Impartial Review Requested

[Argent Fatalis]

This isn't my work or approval, but there's been a player at one of my tables consistently saying that Vicious Mockery is not as powerful as it seems it is. That said, they are now the Dungeon Master and the following item has been approved expressly by him for a warlock in our group. Given you are all the experts as far as relative balance, min-maxing and optimization go, I would like your opinion on it.

This is the "Trickster Patron" and unless I am greatly over valuing Vicious Mockery and this archetype, this is perhaps one of the better, if not best warlock archetypes - straight classed - there is. He's stated several times over he took the best features of some classes and improved them more, that the cantrip itself is "not too powerful" because it "deals so little damage" and that it "doesn't target a weak save".

If anything my objective is to know a few things, namely if that's even remotely accurate and how powerful this might be, barring all the other homebrew and house rules he's already thrown in.

Thoughts?

[TenaciousJ]

the cantrip itself is "not too powerful" because it "deals so little damage" and that it "doesn't target a weak save".

Anyone saying it deals negligible damage missed the point of vicious mockery.  Vicious mockery gains in power when fighting smaller groups of enemies and/or an enemy that makes fewer attacks.  Wisdom is quite often a weaker saving throw than Dexterity or Constitution for most published creatures.  Off the top of my head, I cannot think of anything strong against Wisdom saving throws that is not supernatural with magical or pseudo-magical abilities (in other words, things you'd expect to have decent Wisdom).

Vicious Mockery is a party-friendly cantrip.  You would not want to rely on it as the main source of damage for a group.  The value of vicious mockery is defensive, as it is essentially proactive damage prevention.  The value of disadvantage compounds based on a few factors.  Does your group frequently impose disadvantage in other ways?  Vicious Mockery would lose some value then.  Does your group have high enough AC and/or enough reactive AC boosts to maximize the benefit of disadvantage imposed at-will?  Vicious Mockery gains value in this scenario.

The Trickster is a good patron as written.  I would not call it clearly better than the best official patrons, but it's in-league with those.  The 10th level ability is questionable as-written, because the usual bonus action spellcasting rules do not allow a spell of 1st level or higher with a casting time of 1 action and a bonus action spell of any level at the same time.  Normally, when you cast a bonus action spell at any point in the same turn, the regular action has to be a non-spell or a cantrip.  That said, I think specific can beat general here.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

I had good luck + use, out of Vicious Mockery and Frostbite.
Primarily for Battlefield Control, as TenJ is saying.

d4+cha damage is fine hardly different than a d6+stat + no effect,
however +2 to the save is long term very good i.p.proofing

[bruceleeroy]

Enhanced Mockery combined with Phantom Pain means you're pretty much getting 3 actions. Cast an Illusion spell, Vicious Mockery (with d10s) and teleport 20'. Then you can move.

That's pretty damn hoss. Like, Super goddamn hoss. Resourceless teleportation, combined with a damaging debuff, as a bonus action after someone fails a save against your 5th level spell? Sweet combo. Broken? I dunno. Depends on the rest of the table. But it is super good.

[Argent Fatalis]

I appreciate the opinions put here, TenaciousJ, aDMg, and bruceleeroy.

Yes, the rest of the group is mostly flavor with a few other homebrew races included, but the warlock is unintentionally optimized in an unusual way between those factors; the player has no expertise or knowledge in that arena. Unfortunately they were never willing to hear me out that it is a bit too good in most regards.

We will see.