5e's best "god caster" builds?

[Rfkannen]

The god wizard was an idea coined in 3.5 by an optimizer named treatmonk. The concept was a wizard who subtly manipulated the battlefield (with spells like walls, debuffs, fogs, buffs, etc.) but didn't take any spells that dealt damage. The goal was to play an optimized character that didn't overshadow anyone else in the party; instead, they would make their party members feel cooler. He has a video explaining the origin of the concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTBpVGeJLzI


My question, in 3.5, wizards were the best class for that playstyle, but 5e is a pretty different game. How would you build a god caster (a caster dedicated to subtly manipulating the battlefield in a way that makes all the other pcs feel cool, all without dealing damage) in 5e? What builds do you think do the concept best?

[Kane0]

Most Wizards and Clerics are pretty damn good at it, but I would also posit a good number of Bards and Sorcerers. Especially if you throw in race/feat choices to expand on casting and rituals.

[Aaron Underhand]

Best tends to be subjective, and "best support" is critically dependant on the rest of the party, both in terms of character classes and builds as well as style of play.

Most Clerics and Druids tend to be a bit too combat oriented in 5e. Sorcerers (except for the Tashas subclasses) have too limited a spell mix. So on balance wizards, but there is an argument for bards with more spells than Sorcerers and the bardic inspiration providing excellent bonus action support.

[Rfkannen]

Most Wizards and Clerics are pretty damn good at it, but I would also posit a good number of Bards and Sorcerers. Especially if you throw in race/feat choices to expand on casting and rituals.


You know I feel like cleric would be good for that type of stuff, but every cleric I have ever played with (or played myself) winds up going aoe damage blender with spirit guardians and spiritual weapon.

However that isn't really nececary, a first level bless can add more damage to the right group (one with a great weapon master melee and a sharpshooter ranged character) than a 4th level spirit guardians. Maybe go nature or order domain.

Cantrips are the hardest party, at some point you are going to be running out of all spellslots, and most cantrips worth using in combat are primarily about dealing damage.

[MercCpt]

I personally think Illusion Wizard is the best for this added bouns if you get a DM willing to put up with the fact you can make anything real at level 14 (I checked) plus added bouns of doing dmg

[strangebloke]

The god wizard was an idea coined in 3.5 by an optimizer named treatmonk. The concept was a wizard who subtly manipulated the battlefield (with spells like walls, debuffs, fogs, buffs, etc.) but didn't take any spells that dealt damage. The goal was to play an optimized character that didn't overshadow anyone else in the party; instead, they would make their party members feel cooler. He has a video explaining the origin of the concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTBpVGeJLzI


My question, in 3.5, wizards were the best class for that playstyle, but 5e is a pretty different game. How would you build a god caster (a caster dedicated to subtly manipulating the battlefield in a way that makes all the other pcs feel cool, all without dealing damage) in 5e? What builds do you think do the concept best?

Pretty sure Treantmonk has his own guide for 5e on this concept.

Most casters can fill this role.

Bards have a lot of good control spells (fear, hypnotic pattern) and out-of-combat support abilities(BI, especially stuff like the Glamor Bard's BI). What options they're missing they can pick up with secrets (Pass without Trace, Counterspell). They can overshadow people in the niche of skill use.
Clerics are nice in that they're relatively tanky so they don't require much support themselves while having lots of healing and buffs built into their kit (particularly shield of faith, magic weapon, and holy weapon. As far as control goes, spirit guardians is one of their best spells but they also get banishment and a few other standouts, and some subclasses like the Order Doman are very good here. For utility, they get more spells prepared than almost anyone, which makes it very easy for them to have niche spells at the ready. They fall off in t3, and also might be too good at frontlining for some people's taste.
Wizards have the best spell list and you can tailor it for this for anything, including this role. Not much more to say here, but counterspell and hypnotic pattern and sleep and such spells are all worthy of mention. Subclass doesn't matter too much.
Druids are really good at all tree of support, utility, and control. I'm particularly a fan of wildfire druid here, with the ability to move people around the battlefield without concentration.


What I would not recommend:

Warlocks tend to be better at killing things, at least IME. They can fill a control/support/utility role but its not their main thing.
Sorcerers can fill any of these roles, but only 1-2 at a time. Their narrow spell selection makes it really hard for them to function on the utility front and though they can do support excellently, control isn't really their forte. Metamagic is just sort of a flashy feature. If you really want to go for this, IMO divine soul sorc is the best.



You know I feel like cleric would be good for that type of stuff, but every cleric I have ever played with (or played myself) winds up going aoe damage blender with spirit guardians and spiritual weapon.

However that isn't really nececary, a first level bless can add more damage to the right group (one with a great weapon master melee and a sharpshooter ranged character) than a 4th level spirit guardians. Maybe go nature or order domain.

Cantrips are the hardest party, at some point you are going to be running out of all spellslots, and most cantrips worth using in combat are primarily about dealing damage.

If you want to avoid dealing too much damage, bard is your best bet. All the high damage bard builds are confined to a few spells like animate objects and you can easily avoid those. Mind sliver, Ray of Frost, and Vicious Mockery are the good cantrips that don't deal (too much) damage.

[Bardon]

As far as clerics go, the Arcana Cleric has a lot in it's favour. Potent Extra cantrips, some very handy spells most clerics never see, Spellbreaker to remove debuffs while healing at zero extra action cost plus the piece de resistance, one wizard spell each from levels 6-9. Toss in a mini-banishment CD and you've got a great package!

[Hael]

I take this to mean, a caster with a lot of nondamaging CC.

Well, definitely not the cleric, in fact thats probably the worst caster for that role.

The right answer of course is the wizard. But a close second are druids. They have a great deal of control options that are very powerful. Certain subclasses (wildfire, moon) can get that control in other ways as well.

Bards are a strong third. They have some very good options here, and can steal a lot more.

As for wizards? I would say the dunemancy wizards are the most obvious control candidates.

[Unoriginal]

The god wizard was an idea coined in 3.5 by an optimizer named treatmonk.

And calling it the """"""god wizard""""" back then was just as insulting to everyone's intelligence as is calling it that today.

There is nothing remotely godlike about that concept, and it's just been used as a way to argue that casters really are superior for years.

[KorvinStarmast]

And calling it the "god wizard" back then was just as insulting to everyone's intelligence as is calling it that today. My brother took TM's basic premise as a way to build his high elf wizard when we started out in 5e.
Emphasis on support and CC, with a few blasty spells.
I agree that the chosen handle is a bit of hyperbole.

[strangebloke]

And calling it the """"""god wizard""""" back then was just as insulting to everyone's intelligence as is calling it that today.

There is nothing remotely godlike about that concept, and it's just been used as a way to argue that casters really are superior for years.

It is sorta funny. Strip away the rhetoric and its basically "How to be a good support character" but framed in this intensely superior, smug way.

[Unoriginal]

My brother took TM's basic premise as a way to build his high elf wizard when we started out in 5e.
Emphasis on support and CC, with a few blasty spells.
I agree that the chosen handle is a bit of hyperbole.


It is sorta funny. Strip away the rhetoric and its basically "How to be a good support character" but framed in this intensely superior, smug way.

Yeah, "mainly support and CC wizard" has been one of the classic ways to build wizards since they evolved from the "movement-capable artillery turrets, but in fantasy wargame" concept.


It's entirely typical of Treatmonk's work: take the mundane (or the nonfactual/nonfunctioning, if the audience is unlucky) and wrap it in a package vaingrandiose enough that some will believe it's established-boundaries-busting.

[Eldariel]

And calling it the """"""god wizard""""" back then was just as insulting to everyone's intelligence as is calling it that today.

There is nothing remotely godlike about that concept, and it's just been used as a way to argue that casters really are superior for years.

I don't think it's ever been an argument on the topic in either edition that isn't a foregone conclusion. Casters are superior because of how the systems are designed (i.e. 90% of the options are only available to casters and only casters keep getting increasingly powerful options as they level and those abilities involve the ability to field multiple character-level minions in addition to your main character) and that isn't really a matter worth discussing.

Casters' superior options however have little to do with God Wizards, which isn't really even how you should play a spellcaster if you want to maximise encounter solving power. God Wizard is more about what unique role a Wizard fills and how it helps the rest of the party very efficiently through making the enemies inept while the others still get to shine dealing tons of damage or whatever. Though yes, his rhetoric may make it sound otherwise.

[Psyren]

There are some (including in this thread :smalltongue:) who take umbrage/personal offense at the hyperbolic branding Treantmonk has chosen to use, for the ultimately straightforward concept of a primary controller who can do other things. Ultimately, his name for this archetype isn't meant to be taken literally; rather it's just predicated on the idea that the controller "alters reality" to keep party members who might have otherwise met a messy end from failing. Honestly, you can apply the same logic to a healer, it's just that the controller is typically both preventing death in the short term and future instances of damage in the long run, while a dedicated healer typically only does the former, and the nature of D&D combat/action economy tends to reward that approach.

Put another way - both healers and controllers typically prevent incoming damage from killing members of the party, which I feel fairly safe saying most people will agree is the least desirable outcome of a given combat encounter. But heals do this reactively and less efficiently (healing a lot of damage is harder than dishing it out, especially across multiple targets) and even if you're able to do that, it typically doesn't contribute to preventing future instances of damage by ending the battle faster. Battlefield Control meanwhile does both.

TL;DR his hyperbolic phrasing is meant to emphasize the high value this game's mechanics end up placing on battlefield control, and especially classes who can do value-add actions when control is no longer needed, not to insult people who are fine leaving that playstyle to others.

[Guy Lombard-O]

Druids are really good at all tree of support, utility, and control.

Yep, druids are really solid at tree support. :smalltongue:

[Spiritchaser]

Somewhat on topic: while sorcerers are usually too limited in spell choice I feel like you’d be able to do an absolutely top tier god caster with either clockwork soul or aberrant mind. Has anyone tried playing such a build?

[strangebloke]

I don't think it's ever been an argument on the topic in either edition that isn't a foregone conclusion. Casters are superior because of how the systems are designed (i.e. 90% of the options are only available to casters and only casters keep getting increasingly powerful options as they level and those abilities involve the ability to field multiple character-level minions in addition to your main character) and that isn't really a matter worth discussing.

Casters' superior options however have little to do with God Wizards, which isn't really even how you should play a spellcaster if you want to maximise encounter solving power. God Wizard is more about what unique role a Wizard fills and how it helps the rest of the party very efficiently through making the enemies inept while the others still get to shine dealing tons of damage or whatever. Though yes, his rhetoric may make it sound otherwise.

So I'll sort of dissent here.

PHB-only DND with no multiclassing (but still feats) favors martials a lot more than current DND. The casters other than clerics and druids genuinely have a hard time shoring up their defenses, a lot harder of a time staying alive in melee, or indeed having good options while in melee. A few of the worst/most powerful spells existed then, like conjure animals for example, but a lot of more powerful spells like summon X hadn't come out yet. No booming blade, no shadow blade, no hexblade, no bladesinger.

The bigger problem is that structurally casters keep getting more build options throughout a game's lifecycle whereas something like the battlemaster doesn't.

[Gtdead]

It's funny how all threads look the same when Treantmonk's work is mentioned. I will hop on the bandwagon too because it's fun.

My personal opinion on the "god" concept and other specialized builds:

Spellcasting has changed a lot since 3.5e. Changes in vancian system, concentration, rebalancing of save-or-suck and blasting spells has created an environment where the caster needs to be a bit more dynamic.

Concentration has made the community very strict at scrutinizing spells to the point where I can safely say that we know which are the "best" spells, with little room for argument, based on range of application and strength of effect. Also the change in vancian system allows anyone to have a versatile enough spellbook due to not having to prepare the same spell multiple times and the opportunity cost of being good at using all these different spells is minimal.

Essentially, the casters have reached a point where about 1/3 (or even less) of your spell list is spells that play on the subclass strengths and the other 2/3 are generalist spells that provide the most coverage. Specializing is a very small part of the caster experience.

The "god" build in particular is supposed to empower the "mortals", meaning the big stupid fighter and the glass canon, to seize the day. This is done through control, debuffing and/or buffing. The problem is that in this edition, these categories are not as strong as they used to be because of the changes in spell action economy (concentration mostly), the rebalancing of the effects (buffing is pretty mild in this edition, even 8-9th level spells can hardly compete with 3.5e haste), and DCs are heavily regulated.

Another very important point is that hybrid spells (damage + control) tend to perform way better in the damage department than they used to. Evard's for example went from 1d6+4 to 3d6 in a game with significantly less HP bloat. This is huge. In addition we have new powerful options like sculpted Sickening Radiance, Spirit Guardians that would be completely silly to ignore.

Remember, the "god" wizard started as Treantmonk's way to allow the rest of the party to shine, but it evolved into the archetype it is today because of it's efficiency at leveraging the 3.5e specifics. However he deliberately ignored powerful spells due to the concept. For example he argued that if you use save or die spells, then you invalidate the role of the glass canon. It makes sense if we consider how this concept came into existence but it's not optimal. Logic Ninja's Batman concept, the "progenitor", was more focused on optimization and it shows if you read the guide.

--------------------------

Now for the actual question, IMO the best "god casters" for me are Divine Soul/Clockwork Sorcerer, Star Druid, Eloquence Bard and Diviner(early)/Chronurgist(late) Wizard. Basically the "traits" are either being able to buff efficiently, increase your DCs (or decrease enemy saves) and/or have strong no save options (namely wall of force although telekinesis and other skill checks apply too because they bypass legendary resistances), although tbh, with smart enough spell selection, anyone can pull it off. Spells to consider are sleep, bless, faerie fire, web, rope trick, hypnotic pattern, sleet storm, fly, tiny hut, counterspell/dispel, polymorph (the extra HP is particularly significant), dimension door, wall of stone/force, telekinesis, heroes' feast, forcecage, holy aura, maze, foresight. Special mention goes to Conjure Animals (mass flight), Woodland Creatures (pixies..), Celestial (couatl), Elemental (upcasted for invisible stalker), Shapechange (use the various forms' at will abilities to support) and lastly Find Greater Steed to pass around with a gem of spell storing.

[Eldariel]

So I'll sort of dissent here.

PHB-only DND with no multiclassing (but still feats) favors martials a lot more than current DND. The casters other than clerics and druids genuinely have a hard time shoring up their defenses, a lot harder of a time staying alive in melee, or indeed having good options while in melee. A few of the worst/most powerful spells existed then, like conjure animals for example, but a lot of more powerful spells like summon X hadn't come out yet. No booming blade, no shadow blade, no hexblade, no bladesinger.

The bigger problem is that structurally casters keep getting more build options throughout a game's lifecycle whereas something like the battlemaster doesn't.

The most broken options - Animate Dead and Conjure Animals as well as Planar Binding, Simulacrum, etc. - are in PHB and available starting right at the beginning of Tier 2. Then there's also Conjure Woodland Beings. What does personally being in melee matter? That's not optimal in the first place, and if you do end up in melee, you can still cast spells with no problem - indeed, melee doesn't influence your casting options other than ranged attack roll spells. Sure, your 16 Dex Mage Armor Wizard may "only" have 21 AC after Shield but that's still plenty for the occasional "I have to tank for a bit" moment, and if you want to build on top of that, you can go Abjurer and have a HP barrier and you can just cast things that make enemies fall down. CCd enemies don't damage you after all.

There's also the fact that the things most likely to kill you aren't AC-threats in the first place. AC is nice but not the first priority. And far as wanting to improve AC goes, among casters Bards have access to Moderately Armored and Valor Bard as do Warlocks; Wizards have surprisingly solid defenses with just their first level spells.

If you remove all core spells, casters are no longer broken. They're still really good but all the spells that break the game are all PHB spells. With additional sources they keep getting a bit better at playing the Fighter game but ultimately the Fighter game isn't all that relevant if you want to maximise power: the minionmancy game is, and to that end you have the big guns right from the get-go. You can go like Diviner/Lore Bard/Life Cleric/Moon Druid and have a superpotent party in PHB only, or swap the Lore Bard for a Valor Bard if you want to ensure a PC-level ranged damage dealer. Sure, Valor Bard isn't great - its abilities are mostly wasted. But it gets Extra Attack and can use Longbows plus full spellcasting, which is still way better than any class that doesn't get full casting.

[Kane0]

Somewhat on topic: while sorcerers are usually too limited in spell choice I feel like you’d be able to do an absolutely top tier god caster with either clockwork soul or aberrant mind. Has anyone tried playing such a build?

Currently playing a Clockwork Soul Githzerai who *only* uses telekinesis type spells and it's a blast. Because his only attack/damage spells are Swordburst and Catapult, he usually opts to using Gust, Mold Earth and Blade Ward (modified to touch someone else) for cantrips as well as Levitate (works on enemies!), Haste/Slow and the occasional Earthbind coupled with the Telekinetic feat for moving people around with a bonus action.

[Willie the Duck]

Somewhat on topic: while sorcerers are usually too limited in spell choice I feel like you’d be able to do an absolutely top tier god caster with either clockwork soul or aberrant mind. Has anyone tried playing such a build?

Yes. I played an Vuman (War Caster) Aberrant Mind who then picked up Fey Touched (Bless/Misty Step), Shadow Touched (Silent Image/Invisibility) -- so, goodbye limited spell selection and hello enchantments. In tier 1 Twinned Tasha's Laughter and Dissonant Whispers were game-changers, and careful Hypnotic Pattern was amazing in tier 2. Bless never goes out of style (especially if you have enough fights per day that you sometime don't want to dedicate a high-level slot to your concentration spell for a given combat). After that, because of the now-actually-high number of spells available, I was able to flesh it out with some of the other spells Gtdead mentioned, pus some general utility like knock and such.

[strangebloke]

The most broken options - Animate Dead and Conjure Animals as well as Planar Binding, Simulacrum, etc. - are in PHB and available starting right at the beginning of Tier 2. Then there's also Conjure Woodland Beings. What does personally being in melee matter? That's not optimal in the first place, and if you do end up in melee, you can still cast spells with no problem - indeed, melee doesn't influence your casting options other than ranged attack roll spells. Sure, your 16 Dex Mage Armor Wizard may "only" have 21 AC after Shield but that's still plenty for the occasional "I have to tank for a bit" moment, and if you want to build on top of that, you can go Abjurer and have a HP barrier and you can just cast things that make enemies fall down. CCd enemies don't damage you after all.

There's also the fact that the things most likely to kill you aren't AC-threats in the first place. AC is nice but not the first priority. And far as wanting to improve AC goes, among casters Bards have access to Moderately Armored and Valor Bard as do Warlocks; Wizards have surprisingly solid defenses with just their first level spells.

If you remove all core spells, casters are no longer broken. They're still really good but all the spells that break the game are all PHB spells. With additional sources they keep getting a bit better at playing the Fighter game but ultimately the Fighter game isn't all that relevant if you want to maximise power: the minionmancy game is, and to that end you have the big guns right from the get-go. You can go like Diviner/Lore Bard/Life Cleric/Moon Druid and have a superpotent party in PHB only, or swap the Lore Bard for a Valor Bard if you want to ensure a PC-level ranged damage dealer. Sure, Valor Bard isn't great - its abilities are mostly wasted. But it gets Extra Attack and can use Longbows plus full spellcasting, which is still way better than any class that doesn't get full casting.
Yeah? The best stuff for casters is in the PHB, but I think its pretty hard to argue that casters haven't benefited more from new releases. Even then, a lot of the "caster superiority" arguments back then relied on

"I get to use animate dead exactly how I imagine I should be allowed to."
"I get to use simulacrum exactly how I imagine I should be allowed to"
"I get to pick a creature of my preference for conjure animals"
"I am going to ignore nonmagical B/S/P resistance"
"I am going to ignore magic/legendary resistance as well as the extremely high saving throws of high-end monsters."
"I will always have loads of top level spells/portents to sling around"
"When I say casters I mean wizards at high level and clerics/druids at low/mid levels."

And yes, even then, casters did become better in mid-to-late T3, but comparatively I'd argue casters can now pretty solidly overpower martials in t2.

[Captain Panda]

"I get to use animate dead exactly how I imagine I should be allowed to."


How do you mean? Are you talking about social costs if people notice? Because in that case I agree. If you mean people expect the spell to function as written, I don't, that's a reasonable expectation.



"I get to use simulacrum exactly how I imagine I should be allowed to"


Again, ambiguous. Are you talking about simulacrum chaining? Because I maintain that's something that no DM would ever, ever allow and it is only very dubiously RAW, and obviously not RAI.



"I get to pick a creature of my preference for conjure animals"


I don't assume that. I assume the DM isn't actively trying to screw the player over. If a level 5 druid casts conjure animals expecting something cool and gets cr 0 starfish or seahorses who can't move on land? Yeah, that's something I think a reasonable player would assume isn't gonna happen. If you mean "I assume I'm getting velociraptors every time" then sure, that's an unreasonable expectation.



"I am going to ignore nonmagical B/S/P resistance"


Not sure where you're getting that.



"I am going to ignore magic/legendary resistance as well as the extremely high saving throws of high-end monsters."


Also not sure where you're getting that, most guides give bonus points to effects that don't offer a saving throw, or target weak saves.



"I will always have loads of top level spells/portents to sling around"


Yeah, this one is fair.



"When I say casters I mean wizards at high level and clerics/druids at low/mid levels."


Bards are great, too! People always forget bards. :(

[Gtdead]

I remember back in 3.5e, where people thought the same about how powercreep of splatbooks makes the wizard overpowered and the counterargument was always that wizard only needs phb to break the campaign.

My opinion is that time and experience make wizards broken because they have the most open ended options and they have many staples from previous editions. It's not easy to brainstorm new magical effects so it's likely that this situation will never change. In fact, I believe that splatbooks do more for martials and classes that depend on subclass features. For casters, they just increase the ceiling of what is possible, but the scenarios are contrived and absurd a lot of the time.

While there is some powercreep, the effect is usually blown out of proportion, either because it's circumstantial or comes at a high enough level to not matter. Some examples:

Danse Macabre: Good spell, fairly powerful and probably more impactful than upcasting Animate Dead. Is it stronger? Not necessarily. It's competitive and at character lvl 9 it may be stronger than other options, but it takes up concentration and has a time limit (even if it's long enough). A higher level necromancer could probably leverage Animate Dead + Telekinesis to a better effect, by providing advantage for his 10-20 skellies while controlling enemies (and bypassing legendary resistances). I can't say which is the best option. Animate Dead uses more spell slots, Danse Macabre uses concentration. For a new player, I'd certainly suggest they use Danse Macabre but I personally like the other option more.

Shapechanged Bladesinger: You can do some crazy stuff by combining high CR monsters and Bladesinger's subclass features. You can easily become the strongest nondivine critter in existence. But it's such a high level ability that it doesn't matter and even then, chances are that the 9th level spell slot will be used to wish for a simulacrum.

Spirit Shroud: Overchannel it, overchannel scorching rays, get quicken with a feat, hexblade's curse, blast someone for a billion damage. Oh I had another one, be assassin/evoker, wish for hallow: fire vulnerability, hide and when the BBEG enters and fails the save, surprise him and throw scorching rays for a billion damage. Oh another one, cast contagion and kite, pray for flesh rot to stick, boom. Absurd combos exist everywhere. Yes, there will come a time where the hexblade 1/evoker X, riding a pegasus, will find an important enemy without resistances and leverage Spirit Shroud to absolutely destroy him, because this combo is fairly easy to pull off. Yet, high level sorlocks have been doing that in theory for more than 5 years, destroying BBEGs from a mile away with 16 attacks per turn, advantage and rod of the pact keeper. I'm actually interested to know if anyone in this forum has actually seen that in practice, but it's better than having to get into 10 feet range while spending your first round to prepare.

Scag cantrips: Sure, damage is nice. Not as nice as extra attack for single target damage, although for a long time people argued that this was the case, through tricky math that assumed a percentage chance for the rider effect as a baseline. GFB is actually the higher damaging cantrip yet no one really cares about it. It's all about BB. However the best contribution of BB was to change Warcaster into a mini Sentinel, thus making frontline casters more relevant (and Clerics actually didn't get access, which is mind boggling to me, as they are the quintessential frontline casters). It's one of the strongest additions to the game though.

Wildermount may be the only exception as it provides with options that are clearly superior. I don't think I'm capable of creating a wizard without gift of alacrity anymore. Being allowed to play it pretty much sealed the deal.

[Eldariel]

Honestly, Concentration does a lot to reign in strong additional options. You rarely want to cast Danse Macabre when you could just cast Wall of Force, Bigby's, Telekinesis or whatever instead. The big non-Core options that actually increase Wizard power are the non-Concentration ones; Tiny Servant is just a less icky, worse Animate Dead, but particularly Absorb Elements and Summon Greater Demon did a lot to increase caster power (and the Tasha's summons offer a decent fallback, though they are much weaker than either Animate Dead or Summon Greater Demon and more boring to boot - Summon Celestial is a notable exception in that it fixed a huge blind spot in Cleric options and comes much earlier than Conjure Celestial, and Summon Beast simply for coming a level earlier than the other minionmancy options). Other, more minor expansions that are more sidegrades than upgrades include Dragon's Breath, Sickening Radiance, Wall of Light, Watery Sphere, Storm Sphere, etc. Pyrotechnics is notable as a non-Concentration spell, but it takes enough work that it's not an automatic gimme before much higher levels.

And yeah, I dunno on what planet Gift of Alacrity is a level 1 spell. I'd put that at level 5 minimum and I wouldn't put it past myself to use an 8th level slot on it on most days if I were 15+. If it's supposed to be level 1, at least make it last for 10 mins or like 1 hour at best. 8 hours, no concentration, 1st level, an average of +4,5 to every Initiative roll? I don't even know what to say, every single character wants that. Like it makes Magic Initiate a good feat for just about any character...or Fey-Touched for that matter. Even if the character has no casting and isn't interested in spells.

[DarknessEternal]

And yeah, I dunno on what planet Gift of Alacrity is a level 1 spell.

It can only be used by 2 Wizard subclasses. Perhaps that was supposed to be balancing. Unfortunately one of those two is the best Wizard subclass.

[Willowhelm]

Somewhat on topic: while sorcerers are usually too limited in spell choice I feel like you’d be able to do an absolutely top tier god caster with either clockwork soul or aberrant mind. Has anyone tried playing such a build?

As we’re talking about god wizards and clockwork soul… treantmonk does have a order cleric clockwork soul build that is all about buffing and empowering others. Branded as a “god Mage”

https://youtu.be/9RXKpJ3zZws

I considered something close for my current campaign but the clockwork soul theme just doesn’t click for me.