Witch Bolt and Chaos Bolt suck in Dnd 5e! 

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Noticed this when I played a Wild Magic Sorcerer and went with Chaos Bolt for the flavor. Did get it to pop off once when it 'bounced' to two additional targets. Honestly, the feeling of burning, zapping, and melting three goblins at level two made it so worth it.

"But Kobold, what about monsters that are vulnerable to lightning damage? Wouldn't Witch Bolt be ideal for those cases?" It would Gator, if any such monsters existed. However, in the Monster Manual, Volo's Guide to Monsters, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and even MPMM the total number of creatures with a vulnerability to lightning damage is... zero. Yes, that's right, zero. There are two creatures found in particular official campaigns, but other than that, nada.

Witch bolt is really simple to fix: Scale the after damage on upcast and don't end the spell when the tether breaks. Allow the caster to re-attempt the tether with another spell attack so long as they maintain concentration. Imogen from CR3 had a fairly good use of witch bolt at lower levels by twinning it, which is a better form of upcast.

BUT KOBOLD!! You forgot that chaos bolt can crit which increases the chances to roll the same number on two of the d8's

I love how gator just freezes and slowly slides off screen when his part is over.

Chaos Bolt may suck, but it's one of the most fun spells you got. Let RNJesus take the wheel and, if he smiles upon you, you can hit two or even three targets. Sometimes you don't need to optimize. You just need to make funny things go brrr.

I have found an interesting niche use for Chaos Bolt: pick it up as a wizard spell via the Izzet Engineer background from the Ravnica sourcebook (which adds it to your spell list), then go with the Order of Scribes subclass. You now have a 1st-level spell to poach several damage types from, though it's only for L1 spells and you'll probably stick with force damage from Magic Missile anyway, but it's good for auto-hitting vulnerabilities with damage-type-swapped Magic Missiles.

As someone who often uses Guiding Bolt and really enjoys the spell, I would definitely be interested in hearing you break it down!

Reasons why chaos bolt doesn't suck: -I used its html template in foundry as the template table for all my other journal entries that used a table Thanks chaos bolt

I'm surprised you didn't mention three critical flaws in witch bolt: First: Concentration, there are so many better things to concentrate on than persistent damage from witch bolt. Second: Line of Sight and range. Typically having a line of sight restriction isn't that big of a deal, but in the case of witch bolt you have to maintain your line of sight over several turns, which can seriously restrict the way you can move around the field and protect yourself... and the 30 foot range requirement is just brutal, since it basically guarantees the target can get to you on their turn, or move away from you to break the tether. Third: Most combats have more than one creature in them, and the odds of a single target surviving for the full 4 turns of combat is slim, especially if you're prioritizing them with witch bolt. To maximize the value of Witch Bolt you basically have to ignore target priority and convince your party to not focus fire on the guy you hit with witch bolt.

When the average spell damage requires calculus to find you know they’ve got a hit mechanic

HB'ed Wild Magic Sorcerers to get start with Chaos Bolt without it counting to their spells known, and gave them castings equal to the PB without a spell slot, but casting like that doubles the chances of a wild magic surge. It helps them keep up with the newer sorcerers out there and their massive free spell lists.

Nice work on the video- love the DPR breakdowns like this!

BUT KOBOLD! You forgot empowered chaos bolt which can increase chances of it reflecting! As another comment also mentioned, if you crit, the reflection chances increase massively! In addition, the closest thing to it, chromatic orb, deals around only 1-2 damage more, and it requires a 50 GP component

We have a wild magic sorcerer in one of my campaigns, and the player and the GM worked out a homebrew option to allow chaos bolt to be a signature spell. Basically, when you upcast the spell, you add a d8 instead of a d6, it bounces if any of the d8's match, and you take away a d8 (to a minimum of 2) when it bounces. It's still bad at level 1, but up-casting it (especially with metamagic to improve your chance of hitting) gets you a pretty good chance to bounce every time - a level 3 casting has a ~58% chance to bounce at least once!

Advantage is also a factor in attack roll spells, as it is fairly easy to achieve. Chromatic Orb boosts up to 11.85 from 8.775, surpassing Magic Missile which cannot benefit from advantage. If you have advantage on all rolls for the round, Chaos Bolt comes in at 13.69 dpr. 13.23 dpr if you only have advantage on the first attack. It's also worth noting that, while not a good use of sorcery points, you can spend one sorc point to reroll one of the die and increase your odds. IIRC it improves your chances from 1 in 8 to somewhere closer to 1 in 6. Witch Bolt... sucks. And of course, all of this gets outpaced as levels progress.

One advantage of witch bolt on a sorcerer is that when you do the extra damage as an action you aren’t casting a spell meaning you can quicken spell and cast something like fireball on the same turn as a bonus action, so those witch bolt and fireball damage calculations can happen at the same time if you have the sorcery points to spare. This still probably doesn’t make the spell good or worth using, but it’s something at the very least.

Witch Bolt: twin spell, potentially doubled DPR. Also, Sorcerers get Quickened Spell. So you can cast other spells on your Bonus Action. The real trap of Witch Bolt is the distance requirement. If you are 30’ away from the target, and it moves 5’ away, the spell ends.

It'd be fun to see you compare spells across Pathfinder 2e and D&D 5e, to see how the PF2E versions stack up.

Easy Chaos Bolt fix: roll 3d8, if any 2 match, repeat as expected. This is not only simpler to roll, it boosts the average to 12.5 damage, and does so mainly by increasing the chance of bouncing, which is the whole fun of the spell.

Lmfao I love how when the math starts Gator just Homer Simpsons his way outta there

Oh sweet! I really like thinking about Witchbolt in comparison to its fail case where you just do other things for the rest of conbat

I love chaos bolt, but I think the chance to bounce it should increase as you up cast the spell. I have found that if you add a D8 every other level it will get decent bouncing odds while never reaching 100%. A cool house rule for this spell.

I might have missed it, but I’m wondering if you’ve analyzed spells that are damage over time vs blasting and aoe. Even a sub optimal spell like witch bolt seems to have some value vs repeated cantrip attacks, or using more spell slots with something like magic missile. (At least before cantrips scale to the second and third die added) I have a scribes wizard and found an interesting point brought up by Bilbron when talking about the manifest mind feature. I think a summon spell is likely the best option, but thinking about spell slot management, and prof bonus uses/long rest makes me curious. What do you think?

If witch bolt's subsequent turn damage ups when upcast, it would actually be a dope and really strong spell Alas

I'd like to see a guiding bolt video. It is one of my favorite first level spells.

Does Chaos bolt require you to see the target to cast it? If you or the enemy is in darkness, can you still hit them? I kind of see it more like the sorcerer's version of the cromatic obb, better at hitting an enemy weak point. The chain effect is just a happy bonus.

Chaos bold has always been one of my favourite spells just for the fun and sometimes damage but usually its just fun to blast chaos

I would love to see your take on the recent UA release, particularly wild shape.

geometric series I never thought that it will be used at Pact Tactics

I need to see a video from you about Guiding Bolt. Had a Cleric at the table use it twice in the same combat, both missed and did nothing. Felt like a waste, especially since the AC of the creatures was 17, so even one of them hitting would have been insane. I have since buffed it at my table so that it still does half damage and gives advantage on the next attack on a miss.

Love to see a Chaos Bolt optimizing video. Obviously the result is still gonna be outrageously bad (and expensive to accomplish) but I think it'd be fun to math out all the little ways you can reroll your damage dice, twin, etc to go for maximum richochets... and then still show how its completely unviable

**laugh in upcasted witch bolt damage , maxximized with the storm cleric channel divinity **

- makesa wizard - reads witch bolt "OH this is cool!" - cast it once, never again

I always allow bonus Damage on Witch Bolt if it's upcast. Ran it that way initially because I misread the spell. My version is you can use up a spell slot to a tethered Witch Bolt to deal an additional 1d12 damage for every level above 1st. So you can effectively pump more spell slots into it for more d12's. Gives players a reason to keep the spell going and makes them feel really powerful when they pump 4d12 into an enemy for a 4th level spell slot with no chance to miss. Throw in Twinning the spell and it heavily influences opponent's locations on the battlefield because the bad zappy person is really pumping out damage.

I think you could fix the spell with two changes: -Add +2 to the attack roll per upcast level. -If attack misses or target dies, and the duration hasn't ended, you may choose a target and roll attack next turn. Now it's... still not a great spell, but it has a solid niche use for doing damage to hard-to-hit targets. If you also added the Shocking Grasp's effect of having advantage against metal armour and removing the target's Reaction if it hits, then it would be pretty good for a 1st-level spell, IMO.

If you get chaos bolt on a tempest cleric you may be able to get auto 8s with the channel divinity. I may be wrong about the rulings though, since you roll to determine the damage type.

This is my version of WB: *Witch bolt-fixed* _Level 1, evocation_ *Classes:* Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard *Casting Time:* 1 Action *Range:* 60 feet *Components:* V, S, M (a twig from a tree that has been struck by lightning) *Duration:* Concentration, up to 1 minute A crackling bolt of blue energy shoots toward a creature within range, forming a sustained arc of lightning between you and the target. Make a ranged spell attack against that creature. On a hit, the target takes 3d4 lightning damage, and on each of your turns for the duration, you can use your bonus action to automatically deal 3d4 lightning damage to the target. The spell ends if the target is ever out of range of the spell or has full cover for you. *At higher levels.* When you cast this spell using a spell slot of second level or higher, the initial damage increases by 3d4 for each slot level above first.

I have found that the only way to make witch bolt useful to players is to make an item that casts it, like an equivalent of a wand of magic missiles but witch bolt.

Yeah I just made my own witch bolt. Witch Bolt 1st-level Evocation Casting Time: 1 action Range: 30 feet Components: V, S, M Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute Make a ranged spell attack against a creature you can see within range. On a hit, the target takes 1d12 lightning damage. Until the spell ends you can make this attack again on each of your turns as a bonus action. If you target a creature you hit with this attack on your last turn, the attack automatically hits. At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d12 for every slot level above 1st.

I wonder if Kobold will release a video about chromatic orb and guiding bolt now since they are both single target 1st level spells as well.

Its spells like this, I tend to pick a lot of Evocation Cantrips, and utility/defense 1st level spells. Since it only takes some fire resistance to make Firebolt not worth your action economy.

Ah, the old Magic Missile comparison. As with Chromatic Orb, advantage flips this on its head for Chaos Bolt. Advantage alone makes Chaos Bolt's base damage greater than that of Magic Missile (before factoring in the ability for it to jump to multiple targets). So if you have a reliable source of advantage (like an owl familiar, Tides of Chaos, allies providing advantage, etc) Chromatic Orb and Chaos Bolt are going to do more damage than Magic Missile. And the chance to jump to another target can also be manipulated. Crits (which advantage also helps achieve) give you 4 d8s to attempt a match. On top of that, Empowered metamagic (which Chaos Bolt was designed to synergize with) lets you reroll the d8s to increase your odds of it jumping while increasing the damage you rolled for the spell.

I build a wild Magic Sorcerer, too. I love the Chaos Bolt. I built a human so i Took the Meta Magic feat and startet with the Meta Magic for Spell duplication and dmg reroll (which can even be paired). So i can initially Hit 2 enemys and have a higher Chance to make it jump. Pure chaos

One potential tactic I could see with Witch Bolt is use a feat to get it on a Tempest Cleric. At level 6, you get Thunderbolt Strike and can toss enemies ten feet if you deal lightning damage. This would basically let you move the targetted foe ten feet for free each round. While a bit niche, it could be useful if your party has strategies built around forced movement. Would be better if it could move them in any direction, but still, it could be useful.

Something not covered, does chaos bolt get better when you use features that alter the damage rolled such as flames of pthelegos, elemental adept, and empowered spell?

Gatorland scenario? Take my money!

you should use the youtube cards to link videos together! like the hex vid when you mentioned it and the hunter's mark video in that one. was just rewatching and thought you should know :>

I've got an Artillerist Artificer that I'm planning to multiclass into Wizard, and I've been thinking Witch Bolt might be semi-decent in this context, as my Eldritch Cannon gives me a bonus action attack I can do even while spending my actions on Witch Bolt.

Thinking about this very little, I'm wondering if Chaos Bolt would be more fun/flavorful/balanced if rather than on doubles, you let it jump only when you can choose a new damage type for that particular cast, maybe with a smaller seeking range after the first target. So rather than sometimes being a good spell, it has a low chance to fizzle out after the first or second target. This would also somewhat mitigate huge damage spikes because if you're rolling all 6, 7, and 8s, it will just stop bouncing. That might even make it OK to target the same monster multiple times (provided there's another target to jump between). It could also be fun for there to be some kind of flavor for putting together a full set of 1-8 on a single cast, like affected monsters are influenced by chaotic energy and have to roll a d100 for some random effect. Maybe that's a lot for a 1st level spell, but I'm looking at it more how do you make it fun/worth casting/seem like a Chaos Bolt rather than how do you make it a balanced level 1 nuke.

The only real use for chaosbolt is to be picked up by order of scribe wizards to change the damage type of their magic missile against the three creatures (Helmed Horror, Amethystdragons and Amethyst Greatwyrm) to damage them. But you have to pick up a feat for this and even then you are better of picking thunder wave because none of those creatures have resistance to thunder.

for the sorcerer if you plan on taking witch bolt I recommend using twin spell on it, it is (to my knowledge at the time of writing this) the only spell you can use twin spell on to do continuous damage and it (potentially) can double the damage potential this way for the spell. Is this "the best spell in the game," no not by far but is it a good way to maximize potential profit out of these two things that honestly wouldn't see much use otherwise and fun to do, I do believe so

Chaos bolt was my fireball under lv5. I used this spell only once per session for the meme and it always bounced at least once. It was great.

Witch bolt can be a great magic disruptor. Get advantage or portent on the initial roll and you can potentially needle a caster way above your weight for 10 rounds with a 1st level slot. Magic missile can force more saves at ones, sure, but it'll only burn the current spell. The range/cover issue stinks on a raw magic user sure but put it on an arcane trickster or somehow become invisible and you could waste 3 or 4 of their slots or resistances before you're even properly in combat. It's easy enough to write these off as edge cases but DnD is basically Edge-cases: The Game. Also, as others pointed out, it scales pretty well with a lot of metamagic options.

Question, couldn’t you use Metamagic to cast more spells as a bonus action while still concentrating on Witch Bolt, therefore increasing the DPR even more? I’m not really a power gamer so I’m not sure if this is a good way to use it. Granted I also never take Witch Bolt as I just see other spells as being better.

I'd be tempted to swap the d8s in Chaos Bolt for d4s. Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning. Less spiky damage, more likely to chain. Alternatively, use the d6 for the chaining. Bolt chains to a target within (d6 result)x5ft. It will hit every clown in a clown car but is pretty iffy at dealing with more dispersed crowds. I'd also be tempted to add a line at the end saying something like: "You may target yourself with the bolt, if you do, the spell ends and you may cast it again as an action on your next turn without expending a spell slot" so you can keep it pinballing around forever if you're willing to take the damage (and the random damage means it's very hard to be immune to the negative consequences). Witch Bolt seems deliberately tame to limit future synergies, but then those future synergies never came. I'd suggest one or more of: - Target must make an Athletics check/Fort save to willingly move away from you. - Dealing damage with the spell is a bonus action. - Spell can be moved to a different target with a reaction (immediately dealing its damage to the new target?). The scaling is also horrible. I think it should either scale in range or number of targets.

ok, if you got a maximize effect on your chaos bolt you can guarentee it leaping from enemy to enemy as the 2d8 will allways roll 8s you can achieve this with a 2 level dip in tempest cleric, being an evoker wizard with the "Izzet Engineer" background, or drinking a Potion of Maximum Power. As a DM, if you have a sorceror that loves chaos bolt, i can highly reccomend giving them a potion of maximum power, without telling them this effect and letting them come the that conclusion themselves.

I really like the flavor and mechanics of *Chaos Bolt* (especially tying to Wild Magic); but, it is weak. My Homebrew Fix: 1) When you roll "doubles," the damage increases to 12 if below that (as if you rolled two 6). 2) When dice rolled are 6-6-6 (the 2d8 and one 1d6), choose any damage type and double damage. 3) Subsequent "bolt" attack rolls spawning from the first are made with advantage. 4) Maximum bolts equals 1 + Proficiency bonus. Creatures can be targeted more than once.

One of my players is addicted to Guiding Bolt. I can not get him to cast something else for the life of me. It's not LITTERALLY the only spell he uses in combat, just... 80% of the time.

Baldur's gate 3 has taught us that witch bolt can be powerful against creatures that you know will turn invisible and you can soak the floor in water. It can be good if you want to be a spell slot hog.

To really mess people up, Chaos Bolt should do 3d6 damage (with the upcast of +1d6)... rolling doubles with 3 or more dice is way more common than 1-in-6.

Funny thing is that these designs fit so much better in PF2E. Popping weaknesses or avoiding resistance in PF2E in chaos bolt would be pretty fun. And I can imagine Witch Bolt as a real sustain spell that costs 1 Action in future turns to deal beefy ongoing damage.

I would say for Chaos Bolt a fix would be that you roll for the damage and energy type, but for each spell slot level higher than 1st it gets another damage and energy roll, if the target dies on the first roll it can just to another target for the second. Repeat until 9th bolt is done. It should also just do 2d8 damage. Spellcaster casts Chaos Bolt at one target in a group using a 3nd level spell slot Chaos Bolt hits and deals 2d8 Electric Damage and the target dies Chaos Bolt then bounces off corpse of first target onto Second nearby target within 30ft of First and deals 2d8 Psychic damage Second target is still alive Chaos Bolt sticks to Second target then does 2d8 Force damage to them

Yes, Gatorland! Good idea.

I played a "wizard school dropout" (Wild soul Sorcerer) who was bad at magic, and I LOVED using Chaos Bolt! I'd always call out what kind of damage it'd be before rolling. "How about a little FIRE, scarecrow!" (and then I roll poison or cold. *shrug*)

Would it break Chaos Bolt to change it to 3d8 and if two of the d8s match, it can keep bouncing? If so, what if it was 2nd level? What if instead you make it 2d6 + 1d8, scaling the 1d8? You lose 1 avg dmg but increase the likelihood of bouncing, and give it better scaling

What would make these stronger is making subclass adjustments to make them more appealing as build around spells. A wild magic sorcerer could have an ability that 1) allows chaos bolt to hit the same target multiple times a turn and 2) adjust each of the die rolled for damage by 1. This would significantly increase the rate of it popping off and it would be completely on flavor with the subclass. For witchbolt, an evocation mage or storm sorcerer could get a damage reroll to increase average output, and maybe the ability to swap it over to a new target with an attack roll. A warlock may have some pact that blends this with hex, so it's a single continuous damage spell with a debuff.

I think a point that wasn’t mentioned that is of great importance is that magic missile does force damage which is probably the most consistent damage type while chaos bolt’s inherent randomness means it has the possibility of hitting a resistance meaning it randomly halves it’s damage 1/8 times against enemies which resist even one of its damage types not to mention two!

I could see one advantage to Witch Bolt, in that if an enemy is very hard to hit, _but_ in which you could stack various _temporary_ buffs to ensure you can hit it _once,_ then it allows you to keep hitting it for as long as you can defend the caster, so there are some niche cases where it could be _very_ handy.

doest witch bolt get a mild perk of being more efficent with regard to spell slots spent VS damage done?

"Your such a white room optimizer" awwww, Gator's been paying attention.

What is the best first level spell in the game? What is your top 3??

Love those level 1 exclusive spells

I play a tempest cleric dragon sorcerer multiclass and use channel divinity on chaos bolt to guarantee a bounce

i think chaos bolt should probably get a buff but on low level encounters where hitting is pretty likely and enemy health is very little chaos bolt can take out several enemies in a turn which is better than many other first level spells (i have several times taken out multiple goblins with a single spell when realistically taking out one would have been good enough)

In one game I played in someone managed to kill 9 people with chaos bolt and injure a 10th (he’d gotten a nat 20 on the first cast so there were two of them). It was amazing!

which bolt imo is amazing as it can be upcasted to deal 2d12 per turn, so at lower levels, you get the power of a meh second level spell for as many turns as you can keep using it, and when you only have 2 second level spell slots, it starts looking pretty good, but thats just my experience with it

Combined rope trick from my ranger with my 4th level witch bolt. I drained down the bosses hp while the party protected my from minions

I feel like the optimal comparison for Witch bolt is the last spell slot test. Is letting Witch bolt ride for X rounds better than dropping one spell of the same level then going to Firebolt because it's the last slot you have today?

Chaos Bolt is best for flavor picks such as with a wild sorcerer. Though it is not optimal it plays into that whole random magic feel that you would be looking for from a wild magic sorcerer. Also at level 1 Chaos Bolt has the second highest max damage vs a single target with Chromatic Orb and Catapult only doing 2 damage more from max damage hit. You can also use Empowered Spell for a chance to re roll dice and try to get them to match. Witch Bolt is a bit of a trap because you think hey I have a limited number of spell slots and this would let me just cast one and keep doing damage. However, it is not that much more damage then you can just do with one of your cantrips and up casting the spell to only do higher base damage but not turn to turn damage makes it less and less useful the higher your level is as there are better spell options. But, depending on your subclass this is one of the only options a Warlock gets for a damage spell that is not a cantrip. Not that you need anything other then Eldritch Blast though. This is a good twin spell option though. The optimal build at level 1 for a Wizard or a Sorcerer would actually be Firebolt for your damage cantrip and then Mage Armor and Shield for your level 1 spells. It will mean you will be harder to kill with your low HP and be able to dish out damage without having to worry about ammo (not that anyone really tracks that) or getting into melee, but this is boring. HOWEVER, both Chaos Bolt and Witch Bolt are both great for making scrolls and wands with to scatter around the world for your players to find and use at lower levels when they run out of spell slots or just to play around with because they have more utility spells as half the time a caster is only using their cantrips anyway because it scales with their level and in many cases will do more single target damage then just about any other spell unless they just want to waste an AOE spell to hit one target until higher levels.

The reason you want Chaos Bolt is because you can twin it. By contrast, you cannot twin Magic Missile. There aren't a lot of good ways to use Sorcery Points at levels 3 or 4 except to generate another spell slot. At level 3, you can get a second level spell slot. At level 4, you can get two first level spell slots. So, with magic missile, your sorcery points can grant you another 21 damage at level four. But for Chaos Bolt, you can get an additional 38 damage. Much better! Of course, if you factor in the opportunity cost here of having to spend another action to perform the magic missile instead of, say, firing your light crossbow with 16 DEX (1d8+3), then the gap becomes so much wider. Sure, most damage types from Chaos Bolt are less effective than force damage, and the chance of hitting the target is not as reliable. Except, you know, when the target casts Shield (like Glass Staff, in MoP). So yeah, I would choose Chaos Bolt (or Chromatic Orb) almost every time!

Witch Bolt really should have scaled the recurring damage with upcasting too. If you get an opening to land it against a heavily armored enemy, like while an ally had it prone or marked with guiding bolt, you could get a lot of damage out of it, but only if that periodic damage scaled. Its strength is only that you just need to land one hit. After that the damage is guaranteed, and they should have leaned into that.

At least as a Gobbo, I could hide before casting those to get advantage. But yeah, I'd rather use guiding bolt (gives advantage to friends) or chromatic orb (I can actually choose the damage type).

BuT KObOLd! Can't you take elemental adept for acid ? making the chance to roll the same number significantly greater?

In response to chaos bolt: The other single target attack roll spell available to sorcerers is Chromatic Orb, which does 3d8 damage on a hit. Assuming the same to-hit chance of 0.65, we would find the damage from chromatic orb to be (3*4.5)*(0.65)=8.775 damage on average. I'll ignore crits since you ignored crits for chaos bolt (which is fine as it won't affect the comparison much). We then see that chaos bolt, the only other first level single target attack roll spell for sorcerers, does worse damage on average than chaos bolt. Unless I'm missing something, it seems moreso that at lower levels when spell attack modifiers are lower, the consistency of magic missile just makes magic missile better than spells with attack rolls. So it isn't that chaos bolt is bad, but that at lower levels magic missile is very good. The bigger issue with chaos bolt is its level scaling.

I heard geometric series and got pierced through the chest with an arrow made of my math classes

Ok here's a question. If a tempest cleric were to chromatic orb, would it be worth it? Personally I'd say yes because 24 flat thunder damage with 10 feet shove is pretty nasty.

I have Witch Bolt, Chaos Bolt, Fire Bolt, E. Blast, and Guiding Bolt on my DS/Hex. I don't use any of them. Guiding Bolt is awesome for damage and Advantage, on paper, but in practice of the 4-5 times I used it, I only hit one target and it died instantly so the Advantage benefit wasn't even relevant. And that's with the help of the Spell Sniper feat.

I had some fine times with chaos bolt, and the only time I'd consider witch bolt is as a warlock, but frankly, concentrating on hex and eldrict blast is much better. WOrks for something like a storm sorcerer with elemental adept, but its not good. Between those two, I'd pick chromatic orb :)

Some deep math chaos right here.

Okay, you're probably right about Guiding Bolt not being a big deal either, and you're probably right, but two observations on it: 1) It's a way to do damage and help a party member on the same action, which is pretty rare for 1st level spells. And being able to help a Rogue get Sneak Attack, help a barbarian crit, etc. is good if it's being tacked onto a radiant damage spell for free. 2) If you're a war cleric, being able to deal radiant damage, run up to the target, and then bonus action to attack with advantage as early as Level 1 is a pro move that no other class can do at that level. And while not the greatest thing ever, it's a useful ability well past 1st level.

I always found it so funny that in the sea of concentration spells in the warlock spell list, the one spell they get that purely does damage… is also concentration

I have found that guiding bolt is actually kinda okay at higher levels when attacking creatures with magic resistance. Not amazing or anything, but far better than the save based alternatives against magic resistance (after you have a good concentration spell up of course).

So might have gone down a bit of a rabbit hole looking at WB math... So using the 13AC example Kobold used, it takes 5 rounds for WB to do on average more dmg than MM for a single spell slot. However if you have adv every round or you have disadv every round then it actually takes 6 rounds for WB to surpass MM. However in doing so I think I found the best case situation that actually makes WB a decent cast at low level. Ambushes If you have Adv first round but then reg hits every round after then it only takes 3 rounds to do on average more dmg. Also if going up against an opponent who can give themselves disadvantage it still takes 3 rounds to do more but it starts to stack up fast.

I don't think this fixes chaos bolt, but my home ruling is that whatever you roll on the d6 is also used to determine if the attack bounces to another target, but I still maintain the damage type is based on the 2d8s. The really crappy part about the bolt bouncing around is that each bounce is another attack roll, so even when a player gets excited that it bounces, it probably ends up missing. There's too many obstacles to overcome. As for witch bolt, I've never bothered trying to come up with anything. What I think hurts these spells is the fact they are ranged spell attacks and not saving throws with half damage. I could see highly improbable case in early combat where you've got someone doorway dodging and you use witch bolt, maybe true strike has a fringe case here (I mean, you aren't concerned with a longer encounter if you are using witch bolt, so that's something to consider), to punch down a mean critter, but there's a lot of variables here that hinder the spell: 1) Since the spell is a ranged attack and you are targeting through a player, the opponent gets a 1/2 cover bonus, so that theoretical 13 turns into a 15, not a great start. 2) Low level enemies struggle to deal with player AC. Your doorway dodger might be better off swinging this early. 3) This is literally the death of combat when it comes to player enjoyment. There's no decisions here beyond that initial spell and the doorway dodger being bored out of their mind.

I'm trying to think of ways to change it to make these useful without making them too powerful With Chaos Bolt I tossed around the idea of removing the d6 and giving the spell a d8 for each upcast as well as remove the limit on how much a creature can be targeted, but that left the scenario where a lvl 9 Chaos Bolt was guaranteed infinite damage. Maybe keeping the d6, then alternate which die increases per lvl, and keep the target limit? Lvl 2 would be 2d8+2d6, 3rd is 3d8+2d6, etc. Witch Bolt could benefit from the continued damage being upcast as well, since normally a guarenteed d12 when you have better cantrips at later levels is awful. Tossing around the idea of d8s or d10s equal to the spell slot for continued damage, which slightly weaker to start but upscales well later down the road.

Is Chaos bolt really that bad? Chromatic Orb is an obvious comparisons and it deals 3d8 vs 2d8 +1d6. Not to mention 50g materials needed. Avg of 1dmg for the small change to pop off?

Combine Wich Bolt and Glyph(s) of Warding perhaps. Falling through a few of them would make for a nasty pit trap.

I think the chance to cast Fire Bolt at the Witch Bolt calculations for the following turns should be 35% not 45%. Also I would have liked to see if it gets better against high AC targets where the fact that you only have to hit once might help.