D&D 5E Silvery Barbs Overpowered or Overrated?

[ECMO3]

So I have been playing with Sivery Barbs for about 4 months now at 4 different tables. I personally have the spell on a Ranger/Bard (5/1), a Bladesinger 7 and an Arcane Trickster/Arcane Archer 4/3 and several other players have it too.

Overall I think less of this spell than I did. It is a good but it is not overpowered and if we are talking about combat specifically I would put it behind many other spells.

Reasoning:
Strengths:
1. Versatility
You will have the opportunity to use it a lot in combat, almost too much if you are in melee often.

For a combat spell it also has a lot of out of combat uses and it is one of few 1st level spells along with charm person, Hex and Find Familiar that have both good combat and good out of combat uses.

2. No Concentration

3. Potential for very high payoff if use is rationed.

4. Reaction to cast (I put this as an advantage but on some builds this could be a disadvantage)

Weaknesses:
1. High slot cost.
Silvery Barbs affects two rolls. That is it, one enemy roll and one roll you make with advantage and you don't really control when the advantage roll happens. This compares with spells like Faerie Fire or Bless that will affect dozens of rolls for a single 1st level slot.

2. Not as effective as more narrowly focused options.
Shield is a much better spell at keeping you from getting hit, Hex is a better option at causing disadvantage on ability checks, absorb elements is going to save more damage from elements and bane or PEG is going to make enemies affected miss you more often. All these are more powerful than Silvery Barbs at the expense of the versatility SB has. My Bladesinger used SB to beat a crit and it worked for that but she still went down because she got hit 4 more times before her turn (including the reroll) and shield would have probably kept her up even though she would have taken the crit.

3. Not reliable and has a lot of variance in effectiveness
One thing I have found is often Silvery Barbs does nothing at all and other times it has a huge affect but you really can't predict if it is or is not going to work. My Bladesinger used it on a beholder trying to land Fear and he saved the second time. My Ranger has used it a bunch to make enemies reroll in melee and most of the time they have still hit him, as of right now he is nearly out of slots and has only been trhough the first fight of the day (admitedly a difficult one).

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Not terribly surprised not had a chance to use it myself.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It's a good spell and one that certainly wouldn't make me question why someone took it - but it's not the OMGWTFBBQ The Sky Is Falling spell that some people claim it is. It's nowhere near as reliable as shield (or Absorb Elements) at protecting you and there are better offensive options. But if you're a (non-Tasha's) sorcerer where spells known are at a premium it's excellent.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Definitely extremely powerful due to its versatility and low opportunity cost.
Unsure whether it rates an "overpowered" label though. - What spells would you actually regard as overpowered as a baseline?

 

[jgsugden]

I have also been using it on two builds.

One is a Gloom Stalker 5 / Cleric of Order 1 / Divine Soul 5 / Battlemaster 4 / Rogue 1. The shorthand for that monstrosity of a multiclass is that they're a religious archer. The progression feels more like Archer 10 / Cleric 6.

This PC uses their action and bonus action (for Healing words to grant an attack as a reaction to another PC or for quickened spells) every round, and as an archer rarely makes OAs. As such, they have their reactions available for Shield, Absorb Elements, Silvery Barbs and Hellish Rebuke - but 3 of those 4 rarely trigger. As an archer, they can be far back from the front lines and often escape being targeted. As such, this is the perfect PC for Silvery Barbs. And yet, I rarely cast it, and when I do it is usually to force a reroll on a saving throw. It has been useful, at times, but not overwhelmingly so.

The other PC is an Aberrant Mind Sorcerer in the Odyssey of the Dragonlords campaign setting. That PC also has a magic item that allows them to cast Shield 3 times per day, so when I obtained that I swapped Shield as a known spell for this spell. Now, with Heightened Spell, I can force enemies to save st a disadvantage, then reroll if they make the save. As such, my spells tend to land when I want them to land, which is handy for a spellcaster with a tendency for enchantment spells. Modify Memory, Dominate Person, Hold Monster, Banishment, Phantasmal Force, Suggestion, Enemies Abound, Polymorph, Vortex Warp ... and if you note it, many of those spells require multiple saving throws by the enemy, so this is a way to help keep those failures coming. This is another PC that seems built for the spell - but it isn't cast all that often. On this PC, the best use of this was on an ally which forced their attack to miss ... in order to give another downed PC a reroll on their upcoming death save (which did save their life). Part of the reason I rarely cast it is the PC has uncommonly high DCs on his spells and has faced a lot of enemies without great saving throw bonuses. However, it also sometimes comes down to me not wanting to waste my reaction because I might need to Counterspell...

I think of it as a B tier spell - good to have, but not an automatic must have spell.

 

[cbwjm]

I think of the spell as overrated. It is a great spell, but nowhere near the power level that people seemed to consider it.

 

[Shiroiken]

I just used the "see results," since I haven't actually seen it in use. Using it against attack rolls seems pretty bad, except maybe avoiding a critical hit. It might be useful in a social encounter or some contested exploration type encounter, but I don't think anyone's taking the spell for that. I think it's an awkward spell, because it's not really good except with higher level "save or suck" spells.

Spending both your spell slots on a Cause Fear spell at level 1 seems really, really weak. However, using a 1st level spell slot to force a reroll on Dominate Monster is super strong (especially considering by then lv 1 slots are only used for Shield, Absorb Elements, and maybe Featherfall). In between is going to depend on the caster and game, but I suspect anything level 4 or higher is going to get a huge boost with this spell. It's worse if you have multiple casters using it, because you can cause multiple rerolls on your best spells.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It is overrated, but that is not the same as saying it's bad.

The problem is, folks took one look at it and (as others said) thought the sky was falling. That it was stupidly, overweeningly, ridiculously overpowered. It's not. It isn't even an automatic pick. It IS very good, probably one of the better picks if you've already covered your bases and you want a little versatility or are heavily specialized in inflicting saving throws. But it's not world shattering.

It's a good to (contextually) great spell, rated as though it were the 5e equivalent of the Natural Spell feat.

 

[ECMO3]

Definitely extremely powerful due to its versatility and low opportunity cost.
Unsure whether it rates an "overpowered" label though. - What spells would you actually regard as overpowered as a baseline?

Good point.

I was really using cute wordplay there. "Overpowered" sounds better than "powerful" when paired with "overated" in a poll. I was also reacting to the threads here from December that said it broke the game essentially.

IME I think Fear and Spike Growth are the two spells I would say are arguably overpowered, but those are the only spells I can think of offhand that I would actually use that label on. As far as first level spells Bless, Faerie Fire, shield, absorb elements are all powerful but not really overpowered and if you assume limited spells prepared/known they are probably in the same realm as SB - being better at what they each do but not nearly as versatile as SB.

Shield is the best defensive 1st level spell in the game, Absorb Elements is the best defense against blasters in the game (with some use against other enemies that deal elemental damage), bless is the best 1st level buff in the game, Bane is probably the best 1st level debuff (although not nearly as good as the others on this list). SB takes a bite out of each of those apples, while those spells are the four "apples".

FWIW my bladesinger picked it up with Fey touched. By taking it with Fey touched instead of putting it my book, my logic is I will always have the opportunity to use the free cast, and that is absolutely true, I do.

 

[Stoutstien]

Both and Neither all at once. It's mostly unnecessary as a spell option and would be better served as a class/subclass feature. On classes that don't have native access to the other 1st lv reaction option is will probably be picked up at some point (bard)