If any of you have a good order of what spells you would take at what level (starting from 1st to 20th) as a Bladesinger, please put it in the comments, because I have been trying to assemble something like that, only to end up getting stuck along the way. Thank you so much!
If any of you have a good order of what spells you would take at what level (starting from 1st to 20th) as a Bladesinger, please put it in the comments, because I have been trying to assemble something like that, only to end up getting stuck along the way. Thank you so much!
It depends what kind of character you want to play. This class is so wide open. Do you want a hard nose melee optimized tank, do you want an in between Gish or do you want a wizard with some extra defenses in case he gets caught in melee.
I also tend to try to start with a 17 intelligence and pick up one of the 2nd level spells with Fey Touched/Shadow Touched.
Assuming you want to build the party tank, here is what I would recommend through 12th level. Your 1st and 2nd level spells are what you are going to cast the most. A lot of times you will be using the higher level slots on false life. Once you get to 11th level you should always have a contingency- on tap with a 5th level false life or a 5th level Whither and bloom. The spells in bold are the most important IMO:
1st level: Mage Armor, Absorb Elements, Shield, Feather Fall, Silvery Barbs, False Life, Protection from Good and Evil, Find Familiar
4th Level: Fire Shield, Greater Invisibility, Modenkainen's Faithful Hound
5th Level: Wall of Force, Far Step
6th Level: Contingency, soul cage, true seeing
Also you always want your familiar around (and generally staying out of harms way). Reason being, you can use the familiar's eyes to cast misty step if you end up blinded or you are swallowed. Action to see through the familiar's eyes, bonus action to "teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space that you can see."
If you want to do more of a Gish, replace some of the spells above with offensive/control spells.
Would any of you recommend having melee buffs? (ex. Booming Blade, Sword Burst, Thunderwave, Thunder Step, Spirit Shroud, Fire Shield, Steel Wind Strike, Tasha's Otherworldly Guise, Tenser's Transformation)
Would any of you recommend having melee buffs? (ex. Booming Blade, Sword Burst, Thunderwave, Thunder Step, Spirit Shroud, Fire Shield, Steel Wind Strike, Tasha's Otherworldly Guise, Tenser's Transformation)
booming blade and green flame blade are acceptable, as after you use a spell that takes up your concentration, your following turns are really well spent using booming blade/green flame blade + extra attack. personally, I'd recommend booming blade over green flame blade, as a lot of wizard builds benefit from taking telekinetic, and booming blade pairs awesome with telekinetic's shove. Fire shield is good, especially with contingency.
Aside from that, the other ones you mentioned are kinda meh. For example, sure, you could spend your 6th lvl spell slot on pulling your devil trigger for one fight... or, you could use mass suggestion, which has a lot of uses and can end entire fights on its own. You get what I'm trying to say? You could use steel wind strike, OR you could use wall of force. There's absolutely no question, wall of force wins every time.
During early levels, blur is a fantastic spell to use paired up with mage armor and bladesong, if you're in need of some melee tanking. You'll have like 19 AC at lvl 3, and things hit you at disadvantage? forget about it, you're now incredibly tanky while you whittle things down with your cantrip attacks.
Do you have a preference between Mirror Image and Blur? Blur requires concentration, but I don't know which is better, to impose disadvantage on attack rolls, or to have a likeliness that the attack will hit a duplicate
It is not a melee spell nor a defensive spell. It is a great spell, but not on a melee build.
Note I put Fear and Thunderstep which are more or less melee spells. Fear, cast from the front line gives you an opportunity attack when the enemy tries to run, which can either be a strraight up attack or be combined with warcaster and booming blade for even more damage. Thunderstep is a mobility spell you use to get out of melee .... or into combat in the right circumstances.
Booming Blade - yes. Either Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade is more or less mandatory and usually I take both
Sword Burst, Thunderwave - ok, not mandatory. Definitely not both of these.
Thunder Step - usually in the book, not used a lot
Spirit Shroudn- I have never taken it. I think the cost is high compared to Hex which is a level lower, and lasts a lot longer. You can get Hex through a Fey Touched. TBH I think Shadowblade is better than spirit shroud and I don't usually get that either.
Fire Shield - Always get it. Does not use concentration. Awesome spell if you know you will be fighting in a few minutes. The only downside is the action to cast if you need to use it in battle.
Steel Wind Strike - I have never gotten it nor seen it used. The problem is to get max value there needs to be 5 monsters within 30 feet of you. When that happens that is a ton of damage, without a save, and its force damage, with a teleport attached. Those things are all awesome but they are less good if there are less than 5 enemies within 30 feet of you (and usually there will be less than 5). Also, I don't see it getting used very often; 5th level slots are at a premium for false life and 5th level is also the highest level you can put on contingency which means your contingency false life or whither and bloom will usually be using those slots.
Tasha's Otherworldly Guise, Tenser's Transformation - Never. IMO these are traps on a bladesinger. You can do better with lower level spells
Do you have a preference between Mirror Image and Blur? Blur requires concentration, but I don't know which is better, to impose disadvantage on attack rolls, or to have a likeliness that the attack will hit a duplicate
Blur is a lot better. The only thing mirror image has going for it is that it is non-concentration, so you can combine it with other spells like Haste, PEG .... or blur.
When I play a bladesinger more often than not, the first turn I am casting Protection from Evil and Good if the enemy is undead, fey, fiend, aberation or elemental or blur when the enemy is not one of these.
Would any of you recommend having melee buffs? (ex. Booming Blade, Sword Burst, Thunderwave, Thunder Step, Spirit Shroud, Fire Shield, Steel Wind Strike, Tasha's Otherworldly Guise, Tenser's Transformation)
fire shield doesn't require concentration, so you can cast it on yourself before combat, then have it running for the duration. tenser's transformation is highly recommended if you are going to be more focused on melee. steel wind strike is pretty fun. thunder step is a good "panic button," though dimension door may be a better option for escaping.
Has anyone tried Melf's Minute Meteors with a bladesinger? I am strongly considering it for mine, but I haven't leveled that far yet.
It does require concentration, but at level 6, a bladesinger could activate bladesong and cast it on round one, use extra attack (with a cantrip!), and blast 1-9 additional creatures at range for 2d6 fire damage for the next six rounds (or 4d6 for the next three rounds).
This would allow a lot of flexibility with ranged/melee attacks, not suffer disadvantage with an adjacent enemy, and still do half damage on a save.
In addition to the mechanics, I like the "cool factor" of stabbing away with my rapier and then, without even looking to aim, hurling destruction across the battlemap. To me, that's what Gish style is all about.
Would any of you recommend having melee buffs? (ex. Booming Blade, Sword Burst, Thunderwave, Thunder Step, Spirit Shroud, Fire Shield, Steel Wind Strike, Tasha's Otherworldly Guise, Tenser's Transformation)
fire shield doesn't require concentration, so you can cast it on yourself before combat, then have it running for the duration. tenser's transformation is highly recommended if you are going to be more focused on melee. steel wind strike is pretty fun. thunder step is a good "panic button," though dimension door may be a better option for escaping.
Fireshield and thundersteo are awesome. I would steer clear of Tensors Transformation as a Bladesinger. You will do very little extra damage because you can't cast spells so you can't cast a cantrip like you can with the normal bladesinger extra attack. You get proficiency in heavy armor but you don't have enough time to actually put the armor on before the spell ends and you can't don the armor first because you can't cast spells with it on. You get shield proficiency but you can't use a sheild in bladesong and bladesong is a much better AC bonus than a shield. You get 50 temp hit points but you can't cast shiled or absorb elements so you are going to burn through these quickly. You take a level of exhaustion when it ends.
Treantmonk did a video on this, you can actually get more damage out of a 3rd level shadowblade, which is 3 levels lower in slot cost, you don't have all the negatives that come with it and can still cast all your spells like shield and absorb elements.
Blur is a brilliant spell but I am struggling to justify it. Same with protection from evil and good. They are both concentration and I'd rather use concentration for a damage spell i.e shadowblade or crowd control i.e hold person, hypnotic pattern etc. Mirror image is a concentration free no-brainer defense spell.
Blur is a brilliant spell but I am struggling to justify it. Same with protection from evil and good. They are both concentration and I'd rather use concentration for a damage spell i.e shadowblade or crowd control i.e hold person, hypnotic pattern etc. Mirror image is a concentration free no-brainer defense spell.
Blur is meant to tank. Sometimes it's not smart to use hypnotic pattern, maybe you're fighting things that are immune to the charm condition or have advantage against it. Sometimes, you decide that the extra damage granted by shadow blade isn't worth the risk that you could take a hit that might have otherwise been prevented.
If there were a singular BBEG fight, chances are it's going to hit like a truck. I'd like blur there.
Blur is a brilliant spell but I am struggling to justify it. Same with protection from evil and good. They are both concentration and I'd rather use concentration for a damage spell i.e shadowblade or crowd control i.e hold person, hypnotic pattern etc. Mirror image is a concentration free no-brainer defense spell.
If you want a control spell Fear is what works best with bladesinger. It is A LOT better than hypnotic pattern IME. With HP, unless every single enemy fails the save it usually only lasts 1 round. Fear will usually take them out of the fight for the duration, as a bladesinger you are in the front where you need to be to cast it and you get an opportunity attack as enemies flee. Since your move in bladesong is usually higher than theirs you can follow up with movement+misty step get to the other side of the enemy, attack them with booming blade, then they flee back the other way (towards your party) taking another AOO and extra booming blade damage.
Hold Person is fine. For a lower level control spell I like cause fear better though. If they fail their save they can't move closer to you which makes it easy to position them and for a 2nd level slot you can hit 2 of them and most importantly it is not limited to humanoids. You can upcast this even higher if enemies are not arranged to hit them with the 3rd level fear spell. You can get it through shadowtouched feat too at 4th level, while boosting int to 18, so it does not count against prepared spells.
IME Shadowblade is very situational on a bladesinger. The damage is not good enough for you to be an effective striker, especially when you need mobile feat to do that well and if you stay in melee you are going to be making a lot of concentration saves to keep it running. You also have to be picky about where you melee. You can't for example survive toe-to-toe with 4 berzerkers simultaneously at 6th level with shadowblade, you can with blur. There are situations it is good, at 13th level if you upcast it to 7th level AND someone else hasted you AND you have a ton of temp hit points, when that comes together you can dual wield and do a crapton of damage for a couple rounds.
Blur or PEG are the ideal spell for tanking on a bladesinger. Mirror image is ok at 3rd and 4th level, but it is usually not going to last more than a turn in melee once you hit 6th level or so. If you rely on MI you are usually doing no damage at all because most turns you will need to use your action to cast MI again. In general with a bladesinger I want enemies to attack me so other characters can hit them for a lot of damage blur or PEG are the ideal spells to do that.
Hey guys,
If any of you have a good order of what spells you would take at what level (starting from 1st to 20th) as a Bladesinger, please put it in the comments, because I have been trying to assemble something like that, only to end up getting stuck along the way. Thank you so much!
Ren
1st, take mage armor, shield, find familiar, then your choice. I like grease
2nd lvl, web, fog cloud, Misty step, blur
3rd, hypnotic pattern, fly, tiny hut, dispel magic
4th, polymorph, banishment, wall of fire, arcane eye, maybe dimension door
5th, wall of force, animate objects, bigby's hand, scrying
6th mass suggestion, summon fiend, contingency, true seeing
7th, simulacrum, force cage, plane shift, reverse gravity
8th, anti magic field, dominate monster, w/e
9th, wish, true polymorph, foresight, w/e.
It depends what kind of character you want to play. This class is so wide open. Do you want a hard nose melee optimized tank, do you want an in between Gish or do you want a wizard with some extra defenses in case he gets caught in melee.
I also tend to try to start with a 17 intelligence and pick up one of the 2nd level spells with Fey Touched/Shadow Touched.
Assuming you want to build the party tank, here is what I would recommend through 12th level. Your 1st and 2nd level spells are what you are going to cast the most. A lot of times you will be using the higher level slots on false life. Once you get to 11th level you should always have a contingency- on tap with a 5th level false life or a 5th level Whither and bloom. The spells in bold are the most important IMO:
1st level: Mage Armor, Absorb Elements, Shield, Feather Fall, Silvery Barbs, False Life, Protection from Good and Evil, Find Familiar
2nd Level: Blur, Invisibility, Misty Step, Shadow Blade, Mirror Image, Whither and Bloom
3rd Level: Fear, Counterspell, Haste, Thunder Step, Lemunds Tiny Hut, Intellect Fortress
4th Level: Fire Shield, Greater Invisibility, Modenkainen's Faithful Hound
5th Level: Wall of Force, Far Step
6th Level: Contingency, soul cage, true seeing
Also you always want your familiar around (and generally staying out of harms way). Reason being, you can use the familiar's eyes to cast misty step if you end up blinded or you are swallowed. Action to see through the familiar's eyes, bonus action to "teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space that you can see."
If you want to do more of a Gish, replace some of the spells above with offensive/control spells.
1. WHERE IS FIREBALL AND/OR LIGHTNING BOLT
Also here is my list at lvl 20
Cantrip: Fire Bolt, Mage Hand, Thunderclap, Create Bonfire, Toll the Dead
1st level: Ice Knife, False Life, Detect Magic
2nd level: Alter Self, Misty Step, See invisibility
3rd level: Fireball, Counterspell, Haste
4th level: Greater Invisibility, Divination, Dimension Door
5th level: Conjure Elemental, Animate object, Dream
6th level: Chain Lightning, Create Undead
7th level: Finger of Death, Teleport
8th level: Dark Star
9th level: Wish
One day you will see the truth that playing as a controller trump's being a silly blaster every time.
Would any of you recommend having melee buffs? (ex. Booming Blade, Sword Burst, Thunderwave, Thunder Step, Spirit Shroud, Fire Shield, Steel Wind Strike, Tasha's Otherworldly Guise, Tenser's Transformation)
Ren
booming blade and green flame blade are acceptable, as after you use a spell that takes up your concentration, your following turns are really well spent using booming blade/green flame blade + extra attack. personally, I'd recommend booming blade over green flame blade, as a lot of wizard builds benefit from taking telekinetic, and booming blade pairs awesome with telekinetic's shove. Fire shield is good, especially with contingency.
Aside from that, the other ones you mentioned are kinda meh. For example, sure, you could spend your 6th lvl spell slot on pulling your devil trigger for one fight... or, you could use mass suggestion, which has a lot of uses and can end entire fights on its own. You get what I'm trying to say? You could use steel wind strike, OR you could use wall of force. There's absolutely no question, wall of force wins every time.
During early levels, blur is a fantastic spell to use paired up with mage armor and bladesong, if you're in need of some melee tanking. You'll have like 19 AC at lvl 3, and things hit you at disadvantage? forget about it, you're now incredibly tanky while you whittle things down with your cantrip attacks.
Do you have a preference between Mirror Image and Blur? Blur requires concentration, but I don't know which is better, to impose disadvantage on attack rolls, or to have a likeliness that the attack will hit a duplicate
Ren
It is not a melee spell nor a defensive spell. It is a great spell, but not on a melee build.
Note I put Fear and Thunderstep which are more or less melee spells. Fear, cast from the front line gives you an opportunity attack when the enemy tries to run, which can either be a strraight up attack or be combined with warcaster and booming blade for even more damage. Thunderstep is a mobility spell you use to get out of melee .... or into combat in the right circumstances.
Booming Blade - yes. Either Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade is more or less mandatory and usually I take both
Sword Burst, Thunderwave - ok, not mandatory. Definitely not both of these.
Thunder Step - usually in the book, not used a lot
Spirit Shroudn- I have never taken it. I think the cost is high compared to Hex which is a level lower, and lasts a lot longer. You can get Hex through a Fey Touched. TBH I think Shadowblade is better than spirit shroud and I don't usually get that either.
Fire Shield - Always get it. Does not use concentration. Awesome spell if you know you will be fighting in a few minutes. The only downside is the action to cast if you need to use it in battle.
Steel Wind Strike - I have never gotten it nor seen it used. The problem is to get max value there needs to be 5 monsters within 30 feet of you. When that happens that is a ton of damage, without a save, and its force damage, with a teleport attached. Those things are all awesome but they are less good if there are less than 5 enemies within 30 feet of you (and usually there will be less than 5). Also, I don't see it getting used very often; 5th level slots are at a premium for false life and 5th level is also the highest level you can put on contingency which means your contingency false life or whither and bloom will usually be using those slots.
Tasha's Otherworldly Guise, Tenser's Transformation - Never. IMO these are traps on a bladesinger. You can do better with lower level spells
Blur is a lot better. The only thing mirror image has going for it is that it is non-concentration, so you can combine it with other spells like Haste, PEG .... or blur.
When I play a bladesinger more often than not, the first turn I am casting Protection from Evil and Good if the enemy is undead, fey, fiend, aberation or elemental or blur when the enemy is not one of these.
fire shield doesn't require concentration, so you can cast it on yourself before combat, then have it running for the duration. tenser's transformation is highly recommended if you are going to be more focused on melee. steel wind strike is pretty fun. thunder step is a good "panic button," though dimension door may be a better option for escaping.
Brains over brawn? Mind over matter? These canny warriors rightly answer, "Why not both?" - Tasha
My Homebrews: Monsters, Magic Items, Spells, Races
Rhulg- Hobgoblin Gunsmith
Has anyone tried Melf's Minute Meteors with a bladesinger? I am strongly considering it for mine, but I haven't leveled that far yet.
It does require concentration, but at level 6, a bladesinger could activate bladesong and cast it on round one, use extra attack (with a cantrip!), and blast 1-9 additional creatures at range for 2d6 fire damage for the next six rounds (or 4d6 for the next three rounds).
This would allow a lot of flexibility with ranged/melee attacks, not suffer disadvantage with an adjacent enemy, and still do half damage on a save.
In addition to the mechanics, I like the "cool factor" of stabbing away with my rapier and then, without even looking to aim, hurling destruction across the battlemap. To me, that's what Gish style is all about.
But I haven't actually tried it yet.
Fireshield and thundersteo are awesome. I would steer clear of Tensors Transformation as a Bladesinger. You will do very little extra damage because you can't cast spells so you can't cast a cantrip like you can with the normal bladesinger extra attack. You get proficiency in heavy armor but you don't have enough time to actually put the armor on before the spell ends and you can't don the armor first because you can't cast spells with it on. You get shield proficiency but you can't use a sheild in bladesong and bladesong is a much better AC bonus than a shield. You get 50 temp hit points but you can't cast shiled or absorb elements so you are going to burn through these quickly. You take a level of exhaustion when it ends.
Treantmonk did a video on this, you can actually get more damage out of a 3rd level shadowblade, which is 3 levels lower in slot cost, you don't have all the negatives that come with it and can still cast all your spells like shield and absorb elements.
Hopefully this should help: Bladesinger build guide by Treantmonk
Would you recommend Tasha's Otherworldly Guise over Tenser's Transformation?
Ren
Yes
Blur is a brilliant spell but I am struggling to justify it. Same with protection from evil and good. They are both concentration and I'd rather use concentration for a damage spell i.e shadowblade or crowd control i.e hold person, hypnotic pattern etc. Mirror image is a concentration free no-brainer defense spell.
Blur is meant to tank. Sometimes it's not smart to use hypnotic pattern, maybe you're fighting things that are immune to the charm condition or have advantage against it. Sometimes, you decide that the extra damage granted by shadow blade isn't worth the risk that you could take a hit that might have otherwise been prevented.
If there were a singular BBEG fight, chances are it's going to hit like a truck. I'd like blur there.
If you want a control spell Fear is what works best with bladesinger. It is A LOT better than hypnotic pattern IME. With HP, unless every single enemy fails the save it usually only lasts 1 round. Fear will usually take them out of the fight for the duration, as a bladesinger you are in the front where you need to be to cast it and you get an opportunity attack as enemies flee. Since your move in bladesong is usually higher than theirs you can follow up with movement+misty step get to the other side of the enemy, attack them with booming blade, then they flee back the other way (towards your party) taking another AOO and extra booming blade damage.
Hold Person is fine. For a lower level control spell I like cause fear better though. If they fail their save they can't move closer to you which makes it easy to position them and for a 2nd level slot you can hit 2 of them and most importantly it is not limited to humanoids. You can upcast this even higher if enemies are not arranged to hit them with the 3rd level fear spell. You can get it through shadowtouched feat too at 4th level, while boosting int to 18, so it does not count against prepared spells.
IME Shadowblade is very situational on a bladesinger. The damage is not good enough for you to be an effective striker, especially when you need mobile feat to do that well and if you stay in melee you are going to be making a lot of concentration saves to keep it running. You also have to be picky about where you melee. You can't for example survive toe-to-toe with 4 berzerkers simultaneously at 6th level with shadowblade, you can with blur. There are situations it is good, at 13th level if you upcast it to 7th level AND someone else hasted you AND you have a ton of temp hit points, when that comes together you can dual wield and do a crapton of damage for a couple rounds.
Blur or PEG are the ideal spell for tanking on a bladesinger. Mirror image is ok at 3rd and 4th level, but it is usually not going to last more than a turn in melee once you hit 6th level or so. If you rely on MI you are usually doing no damage at all because most turns you will need to use your action to cast MI again. In general with a bladesinger I want enemies to attack me so other characters can hit them for a lot of damage blur or PEG are the ideal spells to do that.