D&D 5E Overrated Wizard Spells

[5ekyu]

It’s obvious he has put in the work. That right there is more than most people ever do. And his methodology seems fair and without crazy bias. Also, he is pretty highly regarded. Not by you, obviously, but by a lot of people in general.

Well, ok do he did a lot of work and came to a conclusion, it's worth respecting the work sure but there are still massive differences in gsme to game play.
To me and my play, Mage Armour vs Shield, if I ignore Magic Misdile defense, it comes down to math.

Made armor tends to make a difference of 1 hit in 7 attacks.
Shield tends to make a difference every time it is used.

So, I have to be attacked like 10-14 times before mage armor passes shield.

But, hey, wait, of those 10-14 attacks, how many hit anyway?

As an AC 15 mage armor wizard, against just ten attacks with maybe a +2 to hit, that's still four attacks that got thru. At first level, if we assume thsts two separate encounters, that is likely to drop me anyway. If we raise it to 14, now I am taking six successful attacks even after Mage Armor.

That is not a sustainable environment and tactical play style.

At the frequency of attacks needed to make mage armor msthematically superior to Shield just for stopping hits - the Mage is pretty much toast.

So thats why I dont like made armor over shield. I am losing anyway if I am getting the mileage out of it because for every hit it blocks I likely am taking three others over it.

I am much better off casting other spells like Fog Cloud or Silent Image or Magic Missile or Charm Person or Thunderwave etc etc etc thst csn seing a battle more significantly than a Mage Armor thst doednt save me anyway.

Heck, False Life is even likely a better choice.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Being popular is not the same as being right.

He isn't an expert.

It's fine to agree with him. It's another thing to hold him up as an authority.

Putting a lot of time into it doesn't help if you don't have a solid foundation upon which to start.

Having played competitive games at serious levels I probably have a different way of looking at things. Like I said, I've seen people argue non-stop with highly regarded players. Being convinced you're right and convincing others that you are right does not make you right. I've seen it time and again.

I didn’t say he was an expert because he’s popular. I said he’s an expert because he’s put the time and work (way more than most people) in who happens to also be highly regarded.

Apparently you don’t think so. Nor a lot of powergamers. But to be frank, who cares? Power gamers don’t make up the majority of gamers. Quite the minority actually. And since this thread isn’t about power gaming only (for shame the idea that the world doesn’t revolve around powergamers!), his expert opinion has value.

 

[Zardnaar]

I didn’t say he was an expert because he’s popular. I said he’s an expert because he’s put the time and work (way more than most people) in who happens to also be highly regarded.

Apparently you don’t think so. Nor a lot of powergamers. But to be frank, who cares? Power gamers don’t make up the majority of gamers. Quite the minority actually. And since this thread isn’t about power gaming only (for shame the idea that the world doesn’t revolve around powergamers!), his expert opinion has value.

When you rate stuff though you more or less have to do it from a powergaming pov.

I tend to evaluate stuff how it relates to the rest of the party.

Aid for example is great when you have 2+ PCs with the -5/+10 feats and is good without but it might not be the best use of your concentration slot or action.

But some spells like witchbolt are just bad.

 

[FrogReaver]

Shield is not guaranteed to save you, especially if you don't have mage armor up. It's easy for even zombies to roll high enough over your 12-13 AC that shield will not help you either.

In short there's a slim margin where shield is better than mage armor. That's where an enemys attack was 3-4 over your AC. There's a 10% chance on any given attack that shield would help where mage armor wouldn't. However, mage armor covers many more potential hits.

If the goal is to reduce the probability that you are KO'ed then in almost every circumstance mage armor is going to be better than shield. The only time it isn't is where you are hit once and it falls within that +3 or +4 over your non mage armored AC.

 

[Sacrosanct]

When you rate stuff though you more or less have to do it from a powergaming pov.

I tend to evaluate stuff how it relates to the rest of the party.

Aid for example is great when you have 2+ PCs with the -5/+10 feats and is good without but it might not be the best use of your concentration slot or action.

But some spells like witchbolt are just bad.

Not true at all. We all evaluate what we like and find effective. And we’re all not power gamers. You’re basically arguing that only power gamers can make evaluations. Of course that’s not true. I evaluate spells and feats all the time to see which ones I like better, and hardly ever in a power gaming context. Everyone in this thread has made an evaluation, and I doubt everyone here is a power gamer

 

[Stalker0]

So can we either rename this thread “shield vs mage armor” or get off that damn train and get back to the actual discussion?

 

[Ashrym]

its through a 2.5 wide space... and yes its well within capabilities of a small goblin
sure squeezing slows movement through 5 feet where they are squeezing without them other tools which also that take an action sorry not so impressive

The majority of may post allowed for the goblins to do the squeeze. The equipment ran them out of movement so they all stop. I would have to call BS on that not being impressive.

30' of movement cut in half approaching the fighter from the bearings in front stop them all. Caltrops drop their movement to 20' long term and stop them dead in their tracks 60% of the time, stopping most of them due to not being allowed to end their movement in an occupied space.

It doesn't matter that it takes an action. Casting a spell would take the same action and most of the low level spells wouldn't do much either until we hit the second tier of play.

Goblins also win battles through numbers. The fighter is swinging at them whether they run by or not. They know the fighter has limited ability to swing at them as they run by. They also know that they're all going to die if they lose the battle (not to mention social pressures).

Goblins also use small tunnels according to their description, making the 10' wide door moot and blocking easy.

If enemy creatures are too afraid to run by a fighter they should also be too afraid to be fighting in a life or death fight.

Which is why the fighter can win through intimidation. They didn't necessarily start as being afraid of he fighter. It's part of the DM's role to have goblins act or react accordingly. If they swarm fearlessly regardless that's just DM fiat.

once because action economy the rest are home free.

Except the equipment argument prevents that through game mechanics, even if those goblins are metagaming action economy instead of reacting to the possibility they could die.

Exactly and why would the goblins assume the fighter is going to do more than one reaction? heck the odds of them swarming past and not getting hit are huge.... that sword limited by reaction is just unimpressive . Also your terrain affects allies as well shrug I am sure often not a problem but still a consideration.

I am not sure where you got that. He's got one reaction and then actions the following round because the goblins in the example ran out of movement. NPC's don't metagame action economy and each understands his or her mortality, especially if the Fighter points it out through intimidation.

The terrain isn't going to affect the allies unless they are moving past the fighter into the goblins. If that were the case the premise of stopping the goblins from moving didn't exist. The only person in the example the terrain could affect is the fighter and he's planning on staying put because he's bottlenecking.

The terrain is created from goblin a squeezing past on one side (already half speed) taking an AoO to drop, and the goblin on the other side is from the next set of attacks. Or he fell down in bearings. Or he stopped because caltrops force stop. Or the fighter action surged the equipment action and readied attacking the other gobins moving by.

I play with I what I can do instead of pretending what I cannot stops me from doing anything. ;-)

 

[FrogReaver]

So can we either rename this thread “shield vs mage armor” or get off that damn train and get back to the actual discussion?

I mean the OP picked an easily debunkable claim. He'd have gotten more out of arguing that find familiar is overrated because random reason xyz than arguing mage armor is overrated because shield is better.

 

[Garthanos]

The equipment ran them out of movement so they all stop.

The equipment is impressive the fighter just isnt

 

[Al'Kelhar]

Aid for example is great when you have 2+ PCs with the -5/+10 feats and is good without but it might not be the best use of your concentration slot or action.

I think you mean "Bless", rather than "Aid".

(Aid itself is pretty meh generally, but I have found it useful only recently - my multiclass cleric cannot cast 3rd level spells but has 2 3rd level spell slots, and spending one of them on giving all of the party melee combatants +10hp (a +20-25% increase in hp at level 5) for 8 hours is pretty good).

In my view, Find Familiar is "overrated". Which is not to say it's not good - it is. But I suspect quite a few people don't fully understand the mechanics around using familiars to deliver spells.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar