Disintegrate I think should be C at the very least, because Artistry of War can only be used more than once if you have a Wizard, and either way can only be used once per long rest, whereas Disintegrate can be cast quite a few times thanks to Freecast, Arcane Battery and Spellcrux Amulet. Also, you can twinned spell Disintegrate! This means you can do 50-100 on 2 enemies. Combine this with conditions that affects dexterity saves (Hold Person/Monster, Paralysis, Prone, Maimed, Sleeping, etc.) and you can do 50-100 on 2 creatures for the price of 1 level 6 spell slot. Not to mention, it's Force damage, which practically nothing is resistant or immune to It's very good for Sorcerers and I found some use out of it on my first playthrough
Artistry of War is once per short rest, which is a significant difference. You're not wrong about the extra casts of the level 6 spells however chain lightning can also be twinned, and it will deal more damage overall. If you make enemies wet before hand then it's average damage is on par with disintegrate, but affects more people. Force damage is good in the game, no doubt about that, it's about the only good thing about disintegrate I think. My big annoyance with disintegrate is that on a successful save from an enemy it does precisely nothing. A wasted action and a wasted level 6 spell slot. The other damaging spells with saving throws at least do half damage.
@@CasualVeteranGamer To be fair, "make an enemy wet" costs an action. Disintegrate is a high damage single target spell in an uncommonly resisted element. C seems pretty fair. Don't cast it on enemies with high Dex saves. You can hit Save Spell DC 29 by level 20 with the right equipment, and you can make them roll at Disadvantage if you're a Sorcerer. If the enemies are making their save, you're using it wrong.
An important thing to note about Heroes' Feast - you need to keep the spell prepped on your Cleric/Druid throughout the day, otherwise the buff will drop off. Nothing more embarrassing than un-prepping the spell and not realizing that your max HP went back to normal when you're already in the middle of a boss fight.
Arcane gate is really useful during the iron throne fight (the npcs use it), to the point where I like having two characters with it there. But that's the only time I cast it.
I used it in the Foundry when I got cornered by a Steel Watcher and I managed to get my party out of a corner with that spell. Otherwise my party and my small army of summons would've been stuck there or dealt with SW's annoyingly long reach and opportunity attacks.
I usually do this: Summons as my Circle of Moon Druid, (cuz might as well burn all spells on summons) then Summon Deva as shadowheart, then spellcrux amulet & Heroes Feast and then a 3rd for raise undead and then a lvl 5 spell for Aid. So now all summons got like +32 more HP. My last 2 are just Gale as spellcaster and Astarion as the Gloomstalker/Rogue combo. and I'm basically winning in first round.
@@TheRedAzukiI feel like the Djinn is most useful of all the summons cause it can cause good CC+dmg at same time with thunderwave. It also seems to be the most durable one from my experience.
Really loved this series of Tierlists. The combos, the pros and cons and usages for these spells were well shown and explained. I rely on these constantly. It shows one of the main problems i have with 5e spells...and how Larian 5e is an improvement (even with some bugs). I have a suggestion, an Items with spells tierlist!! For a Filthy Casual you did Pro work!!
Thanks, it is my hope that everyone gets a better understanding of the spells so they can make their own informed choices and decisions. I'll add your suggestion to my list of video ideas, but of course it'll just be my own filthy opinion ;)
Before the patch, Otto´s Irresistable Dance def was S Tier, to the level of completely broken. Every boss could just be turned dancing and your party could chop away at them at will. This is how I won both the Raphael and Orin fight, the latter without taking any damage at all. Being irresistable makes it incredibly valuable against powerful foes, especially as they couldn`t save against it in later turns. Now they can and it is still great, if not completely broken. Owning the action economy is the most important strategic concept of this game. Hold person is great, but is limited by not working against monsters. Otto`s does not have these kinds of limitations.
Certain NPC allies tend to have a death wish in this game, so the Heal spell is very useful in keeping them alive. (Yes, I'm talking about you, Dame Aylin)
Dame Aylin is immortal and will come back with 8-9 hit points always, but I wish it was more like 20 by act 3. I wish characters like her would scale their levels bc being much stronger than her during the Lorroakan fight and the final battle feels weird af. She should be on our level in act 3 imo
the good thing is that eyebite is a necromancy spell, so it is infinitely useable, and 'sickness' can be applied to the steel watchers, so they have disadvantage (probably installed a virus or something) also, the god like thing about globe of invul is that if you have minions, you can fill the globe so much that no enemy can phisically enter it S++ tier, battle automatically won, also add 'mind sactuary' and you have a mobile battlestation
I think with the staff of cherished necromancy all necromancy spells get boosted up the ranks. Globe is just so good, probably one of the strongest spells although it isn't infallible!
I would like to say thank you for making these videos. There is plenty of Spell ranking videos out there but most people just sit on the tiermaker website and don't show off the spells or niche uses of it in game. I hope people will find your videos more often.
Thanks for all the comments! I really hope that these videos act more like a guide to inform people to make their own choices. I don't particularly care if I'm "wrong" with my ranking, just as long as we're all making informed decisions.
For me Eyebite proved itself to be an A tier spell at least. The way you can single-handedly remove a huge threat from the battle, or render it near-useless, is so valuable. Didnt rate it until I saw its power from walking all over an act 3 enemy with 500+ hit points, all thanks to Eyebite.
What makes it so incredibly powerful is that if you choose fearful, they can only make another save if they run far enough away to break line of sight. It's almost a guaranteed 10 turns of not using an action. AND I JUST FOUND OUT YOU DONT NEED TO KEEP CONCENTRATION. You can cast this 10 turns in a row and have the entire enemy force feared, and then break concentration and they will all still be feared. The concentration is only for the ability to re-cast for free. Eyebite is EASY S-tier, contender for best spell in the game even without the staff.
Aw, i've been looking forward to these for so long that I'm a bit sad it only goes up to 6th level and there are no more. But I'm definitely excited to see what else you do moving forward, love your content!
a thousand thank youz. folded upon itself for the time and effort you spend on these details, some of us search, some of us preach, others just level up, and then there are the enlightened trying to be the Sheppard amongst the flock..of sheep baaaaaaaaaaah.
the uncuffed situations that brought me genuine..joy is immeasurable from this masterpiece acid trip, all its missing is honey badgers not caring against a legion of possibilities, nothing is greater than your first.
If I am using a wizard I prefer artistry of war since it cannot fail and has about the same damage on average, and the damage can be split up between multiple enemies.
@@ownphantomandtoy As he says in the video, the tooltip damage for Artistry is bugged - if you use all 6 shots on one enemy, 48 is the absolute minimum it can do. Each shot does 2d6 + 6, which is 8 - 18, 6 shots on one target is 48 - 108, average of each shot is 13, average of 6 shots is 78, which is actually just slightly higher.
As I mentioned in the video each missile from artistry of war does 2d6+6 damage, and the tooltip is incorrect in game. The average damage per hit is 13, and with 6 hits that's an average of 78. This is on top of the fact each missile always hits, and you can kill more than one enemy at once if there is at least one enemy on low enough HP. I really see no need to use disintegrate over artistry of war when its average damage is in fact lower, and it can also do 0 damage.
I didn't even consider that Heroes Feast makes you immune to Cloudkill, when it says immune to poison I always think in my head as a D&D player, the poison condition.
I'm on my way to test this right now, but one strat with the freezing sphere could be to use scrolls to make portable ones before combat. Then have your fighter throw them during combat, since they have improved extra attack, they can throw 3 times per action, so depending on how many scrolls you have, and how many actions your fighter has (easily 3 actions with haste + action surge), you can make an incredible expensive but straight up devastating nuke. 9 spheres is 90d6 (180d6 if wet) aoe damage without considering any other bonuses you can get, maybe pretty good when you're at the end of the game and have scrolls to burn through.
That's a great idea, and I don't see why it wouldn't work! Add in the good old combo of action surge, haste and the elixir of bloodlust....although making that many spheres would be difficult! I didn't test it but I wonder if a sorcerer could twin the item creation variant since it targets a creature....
@@CasualVeteranGamer Assuming you're making them with scrolls, you can just go to turn based mode and have everyone in the party each make one per turn, maybe that'll make it easier?
Yeah that's the case. If your play is based on Chain Lightning Socerer-cleric-wiz then all other spells are plain useless in late game (especially that the Markoheshkir-double lightning is still not fixed), as the second turn in any fight is either trivial or non-existent.
What about spells that have unique effects when upcast to level 6? I'm specifically thinking of Conjure Elemental and the Elemental Myrmidons and Animate Undead with having two flying ghouls. At least for Conjure Elemental, the summons are so substantively different that they ought to be included here. I also think the opportunity cost between choosing two flying ghouls and a single mummy is worth considering.
Yeah, some caster builds (lightning sorc especially) can squeeze in a wizard level to learn the myrmidon scroll and they’re extremely useful. The water one is super useful for applying wet without using a main character turn. The ghouls are definitely better than the mummy since their attacks can paralyze and they can fly.
globe of invulnerability is on a category of its own... it just turns any battle around. (if you extend it to 6 turns with a sorcerer its just outrageous. ive never lost concentration on it btw, idk if its even possible)
One thing disintegrate is good for is during the netherbrain fight. It has ~10 dex, so its saving throws are really bad. If you've got a thrower or another character that won't do much damage, just throw a disintegrate at it, easy 80 damage.
Arcane Gate came in handy during the underwater prison rescue, and also the fight under the city in the ghazal temple entrance with the bridge. I suppose there are a couple other situations where it could be useful but it would depend on if your current strategy could handle the situation already
Circle of Death is great if you're actually a Necromancer, since you heal when killing enemies with a spell. I've gone from basically 1hp to fully healed in a single cast in addition to doing a truckload of damage to a huge swathe of enemies. Also worth noting if you're leaning into Necromancy spells, the Staff of Cherished Necromancy gives all enemies disadvantage on their saving throw *and* killing enemies charges it up, allowing you to spam Necromancy spells without using a spell slot. Spam Circle of Death, keep killing enemies, infinite 6th level spell spam! Circle of Death is uniquely good for this purpose. I've also found that Necrotic resistance is pretty easy to come by (another shoutout for Necromancer's "Inured to Undeath", the healing from killing enemies far outstripped the damage I did to myself on occasion). EDIT: I should have waited like 10 seconds before pausing the video to comment 🤣
For the Globe of Invunerability being broken by being prone, it would be cool to add Boots that makes you immune to being pushed and prone when concentrating on a spell.
Otto's Irresistible Dance was S-tier for me, because i mained a Bard and only had Eyebite as the other option. Its the CC-equivaltent to Magic Missiles, except there is no shieldspell to protect against. Imagine the game on ironman-mode, this would be a natural autopic, to take out the big thread and breeze through the creeps with your warrior and confusionsspells and the like. :D
Another thing with globe of invulnerability is if you use the lillithid spell which uses half your health to heal another you don't take the damage but they can still get healed you're half
Sorry last comment lol (doing one comment per spell). I used Globe of Invulnerability extensively in my Honour Mode run and I have couple more tips: 1. Transfuse Health does damage to the user. This damage is blocked by the Globe, and Transfuse doesn't have a cooldown. You can turn a Wizard/Sorcerer into an insane ranged healer this way. 2. Potion of Angelic Slumber/Reprieve can be used by anyone not concentrating on the Globe, allowing you to full/short rest mid combat inside the Globe. I did this for the end boss fight to completely ignore the first room with the dragon and other bosses while [spoiler] channeled the spell on the [spoiler]. This let me go in to the final boss room almost fully refreshed (though the potion is bugged and some Long Rest abilities are not refreshed like Luck of the Far Realms, but most are)
I tend to use Chain Lightning less than Lightning Bolt in some cases because lightning bolt isn't targeted, it's just a straightline AOE, so your character doesn't actually need line of sight to hit it as long as there isn't a wall in the way. I find you can often hit more enemies that way, which makes up for having slightly less damage, and it's a level 3 spell so you can cast a lot more of them. It was great for the Viconia fight where there was always darkness out and a lot of enemies clumped up that weren't otherwise targetable.
Maybe it was a bug, but I believe that for Wall of Ice, you only need concentration for the Wall, when you break concentration, the wall breaks also but the icy cloud stays for 100 turns, wich in my opinion makes it at least B tier. It happened to me during the fght against Viconia, I just casted a lvl 4 water so eveyone is wet in the area, casted the Wall, broke concentration right away and half the room was already dead by the next turn.
Arcane gate is better than you give credit. Dimension door is the closest alternative, and has a lot of caveats with caster positioning. Specifically, caster needs to spend movement to reach their one target, and then usually get stranded at the destination without remaining movement. Arcane gate lets you move the whole squad without exposing your caster. The bane of Arcane gate is that you only get it by lvl 11 on Sorcerer/Warlock/Wizard. These are classes that prefer to multiclass, and at lvl 11, their primary job is damage. Since there is no scroll for it, the classes that would use it (eg with lvl 1 Wizard) just can’t access it, and the classes that can get it don’t want it.
Eyebite is also Staff of Cherished Necromancy compatible, which bumps it up a notch in my eyes. Maybe if they ever fix that staff so that it isn't literally just infinite free necromancy all the time, it'll lose a bit of its luster, but for now at least Eyebite is still worth its preparation slot to me.
Freezing sphere is incredible in portable form with scrolls + having a wizard/ sorcerer in your party! Without mods I think you can get up to 6 spheres that’ll detonate at the same time. It’s great for sticking in enemies pockets before starting an encounter!
Disintegrate is for objects and does double damage on the pillars in house of hope for example. Also even my CHR 16 bard can cast it a 100% against targets in final battle.
You always compare spells' damage to the best evocation spells. Sometimes it's nice to have a spell that has a spell save other than DEX and that has a damage type that is not resisted, even though the damage is lower. Fireball is a premier damage spell at 8d6 for a level 3 slot. Anything you compare to that will probably fall short except for similar spells like chain lightning. But there's enemies in game with high dex, enemies in game with Evasion who take 0 damage on successful save, not to mention a lot of fire resistance enemies. Having a cold damage spell with con save is great, even if it has a bit fewer dice, just as an option. It's kinda the same argument with Banish... why use it when you have a bunch of WIS save CCs? CHA save, pretty much the only reason to do it. Eyebite is Sleep on WIS save, Glyph is Sleep on DEX save. I wonder if there's any advantage to Otto's irresistible dance over the Hold Monster spell? I know Freedom of Movement would prevent Hold spells and it looks like Undead are immune. I am surprised that Constructs are not.
You make a good point, and I probably should have taken into account the types of saving throws a bit more, although I haven't checked the constitution saving throws of all the enemies. My hunch is that their constitution scores are relatively high in general, although inflicting bleeding isn't too difficult, which would give them disadvantage. One nice thing about Otto's is its 100% chance to work on the first turn. Although we can get very high Spell Save DCs, there is always at least a 5% chance that a spell will fail. However hold monster does give us crits whereas Otto's doesn't sadly.
Most summons don’t seem to use any attributes with their save dcs. Just 8 + proficiency bonus. So, sometimes I put battlemage elixirs on the ground and have them drink them.
IMO Globe of Invulnerability should be in it's own tier. If the tiers are meant to represent different levels of power where the spells on the same tier are *relatively* of the same significance, then no way: Globe of Invulnerability is hands down the best. It enables you to freely set up any kind of strategy you like whilst casting/attacking outside of it for a full three turns. With certain staves and other free cast benefits, you can even extend that duration beyond the 3 turns. Chain Lightning, by comparison, *MIGHT* hit for 80 damage on multiple targets, might not. Or while the buffs of Heroes' Feast are great, hell no, I would not choose Heroes' Feast over Globe of Invulnerability if I were forced to choose. But yeah tl;dr being able to grant yourself invulnerability for a time is absolutely busted compared to everything else.
Part of what I take into account is the availability of the spells. While I do appreciate and agree with your point in theory, practically there is never a time where you have to pick between heroes' feast of globe of invulnerability as they are available to different classes. Having said that, if I did add another tier then globe would be in it!
Don't forget that you need to keep out enemies from your Globe, because they can just walk in, break concentration on the caster, and profit from Invulnerability too. Positioning is still important! This version is like the D&D 9th level Invulnerability spell on a zone for 3 turns. Much different than tabletop Globe of Invulnerability which normally blocks specifically Spells from one level lower and below the spell slot used to cast it.
@@Dragonphoenix25 I think concentration being broken is an old patch thing. Gale was being hit every turn and never even had anything indicating he made a saving concentration throw. And the globe is only so big, so if like ~3 enemies get inside and become immune to damage, so be it. It's really not a big deal if the globe still enables you to kill everything else. Divide and conquer.
I hope yall who do the tierlists can try the 5e spells mod and rank those as well. I have a feeling you'll find more critical misses, even if they are still fun to have.
Sunbeam could be A. Main reason is thar you can get it from blood of lathander very early when you have lvl 4 spells at most, and go into the shadowlands with it, which is crazy. Also it's very effective against vampires in act 3, in my playthrough I had Halsin turn the Cazador fight into a piece of cake with it. Also praise the Sun
I did not take that item into account, and while I completely agree with your point, using that item doesn't consume a level 6 spell slot. I think it would be fairer to compare it to other weapons since the opportunity cost of using it is not using another weapon.
Ice Wall is DIFFICULT to make use of, but I do think its a spell with a lot of potential, because it just kinda DOES a lot of different things at once: deal cold damage, block enemy movement, create a hazard and maybe even create an ice surface. I actually used it against ketheric in the first fight (you can get a ton of scrolls of it), and it actually did a fantastic job, it funneled the enemies where I wanted and damaged and made them slip.
Thinking more about this video and Otiluke's Freezing Sphere, the fact that you can cast it as an item has exponential potential especially as a scroll cast spell. With a rogue MC I often set up death traps by sneaking into an area I know a fight is in and dropping Smokepowder bombs to be set off at the start of combat with a fire arrow or something. I killed Seravok in two turns this way, he had enough time to get one attack on Lae'zel while at 1/4th his HP first round before finishing him off. Being able to cast an Freezing Sphere and sneak in to drop it off behind a group of enemies or reverse-pickpocket it onto someone before initiating an encounter would be amazing. Even if the damage doesn't match up to dropping a stack of smokepowder bombs, there's literally nothing stopping you from doing both. And having the frost effect on the ground is relevant even up into the late game. Freezing Sphere scrolls are practically free after every long rest if you go to Sourcerous Sundries and pickpocket them. I've been able to stockpile lots of deadly scrolls for casting with my MC this way and keep a bag specifically filled with useful off casting scrolls like Improved Invisibility, Wall of Fire, Silence, Darkness, and these bad boys are going in there now. I'd rate it S for this reason to be honest. The question I have is if you reverse pickpocket a sphere into an enemy's inventory and then start combat, will they acknowledge that they have it in their inventory and potentially throw it at you? They don't seem to acknowledge it out of combat, and the AI has shown to be weird when it comes to interacting with objects like weapons on the floor. But if it's in their inventory they might use it.
Glad I’m not the only one who used blade barrier in house of grief. But, it was basically the only thing I used. Immediately ran back up the stairs, and used it along the entire stairway. The only one who made it up alive was Viconia herself, and there wasn’t much she could do in a 1v4.
Dude Globe of Invulnerability was the MVP of my solo playthrough. Cast the spell, spend a turn or two buffing myself / debuffing enemies, end concentration if someone important is in the circle and nuke all that remains! Also lets you (easily) skip half of the final fight in the game so dope!
One thing to note about Otto’s funny little shimmy is that since there’s no save at all, it bypasses legendary resistances! Another point for it over something like hold person is that it can target literally anything.
Druids that have access to level 6 spells should never cast anything on level 6 beside the level 5 spell upcast "Conjure Elemental: Water Myrmidon". You can also vote for Hero Feast, but a hireling can cast that in camp.
Minor point, Arcane Gate is a mighty big help if you plan to try and do the Iron Throne on higher difficulties, the AI is smart enough to have the prisoners use any Gate set up to get back to the sub faster, considering how tight timing is on that mission it can free up a few turns and let your caster take part in handling two of the three main prisoner paths.
Hero's Feast synergies well with a summoner build and the gauntlets that give your summons all resistances. The gauntlets cause a wis save per turn to avoid madness, but the Feast gives advantage on that roll
It's particularly great with the deva summon, since deva's have 20 wis and (iirc) proficiency in wis saving throws, which gives them a +9 to the roll from the get go.
I don't like the all resistance/madness gloves. It's nice for a summon that last a short duration, but for long rest summons, they have to save every turn outside of combat as well. The chance of rolling a 1 or simply fail a save are still pretty high when you have infinity of rounds. And all the micro of taking on/off the gloves whenever in combat or not are just tedious.
I keep the arcane recovery amulet on Shadowheart, and at the start of every day she casts Level 5 Aid, Heroes' Feast, and Summon Planar Ally: Deva. She creates a powerful ally and grants the party an additional minimum of 185 max HP. Between my necromancer warlock and my wizard, that's actually 304 additional max HP for a level 6 and level 5 spell slot. It's so awesome! Wholeheartedly recommend Feast
I have used globe of invulnerability 3 times, each time it has saved my life completely. The first was against raphael, the second was the exploding lightning dragon, the third was the final battle. Absolutely insane spell
Larian should add this to Disintegrate: If this spell can do enough damage to kill the target, then it always does so. Basically making it an instakill for anything below 100 hp, which fits thematically with the idea of, you know, disintegrating someone. Id even go one step further, have the damage increase inversely with size. More damage against humanoids and smaller, less damage against larger targets. Because again, the whole idea of this spell is one shotting someone instantly and reducing them to dust. If the spell cant make the target evaporate entirely, it should be less effective.
12:10 You can twin disintegrate, you can't twin the Magic_missile_but_cooler. Also, if you spell save DC is high enough, enemies CAN'T succeed on that saving throw (and yes, it is possible, the cut-off point after which almost nobody can succeed their saving throws against you, is at around 28, which, assuming 22 int/wis/cha, requires getting +10 spell save DC from items... which you can get that with just 1 item, The Fire Hat from the Strange Ox in Last Light's Inn.) because there are no nat1's and nat20's on saving throws, meaning that with a hat, or a correct combination of items (to get it permanently), you can get 100% hit change with disintegrate. You can't get 100% with an attack roll-based spell like witch bolt, you can get close, but RNG can always spit on you. Also, if you have several casters in your party and don't want to give ALL items to just one of them, there are conditions that cause enemies to immediately fail all dex saving throws- like "sleeping" and "paralysed" which you can get via "sleep", and "Glyph of Warding-Sleep", and "Hold Person/Monster", spells. Glyph of Warding is especially devious as it's an AOE spell, there is no saving throw against it, it's just a 3rd lvl spell, meaning you can use it for most of the game, and unlike "sleep" spell, there is no HP limit either. IT JUST WORKS. It ALWAYS works. Also poisons- "Drow poison" (craftable, many traders sell it, and you an get like 20 of them in Underdark) "Crawler mucus" (craftable, on higher levels traders start to sell it) and "Karabasan's Poison" (there are a few vials in house of healing)
Globe of Invulnerability chad of play, in house of Hope, casting to shield for the team. Then have someone active the Runebomb from bastard Ironhand. Instant deleting those surrounding. (Not so much with Raphael) But meh, when those pests are gone, stunning Raphael is such an easy task.
I love that idea! Although you could do that with any other fight, I like the idea of breaking into Raphael's home and then exploding it into smithereens!
I have use it mainly to save people I want to save. Like if NPC gets attacked and I for whatever reason don't want them dead. I cast the GoI. I have saved so many people with it. Best was House of Hope to save Hope's sister. Knocked her out and cast the GoI on her knocked out body.
The Staff of Cherished Necromancy let's you cast the level 6 Necromancy Spells (and upcast any of the Necromancy spells) as long as you kill something beforehand and have a charge. It works like Arcane Battery for all Necromancer Spells, on a charge system.
A thing that frustrates me in every turn based RPG is when free attacks have better functionality and appeal than spells and abilities that consume resources. The low % to land spells pushed me to the better options of regular attacks, cantrips, or class abilities like the Bard Flourishes more often than not. I don’t know why games keep getting balanced like this. Something taking a limited precious resource needs to be spicy, but I’m feeling salty instead. It would be interesting to look at a tier list from the perspective of a specific turn in combat. All spells, attacks, actions, etc. are competing for that one Action you’re allowed for the round. Maybe a tier list isn’t the appropriate thing, but I suspect that for a lot of people spells were tertiary in their strategy. I’ve gotten by primarily with Glyph of Warding: Sleep (my favorite spell by far). Occasional casts of Haste. Few moments with Slow. Sometimes I’ll throw out an attack spell, usually an aoe. I appreciate all of these vids they’ve helped me out a lot in this game.
I did a funny thing in the fight in the shar hideout in act 3, where I ran all my companions up the stairs we came down, and made shadowheart and gale cast blade barrier and wall of flame, blocking off the only way to us. Watching so many people just walk slowly up the stairs while burning alive was so satisfying.
While I didn't get much use out of these spells as part of my Wizard of Cleric I bought/stole every level 6 scroll I could find. Not only did that give Gale the chance to learn them, but I could use them with other party members... This habit saved my entire ass in the Raphael fight since I had six scrolls of Disintegrate and so I was able to KO all of his pillars on round 1 since they each have 100HP and Weakness to Force Damage
Ilithid power: black hole, is a huge void pull that only affects enemies and also has a chance to slow. I used this to setup aoe and walls Edit: also black hole makes glyph wards way more effective as it becomes much simpler to set up in one turn. Aoe sleeping minion types comes in handy
With sunbeam its better on a sorc. You can quicken cast it on turn 1 with your bonus action and then follow up with a second casting of it with your regular action. Plus with all the ways to get an extra action you can push out 3 or 4 of those a turn with haste and bloodlust elixirs. Its also one of the sorcs only option for radiant dmg which is a solid option. Same thing with eyebite quicken cast it on turn 1 and you can cast 2x in turn 1 and sleep 2 people right away.
Thanks man, added a like and I’m already subscribed 😎 Will you do skills next? Spell casters get a lot of love with spells, but you’ve got to give barbarians some love too 💪🏼
I really feel like having only one concentration spell available at a time is very restrictive and dumbs down the game on so many levels. It ensures that you’re only ever gonna use the most efficient spells because why bother using anything else. There’s SO MANY control spells, but who cares, when I can just hold person/monster and 1 shot the target. Also, it’s downright immersion breaking that a lv1 wizard and a lv12 wizard can both only concentrate on 1 spell…. There’s people who can juggle while riding a bicycle, but you’re telling me a cloud of daggers and Tasha’s laughter would be too much to maintain for an expert caster? I call bullshit. Especially when you can have an army of summons running around, which is way more OP than any concentration spell in the game. I really think casters should get two concentration nodes available after a certain point. Whether it’s lv10 or 12 or something.
I can’t believe these are over 😢 Agree with most of this, except blade barrier and sunbeam. On a cleric, blade barrier is competing with spirit guardians and bless for concentration, and their level 6 spell slot(s) are generally better spent on heroes feast and planar ally. If you really want to spend a cleric’s level 6 spell slot on a damaging concentration spell, sunbeam is usually better. It still does half damage on a save (unlike blade barrier, which is negated), it can be recast for 10 turns (so it continues to be useful once enemies move), and it does radiant damage so you can stack radiating orb. I’d have blade barrier at B and sunbeam at A. I’d also consider moving harm and circle of death to A and B respectively, purely because of the necromancy staff. Repeated free casts, good damage *and* enemies have disadvantage on saving throws. That’s pretty broken!
Harm is not as good as it seems even with the necromancy staff. If they fail the save it reduces the max hp but not the actual hp, so if they have 100/150 hp and you reduce it by 60, they end with 90 hp left. Because do this, most of the times it’s better to just upcast inflict wounds at lvl 6 instead
@@robingoodfellow8097 that’s not quite right. You reduce their maximum hit points by the amount of damage dealt by the spell. So in your scenario their max HP would be reduced to 90, but their current HP would also be reduced by 60, down to 40
@@ProbeAway That's how you'd imagine it should work right? But not how it works in game. I know this and just re-tested it in game on the fists in the barracks. I started with magic missile to bring Blaze Liara Portyr down to 83/192 hp, then had shadowheart cast harm twice and they failed both saving throw, the first one brings her to 83/149, second one to 83/107. The only time it did actual damage is when they succeed their saving throws, and it does half necrotic damage, making it 7d6 damage, whereas inflict wounds at lvl 6 is 8d10 and can crit, not to mention to make harm work you have to limit your build to making your spell save as low as possible.
@@robingoodfellow8097 if that’s how it’s working then it’s bugged! It should have 2 effects - the damage, and then (if they fail the save) the ‘harm’ disease. That’s how the spell is described in both BG3 and DnD. The only downside the spell *should* have is that it can’t kill an enemy outright, since the damage can’t reduce their HP below 1. It’s probably worth reporting to Larian. Harm is a pretty obscure spell, being 6th level and cleric-only, so they might not even be aware of the issue.
Upcast Conjure Elemenetal: Water Myrmidon are still the best level 6 spell, by a wide margine. Amazing heal, great damage, great hit points, and stays untill concentration lost or long rest. I probably have a SS tier here, and I would move up Hero Feast, along the upcast Conjure Elemental.
There is so much AoE in this game, I value high DMG single-target spells highly. Artistry of War is once per long Rest and OP on puropse. Disintegrate is worth it and not a critical miss. Chain Lightning and Disintegrate are the only lvl 6 dps spells worth casting imo
Artistry of War is once per short rest, and for some reason dethrone is once per long rest (!?). In my opinion upcasting scorching ray, or witch bolt on a wet target, might be better choices than disintegrate since disintegrate does have a chance of completely failing.
Honestly, I'm probably still gonna use Disintergrate for roleplay purposes. Feels appropriate that a high level spellcaster would be able to rip you asunder molecule by molecule. Also, I don't think I need to tell you an obvious tier list to make one day would be a class tier list, or probably a subclass tier list.
I tried out wall of ice in the Iron throne, I love how it pushes enemies up. The fish man got wedged between the wall and the ceiling... I thought that was cool. That is all.
Regarding heroes feast: the trick is to have 2 hirelings use it, so that way you are covered even on tactician. Rest of the hirelings can go do transmuters stones if you are really that desperate :D
Agree with most of the list except Heal. It should be B tier. Being able to basically save the life of your caster is very clutch. All you need is for the opponent to get a lucky crit and your caster could be out of the fight. Not to mention, comboing that with a Death ward is really nice
Imo create undead is C tier, compared to the other summons you can get for a level 6 spell slot would absolutely demolish the Mummy. Myrmadons and Planar Allies have way more HP, AC, mobility, and can do more damage with their unique abilities. Only time I’d use this spell is with one of the magic items that allows you to cast it for free essentially
The biggest circle of invulnerability tech I have been able to find is putting it up and using the potions of angelic reprieve to full heal and get all of your spell slots back.
14:38 eyebite just require concentration to recast the skill, the debuff is still going even if you lose concentration, if i not wrong, its only way to apply a long debuff without requiring concentration. In my save, Raphael dont move the whole fight because this fear. At least would do an A for this spell
Main downside to Wind Walk is that, provided you play the proper way, your party can all fly anyway. I guess for the off-chance you want to avoid (spoiler things) - yikes why would you - you'll need to use spells for this kind of thing
Are you referring to the [spoilers] Half illithid transformation levitate ability? It can let everyone fly freely but many people don’t like taking the transformation due to the lore implications. I personally don’t just because the black veins ruin my tav’s pretty face lol If you meant something else pls let me know!
@@hah-vj7hc True it’s very fun to fly everywhere. Definitely the biggest thing I miss from choosing not to take that route. Although another alternative for fitting through small spaces is cast Seeming and turn everyone into gnomes :)
Artistry of War is not a great comparison to Disintegrate. As a "special" spell, it is only usable once per Short Rest because it's uniquely OP and using a lower spell slot than it should be. There's also a lot of ways to give enemies disadvantage on DEX saves. My issue with Disintegrate is that it cannot crit as there's no attack roll, which means if you have a reliable source of Wet a Chromatic Orb set to Lightning or Cold is probably going to do comparable damage. And you can combine Wet with Advantage on the attack roll and gear to increase crit chance to really pump the damage to nutty levels (and once you add in Tempest cleric and Luck of the Far Realms... well, we've all seen that lol)
I think there's still a bug you can freely cast lv6 spells (or upgrade lv6 spells) with Markoheshkir unlimited times. It's very broken and I'm very surprise it's still not fixed at patch#4. With that in mind, Disintegrate is better than the lv5 spell AoW as AoW only can cast once per short rest. But of cos, just spec evoc and do twin cast chain lighting is always the best way to do damage.
Iirc there's an amulet in act 3 that means you don't expend a spell slot when you cast a necrotic spell and deal damage to a creature with it. That one item made harm my #1 pick for shart every single turn.
All ongoing damage spells are s tier simply because black hole makes them even more brutal setting up blade barrier in a hallway or fire wall even cloud of daggers.
Sunbeam should 100% be higher, it's an evocation spell so it won't hurt your allies as an evocation wizard and it can be recast without a spell slot for 10 turns - which is absolutely ridiculous with haste (similar to call lightning for tempest clerics & col druids)
Disintegrate is still great on sorcerers who don't get access to CSAW. They can shoot it four times in a single turn! Not that I ever do that because I prefer twinning haste and then twinning disintegrate but still. Big fan. But I agree it's not optimal on wizards like at all lol.
✅ Collect a legendary + 2 epics + a rare hero for free pl.go-ga.me/tipy532m
✅ Sun Wukong (using promocode Monkeyking) + Lightsworn + Juliana (after reaching level 15) + Warmaiden
pl.go-ga.me/tipy532m
Kellan the Shrike (using the promocode) + Lightsworn + Juliana (after reaching level 15) + warmaiden
pl.go-ga.me/tipy532m
Mordecai (using the promocode) + Lightsworn + Juliana (after reaching level 15) + warmaiden
Use this link for iOS users to Redeem the promo code plarium.com/en/redeem/raid-shadow-legends/
I won't argue against making money and getting sponsored. But this particular game is highly immoral imho
if disintegrate left character's armour floating and then crumple into a heap like Loony tunes it would be S tier
OK, if it got changed to look like that I would raise it up to S tier!
Especially if you could still loot it after. Lol.
That would be so boss.
Disintegrate is one of my favorites, I'd put it in A tier. I jist don't like that it can prevent you from looting
@@ultimatesoup luckily not many mobs are worth looting
Being assined to guard this outpost is like the worst job in faerun
It certainly is in my version of Faerûn!
Given how much of a cockhead the lead guard is I honestly don’t feel too bad using them for spell practice lmao
You can just cancel your concentration on ice wall for it to explode and get the icy air without having to manually break it
I'm an idiot, because now that you mention that I did do that during testing but then completely forgot while filming....
Thanks for letting us know!
Disintegrate I think should be C at the very least, because Artistry of War can only be used more than once if you have a Wizard, and either way can only be used once per long rest, whereas Disintegrate can be cast quite a few times thanks to Freecast, Arcane Battery and Spellcrux Amulet.
Also, you can twinned spell Disintegrate! This means you can do 50-100 on 2 enemies. Combine this with conditions that affects dexterity saves (Hold Person/Monster, Paralysis, Prone, Maimed, Sleeping, etc.) and you can do 50-100 on 2 creatures for the price of 1 level 6 spell slot.
Not to mention, it's Force damage, which practically nothing is resistant or immune to
It's very good for Sorcerers and I found some use out of it on my first playthrough
Artistry of War is once per short rest, which is a significant difference.
You're not wrong about the extra casts of the level 6 spells however chain lightning can also be twinned, and it will deal more damage overall. If you make enemies wet before hand then it's average damage is on par with disintegrate, but affects more people. Force damage is good in the game, no doubt about that, it's about the only good thing about disintegrate I think.
My big annoyance with disintegrate is that on a successful save from an enemy it does precisely nothing. A wasted action and a wasted level 6 spell slot. The other damaging spells with saving throws at least do half damage.
@@CasualVeteranGamer To be fair, "make an enemy wet" costs an action.
Disintegrate is a high damage single target spell in an uncommonly resisted element. C seems pretty fair. Don't cast it on enemies with high Dex saves. You can hit Save Spell DC 29 by level 20 with the right equipment, and you can make them roll at Disadvantage if you're a Sorcerer.
If the enemies are making their save, you're using it wrong.
@@sharlesdaviskendy2391Level 20? What game are you playing? Lol
@@hobojoe9717 Lord of Nothing honestly. lol.
Replace 20 with 12 and the rest of the argument stays the same.
Me when my enemies make a dex save (that’s highly likely) and my level 6 spell does nothing :(
An important thing to note about Heroes' Feast - you need to keep the spell prepped on your Cleric/Druid throughout the day, otherwise the buff will drop off. Nothing more embarrassing than un-prepping the spell and not realizing that your max HP went back to normal when you're already in the middle of a boss fight.
And that’s why you have Halsin buff you before you leave him at camp every day that you know you’re gonna have a big battle!
i used a cleric outside the party
Use hirelings for feast.
Arcane gate is really useful during the iron throne fight (the npcs use it), to the point where I like having two characters with it there. But that's the only time I cast it.
Yeah, that is a great time to use the spell!
I used it in the Foundry when I got cornered by a Steel Watcher and I managed to get my party out of a corner with that spell. Otherwise my party and my small army of summons would've been stuck there or dealt with SW's annoyingly long reach and opportunity attacks.
thats one fight.
Heroes feast is likely the strongest spell in the game. Especially when combined with summons and cloudkill
Summon Deva, Spellcrux Amulet, Heroes Feast which includes the Deva by Shadowheart is probably the best support setup option from Cleric
I usually do this: Summons as my Circle of Moon Druid, (cuz might as well burn all spells on summons) then Summon Deva as shadowheart, then spellcrux amulet & Heroes Feast and then a 3rd for raise undead and then a lvl 5 spell for Aid. So now all summons got like +32 more HP. My last 2 are just Gale as spellcaster and Astarion as the Gloomstalker/Rogue combo. and I'm basically winning in first round.
@@TheRedAzukiI feel like the Djinn is most useful of all the summons cause it can cause good CC+dmg at same time with thunderwave. It also seems to be the most durable one from my experience.
Really loved this series of Tierlists. The combos, the pros and cons and usages for these spells were well shown and explained. I rely on these constantly. It shows one of the main problems i have with 5e spells...and how Larian 5e is an improvement (even with some bugs). I have a suggestion, an Items with spells tierlist!! For a Filthy Casual you did Pro work!!
Thanks, it is my hope that everyone gets a better understanding of the spells so they can make their own informed choices and decisions.
I'll add your suggestion to my list of video ideas, but of course it'll just be my own filthy opinion ;)
Heroes feast also makes you immune to noxious cloud, meaning you can effectively use it as a barrier of invulnerability.
Before the patch, Otto´s Irresistable Dance def was S Tier, to the level of completely broken. Every boss could just be turned dancing and your party could chop away at them at will. This is how I won both the Raphael and Orin fight, the latter without taking any damage at all. Being irresistable makes it incredibly valuable against powerful foes, especially as they couldn`t save against it in later turns. Now they can and it is still great, if not completely broken. Owning the action economy is the most important strategic concept of this game. Hold person is great, but is limited by not working against monsters. Otto`s does not have these kinds of limitations.
You should consider including Upcasts like Conjure Elemantal that are actually a seperate Level 6 spell on their own.
Certain NPC allies tend to have a death wish in this game, so the Heal spell is very useful in keeping them alive. (Yes, I'm talking about you, Dame Aylin)
Dame Aylin is immortal and will come back with 8-9 hit points always, but I wish it was more like 20 by act 3. I wish characters like her would scale their levels bc being much stronger than her during the Lorroakan fight and the final battle feels weird af. She should be on our level in act 3 imo
I had to reload the assault in Moonrise so many times because Jaheira kept rushing ahead and dying
the good thing is that eyebite is a necromancy spell, so it is infinitely useable, and 'sickness' can be applied to the steel watchers, so they have disadvantage (probably installed a virus or something)
also, the god like thing about globe of invul is that if you have minions, you can fill the globe so much that no enemy can phisically enter it S++ tier, battle automatically won, also add 'mind sactuary' and you have a mobile battlestation
I think with the staff of cherished necromancy all necromancy spells get boosted up the ranks.
Globe is just so good, probably one of the strongest spells although it isn't infallible!
@@CasualVeteranGamer globe is autowin on dragon, raph and top of brain stem.
Started from the bottom, now we here!!! Hype for the end of this series, thank you for your amazing work
You're very welcome, I hope that you have learnt new things about all the spells.
the thing with blade barrier is you can just use an upcast insect plague for the same/better effect in my opinion
I would like to say thank you for making these videos. There is plenty of Spell ranking videos out there but most people just sit on the tiermaker website and don't show off the spells or niche uses of it in game. I hope people will find your videos more often.
Thanks for all the comments! I really hope that these videos act more like a guide to inform people to make their own choices. I don't particularly care if I'm "wrong" with my ranking, just as long as we're all making informed decisions.
For me Eyebite proved itself to be an A tier spell at least. The way you can single-handedly remove a huge threat from the battle, or render it near-useless, is so valuable.
Didnt rate it until I saw its power from walking all over an act 3 enemy with 500+ hit points, all thanks to Eyebite.
What makes it so incredibly powerful is that if you choose fearful, they can only make another save if they run far enough away to break line of sight. It's almost a guaranteed 10 turns of not using an action. AND I JUST FOUND OUT YOU DONT NEED TO KEEP CONCENTRATION. You can cast this 10 turns in a row and have the entire enemy force feared, and then break concentration and they will all still be feared. The concentration is only for the ability to re-cast for free.
Eyebite is EASY S-tier, contender for best spell in the game even without the staff.
There is a staff that lets you freely cast necromancy spells. With that, Eyebite and Circle of Death become S tier IMO.
Aw, i've been looking forward to these for so long that I'm a bit sad it only goes up to 6th level and there are no more. But I'm definitely excited to see what else you do moving forward, love your content!
a thousand thank youz. folded upon itself for the time and effort you spend on these details, some of us search, some of us preach, others just level up, and then there are the enlightened trying to be the Sheppard amongst the flock..of sheep baaaaaaaaaaah.
Baaaaaaaa
the uncuffed situations that brought me genuine..joy is immeasurable from this masterpiece acid trip, all its missing is honey badgers not caring against a legion of possibilities, nothing is greater than your first.
I actually killed the netherbrain with disintegrate on my sorcerer. Very satisfying ending.
Probably one of the most fitting endings possible!
I do like/use disintegrate because it’s Force Spell, it did a good amount of damage in some final bosses
If I am using a wizard I prefer artistry of war since it cannot fail and has about the same damage on average, and the damage can be split up between multiple enemies.
@@CasualVeteranGamer The average damage of Disintegrate is 75, the average damage of artistry is 48 which is 27 damage behind.
however, dinintergate can fail. AoW cant. @@ownphantomandtoy
@@ownphantomandtoy As he says in the video, the tooltip damage for Artistry is bugged - if you use all 6 shots on one enemy, 48 is the absolute minimum it can do. Each shot does 2d6 + 6, which is 8 - 18, 6 shots on one target is 48 - 108, average of each shot is 13, average of 6 shots is 78, which is actually just slightly higher.
As I mentioned in the video each missile from artistry of war does 2d6+6 damage, and the tooltip is incorrect in game. The average damage per hit is 13, and with 6 hits that's an average of 78. This is on top of the fact each missile always hits, and you can kill more than one enemy at once if there is at least one enemy on low enough HP.
I really see no need to use disintegrate over artistry of war when its average damage is in fact lower, and it can also do 0 damage.
I didn't even consider that Heroes Feast makes you immune to Cloudkill, when it says immune to poison I always think in my head as a D&D player, the poison condition.
I had that thought too!
I'm on my way to test this right now, but one strat with the freezing sphere could be to use scrolls to make portable ones before combat. Then have your fighter throw them during combat, since they have improved extra attack, they can throw 3 times per action, so depending on how many scrolls you have, and how many actions your fighter has (easily 3 actions with haste + action surge), you can make an incredible expensive but straight up devastating nuke. 9 spheres is 90d6 (180d6 if wet) aoe damage without considering any other bonuses you can get, maybe pretty good when you're at the end of the game and have scrolls to burn through.
That's a great idea, and I don't see why it wouldn't work! Add in the good old combo of action surge, haste and the elixir of bloodlust....although making that many spheres would be difficult! I didn't test it but I wonder if a sorcerer could twin the item creation variant since it targets a creature....
@@CasualVeteranGamer Assuming you're making them with scrolls, you can just go to turn based mode and have everyone in the party each make one per turn, maybe that'll make it easier?
I’m imagining someone doing this in table top and rolling 180 dice while their DM just glares at them 😂😂
Might be able to hire or respec characters to wizard. Also if it works like other items you can simply drop them on the ground for free
Chain Lighting belongs to SS tier! It's so good i basically never use any other lvl 6 Spell.
Yeah that's the case. If your play is based on Chain Lightning Socerer-cleric-wiz then all other spells are plain useless in late game (especially that the Markoheshkir-double lightning is still not fixed), as the second turn in any fight is either trivial or non-existent.
I was able to use Arcane Battery+Twin spell on Disintegrate in the House of Hope to take out two of Raphael's pillars at once
Huh, I hadn't thought of that. I assume the pillars have a very low dexterity throw.
@@CasualVeteranGamer pretty sure objects, including the pillars don't make saving throws
@common_undead I guess seeing a pillar dodge out the way would be quite the surprise!
@CasualVeteranGamer if it works like it does in tabletop, structures autofail I believe. Not sure if they take make damage or not
What about spells that have unique effects when upcast to level 6? I'm specifically thinking of Conjure Elemental and the Elemental Myrmidons and Animate Undead with having two flying ghouls. At least for Conjure Elemental, the summons are so substantively different that they ought to be included here. I also think the opportunity cost between choosing two flying ghouls and a single mummy is worth considering.
Yeah, some caster builds (lightning sorc especially) can squeeze in a wizard level to learn the myrmidon scroll and they’re extremely useful. The water one is super useful for applying wet without using a main character turn. The ghouls are definitely better than the mummy since their attacks can paralyze and they can fly.
globe of invulnerability is on a category of its own... it just turns any battle around. (if you extend it to 6 turns with a sorcerer its just outrageous. ive never lost concentration on it btw, idk if its even possible)
One thing disintegrate is good for is during the netherbrain fight. It has ~10 dex, so its saving throws are really bad. If you've got a thrower or another character that won't do much damage, just throw a disintegrate at it, easy 80 damage.
Arcane Gate came in handy during the underwater prison rescue, and also the fight under the city in the ghazal temple entrance with the bridge. I suppose there are a couple other situations where it could be useful but it would depend on if your current strategy could handle the situation already
Circle of Death is great if you're actually a Necromancer, since you heal when killing enemies with a spell. I've gone from basically 1hp to fully healed in a single cast in addition to doing a truckload of damage to a huge swathe of enemies.
Also worth noting if you're leaning into Necromancy spells, the Staff of Cherished Necromancy gives all enemies disadvantage on their saving throw *and* killing enemies charges it up, allowing you to spam Necromancy spells without using a spell slot. Spam Circle of Death, keep killing enemies, infinite 6th level spell spam! Circle of Death is uniquely good for this purpose. I've also found that Necrotic resistance is pretty easy to come by (another shoutout for Necromancer's "Inured to Undeath", the healing from killing enemies far outstripped the damage I did to myself on occasion).
EDIT: I should have waited like 10 seconds before pausing the video to comment 🤣
For the Globe of Invunerability being broken by being prone, it would be cool to add Boots that makes you immune to being pushed and prone when concentrating on a spell.
Minthara’s Boots of Striding have this ability
Otto's Irresistible Dance was S-tier for me, because i mained a Bard and only had Eyebite as the other option. Its the CC-equivaltent to Magic Missiles, except there is no shieldspell to protect against. Imagine the game on ironman-mode, this would be a natural autopic, to take out the big thread and breeze through the creeps with your warrior and confusionsspells and the like. :D
You have hold monster at level 5, which is better and can be cast more times per day
@@johnwallace5284 But Hold Person does not hit 100% of times like Otto's does. ;)
Another thing with globe of invulnerability is if you use the lillithid spell which uses half your health to heal another you don't take the damage but they can still get healed you're half
Sorry last comment lol (doing one comment per spell). I used Globe of Invulnerability extensively in my Honour Mode run and I have couple more tips:
1. Transfuse Health does damage to the user. This damage is blocked by the Globe, and Transfuse doesn't have a cooldown. You can turn a Wizard/Sorcerer into an insane ranged healer this way.
2. Potion of Angelic Slumber/Reprieve can be used by anyone not concentrating on the Globe, allowing you to full/short rest mid combat inside the Globe. I did this for the end boss fight to completely ignore the first room with the dragon and other bosses while [spoiler] channeled the spell on the [spoiler]. This let me go in to the final boss room almost fully refreshed (though the potion is bugged and some Long Rest abilities are not refreshed like Luck of the Far Realms, but most are)
Great Series as a whole. Thank you
Glad you enjoyed it, I hope it was useful for you.
I tend to use Chain Lightning less than Lightning Bolt in some cases because lightning bolt isn't targeted, it's just a straightline AOE, so your character doesn't actually need line of sight to hit it as long as there isn't a wall in the way. I find you can often hit more enemies that way, which makes up for having slightly less damage, and it's a level 3 spell so you can cast a lot more of them. It was great for the Viconia fight where there was always darkness out and a lot of enemies clumped up that weren't otherwise targetable.
Nice there is the video I was waiting for :) thank you for the time explaining all your choices
I think it's only right to explain my reasoning, and actually I feel like that is more important than the actual tiers I place the spells in.
Maybe it was a bug, but I believe that for Wall of Ice, you only need concentration for the Wall, when you break concentration, the wall breaks also but the icy cloud stays for 100 turns, wich in my opinion makes it at least B tier. It happened to me during the fght against Viconia, I just casted a lvl 4 water so eveyone is wet in the area, casted the Wall, broke concentration right away and half the room was already dead by the next turn.
Arcane gate is better than you give credit. Dimension door is the closest alternative, and has a lot of caveats with caster positioning. Specifically, caster needs to spend movement to reach their one target, and then usually get stranded at the destination without remaining movement. Arcane gate lets you move the whole squad without exposing your caster.
The bane of Arcane gate is that you only get it by lvl 11 on Sorcerer/Warlock/Wizard. These are classes that prefer to multiclass, and at lvl 11, their primary job is damage. Since there is no scroll for it, the classes that would use it (eg with lvl 1 Wizard) just can’t access it, and the classes that can get it don’t want it.
Eyebite is also Staff of Cherished Necromancy compatible, which bumps it up a notch in my eyes. Maybe if they ever fix that staff so that it isn't literally just infinite free necromancy all the time, it'll lose a bit of its luster, but for now at least Eyebite is still worth its preparation slot to me.
Freezing sphere is incredible in portable form with scrolls + having a wizard/ sorcerer in your party!
Without mods I think you can get up to 6 spheres that’ll detonate at the same time. It’s great for sticking in enemies pockets before starting an encounter!
Disintegrate is for objects and does double damage on the pillars in house of hope for example. Also even my CHR 16 bard can cast it a 100% against targets in final battle.
I like using freezing sphere over chain lightning on targets with low CON and high DEX.
Great detailed video with explanation.. rare to see
Good video bro
You always compare spells' damage to the best evocation spells. Sometimes it's nice to have a spell that has a spell save other than DEX and that has a damage type that is not resisted, even though the damage is lower. Fireball is a premier damage spell at 8d6 for a level 3 slot. Anything you compare to that will probably fall short except for similar spells like chain lightning. But there's enemies in game with high dex, enemies in game with Evasion who take 0 damage on successful save, not to mention a lot of fire resistance enemies. Having a cold damage spell with con save is great, even if it has a bit fewer dice, just as an option.
It's kinda the same argument with Banish... why use it when you have a bunch of WIS save CCs? CHA save, pretty much the only reason to do it. Eyebite is Sleep on WIS save, Glyph is Sleep on DEX save.
I wonder if there's any advantage to Otto's irresistible dance over the Hold Monster spell? I know Freedom of Movement would prevent Hold spells and it looks like Undead are immune. I am surprised that Constructs are not.
You make a good point, and I probably should have taken into account the types of saving throws a bit more, although I haven't checked the constitution saving throws of all the enemies. My hunch is that their constitution scores are relatively high in general, although inflicting bleeding isn't too difficult, which would give them disadvantage.
One nice thing about Otto's is its 100% chance to work on the first turn. Although we can get very high Spell Save DCs, there is always at least a 5% chance that a spell will fail. However hold monster does give us crits whereas Otto's doesn't sadly.
Most summons don’t seem to use any attributes with their save dcs. Just 8 + proficiency bonus. So, sometimes I put battlemage elixirs on the ground and have them drink them.
IMO Globe of Invulnerability should be in it's own tier.
If the tiers are meant to represent different levels of power where the spells on the same tier are *relatively* of the same significance, then no way: Globe of Invulnerability is hands down the best. It enables you to freely set up any kind of strategy you like whilst casting/attacking outside of it for a full three turns. With certain staves and other free cast benefits, you can even extend that duration beyond the 3 turns.
Chain Lightning, by comparison, *MIGHT* hit for 80 damage on multiple targets, might not. Or while the buffs of Heroes' Feast are great, hell no, I would not choose Heroes' Feast over Globe of Invulnerability if I were forced to choose.
But yeah tl;dr being able to grant yourself invulnerability for a time is absolutely busted compared to everything else.
Especially if u use extended spell on it
Part of what I take into account is the availability of the spells. While I do appreciate and agree with your point in theory, practically there is never a time where you have to pick between heroes' feast of globe of invulnerability as they are available to different classes.
Having said that, if I did add another tier then globe would be in it!
Don't forget that you need to keep out enemies from your Globe, because they can just walk in, break concentration on the caster, and profit from Invulnerability too. Positioning is still important! This version is like the D&D 9th level Invulnerability spell on a zone for 3 turns. Much different than tabletop Globe of Invulnerability which normally blocks specifically Spells from one level lower and below the spell slot used to cast it.
@@Dragonphoenix25 I think concentration being broken is an old patch thing. Gale was being hit every turn and never even had anything indicating he made a saving concentration throw.
And the globe is only so big, so if like ~3 enemies get inside and become immune to damage, so be it. It's really not a big deal if the globe still enables you to kill everything else. Divide and conquer.
I hope yall who do the tierlists can try the 5e spells mod and rank those as well. I have a feeling you'll find more critical misses, even if they are still fun to have.
I'll think about it, although I still want to show the vanilla game for now since most people will be experiencing that.
Sunbeam could be A. Main reason is thar you can get it from blood of lathander very early when you have lvl 4 spells at most, and go into the shadowlands with it, which is crazy. Also it's very effective against vampires in act 3, in my playthrough I had Halsin turn the Cazador fight into a piece of cake with it.
Also praise the Sun
I did not take that item into account, and while I completely agree with your point, using that item doesn't consume a level 6 spell slot. I think it would be fairer to compare it to other weapons since the opportunity cost of using it is not using another weapon.
Ice Wall is DIFFICULT to make use of, but I do think its a spell with a lot of potential, because it just kinda DOES a lot of different things at once: deal cold damage, block enemy movement, create a hazard and maybe even create an ice surface.
I actually used it against ketheric in the first fight (you can get a ton of scrolls of it), and it actually did a fantastic job, it funneled the enemies where I wanted and damaged and made them slip.
Thinking more about this video and Otiluke's Freezing Sphere, the fact that you can cast it as an item has exponential potential especially as a scroll cast spell. With a rogue MC I often set up death traps by sneaking into an area I know a fight is in and dropping Smokepowder bombs to be set off at the start of combat with a fire arrow or something. I killed Seravok in two turns this way, he had enough time to get one attack on Lae'zel while at 1/4th his HP first round before finishing him off.
Being able to cast an Freezing Sphere and sneak in to drop it off behind a group of enemies or reverse-pickpocket it onto someone before initiating an encounter would be amazing. Even if the damage doesn't match up to dropping a stack of smokepowder bombs, there's literally nothing stopping you from doing both. And having the frost effect on the ground is relevant even up into the late game. Freezing Sphere scrolls are practically free after every long rest if you go to Sourcerous Sundries and pickpocket them. I've been able to stockpile lots of deadly scrolls for casting with my MC this way and keep a bag specifically filled with useful off casting scrolls like Improved Invisibility, Wall of Fire, Silence, Darkness, and these bad boys are going in there now. I'd rate it S for this reason to be honest.
The question I have is if you reverse pickpocket a sphere into an enemy's inventory and then start combat, will they acknowledge that they have it in their inventory and potentially throw it at you? They don't seem to acknowledge it out of combat, and the AI has shown to be weird when it comes to interacting with objects like weapons on the floor. But if it's in their inventory they might use it.
Glad I’m not the only one who used blade barrier in house of grief. But, it was basically the only thing I used. Immediately ran back up the stairs, and used it along the entire stairway. The only one who made it up alive was Viconia herself, and there wasn’t much she could do in a 1v4.
Dude Globe of Invulnerability was the MVP of my solo playthrough. Cast the spell, spend a turn or two buffing myself / debuffing enemies, end concentration if someone important is in the circle and nuke all that remains! Also lets you (easily) skip half of the final fight in the game so dope!
I just used it to make the final fight in Honour mode very easy as well!
I consider only Feast of Heroes and Planar ally for S Tear. For all others I always prefer to upcast other, specially Summons
One thing to note about Otto’s funny little shimmy is that since there’s no save at all, it bypasses legendary resistances! Another point for it over something like hold person is that it can target literally anything.
Sunbeam is definitely better for druids, as you mentioned. It was amazing in the Cazador fight with my spore druid.
Druids that have access to level 6 spells should never cast anything on level 6 beside the level 5 spell upcast "Conjure Elemental: Water Myrmidon". You can also vote for Hero Feast, but a hireling can cast that in camp.
Minor point, Arcane Gate is a mighty big help if you plan to try and do the Iron Throne on higher difficulties, the AI is smart enough to have the prisoners use any Gate set up to get back to the sub faster, considering how tight timing is on that mission it can free up a few turns and let your caster take part in handling two of the three main prisoner paths.
Hero's Feast synergies well with a summoner build and the gauntlets that give your summons all resistances.
The gauntlets cause a wis save per turn to avoid madness, but the Feast gives advantage on that roll
It's particularly great with the deva summon, since deva's have 20 wis and (iirc) proficiency in wis saving throws, which gives them a +9 to the roll from the get go.
I don't like the all resistance/madness gloves. It's nice for a summon that last a short duration, but for long rest summons, they have to save every turn outside of combat as well. The chance of rolling a 1 or simply fail a save are still pretty high when you have infinity of rounds. And all the micro of taking on/off the gloves whenever in combat or not are just tedious.
@@AeonQuasar you can toggle the effect of the gloves while equiped:)
I keep the arcane recovery amulet on Shadowheart, and at the start of every day she casts Level 5 Aid, Heroes' Feast, and Summon Planar Ally: Deva.
She creates a powerful ally and grants the party an additional minimum of 185 max HP. Between my necromancer warlock and my wizard, that's actually 304 additional max HP for a level 6 and level 5 spell slot. It's so awesome!
Wholeheartedly recommend Feast
Man, those Baldurians have seen some shit if they aren't being frightened by that mummy.
I wouldnt mind seeing an illithid powers ranking 😁
"Maybe its too close to Halloween...they dont think its a real mummy"🤣🤣🤣
I have used globe of invulnerability 3 times, each time it has saved my life completely. The first was against raphael, the second was the exploding lightning dragon, the third was the final battle. Absolutely insane spell
Vs Sharran cultists in Act 3 brang me back from the jaws of defeat!
@@Dragonphoenix25 yeah that fight was bloody brutal, had to use my divine intervention for that instead
@@WizzoTheMagicMan Oh yeah, that too in fact if I recall correctly!
Larian should add this to Disintegrate:
If this spell can do enough damage to kill the target, then it always does so.
Basically making it an instakill for anything below 100 hp, which fits thematically with the idea of, you know, disintegrating someone.
Id even go one step further, have the damage increase inversely with size. More damage against humanoids and smaller, less damage against larger targets. Because again, the whole idea of this spell is one shotting someone instantly and reducing them to dust. If the spell cant make the target evaporate entirely, it should be less effective.
12:10 You can twin disintegrate, you can't twin the Magic_missile_but_cooler.
Also, if you spell save DC is high enough, enemies CAN'T succeed on that saving throw (and yes, it is possible, the cut-off point after which almost nobody can succeed their saving throws against you, is at around 28, which, assuming 22 int/wis/cha, requires getting +10 spell save DC from items... which you can get that with just 1 item, The Fire Hat from the Strange Ox in Last Light's Inn.) because there are no nat1's and nat20's on saving throws, meaning that with a hat, or a correct combination of items (to get it permanently), you can get 100% hit change with disintegrate.
You can't get 100% with an attack roll-based spell like witch bolt, you can get close, but RNG can always spit on you.
Also, if you have several casters in your party and don't want to give ALL items to just one of them, there are conditions that cause enemies to immediately fail all dex saving throws- like "sleeping" and "paralysed" which you can get via "sleep", and "Glyph of Warding-Sleep", and "Hold Person/Monster", spells.
Glyph of Warding is especially devious as it's an AOE spell, there is no saving throw against it, it's just a 3rd lvl spell, meaning you can use it for most of the game, and unlike "sleep" spell, there is no HP limit either.
IT JUST WORKS. It ALWAYS works.
Also poisons- "Drow poison" (craftable, many traders sell it, and you an get like 20 of them in Underdark) "Crawler mucus" (craftable, on higher levels traders start to sell it) and "Karabasan's Poison" (there are a few vials in house of healing)
Globe of Invulnerability chad of play, in house of Hope, casting to shield for the team. Then have someone active the Runebomb from bastard Ironhand. Instant deleting those surrounding. (Not so much with Raphael) But meh, when those pests are gone, stunning Raphael is such an easy task.
I love that idea! Although you could do that with any other fight, I like the idea of breaking into Raphael's home and then exploding it into smithereens!
I have use it mainly to save people I want to save. Like if NPC gets attacked and I for whatever reason don't want them dead. I cast the GoI. I have saved so many people with it. Best was House of Hope to save Hope's sister. Knocked her out and cast the GoI on her knocked out body.
The Staff of Cherished Necromancy let's you cast the level 6 Necromancy Spells (and upcast any of the Necromancy spells) as long as you kill something beforehand and have a charge. It works like Arcane Battery for all Necromancer Spells, on a charge system.
A thing that frustrates me in every turn based RPG is when free attacks have better functionality and appeal than spells and abilities that consume resources. The low % to land spells pushed me to the better options of regular attacks, cantrips, or class abilities like the Bard Flourishes more often than not. I don’t know why games keep getting balanced like this. Something taking a limited precious resource needs to be spicy, but I’m feeling salty instead.
It would be interesting to look at a tier list from the perspective of a specific turn in combat. All spells, attacks, actions, etc. are competing for that one Action you’re allowed for the round. Maybe a tier list isn’t the appropriate thing, but I suspect that for a lot of people spells were tertiary in their strategy. I’ve gotten by primarily with Glyph of Warding: Sleep (my favorite spell by far). Occasional casts of Haste. Few moments with Slow. Sometimes I’ll throw out an attack spell, usually an aoe.
I appreciate all of these vids they’ve helped me out a lot in this game.
I did a funny thing in the fight in the shar hideout in act 3, where I ran all my companions up the stairs we came down, and made shadowheart and gale cast blade barrier and wall of flame, blocking off the only way to us. Watching so many people just walk slowly up the stairs while burning alive was so satisfying.
Arcane gate should have 500ft range like DnD
It’s basically useless with the 120ft max
While I didn't get much use out of these spells as part of my Wizard of Cleric I bought/stole every level 6 scroll I could find. Not only did that give Gale the chance to learn them, but I could use them with other party members...
This habit saved my entire ass in the Raphael fight since I had six scrolls of Disintegrate and so I was able to KO all of his pillars on round 1 since they each have 100HP and Weakness to Force Damage
Ilithid power: black hole, is a huge void pull that only affects enemies and also has a chance to slow. I used this to setup aoe and walls
Edit: also black hole makes glyph wards way more effective as it becomes much simpler to set up in one turn. Aoe sleeping minion types comes in handy
With sunbeam its better on a sorc. You can quicken cast it on turn 1 with your bonus action and then follow up with a second casting of it with your regular action. Plus with all the ways to get an extra action you can push out 3 or 4 of those a turn with haste and bloodlust elixirs. Its also one of the sorcs only option for radiant dmg which is a solid option. Same thing with eyebite quicken cast it on turn 1 and you can cast 2x in turn 1 and sleep 2 people right away.
Thanks man, added a like and I’m already subscribed 😎 Will you do skills next? Spell casters get a lot of love with spells, but you’ve got to give barbarians some love too 💪🏼
You make a good argument for not involving spells in the next tierlist, poor barbs!
I really feel like having only one concentration spell available at a time is very restrictive and dumbs down the game on so many levels. It ensures that you’re only ever gonna use the most efficient spells because why bother using anything else. There’s SO MANY control spells, but who cares, when I can just hold person/monster and 1 shot the target. Also, it’s downright immersion breaking that a lv1 wizard and a lv12 wizard can both only concentrate on 1 spell…. There’s people who can juggle while riding a bicycle, but you’re telling me a cloud of daggers and Tasha’s laughter would be too much to maintain for an expert caster? I call bullshit. Especially when you can have an army of summons running around, which is way more OP than any concentration spell in the game. I really think casters should get two concentration nodes available after a certain point. Whether it’s lv10 or 12 or something.
Thank you! I was waiting on this one.
I can’t believe these are over 😢
Agree with most of this, except blade barrier and sunbeam. On a cleric, blade barrier is competing with spirit guardians and bless for concentration, and their level 6 spell slot(s) are generally better spent on heroes feast and planar ally.
If you really want to spend a cleric’s level 6 spell slot on a damaging concentration spell, sunbeam is usually better. It still does half damage on a save (unlike blade barrier, which is negated), it can be recast for 10 turns (so it continues to be useful once enemies move), and it does radiant damage so you can stack radiating orb.
I’d have blade barrier at B and sunbeam at A. I’d also consider moving harm and circle of death to A and B respectively, purely because of the necromancy staff. Repeated free casts, good damage *and* enemies have disadvantage on saving throws. That’s pretty broken!
Harm is not as good as it seems even with the necromancy staff. If they fail the save it reduces the max hp but not the actual hp, so if they have 100/150 hp and you reduce it by 60, they end with 90 hp left. Because do this, most of the times it’s better to just upcast inflict wounds at lvl 6 instead
@@robingoodfellow8097 that’s not quite right. You reduce their maximum hit points by the amount of damage dealt by the spell. So in your scenario their max HP would be reduced to 90, but their current HP would also be reduced by 60, down to 40
@@ProbeAway That's how you'd imagine it should work right? But not how it works in game. I know this and just re-tested it in game on the fists in the barracks. I started with magic missile to bring Blaze Liara Portyr down to 83/192 hp, then had shadowheart cast harm twice and they failed both saving throw, the first one brings her to 83/149, second one to 83/107. The only time it did actual damage is when they succeed their saving throws, and it does half necrotic damage, making it 7d6 damage, whereas inflict wounds at lvl 6 is 8d10 and can crit, not to mention to make harm work you have to limit your build to making your spell save as low as possible.
@@robingoodfellow8097 if that’s how it’s working then it’s bugged! It should have 2 effects - the damage, and then (if they fail the save) the ‘harm’ disease. That’s how the spell is described in both BG3 and DnD. The only downside the spell *should* have is that it can’t kill an enemy outright, since the damage can’t reduce their HP below 1.
It’s probably worth reporting to Larian. Harm is a pretty obscure spell, being 6th level and cleric-only, so they might not even be aware of the issue.
@@ProbeAway I'm not here to say how it should be. This simply how it IS. Until something changes, Harm is not really worth using in its current state
Upcast Conjure Elemenetal: Water Myrmidon are still the best level 6 spell, by a wide margine. Amazing heal, great damage, great hit points, and stays untill concentration lost or long rest. I probably have a SS tier here, and I would move up Hero Feast, along the upcast Conjure Elemental.
There is so much AoE in this game, I value high DMG single-target spells highly.
Artistry of War is once per long Rest and OP on puropse.
Disintegrate is worth it and not a critical miss.
Chain Lightning and Disintegrate are the only lvl 6 dps spells worth casting imo
Artistry of War is once per short rest, and for some reason dethrone is once per long rest (!?).
In my opinion upcasting scorching ray, or witch bolt on a wet target, might be better choices than disintegrate since disintegrate does have a chance of completely failing.
Honestly, I'm probably still gonna use Disintergrate for roleplay purposes. Feels appropriate that a high level spellcaster would be able to rip you asunder molecule by molecule.
Also, I don't think I need to tell you an obvious tier list to make one day would be a class tier list, or probably a subclass tier list.
I tried out wall of ice in the Iron throne, I love how it pushes enemies up. The fish man got wedged between the wall and the ceiling... I thought that was cool. That is all.
Regarding heroes feast: the trick is to have 2 hirelings use it, so that way you are covered even on tactician.
Rest of the hirelings can go do transmuters stones if you are really that desperate :D
Agree with most of the list except Heal. It should be B tier. Being able to basically save the life of your caster is very clutch. All you need is for the opponent to get a lucky crit and your caster could be out of the fight. Not to mention, comboing that with a Death ward is really nice
Imo create undead is C tier, compared to the other summons you can get for a level 6 spell slot would absolutely demolish the Mummy. Myrmadons and Planar Allies have way more HP, AC, mobility, and can do more damage with their unique abilities. Only time I’d use this spell is with one of the magic items that allows you to cast it for free essentially
The biggest circle of invulnerability tech I have been able to find is putting it up and using the potions of angelic reprieve to full heal and get all of your spell slots back.
14:38 eyebite just require concentration to recast the skill, the debuff is still going even if you lose concentration, if i not wrong, its only way to apply a long debuff without requiring concentration. In my save, Raphael dont move the whole fight because this fear. At least would do an A for this spell
Don’t flesh to stone some bosses, it will soft lock your game.
I really enjoyed the series! You should do Class Actions next!
Main downside to Wind Walk is that, provided you play the proper way, your party can all fly anyway. I guess for the off-chance you want to avoid (spoiler things) - yikes why would you - you'll need to use spells for this kind of thing
Are you referring to the [spoilers]
Half illithid transformation levitate ability? It can let everyone fly freely but many people don’t like taking the transformation due to the lore implications. I personally don’t just because the black veins ruin my tav’s pretty face lol
If you meant something else pls let me know!
@@c_jades That's what I meant. Definitely the easiest way to get around the map
@@hah-vj7hc I'm smiling at "play the right way" being literally letting yourself get manipulated by the evil race known for manipulating
@@hah-vj7hc True it’s very fun to fly everywhere. Definitely the biggest thing I miss from choosing not to take that route. Although another alternative for fitting through small spaces is cast Seeming and turn everyone into gnomes :)
@@c_jades As an early access player, I have the bonus item to change shapes. It's really helpful and fun!
Disintegrate is just like in Tabletop, mostly not great, but utterly gobstopping from a Diviner Wizard.
Artistry of War is not a great comparison to Disintegrate. As a "special" spell, it is only usable once per Short Rest because it's uniquely OP and using a lower spell slot than it should be. There's also a lot of ways to give enemies disadvantage on DEX saves. My issue with Disintegrate is that it cannot crit as there's no attack roll, which means if you have a reliable source of Wet a Chromatic Orb set to Lightning or Cold is probably going to do comparable damage. And you can combine Wet with Advantage on the attack roll and gear to increase crit chance to really pump the damage to nutty levels (and once you add in Tempest cleric and Luck of the Far Realms... well, we've all seen that lol)
The really cool thing about level 6 spells are that scrolls cast them at full power (since they can't be upcast)
if you lose concentration for wall of ice. it just broken and deal damage with area of ice wind. doesn't require concentration
I think there's still a bug you can freely cast lv6 spells (or upgrade lv6 spells) with Markoheshkir unlimited times. It's very broken and I'm very surprise it's still not fixed at patch#4. With that in mind, Disintegrate is better than the lv5 spell AoW as AoW only can cast once per short rest. But of cos, just spec evoc and do twin cast chain lighting is always the best way to do damage.
Iirc there's an amulet in act 3 that means you don't expend a spell slot when you cast a necrotic spell and deal damage to a creature with it. That one item made harm my #1 pick for shart every single turn.
All ongoing damage spells are s tier simply because black hole makes them even more brutal setting up blade barrier in a hallway or fire wall even cloud of daggers.
Globe of invulnerability seems like an awesome spell for a casting party if you have summoners
Sunbeam should 100% be higher, it's an evocation spell so it won't hurt your allies as an evocation wizard and it can be recast without a spell slot for 10 turns - which is absolutely ridiculous with haste (similar to call lightning for tempest clerics & col druids)
Disintegrate is still great on sorcerers who don't get access to CSAW. They can shoot it four times in a single turn! Not that I ever do that because I prefer twinning haste and then twinning disintegrate but still. Big fan. But I agree it's not optimal on wizards like at all lol.