Cantrips are certainly ok, and better than firing a crossbow but at 5th level if I’m falling back on a cantrip as my most common spells once you get past 4th level then I think the class can’t really call itself anything more than wizard-like.
If your warlock is casting a spell before combat then they are down to 1 spell. If they want to keep something in the bag like an escape spell they’re down to 1 spell. Worse if a short rest can happen once every 2 fights or so.
There are plenty of easy ways of getting cantrips. I’m not sure why you’d stay longer than 3rd level in the warlock class. It reminds me of the old Birthright magician which was a kind of poor mans wizard intended more as an NPC.
It feels like this thread is an attack on wizards for being “no flavor”
@EzekielRaiden which seems like a very nebulous dig. Not to mention something I think a lot of people would disagree with. A wizard is researching continuously, they are a Int based caster with a book of spells and they write more out as they get more experienced.
Rather than saying how great a warlock is, most of the arguments seem to be that wizards are too powerful, Warlocks are less effective which is better… followed up with lots of suggestions for how a warlock could be made more powerful.