Best 'Go Boom' mage? (or cleric?)

[Klaus Teufel]

I want to make a Dwarven mage (or possibly a cleric) with an artillery/sapper/incendiary theme. I couldn't find any recent cleric or mage optimisation threads. I'm starting at 1st level, but I want an idea of what the best progression, stats and feats (and perhaps multiclass options?) might be to cater to the theme.:smallbiggrin:

(It'd be nice if optimisation threads were stickied, or otherwise gathered together for convenient reference.):smallredface:

[Aett_Thorn]

It’s hard to beat an Evocation Wizard for something like this. You can blow stuff up all you want without worrying about hitting your allies, and know that you’ll always do about half damage even with cantrips.

War wizard might be another good choice. If you’re going Mountain Dwarf, you’ll have access to medium armor which means you could use the War Wizard’s ability instead of Shield and still be okay most of the time.

[ImproperJustice]

Draconic or Storm Sorceror with empower spell and careful spell can make some pretty good booms.

Or if your allies can learn to work with you, take twin, quicken, or distant spell for long range blasts.

[CTurbo]

Light Cleric is pretty good for this but nothing will beat Tempest Cleric with it's maxed Lightning or Thunder damage

[JakOfAllTirades]

Light Cleric is pretty good for this but nothing will beat Tempest Cleric with it's maxed Lightning or Thunder damage

This is what it's all about. For comparison:

Tempest Cleric can maximize Lightning and Thunder spells starting at level 2. Channel Divinity, once per short rest.

Evocation Wizards can maximize spells of 5th level or lower starting at level 14, once per long rest, more if they're willing to risk massive necrotic damage.

Interestingly, I just noticed the Cleric feature doesn't have a spell level limit like the Wizard's; they can maximize spells up to 9th level!

I know what my next character's gonna be....

[krugaan]

This is what it's all about. For comparison:

Tempest Cleric can maximize Lightning and Thunder spells starting at level 2. Channel Divinity, once per short rest.

Evocation Wizards can maximize spells of 5th level or lower starting at level 14, once per long rest, more if they're willing to risk massive necrotic damage.

Interestingly, I just noticed the Cleric feature doesn't have a spell level limit like the Wizard's; they can maximize spells up to 9th level!

I know what my next character's gonna be....

What applicable spells are there at 9th level though?

[jaappleton]

Light Cleric is pretty good for this but nothing will beat Tempest Cleric with it's maxed Lightning or Thunder damage

If all material is allowed?

Without MCing, then Zeal Cleric dominates.

With MCing? Official content only?

Assassin 3 / Tempest 2 / Sorcerer 15.

Twinned Chromatic Orb (Lightning) at maximum damage, doubled. And since its an attack roll, Legendary Resistance to auto-save doesn't apply. Even better if you can get a Grave Cleric to Curse someone first, because then you DOUBLE all of that.

[CTurbo]

What applicable spells are there at 9th level though?


Upcasting spells like Shatter, Thunderwave, and Call Lightning are really devastating.

I think the 6th level Chain Lightning spells is the highest applicable spell but requires multiclassing.

But yeah at level 6, you can max damage twice per short rest which means that you're getting good use of it.

I've played 3 different Tempest Clerics and I've actually found the ability to be overpowered. It's a serious encounter stopper. Often trivializing encounters by either severely crippling the enemies before the fight even begins good, or just flat out kills a large percentage of enemies on my first turn. I think it steals the spotlight almost every time it's used.

[jaappleton]

Upcasting spells like Shatter, Thunderwave, and Call Lightning are really devastating.

I think the 6th level Chain Lightning spells is the highest applicable spell but requires multiclassing.

But yeah at level 6, you can max damage twice per short rest which means that you're getting good use of it.

I've played 3 different Tempest Clerics and I've actually found the ability to be overpowered. It's a serious encounter stopper. Often trivializing encounters by either severely crippling the enemies before the fight even begins good, or just flat out kills a large percentage of enemies on my first turn. I think it steals the spotlight almost every time it's used.

I agree with this quite a bit.

My old home group is reforming, and I had a bit of a rep as a powergamer. We played 4E at the time, and anyone that's played it knows you can rack up some pretty insane numbers if you crunch things the right way. Well, I did that.

Learned a lot since then.

Since my group is reforming, I'll be playing a Cleric. I asked them what kind they wanted me to be; Grave, Life, or Order. I wasn't even going to mention Tempest.

I want to support the team, not end encounters before they get a chance to do anything cool. I know that killing everything quickly allows us to save resources, less healing, etc. But I want them to shine.

Besides, I do think that creating super-optimzed, almost broken (Trust me, we all knows ways to go FAR beyond what Tempest can do) characters can create an arms race between the players and DM. So the DM has to throw tougher things at the party to compensate for what the PCs can do. And know who gets left in the middle? Non-optimized characters that can't contend.

Its a tough thing to balance.

.....and as a side note.....

Tempest Theurge wins. :smallcool:

[CTurbo]

My DM once tried to reroute our party because we weren't going where he wanted us to go lol so he sent a huge pack of Gnolls at us. We were 3rd or 4th level at the time. I asked him how close they all were to each other and he said they were all pretty much 5x5 shoulder to shoulder. I dropped a maxed Shatter right in the middle of them and killed like 14-16 of them at once before they even got within reach of us. Then we mopped the floor with the remaining few. The DM was pissed. Lol he said that we weren't even supposed to fight.

That's just one of many examples

[xyianth]

How about the old warlock meteor? Pick any race with the ability to fly, select pact of the blade. Form your blade pact with a humongous rock. (or statue or anything heavy really) Put it in your extraplanar space. Fly above your enemies, shout something snarky, and use your bonus action to summon your 'weapon'. Bonus points if you sing "Let it go" as your meteor crashes down into your enemies below. Enemies still standing? Good thing you can resummon again every round.

What? Don't look at me like that!

In all seriousness, I +1 the tempest cleric for sheer "everything goes boom" power. The only things that really come close to that are coffeelocks and nuclear druids. (both of which are about as cheesy as the warlock meteor I posted... with which I was of course joking.)

[JakOfAllTirades]

What applicable spells are there at 9th level though?

MC, 2 levels of Tempest cleric, 17 of any Druid.

Then maximize both lightning and thunder damage from Storm of Vengeance.

[sophontteks]

Sorcerer with empower spell. The other metamagics are too pricy. If you math it out, empower is giving an awful lot for cheap. Its not flashy, but erasing all your min rolls produces big damage.

Only later should a sorcerer grab one of the more expensive metamagics, and empower is allowed to be combined with any other metamagics too, so its always producing good value. Its the best metamagic second only to subtle spell.

Empower spell is the reason sorcerers are the best blasters. Not twin, not maximize, not quicken. The most consistent damage available from level 3 onwards.

[CTurbo]

Sorcerer with empower spell. The other metamagics are too pricy. If you math it out, empower is giving an awful lot for cheap. Its not flashy, but erasing all your min rolls produces big damage.

Only later should a sorcerer grab one of the more expensive metamagics, and empower is allowed to be combined with any other metamagics too, so its always producing good value. Its the best metamagic second only to subtle spell.

Empower spell is the reason sorcerers are the best blasters. Not twin, not maximize, not quicken. The most consistent damage available from level 3 onwards.


Storm Sorcerer/Tempest Cleric!!!

[JakOfAllTirades]

Sorcerer with empower spell. The other metamagics are too pricy. If you math it out, empower is giving an awful lot for cheap. Its not flashy, but erasing all your min rolls produces big damage.

Only later should a sorcerer grab one of the more expensive metamagics, and empower is allowed to be combined with any other metamagics too, so its always producing good value. Its the best metamagic second only to subtle spell.

Empower spell is the reason sorcerers are the best blasters. Not twin, not maximize, not quicken. The most consistent damage available from level 3 onwards.

You realize what Maximize does, right? Getting a second roll on a few low dice can't really compare with automatically getting the highest possible roll on all the dice the first time around.

[rbstr]

You realize what Maximize does, right? Getting a second roll on a few low dice can't really compare with automatically getting the highest possible roll on all the dice the first time around.

It compares very well, just asymmetrically. Where Destructive Wrath simply replaces a roll, which might have ended up being very good or very poor, who knows, Empower is very efficient - if you roll well you don't use it, if you roll a handful of 1s you bump your damage a lot for just one SP. This is ~ a 19% damage increase on the average level 3 fireball, you basically get to upcast every blast you do for 1sp. And It'll work on spells of all damage types.

Finally, Sorc just gets better blasting spells than the tempest cleric. Shatter and Destructive Wave are as good as it gets basically. Using the CD on Call Lightning is very inefficient.

That doesn't mean Tempest is a bad blaster by any means, of course. Just that a Sorc with empower is pretty great.

[jaappleton]

I will say, since many don’t know about it, that Mike Mearls released a Destruction Domain that he uses for his home campaign.

And it’s actually pretty good.

One key feature is that you basically get Advantage on damage rolls for spells. Which might seem strong, but it’s not. It’s just a way to feel a lot better about rolling terribly on Fireball.

I know that some people often have a “Oh, its Mearls’s homebrew so it’s so unbalanced” connotation with Mike’s stuff. I’m guilty of thinking that on occasion myself. But it’s actually quite well done, it’s very solid.

EDIT: Here's a link to it. https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/1015753942263664640

[sophontteks]

You realize what Maximize does, right? Getting a second roll on a few low dice can't really compare with automatically getting the highest possible roll on all the dice the first time around.
No?
The sorcerer can reroll every bad roll by mid level and still have the points to combine that same spell with another metamagic using arcane spells rather then cleric spells.

But lets romance our conflicting ideals with storm sorcerer and a splash of tempest cleric so we have better blasting spells, maximized, with better options after round one.

[hwem]

May I ask how tempest clerics NOVA potential is at higher levels? I know many campaigns don’t go up to level 20 or just high levels in general but I’m just curious....

[CTurbo]

May I ask how tempest clerics NOVA potential is at higher levels? I know many campaigns don’t go up to level 20 or just high levels in general but I’m just curious....

Shatter maxed will do 24 damage to every creature in a 10ft radius. Depending on how your DM rules it, thats up to 12-16 enemies at once. Add +8 damage per spell slot upcast. That's 56 damage to every enemy from a 6th level slot. I rarely see spells upcast higher than 6th but yeah at 9th level it's a smooth 80 damage each.

Destructive Wave maxed is 30+5d6 damage to every enemy in a 30ft radius centered on you and is ally friendly. I'm not adding it up but a 30ft radius should be well over 100 enemies potentially.

Grab 2 levels of fighter and action surge would double any of that once per short rest.

[krugaan]

Shatter maxed will do 24 damage to every creature in a 10ft radius. Depending on how your DM rules it, thats up to 12-16 enemies at once. Add +8 damage per spell slot upcast. That's 56 damage to every enemy from a 6th level slot. I rarely see spells upcast higher than 6th but yeah at 9th level it's a smooth 80 damage each.

Destructive Wave maxed is 30+5d6 damage to every enemy in a 30ft radius centered on you and is ally friendly. I'm not adding it up but a 30ft radius should be well over 100 enemies potentially.

Grab 2 levels of fighter and action surge would double any of that once per short rest.

Can't cast double leveled spells in a round, but it's still decent damage.

[Arkhios]

This is what it's all about. For comparison:

Tempest Cleric can maximize Lightning and Thunder spells starting at level 2. Channel Divinity, once per short rest.

Evocation Wizards can maximize spells of 5th level or lower starting at level 14, once per long rest, more if they're willing to risk massive necrotic damage.

Interestingly, I just noticed the Cleric feature doesn't have a spell level limit like the Wizard's; they can maximize spells up to 9th level!

I know what my next character's gonna be....

Evoker 14/Tempest cleric 6?

I know I would do that, even though it's pretty MAD given that you might probably want to have high intelligence and wisdom, if not maxed.
(Then again, you have proficiency in the heaviest armor and you're primarily a caster so perhaps you could forgo being bothered about melee stats and use Shocking Grasp if you absolutely need to attack in melee. And suck it up that you might be 10 feet slower if you lack strength)

Channel Divinity 2/short rest (available at cleric 6!) + Evoker lvl 14 ability 1/long rest.

[CTurbo]

Can't cast double leveled spells in a round, but it's still decent damage.

I thought with Action Surge you could.

[leogobsin]

I thought with Action Surge you could.

You're right actually. The rule is if you cast a leveled bonus action spell, you can't use your action to cast a leveled spell that turn. You can cast two leveled spells each with 1 action casting time using Action Surge.

It's... a weird and fiddly rule that I really don't understand at all tbh.

[CTurbo]

You're right actually. The rule is if you cast a leveled bonus action spell, you can't use your action to cast a leveled spell that turn. You can cast two leveled spells each with 1 action casting time using Action Surge.

It's... a weird and fiddly rule that I really don't understand at all tbh.

Action surge breaks all the rules. That's why it's so powerful.

Sorcerers with 2 levels of fighter really put the finger to the action economy.

[krugaan]

Action surge breaks all the rules. That's why it's so powerful.

Sorcerers with 2 levels of fighter really put the finger to the action economy.

Wow, you're right. Today I learned, lol