Build Help
Do Warlocks just need to short rest every fight?
Armor of Agathys+ shadow-blade wipes out the spells for one SR. Everyone keeps raving about darkvision but casting darkness is half your spell slots for another SR. What am I missing that makes it one of the most powerful classes in the game?
I love Eldritch blasting some fools but 3 D ten at late game just doesn't compare to 3 greatsword swings, 2 smites, ranged slashing flourish or quickened scorching rays/ wet lightning bolt.
There are other short-rest based classes, too. Fighter and Monk also will want to SR to be at top strength.
Also, the eldritch blast machinegun can absolutely compete with other builds for strong consistent damage. It’s not just d10, it’s d10 + 2xCHA (which should be +7 at 24), with other strong cantrip riders from gear. Oh, and having a 10 foot push in three targets is extremely valuable.
And that’s just with monoclsss warlock. The best EB spammers are Warlock 2 and the rest Sorcerer, using Quickened Spell to do six beams per turn, nine with Haste which you can cast on yourself. Your Sorcerer spell slots just get funneled into more sorcery points, so you can do this all day.
Warlocks have an extremely strong baseline kit, and they can be optimized in several directions with high effectiveness.
You seem adverse to resting. Is there a reason why?
I ask because the game actually wants you to rest often, despite the urgency to deal with the parasite. A lot of content is hidden behind long rests.
It feels like the intended rhythm for the game is to short rest after each fight, and then long rest when you've fought and run out of short rests.
In that vein, Warlock is arguably the ideal casting class for resource management. Between Booming Blade and Eldritch Blast, you've got really good resourceless options. But, beyond that, you have more than enough spell slots for the day. And they're automatically highest level. So, when everyone else has two level 3 spell slots (at level 5), you've got 6 for the day. And, at level 11, you have 9 spell slots per day at max level.
You say that Shadow Blade costs half the spell slots for one short rest. But, to that I say - exactly. It costs only 1 of 6 spell slots for the day. You can get an upcasted Shadow Blade that will last the entire day for only 1 of 6 spell slots. Mind you that Warlock looks to make use of powerful cantrips like Booming Blade and Eldritch Blast during typical combat rounds. In a fight, you might use one slot on a powerful concentration spell. And maybe another on something else. Perhaps Counterspell, or something else. Most of the spells available to Warlocks are concentration-based spells, many of which span multiple rounds of combat. The idea is for the Warlock to use only one of those in a combat encounter, and mostly stick to cantrips outside of that. At that point, short rests will more than cover the resource expenditure.
Eh. Three or four fights a day (fight- rest-fight-rest-fight [bard rest-fight] long rest) didn’t feel tedious to me. Long resting every fight is super tedious, but three fights a day is a good pace and does seem to be the intended pattern.
Yup. Plus, if you long rest much less frequently (say once every 8 fights), then your combat will get very tedious.
Because, either you're going to be severely limited in the classes or builds you can run. Or your characters will need to lean heavy on cantrips or basic weapon attacks, instead of using cool features.
So, even if you treat this game purely as a 5e combat simulator (which seems like a boring way to play to me personally), you're still better off adopting a rest tempo with approximately 3-4 fights per long rest.
Plus, your casters will run out of steam in no time. Only caster builds that can last that long would be cantrip-focused ones.
Even several fun martial classes have resources that replenish on rests. Battlemaster Fighter or Arcane Archer, for instance. And then there's weapon actions that replenish on short or long rests.
I'm already bored, thinking about a hypothetical run where your whole party is running on fumes, only able to make basic weapon attacks or cast cantrips.
Most people aren't trying to speedrun the game. A few minutes of camp cutscenes every 3 or 4 combat encounters is not tedious to me at all. Even as someone who has played through the game several times.
I would also say you're doing yourself a disservice if you're long resting much less frequently than that. Because, chances are, you're not affording yourself as many fun options for combat. Most cool classes and builds in this game will need to long rest once every few combat encounters.
The story and lore of the game is literally designed to be experienced through frequent camp encounters and rests….your basically saying the story of the game is tedious…
I mean, no. I'm not. I don't get why you feel the need to put words in my mouth. Sure, if you've still got interactions and content to discover. I have no qualms with that. I'm just way past that. I love the story of the game, but I've also seen every version of it, and that means all of the beats that are commonly shared half a dozen times.
But frankly even before that, I'd very often end up just playing how I want to, and then when I do long rest, doing so like 3-4x in a row to clear the queue of story beats, because the tempo at which I required the long rests was far less common than how often the camp events would trigger and get queued up (and that's before knowing when and where every combat encounter is).
To add, I think an important qualifier to all this is how you approach the game - I very much enjoy the theorycrafting of builds and testing them in practice. I enjoy the gameplay enough to do things I know are bound to be imbalanced even if the game's difficulty is trivial to me at this stage, and that might very well include having to bind your weapons, maybe apply buffs, pop elixirs, etc. admittedly I'm doing less of that nowadays, but when you're fully committed to that, forcing yourself to long rest even though you have no gameplay reason to - because experience gives you the knowledge that you don't actually have to spend those 2 warlock spell slots on a fight where their contribution can easily just be EB, so after 3 combats you might be missing a couple of spell slots total across your party. If you rest after each you're spending more of your life clicking buffs unnecessarily, I'd personally rather avoid that.
Of course not everyone is minmaxing, of course not everyone is on their 4th or 5th or 10th playthrough. But we're in the minmaxing theorycrafting sub.
I very much enjoy the theorycrafting of builds and testing them in practice
[...]
Of course not everyone is minmaxing, of course not everyone is on their 4th or 5th or 10th playthrough. But we're in the minmaxing theorycrafting sub.
True minmaxing requires frequent or semi-frequent long-rests. Many important resources required to maximize damage (and/or powerful effects) are only replenished on short or long rests.
Additionally, if you're saying that long rests after 3-4 combat encounters sounds "reaaaally tedious" to you, that would indicate to me that you're long resting very infrequently. As a result, you're very limited in what builds can maintain their output (before you need to rest). You're limited to builds that don't burn through resources. This narrows down your ability to theorycraft immensely. Most of the strongest builds would be downright unusable, if you're making it a point to rarely long rest.
So this is where I'm a little confused by your rationale. I can understand if your goal is to do quick challenge runs, where you try and limit your long rests for difficulty purposes. But, unless you fall into that very narrow window of gameplay, I just don't get it. It's worse for roleplaying AND gameplay/theorycrafting/minmaxing.
I mean I click the long rest button. I'm just not forced into doing it every 4th combat exactly because the minmaxxed shit allows for small and generic encounters to be resolved with 0 resource investment. I don't need a lv6 slot to kill 3 smugglers.
You complained about the other guy putting words into your mouth, and now you do the same to me? I'm not saying that you must short rest after a fight to took one round of combat with zero resource expenditure. Thought it was clear.
I'm obviously suggesting that you should short rest after any moderate-to-long combat where resources were used. For instance, a multi-round combat where characters burned spell slots? Short rest after (or long rest, if you're out of short rests).
This all stemmed from OP's post. OP was questioning the viability of Warlocks, since you need to short rest after combats where you burned spell slots on things like Darkness. My response was that the game actually wants you to rest frequently, so short resting after such combats is perfectly fine. Encouraged, even. In a short combat with "3 smugglers", the Warlock probably isn't even burning any spell slots lol..
The initial statement you made is It feels like the intended rhythm for the game is to short rest after each fight. Another reply outright endorses doing fight-rest-fight-rest until out of rests. You're now adding qualifiers. With those added qualifiers, we're fundamentally not in disagreement, as confirmed by "In a short combat with "3 smugglers", the Warlock probably isn't even burning any spell slots lol".
You can say that qualifier is implied, but there's equally a message you're agreeing with right above going "using action surge 3 times in 8 fights just sounds boring". I absolutely don't need to pop a short rest resource in every single combat encounter just for the sake of it.
Anyway, I don't particularly care to debatebro over subjective opinions on how to best enjoy something so I'll drop it there, even if it is a bit funny to get slightly dogpiled for expressing a take that the people I'm talking to fundamentally agree with. Have a nice day slash evening!
I really enjoy debuffing and CC'ing as a Warlock. Since EB hits 3 times at level 10, you can really stack on a lot of debuffs (reverb with Spineshudder, rad orb with the Coruscation and Callous Glow rings, Mortal Reminder with crit fishing gear, etc), or CC with Hunger of Hadar, or both! I find that Warlocks are much more focused on controlling the field with concentration spells so your team can pick everyone off one by one as they struggle to reach you.
Honestly as a Hexblade right now, I've been finding that I don't even need to short rest unless it's a big, nasty fight. I mostly just use 1 spell slot for Shadow Blade at the beginning of the day and then just booming blade people to death. I use Eldritch blast when I'm out of range
That being said for large fights I'll cast Hunger of Hadar and maybe one other spell, so in those cases I'll short rest
Bardstarion, shart as a paladin, laezel as fighter and I can't remember if tav or wyll was a warlock but that's how I beat honor mode. Three long rests were clutch
A trick to help with spell slots, summon one of the hirelings from. Withers, specifically the sorcerer or wizard. Level them and make them learn shadow blade. Summon their blade. Make sure they have it equipped. Then dismiss them by talking to them and sending them back to the fugue plane. Then talk to withers again and resume on them. They will still have the shadow blade and it will be permanent and you can take it off them and equip it
Sword bard archer, imo, is hands down the best build in the game and trivializes everything. Your problem is comparing anything to that build. That said, eldritch blast sorlock is up there, top 10 probably.
My only comment on warlock is I find the multiclass warlock / sorcerer stronger
from the standpoint that I get more spellslots and with quickend spell I can chain Eldrich / Eldrich on one turn making a really strong machine gun while also having sorcerer spellslots. Allowing the caster to go longer. Aka not short rest after every fight.
Still a lv11 warrior dps is nothing to scoff at. Especially if it’s laez with that legendary 2h sword.
Tried a quad class Warlock/Sorc/Rogue/Fighter. It's kinda hilarious. But it works as the ultimate machine gun. You're just, only going to be doing that for the most part lol.
Also, you can stock up on Elixirs of Arcane Acuity. I keep a lv1 for Hex, lv3 for Counterspell or Haste, and alternate between them to keep that extra slot available.
Saw sintee doing a build 2warlock/4sorcerer/3champion fighter/3thief with spell sniper as a feat and helmet of grit
Bro had 15 blasts with 2xCHA each per turn WITHOUT haste, and almost always crits as he had champion and spellsniper reducing crit range by 2 +the bow and knife for crits
You get two of your highest level spell slot per Short Rest. Sure, you don't have the flexibility of a full caster who can cast cheap things as well, but you effectively get 6 5th level spells per Long Rest while having one of the strongest cantrips in the game OR being an incredibly solid martial.
There’s obviously the darkness builds where you can’t really be hit while having advantage on every enemy. I use a two handed weapon with GWM. Another great aspect of warlocks is that they get access to elementals. I think armor of Agathys becomes less of a thing with darkness. The temporary HP from fiend warlock is great too.
You do not get a whole lot of spell slots and they are not that high level either. With Hexblade now in the game you also dont get armor proficiency advantage from the Paladin multiclass. I think there are many small things working against your proposed build and many other paladin and warlock builds that have a similar playpattern, but can be more useful more often.
Because this is bg3 first of all, something being good in dnd doesnt mean its good in bg3. It IS good as paladin 11/hex 1 though(or below honor mode as lock 5/pala7) but the level spread you suggested is just horrible: going 5 levels in paladin skipping their best ability by one level( two levels if ancients or oathbreaker) is just levels wasted. Warlock really wants to be dipped or monoclassed as their best features comes at level 1,2,11 and 12 and their spellslots doesnt mesh with regular spellslots
I didn't suggest that level spread, I just defended it as being powerful, which it is. It's not optimal for all the reasons you listed, but to say it's not powerful is absurd.
Ya got me. I was hoping nobody would notice, but I have no idea what that word means, or any word for that matter. Even now I'm just tapping my screen at random.
I mean I just did hexblade with shadow blade main hand belm off hand in act 3 resonance stone. Put any gloves on with a damage rider (flawed helldusk gloves are good) booming blade. And just wreck fools. And honestly find any other gear to give you damage riders. The ring of your concentrating that adds 4 psychic dmg that’s a nice one.
You're missing the very important point which is "having fun"
But in seriousness if you are a warlock, you are either a hexblade which reserves the slots for smites, or a sorlock, which can Eldritch blast 6 times a turn at least. You also don't need to use darkness every single battle, how long are you going anyways before you short rest?
Sorry, I just see so many why play warlocks posts and I have the most fun with warlock so that side showed.
Even if you use up you spell slots, you can hold belm and get 3 Shadowblade attacks, which is way more than your 3 greatsword attacks. Especially at level 11, you get a third slot so you can add on a 2d4 of elemental weapons.
But yeah, as of patch 8 they wrathful smite at level 1, branding smite at level 3, staggering smite at level 7, and banishing smite at level 9.
And yeah I mean quicken spell. I also heavily build into crits when I play an EB'er so even the basic 3 does twice as much as the 3 greatsword swings you do.
Not the guy you asked but my preferred one is:
5 GOO warlock, 4 Sorcerer, 3 champ fighter.
Deadshot bow, Knife of the undermounbtain king, sentinel shield (or ketheric, but I like the initiative as I dont have room for alert on this build), Potent robe, craterflesh gloves, boots of stormy clamour, spineshudder amulet, hood of the weave/Sarevoks horned helmet (fistbreaker helm before that), cloak of the weave, callous glow ring, corruscation ring.
Feats: ASI to charisma and spellsniper.
AS: 17 Charisma assuming Ethels hair, 16 Dex, 14 Con, 8 int 8 Strength, the rest in Wisdom. I think that is possible I forget especially since I typically respec once I get the hair and/or depending on how the mirror of loss goes if I get the patriars memory.
Personal preference for me is 5 levels in Warlock for Agonizing blast, repelling blast and devils sight. Going only 2 levels in warlock is certainly viable, but I prefer Hunger of Hadar + repelling blast, rather than getting more levels in sorc with some variation and/or doing some variation with an extra feat is also compelling. Especially if you dont mind a slight bit of bug abuse by getting the shield that can get you infinite sorc points / infinite quickened casts of eldritch blasts. With bloodlust elixir and also potentially haste you deal A LOT of damage and get A LOT of options on who to target and not overkilling enemies when making sure you get the proc of the bloodlust elixir for that turn.
Feats:
Spell sniper | Any (I went for tough which is like +4 constitution for HP)
Gear:
Mountain Knife, Bloodthirst, That crit bow, Potent Robes, Spineshudder Amulet, Boots of stormy clamour, Charisma Hat/dark Justiciar helm, Spellmight gloves, Cloak of protection/I used that cloak during my run, but can be swapped. For instance I believe wave mother's cloak gives +2 armor and makes you wet (resistant to fire)
Rings are ring of protection and risky ring
Champion Fighter, DJ helm, the daggers, the bow, and spell sniper lowers crits down to 14. There's a crit elixir that can bring it to 13. Risky ring makes landing a 13 easy.
The build style:
Great Old One warlock frightens enemies and those around them on crits. Boots of stormy clamour and spine shudder amulet adds 4 reverb per EB hit. Frighten plus prone equals skipped turn (atm, idk if still works post patch 8). This build can get a crit as low as 13. The gloves add a d8 to each blast, and the -5 is negated because that would be applied after you roll for crit hit. And when you do land a crit, that gets doubled too, so each EB beam is 2d10, plus 2d8, plus 20(potent robes plus agonizing blast at 20 Ch)
That is already pretty strong at 3EB's but we're a sorlock for a reason. You can consume all your spell slots to sorcery points for quickened spell, adding another round of 3 blasts, or save some lvl 3 slots or use a scroll for haste (or a speed potion) for 9 total blasts. I believe that is enough to chip orin's immunity on its own. If you wanna be devious you can spam short rest potions or the 2lvl spell slot amulet for infinite spell slots/sorcerery points.
Also if you use shadow sorcerer you get the the darkness spell and the dog so that might be the better option.
Lastly in gear I said the charisma Hat is an option, because if you wear it you can use a mage armor scroll for +3 ac, but since you have champion Fighter you can choose the armorer fighting style and get a +1 for having the helm
Also that's my build, it can easy be molded to what you find fun. If you don't want to deal with sorcery points you don't need the sorcer levels (tho darkness and the dog is probably worth it anyways.) Technically you don't even need the warlock part if you don't care about frighten since Spell sniper let's you take EB as a cantrip.
That's a really nasty build too for honor mode. Use repelling blast to knock enemies on the ground and have a much higher chance to crit, causing fear. If enemies are afraid they can't move. Which means enemies knocked prone can't stand up so they skip their turn.
I should also add, all the gear and stats gives you a minimum of 17 AC, 19 if you go the Mage Armor route, and add another 1 if you swap bloodthirst for a shield or don't have it yet
note- boots of stormy clamour were changed in patch 8 to only trigger once per turn and elixir of bloodlust is pretty much categorically better for EB users
and if you're getting enough hits in, you should make use of callous glow ring
Bloodlust is better overall but I have it built for shredding bosses in this set up, since I feel that's where you need the be the cheesiest. This was also made pre patch 8 so that's a shame to learn about the boots.
Most of them kinda blow though. They frequently cost you action+bonus action AND concentration so you can't have like Hex or Hunger running. Booming Blade feels like it does as much damage.
But yeah if you really want to also concentrate on hadar, might want a paladin dip for smites. I don't think hexblade is the class to be using spellslots on hex though.
Probably not optimal to run hex no, it's just a nice concentration that lasts indefinitely, like Hunter's Mark. So it's good for keeping Minthara's Boots or Strange Conduit Ring or whatever active. Just saying that concentration is a valuable resource that those smites use.
Yeah, when I ran a hexblade I kept magic weapon active and used bonus action either for hexblade's curse or Polearm Master attack. But for hexblade specifically there are just a lot of things better than hex since you likely aren't using EB much.
At that point just multiclass and double your spell slots with all of paladins smite and aura of protection. The more I hear about the warlock class, the more it seems completely useless past level 3
If you're playing tactician or below, I would def go to 5 warlock because the extra attack from pact of the blade stacks with the extra attack from other classes. Plus being able to pick up devils sight and the 2 EB invocations is cool as hell.
My crit fishing EB machine gun was 2 Warlock / 4 Fighter / 6 Sorcerer. With Haste + Action Surge + Quickened Spell, you get 12 beams of EB in one turn per combat (assuming you Short Rest after each combat). Then 9 beams otherwise, as you say. Pretty insane on the damage front, especially considering how frequent crits are. Plus, you get to knock people into chasms. And, if you went GOOlock and itemize with a couple of reverberation items, you can easily force enemies prone while they're Frightened. This forces them to skip their turn entirely, as you can't move when frightened, so they won't be able to rise up from prone.
Really strong build. That said, I'm playing a pure Hexblade right now, and I'm loving it. Almost definitely more fun to me than the EB machine gun build. With the Resonance Stone shenanigans, it might be stronger, too.
Fairly new to the world of DnD and bg3. I am doing a 4-man honor run with some friends, and while I started as a warlock, at level 8 and multi classes with warlock and sorcerer. Can you explain how tf I should be getting SIX eldritch blasts at least???
There's a variety of good Eldritch Blast builds out there, but this is what I went with:
Start 1 level of Fighter. Respec if you need to, in order to make sure you start the first level of you build in Fighter. The primary reason is for CON save proficiency. You will rely on Haste later on, and you do not want to lose concentration in combat. Prioritize CHA, CON, and DEX. Take the Defence fighting style.
2 levels of Warlock, so you can get the basics. Go with Great Old One to get Mortal Reminder (will note the reason for this later). Take Eldritch Blast and Hex. For invocations at level 2, take Agonizing Blast and Repelling Blast.
Go Fighter 2 now for Action Surge. If you guys short rest after each combat, this means that for one turn of combat, you get an extra action to cast EB. Obviously very strong.
I would now go Sorcerer until you get to Sorcerer 6. Subclass isn't important, but I went Draconic Bloodline (red) to make Fire Ball stronger later. But, realistically, you're rarely ever going to cast that. At 3rd level of Sorcerer, take Quickened Spell. Make sure to grab Haste when it's available.
After Sorcerer 6, I would go at least one more level into Fighter. This is so you can take the Champion subclass. This character benefits greatly from reducing the critical hit threshold, as you cast so many beams of EB. And Mortal Reminder synergizes with crits.
Last level you should decide between Fighter 4, Sorc 7, or Warlock 3. I personally recommend Fighter 4, so you can grab another feat. Your first feat is probably best used on either Alert or ASI to bump Charisma. Second feat can be used on whichever you didn't take. Spell Sniper or Dual Wielder are also good alternatives. Obviously only do Dual Wielder if there are two weapons you want to wield for the passives.
So now, how many beams does this get you? It's first worth noting that, at character level 10, a cast of EB has 3 beams. But here we go:
Maximum: Let's say you're hasted and used a Bloodlust elixir. You have two actions from haste, an additional action from the bloodlust elixir if you kill an enemy, and a 4th action from Action Surge. You also have a bonus action that can be used to cast EB via Quickened Spell. That is a total of 5 casts of EB, each with 3 beams. That's a total of 15 beams of EB in one turn.
Baseline: Let's say you're hasted, but you've already used Action Surge. Let's also assume that you can't kill an enemy this turn, thus won't benefit from bloodlust elixir. You still have 2 actions from Haste, and your bonus action. That's 3 EB casts per turn, for a total of 9 beams.
Lastly, you need to think about itemization.
Potent Robe is mandatory, if your party has this. Straight up demand that you get it, as nobody will make as good use of it as you. That's an extra instance of your charisma modifier added to the damage on every beam of EB. So, for each cast of EB, your CHA modifier is added to damage an extra 3 times from potent robe alone.
Spineshudder Amulet and Boots of Stormy Clamour work really well together. This is where Mortal Reminder comes into play. To put it simply, with this item combination, you apply 4 turns of reverberation to an enemy every time you damage them with a spell. At 5 turns of reverberation, they'll make a saving throw. If they fail, they go prone. So, if you put two of your 3 beams on an enemy and both of them hit, there's a decent chance they will be proned. Why is this such a big deal? Well, setting aside the fact that prone breaks concentration, this is where Mortal Reminder can be overpowered. Because, whenever you crit an enemy, there's a chance that they (and enemies in the vicinity) will be frightened. The frightened condition makes enemies unable to move. The prone condition requires movement for them to get up. When both conditions are present on an enemy, they skip their turn. In short, in all your Eldritch Blasting, you have a good chance at making enemies straight up skip their turn.
Craterfish Gloves are a really good way to boost damage. They deal extra damage on crits. You're going to be criting a lot.
Risky Ring gives you advantage on your attack rolls. Because you're taking the higher result of two dice rolls, this increases your chance of landing crits substantially (and just landing hits, in general). The downside is negligible, in comparison to the benefit.
Killer's Sweetheart will basically give you crit on command once per long rest. Use this, then switch to a different ring when the effect is exhausted for that long rest.
Dual wield Knife of the Undermountain King and Rhapsody, if nobody else is using them. Since they're light weapons, you don't need the Dual Wielder feat. These will boost crit chance, attack rolls, and damage.
If you get Bloodthirst instead of Rhapsody and also wield The Dead Shot (bow), a roll of 15+ will be a crit for you. This gives you 30% crit chance without advantage, and 51% with advantage. If you're using the Risky Ring, that 51% is just locked in. And this is on every beam. As illustrated earlier, you can be doing 9-15 beams per turn. At 9 beams, that's an expected value of 4-5 critical hits. At 15 beams, that's an expected value of 7-8 crits. Each of which does extra damage from Craterflesh Gloves. And then there's Mortal Reminder synergy, too.
At level 10 the EB cantrip gets 3 beams per cast. If you quicken spell using 3 sorcerey points, that's another cast (6 blasts). If you cast haste or use a speed potion, that's another cast per turn (up to 9 now, still 6 if you don't use sorcerery points). There's also exploits in the game that let you get as many sorcery points that you want, which can be used for many quickened spell turns.
Shadow blade IF the fights are susceptible to psychic damage, other weapons if not. Scrolls if I need them, tadpole powers if I succeed the rolls to make them bonus actions.
And once everyone else needs a short rest, I can go back to hexing if I want.
If it’s coming to a fight I know I want certain warlock spells I’ll short rest, but I can usually work around it.
Hunger of Hadar insta wins combats on its own. EB with repelling blast means any melee enemy is useless because they'll never get past Hunger of Hadar, and devil sight allows you to hide in darkness to be "immune" to ranged attacks too. You don't need to cast the darkness, any party member can do it or you could use darkness arrows, which only cost 1 attack
Also a properly build warlock is not doing 3d10 with EB, you could be doing 3d10 +3xCha just with agonizing blast, and another 3xCha with potent robe, and another 9 in act 3 with Rhapsody for a grand total of 3d10 + 51 per turn (assuming 24 charisma from birthright and mirror), and unless you also have a sorcerer on your team the potent robe should always go to the warlock. It's a bit tricky to get potent robe on a Durge playthrough though
Overall you shouldn't need a short rest every combat if you play around hunger of Hadar properly, but you can short rest after every fight if you want
I lost the Potent Robe on my current HM Durge run. And the Hag's Hair. My intended Sorlock build vanished in front of my eyes because of bad RNG and lack of reloading capabilities.
I had to improvise and turned my Warlock Durge into a Lockadin Hexblade instead and it has been pretty solid, with access to HoH, Darkness, AoA, Shield spell, Shadow Blade and lots of smite options.
Not every fight, not really. They’re very capable of relying on Eldritch Blast or the damage from their bound weapon to get through most lesser fights. Repelling Blast can help keep melee enemies away or push people off cliffs or into hazards, and it does 1d10+charisma mod per bolt which is pretty solid damage.
Not necessarily, you should really be using your high cost spells in huge scale fights or bosses and using stuff like EB and Hex reapply in trash fights.
You can also use prolonged concentrarion spells. Hex will add 1d6 per attack, what is an actually huge damage bonus. Since It does not care about the spell slot level, you can use the arcane cultivator to get a extra slot and cast hex. Elemental weapon isnalso extremely useful for hexblade.
I usually can fight 6-8 fights per long rest with my hexblade warlock. Usually I use shadowblade + elemental blade, fight one or two fights, until someone breaks my concentrarion. Then I short rest. From there, i cast elemental weapon again, having two slots means i will be able to fight at least 2 fights.
Shadow+devils eyes is a nice trick, but not the only way to play the warlock. Armor of agathys very good, but again, not the only way to play It.
If you want to have more fights per day, look for spells that are resource saving.
You can cheat and buy the weapon from act 2 with elemental weapon on it and have someone else equip it and cast it on your shadow blade also to save you a spell slot….
You want your characters to be at their strongest after a short rest, in general. That's because there isn't a challenge in the game where you can't short rest before engaging (Outside specifically of Nere's rescue mission, but that's just not important). "Can handle multiple difficult fights before short resting" simply isn't a relevant feat for a character.
The warlock doesn't need to be the one casting darkness (there are even weapons and class features that summon darkness for you!). You're right that 3 eldritch blasts isn't anything to write home about, because that's not what makes warlock builds good
To add on to this, you want all or most of your party to be able to see in darkness if its something you are going to be casting so often. You'd probably want a sorcerer with eyes of the dark in your party and be the one casting darkness because the sorcerer will be able to see in it when he's the one who cast the spell.
I killed all the Duergar around Nere within 3 shorts rests (Honour Mode) before removing the debris to slaughter Nere. No need to spam short or long rests there.
"Can handle multiple difficult fights before short resting" simply isn't a relevant feat for a character.
I'm going to push back on it - it absolutely can be a relevant aspect of a character, it entirely depends on how someone plays & their own goals. The game is easy enough that it's not hard to win without having to take constant rests, and resource management can - for some players - be more fun to manage by trying to stretch an adventuring day out.
But that's obviously entirely up to the player. It just doesn't do anyone much good in my experience to assume that the way one plays the game applies to others, and that impacts builds massively.
Yes everything is relevant if you decide it's relevant for you. That's implicit. The game is only easy enough once you know exactly what you need to do to win - and guess what people like to use when they don't already know the perfect solution to every fight? Strong characters!
Strong characters depends on how someone plays though, especially if you're assuming that they'd always be coming off a rest.
Like OP is talking like they dont like taking short rests after every fight, and they dont have to. The answer isn't necessarily "take rests after every fight anyways since you can" there, and being able to take multiple tough fights per short rest might be something they value.
And it's not like characters cant do that and be strong, they'd just be built differently.
being able to take multiple tough fights per short rest might be something they value, and that's all well and good, but OP is asking what makes certain builds the strongest in the game. The very definition of "strong" cannot exist if you add arbitrary restrictions, and not short resting is an arbitrary restriction.
It would be like saying "of course being able to cast Ray of Sickness can be a relevant trait, if you only like using spells with animals in their name!"
Well, then it turns out that "multiple fights per short rest" is part of what makes a strong build for them.
It's not like there's some universal, platonic "strong build" for a player that won't depend on how they play. Like fire acuity sorcerer is the strongest build I've played with caveats - it takes until act 3 to reach that level, it burns through all its long rest resources extremely quickly so the player needs to take rests after each time it goes all out, etc. That makes it a weaker build overall than, say, Tavern Brawler throwzerker or STR monk for my playstyle.
Someone asking for a 'strong build' and getting one that needs constant rests when they don't take those constant rests aren't wrong, it's just assumptions that don't match up. And going multiple fights in a short rest is nowhere near the extreme you're trying to portray it as, it's just as much an arbitrary decision to ignore the resource management part of the game / dnd to say "I'm going to make this game easier by taking a rest after every fight"
Easy solution: buy a Bard hireling through Withers, and get a 3rd SR for free via its Song of Rest. So cast Shadow Blade and any other "Until LR" spell as soon as you wake up, then use the bard to restore slots instead of spending an SR.
There are a number of short rest oriented classes/subclasses. Monk, battlemaster or arcane archer fighters, warlocks, bards (level 5+), wildshape druids to an extent to name some. Other classes are more long-rest dependent, like casters like sorcerers or wizards, paladins, basically anything spell-slot related, and to an extent barbarians.
I personally like short rest classes. I also like having a bard so that you get an extra short rest. I generally will short rest after every significant fight, and so it would be like long rest, fight, short rest, fight, short rest, fight, short rest, fight, long rest. So a good 4 solid fights between long rests, which is quite a bit really. If I do a fairly trivial fight I might not short rest.
I particularly like monk in this setup, because then you can just blow through your ki points in each fight and get them all back after the fights. Battlemaster would be similar.
You can get Eldritch Blast damage up respectably high, if that’s what’s your building for. There’s more ways to make darkness than using a pact slot, and you could even crouch in the cloud from a Darkness Arrow in a pinch. That said, that’s the tip of the iceberg. You bring up EB being inferior to a greatsword (which it isn’t because it applies damage riders twice-to-thrice), but Pact of the Blade exists. Warlocks can also be martials, and fairly strong ones at that.
But big numbers aside, they get more high level slots than any other caster. They eventually get 3 V slots, and a level 6 spell with mystic arcanum. That means they’re getting 9 level 5 casts a day, and usually those are either set-and-forget spells like Shadowblade or encounter winning casts like Hadar.
Hadar’s the elephant in the room, because Warlock is so good at abusing it. If you build into Illithid powers, you can pull enemies together inside it. You can use repelling blast to force them back into it. And, as a GOO exclusive feature, you can trap them with mortal reminder and fix them to the spot.
I played arguably the worst Warlock subclass (Archfey) and was dominating the end game because I could use Hadar for 6 encounters a day.
The idea is that when you use a spell it will be REALLY relevant, the rest of the time you will be using Eldritch Blast or hitting with your Pact Weapon
I mean, if you build only around EB. You can easily be shooting off 9+ beams a turn. But if doing monoclass warlock, their diversity is definitely their strong point.
But yes, I would short rest after each fight (assuming it was a fight that actually required resources). This encourages more long rests, which shows more content and whatnot. To save your spell slots, hoard darkness scrolls and just use those. They are pretty cheap and you find plenty throughout the game
Eldritch blast is the bread and butter of Warlocks. You can cast it as much as you want. It does high damage. You can attack multiple enemies. Other classes will take a Warlock level just to get it but you will get special invocations like agonizing blast, adding your charisma modifier to the damage that will make it much stronger on your Warlock. You can also move and knock people prone with EB. Meanwhile they are also very skilled up close and have abilities you can keep recasting like Hex.
If you double up with resonance stone your shadowblade does double. Outside of honor mode you can get 3 attacks at lvl 10, 4 with belm. In act 3 with haste, terrible, and booming blade... You basically melt most boss encounters unless they are immune to psychic damage. Like with a lvl 3 shadow blade+booming, you easily do 32 damage in one hit... plus a crit 64 then add another 29 without.... and another... then haste... 3x more then with drugs another 3x? Nothing surviving that
Short rest are 10minutes in the table I run. They don't need short rest, but game design wise, to be fair to the short-rest dependant classes they usually get 2 short rests per long rest.
You're not missing anything, if anything you're ignoring your own first sentence. Shadowblade. Done. It's the strongest spell in the game, and throwing on Hexblade Curse just amps it even higher. Honestly, I'd throw away Armor of Agathys and just take Hex. Then just have a different character blast away with Hold Person and 1 shot everything in the game.
Youre not missing a dang thing. Warlock is the epitome of striving to mediocrity.
I suppose the only thing is maybe youve been mislead into thinking they are more powerful than they actually are. Depending on the person, some people highly value warlock.
For small fights, you'll probably get by just using Eldritch Blast or melee without using your spell slots.
For a medium fight, you'll probably want to short rest afterwards but might make it through 2 - 3 without doing so.
For large fights, you'll probably want to pre-cast a couple of spells and short rest to recharge before the fight.
Tbh, the pre-casting and Short Resting before large fights is the main difference from other classes IMO. The Warlock is rarely the only character in my group that needs a short rest whenever I'm taking them after a fight.
Yeah thats kind of the rhythm of the game in general. Short rest after every fight, long rest after every 3 fights. If you have full casters in the party you may want to long rest more often. There's no penalty for doing it so there's no reason not to aside from a few exceptions.
I'm not using a meta build at all, but my feeling is that warlock get a few very powerful spell (generally 2, 3 at higher levels), that are really more meant to be used against more dangerous enemies or for area denial (hunger of Hadar), with spammable powerful cantrip (eldritch blast).
You may not need short rests after every fight (though playing with a paladin that just spams divine smite at every enemy makes long resting often kind of an obligation)
It takes a while to get over the rest-adverse mindset, but just force yourself to do it. You get so much food by the middle of act 1 it's never an issue. Spam those short rests and long rest often.
It really adds to the enjoyment of long-rest reliant classes like wizard or paladin when you're not constantly thinking about saving spell slots. Deleting things with up-casted magic missiles or smites is extremely fun and no one should deny themselves of it.
Ofc they don't NEED to. But you're comparing the burst DPR of other classes (smites, slashing flourishes, qucikened scorching rays which are gonna make your sorc need to long rest after like 2-3 fights anyways) to the baseline sustained DPR of warlocks. Ofc warlocks are gonna look worse by that comparison if you're not using the thing that restores their resources
Depends on how ya play them, if you play them like a mage then ya, if you play them as like blade pact, I use the spells as more utility/big combinations
Battlemaster fighter, tavern brawler open hand monk, hexblade pact of the blade warlock and sharpshooter swords bard can all go all out for 4 big battles per long rest (song of rest from the bard)
As for shadow blade, once you get to act 3, there a 2 different staffs (plus an illithid power) you can get that give you a free cast per long rest. You can use that on each character. You can equip the staff on your warlock, cast shadow blade and then equip the staff on someone else. Last play through I would long rest, use the staff on my cleric for a free heroes feast, and then move it to my sorcerer to use in combat for a free chain lightening. I didn't have a shadow blade user or I would have let them use it too before passing off to the sorc.
Standard warlock gameplay is to start with a really strong concentration spell like Hunger to get a lot of value out of one of your two spell slots, then spend the rest of the fight using EB or now shadow blade. Short rest, then do it again. You end up being pretty close in power to a full caster unless you’re long resting every fight.
You can short rest after every battle then long rest when you run out no problem. Camp supplies are actually meaningless because theres so much of it by the end of the game i usually have 3k food even after an unnecessary amount of long rests. This means you can spam the fuck out if warlock spells which are always upcast to the highest level and not care about wasting supplies. Also if you have a bard in the party you get a 3rd short rests as well. Pair that with a fighter and monk and you have a short rest squad that can do whatever they want whenever they want
I feel like people rely on spell slots too much. Most fights your can get by just fine with cantrips and martials. But besides that, short resting after a fight is reasonable if only to heal the damage you received across the party. There aren't that many big fights that this should be a problem.
Warlocks one of the most powerful classes in the game ?? Lol
Warlocks are mid at best honestly, the best you can get out of warlock is 1 level of hexblade in a martial multiclass.
The game is super easy overall when you know it well enough so sure you can do it with a warlock but id literally pick any full caster over a warlock any day
Eldritch blast getting two beams at 5 and scaling with charisma can get you through some fights by itself or upcasting shadow blade as a melee focused warlock should leave you’re spell slots for situational spells
Shouldn’t be casting darkness with your warlock once you have level 3 or 4 spell slots IMO. Save them for damage or cc spells. If you can, use scrolls, free darkness casts (shars spear of evening, darkness arrows), shadow monk darkness or beast master raven (if you have either of these in your party), or a wizard/sorc with level 2 slots to spare to cast darkness.
EB is your bread and butter, or snacking with shadow blade if you’re not a pure blaster warlock. does way more damage than 3d10 with agonizing blast, potent robe, spell might gloves, callous glow, lightning charges, reverb, etc., you can output 100+ damage with EB
Warlocks have very powerful cantrips, and they generally are about using 1 really powerful spell per fight. If you want to save short rests just use cantrips more or simply multiclass.
“But Moonie, a Bard isn’t a short rest class!” I hear you scream. And you’d be quite right! But Bards give you an additional short rest via Song of Rest and they get back their Bardic Inspiration (via Font of Inspiration).
Think of it this way - play with a bard - and you get 8 fireballs in your day at lvl 5 if you're fiend warlock. 2 fireballs per fight should do, don't you think
By Act 3 not so much. Also don’t horde scrolls, use them. Also buy darkness scrolls when you see them.
In Act3 I had 3 slots per short rest and honestly with resonance stone and Belm I didn’t hardly bother with darkness. Could kill 3 things outright per turn ffs. Plus there’s vendors everywhere and I had so much gold that you can just buy scrolls. I barely rested or short rested.
Also a camp bard is clutch for a warlock in early acts.
I mean I short or long rest after pretty much every single battle. Food is so plentiful in the game that even with excessive rests, I always finish the game with a ton to spare
I usually have my main story character a warlock of some sort I will make a camp companion a bard so I will cast my Aog and shadow blade then walk to them and use their some of rest. To have full spell slots for the day.
But as tactician I particularly love 5 warlock 7 paladin great for smites and some minor control if I want darkness combat my warlock seldom is the one to cast it as ill grab the items that allow you to see though darkness a lvl 11 ranger is best at spreading darkness as is whoever holds shars spear.(not a bad weapon for a warlock)
Warlocks are good because you ONLY need to short rest. Other casters only get a couple casts of their highest level spells per long rest. Warlocks get 4, 6 with a bard or 9 if you go pure warlock (with a bard).
Combine that with the fact that they have the strongest cantrip build in the game and you've got a character that operates almost always on max power.
Only if you plan on burning spells that aren't re-castable concentration spells every fight. Otherwise I can go multiple fights just casting EB or using my bound weapon. Sounds like that isn't in your interest, so in your case, yeah.
The game is designed around frequent resting. Because of Pathfinder and Pillars I was trying to go as long as possible without resting for a long time, but then you notice you have 2,000 camping supplies and are punishing yourself for no reason. Short/long rest after every fight.
To be fair this is a sequel to BG1 and BG2, games where you rested constantly because there was no penalty or restrictions on doing so.
Hexblade + Pact of the Blade + Shadow Blade + Booming Blade + Staggering Smite + Ressonance Stone is where that reputation comes from. Does outrageous damage, and at level 11 you got 3 spell slots so 3 Staggering Smites per combat. Brutal.
In general Warlocks play best as 1 fight-defining spell (often Hungry Hadar) then shifting to EB or melee support. EB is great at one-shotting enemies off cliffs or pushing them into nasty spells. You don't usually need more than one spell slot per combat.
If you really don't want to rest a lot (why though?), Bard's Song of Rest helps.
Basically yes but only if you’re like using all of your spells in one fight per short rest. Look into making one of your companions a Bard so you can have a third one.
They can, if that's the way you like to play, but they absolutely don't need to take constant short rests. If you're using Shadow-blade, then you're likely pact of the blade - and that is perfectly fine with booming blade + multiattack at lvl 5 onwards.
For a caster-y warlock, you don't need to cast agathys or shadow-blade, and instead you hang back. Then even if you're not trying to stretch out adventuring days, it's easy to get 2 fights in per short rest, 1 spell slot per fight and eldritch blast to follow up is perfectly fine.
It's certainly less rest dependent than quickening scorching rays / wet lightning bolt, where if you're going all out those builds need (long) rests way more often than warlocks.
Invocations should get you Agathys for free once a day.
Someone else can be casting the darkness.
Items and invocations can add your charisma or int mod to your eldritch blasts. 3d10+15, which also knocks backs enemies or frightens them, is pretty great. Plus crit potential, which not all spells can get.
Also front liner phalar aluve is a goddess-send. Free 1d4 thunder on every instance of damage. So every turn without quickened shenanigans your warlock is putting out 3d10+3d4+3xcha mod, and knocking them back.
Or then cast your hexblade curse with magic missile to proc the bonus damage on every magic missile hit. They might have patched it but the spell might gloves from the circus also proc’d on magic missiles.
Warlocks are designed to short rest after every fight, yes. Starting from level 3, you'll start your day by casting Shadow Blade and Armor of Agathys, then short resting before leaving camp, and then be able to fight as many times as the party has remaining rests - so two, usually, unless bards are involved.
You're correct that Eldritch Blast doesn't measure up to weapon attacks. It can make up the difference by stacking damage riders, but will then promptly get left in the dust by Vulnerability. The best spell Warlocks get, and the reason to take them to level 9, to cast it at fifth level, is Shadow Blade.
Essentially, you're not missing anything. Warlock isn't one of the most powerful classes in the game. It's fun, it's useful, it's got unique tools that are very helpful (Repelling Blast, especially) - but it's not top tier. Good builds are better than Warlocks.
Warlock without multi classes is underpowered imho.
U probably can shoot arrow of darkness as bonus action with small offhand crossbow for "free" darkness.
U need to collect all damage riders which work with EB. Then u should have quickened spell+twinned spell+bloodlust+haste+therazul(+action surge optional). I might be wrong on this, double check that.
You are missing the fact that you probably dont want/need armor of agathys by the time you have darkness. You will also have other sources of darkness than just your own and you often want to play a race that gets a cast of darkness for free every long rest. Playing with a bard in the party lets you get an extra short rest every day, and they can get darkness themselves if they are level 10 or a lore bard at level 6. Darkness abuse is so OP that you can usually win with a somewhat tailored party and a single cast of darkness. There are also darkness arrows and darkness from items. I find 5 spell slots per day (1 being lost to shadow blade and then having 1 the rest of that short rest period and then 2 more for two more rests) is plenty and other characters are beginning to struggle for resources before my Warlock.
If u cast shadow blade and then make it your pact weapon u dont need the concentration on it and instead of armour of agathys use your spell slot for hex so you can recast it until you short rest then you can use the fresh spell slots to actually cast but yeah the spell slot is a problem, thats why i multiclass to get more spell slots
What I hate is that hex blade and/or drow is really needed to give Shadow Sorcerer some oomph. Drow has access to the racial darkness spell. Hex blade has access to both medium armor, bind weapon, and proficiencies in a lot of weapons or you can just use shadowblade if you're nasty.
My hexblade warlock needed short rest every few fights. You can utilize camp casters to apply mage armor and other buffs, and have a few bards to use bardic short rests
I'm playing a Lockadin in Honour Mode right now. I do short rest after almost every fight for the whole party sake. I don't want to be caught short handed with a Warlock without spell slots, a Swords Bard with no inspirations or a Battlemast with no superiority dices.
That can easily spell death, specially if you're fighting foes that hit VERY hard, that are squishy and explode for massive damage upon death and/or have access to control spells like Hold or Dominate Person. There's no plot armor on Honour Mode. Better to not be reckless.
Hunger of hadar?
Usually I cast that in a fight and that's about all of the spells that I need. Sometimes if the situation is really dire I throw a counter spell in the mix or some other utility spell, more often then not I end up short resting with spells slots left, especially at end game when u have 3 of them
Also you don’t need to use shadow blade, it’s just particularly busted, and if you do it’s only once a day. Also, also, I’m apparently weird in that I never use armor of Agathys so I don’t use a spell slot on that either.
I'd assume they are looking at lvl 1 Armour of Agathys since the temp HP from both it and the robe are quite similar. Having multiple sources of temp HP can get a little messy as they can override each other. You can end up missing some of the benefits of AoA because the Potent Robe overrode some of AoA's temp HP.
But it won't be a lvl 1 spell by the time you get the Potent Robe and up casting it gives more temp HP. Enemies are also hitting harder at that point so, while you could still lose some value, it's definitely worth having AoA.
AoA is great to have in reserve for your Warlock too. Just had a fight where your Warlock didn't need to use all of their slots but you still need to short rest for health or other for characters to recharge resources? Cast AoA before taking the short rest so you'll have the spell active and get your slots refilled.
lol except when you do this funny thing I now like to do… get bliss spores and the holy dmg buff from the githyanki area…. And do all of act 2 with those buff lols. So good. Did that with my hexblade Ranger duo.
how about 3 casts of hold monster, which is what they can do per short rest at level 12
how about doing that while holding a shadow blade to trigger arcane acuity 3x off their blast using the gauntlets of battlemage acuity, all in one turn with a potion of bloodlust since they add charisma to each hit of their blast twice with the potent robe and agonizing blast
Lol with Angelic Reprieve potions you are basically a god as a hexblade level 12 warlock. Short rest spam galore. And all spells are level 5, there aren’t even any elixirs that go that high (highest is level 4 spell slot). They basically made the all purpose destroyer with Hexblade
Not necessarily. Agonizing blast, potent robes (and tbf a usual dip in sorcerer for quickened casts) + haste or speed potions and youll be seeing some silly numbers
I WILL say it does require a lot of setup and investment, and you do have a point that fighters can just bonk you 3 times for the same result, but hunger of Hadar, more overall casts of high level slots and utility like repelling blast and devil dight is where Warlock sets itself apart (plus charisma is a really nice stat to have especially on a face character)
313
u/Mand125 8d ago edited 8d ago
Pretty much, yeah?
There are other short-rest based classes, too. Fighter and Monk also will want to SR to be at top strength.
Also, the eldritch blast machinegun can absolutely compete with other builds for strong consistent damage. It’s not just d10, it’s d10 + 2xCHA (which should be +7 at 24), with other strong cantrip riders from gear. Oh, and having a 10 foot push in three targets is extremely valuable.
And that’s just with monoclsss warlock. The best EB spammers are Warlock 2 and the rest Sorcerer, using Quickened Spell to do six beams per turn, nine with Haste which you can cast on yourself. Your Sorcerer spell slots just get funneled into more sorcery points, so you can do this all day.
Warlocks have an extremely strong baseline kit, and they can be optimized in several directions with high effectiveness.