My favorite wizard so far (and is probably far from optimal) was a mountain dwarf war wizard with warcaster so he could hold a shield & also cast shield. At 10, they pick up the extra 2 AC while concentrating - so between blur, mirror image, the shield, AC boost from subclass & shield spell they can be decently hard to hit directly. Then depending on how you feel about multiclassing - either pick up one level of Forge Cleric for the heavy armor prof or the feat for heavy armor prof at 4 - and your base AC is 20 without any shielding (21 as forge cleric if you put blessing of the forge on your armor). With shield of faith, that puts you at max 30 (21+2+2+5) for straight AC, or 28 if you use blur for the DA.
Still has a decent initiative without any dex as well from war wizard.
I hope you started your character as a Cleric because you favorite Mountain Dwarf War Wizard cannot cast the Shield spell while donning a shield.
My favorite wizard so far (and is probably far from optimal) was a mountain dwarf war wizard with warcaster so he could hold a shield & also cast shield. At 10, they pick up the extra 2 AC while concentrating - so between blur, mirror image, the shield, AC boost from subclass & shield spell they can be decently hard to hit directly. Then depending on how you feel about multiclassing - either pick up one level of Forge Cleric for the heavy armor prof or the feat for heavy armor prof at 4 - and your base AC is 20 without any shielding (21 as forge cleric if you put blessing of the forge on your armor). With shield of faith, that puts you at max 30 (21+2+2+5) for straight AC, or 28 if you use blur for the DA.
Still has a decent initiative without any dex as well from war wizard.
I hope you started your character as a Cleric because you favorite Mountain Dwarf War Wizard cannot cast the Shield spell while donning a shield.
In the multiclass version, yea I did. But why would that restriction be a thing? I don't see anything about a limitation on the Shield spell. Warcaster specifically calls out being able to cast even while holding a shield, so not sure why I wouldn't be able to cast it.
EDIT: Got it, lacking the proficiency in shields - yea that would check out. Didn't click in my head since I started out with forge right off the bat to start with the high ac requirement. Took a moment to click. That being said, it looks like you pick up the shield proficiency at any point that you pick up cleric though - so could always start as a wizard and strap the shield on whenever you multiclass.
At that point we are just creating a tank, not a wizard tank. I have respect for any good tank build, but here we are trying to make a wizard tank, not a cleric with shield tank. Nice, but stretches this a bit
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Thematically a bladesinger turtle is nonsense. But hey, aside from that side note, mechanically it's an interesting option to make yourself a str bladesinger. You're also not going to win much more than you do with a typical bladesinger either. True, it saves you the need to max out your dex (and mage armor). But you're still going to need a good str (or dex if you're going that route). And in absolute terms, with maxed dex and int, the typical bladesinger is going to have 1 point more AC (with mage armor, of course). And the subject of the mage armor, is a level 1 spell slot every 8 hours. Doesn't seem like much of a savings to me.
I'm also going to tell you one thing that a lot of players don't think about, and they come across it when they're already playing Bladesinger. The bladesinger is not to be in melee all the time. He's a wizard who can get into melee, of course. But he's still a wizard, not a frontliner. Can you hold on to the front lines? Yes, but you shouldn't aim to be the party tank.
At that point we are just creating a tank, not a wizard tank. I have respect for any good tank build, but here we are trying to make a wizard tank, not a cleric with shield tank. Nice, but stretches this a bit
That's fair. Same can be done by picking up medium armor master as a feat to keep out all multiclassing.
Take both, cast the better one for the fight. Blur for groups and multiattacks, mirror image for big single strikes with high attack bonuses or combining with other concentration spells. Mirror image came to mind first because another player absorbed 6 attacks in one fight with the spell, tipping it so that we barely won. The boss had over 20 ac and 100 hp for level 4 players. 1 minute durations had to be reactivated mid-fight.
Yes for blur vs mirror image.
Another spell to consider once you hit 5th level: haste - adv on dex saves, double movement and a bonus action for either another attack or disengage if you need to flee.
Yes haste. Will do more as bladesinger than the other two subclasses. Wizards can be better at not dying than one would expect if they give much up to do that.
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Haste is always a good spell. However, concentration must always be taken into account. For example, in the mirror image vs blur discussion, the thing to keep in mind is what other concentration spells you plan to use when you have access to level 2 spells. If you plan to regularly use another concentration spell (e.g. Shadow Blade if you are bladesinger), better mirror image.
For tanking with a wizard, my preferred option is an abjuration Mark of Warding Dwarf. Arcane Ward + Armor of Agathys is an amazing combo to tank. You can also cast "free" mage armor once a day. If your DM won't let you use marks because you don't play in Eberron (which makes sense), an abjuration Mountain Dwarf can work just fine. But the Mark of Warding dwarf seems to me to be an infinitely better option for tanking.
Good idea! Magic initiate in warlock achieves the same thing if not as well. That also allows it to work with mountain dwarf (heavily armored feat too because 18 ac with 3 dex) or tortle (17 with neither feat nor dex) for nice effect. Sadly only works once per day for magic initiate. If we are using setting specific stuff, strixhaven initiate brings us shield of faith with lorehold or silverquill (I have been wanting to do a strixhaven campaign but not with those colleges). To be honest, setting specific stuff allows a lot of shenanigans, but they should be allowed anyway. Warding mark with armor of Agathys and abjuration is the best hp tank I have seen so far, even if its ac falls short of tortle bladesinger’s 22 pre-magic.
(Note, autocorrect is dumb. Reinforces the common mistake of its-it’s, among countless other issues)
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Warding mark with strixhaven(lorehold or silverquill) is our current tank champion. Almost no campaign would allow this because it combines content specific to two different settings, but the goal is not being legal everywhere. Keep in mind no blur+shield of faith because both require concentration. Armor of agathys will frequently be upcast.
edit: the dm can put strixhaven inside eberron and strixhaven’s book would be fine with it. That is probably the only scenario where I can see the dm letting the player do this. Take the background, because strixhaven backgrounds are op. Lorehold would be my pick purely for thematic reasons, but nothing is mechanically wrong for this build with silverquill
Hexblade 1 / Abjurer X is probably the tankiest Wizard ever. Medium armor and shield proficiency, the combination to Armor of Agathys and Arcane Ward and of course access to Absorb Elements and Shield!
You can achieve the same with a Mark of Warding Dwarf, but you would lose armor proficiency.
I think that that is a good build, but I said this already about a forge cleric multiclass. At that point it’s just a tank.
Your other observations are similar to the best of what was already found, warding mark abjurer. If the dm somehow allows Eberron content and Strixhaven content in one campaign, then the lorehold and silverquill backgrounds add shield of faith, and I think the strixhaven should be assumed until someone finds a better way to do the same thing
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I think the problem you are going to run into is dex saves. As an 8 dex tortle wizard you are going to pretty much fail all of them unless you get resilient and even with absorb elements you don;t have enough hps to take AOE damage repeatedly.
Your AC is better than a single-class bladesinger, but not by a whole lot. And if you can get magic studded leather you can actually be behind where a more traditional bladesinger would be .... on the other hand bracers of defense would give you a huge boost that one could not get with magic armor.
In bladesong your weapon damage would be the same as a bladesinger. If you multiclassed into something with martial weapon proficiency or if you got weapons with your race there might be an advantage to a strength build because you could use a variety of weapons, but on a straight wizard it really does not matter since you only get one martial weapon whether that is a rapier, longsword, warhammer or morning star doesn't really matter.
Hexblade 1 / Abjurer X is probably the tankiest Wizard ever. Medium armor and shield proficiency, the combination to Armor of Agathys and Arcane Ward and of course access to Absorb Elements and Shield!
You can achieve the same with a Mark of Warding Dwarf, but you would lose armor proficiency.
I don't think it matches up with an optimized bladesinger. IME a Bladesinger bult to tank is the best tank in the game short of a Bear Totem Barbarian in tier 2 and it is even better than that once you hit the middle of tier 3. Mage Armor and bladesong is going to give you a substantially better AC than medium armor and a shield will, enough to make up for the hit points under the arcane ward. This is even more so when you have to take warcaster to use shield spell while using a shield and weapon, while a bladesinger can take an ASI pulling even further ahead.
Upcast AOA is better than upcast false life, but only if you get hit and you should not be getting hit enough for that to matter. If you don't get hit it is roughly same as false life (slightly behind actually). I am playing a 7-2 Bladesinger-Undead Warlock with AOA and I don't think she has managed to ever get the damage from AOA. She has been to low hps and she has been downed once, but she has never had AOA fire and actually damage someone else.
Mark of warding dwarf is the clear tank favorite here. Abjurer and bladesinger are the two best wizard tanks followed by abjurer. They are good at tanking different sources of damage, since one is an ho tank and the other is an ac tank. War wizards made a showing with “negation tank”, but it does not beat the other two.
Assuming mage armor, shield spell, 20 dex, 20 int, and shield of faith from strixhaven background, that is 30 ac! This is no joke. That is among the highest you can get without artificer infusion stacking or ultra-gimmicky multiclass builds that sacrifice everything for that ac. Still won’t out-tank a totem barb because save damage exists, but the tarrasque needs an 11 to hit, compared to a 2 on a fighter with plate and a shield. Pretty good.
see above for strix background. If you can think of a better level 1 spell to cast with a strixhaven background, please tell the forum.
Also, a thing abjurers can do: get alarm, ritual cast it, and the ward gains 2 hp. Do this every 11 minutes to gain ward without spending slots. Seems like an oversight, but it works, and I don’t think it was corrected, so it is RAW.
Guys, we cannot assume INT 20, DEX 20 and actually think that a high-level Wizard will spend his concentration slot in Shield of Faith when you have the best spells in the game that can win encounters available. Realistically, this Bladesinger will probably have 16 DEX, 18 INT for most of his career. Going to 18 DEX or 20 INT at level 8. Also, although a high AC is quite great, you are still a d6 HP class with probably no less than 14 in CON. A lucky Toll the Dead from an enemy can kill you right away. A failed DEX save against a elemental/hazard spell can kill you — unfortunately not everything can be countered by Absorb Elements.
That’s why the Hexjurer combination, in my personal opinion, is far superior the best tank Wizard. You still have a solid AC of 19 (always on) that can reach 24 with Shield spell, but more than that, you have a super effective damage mitigation mechanism that actually improves with Armor of Agathys, offering reliable retributive damage against melee enemies and it’s a easily renewable resource with careful planned Abjuration spell selection. And you don’t need to waste your concentration. And you don’t need to have 20 DEX and 20 INT. You are fully online and doing amazing things since level 3 and you don’t need to worry about rests, because you can refresh your Arcane Ward for free with Alarm ritual.
Bladesong is prof per long rest, what your Bladesinger will do once he is running out of this ability? Not only the AC bonus, but because your Bladesinger invested all his ASIs to increase both DEX and INT, he probably doesn’t have any feat to boost concentration rolls, so without Bladesong you are doomed.
Let's focus. What makes a character a good tank? A high AC? No, that just prevents them from hitting you directly. There are many things that can harm you without worrying about your AC. What makes a good tank is damage resistance, and high health. AC helps, of course, but no matter how high you get it, you're not going to last long in the front line as a bladesinger. The bladesinger can be many things, but it's not a good tank. Of all the combinations that the game offers, the best possible tank is a barbarian druid. We are not going to go into that, since it's not what the thread is about, but it's to understand how we can make the best wizard tank. And, as said, the best combination for a wizard tank is an abjurer with armor of agathys (however you get it). The amount of temporary points you get with that combination, you will not be able to get with any other wizard. Also, you're going to be recharging your arcane ward every time you cast an abjuration spell, which is going to be often if you want to tank. Absorb elements and shield are going to be the most common (in addition to your armor of agathys), but also with higher level spells like counterspell. Ultimately, if you want to play a bladesinger it's fine. It's a good subclass, and it's a lot of fun. But soon you will realize that it is not a tank, and that you cannot be in melee all the time. The abjurer with armor of agathys, while not the best tank in the game either, can fill that role much better than a bladesinger. And it certainly is the best tank the wizard class has to offer.
If you could add 1 1st level spell to the wizard’s list that was not from warlock, what would you pick? For strixhaven backgrounds, which allow you to cast 1 first level spell once per day free and use your spell slots for it too. Also, no strixhaven background lets you get a warlock spell.
Yeah, everything you said has been found by other people, abjurer with armor of agathys from mark of warding.
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If you could add 1 1st level spell to the wizard’s list that was not from warlock, what would you pick? For strixhaven backgrounds, which allow you to cast 1 first level spell once per day free and use your spell slots for it too. Also, no strixhaven background lets you get a warlock spell.
Yeah, everything you said has been found by other people, abjurer with armor of agathys from mark of warding.
Sanctuary might be a fun little trick to have up your sleeve as a Abjuration Wizard. It helps recharge your Ward and can help protect somebody that's getting mugged (including yourself lol). Best of all it does not require concentration and is a Bonus Action spell meaning you can hit somebody with a cantrip beforehand if you need to cast it on yourself.
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I hope you started your character as a Cleric because you favorite Mountain Dwarf War Wizard cannot cast the Shield spell while donning a shield.
In the multiclass version, yea I did. But why would that restriction be a thing? I don't see anything about a limitation on the Shield spell. Warcaster specifically calls out being able to cast even while holding a shield, so not sure why I wouldn't be able to cast it.
EDIT: Got it, lacking the proficiency in shields - yea that would check out. Didn't click in my head since I started out with forge right off the bat to start with the high ac requirement. Took a moment to click. That being said, it looks like you pick up the shield proficiency at any point that you pick up cleric though - so could always start as a wizard and strap the shield on whenever you multiclass.
At that point we are just creating a tank, not a wizard tank. I have respect for any good tank build, but here we are trying to make a wizard tank, not a cleric with shield tank. Nice, but stretches this a bit
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Thematically a bladesinger turtle is nonsense.
But hey, aside from that side note, mechanically it's an interesting option to make yourself a str bladesinger. You're also not going to win much more than you do with a typical bladesinger either. True, it saves you the need to max out your dex (and mage armor). But you're still going to need a good str (or dex if you're going that route). And in absolute terms, with maxed dex and int, the typical bladesinger is going to have 1 point more AC (with mage armor, of course). And the subject of the mage armor, is a level 1 spell slot every 8 hours. Doesn't seem like much of a savings to me.
I'm also going to tell you one thing that a lot of players don't think about, and they come across it when they're already playing Bladesinger. The bladesinger is not to be in melee all the time. He's a wizard who can get into melee, of course. But he's still a wizard, not a frontliner. Can you hold on to the front lines? Yes, but you shouldn't aim to be the party tank.
That's fair. Same can be done by picking up medium armor master as a feat to keep out all multiclassing.
Moderately armored, not medium armor master, but yes. Or mountain dwarf and heavily armored feat abjuration wizard.
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Yes for blur vs mirror image.
Another spell to consider once you hit 5th level: haste - adv on dex saves, double movement and a bonus action for either another attack or disengage if you need to flee.
Yes haste. Will do more as bladesinger than the other two subclasses. Wizards can be better at not dying than one would expect if they give much up to do that.
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Haste is always a good spell. However, concentration must always be taken into account. For example, in the mirror image vs blur discussion, the thing to keep in mind is what other concentration spells you plan to use when you have access to level 2 spells. If you plan to regularly use another concentration spell (e.g. Shadow Blade if you are bladesinger), better mirror image.
For tanking with a wizard, my preferred option is an abjuration Mark of Warding Dwarf. Arcane Ward + Armor of Agathys is an amazing combo to tank. You can also cast "free" mage armor once a day. If your DM won't let you use marks because you don't play in Eberron (which makes sense), an abjuration Mountain Dwarf can work just fine. But the Mark of Warding dwarf seems to me to be an infinitely better option for tanking.
Good idea! Magic initiate in warlock achieves the same thing if not as well. That also allows it to work with mountain dwarf (heavily armored feat too because 18 ac with 3 dex) or tortle (17 with neither feat nor dex) for nice effect. Sadly only works once per day for magic initiate. If we are using setting specific stuff, strixhaven initiate brings us shield of faith with lorehold or silverquill (I have been wanting to do a strixhaven campaign but not with those colleges). To be honest, setting specific stuff allows a lot of shenanigans, but they should be allowed anyway. Warding mark with armor of Agathys and abjuration is the best hp tank I have seen so far, even if its ac falls short of tortle bladesinger’s 22 pre-magic.
(Note, autocorrect is dumb. Reinforces the common mistake of its-it’s, among countless other issues)
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Warding mark with strixhaven(lorehold or silverquill) is our current tank champion. Almost no campaign would allow this because it combines content specific to two different settings, but the goal is not being legal everywhere. Keep in mind no blur+shield of faith because both require concentration. Armor of agathys will frequently be upcast.
edit: the dm can put strixhaven inside eberron and strixhaven’s book would be fine with it. That is probably the only scenario where I can see the dm letting the player do this. Take the background, because strixhaven backgrounds are op. Lorehold would be my pick purely for thematic reasons, but nothing is mechanically wrong for this build with silverquill
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Hexblade 1 / Abjurer X is probably the tankiest Wizard ever. Medium armor and shield proficiency, the combination to Armor of Agathys and Arcane Ward and of course access to Absorb Elements and Shield!
You can achieve the same with a Mark of Warding Dwarf, but you would lose armor proficiency.
I think that that is a good build, but I said this already about a forge cleric multiclass. At that point it’s just a tank.
Your other observations are similar to the best of what was already found, warding mark abjurer. If the dm somehow allows Eberron content and Strixhaven content in one campaign, then the lorehold and silverquill backgrounds add shield of faith, and I think the strixhaven should be assumed until someone finds a better way to do the same thing
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I think the problem you are going to run into is dex saves. As an 8 dex tortle wizard you are going to pretty much fail all of them unless you get resilient and even with absorb elements you don;t have enough hps to take AOE damage repeatedly.
Your AC is better than a single-class bladesinger, but not by a whole lot. And if you can get magic studded leather you can actually be behind where a more traditional bladesinger would be .... on the other hand bracers of defense would give you a huge boost that one could not get with magic armor.
In bladesong your weapon damage would be the same as a bladesinger. If you multiclassed into something with martial weapon proficiency or if you got weapons with your race there might be an advantage to a strength build because you could use a variety of weapons, but on a straight wizard it really does not matter since you only get one martial weapon whether that is a rapier, longsword, warhammer or morning star doesn't really matter.
I don't think it matches up with an optimized bladesinger. IME a Bladesinger bult to tank is the best tank in the game short of a Bear Totem Barbarian in tier 2 and it is even better than that once you hit the middle of tier 3. Mage Armor and bladesong is going to give you a substantially better AC than medium armor and a shield will, enough to make up for the hit points under the arcane ward. This is even more so when you have to take warcaster to use shield spell while using a shield and weapon, while a bladesinger can take an ASI pulling even further ahead.
Upcast AOA is better than upcast false life, but only if you get hit and you should not be getting hit enough for that to matter. If you don't get hit it is roughly same as false life (slightly behind actually). I am playing a 7-2 Bladesinger-Undead Warlock with AOA and I don't think she has managed to ever get the damage from AOA. She has been to low hps and she has been downed once, but she has never had AOA fire and actually damage someone else.
Mark of warding dwarf is the clear tank favorite here. Abjurer and bladesinger are the two best wizard tanks followed by abjurer. They are good at tanking different sources of damage, since one is an ho tank and the other is an ac tank. War wizards made a showing with “negation tank”, but it does not beat the other two.
Assuming mage armor, shield spell, 20 dex, 20 int, and shield of faith from strixhaven background, that is 30 ac! This is no joke. That is among the highest you can get without artificer infusion stacking or ultra-gimmicky multiclass builds that sacrifice everything for that ac. Still won’t out-tank a totem barb because save damage exists, but the tarrasque needs an 11 to hit, compared to a 2 on a fighter with plate and a shield. Pretty good.
see above for strix background. If you can think of a better level 1 spell to cast with a strixhaven background, please tell the forum.
Also, a thing abjurers can do: get alarm, ritual cast it, and the ward gains 2 hp. Do this every 11 minutes to gain ward without spending slots. Seems like an oversight, but it works, and I don’t think it was corrected, so it is RAW.
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Guys, we cannot assume INT 20, DEX 20 and actually think that a high-level Wizard will spend his concentration slot in Shield of Faith when you have the best spells in the game that can win encounters available. Realistically, this Bladesinger will probably have 16 DEX, 18 INT for most of his career. Going to 18 DEX or 20 INT at level 8.
Also, although a high AC is quite great, you are still a d6 HP class with probably no less than 14 in CON. A lucky Toll the Dead from an enemy can kill you right away. A failed DEX save against a elemental/hazard spell can kill you — unfortunately not everything can be countered by Absorb Elements.
That’s why the Hexjurer combination, in my personal opinion, is far superior the best tank Wizard. You still have a solid AC of 19 (always on) that can reach 24 with Shield spell, but more than that, you have a super effective damage mitigation mechanism that actually improves with Armor of Agathys, offering reliable retributive damage against melee enemies and it’s a easily renewable resource with careful planned Abjuration spell selection. And you don’t need to waste your concentration. And you don’t need to have 20 DEX and 20 INT. You are fully online and doing amazing things since level 3 and you don’t need to worry about rests, because you can refresh your Arcane Ward for free with Alarm ritual.
Bladesong is prof per long rest, what your Bladesinger will do once he is running out of this ability? Not only the AC bonus, but because your Bladesinger invested all his ASIs to increase both DEX and INT, he probably doesn’t have any feat to boost concentration rolls, so without Bladesong you are doomed.
Let's focus. What makes a character a good tank? A high AC? No, that just prevents them from hitting you directly. There are many things that can harm you without worrying about your AC.
What makes a good tank is damage resistance, and high health. AC helps, of course, but no matter how high you get it, you're not going to last long in the front line as a bladesinger. The bladesinger can be many things, but it's not a good tank.
Of all the combinations that the game offers, the best possible tank is a barbarian druid. We are not going to go into that, since it's not what the thread is about, but it's to understand how we can make the best wizard tank. And, as said, the best combination for a wizard tank is an abjurer with armor of agathys (however you get it). The amount of temporary points you get with that combination, you will not be able to get with any other wizard. Also, you're going to be recharging your arcane ward every time you cast an abjuration spell, which is going to be often if you want to tank. Absorb elements and shield are going to be the most common (in addition to your armor of agathys), but also with higher level spells like counterspell.
Ultimately, if you want to play a bladesinger it's fine. It's a good subclass, and it's a lot of fun. But soon you will realize that it is not a tank, and that you cannot be in melee all the time.
The abjurer with armor of agathys, while not the best tank in the game either, can fill that role much better than a bladesinger. And it certainly is the best tank the wizard class has to offer.
If you could add 1 1st level spell to the wizard’s list that was not from warlock, what would you pick? For strixhaven backgrounds, which allow you to cast 1 first level spell once per day free and use your spell slots for it too. Also, no strixhaven background lets you get a warlock spell.
Yeah, everything you said has been found by other people, abjurer with armor of agathys from mark of warding.
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Sanctuary might be a fun little trick to have up your sleeve as a Abjuration Wizard. It helps recharge your Ward and can help protect somebody that's getting mugged (including yourself lol). Best of all it does not require concentration and is a Bonus Action spell meaning you can hit somebody with a cantrip beforehand if you need to cast it on yourself.