Warlocks are the only non-martial class that get multiattack that isn't tied to a finite resource at lvl 5 as opposed to 6. Mage Armor At Will (equivalent AC to Studded Leather +1) lvl 2 onwards, Armor of Agathys, Mirror Image, False Life At Will... Even just the first 5 lvls if Warlock lets them become pretty dangerous in melee even without Hexblade. Heck, even Fiend lock is worth considering for melee, due to temp. HP on kill.
Even now, melee Warlock is decent, if built a bit better than current Wyll. I'm currently running a Fiend one myself, with robes and dual daggers. Seeing as i have effrctively Infinite temp. HP, it is surprisingly tanky for a light armor d8 class.
As much as I hate World of Warcraft... the devs there know how to make builds easily understandable.
Never thought about going on with it like this.
Except for Armor of Agathys of course.
But its kinda countered by Mirror Image.
One spell requires an enemy to hit you.
The other one is making it harder for one to hit you.
But yeah I cast Agathys Armor on myself and baited enemy to attack me when passing by just so I could finish them off quicker. XD
All tricks considered, I feel the Demon summons are still taken into the overall Warlocks battle strenght.
This flying Fiend has lots of evasion too which appears wierd to me.
In Avernus we slice through them like cake.
But of course our own little Bastard is a KungFu flying Devil from the Kranich School and dodges like crazy.
He 1-v-1'ed a Redcap without taking a single hit.
Lucky rolls of course but I started to feel he is the true character and the Warlock is the summon. (LoL)
In all my weeks of testing, I saw the Fiend only "die" around two times from an enemys attack.
And they are so flexible too! Flying has only movement cost now!!! Thats so useful!
If you find an enemy that has no "red visibility area" behind it, you can fly there, crouch down and have your hitchance amplified as well.
°sigh°
I feel this "little support" guy was never supposed to be THAT strong.
You can even summon him over and over again to find something with a perception check.
As it currently stands, summoning this Demon is the strongest ability in the game.
And everything you said makes a Warlock a formidable Melee force, for me it feels it still falls behind this little Dude's existence.
