Evoker multiclassing/AOE boosting

[poopyloop]

Hey all

I had recently come across the blood domain cleric and the first level feature struck me as interesting


Bloodletting Focus
-From 1st level, your divine magics draw the blood from inflicted wounds, worsening the agony of your nearby foes. When you use a spell of 1st level or higher to inflict damage to any creatures that have blood, those creatures suffer additional necrotic damage equal to 2 + the spell’s level.

Now I don't normally play casters as straight up damage dealers, but adding additional damage seems like an effective way to do it. Thinking more about it, I thought a classic evoker would combo well with it, adding INT mod to damage eventually at lv 10. But I wondered if there were other possible combinations I could work off of aside from these subclasses.

What I'm looking for is addition to damage or other boost to AoE spells, not singe target. I'm aware of the Hexvoker and it just doesn't really interest me, I'm much more interested in how to make AoE damage spells more powerful, and with as little multiclassing as possible. As much as I love multiclassing, it slows progression of the better damaging spells at higher levels, but a bit is still welcomed.

I figure Evoker is probably the best class to take the majority of levels in, as most of its subclass abilities are ideal for AoE blasting (go figure)
While I was focused more on adding damage, any other non-damaging ability that still improves AoE spells is also very welcomed. Sculpt spells is fantastic and doesn't boost any damage at all.

Adding to a specific type of damage (like the draconic sorcerer's elemental affinity) isn't really what I'm looking for. An elemental mage is cool, but I am looking for generic boosts like the blood cleric. Adding additional of a type of damage on a specific set of creatures is a little limiting, but its a lv 1 ability and will still hit the majority of creatures for some extra damage. There's also the arcane firearm from the artillerist but that only works on artificer spells, so not particularly helpful.

Any other abilities you would add to such a character?

[CTurbo]

Any Sorcerer with 2-6 levels of Tempest Cleric can maximize Thunder and Lightning damage once or twice per short rest depending on whether you took 2 or 6 levels and you can use Transmuted Metamagic to change the damage from ANY spell to Thunder or Lightning so literally every damage spell can be used.

[Rukelnikov]

Damaging spells don't scale that much better than just upcasting 3rd lvl spells, except for Meteor Swarm at 9th lvl, so if you just wanna do good AoE damage, stacking multiple boni on your damage roll will be about as good, before character lvl 15, when you could be a Blood Cleric 1/Evoker14 and maximize your damage spells.

These are the straight bonus I can remember from a quick reminder of the subclasses names, there may be some others I don't remember:


Artillerist Artificer, lvl 5 +1d8 damage (requires specific focus)
Spirits Bard, lvl 3 +1d6 damage (requires specific focus)
Wildfire Druid, lvl 6 +1d8 damage (fire only)
Draconic Sorcerer, lvl 6 +Cha to damage (1 element)

[poopyloop]

Any Sorcerer with 2-6 levels of Tempest Cleric can maximize Thunder and Lightning damage once or twice per short rest depending on whether you took 2 or 6 levels and you can use Transmuted Metamagic to change the damage from ANY spell to Thunder or Lightning so literally every damage spell can be used.

I remembered the tempest cleric shenanigans, it seems like a strong option but I forgot you could combo it with the meta magic. Limited to two types is a lot more workable than a single one. Wrath of the storm is definitely an ability to build around.



Damaging spells don't scale that much better than just upcasting 3rd lvl spells, except for Meteor Swarm at 9th lvl, so if you just wanna do good AoE damage, stacking multiple boni on your damage roll will be about as good, before character lvl 15, when you could be a Blood Cleric 1/Evoker14 and maximize your damage spells.

These are the straight bonus I can remember from a quick reminder of the subclasses names, there may be some others I don't remember:


Artillerist Artificer, lvl 5 +1d8 damage (requires specific focus)
Spirits Bard, lvl 3 +1d6 damage (requires specific focus)
Wildfire Druid, lvl 6 +1d8 damage (fire only)
Draconic Sorcerer, lvl 6 +Cha to damage (1 element)


I don't know all the spells off the top of my head but I thought there were some AOE duration spells that worked with damage buffs every time they activated, but the specific spells I couldn't say without doing a bit of reading.

Unfortunately, the artillerist ability only works on artificer spells, and half caster progression really doesn't cut it imo.

Spirits bard ability is interesting, as it works on any bard spells, including magical secrets. It'd be more of a replacement for evoker I suppose as its relatively high but the damage boost comes online earlier, but there'd be a lot less options than the evoker would have.

Wildfire druid and dragon sorc are fine but only one type is annoying. However, combining draconic sorc with lightning as the chosen element with the above post's suggestion of storm cleric could be interesting