Hi all, I am making a Tiefling Evocation wizard starting at lvl 3 and was wondering what spells you would recommend i learn to start off.
The big ones im debating to get are Scorching Ray, Magic Missile and Burning Hands. Is it worth getting all 3 or only some? I can see the value for each but im not sure if I would be better off learning a different spell instead.
With scorching ray it says i create 3 says that can target multiple so if i choose 3 enemies they only take 2d6 each which is better than 5d6 (At 2nd level) from burning hands (obviously) But then i can target just 1 enemy as well with scorching ray to make it 6d6 which sounds more versitile.
Then with magic missile vs burning hands, as im evocation wizard i can negate any damage to allies from burning hands using sculpt spell which will deal 3d6 to all enemies instead of 3d4 to one enemy or only 1d4 to multiple assuming i hit 3 enemies when using magic missile so it would make magic missile worthless right?
Any help and what other spells you would recommend would be appreciated.
Evocation School Attack Cantrip such as Firebolt or Ray of Frost (I personally prefer Ray of Frost as I find the speed reduction very useful for certain combos like with Slow or Sleet Storm Save Based Damage Cantrip such as Toll the Dead or Acid Splash Utility Cantrip of choice (Mage Hand and Prestidigitation are great choices, but the elemental ones are great for flavour/themes).
Until you reach 5th level and get to fireball enemy faces off the cantrips will serve you better for consistent and reliable damage so having some combat cantrips will go a long way. It works best if they deal different types of damage to get past certain resistances. Also consider any secondary effects the cantrip has: Acid Splash may do less damage than a Fire Bolt but it can attack two enemies at once and acid damage is less resisted than fire, usually. Frostbite does less than Fire Bolt too but it also imposes disadvantage to their next attack, which might save your skin or an ally's.
A mix of "attack" and "save" types is good: typically creatures who have high AC may be easier to get with Save type and vice versa. It gives you versatility.
An attack cantrip is best to be from the Evocation school because at 10th level you can add your Int mod to any Evocation spell, thanks to Empowered Evocation feature.
At 6th level you get Potent Cantrip which enhances your Save type cantrips: even if they succeed on the save, they'll still take damage. It can be from any magic school, but those from Evo will get the bump from Empowered Evocation later.
At some point consider Mind Sliver - the damage isn't great but the ability to impose disadvantage to their next save could be very useful.
The advice is here is more general - it's perfectly fine to just take one combat spell and two utilities, for instance. But the advice will help throughout as you choose more later.
--
1st Level - 8 Spells
Mage Armor and Shield. They will save your life.
Magic Missile. Never underestimate the value of guaranteed damage. Few enemies have shield or resistance/immunity to force damage. By 14th level this is a beast as you can overchannel this at 5th level and do a guaranteed 70 force damage which can be split up to 7 creatures or focused on just one.
Thunderwave. This is fantastic at getting the enemies away from you, does decent damage for a 1st level spell, decent sized AoE and you use it freely because of Sculpt Spells.
Detect Magic and Comprehend Languages. They're rituals so you don't have to worry about prepping them or spell slots, they're great for investigation and out of combat discovery. Detect Magic can also help against illusions - some illusions make things invisible and it won't help with those but most illusions project something like a fake wall or enemy, or fake floor covering a hole/trap etc. Most illusions lose their power when you know they're illusions so this helps with that. Comprehend Languages can be vital if you uncover strange writings in a dungeon that actually had clues or something useful to know, or if you want to read some noble's diary who wrote it in a different or less known language.
For the remaining two I'd recommend rituals, just so you can save your preps for better stuff, like maybe Find Familiar or Unseen Servant. These have many great uses. With a little creativity you can get a lot of use of these. Plus, ya know, why waste your previous study time doing chores when you just make a servant to do it for you? Familiars are great scouts and combine well with things like Misty Step to get through barriers.
Worth consideration can be had for Grease if you have a party with melee peeps because if you can make the creature prone you're cutting out half their movement and granting advantage to your melee party members. You can also place it on stairs for a painful but hilarious prank. Also as you advance in level Absorb Elements is a must get before you start facing dragons - and your squishy wizard is going to need all the damage reduction goodies they can get. Not vital to get for first few levels - mage armour and shield will serve you better - but it's a massive increase in protection later when you start getting more enemies with various AoE / elemental damage abilities.
Burning Hands can be a very useful spell but I personally find relying on cantrips for damage is sufficient until you get higher spells. It has a rather short coverage which prompts being closer to the enemies and that can prove more dangerous for you. This should only be considered if you're in a combat-heavy campaign (and even then, I'd prefer Chromatic Orb to Burning Hands, personally). Thunderwave just seems better overall. That and cantrips should you get you through most of it, 'til 5th level.
2nd Level - 2 spells
Agnazzar's Scorcher or Scorching Ray. There's little point getting both from your free level-up spells. AS is a line spell and could get more enemies and this will fare better with the Empower Evocation feature since that damage bump applies to everything. But, lines are tricky and enemies rarely line themselves up. Scorching Ray is more reliable since you choose targets but doesn't pair well with Empowered Evocation because only one target will get the increased damage, no matter the number of rays shot. There's also Shatter which has an AoE that's easier to get multiple enemies and works with Empowered Evocation - but the damage is the same as AS yet is a Con save which most monsters, especially later, are going to be either good or great at. Before you know it you'll have fireball and/or lightning bolt, making these obsolete.
To be honest the damage choices for 2nd level aren't the best. I lean more towards utility/protection. I'd still rather just upcast Thunderwave. Even though it's con save too, it serves you better when they do fail - since it pushes them away, and it covers a big area to get more enemies, so worth the few less dmg points.
So my picks for 2nd level spells tend to be Misty Step and Mirror Image. But See Invisibility can be good, Earthen Grasp and Hold Person can be great. Nothing like making an enemy auto-fail dex saves against your fireball if they can't break out. Hold Person is better if you think you're more likely to face humanoid enemies since it paralyses the enemy so your party's melee attacks autocrit. Magic Mouth is also a good contender - with some creativity it can do a lot and its a ritual so yay dont have to prep it or use spell slots.
2nd level just has so many better choices for utility or support and its direct combat, especially evocation, kinda suck in comparison. All your class features are completely reliant on combat - so having little to nothing in way of non-combat spells could leave you with nothing to contribute in non-combat situations. The true power of the wizard class is their versatility.
Besides, when you next level up your offensive battle potential is going to take a steep jump up thanks to spells like Fireball and Lightning Bolt, or in defense like with Counterspell and Slow. You can afford to make use of the plethora of utility/support spells, be your campaign combat-heavy or not.
--
Hope this helps.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Evocation School Attack Cantrip such as Firebolt or Ray of Frost (I personally prefer Ray of Frost as I find the speed reduction very useful for certain combos like with Slow or Sleet Storm Save Based Damage Cantrip such as Toll the Dead or Acid Splash Utility Cantrip of choice (Mage Hand and Prestidigitation are great choices, but the elemental ones are great for flavour/themes).
Until you reach 5th level and get to fireball enemy faces off the cantrips will serve you better for consistent and reliable damage so having some combat cantrips will go a long way. It works best if they deal different types of damage to get past certain resistances. Also consider any secondary effects the cantrip has: Acid Splash may do less damage than a Fire Bolt but it can attack two enemies at once and acid damage is less resisted than fire, usually. Frostbite does less than Fire Bolt too but it also imposes disadvantage to their next attack, which might save your skin or an ally's.
A mix of "attack" and "save" types is good: typically creatures who have high AC may be easier to get with Save type and vice versa. It gives you versatility.
An attack cantrip is best to be from the Evocation school because at 10th level you can add your Int mod to any Evocation spell, thanks to Empowered Evocation feature.
At 6th level you get Potent Cantrip which enhances your Save type cantrips: even if they succeed on the save, they'll still take damage. It can be from any magic school, but those from Evo will get the bump from Empowered Evocation later.
At some point consider Mind Sliver - the damage isn't great but the ability to impose disadvantage to their next save could be very useful.
The advice is here is more general - it's perfectly fine to just take one combat spell and two utilities, for instance. But the advice will help throughout as you choose more later.
--
1st Level - 8 Spells
Mage Armor and Shield. They will save your life.
Magic Missile. Never underestimate the value of guaranteed damage. Few enemies have shield or resistance/immunity to force damage. By 14th level this is a beast as you can overchannel this at 5th level and do a guaranteed 70 force damage which can be split up to 7 creatures or focused on just one.
Thunderwave. This is fantastic at getting the enemies away from you, does decent damage for a 1st level spell, decent sized AoE and you use it freely because of Sculpt Spells.
Detect Magic and Comprehend Languages. They're rituals so you don't have to worry about prepping them or spell slots, they're great for investigation and out of combat discovery. Detect Magic can also help against illusions - some illusions make things invisible and it won't help with those but most illusions project something like a fake wall or enemy, or fake floor covering a hole/trap etc. Most illusions lose their power when you know they're illusions so this helps with that. Comprehend Languages can be vital if you uncover strange writings in a dungeon that actually had clues or something useful to know, or if you want to read some noble's diary who wrote it in a different or less known language.
For the remaining two I'd recommend rituals, just so you can save your preps for better stuff, like maybe Find Familiar or Unseen Servant. These have many great uses. With a little creativity you can get a lot of use of these. Plus, ya know, why waste your previous study time doing chores when you just make a servant to do it for you? Familiars are great scouts and combine well with things like Misty Step to get through barriers.
Worth consideration can be had for Grease if you have a party with melee peeps because if you can make the creature prone you're cutting out half their movement and granting advantage to your melee party members. You can also place it on stairs for a painful but hilarious prank. Also as you advance in level Absorb Elements is a must get before you start facing dragons - and your squishy wizard is going to need all the damage reduction goodies they can get. Not vital to get for first few levels - mage armour and shield will serve you better - but it's a massive increase in protection later when you start getting more enemies with various AoE / elemental damage abilities.
Burning Hands can be a very useful spell but I personally find relying on cantrips for damage is sufficient until you get higher spells. It has a rather short coverage which prompts being closer to the enemies and that can prove more dangerous for you. This should only be considered if you're in a combat-heavy campaign (and even then, I'd prefer Chromatic Orb to Burning Hands, personally). Thunderwave just seems better overall. That and cantrips should you get you through most of it, 'til 5th level.
2nd Level - 2 spells
Agnazzar's Scorcher or Scorching Ray. There's little point getting both from your free level-up spells. AS is a line spell and could get more enemies and this will fare better with the Empower Evocation feature since that damage bump applies to everything. But, lines are tricky and enemies rarely line themselves up. Scorching Ray is more reliable since you choose targets but doesn't pair well with Empowered Evocation because only one target will get the increased damage, no matter the number of rays shot. There's also Shatter which has an AoE that's easier to get multiple enemies and works with Empowered Evocation - but the damage is the same as AS yet is a Con save which most monsters, especially later, are going to be either good or great at. Before you know it you'll have fireball and/or lightning bolt, making these obsolete.
To be honest the damage choices for 2nd level aren't the best. I lean more towards utility/protection. I'd still rather just upcast Thunderwave. Even though it's con save too, it serves you better when they do fail - since it pushes them away, and it covers a big area to get more enemies, so worth the few less dmg points.
So my picks for 2nd level spells tend to be Misty Step and Mirror Image. But See Invisibility can be good, Earthen Grasp and Hold Person can be great. Nothing like making an enemy auto-fail dex saves against your fireball if they can't break out. Hold Person is better if you think you're more likely to face humanoid enemies since it paralyses the enemy so your party's melee attacks autocrit. Magic Mouth is also a good contender - with some creativity it can do a lot and its a ritual so yay dont have to prep it or use spell slots.
2nd level just has so many better choices for utility or support and its direct combat, especially evocation, kinda suck in comparison. All your class features are completely reliant on combat - so having little to nothing in way of non-combat spells could leave you with nothing to contribute in non-combat situations. The true power of the wizard class is their versatility.
Besides, when you next level up your offensive battle potential is going to take a steep jump up thanks to spells like Fireball and Lightning Bolt, or in defense like with Counterspell and Slow. You can afford to make use of the plethora of utility/support spells, be your campaign combat-heavy or not.
--
Hope this helps.
Just follow this and you’ll be fine. Really valuable advises.
We tend to think that Evocation as a whole is the kind of school that only increases your damage capabilities. But the truth is that Sculpt Spell is a terrific battlefield control ability. You should mix control and AoE spells to get the most of it. For instance:
You manage to lockdown couple enemies in your Web spell, but some of them have escaped and already engaged within your allies. No worries... cast a simple sculpted Thunderwave and push them back to the Web once again. Or perhaps a hazard spell like Flaming Sphere or Cloud of Daggers.
Consider Frost Fingers instead of Burning Hands. I can't remember what book it is out of but it's cold damage and a con save. This can be good to both diversify your saves and attacks as well as diversify the kind of damage that you can do so you don't run into situations where almost everything you have doesn't work.
It takes some research but you should be able to pick up several evocation spells that are quite useful but at the same time do not be afraid to get outside of evocation spells as well. Mind Sliver from Tasha's can be a good cantrip because it can be potentially used to set up your save spells or the save spells of another if it's secondary affect kicks in on the enemy and it's an intelligence based spell with psychic damage which is very rare so it won't be defended against alot.
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Hi all, I am making a Tiefling Evocation wizard starting at lvl 3 and was wondering what spells you would recommend i learn to start off.
The big ones im debating to get are Scorching Ray, Magic Missile and Burning Hands. Is it worth getting all 3 or only some? I can see the value for each but im not sure if I would be better off learning a different spell instead.
With scorching ray it says i create 3 says that can target multiple so if i choose 3 enemies they only take 2d6 each which is better than 5d6 (At 2nd level) from burning hands (obviously) But then i can target just 1 enemy as well with scorching ray to make it 6d6 which sounds more versitile.
Then with magic missile vs burning hands, as im evocation wizard i can negate any damage to allies from burning hands using sculpt spell which will deal 3d6 to all enemies instead of 3d4 to one enemy or only 1d4 to multiple assuming i hit 3 enemies when using magic missile so it would make magic missile worthless right?
Any help and what other spells you would recommend would be appreciated.
Cantrips
Evocation School Attack Cantrip such as Firebolt or Ray of Frost (I personally prefer Ray of Frost as I find the speed reduction very useful for certain combos like with Slow or Sleet Storm
Save Based Damage Cantrip such as Toll the Dead or Acid Splash
Utility Cantrip of choice (Mage Hand and Prestidigitation are great choices, but the elemental ones are great for flavour/themes).
Until you reach 5th level and get to fireball enemy faces off the cantrips will serve you better for consistent and reliable damage so having some combat cantrips will go a long way. It works best if they deal different types of damage to get past certain resistances. Also consider any secondary effects the cantrip has: Acid Splash may do less damage than a Fire Bolt but it can attack two enemies at once and acid damage is less resisted than fire, usually. Frostbite does less than Fire Bolt too but it also imposes disadvantage to their next attack, which might save your skin or an ally's.
A mix of "attack" and "save" types is good: typically creatures who have high AC may be easier to get with Save type and vice versa. It gives you versatility.
An attack cantrip is best to be from the Evocation school because at 10th level you can add your Int mod to any Evocation spell, thanks to Empowered Evocation feature.
At 6th level you get Potent Cantrip which enhances your Save type cantrips: even if they succeed on the save, they'll still take damage. It can be from any magic school, but those from Evo will get the bump from Empowered Evocation later.
At some point consider Mind Sliver - the damage isn't great but the ability to impose disadvantage to their next save could be very useful.
The advice is here is more general - it's perfectly fine to just take one combat spell and two utilities, for instance. But the advice will help throughout as you choose more later.
--
1st Level - 8 Spells
Mage Armor and Shield. They will save your life.
Magic Missile. Never underestimate the value of guaranteed damage. Few enemies have shield or resistance/immunity to force damage. By 14th level this is a beast as you can overchannel this at 5th level and do a guaranteed 70 force damage which can be split up to 7 creatures or focused on just one.
Thunderwave. This is fantastic at getting the enemies away from you, does decent damage for a 1st level spell, decent sized AoE and you use it freely because of Sculpt Spells.
Detect Magic and Comprehend Languages. They're rituals so you don't have to worry about prepping them or spell slots, they're great for investigation and out of combat discovery. Detect Magic can also help against illusions - some illusions make things invisible and it won't help with those but most illusions project something like a fake wall or enemy, or fake floor covering a hole/trap etc. Most illusions lose their power when you know they're illusions so this helps with that. Comprehend Languages can be vital if you uncover strange writings in a dungeon that actually had clues or something useful to know, or if you want to read some noble's diary who wrote it in a different or less known language.
For the remaining two I'd recommend rituals, just so you can save your preps for better stuff, like maybe Find Familiar or Unseen Servant. These have many great uses. With a little creativity you can get a lot of use of these. Plus, ya know, why waste your previous study time doing chores when you just make a servant to do it for you? Familiars are great scouts and combine well with things like Misty Step to get through barriers.
Worth consideration can be had for Grease if you have a party with melee peeps because if you can make the creature prone you're cutting out half their movement and granting advantage to your melee party members. You can also place it on stairs for a painful but hilarious prank. Also as you advance in level Absorb Elements is a must get before you start facing dragons - and your squishy wizard is going to need all the damage reduction goodies they can get. Not vital to get for first few levels - mage armour and shield will serve you better - but it's a massive increase in protection later when you start getting more enemies with various AoE / elemental damage abilities.
Burning Hands can be a very useful spell but I personally find relying on cantrips for damage is sufficient until you get higher spells. It has a rather short coverage which prompts being closer to the enemies and that can prove more dangerous for you. This should only be considered if you're in a combat-heavy campaign (and even then, I'd prefer Chromatic Orb to Burning Hands, personally). Thunderwave just seems better overall. That and cantrips should you get you through most of it, 'til 5th level.
2nd Level - 2 spells
Agnazzar's Scorcher or Scorching Ray. There's little point getting both from your free level-up spells. AS is a line spell and could get more enemies and this will fare better with the Empower Evocation feature since that damage bump applies to everything. But, lines are tricky and enemies rarely line themselves up. Scorching Ray is more reliable since you choose targets but doesn't pair well with Empowered Evocation because only one target will get the increased damage, no matter the number of rays shot. There's also Shatter which has an AoE that's easier to get multiple enemies and works with Empowered Evocation - but the damage is the same as AS yet is a Con save which most monsters, especially later, are going to be either good or great at. Before you know it you'll have fireball and/or lightning bolt, making these obsolete.
To be honest the damage choices for 2nd level aren't the best. I lean more towards utility/protection. I'd still rather just upcast Thunderwave. Even though it's con save too, it serves you better when they do fail - since it pushes them away, and it covers a big area to get more enemies, so worth the few less dmg points.
So my picks for 2nd level spells tend to be Misty Step and Mirror Image. But See Invisibility can be good, Earthen Grasp and Hold Person can be great. Nothing like making an enemy auto-fail dex saves against your fireball if they can't break out. Hold Person is better if you think you're more likely to face humanoid enemies since it paralyses the enemy so your party's melee attacks autocrit. Magic Mouth is also a good contender - with some creativity it can do a lot and its a ritual so yay dont have to prep it or use spell slots.
2nd level just has so many better choices for utility or support and its direct combat, especially evocation, kinda suck in comparison. All your class features are completely reliant on combat - so having little to nothing in way of non-combat spells could leave you with nothing to contribute in non-combat situations. The true power of the wizard class is their versatility.
Besides, when you next level up your offensive battle potential is going to take a steep jump up thanks to spells like Fireball and Lightning Bolt, or in defense like with Counterspell and Slow. You can afford to make use of the plethora of utility/support spells, be your campaign combat-heavy or not.
--
Hope this helps.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Just follow this and you’ll be fine. Really valuable advises.
We tend to think that Evocation as a whole is the kind of school that only increases your damage capabilities. But the truth is that Sculpt Spell is a terrific battlefield control ability. You should mix control and AoE spells to get the most of it. For instance:
You manage to lockdown couple enemies in your Web spell, but some of them have escaped and already engaged within your allies. No worries... cast a simple sculpted Thunderwave and push them back to the Web once again. Or perhaps a hazard spell like Flaming Sphere or Cloud of Daggers.
Thanks a lot for your help I appreciate it.
Consider Frost Fingers instead of Burning Hands. I can't remember what book it is out of but it's cold damage and a con save. This can be good to both diversify your saves and attacks as well as diversify the kind of damage that you can do so you don't run into situations where almost everything you have doesn't work.
It takes some research but you should be able to pick up several evocation spells that are quite useful but at the same time do not be afraid to get outside of evocation spells as well. Mind Sliver from Tasha's can be a good cantrip because it can be potentially used to set up your save spells or the save spells of another if it's secondary affect kicks in on the enemy and it's an intelligence based spell with psychic damage which is very rare so it won't be defended against alot.