Each of those spells is individually defensible. Anything they recommend is going to come with a bunch of caveats anyways considering the wide variety of weapon mastery options available and the possibility of starting with spells from your species or background.
Burning hands is good when facing hordes of enemies, something fighters, in my opinion, are not the best at until they get a ton of attacks later on. Burning hands can help thin out the hordes. However, I think that they probably should have recommended Magic Missile or something like that.
If you don't mind having a weaker character choose attack spells that will run off intelligence when you main ability score should be dex or strength for weapon attacks.
Burning Hands, Jump, and Shield are recommended. So ok, Jump and Shield are good...but burning hands? I don't think so.
They're not recommending based on optimization. Experienced players ignore the advice, anyway. They already know what they want and why. This is obviously for beginners. And I'm looking at the list, and what I see is:
- A ranged attack spell - A melee attack spell - An AoE spell - A mobility spell - A defensive spell
I think this list is great. It covers a lot of what a beginner should start learning. Attack rolls, ranged and melee. AoE, spell DC, mobility, AC boost, etc.
If you don't mind having a weaker character choose attack spells that will run off intelligence when you main ability score should be dex or strength for weapon attacks.
The range of Ray of Frost is high enough to be useful if you don't have a throwing weapon with enough range to reach the target, or if you don't want to devote two hands to a ranged weapon. The slight decrease in accuracy doesn't matter if the alternative is not attacking.
Similarly, because Burning Hands still deals half damage on a successful save, if you catch 2+ targets with it you're going to end up with a higher expected damage value than your weapon attacks.
Shocking Grasp gives you a way to get weak party members out of a bad situation without them having to withdraw. You'd have a slightly lower success rate than a shove, but you're also not throwing away all your damage. There's a very small number of Push weapons so a player may not have brought any in favor of properties like Cleave and Graze.
My only criticism is that since both cantrips can be imitated with mastery properties, bringing both at the expense of Blade Ward feels like a waste.
Also, the new True Strike makes it practical for EKs to run higher Int than Str if they really want to maximize their spellcasting, so you can't assume we're always talking about a low Int character any more.
If you don't mind having a weaker character choose attack spells that will run off intelligence when you main ability score should be dex or strength for weapon attacks.
The range of Ray of Frost is high enough to be useful if you don't have a throwing weapon with enough range to reach the target, or if you don't want to devote two hands to a ranged weapon. The slight decrease in accuracy doesn't matter if the alternative is not attacking.
Similarly, because Burning Hands still deals half damage on a successful save, if you catch 2+ targets with it you're going to end up with a higher expected damage value than your weapon attacks.
Shocking Grasp gives you a way to get weak party members out of a bad situation without them having to withdraw. You'd have a slightly lower success rate than a shove, but you're also not throwing away all your damage. There's a very small number of Push weapons so a player may not have brought any in favor of properties like Cleave and Graze.
My only criticism is that since both cantrips can be imitated with mastery properties, bringing both at the expense of Blade Ward feels like a waste.
Also, the new True Strike makes it practical for EKs to run higher Int than Str if they really want to maximize their spellcasting, so you can't assume we're always talking about a low Int character any more.
Blade Ward requires concentration, so it's not always an autopick. And you don't need to overlap weapon materies and spells. You can see it the other way around, now that you have a spell that does that, you can choose a different mastery to have more versatility.
That's all true, but Eldritch Knights are so strapped for spell slots - and 1st level slots are cheaper for every other spellcaster other than Arcane Tricksters - that in practice you're going to have concentration available quite often.
And weapon masteries are arguably less valuable than cantrips for an EK. You start with 3 mastered weapons, get a 4th one at level 4, and they can be swapped each day. Cantrips can only be changed once per level, and by the time you get a 3rd one, you'd also be getting a 5th mastered weapon and the ability to replace any mastery property with Push, Sap or Slow. If something can be done either way, it's better to do it through a weapon and leave your cantrips free for things mastery effects can't do.
I wouldn't burn one of my precious two cantrip slots on Shocking Grasp if I can just do the same thing by pulling out a warhammer; having Blade Ward means saving slots on Shield. At least Ray of Frost has range going for it and would stack with the Slow mastery effect.
That's all true, but Eldritch Knights are so strapped for spell slots - and 1st level slots are cheaper for every other spellcaster other than Arcane Tricksters - that in practice you're going to have concentration available quite often.
And weapon masteries are arguably less valuable than cantrips for an EK. You start with 3 mastered weapons, get a 4th one at level 4, and they can be swapped each day. Cantrips can only be changed once per level, and by the time you get a 3rd one, you'd also be getting a 5th mastered weapon and the ability to replace any mastery property with Push, Sap or Slow. If something can be done either way, it's better to do it through a weapon and leave your cantrips free for things mastery effects can't do.
I wouldn't burn one of my precious two cantrip slots on Shocking Grasp if I can just do the same thing by pulling out a warhammer; having Blade Ward means saving slots on Shield. At least Ray of Frost has range going for it and would stack with the Slow mastery effect.
This is, again, an optimizing point of view. "At level 9 I can replace some weapon masteries with others whenever I attack", "If I don't use X or Y spells often, my concentration will be free", "This property stacks with this cantrip, so those work together".
This advice in the PHB is for people who haven't played the game. All these reasonings make sense for you because you know the game, you know what's coming later, you know what works in practice, etc. They don't. They're literally just learning the rules.
A warhammer doesn't do the same as Shocking Grasp. No weapon mastery does. Sure, in practice, sometimes it will have the same effect, which is being able to move away from the target without provoking an opportunity attack. But that kind of reasoning is not necessary for a beginner. The interaction between pushing someone and opportunity attacks is not in the description of the Push mastery. It's something you learn with experience. Not to mention that Shocking Grasp stops opportunity attacks, period, even if the target is at range of your allies. It also doesn't have a size limit. These are all intricacies that are very obvious to us, and we know if they'll be relevant or not in actual play. But if anyone is actually inexperienced enough to genuinely look at the suggestions and take them, then none of this is relevant yet. They'll learn as they play. I believe these suggestions are meant to help beginners learn how to play the game, not how to optimize their characters.
By the time they're an Eldritch Knight they've been playing with weapon masteries for 2 levels. "Wow I only get 2 cantrips, better make them count" is not a hard observation to make.
This advice in the PHB is for people who haven't played the game.
And that's exactly why they should recommend things for common cases.
The use case for Shocking Grasp is "a friend is in trouble and they don't have Shocking Grasp or another panic button like Shield and they're not willing to waste their action on Withdraw and I still haven't learned the value of Pushing or shoving." That's much narrower in scope than "spell that helps you get hit less" (something that comes up every fight), and thinking "if I use this they can save their action" is a non-obvious use that requires an optimizing mindset too. The naive play is to assume your ally will Withdraw (because that's what the rules teach you is the way to get out of range) or use it to run away yourself, which doesn't come up very often for Fighters.
A warhammer doesn't do the same as Shocking Grasp.
It arguably does *more*, because not only can you usually avoid opportunity attacks that way, you can also break grapples or push them into hazards, and often end up costing them movement in the process (which is probably why it's easier to get Slow than Push). The size limit is a consideration later on, but there's not a whole lot of Huge creatures a 3rd level party can fight and survive.
By the time they're an Eldritch Knight they've been playing with weapon masteries for 2 levels. "Wow I only get 2 cantrips, better make them count" is not a hard observation to make.
This advice in the PHB is for people who haven't played the game.
And that's exactly why they should recommend things for common cases.
The use case for Shocking Grasp is "a friend is in trouble and they don't have Shocking Grasp or another panic button like Shield and they're not willing to waste their action on Withdraw and I still haven't learned the value of Pushing or shoving." That's much narrower in scope than "spell that helps you get hit less" (something that comes up every fight), and thinking "if I use this they can save their action" is a non-obvious use that requires an optimizing mindset too. The naive play is to assume your ally will Withdraw (because that's what the rules teach you is the way to get out of range) or use it to run away yourself, which doesn't come up very often for Fighters.
A warhammer doesn't do the same as Shocking Grasp.
It arguably does *more*, because not only can you usually avoid opportunity attacks that way, you can also break grapples or push them into hazards, and often end up costing them movement in the process (which is probably why it's easier to get Slow than Push). The size limit is a consideration later on, but there's not a whole lot of Huge creatures a 3rd level party can fight and survive.
1) "I only get 2 cantrips, better make them count" is not a hard observation to make. But that's not what I meant. "These weapon masteries and these cantrips kind of overlap in practice, even though they don't actually do the same thing" is a much harder observation for a beginner.
2) That's not how they'll see Shocking Grasp. They're gonna see "I hit them AND they don't get opportunity attacks? Nice!" It doesn't have to go farther than that. It's a melee spell attack, which the probably have never done before. It's an attack that blocks opportunity attacks, which they also probably haven't seen before. That's it.
3) You really, REALLY need to start realizing what a beginner is going to think and know. "Push can avoid opportunity attacks, break grapples, push enemies into hazards, cost them movement, as a 3rd level party I expect we won't see Huge creatures because we wouldn't survive." What? Which beginner will ever think this? Don't get me wrong, yes, pushing is great and very flexible. I know that too. Beginners don't. They won't see the Push weapon mastery and think "Oh, this can do the same as Shocking Grasp and also these other things."
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Some terrible advice for an eldritch knight....one wonders if they even understand the rules.
Ray of Frost and Shocking Grasp are recommended.
Burning Hands, Jump, and Shield are recommended. So ok, Jump and Shield are good...but burning hands? I don't think so.
Each of those spells is individually defensible. Anything they recommend is going to come with a bunch of caveats anyways considering the wide variety of weapon mastery options available and the possibility of starting with spells from your species or background.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Burning hands is good when facing hordes of enemies, something fighters, in my opinion, are not the best at until they get a ton of attacks later on. Burning hands can help thin out the hordes. However, I think that they probably should have recommended Magic Missile or something like that.
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If you don't mind having a weaker character choose attack spells that will run off intelligence when you main ability score should be dex or strength for weapon attacks.
They're not recommending based on optimization. Experienced players ignore the advice, anyway. They already know what they want and why. This is obviously for beginners. And I'm looking at the list, and what I see is:
- A ranged attack spell
- A melee attack spell
- An AoE spell
- A mobility spell
- A defensive spell
I think this list is great. It covers a lot of what a beginner should start learning. Attack rolls, ranged and melee. AoE, spell DC, mobility, AC boost, etc.
The range of Ray of Frost is high enough to be useful if you don't have a throwing weapon with enough range to reach the target, or if you don't want to devote two hands to a ranged weapon. The slight decrease in accuracy doesn't matter if the alternative is not attacking.
Similarly, because Burning Hands still deals half damage on a successful save, if you catch 2+ targets with it you're going to end up with a higher expected damage value than your weapon attacks.
Shocking Grasp gives you a way to get weak party members out of a bad situation without them having to withdraw. You'd have a slightly lower success rate than a shove, but you're also not throwing away all your damage. There's a very small number of Push weapons so a player may not have brought any in favor of properties like Cleave and Graze.
My only criticism is that since both cantrips can be imitated with mastery properties, bringing both at the expense of Blade Ward feels like a waste.
Also, the new True Strike makes it practical for EKs to run higher Int than Str if they really want to maximize their spellcasting, so you can't assume we're always talking about a low Int character any more.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Blade Ward requires concentration, so it's not always an autopick. And you don't need to overlap weapon materies and spells. You can see it the other way around, now that you have a spell that does that, you can choose a different mastery to have more versatility.
That's all true, but Eldritch Knights are so strapped for spell slots - and 1st level slots are cheaper for every other spellcaster other than Arcane Tricksters - that in practice you're going to have concentration available quite often.
And weapon masteries are arguably less valuable than cantrips for an EK. You start with 3 mastered weapons, get a 4th one at level 4, and they can be swapped each day. Cantrips can only be changed once per level, and by the time you get a 3rd one, you'd also be getting a 5th mastered weapon and the ability to replace any mastery property with Push, Sap or Slow. If something can be done either way, it's better to do it through a weapon and leave your cantrips free for things mastery effects can't do.
I wouldn't burn one of my precious two cantrip slots on Shocking Grasp if I can just do the same thing by pulling out a warhammer; having Blade Ward means saving slots on Shield. At least Ray of Frost has range going for it and would stack with the Slow mastery effect.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
This is, again, an optimizing point of view. "At level 9 I can replace some weapon masteries with others whenever I attack", "If I don't use X or Y spells often, my concentration will be free", "This property stacks with this cantrip, so those work together".
This advice in the PHB is for people who haven't played the game. All these reasonings make sense for you because you know the game, you know what's coming later, you know what works in practice, etc. They don't. They're literally just learning the rules.
A warhammer doesn't do the same as Shocking Grasp. No weapon mastery does. Sure, in practice, sometimes it will have the same effect, which is being able to move away from the target without provoking an opportunity attack. But that kind of reasoning is not necessary for a beginner. The interaction between pushing someone and opportunity attacks is not in the description of the Push mastery. It's something you learn with experience. Not to mention that Shocking Grasp stops opportunity attacks, period, even if the target is at range of your allies. It also doesn't have a size limit. These are all intricacies that are very obvious to us, and we know if they'll be relevant or not in actual play. But if anyone is actually inexperienced enough to genuinely look at the suggestions and take them, then none of this is relevant yet. They'll learn as they play. I believe these suggestions are meant to help beginners learn how to play the game, not how to optimize their characters.
By the time they're an Eldritch Knight they've been playing with weapon masteries for 2 levels. "Wow I only get 2 cantrips, better make them count" is not a hard observation to make.
And that's exactly why they should recommend things for common cases.
The use case for Shocking Grasp is "a friend is in trouble and they don't have Shocking Grasp or another panic button like Shield and they're not willing to waste their action on Withdraw and I still haven't learned the value of Pushing or shoving." That's much narrower in scope than "spell that helps you get hit less" (something that comes up every fight), and thinking "if I use this they can save their action" is a non-obvious use that requires an optimizing mindset too. The naive play is to assume your ally will Withdraw (because that's what the rules teach you is the way to get out of range) or use it to run away yourself, which doesn't come up very often for Fighters.
It arguably does *more*, because not only can you usually avoid opportunity attacks that way, you can also break grapples or push them into hazards, and often end up costing them movement in the process (which is probably why it's easier to get Slow than Push). The size limit is a consideration later on, but there's not a whole lot of Huge creatures a 3rd level party can fight and survive.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
1) "I only get 2 cantrips, better make them count" is not a hard observation to make. But that's not what I meant. "These weapon masteries and these cantrips kind of overlap in practice, even though they don't actually do the same thing" is a much harder observation for a beginner.
2) That's not how they'll see Shocking Grasp. They're gonna see "I hit them AND they don't get opportunity attacks? Nice!" It doesn't have to go farther than that. It's a melee spell attack, which the probably have never done before. It's an attack that blocks opportunity attacks, which they also probably haven't seen before. That's it.
3) You really, REALLY need to start realizing what a beginner is going to think and know. "Push can avoid opportunity attacks, break grapples, push enemies into hazards, cost them movement, as a 3rd level party I expect we won't see Huge creatures because we wouldn't survive." What? Which beginner will ever think this? Don't get me wrong, yes, pushing is great and very flexible. I know that too. Beginners don't. They won't see the Push weapon mastery and think "Oh, this can do the same as Shocking Grasp and also these other things."