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

[hastur_nz]

Personally, I've been running an Eldritch Knight from level 1 to level 7 then multi-classed him, he's currently level 8 nearly level 9... and I've *never* used War Magic. In fact I have Booming Blade, and have only ever used that once, too. Mainly, because I'm a dual-wielder, my bonus action mostly goes into getting an extra off-hand attack. I also took the Magic Initial feat, taking Eldritch Blast and Hex, so those also take bonus actions. War Magic just doesn't make sense for me, in practical "at the table" terms; I don't use a lot of cantrips, and when I do I'm at range and I only have melee weapons in hand.

 

[Barolo]

Personally, I've been running an Eldritch Knight from level 1 to level 7 then multi-classed him, he's currently level 8 nearly level 9... and I've *never* used War Magic. In fact I have Booming Blade, and have only ever used that once, too. Mainly, because I'm a dual-wielder, my bonus action mostly goes into getting an extra off-hand attack. I also took the Magic Initial feat, taking Eldritch Blast and Hex, so those also take bonus actions. War Magic just doesn't make sense for me, in practical "at the table" terms; I don't use a lot of cantrips, and when I do I'm at range and I only have melee weapons in hand.

Well, your Eldritch knight is really a special case.

 

[Barolo]

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.

On the other hand, if you go sword and board, maybe you can afford to save up some first level slots for something else, as your Shield spell is not so demanded. Moreover, ridiculously high AC + war caster is a good frontline combination. If enemies attack you, they have a hard time hitting. If they move, they either don't do anything else in the turn by disengaging or eat up a fed-up opportunity attack. Any of the options seem to be in benefit of the hero.

 

[CapnZapp]

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.

Interesting. Your fighter then does 13-14 point of damage on average. d12+5 only reaches 11, so I'm curious - are you including a magic weapon here? (Or some similar enchantment). Criticals alone doesn't seem to be able to drive up the number to this level.

Anyway, that's really only an aside; at level 11 in a game with all options on, the actual play numbers look more like this:

A maxed out crossbow expert sharpshooter fighter does d6+15 damage which at 65% hit rate* becomes about 11 points of damage. He could then expect to do about 44 damage in a round (3 regular attacks, bonus attack each round guaranteed).
*) practical play has shown us it is relatively easy to gain even higher hit rates than this even taking the -5 from sharpshooter into account, and that at ACs up to 18:ish, but we'll use your number here.

War Magic is completely outclassed. It would reduce you to a single attack plus your choice of cantrip. But there is no cantrip that comes even close to delivering 33 points of damage on average: even the 3d12 from Poison Spray only amounts to ~20 damage, and that's assuming an unrealistic 100% hit rate (no fiends or undead, no monster ever making its Con save)

 

[CapnZapp]

On the other hand, if you go sword and board, maybe you can afford to save up some first level slots for something else, as your Shield spell is not so demanded. Moreover, ridiculously high AC + war caster is a good frontline combination. If enemies attack you, they have a hard time hitting. If they move, they either don't do anything else in the turn by disengaging or eat up a fed-up opportunity attack. Any of the options seem to be in benefit of the hero.

Sure. I'm not saying this approach is outright bad.

But it does seem like the player making this build has lost sight of the old adage "the best defense is an overwhelming offense"...

Generally, challenges in published 5e products are so individually weak, all that extra always-on defense is kind of wasted. The Shield approach is more flexible, because then you will only apply stratospheric AC when needed, and can otherwise focus on offense.

But I guess it boils down to a matter of taste, so good luck with your game

 

[Barolo]

(...)

But it does seem like the player making this build has lost sight of the old adage "the best defense is an overwhelming offense"...

(...)

It doesn't seem to me changing from a two-hander to a one-hander makes such a enormous difference in offence effectiveness.

 

[Prism]

Interesting. Your fighter then does 13-14 point of damage on average. d12+5 only reaches 11, so I'm curious - are you including a magic weapon here? (Or some similar enchantment). Criticals alone doesn't seem to be able to drive up the number to this level.

I assumed a two handed sword or maul doing 7 points on average, with great weapon fighting taking this up to 8.3. Add the +5 Str and its up to 13.3 on a hit. With a 65% to hit and 5% to crit its just over 9 damage.

I didn't include the usual GWM feat as there are lots of varying factors. I think its safe to say that most people who take this feat probably hope for the extra bonus attack too from time to time and therefore use war magic very rarely. Due to this I reckon that sword and shield with dueling style is a more typical war magic user as they aren't doing much with the bonus action. Since an eldritch knight gets so few spells per day (only 9 by 15th level) I do think this is an ok alternative to consistent use of the shield spell and is still doing close to the same consistent damage, except without the ability to burst GWM damage. Our group is quite small and our DM is pretty good at punishing over use of the shield spell by a melee character, by ignoring them (and their lack of an opportunity attack) and swiftly moving onto the back row. My own eldritch knight rarely actually uses shield in practice.

Anyway, that's really only an aside; at level 11 in a game with all options on, the actual play numbers look more like this:

A maxed out crossbow expert sharpshooter fighter does d6+15 damage which at 65% hit rate* becomes about 11 points of damage. He could then expect to do about 44 damage in a round (3 regular attacks, bonus attack each round guaranteed).
*) practical play has shown us it is relatively easy to gain even higher hit rates than this even taking the -5 from sharpshooter into account, and that at ACs up to 18:ish, but we'll use your number here.

Ooh, low blow. Yeah nothing competes with that combo. If we include that build, every comparison looks bad. I'm not sure how much that tells us about the relative benefits of war magic, two handed weapons or sword and board, 3 attacks etc... except that you shouldn't do any of it but use a crossbow instead. A 'normal' fighter is probably aiming for about 30ish points of damage per round at 11th level so anything that comes in round about that is worth considering.

War Magic is completely outclassed. It would reduce you to a single attack plus your choice of cantrip. But there is no cantrip that comes even close to delivering 33 points of damage on average: even the 3d12 from Poison Spray only amounts to ~20 damage, and that's assuming an unrealistic 100% hit rate (no fiends or undead, no monster ever making its Con save)

I agree that non of the PHB cantrips really cut it here. Only the SCAG cantrips work well for an eldritch knight as they add weapon, stat damage and an additional effect, but I guess that's exactly why they exist. And even then, as I said earlier they are still conditional compared to the standard 3 attacks. It makes combat quite interesting though when you have several choices to pick from which can help alleviate a complaint sometimes leveled at weapon users in combat.

 

[Prism]

It doesn't seem to me changing from a two-hander to a one-hander makes such a enormous difference in offence effectiveness.

Yeah its about 1 point of damage per hit difference without feats. Its the usual suspects that extend those numbers though. The tactical benefits of Shield Master (sword and board) or Tavern Brawler (no shield free hand) are great fun but overshadowed by the pure damage output of GWM, Polearm master, Sharpshooter and Crossbow Master.

 

[kbrakke]

I use it most of the time. With lucky drops in a very difficult SKT campaign I am the proud owner of a flametongue longsword. I am very much focused on being unhittable, and thanks to the flame tongue and booming blade I even present a credible threat so giants can't simply walk past me. I have found being able to hit 26 AC consistently a life saver and use most of my spell slots on shield. Currently at level 13 and if I ran the numbers right here are various attack patterns.

1 - Three attacks: 3d8 + 6d6 + 15 = 50
2 - Greenflame (Two Targets) + Warmagic = 4d8 + 4d6 +10 (+ 2d8+2) = 41 (+ 11)
3 - Booming Blade + Warmagic = 4d8 + 4d6 + 10 (+ 3d8) = 42 (+ 14)

4 - Hasted 4 Attacks: 4d8 + 8d6 + 20 = 66
5 - Hasted Greemflame(Two Targets) + War magic = 5d8 + 6d6 + 15 (+ 2d8+2) = 59 (+ 11)
6 - Hasted Booming Blade + Warmagic = 5d8 + 6d6 + 15 (+ 3d8) = 59 (+ 13)

Overall, if you can get the riders for either booming blade or greenflame blade, it will be better damagewise than just attacking (Unless you are the GWM sort, the +10 makes more attacks much better). I also strongly value booming blade as a way to keep enemies interested in me. Nothing is more embarrassing for a tanky fighter then when people just walk past her. Booming blade keeps them somewhat interested, then war caster for a followup booming blade if they try to leave is great. So for me, someone who's goal in life has been to keep giants interested in attacking their character, I use war magic most of the time, specifically booming blade.

TL;DR: SCAG cantrips.

 

[Corwin]

I regularly use it with my goliath EK. Mostly with booming blade. He also has great weapon master. So I have options. If its a tough monster I generally booming blade followed by my bonus war magic attack. If I'm fighting a mob, and/or one of my enemies is close to dropping, I just use extra attack and hope for a bonus third if I do drop one.