As a warlock in Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, one of the most exciting and customizable parts of your character build revolves around your eldritch invocations. These passive abilities offer warlocks a wide range of enhancements and tactical options both in and out of combat.
But with over 25 invocations to choose from in the Player‘s Handbook alone, it can be tricky deciding which ones to pick. That‘s why I‘ve compiled this list of the 10 most powerful and useful eldritch invocations for warlocks in DnD 5E.
1. Agonizing Blast
Without a doubt, Agonizing Blast is the number one eldritch invocation for most warlocks. It adds your Charisma modifier to the damage roll of every eldritch blast beam. Since eldritch blast scales with character level, this invocation makes it the most reliable and powerful damage-dealing cantrip in the game.
No matter what type of warlock you build or what your combat strategy is, Agonizing Blast is an auto-include. The extra charisma damage applies to every blast, meaning you could be adding upwards of +20 damage at higher tiers of play.
2. Devil‘s Sight
This invocation lets you see normally in magical and non-magical darkness out to 120 feet. Darkness is an incredibly powerful spell, so being able to see through it while enemies suffer disadvantage on attack rolls is a huge tactical advantage.
Combine this with the darkness spell or a Shadow Sorcerer‘s Eyes of the Dark feature, and you have a way to turn most encounters into a turkey shoot. You can blast away with eldritch blast at advantage while heavily obscuring the battlefield.
3. Book of Ancient Secrets
For warlocks who take the Pact of the Tome feature, Book of Ancient Secrets is a must-have. It allows you to choose any two 1st-level ritual spells to scribe into your Book of Shadows. And you can cast them as rituals without needing to have them prepared!
This massively expands your utility and out-of-combat options. Rituals like detect magic, identify, augury, and speak with animals offer a ton of value. The ability to add new ritual spells to your book with just two hours of time and 50 gold for ink makes the Tome Pact even more versatile and customizable.
4. Ascendant Step
This invocation lets you cast levitate on yourself at will without expending a spell slot or needing material components. For just two warlock levels, you gain unlimited levitation!
Need to fly up and grab something? Cross a canyon or perilous body of water? Pursue a fleeing flying enemy? Ascendant Step has you covered. The combat and exploration utility here is outstanding. You also ignore difficult terrain that‘s more than 10 feet below you, offering great mobility.
5. Sculptor of Flesh
Sculptor of Flesh lets you cast polymorph on a humanoid within 30 feet once per long rest without using a spell slot. Turning an ally into a powerful beast like a giant ape or T-rex adds tremendous utility and damage potential to any adventuring party.
Not only does the target gain lots of temporary HP in beast form, they also maintain their personality, goals, and Intelligence score to strategize. This sets it above spells like awaken that grant intelligence but make a creature uncontrolled. Sculptor of Flesh makes for awesome versatility and power plays.
6. Trickster‘s Escape
As a notoriously squishy spellcaster, warlocks desperately need defensive and escape options. Trickster‘s Escape is one of the best available. It allows you to cast freedom of movement on yourself at will, without spell slots.
Freedom of movement is an outstanding 4th-level abjuration spell that vastly reduces your susceptibility to hindrances and the inability to move. You gain advantage on checks and saves made to avoid or escape immobilizing effects like paralysis, grapples, and restraining spells. It lasts for a full hour too!
7. Witch Sight
If your campaign or character concept revolves heavily around shapeshifters, illusion magic, or disguise, Witch Sight can nullify an entire school of magic. It allows you to see the true form of any shapechanger or see through any illusion or transmutation spell.
Automatically detecting and piercing deceptive magic like alter self, disguise self, invisibility, seeming, and true polymorph is incredibly valuable. You‘ll also automatically detect shapechanged creatures like doppelgangers. Extremely powerful in the right campaign.
8. Mask of Many Faces
For warlocks built around deception, infiltration, disguise, and social engineering, Mask of Many Faces delivers. It grants you the disguise self spell at will, allowing unlimited illusory disguises and alterations to your appearance.
Without the spell‘s components and with indefinite duration, you can fully blend in almost anywhere. If creative infiltration and deception is a big part of your gameplay, this invocation enables all sorts of hijinks and shenanigans. It‘s tons of fun!
9. Minions of Chaos
This eldritch invocation lets you cast conjure elemental once per long rest without using a spell slot. It normally takes a 5th-level slot to summon an elemental ally, so gaining a free daily casting is awesome value.
With just a 9th-level warlock, you can have an allied torrential water weird, ferocious fire elemental, destructive earth elemental, or blasting air elemental accompany you into battle! It also requires no costly material components.
10. Eldritch Sight
And for our final top invocation, Eldritch Sight allows warlocks to cast detect magic at will without components. Tireless magical detection has both practical and flavor value for a mystical seeker of arcane truths. Never worry about missing secret doors, traps, magical treasures, ongoing spells, or cursed items again!
Plus it fits the warlock aesthetic perfectly as someone uncovering eldritch magical mysteries the mundane world remains ignorant of. This invocation is subtle but supremely valuable.
Honorable Mentions
While they didn‘t quite make the top 10, here are a few other invocations certainly worth considering:
- Armor of Shadows – At will mage armor without components
- Beast Speech – Speak with animals at will
- Bewitching Whispers – Compulsion with just a whisper
- Dreadful Word – Cause fear without components
- Eyes of the Rune Keeper – Read all writing
- Ghostly Gaze – See ethereal plane at will
- Gaze of Two Minds – Communicate telepathically
- One with Shadows – Hide as a bonus action
- Otherworldly Leap – Extra mobility
- Tomb of Levistus – Emergency icy shield
- Visions of Distant Realms – Arcane eye at will
Keep in mind every warlock‘s invocation priorities will differ based on patron, pact boon, party role, stats, and character concept.
For example, a Tome Pact Celestial healer will value Book of Ancient Secrets highly, while it‘s nearly useless to a blaster Hexblade. An archfey trickster needs Mask of Many Faces, but that does little for a fiend pact tank or sniper.
So when selecting invocations, carefully weigh their benefit to your individual build, party needs, campaign, and playstyle. Avoid overvaluing niche invocations or those mimicking spells you already have or won‘t use often.
also, don‘t forget your patron expands your options too! The Undying Light patron alone adds five excellent invocations to supplement the warlock list.
Review all prerequisites as well, since some of the best picks like Sculptor of Flesh require certain patron or pact boon choices.
Finally, don‘t hesitate to retrain invocations that aren‘t working for you. You can change one invocation upon gaining a warlock level. This flexibility lets you reshape your build over time.
More so than any other 5E class besides perhaps the wizard, warlocks encourage customization and creative builds. With so many possible patron/pact combinations and over two dozen invocations to mix and match, the variations feel endless.
Eldritch Invocations lie at the heart of fulfilling niche warlock concepts. A seeker of forbidden knowledge needs Eyes of the Rune Keeper. An assassin is lost without One with Shadows. Is your warlock a mystical detective? Grab Eldritch Sight. An infernal spy and infiltrator? Mask of Many Faces has you covered. Or perhaps you picture a combat medic slinging healing light? There‘s an invocation for that too.
Savvy selection of invocations allows tailoring warlocks to an amazingly diverse array of themes and concepts. So embrace them as a chance to define your character!
Eldritch invocations offer warlocks a fantastically fun way to customize abilities. Unlike circumstantial spells, they passively enhance your character in and out of combat. The enduring benefits unlocked by certain invocations can completely change the way you play.
So whether you crave unlimited magical detection, enhanced disguise capability, specialized darkvision, or just extra damage on every eldritch blast, the invocations above represent primes picks for fulfilling your warlock‘s true potential.