Ultimate Guide to Warlocks in D&D 5e

Guide by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

So you want to play a warlock, and honestly, I don’t blame you. Want to be a corrupted eldritch monster person? Thought about making a character who is an unwilling servant to a diabolic devil lord? Do you have dreams of playing a fey prankster eager to cause trouble for trouble's sake? Want a stoner genie in a bong to give you powers? Warlock can deliver on those fantasies and more, all while letting you build your own character that can be a front line tank slashing people to death with a greatsword or a backline support that debilitates enemies and keeps allies alive.

Using This Guide

If you want a full breakdown of everything warlock, this page will be a home to take you to every nook and cranny of the class. If you’re looking for what to be thinking about at specific levels, this guide is sectioned off to break down specific class elements, each with dedicated sections talking about the mechanics and offering general recommendations.

Some specific elements, like specific spells and invocations, have dedicated reviews available that will be linked from here. This can be your one stop shop to everything warlock.

New Player: If you’re making a brand new warlock for the first time, I’d recommend focusing the sections up until 4th level. That should provide you with more than enough information to take with you and have a blast with the class!
I’d highly recommend sticking with the recommended spells, boons, and invocations here, or at most, steer clear of the options to avoid.

Experienced Player: if you’re looking to improve your warlock’s performance, look for specific areas you feel are lacking in your character. If you feel you can’t use your Pact Magic slots well, check that section for advice on effectively using pact magic and recommendations by each spell level. If you’re struggling to have diverse options and dynamic encounters, check the Eldritch Invocation, Pact Boon, Multiclass, and Munchkin Nonsense sections, and with some skimming you should be able to quickly find some ideas to aid your builds.

Warlock 101

Warlock is a unique beast of a class that differs from basically every other class in the game in some major ways.

Rogues, fighters, monks, and barbarians are the “martial” characters; they lack spell slots entirely. Sorcerers, wizards, clerics, bards, and druids are the “full casters”, characters with an abundance of spells and spell slots at their disposal. Rangers, artificers, and paladins are the “half casters”, characters that are a split between the martial and full caster worlds.

And then there is warlock.

Warlock, more so than any other class, is about customization. Every time you take a level in warlock, you’re making multiple decisions that greatly impact your character's feel and performance. You aren’t a full caster; you won’t be casting a bunch of 1st and 2nd level spells anytime soon. You don’t innately get Extra Attack, meaning you don’t have to be dedicated to weapons and taking the attack action over and over.

Warlocks can be specialists built to do one thing exceptionally, or jack of all trade tool boxes with robust, reusable magical toys to engage the world with in different ways than any other class can. With the right build, you can get most warlocks to do exactly what you ask them to do. They can be front line tanks, supportive buffers and healers, area controlling mages, or high damage machine guns. All of it will require tinkering and specific choices coming together to create your vision.

Starting Proficiencies and Equipment

When starting the game as a warlock, you get two crucial proficiencies:simple weapon and light armor proficiencies.

That may not outwardly seem that exciting, but it puts a few crucial weapons on the table for use: light crossbows, shortbows, and daggers. These three proficiencies will keep you nearly matching early game martial characters like fighters in damage without needing to commit any other part of your build to it. A pair of daggers lets you use two-weapon fighting early to make extra attacks at 1st level, no other features required. A light crossbow will match early martial damage with a decent Dexterity score, and won’t eat up any other build options should you choose.

Light armor proficiency functionally makes your AC equal to the best light armor you can afford. You can pick up Leather Armor from the starting equipment if you’re going for an easy build, or attempt to budget Studded Leather armor from some starting gold.

Warlock AC. Leather armor makes your AC 11 + Dex mod, and Studded is 12 + Dex mod. Studded is only 45 gold; the moment you can afford the upgrade, it's an easy improvement, and highly encourages Dexterity to be your primary or secondary ability score.

When building, I’d highly recommend getting at least a 14 for your Dexterity to leverage these tools early on, and have a comfortable AC as you progress through the game. Many warlock builds will prioritize Dexterity over Charisma, their spellcasting modifier, simply for the combat boons and skill bonuses Dexterity offers, and not necessarily leaning on spells that require spell attack rolls or impose many saving throws.

1st Level: Pact Magic, Eldritch Blast, and Patrons

First level has you making five choices that will define your warlock: their first two cantrips, first two known spells, and then a patron from the list of nine available options. The first set of choices happen within the Pact Magic Feature, the second with the Otherworldly Patron feature.

This is by far the most amount of choices you’ll be making at once when creating your warlock, and also a notably major reason why multiclassing warlock can be very powerful.

Pact Magic

At 1st level, you get a unique spellcasting feature called Pact Magic. You learn two cantrips initially, and get a different kind of spell slot than the other classes get.

Instead of having groups of varying level spell slots, all of your spell slots share the same spell level, and refresh whenever you finish a short or long rest. This is the most polarizing feature warlocks have; some tables play with very few short rests, making it so the pact magic slots aren’t refreshing particularly often.

This leaves many warlocks who don’t consider this a drawback, feeling like they barely get to use magic when they lean heavily on their learned spells as what they expect to be frequently doing. It isn’t. You’re likely going to be casting one or two long duration concentration spells per day, and leaning on other class features and mechanics to give you the rest of your fantasy.

You start with one Pact Magic slot, get your second when you reach second level, then don’t get any additional slots up until levels 11 and 16. You’re going to be sitting on 2 spell slots for a very long time. They increase in spell level when the full casters get access to higher spell levels, up to 5th level spells.

Pact magic spell slots push you towards casting long duration, high impact spells that often will take your concentration. Every spell directly competes with every other spell you can learn up until 11th level; the new 4th level spell you get at level seven uses the same resource as the 1st level spells you started with. When working with Pact Magic, I’d highly recommend leaning into spells with long durations that empower multiple actions you’re taking like Hex, Invisibility, and Summon Fey/Shadowspawn/Undead.

List of Warlock Spells

Eldritch Blast

A notable cantrip you get access to by playing a warlock is Eldritch Blast. Within the class, you’re given opportunities to empower this cantrip specifically, and unlike most cantrips, it scales superbly well as the game progresses by granting you extra attacks with it. Early in the game, a light crossbow is going to feel better to use than this. If you dedicate build options towards extra attacks as the game progresses, and want to empower Eldritch Blast, it can be incredibly powerful. These builds tend to be singularly focused on maximizing the effectiveness of Eldritch Blast, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend going in on it until you reach 5th level or higher.

If you want to function in combat throughout the game, but don’t want to dedicate a lot of your build to it, taking Eldritch Blast at 4th level and the Agonizing Blast Eldritch Invocation at 5th will likely be all you’ll ever need to feel like you can meaningfully contribute damage in fights.

Cantrip Recommendations

Starting out, I’d recommend taking no more than one cantrip that can only deal damage, and one cantrip that is focused on out of combat exploration or utility. If you’re taking a decent Dexterity, a light crossbow will serve you well for attacks early, so purely damaging cantrips (yes, even Eldritch Blast) are unnecessary out the gate, and you can comfortably take two utility cantrips instead, or a lower damage cantrip that comes with some added utility and a pure utility option.

Melee Weapon Attackers. If you immediately want to get into the melee weapon style of play, Green Flame Blade can be a nice little damage tool to empower your early weapon attacks. Sword Burst and Thunderclap are for the close combat warlocks who want an area of effect damaging option; for those characters, both of these spells are nearly identical, and will occasionally be slightly better than weapon attacks.
Ranged Spellcasting Damage Options. If you want to prioritize Charisma, Intelligence, and Wisdom over Dexterity, Eldritch Blast can be a perfectly fine damage option early that easily can turn into a powerful multi-attacking, high damage tool with some invocations down the road. Alternatively, Poison Spray gives you a close range d12 damage dice to play with that I personally prefer, and Toll the Dead is typically an upgrade over Poison Spray that you can pick from as well. Magic Stone is similar to a short-bow, but uses your spellcasting modifier for the attack rolls and crucially has a much higher damage floor as it adds your Charisma modifier to damage as well. If you want a damaging cantrip, one of these will likely serve you well for the first four levels of the game.
Hybrid Damage/Support Spells. Frostbite and Mind Sliver are both hybrid damage and status afflicting cantrips that can be leveraged throughout a decent chunk of the game to great effect. Mind Sliver empowers saving throws you and your friends impose on a creature, while Frostbite acts in a similar way to Vicious Mockery by imposing disadvantage on a weapon attack roll.
Generally Useful Utility Cantrips. Friends, while potentially disastrous, is incredibly fun to play with and tends to match a lot of warlock thematics perfectly. Minor Illusion is a massive boon for imaginative players who like illusion magic, but can quickly be outclassed at 2nd level by the Misty Visions invocation. Prestidigitation is an adorable little cosmetic cantrip that can help you feel magical all the time; it definitely isn’t going to be wildly powerful, but it can be quite fun to use.

Cantrips to Avoid

Blade Ward and True Strike. These cantrips are terrible.

Infestation is nifty, and if it fits your character thematically can be serviceable enough, but the random move it imposes isn’t all that impactful in most situations. I’d probably avoid it when you aren’t a dedicated insectoid or gibbering madness themed character.

1st Level Spells of Note

Because you’re only getting one or two casts of this spell per short rest, you really want it to have a long duration and an impactful effect. Your Otherworldly Patron you get at this level ass well offers you alternative 1st level spells you can learn. I highly recommend checking them out, as they tend to have a bit more juice than a lot of the base warlock options do.

Hex. Hex jumps out as a build around style spell for any attack-based warlocks out there. Out the gate, you can have a pair of daggers making two attacks a round with Hex up to potentially double dip your damage. Ranged crossbow wielding warlocks getting 1d8+1d6+Dex mod on damage will feel very rogue-like in their tactics, and consistently get solid damage that will scale as you reach 5th level and get more attacks through the Thirsting Blade invocation or Eldritch Blast.

Hex also increases its duration as you up-cast it, meaning as you gain levels in warlock and improve your spell slot levels, this gets a far longer duration, which you need it to in order to compete with upper level options.

Other Notable Options. Arms of Hadar is a potent area of effect damage option at 1st level. It's no Burning Hands, but 2d6 damage and disabling reactions can position this spell as a flexible disengage action attached to a decent chunk of area of effect damage.

Protection from Evil and Good has a solid duration, great effect in specific encounters, and is easy to have as your second choice if you think you’ll routinely want to cast your other chosen 1st level spell.

Cause Fear and Charm Person both are great utility tools with decent durations that interact with the game both in and out of combat in some interesting ways. Expeditious Retreat will fit great on characters who really want to lean into the rogue fantasy, as it’ll function as a close approximation to part of their Cunning Action 2nd level feature.

1st Level Spells to Avoid

Hellish Rebuke requires something to hit you, and pays you off with a mediocre amount of damage on a failed Dex save. It doesn’t have a high impact, nor does it have a long duration. It's inflexible and hard to use. I wouldn’t recommend it.
Witch Bolt is one of the worst 1st level spells in the game. It deals terrible damage for a 1st level spell, commits you to repeated actions to deal a cantrip's worth of damage, and is broken so easily you’ll be amazed if this lasts longer than a single round.

Otherworldly Patrons

Warlocks get their subclass at 1st level, the Otherworldly Patron, that can be a major factor in determining your play pattern and build feel.

You pick from the following options: Archfey, Celestial, Fathomless, Fiend, Genie, Great Old One, Hexblade, Undead, and Undying.

Each represents the entity you’ve made a deal with for power, and will be a major focus of the roleplay your character comes with. At 1st level, not only are you getting at least one new feature from each of them, you also functionally add two new spells to the warlock spell list that can determine a large portion of your early game build through use with your Pact Magic feature.

Archfey warlocks get access to Faerie Fire and Sleep with their expanded spell list, and Fey Presence as their feature. All of these tools push you towards a supportive battlefield controlling style of character who leverages conditions and non-damaging status effects to empower your team in fights.
Celestial warlocks have access to Cure Wounds and Guiding Bolt, immediately drawing comparisons to the cleric class. You probably don’t ever want to take Cure Wounds, though, as your 1st level feature, Healing Hands, gives you a pool of healing dice equal to your level + 1 that heal at range as a bonus action; basically, a bunch of free Healing Words, and if you have access to some healing, its likely enough. In addition, you get Light and Sacred Flame, two free cantrips, making it a robust support option to consider.
Fathomless warlocks can take Create or Destroy Water and Thunderwave, neither of which is particularly compelling, but also get two features: Tentacle of the Deep and Gift of the Sea. Tentacle of the Deep is one of my favorite abilities ever printed, giving you a Spiritual Weapon like tentacle you can summon to beat things up with as a bonus action, and Gift of the Sea lines you up perfectly to play at seafaring tables where you’d expect Fathomless warlocks to shine.
Fiend warlocks can learn Burning Hands and Command, both of which I rate very highly, and get the Dark One’s Blessing feature that grants a big chunk of temporary hit points when they kill a hostile creature. For Dark One’s blessing to pay off, you are highly encouraged to be in the thick of it. Paired with Burning Hands, a short ranged, high damage area of effect spell, you can easily take this into a melee fighter style build, a combat magic user route, or even full tank directions where your goal is to take lots of attacks and survive through it all.
Genie warlocks make an additional choice when selecting their patron from Dao, Djinni, Efreeti, and Marid, each respectively representing an element: Earth, Air, Fire, or Water. From there, you get element specific spells with Detect Evil and Good as a ubiquitous option. Not only is their spell selection more customizable, you also get Genies Vessel, which is a two in one feature. You can hide in your chosen vessel with Bottled Respite once per long rest, a sweet utility feature with robust applications in and out of combat, and Genie’s Wrath, a free once per turn bonus elemental damage that encourages spell or weapon attack based builds.
Great Old One warlocks get access to Dissonant Whispers and Hideous Laughter and the Awakened Mind feature. This positions you as a horror-based control character with tactical utility baked into your core kit. 30 ft. telepathy that breaks language barriers is powerful, basically Comprehend Languages mixed with a motionless Message. If you want to build out a toolbox character with a variety of options to tactically engage a situation, Great Old One comes out the gate with a great selection of tools to build from.
Hexblades have the most dedicated build around features down the road, and offer you probably the two worst spell options out of all the subclasses for warlock: Shield and Wrathful Smite. However, their two features largely make up for the lacking spell expansion. Hex Warrior firmly plants you closer to the martial character options, giving you robust new access to martial weapons, shield, and medium armor as well as letting you use Charisma in place of Strength or Dexterity for weapon attack rolls. Wielding a shield will radically improve your front line durability. Hexblade’s Curse is a clunky, yet useful, on hit Hex replacement that encourages short ranged combat and helps keep you healthy while you’re engaged.
Undead warlocks get Bane and False Life as expanded spells, neither of which is ever going to be worth your Pact Magic slots, but get a pretty potent ability called Form of Dread. It grants you a minute-long transformation with temporary hit points, an on hit frighten option, and immunity to the frightened condition. It is also a front line style build that wants to debilitate enemies and survive through weaponizing the frightened condition to its fullest.
Undying warlocks get Ray of Sickness and False Life, neither of which is typically worth your Pact Magic slot, and get Among the Dead as their feature. Within it, you get a bonus cantrip, Spare the Dying, advantage on saving throws against diseases, and a permanent Sanctuary effect against undead. This archetype basically requires you fit it to the setting; if you’re going to make use of it, you need to be fighting regularly against undead, but at those tables, Among the Dead can be an exceptional frontline warlock defensive tool.

2nd Level: Eldritch Invocations

Where full casters get a robust pool of spell slots to use a variety of prepared or learned spells with, warlock's bread and butter repeated utility options come in the form of Eldritch Invocations. These more than any other element of the class define it. Are you here to stab things with a hellish greatsword? Invocations make that happen. Want to be a backline spell battery unleashing empower blasts of damage? Invocations make that happen. Do you crave having a unique tool to fit every situation? Invocations are here for you.

At 2nd level you gain two invocations. Every time you gain a level, you can swap out one invocation for another you meet the prerequisites with. You get additional invocation at 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, 15th, and 18th level, for up to eight total invocations. There are 54 total invocations between the Player’s Handbook, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.

Most invocations are unavailable to you at 2nd level, as they have prerequisites requiring pact boons (which are obtained at 3rd level) or higher level prerequisites. You can swap invocations as soon as you meet the prerequisite, though, so invocations like Book of Ancient Secrets can be acquired at 3rd level by swapping out an invocation you take at 2nd level with it as long as you also chose the Pact of the Tome Pact Boon.

Here is a list of the Eldritch Invocations with specific reviews to each if you’re interested in delving into them deeper:

General Recommendations

Powerful invocations tend to be the ones that grant you access to a 1st level or higher spell at will or empower actions you’re frequently taking in combat.

In the first category, I’d recommend Eldritch Sight, Mask of Many Faces, and Misty Visions to any character. These will give you repeatable tools that alter how you engage with out of combat exploration, and offer new ways to contribute to roleplay and out of initiative gameplay.

In the second category, I’d recommend Agonizing Blast for characters dedicated to Eldritch Blast, Eldritch Mind for characters building around long duration concentration effects, and Fiendish Vigor for characters who want to take lots of damage.

Once you pick your boon, most of the Pact Boon enhancement invocations are excellent, namely Book of Ancient Secrets and Investment of the Chain Master. Thirsting Blade is a crucial invocation to pick up at 5th level for weapon attack based warlocks.

Invocations to Avoid

Spell Slot Consuming Invocations. If it gives you access to a new spell you can cast with a warlock spell slot once per long rest, do not take that invocation.

Bewitching Whispers, Dreadful Word, Minions of Chaos, Mire the Mind, Sculptor of Flesh, Sign of Ill Omen, and Thief of Five Fates all do not offer you new tools to engage with the game with.

They function as worse versions of learning new spells that have to compete with every other spell you’ve learned for one of your precious few casts you get per short rest. Again, do not take these invocations.

3rd Level: Pact Boon, 2nd Level Pact Magic

Third level brings the final major new choice you make as a warlock: your Pact Boon. Additionally, it upgrades your pact magic spell slots to 2nd level and offers you access to your first 2nd level spells.

Pact Boons

Three are presented in the Player’s Handbook: Pact of Blade, Pact of the Chain, and Pact of the Tome. Pact of the Talisman was introduced in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.

Each has the distinct purpose of locking in your character’s lane, really determining what kind of archetype they’re going to fit into. They are not all created equally, however; some require heavier Eldritch Invocation investments to get a build flourishing, while others are excellent with no additional steps needed.

Each is briefly described below, and has a link to a broader in depth analysis.

Pact of the Blade. Of the four options, stand-alone Pact of the Blade is the weakest. It offers you access to what will feel like just melee martial weapon proficiency, and gives you the ability to bind to a magic weapon (ranged or melee, notably) that you can summon and dismiss as you please.
Critically, this is a prerequisite for the Thirsting Blade invocation; if you want to be making extra weapon attacks, even when Pact of the Blade is offering nearly no meaningful advantages, it's a requirement to get access to Extra Attack on warlocks.
Pact of the Chain. Warlocks wanting an ludicrously powerful pet can get it here; for toolbox warlocks seeking new toys to engage with the world with, Pact of the Chain takes an already busted 1st level spell, Find Familiar, and adds some truly outrageous abilities on top of it. Being able to get access to magical creatures with magical abilities that simultaneously retain all of the benefits a familiar normally gives you makes this a top tier feature in the game, especially in the first three levels. If you are unsure of what direction to take your warlock, you can’t go wrong with Pact of the Chain.
Pact of the Tome. If your goal is to play a more magical warlock with a wider toolkit of spells at your disposal, Pact of the Tome does this fairly well. Getting access to three cantrips of your choice, agnostic of class, can be a great addition to most any character, but will shine brightest on characters in lower magic parties that want to expand their utility belt to capture the general feel of a wizard, cleric, or bard through their iconic cantrips. What sets this up as an exceptional boon is its invocations, specifically Book of Ancient Secrets, which offers you ritual casting (that can include Find Familiar if you want a pet but also want free cantrips), and Far Scribe, a unique communication and espionage option.
Pact of the Talisman. Supportive warlocks looking to empower their party probably want Pact of the Tome for access to cantrips like Guidance; if you’re at a table with access already to Guidance, and you don’t feel a need to double dip, Pact of the Talisman gives you a new resource to help one character at a time succeed at skill checks. It's fairly narrow compared to the other three, even when compared to Blade, but does have a redeeming invocation in Rebuke of the Talisman. If you’re taking Pact of the Talisman, Rebuke is a solid reaction option to immediately gain access to that will give you a good amount of free damage on both frontline protective warlocks wearing their own talisman or backline support warlocks sticking it on a melee ally. Following it up later with Bond of the Talisman does bring it closer to Tome and Chain’s utility. It’s a solid addition to the boon list.

2nd Level Spell Slots

The other notable upgrade happening here is 2nd level spell access. As you go, you’ll find quickly that some spells you will only ever be casting for the two levels your pact slots match the spell’s spell level. When you reach this level, I highly recommend swapping out one of your 1st level spells alongside learning a new 2nd level spell, as you’re likely going to prioritize the higher powered 2nd level spells over up-cast versions of 1st level spells.

These new spells can be from your Otherworldly Patron’s expanded spell list, which tend to push you further in the direction your patron’s features support, or just other powerful 2nd level options.

Notable generally powerful 2nd level warlock spells are Invisibility, Hold Person, and Suggestion.

4th Level: Feat and Eldritch Versatility

Like all characters, 4th level offers a choice (should you be playing the feats): Improve one of your ability scores, or take a feat. Additionally, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything added the Eldritch Versatility mechanic to allow for flexible swapping around of elements of your character you’re unhappy with.

Feat Considerations

Your 4th level feat often will bring a build completely together, or set it up to come together completely.

Great Weapon Master, for example, empowers Hexblade or Fiend two-handed weapon warlocks. Other martial weapon feats like Sentinel can come into play here and firmly establish your play pattern in combat for the rest of the game. Ranged weapon based warlocks tend to need Improved Pact Weapon as well, but still can find Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert to be great additions to their builds and lock in that fantasy.

War Caster empowers summoner builds and other long duration concentration effects if you can’t afford the Eldritch Mind invocation. Beyond that, most other feats don’t have a major impact on empowering spells you’re already casting, even including options like Spell Sniper. If you’re playing a dedicated Eldritch Blast kind of warlock, Spell Sniper is fine to pick up, but you probably would rather prioritize maximizing your Charisma modifier as fast as possible.

If you’re unsure of what feat to take on your specific build, and know you don’t want to take an Ability Score increase, I’d encourage taking something like Magic Initiate, Ritual Caster, or Shadow Touched to expand the quantity of spells you have access to and unlock additional resources to explore the world with. Getting bonus casts of build around me spells like Hex can majorly improve the quality of life of attack based builds.

Eldritch Versatility

All Eldritch Versatility does is give you a way to swap out your Pact Boon for a new one, change out a cantrip for a different one, or in the upper levels switch one of your Mystic Arcanum features to a different warlock spell.

If changing a boon causes some of your invocations to become invalid, you get to replace those boons with ones you meet the prerequisites for. That’s it. If your DM allows it, Eldritch Versatility is a convenient way to restructure a character you’re struggling with.

5th Level: 3rd Level Spells and Major Invocations

5th level is a massive shift in the game; it opens up extra attack and 3rd level spells to the world. Warlocks, should you build towards it, can have both.

3rd Level Spells of Note

Similar to 2nd level spells, you'll want to swap out a 2nd or 1st level spell for a new, likely more powerful, 3rd level spell. Remember, you aren’t getting more spell slots here: you’re upgrading your two 2nd level spell slots to two 3rd level spell slots. All your lower level spells now must compete with the best of the best 3rd level options. Beyond these, you’ll want to consider your patron’s bonus spells as well.

Summon Spells. Crucially, 3rd level opens up summoning magic to you with Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything’s Summon Fey, Summon Shadowspawn, and Summon Undead. All three of these options majorly empower pact magic slots, as they have hour long durations and come with powerful new allies. Up-casting these all is meaningful as well, as it gives them extra attack at 4th level, and more hit points, AC, and boons to their attacks, damage, and features with increases in spell level used.

Additional Options. Beyond the summon spells, Dispel Magic is a powerful tool to have access to when you need it, and Fly can fulfill a lot of fantasies warlocks want to lean towards.

Invocations to Consider with 5th Level Prerequisites

5th level is a prerequisite for a lot of warlock invocations: Cloak of Flies, Eldritch Smite, Far Scribe, Gift of the Depths, Maddening Hex, Mire the Mind, One with Shadows, Sign of Ill Omen, Thirsting Blade, Tomb of Levistus, and Undying Servitude.

Of these, the major hits are Thirsting Blade, which with Pact of the Blade functions as the extra attack feature, Cloak of Flies, Far Scribe, One with Shadows, Tomb of Levistus, and Undying Servitude.

All of these options will feel like powerful additions to your sheet. If you’re a weapon attack based warlock, Thirsting Blade is near mandatory, but with three invocations to work with, you can swap out older ones when you reach here as well for a new, more powerful tool to play around with. I’d highly recommend trying most of these out; you’ll be happy to take them even in the higher tiers.

6th Level and Beyond

Once you’re out of the early tier, you’ll get less frequent decisions, as the decisions you made prior will start to grant lasting effects. At 6th level, you’ll get a new feature or two from your Otherworldly Patron, which tend to be decently powerful, and you’ll learn a new 3rd level spell, but that’s it. 7th and 9th level upgrade your Pact Magic slots to 4th and 5th level respectively, and 11th level gives you your first Mystic Arcanum and finally access to a 3rd Pact Magic spell slot.

The remainder of this section will touch on generally powerful 4th and 5th level slots, what Mystic Arcanum is, some options for your Mystic Arcanum spell selections to consider, some upper tier prerequisite locked invocations to look out for, and the Eldritch Master feature.

4th Level Spell Recommendations

At 7th level, you upgrade your Pact Magic slots once again to 4th level, opening up a few new interesting options. Summon Aberration, alongside upcast versions of the 3rd level summon spells, gives you an hour long duration monster that takes no actions to command outside the initial to summon it, and has multiattack with some fun upsides. If you’re unsure what’s good, you can’t go wrong with more or less any of the summon spells.

Beyond that, Sickening Radiance and Shadow of Moil are both perfectly fine spells that can put in some work in the right builds. Banishment is a powerful effect on its own as well you can consider if you don’t mind its shorter duration and potential to do nothing should your target pass its save.

5th Level Spell Recommendations

9th level caps off your spell slots at 5th level; every spell you’ve taken prior to this now has to compete with these new options at your disposal, encouraging you to replace older, less applicable spells with higher level versions. As with all of the prior levels, your subclass will offer you typically interesting options that usually fit with the other features it offers, so you may want to consider those here.

Danse Macabre can be an incredibly fun and rewarding spell to use, though it can be somewhat situational. Far Step can be a build around me kind of effect, but its duration definitely hamstrings it; it’ll likely be something you’ll want to consider in place of Dimension Door or Misty Step if you already have either as your teleportation option, but likely isn't’ going to come up every encounter.

Synaptic Static is an excellent damaging tool that deals a solid chunk of area of effect damage and comes with a great conditional effect to maim enemies and debilitate them simultaneously. If you’re in the market for single instances of big, powerful magic, Synaptic Static will routinely be great.

Hold Monster, too, is a solid option akin to Banishment a level prior. It can be hard to justify spells that can do nothing on a successful save, but a creature failing a Hold Monster save often is akin to a death sentence.

Upper Tier Invocations of Note

7th level unlocks a new tier of prerequisite invocations; the only notably powerful option that most any warlock can consider is Ghostly Gaze. Beyond that, the others have the problems mentioned prior, or are locked to specific Pact Boons or require Hex based builds, and aren’t particularly remarkable in most of those specific builds.
9th level prerequisite invocations are quite a bit better; you can take Ascendant Step, Gift of the Protectors (for Pact of the Tome warlocks), Otherworldly Leap, and Whispers of the Grave, all of which offer reusable new toys that can be a blast to play with. None of these are game warping or character defining, but if you enjoy having a diverse array of options to engage non-combat based problems, all of these are excellent choices.
12th level only opens up two new invocations; Lifedrinker, which is a fine damage upgrade for multi-attack Pact of the Blade warlocks, and Bond of the Talisman, an incredible boon for Pact of the Talisman warlocks.
15th level prerequisite invocations of note include Chains of Carceri, one of my personal favorites, Shroud of Shadow, and Visions of Distant Realms, all of which are rewarding and fun to play with options, though they do have issues with concentration management.

Mystic Arcanum

In place of higher level spell slots that full caster characters get, Warlocks get a new feature called Mystic Arcanum; functionally, these are learned spells with single cast per long rest. You don’t learn new 6th level or higher spells; you pick a Mystic Arcanum, and can cast it once without expending a spell slot per long rest.

Basically, you learn one 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spell each at levels 11, 13, 15, and 17, and can cast them each once per long rest.

Eldritch Versatility does allow you to swap out a chosen Mystic Arcanum spell with another of the same level when you reach levels that offer Ability Score Improvements, which does give you a bit of flexibility should you find the spell you picked to be lacking.

Because of how Pact Magic spell slots work, you’re heavily encouraged to have long duration, high impact 5th level spells at the ready, meaning you’re often going to be concentrating on those effects. While you aren’t locked into that concentration forever, when considering your Mystic Arcanum options, consider what spells you intend to be concentrating on normally. This pushes these effects to be larger, single instance, big effects that dramatically and instantaneously affect an encounter.

6th level options to consider include Conjure Fey, Mass Suggestion, Summon Fiend, Soul Cage, and Scatter. Even Circle of Death, with its mediocre damage numbers, can find a home on your sheet here as a wide area of effect damaging option. Some of these are going to feel like upgrades over your Pact Magic slots, while others like Mass Suggestion and Scatter offer big, flashy, single use effects that don’t eat your concentration.
7th level spells are sparse. Most are surprisingly excellent, though; Crown of Stars, Finger of Death, and Forcecage all have enormous impact on fights, and don’t compete for your concentration. Etherealness and Plane Shift both offer new, powerful tools that change how you explore the game and interact with the world around you. All of these you can’t really go wrong with.
8th level options, compared to 7th, aren’t as exciting. Dominate Monster definitely stands out above the rest as an exceptional new spell to get access to. After that, you aren’t offered all that many particularly exciting, nor powerful, effects. Maddening Darkness is a giant area of darkness that also deals 8d8 psychic damage to stuff in it. It's fine, but not as groundbreaking as the 7th and 6th level new tools to play with.
9th level Mystic Arcanum gives you access to one of the most powerful spells warlocks get access to: True Polymorph, Blade of Disaster, and Psychic Scream both too are great 9th level spells to play around with. Any of these three will certainly help you feel powerful.

Eldritch Master

Should you one day reach the final level in the game, you get, as all the other classes tend to get, an underwhelming final feature. This basically gives you a 1 minute short rest to get back your spell slots; this is perfectly reasonable, but not a justification for sticking with warlock for 20 levels. You’ll likely be better off taking a two level quick dip into something like fighter for Action Surge or grabbing two levels in wizard for the diviner’s Portent feature instead, as I think you’ll get way more power out of either of those than Eldritch Master offers.

If you’re committed to taking the full 20 in warlock, though, this is a shorter once a day refresh of your pact magic slots. Compared to the Meteor Swarms, Wishes, and 20th level paladin ascension features, this isn’t all too appealing, but it's a fine little boost you’ll appreciate once or twice before the game ends.

Why You Should Multiclass Warlock

Mutliclassing is a “variant” mechanic in the same way feats tend to be; the vast majority of tables allow it. It adds a level of customization and depth to the mid tier of play the game desperately lacks, giving you new choices and fun abilities all throughout the game.

To multiclass warlock, you just need a 13 Charisma; with that, you have access to the first three levels of the class and some light and simple weapon proficiencies should you lack them. Warlocks also love to have a high Dexterity; this positions them as easy options for nearly every class in the game to dive into, as Dex and Cha are the two most utilized ability scores between all the classes. The majority of characters out there, regardless of class, will find it easy to dip into warlock.

Here’s the gravy: the first three levels of warlock are packed full of amazing abilities that are a boon to a huge array of classes and characters. Nearly any class in the game will reach a point where a multi-class dip into warlock will feel better than continuing to progress in their own class simply because of the quantity of powerful new toys a couple levels in warlock unlocks.

Once you reach 5th level (or 3rd level if you’re a rogue), you’re at great point to pivot and pick up some multi-class goodness before returning to your main class, or dabbling in some more options out there.

Spellcaster Multiclass Options

A two to three level dip in warlock grants access to Pact Magic spell slots; basically, you’re trading furthering your main class for short rest refreshable spell slots. Crucially, you can cast your base class’s spells with these slots. This means on top of the full spell slot roster that refreshes on long rest, on top of getting other rest recharge mechanics like Arcane Recovery or Font of Magic, you get additional cheap ways to weaponize your favorite lower level effects. With a three level dip, you’ll be casting 2nd level and lower spells all the time.

Otherworldly Patrons. Additionally, getting an Otherworldly Patron feature or two of your choice immediately in addition to the spellcasting toys means for even just a 1 level dip you’re getting a short rest spell slot, new spells to cast with your existing spell slots, and one to three additional features, all for just one level. Stand outs to me are the Fathomless and Great Old One, each offering ranged spell casters new toys that are typically far more expensive to get access to with traditional spell slots.

Pact Boons. Three of the Pact Boons are excellent on basically every kind of character. If you want to be the most magical character known to humanity with all the cantrips, Pact of the Tome paired with the bonus cantrips you get for just picking warlock load you up with a gigantic roster of cantrips. Pact of the Chain gives any non-wizard access to Find Familiar, which on its own justifies taking it. On top of that, even if you’re a wizard, you get a huge upgrade to your familiar with crazy powerful abilities. It's a home run. Even Talisman can be a great little bonus here; it scales with proficiency bonus, meaning you’re getting a ton of uses based on your character level, not warlock level, and can bring together some area control/damaging area builds when you pick up Rebuke of the Talisman.

Eldritch Invocations. Invocations, too, are massively impactful at will spellcasting options that can power up just about any spell slinger. Devil’s Sight lets you function perfectly well in Darkness and get huge advantages by utilizing magical darkness. Eldritch Mind is an invocation costed version of the War Caster feat for the majority of backline spellcasters; this is an INCREDIBLE addition to upper tier full casters. Misty Visions can bring an illusionist build to life across any number of classes, Mask of Many Faces sells the million disguise based spy bards and trickery domain clerics with ease, and Agonizing Blast… Well, we’ll touch on that in the Munchkin Nonsense section later.

Multiclassing from Martial Classes

Classes without spellcasting getting access to short rest spellcasting, cantrips, invocations, and pact boons will always feel good. Barbarians, Monks, Rogues, and Fighters all desperately want some amount of tools to empower them out of combat; warlock is a cheap solution to get those tools. Even the half-casters, Rangers, Paladins, and Artificers, all can find a ton of value with warlock.

Rogue in particular loves multiclassing warlock. It takes their resourceless based playstyle and gives them long duration magical effects like Hex that will keep their Sneak Attack damage feeling like its scaling as if they’d never left the class.

Otherworldly Patrons. Front line bruisers and tanks, too, can get a robust new suite of toys to play with for even just one level. Otherworldly patrons like Fiend and Hexblade give you incredible new tools for engaging in melee combat. Want to get a chunk of free HP every time you kill something? How about Shield once per short rest, all the weapon and armor proficiencies if you didn’t already have them, and a short rest recharging bonus action curse that heals you, enlarges your crit range, AND deals bonus damage based on your total class level? Hexblade is known for being a crazy powerful martial multiclass option; this is why.

Genie, too, is a great little utility option to pick up that just strictly empowers your weapon damage once a turn. It's great on its own, comes with Bottled Respite, and will be something a lot of melee and ranged characters alike eagerly choose. If you’re lacking a bonus action, Fathomless can give you a reusable bonus damage option that scales with your total class level in total uses.

Eldritch Invocations. Beyond Otherworldly Patrons, warlock also gives you the Invocations and a Pact Boon mentioned with the spellcasters. If you want to have a bigger impact out of combat, all of those options mentioned prior that give you new tools to play with will feel powerful. Mask of Many Faces and Misty Visions in particular play well with a lot of martial character fantasies, especially in the rogue class. Fiendish Vigor will make your character feel sturdy, getting functionally a free eight temporary hit points to start out every fight and mitigate every trap’s damage by.

Pact Boons that work with these characters may surprise you; like full casters, basically every option but Pact of the Blade will be a great addition to your sheet. Unless you’re desperate for a magic weapon, and need to pick it up through Improved Pact Weapon, you’re nearly always better of expanding your utility with an empowered familiar, free cantrips, or a boon scaling with proficiency bonus to your skill checks. The invocations that empower these, similarly, will work wonders with characters too.

I can’t understate that going from no spells to two 2nd level short rest spells, some cantrips, and invocation magic will radically improve how a martial character feels to play outside of initiative. One to three levels in warlock is a major boon to most builds.

Munchkin Nonsense You Can Try

If you’re looking for some ways to push warlock a bit further, really test the limits of D&D, there is an abundance of opportunity for this that you can acquire as early as 4th level. Most of the game warping power comes from a build colloquially known as the “Coffeelock”, which uses two class features, Pact Magic from warlock and Font of Magic from sorcerer, to break the game’s resource system in half. To push it further, Eldritch Blast builds don’t require a lot of effort to do ludicrous damage incredibly quickly. We’ll cover Coffeelocks first, as with this foundation, Eldritch Blasting gets truly obnoxious.

Coffeelock 101

The aim of the Coffeelock is to abuse 5e’s rest system. Pact Magic spell slots refresh every short rest; short rests only take one hour. Normal spell slots the other classes get refresh when a character finishes a long rest; long rests are eight hours. If you’re a warlock, and want to take a series of short rests instead of a long rest, you’ll gain none of the benefits of a long rest (which for warlocks are mainly just hit points and hit dice restoration), and you need to start making Constitution saving throws or accumulate levels of exhaustion. But you will be able to use your spell slots over and over and over again during that time. This on its own isn’t particularly powerful typically.

Enter Font of Magic; at 2nd level, sorcerer’s get the Font of Magic feature and sorcery points. You start with two maximum sorcery points, and can’t have more than your maximum points at a time. Sorcery points can be spent to create spell slots using the Flexible Casting portion of the Font of Magic feature; these spell slots can be made as a bonus action, and last until you finish a long rest.

There is no limit to the quantity of slots you can create with this feature. The sorcery point cap limits the spells you’re able to create (mostly) to spells you have spell slots for.
Very crucially, you can spend spell slots you have from the Pact Magic feature to gain sorcery points. Immediately after you convert your short rest refreshing slots into sorcery points, you convert them into spell slots that last until your next long rest. For each two points spent, you get one 1st level spell.

Basically this lets you turn two 1st level Pact Magic slots into one temporary long rest spell slot that will last until you take a long rest.

Fun fact: you don’t have to ever take that long rest.

A 4th level character can take a short rest, regaining their two warlock spell slots. They then break them down one at a time into sorcery points. For every two sorcery points they get, they create a 1st level spell.

This character would create eight first level spell slots (one for every two sorcery points spent) over eight short rests taken over eight hours.

Basically, for every hour you spend, you’re getting a free 1st level spell slot.

Upper Level Pact Slots. But wait, there’s more. Taking a third level in warlock transforms your Pact Magic slots into 2nd level spell slots. This doubles the amount of sorcery points you can turn them into, functionally granting you sixteen 1st level spell slots with just a single long rest. This is only with core class features; this is before you consider what you can actually do with these slots, your invocations, Pact Boon, and Otherworldly Patron.

Want some long term 2nd level slots too? Don’t worry, those just cost you three sorcery points per slot! 6th level characters, 3 sorcerer 3 warlock, with one long rest, have access to 24 sorcery points they can budget out to get exactly as many 2nd and 1st level spells you want with the varying costs, three points at a time.

More than One Long Rest. The particularly nuts element of the Coffeelock is it hypothetically has no limit. If you can gain access to cheap healing magic, like Cure Wounds (which both classes can get through a subclass), you no longer have to long rest to heal; you just budget some of your endless waves of 1st level spells on some healing when you need it.

One major gateway comes when you need to sleep or suffer levels of exhaustion on failed Constitution saving throws. This can be mitigated through cantrips like Resistance (obtainable through the Pact of the Tome Pact Boon), and capped at a DC 10 save with the invocation Aspect of the Moon, or by simply playing a race that doesn’t require sleep. These rules are in a supplementary book (Xanathar’s Guide to Everything), so there’s a decent chance your table simply won’t be using them, and there will be next to no restrictions on ignoring long resting all together.

All of these tools make it possible to spend downtime chaining together four, five, six, or more long rests worth of short rests. If you can get advantage on the Constitution saving throw, add Resistance into the mix, and have proficiency in Constitution saves (which you will have if your first class is Sorcerer), you can consistently make this a reality. It is common for these builds to be sitting on dozens, or in the upper tiers, hundreds of bonus spell slots, to the point where 1st and 2nd level spells across the board start to just feel like cantrips.

Better than Regular Spell Slots. To take this even further, consider that you can convert back the created spell slots to sorcery points. This enables you to basically spend spell slots as Metamagic options, which can be used to do some utterly unfair things, such as…

Eldritch Blasting to Victory

Cantrips were intended to offer the full casters a somewhat comparable scaling basic attack to the martial classes as they start making multiple attacks a turn. Eldritch Blast does this by giving an extra blast per cast at 5th, 11th, and 17th level. Cantrips also continue to scale regardless of your class level; they only care about your total character level. This means a 5th level character can have no levels in warlock and five levels in different classes and their Eldritch Blast will make two attacks instead of one.

Extra attacks are incredibly easy to empower. Basic warlock features like Hex and the Agonizing Blast invocation both power up each blast to deal more than just 1d10 damage on hit. None of this is particularly game breaking. That is, until you introduce Metamagic into the mix.

Quicken Spell. Each turn, you’re normally gated to just cast Eldritch Blast once, putting a cap on the quantity of blasts you can pump out in a round. It costs your action, after all. But what if you could get more actions, or better yet, make it cost just a bonus action?

Quicken Spell lets you trade two sorcery points to turn a spell with the casting time of 1 action into a bonus action. This normally is heavily restricted, as if you cast a spell with a bonus action of 1st level or higher, you can’t cast another 1st level or higher spell with your action in the same turn. Eldritch Blast isn’t a 1st level spell; it's a cantrip, meaning you can cast it twice in one turn for just two sorcery points.

Sorcery Point Gate. While this build certainly doesn’t require you to be playing a Coffeelock to go off, it certainly helps. Without Coffee-locking your way into free slots, you’re likely taking two levels in warlock (for Agonizing Blast), and the rest in sorcerer. You’ll start sacrificing spell slots left and right, and in exchange, receive an endless barrage of blasts dealing 1d10 + Charisma mod force damage, empowered by Hex to 1d10 +1d6 + mod.

A 5th level character, with just two levels in warlock, three in sorcerer, can generate sorcery points as a bonus action, meaning you can just alternate between converting spell slots and quickening Eldritch Blasts over and over again, consistently pumping out huge amounts of damage very early.

Want to get even more casts? Add in Action Surge and with a two level fighter dip (which also offers Second Wind, a +1 AC through the Defense Fighting Style, and an abundance of proficiencies) and you can have one glorious round where you unleash twelve blasts at once. This build really comes together at 11th level (when your third blast attack arrives), and you have a deep enough reservoir of sorcery points to keep the quickend blasts flowing round after round.

Multiclass or Not, Play Warlocks

Warlock is an incredibly rewarding, customizable class that can perform any number of functions at tables. Its diverse suite of Otherworldly Patron, Pact Boons, and Eldritch Invocations set you up early with a ton of choices. Pact Magic is a great tool to have access to if you set your expectations up for it, and go in knowing you shouldn’t expect to cast as many spells as the full casters tend to.

Its mechanics easily end up being outrageously powerful, as denoted in the Munchkin Nonsense section, and beyond what I’ve covered here there are a near endless amount of combinations and possibilities to explore.

Thank you for visiting!

If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.

The text on this page is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.

‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
and are used according to the terms of the d20 System License version 6.0.
A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.

Warlock 5e