More Silvery Barbs discussion

[KorvinStarmast]

It's the same reason I'm not particularly happy with polymorph--it has both the offensive use (turning someone into a frog) and a "defensive" use (turn someone friendly into a big combat beast) AND a utility use (transform someone into something that can, for instance, get somewhere), all compounded by being able to dive through all the available books looking for fodder. Any one of those effects would be worth having; all 3 makes for a spell that has balance issues.

1. It is an iconic D&D spell. Just like fireball and lightning bolt.
2. It is underpowered compared to some early editions' versions.
3. Concentration can be broken.
4. Against alert/aware opponents, sometimes it falls flat. (I turned a cloud giant into a frog only for an opposing caster's frost cone to go off and that killed the frog, damaged some of the party, and there stood the cloud giant again)

Most Important Aspect:
It Is Fun! (Particularly the out of combat uses)

[PhoenixPhyre]

1. It is an iconic D&D spell. Just like fireball and lightning bolt.
2. It is underpowered compared to some early editions' versions.
3. Concentration can be broken.
4. Against alert/aware opponents, sometimes it falls flat. (I turned a cloud giant into a frog only for an opposing caster's frost cone to go off and that killed the frog, damaged some of the party, and there stood the cloud giant again)

Most Important Aspect:
It Is Fun! (Particularly the out of combat uses)

1. Sure. Doesn't give it license to be badly designed. And yes, I feel the same way about fireball being so strong for its level. "It's always been this way" is a bad argument when you've changed most other things.
2. Well, when we're comparing to things that were OMGBBQWTF broken, being only BBQWTF broken is underpowered.... (I'd make every other letter blue to indicate that I'm partially serious, but that would take way too much work).
3. Sure. That doesn't mean that it's not doing too many things.
4. Yeah? Doesn't mean it's not doing too many things or that splitting it into an offensive version and a defensive version (with different CR limits and/or spell levels) wouldn't still have those same factors, while being less broken.

And as to fun...yeah. It's why I generally only get mildly annoyed by it when I'm wearing my design hat, but haven't actually banned/houseruled/changed it at the table. It's smelly in a vacuum, but tolerably so. Smell is more about "this is a hint that something deserves scrutiny", not "this must change right now."

[Captain Panda]

Yep, so that secondary benefit can be safely removed in order to keep the primary function intact.

Now removing affecting attacks on top of ability checks and saves does tale out the crit negation, what're your thoughts there?

I'd consider it a pretty niche spell at that point, not worth picking up on sorcerer. Might take it as a wizard, they get tons of selections.

[Kane0]

I'd consider it a pretty niche spell at that point, not worth picking up on sorcerer. Might take it as a wizard, they get tons of selections.

How about on an Aberrant Mind?

[Gurgeh]

I would think that the class with fewer options would get more value from the swiss-army-spell than the class with more; especially when they can eventually get a ridiculous number of uses via sorcery points.

[Captain Panda]

How about on an Aberrant Mind?

I prefer Clockwork Soul, but on an Aberrant Mind I'd view Silvery Barbs as an absolute must-pick. I don't think it's the super broken megaspell that others do, but it is an amazing spell you can fling out regularly (starting at 6th level, at least) on an Aberrant Mind. 1 Sorcery Point? That's a bargain. Crazy good in that context.

Maybe I'm in the minority on this, but I don't mind people building towards cool tricks like that.

[Witty Username]

It is more versatile than shield by a lot.

No it isn't.

Silvery barbs is only useful on single high impact dice rolls (enemies with single powerful attacks, or high impact saving throws). You can build a character or party to take advantage of the saving throw aspect but it cost a reaction and resources to still potentially fail.

Shield is useful, when you are under attack, which is essentially any combat, against any number of foes, for virtually any reason. There are no build considerations with shield, it works with almost(I have to say almost because of single classed hexblade warlock which can't afford to cast level 1 spells) any caster in any party. Shield is likely to not fail as the amount is guaranteed and most tables play knowing the roll made with the attack, and because it lasts the rest of the round is likely to force additional misses or a change to a less tempting target.

[tokek]

I prefer Clockwork Soul, but on an Aberrant Mind I'd view Silvery Barbs as an absolute must-pick. I don't think it's the super broken megaspell that others do, but it is an amazing spell you can fling out regularly (starting at 6th level, at least) on an Aberrant Mind. 1 Sorcery Point? That's a bargain. Crazy good in that context.

Maybe I'm in the minority on this, but I don't mind people building towards cool tricks like that.

I'm playing an Aberrant Mind sorcerer with Silvery Barbs and I did not take it as a Psionic Spell. That's because its not really got the out of combat utility of some of the other options you have there for an innate subtle spell cast with just one sorcery point. As a party face Charm Person looks like the auto-pick. Its important to remember you only have a pick of two spells at each level that you can cast this way and make sure you make the most of this special feature, its why you take the subclass.

So far Silvery Barbs has been meh for me. I'm getting much more spell slot efficiency out of Mage Armor and much more combat impact out of the Web/Dissonant Whispers combo that the character is built for. That combo would be better with Silvery Barb rerolls but I just don't have enough slots to burn on that stuff yet. I still think its going to be powerful in tier 2 but we are not there yet, in the meantime the temptation to over-use it and run out of spell slots is very real

[stoutstien]

No it isn't.

Silvery barbs is only useful on single high impact dice rolls (enemies with single powerful attacks, or high impact saving throws). You can build a character or party to take advantage of the saving throw aspect but it cost a reaction and resources to still potentially fail.

Shield is useful, when you are under attack, which is essentially any combat, against any number of foes, for virtually any reason. There are no build considerations with shield, it works with almost(I have to say almost because of single classed hexblade warlock which can't afford to cast level 1 spells) any caster in any party. Shield is likely to not fail as the amount is guaranteed and most tables play knowing the roll made with the attack, and because it lasts the rest of the round is likely to force additional misses or a change to a less tempting target.

Frequency and intensity are not the same thing. SB is more flexible regardless of how impactful one may think it is compared to shield which only works for one type of roll.
shield also has a somatic component so there are builds that need to consider that before trying to utilize it.

[Amnestic]

Shield is useful, when you are under attack,

Shield is useful specifically when they beat your AC by 1-5 points but also don't crit. That isn't the same as 'when you are under attack'.

[MrStabby]

I don't consider "damage + rider" as a significant multiple effect. And it's not effects, it's uses. That is, a spell that can be used
a) defensively to stop an attack against you (or your allies)
b) offensively to make a save-based spell more likely to land
c) and also gives an unrelated ally a bonus (even if minor)

is very different (and more worrying) than one that can only be used offensively, even if that offensive nature has more than one effect. Because the first can be used to cover ground that would otherwise take multiple spells more effectively than one that can only cover one role.

It's the same reason I'm not particularly happy with polymorph--it has both the offensive use (turning someone into a frog) and a "defensive" use (turn someone friendly into a big combat beast) AND a utility use (transform someone into something that can, for instance, get somewhere), all compounded by being able to dive through all the available books looking for fodder. Any one of those effects would be worth having; all 3 makes for a spell that has balance issues.

Urgh. Polymorph is one of my candidates for the worst designed spell in the game. Never have I ever come across another spell that steps on another characters toes as badly as polymorph.

Want to be a strong guy? Polymorph does it better.
Want to be mobile? Polymorph does it better.
Want to be a barbarian with more hit points than brain cells...
Want to get into hard to reach places like a clifftop of the deep ocean...

Even more specific things like grappling - if you build a grappler are you really better at grappling than a giant ape or a big dinosaur? Or if the fighter wants to grapple the giant but the wizard turns them into a fish and pickes them up.

The whole spell seems to be about saying "hey you know this cool thing you could do that mae your character fun, wel now everyone who knows this spell can do it too". For something that sucks the fun out of games for a lot of players I can't thing of something worse than polymorph.

Silvery barbs kind of steps on the toes of bardic inspiration, sorcerer's heightened spell and a few other abilities, but isn't quite as bad as polymorph in this regard (though arguably being lower level and being able to be cast many more times over the lifetime of a character it can claw some of that back).

[Yakk]

This begins to feel like a sunk cost fallacy. You are pushing more and more abilities and spell slots into trying to make that one spell stick to that one target - still with no certainty of success.

It would have to be an amazing spell to be worth it and on the whole I don't think the choice of such spells is really there. Some good spells for sure but they are concentration spells and I honestly find there are better things to use concentration on. Casting Hold Monster instead of Wall of Force is just an edge case for me.

The sunk cost fallacy is that the amount you have sunk into an effort shouldn't determine how much more you should spend on it.

The fact that the monster passed the save (with or without disadvantage) doesn't mean that it is a good or bad idea to use SB to force another save.

The fact that the first SB didn't make the monster fail the save doesn't mean it is a good or bad idea to use another SB.

All that matters is what the monster's save chance is, and is it worth the reaction + 1st level slot.

It is true that repeated passes *might* indicate that the chance of saving it higher than you expected. Ie, the expected low-wisdom monster is actually a high-wisdom creature.

[KorvinStarmast]

No it isn't.

Silvery barbs is only useful on single high impact dice rolls (enemies with single powerful attacks, or high impact saving throws).

Let's discuss what versatile means. Shield does one thing and it does that one thing for one turn well. Raise AC.

SB does a lot of different stuff depending on the situation. More versatile.

@MrStabby: the hate for polymorph overlooks that it costs a level 4 spell slot (that's a resource) and is temporary (one hour or less). Your "steps on toes" is overstated to the point of being wrong.

[MrStabby]

The sunk cost fallacy is that the amount you have sunk into an effort shouldn't determine how much more you should spend on it.

The fact that the monster passed the save (with or without disadvantage) doesn't mean that it is a good or bad idea to use SB to force another save.

The fact that the first SB didn't make the monster fail the save doesn't mean it is a good or bad idea to use another SB.

All that matters is what the monster's save chance is, and is it worth the reaction + 1st level slot.

It is true that repeated passes *might* indicate that the chance of saving it higher than you expected. Ie, the expected low-wisdom monster is actually a high-wisdom creature.

Hmm. This isn't quite true though. The probability of a monster failing a reroll is not independant of whether they failed the first time. If they passed their first attempt then it is likely they have a better save and are more likely to pass with silvery barbs. Of course if the save bonus is known, then this isn't an issue.

But in general, yes. If it was worth casting hold person the first time but they passed the save, then it is almost certainly worth that same investment or less the second time (exception being if you have a growing opportunity cost for the oustanding spell slot).

Let's discuss what versatile means. Shield does one thing and it does that one thing for one turn well. Raise AC.

SB does a lot of different stuff depending on the situation. More versatile.

@MrStabby: the hate for polymorph overlooks that it costs a level 4 spell slot (that's a resource) and is temporary (one hour or less). Your "steps on toes" is overstated to the point of being wrong.

Oh yeah - silly me for failing to realise that this spell writen in the spell section and listed under leve level four spells needed a level 4 spell slot! How silly of me for overlooking that. How could that possibly have passed me by! And thats a resource? Oh my! I never realised that. Wow. How insightful.

[Yakk]

Hmm. This isn't quite true though. The probability of a monster failing a reroll is not independant of whether they failed the first time. If they passed their first attempt then it is likely they have a better save and are more likely to pass with silvery barbs. Of course if the save bonus is known, then this isn't an issue.

But in general, yes. If it was worth casting hold person the first time but they passed the save, then it is almost certainly worth that same investment or less the second time (exception being if you have a growing opportunity cost for the oustanding spell slot).

Well, if you can see the die roll and the result was surprising given the die roll, then you should update your priors (go go bayes).

But if you see the "raw" die rolls and they are all high and the monster saves, then this doesn't actually give you a reason to update priors.

This will depend on the table. If the monster rolls 22 17 16, that does push the priors for the monsters save modifier up (depending on how certain you where before hand).

[MrStabby]

Let's discuss what versatile means. Shield does one thing and it does that one thing for one turn well. Raise AC.

SB does a lot of different stuff depending on the situation. More versatile.

@MrStabby: the hate for polymorph overlooks that it costs a level 4 spell slot (that's a resource) and is temporary (one hour or less). Your "steps on toes" is overstated to the point of being wrong.

Well, if you can see the die roll and the result was surprising given the die roll, then you should update your priors (go go bayes).

But if you see the "raw" die rolls and they are all high and the monster saves, then this doesn't actually give you a reason to update priors.

This will depend on the table. If the monster rolls 22 17 16, that does push the priors for the monsters save modifier up (depending on how certain you where before hand).

Even if you don't see the die roll and just know it passed, you should still update - you have new information.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Even if you don't see the die roll and just know it passed, you should still update - you have new information.

But how much you update depends. As an example, my party faced a bunch of oozes. Not known for their dexterity. Yet they were rolling like champs on their Dex saves (basically all 17+). Dice are fickle, and you don't really have all that much information for any individual combatant. Law of Large Numbers this ain't.

[Yakk]

Even if you don't see the die roll and just know it passed, you should still update - you have new information.

If you see the die roll and you know it passed, you shouldn't update if the die roll was high.

Not seeing the die roll makes updating priors more important. So "even" is the wrong word here.

[tokek]

The sunk cost fallacy is that the amount you have sunk into an effort shouldn't determine how much more you should spend on it.

The fact that the monster passed the save (with or without disadvantage) doesn't mean that it is a good or bad idea to use SB to force another save.

The fact that the first SB didn't make the monster fail the save doesn't mean it is a good or bad idea to use another SB.

All that matters is what the monster's save chance is, and is it worth the reaction + 1st level slot.

It is true that repeated passes *might* indicate that the chance of saving it higher than you expected. Ie, the expected low-wisdom monster is actually a high-wisdom creature.

They might indicate that it used its legendary resistance or is just immune. No amount of Silvery Barbs will make the slightest difference.

This really does depend on the information the DM gives you. In a game where the players have perfect information it clearly a better spell than in a game where they only have narrative descriptions of what's happening. "If the spell normally has no effect on a target that succeeds on a saving throw, the invalid target appears to have succeeded on its saving throw, even though it didn't attempt one" (XGtE)

That's what I mean. You are throwing more and more resources at a problem that might be outright immune to what you did. Assuming that Silvery Barbs might force a spell through is an assumption that you do not know to be true. In my roll20 games the DMs do not give that information, they just say "Spell seems to slip off them" and its up to the players to decide what to do. In my westmarches we have perfect information and Silvery Barbs I think will be more powerful there.

[Witty Username]

SB does a lot of different stuff depending on the situation. More versatile.

But the number of situations it is effective in is low.
Sure an enemy making an ability check can be a use of the spell. But it needs to be something potent enough to warrant the slot and the reactions.
Sure an enemy hitting with an attack can be a use of the spell, but it needs too be a potent enough attack.
Sure it can reroll a successful saving throw, but the save then needs to be potent and reliable enough a fail to be useful.
This is a spell that demands waiting for a high impact roll, that either you are confident that the spell will cause a failure or to dangerous to be allowed to succeed.
Shield may only be useful for defending against attacks but it is effective in every instance of being attacked. And as being attacked is woven into the nature of combat shield can be said to be generally effective in combat.
In this view, silvery barbs is a spell good in a specific case (high stakes individual rolls that are made by opponents) and generally ineffective. Shield is one of the most effective spells for an entire pillar of play. Therefore, shield is more versatile.

It is a distinction between being usable and being useful.

[Gurgeh]

Now you're just switching arguments; you said that Silvery Barbs wasn't a versatile spell when it very clearly is. You may not think much of its use cases, but they exist, and they're far more broadly applicable than Shield's.

Shield may only be useful for defending against attacks but it is effective in every instance of being attacked. And as being attacked is woven into the nature of combat shield can be said to be generally effective in combat.

This is a mischaracterisation of the Shield's use case. It only works on attacks that target you and match or beat your AC by 4 or less. Any attack that rolls 5 or more beyond your pre-Shield AC? The spell is useless. A critical hit? The spell is useless (and depending on the table, you might end up wasting it anyway if you don't know that it's a crit). Any attack directed against any target at all other than yourself? The spell is useless.

Shield is powerful, but it is not versatile. It has one job and does it very well, but that job is all it can do.

[Kane0]

Sure an enemy making an ability check can be a use of the spell. But it needs to be something potent enough to warrant the slot and the reactions.
Sure an enemy hitting with an attack can be a use of the spell, but it needs too be a potent enough attack.
Sure it can reroll a successful saving throw, but the save then needs to be potent and reliable enough a fail to be useful.

Acrobatics
Athletics
Deception
Insight
Intimidation
Investigation
Perception
Persuasion
Stealth
Survival

Attacks carrying riders
Attacks that crit
Creatures with only one attack

Glamour Bard
Cleric Channels
Fighter Maneuvers/Arcane Shots
Monk Stuns
Paladin Smites/Channels
Soulknife Rogue
Sorcerer Metamagic (Empower, Heighten, Quicken, Twin)
Undead Warlock
Enchantment/Illusion Wizard

Actor
Mage Slayer
Metamagic Adept


Wand of X
Rod of X
Staff of X
Scroll of X
Any other magic item that forces saves or ability checks

Blindness/Deafness
Detect Thoughts
Earthbind
Heat Metal
Hold X
Levitate
Phantasmal Force
Suggestion
Web
Zone of Truth
Bestow Curse
Enemies Abound
Fear
Hypnotic Pattern
Slow
Stinking Cloud
Banishment
Charm X
Dominate X
Polymorph

I'm sure I'm missing a ton, and of course 'high impact' appears both relative and subjective but I wouldn't say uncommon nor not worth it. Barbs appears to be a really low cost option for the force multiplication it enables.

[Witty Username]

I am not sure barbs would work on Stealth or Deception checks. The spell requires sight of the target, whether or not the target is seen is the subject of the roll for stealth, and the goal of deception is for the attempt to not be known.
I am not sure I can justify the spell being used in those cases.

[KorvinStarmast]

But the number of situations it is effective in is low.

But it has more situations, more triggers where it can be useful than shield does, which is why it is more versatile. I am not arguing "powerful" here, but versatile. Words have meanings, and I chose that word with some care.

It is a distinction between being usable and being useful.

It is both usable and useful in numerous different situations. But I'll say this about Shield (a spell which I like): it adheres to the KISS principle.
It does one thing and it does it quite well. It isn't "fiddly" at all.

Also: thank you, Kane0.

[tokek]

But it has more situations, more triggers where it can be useful than shield does, which is why it is more versatile. I am not arguing "powerful" here, but versatile. Words have meanings, and I chose that word with some care.

I agree that it is more versatile, although I also think its a trap to use it in most of those situations.

This may be another DM style thing. For social encounters it is usually player rolls vs static targets, an ability to force a reroll on a success is not much use. Similarly for stealth, its usually against a static ability so forcing a reroll does not come into play (I would not permit it vs a hidden opponent as it must be a creature you can see).

But if your DM uses active abilities in a contest against player abilities a lot (other than stealth) I can see how it would be more widely applicable. Some of those situations might then be worth a spell slot to try to change.

[Segev]

Silvery barbs, used offensively, is able to come up reliably because you can construct your cases to make use of it. I still suspect those decrying it as super-OP are overestimating its cost/benefit ratio even then. Those saying it's actually quite limited in use are, on the other hand, neglecting that a lot of what makes it strong is its offensive utility.

It is versatile and potent, but probably less potent than shield. It is not a guaranteed pick-up before shield, but neither is shield a guaranteed pick-up before it, I think. It looks to me like it's about as useful in aggregate as shield is, at least to adventurers. There is even overlap as to when both spells are useful. Shield will, in that overlap zone, be more generally useful, but there are a few spots where silvery barbs ekes out a narrow win.

In short, I think silvery barbs is roughly on par with shield in terms of overall power integrated across all use cases.

[tokek]

Silvery barbs, used offensively, is able to come up reliably because you can construct your cases to make use of it. I still suspect those decrying it as super-OP are overestimating its cost/benefit ratio even then. Those saying it's actually quite limited in use are, on the other hand, neglecting that a lot of what makes it strong is its offensive utility.

It is versatile and potent, but probably less potent than shield. It is not a guaranteed pick-up before shield, but neither is shield a guaranteed pick-up before it, I think. It looks to me like it's about as useful in aggregate as shield is, at least to adventurers. There is even overlap as to when both spells are useful. Shield will, in that overlap zone, be more generally useful, but there are a few spots where silvery barbs ekes out a narrow win.

In short, I think silvery barbs is roughly on par with shield in terms of overall power integrated across all use cases.

I think its pretty strong in tier 2 when you have the spell slots to spend on it and key targets probably don't yet have legendary resistances. I think its stronger than shield on a control caster in this tier, weaker than shield on a gish of any sort. I still think its held back by lack of spell slots (and powerful things to buff with it) in tier 1 and held back by legendary resistances (and outright immunities) in tier 3+. As you go further up tier 2 it also competes strongly with Counterspell - which can have party-saving impact and leaving yourself with no reaction to cast that can be a gamble.

But I've realised that some people play with perfect information where they see every roll and know exactly what's happening. In those games any ability to force rerolls (and there are others in the game as we have discussed) are much more powerful and this spell benefits from that. I do play a westmarches game that is like that and my Rune Knight with Lucky Feat is ridiculous in that environment so Silvery Barbs may well also be ridiculous - especially in tier-2. In my other games lack of perfect information will mean that Silvery Barbs will always be a gamble, it may be throwing resources at something that cannot possibly work.

[Xervous]

Given that SB as written implies that characters are aware of when creatures they can see succeed on saves, it follows that if the character sees or otherwise knows a creature is being targeted by an effect they can also determine the creature failed the save by the absence of a success.

Curiously this does not appear to give us direct knowledge of the creature using rerolls or LR as the character is not aware of any intermediate rolls during resolution that are not successes.

What exactly happens with SB being used on a creature that has used LR? Does the newly rolled die trigger an automatic success, falsely inviting more SB? Does LR terminate the chain? Do you follow the DMG guidance of not rolling when the outcome is certain (and thus not inviting more SB)?

Leave it to WotC to implicitly rule you can discern enemy save/fail through a single spell.

[tokek]

Given that SB as written implies that characters are aware of when creatures they can see succeed on saves, it follows that if the character sees or otherwise knows a creature is being targeted by an effect they can also determine the creature failed the save by the absence of a success.

Curiously this does not appear to give us direct knowledge of the creature using rerolls or LR as the character is not aware of any intermediate rolls during resolution that are not successes.

What exactly happens with SB being used on a creature that has used LR? Does the newly rolled die trigger an automatic success, falsely inviting more SB? Does LR terminate the chain? Do you follow the DMG guidance of not rolling when the outcome is certain (and thus not inviting more SB)?

Leave it to WotC to implicitly rule you can discern enemy save/fail through a single spell.

I don't think the guidance has actually changed. Even if they are completely immune to the spell if it would normally do nothing on a save you should narrate it the same as if they saved. That's what it says in Xanathar's guide and I think that's still the best way to do it for most games.

You don't tell the player the difference between LR, immunity or a passed save. You then let them decide whether to burn their reaction and a spell slot. What it says for immunity is "If the spell normally has no effect on a target that succeeds on a saving throw, the invalid target appears to have succeeded on its saving throw, even though it didn't attempt one" and I would normally apply that to LR as well.

As I've said several times if you play a game with perfect player information about the underlying mechanics of what's happening then this spell is significantly more powerful. Its like counterspell is way more powerful if you always declare exactly which spell is being cast and Shield is noticeably more powerful if you declare exactly what the modified to-hit roll is. That is a game style choice and its one that makes certain Reaction abilities a lot more powerful than they would otherwise be.

[MrStabby]

Silvery barbs, used offensively, is able to come up reliably because you can construct your cases to make use of it. I still suspect those decrying it as super-OP are overestimating its cost/benefit ratio even then. Those saying it's actually quite limited in use are, on the other hand, neglecting that a lot of what makes it strong is its offensive utility.

It is versatile and potent, but probably less potent than shield. It is not a guaranteed pick-up before shield, but neither is shield a guaranteed pick-up before it, I think. It looks to me like it's about as useful in aggregate as shield is, at least to adventurers. There is even overlap as to when both spells are useful. Shield will, in that overlap zone, be more generally useful, but there are a few spots where silvery barbs ekes out a narrow win.

In short, I think silvery barbs is roughly on par with shield in terms of overall power integrated across all use cases.

Whilst I do kind of see your point, I think that there is a degree of lowballing the breadth of what Silvery Barbs can do here.

There tends to be a comparison between Silvery Barbs and shield, for example. Looking at the ability to stop an attack. Any comparison between the spells that does this but doesn't add into the analysis the benefits of advatage to an ally or the ability to force a reroll of a save is obviously going to be somewhar amiss.

Likewise any analysis of Silvery Barbs that focusses on the ability to land an important save-or-suck spell and evaluates it only in that context but elides over its ability to negate a critical hit is going to be wide of the mark.

And any argument that compares the two spells but doesn't factor in that SB can protect whoever is attacked whereas shield only can be used to protect the caster is comparing all the beefits of one with only part of the benefits of another.

For example, I have played a wizard and have had days where, with good positioning coupled with the right choice of control spells, have never been hit with a single attack on many days. Total value of shield spell: a wasted preparation slot. Not that shield is a bad spell or I regret preparing it, but if we are to average the value over all days, we also need to average the value over the days where we don't cast the spell at all and it just sits there occupying a space that could go towards broadening our proactive spells.

The ability to target ANYONE within range (that you can see etc.) is a huge perk. We think of things like critical hits as being rare and so having the opportunity to get maximum value of of a spell is pretty limited. That is broadly true on a caster, that tries to stay out of melee combat and avoid being attacked, but a critical hit on any member of a party is obviously more frequent than a critical hit on a specific member of the party. Likewise the benefits of the advantage become bigger too - it isn't just the caster that gets advantage on a firebolt or whatever but the rogue that sneak attacks, the concentration save to hold a key spell or dropping advantage on a wizard that has fallen to hold person and would really like to pass their next save before something bad happens to them.

I think that too much of the analysis is purely concerned with what you get for a spell slot (which to be fair is a big part of what you should look at) but this is often to the exclusion of the value you get for a preparation slot for the wizard or a spell known slot for a bard or sorcerer.

If I were playing a paladin and wanted to be stuck in on the frontline, and if for some reason I had the warcaster feat, and if somehow I were to be picking up a choice of level 1 spell and if I were already level six so was providing a lot of party support anyway... then I would have to think pretty hard about which one to chose between shield and silvery barbs. For pretty much anyone else the cumulative effects of all the advantages of silvery barbs, big and small just all add up to it being a better spell.