Treantmonk's Guide to Wizards: 3rd level spells 

While Haste is ok for a Wizard, it's a fantastic spell for a Sorcerer. Being able to twin it and make a fighter and a rogue get more actions is amazing, and your party will love you for it.

Here's the rankings it text form for quick reference. Red (*) - Not Recommended Orange (**) - Too Circumstantial to warrant preparation Purple (***) - Ok Spells Green (****) - Good Spells Blue (*****) - Must Have Spells Ab - Abjuration Conj - Conjuration Enc - Enchantment Evo - Evocation Ill - Illusion Necr - Necromancy Tran - Transmutation Conc - Concentration Animated Dead (Necr) (****) or (*****) for Necromancer's. If you are a Necromancer, don't take at 5th, as you get it for free at 6th (34:52) Bestow Curse (Necr, Conc) (*) or (**) if cast at 5th level or higher (37:37) Blink (Tran) (***) (43:24) Catnap (Enc) (*) (19:26) Clairvoyance (Div, Conc) (***) Counterspell (Abj) (*****) (01:52) (16:18) Dispel Magic (Abj) (****) (04:14) Enemies Abound (Enc, Conc) (***) (17:58) Erupting Earth (Tran) (*) (50:12) Fear (Ill, Conc) (****) (30:24) Feign Death (Necr, Ritual) (*) (38:45) Fireball (Evo) (****) (22:03) Flame Arrows (Tran, Conc) (**) (48:22) Fly (Tran, Conc) (***) (44:34) Gaseous Form (Tran, Conc) (**) (47:11) Glyph of Warding (Abj) (**) (05:50) Haste (Tran, Conc) (***) (45:32) Hypnotic Pattern (Ill, Conc) (*****) (28:43) Leomund's Tiny Hut (Evo, Ritual) (*****) (20:50) Life Transference (Necr) (**) (36:33) Lightning Bolt (Evo) (**) (26:12) Magic Circle (Abj) (*) (09:37) Major Image (Ill, Conc) (***) Using a 6th level spell, it's permanent (31:37) Melf's Minute Meteors (Evo, Conc) (**) (23:29) Nondetection (Abj) (***) (04:59) Phantom Steed (Ill, Ritual) (***) (33:38) Protection from Energy (Abj, Conc) (**) (07:02) Remove Curse (Abj) (**) (08:43) Sending (Evo) (***) (23:32) Sleet Strom (Conj, Conc) (****) (12:02) Slow (Tran, Conc) (****) (31:10) Stinking Cloud (Conj, Conc) (***) (13:17) Summon Lesser Demons (Conj) (*) (15:01) Thunderstep (Conj) (*****) (10:20) Tiny Servant (Tran) (***) (46:20) Tongues (Div) (***) (17:13) Tidal Wave (Conj) (***) (13:58) Vampiric Touch (Necr, Conc) (*) STAY AWAY (39:32) Wall of Sand (Evo, Conc) (*) (27:48) Wall of Water (Evo, Conc) (**) Generally avoid this unless you have a plan to freeze it (26:57) Water Breathing (Tran, Ritual) (****) (42:33)

Animate Dead - The spell says, "Once given an order, the creature continues to follow it until its task is complete." The command "Attack my enemies until they die," lasts the whole fight, because the undead obey, only one bonus action.

“Hey Optimancers!” This is my new favorite greeting

there is a reason to not take animate dead at level up when playing necromancer: you get the spell for free as a subclass feature

Phantom Steed lasts for an entire 10 rounds after it takes Damage Chris. “When the spell ends, the steed gradually fades, giving the rider 1 minute to dismount. The spell ends if you use an action to dismiss it or if the steed takes any damage.”

Sleet Storm: particularly effective against flying creatures (depending on the DM). If we go with the text as written, it knocks flyers out of the air. There are some optional rules for handling how far they fall, how fast they fall, whether they take damage, etc. But you definitely knock them out of the air if they rely on wings or similar for flight.

The walls of Sand should be first level, the wall of water second level just to introduce walls and control to wizards early. Erupting earth is a wall of sorts.

I recently started in my first proper DnD campaign and chose a Wizard, so your videos have been extremely helpful to me. Thanks for the great content!

Audio volume seems a little bit low lately. Otherwise, keep up the awesome work!

Amazing content as always. It was said in previous videos, but I'll say it again. Your voice volume in your videos is very quiet. It's actually a bit annoying for me. Is it possible to turn it up a bit? The music in the intro is at the correct volume.

Treantmonk, thanks for doing these! Much appreciated. Looking forward to later spell levels and wizard schools. Awesome.

Would love to see one of these videos done for Warlock spells, and how their different spellcasting style influences the relative value of their choices

Note Phantom steed is not fragile at all, when it takes damage it starts to dissappear, but it's over 1 minute, so you have a guaranteed mount for 1 combat

Always appreciated! Instructive, inspiring and delivered with insight, love it, thank you!

Good to hear the volume is much higher than the last video. Loving the lists & guides, making me a more effective player!

Love your wizard series, much appreciated !

In a one shot this weekend decided to try out a wizard for the first time after years of being a rogue/ranger this series has been a great help! Well done!

These videos are still so helpful even years later! Just came back to this as I advanced to level 5 with my wizard. I ended up taking Tiny Hut and Sending - not great combat uses, but they fit my theme!

Major Image: "As long as you are within range of the illusion, you can use your action to cause the image to move to any other spot within range."

I'll advocate for Slow at higher levels. The BEST feature of Slow is it does not impose a status - not charmed, frightened or anything like that. Higher level monsters often have immunity to charm and fright, but almost never to the effects of Slow. Losing reactions means you can escape being surrounded. The damage potential of many monsters is in the number of attacks, which slow reduces to one. With up to six targets, it's rare you won't get at least one even if the saves are in the +8 range. Used this spell last night (10th level party) to great effect against a bunch of star spawn enemies - which did have immunity to fright and charmed. Every enemy had multiple attacks. One had a devastating reaction ability that was eliminated. It's really a call of whether there is a better concentration spell to cast, but I think it's great to have prepared even as I'm on the cusp of 6th level spells.

Hi, enjoy your videos. Just one thing I wanted to point out. The spell is Melf's Minute Meteors, pronounced my-noot. As in tiny. Not minute the unit of time. . They are minute (tiny) meteors. Cheers!

One thing about Catnap. There is an optional rule in DMG, what makes the game a bit more "realistic", or grim, or how you like to call it. So, the rule is, that the resting is not like long rest 8 hours, short rest 1 hour, but long rest 1 week, short rest 8 hours. Now catnap gives a huge advantage this time.

One note for your Animate Dead discussion. While it does take a bonus action to either directly order or change the standing orders of your minions, your minions will continue to follow the command until the task is complete. This makes the spell consume less of your bonus actions than say a Spiritual Weapon (cleric spell for example only) or a Flaming Sphere that consume your bonus action every turn to be effective. The only limitation this brings in is the interpretation of the DM for the phrases in the spell of "issue a general command" and "follow it until its task is complete". I have personally let a necromancer player have his skeleton archers follow the standing order of "surround me and fire arrows at the any creature that this gnome (another party member) fires arrows at until I issue you more orders" for about 80% of a dungeon without needing to use a bonus action to change the orders of his minions. A more generous DM may allow more complex commands, and a less generous DM may not allow too many commands at all. As such, mileage may vary.

Had a Warlock with Vampiric Touch get swallowed by a Kraken, he managed to stay alive (and give the Kraken a tummy ache) by using the spell. ...It is also the only time I can remember using the spell.

Use for Ritual Casting Feign Death I’ve used a few times: cast it on party members and put them in a bag of holding to sneak the whole party in somewhere. This is a grey area mechanics wise, based on the wording of both the spell and bag of holding, but Rule of Cool has won over the DMs I’ve tried it with.

You actually can move the Major Image. It says "As long as you are within range of the illusion, you can use your action to cause the image to move to any other spot within range." So it does cost an action, but you can move it

34:10 Phantom steed will still have 10 rounds left to use (1 minute) **even if it takes damage**. "The spell ends...if the steed takes any damage" along with "When the spell ends, the steed gradually fades, giving the rider 1 minute to dismount" confirm this. It can still be killed, but a bit of damage won't make it go down instantly. So the only practical danger is the same with regular mounted combat (horse dying regularly). With this extra context it's very good, esp. for a ritual.

Hey Treantmonk, new to the channel and very much enjoying the contentent so far and I have kind of an odd request. For some reason the hues you use for the rating system are difficult for me (and I imagine a few others) to decipher due to colorblindness. Would it be possible to add rejoinder to the color in question to make it more clear? Such as (P) or (B) or a star system (***)/(3) or whatever you like best? Either way keep up the good work and thank you.

So excited to see another video! Thanks Chris!

Argument for lighting bolt: I'm not an evocation wizard and my other 2 party members are Frontline. I'd rather be able to avoid hitting them

I'm playing a 10th level wizard for the second time in my life. Looking forward to your guides to 4th and 5th level spells! I believe I've got the basics, though. Polymorph, Arcane Eye, Dimension Door, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Wall of Force, Animate Objects, Scrying - all in my spellbook. Edit: we're playing Rise of Tiamat, and there are a lot of cultists. This reduces usefulness of Hypnotic Pattern significantly.

Major image range is related to the distance between the character and the spell. As long as you stay at 120 feet of the illusion, it will go wherever you want as long as you spend an action to do it (dont even need malleable illusions) Txt says “As long as you are within range of the illusion, you can use your action to cause the image to move to any other spot within range..” Thats why I would rule it that way

Life transference is essentially 4d8 damage for 8d8 healing, right? Does one creature you can see include yourself? 👀

I think your comments about Vampiric Touch are too harsh: you are examining the spell from the point of view of a shoot-from-afar wizard. The bladesinger in my group entered a fight with 30 HP of damage and used Vampiric touch, doing more or less the same damage as he would do with 2 attacks with his rapier+1, never been hit due to his 27+ AC, and coming out of the fight completely healed. Maybe not a top notch spell, but not too bad for a melee wizard.

Great video as usual! I find that your videos are the best, especially for wizards, so I have to say a big thank you for that, they helped me a lot! This particular video I found very interesting. Maybe the only thing I would like to add is regarded "animate dead" spell, which certainly for a necromancer is a must have spell, but remember that as belonging to necromancy school, wizards will automatically learn "animate dead" reaching 6th level.. so maybe it would make more sense waiting for 6th level and learning other spells when unblocking 3rd level spells at 5th level, like hipnotic pattern, counterspell or thunderstep..

These videos make my Mondays! Now I enjoy them. Lol

I always stuck with meele classes cause, while not a min/maxer I like to feel usefull in and out of combat. Thanks to your guides I now play my first Wizard and while still not having the most impact I know when and how to make an impact in combat

34:58 Important note on animate dead, after 24 hours the magic doesn't leave it, rather it becomes hostile.

24:50 You didn't note it, but you can send two meteors out when you cast the spell as well (It also doesn't require a bonus action on the turn you cast it either). So you don't necessarily need to know ahead of time.

Not even a passing mention that sleet storm makes enemy casters take a concentration check equal to your level? I ended up using it a lot after 13 level, where I could comfortably sacrifice a 3rd level slot for a much higher than average chance (DC 17/18) to make an enemy lose concentration.

With Animate Dead and Tiny Servant you can also "issue a general command" to give them a task they'll continue doing until it's complete. So you can tell them "fight hostile creatures in this room" and then not use your bonus action on them anymore. But then the DM will control them and not you directly.

Love these vids. Made a wizard after years of saying I’ll never play one (I love clerics and barbs and bards too much). But honestly mah gurl kida is probably my fave character so far. Loving the wizard. I actually found out she is your god wiz build (I can’t resist cleric) so I watched that video to further refine what I’d built.

I finished playing Curse of Strahd recently where I was a necromancer and I had 11 skeles going into strahd's castle. Our War Cleric casts crusaders mantle and it shredded, plus my animate objects, omg that was a ton of damage.

I really enjoy your videos! Maybe in the future, you could do a video that is from the perspective of the DM running NPCs. Save or Suck spells can add drama and tension when it's the PCs rolling to resist hold person! (And if the enemy wastes their action on a failed spell, that's a moment for the group to cheer!)

I think your channel is great! One suggestion. Is to add content related to making good encounters. I love the obtomanzer perspective but as a current player and aspiring DM I want to learn how to create encounters that will give my players a reason to want to be the best they can be!! Again I’m love the channel and please keep the videos rolling!

One of the rare uses for Skywrite would be switching the Transmutation wizard's stone effect while not in combat. The other "free" (ritual) alternative would be water breathing.

Nondetection Purple? It's super situational. :D I agree 100% on all the other ratings :) Looking forward to the 4th level spells video! While I agree with almost all your ratings, watching these videos made me reconsider certain situations that happen frequently in my current campaigns :)

In my experience, lightning bolt is one of the most underrated spells in the game. Your characterization of it as "just straight worse" is just straight wrong. Sometimes fireball is better suited to the given circumstances, and sometimes lightning bolt is. Maybe in your experience (maybe even most player's experiences) fireball is the more useful spell most of the time -- but it is not "just straight worse." A good GM will build encounters so that all characters get a chance to do cool stuff some of the time -- which means that whether you take fireball or lightning bolt, the encounters will give you a good opportunity to use it. One of my players took lightning bolt for flavour reasons, and so I made sure that enemies lineup every now and again so that he can use his cool abilities. Even without the GM forcing it, enemies line up a lot. Walls are often lines with enemies waiting to spring into action (coffins with undead inside, gargoyles, animated armor, etc.). Reinforcements often come charging through a single doorway. Maybe in some games, enemies charge in random, vaguely circular mobs, but in my game they usually form unified battlelines, protecting each other's flanks while maximizing their ability to encircle the party. Enemies might also line up when hiding behind a long table or half-wall for the purposes of cover. Lightning Bolt does have a slightly lower range than fireball, but 100ft instead of 150 (maybe 170 if you want to add the radius) is not a big deal. Most fights do not span over a hundred feet in my experience, and I've rarely had a player want to cast a spell but be unable to because they are out of range. Lightning Bolt is sometimes easier to control (in terms of not hitting allies); If your fighter is fighting three tough enemies in front of him, a lightning bolt can take out the three enemies while leaving the fighter untouched, while a fireball would probably hit the fighter. According you your metric of 9hp per spell slot level, using lightning bolt to take out three enemies is an efficient use. (14 damage minimum, times three enemies, divided by three for the spell level = 14). Even using it for 2 enemies can be worth it (14*2/3=~9). So sacrificing some damage to enemies in exchange for making sure you don't hit an ally can be worth it in some cases - -especially if your ally is low on health. None of this is to say that fireball is a bad spell, or that lightning bolt is better than fireball. I just think that lightning bolt is not as bad as people believe, and it is a perfectly valid to choose lighting bolt over fireball. Especially if you already have somebody in your party with fireball.

Nice job again! I've personally started favoring Slow over Hypno Pattern on my debuff wizard cuz my DM has caught on to using lots of enemies with condition immunities for frightened/charm. Slow bypassing that kind of restriction is a nice plus worth mentioning

I really wish more classes got Vampiric Touch because it’s a lot better a spell in the hands of a tougher class. Cleric, Some Druids, and Some Bards might find themselves in Melee more often, and if Sorcerer could use it it would really bring the Melee Sorcerer concept to life thanks to quicken spell.

An odd quirk with wall of sand's wording is that it doesn't require a creature to be entirely inside it to be blinded, in contrast to, say, hunger of hadar. You could, rules as written, make a wall of sand one foot tall, and any enemies crossing it would be blinded but fully visible.

Very late to the party, but my favorite use of the Life Transference spell is to really lean into roleplaying a traumatized war mage veteran with awful survivor's guilt over all their fellow soldiers dying!

Thank you again for this great video! I do think Slow scales quite well btw, I'm finding myself preparing it and regularly using it at higher levels too. Sure, Wall of Force is a stronger use of my concentration, but I do not always want to invest a 5th level spell (or maybe reduce damage after my divide and conquer spell).

"At 5th level, no one gets a bonus [to counterspells]" 1 level later, lore bards start giggling.

The most iconic use of *Wall of Water* was by Bugs Bunny in *The Iceman Ducketh* to create an invisible shield. He saw a guy do it in a toothpaste ad once.

As I've lately had interest into building a Necromancer, I have been looking more closely to spells like Stinking Cloud as my Animated dead are immune to poison (but aren't immune to say a hypnotic pattern). It seemed like a great fit, until I noticed something: "Each creature that is completely within the cloud at the start of its turn must make a Constitution saving throw against poison. On a failed save, the creature spends its action that turn retching and reeling. Creatures that don't need to breathe or are immune to poison automatically succeed on this saving throw. " Not sure how to bold something in youtube comment, but it says that on a failed save the creature spend's it's action, not it's turn, retching and reeling- so this spell might be a bit worse then you thought since you can't actually divide and conquer with it as you would with Sleet Storm; some will fail their save, but unless they are all attempting to dash towards your party, they will all reach your group at the same time simply by using their movement.

On Phantom Steed : one big advantage is that, when riding, the mount can take the disengage action and move, and then the rider doesn't provoque AoO either : www.sageadvice.eu/2015/06/09/mount-disengage/So it actually gives you a lot of maneuverability. Of course it's not as good as an actual mount, because it disappear if it takes any amount of damage, but still, pretty useful.

Last I checked, major image can be moved, as long as you are close enough to it.

Bestow curse is great if you pull it off. Your familiar can deliver it since it's touch. The sheer things it can do are monstrous - having an enemy make a save every round or do nothing? That's massive.

I think that the animate dead spell is better then most people give it credit for. I think it is an AWSOME spell if you have a melee based rogue in the party. First: you cast this spell just before a long rest, in case you have any 3+ level spell slots available. Make a skeleton as it is usually not that much more stupid then the party barbarian (and always does as it is told). Equip it with scale mail, shield and scimitar. Give him standing order to follow the rogue around and go into melee combat with anyone the rogue attacks, and to take the dodge action in melee. In other words you only use a spell slot when it would have been lost anyway, so it wont really use up any real resources. The skeleton has standing orders, so you dont have to use your bonus actions for it in combat. The skeleton will not make damage, but cause threat/distraction so that the rogue will get to sneak attack every round. If the enemy targets the skeleton it will be against AC18 with disadvantage (from the dodge action), so it might not die directly. When taking the next long rest and you have a 3+ spellslot left, use it to extend your controll over the skeleton (or reanimate if it died). Othervise kill the skeleton and mend the bones for the next time you have a level 3+ spell slot left when you are going to take a long rest.

37:02 after using it a bit, I have to push back a little bit. If you are a very positionally strong player, you don't take many hits, your HP pool is a resource, and Life Transference is the most powerful level 3 heal in the game in that sense. If someone needs a big chunk of healing - and there are many times when bouncing them up and down with healing word is NOT a good option - there's pretty much nothing else at 3rd level that will give them a good shot to not drop or to come back and not get instantly downed again. I know there is a popular idea that if you are healing you are losing... well sometimes you ARE losing, and in that sense shifting the health from your backline wizard to your cleric or fighter or anyone else on the edge of going down is infinitely better than a TPK.

Life transference is cracked. The amount of healing you can get at early levels is crazy. It’s an average of 36, and a fighter’s hp at level 5 with +3 con is 49. Yes it deals a lot of dmg to you, but in fights where there’s not many ranged enemies or you aren’t in danger, it’s amazing healing, especially if you’re a wizard with high con. The only other spell that can match it’s single target healing is heal, which is 6th level.

Dispel Magic can also dispel certain magical effects, depending on the DM. One example is a certain magical trap in SKT. If you truly want to be the best scout in the game, clearing the way for the party, you need dispel magic and detect magic.

Great video, but I have just one problem. Summon Lesser Demons uses your concentration. That means you can end your concentration when you don't need the demons anymore or when they are doing more harm than good. No extra enemy and no screwing over your party. I don't think this makes it as good as Conjure Animals, but I think Summon Lesser Demons is definitely underrated.

Just a heads up on the video title

Life Transference can get a downed enemy up, when nobody else can, and maybe you have enough hp to retreat after casting it. Extremely useful in a pinch.

One thing of note is that typically you move 30 feet in a round outside of combat. Major Image can be moved up to 120 feet away from the caster as an action as long as the caster is also within 120 feet of it. So a determined caster *could* take one or two along with them as they go, using their action a few times a minute. Probably more relevant for entertaining or within a multi-rest dungeon than for overland travel, though.

Thank you.

Vampiric touch on a blade singer is quite useful.

Not a lot of surprises. Control>buffs>blasts. Consistency is important though, as each layer builds on the last.

Erupting earth is great to use underneath your enemies on a stone floor when your earth elemental a way up. That’s the only use I could find for it.

Fear is absolutely insane on a Conquest Paladin. They can only use their action to dash away, but the conquest paladin makes their speed 0. They can only save if they get out of sight, but they can't move. It completely shuts down all enemies that fail. No additional save. This is of course a combo.. but it works all the time on anything (except fear immune).. so not all that consequential other than the fact that it requires a class.

lightning bolt has its place, it's the best damage spell but it's controlled. you can reliable hit 2 creatures and in the right circumstances hit more. also it's alot more controlable in terms of friendly fire and not hitting flammable objects.

Funny thing . When the last video came out I was making a third level wizard for the session that was happening soon . First session 7 hour slog of a combat later the dm just gave us level 5 and this video comes out and now i need to take 3rd level spells and now this video comes out.

Can't turn the volume up anymore. I'm at max and I still cant hear you with the AC on.

Sending isn’t divination because you don’t want to block it with nondetection and mind blank.

Some DMs (myself included) let you keep Glyph of Warding inside of Bags of Holding since the space inside is technically not moving in relation to anything since it's extra dimensional space unto itself.

You are forgetting about one thing in AoE spells: Friendly Fire. in that case, small AoE is not a bad thing. It even can be the only spell viable to cast in some situations. Of course, the damage should be higher to compensate for this, but still, this is worth considering

based on the DM i presently have, I am choosing less ambiguous spells that won't start an argument...things that are very clear about what they do that don't leave really anything up to debate

I love your videos. In the campaign setting I'm playing in, Evocation magic is illegal (and my character is lawful-enough to care about such restrictions). Are there any alternatives you would suggest for long-rests, given the absence of Leomund's Tiny Hut? (we have a Paladin, Cleric, and Ranger in the party, other than my Wizard)

the fear spell is much better if you have the miniature because you can place it exactly as needed, proceeding from any of the 3 points and pointing in any direction

Sofar life transference has been a great heal for our party. I have built my necromancer around temporary life points through false life and or agathys armor. With all these temp HP I can freely cast life trans on a downed ally and get them not just up but back in the fight with almost half their HP back and I haven't even taken damage to my max HP. Mean while my undead continue to dish out lots of damage.

I could see Feign Death possibly useful as an Order of Scribes Wizard casting it as a ritual because it would take effect immediately (since the 10 minutes to cast it would be negated). Still a bit niche, but, potentially useful. And, yes, I am aware (nowadays) that this video was uploaded before OoS Wizards were a thing. That being said, I would be curious about (assuming you haven't already made such a video and I simply haven't gotten to it yet) an updated version of this video now that TCE and XGE are both out (UA is irrelevant to me since my DMs refuse to use it since it is "still in the testing phase").

You can move Major Image, it's the entire 2nd paragraph of the spell.

I agree with everything on Summon Lesser Demons. On the current campaign I got it at lvl 5 because I wanted something different. I wasted both spell slots getting two quasits who got killed next round and then a vargouille and a maw demon who kept missing but getting hit for the rest of the combat. What I had hoped for was 8 critters to cause chaos, but like you put it, too much out of the caster's hands to make up for it.

vampiric touch can be cast once using your owl familliar over the course of 1 min. 10x3d6, blue I says!

Circumstantial, but Metamagic might allow to increase the Fear cone. If "range" becomes increased, I'd assume the cone width increases too. One could pull off combos like move back->cast Fear + Metamagic-> get all the baddies.

Loving your videos. I'm getting ready to run my 1st 5e game from the DM spot, and my wife is getting ready to play in a her first 5e game (we were both huge 3.5e devotees who got busy with life and dropped out for a few years). These vids have helped her see a bit of the difference and similarity in 3.5 and 5e, and ready her to do her controller wizard and bard builds (her favorite roles and classes). Theyve also helped me to get familiar with some of the options I might see that my usual groups don't use. Keep up the great work, man... and if I may? I'd love to someday see some DM centric videos from your channel, especially in how to deal with X issue or Y kind of player/character kind of videos.

So question: Galder's Tower vs Leomund's Tiny Hut: which is better?

great video but if I'm gonna need to choose between stinking cloud or sleet storm, you bet I'm gonna pick the big fart

So penny for your thoughts I guess, but I actually think Erupting Earth, while probably not much higher than an orange or purple, is a bit better than you might give it credit for depending on your playstyle-- namely if you're focused on Conjuration magic. Hear me out, because I could be off base. I'm currently running a 9th level Bladesinger whose leaning heavily on the school, whose current 'big fight combo' involves using Conjure Elemental to summon 10 Magma Mephits before the fight starts, which have a lot of uses! They can utilize their ability to naturally heat metal to burst down enemies and once they've cast that, on their next turns they can either die (which does a small amount of AoE fire damage) or lay down their 15 feet cones of fire damage to quickly burst down many small enemies or even just gang up and do decent (cumulative) damage on a single strong one. Where Erupting Earth comes in is that moment where I'm either not close enough or less inclined to close the distance for melee. In fact, I'd imagine might be more useful for a Conjuration Wizard without any incentive to stay up close. By spending that action casting Erupting Earth, the damage not only contributes to general blasting efforts, but also slows the enemies ability to outmaneuver the incoming Mephit Minefield without costing concentration. 20 feet of difficult terrain isn't meta redefining, but sometimes slowing the enemies response by that much is well worth it. Now depending on how many enemies there are and their positioning, I might be best off with a Fireball since Mephits are immune to that damage in case. It has better range and better damage-- EE has imo a better damage type, but that's mostly it for the damage advantages. But I still feel Erupting Earth has an overlooked quality that might make it situationaly superior. The fact that the terrain doesn't stop being difficult after the spell is cast! With good placement and the ability to predict enemy movement patterns, you might be able to control the battlefield in ways that you couldn't if you were just singularly focused on dishing out blast damage. This could helped your summoned creatures like Mephits, but also your party by discouraging avenues of pursuit, and generally slowing response time to them in ways most non-concentration spells can't. I realize that this is veeeery situational and revolves around an unusual tactic. I don't think Erupting Earth is only useful if you're just using Mephits (I could see similar uses if you had a swarm of Animated Objects or you're a necromancer with a sizable undead posse, Bigby's Hand, etc), but I think regardless it's definitely niche. I'm also very new to playing wizard, so maybe there's some other spell that does this but better that I've overlooked! Still, this is just my honest thoughts on the matter-- if you're holding concentration on a spell and need something to cast around mid game, you could do worse! Rant aside, love your videos Treant, you're making my first steps into the wonderful world of wizards exceptionally pleasant!

You can true polymorph your create undead spell cast at 8th 9th level into a green hag on later days (need to trap them) then after they create coven you need to turn one into a night hag then when they create another coven turn it again and so when three night hags make a coven turn it into a cr 7 monster like mind flayer

Glyph of warding is great if you have demiplane, or your the villain, or you have time to prepare

Dont know if theres an eratta since this was made, but you can dismiss summon lesser demons at will. Its a concentration of 1 hour, and it states that "a summoned demon disappears if they drop to 0 hit points or the spell ends." You dont force a new encounter with it since youre not obligated to maintain concentration when the original enemies are beaten.

With metamagic adept I twin casted false life as my wizard. It was very cool. Pretty effective too. But in general we dont have any healers. So I use it when we are in a pinch.

I send my familiar to cast Bestow Curse and Portent it to fail. No save to get out of it. Half the time that dragon could do nothing but move on its turn. It's great for a single enemy that you still want to damage each turn.

Thoughts on magic circle: It's much better if you can pair it with the chronurgist arcane abeyance.

I’m very much focused on battlefield control. I’m contemplating taking both Hypnotic Pattern and Fear at level 5. Is that overkill? Too much overlap? It’s worth stating that my party is very squishy and has absolutely no front line or anything resembling a tank. I thought Fear might be a useful panic button spell.

Would you consider making a guide to wizard spells that scale well with lvls ?