The warlock's Pact of the Chain option looks really bad in comparison with other options for the Pact Boon feature. You just have a better familiar than other people.
One the other hand, you have Pact of the Blade (with a subclass based one the pact, and almost all invocations are at least super useful), and the Pact of the Tome (aka Pact of the Chain that comes later but less good with an invocation + all rituals of the game + 3 cantrips – with the Book of Ancient Secrets invocation). Unless you are the group tank, and you have multiclassed into warlock to have the "any healing spell always make me their maximum healing" invocation – Gift of the Ever-Living Ones – it looks like an always-bad choice.
Am I missing the point, or is Pact of the Chain just a bad option?
Best Answer
I'm currently playing a Pact of the Chain warlock, at 5th level. I chose Great Old One patron.
Number one thing is having a familiar. Pact of the Chain allows my familiar to take four additional forms over the common ones that find familiar can produce; partly for thematic reasons, and partly for abilities, I chose an imp.
The Pact of the Chain familiars are the only summonable ones in the game that can attack (in the imp's case, with the stinger on its tail), using the master's action; the imp can also fly, change shape (I normally command it to take the shape of a raven), become invisible, has Devil Sight (120' darkvision that penetrates magical darkness), and can speak without requiring me to take an invocation (over another, potentially more useful or better fitting for the concept) to speak through it. With one invocation, I can communicate with my familiar, and use his senses, anywhere on the same plane -- giving me an incredible ability to spy.
As with any other familiar, I can also dismiss the familiar at any time, and resummon it (as long as it wasn't "killed") within thirty feet, effectively a free teleport from wherever it's gotten, back to the master.
Different pacts are good for different things. I could say much the same you have, about Pact of the Tome -- with only two or three spell slots until some level most players will never reach, knowledge of a bunch of spells is really only practical for ritual casting -- which you can get (in a more limited form) with a feat in any class you choose to play.