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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1600710" data-attributes="member: 3146">Two things are relevant here:First, it's actually pretty good payoff for a 9th level spell if that spell happens to be Energy Drain and you're fighting a Vampire and his spawn. Energy drain won't do anything to them so you might as well get some use out of it. Ditto if you're packing Quickened maximized Scorching Ray and you happen to be fighting Salamanders, Efreet, or Fire Elementals.Second, the payoff is actually a lot better than you let on. If you're a Fighter 1/Wizard 6/Eldritch Knight 10/Spellsword 3 (not an unheard of combo) with the usual equipment, you activate your boots of speed and all of a sudden you've got five attacks (six if you're using Improved Blink/Expert Tactician) all at +9 to hit (which makes your tertiary attack nearly as good as your primary and your fourth attack almost as good as your secondary and +9d4 damage. So that's 45d4 to 54d4 damage plus anything you might get from AoOs in the next round. 113-135 damage IS within a reasonable range for a 9th level spell. And at that point, it's not unreasonable to think that cleave might add in another 9d4 damage to the total. (Of course, that's an ideal situation so it won't come up too often but nodody's going to make you dump a 9th level spell in a non-ideal situation).Third, by the time you reach high levels, you have more spells than you will use in most adventuring days, so anything that lets you leverage those unused spells and turn them into combat damage is good even if it is inefficient. When you're casting a quickened spell and either attacking or casting another spell most rounds, you're nearly out of things to do. Not so if you have Arcane Strike. With Arcane Strike, you can cast a quickened spell, power up arcane strike and attack.</blockquote>

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