Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The warlock kinda sucks

I agree with most of this, except for the part about warlocks not sucking.

Also, in my experience, rogues outperform warlocks at range. The rogue gets weapon damage plus attribute plus poison plus sneak attack. It could be argued that sneak attack doesn't always apply, but it does more often than not.

In addition to this, the rogue potentially gets to use two ranged weapons in the same attack, one in each hand.

Now, an above post mentioned that the warlock's eldritch blast gets additional attacks in the same round as the warlock levels up. I accept that this probably makes a difference. I just haven't seen it yet because I only know the first four levels of the class.

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As a roleplaying note, I find it odd that these warlocks are making pacts and selling their souls for... an eldritch blast. I get that some folks would be tempted if offered great strength or intellect or wealth or skill. But here comes the devil with your offer: "Yeah, um, I'll let you shoot a beam of energy outta your palm, and for that I get your soul. Deal?"

Not to mention how obvious it must be to everyone that Timmy sold his soul. There goes Timmy, shooting energy beams outta his palm. He's trying to tell folks he's a sorcerer, but yeah, that looks an awful lot like the eldritch blast so many of the young folks are selling their souls for these days.

JandK. You are missing MANY elements of the warlock. It's not just about a person selling their soul to a devil. That's just the very basic Warlock archtype.

Warlocks can have a variety of patrons such as the Archfey and the Great Old One. And, what most people don't realize, is that Warlocks are more about their Eldritch Invocations and Pact Boons than about spellcasting. Spellcasting is part of their overall class package, but they aren't meant to be wizards or sorcerers. They are meant to be a support class that has a wide variety of possibilities.

Take my daughter's character, Ava Riss - a Level 6 Tiefling Warlock whose patron is Titania of the Summer Court (the Archfey patron). Abilities include: Agonizing Blast (dealing +4 damage to Eldritch Blast because her Charisma is 18), Armor of Shadows (providing her with Mage Armor pretty much 24/7), Fey Presence (allowing her to use an Action to intimidate or charm creatures within a 10-foot radius), Misty Escape (allowing her to teleport away from enemies and turn invisible for a round), Repelling Blast (shoving enemies she hits with Eldritch Blast), and she can use Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Faerie Fire, Find Familiar (an imp, for crying out loud with full imp stats) Hellish Rebuke, Mage Armor, Sleep, Witch Bolt, Calm Emotions, Phantasmal Force, Major Image, and Vampiric Touch. Yes, she only gets 2 spell slots, but she restores them every short rest. She's the leader of her party, and she kicks serious butt.

That said, if I were to make her in BG3, I'm not sure she'd be that awesome.

So, is that your point, JandK? That the implementation of warlock in BG3 is not good? Or are you saying you just don't like Warlocks?

Warlocks are OK as long as they get short rests all the time. If not, I would say they work very well in SOME settings. I played a warlock in a setting where magic was uncommon and outlawed and managed to play a "spider in the web" kind of character to managed to confuse and play people against each other by constantly shifting my appearance with Mask of many faces, and deception. He was ok in battle if he spammed EB, but the spell slot restriction is just ... wow.

I can only comment on the game implementation. I haven't played tabletop since 3.5/pathfinder years ago.

In general, now that you mention all the other patrons, it seems even weirder that the warlock class universally gets and relies so heavily on the eldritch blast.

Okay, so I'm shopping around for a patron. Mr. Devil, what do I get with you? Eldritch blast? Okay, that's something. Let's see. Miss Fey, what do I get with you? Oh, eldritch blast? Hmm. Okay. Well, let's see, hello there Thing From Beyond, what do I get with you? Wait. Seriously? Eldritch blast?

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I think it's the whole class I have a problem with. Not only do I find it mechanically weak, at least in the first four levels, I also find it... lacking in flavor, especially given the potential it could have.

For instance, I think it would be nice if the different "pact types" basically amounted to a totally different type of character. One could be a hulking warrior with unnatural strength. Another a demented psionicist, while still another could become so beautiful as to charm all around.

Just a list of different things that the character could get for the pact. Like, one character might get all these extra skills while another character gets a big bonus to a particular stat, and maybe somebody else just gets an extra 40 hit points and a natural AC of 13 or something.

If you compare how Hex + EB Warlock performs vs Longbow + Poison rogue it's indeed favorable for rogues up to level 4, 5-8 it's warlock, 9-10 rogue, 12 back to warlock (if you get to sneak every round and poison present) and yes it's mostly due to extra cast of EB. I haven't checked how Hand Crossbow work in BG3, but they don't push Hand Crossbow build ahead of extra EB casts at same levels. Be mindful that I didn't factor the Imp Damage for Warlock and it can be quite a significant boost.

Comparing just DPR gives half a picture, but I would expect a lot lower numbers for Warlock to consider class to suck.

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Agree with RP side wholeheartedly.

Overall Warlocks kinda suck if you are looking to do anything other then spam Edlritch Blast. If you do want to do that though, theyre fine..

With all the verticality in bg3 knocking people off ledges makes them better then in the typical pnp game id say unless the DM is actively keeping the verticality in mind. But most ive played with dont.

This all said, its kind of a D&D problem and not a Larian problem. I think their interpretation of the Warlock is actually done quite nicely.

Hexblade...Reach Weapon...Polearm Master...Level 5 2nd attack...Armor of Agathys...Mirror Image = tanky melee goodness

4 attacks at level 5:

2 main + 1 "but-end of the Reach Weapon attack" + one reaction attack

10' reach...so hit and back up and wait for the advance to trigger the reaction.


BTW this worked for my barbarian with mods in BG3.

Wounded and retreating...the only one left standing...out pops an invisible Githyanki Captain for the ambush kill...my reaction triggered and she was dead (I had beat her down pretty good before hand).


The Hexblade mod in BG3 is great if it is patch ready. you can also use the Devil's Sight / Darkness combo to gain advantage and whomp enemies good. I used a Great sword with Great Weapon Fighting in the first play-through (limited to level 4).

Having Wyll to help cast extra Darkness spells made controlling the battlefield pretty easy. Advantage is powerful! If they implement Elvin Accuracy then you are a crit fisher.

What do you mean, the sorcerer with no sorcery points kinda sucks? How is that possible?

Have you tried not being a warlock?

totally kidding. It is my least favorite class so far for sure. I am not saying theyre bad but I certianly dont ejnjoy.

In combat the different pacts usually do rely on EB because the designers wanted that to be the main feature of warlock combat. Don't know why, exactly, but it's probably easier than making sub-classes that are practically their own class.

For the effects of different pacts, that's already somewhat in the 5e books. The Archfey patron, for example, grants abilities around charming and resisting charms. I don't think they can charm everyone at once, because that would be broken, but it's in that vein. And the typical combat warlock is the hexblade who specializes in a weapon and gets some nice bonuses for it. A hulking brute warlock isn't in flavor since that's not the archetype. If you want a hulking brute you need one of the martial classes, not a caster/support.

You're not wrong that warlocks are mechanically weak. They were and are in 5e as a pure class and their power was mostly as a 1-2 level multiclass dip since their features are front loaded and EB scales with character level, not class level. EB's number of attacks scales which gives you 90% of a warlock's combat capability, synergizing greatly with other Charisma classes like Paladin, Bard, and Sorcerer. Plus, you get two invocations at lvl 2 which can let you cast Mage Armor at will which synergizes with an Abjuration Wizard who can use Mage Armor to pump their Arcane Ward (basically an HP shield) between fights

There are only a few good pure warlocks and those are unimplemented pacts/subclasses. Probably because those nice features are fairly unique, mechanically, and would require a lot of coding to make work.

I love the flavor around Warlocks and I understand why you think that selling your soul to become a mechanically weak class is a bit much. But you also have to remember that a lvl 1 character is still supposed to be a special person, likely one of the notables of the local village. A person who stands out above the rest. Most people are not like that. And you can guess that a few will be so envious that they'd sell their souls to be at that level. Or so foolish as to think that they'd be able to retain their souls, or otherwise not pay for their pact. One of the best parts of being a warlock is that the DM can throw in quest hooks via the pact by having the patron desire some work from you that might be counter to what the party wants, or just open up a new side quest to entertain people for a bit and let someone RP a while.

Not to mention there's nothing cool about pushing enemies tactically when everyone is doing it as a BA basically every single round. Combat is basically a dumb shove fest, with ledges and lava everywhere.

A move like Shove should be a tactical choice, not a free extra maneuver whenever you feel like it.

*Agree* Shove should not be a free attack...but I never abused the mechanic and I avoid ledges (or fire and pull back a couple steps).

Grasp of Hadar (if they implement it) is the pull version of Repelling Blast (neither of these are an "extra attack")

The Sucklock kinda wars.

This

I always found PHB Warlocks to be pretty underwhelming. Like Ranger and Monk, they didn't get the good options we expect from them until much later.

This will improve once we get Pact of the Blade, IMO, but without Hexblade that too will be less than people expect. Bladelocks are decent, but no PHB archetype complimented it too well.

Bladelock will be strong once rolling for stats is in. Its primary weakness is multiple attribute dependence, which can be fixed by pressing the reroll button a bunch of times. It should definitely be avoided by point buy purists.

Wait hex blade class got turned into a subclass for warlock...lol

Warlock is awesome! I've tried ranger, warlock, Druid, sorcerer, and now paladin and warlock is my favorite! Eldritch blast is such a consistent source of high damage, and repelling blast is crazy fun! My easiest play through was when I had a MC warlock and Wyll with Shadowheart and Gale. My warlocks were just tearing the enemies up. Wyll does have some poor stat distribution so I give him the moderately armored feat at level 4. I didn't think I'd love warlock so much but I think it's my favorite class now. I just hope that we get the archfey subclass because I love the fey! 😋

The only downside I know is that if you take too long to get Nere out of the cave he and the gnomes suffocate and die. If the gnome dies, you don't get the quest to save them. If Nere dies... maybe other stuff?

At level 5 you get 2 blasts with 2 Charisma bonuses applied, and 2 Hex dice applied.

Then in the current patch Agonizing Blast applies to BOTH the Blast and Hex AND Lightning Charges if you have that item; bug or homebrew is unknown right now. Heavy crossbows don't get the extra attack at level 5 unless you take a feat, and have a Strength requirement, and need Dex to get a to-hit bonus. Warlocks just need Charisma.

Warlocks don't get great spell flexibility precisely because EB is hands-down the best cantrip in 5e. The class just feels a little lacking in BG3 because we don't have many sub-classes or class features yet.