Battle strategy for Spellcasters against Legendary enemies

[Azther]

Hey there. What is the best approach for a Sorcerer or a Wizard in a battle against a Legendary enemy, such as an Ancient Dragon or a Tarrasque? Both monsters have very unique abilities that can hinder Spellcasting playstyle (Immunities, Legendary Resistance, Reflective Carapace).

So what do you think is the best course of action? Damage? Support? Control?

[Angelalex242]

Burn mid level spells on save or suck spells, and wait for them to run out of legendary reistances.

[Azther]

Burn mid level spells on save or suck spells, and wait for them to run out of legendary reistances.

What spells would you suggest for that? Polymorph?

[Chaosmancer]

Hey there. What is the best approach for a Sorcerer or a Wizard in a battle against a Legendary enemy, such as an Ancient Dragon or a Tarrasque? Both monsters have very unique abilities that can hinder Spellcasting playstyle (Immunities, Legendary Resistance, Reflective Carapace).

So what do you think is the best course of action? Damage? Support? Control?

So, depends on a lot of factors.

Buff wizard against Dragon or Tarrasque? Plays about the same.

Buff wizard against beholder? Got to change things up because anti-magic eye dispels everything you do.

Debuff and control against legendary saves, decide what you want to try and have stick. You can cast mild debuffs that aren't worth using a legendary resistance on, or you can throw big things and wear them down until you can get to the point things will stick.

Tarrasque is tricky with reflecting, its either not going to change your choices because you don't usually use those spells, or most of your arsenal is gone.


As for what spells, depends on what you have. I'd never try and polymorph an enemy unless I wanted to delay them or try capturing them. Because the hp is temp and concentration won't last forever. Hypnotic pattern is awesome, unless they are immune to charm effects. Damage spells can be good because DMs can opt to burn the save to keep hp up.

Its all really variable though because all legendary monsters need different tactics to combat what they do.

[Azther]

I enjoy playing a blaster. Killing things with Magic and what not. Would you consider that an intrinsecally bad choice?

[Mike Miller]

I enjoy playing a blaster. Killing things with Magic and what not. Would you consider that an intrinsecally bad choice?

If you have fun and everyone else does, it is not intrinsically a bad choice. Some people argue that there are better routes for casters than HP damage. Blasting can be just what a party needs. It varies from table to table.

[MaxWilson]

Hey there. What is the best approach for a Sorcerer or a Wizard in a battle against a Legendary enemy, such as an Ancient Dragon or a Tarrasque? Both monsters have very unique abilities that can hinder Spellcasting playstyle (Immunities, Legendary Resistance, Reflective Carapace).

So what do you think is the best course of action? Damage? Support? Control?

Throw down a no-save spell like Forcecage or Otto's Irresistible Dance (depending on enemy size and expected condition immunities) while all of your Planar Bound minions (elementals, demons, whatever) shred it with natural and/or magic weapons.

Alternately, if you have a Simulacrum and it's not immune to poison/not a spellcaster, you can jump straight to the part where you and your Simulacrum buddy up to Cloudkill + Wall of Force it to death. (500d8 poison damage, saves for half.)

But for an Ancient Dragon I would just stick to your basic two dozen Air Elementals. (Average 256 HP of damage per round; potentially 430 HP with advantage from Otto's.) Frightful Presence could be a problem initially if you don't have a good counter for fear (such as a good way to create heavy obscurement), but you can always just have your minions flee for a few rounds until the effect wears off, at which point they all become immune for 24 hours.

[Azther]

Throw down a no-save spell like Forcecage or Otto's Irresistible Dance (depending on enemy size and expected condition immunities) while all of your Planar Bound minions (elementals, demons, whatever) shred it with natural and/or magic weapons.

Alternately, if you have a Simulacrum and it's not immune to poison/not a spellcaster, you can jump straight to the part where you and your Simulacrum buddy up to Cloudkill + Wall of Force it to death. (500d8 poison damage, saves for half.)

But for an Ancient Dragon I would just stick to your basic two dozen Air Elementals. (Average 256 HP of damage per round; potentially 430 HP with advantage from Otto's.) Frightful Presence could be a problem initially if you don't have a good counter for fear (such as a good way to create heavy obscurement), but you can always just have your minions flee for a few rounds until the effect wears off, at which point they all become immune for 24 hours.

How exactly would I get a dozen Air Elementals?

[Gastronomie]

In my experience it is a better option to use your spells on buffing friends or summoning stuff rather than eating away at the Legendary Resistances. If you waste your actions on save-or-sucks, it's either (a) the enemy succeeds and it's nothing, or (b) the enemy fails but he uses his Legendary Resistance and the action is wasted either way. In terms of action economy it's much, much better to cast Greater Invisibility, or Wall of Force, or Heal, or Animate Objects.

[MaxWilson]

How exactly would I geta dozen Air Elementals?

You turn gold into minions via:

1.) Magic Circle to contain a summoned elemental
2.) Conjure Elemental into the center of a circle
3.) Planar Binding VII or higher to bind the elemental to your will. (If you've ever played Shadowrun this part will feel very natural to you.)

If you have other spellcasters in your party you may be able to skip the Magic Circle, or get different and perhaps better summons. E.g. with a warlock or another wizard you can get Vrocks or Chasmes via Summon Greater Demon (in a Magic Circle), or a Shepherd Druid could get you a T-Rex or Giant Ape with magical natural weapons (via Conjure Fey spell + Mighty Summoner ability) or a Korred or enough hags to make a hag coven (Counterspell! Polymorph!). If you want magical weapons you can attempt to summon Elemental Myrmidons, or if you know True Polymorph you can create Nycaloths out of trees or rocks and then Planar Bind that, although it is tricky and may require Feebleminding the Nycaloths first to prevent their spellcasting or teleportation from messing things up. This is a case where having a second spellcaster to keep concentration on True Polymorph can really make things a lot easier, even if that other spellcaster is just your own Simulacrum. Or you can Gate in Efreeti or something.

You have to plan ahead in order to get these things online, but being a wizard is all about planning ahead proactively. And you have to have money for Planar Binding components, but you'll get plenty of money from dragon hoards once you get good at killing them. (Just hope they don't start proactively hunting you down in return.)

Try your best to get minions who have either ranged weapons or high movement speeds so you can let them support each other without having to clump up in Fireball Formation so often. Don't be afraid to hold off on committing your reserves, either. There's lots more to say about proper tactics, but as far as the logistics goes of scraping the elementals together, Planar Binding is basically it.

P.S. You can also attempt to rely on high-level Geas + high-level Mass Suggestion, but that's usually more of a Necromancer thing because unlike Planar Binding it does not extend spell durations. It is also riskier because they don't strictly have to obey, and there may be limits on what kinds of suggestions you can use effectively, long-term. Talk to your DM first.

[Chaosmancer]

How exactly would I geta dozen Air Elementals?

Get to high levels
Get very very rich
Have a lot of time

Bonus point: have a dm willing to deal with you slaughtering the action economy single-handedly

[Chaosmancer]

I enjoy playing a blaster. Killing things with Magic and what not. Would you consider that an intrinsecally bad choice?

No. It isn't the absolute most optimized choice, but that doesn't make it bad bt a long shot.

Especially since catching things on fire is fun.

[Azther]

No. It isn't the absolute most optimized choice, but that doesn't make it bad bt a long shot.

Especially since catching things on fire is fun.

Catching things on fire is amazing!

[Unoriginal]

Casters are better against lots of mooks than against bosses, in basically all cases.

That being said, a caster isn't bad in those situations either. Even as a strict blaster, as long as you got an attack spell that does damage the boss isn't immune to, you'll be fine.

[MaxWilson]

I enjoy playing a blaster. Killing things with Magic and what not. Would you consider that an intrinsecally bad choice?

Not exactly, but I would strongly suggest you consider playing a Warlock or Sorcerer/Warlock in that case, because aside from Meteor Swarm, non-cantrip blasting spells are quite weak for their cost in 5E due to massive HP inflation. 5E monsters frequently have roughly 300% as many HP as the equivalent AD&D monsters, but the spells do less than 300% as much damage. Fireball for example does 80% as much damage as in AD&D. That means it takes about 4x as many Fireballs to kill a troll in 5E compared to AD&D.

Warlocks and sorlocks (sorcerer/warlocks) don't care though because they can just spam Eldritch Blast (with Agonizing Blast invocation + Repelling Blast, and possibly Hex spell on top) until the troll dies. They don't have to care about cost-effectiveness.

It's not bad to play what's fun for you, and a warlock can roughly keep up with a Fighter in the damage department, so sorlocks aren't intrinsically a bad choice. But expecting a regular wizard (or even an Evoker) to keep up with fighters and warlocks in the damage department would indeed be a bad choice. That's not what wizards are good at in 5E.

[sophontteks]

Regular ole sorcerers can increase the effeciency of their damage spells through empower spell as well. It ends up being a huge increase in average damage with AOEs. And this comes on top of some good damage buffs from archtypes like storm, draconic, and dare I say wild sorcerers.

Wizards, even evocation wizards, come up a bit short in raw damage. Not to say that they are bad, but they shouldn't be pure blasters. I mean, none should be pure blasters, but Wizards espesially should be looking to maximize their huge list of known spells.

[MaxWilson]

Regular ole sorcerers can increase the effeciency of their damage spells through empower spell as well. It ends up being a huge increase in average damage with AOEs. And this comes on top of some good damage buffs from archtypes like storm, draconic, and dare I say wild sorcerers.

A huge increase? Say rather a small one. A typical case:

Roll 8d6 for Fireball damage. [roll] 4, 4, 1, 2, 3, 1, 6, 5 = 26 damage, slightly less than expected. I spend 1 sorcery point to reroll the 1, 1, 2, 3. On average, my damage will go from (1+1+2+3) = 7 to (average of 4d6) = 14, for +7 damage.

I'm spending one sorcery point to go from 26 damage to 33 damage. That's not nothing but it may not even be worth the sorcery point. The main case you'd want to do this is e.g. against a tightly-packed formation of orcs, because 26 damage = all the orcs who make their save survive with 3 HP left, while 33 damage = all the orcs die, no save. (Or at least, they are all making death saves.) If there are 25 orcs you might not want to take the risk that 5 or 10 of them might live and squash you, so it's well worth Empowering.

That's a pretty niche scenario though. If you're fighting Yetis (51 HP) and Githyanki Warriors (49 HP) it probably isn't even worth the bother Empowering--it will take two Fireballs to kill them either way. (Empowering could help make up for Githyankis who succeed on their saving throws, but it's iffy--if you roll 33 damage on both Fireballs, it will just barely kill Githyanki Warriors who fail one save and make the other, but Yetis will be left with 2 HP. Best not pin your hopes on Empower.)

Edit: according to this post (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/48988/how-to-calculate-the-expected-damage-increase-from-empowered-spell) constantly using Empower with Cha 20 would boost Fireball damage by 21% on average (while increasing the cost of the spell by 16%, 6 sorcery/spell points instead of 5). I didn't check the math but that seems like the right ballpark.

[sophontteks]

A huge increase? Say rather a small one. A typical case:

Roll 8d6 for Fireball damage. [roll] 4, 4, 1, 2, 3, 1, 6, 5 = 26 damage, slightly less than expected. I spend 1 sorcery point to reroll the 1, 1, 2, 3. On average, my damage will go from (1+1+2+3) = 7 to (average of 4d6) = 14, for +7 damage.

+7 damage is huge, espesially multiplying it by number of targets hit. We were just talking about how enemies in 5e have more HP to soak up, and AOEs are most commenly done as openers. Its almost always worth doing, and there is definately very little able to compete with this kind of damage increase.

Here's a guide with some good math on how much this ability increases the average damage of these spells:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxHRu80oFd2iSkNLeVBISzZxMzQ/view
On average, its increasing the damage by 19%. Using it on low rolls increases this even further.

In your said example. What is this measley 7 damage?
Fireball does an average of 32 damage, so 7 is increasing it by 21%. That's very significant, and your example was on a roll slightly less then average.

Its about as niche as AOEs are. Any time an AOE is good, increasing the damage by 20%+ is usually worth it. And on bad rolls (rolling all 1's and 2's) it could double or even triple the damage.

[Azther]

Not exactly, but I would strongly suggest you consider playing a Warlock or Sorcerer/Warlock in that case, because aside from Meteor Swarm, non-cantrip blasting spells are quite weak for their cost in 5E due to massive HP inflation. 5E monsters frequently have roughly 300% as many HP as the equivalent AD&D monsters, but the spells do less than 300% as much damage. Fireball for example does 80% as much damage as in AD&D. That means it takes about 4x as many Fireballs to kill a troll in 5E compared to AD&D.

Warlocks and sorlocks (sorcerer/warlocks) don't care though because they can just spam Eldritch Blast (with Agonizing Blast invocation + Repelling Blast, and possibly Hex spell on top) until the troll dies. They don't have to care about cost-effectiveness.

It's not bad to play what's fun for you, and a warlock can roughly keep up with a Fighter in the damage department, so sorlocks aren't intrinsically a bad choice. But expecting a regular wizard (or even an Evoker) to keep up with fighters and warlocks in the damage department would indeed be a bad choice. That's not what wizards are good at in 5E.

I understand how ABSURDLY powerful a Sorlock can be (especially if you pick Hex and Hexblade for that sweet, sweet Proficiency bonus damage for a whopping 8d10+8d6+88) but I tend to dislike multiclassing in general

Mostly because I hate delaying spell progression or class skills, like the phenomenal Dragon Wings for the Draconic Sorcerer.

That said if I ever got to level 18 as Sorcerer I'd probably take a Warlock for the last two ones.

[Unoriginal]

I understand how ABSURDLY powerful a Sorlock can be

"Not particularly" isn't that absurd.

[MaxWilson]

I understand how ABSURDLY powerful a Sorlock can be (especially if you pick Hex and Hexblade for that sweet, sweet Proficiency bonus damage for a whopping 8d10+8d6+88) but I tend to dislike multiclassing in general

Mostly because I hate delaying spell progression or class skills, like the phenomenal Dragon Wings for the Draconic Sorcerer.

That said if I ever got to level 18 as Sorcerer I'd probably take a Warlock for the last two ones.

If you hate multiclassing then I'd recommend a straight warlock, or give up on dreams of blasting with magic, or play AD&D. 5E wizards have not kept up with HP inflation.

Side note: the best warlock damage comes from Agonizing *Repelling* Blast. If you're concentrating on Spike Growth (via multiclassing e.g. bardlock) instead of Hex then your damage per hit increases from d10+d6+5 to d10+4d4+5. Wall of Fire (Fiendlock, no MC needed) yields d10+5d8+5. Knocking a mounted enemy off a flying mount can be up to d10+20d6+5 plus battlefield removal or at least limited mobility. It makes the extra damage from Hexblade's curse look tiny. (Or rather, you only use Hexblade's Curse + Hex in situations where Repelling doesn't apply, e.g. against flying, fire immune enemies.)

[Corran]

Regular ole sorcerers can increase the effeciency of their damage spells through empower spell as well.
...
Wizards, even evocation wizards, come up a bit short in raw damage. Not to say that they are bad, but they shouldn't be pure blasters.
...


...multiplying it by number of targets hit... AOEs are most commenly done as openers.
...
IME, damage AoE's spells are most efficient after the enemies have gathered nicely around your melee allies. It is then when you can catch more of them inside the blast and thus inflict a good total of hp damage. Evokers get something that allows them to do this without any opportunity cost (in the form of hurting friendlies). Empower just adds damage when blasting would already be a good idea. Sculpt spell opens up to you the tactical option of blasting when it is efficient to do so. Do you see why blasters would favor sculpt over empower, at least in practice and not in paper? If you do, use the same principles when comparing empower to other metamagic options, namely careful and twinned. Careful acts exactly like the evoker's sculpt spell, but for debuffing AoE's instead of damage ones (ie, careful unlocks the tactical option of mass debuffing when your enemies are nicely clustered with your melee allies, ie when it's efficient to do so because that's when you get more enemies inside the radius of your spell). And twinned makes a few single target buff spells a solid choice for your concentration (assuming you want to be a buffer, which for a sorcerer IMO is a smart move). Or in other words, if it wasn't for twinned, I would never pick spells like haste and greater invisibility as a sorcerer (and neither would I, if I was playing a wizard). But with twinned in play, I have good reason to play my sorcerer as a buffer, should I choose to.

So, in a sense, careful and twinned, each one of them unlocks a tactical option for my sorcerer. The first allows me to debuff when most efficient (similarly to what sculpt does for an evoker's blasting), and the second is what makes single target buffing spells an option worth considering for spells known and concentrarion. In comparison, empowered does nothing of the sort. It just adds damage without making my blasting potential even a little more reliable. But it's cheap, so that's why it makes a choice worth considering for your second metamagic at level 3. But it does not help the sorcerer in any significant way.

[MaxWilson]

IME, damage AoE's spells are most efficient after the enemies have gathered nicely around your melee allies. It is then when you can catch more of them inside the blast and thus inflict a good total of hp damage.*snip*

Good points.

I think ideally you want enemies to face a dilemma: if they don't concentrate you'll defeat them in detail with at-will attacks and focus fire; if they do concentrate you'll take them out with AoEs. Being immune to your own AoEs helps quite a bit, and note that those AoEs don't need to be damage spells--a Hypnotic Pattern on top of a friendly Paladin of Devotion (immunity to charm aura) works just as well as Sculpt Spell. Or you can even choose to just soak the damage, e.g. Fireball followed by a Healing Spirit after combat.

Bottom line is that it's very helpful to have an AoE capability in your party (vs. mobs) AND a summoning capability (vs. smaller numbers of tougher foes) backed by good at-will ranged attacks (so you can avoid enemy AoEs), so you can present your enemy with a menu of choices that are all bad, for them, no matter which ones they pick.

The game being what it is, though, you can still have a lot of fun even if you don't do any of these things and just go around smashing enemies in melee with your axe. You don't have to play a skilled tactician who hunts fearsome monsters with great success; roleplaying a "dumb barbarian with axe who often gets beat up and left for dead" is perfectly a valid way to spend your free time. Do what you enjoy.

[Chaosmancer]

If you hate multiclassing then I'd recommend a straight warlock, or give up on dreams of blasting with magic, or play AD&D. 5E wizards have not kept up with HP inflation.

I think you're being a little too harsh.

Not that you're wrong, but a wizard with a focus on blasting can still be effective enough even if they aren't super optimized to the extreme.

Using a single action to remove 1/2 or even 1/3 of multiple enemies health isn't as good as removing them from the fight entirely but it ain't nothing and helps shorten the fight

[Unoriginal]

I think you're being a little too harsh.

Not that you're wrong, but a wizard with a focus on blasting can still be effective enough even if they aren't super optimized to the extreme.

Using a single action to remove 1/2 or even 1/3 of multiple enemies health isn't as good as removing them from the fight entirely but it ain't nothing and helps shorten the fight

Blasting wizards can be great... against several relatively weaker enemies. Legendary bosses? Not so much.

[Chaosmancer]

Blasting wizards can be great... against several relatively weaker enemies. Legendary bosses? Not so much.

Sure, but telling someone who wants to run a blaster wizard that they are doing it wrong implies something that isn't true.

A wizard can blast and be effective for the party, even if there is a better more optimized path they could choose

[Unoriginal]

Sure, but telling someone who wants to run a blaster wizard that they are doing it wrong implies something that isn't true.

A wizard can blast and be effective for the party, even if there is a better more optimized path they could choose

Not denying that.

[MaxWilson]

I think you're being a little too harsh.

Not that you're wrong, but a wizard with a focus on blasting can still be effective enough even if they aren't super optimized to the extreme.

Using a single action to remove 1/2 or even 1/3 of multiple enemies health isn't as good as removing them from the fight entirely but it ain't nothing and helps shorten the fight

You're also not wrong. I guess we just have different perspectives on how good a blaster needs to be in order to feel like a real artillery mage. Anyway, OP has the facts now and can decide if degrading 1/2 or 1/3 of enemy health floats their boat. YMMV.

[Safety Sword]

Faerie Fire from party members. Low level, high consequence spell. If you fail that save, you have to not fail that save!

Then you nuke them as the blaster.

[Sigreid]

If you have a way to pin the opponent in, sickening radiance is a wicked spell. Save every round you're in it for 4d10 damage if you fail. Not great damage. But nothing that isn't immune to exhaustion can afford to ignore that part of the spell.

[Crl1981]

My answer will be FAQ’d by the end of the month but Contagion.

[Digimike]

This depends on the DM.

But in most cases you will likely only be able to hurt enemies like you're mentioning with enchanted weapons. The spells Magic Weapon (lv 2 bonus action cast) and catapult (lv 1 action) should help you to wear down saves.

Technically catapult isn't a direct damage spell since it's normally hurling non magical objects. Magic Weapon overcomes resistance or immunity to non magical attacks.

Spell reflection shouldn't really be a factor this way and you can use lv 1 and 2 spells to try and deal some damage. Hopefully get a few failed saves your dm will chose to use legendary actions on.

Now the DM could just rule this is a standard line spell, if that's the case it's better to try something else. Thematically I'd allow it to work.

[Deathtongue]

Ray of Enfeeblement is a godsend against 2/3rds of Legendary enemies or 'boss' monsters. It's low level and you get a guaranteed round of STR-damage halving if it hits.

Also take note of how many spellcasters are in your party. If you have 2-3 other characters that have save-or-sucks, draining their legendary saves is a viable strategy. Even monsters like ancient red dragons have bad saves and if you can punch through them you're gold. If you're the only one, though, you're better off buffing / RoE / blasting / dealing with chaff.

[stoutstien]

a bard/druid spamming faerie fire is a low cost way to upset "boss" type fights. grease is a good one too. its surprising how many mobs can be knocked prone. a lich falling due to grease is comical. honestly i need to go trough the MM i can only think of demilich and beholders as being immune to prone.

[JNAProductions]

a bard/druid spamming faerie fire is a low cost way to upset "boss" type fights. grease is a good one too. its surprising how many mobs can be knocked prone. a lich falling due to grease is comical. honestly i need to go trough the MM i can only think of demilich and beholders as being immune to prone.

What about Flumphs?

*Checks book*

Huh. Not only are they not immune, they get hit HARD by that!

Though anything that doesn't touch the ground is immune to Grease, since they aren't on the greasy surface.

[Kadesh]

If you have a way to pin the opponent in, sickening radiance is a wicked spell. Save every round you're in it for 4d10 damage if you fail. Not great damage. But nothing that isn't immune to exhaustion can afford to ignore that part of the spell.

Affects your entire party also.