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

[Joe Liker]

Trying to cobble this build together with feats is a waste of good feat slots. I would definitely go the multiclass fighter or paladin route. Fighter (EK) if you only want 1 to 3 martial levels, but paladin (Ancients) if you want more.

Do you have specific peeves about multiclassing? Or is it something your DM won't allow?

 

[Deltabeoulve]

Was this confirmed by WotC somewhere?

I do not beleive this has been confirmed anywhere. I'm also not sure if its actually correct. There was a tweet saying Magic Missile (with the Evocation thing) would only get the Int mod once per target. The difference is Magic Missile doesnt even roll to attack, its an auto hit with multiple missiles. Agonizing blast specifically says that you have a roll an attack die for each ray. If you have to roll and attack for each ray, why would you not get to add you're CHA mod for each attack?

 

[ForumFerret]

Trying to cobble this build together with feats is a waste of good feat slots. I would definitely go the multiclass fighter or paladin route. Fighter (EK) if you only want 1 to 3 martial levels, but paladin (Ancients) if you want more.

Do you have specific peeves about multiclassing? Or is it something your DM won't allow?

Nah, go War Cleric (or any cleric that gives heavy armor + shield).

Take Polearm Master, Sentinel, WarCaster.

Invocations for Thirsting Blade, Repelling Blast, Agonizing Blast, Lifedrinker (at 12th)


That's 3 melee attacks per round with +STR+CHA at 12, repelling blast (20' of knockback, speed 0) as an opportunity attack for blast+CHA, provoke AoO for ENTERING your threatened area. That's pretty nice, and has good evolution of playability from low to high level.

 

[kerbarian]

Nah, go War Cleric (or any cleric that gives heavy armor + shield).

Take Polearm Master, Sentinel, WarCaster.

Invocations for Thirsting Blade, Repelling Blast, Agonizing Blast, Lifedrinker (at 12th)


That's 3 melee attacks per round with +STR+CHA at 12, repelling blast (20' of knockback, speed 0) as an opportunity attack for blast+CHA, provoke AoO for ENTERING your threatened area. That's pretty nice, and has good evolution of playability from low to high level.

Nice -- Polearm Master plus War Caster is a great combo for Warlocks. It works by RAW, though some DMs might take issue with Polearm Master triggering an opportunity attack that doesn't use the polearm. However, I don't think it works with Sentinel. Reducing the target's movement to 0 happens when you hit with an opportunity attack, but War Caster lets you cast a spell instead of taking an opportunity attack -- it's not an opportunity attack that's also a spell.

Still, Polearm Master plus War Caster gives you lots of opportunity attacks that are stronger than normal OAs, pushing an enemy away might still leave them with too little movement to engage, and it's a way to get the Lifedrinker bonus on an extra attack.

Taking a level of Cleric gets you heavy armor and lets you use your Warlock spells for healing, which is quite nice. I think it would be reasonable, though, to just pick up Armor of Shadows and live with AC 15 to not fall behind by a level on Warlock abilities. If you go with a fiend patron, that plus the temp HPs should give you decent survivability.

 

[bganon]

It's not the greatest option for Warlocks, but another multiclass possibility is a level or two in Monk. Unarmored Defense is useless, but with Martial Arts you can use a spear or quarterstaff as your pact weapon (attack 2H for 1d8+Dex) and tack on the unarmed 1d4+Dex as a bonus action. This is slightly better than dual wielding (without the feat or style feature) and usable more often than the War Cleric feature.

A second level of monk gets you ki points to Flurry with, for minor melee damage nova. Patient Defense can also effectively be a pretty nice AC boost.

I think another flavorful but maybe less-than-optimal option if you really want to be a Str-lock is to multiclass Barbarian. Get your spells out of the way in the first two rounds, then rage into melee. A Barb 3/Warlock 5 has shield proficiency and can swing a greatsword three times per round, with bonus damage and advantage on every attack.

 

[Dausuul]

Nah, go War Cleric (or any cleric that gives heavy armor + shield).

Take Polearm Master, Sentinel, WarCaster.

Invocations for Thirsting Blade, Repelling Blast, Agonizing Blast, Lifedrinker (at 12th)

That's 3 melee attacks per round with +STR+CHA at 12, repelling blast (20' of knockback, speed 0) as an opportunity attack for blast+CHA, provoke AoO for ENTERING your threatened area. That's pretty nice, and has good evolution of playability from low to high level.

Am I missing something? How are you getting +Str on the off-hand attack?

 

[Evenglare]

I don't think the warlock with the blade pact is as awful as most people here think it is. If you are only playing the game for optimization then yeah.... go for the crazy multiclass Mountain Dwarf crazy combo. However if you want to actually BE a warlock for the blade pact for story and roleplaying reasons, I don't think you are necessarily going to lag behind anyone else really. No one here really mentions the spells that the warlock gets and how they can help you.

Armor of Agathys is one that's pretty clearly made for this class, you get 5 extra HP, and if an enemy hits you, they take 5 cold damage. This kind of fits with the low ac, the warlock would want to get hit to deal that damage. Of course when you cast it at higher levels it gives more HP and does more damage.

Blade wars gives you resistance to bludgeoning, pircing and slashing damage. Clearly for the blade pact warlock, and infact stacks with armor of agathys pretty well!

Of course true strike is a spell geared to you for attacking, though it could be used for any attack, still something you would probably want.

Hex is also one of your bread and butter spells that you would use with a pack warlock. Extra 1d6 necrotic damage when you hit with an attack also gives them disadvantage on an ability check of your choice.

Mirror image also helps with your AC concerns. I'm not actually sure if it stacks with armor of agathys but I think I would allow it to for the extra cold damage.

There's also things like armor of shadows which allow you to cast mage armor at will, which is REALLY cool along with the other blade pact invocations for doing more damage as you indicated you wanted to do.

And theres many many more that I'm not going to even go into, you can look at the spells yourself. But to me I don't see the concerns that the warlock is just objectively worse than your straight fighter melee type class. Yes, it's different, you ARE going to get hit, but I think that's by design rather than an oversight, you sacrifice yourself to do more damage with the Armor of Agathys which fits in with the theme of the warlock class. This is also coupled with the fact that you get your spells back after every short rest. Of course if you simply must have better ac (which lessens the frequency of the agathys damage) then pick a human and get an armor feat or something.

But again, these are only my thoughts, I'm sure people are going to jump on me and tell me how statistically wrong I am, so take this as you will. I don't think blade pact warlocks are bad at all. Just... different and no immediately obvious compared to something like a fighter.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

The problem is you only get one pact weapon, and you are proficient with neither medium/heavy armor nor shields nor martial weapons.

Actually, you are automatically proficient in your pact weapon, whatever form it takes. That means the only barrier to playing a strength-based warlock is armor proficiency, which you can get either by multiclassing (starting as fighter1 works quite nicely), by playing a mountain dwarf (good ability score boosts too), or by playing a variant human with medium armor proficiency (which can net you +1 con along with your two floating points to put into str, cha or con). All seem quite viable to me. And a dex-based blade lock is ready out the gate with a rapier.

 

[ForumFerret]

Am I missing something? How are you getting +Str on the off-hand attack?

It's not an off hand attack; it's a bonus attack. It doesn't appear to me to be subject to the two-weapon. Fighting rule about no STR damage.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I do not beleive this has been confirmed anywhere. I'm also not sure if its actually correct. There was a tweet saying Magic Missile (with the Evocation thing) would only get the Int mod once per target. The difference is Magic Missile doesnt even roll to attack, its an auto hit with multiple missiles. Agonizing blast specifically says that you have a roll an attack die for each ray. If you have to roll and attack for each ray, why would you not get to add you're CHA mod for each attack?

This is secondhand info--I didn't see the tweet myself--so grain of salt and all that, but it makes sense and is consistent with other answers he's given. But what I'm told is that Mike Mearls has confirmed the extra damage per target. So if you have four beams and fire them all at the same target, that target only takes the bonus damage once. But if each beam hits a separate target, each target takes the bonus damage.