Best Baldur's Gate 3 Warlock build

A Baldur's Gate 3 Warlock build is almost as important to any shady spell-slinger's playthrough as their pact. The Warlock, fantastic at both early levels and leter in Baldur's Gate 3, is a hilariously fun class to play in combat and dialogue encounters, so it's a real shame to hamper your enjoyment with a sub-standard build.

To help you out, we've written up this quick Baldur's Gate 3 Warlock build that will cover the best spells, equipment, weapons, and ability score spreads.

Baldur's Gate 3 best Warlock build

The Warlock is brilliantly versitile class, able to deal huge damage at range and in melee depending on your subclass. It's damn good in the early game, and especially fun for brand new players due to its reliance on charisma as a spell modifier. You can literally talk the talk, and walk the walk with a Warlock.

• Warlock best race
• Warlock ability score priority
• Warlock proficiencies and background
• Warlock best subclass
• Warlock best equipment
• Warlock best spells

Warlock best race

The best race for Warlock players in Baldur's Gate 3 is the Drow.

This is due entirely to the Faerie Fire ability you gain at level three, which allows you to reveal enemies in an area and have advantage on attacks against them. This is generally good, but with a subclass passive we'll discuss later in the guide it becomes especially good. Superior Darkvision is also very nice, although not crucial.

A Half-Elf also works, as it also provides Faerie Fire at level three. Choose whichever you like more personally.

Warlock ability score priority

Your ability score priority should be Charisma, Constitution, Dexterity, and then everything else.

When first creating your character, we recommend the following initial stats:

• Strength - 8
• Dexterity - 13
• Constitution - 14
• Intelligence - 13
• Wisdom - 10
• Charisma - 17

As you level up, you'll gain ability score increases at level 4, 8, and 12.

You should invest your points into Charisma up to 20, then Constitution.

Warlock proficiencies and background

The Sage background is both thematically appropriate and practical for a Warlock. The in-built proficiencies in Arcana and History ensure that the Warlock can pass Intelligence-related checks more easily in the early stages of the game, when that ability stat isn't a priority for development.

Choosing additional proficiency in Deception works well for both role-playing purposes and to feed into that high Charisma stat. Round out the build with Sleight of Hand, Persuasion, or even Religion if you're feeling very dedicated to your patron.

Warlock best subclass

For our build, we recommend taking the The Great Old One subclass.

Why? Mortal reminder. This is a passive that provides allows you to frighten enemies on a critial hit. By using various spells (like Faerie Fire and various other spells and skills available to you and your party) you should be aiming to apply this affect as much as possible. Fightening enemies is incredibly useful, especially when taking down powerful enemies, and they can't roll saving throws against it. Brilliant!

It's also good regardless of whatever pact you take. We like pact of the Sword personally, as it buffs up our melee performance without taking away from the Warlocks' powerful ranged capabilities, but whichever you choose you'll do grand.

Warlock best equipment

Warlocks are proficient in light armour, and as such you'll not have a huge amount of baseline AC to take into fights. Try to look for the toughest pieces you can find, but also keep an eye out for any gear that buffs key skills and provides useful spells too. For example, boots that allow you to maneuver quickly with larger jumps or through misty step are excellent.

They are also proficient in simple weapons. If you're not going pact of the blade, we recommend a quarterstaff as rare ones often provide additional spells that can come in handy during combat. You'll likely be spending much of your time at range anyway (on that note, be sure to equip a shortbow or hand crossbow as a backup).

If you're a pact of the blade Warlock you can literally use whatever you want, granted you bind your pact weapon to grant it your spell modifier bonus. We went for glaive, simply because they're kinda cool and good with the right feats.

Warlock best spells

Eldritch Blast is a must-take cantrip at level one, and a foundation to any good Warlock build. It does fantastic damage, especially with the Agonizing Blast Eldtrich Invocation at level two that adds your Charisma modifier to the damage.

Armour of Agathys is great to, providing some much-needed defence to a squishy class and granted the added bonus of slapping back if you're it by a melee weapon. Just great all round, who doesn't love temporary hit points?

Also, thanks to the Great Old One subclass, you also get Tasha's Hideous Laughter as an option. This is amazing, as it can straight up remove an enemy from a fight for 10 turns. Doesn't require concentration either - so you can focus on the remaining enemies.

If you're looking for more help exploring the dark arts in BG3, don't forget to check-out our guides for the best Sorcerer build and best Wizard build.