D&D 5E The God Sorlock

[borg286]

My concern is that at the lower levels this will run out of juice (slots and SP) well before the end of the adventuring day. You'll still have a single EB + AB per round, but that will bring your average damage well down.

If a DM does the recommended 6-8 encounters per day, and you're keeping a good concentration spell and enough SP to twin it (which might involve breaking down some slots) for the high end of encounters, that doesn't leave a lot else per encounter. Take out some additional slots for reaction like Shield, and any utility outside of combat, and the build does not seem to be able to fuel it's potential until Tier 3 (maybe) or 4.

To be able to throw out these huge numbers, we're looking at what, say 8 spells for a 3-4 round combat plus breaking down say 2-4 more spells for SP after combat to fuel the next encounter? The KPR is showing a Action casting and a Bonus Action casting, plus there will be reactive needs like Shield.

I think this is a very efficient nova machine, but it for the most part boasts impressive damage by burning through resources quicker. Even a base EB + quickened EB round will take breaking down a 2nd level slot to replenish those spell points. If you have a DM who throws 2-3 encounters a day it can be better than even the other casters who bask in that situation because it can use resources quicker. But while it's a firehose compared to other casters garden hose, they both have the same size water tank at the end.

You're right. The scripts I laid out above focus on 1 encounter nova. I failed to address the 6-8 encounters per day. All warlock dips will rise over traditional casters due to having 6-16 extra 1-2nd level spells depending on their warlock commitment.

The Bard/Wizard/Sorcerer at level 6 will have a total of 38 spell points to spread over 8 encounters. That's 4.75 spell points per encounter, or a first and second level spell, or a single 3rd level spell. After that they are down to firebolt or Dodging, not much difference. 0.37 average KPR in the fight they could fireball (1.28 + 3 * 0.07 KPR)/4, and a hair above 0.1 KPR for the other encounters. This averages to 0.16 KPR over the day.

The Warlock dip bumps that to 3 1st level spells and a 2nd level spell.
Let's assume a Warlock 2/Sorcerer 4. An 8 encounter day means you can start off each encounter with 4 spell points and have 21 points to spread over those 4 encounters or 2.65 spell points. That's a Hex + 2 quickens + a Scorching Ray ever so often. Let's look at this non-scorching ray scenario.

1. Hex + Eldritch Blast = 2d10+2*cha + 2d6 @ 60% to hit = 14 Expected damage, 0.16 KPR
2. Curse + Eldritch Blast = 0.2 KPR
3. Quickened Eldritch Blast + Eldritch Blast = 0.4 KPR
4. Quickened Eldritch Blast + Eldritch Blast = 0.4 KPR

Average KPR of 0.29 KPR.
Encounters where we spend a Scorching ray boost round 2's damage to 0.27, and the encounter's average to 0.31.
Comparing this with our fighter friend 0.57 KPR we are doing 50% the damage output.
Comparing this with the standard caster limp garden hose and 1-2 encounter bang 0.16 KPR average KPR we're twice as good as them, but 1/2 as good as the fighter built for 8 encounter slogs.

Let's look at the HP resource pool.
The fighter has to spread his 6 hit dice over these 8 encounters, but is saved through Second Wind each fight. Let's assume he uses it every encounter.
45 HP + 8*(5.5+6) + 6*5.5 (hit dice) = 170 HP to spread over 8 encounters = 21 max HP lost per encounter.

Sorlock(14 Con, 16 Cha) with Inspiring Leadership
38 HP + 8*(6+3(cha))+ 4*3.5+2*4.5 (Hit dice) = 133 HP over 8 encounters = 16.6 max HP lost per encounter.

All in all, I feel this is pretty close to the endurance horse that is the fighter, while still having 3/4 the damage, 3/4 battlefield control, 3/4 healer, and party face. A jack of all trades would only get 1/2 the way there in each of these arenas and like the bard would have to pick which spells/areas to do for the day. I can switch on a dime.

 

[jgsugden]

As I've listened to his Youtube videos he mentions that the Dodge action is sometimes the best thing you can do. Why? Because his concentrated spells are so important to keep up and damage is not a goal. I say that you can have your cake and eat it too. I saw the Quickened Eldritch Blast + Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast as getting most of the way to what a party needs of a striker, and that the Darkness trope has diminishing returns for the problems it caused the party. What could be had if we dropped the Darkness and instead focused on the party, could we get even higher KPR by enabling them, akin to the God class? Yes and more.

All fine - gut a "God Build" by Treatmonk's definition, is not focused on damage and that is pretty much the core of your article.

Regarding the jack of all trades, Normally they are only 1/2 as good as a properly built Healer/Defender/Striker... My goal is to be somewhere in the 75% to 100% range. Where do you feel I fall short of this mark? The areas I admit are less than adequate are "choosing between Defender and Striker", and full utility of a caster class (Dimension Door, Teleport, Scrying, Familiar scout). I do feel the battlefield control role is properly filled out however.

I didn't say your build was less efficient. I said it was more a Jack of All Trades (I can do everything well enough to contribute OR MORE) than a God Build (I consciously do not do damage, but instead serve as a controller that buffs allies, controls the battle field itself, and debuffs/incapacitates enemies).

A God Sorlock might not even have the Eldritch Blast Cantrip. It would charm, create non-concentration illusions, hallucinatory terrain, etc... It would be looking to make it easier for allies to survive and enemies to fall without using damage spells.

I get the argument that a fireball is a battlefield control because it can clean out fodder that is essentially more terrain than it is foe - but that is not the case with Eldritch blast or inflict wounds. Those are there, primarily, to clear out a foe with damage.

 

[Guest 6801328]

You spend a lot of focus on damage for being a Treatmonk style "God" class. You're more of a jack of all trades.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Treantmonk doesn’t use “god” in the way one might assume, given a gaming context.

 

[borg286]

All fine - gut a "God Build" by Treatmonk's definition, is not focused on damage and that is pretty much the core of your article. I didn't say your build was less efficient. I said it was more a Jack of All Trades (I can do everything well enough to contribute OR MORE) than a God Build (I consciously do not do damage, but instead serve as a controller that buffs allies, controls the battle field itself, and debuffs/incapacitates enemies).

A God Sorlock might not even have the Eldritch Blast Cantrip. It would charm, create non-concentration illusions, hallucinatory terrain, etc... It would be looking to make it easier for allies to survive and enemies to fall without using damage spells.

I get the argument that a fireball is a battlefield control because it can clean out fodder that is essentially more terrain than it is foe - but that is not the case with Eldritch blast or inflict wounds. Those are there, primarily, to clear out a foe with damage.

Ok, fair enough. I hadn't looked at the God build as one that focused on acting through allies to the point of skipping over damage-focused options, regardless of efreciency. Instead it stays dead set on messing with enemy plans and enabling allies. I had incorrectly applied the God term to the notion of Tier 1 classes in 3.5 where they could fill roles better than dedicated classes.
True, a God Airlock would forgo Agonizing Blast in favor of the invocation that gave you all 1st level rituals.
Thank you for clarifying. I'm needing to find a more appropriate title for my build. Jack of all trades I feel falls short.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Ok, fair enough. I hadn't looked at the God build as one that focused on acting through allies to the point of skipping over damage-focused options, regardless of efreciency. Instead it stays dead set on messing with enemy plans and enabling allies. I had incorrectly applied the God term to the notion of Tier 1 classes in 3.5 where they could fill roles better than dedicated classes.
True, a God Airlock would forgo Agonizing Blast in favor of the invocation that gave you all 1st level rituals.
Thank you for clarifying. I'm needing to find a more appropriate title for my build. Jack of all trades I feel falls short.

Read his introduction(s). There's a bunch of gratuitous garbage making fun of players who aren't as 733T as he is*, but his basic theory behind evaluating spells, and how you spend your spell slots, is sound.

*I specifically did not direct my 12 year old nephew to Treatmonk, because I didn't want to teach him that it's cool to be an optimization elitist.

 

[FrogReaver]

Done.


I added a section called Defend or Blast, pick one. I realize I failed to anticipate that people would get the impression that I was trying to fulfill both roles simultaneously. I added a note in the summary, and in the section dedicated to how the Sorlock defends, and their exclusivity. I'm still proud of just how many defendery abilities I could get. Perhaps Warcaster is too great a price for its benefit given I have Magic Resistance and Shield and Proficiency in Constitution saves. Would a +2 cha be better?

It's so DM dependent it's hard to do a 1 size fits all. Being a sorcerer with moderate Con and high AC, I would lean toward +2 Cha. Why? With a small constitution bonus you will eventually make DC 10 concentration checks at 100% anyways. Then consider what +2 Cha does for EB, for landing OA's, for landing Booming Blade's etc, for your social skill checks, etc.

The way I approached it was to

1. Check off the Healing Word checkbox to deal with overkill and DM picking on a foe.
2. Do proactive healing for combat (Haste, Polymorph, Invisibility)
3. And finally deal with monster damage using either Heal, Healer or Inspiring Leader, where i favored the latter. Heal is late game. Both feats are are out of combat yet resourceless ways of dealing with monster damage.
4. Everything else I'd leave up to a player's HP pool simply being another resource that can be drained and replenished through Hit dice. Inspiring Leader increases this HP pool depth. Rather than fixing a player's drained HP, I'd do battlefield control to let them get away. I now see that Minor Illusion and Greater Invisibility are the only tools in my kit to deal with characters not dead yet needing to get away.

I could only find that access to Heal and Polymorph, and twinning it, was a worthwhile use of my resources and actions in combat to deal with a character that was getting hammered and needed to be healed. Are you proposing a healer should be able to deal with this in combat?

The beauty of healing spells (and damage spells) is that they don't require concentration. I would never expect a spell not requiring concentration to be as impactful as a spell requiring it (except in the most niche of circumstances).

So yes, in terms of resources your concentration spells will always have a higher impact. However, once you've cast one you're typically best keeping it up and using something non-concentration instead. Which leads us back to the question (using a specific example in place of the more generalized case) - at level 5 is a twinned inflict wounds or twinned cure light wounds better? I say the healing because 2 things:
1. there are fewer party members going to be capable of in combat healing
2. quickening eldritch blast is cheaper than twinning inflict wounds. Twinning firebolt isn't that far behind either and it's very cheap.

Of course that's providing that you are playing in a game where there is some risk of a downed PC being targeted and killed. If that doesn't happen then pop-up healing via healing word tends to be the best option.

This is a great point. Only Sentinel, and other hard immobilization effects check the stickiness in high levels.
I had been imposing my 3.5 and 4e experience into 5e. Shamefully I've never played a 5e game before, only theorycrafted. This makes it clear why wizards need so many ways to deal with foes getting in their faces. I'll drop Haste as a proactive healing spell. You've made a fair point. I've moved haste into a section titled A good defense is a good Offense. I feel it incorporates your very valid points.

You are doing a pretty good job at analysis without having played the game. You also wrote a compelling guide - a very good writeup. I actually find rogues - provided you can raise their defenses high enough make great defenders because their OA's scale high enough to actually deter. Something like greater invisibility on a rogue could essentially give the party a great defender that can go out and isolate a strong for and trade blows with it.

I guess what I'm ultimately saying is that your best bet at defending is probably to buff your allies into being great defenders, either by increasing their OA damage or increasing their defense.

However, I do want to raise the point that in my idealized party there is a place for a tanky backline character that intercepts enemies running past the front line to ease up pressure on your truly squishy characters. Your character does make an excellent candidate for that role - and it's a role I would argue is very important.

I like this model. I'll continue with my table for estimating targets for AOE spells, and then use your multipliers rather than the targets themselves for the biased converstion to single target damage.
It may take me some time to redo the calculations and sections to explain the reasoning. If you could find that discussion I'd love to read and reference it.

5E - Quantifying AOE impact

Let me know if the link doesn't work. I can quote the first post from it instead.

A character is not an island.
There is bound to be a single target focused ally in your team. Most of them use their bonus actions and are often in range of multiple targets. There is bound to be another character with access to AOEs.
How do we model this. Let's go with your 1 KPR baseline for the striker, and 0.5 KPR for 4 other members.
This totals 3 KPR. Let's assume we have 10 appropriately leveled monsters and we want to minimize the number of actions the monster team makes.

Everyone is Single Target

1. Monsters go: 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% = 10 actions | Players go: 10 - 3 KPR
2. Monsters go: 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 0% | 0% | 0% = 7 actions | Players go: 7 - 3 KPR
3. Monsters go: 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% = 4 actions | Players go: 4 - 3 KPR
4. Monsters go: 100% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% = 1 actions | Players go: 1 - 3 KPR

Total actions 22 actions

Everyone is AOE
Note that we are assuming their 1 KPR is before the above 50% penalty. Because I'm minimizing enemy actions I don't need to apply a 50% weight to secondary targets. Without doing this penalty one would see an AOE do way more than 1 KPR. Thus our sample party here is doing a rather weak 1 KPR of AOE, but let's run with it.

1. Monsters go: 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% = 10 actions | Players go: Each monster gets 3 KPR total / 10 targets = 0.3 KPR
2. Monsters go: 70% | 70% | 70% | 70% | 70% | 70% | 70% | 70% | 70% | 70% = 10 actions | Players go: 10 targets take 0.3 KPR
3. Monsters go: 40% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 40% = 10 actions | Players go: 10 targets take 0.3 KPR
4. Monsters go 10.% | 10.% | 10.% | 10.% | 10.% | 10.% | 10.% | 10.% | 10.% | 10.% = 10 actions | Players go: 10 targets take 0.3 KPR and each target is dead

Total monster actions 40 actions. This exemplifies your point

Now to my point that a character is not an island. Assume I'm the AOE attacker and the rest of the team is single target, same KPRs as before

1. Monsters go: 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% = 10 actions | I go dealing 0.1 KPR to each foe, allies finish off 2 targets
2. Monsters go: 90% | 90% | 90% | 90% | 90% | 90% | 90% | 70% | 0% | 0% = 8 actions | I go dealing 0.11 KPR to each foe, allies finish off 2 targets
3. Monsters go: 77.5% | 77.5% | 77.5% | 77.5% | 77.5% | 12.5% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% = 6 actions | I go dealing 0.13 KPR to each foe, allies finish off 4 targets
4. Monsters go: 60.8% | 43.3% | 0% | 0% | 0% | -4.2% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% = 2 actions | I go dealing 0.5 KPR to each foe, allies finish off the last target

Total monster actions 26. This isn't too far off of the optimal 22.
The main point is that given that the rest of the party is likely to have single target abilities, your AOE's inability to disable foes immediately, is cushioned by the fact that single target attacks can eat the remainders you leave behind.

Often the AOE attack is doing considerably more than an effective 1 KPR, potentially 8 KPR if mooks are bunched up well enough.
To the goal of the build, we want versatility between AOE and single target, and even doling out the single target into multiple attacks so that we don't waste damage through overkill

Totally agree. All discussions are dependent somewhat on your allies. That said, the way I view this undisputable fact is that your damage is typically a small percentage of the parties output. This means that highly optimizing your damage output has relatively little impact on how fast the party can actually defeat foes. Instead placing more focus on battlefield control / healing / utility may actually be more beneficial.

In the end we want at least 1 AOE spell, and 2 is often redundant. Fireball is best in slot for a window of levels. Cone of Cold beats it out due to rarity of cold resistance, and finally Chain Lightning wins as the single target KPR is respectably high, and the friendliness should make the penalty smaller.

Yep - I think some of the question is whether those AOE spells should be fireball or hypnotic pattern style spells.

 

[Flamestrike]

Thank you for showing how Pushing strike, Precise strike and action surge could be used. But I was asking you to go through the math and show me that the expected damage would be better than the Riposte/Parry strategy I used.

Im not doing math. It's the weekend.

Pushing/ Precise is better from a raw DPR perspective than Parry/ Riposte. Technicaly you have Precise, Pushing and Riposte on a GWF BM in any event.

Your argument about 2-3 encounters per day is valid. If I knew there would be 3 encounters that day I'd spread out my damage with Quicken Eldritch Blast.

Seeing as the DMG is pretty explicit that the average party should only be running out of long rest resources after an 'adventuring day' of 6-8 medium-hard encounters, and are expected to have 2-3 Short rests in that time, 2-3 encounter adventuring days should be pretty rare.

How many dungeons do you know that only have 2-3 encounters in them? You wouldnt even be 1/3 of the way through most dungeons at the 2-3 encounter mark.

Your scenario you painted, 2-3 rounds in and I finally have all my buffs up before I start attacking is not what I outlined in the level sections. I show how much damage I frontload. While it isn't as good as the figher's Action Surge, the average over 4 rounds is respectable and often superior.

It's no where near as good as the GWM Fighters in round 1 (presuming both PCs come to the table full of juice). An action surging GWM Fighter at 5th level who lands just 2 of his 4-5 GWM attacks (and remember - he has precise strike up his sleeve) deals 54 or so points of damage on round 1.

A better example would be a Sharpshooter BM Fighter with the Archery style (and Precise strike, and Menacing strike).

From there he MC's into Ranger (Hunter) for 3 levels for Hunters Mark and +1d8 Damage 1/ turn to a creature with less than max HP.

Never do I end up spending a minor action to convert my spells to points.

You get 1 Quicken per encounter at 5th level. 2 Quickens at levels 6-7 and 3 Quickens at levels 8-9 (and so forth) presuming you took 2 levels of Warlock in those first 5 levels.

Most campaigns tend to end at that point, so in actual play, I dare say you'll have to convert a few spells on the fly to get more SP seeing as this is your main trick.

Note that I Hex and then use Twin Inflict Wounds prior to level 5.

At level 3 you can do this (presuming Divine soul sorcerer, and 2 adjacent targets in melee range to you).

Not sure I would like to be in melee range with 2 adjacent targets as a Sorcerer 3.

She is not just warming up while the party does the heavy lifting. She is right up there with them on round 1 benefiting from Hex. The curse is simply nice and squoze in there so the Quicken EB + EB at level 5 can use it later on.

Mate, in the two rounds it took to lay on the Curse and Hex to a target, its probably dead from the other PC's (meaning you now need to move the Hex elsewhere, so no Quicken).

You've white roomed it. I mean, you've done a lot of work on it and all, but in actual play it likely doesnt work the way you think it does.

 

[FrogReaver]

For a "God Sorcerer"

The most important spells I would want on my relatively small list (no particular order)
1. Shield
2. Invisibility
3. Healing Word
4. Haste
5. Hypnotic Pattern
6. Polymorph

Which really becomes the biggest issue with a sorcerer - knowing enough spells.

 

[borg286]

For a "God Sorcerer"

The most important spells I would want on my relatively small list (no particular order)
1. Shield
2. Invisibility
3. Healing Word
4. Haste
5. Hypnotic Pattern
6. Polymorph

Which really becomes the biggest issue with a sorcerer - knowing enough spells.

Can you elaborate on why Hypnotic Pattern is so highly recommended? I get that it doesn't allow for a save each round, but the "1 action to wake up" sounds like an easy way to have 1/2 the bad guys wake the other half up. Further, for being an AOE spell, requiring concentration puts it categorically under other AOE spells in my book. I grant that my book has no real work experience to base off of.

Invisibility sounds like a waste. It requires one's concentration slot which should be used on a spell that turns the battle around. Twinning it is likely to end quickly as the other target gets a single attack out of it. If you meant Greater Invisibility I totally agree with these spells as being at the top.

 

[borg286]

It's so DM dependent it's hard to do a 1 size fits all. Being a sorcerer with moderate Con and high AC, I would lean toward +2 Cha. Why? With a small constitution bonus you will eventually make DC 10 concentration checks at 100% anyways. Then consider what +2 Cha does for EB, for landing OA's, for landing Booming Blade's etc, for your social skill checks, etc.



The beauty of healing spells (and damage spells) is that they don't require concentration. I would never expect a spell not requiring concentration to be as impactful as a spell requiring it (except in the most niche of circumstances).

So yes, in terms of resources your concentration spells will always have a higher impact. However, once you've cast one you're typically best keeping it up and using something non-concentration instead. Which leads us back to the question (using a specific example in place of the more generalized case) - at level 5 is a twinned inflict wounds or twinned cure light wounds better? I say the healing because 2 things:
1. there are fewer party members going to be capable of in combat healing
2. quickening eldritch blast is cheaper than twinning inflict wounds. Twinning firebolt isn't that far behind either and it's very cheap.

Of course that's providing that you are playing in a game where there is some risk of a downed PC being targeted and killed. If that doesn't happen then pop-up healing via healing word tends to be the best option.



You are doing a pretty good job at analysis without having played the game. You also wrote a compelling guide - a very good writeup. I actually find rogues - provided you can raise their defenses high enough make great defenders because their OA's scale high enough to actually deter. Something like greater invisibility on a rogue could essentially give the party a great defender that can go out and isolate a strong for and trade blows with it.

I guess what I'm ultimately saying is that your best bet at defending is probably to buff your allies into being great defenders, either by increasing their OA damage or increasing their defense.

However, I do want to raise the point that in my idealized party there is a place for a tanky backline character that intercepts enemies running past the front line to ease up pressure on your truly squishy characters. Your character does make an excellent candidate for that role - and it's a role I would argue is very important.



5E - Quantifying AOE impact

Let me know if the link doesn't work. I can quote the first post from it instead.



Totally agree. All discussions are dependent somewhat on your allies. That said, the way I view this undisputable fact is that your damage is typically a small percentage of the parties output. This means that highly optimizing your damage output has relatively little impact on how fast the party can actually defeat foes. Instead placing more focus on battlefield control / healing / utility may actually be more beneficial.



Yep - I think some of the question is whether those AOE spells should be fireball or hypnotic pattern style spells.

Thank you for pointing me to this AOE thread. I read it and it is quite impressive. I would have ended up analyzing specific spells learned at specific levels and modeling expected damage and everything. You went with super generic, which is cool. I really like the viewpoint of "how many monster turns does this action take away compared to me doing single target damage like the rest of the team by the end of the combat". I didn't see intuitive analysis that dealt with the heterogeneous party makeup where they leave AOE to you and they focus fire what is left standing.

In the end, however, the main question is (1)"what spell to prepare that maximizes my team's chances of winning?" And (2)"how many enemies will I need to target for this to be an efficient use of my spell slot, given my guess as to how many mook balls I might encounter (3) later today?"

To answer (1): It needs to be big enough, and preferably a damage type that isn't resisted. I don't see many contenders here that hold a candle to Fireball, Cone of Cold, and Vitrolic Sphere.

To answer (2): The answer is obvious if you see 8+ targets(yes) or only 3(no). As the post pointed out we are here to analyze the 4-7 range. Your analysis showed single target equivalent impact = 1*(single target damage) + 1/2*(N-1)(other targets). If 4<=N<=7 then a fireball does 21+1/2*21{4,7} = 63-94 equivalent damage. Compare this with a fighter's single target DPR @ level 5 of 27 DPR. That's about 2.3 - 3.5 times as much damage as a top level single target fighter. That should cover a lower DPR in the subsequent 2-4 rounds. It seems like at even 4 targets it is worth it.

To answer (3), namely the opportunity cost of having a fireball when there is an even better ball of mooks waiting on the next page of the campaign, that's where the Sorcerer comes in. We can ensure we always have a level 3 slot open for this highly efficient usage of spell slots even if all we have are 5 spell points, blowing a minor action and then fireballing is worth it given the sight of enough mooks.

Regarding the +2 Cha vs. Warcaster you have a good point. While I'd love to use Greater Invisibility on a rogue and thus turn them into a very sticky striker/defender, it is highly team dependent. A sneak attack will add around 0.12 KPR to the attack, or reduce the monster's HP by 12%, nothing to sneeze at. Another great target for Greater Invisibility is someone with Sentinel, but that should be your first option and unlikely to have 2 such targets. Someone with Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter would be the next candidates to turn into sticky strikers/defenders. Booming Blade on a level 5 character gets secondary damage of 13.5, greater than Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter. However the real baseline is monster HP. Interestingly this averages out to 0.12 extra KPR from the secondary damage. Take 4.5*{1,3,5,7} / (14*{1,2,3,...20} +10) and average over all 20 levels. Thus if you felt Greater Invisibility on a Rogue turns them into a respectable and sticky defender, then Warcaster + Booming Blade should deserve the same respect. Therefore I'll keep it.

Regarding the healing vs Inflict Wounds, I tend to favor action economy. In the end, I agree that it depends on context and party composition. If there is a bard with healing word, you would likely switch. If there is a Life cleric you may trade out Inspiring Leader to let them shine. If the DM is cruel you would plan on Boosting defense and Healing Word as a safety Net. If players rush in with low HP you might swap out Command for Inflict Wounds and twin that instead. But in general I've went with dropping all in-combat healing except for Healing Word and Heal. This also aligns with the character concept of being a Yuan-ti and viewing others as tools/resources that have limits. Having those resources depleted means your team is less effective, and this weird "morale" thing gets lost when a party member dies. Thus you patch them up when they fall, and recite comforting words so they are more willing to risk themselves in combat to win as they have temp HP to soak up the damage. This way of looking at the team also aligns with that thread, as team members were simply units that dealt single target damage to monsters that your fireball didn't kill.