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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ancoulainn" data-source="post: 9867463" data-attributes="member: 7056539">You can do quite a few things that other Gish-builds can't do because of War Magic and Improved War Magic. For example, Action Surge or Haste do not allow you take the Magic Action, but as an Eldritch Knight, you can take the Attack Action and then substitute Cantrips and Spells for your attacks. And if you grab spells from the Wizard spell list via Magic Initiate, Fey-Touched, or Shadow-Touched, you can cast an enormous amount of spells at least once per long rest.At level 20, you have 4 attack and can:Attack Action: Cast Mind Sliver, cast Magic Missile (via Magic Initiate), make one AttackBonus Action: Wrathful Smite (via Shadow-Touched) with save at Disadvantage and -1d4Haste: Take Attack Action and cast Booming BladeAction Surge: Cast Mind Sliver, make one Attack, cast Thunderwave with save at Disadvantage and -1d4Granted, you can't do this every turn and you can't do it until fairly late, but Eldritch Knights are still the only ones who can do it at all. And already at level 7, you can debuff with Mind Sliver, make an attack, and smite with Wrathful Smite with the save -1d4 and at level 10, the save is at disadvantage. With Tactical Master at level 9, you can also push them away. And if your dealing with a melee-only enemy, that's nothing to sneeze at. Again, granted, aside from Eldritch Strike and Tactical Master, the Valor Bard could do most of that as well and they could also cast a cantrip instead of the attack granted by Haste and would not be limited to Wizard cantrips, but they could not cast additional spells via Action Surge.Also, if you're comparing a pure Valor Bard with a pure Eldritch Knight and don't consider multiclassing, you also have to consider Indomitable, Weapon Mastery, Fighting Styles, two additional ASIs/feats, and more attacks on one side and Magical Secrets and being a full caster on the other. Given the martials-caster-divide, it's easy to say that the latter is stronger, but if we wanted to play the strongest spellcaster, we'd be playing Chronurgy Wizard anyway.You also have to consider the rather strange wording for the Valor Bard. Martial Training says "You can use a Simple or Martial weapon as a Spellcasting Focus to cast spells from your Bard spell list." This wording is different from your spellcasting feature which says "You can use a Musical Instrument as a Spellcasting Focus for your Bard spells." Bard spells and spells from your Bard spell list aren't the same if you consider Magical Secrets because Magical Secrets says "the chosen spells count as Bard spells for you", but it does not add them to the Bard spell list, meaning you couldn't use your weapon as a spellcasting focus for those spells. And we have to think that this wording is intentional because it is the first time they used this wording and it appears nowhere else, thus we cannot just ignore it and consider it oversight. For example, when you look at the Swords Bard, it says "If you’re proficient with a simple or martial melee weapon, you can use it as a spellcasting focus for your bard spells." At your table, you can, of course, overrule it, but RAW - and that's what we're talking about here - it is what it is. And RAW, it matters when a spell you want to cast has a material component, you're using a weapon and a shield, have no free hand to touch your component pouch, and your weapon does not work as a spellcasting focus for the spell because War Caster only helps with the somatic component, not the material component.</blockquote>

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