True, but those spells don't have followup effects and Burning Hands and Catapult have no possibility of crit. Witch Bolt has an attack roll and the followup is using an action to deal automatic damage - like a sneak attack or divine smite spread over time.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Unless you have some method of forcing a crit to happen when you need it, it really doesn't matter. The base damage of Witch Bolt is on par with a cantrip, so you're starting with a damage deficit that you have to make up for in future turns compared to just smacking someone with a higher damage spell up front.
You also can't force crits to happen, so being able to crit just means the average damage of your spell goes up by 5 or 10%. But a miss gets you nothing, while a failed save still gets you half damage on Burning Hands and Ice Knife or the possibility of d a different creature with Catapult. So the area spells have a much higher average and can apply that higher average to multiple creatures, while Catapult is more likely to deal its full damage the more creatures you can line up.
Then there's the fact that Witch Bolt requires concentration and ends prematurely if your concentration is broken, the enemy is ever 30 feet away from you (which is super easy even without dashing), rounds a corner, or you ever have to take any other action for whatever reason.
It's just not practical. You're extremely unlikely to ever keep a Witch Bolt going long enough to overtake the damage of using one of the other spells and your cantrips for an equal amount of rounds. Against a low AC monster Witch Bolt's guaranteed damage advantage is pointless because your attack roll cantrips would have no trouble hitting anyways and against a high AC monster you're likely to just waste Witch Bolt altogether.
In my own games I changed it into a DEX save*, removed the concentration requirement and increased the initial damage to 2d12. I also increased the delayed damage by 1d12 when using a 3rd, 6th or 8th level slot so it keeps up with cantrips.
* Technically I use an attack roll against 10 + the target's DEX save modifier, but that's a rule I use for most targeted attack spells and touch-based monster attacks like the wraith's life drain. It's a bit overkill if we're just talking about one spell.
Just cast fire bolt if damage type is not a concern (the DPS is practically the same (actually improved after level 5), the action economy is exactly the same, the chance to crit is improved, doesn't use a spell slot, and no chance to waste the slot with a miss). To actually improve DPS, use flaming sphere.
It's not really true that the DPS is the same pre-5th level unless:
you miss on the first turn (in which case both scenarios play out the same way; spamming cantrips on round 2+)
you've got constant advantage (which lets you achieve 95+% hit rate and ~10% crit rate and thus 100+% average damage), or
you're fighting one of the outliers with unusually low AC (e.g. a gelatinous cube.)
With +5 on attack rolls, a 1st-4th level caster is going to have at most a 80% chance to hit even against a commoner. Witch Bolt has a 100% chance to deal its 1d12 if you can keep the enemy from running away. The ability to crit only increases the average damage by 5% so you're still looking at 85% of Witch Bolt's damage at best; probably quite a bit lower. Against a CR 1/4 goblin you're looking at 60%.
But that comparison is skewed anyways since we're comparing different amounts of spell slots. The problem isn't that Witch Bolt fares poorly against cantrips, it's that it fares poorly against other 1st level spells.
Witch Bolt
If you roll a crit on the initial attack roll, does the followup damage also double?
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
No. The damage on subsequent turns isn't from an attack (it just happens when you use your action to make it happen), so it can't crit.
SagaTympana is correct. Witch Bolt is awful, you're better off picking Burning Hands, Catapult or Ice Knife.
True, but those spells don't have followup effects and Burning Hands and Catapult have no possibility of crit. Witch Bolt has an attack roll and the followup is using an action to deal automatic damage - like a sneak attack or divine smite spread over time.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
You also can't force crits to happen, so being able to crit just means the average damage of your spell goes up by 5 or 10%. But a miss gets you nothing, while a failed save still gets you half damage on Burning Hands and Ice Knife or the possibility of d a different creature with Catapult. So the area spells have a much higher average and can apply that higher average to multiple creatures, while Catapult is more likely to deal its full damage the more creatures you can line up.
Then there's the fact that Witch Bolt requires concentration and ends prematurely if your concentration is broken, the enemy is ever 30 feet away from you (which is super easy even without dashing), rounds a corner, or you ever have to take any other action for whatever reason.
It's just not practical. You're extremely unlikely to ever keep a Witch Bolt going long enough to overtake the damage of using one of the other spells and your cantrips for an equal amount of rounds. Against a low AC monster Witch Bolt's guaranteed damage advantage is pointless because your attack roll cantrips would have no trouble hitting anyways and against a high AC monster you're likely to just waste Witch Bolt altogether.
Right, it has SO much going against it that maybe the double of followup damage might give a small bit to even it out?
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
In my own games I changed it into a DEX save*, removed the concentration requirement and increased the initial damage to 2d12. I also increased the delayed damage by 1d12 when using a 3rd, 6th or 8th level slot so it keeps up with cantrips.
* Technically I use an attack roll against 10 + the target's DEX save modifier, but that's a rule I use for most targeted attack spells and touch-based monster attacks like the wraith's life drain. It's a bit overkill if we're just talking about one spell.
Just cast fire bolt if damage type is not a concern (the DPS is practically the same (actually improved after level 5), the action economy is exactly the same, the chance to crit is improved, doesn't use a spell slot, and no chance to waste the slot with a miss). To actually improve DPS, use flaming sphere.
It's not really true that the DPS is the same pre-5th level unless:
With +5 on attack rolls, a 1st-4th level caster is going to have at most a 80% chance to hit even against a commoner. Witch Bolt has a 100% chance to deal its 1d12 if you can keep the enemy from running away. The ability to crit only increases the average damage by 5% so you're still looking at 85% of Witch Bolt's damage at best; probably quite a bit lower. Against a CR 1/4 goblin you're looking at 60%.
But that comparison is skewed anyways since we're comparing different amounts of spell slots. The problem isn't that Witch Bolt fares poorly against cantrips, it's that it fares poorly against other 1st level spells.