Complete Warlock Class Guide for DnD 5E

The Warlock is a full caster that trades the consistent spellcasting progression for only the biggest spells. However, their spells recharge on a short rest, and they pack a selection of at-will abilities and customization. Of the full casters, Warlocks tend to be the hardest to build, but simplest to play.

Eldritch Blast

The Warlock’s signature attack, eldritch blast, is not just the cantrip being hyped for at-will damage, nor is it "the only thing you have left because you ran out of spells”. It is a significant part of your tool kit, like Extra Attack is to a Ranger.

The staple eldritch blast invocations are Agonizing Blast and Repelling Blast. Agonizing Blast is a strong, no fuss option, putting your at-will damage contribution above lazy martials; but if damage isn’t what you’re too concerned about, this isn’t essential.

The real star of the show is Repelling Blast. This is a 10 foot push at practically no cost and offers no saving throw. As eldritch blast scales into multiple hits, this push can add up to 20 feet, then 30 feet, and finally, 40 feet (which can be split across multiple foes). At minimum, you can use this to push an enemy out of melee range of an ally, or push melee enemies back enough that they waste a turn running back. Combined with any hazardous terrain effect, such as from the map, from items like caltrops and ball bearings, or from your party dropping area spells – web, sleet storm, sickening radiance, and the likes, suddenly eldritch blast is no longer just a damaging cantrip, it’s an exciting and interactive value generator.

There are other ways you can customize this cantrip for your own synergy/combos, feel free to play around. Remember: eldritch blast will constantly get more interesting as your party acquires more options and interactions on the battlefield.

A Brand New Casting Experience

Among the classes of DnD, we have the martials who hit things and find ways to hit things better, spellcasters who prepare a repertoire of impactful spells and ration them out throughout the day, half-casters who fall somewhere in between and rely a bit more on their signature abilities. And then, we have the Warlock, with a distinct resource economy mixed with at-will options. You can be the most conservative character in the party in one situation, and the most lavish with your spell slots the next. The Warlock provides a rather refreshing gameplay pattern among the class options of 5e.

One of the most common complaints about Warlocks is how fast they run out of gas. At 5th level, a Wizard starts their day with 9 slots total, and can regain 3 levels of spells once. A Warlock is fixed to 2 per short rest until level 11.

So how many short rests would a Warlock need to “keep up”, in a 6-8 encounters day? One or two is enough. Realistically, you only need one spell per tough encounter, and if things go south you might put in the other slot to win that fight, or to escape, after which the group is already inclined to have a short rest anyways. Of course, many groups don’t run 6-8 encounters per day, but if they are not deathly allergic to resting, you should do fine. More common range is 4-6 encounters and one short rest, and shorter days featuring 2-3 encounters with a rest in between will still be fine. We do not recommend playing in combat-focused games that only do single encounter days.

In general, the encounter is either easy enough that there is no real threat to the party’s hit points and thus you do not need all the spell slots for it, or it is hard enough that the group already wants to rest to recover resources afterwards. As described in our resource management article, this style best fits the Resource Conservation approach, but might not be ideal for an Impact/Progression maximization approach if your game often runs single encounter day or is deathly afraid of short resting.

A Warlock’s game plan in a fight is fairly straightforward. If extra firepower is needed, pick a spell appropriate to the situation to cast, protect yourself and throw eldritch blast while you rake in all the value, and use subclass features as appropriate. Drop a hypnotic pattern to shut down half the encounter, have a sickening radiance to keep pushing foes into with Repelling Blast while denying space, summon greater demon to for a meaty body with some extra utilities, or a one and done synaptic static that applies a persistent debuff after softening up enemies.

At 5th level, normal full caster progression gives you two 3rd level slots, at 7th, one 4th level, and 9th, one 5th level. Until 11th level, Warlocks can do two of them per rest, and with just one rest, that’s four times the best spell of that level. In terms of power, Warlocks have power, and the big appeal is that when the day gets rough and more short rests are called, they can get even more to play with. Since you only pick a few staple spells for your highest level pact slot, you have extra room to pick up more situational spells.

Once you’ve reached level 11 and above, Mystic Arcanum is in line with the normal spellcasting progression for tier 3 and 4, albeit slightly more restrictive, and you will go back to picking best-in-slot options for 6th level spells and above.

Power Napping Problem Solver

The real utility of the Warlock lies in their boundless reservoir of solutions. You can use your biggest spells as many times as you need in a day, while other casters have a hard cap and still have to be frugal if they expect combat.

In downtime, you can use spells like suggestion, invisibility, remove curse, dispel magic, dimension door, dream, scrying, teleportation circle… with impunity.

In exploration and dungeons, you can spend your short rest recharge spell slots on the more costly options and then take a quick rest to get it back. Chasm to cross? Dimension door, or summon a Dybbuk with summon greater demon for at-will teleportation. Magical traps? Dispel magic, or summon a Babau with summon greater demon for at-will dispel. Ally got cursed? Found cursed magic items? Remove curse. The next room is full of melee bruisers? Cast fly on the archers and let them clean up. All it takes is a quick 1 hour “nap”, the same amount of time for the wizard to cast their find familiar ritual.

Up until about level 9, Warlocks are relatively tight on spell selection because they have to spend their new spell learned and swapped spell on picking the best spells for their highest level spell slot, while still keeping some 2nd, 3rd and 4th level spells that remain useful. But once they get 5th level spells and stop growing, they have many more spell preparations than they have slots, so they can afford more situational and utility spells for little opportunity cost.

Skills

As a Warlock, you get two skills from a list, which is the default for most classes. Because you have Charisma as a primary stat, you may struggle to fit in all the skills you want, especially if your other primary stat is Dexterity. Races that offer extra skills are very nice, as well as getting two useful skills from your background. Unfortunately, you will almost certainly not have room to take feats that boost your skills, and no patron gives you additional skills.

Class skills: Arcana, Deception, History, Intimidation, Investigation, Nature, and Religion.

The role of skills (other than Perception and Stealth) is not tangibly defined within 5e rules, so the utility of skills has significant table variation. Ultimately, the best skill proficiencies are the ones favored by the way your table plays and what fits your character concept.

Arcana tends to come up often when dealing with magical issues, or even for knowledge on magical creatures. Proficiency with Arcana is required to be able to scribe scrolls, so if your campaign has ample time for scroll scribing, this skill becomes much better. Deception and Intimidation are fairly commonly used Charisma based skills, and since you are Charisma based, you’ll be good at them too.

Roleplaying a Warlock

“Warlocks are seekers of the knowledge that lies hidden in the fabric of the multiverse. Through pacts made with mysterious beings of supernatural power, warlocks unlock magical effects both subtle and spectacular. Drawing on the ancient knowledge of beings such as fey nobles, demons, devils, hags, and alien entities of the Far Realm, warlocks piece together arcane secrets to bolster their own power. … Sometimes the relationship between warlock and patron is like that of a cleric and a deity … More often, though, the arrangement is similar to that between a master and an apprentice. The warlock learns and grows in power, at the cost of occasional services performed on the patron’s behalf.” – PHB, pg 105.

Similar to the Paladin, the Warlock often falls under quite a lot of scrutiny in how they ought to be played. Many believe that there must be an active patron of some kind, that they’re inherently some level of evil and will have caveats and demands that may cause you to lose access to your power. Being a Warlock is deemed in itself a heresy, forcing conflicts with other beliefs, themes, or even character options. It’s worth noting that Warlocks as presented are equal part contractually involved, and equal part knowledge seekers, hence the frequent discussion around making them INT-based rather than CHA.

At Tabletop Builds, flavor is free is one of our core tenets, and we believe that you should have a say in how your character’s relationship can play out. You can lean into the strict, contractual obligations of a pact, or make it about siphoning from the unknown workings of an otherworldly entity, a productive teacher-student relationship, or leave the pact to be a minor plot device to emphasize other aspects of the character’s story. The patron’s relationship can be as involved or absent as you decide, perhaps not even recognizing that there is a direct relationship. You can also rewrite the magical abilities as something else altogether, so long as they fit with the narrative of the world and the abilities themselves are unchanged. There is no such thing as a class power being balanced by its “roleplay restriction”, but the relationship with the patron can serve as narrative hooks that everyone at the table can engage with and enjoy.

In short

The Warlock is a full caster with many interesting customization options on top of their unique spellcasting mechanics. They are dynamic to build, and relatively straightforward to play effectively. A straight classed Warlock can easily reach Mid Op, will be effective throughout every tier of play, and won’t struggle in most parties. Warlock is a common element in characters even at the highest optimization levels, though usually only one or two levels of it. They struggle to survive on their own in High Op parties, but the Warlock’s short rest efficiency is a genuine power boon that might make it worth it for High Op parties to defend one, granted they raise their defenses as much as possible in order to not be one-shot.

Offense

Nova damage
Once 4th level spells become available, Warlocks are capable of boosting their damage contribution in a fight by casting the summon greater demon spell. This can be used to summon a Babau, or a Barlgura once 4th level Pact Slots are available, to provide solid damage in a fight. Summon greater demon has the option to immediately drop concentration so you can have the demon wreak havoc in the back lines while also contributing with another concentration spell. The Warlock and its subclasses also have access to several efficient area of effect damage spells that can allow them to output vast amounts of damage divided over multiple creatures on a short rest recharge.

At-will damage
With the Agonizing Blast Invocation, you can add your Charisma modifier to each beam of eldritch blast. This allows eldritch blast to become an adequate damaging option that scales exactly when it needs to, providing Warlocks with a means of contributing an acceptable amount of damage in a fight even when they are concentrating on another spell.

Once 5th level spells become available, Warlocks can noticeably increase their damage by making use of the danse macabre spell. This animates up to five skeletons that can add your Charisma modifier to their attacks and damage rolls. The hour-long duration allows this spell to be active for potentially multiple fights, meaning it’s best for the skeletons to attack with their shortbows at range if you want to maintain their survivability. Alternatively, handing them conjured magic stones will allow up to three skeletons to bypass resistance to non-magical piercing damage, increasing their damage.

Defense

Warlocks start with light armor, d8 hit dice, and Wisdom as their strong save, with centralized spellcasting (only the highest level slots). This gives you several ways to approach defense: Wisdom and Charisma save proficiency means you’ll be more resistant to debilitating crowd control effects. The lack of Constitution save means having at least one form of concentration protection is premium. This can be the Eldritch Mind invocation, Resilient: Constitution, War Caster, or to a lesser extent, Lucky. You only cast the biggest spells, you don’t want to drop concentration on them. Without any feats or multiclassing, the Warlock has weak AC, less than most other base classes that put in some effort. Even fitting in the common defensive options available to other spell casting classes, namely spells like shield, absorb elements, and silvery barbs, is difficult due to the unique mechanics of Pact Slots. As effective as these spells are, it is hard to justify spending the precious few 5th, 4th, 3rd, or even 2nd level spell slots you have available each short rest. However, being a full caster, and with their main Action (eldritch blast) having an effective range of 120 feet, you can more easily stay out of danger, behind cover, or in obscurement. If the game is more challenging, or you expect to be within line of fire often, the feat Moderately Armored will keep you comfortably protected. The Hexblade subclass gives the same defense boost. A Multiclass dip for Armor delays your spellcasting progression which is your main advantage over other casters, but if the levels line up well for a one-shot, it works seamlessly.

Control

Control spells
Once 3rd level spells become available, three staple control spells get added to the Warlock’s repertoire in hypnotic pattern, hunger of Hadar and fear. Despite these spells not giving any additional benefits for casting with higher level spell slots, they are still worth keeping around to be cast with 4th and even 5th level Pact Slots in the situations where they are the best spells to be cast in a fight.

Control features
With the Repelling Blast Invocation, eldritch blast becomes a useful at-will control Cantrip. With enough forced movement, an enemy limited to only melee options may have to resort to using their action to Dash rather than attacking. Repelling Blast also synergises well with control spells provided by other casting classes, such as web or sleet storm.

Support

In terms of support, Warlocks have some options, but they are not exceptional at it. Warlocks have no healing or reviving spells, barring certain subclasses. Warlock does have access to some nice buff spells such as fly and invisibilty and upcasting them to hit more party members can be useful; but a number of other buff spells have no effect when upcast, making them hard to justify using after a few levels. If the Warlock is multiclassed or otherwise has access to more spells outside the Warlock Spell List, then the Warlock can buff the party with something long lasting such as gift of alacrity, then short rest and regain their spell slots for a lot of value.

Out of combat, the Warlock can cast utility spells with abandon, since they can then just short rest to get it back, but Warlocks don’t learn many spells and aren’t naturally ritual casters. A few invocations like Mask of Many Faces allow a warlock to cast a utility spell at will, but oftentimes this is not notably better than just spending a single spell slot when it’s relevant.

Ability Score Priority

Charisma > Constitution > Dexterity > Wisdom > Strength=Intelligence

Charisma is recommended to be at 16 or 17, because it governs your spell save DC and spell attack bonus, bonus damage with Agonizing Blast, and bonuses to several subclass features.

Constitution governs your Hit Points, and the amount you heal from Hit Dice. Constitution saving throws are quite common and often devastating to fail, and they’re also used for Concentration saves, which are highly important for you as a spellcaster, and even more so for a Warlock to get value from their “big gun” spells. A minimum of 14 is recommended for the Constitution score.

Dexterity governs your bonus to hit and to damage with finesse and ranged weapons, your Initiative, your Armor Class in Light or Medium Armor, and multiple useful skills. Dexterity saving throws are common, mainly on generic damaging effects. If you do not expect to gain medium armor proficiency, starting with a 16 is a good idea, otherwise 14 will suffice.

Wisdom governs many different skills, including the most important skill in the game, Perception. Wisdom saving throws are both common and very important. Wisdom is a very nice ability score to have, but it isn’t the most necessary, especially since you already have Wisdom saving throw proficiency. You’ll often end up with a 10 here, but if you can manage a 12 or higher without harming your more important stats, that will be nice.

Strength governs your bonus to hit and to damage with most melee weapons, is required to wear Heavy Armor without suffering a movement penalty, and is used for the Athletics skill. Strength saving throws are seen relatively often mainly to avoid being moved or fall prone, but such effects tend to concern (melee) martials more than you. Since these areas are of little concern to a Warlock, a Strength score of 8 is recommended unless you have multiclassed in order to acquire heavy armor proficiency.

Intelligence governs many different skills. Intelligence saving throws are extremely rare, though most of the effects that do use them are devastating to fail (such as feeblemind). Unfortunately, you simply do not have room for a good score here, and almost every Warlock build will end up with 8 Intelligence.

Example Point-Buy Stat Spreads

“The Standard +2/+1” 8 Str, 15+1 Dex, 14 Con, 8 Int, 12 Wis, 14+2 Cha

This should be your default stat spread for Warlock. Taking this with a typical +2, +1 race allows for a 16 in Dexterity and Charisma.

“The Custom Lineage” 8 Str, 13+1 Dex, 15 Con, 8 Int, 12 Wis, 15+2 Cha

For Custom Lineage, a straight Warlock can more comfortably afford to get the Moderately Armored feat, allowing them to start with a 13+1 Dexterity and put the +2 in Charisma, then later pick up a Charisma half feat and Resilient Constitution to round the odd scores up.

“The Variant Human” 8 Str, 13+1 Dex, 15+1 Con, 8 Int, 12 Wis, 15+1 Cha

Much like the Custom Lineage, Variant Human also allows for the Moderately Armored feat, and can immediately round out Constitution and Charisma, leaving you with some alternative feat choices later down the line. Having a 16 Constitution from level 1 is a nice benefit here.

Your first couple of invocation choices can be very tight, but once the staple invocations are locked in, you can afford to go for the more situational ones. Your choice of Pact Boon might also come with some standout invocation options, but they will still have to compete with the eldritch blast package.

With the release of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, racial modifiers are now normalized floating racial ability score modifiers during character creation, making the choice of race no longer dependent on their ability scores. We have subsequently created a full list of every race and how we rank them, which you can find here. Below, however, are races that interact differently with the Warlock, or where Warlock is a particularly interesting option for that race with an explanation as to why that is. Note that this is not a list of the best races for Warlock, use the full race guide to see the best races in general. This is just a list of the races that have some interesting synergy with Warlock.

There are a ton of feats, only some of which you should consider taking. If something is not on the list, assume it’s generally not worth taking. Refer to our class-agnostic feat guide for more information.

Warlock is a very popular class for multiclassing, but mostly as a “dip” for other classes. If you are willing to multiclass, it is often hard to justify taking Warlock levels over more levels in a class you’re dipping into. That being said, multiclassing as a Warlock can grant certain benefits. Refer to our Guide to Optimized Multiclassing for more detailed information.

As a one or two level dip, Warlock is very powerful. A single level grants access to eldritch blast – arguably the best offensive cantrip and some potentially powerful subclass features. Most notably, Hexblade gives medium armor, shield proficiency, Hexblade’s Curse, the shield spell, and the ability to use Charisma for weapon attacks. Other subclasses can be quite useful too, for example Undead’s Form of Dread adds some powerful control and scales off Proficiency Bonus. All Warlocks also grant light armor proficiency, which isn’t useful by itself, but enables you to pick up the Moderately Armored feat if you are a Wizard or Sorcerer.

For a second level, Warlock gives a second spell slot which is regained on a short rest, which makes low level spells like shield and absorb element a lot more spammable. You also gain invocations, which can really turn eldritch blast into a synergistic powerhouse. Other invocations like Devil’s Sight can be useful in parties which use darkness.

A third level turns the spell slots into 2nd level ones, which can be useful to cast some particularly potent spells like pass without trace and web, and also gives a Pact Boon, some of which, like Chain, don’t require much invocation investment to be good.

For the Warlock class whose stand-out strength is being able to cast the highest spell level more often than everyone, there is a lot of incentive to stay straight classed. Still, if you are looking for classes to dip into, Sorcerer isn’t a bad choice, subclasses like Divine Soul, Clockwork and Lunar Sorcerer give powerful abilities for a just a single level, and learning shield and getting a few extra spell slots shores up one of Warlock’s major weaknesses. Unfortunately, the Warlock will only gain 2 first level spell slots, which might not be enough castings of shield in difficult games. Like pretty much any caster, a level of Peace Cleric for Embolding Bond and medium armor proficiency is great, and level of fighter with defense fighting style will also improve your AC greatly.