D&D 5E Eldritch Knight: How often do you actually use War Magic?

[Xeviat]

I imagine 2d10 fire bolt can be a tempting option for an Eldritch Knight archer. You won't get your +2 to hit, but 2d10 (11) is a little more than 1d8+5 (9.5). But riders, like ray of frost's slow or frostbite's disadvantage could be useful tricks too.


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[Barolo]

I will quote Cap because the list is quite handy.

(...)

Let's compare:

Weapon attacks, dual wielding style: 2d8+10 damage

Weapon attacks, greatweapon style: 2d12+10 damage but no assured bonus action, so only 1d12+5 damage for comparison purposes.

Acid Splash: 2d6 to two creatures is pretty nice, but they get a Dex save to negate and must stand next to each other.

This could be useful in some circumstances. The Dex save was pointed out as a negative feature, but it could be positive also, as you don't need to roll to hit, and some monsters do have good AC but crappy saves. Anyhow, maybe GFB is a more consistent option for a similar scenario.

Poison Spray: 2d12 damage, Con save to negate, poison resistance/immunity is common

Again, this could be good or bad. It is not that difficult to figure out whether a monster has good Con saves (big burly brutes) or poison resistance/immunity (most often poisonous monsters themselves). 2d12 is definitely a nice damage.

Shocking Grasp: 2d8 though with advantage (assuming a foe in metal armor), and foe can't take his reaction.

The secondary effect can be quite handy if you want to reposition yourself or give an ally an easy escape.

My take is that weapon attacks are more reliable, in several ways. Hitting AC is easier at mid-levels than getting in a Con or Dex save. Acid Splash and Poison Spray are circumstancial, so you need more than one such trick.

And that is what may limit the use of warcaster with only the PHB cantrips, as all the eldritch knight gets a limited list of cantrips (as most classes do), and as pointed out, their use is circumstantial, so to make its use more frequent, you would need a large selection of cantrips.

I would say Shocking Grasp is the best contender, assuming you use it where you gain advantage. Losing ability bonus damage is a big negative, though.

I'm sure there are splatbook cantrips that are better. In fact I hope so - or War Magic is niche at best.

Yes, SCAG makes a huge difference here. Now, from levels 7 to ten, and later from levels 17 to 19 the cantrip (BB or GFB) plus bonus action attack (assuming non-dual wielder) is usually the dominating tactic, and can even be the best choice circumstantially from levels 11 to 16. Sword and board warcaster types are probably the ones that favor the most of its use, as great weapon users with GWM or PAM may have a competing option for their bonus action.

But if you don't use those sources, I'd say: stick to doing weapon damage.

Good thing there are these sources. I felt the same as [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] the first time I saw this feature (niche), and felt like the SCAG cantrips came to address this.

 

[cbwjm]

With only 2 attacks, I'd be using it with the SCAG cantrips at almost every opportunity. Even with 3 attacks it might be worth using instead. At level 18+, whenever I cast any spell, I'd be sure to also try to get in that bonus attack.

 

[Yunru]

From levels 7-10. At 11 three attacks is better than a SCAG cantrip and a regular attack.

Honestly the Bladesinger should of gotten War Magic instead of Extra Attack.

 

[Bitbrain]

The Lore Bard/Eldritch Knight in my groups primary campaign delights in using Shocking Grasp, then smacking the baddie with a weapon attack, and then stepping 5 feet back.

 

[CapnZapp]

From levels 7-10. At 11 three attacks is better than a SCAG cantrip and a regular attack.

The idea is that the scaling should keep pace. At 11 you get three attacks, but your cantrip does three dice of damage.

But the reality is that your cantrip needs to do ability bonus damage for that to be true. (Or something like advantage on the attack, or a cantrip triggering a difficult save like an Int save, or something)

War Magic plus Eldritch Blast plus Agonizing Blast in a melee form would be something.

 

[CapnZapp]

Honestly the Bladesinger should of gotten War Magic instead of Extra Attack.

Yep, it sure is a bladesingery ability. Especially if it got "improved war magic" at a less rodoncoulously high level, so it could cast + whack as its standard routine.

 

[CapnZapp]

Sword and board warcaster types are probably the ones that favor the most of its use

I must say, I realize people like the classic approach of sword and board, but really, I don't see the use case in 5E.

Thanks to Shield, an Eldritch Knight already enjoys a ridiculously high AC. In my experience, the number of times you're encountering a baddie big and bad enough for it to easily hit AC ~24 can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Building your character to be effectively unhittable by almost everything simply sounds like an ineffective approach, not to mention boring.

As I see it, that extra AC is simply not necessary (unless you play with a killer DM and a considerably more difficult campaign than published campaigns), and you are much better off doing more damage (and thus killing the enemies faster).

An Eldritch Knight isn't doing badly if it spends all its spell slots on Shield. A semi-permanent +5 AC bonus is good on a wizard, but it's all but broken on a fighter that already has good AC.

 

[Prism]

After 11th level use of war magic becomes far more conditional. If you want to do pure damage then 3 attacks is the way to go. A maxed out two handed sword fighter is doing about 9 points of damage per attack (assuming 65% hit rate) and so could expect do to about 27 in a round. The same fighter using booming blade and war magic will do about 24 points of damage. However if you want to make use of the booming blade kicker by forcing the enemy to move to attack (possibly using the mobility feat or similar) then that damage rises to 33 on average making it the better option. If you were surrounded by lesser creatures then sword burst doing 7 points to each followed by 9 to a single creature might be the best option.

You wont be using it every round, but having it available for those situations keeps it useful. Also given competition with the possible bonus attacks from GWM and Polearm Master its probably going to get a bit more use out of a sword and board fighter

 

[dco]

Mostly for lvl 7-10, 11-20 situational, for example to cast bladeward, shocking grasp to avoid a OA, chill touch if you are 1-1 vs an undead, for mage hand doing something while you fight, ranged attack while in melee, etc.