Let me point out the first and biggest falacy in this whole arguement. - Supposedly the Bladesinger can not be on the front line in melee because she is too weak and does not have enough hps and if she uses spells like blur to bolster her defense she is "wasting" them ..... but if she goes into melee the enemy is not going to bother attacking her anyway, "why would they". Which is it? Are they going to attack her or ignore her? You can't have it both ways.
I'm not having it both ways!
Enemies will ignore the Bladesinger (who is doing NOTHING offensively, and just Dodging and spamming defensive spells) and will instead attack the other PCs (who die).
The encounter is balanced around you actually being present and doing
something.
Why would I "waste" a 3rd level spell slot with a fireball? I have been told it is a "waste" to use a 2nd level spell slot and now you want me to use a 3rd? That is the whole reason I am taking the dodge action, because using blur is a "waste".
Blur would be a waste, because all it does is waste an action making you harder to hit.
You cast
Blur and enter Bladesong, and the Orcs just ignore you and go for the other PCs that are actually hurting them.
If you used that action for
Fireball then all the Orcs die, and the Orogs are seriously crippled (every single monster takes 8d6 damage (28 points) of damage).
By the way on average the Fireball does 28 damage and kills 2-3 Orcs, not all of them, and if I was fighting on my own I might do that.
Wut? It deals 28 damage to
every single Orc in the room (well... within the 20' radius sphere) , likely killing the Orcs (even if they make their saves) or at least leaving all but one seriously injured (1 HP left) and seriously injuring the Orogs for easy clean up by your allies this round.
That encounter is effectively over after a fireball (plus the actions of the rest of your party, with a Barbarian/ Fighter easily being able to kill the 1 HP straggler, and likely an Orog on his turn, and the 2 ranged PCs making short work of the remaining Orog.
Im disturbed you claim to play Wizards all the time with two other Bladesingers, and dont know how
fireball works.
It is a complete waste as I use my action and the orcs that are awake wake up the ones that aren't. So one orc falls asleep, a second orc loses an action waking him, the other 4 opponents attack me and I am back where I started just with 1 less spell and one lost round.
You say this like this is a bad thing.
If the remaining 1 Orc and 2 Orogs use their actions to wake up their 3 sleeping allies (45 HP, upcast sleep, averaging 5's on the d8's) you've just negated
8 Great-axe attacks (2 from each Orog, and 1 from each Orc) for an entire round, buying a whole extra round of offence for the rest of your party to slaughter them, plus you stopped the Orcs from using their Bonus action Aggressive ability to Dash and swarm the party (of ranged PCs).
In other words, you've done your job as a Wizard.
Supposedly dodge does "nothing to contribute:"
It does nothing to contribute.
If the party Wizard (5th level, knows
Fireball, Counterspell, Sleep, Shield, Blur, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Scorching ray, utility spells) used his action to Dodge (instead of lobbing in a
fireball) on an encounter with 4 Orcs and 2 Orogs, then unless he was deliberately conserving resources for a BBEG fight later that day,
fireball was too risky due to the Orcs being among the PCs, or running low on Slots because of earlier encounters, he's not doing his job properly.
You're basically playing a Wizard who relies on enemies attacking him (while not posing an actual threat) to be effective.
I'd simply treat that Wizard like the Germans treated the French Maginot line, and ignore it and invade Paris through Belgium.