Ways to optimize AoA.

[strangebloke]

Okay, so Armor of Agathys (AoA) scales well. You get more thp, which lets you take more damage and thus deal more damage, and upcasting also increases the damage dealt. At 4th level AoA gives you 20 thp and deals 20 damage every time you get hit. The problem here is that as you level, enemy damage scales too, so instead of taking 2 attacks that deal 3 damage and losing the thp, you're taking two attacks that deal 17 damage and you lose the thp. So the scaling doesn't materialize as well as you'd like. (there's also a problem of AoA doing no damage to people who hit you with ranged attacks or spells, but there's nothing really to be done on that front.)

Since day 1 of 5e, people have been using the abjurer's ward to avoid taking damage on the thp and thus make the thp last longer and thus deal more damage. This strat works! Though admittedly, wizards probably have better things to be doing than this.

other ways to mitigate damage on AoA involve

rage (bsp resistance, and AoA doesn't use concentration so there's no conflict)
abjurer ward
uncanny dodge (cut damage in half, stacks with rage for 1/4 damage rounding down twice)
deflect missiles(helps you avoid taking damage on your AoA when at range)
goliath (1d12+CON damage mitigation Proficiency times per day)
heavy armor master (not compatible with rage or deflect missiles)

As for ways of getting access to AoA, the options are

any spellcaster getting it onto their list via mark of warding dwarf
levistus tiefling (1 2nd level cast per long rest. Good in t1, less good later on)
warlock
conquest paladin (AoA also has find steed synergy)


So with all that in mind, its pretty easy to put together something like a goliath conquest paladin with HAM, or a levistus tiefling barbarian/rogue. But what's the best you can come up with? Is there anything I missed?

[RSP]

Clockwork Soul gets AoA, and has a 6th level ability to avoid damage (that costs Sorcery Points).

[JellyPooga]

The absolute best thing about AoA is the material component; a cup of water.

There's something incredibly badass about turning up to a fight with aught but a cup of water.

[Khrysaes]

Edit.

Magic initiate and strixhaven initiate feats can get aoa. Maybe some others.

[solidork]

It takes two people (except for Battlesmiths who use the spell with their Steel Defender) but Warding Bond is a pretty good non-concentration buff that'll cut the damage the AoA person takes in half.

Ultimately though the big question of this kind of build is how to get things to attack you when theres such a strong disincentive not to - the damage and then whatever trick it is you're using to reduce the damage. The goliath idea is nice though, thats a build choice thats low to the ground and not only good for comboing with AoA.

[Xetheral]

The Bladesinger's 10th level ability Song of Defense synergizes beautifully AoA. It's a good way to burn through spell slots as fast as a paladin, but if it means keeping up an upcast AoA it can be worth it in the right circumstances.

For added fun, a Conquest Paladin 3/Bladesinger 10 gets AoA and the ability to use spell slots for both extra damage and protection from damage. Other than AoA they could memorize nothing but utility spells and rely on on Smite and Song of Defense for combat. Not a traditional wizard, by any means, but still fun.

Edit: also don't forget Blade Ward, which works well with AoA and especially well with the Bladesinger's ability to use an attack to cast it instead of an entire action.

[Ganryu]

Good ol' lore bard can grab AoA with magical secrets, is a full caster, and can reduce damage with their bardic inspirations. Be one of the new Earth Genasi, and you can cast blade ward as a bonus action, and grab absorb elements.

[Melphizard]

My favorite method of optimizing AoA is taking 1-2 levels of Warlock then dumping everything else into Abjuration Wizard. Basically, your abjuration ward takes the damage before your Temp Hp, which takes damage before your actual Hp. If further optimizing, play a Deep Gnome and grab the Svirfneblin Magic feat. The way this works is that the feat gives you at-will nondetection, a level 2 abjuration spell, thus regenerating your ward.

My character I've done with this setup was a level 16 with 1 Hexblade Warlock, 15 Abjuration Wizard. Considering I can cast a 5th level spell slot with my wizarding on AoA and have an out-of-combat method of regenerating my ward, I basically have 3 Hp Pools like some sort of miniboss and if some fool dares approach my wizard in melee, they take 25 cold damage each time they strike me, most of which is taken out of my ward, allowing for sometimes up to 75 cold damage against foes with multiple attacks that can't chop through you quickly. Assuming I had all my things setup, my wizard's defenses looked like this:

AC: 23 (I have a staff of power, good half-plate cause hexblade, and the like). If desired, I can shield for 28, or cast Fizban's Platinum Shield upon myself to send my tanking ability into the stratosphere, but I'm usually fine enough to just lend it to the actual tanks.
HP: 100
Ward Hp: 35 (regenerates out-of-combat)
Temp Hp: 25 +25* (5th level AoA)
Contingency*: When AoA temp hp reaches 0, cast AoA at 5th level upon self.


One last thing to note, the ward regeneration trick may not be enjoyed by some DMs who do not like such tricks. Personally, I'm fine with most shenanigans at my table because I know how to effectively balance after enough experience; but, it's a matter of perspective and opinion really.

[ender241]

Edit.

Magic initiate and strixhaven initiate feats can get aoa. Maybe some others.

Magic Initiate can get it but RAW you can only cast the spell granted from MI at it's lowest level, which isn't particularly useful for AoA.

Strixhaven Initiate would work for upcasting but sadly doesn't have the Warlock spell list as an option to pick from for any of the colleges, so that's off the table entirely.

[heavyfuel]

If your DM rules that you can split damage with the Arcane Ward (Abjurer 2), then it's an amazing way to boost AoA to it's fullest potential. If you take 10 damage, let the Ward absorb 9 points, and you only take 1, which triggers AoA.

The rules are silent on whether or not you can split the damage. For example, if an attack deals 10 damage, can you say you took 9 damage? Technically yes. You did take 9 damage, and also 1 extra point. Like if you have a 10 dollar bill, and someone says "do you have 9 dollars?", to which you say you do have 9 dollars.

It's very DM dependant, and I wouldn't hold it against a DM that ruled either way.

[PhantomSoul]

If your DM rules that you can split damage with the Arcane Ward (Abjurer 2), then it's an amazing way to boost AoA to it's fullest potential. If you take 10 damage, let the Ward absorb 9 points, and you only take 1, which triggers AoA.

The rules are silent on whether or not you can split the damage. For example, if an attack deals 10 damage, can you say you took 9 damage? Technically yes. You did take 9 damage, and also 1 extra point. Like if you have a 10 dollar bill, and someone says "do you have 9 dollars?", to which you say you do have 9 dollars.

It's very DM dependant, and I wouldn't hold it against a DM that ruled either way.

It's even better than that:


If a creature hits you with a melee attack while you have these hit points, the creature takes 5 cold damage.

Armor of Agathys doesn't require any of the temporary hit points from the spell be lost to trigger the damage, so you can have it go entirely to the ward, since the ward's phrasing has nothing saying that you don't count as being hit if the ward takes all of the damage (it just takes the damage instead).

[Neoh]

Mark of Warding Dwarves get Armor of Agathys, so it's a nice way to avoid spending levels in Warlock or taking a feat.

The best way to optimize Armor of Agathys is by either going Abjuration Wizard, Bladesinger Wizard or Clockwork Sorcerer. If you start the game at a very high level, Forge Cleric gets resistance at level 17.
If you want to optimize even more get a friend to play Ancestral Guardian Barbarian and stick next to him.

[Segev]

Pity you can't get AoA to count as a wizard spell, or you could have it as your at-will 1st level spell at Wizard 18.

[heavyfuel]

Pity you can't get AoA to count as a wizard spell, or you could have it as your at-will 1st level spell at Wizard 18.

Mark of Warding Dwarf can. It's a pretty terrible use of your Spell Mastery though

[heavyfuel]

Edit: I was wrong.

[JNAProductions]

I don't think it works. Arcane Ward says the following:

You don't take the damage, the ward does. That "instead" kills it. However, it doesn't really matter. If you take 1 damage to your Temp HP, your ward will probably break before your AoA

They don’t have to damage you, only hit you.

It doesn’t have to touch your THP.

[kazaryu]

Okay, so Armor of Agathys (AoA) scales well. You get more thp, which lets you take more damage and thus deal more damage, and upcasting also increases the damage dealt. At 4th level AoA gives you 20 thp and deals 20 damage every time you get hit. The problem here is that as you level, enemy damage scales too, so instead of taking 2 attacks that deal 3 damage and losing the thp, you're taking two attacks that deal 17 damage and you lose the thp. So the scaling doesn't materialize as well as you'd like. (there's also a problem of AoA doing no damage to people who hit you with ranged attacks or spells, but there's nothing really to be done on that front.)

Since day 1 of 5e, people have been using the abjurer's ward to avoid taking damage on the thp and thus make the thp last longer and thus deal more damage. This strat works! Though admittedly, wizards probably have better things to be doing than this.

other ways to mitigate damage on AoA involve

rage (bsp resistance, and AoA doesn't use concentration so there's no conflict)
abjurer ward
uncanny dodge (cut damage in half, stacks with rage for 1/4 damage rounding down twice)
deflect missiles(helps you avoid taking damage on your AoA when at range)
goliath (1d12+CON damage mitigation Proficiency times per day)
heavy armor master (not compatible with rage or deflect missiles)

As for ways of getting access to AoA, the options are

any spellcaster getting it onto their list via mark of warding dwarf
levistus tiefling (1 2nd level cast per long rest. Good in t1, less good later on)
warlock
conquest paladin (AoA also has find steed synergy)


So with all that in mind, its pretty easy to put together something like a goliath conquest paladin with HAM, or a levistus tiefling barbarian/rogue. But what's the best you can come up with? Is there anything I missed?

mark of warding divine soul sorcerer. take quicken meta magic. you can quicken AoA->bladeward for bps resistance. metamagic also lets you quicken other spells while maintainng your bladeward. divine soul gives you access to spells like spirit guardians, spirit shroud, or flameblade/shadoow blade which allow you to be a threat in melee, forcing others to target you. and then, obviously, if they don't target you...thats fine too. it sets up a nice damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

[heavyfuel]

They don’t have to damage you, only hit you.

It doesn’t have to touch your THP.

Oh! You and PS are right. My mistake.

[Kane0]

Clockwork soul with their level 6 feature plus maybe quickened blade ward?

[Ir0ns0ul]

Hexblade 1 / Abjurer X is my favorite for versatility, raw power and added durability with medium armor prof as most of the folks mentioned above.

Besides the powerful combination of AoA and Arcane Ward, you can do all the amazing Nuclear Wizard things with Hexblade Curse and Magic Missile that LudicSavant thought us. It is too much power to handle.

[strangebloke]

Edit.

Magic initiate and strixhaven initiate feats can get aoa. Maybe some others.
True, should have included this, although I do think it is one of the worse ways to get AoA. As i say above its not really that useful at level 1, its more something to be upcast.

It takes two people (except for Battlesmiths who use the spell with their Steel Defender) but Warding Bond is a pretty good non-concentration buff that'll cut the damage the AoA person takes in half.

Ultimately though the big question of this kind of build is how to get things to attack you when theres such a strong disincentive not to - the damage and then whatever trick it is you're using to reduce the damage. The goliath idea is nice though, thats a build choice thats low to the ground and not only good for comboing with AoA.
Yeah, my thinking is that some of these builds have natural incentives to be tanks, if that makes sense? The Tiefling Barbarian could be a zealot for example, which has a pretty potent OA and reckless attack as incentives to the enemy.

But at some point you are just sort of relying on the enemy being dumb and running at you.

Good ol' lore bard can grab AoA with magical secrets, is a full caster, and can reduce damage with their bardic inspirations. Be one of the new Earth Genasi, and you can cast blade ward as a bonus action, and grab absorb elements.
Ohhhh that's nice. BA blade ward was something I hadn't thought of at all, and that works really well. Flavorful like nobody's business too. The BA blade ward is interesting! I like it. You could make a really, really funny build with this. You're not a bard with a lute, you're a bard trying to push a new kind of music you call HARD ROCK. You BA cast blade ward, walk into the enemy and just start strumming. Menacingly. Cutting Words is a lot better than the Goliath ability here depending on how selfish you want to be, since you get 4-5 uses per short rest rather than 2-4 per long rest. You can throw in a level of cleric or fighter or even two levels of paladin to get HAM as well...

Dang, I kind of want to play this right now.

Clockwork soul with their level 6 feature plus maybe quickened blade ward?
Clockwork Soul Earth genasi maybe? Feels solid.

[Kane0]

Clockwork Soul Earth genasi maybe? Feels solid.

Goliath even, or dwarf looking at heavy armor mastery, plus theres absorb elements and counterspell to preserve your THP against non-attack damage. Might be some way to work in uncanny dodge?

Edit: warding bond is a bit of a reach but could be usable, or allies that can choose to take damage on your behalf like crown pallys

[strangebloke]

Goliath even, or dwarf looking at heavy armor mastery, plus theres absorb elements and counterspell to preserve your THP against non-attack damage. Might be some way to work in uncanny dodge?

Edit: warding bond is a bit of a reach but could be usable, or allies that can choose to take damage on your behalf like crown pallys

I kept thinking that Clockwork Soul was a reaction and would compete with Goliath, but I see that it isn't. That's pretty solid!

The main short-coming with all these builds would appear to be order of operations. Ostensibly the guidance regarding damage is that resistance is applied 'after all other modifiers' with the example being a magic aura that reduces damage by 5. So HAM would almost certainly be applied before resistance. But its weird since things like cutting words and the goliath ability state "when you take damage" which would also imply they come after all modifiers.

[Talionis]

Armorer 3/ Bladesinger 5/ Warlock 1 or Mark Dwarf. Armorer let’s you give opposing enemies you hit disadvantage to attack versus everyone but you. Bladesinger can cast a cantrip in place of your extra attack so you can cast Bladeward each round and since you can attack with either thunder gauntlet you can two weapon fight and attack two enemies per turn and still Bladeward. This solves the how to make them attack you issue.

[JNAProductions]

Armorer 3/ Bladesinger 5/ Warlock 1 or Mark Dwarf. Armorer let’s you give opposing enemies you hit disadvantage to attack versus everyone but you. Bladesinger can cast a cantrip in place of your extra attack so you can cast Bladeward each round and since you can attack with either thunder gauntlet you can two weapon fight and attack two enemies per turn and still Bladeward. This solves the how to make them attack you issue.

Doesn't TWF stop Bladesinging?

[PhantomSoul]

Doesn't TWF stop Bladesinging?

You can TWF, just not wield a single two-handed weapon for your attack!

[Kane0]

Armorer 3/ Bladesinger 5/ Warlock 1 or Mark Dwarf. Armorer let’s you give opposing enemies you hit disadvantage to attack versus everyone but you. Bladesinger can cast a cantrip in place of your extra attack so you can cast Bladeward each round and since you can attack with either thunder gauntlet you can two weapon fight and attack two enemies per turn and still Bladeward. This solves the how to make them attack you issue.

Given my table allows INTlocks, this sounds like the basis of my next character...

[Sorinth]

Psi Warrior can also reduce damage taken and stacks well with abjuration wizard since they both scale on Int.

Also worth mentioning heavy armor master feat. AoA is one of the few cases where it becomes worth it even at higher levels.

[Rukelnikov]

Invulnerability makes you immune to damage, you can still be hit though...

Shapechanging into a Marilith would allow a Bladesinger to waste their slots to mitigate incoming damage every turn.(there's probably other interesting forms to take, but no other came to mind)

Contingency can store another AoA for when your first AoA runs out.

At really high levels, I think the issue stems more from, how do I encourage the enemies to attack me instead of my party, than figuring how to extend AoA's uptime. Below lvl 11 extending the uptime is probably very good though...

Some other means of extending it:

Get a Shield Guardian

Fathomless can get a 1d8 damage reduction reaction @6, 2d8 @10

Cloud Rune may or may not work, I think its up to interpretation, "The chosen creature becomes the target of the attack" sounds it shoudn't, but "This magic can transfer the attack's effect" can be read as you are still being hit, the effects apply to someone else (its how I've used it narratively too).


Armorer 3/ Bladesinger 5/ Warlock 1 or Mark Dwarf. Armorer let’s you give opposing enemies you hit disadvantage to attack versus everyone but you. Bladesinger can cast a cantrip in place of your extra attack so you can cast Bladeward each round and since you can attack with either thunder gauntlet you can two weapon fight and attack two enemies per turn and still Bladeward. This solves the how to make them attack you issue.

This is pretty good, if you can get to be a Mark of Warding Dwarf, you can ditch the Lock level and have the potential to get 9th level spell. (Btw, you need Bladesinger 6 for the EA)

[Chronos]

Quoth strangebloke:

The main short-coming with all these builds would appear to be order of operations.
Isn't there a rule that, if two things would happen simultaneously that can't be resolved simultaneously, then the order is decided by whoever's turn it is? Since most of these things would be happening on enemies' turns, that would mean that the order would be the least-optimal one for you.

[Bobthewizard]

I played a mark of warding abjurer and it was a lot of fun. You don't always want the high AC from armor. There were many times where shield would have made an enemy miss but I decided not to cast it so I could trigger AoA.

It was a very fun tactical build. You wanted to get in melee, but with low base HP, you had to watch how much damage you took.

Having a fighter next to you with the interception fighting style is amazing. Warding bond would have been great too, but we didn't have a cleric. This was before Tasha's, but Eldritch Adept for armor of shadows would have been amazing.

For all of these builds, though, expect your DM to start targeting you with ranged attacks.

[RogueJK]

For added fun, a Conquest Paladin 3/Bladesinger 10 gets AoA and the ability to use spell slots for both extra damage and protection from damage. Other than AoA they could memorize nothing but utility spells and rely on on Smite and Song of Defense for combat. Not a traditional wizard, by any means, but still fun.

Minimum 13 STR/INT/CHA for multiclassing, plus wanting a decent CON and a high DEX, is quite MAD.

So if you stick to just a minimum INT because you won't be using your spells for much of anything but Smite, Absorb Elements, Song of Defense, and AoA, you'd end up with something like this using a Half Elf with point buy:
STR 13
DEX 14+2
CON 13+1
INT 13+1
WIS 8
CHA 13

Or worse, having to settle for something like this with the Standard Array:
STR 13
DEX 15+1
CON 10+2
INT 14
WIS 8
CHA 12+1

Though I guess you could do it as a Tortle with the standard array, going:
STR 15+2
DEX 10
CON 14
INT 13
WIS 8
CHA 12+1