I'm relatively new to d&d so I've been looking around at spells to take when I reach level 4 DA sorcerer in our campaign. I was looking at Witch Bolt, and thought it looked pretty good, however I found lots of people criticizing the spell for being incredibly situational.
Our party has an attuned magical ruby that is able to store concentration spells after casting, and will use them for their duration, meaning I could store Witch Bolt in it, and still use my main and bonus action
Would using Witch Bolt with this be a decent strategy? Also, if you cast Witch Bolt with the Quickened Spell Metamagic, would it become a bonus action to maintain the spell each turn, or a bonus action to cast and a full action each turn?
Using your action to deal damage on subsequent turns is not casting a spell so meta magic does not apply
The spell ends if you useyouraction to go anything other than inflect the extra damage. Unless the ruby prevents spells ending early for reasons other than concentration it will not prevent this. If the ruby does it will be incredibly powerful, for example if you cast hold person you can paralyze a bad guy for a minute with no saves on their turn.
Good idea to use quickened spell to cast the spell and your action to repeat the damage. That way, if you miss, you can use your action to cast a cantrip, but if you hit, you deal 2d12 damage on the first turn of witch bolt.
Witch Bolt is not a good spell, unless you are trying to replicate the reusability of a cantrip with a 1st level spell? It’s just bad and weird and has no real path to optimization. Concentrating on two spells will certainly be useful in your life, maybe something like Fly that you don’t want to lose to a bad concentration roll, so you store it in the gem? But skip Witch Bolt.
If you can store a concentration spell to be used later, 100% store Fly and then cast Haste on your biggest bruiser. You can fly out of danger and let Haste do it's thing. Witch Bolt is generally regarded as one of the worst spells in the game; take that with a grain of salt, since people say the same thing about Faithful Hound, one of my favorites.
The best Metamagic for Witch Bolt is probably Twinning it to hit two separate targets automatically, round after round. You could then use your bonus action to Quicken Cast whatever else you want to cast. However, I otherwise agree that it's a rough choice for a spell.
I'm relatively new to d&d so I've been looking around at spells to take when I reach level 4 DA sorcerer in our campaign. I was looking at Witch Bolt, and thought it looked pretty good, however I found lots of people criticizing the spell for being incredibly situational.
Our party has an attuned magical ruby that is able to store concentration spells after casting, and will use them for their duration, meaning I could store Witch Bolt in it, and still use my main and bonus action
Would using Witch Bolt with this be a decent strategy? Also, if you cast Witch Bolt with the Quickened Spell Metamagic, would it become a bonus action to maintain the spell each turn, or a bonus action to cast and a full action each turn?
Thanks
Not sure if anyone explicitly explained this to you, but Witch Bolt is both a Concentration spell and it requires your action every round to maintain, which are two separate mechanics. If your ruby maintains Concentration for you, Witch Bolt's other mechanic will still consume your action (unless you want to let the spell drop), and Quickened Spell won't apply to it (all Quickened Spell does is change the cast to a bonus action). Under ordinary circumstances, Concentration doesn't consume any sort of action at all - no action, no bonus action, nothing, just like dropping something - so Quickened Spell has no interaction with that, either.
Can someone please explain the dislike of witch bolt? I had always looked at the potential damage output as quite high, 3 or 4 d12 per turn has some high maximum possibilities. For a Warlock with only a couple of slots, being able to shoot the big bad and replicate that damage turn after turn seems great, but I'm obviously missing something?
Can someone please explain the dislike of witch bolt? I had always looked at the potential damage output as quite high, 3 or 4 d12 per turn has some high maximum possibilities. For a Warlock with only a couple of slots, being able to shoot the big bad and replicate that damage turn after turn seems great, but I'm obviously missing something?
It's because it doesn't work the way you think it does. The upcasting text on Witch Bolt specifically says that only the initial damage from the spell is increased. All damage after the first round is 1d12 flat no matter what level you cast it at.
And takes your action on future rounds, to do Tier 1 cantrip damage (though admittedly, auto hits). And you can’t skip a round to do something else. And you have to stay very close (for a caster), with even a single regular move by the enemy being able to break the effect with no save required.
It’s not enough better than a cantrip to justify dedicating a spell slot and concentration and restricting your turns and restricting your positioning over.
The damage is less relevant than the auto-hit trait.
Magic Missile only does up to 3d4+3 at 1st level, which is comparable to 1d12+3. Against a single target, Witch Bolt is kind of like casting Magic Missile for free every round, albiet, less versatile, and triggers fewer concentration checks. Against a matched opponent, the damage is closer to a 5th level cantrip due to the math behind miss chances. From 5th level onward, it loses its edge.
Magic missile works from 120 feet away, cannot be avoided without the use of a spell or magic item, and targets multiple creatures, and requires no concentration and does 10ish average damage (3-4 per bolt). Witch Bolt must be cast within 30 feet, can miss, will not stay up if the enemy moves or you lose concentration or use your action for anything else, and is one enemy only, and does 6ish average damage per round (probably 12-13 damage over a two round life span). Especially with miss chance factored in... there is frankly NO comparison.
It is bad. End of story. There is NO context in which Witch Bolt is the correct spell.
Can someone please explain the dislike of witch bolt? I had always looked at the potential damage output as quite high, 3 or 4 d12 per turn has some high maximum possibilities. For a Warlock with only a couple of slots, being able to shoot the big bad and replicate that damage turn after turn seems great, but I'm obviously missing something?
It's because it doesn't work the way you think it does. The upcasting text on Witch Bolt specifically says that only the initial damage from the spell is increased. All damage after the first round is 1d12 flat no matter what level you cast it at.
Ah, thank you, missing that one words changes it dramatically. Having the damage drop to 1d12 is pathetic, you can just stick to an agonising eldritch blast with higher damage than that. Might be one to house rule to remove that, at least then it would make it situationally valid (fighting in rooms where range and cover are less of a concern for example). But yes with that one word included it becomes pointless.
Yes, if upcasting it also upcast the damage on future rounds.. it would still be a niche, hard to use spell, but at least reasonable in certain fights. I’d support that houserule (especially since other spells like Heat Metal work that way without issue).
It is bad. End of story. There is NO context in which Witch Bolt is the correct spell.
A piece of context that needs to be considered is that at 1st level, a Wizard only has 2 spell slots (+Arcane Recovery). If a party faces more than 3 combats in a day (and gets at least one short rest), they get to cast one leveled spell per combat, or risk being unable to cast any at all.
Against a target with AC15+, secondary Witch Bolt damage is equivalent to a spell that does 2d12 (avg 13), due to negating miss chance. This is comparable to Chromatic Orb (avg 13.5). If you can land a hit on a target with higher AC, then it's worth proportionately more.
Against a target engaged in melee, the target would need to break away from combat to avoid taking the damage, which would either trigger attacks of opportunity, or force them to waste their action to disengage. Both of these are equivalent to rider effects, which bump up the impact of the spell. (Assuming the target is even aware that running away is an option.)
It's not as immediately impactful as other options, but as a 1st level spell, it's actually not a bad choice, so long as it can be swapped out for something that scales better later.
The only benefit of witch bolt (auto hits, no chance to miss!) is undercut by the fact that it needs to hit in the first place. It’s not useful against high AC enemies, because you’re likely to miss the first attack. It’s not useful against low AC enemies, because auto hitting a low AC enemy isn’t enough of a benefit to warrant its costs (concentration, positioning, restricted actions every round or lose spell).
it has no “perfect encounter” it’s designed for. It’s a monster of mismatched expectations.
Tasha's Caustic Brew is a very similar spell that's better in almost every way- it hits a group of creatures, it requires a dex save instead of an attack roll, it doesn't burn the caster's action after it's been cast, the upcasting damage boost applies to all of its damage, and it doesn't stop if the caster and the target get too far from each other. Basically the only advantages Witch Bolt has over it are having a larger damage die (which really only works out to about a 2 point difference in average damage) and the target can't take an action to wash the effect off. And the latter part is not really as big a benefit as it seems given the previously mentioned issue of WB ceasing to work if the target ever gets more than 30 feet from the caster.
Witch Bolt looks good initially, but it's just saddled with too many restrictions.
There are technically other benefits of Witch Bolt, but they're situational to the point of being irrelevant. (I'm reading into the subclasses that include it to see if there was some specific design intent for it.)
While there is some synergy with Arcane Trickster, and none with Eldritch Knight, the only class that mentions it as a Quick Build option is the Warlock.
The best synergy is with the Hexblade's Curse:
Hexblade’s Curse
Starting at 1st level, you gain the ability to place a baleful curse on someone. As a bonus action, choose one creature you can see within 30 feet of you. The target is cursed for 1 minute. The curse ends early if the target dies, you die, or you are incapacitated. Until the curse ends, you gain the following benefits:
You gain a bonus to damage rolls against the cursed target. The bonus equals your proficiency bonus.
Any attack roll you make against the cursed target is a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20 on the d20.
If the cursed target dies, you regain hit points equal to your warlock level + your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1 hit point).
You can’t use this feature again until you finish a short or long rest.
So, as this provides a bonus to damage rolls, regardless of the method of delivering that damage, this automatically bumps Witch Bolt up to 1d12+2 per round at first level, which is a notable improvement, but considerably worse than stacking Agonizing Blast, Hex, and Eldritch Blast.
*Just realizing that the Brooch of Shielding is a pretty potent defense against Warlocks.
The only thing I can imagine is that it is a spell designed to give low level Hexblade Warlocks (who opt not to take Eldritch Blast due to limited cantrips), a ranged magical damage option that endures long enough to justify using their one 1st level Pact Slot.
Yeah. That would rule it out, unless it was something they were sitting on. The Quick Build recommendation strongly suggests that they felt it was appropriate for a Warlock in some sense, but it's not compatible with The Fiend, nor any Invocations.
Maybe they anticipated DMs making more liberal use of force resistance resources and it just never happened.
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Hi guys,
I'm relatively new to d&d so I've been looking around at spells to take when I reach level 4 DA sorcerer in our campaign. I was looking at Witch Bolt, and thought it looked pretty good, however I found lots of people criticizing the spell for being incredibly situational.
Our party has an attuned magical ruby that is able to store concentration spells after casting, and will use them for their duration, meaning I could store Witch Bolt in it, and still use my main and bonus action
Would using Witch Bolt with this be a decent strategy? Also, if you cast Witch Bolt with the Quickened Spell Metamagic, would it become a bonus action to maintain the spell each turn, or a bonus action to cast and a full action each turn?
Thanks
Using your action to deal damage on subsequent turns is not casting a spell so meta magic does not apply
The spell ends if you use your action to go anything other than inflect the extra damage. Unless the ruby prevents spells ending early for reasons other than concentration it will not prevent this. If the ruby does it will be incredibly powerful, for example if you cast hold person you can paralyze a bad guy for a minute with no saves on their turn.
Good idea to use quickened spell to cast the spell and your action to repeat the damage. That way, if you miss, you can use your action to cast a cantrip, but if you hit, you deal 2d12 damage on the first turn of witch bolt.
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Witch Bolt is not a good spell, unless you are trying to replicate the reusability of a cantrip with a 1st level spell? It’s just bad and weird and has no real path to optimization. Concentrating on two spells will certainly be useful in your life, maybe something like Fly that you don’t want to lose to a bad concentration roll, so you store it in the gem? But skip Witch Bolt.
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If you can store a concentration spell to be used later, 100% store Fly and then cast Haste on your biggest bruiser. You can fly out of danger and let Haste do it's thing. Witch Bolt is generally regarded as one of the worst spells in the game; take that with a grain of salt, since people say the same thing about Faithful Hound, one of my favorites.
The best Metamagic for Witch Bolt is probably Twinning it to hit two separate targets automatically, round after round. You could then use your bonus action to Quicken Cast whatever else you want to cast. However, I otherwise agree that it's a rough choice for a spell.
Not sure if anyone explicitly explained this to you, but Witch Bolt is both a Concentration spell and it requires your action every round to maintain, which are two separate mechanics. If your ruby maintains Concentration for you, Witch Bolt's other mechanic will still consume your action (unless you want to let the spell drop), and Quickened Spell won't apply to it (all Quickened Spell does is change the cast to a bonus action). Under ordinary circumstances, Concentration doesn't consume any sort of action at all - no action, no bonus action, nothing, just like dropping something - so Quickened Spell has no interaction with that, either.
Can someone please explain the dislike of witch bolt? I had always looked at the potential damage output as quite high, 3 or 4 d12 per turn has some high maximum possibilities. For a Warlock with only a couple of slots, being able to shoot the big bad and replicate that damage turn after turn seems great, but I'm obviously missing something?
It's because it doesn't work the way you think it does. The upcasting text on Witch Bolt specifically says that only the initial damage from the spell is increased. All damage after the first round is 1d12 flat no matter what level you cast it at.
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And takes your action on future rounds, to do Tier 1 cantrip damage (though admittedly, auto hits). And you can’t skip a round to do something else. And you have to stay very close (for a caster), with even a single regular move by the enemy being able to break the effect with no save required.
It’s not enough better than a cantrip to justify dedicating a spell slot and concentration and restricting your turns and restricting your positioning over.
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The damage is less relevant than the auto-hit trait.
Magic Missile only does up to 3d4+3 at 1st level, which is comparable to 1d12+3. Against a single target, Witch Bolt is kind of like casting Magic Missile for free every round, albiet, less versatile, and triggers fewer concentration checks. Against a matched opponent, the damage is closer to a 5th level cantrip due to the math behind miss chances. From 5th level onward, it loses its edge.
Magic missile works from 120 feet away, cannot be avoided without the use of a spell or magic item, and targets multiple creatures, and requires no concentration and does 10ish average damage (3-4 per bolt). Witch Bolt must be cast within 30 feet, can miss, will not stay up if the enemy moves or you lose concentration or use your action for anything else, and is one enemy only, and does 6ish average damage per round (probably 12-13 damage over a two round life span). Especially with miss chance factored in... there is frankly NO comparison.
It is bad. End of story. There is NO context in which Witch Bolt is the correct spell.
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Ah, thank you, missing that one words changes it dramatically. Having the damage drop to 1d12 is pathetic, you can just stick to an agonising eldritch blast with higher damage than that. Might be one to house rule to remove that, at least then it would make it situationally valid (fighting in rooms where range and cover are less of a concern for example). But yes with that one word included it becomes pointless.
Yes, if upcasting it also upcast the damage on future rounds.. it would still be a niche, hard to use spell, but at least reasonable in certain fights. I’d support that houserule (especially since other spells like Heat Metal work that way without issue).
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
A piece of context that needs to be considered is that at 1st level, a Wizard only has 2 spell slots (+Arcane Recovery). If a party faces more than 3 combats in a day (and gets at least one short rest), they get to cast one leveled spell per combat, or risk being unable to cast any at all.
Against a target with AC15+, secondary Witch Bolt damage is equivalent to a spell that does 2d12 (avg 13), due to negating miss chance. This is comparable to Chromatic Orb (avg 13.5). If you can land a hit on a target with higher AC, then it's worth proportionately more.
Against a target engaged in melee, the target would need to break away from combat to avoid taking the damage, which would either trigger attacks of opportunity, or force them to waste their action to disengage. Both of these are equivalent to rider effects, which bump up the impact of the spell. (Assuming the target is even aware that running away is an option.)
It's not as immediately impactful as other options, but as a 1st level spell, it's actually not a bad choice, so long as it can be swapped out for something that scales better later.
The only benefit of witch bolt (auto hits, no chance to miss!) is undercut by the fact that it needs to hit in the first place. It’s not useful against high AC enemies, because you’re likely to miss the first attack. It’s not useful against low AC enemies, because auto hitting a low AC enemy isn’t enough of a benefit to warrant its costs (concentration, positioning, restricted actions every round or lose spell).
it has no “perfect encounter” it’s designed for. It’s a monster of mismatched expectations.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Tasha's Caustic Brew is a very similar spell that's better in almost every way- it hits a group of creatures, it requires a dex save instead of an attack roll, it doesn't burn the caster's action after it's been cast, the upcasting damage boost applies to all of its damage, and it doesn't stop if the caster and the target get too far from each other. Basically the only advantages Witch Bolt has over it are having a larger damage die (which really only works out to about a 2 point difference in average damage) and the target can't take an action to wash the effect off. And the latter part is not really as big a benefit as it seems given the previously mentioned issue of WB ceasing to work if the target ever gets more than 30 feet from the caster.
Witch Bolt looks good initially, but it's just saddled with too many restrictions.
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"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
There are technically other benefits of Witch Bolt, but they're situational to the point of being irrelevant. (I'm reading into the subclasses that include it to see if there was some specific design intent for it.)
While there is some synergy with Arcane Trickster, and none with Eldritch Knight, the only class that mentions it as a Quick Build option is the Warlock.
The best synergy is with the Hexblade's Curse:
So, as this provides a bonus to damage rolls, regardless of the method of delivering that damage, this automatically bumps Witch Bolt up to 1d12+2 per round at first level, which is a notable improvement, but considerably worse than stacking Agonizing Blast, Hex, and Eldritch Blast.
*Just realizing that the Brooch of Shielding is a pretty potent defense against Warlocks.
The only thing I can imagine is that it is a spell designed to give low level Hexblade Warlocks (who opt not to take Eldritch Blast due to limited cantrips), a ranged magical damage option that endures long enough to justify using their one 1st level Pact Slot.
Witch Bolt substantially predates the introduction of the Hexblade. I doubt that the spell was built with that subclass in mind.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Yeah. That would rule it out, unless it was something they were sitting on. The Quick Build recommendation strongly suggests that they felt it was appropriate for a Warlock in some sense, but it's not compatible with The Fiend, nor any Invocations.
Maybe they anticipated DMs making more liberal use of force resistance resources and it just never happened.
Edit: It would be really nice if DNDBeyond included Source information in the Race/Class entries.