dnd.wizards.com
