Been looking over the warlock because I thought it would be cool to make a spellcaster that can also mix it up in melee combat. After all how awesome isn't it to conjure up a magical weapon and start swinging.

Except after a careful read through of the warlock's abilities I can't help wonder why a warlock would do anything in combat except spam eldritch blast over and over?

It does a 1d10 in damage at level 1 so right from the start it's more powerful than all weapons except the big two-handed ones, which a warlock is unlikely to use anyhow due to somatic spell-restrictions and finesse builds.

Sure, a warlock's magical weapon can be boosted by two incantations to add charisma bonus to damage and give it an extra attack. But eldritch blast gets the same damage bonus plus two other boosted abilities from incantations AND the number of its attack increases at set levels to a whooping 4 attacks at level 17.

Now I was drawn to the warlock because I wanted to make a swashbuckling style of caster except now it feels like with the exception of a few other situational spells doing anything else except spamming eldritch blast in combat feels unnecessary and only done for role playing reasons. Sort of a self-nerf to look cool rather than be effective.

Things doesn't get better when you realize that the warlock's proficiency in light armour is pretty much for show too. As it gets an incantation that lets it cast mage armour on itself without any cost which gives you better AC than any light armour but have the requirement that you don't wear any armour making the ability to wear armour redundant.

Been looking over the warlock because I thought it would be cool to make a spellcaster that can also mix it up in melee combat. After all how awesome is it to conjure up a magical weapon and start swinging.

Except after a careful read through the warlock's abilities I can't help wonder why a warlock would do anything in combat except spam eldritch blast over and over?

It does 1d10 damage at level 1 so right from the start it's more powerful than all weapons except the big two-handed ones, which a warlock is unlikely to use anyhow due to somatic spell-restrictions and finesse builds.

Sure, a warlock's magical weapon can be boosted by two invocations to add charisma bonus to damage and give it an extra attack, but eldritch blast gets the same damage bonus plus two other boosted abilities from invocations AND the number of its attack increases at set levels to a whooping 4 attacks at level 17.

I was drawn to the warlock because I wanted to make a swashbuckling style of caster, except now it feels like with the exception of a few other situational spells doing anything except spamming eldritch blast in combat feels unnecessary and only done for role playing reasons. Sort of a "self-nerf" to look cool rather than be effective.

Things don't get better when you realize that the warlock's proficiency in light armor is pretty much for show too. As they get an eldritch invocation that lets them cast mage armor on itself without any cost which gives you better AC than any light armor but have the requirement that you don't wear any armor making the need to wear armor redundant.