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Thread: Blur spell

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    Dwarf in the Playground
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    Dec 2020

    Default Blur spell

    I tried using the Blur spell with my Eldritch Knight yesterday.
    It worked very well. I cant understand why no one making charachter builds on youtube ever mentions this spell.
    Add in the occasional Shield spell and you can survive lots and lots of attacks.
    What is your opinion of it?

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    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    Lizardfolk

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    Default Re: Blur spell

    My opinion is that it's a decent spell for a gish or mainly martial PC. It's fine defensive benefit, albeit one which may not survive the first hit if you don't build your character towards maintaining concentration.

    But casters (IMHO) cannot afford to spend their concentration on a defensive spell in general, and definitely not one which only benefits themselves.
    Last edited by Guy Lombard-O; 2022-06-27 at 06:28 AM.

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    Pixie in the Playground
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    Default Re: Blur spell

    Quote Originally Posted by Sandeman View Post
    I tried using the Blur spell with my Eldritch Knight yesterday.
    It worked very well. I cant understand why no one making charachter builds on youtube ever mentions this spell.
    Add in the occasional Shield spell and you can survive lots and lots of attacks.
    What is your opinion of it?
    Its a powerful effect, but the problem is Blur requires your concentration as well as an action to set up. So by using blur your denying yourself the ability to maintain concentration on stuff like Haste, Bless, Shadowblade or whatever, as well as your first round of damage. So the cost of using it in combat is steep. Beyond that, there are very good non-concentration defensive spells that require an action, like Mirror Image or Armor of Agathys you could also choose to use. So, the thing isn't that Blur is bad, it just has a higher opportunity cost than similarly powerful defensive spells.
    Last edited by Petelo4f; 2022-06-27 at 06:56 AM.

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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    GnomeWizardGuy

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    Default Re: Blur spell

    Quote Originally Posted by Sandeman View Post
    I tried using the Blur spell with my Eldritch Knight yesterday.
    It worked very well. I cant understand why no one making charachter builds on youtube ever mentions this spell.
    Add in the occasional Shield spell and you can survive lots and lots of attacks.
    What is your opinion of it?
    If you are able to cast it without impacting your relevant action economy, will significantly benefit from its effect, and have no better competing use for your concentration, it may be a good choice.

    However, in some encounters, one or more may be true:
    * Doing something else with your action (like attacking or cantrip with War Magic) every round (especially the first) may do more for you and your party's defense by reducing enemy numbers
    * the effect may not matter much because of things like non-attack damage, enemies with blindsight, already having competing advantage/disadvantage in play, or sufficiently high incoming attack bonus relative to your AC (shield helps a lot here, as you mentioned)
    * Simply dodging repeatedly might get most of the benefit without the cost of spell slot or concentration (perhaps you're blocking a doorway/hallway and the party can easily deal damage around you)
    * You might have a more effective concentration spell to cast; for example, in many encounters, web will do much more for party defense and offense simultaneously.

    On an Eldritch Knight with decent Int, I'd personally be more likely to use my any-school spell known on web in particular.
    Last edited by x3n0n; 2022-06-27 at 07:07 AM.

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    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Blur spell

    Blur can be a really good spell in the right circumstances but there is usually a lot of competition for concentration and spell slots so it may not get a lot of attention.

    I've used it on my level 5 guardian armorer artificer who runs around hitting opponents giving them disadvantage to hit anyone but the artificer. Blur gives them disadvantage to hit my character also. It was a very effective tactic in the last fight. However, the number of really good concentration spells available at level 5 to an artificer is pretty limited.

    Blur might also be a good tactic on an EK since, depending on how high your int might be, the DC on offensive spells might not be that good. In addition, it can sometimes be challenging to properly place AoE spells like web to really help the party - depends on the terrain and opponent placement. However, sometimes, making your character really hard to hit has the effect of causing the opponents to run off and attack weaker party members, which can be the opposite of what you are looking to achieve.

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    Colossus in the Playground
     
    Segev's Avatar

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    Default Re: Blur spell

    I would, in general, prefer mirror image to blur for the same use cases.

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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    DrowGirl

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    Default Re: Blur spell

    Blur is also more contingent on the character's existing AC. It's not going to have the same impact on a AC 15 wizard as it will a AC 20 Eldritch Knight. In certain circumstances, the benefits are very large, like if you're facing several foes and trying to maintain your position to tank. But because of the costs (action, concentration), it's not usually the "best" option.

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    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Corran's Avatar

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    Default Re: Blur spell

    Quote Originally Posted by Sandeman View Post
    I tried using the Blur spell with my Eldritch Knight yesterday.
    It worked very well. I cant understand why no one making charachter builds on youtube ever mentions this spell.
    Add in the occasional Shield spell and you can survive lots and lots of attacks.
    What is your opinion of it?
    It's a pretty good spells on EK's, who can already have a strong base AC and easy access to the shield spell. The more defense you stack the better it tends to work.

    Though to make the best of it you really need to get the enemies' attention. Blur will be very effective on a pc that does a lot of tanking, but much less so on a pc who is part of a melee heavy group.

    It's countered by special senses such as truesight, but overall it's at its best as an anti horde defense (cause damage output tends to scale better by adding monsters than by pumping the CR) so it will hold nicely even in higher levels (protection from good and evil is also a nice spell to have for the same reasons, and it will work in some cases when blur wont; and when it works it's an even better spell, as it offers more than disadvantage on enemy attacks and at a lower level slot).

    It's a shame it's an off school spell for EK's though, the whole illusion school for that matter. Blur, mirror image and shadow blade are nice spells for an EK, and that's without going to spells that help you without making directly better at fighting (eg disguise self, fear, etc). Blur being a great anti horde defense tool (assuming you end up drawing a lot of fire), mirror image being at its best against enemy bosses/ glass canons with strong attacks which you'll want to waste, shadow blade being a great damage buff for fighters who get that many attacks (extra attacks, action surge) and not too much competition for their concentration.

    If you like blur you'll most likely also like improved invisibility. Defensively it's much like blur, with the added benefit if being actually unseen you wont be targeted by spells and abilities that require seeing the targets (lots of spells fall under this category; counterspell is one of them, so greater invisibility can be very nice on someone with access to counterspell, as it means you can counterspell without reprecussions while even more importantly potentially being able to justify moving in counterspelling range in cases where that might be too risky). Free disengage (against anything that wont see you) is also another very useful thing, especially for glass cannons. The free disengage might give you the potential to up your dpr in case you can make good use of BB. Adavtage on attacks against enemies also helps dpr whether you are BB'ing or using GWM(+PAM). It gets even better if you can use your bonus action to hide (goblin, rogue), as this gives you the option to try and escape being attacked all together, or allowing you the opportunity to use your reaction with an OA which can be good if your OA's hit hard (eg hide with your bonus action and move next to an enemy who will have to move -allies might need to help here by not staying engaged with such melee enemies), or a combination of both. Not an extremelly talked about option from what I've seen, but it's because it takes a while to get it on half casters and 1/3 casters, and on fullcasters it can be useful for ones who (might) have a melee niche (eg bladesingers, feylocks), but the competition there is stiff. You'll probably notice it more when there is a dedicated buffer who happens to have it while it also happens to have another pc who can make great use of it (eg melee rogues), or if you are playing at the very high levels with an arcane trickster perhaps. Otherwise it can be very useful, and in some builds more than others, it wont dominate play unless the player really wants to spam it for enjoyment, but it will still have its moments.
    Last edited by Corran; 2022-06-27 at 02:10 PM.
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    Colossus in the Playground
     
    Segev's Avatar

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    Default Re: Blur spell

    Quote Originally Posted by Skrum View Post
    Blur is also more contingent on the character's existing AC. It's not going to have the same impact on a AC 15 wizard as it will a AC 20 Eldritch Knight. In certain circumstances, the benefits are very large, like if you're facing several foes and trying to maintain your position to tank. But because of the costs (action, concentration), it's not usually the "best" option.
    Good point. Higher AC makes it more effective, and probably even makes it better than mirror image, since you check to see if an image is targeted before rolling to hit. Whereas disadvantage is more effective the luckier your enemies need to get to hit you.

    It is worth noting that Dodging does the same thing on the round you cast blur. But only lasts 1 round. So it's a question of whether you're getting more than one round's benefit out of it, too.

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