Treantmonk's Guide to Wizards: Subclasses 

A couple corrections: 28:47 I say that Hypnotic Gaze is not casting a spell so it bypasses magic resistance. This is an error, it bypasses Spell Resistance, such as gained by the Abjurer or through a Mantle of Spell Resistance, but the Magic Resistance of monsters includes magical effects, which will provide advantage on their saving throw. 1:17:04 I say you can use a Bow while using Bladesong, this will end your bladesong, so better to use a bow in combats where Bladesong is not available, which is probably when you want to be hanging back out of melee anyways.

Until ten seconds ago you were a faceless mythical figure. You, sir, have made great contributions to the community. I have you to thank for my illusion wizard pirate, Oliander. Well met, sir. You have my subscription.

Treantmonk: I think Enchantment School has a fairly evil aspect to it. School of Enchantment: "Who Me?" "Look into my eyes!" Treantmonk: Enchantment is so cool!

Summary: Wizard subclasses Abjuration: Green Conjuration: Green Divination: Sky blue Enchantment: Sky blue Evocation: Green Illusion: Green Necromancy: (low) Purple Transmutation: Purple Blade Singer: Green Warmage: Sky blue

Not sure if the pun was intentional or not, but exclaiming how illusory reality is unreal was pretty hilarious.

War mage really gives you what you need for good battlefield control. A good initiative and good concentration saving throws with the wizard spell list.

Table of Content: 5:05 Abjuration 11:42 Conjuration 20:44 Divination 27:50 Enchantment 35:10 Evocation 44:15 Illusion 54:00 Necromancy 01:02:00 Transmutation 01:12:30 Bladesinger 01:22:52 War Magic

One time when we were at a low level, Minor Alchemy became our standard method of getting through locked doors: I (the Transmutation wizard) would Minor Alchemy the area around the lock to turn it into wood, and then the Barbarian would bash through it. It worked pretty well!

You have underrated Minor Alchemy, it should be purple or at least orange. The primary power of the ability is when it says “wood” it doesn’t specify the type of wood. My personal favorite is balsa wood, extremely light and fragile if you’ve ever worked with it. The main limitation to this is time, but you can break into or out of most things using this. You can: • Transform the iron bars of your prison cell into balsa wood letting even you easily break the bars. • Transform stone walls into balsa wood allowing you to dig through them. It also doesn’t specify what type of stone you transform it into. The uses for this are much more niche but there are types of stone with interesting properties like obsidian, sandstone, and marble is useful sometimes. • Transform a wooden object made of tough wood into balsa wood to break it more easily. Finally two more unrelated but very relevant uses: • Reinforcing wooden doors by turning them into iron. The effect lasts for an hour so is perfect for securing an area for a short rest without having to use a spell slot on Rope Trick. • Transforming allied weapons to silver for use against werewolves. This is a pretty orange use but its a good one. EDIT: Notably, a DM may choose to not allow players to pick a specific type of wood or perhaps not changing the DCs for balsa wood. That’s still okay. Transforming Iron to Wood at the very least reduces the AC of the item by 4. Reinforcing a door or silvering weapons works regardless.

I think malleable illusion would have to move with whatever the player attaches it to. If it just sat in the space it wouldn't just float in the air. It would disappear the moment it was cast purely due to the movement of the planet through space.

As one of the people who gave the example about blocking 800+ damage on an Abjurer by level 10, I think it's important to clarify that I would almost never prioritize this archetype IF you cannot refill your ward without using spell slots or ritual spells, just because be able to do so makes the class absurdly potent. The two best ways to do this are either a Warlock 2 dip for Armor of Shadows or (and this is personal favourite, and I think may be one of the strongest control mage options in 5e) playing a Deep Gnome and taking Svirfneblin Magic for Nondetection at will, and 6 temp HP to the ward with each casting. Allows you to walk into almost every encounter with your ward full, and I've had countless encounters where I can freely spend my ward on my allies or just on myself since I know I'll have it maxed out for next encounter. Highly recommend Svirfneblin Magic Abjurer. Awesome guide, Chris, keep it up!

What an amazing resource for new players. I love that you don't just go through and rate all the features but also give examples of how each can be used. It gives me a much better picture of their role in a group and how you'd play them. It also makes it much easier for me to describe the subclasses to other players if they want to play wizards in the future.

Grim harvest starts off fairly weak, but once you start getting into spells like fire ball, vitrolic sphere and circle of death you can easily dispatch any weak mobs and drastically increase the chance of getting a kill. If you really want to be evil non combatants are also creatures. Inure to undeath is there for when your own undead inevitably turn on you, Im talking the create undead ones, and for helping you hunt down things for command undead. You can also use inured to undeath to lower the risk of casting life transference. Sure you take less damage and thus heal for less but its still healing. The max damage you can take from lv3 life transference with resistance is 16. 32 hp recovery is nothing to scoff at for a wizard and the spell can be up cast. You can then blast out a circle of death and if you get a kill you gain 18hp. You can also use vampiric touch on your own undead and enervation to regen hp. Because of how animate and create undead work necromancers have their concentration freed up. This allows them to toss out a strong control spell like cause fear, blindness, hold person or cloud kill, then start blasting with their attack spells. All other wizards have to pick between battle field control and minions. A lot of people focus too heavily on the minion aspect of necromancy. They expect the zombies to do all of the heavy lifting and they end up making this huge hard to control army. The real strength of the necromancer is the ability to have minions, concentration spells and attack spells at the same time. You can do stuff like cast a high level hold person, then move in the undead to attack the affected targets for crits then on your next turn blast the survivors with a strong attack spell like fire ball.

The Transmuter 2 ability is really freaking good if you have a bit of imagination. All nonmagical locks can now be turned to wood and just bashed or burned, any stone wall will no longer be a problem given enough time and an ax, you can turn the bars on your cell window into twigs, you can give someone extra damage against creatures susceptible to silver weapons and you can turn any stick into a lethal weapon. Let's also not forget how much heavier iron is than wood, turn a chair into a huge chunk of iron and chuck it out a window unto some guard's now demolished head to ease your escape or something. A bit situational sure but there are sooo many possibilities and just those two first ones alone can be worth it.

i think you explained perfectly why the bladesinger is super interesting to me: at early levels, when wizards do very little (you cast 2 spells, then what? cantrips and watch?), you can decently fight in melee (and most importantly, defend yourself, which may be key in a smallish party where you don't have 5 "bodyguards"). At later levels it certainly tapers, but so what, you're now a full wizard, and everyone knows wizards are already broken at high level in D&D, who cares if you're losing a small amount of additional spellcasting traits which would come from another specialization. In fact, you could even say this is a more fun, more balanced mage which is stronger early on and *slightly* less stupidly powerful at high levels. Plus the concept is just super cool, which is always nice.

Yes! I was looking forward to the subclasses analysis.

Treantmonk, I just stumbled upon your youtube after referencing your handbooks for many years for 3.5e. Instant Sub.

Unless I am mistaken, once a Transmuter gets simulacrum, the simulacrum could create another transmuter stone. I don't think these stones disappear upon death and as such, for 1500g of snow and Ruby, you could give everyone in your party a nice buff of a transmuter stone (proficiency in CON saving throws is like a half feat for some time and 1.5k gold). I think this makes transmuter pretty nice.

I read your written guide a few years ago... very good. This is great to link to new players. Thanks.

Hey Treantmonk, just wanted to say, you taught me so much about playing Wizard in Pathfinder, and your guide made it my favorite class to play by far. I'm glad to see you're doing the same for 5e. Much love!

So just to point something out that deserves an underline. When you use Portent you can change your own ability rolls. So if you are a forger, and you eventually get a 20 you can apply it the quality of your new forgery. Based on Xanthars description of skill, the roll becomes the DC of the document. Also, its use in legendary resistance, you still need to burn their resistances down and if they make the save normally they wouldn't have to burn it.

One of the few videos released to day that isn’t a joke.

I love your videos and have learned so much from you. Thanks!

How to take control of a lich: Step 1: Be a Necromancer with a diviner friend. Step 2: One way or another, get rid of those pesky legendary resistances. Step 3: Have the diviner cast feeblemind and give the lich a 1 for the roll. Step 4: Have the necromancer assume control of the lich. Step 5: Profit (or terrorize villages, whatever works for you). Step 6: Die when the lich repeats that save for feeblemind.

this is really good, as always quality content keep it up!

Great video, looking forward to more!

Love your channel! Keep up the great work. You have made a player (me) that plays bards, to want to play wizards!

You're the best online teacher so far. Thanks bro.

Savant is useful for Adventure League wizards. Choose your spell picks from non-school options and use treasure points for scrolls of your school if the option presents itself. Given season 8 constraints on gold this is a wee bit useful.

You do a really good job I read your guide to wizards it's very well made

Chris, the worst part of my day is when RU-vid tries to tell me you have a new video and it's not there:( Keep up the good work!

Just joining the chorus. These are super helpful. Thanks!

Thank you Chris. Very cool.

RE: Durable Summons, I don't understand your comments. Both summon lesser demons and conjure minor elementals allow the caster to summon multiple creatures, up to 24. Also, the savings in material components for find familiar . . .

Not mentioning Bladesinger's Extra Attack + Shadow Blade combo is criminal. It puts to rest the question of whether a Bladesinger should even get in melee.

Liked your videos alot! Keep it up. I played a necromancer before. And i loved it! He was fed up with loosing loved ones to injustice. Loosing his faith in god. So he turned to necromancy hoping to get his wife back. And in the mean while. If you die while being a bad guy. He would bring you back to life, to let you work to make up for that. Kevok, The judge of the undead

The ability to transmute one material to another is often over looked for it's utility, lets say you need to get into a locked door, and the Rogue can't pick it, or you cant bash it down, whats the lock made of? It's usually steel, so transmute it to wood, now it's easy to bash or cut.

For Minor Alchemy (lvl 2 Transmutter) the main use I can see is to change the hinges or a lock of a cell into a wood, so that you can break it more easily.

Sickening Radiance is something to consider for evocation. for the long and drawn out battles.

Only downside to Song of Defence and arcane deflection is that as a reaction they don't stack with Shield. Under arcane deflection you say you don't know if you've been hit but it is triggered when you "are hit by an attack or targeted by the magic missile spell".

Magic missile + empowered evocation = 1d4 +1 + 5 per missile. That packs a massive punch.

Hi Chris, Notice that Empowered Evocation adds your Intelligence modifier to all magic missiles - as you only roll one damage roll, which you use for all magic missiles. This means that for the evoker - magic missile becomes very viable.

I'm currently playing an Abjuration Wizard, and one of the downsides of Projected Ward is that it's sacrifices your reaction. If you are facing magic users, your likely to save your reactions for Counterspell.

Shield says that you can activate it when HIT by an attack, so you DO know if they hit you before you cast it.

Here is a fun fact. Charisma is not totally useless for a wizard this edition like it was in 3.5e., and not an auto-dump depending on your school. Most schools still want to dump it, but the Enchanter and Necromancer can get a good bit of milage from having a mildly good Cha score. The enchanter uses it for their capstone, obviously, but what people don't see is that its also useful for Necromancers due to the fact that Inspiring Leader by RAW can be used on your undead pets. You don't need a ton of Cha, mind you, just the 13 needed to eventually pick up the feat. Bumping your undead's HP by TWICE your level, even if you just have a smaller cha mod, seems worth it for a necromancer over wisdom, at least if you want to go all-in on pets. Any extra Cha you may get as you level past the 13-14 you start with is only icing on the cake, though I'd look at other feats before I'd ever consider taking more Cha. If you have enough feats into concentration however (Resilient Con + Warcaster) you might even want to pump Cha over con in this build, though I don't recommend that unless your in a more RP/social heavy game. Just thought I'd let you know about this trick with Inspiring Leader if you didn't know it, as you might want to incorporate it into your necromancer build when you get there since I've used it on a necromancer and its worked out exceptionally well. Anyway, just thought I'd share that trick with you. Feel free to incorporate it into your future necromancer build...and you don't even have to credit me if you don't want to. Regardless, you get my sub.

Respectfully, I believe what Transmutation Wizard's 14th Lvl ability of restore youth, in that the wording strictly says it physically returns the body to a younger state, is something one could use to great effect in a campaign. Granted, the caveat is that this doesn't change the time they would die of natural old age, however if one were to say use it on an old man who is skinny from age, going back a decade or two would return him back to his actual old strength and clearness of mind. If one did it on an adult they would have the actual physical body of a child. This means that something like detect magic won't work to discover them as opposed to using a spell to put an illusion on oneself if one wanted to sneak in somewhere as a child for some reason. Granted, this isn't as good as turning the clock back from when death would normally come for you, as one can do with the clone spell, and still not all that great of a 14th lvl ability, however, I'd place it as a Orange in the same way I'd rank glibness as a blue, and that's in character to character interactions. It would be highly specific, but, using the transmuter stone to turn an ailing old elder of a village to his former strength and let him know that while the gods will still call for him at his apointed time, he will no longer need to fear being infirm in his golden years. That I can see as a great way of ingratiating someone with a town, clan, or even a kingdom if one does this with say an old king. Again, highly specific orange, but one that can do some extreme good for ones credit in a non-combat way.

Okay, first: I'm loving the deep dive into wizard so much; it's my favourite class. Also: subscribed. Question tho (sorry if this has been answered before, I'm still new-ish): @1.24 you state that "with Shield you don't know if they hit you or not", but on D&D Beyond it specifies that it's "[a reaction] which you take when you are HIT by an attack or targeted by the magic missile spell". The language on D&DB very clearly separates out the difference between a hit and the auto-targeting of MM, suggesting the reaction happens after the PC knows it'll do damage. The PHB also doesn't specify anything about what happens if you use it and fail, as it generally does with so many other spells, implying the expectation of an auto -success. Has there been some online errata, or conversation with the devs, I've missed or are people just really bent out of shape about how good this spell is and want to nerf it? In my experience DM's don't track PC AC anyway and will announce most npc attack roll totals to the group. Why would this suddenly change for wizards? Seems both unfair to the PC and a ball ache for the DM.

Step 1: Transmute a stone door or wall into wood. Step 2: Fire Bolt Dungeons no longer have walls, if you have enough time to concentrate on the work.

Malleable illusion has some very interesting interactions: - Malleable illusion + Illusory reality - Malleable illusion + Creation - Malleable illusion + Simulacrum Definitely worth talking to your DM about those. Also ask how Dispel Magic and Antimagic Field will interact with your illusory reality.

Impressive. Thanks dude!

Very interesting and educational video. I think illusions move with whatever surface they are cast on, just like they would with the earth or their position relative to the planet even if they are floating in midair since nothing is really motionless. Otherwise all illusions are useless since they'd immediately vanish into space or underground. Shield also is only activated if you are hit by an attack so you know you need it before you use it, and usually whether it will work to deflect the blow since the DM is going to tell you what the attack roll was to determine if it beats your AC, unless the DM is doing those calculations in secret for some reason, which I've never seen. Arcane Deflection is still really great though.

Expert Divination pairs up very well with the Mind Spike spell. If you are in a dungeon, you won't run out of slots as quickly if you base your offense in it.

My favorite thing for Hypnotic Gaze is if you're Wizard is a lineage that doesn't require food or water (like Reborn who doesn't even need sleep), you can technically kill someone through exhaustion in a couple days. You'll take 2-3 levels of exhaustion from not being able to take a long rest, but the victim will die of exhaustion quicker from no long rests and dehydration. So if you're feeling particularly cruel...

I finally figured out what the savant ability is supposed to help with. It's helpful when making a backup spell book, it's significantly reduces the time and gold for your subclass of spells.

Necromancers aren't necessarily evil, though given the names of the spells, they are possibly unwell. Undead Thrall stacks with Danse Macabre, or at least I've not seen anything that says it doesn't. 'Pro tip': carry large sacks filled with bones.

A neat way to use the Diviner's slot regeneration is to make a descending ladder of Mind Spikes, that's basically like 4 or 5 free castings of a very nice single target spell.

59:46 Common liches have too much int to be controlled for a long time. A white Dracolich , though. They can be controlled permanently.

Transmutation 2nd level ability. Turn a metal lock into wood to easily break it. Turn steel manacles into gold and bend them open. Turn a wooden floor into iron to stop a fire from spreading. The limit on the transmuters ability is equaled to the imagination of the player who uses it and the rules of how it is affected. Illusion works the same way.

I've recently been looking through my PHB again, and I really love the illusionist wizard. I've found that cantrips are downright amazing, and now, with Tasha's Cauldron being released soon, there are even more good cantrips that we want. Choosing illusionist makes the best wizard cantrip even better, and having a free slot for an amazing cantrip like mind sliver makes this school even better. I haven't played one yet, I don't know how good or bad malleable illusions is, but I do really like this just for that extra cantrip.

I feel like I am going to Professor Treantmonk’s College Of Wizardry. Best degree I’ll ever get. Haha

If you are willing to take a 2 level dip into warlock, you can get the armour of shadows invocation, which allows you to cast mage armour at will. This is a very quick way to replenish your arcane ward, as opposed to ritual casting alarm.

Underrated channel, keep up the great content 😁

Personnally i love the necromancer!

I ran an abjuration wizard as a tank. Mirror image and blur + reaction shield + class abilities. It was an absolute blast. It's even good in metagame because when you describe your d4 HD spellcaster in thin wizard robes immediately running into the frontline while screaming about the virtues of Tyr, you're the DM's target. Hands down: The best 👌

Thank you for the awesome guides over the years! This is a question I've had forever since first read your 5e guide to wizards: There you recommend dipping 1 level of cleric. Are you going to discuss this in a future video? What does this look like? What spells are we getting? What domains is the best? In combination with what arcane tradition? And again, thank you!

Note on the Transmutation 2nd level ability, its grown in power through the addition of the cantrip mold earth. If you can turn metals to stone, and use mold earth to instantly excavate stone, you can escape any mundane jail cell at level 2. A Transmutation wizard uses silly bs to get around common obstacles because of this. Wooden chest or door? Transmute it to stone and mold it out of the way. Walls made of stone or metal? Turn it to stone and then loose that stone up by making it difficult terrain, get a strong one to bash it up after if the last step isnt enough for your dm, and mold it out of the way and make yourself a little tunnel before the material reforms back. First instinct is money and trickery, but you can woodwork some metal or start wire-art out of some tree's branches, do some funky mechanical nonsense or fun flavorful bonuses Transmutation and Illusions are the creativity subclasses and transmutation is just harder to milk than illusions

Speaking as someone who has now played to T4 as an Abjuration Wizard, I can say without hesitation that all the subclass abilities have been absolutely clutch. There's nothing like saving the Cleric from a one-turn slaughter with a timely Projected Ward, or using a level 3 slot to counter a level 9 spell because you add your proficiency bonus on the skill check to make you feel like the coolest kid in the room.

I hope to see a video on The Lore Master wizard at some point. I'm currently playing one and would love your insight!

Empowered Evocation is kinda more powerful than you might think, for AoE spells: that's 5 extra damage to every target in the area of effect, which can add up to a tidy little sum for lower level spells. Take Fireball as an example. That's a 17% increase in damage if you're casting it as a 3rd level spell. Fireball was already a powerful spell for its level. Now, with Sculpt Spells and Empowered Evocation, it's become an amazingly potent spell for 3rd level slots.

Regarding the transmuter, that opening feature is another one that demands creativity. Locked in a cell behind iron bars that none of your party can bend or break? Perform your ritual to turn them into pumice or balsa wood and break them with ease. Need to sink a ship, or get into a wooden chest with a complicated lock? Pumice to the rescue again. For downtime money making imagine this: You sell wooden carvings. But you don't actually carve them. Instead, you transmute the wood into copper, melt it into a mold, and once it has cooled, the transmutation ends, and you have a perfectly formed wooden statue with no chisel marks. In an adventure, I used it on the chain to a drawbridge, turning it into pumice which cannot stand the same strains and breaking the chain as soon as the ritual was completed. Similarly, imagine an encounter with werewolves. Transmute a staff from wood to silver, and you have a weapon that can hurt them.

Unfortunately Power Surge is even worse than you might think, because you only get one at the end of a short rest if you don’t have one already! That means on days when you’re not facing spellcasting NPCs, you’ll have no surges at all; unless your companions want to burn spell slots to cast spells for you to immediately get rid of with your own spell slots. Maybe this makes the wizard capstone a tiny bit better? At level 20, you have your other spellcasting buddy cast two level 1 spells, and with dispel magic and counterspell as your signature spells, you basically begin the day with 3 power surges.

With regards to Expert Diviner, you can upcast mind spike to recover a lower level spell slot, which you can then use to cast another mind spike!

for the empowered evocation ability, if your INT bonus is +5, then you can add that to one damage roll... magic missile has one damage roll (1d4+1), the level of spell slot determines how many darts you get... using high level spell slots to get lots of darts that each do 1d4+1 and +5 is pretty sweet as each dart would then do 1d4+6

Great video. Really like your analysis and delivery. I think a lot of people don't know what to do with their 11,10 Portents. Treating it like reliable talent is the right metaphor-- reliable talent that you can use for anybody, can use as a debuff, can use for saves or attack rolls or initiative rolls or death saves.... I see people say, "Bladesingers are awesome!" and "War magic is disappointing" right next to each other (not here, other places) and I always think, bladesinging and war magic primarily do the same thing: improve your survivability and lengthen your concentration. I think war magic was the first draft of bladesinging. The second draft was clearly more emotionally appealing-- extra attack so melee!-- but I don't think it's superior mechanically.

Hmm, I've thought of some possible uses of master alchemy. You could use it to swap spell components, like turning a 300gp ruby into a 300gp diamond. Another thing you can do is make materials to craft with. The size, mass and price limits are rather ristrictive since it means the two things need to be of similar mass, density and less than or equal price per pound, which at first glance seems to indicate you can't really change an object's material unless you're willing to lose money. However, that doesn't take into consideration that crafted items are more valuable per pound then raw materials. While you couldn't turn block of lead to a block of gold, since the gold is more expensive, you could turn a masterwork lead statue into a block of gold. Now you might think turning finished goods into rarer raw materials isn't particularly useful, but this let's you increase the objects price, since you can then craft something from that raw material. The mundane crafting rules, terrible as they are, at least make some mention of the different prices between raw material and finished goods, by saying the raw material to craft an item is half the price of the finished good, which in many cases is pretty low. However, even using the base games rather low price increase between finished goods and materials, it means if you fabricate something from that raw material you doubles its price per pound. You could take that block of gold you made and fabricate a fine gold statue, then transmute it into a block of platinum, fabricate it into a fine platinum statue, then turn that into a block of adimantine, so on and so forth, each step doubling the price. Its slow since each transmutation requires a day of prep for the stone, but major alchemy can effect quite a large amount of material. It essentially let's you halve the price of any non magical item for each day you are willing to spend transmuting and crafting it. For really pricey stuff like diamonds or adimantine spending a couple of days to quarter or more the price could be worth it. It also just let's you make obseen amounts of money, if you spend 100 gold on a bunch of lead then spend a week doubling its worth each day by the end you would have 12,800 gold pieces of platinum or diamonds or what have you. Now I realize money is already not much of a challenge in most DnD games by 14 level, but still, being able to ammass a large fortune is neat and can be somewhat useful, especially if you are doing things like influencing politics or settlement building. Couple that with being able to do things like making your own spell components or non magical equipment far from civilization this is definitely a powerful ability in some situations.

>be me, a month ago >"i like all the spellcasters better, i dont think ill play a wizard." MONTH >be me now, about to play a wizard multiclass >" i kinda like the wizard." > be the wizard class > "You couldnt live with the other casters. and where did that bring you? back to me."

Necromancy Command Undead(lvl 14) becomes way less circumstantial as soon as you get True Polymorph(lvl17) and can turn any CR creature into any undead of the same CR. If your DM is nice, you can get an Adult White Dracolich or Mummy Lord.

Yea I'm loving the RP and backstory of my Necromancer but after looking at the other arcane traditions I feel cheated

You should check the synergy between magic missiles and empower evocation. MM is a single roll of damage, so all the missiles derived from that roll get the bonus (Crawford has confirmed this). And while MM is easily counterable by a lot of enemies at lvl 10, the damage boost is exceptional for those that don't.

A cool thing about durable summons is that it would apply to your familiar as well. 30 temp HP could be enough to keep your familiar from dying in one hit from a trap or an attack. Also if you can afford the dip, 5 or 6 levels of druid to get conjure animals. A 14 conjuration wizard/6 shepherd druid would be able to summon 8 velociraptors or giant owls, each with 30 temp HP, 6 extra HP, magical attacks, and your concentration can't be broken by damage. You don't get 8th or 9th level spells, but you can summon up to 24 of these animals with your 7th level spell slot. This might be the best possible way to break action economy.

Transmutation can be really powerful. Minor Alchemy lets you bypass any door given enough time. Transmute any stone or iron door into wood, then get your strong buddies to axe it down. Really good for jail breaks. Also, making money is easy, but not by fleecing people. It can also be useful for crafting exquisite materials into precise shapes especially if you have woodcarver's tools and proficiency. Once you get to Lv14, you can basically sell youthfulness to nobles. What would a rich old person pay to permanently look young again? Quite a lot, I think. Admittedly caters to roleplay and noncombat.

Really appreciate the video, I'm a fan of wizards and of your guides since the 3.5 one and it's a pleasure to see you still putting out great content. What do you think of the Loremastery Arcane Tradition from Unearthed Arcana 30? I really like the fluff but I'm having a hard time putting together my first 5th edition wizard with so much new stuff to choose from.

Lvl 2 spell shadow blade and elven accuracy feat adds alot of dmg potential for bladesinger wizard. 17 lvl bladesinger wizard and 3 fighter or 3 rogue can be quite powerful.

Thunderclap is a cantrip that can also apply to both evocation school Potent Cantrip and Empowered Evocation.

Hey so something to consider for the diviner, you can upcast mind spike to do good damage once you’ve used some slots. So cast at 5th level and regain a 4th.

Hey! Didn't know you had a RU-vid channel but I've been a fan of your written guides for years! I've got a lot of catch-up viewing to do! Have you considered critique of playtest material? I feel like your thoughts on things like the Artificer or the Sidekick system they published a while ago would be awesome!

Optimization wise i think diviners are best but i really like the concept of transmuter.

Certain cantrips are great if only for their effects. Chill Touch targets can't regain hit points until the start of your next turn as well as giving UD attack rolls disadvantage against you. Shutting down regen, or healing seems strong attached to a cantrip.

With Illusory Reality, I'm envisioning something akin to Wile E. Coyote painting a tunnel on the wall of a mountain. A minute later... .

The best use for major transformation with transmutation wizard's 14th level is to saunter on up to a wall, take 10 minutes while people prep and just turn it into sand so you can walk through.

So Abjurer, Enchanter, Diviner, and War Magic seem to be your best rated on a general basis. Cool. I've always liked those except Enchanter. Needa try playing one. That said, looking forward to the next video. While those might be the best general ones, I imagine depending on the spells or playstyle you want, a different school might better suit your need.

It's worth noting that the racial restrictions on Bladesinger are optional depending on the DM and setting. If your DM is cool stuff like Warforged or Gnomish Bladesingers could be fun

Have two folks in the party play Divination Wizards. Have both pick the Lucky Feat. Become the DM's enemy :)

One thing I really like about Bladesinger is that it kinda makes Enervation worth casting, you have good AC, good concentration and are able to reduce damage you take by burning spell slots, so with enervation up you can soak up a lot of damage, still not optimal but worth noting. Also Power Surge on War Magic makes Arcane Deflection a bit better, since adding half your wizard level on cantrips is pretty good, you are concentrating on a spell and use Arcane Deflection to keep your concentration up, now you can only cast a cantrip, your cantrip is now a bit more powerful, that's decent.

“I’m not sure how you would make Portent any better...” I can think of two ways! One way this could be done is when you get the improved version at 14th level you allow the PC to roll the three dice as they would normally, but add in this sentence: “If you do not roll a 1 or a 20 on at least one of your portent dice, you can substitute one of your rolled dice for either of these values, your choice.” This would guarantee a success or failure for a higher level portent user. I also don’t think it’s too OP because if you already have a 1 or a 20 this won’t stack. The second way to make portent better would be to allow you to override legendary resistance. I might say that the creature you’re targeting must have only one legendary resistance left, just to give the DM something to work with.

A few observations: Paladin 2 or 3, Bladesinger X is awesome, same as Fighter 1, Paladin 2, Bladesinger X (starting with paladin 2) if you want a more fighting oriented bladesinger. (Foresight + Tenser Transformation) Warmage is the best class to Eldritch Knight post 7. Eldritch Knight 7, Warmage 13 with Tenser Transformation is obscene (2 hander doing booming blades when not tensed).

Thank you.

Want to add that minor alchemy is more useful the more creative you are. Turn wood into metal and smelt it then it reverts back into an impossible work of art. My favourite is stone or metal into wood specifically balsa wood, you know - the stuff that is used to make breakaway props? You can literally dig/break through a castle wall or an iron vault this way...

Major Transformation for transmuters is my favourite ability: Combo with Enlarge/Reduce- 1. Reduce on Gold, now the volume is 1/8, value is invariant 2. Transform to homogeneous material that costs 8 gp in its weight in gold 3. Goto step one 4. Output: Sky metals

sleet storm is a good way to force a conc. check if you have concentration available yourself.