DnD 5e Warlock Eldritch Invocation Breakdown – RPGBOT (2024)

Introduction

Invocations offer a powerful way to customize your warlock, adding passive buffs, new features, new spellcasting options, and all manner of interesting effects. Selecting your invocations is as important as picking your patron, and knowing what options are available and how to use them is crucial if you want to succeed as a warlock.

While Eldritch Invocations are primarily a warlock class feature, they’re also available with the Eldritch Adept feat. Options available with Eldritch Adept are addressed below the main Invocations section.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Disclaimer
• Eldritch Invocations
  • Level 1
  • Level 3 (Requires Pact Boon)
  • Level 5
  • Level 7
  • Level 9
  • Level 12
  • Level 15
• The Eldritch Adept Feat

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.

• Red: Bad, useless options, or options whichare extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
• Orange: OK options, or useful optionsthat only apply in rare circ*mstances. Useful sometimes.
• Green: Good options. Useful often.
• Blue: Fantastic options, often essentialto the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.

The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows.

Eldritch Invocations

Invocations frequently have level prerequisites, and are organized below by level. Higher-level invocations aren’t necessarily better than low-level ones, so don’t feel compelled to choose the highest-level invocations that you can get at any given point.

Level 1

This invocations have no level requirement, so they’re available as soon as you can get them. While most warlocks can’t get an invocation until level 2, races which offer a feat at 1st level allow access to these invocations via the Eldritch Invocation feat.

• Agonizing Blast^PHB: Nearly every Warlock takes this. The damage is simply too good to passup. The damage grows multiplicatively as you get additional rays, so thetotal additional damage will range from +3 at low levels to a maximum +20 at17th level.
• Armor of Shadows^PHB: You already get light armor, and Mage Armor is only +1 AC over studdedleather. You don’t get enough invocations to justify wasting one on this.Hexblades might consider this to close the AC gap between light/medium andheavy armor, but I’m not convinced that this is better than multiclassing toget heavy armor proficiency.
• Beast Speech^PHB: Very situational.
• Beguiling Influence^PHB: Very helpful if you want to be a Face, but you already get Deception as aclass skill option, and you can pick up Persuasion from your background.
• Devil’s Sight^PHB: Darkvision can be an immense tactical advantage, but it’s negated by atorch. Devil’s Sight allows you to use magical darkness, including theDarkness spell, to gain a massive advantage over your foes. However, keep inmind that your allies may still struggle to fight in magical darkness sousing this option can often lead to selfish tactics which are frustratingfor your allies.

  Devil’s Sight notablydoesn’t affect how you see in dim light, so you can get into weird cases where you have trouble seeing thingsnear candles, and the right of dim light around many light sources(torches, etc.) creates a donut of mild inconvenience.

• Eldritch Mind^TCoE: Warlocks get very few spell slots, and many of their best spells requireConcentration. Advantage on saves to maintain Concentration is a massiveasset. Hexblades should consider the War Caster feat instead, but otherwarlocks will find that Eldritch Mind is sufficient.
• Eldritch Sight^PHB: Nearly every full spellcaster gets Detect Magic, and it can be cast as aritual. The only advantage you get with this is that it works faster thanspending 10 minutes to cast it as a Ritual.
• Eldritch Spear^PHB: 120 feet is usually enough for most encounters. If the encounter takesplace at greater range than that, you can always move closer.
• Eyes of the Rune Keeper^PHB: Pick up Book of Ancient Secrets or the Ritual Caster feat and castComprehend Languages.
• Fiendish Vigor^PHB: At a 1-hour duration and without requiring Concentration, you can castthis repeatedly until you roll the maximum hit points every time you have afew rounds to do so. Unless you’re sleeping, you should always have thisrunning. The amount of additional hit points is basically an additional hitdie, so this goes a long way to improve your durability, making this anexcellent option for hexblades and any other warlock planning to spend timein melee, but may not be as useful for other warlocks who spend their timefighting at range where they’re (relatively) safe. There are also moreeffective options like Inspiring Leader wich can provide larger pools of hittemporary hit points, so if you have room for those options you might takethis early in your career then retrain it to another Invocation.
• Gaze of Two Minds^PHB: Very situational. I can’t think of a time to use this repeatedly.
• Grasp of Hadar^XGtE: If you’re using Eldritch Blast enough to justify investing in it, yougenerally want to keep enemies away from you. However, the option to pullenemies closer may be helpful for your allies, and you may be able to usethis to keep enemies inside ongoing are effects like Hunger of Hadar.
• Lance of Lethargy^XGtE: A minor nuisance. Effects don’t stack with themselves, so you can’t usethis to repeatedly reduce the target’s speed. The best case I can think offor this is if you’re heavily reliant on area control spells like Hunger ofHadar or Sickening Radiance which rely on ongoing damage being applied overseveral rounds. In those cases, reducing creatures’ speed can help keepenemies in the area. Of course, you can accomplish the same thing by movingtargets with Grasp of Hadar or Repelling Blast, and since Repelling Blastcan work more than once per target they’re likely to be more effective.
• Mask of Many Faces^PHB: In a game involving stealth or intrigue the ability to disguise yourselfis a big advantage. The ability to do it at a moment’s notice at no costallows you to be anyone any time.
• Misty Visions^PHB: A clever player with a DM who is willing to play along can accomplish alot with even a basic illusion. A 15-foot cube is a huge amount of space,too. Place illusory walls, doors, statues, or other objects which creaturesdon’t expect to move or produce other stimuli like heat or smells, and inmany cases that’s just as good as creating something. If creatures don’trealize that your illusory wall is an illusion, they’re going to treat itlike a wall.
• Repelling Blast^PHB: This can be especially nice as you gain additional rays to keep enemieswell out of melee range, but it’s not always useful and at low levels the 10foot push won’t make a huge difference unless you’re using it to break agrapple.
• Thief of Five Fates^PHB: A passable debuff, but not worth a spell slot. At low levels it may notaffect enough creatures to be worth the spell slot and at high levels youshould be doing much more than just penalizing attacks if you’re going tospend one of your precious spell slots.

Level 3 (Requires Pact Boon)

These invocations don’t technically have a level requirement, but they require Pact Boon which is a 3rd-level feature, so there’s a practical level requirement.

• Aspect of the Moon^XGtE: (Pact of the Tome) If you really feel like you need this, you should have played an elf or a race that doesn’t sleep like the Warforged.Even then, the benefits here are extremely minor compared to most invocations.
• Book of Ancient Secrets^PHB: (Pact of the Tome) This is essentially the Ritual Caster feat. Theeffects of a feat for the cost of an invocation is pretty great, and sinceyou are your party’s Wizard-equivalent you might need to be able to accessimportant ritual spells like Detect Magic. It also replaces the need forseveral of the invocations which give you access to ritual spells, includingBeast Speech and Eyes of the Rune Keeper.
• Gift of the Ever-Living Ones^XGtE: (Pact of the Chain) This includes healing spells like Healing Word andCure Wounds, but it also includes Hit Dice rolled while resting. This isgood, especially if you take damage a lot, but you shouldn’t be drawingenough fire that this is important.
• Improved Pact Weapon^XGtE: (Pact of the Blade) In a campaign with no magic items, this could bereally great. Even if magic items are available, many magic weapons don’toffer +1 to attacks and damage, and any bonus to attack rolls is great. Theability to conjure longbows also means that melee warlocks can easily switchto ranged combat, and can entirely forgo Eldritch Blast and the invocationswhich warlocks typically spend to optimize it.
• Investment of the Chain Master^TCoE: (Pact of the Chain) Essentially required for Pact of the Chain. It’ssimply too good to forgo. Without this, your familiar is a slightly fancierpet than other familiars. Investment of the Chain Master turns it into apowerful ally.

  Weird advice: pick the swim speed. Every familiar worth having alreadyhas a way to get a fly speed of 40 ft. or greater.

• Rebuke of the Talisman^TCoE: (Pact of the Talisman) Most warlocks don’t have many good uses for theirReaction, so this is an interesting option. It also makes the decision aboutwho wears your talisman a bit more impactful. Sure, you can keep it onyourself and use this to push enemies away from you if they attack you. Butyou could also put it on a front line ally who’s going to be taking hitsconsistently, allowing you to to deal consistent, reliable damage withoutrisking your own safety. Keep in mind that the push effect is mandatory ifyou deal the damage, so your melee allies may get annoyed when you make themchase enemies, but you may also force enemies out of their own reach andnegate some of their attacks if they don’t have enough movement to get backinto position to attack.
• Voice of the Chain Master^PHB: (Pact of the Chain) Familiars make great scouts, so exploring dangerousplaces through your familiar is a great way to do things. It’s also helpfulfor communicating with other creatures at a safe distance. Take Investmentof the Chain Master first, but give this some consideration after that.

Level 5

• Cloak of Flies^XGtE: This remains in effect until you dismiss it, making it an excellent buffboth offensively and defensively. Melee warlocks can capitalize on this bydiving into groups of enemies and attempting to catch as many as possible inthe area. If enemies attempt to flee, take opportunity attacks, then chasethem down on the following turn. Against enemies that are especially hard tohit, force them into a corner, block their escape, stand next to them, andDodge. The damage is guaranteed and doesn’t allow a save, so against manyenemies you can stand still and wait for them to fall over. Still, Iwouldn’t take this on any warlock except the Hexblade, and Poison damage iscommonly resisted so you can’t always count on it to be effective.
• Eldritch Smite^XGtE: (Pact of the Blade) This is rarely worth a spell slot to activate. Thedamage is decent, but you can usually do a lot more by using that spell slotto cast a spell, even if the spell only does damage. Knocking enemies proneis tempting, but it also makes them hard for you to hit with ranged attacks,including Eldritch Blast. Your best bet is to reserve this for when youscore a critical hit, at which point you can choose to use Eldritch Smiteand double the damage dice.
• Far Scribe^TCoE: (Pact of the Tome) Very cool, but very situational. I love the way thatthis invocation works, but it’s just not very useful for most warlocks. YourDM could make this appealing by adding powerful NPCs to the pool ofcreatures with whom you can communicate, but that’s heavily dependent bothon your DM’s willingness to play along and on those NPCs being conscious,helpful, and willing to respond at any given point. If you’re repeatedlySending “You up?” to people at all hours of the night, they’re eventuallygoing to get sick of you.

  As a DM, I would consider adding the warlock’s patron to the list ofcreatures. That would be a really interesting way to provide semi-directinteraction with the Warlock’s patron, and it could give the DM a greatway to feed the players information or just generally mess with them.

• Gift of the Depths^XGtE: Only useful in aquatic campaigns, and if you’re in an aquatic campaignyou probably want the ability to function underwater much sooner than 5thlevel.
• Maddening Hex^XGtE: 5 damage as a Bonus Action to the target and targets of your choicewithin 5 feet. If you run Hex all day long, this will be constitent, nearlyfree damage during most rounds.
• Mire the Mind^PHB: Slow is a good spell, but it doesn’t scale with spell slot and you onlyget to use it once per day. Save your spell slots for more powerfuloptions.
• One with Shadows^PHB: Invisibility is extremely useful. Unfortunately, you need to remain inone place and not do anything to remain invisibile, but you can move, turninvisible until your next turn, then repeat.
• Sign of Ill Omen^PHB: Bestow Curse is a great single-target debuff with some challenges. Itonly affects one target and since you can only cast it once per day withSign of Ill Omen your best bet is to cast it on powerful single targets.However, it requires Concentration and allows a saving throw, so there’s agood chance that the target passes their save and your once-per-day BestowCurse is wasted. Even if it does work, you’re stuck Concentrating on it andunlike Hex you can’t move the effect between targets. Hex has some overlapwith Bestow Curse, providing a similar debuff to ability scores and asimilar damage buff, but Hex doesn’t allow the target a saving throw andallows you to move the spell between targets so you get considerably morebenefit from your tiny number of spell slots.
• Thirsting Blade^PHB: (Pact of the Blade) Crucial for Hexblades to keep pace with moreconventional melee characters who get Extra Attack at 5th level, but you maydo better with a melee cantrip like Booming Blade unless you’re also lookingat options like Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter. See my article onMelee Cantrips vs. Extra Attackfor a breakdown of the math comparing melee cantrip spells to normal martialattacks.
• Tomb of Levistus^XGtE: This is a great panic option, and at 10 temporary hit points per warlocklevel it should be able to absorb basically anything that hits you unlessyou’re fighting something with a CR well above your level. However, you’reincapacitated for the turn after you use this, which means you give up yourturn to use it. Unless your allies can come to your aid, that could be aserious problem. Because 5e’s death mechanics are so gentle, it may actuallybe safer to take the damage and fall unconscious, and have an ally heal youlater.
• Undying Servitude^TCoE: You get one skeleton or zombie, and not even a cool one. It’s a generichumanoid skeleton/zombie. CR 1/4. You can’t upcast the spell to get more ofthem since you’re not using a spell slot. I guess they could carry your lootor something? Set off traps? If you want a pet, go get a familiar. If youwant an undead warrior, cast Summon Undead. I honestly can’t explain whythey didn’t just add Animate Dead to the Warlock’s spell list.

Level 7

• Bewitching Whispers^PHB: Compulsion is a fun crowd-control effect, but it doesn’t scale with spellslot level, you only get to use it once per day, and it’s not effectiveenough to justify an Invocation.
• Dreadful Word^PHB: Confusion is an unreliable debuff in the best of cases. I would take Mirethe Mind over this any day of the week.
• Ghostly Gaze^XGtE: The ability to see through walls, even with limited range, is a hugebenefit for adventurers. Knowing what’s in the next room of a dungeon canoften turn a difficult fight into a cakewalk, or it might help you totallycircumvent a problematic encounter.
• Protection of the Talisman^TCoE: (Pact of the Talisman) Adds an average of +2.5 to a roll. It may be hardto figure out the DC of a save unless your DM is kind enough to tell you,unfortunately, so using this will often be a gamble. If you do figure outthe save DC, you can easily weigh how far you are from success when decidingwhether or not to spend the attempt. If you’re off by 1 or 2, definitely doit. If you’re off by 3, do it if the consequences for failure are severe(lots of damage, paralysis, etc.). If you’re off by 4, generally only rollif you’re desperate.
• Relentless Hex^XGtE: Potentially useful for melee warlocks. Your movement is typicallysufficient, but if an enemy is especially fast or there are barriers in theway you may find this situationally useful.
• Trickster’s Escape^XGtE: Situational. Freedom of Movement is occasionally great, but you don’t getenough Invocation options or to make this an easy choice, and the fact thatyou can only target yourself doesn’t help.
• Sculptor of Flesh^PHB: Even once per day, Polymorph is a fantastic single-target save-or-suckspell combined with a fantastic utility spell. Turn your enemies intoharmless animals, or turn yourself or an ally into something which allowsyou to escape, explore, or fight better. However, remember that the target’smental statistics change, so don’t go turning your allies into animals orthey might forget who they are temporarily.

Level 9

• Ascendant Step^PHB: Warlocks get access to Fly, but it’s hard to justify spending yourprecious few spell slots on a buff for yourself. Levitate gets you thebiggest benefit of flight (distance from the ground) at much lower cost.However, you still need to concentrate.
• Gift of the Protectors^TCoE: (Pact of the Tome) Imagine the Half-Orc’s Relentless Endurance trait, butshared between your entire party. While it won’t help you activelyaccomplish anything, this is a great support option that any party shouldwelcome.
• Minions of Chaos^PHB: There are summon spells on the Warlock’s spell list now, so this isobsolete.
• Otherworldly Leap^PHB: Jump is a 1st-level spell, and by this level you can cast Fly.
• Whispers of the Grave^PHB: Speak with Dead is one of my favorite divinations because it grants youeasy access to information which is otherwise lost forever. With the abilityto cast it at will with no cost means that you can interrogate every randommook you kill in your long, sordid career of murder-hoboing. But keep inmind that the target isn’t compelled to tell you anything helpful, so thisisn’t always reliable.

Level 12

• Bond of the Talisman^TCoE: (Pact of the Talisman) Teleporting as an Action is often hard to justifyin combat. The unlimited range is nice, but if you’re far enough from yourtalisman for that to matter you’re doing something very unusual.
• Lifedrinker^PHB: (Pact of the Blade) A must for Blade Warlocks. The bonus stacks with yourCharisma (for Hexblades) or Strength/Dexterity (for everyone else) todamage, so you’re going to have a very solid static damage bonus to yourattacks.

Level 15

• Chains of Carceri^PHB: (Pact of the Chain) Hold Monster is really good, but limiting the targetsto three specific creature types dramatically reduces how useful it is. Youdo get to use this at will, though, which is tempting. You can’t use it onthe same target until you complete a long rest, but if you’re facingcreatures of the right types you can use this several times in a day, makingit a go-to option similar to Eldritch Blast. But, again, it’s limited tojust three creature types.
• Master of Myriad Forms^PHB: If you want to disguise yourself, Mask of Many Faces has been availablefor a long time. By this level the natural weapons option is terrible, andthe aquatic adaptation option is too situation to make this worthwhile. Youmight choose to replace Mask of Many Faces with this since Alter Self’sChange Appearance options has some advantages over Disguise Self (it’s notan allusion), but remember that Alter Self requires Concentration so it’snot strictly better in every way.
• Shroud of Shadow^XGtE: If you have a free moment, you should turn invisible. The only times youshould be visible are when you’re talking to people or when you’ve brokeninvisibility.
• Visions of Distant Realms^PHB: Arcane Eye is one of my favorite scouting options, and the ability tocast it at will makes it even better. Never go into a room without knowingexacty what’s inside.
• Witch Sight^PHB: Invisibility is an illusion, and locating invisibile creatures isimportant for a class so dependent on ranged attacks. The 30-foot range is abig problem, unfortunately, and by this level you’ve had plenty of time tolearn how to handle invisible creatures with AOE spells like Hunger of Hadarand Sickening Radiance.

The Eldritch Adept Feat

For warlocks, Eldritch Adept gets you an extra invocation. While warlocks get several already, there are enough good options that one more could be very helpful. There’s also the option of taking Eldritch Adept at first level thanks to the Custom Lineage and Variant Human, and starting at first level with something like Agonizing Blast can be very effective. For warlocks taking Eldritch Adept, see the Eldritch Invocations section, above.

For non-warlocks, Eldritch Adept offers a way to get access to an Eldritch Invocation without taking warlock levels. This offers some very interesting options, but the limitations on invocations with prerequisites means that you have a very limited pool of options to choose from. This section offers advice on those invocations specifically intended for non-warlocks.

• Armor of Shadows^PHB: Take Magic Initiate. Mage Armor’s duration is 8 hours, so one castingwill get you through the day.

  The one use case for this is School of Abjuration wizards, who can usethis to repeatedly cast Mage Armor in order to recharge your Arcane Wardwithout spending spell slots.

• Beast Speech^PHB: Very situational. I would consider a level of druid long before spendinga feat to get this.
• Beguiling Influence^PHB: Take the Skilled feat or the Skill Expert feat, instead.
• Devil’s Sight^PHB: Do you have allies who like to use Magical Darkness? This will make thatless of a problem.
• Eldritch Mind^TCoE: Excellent on nearly any spellcaster, but War Caster provides the samebenefit plus some other stuff.
• Eldritch Sight^PHB: Nearly every full spellcaster gets Detect Magic, and it can be cast as aritual. The only advantage you get with this is that it works faster thanspending 10 minutes to cast it as a Ritual.
• Eyes of the Rune Keeper^PHB: Cast Comprehend Languages.
• Fiendish Vigor^PHB: The temporary hit points are really tempting, but they don’t scale sinceyou always cast False Life at first level, so a Constitution increase, theChef feat, the Inspiring Leader feat, or the Tough feat will be moreeffective ways to pad your hit points.
• Gaze of Two Minds^PHB: Very situational. I can’t think of a time to use this repeatedly unlessyou were a spellcaster with a familiar or something, in which case you couldsolve the same problem by numerous other means including divinationspells.
• Mask of Many Faces^PHB: If you want to cast Disguise Self, take Magic Initiate. If you wantconstant disguises, either get proficienct with the Disguise Kit or play achangeling.
• Misty Visions^PHB: A clever player with a DM who is willing to play along can accomplish alot with even a basic illusion. A 15-foot cube is a huge amount of space,too. Place illusory walls, doors, statues, or other objects which creaturesdon’t expect to move or produce other stimuli like heat or smells, and inmany cases that’s just as good as creating something. If creatures don’trealize that your illusory wall is an illusion, they’re going to treat itlike a wall.
• Thief of Five Fates^PHB: Technically you can select this without having warlock spell slots, whichmeans that it’s totally useless. Don’t do that. It’s amusing that you can doit, but it’s a terrible idea.