D&D 5E Sorcerer Vs Wizard And Why its Closer Than You Think

Sorcerers are fine as long as you play to the class's strengths. On the other hand if your character concept doesn't fit the ideal then playing a sorcerer can be frustrating. This is unlike the wizard where it's easy to create effective characters from nearly any concept.

CapnZapp said:

First off, any spellcaster with a decent area attack spell can spike a load of damage.

But I'm not talking about individual damage spikes (which can easily reach several hundred points of damage if you luck out).

I'm talking about nova damage. The Sorcerer's ability to cast BOTH a regular spell (which must be said to be equal to the Wizard and Sorcerer) AND a twinned cantrip, means - for many campaigns - that a member of the class will always be welcome.

(Yes, eventually you run out of Sorcery points, but that's not relevant for nova purposes. The only point made here is: if there's one particular monster that needs to die RIGHT NOW, future encounters be damned, few other classes can accomplish this faster)

Again, I wasn't contesting any of what the OP said. I just wanted to put more emphasis on the nova damage aspect, as in, "yes, many people think the wizard is better, but since the sorcerer completely overshadows it when it really matters*, it's not all that bad."

*) remember what style of campaign I'm talking about here.

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This is a very good way of phrasing it.

Zardnaar said:

Seen a Sorlock in action? Makes warlock cry lol.

Sorcerers are decent at AoE damage comes online a bit earlier than invoker. DPR is nothing fantastic though for a single class one.

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So... you agree that pure sorcerer is nothing special in the DPR department?

I wasn't touching multi-class builds, since I think sorlock and pallock dominate by a far margin, until someone tells me of some other things they built with magic items and such. I was mostly just responding to this idea that pure sorcerers are far and above DPR masters... which seems untrue to me.

CapnZapp said:

First off, any spellcaster with a decent area attack spell can spike a load of damage.

But I'm not talking about individual damage spikes (which can easily reach several hundred points of damage if you luck out).

I'm talking about nova damage. The Sorcerer's ability to cast BOTH a regular spell (which must be said to be equal to the Wizard and Sorcerer) AND a twinned cantrip, means - for many campaigns - that a member of the class will always be welcome.

(Yes, eventually you run out of Sorcery points, but that's not relevant for nova purposes. The only point made here is: if there's one particular monster that needs to die RIGHT NOW, future encounters be damned, few other classes can accomplish this faster)

Again, I wasn't contesting any of what the OP said. I just wanted to put more emphasis on the nova damage aspect, as in, "yes, many people think the wizard is better, but since the sorcerer completely overshadows it when it really matters*, it's not all that bad."

*) remember what style of campaign I'm talking about here.

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I get what you are trying to say, but I don't think it works the way you are saying in practice, especially if you are claiming it for single target damage.

6th level (so dragon sorcerer bonus comes into play)

Sorcerer Dragon with Magic Initiate for Hex (not many feats for increasing spell damage) upcast scorching ray as a bonus action gets you 4*2d6(+mod once) +4d6 then main action firebolt for 2d10 +mod. Let us say that average is about 52+mod twice?

Hexblade with PAM and hex and hexblade's curse active, along with an eldritch smite could pull off 2d10+1d4+mod*3 +3d6 +9 +8d8. Which is something around an average of 63+mod thrice?

Battlemaster fighter with GWM and PAM could dish out 4d10+1d4+mod*5+50+4d8 (maybe trip for advantage of something). That's a massive potential of 88+mod five times.

Vengeance Paladin with GWM could throw Hunter's mark and some smites (double smiting even with wrathful smite) and get 4d6+mod*2+2d6+1d6+6d8+20. Average of about 68+mod twice.

Zealot and Frenzy barbarians can do just about the same thing.

And maybe this is just because of GWM for the martials (warlock ain't using it I'll note, and Paladin with PAM might be higher actually) but those are relatively simple builds who can all throw a ton of damage on a single target just as fast or faster than the sorcerer.

Multi-class can open up even more options. I'm not trying to say that sorcerers are bad at nova, clearly they are not, but they are not in a league "few other classes" can match if we only care about damage and nothing else.

See my posts on pgs. 5-6 of the thread "Wizard vs. Sorcerer: Which one would you rather play? Which would you rather be?" for how to build a Sorcerer that needs no material components or gear and can basically think spells into existence while bound and gagged... unlike the Wizard, who is up a creek sans material components and spellbook. (O.K., so the Divine Soul Sorcerer needs a Divine Focus, I think, but other than that...) The total number of spells the Sorcerer gets in 5e stinks, true, but clever selection and use of Subtle Spell can still make for a very effective character.

Chaosmancer said:

So... you agree that pure sorcerer is nothing special in the DPR department?

I wasn't touching multi-class builds, since I think sorlock and pallock dominate by a far margin, until someone tells me of some other things they built with magic items and such. I was mostly just responding to this idea that pure sorcerers are far and above DPR masters... which seems untrue to me.





I get what you are trying to say, but I don't think it works the way you are saying in practice, especially if you are claiming it for single target damage.

6th level (so dragon sorcerer bonus comes into play)

Sorcerer Dragon with Magic Initiate for Hex (not many feats for increasing spell damage) upcast scorching ray as a bonus action gets you 4*2d6(+mod once) +4d6 then main action firebolt for 2d10 +mod. Let us say that average is about 52+mod twice?

Hexblade with PAM and hex and hexblade's curse active, along with an eldritch smite could pull off 2d10+1d4+mod*3 +3d6 +9 +8d8. Which is something around an average of 63+mod thrice?

Battlemaster fighter with GWM and PAM could dish out 4d10+1d4+mod*5+50+4d8 (maybe trip for advantage of something). That's a massive potential of 88+mod five times.

Vengeance Paladin with GWM could throw Hunter's mark and some smites (double smiting even with wrathful smite) and get 4d6+mod*2+2d6+1d6+6d8+20. Average of about 68+mod twice.

Zealot and Frenzy barbarians can do just about the same thing.

And maybe this is just because of GWM for the martials (warlock ain't using it I'll note, and Paladin with PAM might be higher actually) but those are relatively simple builds who can all throw a ton of damage on a single target just as fast or faster than the sorcerer.

Multi-class can open up even more options. I'm not trying to say that sorcerers are bad at nova, clearly they are not, but they are not in a league "few other classes" can match if we only care about damage and nothing else.

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Fire Sorcerer is a bit above the curve for a spellcaster (well most of them), but overall the Sorcerer isn't exactly great at DPR compared to the good builds. Its better for non min/maxed and adding charisma bonus to elemental damage is better than say intelligence bonus to cantrips.

I also allow a 3rd party feat that lets you change elemental types as a bonus action as the Dragon fire sorcerer is decent and you can make a cold and lightning one but the cold one uses a lot of con saves so I don't think its very good. And you need splat for the cold one.

Elderbrain said:

See my posts on pgs. 5-6 of the thread "Wizard vs. Sorcerer: Which one would you rather play? Which would you rather be?" for how to build a Sorcerer that needs no material components or gear and can basically think spells into existence while bound and gagged... unlike the Wizard, who is up a creek sans material components and spellbook. (O.K., so the Divine Soul Sorcerer needs a Divine Focus, I think, but other than that...) The total number of spells the Sorcerer gets in 5e stinks, true, but clever selection and use of Subtle Spell can still make for a very effective character.

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It sure can be effective at something - but to me it cant be that good at representing its "nature" across a variety of its concepts. Thats to me one of the big issues with sorc - a lot of the ideas spawned by the "nature" of the class, by its fluff - are not ones that can really see that much realization in play from that class.

Compared to a wizard for which it seems much more straight up you can get out of it what you see in the fluff even from the sub-classes *and* be effective.

Then again, i have similar feelings for the warlock - the ideas that spawn from the nature and fluff meet a trio of mechanics that really need to sync up for effectiveness but which only really sync up in a few narrow ways.

My bias is showing but i think a world of possibilities open if we move metamagic and invocations and swap them between those two with very few tweaks needed for the conversion. But thats "wishland" not "current land" so not really that much to matter.

I've played both a Wizard and a Sorcerer, and think that the difference is pretty close. Admittedly, the Wizard only got to 3rd level, and in a setting that made playing a wizard difficult (magic-phobic world, learned magic in secret, therefore it's been difficult to acquire more spells to scribe into my spellbook). The Sorcerer is 8th, running through Curse of Strahd.

The Sorcerer's spells known progression is tight, I feel like after taking the optimal spells I have room for maybe one flavour/thematic pick, and that's now at mid-levels. But it is pretty close, I feel like I have enough spells to be an effective member of the party. Low levels are where it really crunched. Honestly, just giving 1 or 2 more spells is probably enough.

But more than spells, I feel like Metamagic is where I want more. 2 options right now is very restrictive, and the fact that I'm only ever going to get 2 more is vexing. Also, while a lot of attempts to remake the Sorcerer focus on adding bloodline-specific spells, I'd actually be more in favour of bloodline-specific Metamagic options. Like, give Dragon and Storm Sorcerers Energy Substitution, and such.

To see what I personally consider a major part of the issue, try reframing the discussion to address "sorcerers without fire spells" (and no altering fire spells to another element of choice).

Sword of Spirit said:

To see what I personally consider a major part of the issue, try reframing the discussion to address "sorcerers without fire spells" (and no altering fire spells to another element of choice).

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That sounds more like an issue with the draconic sorcerer subclass than with the class itself, which I agree could have done with more spell support in the PHB for the other elements. If you aren't playing that subclass though, then it isn't really much of an issue.

Sword of Spirit said:

To see what I personally consider a major part of the issue, try reframing the discussion to address "sorcerers without fire spells" (and no altering fire spells to another element of choice).

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I don't struggle with that after ToEE added more elemental spells. It can be hard to develop a theme to the point people want sometimes, yes, but what we want isn't what we need to be effective.

That's a conceptual issue more than a mechanical one. It also means more system awareness becomes necessary than one would expect in building the character; to the point it might impact the theme. That's the real issue.