D&D 5E Treantmonk's Guide to Wizards 5e

[FormerlyHemlock]

True, but a Lore Wizard 6/Sorcerer 3 can do so at level 9 vs an Other Wizard 17/Sorcerer 3 at level 20.

Yep, which in a way is my point. (One of them.) It's normally a feature of 9th level spells--not the only feature, but part of the package that makes Meteor Swarm "best evocation in the book." Out of the damaging spells, only Storm of Vengeance has a longer range.

Edit: BTW, a Sorcerer 17 can do it too. Meteor Swarm is on the sorcerer spell list.

 

[Phazonfish]

Yep, which in a way is my point. (One of them.) It's normally a feature of 9th level spells--not the only feature, but part of the package that makes Meteor Swarm "best evocation in the book." Out of the damaging spells, only Storm of Vengeance has a longer range.

Edit: BTW, a Sorcerer 17 can do it too. Meteor Swarm is on the sorcerer spell list.

Yeah, I assumed so, but you specified multiclassing so I thought we were talking wizards.

Personally I really like the Lore Wizard, but yeah, it needs to be reined in HARD.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yeah, I assumed so, but you specified multiclassing so I thought we were talking wizards.

I'm quite sure I didn't mention multiclassing at all in that post, just "any sorcerer", but no matter.

 

[Phazonfish]

My bad, maybe I was thinking of someone else's post.

 

[Strill]

Double post.

 

[Strill]

So given the choice of Firebolt, Minor Illusion, and for the sake of this thought experiment, Vicious Mockery: Which cantrip should you use and when?

As a reminder, disadvantage will generally be the difference between a hit and a miss, approximately 25% of the time.

Minor Illusion is guaranteed to give an enemy disadvantage on their first attack against a particular ally. You spend your turn to block 1 out of 4 monster attacks.
Vicious Mockery has a chance to give them disadvantage. You spend your turn to have around a 50-60% chance to block 1 out of 4 monster attacks, plus a little damage.
Firebolt just does damage.

So there's a spectrum from most defensive in Minor Illusion, to most offensive in Firebolt. Is defense the best strategy, making Minor Illusion the best? What about as you level up and more enemies get Multiattack? One enemy attack becomes less and less significant, and the comparative damage loss from not casting Firebolt becomes larger and larger. Is your damage contribution, relative to your party, so low that blocking 1/4 of one enemy attack is still worth more than Firebolt's damage?

 

[ppaladin123]

Huh, shouldn't this be in the character optimization forum?

 

[Strill]

Well I wanted to know, specifically in the context of this guide.

 

[Adam Mygrants]

check the sage advice for why Disintegrate might be more valuable than you realize. Note why the druid is screwed, and then think polymorph.
It's not the damage, it's the versatility. An enemy with disintegrate is the bane of what YOU do to many of your enemies... the decent damage is a great cherry to keep it useful if none of that happens to you. That BY DESIGN loophole, that landing polymorph on a foe and hitting it with disintegrate will kill it outright without it turning back to it's original form... well now how are you going to justify passing on that without the "well that's just cheap" argument?

 

[Bolares]

I don't know if anyone has already posted this, but I think there is one detail of booming blade that wasn't analised in the Bladesinger cantrips review. For a rogue the cantrip is even better than other classes, because, if you are facing a melee enemy, you can hit it with the cantrip and use your bonus action to move safely away from him. Then he has a choice to make, take considerable damage and go after you or stay put. This makes you eihter take considerably less damage or almost double your damage output per round.