While the design has tried to open up other options if you so choose, I really think that a pure-caster Warlock truly ought to go with Eldritch Blast. There's a reason why they make this cantrip so good and give it solely to a class that, for a spellcaster, is much more reliant on cantrips due to the limited nature of Pact Magic.
But they've also taken some steps to make a weapon-focused Warlock more viable in 5.5 (not counting the way that the Hexblade subclass already solved a lot of these issues in Xanathar's). The question, though, that I've always had is this: is going Bladelock actually worth it?
First, I want to touch on raw damage:
Eldritch Blast does a d10 of Force damage, the most reliable damage type in the game, and unlike Fire Bolt, which is also a d10 cantrip, it splits the damage into multiple blasts at each tier of play. In a vacuum, this doesn't actually change anything other than kind of smoothing out hits and misses and crits. But quite early on in a Warlock's career, they can get various things that make this a pretty important element: Agonizing Blast allows you to add your Charisma modifier to the damage of Eldritch Blast, or of a chosen alternative cantrip. But if we were to put this on, say, Mind Sliver, we'd still only be adding that Charisma modifier once even if we've upgraded to 4d6 damage from the cantrip at level 17. Eldritch Blast, though, multiplies this benefit across its multiple beams from level 5 onward. The same is true for the Hex spell, which adds a d6 of Necrotic damage to each individual hit.
The upshot of this is that Eldritch Blast actually winds up working more like a martial character's weapon attacks. I believe the Heavy Crossbow has the Push mastery, so a Fighter using that (and Crossbow Expert to actually benefit from extra attack) is going to be hitting for 1d10+Dex and pushing a target back 10 feet with each hit, while a Warlock with Agonizing Blast and Repelling Blast is going to be doing 1d10+Cha and pushing a target back 10 feet with each hit. At level 5, that's going to be twice, and then at level 11, both will be hitting three times.
Now, a d10 is among the highest native damage dice for a weapon type - only d12 weapons (Muskets and Greataxes) and 2d6 weapons (Greatswords and Mauls) do more (until we get into the Modern/Futuristic Firearms, which are not considered standard equipment).
In other words, at this basic level, Eldritch Blast is quite good. So, what are the advantages of going Pact of the Blade?
Initially, there's a bit of a limitation with Pact of the Blade, because it's limited to melee weapons. That said, if you get your hands on a magical ranged weapon, it will also work with it as well. Thus, a Warlock could use a Repeating Heavy Crossbow just fine.
In 5.0, though, leaning into a Blade Pact presented a challenge, because it didn't change the ability modifier you used with the weapon. Essentially, you were opting into being Multi-Ability-Score-Dependent (or MAD) or just letting Charisma stagnate and just picking spells that weren't reliant on a good spell save DC or attack bonus. There are such spells, to be clear, and I'd generally recommend that with a lot of magic/melee hybrids that you try to pick spells that don't really need a high spellcasting ability (my Eldritch Knight used Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade, and Shield as his primary spells, none of which care what your Intelligence is).
One of the (several) things that made the Hexblade patron (consider Ebonbane or Nepenthe, two evil sword Darklords, as patrons!) so popular especially for Bladelocks was that it allowed you to use Charisma to attack with your Hex Weapon, as well as any weapons you had bonded to with Pact of the Blade, so you could simply worry about having enough Dexterity to max out your Medium Armor (another huge benefit the subclass gave) and then just focus on Charisma.
But this brings us back to the question: is a weapon really better than Eldritch Blast?
The answer is... it can be.
Let's again address raw damage: if you take a Greataxe, Maul, or Greatsword (or a magical Musket), the damage is going to be a little higher than Eldritch Blast. Each hit with a Greataxe is going to do on average 1 higher damage from the dice than Eldritch Blast, and the 2d6 weapons are going to hit for 1.5 higher damage.
Next, there's the issue of magical damage boosts: spellcasters can get Wands of the War Mage, or for Warlocks specifically you can get Rod of the Pact Keeper, which give you a bonus to attack rolls (and for the Rod, also spell save DCs) from 1 to 3. However, these don't add to the damage of your spells. Thus, a Blastlock using a +2 Rod of the Pact Keeper is still only going to hit for 1d10+Cha with their Eldritch Blast hits (again, we're always assuming you get Agonizing Blast, probably right away at level 2). By contrast, a Bladelock with a +2 Greatsword is going to be hitting for 2d6+2+Cha with each hit. At 5 Charisma, that's an average of 10.5 versus 14. Likewise, if you can get your hands on a Vicious or Flametongue weapon, this starts to really take off quite a bit.
Now, concentration spells are, I think, a bit of a wash: if we assume a Bladelock is taking Thirsting Blade at 5 and Devouring Blade at 11, the number of attacks they get to make keeps pace with Eldritch Blast. Also, most spells that increase the damage of Eldritch Blast, like Hex or Spirit Shroud, will also increase the damage done by a Pact Weapon, so that's a wash as well. This does fall off at level 17 - here, Eldritch Blast starts to shoot 4 beams, while there's no Eldritch Invocation to get four attacks with our weapons (which would really step on the toes of Fighters' capstone).
However, we also need to talk about Feats. Martial characters have a number of good feats that they can take to significantly increase the damage they deal. The most powerful of these, according to math I did back when the 2024 PHB came out, is Great Weapon Master, which allows you to add your Proficiency bonus to the damage of heavy weapons when you take the Attack Action, as well as letting you get an extra bonus action attack if you either crit or take an enemy down (the latter of which is harder to calculate because it's very situational). Still, the PB bonus both scales as you level up and also scales with the number of attacks you can do, is pretty great for a Warlock who is eventually going to get 3 attacks per Attack Action.
Eldritch Blast is going to basically cap out in damage with four beams that hit for 1d10+5 (again, ignoring spells and such that boost our damage). That's 42 damage on average. A Bladelock using a Greatsword will cap out at three attacks, but those attacks with just a +1 Weapon and Great Weapon Master, will be doing 2d6+1+5+6 at level 17, or 19 damage per hit, meaning 57 damage. Add on, say, a 5th level Spirit Shroud doing 2d8 extra damage on each of those, and you're adding in 36 for the Blastlock (though they have to be pretty close to the target) versus 27 for the Bladelock, which gives Blastlocks 78 versus Bladelocks getting 84.
So, I think we can say pretty confidently that, at least if we're just doing straightforward damage-dealing and damage-boosting, Bladelocks are going to have the edge.
Another thing to note here is that a Bladelock can still pretty easily pick up Eldritch Blast and even fit in Agonizing Blast among the Invocations (they'll have a couple to pick at early levels before they can get Thristing Blade). So a Bladelock can still largely play like a Blastlock as well.
Does that mean everyone should go Bladelock, then?
Naturally, you don't need to play everything perfectly optimized. Indeed, sometimes I wonder if doing math like this is a curse, revealing knowledge that I'd rather not have because I think it's generally best to build a character in this game around the story of the character. I actually appreciate efforts by games like Draw Steel to sort of "auto-optimize" your character so you can just pick the thematic options (though I also have less of a sense of how actually balanced the game is, even if it seems pretty balanced from the outside).
But if you're hoping to maximize your damage output, yeah, probably. But let's talk pitfalls:
One of the big weaknesses that a Warlock has is that you only get Light Armor. If you're a ranged character, this isn't that much of a big deal: threats from range tend to be based on saving throws rather than attack rolls (though not exclusively) and so having a low AC isn't really that much of a problem if you're staying out of melee range. Bladelocks don't have that luxury. Given that you probably don't want to do anything with your Dexterity until you've capped your Charisma, mundane Studded Leather is probably going to keep you at an AC of like 15 max for most of your adventuring career. In my experience, DMs are often hesitant to hand out magic armor, which maybe we should be more generous with - but even +3 Studded Leather is going to get you like 18 AC, which a level 1 Paladin can start out with.)
Next, if we do want to use Great Weapon Master, we're going to need a minimum of 13 Strength, which is just high enough to mean we can't really push Charisma, Dexterity, and Constitution all up to chunky levels. Polearm Master actually allows for you to push Dex, but unless you get that 13 Strength to use heavy melee weapons, you'll be limited to Quarterstaves and Spears, which, even two-handed are going to do less damage than Eldritch Blast (I honestly often forget that this feat works with those types of weapons).
Generally, my solution is to take a single-level of Fighter to start off with. This actually solves a ton of different problems for a Bladelock, giving you access to Heavy and Medium Armor, as well as Weapon Masteries, and even gives you proficiency in Con saves. I've had, for a while, a concept for an Undead Warlock whose patron is an entire chivalric order of Death Knights, and I think that's a concept that works particularly well for a Bladelock. But you pay the Multiclass tax there. It delays features, such as having to wait until level 6 for Thirsting Blade and level 12 for Devouring Blade, as well as delaying your higher-level spells (even if you instead multiclass with Paladin, the separate scaling of Spellcasting and Pact Magic means that you're still not getting those higher level spells or spell slots as soon).
But I think trying to pick up, say Heavily Armored and then Weapon Master on top of Great Weapon Master would be more of a burden than this single-level investment.
Essentially, if you want to straight-class a Warlock, there's very little friction for a Blastlock to go that route, while a Bladelock is going to need to plan things out a bit more carefully.
I will also say that when I did my "vs. Death Knight" simulation, I wasn't terribly impressed with the Bladelock's performance, though I do think it outdamaged my GOO-Blastlock (I also think I should start doing these simulations against creatures without legendary resistances, necrotic immunity, and such high ACs).
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