No, I was just saying, cantrips do okay damage compared to mind spike(usually), and are free... at 5th a firebolt would do 2d10, and scales as you go on, I am just saying it isn't broken or OP.
Yes thats what everybody thinks when he sees it but have you ever taken the time to calculate the damage? Furhter its concentration? Its a horrible spell and a trap for everybody who doesnt run the numbers. Even just cast magic missle and use toll the dead creates far more damage for the sama amount of turn you do your mind spike cascate but with the first approach you can concentrate on a good spell. The later this bad dps is all you do.
i am confused how often i see this build. Dont people calculate dps builds or do i have a error inmy calculation? I just did it in 5 min on excel, but the amount of spells at level 6 (22 spells) matched my analysis. As both mind spike and toll the dead use saving throws i ignored that. You cast a bit more magic missle which is auto hit. So changing it will even weaken mind spike cascate build even more?
They even do shitty damage compared to just cast magic missle and toll the dead. Calculated it this morning. Its like 20% worse compared to the mind spike, magic missle cascate. Try it for your self. Not ro mention the concentration.
weird that this build become so popular when checking takes 5 min in an excel. Maybe i did a mistake?
First and foremost, if you ever come across an enemy and you don’t ambush them, preferably with the damage type they are vulnerable to, THEN IT IS TIME TO REEVALUATE HOW YOU ARE PLAYING THE DIVINER. This goes double if you are the one ambushed.
Being optimally effective with a. Diviner is NOT about which spells you cast in combat. It is about which spells you cast before initiative is rolled. You embody the adage of defeating your enemy before drawing your sword.
Arcane Eye is cheap, You should always have one up.
Those spells which take a long time to cast, such as some summoning spells, YOU are the wizard subclass who can make best use of them.
Diviner in combat being properly supported by low Portent rolls should always look for controlling spells who didn’t allow start or end of turn saves. Things like Levitate, Fear and Hypnotic Pattern. In some scenarios, things like Hold Person or Slow can be useful as well, but the impact you can cause by Levitate a Dire Troll is huge.
If you have high rolls, I strongly suggest to make use of it to support an attack from a powerful ally (GWM Fighter/Barbarian, SS Fighter/Ranger, Paladin or Rogue) or if you are facing enemy casters, make sure to use your Portent roll in the save throw of your powerful ally — no one wants to see your uber Barbarian dominated by a Hag.
(Just a sidenote: Toll the Dead at level 5 (2d12) outclasses any level 1 blasting spell by a mile. Magic Missile avg damage is 9, but always hit. Chromatic Orb or Catapult avg dmg is 12, but costs precious spell slots. Toll the Dead is a WIS save (not bad), cantrip causing the same 12 avg dmg — FOR FREE. I rather save my level 1 slots for Shied, Absorb Elements and similar)
They even do shitty damage compared to just cast magic missle and toll the dead. Calculated it this morning. Its like 20% worse compared to the mind spike, magic missle cascate. Try it for your self. Not ro mention the concentration.
weird that this build become so popular when checking takes 5 min in an excel. Maybe i did a mistake?
Did you account for misses/saves? MM is auto-hit.
The real benefit of mind spike imo, is recovering lower level spell slots on short notice. Say you're a 7th level wizard. You've been through multiple encounters and you're low on spell slots. You can use Mind Spike to recover some lower level spell slots (while also dealing damage) which might make a huge impact. I doubt I will upcast it much, but for second level spells? I can cast tasha's hideous laughter at 2nd level for example...or I can cast mind spike, recover a 1st, and then on round 2 cast a tasha's hideous laughter to try and control the monster. the whole do nothing but spam MS and MM? I'm probably not doing that, but I would never make a div wizard without Mind Spike for the flexibility it gives me when resoueces are tight.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
I'm playing a divination wizard in a campaign starting soon (Today, Actually!). I planned to take two levels of fighter for action surge, and use it to quickly throw combos onto the battlefield like forcecage and sickening radiance, hold person and disintegrate, prismatic wall and levitate/reverse gravity. Doing this quickly makes sure people don't have a chance to escape or counter.
Needless to say, diviners are good at controlling enemies and allies with portent. They have many resources to use as well with the ability to regain spell slots when they cast divinations. So Manage your resources, Give a heavy-hitter ally like a paladin or a rogue a nice fortelling die, and don't forget to cast fireball!
People talk an awful lot about the power of Portent with good reason.
However, I’m coming around to the idea that the power of diviner’s is even more in the cheapness of casting Arcane Eye. That’s where Scry and Fry lives for mid-level characters.
As said that made maybe sense before toll the dead, but Toll the dead just does great damage for being a cantrip and mind spike does bad damage and even worse uses your concentration. Have to find my calculation, but the problem is just that mind spikes damage is bad and scales even worse. Also most spells do not scale that well and usually you are anyway better of using a spell at that level. So teh MM reduces the gap, but everytime you cast Mind spike instead of Toll the dead you loose damage if i remember correctly. And the deviation was huge.
Let me rephrase it. When you only cast magic missle and toll the dead against the mind spike MM build you always cast magic missle a level higher then the MiSp build. For example MM 2nd level + Toll the dead compared to 2nd level mind spike + 1st level MM. 2nd level magic missle does more damage then mind spike and toll the dead does in the beginnig less damage then MM, but after level 5 it does about the same and after the next bump does more damage than a 1st level MM. So the problem is that toll the dead is strong and casting MM instead of Mind spike upcast gives you more damage. It is pretty easy to see when you write it down, but pretty complicated to show what i mena jsut with words. Hope it was less confusing than writing it? :)
Did not save it, but usually yes i include to hit else it is not very usefull to calcualte for example the damage of sharpshooter with its -5 to accuracy but +10 to damage. And as both mind spike and toll teh dead use wisdom saves their hit chance is identical.
And as said when i first saw the spell i was completly hyped until i saw the average damage and was like, wow thats horrible (as his secondary effect is not very usefull) and when i found out its concentration i was like this spell is bad.
P.s. Do you get a notification when you get quoted. Was a huge coincidence that i found your question to my post?
As a Diviner wizard you could kill an army of gnolls just trapping them on a room, and put there a bunch of riddles...... Gonna be funny if, one hour later, you could spot an gnoll who still dosen't panic.
find a big monster. like really really big. like huge or bigger. at least bigger than a normal room in your dungeon. have your group use mid level abilities that need a save (to use up legendary resistances) then cast polymorph (true polymorph if you have it). and force a fail with portent. turn them into a glass ball. a hollow glass ball. keep it in your pocket. when you fight tghe scary dude you open the door and toss the ball through shattering it. and crushing the scary and the polymorhed monster.
if you have true polymporph and time you can have a ton of creature bombs. liken pokemon but you want both to die.\
i cant take credit for this entirely because i built on someone elses idea.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
This Mug immediately shared with me a transcendental tale of an Infinite Mug that anchors the Universe and keeps it from folding in on itself. I filed this report under "illogical nonsense" and asked why its sign is in Times New Roman font, when it is basic knowledge that Arial Black is a far superior font. I wondered: How did this mug even get past the assembly line with its theistic beliefs and poor font choices?
quote from Romantically Apocalyptic byVitaly S Alexius
find a big monster. like really really big. like huge or bigger. at least bigger than a normal room in your dungeon. have your group use mid level abilities that need a save (to use up legendary resistances) then cast polymorph (true polymorph if you have it). and force a fail with portent. turn them into a glass ball. a hollow glass ball. keep it in your pocket. when you fight tghe scary dude you open the door and toss the ball through shattering it. and crushing the scary and the polymorhed monster.
if you have true polymporph and time you can have a ton of creature bombs. liken pokemon but you want both to die.\
i cant take credit for this entirely because i built on someone elses idea.
find a big monster. like really really big. like huge or bigger. at least bigger than a normal room in your dungeon. have your group use mid level abilities that need a save (to use up legendary resistances) then cast polymorph (true polymorph if you have it). and force a fail with portent. turn them into a glass ball. a hollow glass ball. keep it in your pocket. when you fight tghe scary dude you open the door and toss the ball through shattering it. and crushing the scary and the polymorhed monster.
if you have true polymporph and time you can have a ton of creature bombs. liken pokemon but you want both to die.\
i cant take credit for this entirely because i built on someone elses idea.
Doesn't work with polymorph.
you can replace their saving throw with a failure
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
This Mug immediately shared with me a transcendental tale of an Infinite Mug that anchors the Universe and keeps it from folding in on itself. I filed this report under "illogical nonsense" and asked why its sign is in Times New Roman font, when it is basic knowledge that Arial Black is a far superior font. I wondered: How did this mug even get past the assembly line with its theistic beliefs and poor font choices?
quote from Romantically Apocalyptic byVitaly S Alexius
find a big monster. like really really big. like huge or bigger. at least bigger than a normal room in your dungeon. have your group use mid level abilities that need a save (to use up legendary resistances) then cast polymorph (true polymorph if you have it). and force a fail with portent. turn them into a glass ball. a hollow glass ball. keep it in your pocket. when you fight tghe scary dude you open the door and toss the ball through shattering it. and crushing the scary and the polymorhed monster.
if you have true polymporph and time you can have a ton of creature bombs. liken pokemon but you want both to die.\
i cant take credit for this entirely because i built on someone elses idea.
Doesn't work with polymorph.
you can replace their saving throw with a failure
Yea - but you can't turn them into an object with Polymorph.
find a big monster. like really really big. like huge or bigger. at least bigger than a normal room in your dungeon. have your group use mid level abilities that need a save (to use up legendary resistances) then cast polymorph (true polymorph if you have it). and force a fail with portent. turn them into a glass ball. a hollow glass ball. keep it in your pocket. when you fight tghe scary dude you open the door and toss the ball through shattering it. and crushing the scary and the polymorhed monster.
if you have true polymporph and time you can have a ton of creature bombs. liken pokemon but you want both to die.\
i cant take credit for this entirely because i built on someone elses idea.
Doesn't work with polymorph.
you can replace their saving throw with a failure
Yea - but you can't turn them into an object with Polymorph.
oof. forgot that. turn them into a small animal like sea horse or frog or something and put them in a jar
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
This Mug immediately shared with me a transcendental tale of an Infinite Mug that anchors the Universe and keeps it from folding in on itself. I filed this report under "illogical nonsense" and asked why its sign is in Times New Roman font, when it is basic knowledge that Arial Black is a far superior font. I wondered: How did this mug even get past the assembly line with its theistic beliefs and poor font choices?
quote from Romantically Apocalyptic byVitaly S Alexius
find a big monster. like really really big. like huge or bigger. at least bigger than a normal room in your dungeon. have your group use mid level abilities that need a save (to use up legendary resistances) then cast polymorph (true polymorph if you have it). and force a fail with portent. turn them into a glass ball. a hollow glass ball. keep it in your pocket. when you fight tghe scary dude you open the door and toss the ball through shattering it. and crushing the scary and the polymorhed monster.
if you have true polymporph and time you can have a ton of creature bombs. liken pokemon but you want both to die.\
i cant take credit for this entirely because i built on someone elses idea.
Doesn't work with polymorph.
you can replace their saving throw with a failure
Yea - but you can't turn them into an object with Polymorph.
oof. forgot that. turn them into a small animal like sea horse or frog or something and put them in a jar
Just make sure you throw the jar at something before that one hour is up. Otherwise you are in for a nasty surprise.
find a big monster. like really really big. like huge or bigger. at least bigger than a normal room in your dungeon. have your group use mid level abilities that need a save (to use up legendary resistances) then cast polymorph (true polymorph if you have it). and force a fail with portent. turn them into a glass ball. a hollow glass ball. keep it in your pocket. when you fight tghe scary dude you open the door and toss the ball through shattering it. and crushing the scary and the polymorhed monster.
if you have true polymporph and time you can have a ton of creature bombs. liken pokemon but you want both to die.\
i cant take credit for this entirely because i built on someone elses idea.
Doesn't work with polymorph.
you can replace their saving throw with a failure
Yea - but you can't turn them into an object with Polymorph.
oof. forgot that. turn them into a small animal like sea horse or frog or something and put them in a jar
Just make sure you throw the jar at something before that one hour is up. Otherwise you are in for a nasty surprise.
Polymorph only lasts for a hour. This would require a lot of planning ahead of time.
No, I was just saying, cantrips do okay damage compared to mind spike(usually), and are free... at 5th a firebolt would do 2d10, and scales as you go on, I am just saying it isn't broken or OP.
Yes thats what everybody thinks when he sees it but have you ever taken the time to calculate the damage? Furhter its concentration? Its a horrible spell and a trap for everybody who doesnt run the numbers. Even just cast magic missle and use toll the dead creates far more damage for the sama amount of turn you do your mind spike cascate but with the first approach you can concentrate on a good spell. The later this bad dps is all you do.
i am confused how often i see this build. Dont people calculate dps builds or do i have a error inmy calculation? I just did it in 5 min on excel, but the amount of spells at level 6 (22 spells) matched my analysis. As both mind spike and toll the dead use saving throws i ignored that. You cast a bit more magic missle which is auto hit. So changing it will even weaken mind spike cascate build even more?
They even do shitty damage compared to just cast magic missle and toll the dead. Calculated it this morning. Its like 20% worse compared to the mind spike, magic missle cascate. Try it for your self. Not ro mention the concentration.
weird that this build become so popular when checking takes 5 min in an excel. Maybe i did a mistake?
Getting back to the original question,
First and foremost, if you ever come across an enemy and you don’t ambush them, preferably with the damage type they are vulnerable to, THEN IT IS TIME TO REEVALUATE HOW YOU ARE PLAYING THE DIVINER. This goes double if you are the one ambushed.
Being optimally effective with a. Diviner is NOT about which spells you cast in combat. It is about which spells you cast before initiative is rolled. You embody the adage of defeating your enemy before drawing your sword.
Arcane Eye is cheap, You should always have one up.
Those spells which take a long time to cast, such as some summoning spells, YOU are the wizard subclass who can make best use of them.
Alertness and Observant are good feats for flavor
Diviner in combat being properly supported by low Portent rolls should always look for controlling spells who didn’t allow start or end of turn saves. Things like Levitate, Fear and Hypnotic Pattern. In some scenarios, things like Hold Person or Slow can be useful as well, but the impact you can cause by Levitate a Dire Troll is huge.
If you have high rolls, I strongly suggest to make use of it to support an attack from a powerful ally (GWM Fighter/Barbarian, SS Fighter/Ranger, Paladin or Rogue) or if you are facing enemy casters, make sure to use your Portent roll in the save throw of your powerful ally — no one wants to see your uber Barbarian dominated by a Hag.
(Just a sidenote: Toll the Dead at level 5 (2d12) outclasses any level 1 blasting spell by a mile. Magic Missile avg damage is 9, but always hit. Chromatic Orb or Catapult avg dmg is 12, but costs precious spell slots. Toll the Dead is a WIS save (not bad), cantrip causing the same 12 avg dmg — FOR FREE. I rather save my level 1 slots for Shied, Absorb Elements and similar)
Did you account for misses/saves? MM is auto-hit.
The real benefit of mind spike imo, is recovering lower level spell slots on short notice. Say you're a 7th level wizard. You've been through multiple encounters and you're low on spell slots. You can use Mind Spike to recover some lower level spell slots (while also dealing damage) which might make a huge impact. I doubt I will upcast it much, but for second level spells? I can cast tasha's hideous laughter at 2nd level for example...or I can cast mind spike, recover a 1st, and then on round 2 cast a tasha's hideous laughter to try and control the monster. the whole do nothing but spam MS and MM? I'm probably not doing that, but I would never make a div wizard without Mind Spike for the flexibility it gives me when resoueces are tight.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I'm playing a divination wizard in a campaign starting soon (Today, Actually!). I planned to take two levels of fighter for action surge, and use it to quickly throw combos onto the battlefield like forcecage and sickening radiance, hold person and disintegrate, prismatic wall and levitate/reverse gravity. Doing this quickly makes sure people don't have a chance to escape or counter.
Needless to say, diviners are good at controlling enemies and allies with portent. They have many resources to use as well with the ability to regain spell slots when they cast divinations. So Manage your resources, Give a heavy-hitter ally like a paladin or a rogue a nice fortelling die, and don't forget to cast fireball!
People talk an awful lot about the power of Portent with good reason.
However, I’m coming around to the idea that the power of diviner’s is even more in the cheapness of casting Arcane Eye. That’s where Scry and Fry lives for mid-level characters.
As said that made maybe sense before toll the dead, but Toll the dead just does great damage for being a cantrip and mind spike does bad damage and even worse uses your concentration. Have to find my calculation, but the problem is just that mind spikes damage is bad and scales even worse. Also most spells do not scale that well and usually you are anyway better of using a spell at that level. So teh MM reduces the gap, but everytime you cast Mind spike instead of Toll the dead you loose damage if i remember correctly. And the deviation was huge.
Let me rephrase it. When you only cast magic missle and toll the dead against the mind spike MM build you always cast magic missle a level higher then the MiSp build. For example MM 2nd level + Toll the dead compared to 2nd level mind spike + 1st level MM. 2nd level magic missle does more damage then mind spike and toll the dead does in the beginnig less damage then MM, but after level 5 it does about the same and after the next bump does more damage than a 1st level MM. So the problem is that toll the dead is strong and casting MM instead of Mind spike upcast gives you more damage. It is pretty easy to see when you write it down, but pretty complicated to show what i mena jsut with words. Hope it was less confusing than writing it? :)
Did not save it, but usually yes i include to hit else it is not very usefull to calcualte for example the damage of sharpshooter with its -5 to accuracy but +10 to damage. And as both mind spike and toll teh dead use wisdom saves their hit chance is identical.
And as said when i first saw the spell i was completly hyped until i saw the average damage and was like, wow thats horrible (as his secondary effect is not very usefull) and when i found out its concentration i was like this spell is bad.
P.s. Do you get a notification when you get quoted. Was a huge coincidence that i found your question to my post?
As a Diviner wizard you could kill an army of gnolls just trapping them on a room, and put there a bunch of riddles......
Gonna be funny if, one hour later, you could spot an gnoll who still dosen't panic.
My Ready-to-rock&roll chars:
Dertinus Tristany // Amilcar Barca // Vicenç Sacrarius // Oriol Deulofeu // Grovtuk
find a big monster. like really really big. like huge or bigger. at least bigger than a normal room in your dungeon. have your group use mid level abilities that need a save (to use up legendary resistances) then cast polymorph (true polymorph if you have it). and force a fail with portent. turn them into a glass ball. a hollow glass ball. keep it in your pocket. when you fight tghe scary dude you open the door and toss the ball through shattering it. and crushing the scary and the polymorhed monster.
if you have true polymporph and time you can have a ton of creature bombs. liken pokemon but you want both to die.\
i cant take credit for this entirely because i built on someone elses idea.
This Mug immediately shared with me a transcendental tale of an Infinite Mug that anchors the Universe and keeps it from folding in on itself. I filed this report under "illogical nonsense" and asked why its sign is in Times New Roman font, when it is basic knowledge that Arial Black is a far superior font. I wondered: How did this mug even get past the assembly line with its theistic beliefs and poor font choices?
quote from Romantically Apocalyptic by Vitaly S Alexius
Doesn't work with polymorph.
you can replace their saving throw with a failure
This Mug immediately shared with me a transcendental tale of an Infinite Mug that anchors the Universe and keeps it from folding in on itself. I filed this report under "illogical nonsense" and asked why its sign is in Times New Roman font, when it is basic knowledge that Arial Black is a far superior font. I wondered: How did this mug even get past the assembly line with its theistic beliefs and poor font choices?
quote from Romantically Apocalyptic by Vitaly S Alexius
Yea - but you can't turn them into an object with Polymorph.
Mega Yahtzee Thread:
Highest 41: brocker2001 (#11,285).
Yahtzee of 2's: Emmber (#36,161).
Lowest 9: JoeltheWalrus (#312), Emmber (#12,505) and Dertinus (#20,953).
oof. forgot that. turn them into a small animal like sea horse or frog or something and put them in a jar
This Mug immediately shared with me a transcendental tale of an Infinite Mug that anchors the Universe and keeps it from folding in on itself. I filed this report under "illogical nonsense" and asked why its sign is in Times New Roman font, when it is basic knowledge that Arial Black is a far superior font. I wondered: How did this mug even get past the assembly line with its theistic beliefs and poor font choices?
quote from Romantically Apocalyptic by Vitaly S Alexius
Just make sure you throw the jar at something before that one hour is up. Otherwise you are in for a nasty surprise.
Polymorph only lasts for a hour. This would require a lot of planning ahead of time.