BG3 Warlock Build 2026: Invocation Stacking Guide (Fiend vs GOO vs Archfey for Honour Mode)

Force damage is the most reliably unresisted type in BG3 — creatures that shrug off fire, cold, or lightning rarely have Force resistance. The Warlock gets infinite Force damage from a cantrip. That alone makes Eldritch Blast one of the strongest actions in the game, but “take Agonizing Blast and spam EB” is where every basic build guide stops. The real question is which patron turns that infinite cantrip into an Honour Mode strategy.

This guide covers the three-invocation combination that experienced players use to control Honour Mode encounters, then breaks down each patron — Fiend, Great Old One, and Archfey — through a playstyle lens. For deeper patron dives, see our dedicated Fiend Warlock guide and Great Old One Warlock guide. Verified on Patch 8 / June 2026.

Quick Start Checklist — Verified on Patch 8 (June 2026)

If you want the answer fast, here it is. The full mechanics follow — see our BG3 best class guide for comparisons across all classes.

1. Pick The Fiend if you’re on Honour Mode or want built-in survivability. Pick Great Old One for a CC-focused team role. Pick Archfey for a mobile, evasion-based playstyle.
2. At Level 2, take Agonizing Blast and Devil’s Sight — these are the core invocations for every Warlock build.
3. At Level 3, choose Pact of the Tome for a pure spellcasting build (Deepened Pact at Level 5 adds Animate Dead, Haste, and Call Lightning as free once-per-long-rest spells).
4. At Level 5, add Repelling Blast to complete the Honour Mode invocation core.
5. Before every major Honour Mode fight: cast Hunger of Hadar or Darkness, position your Warlock inside the area, then fire Eldritch Blast outward. Your targets are blinded; you see normally.

Which Patron Should You Pick? (Playstyle Decision Tree)

Every patron gives you the same Eldritch Blast. The difference is what happens around it — your survivability layer, your crowd control tools, and your expanded spell list. The table below maps player types to the right patron, followed by a decision tree for those who need a direct answer.

Decision tree:

• Struggling to survive Honour Mode? → Fiend
• Playing support in a four-person party? → Great Old One
• Want high mobility and escape tools? → Archfey
• Want to hit things in melee with Charisma? → Hexblade

Note: The Hexblade is a BG3-exclusive subclass — it does not exist in the D&D 5e base rules. This guide focuses on the three core patron choices for ranged Eldritch Blast builds.

Eldritch Blast: Why It Scales Better Than It Looks

Force damage is unresisted by nearly all enemy types in the game. Compared to fire (resisted by most enemies in Acts 2 and 3), cold, or lightning, Force almost never hits a wall. Eldritch Blast scales on beam count, not damage per beam:

• Levels 1–4: 1 beam — 1d10 Force damage
• Levels 5–9: 2 beams — 2d10 Force (invocation effects apply per beam)
• Level 10+: 3 beams — 3d10 Force

At Level 10 with Agonizing Blast and Charisma 18, each Eldritch Blast cast averages 34 Force damage before other bonuses — from a cantrip with no resource cost. Add Hex (one bonus action to cast, 1d6 Necrotic per beam every subsequent turn) and that’s an additional 10.5 average Necrotic per turn at no further slot cost.

The beams also split across targets. If three weaker enemies are threatening a party member at Level 10, one Eldritch Blast can hit all three simultaneously. This makes EB more flexible than most damaging spells against groups without spending a slot.

One trade-off to keep in mind: Hex and Hunger of Hadar both require concentration. You can’t maintain both at once. Use Hex against single targets where burst damage matters; use Hunger of Hadar in encounters where area control is the priority.

The Honour Mode Invocation Stack (Core Three)

Invocation “stacking” doesn’t mean taking identical invocations — it means selecting three that compound each other’s value for Honour Mode encounters. Here is the priority order and why each earns its slot:

Invocation 1 — Agonizing Blast (Level 2, non-negotiable)
Adds your Charisma modifier to each beam’s damage. At Charisma 18, that’s +4 per beam. At Level 10, you’re adding +12 damage per Eldritch Blast cast from a single invocation slot chosen at Level 2. Take it immediately. Nothing else at Level 2 returns more damage across a full playthrough.

Invocation 2 — Devil’s Sight (Level 2, Honour Mode essential)
Lets you see normally in magical and non-magical darkness out to 24 metres. Standalone it’s solid utility. Paired with Hunger of Hadar or the Darkness spell it becomes your Honour Mode trump card. Your targets inside the darkness are blinded — their attack rolls against you are at disadvantage, your attack rolls against them are at advantage — while you fire Eldritch Blast from full visibility.

Invocation 3 — Repelling Blast (Level 5, Honour Mode finisher)
Pushes enemies 4.5 metres back on each beam that hits. In normal play this is positional control. In Honour Mode it’s a survivability tool: legendary actions on bosses trigger reactively when the boss is hit. Push bosses back through Repelling Blast and they spend movement closing the gap before they can act, reducing how frequently legendary actions reach your squishier party members.

The full Honour Mode loop:

1. Cast Hunger of Hadar or Darkness to create magical darkness in the combat area
2. Position your Warlock inside the darkness
3. Fire Eldritch Blast outward — Devil’s Sight means full vision; enemies inside are blinded
4. Agonizing Blast adds +4 (or more) to every beam automatically
5. Repelling Blast pushes survivors back into the darkness or away from your party

I’ve used this setup to clear the Raphael encounter with my party largely untouched — blinded enemies miss consistently, and the knockback kept the boss from reaching priority targets across the full fight.

The Fiend — Best for Honour Mode Survivability

The Fiend’s defining feature is Dark One’s Blessing: every time you or a nearby ally kills a creature, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier plus your Warlock level. At Level 10 with Charisma 18, that’s a 14 HP buffer refreshed on every kill — no action, no bonus action, no spell slot required.

In Honour Mode this creates a self-sustaining loop. Hunger of Hadar blinds enemies and deals ticking cold damage; blinded enemies miss more often; Eldritch Blast picks off weakened targets; each kill tops up your buffer. The Fiend doesn’t need healing potions to survive a long fight the way other patrons do.

Honour Mode bug to know: Dark One’s Blessing has a StackPriority issue in the game code — any other source of temporary HP (camp rest buffs, potions that grant temp HP, scrolls) will overwrite your Dark One’s Blessing even when the replacement value is lower. Before a major Honour Mode fight, clear any existing temp HP first, then let Dark One’s Blessing refresh on the first kill of the encounter.

Expanded spell highlights:

• Fireball (L3): Auto-upcasts to your highest Warlock spell slot — still the most reliable AoE damage option until Wall of Fire
• Wall of Fire (L4): Forces enemies through the flame line or stops their advance; pairs with Repelling Blast to push targets into the wall
• Cone of Cold (L5): High late-game burst; Cold damage is less frequently resisted in Act 3 than fire
• Flame Strike (L5): Half fire, half radiant — radiant bypasses most Act 2 undead resistances where fire alone would be halved

Verdict: Best patron for Honour Mode or any first playthrough. For the full gear-optimized Fiend Warlock Level 1–12 progression, see our BG3 Fiend Warlock Build guide.

The Great Old One — Best for Team Control

The Great Old One trades the Fiend’s passive regeneration for a reactive defensive layer and a control-heavy spell list. The difference shows most clearly at Level 6 when Entropic Ward comes online: as a reaction when an enemy targets you with an attack roll, you impose disadvantage on that roll. If the attack still hits, your next attack against that enemy has advantage. For a d8 hit-die class in Honour Mode, avoiding hits is more valuable than recovering HP after them.

Mortal Reminder (Level 1) deals psychic damage to undead and fiends on every hit — relevant across most of Act 2 and parts of Act 3 without costing anything extra.

Expanded spell highlights:

• Tasha’s Hideous Laughter: Prone on a failed Wisdom save — every melee party member gets advantage against affected targets
• Dissonant Whispers: Forces immediate movement on hit, triggering attacks of opportunity from every ally near the target
• Evard’s Black Tentacles (L4): Restrains everything in the zone for concentration — layers directly with Eldritch Blast damage and Repelling Blast repositioning
• Telekinesis (L5): Sustained repositioning — throw enemies off ledges or into environmental hazards each turn

When to pick GOO over Fiend: You’re in a coordinated party where Entropic Ward covers your defence and your CC spells carry the team. The Fiend wins in solo Honour Mode; GOO wins in four-player tactical play. For the full GOO progression, see our BG3 Great Old One Warlock Build guide.

The Archfey — Best for Evasive Playstyle

The Archfey is the hardest patron to optimise and the most rewarding when it works. Its Level 6 feature, Misty Escape, defines the playstyle: as a reaction when you take damage, teleport up to 9 metres and become invisible until the start of your next turn. In Honour Mode this is a panic button for when a boss closes the gap before your darkness setup is in place. No other patron gives you an escape tool that also grants invisibility as part of the same reaction.

Fey Presence (Level 1) frightens or charms all enemies within 3 metres — a free AoE crowd control tool costing a bonus action, not a spell slot, with a short-rest recharge. In encounters where enemies cluster before you’ve established your Darkness field, Fey Presence can neutralise two or three attackers without touching your limited Warlock slots.

Expanded spell highlights:

• Faerie Fire: Advantage on attack rolls against all targets in a 4.5m cube for concentration — pairs with any melee party member or your own Eldritch Blast
• Greater Invisibility (L4): Advantage on your Eldritch Blast attacks and disadvantage on all enemy attacks against you simultaneously — stacks on top of the Darkness combo for peak Honour Mode evasion
• Blink (L3): 50% chance each turn to vanish to the Ethereal Plane and become untargetable until next turn — unreliable but powerful in specific encounters
• Seeming (L5): Transforms appearances of up to 10 creatures — strong in social encounters and stealth approaches where the Warlock’s Charisma is already maxed

Honest assessment: The Archfey underperforms the Fiend in raw Honour Mode survivability and the GOO in team CC output. It shines in a Charisma-skill playthrough where Greater Invisibility, Seeming, and Misty Escape solve both combat and dialogue problems. If you want the highest skill ceiling patron with reactive rather than passive defences, Archfey delivers it.

Pact Boon: Which One to Choose

For a pure Eldritch Blast build, Pact of the Tome is the best default. The Deepened Pact version of Haste is a free concentration Haste — one of the strongest spells in the game — that costs no spell slot from Level 5 onward. In a solo Honour Mode run, a free Haste gives you an extra Eldritch Blast action every turn for ten turns at zero slot cost.

Ability Scores, Race, and Background

Recommended starting spread (standard point buy):

• Charisma: 17 — spell save DC, spell attack bonus, and Agonizing Blast damage all scale from here
• Constitution: 15 — concentration checks and hit points; the second most important stat
• Dexterity: 14 — AC and initiative when not in armour
• Wisdom: 10 — saving throw baseline; no Wisdom-dependent Warlock spells worth building around
• Everything else: 8

ASI priority: Charisma to 18 at Level 4 is non-negotiable — it improves spell save DC, attack bonus, and every Agonizing Blast beam simultaneously. Charisma to 20 at Level 8 if you’re playing pure Warlock to Level 12.

Race suggestions: Drow (Half or Full) gives Darkness as a free racial spell — you get the Devil’s Sight combo without spending a Warlock slot. Githyanki’s Misty Step adds a free teleport for mobility. Any race works; these are optimisation bonuses, not requirements.

Background: Charlatan, Noble, or Haunted One each provide Deception or Persuasion proficiency — relevant for a Charisma-primary character in BG3’s dialogue-heavy sections.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Warlock the best class for solo Honour Mode?
Not outright — the Fighter and Paladin have higher base AC floors — but Warlock is the strongest long-rest-efficient Honour Mode pick because short-rest spell slot recovery means you’re never out of resources. The Darkness plus Agonizing Blast plus Devil’s Sight loop forces disadvantage on every enemy attack roll while you deal consistent Force damage, which partially compensates for the d8 hit die. We’d rank it second for Honour Mode solo, behind melee-focused Fighters. See our BG3 best builds guide for the full class ranking.

Can I mix patron subclasses in one build?
No — BG3 Warlocks lock in one subclass at Level 1. Multiclassing into Warlock from another class grants Eldritch Blast and invocations but patron features only come from those Warlock levels. If you want to split levels, see our BG3 Multiclass Guide for Warlock split options and which combinations are worth the trade-off.

Does Repelling Blast push with every beam?
Repelling Blast applies to each beam that hits, but the knockback resolves once per cast — a three-beam Eldritch Blast doesn’t push an enemy 13.5 metres. The practical result is a reliable 4.5-metre push per Eldritch Blast action, consistently enough to keep bosses at distance across an entire Honour Mode encounter.

Why not take Grasp of Hadar or Lance of Lethargy?
Both invocations exist in D&D 5e and OneD&D tabletop but neither is implemented in BG3. Several online guides copy from tabletop character builders without verifying against the live game — if you see either listed for BG3, the guide was not tested in-game.

Is the Hexblade worth it?
Yes for melee builds. The Hexblade is a BG3-exclusive subclass not found in D&D 5e base rules. Hex Warrior lets you use Charisma instead of Strength for weapon attacks, making it the only patron that turns the Warlock into a melee fighter without a Charisma penalty. It’s the right call for Pact of the Blade builds and pairs well with high-Charisma melee gear in Acts 2 and 3. This guide focuses on the three core patrons for pure EB builds.

Related: BG3 Wyll Build — Hexblade Pact of the Blade skirmisher with Darkness + Devil’s Sight combo, full Honour Mode leveling guide and equipment by Act.

Key Takeaways

• Agonizing Blast + Devil’s Sight at Level 2 is the mandatory foundation — add Repelling Blast at Level 5 to complete the Honour Mode core stack
• The Fiend is the strongest patron for Honour Mode: Dark One’s Blessing is a passive HP buffer on every kill — but clear existing temp HP before major fights to avoid the StackPriority bug overwriting it with a lower value
• Great Old One wins in four-player team play via Entropic Ward and its disable-heavy spell list; Archfey wins for mobility builds where Misty Escape is the safety valve
• Pact of the Tome with Deepened Pact gives you free Haste from Level 5 — the highest-value pact for a pure Eldritch Blast build
• Grasp of Hadar and Lance of Lethargy do not exist in BG3 — skip any guide that lists them as invocation options

Sources

• Warlock — bg3.wiki
• Eldritch Invocation — bg3.wiki
• Eldritch Blast — bg3.wiki
• Eldritch Invocations — Fextralife BG3 Wiki
• Best Warlock Build — Hack the Minotaur
• Eldritch Blast Build — Gamestegy

Michael R.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.