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"All X must Y" claims of this kind are nearly always overblown in the first place, or are a bad, lossy gloss of a much more nuanced thought. "Greatsword is an especially strong weapon because it gets more out of its Style feat than other large weapons" is accurate. "All Fighters should use...

Then you are a highly unusual exception among those who professed such dislike for 4e. The vast majority of people who disliked 4e thought 5e was just the ticket.

I'm well aware that 5e is the apology edition.

No individual person's experience will be universal, sure. But "feel[ing] caster-y" should at least have a loose constellation of effects which all fit into that. If we get several distinct answers, we can try to find common threads. If we get several answers with a lot in common, then we've...

Answering this question requires that we identify what elements produce "feel[ing] caster-y". So--what does that feeling feel like? What visuals do you see when you're having that feeling? What actions can reliably pull it off? Are there spells that don't feel "caster-y" even when you are, in...

So the players can discover information about the world without you having to tell them? How do they do this?

This would be exactly the sort of thing I'm thinking of. You created pressure--but it lasted much longer than you intended it to. It wasn't the players out of the blue insert pressure, unprompted, no reason other than because they feel like applying pressure. You then needed to work with them...

"I'm not creating anything! I'm just completely controlling what players are allowed to know so they believe they're under pressure when they aren't! That's 100% on them!" Pull the other one, Max. If you lead them to believe it's pressure, that's your doing, not theirs.

As far as I can tell, they are. The issue seems to be that you want them connected only in one particular way, as in one specific form of logical/procedural explanation, and the actual explanation is different. Not bad, nor absent. I don't see what the misunderstanding is. Out of combat, you...

So you had no part whatsoever in their perception that time was of the essence? Given I know your attitude runs very old-school, when did the players actually create a pressure situation? Believing there is pressure when there isn't is not the same as creating actual pressure. People can fool...

Then I guess my response to that is: I know what I want out of pacing, and I, personally, cannot want "constant" pressure in the way you're describing it, where your only outlet is "it's not your turn". I know you've spoken previously about how "color" scenes are extremely important--and that...

I just would not be able to accept as realistic a world where nothing ever has a time limit on it. Again, I'm coming from a position where I'm very specifically saying: "Constant pressure is bad, it would upset most people." But just as I would be surprised at someone genuinely wanting to have...

I would not say that, as I presented it, it does. Some people are going to be good with lots of pressure almost all of the time. Some are going to be good with extreme pressure in bursts. Some, a slow and irregular oscillation. Some, a fast oscillation. But I think it's reasonable to say that...

I've called this out myself, very recently, within the last couple weeks at most. I was dismissed with, in brief, "It's in our imaginations, so that doesn't matter." I found that an unproductive, thought-terminating response, but I didn't see much point in digging further on that specific thing...

That's not what I was saying. What I was saying is that the GM does, in fact, need to apply pressure for there to be pressure. The way D&D--especially 5e, but all editions--is designed, it has to be the GM providing pressure, because the players functionally cannot pressure themselves, as they...

The problem, of course, is that constant pressure is absolutely exhausting. Like, you're right that the GM needs to do this, but the materials we get from WotC are...let's call it lacking in guidance or models to follow, at least thus far in 5e (whether 5.0 or 5.5). But the GM also needs to not...

So do I. Casting aspersions isn't going to help you on that front.

Exactly. "Tanking" in 4e actually meant controlling enemy attention, because controlling enemy attention was a thing you could meaningfully do, and the mechanics made it both worthwhile and necessary. In 5e, it just means being extremely survivable. And if your features have intimidated the GM...

You keep saying this as though you can't do both things. More importantly, the question was about min-maxing. Min-maxing for defense is a perfectly valid approach. That there might be other options doesn't mean this one isn't also min-maxing.

A 1-level Fighter dip is excellent for anyone aiming for a caster-martial mixed character: Bladesinger Wizard, Pact of the Blade Warlock, etc.--doubly so in 5.5e, where it gives you both a style feat and weapon masteries, on top of the Con save proficiency it already gave. Other than that...