I've seen lots of fights over the internet about whose better, Wizard or Sorcerer? Most people say Wizard, but I want a good solid response. I also added Warlock for the sake that I like using melee cantrips and the ones in SCAG are for Warlocks Wizards and Sorcerers. So people out there! What's the best in overall utility? Warlock, Wizard, or Sorcerer?
Instead of asking which is more powerful, have you considered which class better fits your character's personality, history, etc? Considering all of your posts asking about liches and this post asking which is "strongest", I'm assuming this a factor in your character's motivations.
Stripping away the superficial aspects, and for the sake of discussion this includes race, whether or not you are or wish to become a lich, and before you have even chosen a class, you and by extension your character wants power. Like what I said in a reply in one of your other 4 threads if I noticed this trait in one of my players we would have a long discussion about what we both expect from playing this game together.
I highly recommend talking to your DM so you understand how they plan to run their game as well as expressing what you would like from the game and come to an understanding. If your DM is anything like me, no one gains power lightly in my games. You have to earn it, you have to roleplay for it, and the type of power you gain as well as how you achieve it has consequences.
Without knowing more about your DM, the best advice I can give is deciding "how" you plan to achieve that power.
A wizard is intelligent and studious, they very much "earn" their power through years of hard work, possibly through deception, or if they don't have the power they desire beyond what their school or mentor is able or willing to pass on, then they go on adventures to find the hidden power that has been lost in the ruins of an ancient civilization or hoarded by other, more powerful wizards.
A sorcerer was born with their power and they may be afraid of their power as they are unable to control it, relish in their power and desiring more, or anywhere in between. Whether they need to find ways to control it and/or gain more, adventuring provides the means for doing so. They are also more likely to be feared specfically because they tend to lack the formal training of an established institution of wizards, and are almost universally unregulated. (this is general D&D lore and may not reflect individual campaigns).
A warlockmade a deal to gain their power with a powerful entity. From the perspective of a power-hungry spellcaster, this is the "easy" path to power in terms of story. The warlock has no innate ability like the sorcerer, and story-wise you don't "choose" to be one so if they want that power and weren't born with they're SOL. And, frankly, being a wizard is just too much work. Why spend years pouring through dusty tomes and listening to crusty old neckbeards droning on in lectures when all I have to do is sell my soul to an infernal being to shoot eldritch energy from my fingertips?
Again, the above is making a lot of assumptions about your DM's style and whether or not the two of you come to the understanding that you don't just become a powerful character cause you want to and that you're going to put some effort into building a narrative and exploring your character's motives, strengths, weaknesses, etc.
Sure. I'm willing to indulge, if primarily because I enjoy analytical breakdowns like this more than I maybe should.
Conventional wisdom holds that the wizard is the most powerful arcane caster/best utility class, simply because spell count is power for utility casters and wizards have an unrivaled spell list. Wizards at any level can prepare more spells than a sorcerer knows unless the wizard somehow has a negative intelligence modifier, and a wizard's spellbook allows them to keep a huge variety of options on tap. Playing a wizard necessitates some degree of reading the game's future, and you can get caught with the 'wrong' spells prepared, but most wizards will have a solid battery of core spells they almost always have ready to fall back on. Arcane Recovery means they have more spell slots than most any other character, and wizards have the benefit of their chosen School of Whatever specialization being more of a suggestion than a rule. Most players consider the wizard to be the baseline by which all other casters are judged, and most are judged wanting.
Sorcerers have the lowest Spells Known count of all the full arcane casters and do not have any method of increasing that count outside of homebrew. They share the wizard's shitty d6 hit dice and utter lack of combat proficiencies, being as terrible at frontline combat as any bearded stickman. Ostensibly they make up for this with Metamagic, allowing them to do things with their spells that no other class can. Sorcerers can use Metamagic to cast spells without any visible or audible clues, they can double their casting with either Twinned or Quickened spells, they can impose disadvantage on critical saves, and a few other nichey-but-potent options. Their subclass features also tend to be more relevant and powerful than the Arcane Tradition features of wizards, to help balance out their lower spell count. Most players consider straight sorcerers to be weaker than straight wizards, but sorcerer is also the King of Multiclassing and doesn't tend to stay sorcerer in a munchkin game.
Warlocks are an entirely different beast. Their spells known count is low and stops at fifth-level magic (their Mystic Arcanums are an entirely different beast), and even a max-level warlock only gets four casts. All of their spells fire at maximum slot level though and they regain them on short rest, which makes managing warlock resources and even selecting warlock spells an entirely different game than either wizard or sorcerer (or bard, for that matter). Warlocks also have a d8 hit die and basic armor and weapon proficiencies, on top of the ability to configure for martial combat via certain Pact and Invocation combinations. They're really not directly comparable to full casters at all; warlocks can be extremely powerful, but only when they're built as warlocks and not as "whacky eldritch wizards!" or "whacky eldritch sorcerizers!"
Personally? I love warlocks and I strongly prefer sorcerers to wizards, but I also go heavy into the thematics for my characters, and wizards tend to have pretty weak thematics unless you really push it. A wizard's power comes from sheer versatility, a sorcerer's power comes from well-chosen and well-played Metamagic amplifying key casts, and a warlock's power comes from recognizing what your warlock is supposed to be and catering their spells and invocations to that role (as well as realizing that there's no point in warlocks keeping lower-level spells they don't need anymore). All three can be quite potent, it depends more on what your character is supposed to be than anything else.
If you're just asking "who would win in a fight under ideal min/max conditions", the answer is probably the Wizard. They simply have the largest bag of tricks, the most spell slots, etc.
Sorcerer isn't far behind, though. Clever use of Metamagic can give them the edge in very key situations... a smartly run Sorcerer can juggle their sorcery points and spell slots to get the edge when the more straightforward Wizard is relying on just spells.
Warlocks are more like the wild card in this situation. They don't have the spell slots to keep up with the other two, so they'd have to make the choice of whether to burn those slots on a couple of counterspells, or hit a powerful attack at a key moment. But their Eldritch invocations make them wildly unpredictable, and the fact that they have more valid melee options means they're the most likely to cut through the BS and just roll up on the other two and smack them around. If you're tempted by the SCAG melee cantrips, a Hexblade Warlock is the best class for that.
I've seen lots of fights over the internet about whose better, Wizard or Sorcerer? Most people say Wizard, but I want a good solid response. I also added Warlock for the sake that I like using melee cantrips and the ones in SCAG are for Warlocks Wizards and Sorcerers. So people out there! What's the best in overall utility? Warlock, Wizard, or Sorcerer?
Each of these classes have their own strengths. Wizards are the ultimate in utility. Sorcerers can get the most out of their limited known spells. Warlocks are very, very customisable.
One challenge to Warlocks (which is my favorite class to play, btw) is that they are very dependent on regular short rests to stay effective. If your DM is not one to allow a lot of short rests (standard is 2 per long rest) then playing a warlock can get very frustrating very quickly.
that said, a warlock of the undying might be a good avenue to lichdom and it’s subclass features lend towards a similar type experience
One challenge to Warlocks (which is my favorite class to play, btw) is that they are very dependent on regular short rests to stay effective. If your DM is not one to allow a lot of short rests (standard is 2 per long rest) then playing a warlock can get very frustrating very quickly.
that said, a warlock of the undying might be a good avenue to lichdom and it’s subclass features lend towards a similar type experience
That being said if you have a Barbarian in your party who is partial to being bribed with beer and pig snacks, then he can carry you from place to place. I managed to get a short rest by doing this as the information we received meant an hours walk. I needed to recover spells used during enhanced questioning (torture if you want to be pedantic lol), so brought a few beers with promise of more to come and got a piggy back lol. DM gave me the short rest and inspiration lol
Warlocks may not be able to keep up spell casting wise, but if you are a lover of role play then Warlock is probably one of the heaviest RP centric builds as you are a Jack of all trades, master of none. And having to get inventive with your spells and when you use them can force you to rely on other skills.
I picked Warlock as my first ever character as the spell lists of all the other casters confused me as a noob, I think I have ended up screwing myself as there are so many different choices for a Warlock that have more consequences if you cock it up as you can't just change your prepared spell list each long rest. You are stuck with it until next level, so you then have to figure out a way to make your mistakes work in your favour, which leads to a more interesting game!
Each of them do things the other two classes can't. Same goes for all of the classes. There is no objectively "best" class. There's just what's best for the kind of character you're trying to create, and what's the best fit for your play style. And those answers are going to be different for every player.
Any DM worth their salt is going to step on Coffeelock hard. That is blatant rules abuse and everybody knows it, including Coffeelock players. If your goal is to make Adventurer's League even less fun than usual, or your DM somehow doesn't see the problem with Coffeelock, then I suppose every DM needs a grim reminder once in a while.
It's a combination Warlock/Sorcerer. Basically... a Sorcerer can convert Spell Slots into Sorcery Points, and from there back into Spell Slots. Warlocks recover spell slots on a short rest, and can take an Eldritch Invocation that makes them no longer require traditional sleep. So a "Coffeelock" essentially stays up all night, spending the 8 hours of a Long Rest instead taking 8 short rests and converting their Warlock spell slots into Sorcery Points, which they can then use to give themselves free Spell Slots in the future.
A Warlock 5/Sorcerer 6+ can convert their two third-level Pact slots into 6 sorcery points. Those sorcery points can be converted into either three first-level slots, two second-level slots, or one fourth-level slot, essentially allowing the warlock to manufacture those slots once per short rest. With eight short rests in any given long rest, the Coffeelock can create eight extra fourth-level slots, sixteen second-level slots, or twenty-four first-level slots, as well as any applicable combination thereof.
It's baloney, and a complete batch of nonsense, but per RAW it's perfectly admissible. So long as the Coffeelock never long rests, those spell slots can keep stacking up per infinitum. Does mean the Coffeelock never heals or recovers its normal sorcerer spell slots, but the idea is to Coffeelock in bursts when you're in hostile territory to create a gobsmack overabundance of spell slots, rather than simply never long rest again.
That is blatant rules abuse and everybody knows it, including Coffeelock players.
Yup, but they actually seem less powerful than a well made Sorc'adin, Druid, Barbarian or Wizard. Plus, at least the party wouldn't have to rest so often (... lookin' at you, 5-minute-workday wizard).
It is. It doesn't nova (or do a lot of damage in a single turn) like other builds, but a nearly infinite amount of level 2 and 3 spells can add up quick and remove a lot of obstacles.
Not to mention, they effectively keep watch all night and can study/attune magic items at the same time.
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I've seen lots of fights over the internet about whose better, Wizard or Sorcerer? Most people say Wizard, but I want a good solid response. I also added Warlock for the sake that I like using melee cantrips and the ones in SCAG are for Warlocks Wizards and Sorcerers. So people out there! What's the best in overall utility? Warlock, Wizard, or Sorcerer?
D&D is a game for nerds... so I guess I'm one :p
Instead of asking which is more powerful, have you considered which class better fits your character's personality, history, etc? Considering all of your posts asking about liches and this post asking which is "strongest", I'm assuming this a factor in your character's motivations.
Stripping away the superficial aspects, and for the sake of discussion this includes race, whether or not you are or wish to become a lich, and before you have even chosen a class, you and by extension your character wants power. Like what I said in a reply in one of your other 4 threads if I noticed this trait in one of my players we would have a long discussion about what we both expect from playing this game together.
I highly recommend talking to your DM so you understand how they plan to run their game as well as expressing what you would like from the game and come to an understanding. If your DM is anything like me, no one gains power lightly in my games. You have to earn it, you have to roleplay for it, and the type of power you gain as well as how you achieve it has consequences.
Without knowing more about your DM, the best advice I can give is deciding "how" you plan to achieve that power.
A wizard is intelligent and studious, they very much "earn" their power through years of hard work, possibly through deception, or if they don't have the power they desire beyond what their school or mentor is able or willing to pass on, then they go on adventures to find the hidden power that has been lost in the ruins of an ancient civilization or hoarded by other, more powerful wizards.
A sorcerer was born with their power and they may be afraid of their power as they are unable to control it, relish in their power and desiring more, or anywhere in between. Whether they need to find ways to control it and/or gain more, adventuring provides the means for doing so. They are also more likely to be feared specfically because they tend to lack the formal training of an established institution of wizards, and are almost universally unregulated. (this is general D&D lore and may not reflect individual campaigns).
A warlock made a deal to gain their power with a powerful entity. From the perspective of a power-hungry spellcaster, this is the "easy" path to power in terms of story. The warlock has no innate ability like the sorcerer, and story-wise you don't "choose" to be one so if they want that power and weren't born with they're SOL. And, frankly, being a wizard is just too much work. Why spend years pouring through dusty tomes and listening to crusty old neckbeards droning on in lectures when all I have to do is sell my soul to an infernal being to shoot eldritch energy from my fingertips?
Again, the above is making a lot of assumptions about your DM's style and whether or not the two of you come to the understanding that you don't just become a powerful character cause you want to and that you're going to put some effort into building a narrative and exploring your character's motives, strengths, weaknesses, etc.
Sure. I'm willing to indulge, if primarily because I enjoy analytical breakdowns like this more than I maybe should.
Conventional wisdom holds that the wizard is the most powerful arcane caster/best utility class, simply because spell count is power for utility casters and wizards have an unrivaled spell list. Wizards at any level can prepare more spells than a sorcerer knows unless the wizard somehow has a negative intelligence modifier, and a wizard's spellbook allows them to keep a huge variety of options on tap. Playing a wizard necessitates some degree of reading the game's future, and you can get caught with the 'wrong' spells prepared, but most wizards will have a solid battery of core spells they almost always have ready to fall back on. Arcane Recovery means they have more spell slots than most any other character, and wizards have the benefit of their chosen School of Whatever specialization being more of a suggestion than a rule. Most players consider the wizard to be the baseline by which all other casters are judged, and most are judged wanting.
Sorcerers have the lowest Spells Known count of all the full arcane casters and do not have any method of increasing that count outside of homebrew. They share the wizard's shitty d6 hit dice and utter lack of combat proficiencies, being as terrible at frontline combat as any bearded stickman. Ostensibly they make up for this with Metamagic, allowing them to do things with their spells that no other class can. Sorcerers can use Metamagic to cast spells without any visible or audible clues, they can double their casting with either Twinned or Quickened spells, they can impose disadvantage on critical saves, and a few other nichey-but-potent options. Their subclass features also tend to be more relevant and powerful than the Arcane Tradition features of wizards, to help balance out their lower spell count. Most players consider straight sorcerers to be weaker than straight wizards, but sorcerer is also the King of Multiclassing and doesn't tend to stay sorcerer in a munchkin game.
Warlocks are an entirely different beast. Their spells known count is low and stops at fifth-level magic (their Mystic Arcanums are an entirely different beast), and even a max-level warlock only gets four casts. All of their spells fire at maximum slot level though and they regain them on short rest, which makes managing warlock resources and even selecting warlock spells an entirely different game than either wizard or sorcerer (or bard, for that matter). Warlocks also have a d8 hit die and basic armor and weapon proficiencies, on top of the ability to configure for martial combat via certain Pact and Invocation combinations. They're really not directly comparable to full casters at all; warlocks can be extremely powerful, but only when they're built as warlocks and not as "whacky eldritch wizards!" or "whacky eldritch sorcerizers!"
Personally? I love warlocks and I strongly prefer sorcerers to wizards, but I also go heavy into the thematics for my characters, and wizards tend to have pretty weak thematics unless you really push it. A wizard's power comes from sheer versatility, a sorcerer's power comes from well-chosen and well-played Metamagic amplifying key casts, and a warlock's power comes from recognizing what your warlock is supposed to be and catering their spells and invocations to that role (as well as realizing that there's no point in warlocks keeping lower-level spells they don't need anymore). All three can be quite potent, it depends more on what your character is supposed to be than anything else.
Why you shouldn't start ANOTHER thread about DDB not giving away free redeems on your hardcopy book purchases.
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If you're just asking "who would win in a fight under ideal min/max conditions", the answer is probably the Wizard. They simply have the largest bag of tricks, the most spell slots, etc.
Sorcerer isn't far behind, though. Clever use of Metamagic can give them the edge in very key situations... a smartly run Sorcerer can juggle their sorcery points and spell slots to get the edge when the more straightforward Wizard is relying on just spells.
Warlocks are more like the wild card in this situation. They don't have the spell slots to keep up with the other two, so they'd have to make the choice of whether to burn those slots on a couple of counterspells, or hit a powerful attack at a key moment. But their Eldritch invocations make them wildly unpredictable, and the fact that they have more valid melee options means they're the most likely to cut through the BS and just roll up on the other two and smack them around. If you're tempted by the SCAG melee cantrips, a Hexblade Warlock is the best class for that.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Each of these classes have their own strengths. Wizards are the ultimate in utility. Sorcerers can get the most out of their limited known spells. Warlocks are very, very customisable.
One challenge to Warlocks (which is my favorite class to play, btw) is that they are very dependent on regular short rests to stay effective. If your DM is not one to allow a lot of short rests (standard is 2 per long rest) then playing a warlock can get very frustrating very quickly.
that said, a warlock of the undying might be a good avenue to lichdom and it’s subclass features lend towards a similar type experience
That being said if you have a Barbarian in your party who is partial to being bribed with beer and pig snacks, then he can carry you from place to place. I managed to get a short rest by doing this as the information we received meant an hours walk. I needed to recover spells used during enhanced questioning (torture if you want to be pedantic lol), so brought a few beers with promise of more to come and got a piggy back lol. DM gave me the short rest and inspiration lol
Warlocks may not be able to keep up spell casting wise, but if you are a lover of role play then Warlock is probably one of the heaviest RP centric builds as you are a Jack of all trades, master of none. And having to get inventive with your spells and when you use them can force you to rely on other skills.
I picked Warlock as my first ever character as the spell lists of all the other casters confused me as a noob, I think I have ended up screwing myself as there are so many different choices for a Warlock that have more consequences if you cock it up as you can't just change your prepared spell list each long rest. You are stuck with it until next level, so you then have to figure out a way to make your mistakes work in your favour, which leads to a more interesting game!
From Within Chaos Comes Order!
Actually, there IS a barbarian with a beer addiction in our party...
D&D is a game for nerds... so I guess I'm one :p
Overall I think now that wizards are the best. Versatile, fun, and can set something on fire.
D&D is a game for nerds... so I guess I'm one :p
Each of them do things the other two classes can't. Same goes for all of the classes. There is no objectively "best" class. There's just what's best for the kind of character you're trying to create, and what's the best fit for your play style. And those answers are going to be different for every player.
If you like to customize your character and you know exactly what you want and you don't make any mistakes, the Warlock is awesome.
If you want to collect all the spells in your spell book and cast rituals without using spell slots, play a Wizard.
If you want to specialize in a few spells and do weird metamagic things with them nobody else can do, play a Sorcerer.
They're all good, depending on what you like.
DICE FALL, EVERYONE ROCKS!
Thanks everyone! This has helped a lot.
D&D is a game for nerds... so I guess I'm one :p
Any DM worth their salt is going to step on Coffeelock hard. That is blatant rules abuse and everybody knows it, including Coffeelock players. If your goal is to make Adventurer's League even less fun than usual, or your DM somehow doesn't see the problem with Coffeelock, then I suppose every DM needs a grim reminder once in a while.
Why you shouldn't start ANOTHER thread about DDB not giving away free redeems on your hardcopy book purchases.
Thinking of starting ANOTHER thread asking why Epic Boons haven't been implemented? Read this first to learn why you shouldn't!
What the heck is a Coffeelock?
D&D is a game for nerds... so I guess I'm one :p
It's a combination Warlock/Sorcerer. Basically... a Sorcerer can convert Spell Slots into Sorcery Points, and from there back into Spell Slots. Warlocks recover spell slots on a short rest, and can take an Eldritch Invocation that makes them no longer require traditional sleep. So a "Coffeelock" essentially stays up all night, spending the 8 hours of a Long Rest instead taking 8 short rests and converting their Warlock spell slots into Sorcery Points, which they can then use to give themselves free Spell Slots in the future.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
A Warlock 5/Sorcerer 6+ can convert their two third-level Pact slots into 6 sorcery points. Those sorcery points can be converted into either three first-level slots, two second-level slots, or one fourth-level slot, essentially allowing the warlock to manufacture those slots once per short rest. With eight short rests in any given long rest, the Coffeelock can create eight extra fourth-level slots, sixteen second-level slots, or twenty-four first-level slots, as well as any applicable combination thereof.
It's baloney, and a complete batch of nonsense, but per RAW it's perfectly admissible. So long as the Coffeelock never long rests, those spell slots can keep stacking up per infinitum. Does mean the Coffeelock never heals or recovers its normal sorcerer spell slots, but the idea is to Coffeelock in bursts when you're in hostile territory to create a gobsmack overabundance of spell slots, rather than simply never long rest again.
Why you shouldn't start ANOTHER thread about DDB not giving away free redeems on your hardcopy book purchases.
Thinking of starting ANOTHER thread asking why Epic Boons haven't been implemented? Read this first to learn why you shouldn't!
Yup, but they actually seem less powerful than a well made Sorc'adin, Druid, Barbarian or Wizard. Plus, at least the party wouldn't have to rest so often (... lookin' at you, 5-minute-workday wizard).
Oof, coffeelock just seems like a niche
D&D is a game for nerds... so I guess I'm one :p
It is. It doesn't nova (or do a lot of damage in a single turn) like other builds, but a nearly infinite amount of level 2 and 3 spells can add up quick and remove a lot of obstacles.
Not to mention, they effectively keep watch all night and can study/attune magic items at the same time.