Sincerely, not only for you. I watched this video while cooking and forgot multiple times the colour code (not fully focused on the video). I used the stars a couple of times till I got used to the system. Def nice from him to be attentive to this issue.
@@Treblaine Honestly, Cris should just quit with the color coding (which is UTTERLY non-intuitive) and rank things from one-star (bad) to five-star (must-have).
One great thing about Mask of Many Faces is that it immediately and completely removes all consequences from successfully casting a Charm Person or Suggestion spell on a shopkeeper or other NPC. "Oh, he becomes hostile after the spell ends? Who cares? He'll never *SEE* the me who cast the spell on him again." Finally ... a way to effectively use the Friends cantrip ... ;)
4:16 the decision to list everything alphabetically (spells, invocations, magic items) irrespective of any other grouping like type, power level, rarity etc. Is probably the single most obstructive design choice in the main handbooks.
It's the most foolproof way to index it. If you look for a spell, it's extremely intuitive to look for it alphabetically once you get the name from spell lists, and same as many other features.
Ugh, yes. I'm trying to build a 3rd level warlock and I don't care about all the higher-level prereqs, I had to sort through randomly jumbled lists across 4 books and still missed a few. The least they could do is separate them by level required.
I have a homebrew Rogue subclass called the Cultist that is sort of the Warlock version of an Arcane Trickster, and I reworked several of the invocations to be more specific to a Rogue's gameplay, and some I just improved because they were garbage. For Thief of Five Fates, I made it deliberately and thematically thieving. Bane no longer casts a pact magic slot to use, but can only be used once per day, and while concentrating on it (and while any enemies are still affected by it), you gain the effects of a Bless spell on yourself only. So 1d4 to attack rolls and saving throws. You essentially steal luck from enemies and use that to shift a fight in your favor. I got rid of the pact slot requirement because as a subclass granting magic to a non-caster class, you were already pretty limited on those slots, lol. I feel like a similar approach could be taken with ordinary Warlocks.
Also worth noting: In that Cultist subclass, you also can get sneak attacks on enemies you have any of your own spell effects applied to, so long as you don't have disadvantage, to encourage you to essentially mark targets with your curses and then eliminate them. Thief of Five Fates then becomes something of an emergency "I need to kill these guards" move when caught infiltrating, as it lets you take on several enemies rather well alone, for a brief moment once per day. Suddenly they all struggle to hit you, as you seem to land every strike at a weak point.
I built a warlock "archer" by focusing on the eldritch blast cantrip as if they were magic arrows. Eldritch Spear, coupled with Spell Sniper feat, and I had the maximum range of a longbow (600 ft). Coupled with Agonizing Blast, and I didn't need Dex for damage, so I scaled with the fighter's DPR, and then took Lance of Lethargy and Repelling Blast to keep enemies at bay and Grasp of Hadar to keep an enemy from fleeing. And other damaging cantrips were just "enchanted cantrips" such a fire arrow with Fire Bolt, or an icy arrow with Ray of Frost. My spell slots were for mobility options to keep out of the way (Misty Step, Far Step, etc).
Base damage LOOKS the same, but the reality is not. First, the Archery fighting style is a significant accuracy boost that has no comparable feature for EB. Second, Sharpshooter is a HUGE boost to an archer and has no equivalent for EB. Last, the other Fighter features like Action Surge and extra ASIs make the power builds more accessible. EB+AB is a great baseline for damage, but doesn't compare well to an actual archer build.
My favorite character ever was a chain warlock with the actor feat, voice of the chain master and mask of many faces. I was anyone at anytime. And you can sound like anyone through an invisible familiar. So. Fun.
I just made up a Pact of the Tome warlock with Actor, Mask of Many faces, and Misty Visions. My spells are focused on getting a ton of utility cantrips, EB for backup, Friends / Charm Person / Suggestion, Message / Sending / Detect thoughts, and Invisibility / Fly. I'm also going with a GOO patron for that telepathy, and I've got high investigation, history, arcana, and social skills. Background is as a sage, and the Book I got in my Scholar's pack is going to be a book on religious practices in the area. The idea is to roleplay as a sort of paranormal investigator to root out cults worshiping my patron, since cults doing rituals to grab his attention is kind of like a solicitor knocking on your door during dinnertime, and he wants to just clear out evidence of his existence so he can take a millennia-long nap or something.
I'm playing a Druid/GooChainWarlock with Wildshape, Awakened Mind, Actor feat, Mask of Many Faces, Misty Visions, and Voice of the Chainmaster. We are robbing and sabotaging the enemy military from within, and absolutely nothing can go wrong...
I was coming here to make the same comment. It also means you can pick up Armor of Agathys from the Warlock which is another great option for Abjurer. 2 lvl dip into Warlock is very strong for that build.
I have a mark of warding dwarf that uses armor of agathys (from the expanded spell list) alongside the abjurer's ward and it's quite the great combo. Just got contingency for yet another layer of hitpoints after my other defenses break
Another option for abjurer though is to be a deep gnome and take the feat which lets you cast nondetection for free. depends on whether you want to get stuck with a specific race&feat or take a 2 level dip.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I feel that Eldritch Sight is underrated. Detect Magic at will comes into play all over the place - looking for traps, looking for magic items, checking NPCs for magic items if you are suspicious of them, and so on. In many of those scenarios, spending the 10 minutes for a ritual would be completely impractical, or inconvenient enough that you wouldn't bother, but at will you are able to do it many times a day and get a lot more information than you would have otherwise.
It really comes into play with another guys comment. Where he said aspect of moon you can spend your time making 1st level hex scrolls. If you can 15 of those you don't mind burning through them to swap to detect magic for traps or something like that. I suspect he put eldritch sight slightly down because it requires forgoing concentration on hex. And if you are 5th level you really cast hex well before the adventuring day and get yourself a quick short rest. Also the fact that it is named sight is misleading. But it isn't sight it is a basic blindsight and if someone has magical items or is concentrating on something you could detect them before they ambushed you
My DM doesn't pay much attention to detail and nuance in rules...I play a druid and just say "I'm casting detect magic as a ritual" when I'm out of combat...and it just is acceptable. Is he doing something wrong?
@@Chrokosaur that makes me feel better about my DM. We were playing another game and I was just kinda nonplussed by how lack of attention to detail he had...made me wonder if he is running the d&d right at all
@@jrg305 I think that your DM sounds pretty standard. Unless they like to take the time to describe your spells (which you could probably do yourself if you wanted, as long as you don't take too long and drag down the game), I'd say it's just considered pointless to put detail into it. If you do something enough it becomes pretty standard, and unless you experience an interruption (I'd hope that would only be because of something story related; if they made random encounters to distract you that doesn't sound fun), nothing much of interest should happen in that time.
For my fellow DM:s out there: I think the "cool/flavourful but mediocre" invocations make for great rewards for warlocks. For example: If a pact of the tome warlock does something significant for their patron, I would consider giving them Eyes of the rune keeper as a reward from the patron, since it fits with the quest for knowledge that is inherent to the subclass.
Frankly, the fact that this is supposed to be inherent in the class is funny, because NONE of my warlocks are seeking knowledge. Hell, only one of them even willingly has a pact (one was drowning and called our for help, so he's a Fathomless. Another was just a normal kid who somehow made a pact with a Great Old One, his entire quest is to get rid of his powers. And my only willing warlock just wanted powers so he could go be a hedonist.)
@@WinterPains Yup, the flavour text in the PHB is a bit weird. I think it might have been written when they intended to make INT the primary attribute. However, I do like the _option_ to be a seeker of knowledge.
I don't think you emphasize the interchangeable nature of invocations enough. Fiendish vigor for example - for a level 2 character, its like having fighter hit points and access to second wind. It is a significant boost - situationally broken at early level encounters. It is one of the strongest invocations at its level, and the invocation mechanic is specifically tailored for you to be able to change it out when it scales out of usefulness. But the situational/marginal usefulness without taking into account the tier of play isn't being accurate, imho, if you are trying to "rate" the invocations. Situational IS the name of the game in a mechanic which is built to be changed situationally as you level up. --- -Fiendish Vigor itself is underrated, specifically, because it improves the action economy and resource economy of your healer and other party members. With it up, even up to level 4 or 5, it means that you can benefit from aoe healing or a single spell, or even be ignored because your repeated castings of FV are letting you ignore "chip" damage that otherwise wears down a party's resources. A fireball that hits the group suddenly only requires 1 action to heal you up from, as opposed to maybe 2 actions. Or even no actions if you immediately recast it and effectively give yourself a cure wounds spell. The 1 single thing every combat encounter has in common, is that people take damage and if you run out of hit points, its game over. In dire situations I have seen warlocks with an ok AC and fiendish vigor stand the line in a doorway and simply alternate recasting FV or dodging while the group recovered from a bad beat.
In defence of Armour of Shadows (though I agree with the ** rating) it's a decent early pick, when all you have is basic leather armour. And because you can change Invocations as you level, as soon as you find that +1 Studded (or the 2nd +1 Studded if there's a Rogue) you can swap it out.
Isn't the ability to swap out your Invocations an optional one, meaning it's not in the game as default? To be clear, I allow it either way - I hate making players stay locked into decisions they made that are decreasing their fun.
@@HeirophantCarneus it's in the players handbook. When you gain a warlock level, you can swap invocations as long as you now meet the new invocation's requirement
You can also swap it out if your party contains a wizard who prepares it and doesn't mind casting it on you. Which is usually around 5th level in my experience.
Isn't it basically pretty good until you find that +1 studded leather armor that nobody else is using? Otherwise, for an invocation to give +1 AC at no cost seems to be considerably better than many of the other options available.
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8:14 I REALLY wish Aspect of the moon explicitly said that you were allowed to scribe spells during light activity. having every long rest count as 8hrs of scribing gives a character access to downtime activities without forcing the DM to a lot you downtime. I personally houserule light activity to include crafting at my tables, and I find that it improves the game significantly because it also gives the players a reason to care about gold for mechanical reasons (instead of relying exclusively on roleplay oriented gold sinks, or creating magic item shoplists by hand). being able to actually use the pre-written crafting tables in the game is so nice. at my table, aspect of the moon is very powerful, as it pretty much means, gold permitting, that every night the warlock can create a level 1 spell scroll, and when they find enemy spell books with rituals in them, they can usually get a new ritual scribed down every night. but it sucks that when I'm the player, I have to sit there and ask for a houserule that lets me actually use my book of ancient secrets...
I've thought of a homebrew to make Thief of Five Fates way more powerful than it is now: you can cast Bane without using a spell slot at a level equal to your pact magic spell slots. Each time you cast it thereafter the amount of creatures you can target with it decreases by one. When this number reaches zero you cannot use it until you finish a long rest, at which point it resets to it's maximum number of creatures.
I think Grasp of Hadar, Lance of Lethargy and Repelling Blast should be a single invocation where you decide if it moves them 10ft closer, 10ft away or just slows them by 10ft on a hit. They all do such similar things but in slightly different ways.
Yea your right, and eldritch blast should be inbuilt into the warlock with agonizing blast at first level, to kneecap for flavor or going more into your pact options is just really silly when you also have limited spellcasting. And any of the spell invocations like the bane or bestow curse should just be in the spell list, to start with it's already a limited base spell list to begin with to hide some good spells front the warlock for no reason is just stupid.
I like Lance of Lethargy being its own separate thing, but the other two definitely could be combined. Pick whether they get pushed or pulled for each beam. To make Lance of Lethargy better, I feel like it could just apply to all targets hit, but no more than once. So if you shoot one person, -10 speed, but if you shoot 3, they each lose 10 speed. This can help you trap multiple enemies in dangerous spell effects like Hunger of Hadar. Enemies step out of it, and you repel them back in and slow them 10, so they have trouble getting back out of the difficult terrain, lol. But having Lance of Lethargy apply to every beam on the same target would absolutely be broken. Most enemies only have 30 base movement speed, so at level 11, your target is essentially immobilized. As for right now, Lance of Lethargy does work fairly well combined with the other two repositioning ones, and I'd like to keep it that way. Repel + Slow = melee enemies kept at bay Grasp + Slow = fleeing enemies can't escape
Also, having a teammate cast Darkness on your Hexblade's pact weapon as you charge in makes you an ungodly tank unless the enemies have blindsight. Your mere presence is terrifying chaos, and while it doesn't force enemies to attack you, it often keeps them from being able to effectively target others and need to reposition, which wastes time, provokes opportunity attacks, and can sometimes allow you to herd enemies to better positions or break their defensive formations to expose themselves. Add in a blind fighting style Fighter and Paladin, and have the Darkness spell cast by a Shadow Sorcerer, and you have a whole party that can run in with you, lol. Your DM will have to get creative to make challenging fights for you, but that's half the fun.
I always think about making a Moon Druid with 3 levels dip in Pact of Chain Warlock, for Armor of Shadows and Gift of the Ever-Living Ones. The Combat Wild Shape feature allows you to spend a spell slot to recover 1d8 health per slot level, with a bonus action. This should create a self-healing character that is very difficult to take down. What do you guys think?
@@TreantmonksTemple Would Healing Spirit be a good option for this character or the spell is really useless after the nerf? Thanks for the reply, I really like your videos
@@Serkesh77 It's based on your Wisdom now, so in a non-wisdom based character, it's pretty darned useless. You are going to heal more by scaling cure wounds without concentration.
That's amazing! There aren't too many ways to do things like this, so it's nice that Warlocks get these options. Good Invocations like that take it from being a poor class with an interesting concept to having some really powerful gimmicks.
Undying warlocks get undying nature at level 10 which is a more powerful version of aspect of the moon, so its only useful from levels 5-9. But yeah that's a good idea.
@@ATMOSK1234 aspect of the moon still gives you may do light activity durring a long rest undying nature on its own doesnt let you do that though the other benifits are better than AotM on its own
I just wanted to bring up that you mentioned the concentration cost for silent image, but not for detect magic. Side note I appreciate the extensive break down for all the different types of innovations.
A few notes here: Armor of Shadows has another use, and that's if you're playing an Abjurer dipping Warlock, it allows you to recharge your Arcane Ward much more quickly than ritual casting Alarm I've heard a lot of people talk about using Aspect of the Moon on a Warlock/Sorcerer build, never taking long rests but taking 8 short rests instead, and using the recharging pact magic slots to get a bunch of extra sorcery points. Do you know if this works? There's no such spell as Evil Eye, the spell you're thinking of is Eyebite.
This technique, commonly referred to as the coffeelock, is one that gets talked about endlessly but no experienced DM will allow it. Basically the DM should just rule that warlock slots do not work with sorcerer abilities and therefore cannot be melted down for sorcery points. There is support for this approach from Sage Advice. The Arcane Ward charging does officially work though. Things gets a little less clear when it comes to innate racial abilities such as the Svirfneblin Magic feat's Nondetection. Most DMs do allow that to charge the ward (hence the large number of Deep Gnome Abjurers) but the wording is such that it is open to interpretation, particularly since traditionally innate casting was not treated the same way as normal spellcasting in (A)D&D.
Currently playing a cavalier dwarf that dipped 4 levels of warlock for False Life and Gift of the Ever Living Ones. Also have the dwarven xanathar feat that allows you to dodge to heal. So mid combat I can heal to ful health.
Mask Of Many Faces seems to only have role play value but its amazingly good in combat to run behind cover and change your appearance. This seriously messes up targeting and pursuits.
There is one approach in which Eldritch Spear is actually pretty useful: If the character is able to fly - such as the winged Tiefling. That way they can soar above the battlefield and rain down eldritch blast without much worry for return fire.
A tip with Improved Pact Weapon that makes Hexblade warlocks insane is that you can now pair it with a longbow + sharpshooter and hit anything from 600 ft away (like normal.) But in addition, you can smite if you hit with Eldritch Smite, which inflicts a no save prone condition. If a dragon is flying around and wont land, just use this combo to make them land and take some insane fall damage alongside it. Its the only way to smite at range.
Hey I know it’s one of the new ones, but I always liked Eldritch Mind for being basically War Caster lite and allowing me the best part of that Feat for an invocation (which is the Con proficiency).
Playing CoS my Arcane Trickster/Hexblade get good mileage from Mask of Many Faces+Friends cantrip, you feel like GoT's Faceless man. Looking forward to some mostly/fully level warlocks builds, specially no-hexblade ones.
Aspect of the Moon is underrated by so many because it's not obvious at a glance how to use it effectively. A long rest is 8 hours and RAW one day of downtime is also 8 hours, so as long as you arent engaged in strenuous activity you can take downtime whenever your party decides to long rest. The best use of this time in my opinion is to create Hex spell scrolls. A level 1 spell scroll costs 25 gold and 1 day of downtime according to xanathars so by using aspect of the moon the warlock can effectively amass a horde of hex scrolls to supplement the classes limited spell slots.
I thought this was going to be a sorlock thing where you restt to recover spell slots and turn them into sorc points the sorc spell slots. But this is really clever. I wonder whether 3rd or 5th level spell scrolls would be more efficient but given your concentration may break or you may want a different spell first level ones seem like the way to go.
@UCGB-g09GoC16SnI_LT1g-1A Very smart, armor of agathys as well. And obviously to supply the costs you can sell it as well. Spells like comprehend languages, unseen servant or illusory script could be very valuable for spy agencies and ambassadors of countries. You could easily get 50-100gp doing that. Spells like spider climb and misty step could be very valuable as well. And are life saving spells scrolls. I think this combines really well with book of ancient secrets. So that you can create a bunch of ritual scrolls like feather fall to be used in a pinch. Edit: Dude I was replying to said doing it with shield would be really smart
It should be noted that what constitutes light activity and the actual actions involved in scribing a scroll are both dm fiat, so you do need permission for this.
@Joseph Webley The issue with using this tactic to make 3rd or 5th level scrolls is that the cost and time required increases rapidly as you increase spell levels. A 3rd level spell scroll costs 500 gold and takes a week to make and a 5th level scroll costs 5000 gold and a month to create. It doesn't seem worth it to me to spend that much time and gold to get a single "free" casting of a spell. @timeforsuchaword You should always discuss with your DM before taking a feature that requires a degree of interpretation. If your DM rules that writing is a strenuous activity then you should take a different invocation.
If you're topped up on HP and hit dice, you can also use that time to cast prep spells, like Scrying, if you have access to them. Cast a few of those early in the long rest, take yourself a short rest, and be fully ready to take on the next adventuring day
I think that Aspect of the Moon can be very useful if your DM uses the spell scroll scribing rules from Xanathar's guide because it gives you quite a bit of downtime every short rest, which gives you a chance to have a ton of lower level spells and situational spells prepared for if/when you might need them. This would allow you to do things like using Hex for an encounter without burning a high level spell slot, or some emergency copies of cure wounds for a Celestial Warlock!
I played a character with pact of the chain master in an open world style game, and it was so brokenly op, that part way through we retconed me to be a tomblock instead of a chainlock just to balance the game a little. If you are creating a character with pact of the chain, keep in mind that an invisible scout that can go any distance has the potential to be completely game breaking, and to overshadow any other characters who might have tried to build a scouting character. I would honestly not recommend it unless you are going to do a lot of self policing to keep it from getting out of hand.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who hates the alphabetical invocations. Same goes for spells and artificer infusions. Looks nice from a book perspective, but not practical from a playing perspective. At a minimum they should be alphabetical by level
The misty visions and mask of many faces can both be absolutely broken, depends on how much shenanigans you DM allow but hiding the party in an illusion for ambushes never gets old, and if you take actor fear you can just frame people for crimes easy.
a nice alternative to aspect of the moon, is book of ancient secrets and taking teh ritual spell, alarm, for long rests, or unseen servant to watch over you for short rests. not hard for them to ring a cheap bell to alert you.
I will say, Aspect of the Moon, depending on how flexible/naive your DM is, can really be wrangled on some Sorlock builds for some... Absolute cheese, known as the Coffee/Cocainelock, depending on how strict the DM. Basically, you could theoretically spend your long rest, instead burning 8 short rests and stock up a ton of extra sorcery points. Will that come up often? No. But it's worthwhile to mention.
Actually you can only have an amount of Sorcery Points up to your Sorcerer level. So what you have to do is convert most of those points into spell slots to profit. But yes Coffeelock is dirty. I’m a powergamer and I think it’s far too cheesy.
@@M0ebius Yeah, that's what I meant lol, but the effect is much the same, cheese. Smarter DMs will invoke RAW to claim that even without needing sleep, Long Rests, specifically, are required to stave off exhaustion. This is where the Cocainelock comes in, namely a Divine Soul Sorcerer that casts Greater Restoration, which requires an expensive whiteish powder as a material component to get rid of exhaustion...
Invocations can be hard. This channel's build guides have taught me how to use them effectively. Though for my next warlock, I'm focusing entirely on his eyes. They are going to mutate over the course of campaign as his patron grants him - Eldritch Sight, Devilsight, Eyes of the Runekeeper (potentially do Voice of the chain master here), Ghostly Gaze, , and finally cap with Witch Sight. I'm so looking forward to play this magic investigator. If someone can help me also make him good in combat, I'd appreciate the help haha. But for now I'm thinking basic Eldritch blast + upcast flaming sphere (from Celestial list) for most of the fights.
You're doing a cool thing! You can think of warlocks and their EB+AB as martials with fun tricks. You'll be totally fine in combat with that combo. You can add powerful spells in there like banishment or whatnot for control.
My arcana cleric took eyes of the runekeeper and eldritch sight and was basically a treasure hunter/crypt diver looking for arcane secrets. Not bad for a little dip in the warlock and it made for unraveling mysteries easier and fun from a roleplay point. I've also used gaze of two minds with an arcane trickster to make them sort of a supernatural spy. Not going to lie. I've had a blast playing a sea sorcerer/deep one warlock with grasp of hadar and repulsing blast.
Repelling Blast is pretty damn close to sky blue. For any EB slinging warlock, you’re going to get value virtually every single fight just using it straight. If your party have access to synergistic spells like Web, Spike Growth, Plant Growth, or Black Tentacle etc, I’d say it’s second only to Agonizing Blast. If your party has multiple EBers, then Repelling Blast becomes nearly a must-take because of its nature as a force amplifier.
I feel like Fiendish Vigor is underrated. And not for reasons that are obvious. One thing that often gets overlooked is that you can use this invocation to entirely annul environmental damage effects that deal damage every round. You can walk on coals, through piercing sleet storms and through treacherous ruins that might occasionally cause you to take fall damage. As long as any effect doesn't deal more than 5 damage and on average about 6.5 damage you are basically immune to it by just walking normally and repeatedly casting False Life.
One thing I wanted to say about Thief Of Five Fates; I just read the class ability in D&D Beyond, and it allows you to “cast bane once using a warlock spell slot.” That doesn’t mean that you get the bane spell that you can cast as a first level spell, it means you get to cast bane at whatever level your slots cast other spells as. It’s not really a huge advantage, but it does mean you will be able to cast it at more targets at once. Don’t get me wrong, I personally don’t really see the overall benefit, but in effect it is adding a spell to your warlock’s spell list that you couldn’t get before.
Beguiling Influence 100% *should* work that way, granting Expertise if you already have proficiency. I'd definitely try to convince my DM to allow that if I were considering taking it. Tome of Ancient Secrets is even more broken than stated here. For context as to just how powerful it is; it's a single Invocation that effectively grants you the Beast Speech, Eldritch Sight, and Eyes of the Runekeeper Invocations on top of everything else it does. It also grants a large portion of what Pact of the Chain would offer you. Devil's Sight not working in Dim Light is clearly just an omission that probably should have been errata'd, and a DM actually enforcing that would be a huge red flag.
One thing you missed when talking about the Gift of the Ever Living Ones is how it meshes with the Celestial Patron's healing dice feature. You can attack or cast a spell and then heal yourself as a bonus action. This feature isn't even technically a spell, so it can be further combined with barbarian rage. Gift of the Ever Living Ones takes a healing feature that uses dice but no bonuses, and maximizes its potential.
@@knightghaleon Yep, paladin is another good combo. Neither smites nor lay on hands is considered a spell so I bet you could use both without dropping rage. And just imagine that sweet sweet paladin smite with reckless attack. Wait for a crit then drop the holy hammer.
@@knightghaleon Aye, technically just 2 but that third level gives you an extra daily rage plus your first subclass feature, and I can see why you might want to hold out for bear totem warrior lol. Though personally I like combining zealot and paladin both thematically and because zealot adds an extra smite and free resurrection.
I respectfully but energetically disagree 100% with the rating for Armor of shadows, even though we have profficiency with light armor, a starting leather armor on maxed (Point Buy) dexterity is just going to give you a measly 14 AC (14 Dex + 2 Racial), while AoS can increase that to 16 which is a significant difference in the first tiers, as a dual wielding bladelock that has been extremly useful for me. Not only the 13 base AoS doesn't restrict the amount of Dex that can be applied to your AC like a regular chainshirt would, but also it's summoned, so whenever I get captured or imprissoned, I can just Summon my Pact blade, summon my AoS and I'm ready to roll.
It's crazy to me that you only get two invocations before 5th level. Agonizing blast and then the invocation tied to your pact boon and you're done. You have to give up one of these in order to express any creativity. It absolutely sucks.
my personal thoughts on warlock regarding a hypothetical 5.5, I think more of the invocations should be "you get an extra spell you can cast once per short/long rest". Effectively, making their spellcasting be split between pact slots, invocation spells, and later on arcanum. Multiple separate ways to spew out spells that on their own are limited use, but pooled together allow a warlock to still cast about the same amount of times a day as other casters.
Important to note that voice of the chain master also has built-in devil’s sight if using Imp. Additionally, your vision is always-on, doesn’t require an action to activate and does not blind you while you’re using it like normal familiar-sight. Finally, your character can never “functionally” suffer from the “blinded” condition. If the invisible familiar is hovering 100ft above the battlefield looking on it like a tactical mastermind, you see that as well, and if a spell gouges out your eyes, it matters not one bit for you continue to see through the familiar.
"...your vision is always-on, doesn’t require an action to activate...". I thought this is subjected to the rules (unless specificied otherwise e.g. same plane of existence, rather than 100ft for communication) of Find Familiar spell i.e. "Additionally, as an action, you can see through your familiar's eyes...until the start of your next turn,...".
Yup, the Voice of the Chain Master upgrades familiar's options but does not make them constant. You still need an action to use your familiar's senses.
Hey, as stated in the other vid, one more comment to what you said about invocations. I just noticed that I actually have very little to add to what you said. Really a good, comprehensive overview. Kudos to you. Anyway: - Eldritch Sight: I'd give this a 4/5 simply because Detect Magic is such a useful spell, and while it is true that other classes might have access to it via rituals, there are many DMs out there (myself included) who will make sure that spending a lot of time on rituals also carries some sort of consequences for the party. Also, having Detect Magic 'always on' means that you don't have to try and hide from NPCs that you try to check out their stuff, and you also aren't surprised by that magical trap in an unexpected place. ... and I'd maybe drop Gift of the Ever-Living Ones to 3/5 because one shouldn't be losing as much HP as to make this worthwhile as a Chains Warlock. I suppose for a Hexblade with Chains instead of Pact of the Blade this could be pretty amazing, though.
Thinking about making a warlock whos eyes were taken from him or was always blind from birth or accident then taking all of the sight invocations and becoming dare devil.
Im taking armor of shadows as my character is a Changeling. I change my clothes to different a different persona, then if I need my armor I summon it. and since I dont need a spell slot or concentration I can cast it on multiple characters but that isnt something that comes up a lot.
I do agree Eyes of the Rune Keeper is pretty situational, but I do like taking it on GOO and/or tomelocks mostly for thematic reasons (an so I can copy those sweet sweet rituals of they happen to be in another language)
I think that hexblades/pact of the blade would rather keep improved pact weapon. You gotta get a glaive to make three attacks per turn for that tripple e-smite
I hate Agonizing Blast. For two lvl dip, any Charisma-based character can have an equivalent on heavy crossbow with *all four* fighter's attacks, and that's on top of second invocation and two short-rest-rechargeable spell slots.
12:03 Book of ancient secrets is very DM specific. Most DMs are really stingy with spells or they just forget. I've never been given more than 2 spells in entire campaigns that go up to 12th level on multiple occasions.
I rate Armor of Shadows as at least 4* for an Abjuration Wizard, particularly if you are using Tasha's and have the room to take it as a feat. Then swap it out at level 18 if you ever make it there, or sooner if you determine it isn't a big deal in your game.
Fiendish vigor is a instant pick at lvl 2 and makes a warlock one of the stronger tanks early lvl and avoids most early deaths. You get rid of it at the first opportunity of course.
Fiendish Vigour, green for a low level straight Warlock until level 4 or 5, UNLESS you have another source of temporary hit points when it loses most of its value, probably orange **. All text after 4 or 5 is new text
@@moto2442 Fiendish vigor is what you start the fight with. Theoretically you're probably gonna get hit before you kill something. And if you don't, you just choose to have whichever amount is higher.
Armor of Shadows - missed the synergy with abjuration wizard Aspect of the moon - missed the sorcerery points synergy Misty Visions - create for yourself a heavily obscuring fog or smoke during battle. No sound and insubstantial means enemies don’t suspect an illusion while you know it’s an illusion so you can see through it.
You should never take agonizing blast before lv 5! At low lvs you only get one blast and your cha bonus is not that high yet. There are so many better invocations at this point in your characters life! I recommend mask of many faces, devil's sight or beast speech for utility, or repelling blast, grasp of hadar or lance of lethargy for battlefield control. Whatever you choose you can always swap it out for AB at lv 5.
Love your content Chris. Having played lots of previous editions I was quite confused with the changes in 5e. Your videos have really helped me get back into the game. Thanks from myself and my players. 😁
WOOHOO! Warlock is one of my favorite classes, and Invocations are a big deal, that is often misunderstood. Amen, to the Misty Visions Invocation. This is actually my very favorite.
Armor of Shadows can be good if your DM is a douche who will destroy your armor or refuse to let you buy any. but in that case, try and find a better group. Eldritch Spear combined with Spell Sniper feat brings the range up to 600 feet, you can almost snipe someone from across the town, and certainly from hiding. combine it with Mask of Many Faces and you're now using guerrilla tactics. Mask of Many Faces is also a must have choice for a multi-classing rogue and/or bard.
So I don’t think it would change the ranking of Eyes of the Runekeeper (EotR) but wouldn’t a couple of advantage it has over Comprehend Languages (CL) is it allows you to read all writing, whereas CL is similar but it will translate the text exactly meaning of its an ancient lost language you won’t have the context of what that society meant and you could very well obtain incorrect information. EotR doesn’t have that limitation. Also since it’s not a spell you’re not wasting time casting or potentially a spell slot which would extend its niche usefulness to if you needed to read something but were unable to use magic. I still agree it’s a niche invocation but I might place slightly more value on it over CL.
@Липинский Владимир I know :) But how would you build a warlock for EA (best spells, best invocations with these changes etc) Do you know if the 1 short rest limit will stay in the full game? Because that is quite limiting
Little correction on the Improved Pact Weapon: RAW state you can use the hand holding your spellcasting focus to perform your somatic components. Improved Pact Weapon makes your pointy stick your spellcasting focus, ergo you don't need to drop or sheathe it to cast, hence no need for the Warcaster feat.
Ah, I see what my mistake was. If a spell requires material components, the hand that holds said components can be the same as the hand that performs somatic components. I now read this as „If a spell requires both replaceable material and somatic components, it can be performed while holding an improved pact weapon. If, however, the spell requires no replaceable material components, you need warcaster.“ This makes the scenario where you can go without the feat the exception, not the rule. And honestly, as a melee spellcaster, you want warcaster anyway. Advantage on concentration saves is absolutely invaluable!
I know this is heresy, but it's probably worth mentioning that most warlocks are going to have 14 dex, which means you don't get that much benefit from EB+AB over say a light crossbow until 4th level or later. Given that we're talking about a cantrip AND and invocation, it can often be better to take Fiendish Vigour and Mage Hand instead for the early game, and swap them both out at level 4. Custom Lineage is probably an exception. If you have 18 cha right from level 1 then just take the damn agonising blast. No point delaying when it's that juicy.
Hi treantmonk. Ive been waiting for this and more focus on warlocks. I have a question for you if you have time... I started a lvl 1 warlock that is lvl 7 now. I think i want to cross this to sorcerer 3 to get the quicken so i can do 2 eldritch blasts in a single turn... when would be the best time to do this now? Should i do it immediately on my next lvl or any advice? Maybe i shouldnt do it at all?
To be honest, if I was going to do that, I would only have gone with Warlock 2 and gone straight sorcerer. However, it's not terrible to do it now, but be aware you are moving into some higher level spells that will get delayed.
Devil's Sight seems just poorly worded, tbh. Actual devils have a "devils sight" feature which just says that their darkvision isn't impeded by magical darkness. I _suspect_ that the invocation was originally _intended_ to work like that. The RAW is just so wonky, creating an effect completely unlike anything else in the game. "Oh, it's dim in here, blow out that candle! That's better, I can see clearly now". Silly
Just started playing DnD a few months ago as a Warlock, and found your videos on the spells/ invocations to be really well informed. Although i purposely avoid ultra powergaming in DnD, coming from an mmo background being efficient and optimized is in my blood. Even as a new player it seems many videos or redditors offering advice miss out on things, are wrong or not fully informed on mechanics, aren't aware of spells indepth uses, and how they might synergize with other bits of the warlock/party. That hasnt been a problem with your videos - everything ive thought about or run into has been spelled out and taken into account. You thoroughly analyze what spells can be used for not just in a vacuum, but taking into account the many factors of the broader game, which is refreshing.
Invisible Familiar with infinite telepathy range + Ability to speak through familiar with your voice + Actor feat is a good combination. Invisible Familiar + Actor feat + Mask of many faces is also good. Can also add in Friends for additional benefits. Honestly, I feel a lot of people just don't see the potential Warlocks have for espionage and social manipulation.
I love the warlock but it really needs redesign. Too many things are invocations that really should just be Pact features, meaning that they end up being very "feat tax"-ish. I really wish the various Invocations that made Eldtrich Blast better would simply make a cantrip you cast in a turn better. Totally balanced as you'd not be doing anything extra. It would let you be able to make use of various cantrips and punch harder when you do. Having warlocks get better cantrips overall or maybe in a limited use way would really help differentiate them, too.
Where (which module) would you ever be without any beast. Rats alone are nearly everywhere (dungeons, cities, forests, etc..) barring hells or elemental planes (and how often are you honestly there?). I've never taken the Beast Speech invocation but to say beasts are circumstantial doesn't seem correct. Unless of course circumstantial is like 90% of the time?
The only rating I disagree with is Eldritch Sight. I think that like Mask of Many Faces, if you take Eldritch Sight you will find yourself using it all the time, a lot of times in situations you wouldn't normally try and cast a 10 minute ritual. Otherwise, I did something similar with the Invocations (organized them by level and prerequisites) in Excel and came to the same conclusions you did generally.
I don't wanna cast a spell at Will, he did nothing wrong.
He knows what he did.
@Pan Darius Kairos These sort of puns generally go underappreciated.
@@pencilbender As we learnt from Repertoire:
"People will hate you more for making a pun than that time you openly defended murder."
That aged like milk
Poor Will!
As some one who’s colour blind, I REALLY appreciate the stars!
I love playing with color blind guys
Sincerely, not only for you. I watched this video while cooking and forgot multiple times the colour code (not fully focused on the video). I used the stars a couple of times till I got used to the system.
Def nice from him to be attentive to this issue.
As someone who keeps forgetting what rank each colour is supposed to correspond to, I also appreciate just counting the stars.
@@Treblaine Honestly, Cris should just quit with the color coding (which is UTTERLY non-intuitive) and rank things from one-star (bad) to five-star (must-have).
@@Treblaine Agree, colors are fine but I don't always recall which is which.
One great thing about Mask of Many Faces is that it immediately and completely removes all consequences from successfully casting a Charm Person or Suggestion spell on a shopkeeper or other NPC. "Oh, he becomes hostile after the spell ends? Who cares? He'll never *SEE* the me who cast the spell on him again." Finally ... a way to effectively use the Friends cantrip ... ;)
And even with this, the Friends cantrip still doesn't work for making friends.
4:16 the decision to list everything alphabetically (spells, invocations, magic items) irrespective of any other grouping like type, power level, rarity etc. Is probably the single most obstructive design choice in the main handbooks.
It's the most foolproof way to index it. If you look for a spell, it's extremely intuitive to look for it alphabetically once you get the name from spell lists, and same as many other features.
Ugh, yes. I'm trying to build a 3rd level warlock and I don't care about all the higher-level prereqs, I had to sort through randomly jumbled lists across 4 books and still missed a few. The least they could do is separate them by level required.
That feel when Thief of Five Fates has the coolest name, but the weakest effect.
Actually bane is really strong spell it just sucks that the invocation uses a spell slot.
I have a homebrew Rogue subclass called the Cultist that is sort of the Warlock version of an Arcane Trickster, and I reworked several of the invocations to be more specific to a Rogue's gameplay, and some I just improved because they were garbage.
For Thief of Five Fates, I made it deliberately and thematically thieving. Bane no longer casts a pact magic slot to use, but can only be used once per day, and while concentrating on it (and while any enemies are still affected by it), you gain the effects of a Bless spell on yourself only. So 1d4 to attack rolls and saving throws. You essentially steal luck from enemies and use that to shift a fight in your favor. I got rid of the pact slot requirement because as a subclass granting magic to a non-caster class, you were already pretty limited on those slots, lol. I feel like a similar approach could be taken with ordinary Warlocks.
Also worth noting: In that Cultist subclass, you also can get sneak attacks on enemies you have any of your own spell effects applied to, so long as you don't have disadvantage, to encourage you to essentially mark targets with your curses and then eliminate them. Thief of Five Fates then becomes something of an emergency "I need to kill these guards" move when caught infiltrating, as it lets you take on several enemies rather well alone, for a brief moment once per day. Suddenly they all struggle to hit you, as you seem to land every strike at a weak point.
I built a warlock "archer" by focusing on the eldritch blast cantrip as if they were magic arrows. Eldritch Spear, coupled with Spell Sniper feat, and I had the maximum range of a longbow (600 ft). Coupled with Agonizing Blast, and I didn't need Dex for damage, so I scaled with the fighter's DPR, and then took Lance of Lethargy and Repelling Blast to keep enemies at bay and Grasp of Hadar to keep an enemy from fleeing. And other damaging cantrips were just "enchanted cantrips" such a fire arrow with Fire Bolt, or an icy arrow with Ray of Frost. My spell slots were for mobility options to keep out of the way (Misty Step, Far Step, etc).
I have a similar concept, but going celestial warlock, for that bonus action healing.
Sounds like a much better Arcane Archer
Base damage LOOKS the same, but the reality is not. First, the Archery fighting style is a significant accuracy boost that has no comparable feature for EB. Second, Sharpshooter is a HUGE boost to an archer and has no equivalent for EB. Last, the other Fighter features like Action Surge and extra ASIs make the power builds more accessible.
EB+AB is a great baseline for damage, but doesn't compare well to an actual archer build.
My favorite character ever was a chain warlock with the actor feat, voice of the chain master and mask of many faces. I was anyone at anytime. And you can sound like anyone through an invisible familiar. So. Fun.
I just made up a Pact of the Tome warlock with Actor, Mask of Many faces, and Misty Visions. My spells are focused on getting a ton of utility cantrips, EB for backup, Friends / Charm Person / Suggestion, Message / Sending / Detect thoughts, and Invisibility / Fly. I'm also going with a GOO patron for that telepathy, and I've got high investigation, history, arcana, and social skills. Background is as a sage, and the Book I got in my Scholar's pack is going to be a book on religious practices in the area.
The idea is to roleplay as a sort of paranormal investigator to root out cults worshiping my patron, since cults doing rituals to grab his attention is kind of like a solicitor knocking on your door during dinnertime, and he wants to just clear out evidence of his existence so he can take a millennia-long nap or something.
I'm playing a Druid/GooChainWarlock with Wildshape, Awakened Mind, Actor feat, Mask of Many Faces, Misty Visions, and Voice of the Chainmaster.
We are robbing and sabotaging the enemy military from within, and absolutely nothing can go wrong...
If an abjurer dips into warlock, he can take armor of shadows as an inexpensive and quick way to recharge his arcane ward.
I was coming here to make the same comment.
It also means you can pick up Armor of Agathys from the Warlock which is another great option for Abjurer. 2 lvl dip into Warlock is very strong for that build.
I have a mark of warding dwarf that uses armor of agathys (from the expanded spell list) alongside the abjurer's ward and it's quite the great combo. Just got contingency for yet another layer of hitpoints after my other defenses break
Maybe not even a dip, you could take the Eldritch Adept UA feat
“HORRY SHEET!!”
Another option for abjurer though is to be a deep gnome and take the feat which lets you cast nondetection for free. depends on whether you want to get stuck with a specific race&feat or take a 2 level dip.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I feel that Eldritch Sight is underrated. Detect Magic at will comes into play all over the place - looking for traps, looking for magic items, checking NPCs for magic items if you are suspicious of them, and so on. In many of those scenarios, spending the 10 minutes for a ritual would be completely impractical, or inconvenient enough that you wouldn't bother, but at will you are able to do it many times a day and get a lot more information than you would have otherwise.
It really comes into play with another guys comment. Where he said aspect of moon you can spend your time making 1st level hex scrolls. If you can 15 of those you don't mind burning through them to swap to detect magic for traps or something like that.
I suspect he put eldritch sight slightly down because it requires forgoing concentration on hex. And if you are 5th level you really cast hex well before the adventuring day and get yourself a quick short rest.
Also the fact that it is named sight is misleading. But it isn't sight it is a basic blindsight and if someone has magical items or is concentrating on something you could detect them before they ambushed you
My DM doesn't pay much attention to detail and nuance in rules...I play a druid and just say "I'm casting detect magic as a ritual" when I'm out of combat...and it just is acceptable. Is he doing something wrong?
@@jrg305 No. It's just that it takes time, meaning that if there's a time factor involved it might not be a good idea to ritual cast.
@@Chrokosaur that makes me feel better about my DM. We were playing another game and I was just kinda nonplussed by how lack of attention to detail he had...made me wonder if he is running the d&d right at all
@@jrg305 I think that your DM sounds pretty standard. Unless they like to take the time to describe your spells (which you could probably do yourself if you wanted, as long as you don't take too long and drag down the game), I'd say it's just considered pointless to put detail into it. If you do something enough it becomes pretty standard, and unless you experience an interruption (I'd hope that would only be because of something story related; if they made random encounters to distract you that doesn't sound fun), nothing much of interest should happen in that time.
For my fellow DM:s out there:
I think the "cool/flavourful but mediocre" invocations make for great rewards for warlocks.
For example:
If a pact of the tome warlock does something significant for their patron, I would consider giving them Eyes of the rune keeper as a reward from the patron, since it fits with the quest for knowledge that is inherent to the subclass.
+
That sounds like a great way to deal with the "nice to have, but not all that useful" stuff.
Frankly, the fact that this is supposed to be inherent in the class is funny, because NONE of my warlocks are seeking knowledge.
Hell, only one of them even willingly has a pact (one was drowning and called our for help, so he's a Fathomless. Another was just a normal kid who somehow made a pact with a Great Old One, his entire quest is to get rid of his powers. And my only willing warlock just wanted powers so he could go be a hedonist.)
@@WinterPains
Yup, the flavour text in the PHB is a bit weird.
I think it might have been written when they intended to make INT the primary attribute.
However, I do like the _option_ to be a seeker of knowledge.
@@japphan Same.
I don't think you emphasize the interchangeable nature of invocations enough. Fiendish vigor for example - for a level 2 character, its like having fighter hit points and access to second wind. It is a significant boost - situationally broken at early level encounters. It is one of the strongest invocations at its level, and the invocation mechanic is specifically tailored for you to be able to change it out when it scales out of usefulness. But the situational/marginal usefulness without taking into account the tier of play isn't being accurate, imho, if you are trying to "rate" the invocations. Situational IS the name of the game in a mechanic which is built to be changed situationally as you level up.
---
-Fiendish Vigor itself is underrated, specifically, because it improves the action economy and resource economy of your healer and other party members. With it up, even up to level 4 or 5, it means that you can benefit from aoe healing or a single spell, or even be ignored because your repeated castings of FV are letting you ignore "chip" damage that otherwise wears down a party's resources. A fireball that hits the group suddenly only requires 1 action to heal you up from, as opposed to maybe 2 actions. Or even no actions if you immediately recast it and effectively give yourself a cure wounds spell. The 1 single thing every combat encounter has in common, is that people take damage and if you run out of hit points, its game over. In dire situations I have seen warlocks with an ok AC and fiendish vigor stand the line in a doorway and simply alternate recasting FV or dodging while the group recovered from a bad beat.
And of course free 8 temp hp in between every combat helps shore up your up over the combat day
In defence of Armour of Shadows (though I agree with the ** rating) it's a decent early pick, when all you have is basic leather armour. And because you can change Invocations as you level, as soon as you find that +1 Studded (or the 2nd +1 Studded if there's a Rogue) you can swap it out.
Isn't the ability to swap out your Invocations an optional one, meaning it's not in the game as default? To be clear, I allow it either way - I hate making players stay locked into decisions they made that are decreasing their fun.
@@HeirophantCarneus it's in the players handbook. When you gain a warlock level, you can swap invocations as long as you now meet the new invocation's requirement
@@a.spirit8408 excellent! Then I agree with this defense of Armor of Shadows for some warlocks at low level 🤙
You can also swap it out if your party contains a wizard who prepares it and doesn't mind casting it on you. Which is usually around 5th level in my experience.
Isn't it basically pretty good until you find that +1 studded leather armor that nobody else is using? Otherwise, for an invocation to give +1 AC at no cost seems to be considerably better than many of the other options available.
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8:14 I REALLY wish Aspect of the moon explicitly said that you were allowed to scribe spells during light activity. having every long rest count as 8hrs of scribing gives a character access to downtime activities without forcing the DM to a lot you downtime. I personally houserule light activity to include crafting at my tables, and I find that it improves the game significantly because it also gives the players a reason to care about gold for mechanical reasons (instead of relying exclusively on roleplay oriented gold sinks, or creating magic item shoplists by hand). being able to actually use the pre-written crafting tables in the game is so nice. at my table, aspect of the moon is very powerful, as it pretty much means, gold permitting, that every night the warlock can create a level 1 spell scroll, and when they find enemy spell books with rituals in them, they can usually get a new ritual scribed down every night.
but it sucks that when I'm the player, I have to sit there and ask for a houserule that lets me actually use my book of ancient secrets...
I've thought of a homebrew to make Thief of Five Fates way more powerful than it is now: you can cast Bane without using a spell slot at a level equal to your pact magic spell slots. Each time you cast it thereafter the amount of creatures you can target with it decreases by one. When this number reaches zero you cannot use it until you finish a long rest, at which point it resets to it's maximum number of creatures.
insanely strong, yes please
I think Grasp of Hadar, Lance of Lethargy and Repelling Blast should be a single invocation where you decide if it moves them 10ft closer, 10ft away or just slows them by 10ft on a hit. They all do such similar things but in slightly different ways.
I mean, your right.
Can you use all at the same time? Move one part of the enemy a bit closer, another part a bit farther away, and everything in slow-mo?
@@trollpatsch. First attack you can push them away, second attack you can pull them closer.
Yea your right, and eldritch blast should be inbuilt into the warlock with agonizing blast at first level, to kneecap for flavor or going more into your pact options is just really silly when you also have limited spellcasting. And any of the spell invocations like the bane or bestow curse should just be in the spell list, to start with it's already a limited base spell list to begin with to hide some good spells front the warlock for no reason is just stupid.
I like Lance of Lethargy being its own separate thing, but the other two definitely could be combined. Pick whether they get pushed or pulled for each beam. To make Lance of Lethargy better, I feel like it could just apply to all targets hit, but no more than once. So if you shoot one person, -10 speed, but if you shoot 3, they each lose 10 speed. This can help you trap multiple enemies in dangerous spell effects like Hunger of Hadar. Enemies step out of it, and you repel them back in and slow them 10, so they have trouble getting back out of the difficult terrain, lol. But having Lance of Lethargy apply to every beam on the same target would absolutely be broken. Most enemies only have 30 base movement speed, so at level 11, your target is essentially immobilized.
As for right now, Lance of Lethargy does work fairly well combined with the other two repositioning ones, and I'd like to keep it that way.
Repel + Slow = melee enemies kept at bay
Grasp + Slow = fleeing enemies can't escape
A warlock with devil's sight can also spot that sneaky gloomstalker ranger hanging out in the cave that nobody else can spot.
Also, having a teammate cast Darkness on your Hexblade's pact weapon as you charge in makes you an ungodly tank unless the enemies have blindsight. Your mere presence is terrifying chaos, and while it doesn't force enemies to attack you, it often keeps them from being able to effectively target others and need to reposition, which wastes time, provokes opportunity attacks, and can sometimes allow you to herd enemies to better positions or break their defensive formations to expose themselves. Add in a blind fighting style Fighter and Paladin, and have the Darkness spell cast by a Shadow Sorcerer, and you have a whole party that can run in with you, lol. Your DM will have to get creative to make challenging fights for you, but that's half the fun.
I always think about making a Moon Druid with 3 levels dip in Pact of Chain Warlock, for Armor of Shadows and Gift of the Ever-Living Ones.
The Combat Wild Shape feature allows you to spend a spell slot to recover 1d8 health per slot level, with a bonus action. This should create a self-healing character that is very difficult to take down. What do you guys think?
I think it's a strong mix. I've thought of this one myself.
@@TreantmonksTemple Would Healing Spirit be a good option for this character or the spell is really useless after the nerf? Thanks for the reply, I really like your videos
@@Serkesh77 It's based on your Wisdom now, so in a non-wisdom based character, it's pretty darned useless. You are going to heal more by scaling cure wounds without concentration.
Oh man that is so cool. Could be an archfey patron for thematics
I use aspect of the moon as a undying warlock to cast death ward on the whole party every night while they are sleeping
That's amazing! There aren't too many ways to do things like this, so it's nice that Warlocks get these options. Good Invocations like that take it from being a poor class with an interesting concept to having some really powerful gimmicks.
Undying warlocks get undying nature at level 10 which is a more powerful version of aspect of the moon, so its only useful from levels 5-9. But yeah that's a good idea.
@@ATMOSK1234 aspect of the moon still gives you may do light activity durring a long rest undying nature on its own doesnt let you do that though the other benifits are better than AotM on its own
@@ATMOSK1234 you can swap out invos when you lvl up
I love that you have a summary in the video description!
Your recommendations are spot on, and I’m looking forward to the next one in the series.
I just wanted to bring up that you mentioned the concentration cost for silent image, but not for detect magic.
Side note I appreciate the extensive break down for all the different types of innovations.
Yep, once you get to a point where your Hex can be maintained for 8+ hours, Detect Magic requiring concentration gets to be a bummer :(
A few notes here:
Armor of Shadows has another use, and that's if you're playing an Abjurer dipping Warlock, it allows you to recharge your Arcane Ward much more quickly than ritual casting Alarm
I've heard a lot of people talk about using Aspect of the Moon on a Warlock/Sorcerer build, never taking long rests but taking 8 short rests instead, and using the recharging pact magic slots to get a bunch of extra sorcery points. Do you know if this works?
There's no such spell as Evil Eye, the spell you're thinking of is Eyebite.
This technique, commonly referred to as the coffeelock, is one that gets talked about endlessly but no experienced DM will allow it. Basically the DM should just rule that warlock slots do not work with sorcerer abilities and therefore cannot be melted down for sorcery points. There is support for this approach from Sage Advice.
The Arcane Ward charging does officially work though. Things gets a little less clear when it comes to innate racial abilities such as the Svirfneblin Magic feat's Nondetection. Most DMs do allow that to charge the ward (hence the large number of Deep Gnome Abjurers) but the wording is such that it is open to interpretation, particularly since traditionally innate casting was not treated the same way as normal spellcasting in (A)D&D.
Really appreciate the colorblind-friendly format
Currently playing a cavalier dwarf that dipped 4 levels of warlock for False Life and Gift of the Ever Living Ones. Also have the dwarven xanathar feat that allows you to dodge to heal. So mid combat I can heal to ful health.
Mask Of Many Faces seems to only have role play value but its amazingly good in combat to run behind cover and change your appearance. This seriously messes up targeting and pursuits.
There is one approach in which Eldritch Spear is actually pretty useful: If the character is able to fly - such as the winged Tiefling. That way they can soar above the battlefield and rain down eldritch blast without much worry for return fire.
A tip with Improved Pact Weapon that makes Hexblade warlocks insane is that you can now pair it with a longbow + sharpshooter and hit anything from 600 ft away (like normal.) But in addition, you can smite if you hit with Eldritch Smite, which inflicts a no save prone condition. If a dragon is flying around and wont land, just use this combo to make them land and take some insane fall damage alongside it. Its the only way to smite at range.
Yep, I have done that build on this channel. ruclips.net/video/mf91OMbQtKE/видео.html
Hey I know it’s one of the new ones, but I always liked Eldritch Mind for being basically War Caster lite and allowing me the best part of that Feat for an invocation (which is the Con proficiency).
Playing CoS my Arcane Trickster/Hexblade get good mileage from Mask of Many Faces+Friends cantrip, you feel like GoT's Faceless man. Looking forward to some mostly/fully level warlocks builds, specially no-hexblade ones.
Aspect of the Moon is underrated by so many because it's not obvious at a glance how to use it effectively.
A long rest is 8 hours and RAW one day of downtime is also 8 hours, so as long as you arent engaged in strenuous activity you can take downtime whenever your party decides to long rest.
The best use of this time in my opinion is to create Hex spell scrolls. A level 1 spell scroll costs 25 gold and 1 day of downtime according to xanathars so by using aspect of the moon the warlock can effectively amass a horde of hex scrolls to supplement the classes limited spell slots.
I thought this was going to be a sorlock thing where you restt to recover spell slots and turn them into sorc points the sorc spell slots. But this is really clever. I wonder whether 3rd or 5th level spell scrolls would be more efficient but given your concentration may break or you may want a different spell first level ones seem like the way to go.
@UCGB-g09GoC16SnI_LT1g-1A Very smart, armor of agathys as well. And obviously to supply the costs you can sell it as well. Spells like comprehend languages, unseen servant or illusory script could be very valuable for spy agencies and ambassadors of countries. You could easily get 50-100gp doing that. Spells like spider climb and misty step could be very valuable as well. And are life saving spells scrolls. I think this combines really well with book of ancient secrets. So that you can create a bunch of ritual scrolls like feather fall to be used in a pinch.
Edit: Dude I was replying to said doing it with shield would be really smart
It should be noted that what constitutes light activity and the actual actions involved in scribing a scroll are both dm fiat, so you do need permission for this.
@Joseph Webley The issue with using this tactic to make 3rd or 5th level scrolls is that the cost and time required increases rapidly as you increase spell levels. A 3rd level spell scroll costs 500 gold and takes a week to make and a 5th level scroll costs 5000 gold and a month to create. It doesn't seem worth it to me to spend that much time and gold to get a single "free" casting of a spell.
@timeforsuchaword You should always discuss with your DM before taking a feature that requires a degree of interpretation. If your DM rules that writing is a strenuous activity then you should take a different invocation.
If you're topped up on HP and hit dice, you can also use that time to cast prep spells, like Scrying, if you have access to them. Cast a few of those early in the long rest, take yourself a short rest, and be fully ready to take on the next adventuring day
I’ve never played D&D before. Closest thing was Baldurs gate 1&2. In saying that I watch all your videos. Great stuff!
Devil Sight plus Darkness spell is so powerful especially if you play an eldritch knight with eldritch adept feat
I love the stars sytem. much clearer!
I think that Aspect of the Moon can be very useful if your DM uses the spell scroll scribing rules from Xanathar's guide because it gives you quite a bit of downtime every short rest, which gives you a chance to have a ton of lower level spells and situational spells prepared for if/when you might need them.
This would allow you to do things like using Hex for an encounter without burning a high level spell slot, or some emergency copies of cure wounds for a Celestial Warlock!
This channel should have more subscribers. Great content as always.
I played a character with pact of the chain master in an open world style game, and it was so brokenly op, that part way through we retconed me to be a tomblock instead of a chainlock just to balance the game a little. If you are creating a character with pact of the chain, keep in mind that an invisible scout that can go any distance has the potential to be completely game breaking, and to overshadow any other characters who might have tried to build a scouting character. I would honestly not recommend it unless you are going to do a lot of self policing to keep it from getting out of hand.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who hates the alphabetical invocations. Same goes for spells and artificer infusions. Looks nice from a book perspective, but not practical from a playing perspective. At a minimum they should be alphabetical by level
The misty visions and mask of many faces can both be absolutely broken, depends on how much shenanigans you DM allow but hiding the party in an illusion for ambushes never gets old, and if you take actor fear you can just frame people for crimes easy.
a nice alternative to aspect of the moon, is book of ancient secrets and taking teh ritual spell, alarm, for long rests, or unseen servant to watch over you for short rests. not hard for them to ring a cheap bell to alert you.
I will say, Aspect of the Moon, depending on how flexible/naive your DM is, can really be wrangled on some Sorlock builds for some... Absolute cheese, known as the Coffee/Cocainelock, depending on how strict the DM. Basically, you could theoretically spend your long rest, instead burning 8 short rests and stock up a ton of extra sorcery points. Will that come up often? No. But it's worthwhile to mention.
Actually you can only have an amount of Sorcery Points up to your Sorcerer level. So what you have to do is convert most of those points into spell slots to profit.
But yes Coffeelock is dirty. I’m a powergamer and I think it’s far too cheesy.
@@M0ebius Yeah, that's what I meant lol, but the effect is much the same, cheese. Smarter DMs will invoke RAW to claim that even without needing sleep, Long Rests, specifically, are required to stave off exhaustion. This is where the Cocainelock comes in, namely a Divine Soul Sorcerer that casts Greater Restoration, which requires an expensive whiteish powder as a material component to get rid of exhaustion...
Invocations can be hard. This channel's build guides have taught me how to use them effectively.
Though for my next warlock, I'm focusing entirely on his eyes. They are going to mutate over the course of campaign as his patron grants him - Eldritch Sight, Devilsight, Eyes of the Runekeeper (potentially do Voice of the chain master here), Ghostly Gaze, , and finally cap with Witch Sight. I'm so looking forward to play this magic investigator.
If someone can help me also make him good in combat, I'd appreciate the help haha. But for now I'm thinking basic Eldritch blast + upcast flaming sphere (from Celestial list) for most of the fights.
Take Agonizing Blast and Repelling Blast and flavor him as Cyclops from the X-Men shooting beams of optic blasts out of his eyes.
You're doing a cool thing! You can think of warlocks and their EB+AB as martials with fun tricks. You'll be totally fine in combat with that combo. You can add powerful spells in there like banishment or whatnot for control.
spamming eldritch blast in combat is great.
maybe get a lvl in rogue for expertise in perception?
@@M0ebius love that cyclops reflavouring! Totally going to be my Eldritch Blast now
make them chrome, 80's man. Chrome eldritch blast too! Take the tome for versatility. Repelling blast will help with your flaming sphere shenanigans.
Eldritch Sight + Identify as a ritual from Book of Ancient Secrets = going right to the good stuff after combat.
My arcana cleric took eyes of the runekeeper and eldritch sight and was basically a treasure hunter/crypt diver looking for arcane secrets. Not bad for a little dip in the warlock and it made for unraveling mysteries easier and fun from a roleplay point.
I've also used gaze of two minds with an arcane trickster to make them sort of a supernatural spy.
Not going to lie. I've had a blast playing a sea sorcerer/deep one warlock with grasp of hadar and repulsing blast.
Hyge thanks to you for adding timestamps on description!
Repelling Blast is pretty damn close to sky blue. For any EB slinging warlock, you’re going to get value virtually every single fight just using it straight. If your party have access to synergistic spells like Web, Spike Growth, Plant Growth, or Black Tentacle etc, I’d say it’s second only to Agonizing Blast. If your party has multiple EBers, then Repelling Blast becomes nearly a must-take because of its nature as a force amplifier.
I feel like Fiendish Vigor is underrated. And not for reasons that are obvious.
One thing that often gets overlooked is that you can use this invocation to entirely annul environmental damage effects that deal damage every round. You can walk on coals, through piercing sleet storms and through treacherous ruins that might occasionally cause you to take fall damage. As long as any effect doesn't deal more than 5 damage and on average about 6.5 damage you are basically immune to it by just walking normally and repeatedly casting False Life.
One thing I wanted to say about Thief Of Five Fates; I just read the class ability in D&D Beyond, and it allows you to “cast bane once using a warlock spell slot.” That doesn’t mean that you get the bane spell that you can cast as a first level spell, it means you get to cast bane at whatever level your slots cast other spells as. It’s not really a huge advantage, but it does mean you will be able to cast it at more targets at once. Don’t get me wrong, I personally don’t really see the overall benefit, but in effect it is adding a spell to your warlock’s spell list that you couldn’t get before.
Beguiling Influence 100% *should* work that way, granting Expertise if you already have proficiency.
I'd definitely try to convince my DM to allow that if I were considering taking it.
Tome of Ancient Secrets is even more broken than stated here. For context as to just how powerful it is; it's a single Invocation that effectively grants you the Beast Speech, Eldritch Sight, and Eyes of the Runekeeper Invocations on top of everything else it does. It also grants a large portion of what Pact of the Chain would offer you.
Devil's Sight not working in Dim Light is clearly just an omission that probably should have been errata'd, and a DM actually enforcing that would be a huge red flag.
One thing you missed when talking about the Gift of the Ever Living Ones is how it meshes with the Celestial Patron's healing dice feature. You can attack or cast a spell and then heal yourself as a bonus action. This feature isn't even technically a spell, so it can be further combined with barbarian rage. Gift of the Ever Living Ones takes a healing feature that uses dice but no bonuses, and maximizes its potential.
I've never considered trying that with a barbarian, or heck combine it with a paladin that's in the thick of combat all the time. Heck of a tank.
@@knightghaleon Yep, paladin is another good combo. Neither smites nor lay on hands is considered a spell so I bet you could use both without dropping rage. And just imagine that sweet sweet paladin smite with reckless attack. Wait for a crit then drop the holy hammer.
@@Nurk0m0rath Yeah and you can do it with as little as a 3 level barbarian dip.
@@knightghaleon Aye, technically just 2 but that third level gives you an extra daily rage plus your first subclass feature, and I can see why you might want to hold out for bear totem warrior lol. Though personally I like combining zealot and paladin both thematically and because zealot adds an extra smite and free resurrection.
I respectfully but energetically disagree 100% with the rating for Armor of shadows, even though we have profficiency with light armor, a starting leather armor on maxed (Point Buy) dexterity is just going to give you a measly 14 AC (14 Dex + 2 Racial), while AoS can increase that to 16 which is a significant difference in the first tiers, as a dual wielding bladelock that has been extremly useful for me. Not only the 13 base AoS doesn't restrict the amount of Dex that can be applied to your AC like a regular chainshirt would, but also it's summoned, so whenever I get captured or imprissoned, I can just Summon my Pact blade, summon my AoS and I'm ready to roll.
For the Eldritch darkness combo tieflings seem to be best as they get free darkness that doesn’t take a slot.
Y'know... The Eldritch Adept feat is looking really damn good now.
It's crazy to me that you only get two invocations before 5th level. Agonizing blast and then the invocation tied to your pact boon and you're done. You have to give up one of these in order to express any creativity. It absolutely sucks.
my personal thoughts on warlock regarding a hypothetical 5.5, I think more of the invocations should be "you get an extra spell you can cast once per short/long rest". Effectively, making their spellcasting be split between pact slots, invocation spells, and later on arcanum. Multiple separate ways to spew out spells that on their own are limited use, but pooled together allow a warlock to still cast about the same amount of times a day as other casters.
voice of the chainmaster could also potentially give you a free devil's sight if you have an Imp familiar
Important to note that voice of the chain master also has built-in devil’s sight if using Imp. Additionally, your vision is always-on, doesn’t require an action to activate and does not blind you while you’re using it like normal familiar-sight. Finally, your character can never “functionally” suffer from the “blinded” condition. If the invisible familiar is hovering 100ft above the battlefield looking on it like a tactical mastermind, you see that as well, and if a spell gouges out your eyes, it matters not one bit for you continue to see through the familiar.
"...your vision is always-on, doesn’t require an action to activate...". I thought this is subjected to the rules (unless specificied otherwise e.g. same plane of existence, rather than 100ft for communication) of Find Familiar spell i.e. "Additionally, as an action, you can see through your familiar's eyes...until the start of your next turn,...".
Yup, the Voice of the Chain Master upgrades familiar's options but does not make them constant. You still need an action to use your familiar's senses.
Hey, as stated in the other vid, one more comment to what you said about invocations. I just noticed that I actually have very little to add to what you said. Really a good, comprehensive overview. Kudos to you. Anyway:
- Eldritch Sight: I'd give this a 4/5 simply because Detect Magic is such a useful spell, and while it is true that other classes might have access to it via rituals, there are many DMs out there (myself included) who will make sure that spending a lot of time on rituals also carries some sort of consequences for the party. Also, having Detect Magic 'always on' means that you don't have to try and hide from NPCs that you try to check out their stuff, and you also aren't surprised by that magical trap in an unexpected place.
... and I'd maybe drop Gift of the Ever-Living Ones to 3/5 because one shouldn't be losing as much HP as to make this worthwhile as a Chains Warlock. I suppose for a Hexblade with Chains instead of Pact of the Blade this could be pretty amazing, though.
thank you for doing the colorblind star rankings
I Just made my first warlock and this video pop up in the subfeed. Nice
Thinking about making a warlock whos eyes were taken from him or was always blind from birth or accident then taking all of the sight invocations and becoming dare devil.
Im taking armor of shadows as my character is a Changeling. I change my clothes to different a different persona, then if I need my armor I summon it. and since I dont need a spell slot or concentration I can cast it on multiple characters but that isnt something that comes up a lot.
I do agree Eyes of the Rune Keeper is pretty situational, but I do like taking it on GOO and/or tomelocks mostly for thematic reasons (an so I can copy those sweet sweet rituals of they happen to be in another language)
Although I guess you could also just get comprehend languages as a tomelock, but it's still nice
"Gaze of two minds"
A wild Jace Beleren appears!
I think that hexblades/pact of the blade would rather keep improved pact weapon. You gotta get a glaive to make three attacks per turn for that tripple e-smite
aegonizing blast. gotta love that northern midwestern accent, heh!
I hate Agonizing Blast. For two lvl dip, any Charisma-based character can have an equivalent on heavy crossbow with *all four* fighter's attacks, and that's on top of second invocation and two short-rest-rechargeable spell slots.
12:03 Book of ancient secrets is very DM specific. Most DMs are really stingy with spells or they just forget. I've never been given more than 2 spells in entire campaigns that go up to 12th level on multiple occasions.
I rate Armor of Shadows as at least 4* for an Abjuration Wizard, particularly if you are using Tasha's and have the room to take it as a feat. Then swap it out at level 18 if you ever make it there, or sooner if you determine it isn't a big deal in your game.
Really enjoyed this video.
Fiendish vigor is a instant pick at lvl 2 and makes a warlock one of the stronger tanks early lvl and avoids most early deaths. You get rid of it at the first opportunity of course.
Thanks for think of us colorblind folks!
Can you fly ans use grasp of hadar to pull enemies up and let then fall?
Fiendish Vigour, green for a low level straight Warlock until level 4 or 5, UNLESS you have another source of temporary hit points when it loses most of its value, probably orange **.
All text after 4 or 5 is new text
Not if fiend in my opinion
@@moto2442 Agreed, forgot about fiend warlocks.
Also UA undead warlock already gets 1d10+lvl temp hit points when they use form of dread so I don’t think it works for that subclass
@@moto2442 Fiendish vigor is what you start the fight with. Theoretically you're probably gonna get hit before you kill something. And if you don't, you just choose to have whichever amount is higher.
Insta like with the immediate consideration for color blindness. Great video and I'm excited to build a warlock soon!
Armor of Shadows - missed the synergy with abjuration wizard
Aspect of the moon - missed the sorcerery points synergy
Misty Visions - create for yourself a heavily obscuring fog or smoke during battle. No sound and insubstantial means enemies don’t suspect an illusion while you know it’s an illusion so you can see through it.
What happened to Investment of the Chain Master?
You should never take agonizing blast before lv 5! At low lvs you only get one blast and your cha bonus is not that high yet. There are so many better invocations at this point in your characters life! I recommend mask of many faces, devil's sight or beast speech for utility, or repelling blast, grasp of hadar or lance of lethargy for battlefield control. Whatever you choose you can always swap it out for AB at lv 5.
Love your content Chris. Having played lots of previous editions I was quite confused with the changes in 5e. Your videos have really helped me get back into the game. Thanks from myself and my players. 😁
WOOHOO! Warlock is one of my favorite classes, and Invocations are a big deal, that is often misunderstood.
Amen, to the Misty Visions Invocation. This is actually my very favorite.
I like the way you say "Ok." It's very different, and I think more meaningful, than the typical persons use of the word.
My favorite dnd youtubers is finally analysing my favorite class? I wish I could give more than one like.
disagree in that devil's sight ghould be 5 stars
Armor of Shadows can be good if your DM is a douche who will destroy your armor or refuse to let you buy any. but in that case, try and find a better group.
Eldritch Spear combined with Spell Sniper feat brings the range up to 600 feet, you can almost snipe someone from across the town, and certainly from hiding. combine it with Mask of Many Faces and you're now using guerrilla tactics.
Mask of Many Faces is also a must have choice for a multi-classing rogue and/or bard.
So I don’t think it would change the ranking of Eyes of the Runekeeper (EotR) but wouldn’t a couple of advantage it has over Comprehend Languages (CL) is it allows you to read all writing, whereas CL is similar but it will translate the text exactly meaning of its an ancient lost language you won’t have the context of what that society meant and you could very well obtain incorrect information.
EotR doesn’t have that limitation. Also since it’s not a spell you’re not wasting time casting or potentially a spell slot which would extend its niche usefulness to if you needed to read something but were unable to use magic.
I still agree it’s a niche invocation but I might place slightly more value on it over CL.
Aspect of the moon is incredibly strong with barbarian zealot
How would you build a warlock in BG3?
- limited races
- limited subclasses
- advantage by having high ground
- only one short rest / long rest
@Липинский Владимир I know :)
But how would you build a warlock for EA (best spells, best invocations with these changes etc)
Do you know if the 1 short rest limit will stay in the full game?
Because that is quite limiting
Right now, fiend patron, e blast, agonizing blast, repelling blast, max the charisma asap.
Little correction on the Improved Pact Weapon:
RAW state you can use the hand holding your spellcasting focus to perform your somatic components. Improved Pact Weapon makes your pointy stick your spellcasting focus, ergo you don't need to drop or sheathe it to cast, hence no need for the Warcaster feat.
You still need the Warcaster feat. I go over the mechanics as to why in this short video: ruclips.net/video/nk1Up4hXUko/видео.html
Ah, I see what my mistake was. If a spell requires material components, the hand that holds said components can be the same as the hand that performs somatic components. I now read this as „If a spell requires both replaceable material and somatic components, it can be performed while holding an improved pact weapon. If, however, the spell requires no replaceable material components, you need warcaster.“ This makes the scenario where you can go without the feat the exception, not the rule.
And honestly, as a melee spellcaster, you want warcaster anyway. Advantage on concentration saves is absolutely invaluable!
@@GavinHohenheim Yep, you've got it.
Oh my gosh. The color blind legend was appreciated. Thank you!
Any chance of analysing the Tasha's invocations as well? Love your videos!
Gift of the Undying + Moon Druid is a sweet idea.
I know this is heresy, but it's probably worth mentioning that most warlocks are going to have 14 dex, which means you don't get that much benefit from EB+AB over say a light crossbow until 4th level or later. Given that we're talking about a cantrip AND and invocation, it can often be better to take Fiendish Vigour and Mage Hand instead for the early game, and swap them both out at level 4.
Custom Lineage is probably an exception. If you have 18 cha right from level 1 then just take the damn agonising blast. No point delaying when it's that juicy.
Hi treantmonk. Ive been waiting for this and more focus on warlocks. I have a question for you if you have time... I started a lvl 1 warlock that is lvl 7 now. I think i want to cross this to sorcerer 3 to get the quicken so i can do 2 eldritch blasts in a single turn... when would be the best time to do this now? Should i do it immediately on my next lvl or any advice? Maybe i shouldnt do it at all?
To be honest, if I was going to do that, I would only have gone with Warlock 2 and gone straight sorcerer. However, it's not terrible to do it now, but be aware you are moving into some higher level spells that will get delayed.
I love Warlocks and invocations are a big part of the reason why. Looking forward to more Warlock videos :)
Devil's Sight seems just poorly worded, tbh. Actual devils have a "devils sight" feature which just says that their darkvision isn't impeded by magical darkness. I _suspect_ that the invocation was originally _intended_ to work like that. The RAW is just so wonky, creating an effect completely unlike anything else in the game. "Oh, it's dim in here, blow out that candle! That's better, I can see clearly now".
Silly
Just started playing DnD a few months ago as a Warlock, and found your videos on the spells/ invocations to be really well informed.
Although i purposely avoid ultra powergaming in DnD, coming from an mmo background being efficient and optimized is in my blood.
Even as a new player it seems many videos or redditors offering advice miss out on things, are wrong or not fully informed on mechanics, aren't aware of spells indepth uses, and how they might synergize with other bits of the warlock/party.
That hasnt been a problem with your videos - everything ive thought about or run into has been spelled out and taken into account.
You thoroughly analyze what spells can be used for not just in a vacuum, but taking into account the many factors of the broader game, which is refreshing.
Oh I also like the artwork on the videos, very fitting.
Invisible Familiar with infinite telepathy range + Ability to speak through familiar with your voice + Actor feat is a good combination.
Invisible Familiar + Actor feat + Mask of many faces is also good. Can also add in Friends for additional benefits.
Honestly, I feel a lot of people just don't see the potential Warlocks have for espionage and social manipulation.
I love the warlock but it really needs redesign. Too many things are invocations that really should just be Pact features, meaning that they end up being very "feat tax"-ish. I really wish the various Invocations that made Eldtrich Blast better would simply make a cantrip you cast in a turn better. Totally balanced as you'd not be doing anything extra. It would let you be able to make use of various cantrips and punch harder when you do. Having warlocks get better cantrips overall or maybe in a limited use way would really help differentiate them, too.
Where (which module) would you ever be without any beast. Rats alone are nearly everywhere (dungeons, cities, forests, etc..) barring hells or elemental planes (and how often are you honestly there?).
I've never taken the Beast Speech invocation but to say beasts are circumstantial doesn't seem correct. Unless of course circumstantial is like 90% of the time?
The only rating I disagree with is Eldritch Sight. I think that like Mask of Many Faces, if you take Eldritch Sight you will find yourself using it all the time, a lot of times in situations you wouldn't normally try and cast a 10 minute ritual. Otherwise, I did something similar with the Invocations (organized them by level and prerequisites) in Excel and came to the same conclusions you did generally.
From wizards to warlocks I like this new series!