Agathys Abjurer - spell selection help

[Ir0ns0ul]

Hey folks, how are you?

I believe the combination of the spell Armor of Agathys & the Arcane Ward ability from Abjurers are well known to the community.

It’s the perfect match between THP generation from Armor of Agathys, which is a Abjuration spell, with the hit points from the Arcane Ward, which grants a good buffer to absorb damage and give it back to the enemies hitting you at melee. As an Abjurer, you can acquire Armor of Agathys by dipping one level of Warlock or through the Mark of Warding Dwarf. I believe Clockwork Soul Sorcerers at level 2 could also get this spell.

From a spell selection perspective, what would be the ideal preparations in order to have good control (as always for Wizards), nice AoE damage & the proper Abjuration spells to replenish the Arcane Ward whenever needed? Should this character focus all-in Abjuration spells like Banishment and Stone Skin?

It is a level 8 Mark of Warding Dwarf, I’ll not include the free racial spells and rituals, although Alarm of course is the main one.

Level 1: Absorb Elements, Armor of Agathys, Magic Missile, Shield
Level 2: Rime’s Binding Ice, Tasha’s Mind Whip, Web
Level 3: Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Slow
Level 4: Banishment, Fire Shield, Polymorph

[Gtdead]

I need to mention Armor of Shadows just in case you missed it. Ward is more about logistics than anything. You don't really want to base your spell preparation solely on recharging it and while you can cast technically cast Alarm as a ritual forever, it takes 10 minutes, while Armor of Shadows is a standard action (check with your DM of course). You can get it with a warlock dip or Eldritch Adept. There are pros and cons to both choices.

For the spells, I feel your spell list is a bit too one dimensional and very offense oriented. For starters, you don't have any bonus action spell at all, you lack any utility spell other than dispel magic, you depend on the enemies failing the save and you have no other defensive options like fly/misty step/rope trick or even a fog cloud or another obscuring effect and unless you get subtle spell through a feat, counterspell completely shuts you down because you lack any spell that increases action economy (summoning, animate dead, tiny servants) and you can't leverage both your action and bonus action in the same round to at least do something if you get counterspelled. (Although I understand that having good bonus action options as a low-mid level wizard isn't the easiest thing. The best idea I know of is probably access to Magic Stones to combine with minions, or something like Dragon's Breath on your familiar, even if it's kind of risky)

My suggestion would be to choose only one spell between RBI, Web and Slow. I suppose you tried to cover as many saves as you could, but these spells work best against massed enemies, and these tend to have worse saves. It's not the same as trying to have enough coverage against a BBEG or to single out strong enemies with these spells like you would do with TMW, Banish and Polymorph. If I had to choose, I'd probably keep RBI for a general purpose spell and would only prepare the others if I knew the type of enemy I'm going to face, thus targeting the best save possible.

Having both Counterspell and Dispel Magic at this point is too costly IMO. I would drop one of them in favor of something like Sleet Storm. Dropping dispel makes the most sense because Sleet Storm hits enemy concentration hard and will take care of a lot of spell effects in the battleground, but it's a spell with significant value outside of combat as well, so if someone in your party can provide counterspell support, drop CS instead and pick it up again at lvl 10+ after getting your class feature.

I'm very conflicted about Fire Shield. The main argument is that since you are going for an AoA build, you will be upcasting it and level 4 slots are actually fairly good for this because they are the most situational spells. Upcasting both AoA and casting Fire Shield will chew through your spell slots way too fast. I completely understand what you are trying to do with it but you aren't a prime target for melee anyway, especially mooks, while ranged enemies can pressure you a lot and you aren't that good against them, since you focus on movement impairment effects (and these don't affect ranged that much).

Unless your DM attacks you mindlessly with melee enemies or you really need the resistance and your reactions are too busy for some reason, you will probably not get any value out of it. It's a good spell to have against a single low mobility enemy where you can do some tactics to keep his attention on you, athough I question the value of being a meatshield as a wizard, and it's not like you are using a very high AC build, since you will probably run around with 15-16 AC which really isn't good enough for this job (unless you are planning on blowing all your level 1 spell slots on shield I guess).

Some suggestions would be Dimension Door, One of the Tasha's Summoning spells (or upcast Summon Undead/Fey/Shadowspawn, Animate Dead, Tiny Servants), Evard's if you want to keep the movement impairing theme. I personally like Wall of Fire too if you are playing in an urban setting with small(ish) rooms. Sickening Radiance is also a choice, especially if you can combo it with a wall spell from another caster or you run a stealthy party (dropping sickening radiance on a surprise round can be very nasty).

[strangebloke]

Imo by eighth level a hexblade MC is a better way to get aoa. Mostly because this lets you take deep gnome and svirfneblin magic, which let's you cast nondetection as an action at will. So normally replenishing your Ward with alarm at seventh level might take 170 minutes, but with svirfneblin magic it takes three rounds.

Cheesy? Yes. But strong.

Plus this route gets you medium armor and Shields, and shield (the spell) on a short rest.

Beyond this, you'll want spells that reward you for being in the fray. Booming blade? Love it. Counter spell? Perfect. Shadow blade? Why not. Thunder wave? Absolutely.

[Ir0ns0ul]

Hey guys, thanks very much for the amazing insights.

Gtead, I do agree my spell selection is too “debuff-driven” and you are right I was trying to cover as many saves as possible to be effective.

About Warlock multiclass and Armor of Shadows, my DM is pretty lenient with downtime so getting my Ward back using Alarm has been totally ok.

About summon spells, I’m in a game of 6 players (who are really committed, thx God), so I avoided minions to not slow down the encounters. I utilize even my Familiar carefully to avoid jeopardize our combat flow. But I think have at least one Summon spell in the book just in case makes sense.