Haste vs Spirit Shroud

[Selion]

The character is a mountain dwarf gish fighter 2/ wizard x war magic school. As my main battle buff i'm quite undecided between haste and the new spirit shroud.

Haste: overall is a better buff, the +2 AC stacks with the bonuses granted by war magic, BUT, it would be better using it on a martial teammate then myself, wasting somewhat the giish vocation of the character and the benefit of those two fighter levels... also, the bonus action granted by haste is not multiplied by the fighter action surge
Spirit Shroud: here the bonus action activation is appealing, as it is the utility on battlefield control (reduced movement on enemies and prevented healing), also it may be upcast (i don't know if it's a good idea, though)

What do you think is better?

[LumenPlacidum]

Haste is great if you...

Want to improve your defense
Have effective weapon attacks
Absolutely, positively *have* to get over there *this round*... er, *next round*!


Spirit Shroud is great if you...

Make lots of weapon attacks (i.e. Extra Attack plus Dual Weapon Fighting)
Make lots of spell attacks (i.e. you cast Scorching Ray regularly)
Are trying to stack movement reduction on foes
Are fighting a foe or group of foes that are restoring lots of HP


What constitutes lots of attacks versus effective attacks? Well... it depends. Spirit Shroud gets you +1d8 (level 3), +2d8 (level 5), +3d8 (level 7, or +4d8 (please don't use a level 9 spell to cast Spirit Shroud), and Haste gets you another attack.

If you regularly do X damage with each attack and you get N attacks per round normally, then Haste represents a +X bonus to your round-by-round damage. Spirit Shroud represents a +4.5N, +9N, +13.5N, or +18N extra damage per round. If you are swinging a weapon for 10 damage, once (likely if you're using a greatsword), then you'd need to be casting a level 7 version of Spirit Shroud to get additional damage.

I, personally, would fall on the side of Haste unless Spirit Shroud is quite a bit better. The versatility of extra speed, AC, and action is golden, even if you're doing less damage per round.

[MoiMagnus]

Note that if your build doesn't have good Con save (depends on your starting class and your feats), then it is Spirit Shroud without hesitation. The loss of a turn as a penalty for losing concentration on Haste is really bad.

If you're confident on the fact that you will reliably succeed your concentration checks, I'd say Haste is better.

[Selion]

Haste is great if you...

Want to improve your defense
Have effective weapon attacks
Absolutely, positively *have* to get over there *this round*... er, *next round*!


Spirit Shroud is great if you...

Make lots of weapon attacks (i.e. Extra Attack plus Dual Weapon Fighting)
Make lots of spell attacks (i.e. you cast Scorching Ray regularly)
Are trying to stack movement reduction on foes
Are fighting a foe or group of foes that are restoring lots of HP


What constitutes lots of attacks versus effective attacks? Well... it depends. Spirit Shroud gets you +1d8 (level 3), +2d8 (level 5), +3d8 (level 7, or +4d8 (please don't use a level 9 spell to cast Spirit Shroud), and Haste gets you another attack.

If you regularly do X damage with each attack and you get N attacks per round normally, then Haste represents a +X bonus to your round-by-round damage. Spirit Shroud represents a +4.5N, +9N, +13.5N, or +18N extra damage per round. If you are swinging a weapon for 10 damage, once (likely if you're using a greatsword), then you'd need to be casting a level 7 version of Spirit Shroud to get additional damage.

I, personally, would fall on the side of Haste unless Spirit Shroud is quite a bit better. The versatility of extra speed, AC, and action is golden, even if you're doing less damage per round.

Great analysis, thx. As fighter 2 wizard X i'm stuck with 1 attack per round, which is usually performed with booming blade/green flame blade, so in both cases the bonus damage would not be that high and , with both haste and spirit shroud having a similar bonus damage.
The main difference would be if I cast haste on the sharpshooting range fighter instead, that would neat an extremely higher dmg.
The other big difference is that Haste requires an action, so we are comparing:
first round haste- action surge cantrip + haste attack
cantrip + haste attack on subsequent rounds
to
(cantrip + spirit shroud ) two times the first round
cantrip + spirit shroud on subsequent rounds




Note that if your build doesn't have good Con save (depends on your starting class and your feats), then it is Spirit Shroud without hesitation. The loss of a turn as a penalty for losing concentration on Haste is really bad.

If you're confident on the fact that you will reliably succeed your concentration checks, I'd say Haste is better.


Oh, i have 16 constitution and i'll pick warcaster by level 5, i won't lose concentration so easily

[Eldariel]

Haste is better if you fight at range. Its many boons let you:
- Kite: You can get an action after 120' of movement; if your ranged attack is even "passable", most things aren't able to get within attack range of you during that time. You also get free action Hide instead if desired, which can be very valuable for a kiter. Free Disengage is also pretty sweet. Hide can let you rain death on people and then disappear denying full attack counters to the enemy.
- Durable: AC bonuses are hard to come by in this edition but AC stacking of course brings multiplicative rewards all the way up until enemy only hits on 20. Dex saving throws with advantage is a nice bonus too.
- Damage: This is the best if you have good riders for your big attack and a damage action worth using already. Sharpshooter, GWM, Shadow Blade (+ Duelist potentially) all add up to solid damage, though combining Shadow Blade with Haste is a high level or multicharacter endeavour.

In short, Haste is extremely good for ranged combat and kiting, particularly if you already have a fairly solid ranged combat chassis, while in melee its biggest value is if you're a kiter (it combines nicely with Booming Blade, of course) or if you somehow end up combining it with GWM + Advantage. And obviously, Haste requires that you have good defensive abilities [Shield/Absorb Elements/Counterspell go without saying and AC is nice] + high Concentration modifier with preferably decent reliability (Warcaster & Lucky are both nice to have).

A friend of mine is actually running a Mountain Dwarf melee on level 6 right now and he's ended up preferring Shadow Blade to Haste in spite of being Str-based because he's mostly using his 3rd level slots for other stuff (Fireball, Counterspell, and Fly mostly).

[borg286]

Addressing your concern that if there is a Sharpshooter/GWM/Shadowblade member in your team then you'll find it more optimal to cast haste on them. Think of it from a party optimization point of view and mentally claim their extra damage as though it came from yourself, while letting them have the spotlight. You need to recognize that you like the spotlight, but also that you can take the pride that you are the wind beneath their wings. Once you think more 3rd person it leads you to seeing your other control spells in terms of reducing monster turns, much like a striker seeks to reduce a monsters turns. The difference is that a controller spell reduces a monsters first turns while a striker reduces a monsters last turns. When you look at damage and control spells from this universal theory then you start to see how to compare Haste with Spirit Shroud even when an ally is more optimal to haste. You end up needing to put more effort on imagination so you can feel like a gish while lacking the cool concentration spell that would have boosted your own DPR, however that choice forwards your end goal of being a better combatant.