Conjuration wizard Benign transposition can be re-activated by ritual casting between fights. The re-activation doesn’t require a slot be expended. Find familiar, unseen servant, and tensers disk are all ritual spells of the conjuration school that can be used, servant and tensers more so with the lower casting time.
Every person Ive seen rank war magic low thinks a wizards big job is to throw out flashy spells and destroy the enemy. They dont realize a wizards real job is to control the battlefield. And going first is how you do that.
Yeah. For the same reason I personally rank bladesinger much lower because, while you have those great battlefield control spells, and bladesinging is fun to play, you're going to use your spell slots to buff yourself, most likely, and put yourself into much more danger of concentration checks than any other subclass. I think I'd only play a bladesinger in a 1 or 2 person party.
Slightly late to the party, but I'll also give my two cents for this subclass. I've been playing a School of War Magic Wizard from level one up until my current level of 17. We went through Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Rise of Tiamat and are currently just finishing up post campaign stuff, as well as basically just working on personal player projects within the world. Those level two and level ten features never stopped being useful. The four of us faced Tiamat at level 14 and if I hadn't had Arcane Deflection and Durable Magic I would have dropped concentration on Fizban's Platinum Shield. The spell I was using on our Paladin who was running Damage on Tiamats Avatar. Basically the one spell we were banking our whole fight on. That subclass is greatly underappreciated in my opinion and brings an impossible sturdiness and reliability to the Wizard that's frankly unbeatable even by the Abjuration subclass. When combined with a few good battlefield control spells and a flare to grief your enemies, your head will become something any BBEG will want to see on a pike.
@@solar4planeta923yeah no. bladesong is not just a onetrick pony. you can still cast spells and control from the backline. you'd actually be better than most wizards at that since bladesong protects your concentration
Word of warning on abjuration wizard: your mileage may vary on convincing your DM that you should be able to spam a spell a billion times to recharge your ward.
My only issue with the wizard is that it’s possible to choose a lot of poor spells, as many new players do. And since that was the reasoning for making battle master a C… But yes, wizard is the strongest class, for certain.
That's a good point. You can always scribe more spells into your book with sufficient gold and a DM who is willing to throw you a bone and stick a spellbook in the loot, whereas a Battle Master has to wait until levels 7, 10, or 15 to swap a subpar option but doesn't have to rely on the DM to avail themselves of that swap. I agree that the situations aren't too different.
War Magic gang rise up! One of the most underrated subclasses in the game, I always see people rank it really low for no reason, it gives me the two things I value the most initiative and saving throws, alert and resilient are probably my 2 most taken feats, and every time I get the lucky feat I pretty much exclusively use it to reroll initiative or saving throws (And once in a blue moon to stop someone from critting me)
yeah i'm playing a twilight cleric 1/ war wizard x build with variant human feat being war caster and lvl 4 feat being fey touched for gift of alacrity. initiative is +6+2d8
Exactly ! The chunky initiative bonus is actually *huge* on a Controller-style wizard (which is the most powerful version anyway). Going very early in combat pretty much assures that you will get all of your targets within a Wall of Force or Hypnotic Pattern before they can disperse, your party can get in the way or you or your party can get disabled.
My only problem with War Magic is that all the "boring" abilities are very good, but the actual cool one, the power surge , is super weak. Maybe I could convince a DM to make the extra damage a bit, stronger, like equal to your level instead of half.
@@andrellnogueira equal to your level is still sucks. I won't even bother to track the resource. It should be 1 per long rest and deal full damage to a single creature per surge, even on success saving throw. Make it good in the same way as other good features do: make it useful by eliminating a bit of randomness ( + autoscale included ). War magic gives you +initiative to ensure you are not too late with your control spells. It gives you the way to ensure, you don't lose concentration. Giving a bit of damage reliability follows the spirit. If it's about the 'surge' word, I would use a completely different flashy thing: using surge your spell (damage?) is calculated as upcasted for 1-2 levels higher. Not so powerful by numbers, but it's awesome thematically! It's the real surge of magic you've stored, not a boring plus meh something. Also, you are not so precise and strong with blasting as Evoker, but can upcast DoTs from time to time.
@@andrellnogueira I've thought about homebrewing it to imposing disadvantage on the save, which I think is probably a good, flavorful solution. Might make War Magic seriously busted though.
One thing about comparing a boost to AC versus a saving throw with Arcane Deflection: You *know* what you rolled on a failed saving throw, so you're better informed about whether or not you're flipping failure to success.
I've always thought War Magic was so-so because there were two good defensive features and two terrible offensive ones. And then, if you just wanted defensive features, Abjuration is right there. This breakdown, stopping at level 12 and considering what level they get those features at, completely changes my mind on them.
I think the cool thing with Sculpt Spell is that it is 100% reliable. If you need it, you know it's gonna work 100%. Other cooler features, like the enchanter one, might work, or it might not work. Whilst Sculpt Spell is always reliable. I think that's an underrated aspect of it.
I honestly think that the *school* savant feature was a way of "future proofing" wizards. Say you rolled up a wizard when 5e came out, then books like Xanathar's Guide and Tasha's Cauldron come out and there may be a crazy new summoning spell that a conjurer wants but wasn't there to pick early on. As a DM, if I had a conjurer wizard PC that wanted one of the new TCoE summoning spells, I would toss them a bone and give them a spell scroll for one that they expressed interest in cuz it would feel bad making them wait for a level when that could be in a few weeks/months
But them being able to put any wizard scroll into their books at all does that same thing. The change to the time and cost isn't nearly as big of a change
Fun fact: Savant shines when you're making multiple spell books. If the majority of your spells are in you're school(which is why I imagine you pick the school) it saves a lot of time and gold. It also can be used to turn a profit on spellbooks easier.
Empowered Evocation actually works on all evocation spells that damage more than one enemy: "If a spell or other effect deals damage to more than one target at the same time, roll the damage once for all of them. For example, when a wizard casts fireball or a cleric casts flame strike, the spell's damage is rolled once for all creatures caught in the blast." --PHB, Combat>Damage and Healing>Damage Rolls I don't know why Crawford described Magic Missile this way specifically without mentioning that it's RAW for every spell of this type, but this feature would modify Fireball as well. I think the wording of "a spell deals damage to more than one target" also includes spells with multiple single targets, since the rays of Scorching Ray aren't individual spells. Also worth noting that Draconic Sorcerer's Elemental Affinity is worded in the exact same way.
People tend to roll seperate for each missile, even though that's not how it works, making empowered evocation not work as well since it only works on one of the rolls. That's why he mentioned it seperate..
Scorching Ray doesn't say you roll damage separately, only that you roll separate attack rolls to determine which rays hit, therefore it follows the general rule of spell damage. Casting it should look like this: 1. Spend spell slot 2. Pick targets 3. Make ranged spell attacks rolls 4. Roll 2d6 plus any modifiers 5. Apply damage total to each ray hit
@@BabooninCargos Spells like Scorching Ray, Eldritch Blast, and Steel Wind Strike have the caster make multiple attack and damage rolls, and selecting the targets sequentially. Magic Missile is the edge case here. Because the darts of force strike simultaneously, you make a single damage roll. This is because the rules state the following: "If a spell or other effect deals damage to more than one target at the same time, roll the damage once for all of them." So yes, Magic Missile and Scorching Ray are different in that sense.
Unfortunately, the misunderstanding that results here is due to 5e not using specific terms very well. There are two different terms that get used where appropriate, but they *sound* very similar; 'damage rolls' and 'roll the damage'. Furthermore, one is a component of the other, so gets used in very similar situations. 'Damage rolls' are listed in the PHB as being made up of: 'roll the damage', and, adding modifiers. When you 'roll the damage' this is physically picking up the damage dice stated and rolling it. Modifiers are usually static numbers, so usually don't have a roll themselves (but they can do). The rule about AOEs (or similiar) is, that when an AOE causes damage to more than one target at the same time, you 'roll the damage' once for all of the 'damage rolls'. So, if the spell inflicts 'damage rolls' of 1d4 + 1, then rather than 'roll the damage' multiple times you just roll 1d4 once and use *that* component for all of the damage rolls. Empowered Evocation adds the modifier to one damage roll. Thats it. It doesn't add it to multiple damage rolls. The aoe rule about rolling the damage once for all the damage rolls is just for rolling the damage - it says absolutely nothing about using the same modifiers for all targets. If different modifiers are in play, they still get resolved normally. Usually the modifier is the same for all targets (the +1 in this case), but it can be different - vulnerabilities and resistances, for example. Empowered Evocation, for example.
Benign Transposition, because it is not a spell and doesn't say anything about requisites for use, might be usable in situations where teleportation spells are not, for example if you are silenced.
It's also cool because you can use it without breaking invisibility. Meaning you can approach a door while invisible and teleport through it's keyhole without anyone spotting you.
I’ve been heavily debating taking War Magic on my Eldritch Knight. More spell slots, ritual casting, initiative. Only thing is delayed Extra attack (11), or that I’d just want to go more wizard.
@@Puffinbar I hear ya. I have the same trouble, contemplating EK builds. A little wiz... a little more... just a tad more... ah shit, full wizard again.
@@ChristnThms The 11th Extra Attack isn't that great considering that by 7th level an EK get War Magic, allowing you to Attack once then use a Cantrip (Booming Blade or Green-Flame Blade). So by 11th, your Cantrip will do an additional 2D8 to the primary target (with either spell), which averages out to 9 extra damage. Assuming the fighter has 20 STR and Dueling, the average damage of the 3rd attack is 11.5 with a longsword, so you really only get an extra 2.5 damage (on average) for the primary target, however, you get a secondary damage (either from a boomed target moving or to a second target), so that 3rd attack is often the poorer choice, even if you have the opportunity to use it. I didn't calculate the probability of a critical on that 3rd attack, so it's not an exact science, but you get the idea !
@@ChristnThms I would think that a Rune knight would also be a very solid option. As they are often considered fairly defensive and resistance to bludgeoning, slashing and piercing as well as the other defensive feature are quite nice. Actually you could find a school of wizardry that would fit nicely themathically with almost each of the different runes. Fire rune for evocation, cloud rune for conjuration, abjuration, illusion (depending on how you flavor it) and war magic, stone rune for enchantment or illusion, storm rune for divination and hill rune is also good for abjuration or war magic. (there is just SOOO MUCH that just 7lvls of rune knight is good for). Add in Mountain Dwarf, adding the following boons, medium armor proficiency (which I consider better than heavy armor if you take medium armor master), better starting scores and decent racial feat support with as a top mention Dwarven Fortitude. Find a way to add in shield proficiency and you are on the way to being almost tanky, lets hope someone has the aid spell. I did consider Mark of Warding Dwarf instead but the page I use seems to indicate that they don't get the armor proficiency and Armor of Agathys isn't good enough to make up for that limitation. (the choice between the 2 of them kinda depends on wether you multiclass with fighter or not. If you go straight wizard my recommendation would be Mountain Dwarf if it's not Mark of Warding is totally worth it)
I think the idea is that personal defenses don't add anything to your overall power. Your blasts don't get any bigger, your support doesn't support better - you don't get any better at anything except for simply surviving, so if you intend to play a blaster caster, evocationist is obviously a more powerful choice, or if you want to be a summoner, conjurer is what you should pick. And if you look at from that perspective, there's plenty of logic to grading war magic lower. I think this is a case where it's easy to look at AC and save buffs and think "I always want more of that!" without considering the opportunity costs. You really do give up being the best at a certain style of magic just to get generic survival bonuses that you might not even need because maybe you're flying, or maybe you only partially exist on the material plane anyway. "Who needs AC when you can't hit me anyway?" I'm playing the devil's advocate, though. I can easily relate to that manner of thinking, but better defenses DO make a wizard better at everything they do. You can't throw a fireball or concentrate on a spell if you're taking a dirt-nap, and you can't be sure that you'll never take a stray attack or saving throw, and your concentration save is probably the most important roll in the entire party. So I DO agree with the ranking here, with the caveat that war wizards have a lower ceiling than most, they just have a substantially higher floor.
I feel I should mention the 10th level evocation wizard ability is powerful compared to other features that add your modifier because most abilities that allow you to add your modifier to spell damage only allow you to deal that damage to one creature, not all of them as in the case of fireball.
It's also very limited, though--only works on "wizard evocation" spells. The evocation requirement is limiting, as mentioned in the video (the good saving throw cantrips are mostly not evocation cantrips, so it's hard to pair this with the 6th level feature). But I've also found the "wizard" requirement limiting. Like when I tried to make a magic missile build dipping hexblade--thinking that I would also get a pretty good eldritch blast because EB is evocation so I'd get to add my INT once, but....nope, EB isn't a wizard spell. This feature does apply to everyone hit by a fireball, yes, but it's not unique in doing that; Draconic Sorcerer does that at level 6.
@@KaitlynBurnellMath yes but at the same time an evocation wizard's 10th level ability applies to all wizard evocation spells of all damage types, not just one damage type like the draconic Sorcerer, in this same comparison a evocation wizard could apply their int mod to all targets of both a fireball and a cone of cold, a draconic Sorcerer couldn't do the same.
@@The_Yukki I noticed it, he pointed that out in the video talking about the strong points for that feature, I was just stating that adding a little extra damage to all targets of a fireball is better than most extra damage features that add the modifier to one creature I'm pretty sure even in the case of magic missile you still only add the modifier once
@@joshuahendershot196 You add the modifier once, but magic missile is just 1 roll, which is then multiplied by the number of missiles, so that one addition of the modifier applies to every missile
@@marsupialmole3926 As per Jeremy Crawford it's one roll multiplied by the number of missiles however by RAW it's 1d4+1 for each missile, but either way you add the modifier to one roll so proper procedure, even doing it Crawford's way should be roll 1d4+1, multiply by number of missiles, add Int modifier For example for a 5th level Magic missile cast by a 10th level evocation wizard with 20 int the equation would be (1d4+1)*5+5 not (1d4+1+5)*5
Love how you pointed out the power of multi classing into war magic. I've got a arcane archer that i plan to multi into war magic, already got high intelligence for my magic arrow DC and i don't need to cast spells in combat (for dmg).
I like these videos, because they excite my imagination and give me ideas cool character concepts. Playing dnd has been inaccessible for me for years, but I still have fun crafting builds and planning encounters. Thanks Treantmonk!
I've played a conjurer and minor conjuration "can" be really good. You can to start with conjure up useful items like a spade, bucket, a crowbar, short rope or piece of chain for example. But the ability says "an item you have seen" so technically a key you have seen, a piece of jewelry, what about a piece of paper with writing on it? Make a round object that you can roll down the corridor. The ability doesnt deal damage but its got a LOT of potential and have NO LIMIT of the number of uses other than ONE ITEM AT A TIME.
This is more a battle power ranking. So while good for RP and utility it just doesn't do much for combat. Not that you can't make use of it. Making free ammo or a new weapon for a party member that needs one but those are situational uses. Utility makes it good feature but that's not what being ranked in these videos.
Gives a little more weight to the Keen Mind Feat in particular. Imagine recreating a special key you have seen unlocking a barred door; one you have originally seen 2 weeks ago. Interesting stuff. Instant letter forgeries, a rare badge of station, etc.
@@pranakhan I missed one thing that makes forgeries less likely "The object is visibly magical, radiating dim light out to 5 feet." but a copy can still be VERY useful.
I am playing an enchanter wizard with my group right now, and it is a LOT of fun. I think people naturally think that a charisma based character would be best for enchantment spells, so they skip it over. I am only lvl 4, but having my character wearing nothing but robes stand toe to toe with the biggest enemy while flinging flaming sphere around is great. Now, I must admit, every time I read the features for the war mage, I got to the 6th lvl feature. My eyes would glaze over and i would say "Nah, I'll pick something else." I knew it was a good dip for multiclass, but never really thought about how the lvl 10 feature stacks so well. I'll definitely have to think of a fun build for that. I feel like he could be another mage that can be close up because his AC will be really good. Let me know if anyone has ideas!
I am currently playing a Mountain Dwarf Forge Cleric 1/War Mage 5 as a "Wizard In Full Plate" build. He carries a battleaxe and shield, and fights from the front line. He already tanks better than the other characters in the party, and has the CON bonus to actually survive the few hits that go through - which aren't that many, considering his base AC is a 22 right now. For additional fun, because you have Cleric, you can cast Shield of Faith on yourself as a concentration spell to trigger the level 10 feature, so even without magical equipment you have 18 (Plate mail) + 2 (shield) + 1 (Blessing of forge) + 2 (shield of faith) + 2 (War Mage 10) = 25 AC, boostable to 30 with the Shield spell. You probably will want something else for your concentration effects, of course, but it's an option.
I think War Magic works particularly well with a 1-level artificer dip. It's basically easy mode for wizards where you have the best AC, saving throws, and initiative while being able to focus on whichever spells you like.
@@thecerpent haste would be real fun for the same AC, and then the added bonus of having your Nikes on and an extra action. Or if you go big at that level one of the Transformation spells.
Congratulations on getting through the classes. I do laugh at the thought of people telling you you got a subclass wrong in a list you repeatable call out as being your opinion.
Warmage is bad except as a dip, or in campaigns with many encounters each day. Most of the games I've played in have 1-2 maybe 3 encounters in an adventuring day. In that case even long before reaching level 10 there is no shortage of spell slots for Shield, Absorb Elements, or Counterspell. One of those three will be a better use of your reaction than Arcane Deflection most of the time: - avoiding hits with Shield >> making 1 concentration save with AD - if you're getting targeted by the enemies without Shield you are almost certainly taking more than 1 hit per round. - reducing damage with Absorb Elements always works whereas increasing a saving throw by 4 might not be enough to save against that dragon's breath. - counterspelling an enemy's spell is always better than making the save against it. At low levels, or as a MC dip absolutely War Mage is awesome. But it just doesn't scale well enough.
@@agilemind6241 Do you think all saving throws come from spells? Also, counterspell expends a 3rd level or higher slot and can have uncertainty. As TM said, the reaction is a significant limitation. But that doesn't make +4 to any saving throw not good, especially when you fail a concentration save. Sometimes enemies crit y'know. And at higher levels, you can become incapacitated from a save and instantly lose concentration that way. Not to mention Tactical Wit is a very nice bonus to Initiative! Going higher in init matters to a Wizard in so many ways and while it may not seem dramatic, it adds up easily. Then at higher levels where you're saying the War Mage doesn't scale it gets fucking Durable Magic which is *insanely* good. +2 to AC and ALL SAVES. You cannot tell me that is not good. That is stuff that people spend *attunement slots* for.
My hobgoblin war mage/fighter is still one of my favorite characters of all time. You're right, war magic isn't flashy or "cool," but it's effective. And it fits the idea of a soldier mage: this isn't about flash or style, it's about Doing The Job And Coming Home Safe. And war magic does that in spades.
And I find even playing a straight wizard is fine for this. Especially if you're playing a concentration heavy "God Mage" or a Generalist (which is what my current dragon born muscle mage is)
I think you underestimate a Diviner's The Third Eye ability in regards to Ethereal Sight. Since the Ethereal plane is ethereal, overlapped onto and mirroring every other plane (everything is a foggy reflection of the adjacent plane), being able to see 60 feet into it allows you to see THROUGH objects and creatures to a range of 60 ft, which is VERY useful in most scenarios.
Great series, didn't agree on everything but I appreciate how consistent you were in your rankings. I know it would be a lot of work but a multi class tier list would be sweet.
Before this video series I liked your channel, but after this video series I absolutely love it. I have really been loking forward to each of these videos!
What a journey this series has been! I really enjoy your insightful analysis of strengths and weaknessess. There might be some bias overall BUT when putting pure mechanics into perspective and the combat-oriented focus the game design follows, this is pretty close to a perfect depiction of what does and doesn't work for an average length campaign. Good work!
This was a great insightful series. I think a good followup would be a video highlighting some of the high level features that are much better than the ranking of the class would otherwise indicate (like the Illusionist's Lv. 14 ability, the Thief's Lvl 17, etc). A lot of classes have a true gem at late game, and it's neat to play them in the rare event you know a game will be high level.
I might not agree with you, but dammit man, I respect you.... well done. 😁 - was not expecting such high praise for the war mage. I've personally had fun subbing it with the eldritch knight & arcane archer.
FINALLY; FINALLY War Magic gets its rightful due. Dungeon Dudes didn’t know what they were talking about; Esper (love ya) was wrong too; and most other tubers were wrong and misunderstood the power of War Magic. Thank you sir for finally showing just how great that class is and yeah I know you have a 3-parter on making a Battlemage using it too haha! Great rankings overall!
Surprised you made Necromancy A rank considering a) as you pointed out, you need to resist picking bad necromancy spells to “make the most” of your 2nd level feature, b) you really need to make some good spell picks (Summon Undead) to make your only good feature useful, and doing so means your concentration is spoken for, and c) it pigeon holes you into one type of wizard.
The main problem i have with necromancy is the RP tax, it makes tiny servant better than animate dead simply by the fact that if you have a bunch of tiny constructs following you around (they can also be hidden in a bag of holding) vs having a bunch of zombies and skeletons following you around NPC might be scared or agressive towrds you and the party.
For similar reasons, I'm wondering why Evocation ranks a B. Building Evocation isn't difficult, the only real trap is thinking you have to blast all the time. Hell, the bulk of all 'Wall' spells are Evocation anyway. In addition, you get your best ability first, providing immense flexibility with your battlefield control. Spells like Dawn and Sickening Radiance, normally awkward to use at best, can be used more or less with impunity. And this in comparison to Transmutation that.. gets you Con proficiency, basically. Sure, you can change its effect with a leveled spell mid combat, but which Transmutation spell are you using to do so? Are you willing to drop your Haste/Slow/Polymorph to do so? If not, your choices are basically Catapult, Erupting Earth, or Transmute Rock.
I think Necromancy is quite powerful simply because you can re-assert control (Animate Dead) at the END of the day before you sleep. This basically gives you twice as many spell slots the rest of the time because you can front-load your minions then sling a full repertoire of normal spells as well. If you don't have enough slots at the end of the day, you order enough minions to die and then rez them back up again at your convenience.
I’ve always wanted to combine barbarian with a bit of war mage. It’s a silly combination but that Arcane Deflection ability would be a major boon. Then snag a few low level buffs, ritual casting and useful cantrips as a bonus.
Me too. AD can absolutely be used while raging. I've played around with builds for a Fire Shield raging Barbarian War Mage, never found a build I think works well enough to present in a video though.
I’ve been considering a Vedalken Zealot barbarian with 2 levels of war mage and 3 artillerist artificer. Bonus action temp hp and an excellent reaction to raise defenses. It’s not an extremely optimized with 5 levels of other classes but having advantage on 4 saving throws and proficiencies with the other two is nice, though I’d try to snag resilient wisdom too. I’d call the build a Libarian.
I think thematically the ancestral guardian barbarian would work well. I played around with a build using the centaur and the mobile feat. Fast movement at level 10 stacking with the mobile feat allows the ancestral guardians centaur to run up 30 feat, attack action, bonus action hoof, and retreat 30ft to reset their racial charge hood attack again. This can be done with relative safety while making use of reckless attack to deal more damage and ensure the ancestral debuff lands. The 30ft distance is key for a lot of features with this build. The charge ability and increased speed makes a reliable way to get bonus action attacks without having to invest in polearm master. Adding 2 levels of war wizard would allow the barbarian to have a higher chance to remain effective when exposed to fear effects with arcane deflection, and ever so slightly boost initiative. The wizard utility cantrips and rituals could be picked to further play off of the spirits helping to guide and protect you and your party. This would also expand what a barbarian can do when not in combat. The ancestral guardian level 3 feature imposing disadvantage and resistance against your party vs one creature makes basically your entire party more tanky than you, so hit and run tactics are amazing. The level 6 damage reduction for an ally is also somewhat exclusive from the arcane deflection feature since there’s usually distance between you and your party.
I've loved this series, Chris! Thanks again for all of the research that went into this - even if I don't agree with every rank, I've loved seeing the assessment of them and overall the thoughts are excellent. Keep up the good work!
You have completely warped my mental process for analyzing DnD. I watched all of your ranking videos up till now, and I feel at this point once you tell me a feature I know exactly how you're going to tell me how you feel about it based on my experience of your previous ratings lol. I watched your variant series as well, and I wish we could have gotten something like what you gave wizards for savant. What makes me annoyed is that if I go into a specific school, I feel like I should be getting features that improve my ability to use spells of that school, but it feels like most of the subclasses really fall short in that regard.
I still think Bladesinger is the most fun to play. Maybe not the best in every category, (or maybe not the best in any one category at all) but the sheer amount of options they have at any given time just makes them so fun to play.
The most likely reason that war magic wizard is considered “weak” is probably due to two factors. It’s selfish in its benefits compared to other wizard subclasses and the 6th level feature feels like garbage. Raw stat changes don’t usually feel as good due to inability for creative input or an expansion of tactics/toolset. May not feel as impactful. May just feel like a “wizard” wizard rather than anything with an identity. It’s often the case in most campaigns I’m apart of only go up to level eight at most. Maybe this is the case for most others as well. If I only get to eight, that 6th level feature makes the whole subclass not worth playing. Despite all that, I do whole heartedly agree with your assessment on the class.
Yes, a bad feature is often used to justify a poor opinion on a subclass or class to the point that if they just didn't have the feature to begin with, it would have been better received.
@@TreantmonksTemple Totally agree. If WotC added a single line to Bladesong specifying that their weapon attacks now do bonus poison damage, some people might actually be dissuaded from playing Bladesinger. 😉 I think your videos on Trickster Cleric really drilled that point home for me - a bad feature doesn't detract from the strength of a class or subclass.
War Magic absolutely doesn't need more power, but I still wish the 6th-level feature felt better in play. It doesn't need to be good. It just needs to be something rather than nothing.
I dislike War Wizard because it just doesn't scale well. At low levels it is great, and as a MC dip it's fantastic. But the higher you go the worse it gets. Ignoring the level 6 feature, Arcane Deflection is only good if low level spell slots are in short supply, because Shield is just better for AC and Absorb Elements is better than a +4 to a save against most damage dealing effects, and Counterspelling an enemy spell is always better than betting on making the save. So in particular campaigns: low level, lots of encounters per day, or many enemies that impose nasty conditions on a failed save then War Mage is excellent. But at least for me, rarely is that the case.
It also mainly boosts the Wizard's survivability which people may believe is "wasted" on a caster. Nevermind how far ahead Wizards are in taking hits over martials.
Enchantment wizard level 10 feature is amazing like you said. It can be used to target 2 enemies with spells that can’t normally be upcast to gain benefits. Enemies abound could cause a couple of enemies to completely destroy each other if their intelligence is low enough.
He also had a video on this a year to two ago. I'm curious to see how his opinion has changed since then, as he had Clerics ranked better overall than they are reflected in this video.
I looked back, here's how he had them ranked: S: Wizard>Bard A: Druid>Paladin>Cleric B: Rogue>Fighter>Sorcerer>Warlock C: Artificer>Ranger>Barbarian D: Monk Based on the final rankings on this series I feel like his opinion on Paladins has gotten even more positive and less so on Clerics, but otherwise it might remain similar. He clearly uses a different scale now with S being OP, so he'll probably have them all shifted down now as well.
Love it when you break down wizards /spells - easily my favourite part of dnd. Necromancy is my preferred subclass although I agree it is not the most powerful overall. As a level 20 Necromancer- here is the math just using undead thralls and animate dead . Correct me if I’m wrong . Considering spell slots= Level 3 spells =3 slots =. 3x2= 6 skeletons Level 4 spells =3 slots = 3x 4 (upcast gets an additional 2 skeletons per level above third ) = 12 Level 5 spells= 3 slots = 3 x 6 = 18 Level 6 spells = 2 slots = 2x 8 = 16 Level 7 = 2 slots = 2x10 = 20 Level 8 =1 slot = 1x 12 = 12 Level 9 = 1 slot = 1x 14 = 14 6+12+18+16+20+12+14= 98 skeletons for 24 hours. Cast the spells before bed in a cemetery… Then you can long rest for 8 hours and cast them again in the morning for another 98 skeletons Total 196 skeletons under your control for about 15 more hours. Enjoy!
I loved all the ranking videos. My table does not really optimize, and a few barely read class abilities, let alone what they can do in combat, but for me, this stuff is gold. Thanks for all your hard work so far.
A soft buff to necromancer a friend suggested was to 1) swap out the healing on kill for a "until the end of your next turn" version of the Undead warlock's ability to frighten enemies, when you damage foes with a spell or a creature is hit by or fails a save against a necromancy spell. 2) Gain animate dead at 6th level, if you already know it gain summon undead, for which you don't require the material focus to cast.
@@mylesdrake2949 This gonna sound counterintuitive, but wizards don't kill things with spells all that often, at least not when they need healing. You start out a fight with a fireball or something similar, well you are at full hp so its wasted. Then as a Necromancer, you are spending spells on minions, so your minions kill something - which doesn't count. And as a wizard you spend your spell slots on concentration spells which generally are disabling things or buffing things. If you are saving the spells for low HP targets so you can reap some healing, then you are generally "wasting" some of the damage of that spell, maybe waiting 1 round later so you are getting the kill, which is extra time for that foe to deal damage to you or allies. A good example of a hit point interacting feature is the fiend warlock. A bad example is the necromancer.
@@lord6617 let me ask you this, do you only get one encounter before a long rest? The less encounters you have the less useful most of the necromancer features are considering all their features involve taking damage or needing dead bodies. As for wasting damage, vampiric touch doesn't do a whole lot which I why I prefer to us it to heal on coup de graces. Sleep and inflict wounds coup de grace at low levels. However at the end of the day your job as a wizard is more to prevent damage. These are just ways the wizard gets to heal if they fail in that task.
When this series was first released I remember seeing someone's comment complaining about Treantmonk's biases and sarcastically said "can't wait for the wizard video to come out and he ranked them all A and S" Glad to see he got proved wrong!
Love the series. Wish it could on forever. Maybe you could do a series with a “test drive” type scenario, of what to expect and how things would/could play out when choosing a class/subclass. Love all your content.
I have one note on divination, I love a divination wizard, but I have found that most frequently you roll a 12 and a 14 or the like. Then you do not know whether it is sufficient for a save or a fail necessarily. On those days you basically lose your primary feature. You are still a wizard, so not a big deal, but kinda takes the wind out of your sails when the rolls you have are middle of the road.
@@dcarrano that is true, but when you take the perk you are thinking I am going to have a guaranteed big save or fail that could be critical. This limits you to things like your own spell save. Which is still great, but does not carry quite the same clout you would expect.
Very interesting ranking style. Super happy to finally hear someone give war wizard it's crown!! That subclass turns you into a beast and no one rates it highly because it isn't as flashy
The fact that WotC went out if their way to make it a necromancy spell seems to imply that it was intended to work that way, otherwise they would have just made it a conjuration spell.
So, sorted by strongest to weakest median subclass ranking, we have: A = Wizard; B = Bard, Druid, Warlock, Paladin, Sorcerer; C = Cleric, Ranger, Fighter; D = Barbarian, Artificer, Rogue; and F = Monk.
I played a short campaign a few years ago (lvl8). I played a halfling arcane trickster with a 2 lvl dip in divination. I took the lucky feat at lvl 4,The DM was very annoyed at the constant rerolling of dice.I thought it was funny,but good thing the campaign was short,by the end even the players were rolling their eyes at the rerolls at nearly every combat.
I've been in a campaign for over a year now (we're at 11th level) where we have a halfling divination wizard with the Lucky and Bountiful Luck feats. It's very silly.
While I'm not personally into Evocation wizards, the 6th level Potent Cantrip trait does turn all of the save-required cantrips (which, unlike ranged-spell attack cantrips, are unaffected by the proximity of a melee-ranged target) into something better than the usual save-vs-suck. They may not do the most damage, but you'll always be guaranteed /some/ damage. Given that cantrips are almost always going to happen between levelled-spell castings, it shouldn't be dismissed.
Really one of the greatest series of YT D&D ! I have a TIER list for my new players. The S subclass are the same as you and just ban at my table. For the other i just have a-b-c & the rest :) Most rank are at the same levels as yours; except i did a little less work. (like all wizards are A... as most bard, palys and clerics.) Great JOB !
Svirfneblin Magic Feat gives you free no resource non-detection for even faster recharge of the Abjuration Ward. Obviously only for Svirfneblin but they are a decent class for Wizard anyways.
This is a power ranking and I so I agree with your ranking of War Magic. But if this was about how fun the subclass features are, War Magic, along with Abjuration, would be very low tier for me. It's the same as with Forge Cleric's fire resistance and +1 AC. It's objectively good but incredibly boring. That's why Scribes is probably my favourite Wizard.
So. I thought War Magic's power surge sucked too, until a commenter pointed out that you could stack multiple spell effects on an object using cantrips like prestidigitation and or mold earth, then cast one dispell Magic to end all the magical effects on said object, gaining a power surge for each instance of magic ended, since, dispell Magic can end one or multiple magical effects on a single target.
You have probably been told this before I will say it again though. Your videos are the best, I have every guide saved and bookmarked. Thank you for the video.
Something surprisingly terrifying: Barb 1/War Wizard x: Proficiency in con saves, blade cantrips, and not much reason to use any levelled spell other than misty step and counterspell: That first level as barbarian means you start off with a *lot* more health, and swinging a greataxe, or dual wielding (ruby of the war mage is Helpful™), the DM can't throw spells at you without just buffing your damage (not by much, but it's still Force damage), if you're grappled you just misty step away, and you're maintaining concentration on Haste so you're hitting a lot and your AC isn't bad, especially with unarmoured defense, and if you *are* hit, you're not dropping concentration with proficiency, high con, and war wizard features. You're a barbarian who doesn't rage, a wizard who doesn't cast a variety of spells or need high intelligence., and you're still a force to be reckoned with.
Another point about Hypnotic Gaze: It has out of combat utility too. In combat the speed reduction and incapacitate are the important parts; out of combat the Charm is still functioning. The creature is dazed, but not unconscious. You get advantage on all Charisma checks and, unlike Friends, this says nothing about them becoming hostile afterwards. Useful for calming people down, haggling, interrogation, whatever.
Really enjoyed this series! Hopefully WotC can take some of your feedback for the worst off features and classes. Maybe for that 5.5 or 6th edition? Whatever it turns out to be.
There's something missing from this video, but first I wanna say, I love this examination of what makes wizards great, it's honestly been really illuminating. That said, I kinda disagree that the wizard is "easy to optimise", necessarily. I've run long campaigns for a lot of new players and played with plenty of more experienced players who just weren't too optimisation savvy, and what I've found is that, though wizards have a massive spell list with the best spells in the game, they also have a lot of duds. One particular new player (who really likes strategy games) played a wizard in my game back when I was fairly new to D&D; he picked a bunch of blast and meh utility spells and spent levels 1-4 mostly casting burning hands and scorching ray, before getting bored of D&D and leaving the group (which can't just be blamed on the wizard). I didn't know enough back then to help him get more out of the class. Sorcerors have this problem too, imo. A new player playing a cleric will have a great time healing, blasting and channelling divinity just by picking the most appealing and flashy spells, or playing a druid and having fun turning into animals, spells be damned. Bards get inspiration, and expertise is kinda hard to fuck up. And, beyond just spellcasters, barbarians rage, paladins smite, fighters fight. But I feel like a player who doesn't know what to do with a wizard (or sorc) can so easily end up frustrated that their class seems kinda lame, with not enough hit points and not enough cool features. Idk, this is just my experience (with newbies and casual players, which is hardly Chris' target audience). Curious to hear people's thoughts.
I tend to be somewhat of an optimizer and I have never really enjoyed playing wizards very much, especially compared with sorcerers. Wizard class mechanics in my experience are basically limited to CAST one of your spells and maybe a subclass feature will align if you do something very specific. There's not much for mechanics to manipulate those spells. I would stress after every long rest during spell prep and always feel rushed, whereas when I played a cleric, spell prep was less stressful because their were not a lot of opportunity costs with their spell list imo. And then when I cast a spell, it was just like so that's it? That's the lauded wizard experience? The lack of creative mechanical interactions with your casting, -I guess I don't find their game play very stimulating. With sorcerer on the other hand, the stress was largely experienced out of game, planning which spells and metamagics you will learn/forget (which is also a stress during wizard level up). Picking a dud spell on a sorcerer is definitely a pain though, especially when you know fewer than 10 spells.
@@elliotbryant3459 I can imagine that, but I will say that the most valuable thing I've learned from Treantmonk is to think of spells like class features. "Just casting a spell" didn't used to sound very exciting to me either compared to using class features, but I've since learned that if you choose your spells right they can make you feel even more powerful, and put that power in your control
Enchantment wizards are probably the best way to play a pacifist character imo: a low level pacifist wizard of most other subclasses is probably going to run out of useful things to do as soon as they're out of spell slots, and being a pacifist, they can't even survive on crappy cantrip damage. The help action is... i guess it's better than nothing, but not as nice as that beloved infinite use hypnotic gaze! It's an infinite use option that lets a wizard be a pacifist and always be useful. I played a lawful evil pacifist wizard once (they were only doing it to get favor with a deity) and oh man enchanter was so great, i actually felt USEFUL; if the telekinetic feat were out at the time, i would have been a pacifist powerhouse and it was even useful outside of combat; it was great for neutralizing an NPC while we searched their room one time to get more information before resuming the interrogation like seriously guys enchanter wizard is GOOD
Very interesting results! I definitely see your point with War Mage and may have underrated it in my head for a while. I still don't quite understand the appeal of Arcane Deflection: +4 to a saving throw is really nice early on, but once you get to a point where Wizard gets really good reaction spells (Shield, Absorb Elements) and a lot of spell slots, and also starts getting hit by multiple attacks and having to make multiple saving throws a round? Definitely not worth the drawback. Plus you basically don't have a 6th level feature. Love the ranking series though, can't wait for the final part!
Enchantment wizards get to twin all of the power words, the dominate spells, and even feeblemind for free. If you can get a late stage campaign going, my goodness does that feel awesome. War Mage - Arcane Deflection is just insane and I love it. I think people that rate war mage low is due to them not realizing that you can use Arcane Deflection for ANY SAVING THROW EVER, not just in combat? That's the only reason I came up with. I mean, coupling the level 10 bonus with literally any concentration spell that buffs your AC, Saving throws, etc etc. I agree 100% with you. I love making lvl 2 wizard dips for Paladins and Fighters and even Rogues because that +4 to saves is the difference between half or no damage on evasion quite often in my experience.
The Evokers “Empowered Cantrip” is a little more useful than you make it sound. It is automatic damage without expending a resource and that comes in handy a lot.
War wizard- fully agree with the rating. Power surge scales with slots, wizard level, intelligence modifier, rituals available, and cantrips available. At level 8, intelligence can be a 20 which allows for maximum surges. The Dispel magic allows for a 3rd level slot to be expended to dispel all spell effects on a target. Target is a creature or an object. Level 6 when feature is gained, surges is likely 1-3 on an adventuring day. Another 1-2 if you have to counterspell, which you should be doing regardless of surges generated. This brings the range of surges to 1-5, for 3-15 extra damage. Level 8 brings 5 int mod fir more surges able to be banked, another 1 damage per surge from wizard level, and the choice of dispelling self generated effects for surges. A 3rd level slot can be used with dispel magic to generate 4-5 surges. This converts a 3rd level slot to 16-20 bonus damage on spells at wizard level 8. The power surge is limited to one creature per turn, but if movement options are available a creature can take damage from a war wizards spell on other creatures turns, allowing the wizard to funnel damage into a single target. The easy example is wall of fire, which is actually illustrated in Xanathars. On the wizards turn it casts wall or fire, creature makes a save for 5d8 damage and takes a surge, then you telekinetic pull it out as a bonus action. On an allies turn they push it back in, while probably doing their own damage to it, dealing another 5d8 damage and a surge with no save. This can continue in various ways through a round by focusing damage on a particular creature which is strategically advantageous.
