D&D (2024) Wild Magic Sorcerer is Best Sorcerer Subclass

[Zardnaar]

Any more thoughts Mistwell or testing?

 

[NotAYakk]

Most extra spells are mediocre though. Example: people like Aberrant Sorcerer. Here are their extra spells:

Arms of Hadar, Calm Emotions, Detect Thoughts, Dissonant Whispers, Mind Sliver

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Hunger of Hadar, Sending

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Evard’s Black Tentacles, Summon Aberration

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Rary’s Telepathic Bond, Telekinesis


Of that list, really there are 3 spells you'd use on a regular basis. The rest are situational or redundant.

It was a really good subclass when you could swap out those extra spells. But you can't do that with the 2024 rules.

Meanwhile, Wild Sorc is getting you either advantage, a bonus extra spell (70% chance), or sometimes both every round. That's far more powerful than eventually three extra good spell preparations.

I mean, situational spells are great.

Detect Thoughts always prepared.
Sending always prepared.
Rary's Telepathic Bonds always prepared.

That is a 3 pack of great communication magic.

Calm Emotions and Mind Sliver are very good spells in certain situations.

Dissonant Whispers if memorized will be insane damage if you have enough melee allies. Toss it at someone adjacent to 2 PCs and it grants 2 reaction attacks!

Telekinesis is both game-breaking and good mechanically.

Which leaves Arms, Hunger, Abberration and Tentacles. Arms is an attempt at damage+disengage, not that strong. Hunger of Hadar is an upgraded Darkness spell (difficult terrain, damage).

Black Tentacles is AOE restrain + action denial to escape.

The summon spell is 20-30 DPR and/or 80 damage soaked. If upcast to 6th level it can scale as high as 40-47 DPR.

A 4th level slot healing 80 damage is decent slot efficiency; doing ~100 damage is also decent. Odds are it both does some damage and soaks much of that damage.

Basically it is a huge list of thematic spells. They aren't all super-optimal, but they all fit the role. You can now spend your known spells on whatever optimization you want and keep the thematic spells available.

 

[Mistwell]

I mean, situational spells are great.

Detect Thoughts always prepared.
Sending always prepared.
Rary's Telepathic Bonds always prepared.

That is a 3 pack of great communication magic.

It's stuff you won't use on most adventuring days. Great for a Wizard, but pretty bad for a sorcerer with how limited their spells are. When they could be swapped out, those spells were routinely swapped out for more general use spells.

Calm Emotions and Mind Sliver are very good spells in certain situations.

Mind Sliver is fine. Calm Emotions is too rare to be one of those spells you want on this list.

Dissonant Whispers if memorized will be insane damage if you have enough melee allies. Toss it at someone adjacent to 2 PCs and it grants 2 reaction attacks!

Dissonant Whispers is one of the good ones.

Telekinesis is both game-breaking and good mechanically.

Which leaves Arms, Hunger, Abberration and Tentacles. Arms is an attempt at damage+disengage, not that strong. Hunger of Hadar is an upgraded Darkness spell (difficult terrain, damage).

Black Tentacles is AOE restrain + action denial to escape.

The summon spell is 20-30 DPR and/or 80 damage soaked. If upcast to 6th level it can scale as high as 40-47 DPR.

A 4th level slot healing 80 damage is decent slot efficiency; doing ~100 damage is also decent. Odds are it both does some damage and soaks much of that damage.

Basically it is a huge list of thematic spells. They aren't all super-optimal, but they all fit the role. You can now spend your known spells on whatever optimization you want and keep the thematic spells available.

Most of these you'd swap out if you could. We all know which spells were being swapped, every guide reviewed them from the last version. Locking these spells in downgrades this subclass quite a bit.