Rate My Bard Spell Selection?

[Azther]

Hey there! Can you guys help me out deciding which spells I'll take for my Bard? It's more theorycrafting than anything. I wanted to make an all around Bard who can also double as a Blaster if needed. Lore Bard, so that's 24 spells with 8 being from Magical Secrets.


Cantrips
Vicious Mockery
Prestidigitation
Minor Illusion
Mage Hand

1st Level
Faerie Fire
Cure Wounds
Healing Word
Thunderwave
Shield

2nd Level
Invisibility
Silence
Suggestion
Prayer of Healing

3rd Level
Mass Healing Word
Dispel Magic
Aura of Vitality
Fireball
Counterspell

4th Level
Greater Invisibility
Dimension Door
Polymorph

5th Level
Mass Cure Wounds
Animate Objects
Raise Dead
Destructive Wave
Bigby's Hand

6th Level
Otto's Irresistible Dance

9th Level
Wish





Another spells I would like to add but don't know which ones to take out:


Hypnotic Pattern (There's a lack of Control Spells in the list)

Heat Metal (Extremely useful against heavily armored enemies, either they drop their armor and become defenseless or they take damage every turn)

Misty Step(Useful but maybe Dimension Door might be enough?)

Steel Wind Strike (Good Damage, targets AC instead of Saving Throws, if you manage to get Advantage [Greater Invisibility] + Elven Accuracy can be better than Destructive Wave)

Revivify (Great but the window to use it is too small. Would be great to have it and Raise Dead both but the spell list isn't that big)

Absorb Elements (Like Shield but for Fireballs)







Which Spells should I take off the list in case I pick any of these?
Which Spells do you recommend?


Thanks in advance!

[sophontteks]

Too much healing not enough control for my tastes. Taking both cure wounds and healing word is borderline criminal with such limited spellslots. You can cut way back on the healing IMO.

[Azther]

Too much healing not enough control for my tastes. Taking both cure wounds and healing word is borderline criminal with such limited spellslots. You can cut way back on the healing IMO.

So which healing should I take out? Healing Word or Cure Wounds?

[Vorpalchicken]

I would drop aura of vitality and prayer of healing for healing spirit (Unless it's banned) freeing up a secret. I would probably also drop cure wounds (but not healing word)
I like all of your "maybes." Try to squeeze as many in as you can. Absorb Elements may be more useful than Shield at this point since you have cutting words. Just keep away from claws and pointy things.
I like Telekinesis better than Bigby's hand. It's a nice way around legendary resistances.
I would also ditch Thunderwave once you get mid to high level. I like Destructive Wave as fifth level blasty spells go but I don't think I'd use magical secrets to get it. (Nice for 10th Level bards though.)
Unless there's absolutely no other way for your players to be raised in the worst circumstances (dead over a minute) Revivify I find is better than raise dead. No penalties and cheaper.

[Azther]

I would drop aura of vitality and prayer of healing for healing spirit (Unless it's banned) freeing up a secret. I would probably also drop cure wounds (but not healing word)
I like all of your "maybes." Try to squeeze as many in as you can. Absorb Elements may be more useful than Shield at this point since you have cutting words. Just keep away from claws and pointy things.
I like Telekinesis better than Bigby's hand. It's a nice way around legendary resistances.
I would also ditch Thunderwave once you get mid to high level. I like Destructive Wave as fifth level blasty spells go but I don't think I'd use magical secrets to get it. (Nice for 10th Level bards though.)
Unless there's absolutely no other way for your players to be raised in the worst circumstances (dead over a minute) Revivify I find is better than raise dead. No penalties and cheaper.


Only reason I didn't take Healing Spirit is because its seems ridiculously overpowered and I feel like it's gonna be errata'ed any second now. I still really think that Aura of Vitality is great for long battles and Prayer of Healing is amazing for healing out of combat. Cast it on third level and you got yourself a Mass Cure Wounds at level 3. Or six Cure Wounds on level 2. But thanks for the input!

I like Bigby's Hand more because it can be used to attack and you can climb and fly on top of it, so there's a lot of versatility. (Can you use Telekinesis to fly? I guess you could but you would fall as soon as your turn ended right? Hm...)

Still a little on the fence on Revivify vs Raise Dead, you only got a one minute window to use it, that's risky.

I guess Thunderwave isn't that great, gonna have to think about that.

I like Destructive Wave because it deals a ton of damage and you can cast it in the middle of your friends, since I like being a Blaster, it's pretty great.

[Speely]

I feel like Healing Word and Cure Wounds are not both needed. I would drop Cure Wounds and keep HW because action/movement economy. It's so good at keeping people up. By the time one needs bigger heals, Mass Cure Wounds will be more economical, and being able to cast HW as a higher-level spell can make it a decent BA heal.

Hypnotic Pattern is stupid good. Like really good. Anecdotal, by my lore bard has straight-up controlled entire encounters with this one spell. I would make room for that by any means. Particularly useful against groups of bruisers who tend to have low Wis saves.

As a bard, you will rarely get the same oomph out of using spell slots for healing as you will for control, but you can be good at clutch heals + control. It's good glue for a party.

I like Otto's for your 6th level spell. Great clutch control spell since it buys a round of control with no save.

Imo, your setup is nice, but I would replace Cure Wounds with something (Dissonant Whispers against some enemies is brutal) and find a way to work in Hypnotic Pattern for sure.

Counterspell is clutch (I see you are looking at it.) Really only competes with Cutting Words for action economy, and let's you pretty much ALWAYS have a potent Reaction. Make it so. I advise Counterspell for every Lore Bard because it plays into so much of what they do well.

[Specter]

Too much healing not enough control for my tastes. Taking both cure wounds and healing word is borderline criminal with such limited spellslots. You can cut way back on the healing IMO.

This. The main trump of in-combat healing is reviving someone, and Healing Word does that just fine.

[Keravath]

Some other bard spells you might want to consider:

Dissonant Whispers - very useful to make someone run away, do some damage and possibly trigger opportunity attacks

Phantasmal Force - single target distraction - Int save which isn't very common - does d6 damage/turn but the creature engaged with it is convinced it is real. It is a decent way to keep a particularly nasty opponent busy trying to slay something in its head.

Blindness/Deafness - single target debuff - they have disadvantage and everyone else has advantage - con save (as opposed to many bard spells that are wisdom saves) - and it does NOT require concentration so you can cast it while keeping up a concentration spell (like hypnotic pattern).


I also think Hypnotic Pattern is very much worth taking.

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I would also drop cure wounds and thunderwave along with at least one more healing spell. Likely I'd suggest picking either Aura of Vitality or Healing Spirit depending on how much healing ability you think you might need.

I'm also not sure about Mass Healing Word since I think it would have very limited applicability ... it might be very useful if several characters are knocked to zero hit points in one round by an AoE spell ... but I haven't seen that happen. Otherwise it just heals d4+ability mod to six characters which really doesn't go very far. Most of the time you'd be better off using a 3rd level slot for Fireball or Hypnotic Pattern for example ... those are likely to prevent far more damage in the long run than the few hit points restored by Mass Healing Word. The one exception being if you happen to have several characters down in the same round ... though in that case the battle may not be going very well in the first place (also depends on whether you have a cleric or other healer in your usual groups). I'd also drop Mass Cure Wounds at 5th level (especially if you are taking Mass Healing Word). Upcasting Mass Healing Word to 5th level only does 3d4+ability which is less than Mass Cure Wounds but has a 60' range and only requires a bonus action.



Counterspell (which you have listed) is a must in my opinion.


I'm also not a big fan of Heat Metal. It can work extremely well in the right circumstances with an opponent in metal armor doing damage while giving them disadvantage on attacks. However, there are a lot of creatures that do not wear metal armor ... most of the ones who do wear it are humanoids but not all of them. The spell also requires concentration and as such competes with some of the better debuff or control spells (hypnotic pattern). In addition, another option is casting Blindness which will give the same disadvantage on attacks but also gives your team mates advantage and can apply to a far wider range of creatures and doesn't require concentration.