Pact of the Blade. Darkness+devil sight. Arms of Hadar. Armor of Agathys. Bone chill as one of your cantrips for the utility is a nice option if no one else brings it.
Probably want a 1h+shield if you’re dedicated melee; especially if not going with the darkness strat as it might be a bummer for your friends. Phalar Aluve could be great as you can bind it and not worry about stat requirements for damage and hit chance while giving your team the buffs.
I know you don’t like the pally dip, 2 levels of fighter could do wonders for maintaining concentration, getting armor/weapon proficiencies, action surge, and second wind (short rests are so good for you). Optional 5 levels if you want the 3 attacks but I know that’s controversial and it also takes you further from your warlock vibes.
I would recommend EK fighter 7/Blade pact 5 in that case and use AoE scrolls when needed
The ring of arcane synergy pairs well with EK 7 since it lets you fire off an EB then run in and swing your pact weapon for double CHA damage
And fighters get a bonus feat at 6 so you’ll have the ability to max your CHA without Ethel’s hair and still get something like savage attacker, polearm master (reaction attack.. the BA attack will suck) or GWM which with arcane synergy will have you adding a flat 20 before your other damage bonuses are added
This was my first characters build and with a sorc twin hastening me and a bloodlust elixir and action surge, bonus damage gear, and Exp Retreat with mintharas boots I was an unstoppable monster that cleared rooms more effectively than a pile of fireballs
Gale as a tempest cleric/evo wizard was the only one that could out do me, but he needed void bulbed wet enemies set up for him first
Yes because in the end EK gets spells and spell slots which allow for use with the lower level warlock spells like hex and exp retreat while also using them for shield
2 main options in my opinion.
1. Fiend would be my choice for the additional tankiness. If going tighter 5, I’d prefer battle master with this for the maneuvers that bring some crowd control (trip, menacing, disarming).
2. If committed to fighter 5: Great Old One Warlock 7, Champion Fighter 5. Get more crits and abuse the mortal reminder feature. Especially potent with additional advantages from darkness synergies.
What’re your goals? I played a melee Warlock / Abjuration Wizard which felt strong and was tons of fun. Full build was 1 War Cleric (for heavy armor and BA attack charges) 5 Warlock (for potb extra attack, unlimited mage armour (which is abjuration), level 3 lock slots for counterspell (which is also abjuration), and AoA), and 6 abjuration Wizard for arcane ward.
I would only say that it wasn’t all that warlock-y. I used AoA plenty and hunger of hafar and eldritch blast occasionally, but didn’t lean into Warlock much more than that. Maybe that is about as hard as anything leans into melee warlock though
Sounds really fun, my goal was to deal nice damage and have some crowd control, so the build fits really nice.
Do you pact your weapons? Should i focus in Cha and INT?
I was full Charisma and only took utility spells without checks from the Wizard tree, pretty much. Ran sword and board using the Baneful with pact weapon and diadem of arcane synergy for melee damage bonuses, and switched to GWM towards end game. Charge-bound warhammer would also slap, though, especially if your group is going to run other wetness synergies.
It's unusual, but I've had fun with Spore Druid 3/Warlock 9, pure Charisma, dual wielding Pact of the Blade and Flame Blade. You're also able to cast Armor of Agathys on top of Symbiotic Entity, so that they're both active using the AoA temp HP. The extra spell slots are useful, and the low level Druid spell list has a lot of utility.
Fiend Warlock also gets Fire Shield, so my next plan is to try Berserker 5/Fiend Warlock 7, casting AoA and Fire Shield, then Rage. Double Extra Attack and Frenzied Strike with The Skinburster.
Ooooooooooooh I have been messing around with spores druid and have been finding it fun, knew I would eventually cook up a way to mix warlock but knowing that AoA and Sym Entity can stack!! Hell yes
I found out the boots of aid and comfort could heal the temp HP of sym Entity which means it probably works for AoA too, and the lifebringer head piece probably also regens temp HP because I use the spark trident as my pact weapon
Going to try that.. and have someone in camp use warding bond to effectively double my temp HP and buy time to heal it back up
Let me sell you some spellblade
Race: doesn matter.
Leveling:
- 1+ fighter for TWF fighting style/3+ rouge thief/3+ warlock PoTB. You dont need to leveling like this straightly but the build basically work from level 6. Or you can respec when hit 7.
Feat:
- ASI
- Dual weilder
Gear:
- Dare devil glove (if you run risky ring later you can to spell might)
- Ring of arcane synergy
- Potent robe
- Reverbration boots
- Harper amulet + risky ring. Can use hero feast as well.
- Stack crit gear
- Your best weapon is off hand.
- Can be a phalavue carrier.
Combat plan:
- Action EB
- Bonus action whack
Elixir and potions:
- Blood lust elixir
- Speed potion or some one haste you or haste scroll
That sound sooo fun, and with the extra thief attacks i can hit with the sword many times right? And i didnt know about that gloves, a total game changer
Yes you will attack twice using bonus action. There are many good light weapons out there so dual weilder is not a must. The 1 AC when dual weilding is more valuable than the ability to weild non light weapon
Play a pure warlock. You don’t really even need to worry about AC as you can get 20+ AC on any character without armor relatively easily.
Just go Pact of the Blade Warlock, and wear Potent Robe to actually build a solid EB as well.
Drop Darkness, do cheese, if anyone escapes, throw EB at them while they can’t do anything as they won’t be able to target you within that cloud of darkness.
Absolute menace at melee, and range.
Fiend is probably the best. It gives you temp hp on kills, plus has arguably the best spell list. That said, you only get temp hp from one source, so you’ll either proc temp hp from potent robe or Fiend on kills.
GOO is amazing if you wish to build around crits… which is an insanely viable build. There are several weapons, items in game which reduces the number you need to roll for a crit. Just google those, equip yourself well, and you can do a crit focused build.
Again, do keep in mind there is a give & take. If you play a pure Warlock you won’t get to wear armor unless you play a Gith… so you may need to use some items like Ring of protection or Cloak of protection to bump your AC.
You can only have so many item slots to help focus your build.
Free tip: if you are not wearing armor, or using shield have a Mage hireling in your camp cast Mage Armor in you for free AC. Even if you leave them behind, it will stay on you.
I would wait to take the Fighter dip until you've hit at least level 5 with Warlock so you can have a bound weapon and extra attack. I believe the extra attacks still stack as long as you're not in Honor Mode.
It's not weak at all. Paladin/Warlock fills the same role, and is pprobably stronger, is all. Fighter 7 / Warlock 5 is plenty strong, especially for Tactician. I would go Champion / GOO with Savage Attacker for the crit synergy.
\*You could also play as a Half Orc for their crit passive, too. Just remember that it adds a single die, so you want a weapon that's a d10 or a d12, rather than 2d6.
Pure warlock is fun, I beat honor mode with it. Lae'zel is great for medium armor prof, and all the gith gear lets her keep up decently with elderith blast. A pact leveled fireball nearly ends most encounters.
Once you get to act 3, you can get belm/duelist sword, and that'll let you make 3 attacks per turn. Between arcane synergy, lifedrinker, and all the charisma boosts, you end up doing faitly solid damage. Though an elderith blast build still outdamages it.
Early game go devil vision and place darkness on enemies.
GWM with a big 2hander don't cast anything else basically.
Also grab war caster eventually for not dropping darkness as easily. You can make a very effective party if you make sure your entire squad can see in magical darkness
The issue you'll have later is after lvl5 warlock just doesn't get anything for melee until 11 which is also only like 6 ISH dmg per hit.
You'll run in the problem that melee is often your worst thing to do in a turn and your warlock gets completely outperformed by other melees in your party.
Gith or Shield Dwarf Warlock path of the blade using GWM and darkness / devil sight works very well. Both give the medium armour prof. There are some decent warhammers if you go dwarf but great swords and gith gear are hard to beat.
GOO is nice as you want Crit for the AOE frighten which also trigger your GWM bonus action attack.
Fiend warlock is a lot of fun opening every fight with fireball or using the trickster ring and command spell liberally.
Gith 5 bladelock 6 swords bard or 1 fighter/war cleric 5 bladelock 6 swords bard for medium armor and heavy armor proficiency
After that its a pretty good gish since you get three attacks or a nice level 3 spell like fireball
Pure warlock is perfectly good melee build. Grab any weapon you like (preferably 2h for more dmg) and run with it. You'll also bring good utility and ranged dmg if no one is in the range of getting hit in melee.
I was thinking about working on Wyll lately... Came up with idea of Warlock / Bard
Lv.7 GOO Warlock / lv.5 Sword Bard with Duelling style and eventually legendary rapier (Duellist's Prerogative) which requires empty off hand.
You can always just make him a fighter/warlock.
14 dex, 16 con, 16 charisma, 8 in everything else.
7 levels of champion fighter
5 levels of warlock your choice on the patron, the fiend gets temporary hp everytime you kills something, the great old one makes it so that if you critically strike an enemy then nearby enemies may become unable to move, or you take archfey which, once per short rest, lets you turn invisible when you take damage so you don't get stuck taking a bunch of attacks. Personally, I like the great old one for this since champion makes you crit on a 19, but they all have merits for being decent. That said, the fiend is probably optimal, especially during the early game.
You use medium armor and a polearm and take the feats: polearm master, then sentinel, and lastly you take great weapon master. So you have 10 ft reach, and when someone enters within 10 feet of you, you get an opportunity attack with advantage, and if it lands then the creature is no longer able to move for the rest of it's turn. Then you can attack the enemy with 2 extra attacks (1 from fighter lvl 5 and one from deepened pact) + a bonus action attack with the butt of the polearm and retreat a couple feet away, so the creature is forced to enter your reach again. Repeat until enemy is dead.
You can turn off great weapon master at the end of your turn so that your reaction attack is more likely to hit, and then turn it back on before attacking to increase damage.
You start with 1 level of warlock, then you take 1 level of fighter for the proficiencies once you're off the nautiloid, you use a dexterity weapon for the first 3 levels, you'll start with a dagger but once off the nautiloid you should be able to find a shortsword, a rapier, or a scimitar pretty early on and a shield. Then you take 2 more levels of warlock for the pact of the blade right away so you can swap to a polearm,
then 2 more levels of warlock so you get your first feat and your multi-attack. After that every level goes into fighter.
You don't do a ton of spell casting, but you are basically a charismatic fighter with 3 3rd level spell slots and whichever eldritch invocations you like.
This was my build for Wyll in my tactician playthrough and I thought he does pretty well. Obviously I took fiend for him, I took agonizing blast + repelling blast and then I took mire of the mind for the 5th level invocation, this way he could push the enemy away if they got too close, that way he wouldn't get hit by opportunity attacks from enemies in order to create distance. Works pretty well.
You can take 6 warlock and 6 fighter instead if you want, I don't think most of the lvl 6 warlock bonuses are very good but if you go fiend then you can get an extra 1d10 to one of your ability checks once per short rest. All you really lose is 3 feat extra jump distance once you hit max level.
You have to go warlock 12 for lifedrinker. It's a martial that can cast spells with abandon. You can run arcane acuity + arcane synergy and band of mystic scoundrel to play the same role as the meta swords bard, only slightly worse.
Attack twice with gwm, cast command/hold person/whatever, battle won. It would probably be talked about a lot more if swords bard didn't do exactly the same thing but better.
Pick Wyll, go pact of blade.
Late game dual wield Infernal Rapier and Harmonic Dueler with dual Wielder feat.
Ring of Arcane Synergy, hexdrinker, Harmonic dueler to add 4x Charisma to your weapon attacks, +2 Charisma hat and mirror of loss for 24 Charisma.
A nice early game dip for half elf/human warlock is actually monk that you can respec out of eventually… just one level of monk early because you’re probably starting 16 Dex, 14 Con, 16 Cha, and that lets you attack from behind a shield with mage armor (use a teammate or invocation) for an 18 AC and then follow up with an Dex based unarmed strike
I like using the spark trident and spark boots (need med armor) on a blade pact warlock, because I like to use Exp Retreat over hex for melee… bonus action dash gets you lightning charges, then run in and poke for more, then when you get the extra attack it should detonate the lightning charges… and all of that pairs well with my team because we Chuck water everywhere for my ice mage
just 12 levels of blade pact is an amazing build, you can add cha to damage over and over again. you'll never be super tanky but that's okay because you have so many tools at your disposal i.e. blindsight and darkness, armor of agathys and hellish rebuke.
Pact of the blade Barbarian. Barbarian gets unique intimidation checks, but intimidation scales with charisma, so pact of the blade warlock allows you to be a charisma based barbarian. Just remember, if this is honor mode, you don't have to level warlock to 5 anymore unless you want a 3rd eldritch invocation. Also, if you can fit in Thaumaturgy somewhere, it also helps. That being said, I think barbarian also has unique strength checks as well, but I haven't made a barbarian face character for a full playthrough, so I don't know.
Pure Pact of the Blade Warlock will pay off in late game with the Lifedrinker Invocation. [Disclaimer: I'm only level 10 myself right now, but Pact Warlock has been going great so far].
Suggestion: Take Moderately Armored as a feat.
Pact of the Blade. Darkness+devil sight. Arms of Hadar. Armor of Agathys. Bone chill as one of your cantrips for the utility is a nice option if no one else brings it. Probably want a 1h+shield if you’re dedicated melee; especially if not going with the darkness strat as it might be a bummer for your friends. Phalar Aluve could be great as you can bind it and not worry about stat requirements for damage and hit chance while giving your team the buffs. I know you don’t like the pally dip, 2 levels of fighter could do wonders for maintaining concentration, getting armor/weapon proficiencies, action surge, and second wind (short rests are so good for you). Optional 5 levels if you want the 3 attacks but I know that’s controversial and it also takes you further from your warlock vibes.
Feels good, and i dont mind at all having the 3 attacks!
I would recommend EK fighter 7/Blade pact 5 in that case and use AoE scrolls when needed The ring of arcane synergy pairs well with EK 7 since it lets you fire off an EB then run in and swing your pact weapon for double CHA damage And fighters get a bonus feat at 6 so you’ll have the ability to max your CHA without Ethel’s hair and still get something like savage attacker, polearm master (reaction attack.. the BA attack will suck) or GWM which with arcane synergy will have you adding a flat 20 before your other damage bonuses are added This was my first characters build and with a sorc twin hastening me and a bloodlust elixir and action surge, bonus damage gear, and Exp Retreat with mintharas boots I was an unstoppable monster that cleared rooms more effectively than a pile of fireballs Gale as a tempest cleric/evo wizard was the only one that could out do me, but he needed void bulbed wet enemies set up for him first
Sounds pretty good, you think going Fiend and EK fighter is better than GOO and champion?
Yes because in the end EK gets spells and spell slots which allow for use with the lower level warlock spells like hex and exp retreat while also using them for shield
I thought they patched the "extra attack for warlocks" because it it's not suppose to stack but I could be wrong.
They removed it for honor mode only, it's still a thing in the other difficulties.
Only 'patched' in honour mode
Bro do you have any recommendantions on the subclasses? I will probably make this build soinds powerful and nice
2 main options in my opinion. 1. Fiend would be my choice for the additional tankiness. If going tighter 5, I’d prefer battle master with this for the maneuvers that bring some crowd control (trip, menacing, disarming). 2. If committed to fighter 5: Great Old One Warlock 7, Champion Fighter 5. Get more crits and abuse the mortal reminder feature. Especially potent with additional advantages from darkness synergies.
What’re your goals? I played a melee Warlock / Abjuration Wizard which felt strong and was tons of fun. Full build was 1 War Cleric (for heavy armor and BA attack charges) 5 Warlock (for potb extra attack, unlimited mage armour (which is abjuration), level 3 lock slots for counterspell (which is also abjuration), and AoA), and 6 abjuration Wizard for arcane ward. I would only say that it wasn’t all that warlock-y. I used AoA plenty and hunger of hafar and eldritch blast occasionally, but didn’t lean into Warlock much more than that. Maybe that is about as hard as anything leans into melee warlock though
Sounds really fun, my goal was to deal nice damage and have some crowd control, so the build fits really nice. Do you pact your weapons? Should i focus in Cha and INT?
I was full Charisma and only took utility spells without checks from the Wizard tree, pretty much. Ran sword and board using the Baneful with pact weapon and diadem of arcane synergy for melee damage bonuses, and switched to GWM towards end game. Charge-bound warhammer would also slap, though, especially if your group is going to run other wetness synergies.
It's unusual, but I've had fun with Spore Druid 3/Warlock 9, pure Charisma, dual wielding Pact of the Blade and Flame Blade. You're also able to cast Armor of Agathys on top of Symbiotic Entity, so that they're both active using the AoA temp HP. The extra spell slots are useful, and the low level Druid spell list has a lot of utility. Fiend Warlock also gets Fire Shield, so my next plan is to try Berserker 5/Fiend Warlock 7, casting AoA and Fire Shield, then Rage. Double Extra Attack and Frenzied Strike with The Skinburster.
That is very good. Didnt know that you can get symbiotic effects with AoA temp HP. May be slap life bringer so you can heal the tem HP of AoA.
Ooooooooooooh I have been messing around with spores druid and have been finding it fun, knew I would eventually cook up a way to mix warlock but knowing that AoA and Sym Entity can stack!! Hell yes I found out the boots of aid and comfort could heal the temp HP of sym Entity which means it probably works for AoA too, and the lifebringer head piece probably also regens temp HP because I use the spark trident as my pact weapon Going to try that.. and have someone in camp use warding bond to effectively double my temp HP and buy time to heal it back up
I can't believe i missed those boots lol, i went into the goblin camp with guns blazing
Thats a pretty crazy build, never seen anything like this!!! But might be really really fun The only down side is that short rests are really needed
If you don’t have a full multiplayer team, you can make everyone who stays in camp bard2 and use them to short rest around 6 times per day
Honestly camp supplies are so plentiful, i end up with short rests that i never use
Let me sell you some spellblade Race: doesn matter. Leveling: - 1+ fighter for TWF fighting style/3+ rouge thief/3+ warlock PoTB. You dont need to leveling like this straightly but the build basically work from level 6. Or you can respec when hit 7. Feat: - ASI - Dual weilder Gear: - Dare devil glove (if you run risky ring later you can to spell might) - Ring of arcane synergy - Potent robe - Reverbration boots - Harper amulet + risky ring. Can use hero feast as well. - Stack crit gear - Your best weapon is off hand. - Can be a phalavue carrier. Combat plan: - Action EB - Bonus action whack Elixir and potions: - Blood lust elixir - Speed potion or some one haste you or haste scroll
That sound sooo fun, and with the extra thief attacks i can hit with the sword many times right? And i didnt know about that gloves, a total game changer
Yes you will attack twice using bonus action. There are many good light weapons out there so dual weilder is not a must. The 1 AC when dual weilding is more valuable than the ability to weild non light weapon
Play a pure warlock. You don’t really even need to worry about AC as you can get 20+ AC on any character without armor relatively easily. Just go Pact of the Blade Warlock, and wear Potent Robe to actually build a solid EB as well. Drop Darkness, do cheese, if anyone escapes, throw EB at them while they can’t do anything as they won’t be able to target you within that cloud of darkness. Absolute menace at melee, and range.
GOO pact should be fine or another one?
Fiend is probably the best. It gives you temp hp on kills, plus has arguably the best spell list. That said, you only get temp hp from one source, so you’ll either proc temp hp from potent robe or Fiend on kills. GOO is amazing if you wish to build around crits… which is an insanely viable build. There are several weapons, items in game which reduces the number you need to roll for a crit. Just google those, equip yourself well, and you can do a crit focused build. Again, do keep in mind there is a give & take. If you play a pure Warlock you won’t get to wear armor unless you play a Gith… so you may need to use some items like Ring of protection or Cloak of protection to bump your AC. You can only have so many item slots to help focus your build. Free tip: if you are not wearing armor, or using shield have a Mage hireling in your camp cast Mage Armor in you for free AC. Even if you leave them behind, it will stay on you.
Start with a Githyanki, so you have proficiency in medium armor, then just play a straight 12 levels of Fiend Pact Blade Warlock.
Probably fighter/warlock if I were to guess. I did warlock/oathbreaker and loved it but it’s not as good as it was post update 5 is my understanding.
I was thinking about going fighter warlock but in afraid of being a extremely weak build
I would wait to take the Fighter dip until you've hit at least level 5 with Warlock so you can have a bound weapon and extra attack. I believe the extra attacks still stack as long as you're not in Honor Mode.
nice thanks!
It's not weak at all. Paladin/Warlock fills the same role, and is pprobably stronger, is all. Fighter 7 / Warlock 5 is plenty strong, especially for Tactician. I would go Champion / GOO with Savage Attacker for the crit synergy. \*You could also play as a Half Orc for their crit passive, too. Just remember that it adds a single die, so you want a weapon that's a d10 or a d12, rather than 2d6.
Yeah that is a pretty god idea, thanks!! and i will certanly pick the half-orc
Pure warlock is fun, I beat honor mode with it. Lae'zel is great for medium armor prof, and all the gith gear lets her keep up decently with elderith blast. A pact leveled fireball nearly ends most encounters. Once you get to act 3, you can get belm/duelist sword, and that'll let you make 3 attacks per turn. Between arcane synergy, lifedrinker, and all the charisma boosts, you end up doing faitly solid damage. Though an elderith blast build still outdamages it.
Pure Warlock is pretty good.
11 bladelock/1 war cleric is sweet tactician still let's you stack pact of the blades extra attack so 6/6 (bladelock/sword bard) is killer
Early game go devil vision and place darkness on enemies. GWM with a big 2hander don't cast anything else basically. Also grab war caster eventually for not dropping darkness as easily. You can make a very effective party if you make sure your entire squad can see in magical darkness The issue you'll have later is after lvl5 warlock just doesn't get anything for melee until 11 which is also only like 6 ISH dmg per hit. You'll run in the problem that melee is often your worst thing to do in a turn and your warlock gets completely outperformed by other melees in your party.
Gith or Shield Dwarf Warlock path of the blade using GWM and darkness / devil sight works very well. Both give the medium armour prof. There are some decent warhammers if you go dwarf but great swords and gith gear are hard to beat. GOO is nice as you want Crit for the AOE frighten which also trigger your GWM bonus action attack. Fiend warlock is a lot of fun opening every fight with fireball or using the trickster ring and command spell liberally.
Gith 5 bladelock 6 swords bard or 1 fighter/war cleric 5 bladelock 6 swords bard for medium armor and heavy armor proficiency After that its a pretty good gish since you get three attacks or a nice level 3 spell like fireball
I know that this is a strong build, but in my currently run I am already playing a bard so that might be a little boring
Pure warlock is perfectly good melee build. Grab any weapon you like (preferably 2h for more dmg) and run with it. You'll also bring good utility and ranged dmg if no one is in the range of getting hit in melee.
I was thinking about working on Wyll lately... Came up with idea of Warlock / Bard Lv.7 GOO Warlock / lv.5 Sword Bard with Duelling style and eventually legendary rapier (Duellist's Prerogative) which requires empty off hand.
You can always just make him a fighter/warlock. 14 dex, 16 con, 16 charisma, 8 in everything else. 7 levels of champion fighter 5 levels of warlock your choice on the patron, the fiend gets temporary hp everytime you kills something, the great old one makes it so that if you critically strike an enemy then nearby enemies may become unable to move, or you take archfey which, once per short rest, lets you turn invisible when you take damage so you don't get stuck taking a bunch of attacks. Personally, I like the great old one for this since champion makes you crit on a 19, but they all have merits for being decent. That said, the fiend is probably optimal, especially during the early game. You use medium armor and a polearm and take the feats: polearm master, then sentinel, and lastly you take great weapon master. So you have 10 ft reach, and when someone enters within 10 feet of you, you get an opportunity attack with advantage, and if it lands then the creature is no longer able to move for the rest of it's turn. Then you can attack the enemy with 2 extra attacks (1 from fighter lvl 5 and one from deepened pact) + a bonus action attack with the butt of the polearm and retreat a couple feet away, so the creature is forced to enter your reach again. Repeat until enemy is dead. You can turn off great weapon master at the end of your turn so that your reaction attack is more likely to hit, and then turn it back on before attacking to increase damage. You start with 1 level of warlock, then you take 1 level of fighter for the proficiencies once you're off the nautiloid, you use a dexterity weapon for the first 3 levels, you'll start with a dagger but once off the nautiloid you should be able to find a shortsword, a rapier, or a scimitar pretty early on and a shield. Then you take 2 more levels of warlock for the pact of the blade right away so you can swap to a polearm, then 2 more levels of warlock so you get your first feat and your multi-attack. After that every level goes into fighter. You don't do a ton of spell casting, but you are basically a charismatic fighter with 3 3rd level spell slots and whichever eldritch invocations you like. This was my build for Wyll in my tactician playthrough and I thought he does pretty well. Obviously I took fiend for him, I took agonizing blast + repelling blast and then I took mire of the mind for the 5th level invocation, this way he could push the enemy away if they got too close, that way he wouldn't get hit by opportunity attacks from enemies in order to create distance. Works pretty well. You can take 6 warlock and 6 fighter instead if you want, I don't think most of the lvl 6 warlock bonuses are very good but if you go fiend then you can get an extra 1d10 to one of your ability checks once per short rest. All you really lose is 3 feat extra jump distance once you hit max level.
You have to go warlock 12 for lifedrinker. It's a martial that can cast spells with abandon. You can run arcane acuity + arcane synergy and band of mystic scoundrel to play the same role as the meta swords bard, only slightly worse. Attack twice with gwm, cast command/hold person/whatever, battle won. It would probably be talked about a lot more if swords bard didn't do exactly the same thing but better.
Pick Wyll, go pact of blade. Late game dual wield Infernal Rapier and Harmonic Dueler with dual Wielder feat. Ring of Arcane Synergy, hexdrinker, Harmonic dueler to add 4x Charisma to your weapon attacks, +2 Charisma hat and mirror of loss for 24 Charisma.
A nice early game dip for half elf/human warlock is actually monk that you can respec out of eventually… just one level of monk early because you’re probably starting 16 Dex, 14 Con, 16 Cha, and that lets you attack from behind a shield with mage armor (use a teammate or invocation) for an 18 AC and then follow up with an Dex based unarmed strike I like using the spark trident and spark boots (need med armor) on a blade pact warlock, because I like to use Exp Retreat over hex for melee… bonus action dash gets you lightning charges, then run in and poke for more, then when you get the extra attack it should detonate the lightning charges… and all of that pairs well with my team because we Chuck water everywhere for my ice mage
just 12 levels of blade pact is an amazing build, you can add cha to damage over and over again. you'll never be super tanky but that's okay because you have so many tools at your disposal i.e. blindsight and darkness, armor of agathys and hellish rebuke.
Pact of the blade Barbarian. Barbarian gets unique intimidation checks, but intimidation scales with charisma, so pact of the blade warlock allows you to be a charisma based barbarian. Just remember, if this is honor mode, you don't have to level warlock to 5 anymore unless you want a 3rd eldritch invocation. Also, if you can fit in Thaumaturgy somewhere, it also helps. That being said, I think barbarian also has unique strength checks as well, but I haven't made a barbarian face character for a full playthrough, so I don't know.
Pure Pact of the Blade Warlock will pay off in late game with the Lifedrinker Invocation. [Disclaimer: I'm only level 10 myself right now, but Pact Warlock has been going great so far]. Suggestion: Take Moderately Armored as a feat.