SangoProduction
2023-01-08, 04:38 AM
Preamble: I was honestly going to do Creation sphere next, because it follows so well after Illusion (which is just fake creation), and I thought I had a pretty good general understanding of Destruction sphere from a brief glance. But then... "For each sphere you possess, you also gain one free (blast type) available to that sphere from the list below." Wow. I thought they were just a pre-themed set of talents, which was very cool... but now that's just straight up interesting. And it makes Destructive Blast even more of a one-talent wonder... while not literally locking you into picking only one talent if you want some spice to your damage. It also gives you an inherent fluff to "turn your existing abilities to harm others," rather than crafting the fluff entirely yourself, which... let's admit... a good deal of people need. But, as always, it's D&D and all made up. Reflavor the poison however you like. So out of respect, I'll review this sphere first.
Post-Review Analysis: Wow. Um. I am extremely impressed with the blast types. They all lean so far up on my ratings list that I feel a bit odd - like I wasn't being properly critical of what was on offer... but I genuinely think that the majority of blast types are just really damned good. Which is damned impressive. In pathfinder, they were either not particularly meaningful, or bloody broken cheese. (I guess that's a benefit of the binary "advantage" or "disadvantage," versus a swirl of infinite numbers.)
I also like how the blast shapes tend to have two modes: the cantrip mode which can be totally avoided on save, and the mode where you spend at least 1 spell point, and it's instead save for half (though the save still negates the non-damage "rider" effects).
And boy, I don't think I mentioned in a review yet just how much I enjoy the "augment" system in 5e spheres. It adds so much creative space to work in, which is used very well.
(Also holy hell, this has taken me the better part of 2 days. Way more talents here than it appeared.
(1) Superb: You always want this if it's relevant to you. And it probably is.
(1.5) Really Good: Particularly useful bits of kit, but aren't quite must-haves. (Kept it decimal, because spreading out Good so far from Superb felt unrepresentative. But I needed a step between)
(2) Good: These make useful additions to the right builds. Among your first picks.
(3) Usable: Doesn't hurt to have. Wouldn't go out of your way for it.
(4) No: It technically has a use, but the cost to take simply doesn't outweigh the benefit.
(5) Never: There’s no non-trivial reason to pick it up, from its mechanics.
(6+) Harmful: Taking/using this is actively detrimental to your character.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
[Square brackets] indicate a reliance on the group (players or DM) or campaign you’re playing in, and how well it does in those select groups.
Special Ratings:
(C) Cheese: A talent so broken that it will be instantly banned if you use it as you could.
(?) Unrated: I choose not to rate it. Often because it is just so far out of my wheelhouse, or it’s far too ambiguous.
(F) Flavor: This indicates that the main draw to the talent is going to be its inherent fluff or flavor, rather than raw power or utility.
(D) D***bag: Used for when your character wants to be a D***bag.
Base Sphere contains the abilities you gain from using a talent on the sphere for the first time.
Bonus Talents: (See Preamble.) So long as you have the base destruction sphere, you get new ways of using it based on the other spheres you have.
For picking up the Destruction sphere, you also get a free blast type and blast shape talent. (Oh my god. Wow. In PF, we had to pick up drawbacks to customize the base sphere for just one talent. And that locked us into the singular style of destruction sphere usage, or spending like 2 more talents just to then have the freedom to pick any more talents. By comparison PF destruction sphere was hot garbage for customization.)
Destructive Blast: Instantaneously does damage to 1 creature at base line. A very piddly amount as a cantrip, and then a decent amount for 1 spell point. (And note that while it might be behind several wizard spells in terms of damage per level scaling... it also always uses 1 spell point. You never need to 'up-cast' it.) It serves its function for being the damaging sphere ability.
But the big deal is that you can add on a (blast type) to change what type of damage, and determine what additional effects it will have, as well as (blast shape)... which, as you can predict, changes the effective "targeting" of the effect, from ghosts that chase after your target until they hit to balls of warp energy affecting a large area.
Basic Talents can be selected from the sphere, after you gain the base sphere. They tend to add functionality to the sphere. Each talent you spend can get you one of the following basic talents.
The following are groups of the basic talents.
The Blast Type Talents are Basic Talents which change what type of damage, and determine what additional effects it will have. Often the additional effects are either for a round for free, or 1 minute for a spell point... though they get a new save every round. Which... OK, makes sense, given how binary the modifiers (aka (dis)advantage) are in 5e.
Since you get a bonus talent from having other spheres, I did note which sphere the talent is associated with (makes it easier to ctrl+F). Each sphere basically only has 2 talents associated with it each as of the time of writing.
Lightning (Weather) (1++): As an augment, if they are wearing metal armor or made of metal, they make a con save at disadvantage, or are straight up stunned until your next turn. No actions. Grants advantage on attacks to hit them. They can't even really speak. (Also, still can stun as an augment regardless, but without the disadvantage.) And in at least mildly stormy weather, it counts as nonmagical. Even if the weather was magically... don't think about it. That feature is handed out way too liberally.
Thunder (Weather) (1+): Con save or stun as an augment. No disadvantage though... Why are lightning and thunder basically the same, but different? You tell me.
Gravity (Telekinesis) (1+): Unlike the other 1+'s, this one simply has the immense effect of granting all allies advantage to attacking your target. (Which is like Razor Wind, except you get about an expected +4 to +5 to hit, which would take 5 hits with Razor Wind, and does work within the normal bounds of the game. See Razor wind for more detail.) And it lasts until the end of your next turn, letting you benefit from your own effect, without augment. Unfortunately, the augment only lets you also give them disadvantage against Telekinesis for the same duration, rather than boosting the duration to be a set-and-forget. (Which is perfectly fair, because this effect is immensely powerful in my opinion.)
Disrupting (Universal, dispel) <1+>: Let's assume there are enough mages in your games to warrant a [dispel] talent. Well, congratulations, for a spell point, you now force them to make a concentration check at disadvantage, or else not be able to cast, or use any magical effect.
Ink (Dark) (1+): Selfish, unless you have more dark casters on your team, but necrotic damage is nice. Changing the save from Dexterity to Wisdom can often be very influential, and you can force those who take damage to have disadvantage to all dark sphere effects for a whole minute (for a spell point). So you tag them, and then you are very likely to succeed with the main sphere you got this bonus talent from. No saves against this disadvantage state either.
Necrotic (Death) / Tribunal (Fate) / Bewildering (Mind) / Drowning (Nature, Water) / Gale (Weather) (1+): See Ink, and apply to Death / Fate / Illusion / Nature (water & air) / Weather (wind). Uses necrotic / radiant / psychic / thunder damage, which is good. Cold damage is decent.
{Note: There are way too many of these that just do this same deal with their own sphere.}
Cursed (1): Necrotic damage is good. Also freely gives disadvantage to the next ability check or saving throw (which convinces me that they are not the same thing) they make, which is pretty useful. And then augments for applying disadvantage to basically everything until the end of your next turn. Which is pretty incredible, even without added duration, due to the sheer breadth of debilitation that it inflicts. (Also note that you are simultaneously dealing damage to them with all these blasts. So it's not like you're only forcing a stalemate of action between you and the target(s).)
Entropic (Time) (1, F): Disadvantage to all physical saving throws is pretty incredible. Augmenting to give disadvantage to all saving throws is beyond incredible. Only lasts for 1 round though. Oh, and Necrotic damage is quite good.
Razor Wind (Nature, Air & Weather) (1, C): Admittedly it does do slashing damage, and constitution save isn't a brilliant save to target. But. Stacking -1 penalty to AC, which can be augmented to last for 1 minute, and unless you're playing an underwater campaign, it's undoubtedly going to count as a nonmagical attack. There is no additional save for this penalty, nor way to remove the penalty other than waiting it out.
Let's talk about Expected Value. If you have a 50/50 chance of hitting an attack that deals 20 damage, then you expect to do 10 damage on average. If you make it a 55/45 chance, you increased the expected damage by 1 (or 10% of the previous value - let's just use percentages of the original [average damage] from now on as that's going to get confusing). So, a -1 to AC is a 5% expected damage bump to all AC-targeting allies, for basically the entirety of the combat. So, if there is 1 barbarian raging at them with an average-damage-on-hit of 80, that's a +4 to the expected damage. Similarly, if there are 4 allies striking them for an average of 20 damage each, that's also a +4 expected damage over the course of the round. (And then again, and again, for 10 more rounds, if they survive that long.)
Not to mention, any of your blast types that target AC now get progressively easier to hit. (Oh, and because of 5e's "bounded accuracy", this means it remains useful up through high levels. And probably goes against the design of 5e. As a DM, I would probably ban this.)
Hands down, this is the single most-damaging blast type, with scaling that is implicitly never outshines your party, with the caveat that you need to have party members that target AC (which you undoubtedly do).
Beshadowed (Dark) (1): Cold damage is nice. Treating all creatures as having half cover is nice. Disadvantage on perception checks... really doesn't do much when you're already in combat, unless you're sniping... which I don't think is a thing in 5e, because WotC thought nobody wanted any rules for their game after 4e, and have like a single sentence on the stealth skill. (And apparently they were correct.) Getting to also blind your targets for (proficiency bonus) rounds with only one save (and even on a save, they are still affected for a full round)... hell. That's... pretty incredible. Probably broken. (Note that being able to see through magical darkness negates these effects.)
Vivacity (Life) <1>: The anti-undead blast. Wisdom is a very useful save target vs many undead (especially the mindless). And they have disadvantage on top of that. And as an augment, you get basically the only non-cleric means of turning undead (and it is, again, at disadvantage).
Dismissing (Warp) <1>: As Vivacity, except anti-outsider/summoned creature (and planar travelers for 1 sp), but without the turning, and charisma tends to be pretty nice for outsiders. For a full 4 sp, you can force a save or they straight up go back to their home plane - effectively a save or die, for 89% of intents and purposes. That's rather rare in spheres, even though it's only against a few creatures.
Frightful (1): Psychic damage. And damaging creatures forces a wisdom save or be frightened. And changes dex saves to wisdom. Frightened's a great condition, and makes them unable to move closer to you, even as you run away. Create a frightful energy wall in a hallway between your group and some guards, and they either have to save or screw off. (But unlike simply setting their speed to 0, this also has applications mid-combat beyond kiting as well, with it granting disadvantages.)
Poison (Alteration) (1.5): Although Constitution is pretty universally a good score as there's not a single creature for whom it's bad on, the poisoned condition (disadvantage on Attack rolls and Ability Checks) is really quite useful. Poison damage is probably not the most universal damage type out there though. Undead, demons, devils, slimes, constructs, just off the top of my head, aren't particularly affected.
Warding (Protection) (1.5): Gets relatively worse as creatures get to make more attacks per round. But as levels increase, the damage per attack increases as well, so giving them half damage on their first attack against their likely target (or one that you don't want them to attack) is still great.
Radiant (Light) (1.5): Unsurprisingly does radiant damage. Giving disadvantage on attack rolls until the end of your next turn is great. Augmenting to instead blind... well, see beshadowed, but for 1 round.
Bramble (Nature, Plant) (1.5): Piercing damage and grapple condition with indefinite duration, requiring either a save or destruction of the created brambles. Which, while it allows others to break them out... it also soaks enemy actions in doing so, which is much better than them attempting to bash *your* face in. And it can be made nonmagical if there are nearby patches of plants. While the Grappled condition is basically just for running or kiting, it can be augmented to instead Restrain them, which is much more substantial
This obviously gets better with "consistent damage" blast shapes like walls, auras, or tethers, where the blast shape itself keeps attempting to apply it, and so they can't get out... until the attempt fails.
Ice (Weather): As Bramble, but the unaugmented form only reduces speed by 10 for 1 minute. But does cold damage. The augment still restrains them which is the important part though. Also counts as non-magic with nearby water, or in watery weather.
Kinetic (Telekinesis) (1.5): Force damage is great. Strength save is... not so good against most non-humanoids... and the most common humanoid targets are the brutes, because they take the least prep time, and the least mental energy when you're running 20 of them a session. (Seriously, respect your DM. Though still be willing to ask him to bathe every once in a while.) But, when you aren't facing a strength-based creature, then forcing a prone condition, which they can't end until they spend their (bonus) actions to even attempt to get up from prone is pretty damned good. Granted, thanks to getting to use both bonus and real actions to attempt it, they do get 2 saves per turn, plus that initial save. But it soaked their actions.
Degrading (Enhancement) [1.5]: I may be wrong, but I think in 5e, a lot of damage resistance is bypassed by magic, even up into the high levels. This makes all attacks against them thusly ignore their resistance. Force damage is also incredible, specifically hitting incorporeals without issue (at least in PF - can't find such rules in 5e). And it can be augmented to force a con save to turn off regeneration until your next turn starts. Those with regen tend to have a great con save... but neither here nor there.
Illuminating (Light) <1.5>: Fighting someone in the dark? Really annoyed at obscuration, and need radiant damage? Turn the light on... but this comes from the Light sphere.... Know what? Maybe there's some reason you can't cast your normal lights, and need to illuminate the enemy in particular. Maybe you picked it up as a real talent, rather than a bonus talent for having Light sphere.
Maybe they are invisible.... actually, I think that works. (Sigh... OK, the wording on the blast only makes them visible in specifically some degree of darkness. But a reasonable DM won't force you to cast Darkness just to activate your lights, when it's the magical equivalent of tossing glitter over an area to catch the invisible man.)
Fire (2): Does fire damage, unsurprisingly. The weakest of the elemental damages, but more reliable than physical damage. But it also sets them on fire, dealing 1d8 damage per turn for free, if they fail an additional dex save (with more dex saves each round to prevent that round's damage). This makes it the highest (direct) damage blast type, and the relative advantage, even when augmented, still scales faster than Corrosive, though less consistent as levels get up there. They can also spend an action to automatically put themselves out... but then they aren't using it on punching your face in. Oh, and it can be made nonmagical, if you have a dwarf-sized bonfire nearby... which is admittedly less than particularly common. And you can augment it to make them frightened, which as mentioned in Frightful, is a great condition.
Physical (Creation) <2, F>: Your choice of physical damage type as you launch either shovels, pianos, or nail boards at your opponents' face. Damage Resistance still tends to affect it, but you can wiggle around some DR due to its single-talent flexibility. And the magic is that you create the object and launch it. The object itself is nonmagical, letting it bypass protections from magic. So under very specific situations, it is useful. But when it is useful, it is useful. (The augment is to have it also create difficult terrain. Meh.)
Siphoning (Universal, Mana) (2): Psychic damage. And assuming that you fight enough enemies that it's at all worth taking a [mana] talent, this is basically a perpetual motion blast for your self, where you generate the mana that you will need for next turn, so long as you manage to damage to mage.
Bludgeoning (Nature, Earth) <2>: Like Physical, but only does bludgeoning, but also pushes them 5 feet back... woo... And is only non-magical when on solid ground (which is admittedly common). But 1 sp pushes them back 20 feet instead for potentially 3d6 damage if their back's already against a wall. (And before you even think of it, Wall blast type only activates once per turn per wall. It can't infinitely bounce them back and forth.) Note that pushing them into the ground not only does that damage, but also knocks them prone, giving your melees advantage on attack until the enemy's turn, which as mentioned before, is good (assuming your melee allies go between you and the enemy in initiative).
Psionic (Divination) (2): Psychic damage is undoubtedly good, with most of the (explicit) immunities being at extremes of high and low level. Changing saves from Dexterity to Intelligence can be totally game changing. Unfortunately, disadvantage to attacks made against specifically you is relatively weak. The augment is to have advantage to saving throws against creatures damaged by the blast... presumably until the end of next turn, as that's probably just a typo by omission. Not a fantastic set of effects, but it's reliable. And plus, the explicit fluff is that you are reading the surface thoughts so forcefully that it damages them, which is cool.
Psychic Deluge (Divination) / Slowing (Time) [2?]: As mentioned, psychic / force damage is good, as are intelligence / wisdom saves. Assuming you are at the level where bonus actions are useful things, and that monsters have bonus actions, then it's a nice to remove them from targets, which can be augmented to last for a minute (new save each turn). (Slowing also augments to straight up stun for a round, which is much better, but I'm feeling lazy. Only true readers will find this hidden gem. Now my explanation about my laziness has taken more effort than just doing it.)
Charming (Mind) (2): Psychic damage. Charisma save. Charmed condition if damaged, and fail another charisma save. They also get a new save each time they take damage. Augment to make it last for a minute, with a new save each round.
Charmed prevents them from even targeting you with hostile actions. But they do get a lot of saves, unless they are a side target... or you used an AoE shape. Charisma save is probably the best for targeting players (and their characters), and is pretty decent against many monsters.
Teleporting (3): Like Bludgeoning, it changes the target's position by 5 or 20 feet, except you can't knock them prone, or push into walls for bonus damage, and can't place them in "intrinsically dangerous spaces," like in a fire. But you can place them behind walls, potentially forcing them to just walk around next turn. Or multiple turns there after. Or if you planned things out, you could create a... no. No. It literally would have been a case of, why didn't you use regular teleport which does every setup stratagem of this better.
Restraining (Conjuration) (3): Literally the worse version of Bramble.
Hindering (Enhancement) (3): Necrotic damage. It freely reduces speeds by 10 for a full minute and stacks with itself (to minimum of 5), unlike almost every other blast type. And can augment to also force a con save or take disadvantage to one type of ability checks. It does feel like the effect is a bit of a worse Restraining (assuming that disadvantage to ability checks does not include saves). But for the same price, it is longer lasting.
Chromatic (Universal, Wild magic) (3, F): Wild mage, the blast. But chances are, you will roll a damage type that can at least deal neutral damage. And I haven't checked the 5e wild magic table, but from my PF experience, it's generally beneficial to proc, and there are plenty of ways to manipulate the wild magic, if that's what you want.
Corrosive (Creation) (4): Acid's a great damage type. Dealing 1 extra damage per die on its next turn... is utterly unimpressive. But on average, that's like using a 1d10 instead of 1d8. And its augment is to just leave that 1 point per die on the ground. Which doesn't really accomplish much. It's not even a real deterrent to entering the area. Unless you're facing literal commoners, or maybe swarm-style monster groups.
Invigorating (Life) (4): Radiant damage, and then gain temp hp equal to number of dice rolled. Basically the same "hp advantage" of corrosive. But doesn't actually get you closer to ending the fight, so it's worse... unless you regularly fight swarmy monsters, and you augment it to be real hp. That way in doing a 2d6 aoe blast on 6 enemies gets you 12 hp... which isn't truly all that impressive. It's neat, no doubt. But unimpressive.
Shadow (Illusion) [4]: You get to pick literally any damage type, and deal that. And it's an intelligence save, which is great... for half the normal damage, and no rider effect. So even if this was Pokemon-season, the normal blast, targeting a vulnerability is no more useful than using a neutral attack. But sometimes you need a very specific damage type. Like fire for trolls and acid for hydras. And sonic (thunder in 5e? That's strange) for crystal golems. And for those remarkably rare situations, the exact amount of damage doesn't really matter, and the rider effect is basically "Hey. You know that problem that could be solved with only something you don't otherwise have? It's solved now."
Requires a DM that at least occasionally tosses such challenges at your party, which no one else could solve for some reason. (Works really great with those fantastic "monster hunter" DMs, who make enemy creatures that aren't just meat bags with a bunch of actions, but things that must actually be studied and manipulated and attempted multiple times as you scrape by the skin of your teeth to regroup back home. Unfortunately, in my 2 decades of gaming, I only found one, and it was a crying shame when he left the state for work.)
(Actually, seeing that Extra Blast Type talent gives 3 blast type talents, this has even more limited usage, as you're going to be able to have a wide range of damage types to pick from with ease, with bonus effects, and without damage penalty.)
Confining (Protection) (5): Force damage is great! The rider effect of literally just being worse Frightened is terrible.
Form-Breaking (Alteration) (5): Bludgeoning (along with most physical attacks, unless something notable has changed in 5e) is a particularly weak damage type, and getting disadvantage to acrobatics and athletics... eh? I mean, I don't know a lot. Maybe there's a practical use to that in-combat, but I don't see it. Maybe to make even more sure that they can't get away from you guys.
Draining (Death) / Scorching (5): The non-stacking 1 level of exhaustion simply harms ability checks for a couple of rounds.. Exhaustion level 3 might be of importance, if you manage to find one that already had 2 levels of it. Or maybe a different character can inflict levels through some means other than this, in which case it's better. But I think this safely belongs in this tier.
Shrapnel (Nature, Metal)(5): Sigh. Metal. Just stop. Hindering is better than this. In every way. At this point, I think they are intentionally sabotaging metal, because they never actually wanted metal to be part of nature. (Especially considering the raw power of the rest of the nature blast types.)
Spectral (Conjuration) [?]: Slashing damage, and have the target count as being flanked... which is an optional rule. And you won't often have only 1 melee character on the team. But they may sometimes be outnumbered, and thus the auto-flanking might help. Giving all melee allies advantage to hit your called target seems like a neat perk. No option to have it last any longer than until you start your next turn.
(Oof. That took... a while just to review. I'm impressed. Didn't look like there were all that many. Pretty much all really good too.)
Blast Shape talents are basic talents that change how you target your blasts, from augmenting your weaponry to going off like chain lightning and even creating a wall of suffering.
Explosive Orb (1+): Affects a 5-ft cube as a cantrip. Augment 1 sp for "a square with a radius of up to 20 feet," which is funny because squares don't have radii, but you know what they meant. So let's laugh at the authors real quick. A square with a 40-foot-long size is pretty freaking excessive. (Even for PF, whose spell-point Explosive Orb only hit 20 ft radius at CL 10.) You can hit up to 62 creatures for 1 spell point. Compare that to Chain Blast hitting like 7 creatures at level 20. So... let's laugh at the authors again, as they clearly meant to say "a square with the diameter up to 20 feet." And then laugh again because they also don't have diameters.
OK, jokes aside, it's clearly meant to be the "fireball" shape. And that is... a 20 ft radius circle in 5e. Huh. Neat. OK then, you do you. And it does say "up to," which means, unlike fireball, you can choose your radius if you're in a small room.
They also added the ability to turn these into land land mines, which you can trigger as a reaction, or even if someone happens to walk across it. Or shoot it out of a sling. Or simply leave it in the noble's room, and when he goes to bed in a few hours, it will explode, killing him on a timer. (And let it be treated as Alchemy sphere formulae for the purposes of throwing and interacting with the Trap sphere.)
They added basically a whole 'nother talent to this talent. It's probably the best single blast shape talent the, just for its sheer flexibility, in addition to its uncontested, most-massive area.
Wall (1): Creates a 5-by-5 ft panel (aka "wall without a depth") for the duration. No additional actions required, and it's got 5 separate augments which each improve it and/or make it differently useful. Easily a top pick.
Aura (1, F): Gives you a 10 ft aura, which lasts for 1 round (normally), and 1 minute, concentration (augmented 1 sp), and removes concentration for 2 more sp. Very fair pricing, in my honest opinion, and more than worth it, if you at all tend to have things that you want to blast within 10 feet of you. As a bonus action, all creatures, not only enemies, are affected on a failed dex save. If cast for at lest 1 spell point, successful dex saves still deal half damage. And honestly, if you're a melee-ish character, and there tend to be at least a few enemies, this can quite often give quite some good value on the cheap. It doesn't even come with a damage penalty (probably on account of the spell point cost for a no-concentration aura, and still needing a bonus action).
Plus, who doesn't want to be a literal disco ball of wild magic? Or be so juiced that everyone around you gets zapped with electricity? Or to be a being of pure entropy, whose mere presence makes people feel the horrors of the passage of time?
Blade [2]: You can grant your martial buddies on-the-fly magic enchantments that... oh. Well, they change the weapons' damage types freely. As a bonus action (which your martials probably want for other things, like Extra Attacks), they can apply the non-damaging effect of the blast effect you give them. I mean, I guess if you're playing the Pokemon-style, or monster hunt game, where the damage type is actually important, the Shadow blast type is neat, since it just lets you outright target the vulnerabilities without the damage penalty it normally comes with. And I guess that everyone would kinda love to be able to inflict Stunned on any hit enemy as a bonus action, if they hit with the normal one.
I don't think I like this. But it has its niche uses. (Definitely makes sense that it shouldn't stack, but... man this is underwhelming for a normal game. I definitely expected this to be more of a "and then the blast goes off when you hit, discharging the effect," sorta deal. Reading Explosive Orb, I think that is probably going to be a Universal metasphere talent called Striking. But hey, let me be disappointed.)
Tether (1.5) It's a persistent, damaging tether that lasts up to a minute, taking no additional actions after the first cast to keep doing its damage and effect to the target. The target cannot simply walk away from you uncontested (unless they are much too large for you). Basically it's a physical manifestation of a "taunt" ability. And if they do end up attacking the tether... so what? They spent their time attacking the tether. That means they didn't spend it attacking you, or whomever you are trying to keep them away from.
Retribution (2): As a reaction with a spell point, affect the creature who damaged you. Which is neat. It lets you use up more actions to deal damage, but it's really rather inefficient, as it targets one person for a spell point. (Rightfully so, because it's letting you use more actions. But still.)
Chain Blast (3): I don't see this as any more than mediocre. Without augments, it's just a target one, with save to totally avoid. Augment 1 allows you to leap to [proficiency bonus] targets as a bonus action, if the previous target failed their save.
Sphere (4): 5-foot diameter means that it's a sphere (or discus, or little gremlin, however you like) that fills a singular square. It sort of blocks off an area, at pain of suffering blast damage... like the Wall shape, but worse, with fewer augments. But it's mobile as a bonus action. But as soon as it hits a creature that it actually affects, it stops. So, compared to aura, which could affect up to 24 targets as a bonus action (admittedly, if you were so overwhelmingly surrounded that you were no doubt dead), this affects 1.
Ray (4): I think I'm obligated to put the "default attack pattern" at mediocre. But I think it's actually lower than that. You get to attack once. Twice as an augment. Sure, there are no saves, but you still need to hit touch AC... which admittedly isn't hard, even if you have the wizard base attack bonus. That is the point of touch AC after all.
Leap (F): Not giving this a number rating, because you pick this for one reason, and one reason only: It's really cool to pretend your character is a samurai, where you both clash, winding up behind each other, and then the bad guy falling over dead. The mobility is very occasionally useful, but the damage shape is not. So you pick it to be cool, and that's its explicit purpose. Happening to deal damage is just a neat side effect. (This talent was also what started me with the F rating in PF reviews, I do believe.)
Sculpt (F): 5-foot radius centered somewhere on yourself, but you can exclude yourself. The sheer moronity of the statement made me look for literally any other 5e spell that did the same... and it means 5 feet around you, which makes sense geometrically. Given that spheres 5e has methods to enlarge yourself, they probably are clarifying that the aoe doesn't enlarge when you do. Also, due to it being an augment 0, you can affect that 5 ft radius (centered somewhere on self) in addition to the main attraction. For augment 1, your area can be a 120 ft line, or 30 ft cone. Basically dragon's breath. My kobold characters love this shape. Certainly not the most practical of shapes. But they are breath weapon shapes, and that's the point.
Extra Blast Type (1): I mean, even if you don't pick the best of the best of the blast types, the fact that you get 3 of them for 1 talent means that you have a lot of inherent flexibility. Good that this is here, as otherwise it'd be hard to justify directly taking blast type talents when you can get some for free by taking other spheres (even when those spheres don't fit your character concept).
Selective Blast (2): Lets you just blast the barbarian with a massive meteor without a care in the world. (Or at least, with fewer cares than normal... You do feel bad for hurting your friend, right?)
Guided Strike (2): For 1 spell point, your spell attack rolls made as part of the destructive blast (including with Energy Weapon below, for the entire time the weapon is up), is made with advantage, or "double advantage" if you already have advantage.
Blaster Adept (3): Adds damage to your favored damage type. Also let's you pay a spell point to not totally fumble your damage role with said damage type.
Epicenter (?): Depends on how often you're really including yourself in your AoEs. The only one that you would need to ever worry about that with would be Explosive Orb, and since its radius is variable, it's really not that hard to just avoid being damaged by it. Unless I'm missing something. This might simply be a hold over from PF, where there were more shapes that might overlap with your space.
Energy Weapon (F): Why did it take until 5e for us to get the ability to create a bow of lightning, which can shoots bolts of lightning? We had that stuff in the D&D cartoon when I was growing up, but it took until now to get it in the actual game rules? You even get to use it in the same turn you summon it, and you can spend a spell point to use your casting stat rather than normal stat for the weapon attack. (It's cool, and that's what matters.)
Variants are restrictions upon the use of the sphere, but often gives something in recompense. They are more here for flavor than for power.
Dedicated Evoker: You give up the bonus (blast type) talents from other spheres for the Blaster Adept talent, which grants a bit of bonus damage with a given damage type. It's honestly a really bad trade off, and I'm even having issues coming up with good concepts that both take a sphere, and don't want any of their free blast type talents.
Nature Bound: You gain an extra destruction talent, but may only use blast type talents if you are able to draw on their nature augment. (The one that allows them to count as non-magical magic.)
Post-Review Analysis: Wow. Um. I am extremely impressed with the blast types. They all lean so far up on my ratings list that I feel a bit odd - like I wasn't being properly critical of what was on offer... but I genuinely think that the majority of blast types are just really damned good. Which is damned impressive. In pathfinder, they were either not particularly meaningful, or bloody broken cheese. (I guess that's a benefit of the binary "advantage" or "disadvantage," versus a swirl of infinite numbers.)
I also like how the blast shapes tend to have two modes: the cantrip mode which can be totally avoided on save, and the mode where you spend at least 1 spell point, and it's instead save for half (though the save still negates the non-damage "rider" effects).
And boy, I don't think I mentioned in a review yet just how much I enjoy the "augment" system in 5e spheres. It adds so much creative space to work in, which is used very well.
(Also holy hell, this has taken me the better part of 2 days. Way more talents here than it appeared.
(1) Superb: You always want this if it's relevant to you. And it probably is.
(1.5) Really Good: Particularly useful bits of kit, but aren't quite must-haves. (Kept it decimal, because spreading out Good so far from Superb felt unrepresentative. But I needed a step between)
(2) Good: These make useful additions to the right builds. Among your first picks.
(3) Usable: Doesn't hurt to have. Wouldn't go out of your way for it.
(4) No: It technically has a use, but the cost to take simply doesn't outweigh the benefit.
(5) Never: There’s no non-trivial reason to pick it up, from its mechanics.
(6+) Harmful: Taking/using this is actively detrimental to your character.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
[Square brackets] indicate a reliance on the group (players or DM) or campaign you’re playing in, and how well it does in those select groups.
Special Ratings:
(C) Cheese: A talent so broken that it will be instantly banned if you use it as you could.
(?) Unrated: I choose not to rate it. Often because it is just so far out of my wheelhouse, or it’s far too ambiguous.
(F) Flavor: This indicates that the main draw to the talent is going to be its inherent fluff or flavor, rather than raw power or utility.
(D) D***bag: Used for when your character wants to be a D***bag.
Base Sphere contains the abilities you gain from using a talent on the sphere for the first time.
Bonus Talents: (See Preamble.) So long as you have the base destruction sphere, you get new ways of using it based on the other spheres you have.
For picking up the Destruction sphere, you also get a free blast type and blast shape talent. (Oh my god. Wow. In PF, we had to pick up drawbacks to customize the base sphere for just one talent. And that locked us into the singular style of destruction sphere usage, or spending like 2 more talents just to then have the freedom to pick any more talents. By comparison PF destruction sphere was hot garbage for customization.)
Destructive Blast: Instantaneously does damage to 1 creature at base line. A very piddly amount as a cantrip, and then a decent amount for 1 spell point. (And note that while it might be behind several wizard spells in terms of damage per level scaling... it also always uses 1 spell point. You never need to 'up-cast' it.) It serves its function for being the damaging sphere ability.
But the big deal is that you can add on a (blast type) to change what type of damage, and determine what additional effects it will have, as well as (blast shape)... which, as you can predict, changes the effective "targeting" of the effect, from ghosts that chase after your target until they hit to balls of warp energy affecting a large area.
Basic Talents can be selected from the sphere, after you gain the base sphere. They tend to add functionality to the sphere. Each talent you spend can get you one of the following basic talents.
The following are groups of the basic talents.
The Blast Type Talents are Basic Talents which change what type of damage, and determine what additional effects it will have. Often the additional effects are either for a round for free, or 1 minute for a spell point... though they get a new save every round. Which... OK, makes sense, given how binary the modifiers (aka (dis)advantage) are in 5e.
Since you get a bonus talent from having other spheres, I did note which sphere the talent is associated with (makes it easier to ctrl+F). Each sphere basically only has 2 talents associated with it each as of the time of writing.
Lightning (Weather) (1++): As an augment, if they are wearing metal armor or made of metal, they make a con save at disadvantage, or are straight up stunned until your next turn. No actions. Grants advantage on attacks to hit them. They can't even really speak. (Also, still can stun as an augment regardless, but without the disadvantage.) And in at least mildly stormy weather, it counts as nonmagical. Even if the weather was magically... don't think about it. That feature is handed out way too liberally.
Thunder (Weather) (1+): Con save or stun as an augment. No disadvantage though... Why are lightning and thunder basically the same, but different? You tell me.
Gravity (Telekinesis) (1+): Unlike the other 1+'s, this one simply has the immense effect of granting all allies advantage to attacking your target. (Which is like Razor Wind, except you get about an expected +4 to +5 to hit, which would take 5 hits with Razor Wind, and does work within the normal bounds of the game. See Razor wind for more detail.) And it lasts until the end of your next turn, letting you benefit from your own effect, without augment. Unfortunately, the augment only lets you also give them disadvantage against Telekinesis for the same duration, rather than boosting the duration to be a set-and-forget. (Which is perfectly fair, because this effect is immensely powerful in my opinion.)
Disrupting (Universal, dispel) <1+>: Let's assume there are enough mages in your games to warrant a [dispel] talent. Well, congratulations, for a spell point, you now force them to make a concentration check at disadvantage, or else not be able to cast, or use any magical effect.
Ink (Dark) (1+): Selfish, unless you have more dark casters on your team, but necrotic damage is nice. Changing the save from Dexterity to Wisdom can often be very influential, and you can force those who take damage to have disadvantage to all dark sphere effects for a whole minute (for a spell point). So you tag them, and then you are very likely to succeed with the main sphere you got this bonus talent from. No saves against this disadvantage state either.
Necrotic (Death) / Tribunal (Fate) / Bewildering (Mind) / Drowning (Nature, Water) / Gale (Weather) (1+): See Ink, and apply to Death / Fate / Illusion / Nature (water & air) / Weather (wind). Uses necrotic / radiant / psychic / thunder damage, which is good. Cold damage is decent.
{Note: There are way too many of these that just do this same deal with their own sphere.}
Cursed (1): Necrotic damage is good. Also freely gives disadvantage to the next ability check or saving throw (which convinces me that they are not the same thing) they make, which is pretty useful. And then augments for applying disadvantage to basically everything until the end of your next turn. Which is pretty incredible, even without added duration, due to the sheer breadth of debilitation that it inflicts. (Also note that you are simultaneously dealing damage to them with all these blasts. So it's not like you're only forcing a stalemate of action between you and the target(s).)
Entropic (Time) (1, F): Disadvantage to all physical saving throws is pretty incredible. Augmenting to give disadvantage to all saving throws is beyond incredible. Only lasts for 1 round though. Oh, and Necrotic damage is quite good.
Razor Wind (Nature, Air & Weather) (1, C): Admittedly it does do slashing damage, and constitution save isn't a brilliant save to target. But. Stacking -1 penalty to AC, which can be augmented to last for 1 minute, and unless you're playing an underwater campaign, it's undoubtedly going to count as a nonmagical attack. There is no additional save for this penalty, nor way to remove the penalty other than waiting it out.
Let's talk about Expected Value. If you have a 50/50 chance of hitting an attack that deals 20 damage, then you expect to do 10 damage on average. If you make it a 55/45 chance, you increased the expected damage by 1 (or 10% of the previous value - let's just use percentages of the original [average damage] from now on as that's going to get confusing). So, a -1 to AC is a 5% expected damage bump to all AC-targeting allies, for basically the entirety of the combat. So, if there is 1 barbarian raging at them with an average-damage-on-hit of 80, that's a +4 to the expected damage. Similarly, if there are 4 allies striking them for an average of 20 damage each, that's also a +4 expected damage over the course of the round. (And then again, and again, for 10 more rounds, if they survive that long.)
Not to mention, any of your blast types that target AC now get progressively easier to hit. (Oh, and because of 5e's "bounded accuracy", this means it remains useful up through high levels. And probably goes against the design of 5e. As a DM, I would probably ban this.)
Hands down, this is the single most-damaging blast type, with scaling that is implicitly never outshines your party, with the caveat that you need to have party members that target AC (which you undoubtedly do).
Beshadowed (Dark) (1): Cold damage is nice. Treating all creatures as having half cover is nice. Disadvantage on perception checks... really doesn't do much when you're already in combat, unless you're sniping... which I don't think is a thing in 5e, because WotC thought nobody wanted any rules for their game after 4e, and have like a single sentence on the stealth skill. (And apparently they were correct.) Getting to also blind your targets for (proficiency bonus) rounds with only one save (and even on a save, they are still affected for a full round)... hell. That's... pretty incredible. Probably broken. (Note that being able to see through magical darkness negates these effects.)
Vivacity (Life) <1>: The anti-undead blast. Wisdom is a very useful save target vs many undead (especially the mindless). And they have disadvantage on top of that. And as an augment, you get basically the only non-cleric means of turning undead (and it is, again, at disadvantage).
Dismissing (Warp) <1>: As Vivacity, except anti-outsider/summoned creature (and planar travelers for 1 sp), but without the turning, and charisma tends to be pretty nice for outsiders. For a full 4 sp, you can force a save or they straight up go back to their home plane - effectively a save or die, for 89% of intents and purposes. That's rather rare in spheres, even though it's only against a few creatures.
Frightful (1): Psychic damage. And damaging creatures forces a wisdom save or be frightened. And changes dex saves to wisdom. Frightened's a great condition, and makes them unable to move closer to you, even as you run away. Create a frightful energy wall in a hallway between your group and some guards, and they either have to save or screw off. (But unlike simply setting their speed to 0, this also has applications mid-combat beyond kiting as well, with it granting disadvantages.)
Poison (Alteration) (1.5): Although Constitution is pretty universally a good score as there's not a single creature for whom it's bad on, the poisoned condition (disadvantage on Attack rolls and Ability Checks) is really quite useful. Poison damage is probably not the most universal damage type out there though. Undead, demons, devils, slimes, constructs, just off the top of my head, aren't particularly affected.
Warding (Protection) (1.5): Gets relatively worse as creatures get to make more attacks per round. But as levels increase, the damage per attack increases as well, so giving them half damage on their first attack against their likely target (or one that you don't want them to attack) is still great.
Radiant (Light) (1.5): Unsurprisingly does radiant damage. Giving disadvantage on attack rolls until the end of your next turn is great. Augmenting to instead blind... well, see beshadowed, but for 1 round.
Bramble (Nature, Plant) (1.5): Piercing damage and grapple condition with indefinite duration, requiring either a save or destruction of the created brambles. Which, while it allows others to break them out... it also soaks enemy actions in doing so, which is much better than them attempting to bash *your* face in. And it can be made nonmagical if there are nearby patches of plants. While the Grappled condition is basically just for running or kiting, it can be augmented to instead Restrain them, which is much more substantial
This obviously gets better with "consistent damage" blast shapes like walls, auras, or tethers, where the blast shape itself keeps attempting to apply it, and so they can't get out... until the attempt fails.
Ice (Weather): As Bramble, but the unaugmented form only reduces speed by 10 for 1 minute. But does cold damage. The augment still restrains them which is the important part though. Also counts as non-magic with nearby water, or in watery weather.
Kinetic (Telekinesis) (1.5): Force damage is great. Strength save is... not so good against most non-humanoids... and the most common humanoid targets are the brutes, because they take the least prep time, and the least mental energy when you're running 20 of them a session. (Seriously, respect your DM. Though still be willing to ask him to bathe every once in a while.) But, when you aren't facing a strength-based creature, then forcing a prone condition, which they can't end until they spend their (bonus) actions to even attempt to get up from prone is pretty damned good. Granted, thanks to getting to use both bonus and real actions to attempt it, they do get 2 saves per turn, plus that initial save. But it soaked their actions.
Degrading (Enhancement) [1.5]: I may be wrong, but I think in 5e, a lot of damage resistance is bypassed by magic, even up into the high levels. This makes all attacks against them thusly ignore their resistance. Force damage is also incredible, specifically hitting incorporeals without issue (at least in PF - can't find such rules in 5e). And it can be augmented to force a con save to turn off regeneration until your next turn starts. Those with regen tend to have a great con save... but neither here nor there.
Illuminating (Light) <1.5>: Fighting someone in the dark? Really annoyed at obscuration, and need radiant damage? Turn the light on... but this comes from the Light sphere.... Know what? Maybe there's some reason you can't cast your normal lights, and need to illuminate the enemy in particular. Maybe you picked it up as a real talent, rather than a bonus talent for having Light sphere.
Maybe they are invisible.... actually, I think that works. (Sigh... OK, the wording on the blast only makes them visible in specifically some degree of darkness. But a reasonable DM won't force you to cast Darkness just to activate your lights, when it's the magical equivalent of tossing glitter over an area to catch the invisible man.)
Fire (2): Does fire damage, unsurprisingly. The weakest of the elemental damages, but more reliable than physical damage. But it also sets them on fire, dealing 1d8 damage per turn for free, if they fail an additional dex save (with more dex saves each round to prevent that round's damage). This makes it the highest (direct) damage blast type, and the relative advantage, even when augmented, still scales faster than Corrosive, though less consistent as levels get up there. They can also spend an action to automatically put themselves out... but then they aren't using it on punching your face in. Oh, and it can be made nonmagical, if you have a dwarf-sized bonfire nearby... which is admittedly less than particularly common. And you can augment it to make them frightened, which as mentioned in Frightful, is a great condition.
Physical (Creation) <2, F>: Your choice of physical damage type as you launch either shovels, pianos, or nail boards at your opponents' face. Damage Resistance still tends to affect it, but you can wiggle around some DR due to its single-talent flexibility. And the magic is that you create the object and launch it. The object itself is nonmagical, letting it bypass protections from magic. So under very specific situations, it is useful. But when it is useful, it is useful. (The augment is to have it also create difficult terrain. Meh.)
Siphoning (Universal, Mana) (2): Psychic damage. And assuming that you fight enough enemies that it's at all worth taking a [mana] talent, this is basically a perpetual motion blast for your self, where you generate the mana that you will need for next turn, so long as you manage to damage to mage.
Bludgeoning (Nature, Earth) <2>: Like Physical, but only does bludgeoning, but also pushes them 5 feet back... woo... And is only non-magical when on solid ground (which is admittedly common). But 1 sp pushes them back 20 feet instead for potentially 3d6 damage if their back's already against a wall. (And before you even think of it, Wall blast type only activates once per turn per wall. It can't infinitely bounce them back and forth.) Note that pushing them into the ground not only does that damage, but also knocks them prone, giving your melees advantage on attack until the enemy's turn, which as mentioned before, is good (assuming your melee allies go between you and the enemy in initiative).
Psionic (Divination) (2): Psychic damage is undoubtedly good, with most of the (explicit) immunities being at extremes of high and low level. Changing saves from Dexterity to Intelligence can be totally game changing. Unfortunately, disadvantage to attacks made against specifically you is relatively weak. The augment is to have advantage to saving throws against creatures damaged by the blast... presumably until the end of next turn, as that's probably just a typo by omission. Not a fantastic set of effects, but it's reliable. And plus, the explicit fluff is that you are reading the surface thoughts so forcefully that it damages them, which is cool.
Psychic Deluge (Divination) / Slowing (Time) [2?]: As mentioned, psychic / force damage is good, as are intelligence / wisdom saves. Assuming you are at the level where bonus actions are useful things, and that monsters have bonus actions, then it's a nice to remove them from targets, which can be augmented to last for a minute (new save each turn). (Slowing also augments to straight up stun for a round, which is much better, but I'm feeling lazy. Only true readers will find this hidden gem. Now my explanation about my laziness has taken more effort than just doing it.)
Charming (Mind) (2): Psychic damage. Charisma save. Charmed condition if damaged, and fail another charisma save. They also get a new save each time they take damage. Augment to make it last for a minute, with a new save each round.
Charmed prevents them from even targeting you with hostile actions. But they do get a lot of saves, unless they are a side target... or you used an AoE shape. Charisma save is probably the best for targeting players (and their characters), and is pretty decent against many monsters.
Teleporting (3): Like Bludgeoning, it changes the target's position by 5 or 20 feet, except you can't knock them prone, or push into walls for bonus damage, and can't place them in "intrinsically dangerous spaces," like in a fire. But you can place them behind walls, potentially forcing them to just walk around next turn. Or multiple turns there after. Or if you planned things out, you could create a... no. No. It literally would have been a case of, why didn't you use regular teleport which does every setup stratagem of this better.
Restraining (Conjuration) (3): Literally the worse version of Bramble.
Hindering (Enhancement) (3): Necrotic damage. It freely reduces speeds by 10 for a full minute and stacks with itself (to minimum of 5), unlike almost every other blast type. And can augment to also force a con save or take disadvantage to one type of ability checks. It does feel like the effect is a bit of a worse Restraining (assuming that disadvantage to ability checks does not include saves). But for the same price, it is longer lasting.
Chromatic (Universal, Wild magic) (3, F): Wild mage, the blast. But chances are, you will roll a damage type that can at least deal neutral damage. And I haven't checked the 5e wild magic table, but from my PF experience, it's generally beneficial to proc, and there are plenty of ways to manipulate the wild magic, if that's what you want.
Corrosive (Creation) (4): Acid's a great damage type. Dealing 1 extra damage per die on its next turn... is utterly unimpressive. But on average, that's like using a 1d10 instead of 1d8. And its augment is to just leave that 1 point per die on the ground. Which doesn't really accomplish much. It's not even a real deterrent to entering the area. Unless you're facing literal commoners, or maybe swarm-style monster groups.
Invigorating (Life) (4): Radiant damage, and then gain temp hp equal to number of dice rolled. Basically the same "hp advantage" of corrosive. But doesn't actually get you closer to ending the fight, so it's worse... unless you regularly fight swarmy monsters, and you augment it to be real hp. That way in doing a 2d6 aoe blast on 6 enemies gets you 12 hp... which isn't truly all that impressive. It's neat, no doubt. But unimpressive.
Shadow (Illusion) [4]: You get to pick literally any damage type, and deal that. And it's an intelligence save, which is great... for half the normal damage, and no rider effect. So even if this was Pokemon-season, the normal blast, targeting a vulnerability is no more useful than using a neutral attack. But sometimes you need a very specific damage type. Like fire for trolls and acid for hydras. And sonic (thunder in 5e? That's strange) for crystal golems. And for those remarkably rare situations, the exact amount of damage doesn't really matter, and the rider effect is basically "Hey. You know that problem that could be solved with only something you don't otherwise have? It's solved now."
Requires a DM that at least occasionally tosses such challenges at your party, which no one else could solve for some reason. (Works really great with those fantastic "monster hunter" DMs, who make enemy creatures that aren't just meat bags with a bunch of actions, but things that must actually be studied and manipulated and attempted multiple times as you scrape by the skin of your teeth to regroup back home. Unfortunately, in my 2 decades of gaming, I only found one, and it was a crying shame when he left the state for work.)
(Actually, seeing that Extra Blast Type talent gives 3 blast type talents, this has even more limited usage, as you're going to be able to have a wide range of damage types to pick from with ease, with bonus effects, and without damage penalty.)
Confining (Protection) (5): Force damage is great! The rider effect of literally just being worse Frightened is terrible.
Form-Breaking (Alteration) (5): Bludgeoning (along with most physical attacks, unless something notable has changed in 5e) is a particularly weak damage type, and getting disadvantage to acrobatics and athletics... eh? I mean, I don't know a lot. Maybe there's a practical use to that in-combat, but I don't see it. Maybe to make even more sure that they can't get away from you guys.
Draining (Death) / Scorching (5): The non-stacking 1 level of exhaustion simply harms ability checks for a couple of rounds.. Exhaustion level 3 might be of importance, if you manage to find one that already had 2 levels of it. Or maybe a different character can inflict levels through some means other than this, in which case it's better. But I think this safely belongs in this tier.
Shrapnel (Nature, Metal)(5): Sigh. Metal. Just stop. Hindering is better than this. In every way. At this point, I think they are intentionally sabotaging metal, because they never actually wanted metal to be part of nature. (Especially considering the raw power of the rest of the nature blast types.)
Spectral (Conjuration) [?]: Slashing damage, and have the target count as being flanked... which is an optional rule. And you won't often have only 1 melee character on the team. But they may sometimes be outnumbered, and thus the auto-flanking might help. Giving all melee allies advantage to hit your called target seems like a neat perk. No option to have it last any longer than until you start your next turn.
(Oof. That took... a while just to review. I'm impressed. Didn't look like there were all that many. Pretty much all really good too.)
Blast Shape talents are basic talents that change how you target your blasts, from augmenting your weaponry to going off like chain lightning and even creating a wall of suffering.
Explosive Orb (1+): Affects a 5-ft cube as a cantrip. Augment 1 sp for "a square with a radius of up to 20 feet," which is funny because squares don't have radii, but you know what they meant. So let's laugh at the authors real quick. A square with a 40-foot-long size is pretty freaking excessive. (Even for PF, whose spell-point Explosive Orb only hit 20 ft radius at CL 10.) You can hit up to 62 creatures for 1 spell point. Compare that to Chain Blast hitting like 7 creatures at level 20. So... let's laugh at the authors again, as they clearly meant to say "a square with the diameter up to 20 feet." And then laugh again because they also don't have diameters.
OK, jokes aside, it's clearly meant to be the "fireball" shape. And that is... a 20 ft radius circle in 5e. Huh. Neat. OK then, you do you. And it does say "up to," which means, unlike fireball, you can choose your radius if you're in a small room.
They also added the ability to turn these into land land mines, which you can trigger as a reaction, or even if someone happens to walk across it. Or shoot it out of a sling. Or simply leave it in the noble's room, and when he goes to bed in a few hours, it will explode, killing him on a timer. (And let it be treated as Alchemy sphere formulae for the purposes of throwing and interacting with the Trap sphere.)
They added basically a whole 'nother talent to this talent. It's probably the best single blast shape talent the, just for its sheer flexibility, in addition to its uncontested, most-massive area.
Wall (1): Creates a 5-by-5 ft panel (aka "wall without a depth") for the duration. No additional actions required, and it's got 5 separate augments which each improve it and/or make it differently useful. Easily a top pick.
Aura (1, F): Gives you a 10 ft aura, which lasts for 1 round (normally), and 1 minute, concentration (augmented 1 sp), and removes concentration for 2 more sp. Very fair pricing, in my honest opinion, and more than worth it, if you at all tend to have things that you want to blast within 10 feet of you. As a bonus action, all creatures, not only enemies, are affected on a failed dex save. If cast for at lest 1 spell point, successful dex saves still deal half damage. And honestly, if you're a melee-ish character, and there tend to be at least a few enemies, this can quite often give quite some good value on the cheap. It doesn't even come with a damage penalty (probably on account of the spell point cost for a no-concentration aura, and still needing a bonus action).
Plus, who doesn't want to be a literal disco ball of wild magic? Or be so juiced that everyone around you gets zapped with electricity? Or to be a being of pure entropy, whose mere presence makes people feel the horrors of the passage of time?
Blade [2]: You can grant your martial buddies on-the-fly magic enchantments that... oh. Well, they change the weapons' damage types freely. As a bonus action (which your martials probably want for other things, like Extra Attacks), they can apply the non-damaging effect of the blast effect you give them. I mean, I guess if you're playing the Pokemon-style, or monster hunt game, where the damage type is actually important, the Shadow blast type is neat, since it just lets you outright target the vulnerabilities without the damage penalty it normally comes with. And I guess that everyone would kinda love to be able to inflict Stunned on any hit enemy as a bonus action, if they hit with the normal one.
I don't think I like this. But it has its niche uses. (Definitely makes sense that it shouldn't stack, but... man this is underwhelming for a normal game. I definitely expected this to be more of a "and then the blast goes off when you hit, discharging the effect," sorta deal. Reading Explosive Orb, I think that is probably going to be a Universal metasphere talent called Striking. But hey, let me be disappointed.)
Tether (1.5) It's a persistent, damaging tether that lasts up to a minute, taking no additional actions after the first cast to keep doing its damage and effect to the target. The target cannot simply walk away from you uncontested (unless they are much too large for you). Basically it's a physical manifestation of a "taunt" ability. And if they do end up attacking the tether... so what? They spent their time attacking the tether. That means they didn't spend it attacking you, or whomever you are trying to keep them away from.
Retribution (2): As a reaction with a spell point, affect the creature who damaged you. Which is neat. It lets you use up more actions to deal damage, but it's really rather inefficient, as it targets one person for a spell point. (Rightfully so, because it's letting you use more actions. But still.)
Chain Blast (3): I don't see this as any more than mediocre. Without augments, it's just a target one, with save to totally avoid. Augment 1 allows you to leap to [proficiency bonus] targets as a bonus action, if the previous target failed their save.
Sphere (4): 5-foot diameter means that it's a sphere (or discus, or little gremlin, however you like) that fills a singular square. It sort of blocks off an area, at pain of suffering blast damage... like the Wall shape, but worse, with fewer augments. But it's mobile as a bonus action. But as soon as it hits a creature that it actually affects, it stops. So, compared to aura, which could affect up to 24 targets as a bonus action (admittedly, if you were so overwhelmingly surrounded that you were no doubt dead), this affects 1.
Ray (4): I think I'm obligated to put the "default attack pattern" at mediocre. But I think it's actually lower than that. You get to attack once. Twice as an augment. Sure, there are no saves, but you still need to hit touch AC... which admittedly isn't hard, even if you have the wizard base attack bonus. That is the point of touch AC after all.
Leap (F): Not giving this a number rating, because you pick this for one reason, and one reason only: It's really cool to pretend your character is a samurai, where you both clash, winding up behind each other, and then the bad guy falling over dead. The mobility is very occasionally useful, but the damage shape is not. So you pick it to be cool, and that's its explicit purpose. Happening to deal damage is just a neat side effect. (This talent was also what started me with the F rating in PF reviews, I do believe.)
Sculpt (F): 5-foot radius centered somewhere on yourself, but you can exclude yourself. The sheer moronity of the statement made me look for literally any other 5e spell that did the same... and it means 5 feet around you, which makes sense geometrically. Given that spheres 5e has methods to enlarge yourself, they probably are clarifying that the aoe doesn't enlarge when you do. Also, due to it being an augment 0, you can affect that 5 ft radius (centered somewhere on self) in addition to the main attraction. For augment 1, your area can be a 120 ft line, or 30 ft cone. Basically dragon's breath. My kobold characters love this shape. Certainly not the most practical of shapes. But they are breath weapon shapes, and that's the point.
Extra Blast Type (1): I mean, even if you don't pick the best of the best of the blast types, the fact that you get 3 of them for 1 talent means that you have a lot of inherent flexibility. Good that this is here, as otherwise it'd be hard to justify directly taking blast type talents when you can get some for free by taking other spheres (even when those spheres don't fit your character concept).
Selective Blast (2): Lets you just blast the barbarian with a massive meteor without a care in the world. (Or at least, with fewer cares than normal... You do feel bad for hurting your friend, right?)
Guided Strike (2): For 1 spell point, your spell attack rolls made as part of the destructive blast (including with Energy Weapon below, for the entire time the weapon is up), is made with advantage, or "double advantage" if you already have advantage.
Blaster Adept (3): Adds damage to your favored damage type. Also let's you pay a spell point to not totally fumble your damage role with said damage type.
Epicenter (?): Depends on how often you're really including yourself in your AoEs. The only one that you would need to ever worry about that with would be Explosive Orb, and since its radius is variable, it's really not that hard to just avoid being damaged by it. Unless I'm missing something. This might simply be a hold over from PF, where there were more shapes that might overlap with your space.
Energy Weapon (F): Why did it take until 5e for us to get the ability to create a bow of lightning, which can shoots bolts of lightning? We had that stuff in the D&D cartoon when I was growing up, but it took until now to get it in the actual game rules? You even get to use it in the same turn you summon it, and you can spend a spell point to use your casting stat rather than normal stat for the weapon attack. (It's cool, and that's what matters.)
Variants are restrictions upon the use of the sphere, but often gives something in recompense. They are more here for flavor than for power.
Dedicated Evoker: You give up the bonus (blast type) talents from other spheres for the Blaster Adept talent, which grants a bit of bonus damage with a given damage type. It's honestly a really bad trade off, and I'm even having issues coming up with good concepts that both take a sphere, and don't want any of their free blast type talents.
Nature Bound: You gain an extra destruction talent, but may only use blast type talents if you are able to draw on their nature augment. (The one that allows them to count as non-magical magic.)