Spiritual Weapon is BAD in Dnd 5e? - Advanced guide to Spiritual Weapon
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
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Video to the One Dnd playtest where I call SW bad: • Spell nerfs and random...
Link to Blog of holding: blogofholding.c...
Link to Spiritual weapon math by Moonsilver: docs.google.co...
Link to Command video: • D&D 5E Advanced guide ...
Link to how to heal video: • How to be good at heal...
Link to Tabletop builds Telekinetic or Spiritual Weapon article: tabletopbuilds...
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Video to the One Dnd playtest where I call SW bad: ua-cam.com/video/dMGlFQhYfmg/v-deo.html
Link to Blog of holding: blogofholding.com/?p=7338
Link to Spiritual weapon math by Moonsilver: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xqD1V6mQdZ2VILV3YDJFu3j4WedP_aq5yq_cL8xc_3M/edit#gid=0
Link to how to heal video: ua-cam.com/video/toolWm5-HIc/v-deo.html
Link to Tabletop builds Telekinetic or Spiritual Weapon article: tabletopbuilds.com/telekinetic-or-spiritual-weapon/
But Kobold! I want to summon and attack people with "The Shiny!" :D
On another note, I wanted to ask if you could do a video, based on Artificer's "Spell-Storing Item," and how it can technically give an 11th-level Artificer with 20 Int the ability to spam up to 10 extra spells per Long Rest, at the cost of one. I mean sure, it's ridiculous to imagine that a situation will come up, where the Artificer only needs to rely on spamming _one specific spell_ for the whole day, but it's still fun to think about.
Quick edit: Forgot to double-check how the box works. Apparently, you can only refuel the thing during Long Rests, meaning you usually only get a maximum of about _ten_ bonus spells per day. Still, ten free casts of a spell can come in pretty handy, depending on the spell in question.
Also forgot to mention one powerful feature of the "Magic Box of Shenanigans:" This fun little toy functions wonderfully in the hands of your local Raging Barbarian, Wild Shaped Druid, and/or (if you're a Battle Smith) your Steel Defender. While all three of these units are incapable of casting spells, they _can_ be capable of using magical items, which the Magic Box of Shenanigans just so happens to be. If they press the button, the box itself is what casts the spell. It also uses _your_ spellcasting modifiers specifically, so it doesn't matter if the Barbarian's got the intelligence of a rock, so long as you're the one providing all of the big brain energy. Enlarge your friends! Web your enemies! Carry around a box full of Grease! It's up to you how you throw the game off-kilter, with your very own Magic Box of Shenanigans. XD
Extra-bonus point: Your Steel Defender doubles as an emergency Ambulance, if the box is holding Cure Wounds for you, so there's that as well.
Seems to completely ignore the ability to cast Spiritual Weapon and a cantrip on the same turn. I typically don't use Spirit Guardians for a single target unless it's vulnerable to the damage type. Not that I've had much luck with Toll The Dead, but being a cleric as the first PC in initiative and being capable of 1d8+mod force damage + 1d12 necro at a cost of a level 2 slot (that I rarely use otherwise) and then being able to do other spells later is pretty tasty. Especially when my life cleric has Spiritual Weapon "always prepared." Bless also tends to be more hassle than it's worth since I usually have to remind each affected player every round when it's applicable.
Have you seen WotC's OGL 1.1 yet? It's bad.
If you dont like the new one dnd rules you can youst home rule whatever you want or play any other edition or Pathfinder or make a new Pathfinder from one dnd like we did with third edition.
Youst skip to 3:00 if you want to know why we dont have to worry about one dnd. ua-cam.com/video/6EYJDMLju8s/v-deo.html
"If they don't get to do stuff because they are dead, we survive"
Wise words from Gator
Death is the most powerful form of crowd control after all. Crowd control via DPR.
He did have a 20 wisdom
I don't care about math. I care about funny glowing mace. Plus it's a bonus action I usually have no use for.
Healing word tho
@@defensivekobra3873 best healing is killing the enemy first
@@matheusmoreira9951 as shown by this very video, best case scenario for spirit guardians reduces less dmg than 1 healing word
@@defensivekobra3873 who cares? I rather bonk the enemy them being a healbot
Try telekinetic, when you have spirit guardians up, it's more damage, and has a ton of utility
The main weakness of this spell in my opinion is the 20ft move, I've seen so many creatures just MOVE away and SW just chases all fight.
hexblade keep it at yourside, attack 3d8 + 3x5 charisma + 3d6 hex
Mate, hexbalde is in no way synergistic with Spiritual Weapon. I'ma bout to leave an essay about why it doesn't work, but I'll refrain. Besides all the reasons why it doesn't work with Hexbalde you can't just keep it at your side... the monster can literally outrun it. 30ft per round and you're good. Ranged attacks, spells, etc. to counter it.
Just to add for future people scrolling through the comment section..
This is why this spell pairs so nicely with spirits guardians. Spirit guardians makes it that bit more difficult for enemies to escape spiritual weapon due to it reducing enemies move speed while they are in the area
While I can't argue with the math, I don't really agree with what is considered best case scenario. My DM loves to throw swarms of glass cannon enemies at us, so Spiritual Weapon has been very effective when used in combination with Spirit Guardians, picking off the most damaged enemy that survived the Spirit Guardians. In that case it usually kills once a turn, and greatly reduces their action economy. It has saved out butts more times than I can count.
Which btw is what th egame is designed for. Minions.
Agreed, even without doing the math I haven't bothered using it in fights against only one to three strong enemies, but find it extremely invaluable against lots of weak ones, especially if your DM is pretty generous about letting you know which enemies are on their last legs. You can get a killing blow by choosing the right target more rounds than not, and these swarm fights tend to last longer than 4 rounds when they come near the end of an adventuring day when the big higher level aoe nukes are used up but 2nd level slots are still around.
Okay, but that still doesn't change the fact that Telekinetic does more damage, saves you a spell slot, and still improves your Wisdom like an ASI would. It's strictly superior at all levels, assuming an upcast Spirit Guardians.
@@watcher314159 True, that's why Telekinetic is good. But it's a feat, and not every Cleric is going to want to have it. Some will prefer Warcaster or Fey Touched. Telekinetic is great, but it doesn't make Spiritual Weapon obsolete in all builds.
@@manatea6012 The most common build you're going to see for optimized Clerics is Custom Lineage (War Caster) Favored Soul 1 (for Con saves and Favored of the Gods and the key access to Shield and Absorb Elements) into Cleric, picking up Telekinetic at level 5 and Spirit Guardians at 6th, and then probably Alert and maxing Wisdom at some point, maybe with more Sorcerer and/or Fey Touched for Silvery Barbs, Misty Step, and/or Metamagic. There's room for shuffling things around, but any major deviation from that general shape is gonna be pretty painful.
Because, yeah, protecting concentration is the priority. But as soon as that's taken care of, Telekinetic becomes optimal, and by a pretty solid margin. Zero resource ranged control/forced movement that doesn't trigger Legendary Resistance makes it worthy of consideration even without Spirit Guardians.
And in the meantime Spiritual Weapon remains a waste of spell slots unless you know the combat is going to run a really long time.
I'm not convinced that a single target is the best case scenario for spiritual weapon. It's better at thinning a crowd. You simply have more opportunities to reduce enemy actions if the total number of potential actions is higher. Having more enemies on the map also reduces the chance that you have nothing to hit on subsequent turns. The lower AC that generally comes with multiple enemies also raises your DPR.
The point is that even if Spiritual Weapon performs better against multiple weaker enemies, as you say, any aoe spell is so overwhelmingly better at it that it doesn't even make sense to look at spiritual weapon for it
@@ElderCM which is also nonsense since AoEs still have to have enemies lumped up and already be in the battle. And they can hit your friends as well.
@@ElderCM as stated, IF the enemies are clumped up, then sure, a fireball is better. But in general, a cleric who has access to Spirit Guardians usually starts with that, and then uses spiritual weapon as bonus damage the next turn.
Is it the strongest spell? No. But it does help deal with enemies that aren't entering your aoe, or are on the verge of death. In fact, it is especially helpful as a finishing blow, if the enemy is still standing after.
@@ElderCM Sure. But how many non-concentration AOE damage spells does a cleric have access to? Using Kobold's example but you have a pack of skeletons instead of an armored soldier: Spirit Guardians turn 1. Great. There's your AOE attack spell. Turn 2. You can't command two skeletons because they're undead (command doesn't work on a lot of things that come in groups). Dodge + Spiritual Weapon starts to look pretty damn efficient. The value of that action is the other part Kobold left out. He needs to go re-watch his video on dodging ;)
@Aaron Ginsberg There’s actually a much better use for your bonus action with SG up, which is Telekinetic. It can proc Spirit Guardians on a creature by pushing it into its range on your turn. Also, even if you don’t have Telekinetic, the amount of damage that Spiritual Weapon is dealing each turn really isn’t worth the additional slot, and you should save it for a better spell in a later encounter. If you have SG up and Dodging, you’re already doing pretty well.
Interesting analysis! The reasoning here is definitely somewhat abstracted - I think you'd forgive people for not directly comparing the damage prevented per turn of Command compared to Spiritual Weapon. Spiritual Weapon will typically double the DPR of most clerics without concentration and with one 2nd level spell slot, so it's clearly at least pretty enticing and seems obviously useful compared to a couple rounds of potentially wasted actions via Command.
I'd like to see a video on command... to me it's very situational and the creatures I would want to use it on are unaffected by it
healing word is a bit more easily understood though
100% this. One of the primary reasons people discount Command is it is so DM-dependent in 5E. I can't tell you how many times I have chosen Command for my Cleric, only for the DM to shoot down any slightly creative use of it. I don't have those problems with Spiritual Weapon - forgive the usage, but *it just works.* No having to wheedle or cajole the DM, no being frustrated over wasted spell slots because the dice hate me and the third Command target in a row made the save, just poof Le Beaunx into existence and start smacking things. I think Kobold got a little too into the white room for this one.
@@ggfrt96 PT already did one, he mentions it in the vid
@Nathan Davis The best use of Command is generally to tell the enemy to Flee, which is a predefined command that your DM can’t shoot down. Also, there are a lot of scenarios where Spiritual Weapon doesn’t “just work”. For example, if there’s no enemy within 20 ft to hit, or you spent your bonus action on a different spell, or the combat ends before you get more than a few hits off.
as someone who’s been doing playtesting for 3rd party companies, i’ve found that “better” spells frequently don’t work nearly as often as we like to think. bless is great, but the 30 foot range meant i couldn’t cast bless on my higher initiative allies who got into melee quickly because an enemy controller had pushed me away from them. spirit guardians is great, but it’s radius of 15 feet meant i had to be standing near more than one enemy for it to be effective, and we tend to go up against duos and trios most often. command would have been nice, but more often than not we were fighting elementals and creatures who spoke exotic languages (or worse, spoke a language unique to their species). healing word (and mass healing word in an emergency) saved a few people, but i noticed that the person who needed it most had their turn right before mine, so the all the monsters got to go before they did, and knocked them down again.
spiritual weapon deals force damage at range, off your bonus action, without concentration, and is only a prepared spell away from being let go of. you never worry about damage resistance, or getting knocked out of it, or regretting committing to it like a feat, or it just not working on a target. i know what it’s going to do every time i cast it.
I find the weapon to be absolutely useless after whoever it was cast near dies most of the time.
you allies should really hold their actions......
@@wesleywyndam-pryce5305 i’m not going to tell my allies what to do, especially because the monsters both had ranged attacks and aoe effects. barbarians, paladins, and animal companions just need to be in melee, and they were able to get there.
Well, they should NEVER get in melee in the first round, unless they’re tired of living. Throw some javelins or show some other form of SELF PRESERVATION, lmao
@@valentinrafael9201 you do realize that some people play this game for reasons other than optimizing the combat right? like, some even play their characters.
just because running headfirst into everything isn't optimal doesn't mean that it's illegal to play a character who would do that, like someone brash or headstrong
dnd is more than just the sum of its mechanics, I mean, what does the r in ttrpg stand for?
@@valentinrafael9201 it’s worth pointing out that they got into melee *and made attacks,* because they started nearer to the targets and had better mobility than me thanks to higher movement speed and various features. i could’ve closed the gap to my friends had i not been knocked back 15 feet and prone, losing a full turn of movement.
the important takeaway is that well designed monsters make the battlefield unpredictable, and require you to use all the tools in your toolbox. you can’t really take anything for granted, so it’s useful to have things that are going to basically always work.
But Kobold, is all this video can be shortened to 'Do not use a spiritual weapon if you lack spell slot, feel free to spam it otherwise?"
and how often are you out of 2nd level spell slots as a Cleric? Lesser Restoration, Aid, pretty much the main ones at 2nd lvl so might as well cast Spiritual Weapon.
@@Dave004 you always can upcast some 1st level spell
@@C4ET4uK true. I do agree with him that encounters of 4 rounds or less its not worth casting, but still feel it has use for encounters that can go longer than 5 rounds. but personally preference i guess.
@@Dave004 I think it's more about ultimate optimization. On my games I usually have enough spare slots, so there is no need for economy
@@Dave004 Some subclass spells are pretty nice, like Shatter for Tempest, Moonbeam for Twilight, Scorching Ray for Light and Spike Growth for Nature.
Using a good spell poorly doesn’t make it a bad spell. Spiritual Weapon’s duration, use of a bonus action, ability to be upcast, and lack of concentration allows it to be a flexible damage dealing spell for a class that’s all about flexibility.
"Using a good spell poorly" => throwing fireballs at fire elemental; meanwhile most fights simply don't last 10 rounds (aka 1m duration doesn't always mean much). And it is indeed true that Spiritual Weapon has a limited movement range and other 2rd level spells are better depending on the fight.
Spiritual Weapon can be a good spell, >>IF
what get's me is that it's upcast conditions... kinda suck. 1d8 every two levels means that SW has a drastically inferior damage range when upcast. It's actually less effective that some cantrips. It's upcast is at it's most optimal when using fourth level spell slots (so you've moved from 1d8 to 2d8 (effectively making two magical weapon attacks as a bonus action)) but even with that there are some attack spells that gain an extra damage die EACH LEVEL above the minimum. A first level spell with this attribute even using a d6 would end up with 4d6 (damage range being 4-24 per hit) while Spiritual Weapon is at 2d8 (damage range of 2-16 per hit) There are martial with better damage output that that!
While I disagree on the upcasting being a argument for this spell being good (d8 for 2 spell level is just weak). the other points make this a great choice for a 2nd level spell slot. Probably all of this spells feature lie in where it fits in the action economy.
It moves 20 feet per turn though. Any opponent with a move speed of 30 feet or more can easily avoid it. And it cant even take attacks of opportunity.
"Lack of concentration" was what made it so great. Now that the new 2024 rules added concentration; the spell is basically useless. Alas...
I have a lot of respect for the creator who writes "and this is a big but here" into his script but doesn't flash a picture of a big butt.
A true gentleman.
some people are just trying to get those views on butts though! lolol
When comparing it to full action options you have to factor in the ability to dodge or cantrip. And if someone runs away that'll often times trigger a party member's opportunity attack.
IT's also assuming the party isn't locking the monster down in other ways like grappling, web, or other features.
I agree the spell falls off pretty fast. Though it's a fav of mine till level 5, which is a large chunk of most campaigns. Though even before level 5, swarm vs. large single target the effectiveness of the spell switches places a bit. For large single target an upcasted guiding bolt will on average do more over the course of the encounter than a spiritual weapon, at least until up till like 4 rounds or something like that. But in swarms scenario's Spiritual Weapon works wonders. Again, this is pre-level 5.
Another thing that I don't consider trivial at all is that SW is force damage. If you're assuming command can proc opportunity attacks from your party (which assumes you have melee fighters engaged with the target, and as others have noted your opponent isn't immune to charms) you're also assuming their weapon damage output is better when 1 it's not likely they have magic weapons yet, and 2 of CR 5 and lower monsters, 83 monsters have resistance to nonmagical bps and 22 have immunity including fairly common undead, fiends and lycanthropes.
@@kakunarattata9458, command makes enemies waste their turns which prevents a lot of damage though
right
after level 5, you have fireball which works SO much better
at least as long as the enemies are away from you
otherwise you are in trouble
but yeah, when you have a swarm of glass canon enemies baring down on you and no fireballs to cast, this works just as well in a pinch
when you're facing down a dozen goblins, this has the potential to take out one. do not underestimate the value in that
Them nerfing Spiritual Weapon in One DnD shows a clear misunderstanding of Popularity vs Power.
Its not a straight nerf but more a rework, they made it have concentration but the cast at higher level is a d8 extra per level rather than every two levels
if its worse at its base level and still scales poorly then its a nerf, one level above spiritual weapon is fireball
wanna hit a guy with a stick or rip every enemy asunder with almost four times the damage?
@@Pigmedog but then fire resistance/immunity and good dex saves are fairly common, large AoE means it's not so good if you have allies that are melee focused and 1 cast of fireball is instant damage where as Spiritual Weapon spreads it's damage over multiple turns with force damage, which very little resist. Just because big numbers doesn't mean it outclasses other spells when put in situations. And this isn't me saying fireball is bad, just that all spells are good if the situation makes it shine. Single Target, SW. Large weak hoard, FB.
Also, in 5e (as I don't recall if it's the same in OneD&D) Clerics don't get access to fireball normally anyways
@@jack229111 it is a nerf, as it will never be used, as concentration is far better used on bless, or spirit guardians, or hold person, or banishment......the only reason spiritual weapon is worth looking at is the lack of concentration. Single target +concentration +attack roll based damage isn't even worth talking about.
they kept the nerf. Making SW a completely garbage and useless spell... such a shame
A comparison of spiritual weapon vs command based on missed HP is strange. Command has a saving throw, SW an attack roll. And it‘s a bonus action, command uses your action.
example obviously assumes your chance to hit vs them chance to fail is equal.
if enemy has 400 ac then command is better ofcourse
if they have +20 to saving throw then obviouly weapon is better
@@makaramuss the problem with extreme examples like is that it both invalidates the concept of choice and also ignores many enemies where the chances are moderately different either way. *How* much better is command, and does the long list of conditions (Immunities to charm, not sharing a language with the caster, Magic resistance, legendary resistances) really make it more reliable? It’s a comparison of 2 totally different spells with wildly different use cases and resources. He never compares Spiritual weapon to a similar attacking spell like Guiding Bolt, Scorching Rays, or other similar spells because it proves that either the problem is that ALL attack spells are bad or there’s something fundamentally wrong with the method used to come to this conclusion.
@@goldenson4566it's the former. All the attack spells suck and aren't worth your slot.
I don't trust saving throws. It's easier to land a hit than to expect an enemy to fail a save, so I only ever use saving throw spells if I'm an Eloquence Bard / Clockwork Soul Sorcerer stacking every advantage in my favor.
"But Kobold you forget Command sucks."
Command is one use and have far too many draw backs for unknow/unfamiliar enemies.
1.) Doesn't work on Undead
2.) Only works on creatures
3.) The target has to understand you language for it to work
4.) The command has to be seen as directly nonharmful. That is up to the DM.
Spiritual Weapon has more pluses then said
1.) Force Damage = Best type of damage
I like how Larian changed spiritual weapon to be a summon, so in addition to getting a (little) DPR increase you also put another target on the field, eventually reducing dmg to your HP bar.
But Spiritual Weapon is a summon. The difference I see is that it has its own intitative in BG3.
A lot of the tables I've played at sleep on Telekinetic, the bonus action economy is INSANE. On paper, shoving 5' doesn't look like much, but being able to break grapples is HUGE with the number of monsters that auto grapple. In addition to the combinations with all the PC AOE effects in the game.
Yeah but if you're a caster and an enemy is in melee with you for them is probably pretty easy to succeed a Strength saving throw, and if you use it on an enemy in melee with an ally you're preventing an attack of opportunity. Same thing with grapples, most DM would argue that a cantrip (it's basically the same of gust) is not enough to break a grapple from a large enemy. Telekinetic shove is more of a spell for utility or force movement when an enemy could fall
I wish I could take this feat but sadly I am playing Aberrant Mind 😭, aka at level 6 my bonus action will be constantly used to convert slots into points and then cast Psionic spells that way.
I took Telepathy tho :3, really underrated, Detect Thought being a great social spell basically cast without component, because not even Subtle removes the material component (the coin)
@@Xorrin There's also the fact that Telekinetic costs a feat to use, in comparison to a spell slot. Sometimes, you need to pick up other feats/ASIs beforehand, in order to keep optimal, depending on the general build that you're going with. Also, if a Cleric isn't finding too much use in Spiritual Weapon, they can just swap it out the next day, during a Long Rest. Feats are a bit more permanent in nature.
One fun thing you can do, which doesn't _technically_ cost a feat, is go Mark of the Sentinel Human (from E:RLW), and gain access to Compelled Duel. That, when paired with Spirit Guardians, can make fights quite the chore for the BBEG. While you _could_ just go Vuman and grab Telekinetic anyway, "Suman" also comes with nine other useful bonus spells, such as Counterspell and Bigby's Hand. Make sure that you run the subrace by your DM first, obviously, as adding ten spells to a full-caster can be a bit crunchy.
@@Xorrin You can target yourself and allies tho, you can shove them away and then they use their movement normally, its a free disengage as a bonus action
@@Xorrin you got me wanting to play a barbarian with telekinetic
Says healing word is better, then says spiritual weapon is bad because you need to save spell slots.
So casting 2nd level spell slot for healing word *every round* instead of a single spell slot for spiritual weapon just...doesn't factor in at all?
He said a SINGLE casting of healing word is the equivalent of spiritual weapon’s contributions over 1 combat. And also he immediately says that using healing word this way is a bad use of resources.
i'm a simple person. Pack calls 4e the superior system, i press like
I feel as though 18 AC is a fairly unfair assessment for the "best case scenario." I obviously wouldn't put it super low, but I feel that 15 or 16 makes much more sense, which increases the dpr drastically. I also think that one big target is not the best case scenario, since the main appeal of spiritual weapon is being able to attack at two places at once.
AC does not even matter for the calculation, because everyone has to attack against the same AC with the same attack modifier.
@@schwarzerritter5724 I feel as though it does, considering we’re deciding it’s effectiveness against other spells, most of which have save DC’s and not attack rolls.
He took the average for the CR
@@FallenFromGlory But calling that the "Best case scenario" feels pretty disingenuous, don't you think?
Why? He was comparing all spells on the same metric. The best case scenario was the KIND of encounter. This was the best case scenario which isn't white room optimization.@@thegloriousryan8981
Yeah. There's this miscommunication of sorts that Telekinetic only outclassed Spiritual Weapon. But the fact is that it was never a great use of a spell slot even back when the PHB was the only sourcebook.
@@mogalixir upcast bless or aid are my go to options
@@mogalixir To add to natural kind's comment, you've got other options for spells as well. subclass spells can be good, nature has spike growth, one of the best fight winning spells at its level (bonus if combined with TK or thorn whip). Trickery's got pass without trace, forge's got heat metal (situational but it's pretty decent tbh), knowledge has suggestion, tempest has gust of wind (awesome in hallways) and shatter (absolutely obliterates SW in the damage department due to being AoE). The base cleric class also has locate object (awesome utility spell), upcast command, lesser restoration, and upcast bless. You can also get good level 2 spells from some races, like earth genasi for PWT or the various dragonmarks (standouts include . There are options, but yeah clerics really do have to go looking for them.
@@naturalkind5591 Already pre-cast aid since it has 8 hour duration. Can't cast bless without dropping spirit guardians. What other options are better than spiritual guardians?
Edit: Aid also doesn't get anything from upcasting to 2nd. The spell specifically says it only gets stronger at 3rd level. I don't think aid is good enough to use your second level slots on it anyways.
@@hamsterfromabove8905 Aid is second level, so not upcasted at second.
rest casting aid is god tier.@@hamsterfromabove8905
I agree that spiritual weapon is overrated, especially in tier 1. Definitely not a must-pick. In campaigns with many combats in between each long rest, I can see how it could be a trap. But a lot of times the only resource that matters is action economy. One thing you didn't mention, is that re-using it doesn't count as a spell. So on subsequent turns, you can cast a leveled spell with your action while using your bonus action to make another attack with spiritual weapon.
There's no way upcasting healing word is better than spiritual weapon. The math at 6:45 makes no sense. I follow the first 2 paragraphs, but I don't see how you get from there to the final formula. Algebraically, that formula simplifies into:
= 6 * /
So according to this formula, if the monster has 30 HP and spiritual weapon does 5 DPR then Turns Denied would be 1. That can't be right. It would take 6 turns for 5 DPR to kill 30 HP, and we're assuming the combat is only 4 turns long. Change the HP to 20 and, logically, you'd expect Turns Denied to be 1. But the formula gives 1.5. Change the HP to 5, and the formula says Turns Denied is 6, but the combat can't be more than 4 turns long!
More fundamentally, I think that the inverse of Rounds To Die is a pretty poor approximation for Turns Denied. If spiritual weapon's DPR is 4.35 (at level 3), then after 4 rounds we've done ~17 damage. If the enemy has 90 HP there's no way we're gonna deny more than 1 turn. If you wanted to do this properly, you'd need to calculate the odds of denying a single turn. But that would depend on the party's total DPR, and the variance of that DPR. You'd have to do combinatorics with attack and damage rolls. And don't forget crits. I propose a simpler way of thinking about it. At level 3, Moonsilver says the monster has 90 HP. So if the combat would last 4 turns by default, then the party's collective DPR must be in the ballpark of 22.5. If spiritual weapon's expected DPR at level 3 is 4.35, that would make it a 19% increase in the DPR of the entire party collectively. That doesn't seem bad for a level 2 slot.
I hesitate to even grant you the scenario of a single high CR enemy. In my experience, combats against a single opponent without legendary/lair actions aren't very common. In my opinion, they also aren't very good. The enemy typically just doesn't have enough action economy to challenge the party. Against a larger number of weaker enemies, yes AOE spells are better. But, most clerics can't cast shatter or moonbeam. Twilight cleric OP.
I agree that spirit guardians is overall a better spell than spiritual weapon, but spiritual weapon does have 4 advantages over spirit guardians. It's a lower level spell. It's a bonus action. The enemy can't get rid of it by breaking your concentration. It's safer to use due to having a 60ft range instead of 15ft. And the rules don't explicitly say the weapon needs to stay within 60ft of you, or even that you need line of sight! So depending on your DM, the max range could theoretically get up to 240ft by the end of the spell's duration and chase enemies around corners.
In my opinion, the real competitors for spiritual weapon are blindness/deafness, prayer of healing, and upcasting command (as you mentioned). So when is spiritual weapon better? Firstly, prayer of healing isn't always relevant, because it does nothing to help you in the current combat. Both command and blindness/deafness have the same 4 potential drawbacks. They use your action. They're relatively temporary (blindness/deafness gives the target a save at the end of each of their turns). Neither of them can break enemy concentration. Although, some DMs allow you to break concentration with command, so it's worth asking. Finally they're both save or suck spells, and you might not know which save to target.
@MoonsilverTV I appreciate the thoughtful response!
"it instead assumes an equal distribution probability curve of damage taken (in simpler terms, if a take off a quarter HP of a random enemy at a random point in time, there's a 1/4 chance on average that enemy will die)"
Thanks for this! One of the things that initially aggravated me about the video is that I couldn't follow the logic from the first 2 paragraphs at 6:45 to the formula. I still don't think it's a good approximation, but I understand that you need to make some type of compromise. The actual calculation would be way too involved. Even though I can follow your thought process now, I still don't agree that upcasting healing word is better than casting spiritual weapon. I still don't think spiritual weapon is "bad".
What do you mean by "simply an artefact"? My criticism with the 5 DPR vs 30 HP scenario was based on my belief that your formula had to do with how many turns it would take for SW to kill the monster on it's own. Still, it's highly unrealistic for SW to ever deny more than 1 turn, given the scenario and data set you've chosen. If you assume that SW will deny 1 turn on average, then by your own reasoning it's already slightly better than upcasting cure wounds, let alone healing word.
Just because the formula is biased in favor of SW for high ratios of DPR/HP doesn't mean it's biased in favor of SW in general. My point with the 5 DPR vs 5 HP example wasn't that the formula is biased against SW. My point was that the formula is wildly inaccurate. A formula for turns denied, in a 4 turn combat, should never return values below 0 or above 4, period. I brought up 2 alternative framings. We could approximate the % chance of denying a single turn. We could approximate the % increase in collective party DPR. Neither of those approaches would have this type of problem.
IMO your point about SW only barely out performing an up-cast cure wounds is your best point yet. A week ago, I would've never considered cure wounds as competing with SW for a lvl 2 slot. Now that I'm more familiar with the numbers, I have to agree! In fairness to myself, I did originally agree that SW is generally overrated, and isn't the must pick that many people treat it as. I'm still not convinced it's "bad".
In attrition scenarios, with many combats in between each long rest, no lvl 1 or 2 spell can compete with prayer of healing. That's not always relevant. PoH doesn't help you in the current combat, it helps you in the next one. Also, the scenario you've chosen involves one party member tanking all the damage. If we're only considering a single target, PoH does the exact same amount of healing as a lvl 2 cure wounds. So instead, let's try comparing it to a lvl 2 command, or a blindness/deafness.
I don't know the average save bonus for a CR 5 creature, so for simplicity I will be assuming it always has a 50% chance to save. If we cast command on 2 creatures, on average one of them will fail, and one turn will be denied. In the scenario where we are facing a single enemy I considered 1 turn denied a best case scenario for SW. With 2 enemies, 1 turn denied total is more plausible, but still optimistic. So command is clearly better than SW when there are exactly 2 enemies, but it's not clear by how much. And the more enemies there are, the better SW becomes in comparison. Pack Tactics said command is "easily beating" SW in this scenario at 4:00 and when I first watched the video I didn't question it. Now I'm starting to question it.
By my calculations blindness/deafness will affect the creature for 7/8 turns (87.5% of a turn) on average. I'm assuming a 50% chance to pass each save, and that the combat will always last exactly 4 rounds. But it doesn't deny a turn, it just imposes disadvantage. For simplicity, let's assume disadvantage cuts it's DPR in half. So imposing disadvantage for 87.5% of a turn would be mathematically equivalent to denying ~44% of a turn. So if SW has even a 45% chance of denying a single turn it beats out blindness/deafness. If the party's base cumulative DPR is only 22.5, and SW's DPR is 4.35, then after 3 turns SW has racked up ~13 damage and that's ~58% of the party's collective DPR. So it's as if the party is 58% of a turn ahead in terms of total damage dealt over the course of the entire combat. That's obviously a crude approximation for turns denied, but it's no worse than yours!
The video says SW is "bad". But if it can compete with a lvl 2 command or a blindness/deafness then it's clearly not bad, right?
For some unknown reason, me and my group always assumed upcasting this spell gets you an extra d8 for every level of upcast. Do you think it would be a good spell, if we used what we assumed?
The One DnD playtest did that but then they also made it concentration.
No.
Due to how the AID spell scales this would make the comparison less and less favourable for spiritual weapon the more you upcast
@@PackTactics Thanks for your answer😁
It would still be situational, but still a fair bit better, in the situations it is good, you will be able to feel the difference.
TLDR:
-Don't use it on days where you think conserving resources is important
-Do use it on days where you don't think you will get to use all your spell slots.
-Always sort your concentration out first, spirit guardians do more damage, even against a single target.
-Don't use it against highly mobile or spread out enemies.
-Do use it in cramped spaces, or against low mobility enemies.
-Don't cast it, if you have no powerful action to go along with it, cast a spell that requires an action instead, they are typically more powerful.
-Do cast it when you can pair it with a powerful action, such as some channel divinities.
-Do cast it, if you expect a particuallery long fight.
-Do cast it, if your other spells would be ineffiecient due to high saves and magic resistance.
A lot of the above are naturally more likely to be fullfilled at high levels (in my experience)
Any scenario where conserving spell slots is important, it should also be avoided, upcast your spiritual guardians instead, that will give you more damage, and like said in the video, upcast command can do a lot, command flee usually takes an enemy out of the fight for 2 turns (1 turn dashing away, and 1 turn dashing back), and sometimes also comes with damage in the form of opportunity attacks.
Basically each adventuring day will fall on a spectrum. In one end of the spectrum, there will be 1-2 tough battles, and you will have trouble spending all your resources, within that day. It is all about how quickly you can turn your resources into some sort of output. You simply won't have enough actions to cast all your spells. These days are all about action economy, just do as much as possible, as quickly as possible.
The other end of the spectrum has a lot of smaller easier encounters, and you have to carefully consider, is this spell worth it? you will have more than enough actions to cast all your spells, so the question is, how can you get the most out of each spell. These days are more about resource management, and action economy is less important (but still important).
If you can predict that the day will be towards the action economy end of the spectrum, it is a good spell to prepare, especially with your buff. If you can predict that more resource management will be required, it is a bad spell to prepare. (Predictions can be based on what your party is planning on doing that day, as well as the DMs style).
The best advice I can give, is to look at your remaining spell slots at the end of the day tough day. If you have some left over, it might be a good idea to start preparing it. (Note, if it was an easy day, it is harder to conclude anything, the spell slots might not have been needed)
Let us say you decide to prepare it. When to cast it?
First, spirit guardians is better in 95% of cases, if you are not concentrating on anything, get spirit guardians going first. Spirit guardians does half damage on a save, spiritual weapon does 0 damage on a miss, so even single target spirit guardians is better.
(The 5% of cases are when there is just 1 enemy, and they are magic resitant, but in this case, consider an upcast bless, before spiritual weapon)
The optimal strategy is usually for your party to focus fire, they focus down one monster, so it stops doing its' thing. If that monster was more than 20 feet away from the next monster your party wants to focus, you don't get to bonk that second monster until 2 turns have passed, at which point it might have gone down too, due to your allies efforts (sometimes you can bonk something else, other times there is nothing). This is why you should avoid it against highly mobile or spread out enemies.
So cast it, when you think enemies will remain mostly in the same area throughout the fight.
Also consider your action, if you have a really powerful action that is not a spell, spiritual weapon goes up in value, some cleric subclasses have good channel divinity that requires an action. If that is the case for you, then it goes up in value. If you have no powerful action to do, the same turn as you cast spiritual weapon, it goes down in value, you should probably just can a spell that requires an action. (Note that all clerics have turn undead, so when facing undead, spirutal weapon goes up in value, because you can pair it with turn undead).
The longer you think there is left of the combat, the better it is. The video analyses 4 round combats. But if you think you are in for an 8 round slugfest, it is a lot better.
Finally, if your enemies have magic resistance, spiritual weapon does not care, while most of your other options go down in value.
At high levels, it goes up in value (with your homebrew). At high levels, you have more spell slots, and are more likely to find yourself in scenarios where action economy is the name of the game. In addition, HP scales faster than PC damage (in most cases) so combats are naturally longer. Also if you don't have a good channel divinity, there is a chance there is a magic item with a good action on it somewhere in the party, maybe you can trade for it. Also, cleric high level spells are not the best, so often they are better of upcasting low level spells, so far we have talked about upcasting command, but upcast command just adds extra targets, a 6th level command is no more powerful than a 4th level command, if you only have 4 enemies in range. And of course a lot more enemies have magic resistance as well.
I think it's a fine Cleric spell. The fact is that you can combine this with a damage dealing cantrip and with a 2nd level spell slot used you're actually maintaining a bunch of spell slots for other encounters. It's no spirit guardians but it's a one resource encounter that only costs a bonus action on each of your turns allowing you to turn undead/ use a cantrip/ something else.
The issue with Command is that legendary saving throws/ enchantment immunity/ and the fact it's a spell slot for a round of one encounter kinda wreck it. Though Command is one of my favorite 1st level spells.
I think spiritual weapon is best used when you know your fight is gonna last longer than 4 rounds. If the fight is only going to last 4 rounds I'm probably not even gonna wanna burn a spell slot and just go cantripping.
The spell isn't optimized by far, but it isn't completely useless either. It has some interesting niche uses besides open white room combat (assuming the cleric can see through total cover, one could cast this spell to cause a small disruption on one enemy/group, while concentrating on some other matter).
And yes, at lower levels, when you have to count your spell slots, there's no reason to cast anything that's not necessary/impactful, and I think that's the main point: It's not that the spell isn't impactful, but more that it isn't NECESSARY. Later on, when you have several slots and rarely runs out of 2nd, you could throw this one on a turn that you don't have anything else to cast, and you'll have an extra "mini martial" walking around. Sure, it might be weaker than Command, but it's not a SAVE spell, so unless someone counterspells you (and in that case, you're winning the trade in slots), the extra damage will be there, just position this thing in a enemy rich area (usually around the tank if the enemy is composed of melee units) and you'll be set.
In my opinion if you know when to cast it it can be a really good spell but 75% of the time it won't be the best option.
The conclusion is agreeable, spiritual weapon isn't a mandatory pick. But comparing it to upcasted healing word is flawed as it takes too many assumptions to come to the conclusion and prevented damage by killing an enemy earlier is much more swingy than healing an ally for a relatively consistent amount. For example spiritual weapon can either prevent 50 damage or 0 damage in a given scenario, whereas healing word would heal 7. Consistent attacks using a bonus action fills a completely different role than healing less damage than the enemy can do, this is why we don't see 3 level cleric multiclasses on fighters, we instead see PAM or SS on most optimized builds.
bro, it is an average. of course you can say in 1% of all situations its better, that doesnt make it good..
@@pandanielxd actually I don't believe I said any of those words. Nice try though.
I would like to see a video on the Shepherd Druid because of how it makes Conjure Animals even better
I wonder how good spiritual weapon would be if you could take opportunity attacks with it, possibly setting it up as a deterrent for melee attackers who are attempting to rush you down.
No! Don't give the Sentinels any more power than they already have! D:
@@LucanVaris you gotta admit though, sentinel cleric would be really cool
@@StayinFoxy Yeah, but being able to constantly stop someone from moving, while 60 feet away from them, would be kinda borked.
@@LucanVaris true enough. They could probably include a clause on sentinel that it only applies to melee weapon attacks, but I see what you mean.
They should have made this a thing in one dnd now that its... *pukes* concentration...
Didn't see this until you mentioned it in your DND playtest 8 video where you referenced this. I always find spiritual weapon to be a nice little bit of extra damage each turn in early campaigns but never worth upcasting. I noticed while playing baldur's gate 3 that the spell massively underperforms compared to like almost anything else I could be doing with a second level spell slot, and the crazy part to me is that the spell is BETTER in bg3 because it doesn't take your bonus action every turn. 90% of the time I cast spiritual weapon in bg3 it gets one attack off and then is slowly floating around the rest of combat because everything dies too quickly and it moves soooo slow. I never really noticed the problems with it before because when I play 5e my dm doesn't move enemies in a way that would make SW useless because that wouldn't be fun for everyone AND combat often takes so much longer between rounds that the extra little bit felt worth while. Now though I realize how miniscule the difference it makes is and I'd much rather be saving my spell slot of better uses. I think the spell might be good if it lasted long enough to be used over multiple small combats in a dungeon crawl. Making it last an hour would be great. It's still not amazing in one combat but over the course of that hour you'll probably end up in multiple combats where it will get hits off.
One notable exception to this is that its a decent/preparable spell for twilight clerics since they can uses it whilst triggering their channel divinity, giving you an extra turn of damage. This makes it actually better damage than telekinetic in most cases since twilight clerics arent getting value from telekinetic until they cast spirit guardians on turn 2
Spirit guardians can be pre-cast or last for multiple fights due to its 10 minute duration in some cases
Brings the question up, should we be adding spells that are only effective when a specific subclass is used? If thats the case, those spells would work better as features.
@@bananajoe113 i dont think so actually, i think every spell will be useful for some builds and not others, and that creates variety.
Even then, it's not worth the slot compared to better options, but certainly a cool trick if you have to cast it
@@TheGreatSquark In my games I play in and DM I've only rarely seen a 10 minute duration spell last more than 1 combat. Is it really that common? I guess I don't have much experience with official modules, but that's just not something that happens at my tables.
While I agree that there are much better things to do with your bonus action or spell slots, comparing a 2nd level spell to a feat is not quite as straightforward as you make it out to be. That feat (even if Telecinetic is great) comes at a huge opportunity cost when building your character compared to a 2nd level spell, esp. one mostly used by prepared casters with bonus spells per level. This is even more true if you want to, as you said yourselfs, use feats to protect concentration.
It's not a huge opportunity cost at all because it's also a half feat, starting with 17 WIS is trivial to accomplish, so you're also getting a spellcasting bump from Telekinetic. And the only other feats a Cleric needs are concentration protection. Take one at level 1, Telekinetic at 4, the other at level 8, ezpz
@@Blossom_Nova that's still impeding an ASI or another desirable feat when you just get spiritual weapon for free
@@Agamemnonoverhead It's not free, it still has an opportunity cost in terms of preparations and as established, spell slots.
And as I said, Telekinetic doesn't have to cost you an ASI, it's very easy to build an odd WIS so that the feat is also bumping your spellcasting modifier (ASIs are overrated anyway)
In terms of the ratio of cost to reward, Telekinetic blows Spiritual Weapon out of the fuckin water no contest
@@Blossom_Nova the fact you call ASIs overrated says enough on its own about your judgement of priority. Lol, just lol.
2nd level spells also come at a pretty massive cost tho - their spellslots.
If I could exchange a feat to permanently have a good second level spell up, I'd be taking it every day of the week.
How long combat lasts is a product of total dpr. Not 4 rounds.
Doing more damage can reduce enemy action economy by causing death before a predicted number of rounds
But reducing damage taken by means other than dealing damage will also increase the amount of rounds combat lasts.
??? of course how long it lasts depends on DPR, this video just assumes one number to make a comparison between casting the spell and not casting the spell
So when are you gonna talk to Gator about that lordship thing
This is a pretty narrow view of the spell honestly, and none of the alternatives given actually come close to it in terms of action economy or opportunity cost. Spiritual Weapon is a force multiplier that lets you proactively use your Bonus Action to pressure an enemy of your choice each turn, especially useful when an enemy caster is concentrating or is only a sliver away from death. And sometimes just being able to make an attack roll is much better than expecting an enemy to fail a saving throw.
One thing I'd like to argue about Spiritual Weapon is... well, I've been recently looking at Paladin.
Basic 5e gives Conquest Paladins access to spiritual weapon but none others, but spiritual weapon actually has some rather good synergy with Conquest in particular due to Aura of Conquest ensuring your paladin is getting the maximum use out of the spell by reducing the enemy's movement speed to zero.
One D&D is giving ALL paladins access to spiritual weapon as well, as well as effectively Doubling its scaling (though the need for concentration sucks a lot), and sadly it STILL has to compare to Spirit Guardians with that same divine option but please let me cook with this one.
Second level Divine Smite can do 3d8 damage at once whereas spiritual weapon can end up doing anywhere from 1d8 to 10d8 damage for a second level slot. This essentially means that the longer your combat is, the better spiritual weapon is. Which also as other commenters have noted, spiritual weapon works FAR better against swarms of weak enemies rather than singular strong ones.
Also, I personally think comparing a Feat like telekinetic to a Spell like Spiritual Weapon seems... unfair. A cleric will have 7 cleric spells prepared at level 3 (when spiritual weapon comes online) and 25 spells prepared at 20, whereas a cleric can only have an absolute maximum of 6 feats by the end of the game (Assuming you're Custom Lineage or Variant human) But are far more likely to only get 2-3 feats across their lifespan, with those feats also probably going to more immediately useful/relevant feats like Resilient (Con) or War Caster. And on the aforementioned Paladin builds, their feats can be even more clogged up depending on what they're trying to do.
9:37 Pack tactics: "Your spell slots are limited"
9:55 Also pack tactics: "It's competitors spend a spell slot each turn"
If your logic is 'using these spells that cost a spell slot every turn prevents more damage than spiritual weapon' then you are going to be out of spell slots really quickly. Also by spending your bonus action to not deal damage that means the enemy will have more turns to deal damage to you. So if you kill an ogre in 7 turns while using healing word but spiritual weapon lets you kill the ogre in 5 turns then you need to take into account how much damage spiritual weapon prevented by denying the ogre 2 turns.
This feels like a troll video.
So basically:
While it is a good use of your bonus action, it is not necessarily a good use of the Spellslot used to cast it. Or the limit of 1 levelled spell per turn.
And you might be better using that Slot plus a action to have real effect.
I used this spell a lot to break enemy concentration as it can hit multiple times and/or force a wasted turn+spellslot to dispell.
My DM also nerfed healing word by the mechaning of "deep wounds" (strong attacks inflict some deep wounds, which have to be healed before hit points but do not decrease hp, effectively making it negative bonus hp) so there is less competition.
Other games call this deep wounds mechanic and similar effects "heal absorbs", if you want to use that in future communication.
Let's agree to disagree, your argument is either "cast multiple spells in place of this one spell" or "take this feat it's better" or "cast this spell that only makes a difference if a party member get's down to low HP and could potentially be knocked out". I'm not saying it's the best spell in the world but it's a way for an early cleric to leverage their bonus action for an increase in effectiveness at ending a fight, no chance to loose it via taking damage with concentration and when something like a healing word or other bonus action becomes necessary this spell doesn't require that action and prevent the other better action. You pit it against command, a spell that requires an action. At no point in time does this spell require an action so in fights where you want use your channel divinity (light clerics and any fight against undead come to mind) you can get this out on turn one. "The Dragon flies away", look if your going to put this up against the worst kind of matchups and not trust that a cleric isn't blindly casting this in all situations of course your going to see it as a bad spell. It's coming out against only certain kinds of encounters where it's speed isn't going to be that much of a hinderance and if monsters move away from it they are likely going to provoke from a party member. Lastly, if I look at a fight and see it's probably going to be over in 4 turns, I'm probably not going to pop spirit guardians or spiritual weapon. I don't know what kind of fights you get into but my fights are typically quite a bit longer. You say this is best case scenario but I guarantee you it's not. In your "best case" scenario knowing the ogre or some such probably isn't going to last more than 4 rounds, even I who love what this spell brings probably don't cast this spell.
The perspective i use with SW is that even if its only for 1 turn, its basically a more expensive damage boost like Hex or hunter's mark that you can apply and (hopefully) re-use at least 1 or 2 more times throughout the encounter.
Secondly, if you cast it in the enemy backline, then its a turn the enemy is not focused on you and saving your party from taking damage.
It is bonus action and none concentration, so definitely not a bad spell. Very useful in some situations.
The one dnd version, where it requires concentration. Now that is a bad spell.
Issues: Why change your math assumptions Kobold just to prove this spell is bad? You have always used average MM AC by CR and now you use 18 AC enemy at level 1?
When factoring command vs spiritual weapon, did you factor opportunity cost? I.e., is it better to cast command at second level and bonus act telekinetic, or to cast say toll the dead on a hurt enemy in addition to spirit guardians?
Also, microwaves are a thing, and pretty common, so movement may be a non-issue depending on the group
telekenetic damage math implies there is always an enemy just outside spirit guardians, which is not always the case, especially turn one
As a pathfinder vulture, I kind of like that wizards is actively destroying their own base, because it should mean that other systems will get some love, as someone who hates corporate bullshit, I hate attempts like this to limit third party anything, because it’s short sighted and greedy for no reason.
Who's combats end in 4 rounds!?
In every single campaign I've ever played in, any combat that wasn't completely trivial and therefore not worth spending any resources on went closer and average of 7-10 rounds if I had to throw out an educated guess.
Also, Spirit Guardians is a higher level slot for less range then Spiritual Weapon unless you're able to move freely. So if you're against enemies with actual tactics and battlefield control, you might not be able to hit anything in your AoE while Spiritual Weapon is causing chaos on the enemies side. And hell, it gives Clerics a Multiattack, but they're weapons second swing is a shillelagh with 20ft range.
"Lord Gator" gag never gets old. It made me laugh a second time.
So, one thing that I enjoy about Spiritual Weapon over an AOE is the fact of who’s rolling, with a weapon, it’s an attack, I know what my bonuses to hit are because it’s listed, if I cast an AOE like guardians, then it’s a save that the enemy makes, and that changes the situation entirely, suddenly I don’t know what the odds to deal damage is anymore, and the agency isn’t on me anymore and I have to wait for them to fail, and that’s….kind of boring to me.
I'm in a D&D campaign where we are allowed to make homebrew spells, we just gotta pass them through our DM ahead of time and need to be reviewed. I always liked Spiritual Weapon but I figured why not go crazy with it? So I reworked Spiritual Weapon into a saved based spell, basically when its summoned it worked similar to Hunter's Mark. The new Autonomous Spiritual Weapon was a 3rd level spell and had a range of 30ft, when used the user would select a mark and the sword would attach itself to that target. Any time the target was attacked they needed to make a dex save or take 1d8+ spell mod, and if the target dropped I could reassign the ASW to a new target still only lasting up to a max of 1min. I sent it to my DM as a rough draft expecting to need to make adjustments. No within 24hrs my DM sent me the adjusted form, he upped the damage to 1d12+spell mod and the sword got triggered regardless of if the attack hit, and the target took half damage even if they passed the save if it was a melee attack. I tried to talk him down from this since we have two level 14 fighters who are already swing a lot. Nope he loved the creative idea and wanted it to feel good. First session with the spell, used it on a boss and the spell itself did over 100 points of damage in 4 turns, DM still loves the spell and I am not complaining.
I don't understand one thing: Spiritual weapon uses your spell slot once and then just stays and does its thing. By comparing it to Healing Word, do you mean that a single use of healing word does more good than the entirety of SW, or would I need to keep recasting healing word every round to make it better?
The former. At 9:11 you can see the graph comparing healing word to SW, the amount healed by healing word is the average for a SINGLE 2nd level casting
Mediocre spells : good when smart and cheap
-any kind of damage will cause a concentration check, which you can use as a second chance to break conc. with
-Has 60 feet range, can fly, can be cast against ranged enemy who have unmanuevrable high ground like a watchtower to harass it
-Force damage, never know when you might need it.
-Can synergize with other spells allow advantage on attack or free crits, like hold person, which contributes to not dying faster unlike healing word
-Has no health, can move across surfaces without range limitations to hit that da*n lever to activate the thingy, if no alternatives.
Insightful, thanks for clarifying the Telekinesis vs Spiritual weapon question !
This video will be accurate when, in the next edition, Spiritual weapon in concentration, and will lose all value. Extra damage form a bonus action that doesn't require concertation is well worth a mere second level spell slot when facing enemies in an environment where you can reliably be using the weapon over half of the time. From even low levels, Clerics have massive competition for using their concentration: a spell that can do multiple rounds of damage without taking concentration is great for the cost of a meaningless second level slot is good. Telekinetic requires use of a feat-- a resource far mor limited that the number of second level spell slots. Telekinetic is a delay in maxing your Wisdom, acquiring resilient Con or Warcaster. Spiritual weapon isn't bad; it isn't mandatory, but just ignoring it is taking a useful weapon out of your toolbox.
I think the reason that people look at these opinions as extreme is that to the average player “less optimal than the competition” ≠ “bad”.
But I feel safe guessing that PT does feel that way (which I could be VERY wrong about because I don’t know him personally). But is the spell objectively bad? Nah. Are there better options? Definitely lol
Everyone linking this after DnDLogs listed this as their #1 cleric spell
Trickery domain:
Step 1)make a spiritual weapon that looks like someone's weapon,
Step 2)start massive shenanigans
Step 3)?
Step 4) there is no profit, but there's lots of fun chaos
This is going to end up being an argument of optimal vs practical:
From an optimization standpoint, I can agree with this video with a lot of caveats. eg. individual builds and team set ups being something worth looking at as the cleric because you can swap out your spells on a long rest. I also find the scenario put in this video stacked highly against the spell to the point I would compare that scenario to putting fireball against a single target without information on who you are fighting.
From a practical stand point, I would disagree. The spell should not be used in most scenarios, that much of the spells design is clear. It is built to be the 2nd or 3ed spell cast by a cleric in a fight that is going to last several more rounds with the cleric understanding this is likely going to be the biggest pop off of the day. If you are only getting 1-3 rounds out of the spell it is a waste, but getting 4-8 attacks off with it normally makes the spell worth while. It is a finicky spell in that you should think of it as a slow projectile, so if your party has no way of locking opponents down the spell is near worthless. On top of that if you have other bonus actions available the spell should drop lower on how likely you are to pick/use it. Does being a niche spell make it bad? I would argue no just because it has good enough potential while being able to fill a roll in a clerics arsenal to make them more dangerous when they have less to worry about.
A more fair scenario to me would be the player needing to know when to use the spell, and here is when:
You are in a party with some amount of lock down, you know it is early in what is looking to be a drawn out fight, you have cast your big concentration spell you want to keep up for the duration of this fight, you have a good amount of spell slots, and you don't have more relevant bonus actions. Is that a lot of set up? Yes. It is a slow, bonus action, spell, projectile. This is how/when you would need to use it in most cases because this is just how the spell works. When do these situations come up? Hoard style dungeons (you are fighting most of everyone in the dungeon at once) and boss fights.
So math was done assuming spiritual weapon is cast on second turn because first turn you blowin up with spirit guardians or bless, but then the "why not both" segment says no because you are limited to spell slots. So then why start spiritual weapon on turn 2 of a 4 turn combat if you are going for a "best case" scenario? What if you can't use your action for the other spells because its tied up in dodging, using the search action, using an item, or holding an action? I can understand why YOU wouldn't use spiritual weapon, but I personally don't follow the math/logic in this video for changing my opinion on the spell.
I agree with the numbers, but when you're literally never using a bonus action or second level spells.... This is like free dpr, which I think makes it really good, even if it's only in that case.
I would never cast spiritual weapon if I only had 1 second level spell slot left though. That seems obvious to me.
I used this spell on a Raven Queen Warlock build that I’m trying to optimize to be a spell sniper. I’ve definitely been experiencing all of these limitations. There was one all-out fight in which I cast spiritual weapon, killed one enemy with it, and then calculated that the spell would literally end before I could get to the next closest enemy with it. Then of course there’s the fact it’s action economy is competing with Mirror Image and Summon Shadowspawn for my attention. It’s honestly been really fun making those types of in the moment strategic decisions of when spiritual weapon is and isn’t a good choice.
I don't know a specific ability that's easy to get outside of racials at low levels, but try to abuse vertical space. I see so few people climbing pillars and/or buildings and flinging spells from up high, it's so busted. Especially when you have a push mechanic which warlock definitely has in eldritch blast.
As a Spell sniper, you gain so much by doing this. Ground is lava in fights, unless the enemy is arial, then it doesn't matter.
Cast a hazard underneath your vantage point and make it lava for your enemies too.
A lot to gain when you view the game in actual 3d and I don't think any DM worth their salt will punish creative use of maps and mechanics.
Little additional fact, reducing movement of an arial creature to 0 makes it fall to the ground RAW, might come in handy
Edit: Oh and remember to lay down at your vantage point so enemies get disadvantage when they attack you, since they can't reach you for meele
@@Reac2 My boy's always on the roof when he needs to be. and he's a protector Aasimar, so when there's no roof to sit on he can just fly for a while to stay out of range. Going prone is a favorite strategy of mine not just because it's effective, but because it provides the image in my mind of my character wielding his hands like a sniper rifle while he's down on his stomach on a roof 600ft away.
what get's me is that it's upcast conditions... kinda suck. 1d8 every two levels means that SW has a drastically inferior damage range when upcast. It's actually less effective that some cantrips. It's upcast is at it's most optimal when using fourth level spell slots (so you've moved from 1d8 to 2d8 (effectively making two magical weapon attacks as a bonus action)) but even with that there are some attack spells that gain an extra damage die EACH LEVEL above the minimum. A first level spell with this attribute even using a d6 would end up with 4d6 (damage range being 4-24 per hit) while Spiritual Weapon is at 2d8 (damage range of 2-16 per hit) There are martial with better damage output that that!
This makes no sense. Spiritual Weapon is amazing option that lets you keep dealing some damage while you use your actions to banish, polymorph, heal, channel divinity or use divine intervention and more. Honestly sometimes it is more important to pump Cure Wounds into your Raging Barbarian or banish a Damage Sponge type enemy than getting that sweet Guiding Bolt damage. The cantrip + Healing Word option is laughable as replacement for Cure Wounds+Spiritual Weapon. Sure getting a downed PC with 1hp is as good as doing so with 10 hp it is more important to keep a Raging Barbarian or Druid in a Starry Form or even yourself Channeling Divinity from going down to 0 in the first place. A lot of features end when you go unconscious and Healing Word ain't gonna do much about it.
Bruh I want to disagree with this so badly because intuitively a bonus action attack that us comparable to a two weapon fighting attack with its respective fighting style + feat at the low cost of a 2nd lvl spell slot feels so powerful. Since it's so mid, why did it even get nerfed in onednd playtest in the first place...
Because the WotC D&D team is bad at balance
Honestly, spiritual weapon is one spellslot for 10 rounds, command, healing word and telekinetic are far more expensive, 1 spell a round or a feat, and you're unlikely that you'd need to use them every turn, while spiritual weapon will almost always have a target, especially if you have melee martials in your party.
If you are able to get 10 rounds of use out of it 100% of the time, then no question it's a good spell.
@@naturalkind5591 wrong
"look at these pretty dice they bring mirth and laughter perfect for your bard build!" lol i love the way you read ads, its so adorable. Also love the evoker at the end
2:34 - classic wisdom quotes from "Lord" Gator
I would also consider the case of an Aasimar Paladin/Cleric
Because their racial trait can pair quite well with Spiritual Weapon (granted it works with any spell or attack after that initial turn of using it, but still) where ordinarily you would experience a drop in damage output for what is essentially an investment type racial ability.
So where ordinarily you'd have to burn a turn doing almost nothing as part of the tradeoff of receiving great bonus damage, there's still an opportunity to deal that extra damage which can make it quite worth it.
I had an Aasimar divine soul sorcerer that used to start combat with the racial trait + spiritual weapon and fly to safety spot. Second turn = hold person/fireball/any good spell + attack with the spiritual weapon.
You know, while i dont know if i agree with the conclusion- i will say that im happy i watched and listened because funnily enough- Telekinetic fits a niche in my current build that i was trying to fill. It can be like crusher (for the shove) but also give my cleric +1 Wis. and i was having a hard time fitting both into my build without delaying my Wis to 18 too long
nice! this is the best case scenario. your cleric sounds super cool too.
So something I’d like to bring up is that I don’t think that healing word and command are good comparisons to spiritual weapon. Those are both instantaneous spells that end the same turn they were cast whereas spiritual weapon has a duration it’ll stick around for. Yes healing word and especially command will have a greater effect on the turn they are cast but after that it will end and you will need to continually recast them to keep up. With spiritual weapon though you cast it and it’s up for a good long while. Continually casting and recasting instantaneous spells will use up WAY more spell slots than just casting spiritual weapon once. Kobold says not to throw your spell slots in the void but using the two spells he brings up the most when comparing it to spiritual weapon seems like throwing even more spell slots in the void since they don’t have a duration like spiritual weapon.
The math is not comparing Healing Word to a single round of Spiritual Weapon. It is comparing Healing Word to an entire combat of Spiritual Weapon.
He's not at all recommending you spam Healing Word, he's using it as a frame of reference for why Spiritual Weapon is doing so little for the resource cost
It's a perfectly fine comparison. Spiritual Weapon does very little damage and thus prevents very little damage.
@@Blossom_Nova Wait really? Oh ok I see. I dunno it just feels really weird to me. How is one instance of 2d4 + spellcasting modifier worth of healing better than multiple rounds of 1d8 + spellcasting modifier worth of damage? It feels like a fireball vs melt’s minute meteors situation to me. Fireball is better in a burst but minute meteors will put out more damage over the course of multiple rounds for the same cost.
You kill things because that is your function as an adventurer. You go to the dungeon to kill things, so that they stop being a threat to someone else. Not killing fast enough doesn't make a spell bad, it makes it situational.
The value of a spell is determined by what problem it solves. The primary value of spiritual weapon is in attacking a target that is out of line of sight, where you would have to expose yourself to a hazard to acquire line of sight, or when you simply cannot traverse the space. Think of it as a summons that can't be killed.
This is a pretty rare problem so this is not a high value spell. But it can be good if you make it be good. For example, when subtle cast by a divine soul sorcerer, it becomes the perfect tool for assassinating a prisoner. It leaves no evidence, doesn't expose you to any risk, and the victim is powerless to defend themselves.
Watching your videos is always fun :)
I wish I had any optimism that this video will change minds, but SW defenders will just rehash the description of the spell as an argument over and over again until the heat death of the universe
The range on Spiritual Weapon is unnecessary. It should be kept close to the caster so that it can be used against enemies that close with/attack the Cleric.
I haven't yet played at a table where the enemies walked away from my spiritual weapon. Usually, it is not worth taking the disengage action to avoid opportunity attacks from the rest of the party's melee. I would consider this spell good if your dm doesn't frequently employ kiting strats which requires massive maps to do reasonably, and just exposes how melee in D&D is not good in general, kind of like how tanking is a lie.
Command can only be relied on against foes that speak common.
I guess I woukd consider one of the main selling points of Spiritual Weapon is having a spell that has a decent impact but not too good that enemies spend resources overcoming it.
I'll simplify this guys argument for you. He is claiming that doing nothing is better than doing something.
I didn't claim nothing is better than doing something. I said I compared SW with not casting SW. 11:03
Exactly. The argument is absurd. He repeatedly compares it to Command which also uses a spell slot and lasts only ONE round and isn't a bonus action.
Channel Divinity action of twilight domain + bonus action spiritual weapon on the first turn is a pretty good combo. It's a good tempo turn IMO.
The formula for calculating number of turns denied is wrong - it depends significantly on variance of party damage. For example, for level 3 - if party 100% of time deals 22 DPR, than SW needs to hist just once (90.8875% chance, if you cast it on round 2) to deny one round. However, if party 100% of time deals 23 DPR, SW needs to deal 18 damage in 2 rounds (I am too lazy to calculate, but very unlikely) to give any benefit. Also, more monsters make it more efficient - you have more chances to go through threshold and kill the monster denying them an action. Finally, if monster has more hp but deals less damage, SW gets higher chance to actually deny an action, that compensate for lower effect of this action, depending on exact stats.
If the monster has high enough hp, and variance of your party damage is also high (so that probability of getting monster down in N rounds isn't significantly different from getting it down in N-1 or N+1 rounds), if your average party damage is D, monster hp is H and SW damage is S, number of rounds denied is approximately H/D - (H - D)/(D+S) - 1. Which is still not so good in this setup, but makes SW better on CR5 and above docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hBluDAf-KsUbSaMt0VDvsiAuQ24wzsxF9BO-7rn8_rQ/edit?usp=sharing (here I use your assumption that average group damage allows to kill monster in 4 rounds, and SW is cast on 2nd round).
One thing that I feel like doesn't work logically here, is that Healing Word (or any healing spell for that matter) has no value, unless they prevent someone from going down. PC's don't lose effectiveness if they are at 1 HP, so the value of Healing Word (so long as the PC isn't knocked out and lose a turn) is literally nothing. Now you of course can't always predict when that's going to happen, but usually it's safe to assume that a Healing Word to top off a barbarian's HP after suffering one attack is not going to change that. Similarly, Spiritual Weapon's damage doesn't come into play until the enemy is dead. My point here is, because DND HP is such an all-or-nothing system it's very difficult to compare Healing and Damage. If the target you heal is never targeted again in that combat, then the healing is technically worthless (from a mechanical standpoint).
Spiritual Weapon also has a few advantages not mentioned in this video, it helps Bonus action-starved builds, it can be upcast making it efficient for multiclassing, if you have some time to prepare before combat you can start combat with it and get your more powerful spells going 1st round, and it can combo with other players or even your own Command to get advantage and thus up its damage potential.
I think you make some great points and I think I personally have overvalued it as a be-all-end-all cleric spell, but I do also think you gloss over some vital points that make it better than you think.
Spiritual weapon + Hold spell on next turn is good
This is a hot take I was not expecting.
Dunk that. Bonus action to hit bad guy, and then cantrip bad guy is fun.
If you cast Spiritual Weapon on a flying/high mobility enemy, that's on you for trying to work it into every combat.
Regarding playing 4e, hope you have fun. If you're looking at systems other than 5e, have you looked at or had any thoughts on Pathfinder 2nd Edition? Fine if you have and decided it's not for you, just curious because I'd think that with your eye for tactical analysis you might enjoy it. I consider it to be a system that learned the good lessons from PF1, 4e, and 5e. I can go into more detail if you'd like, but if you're not familiar with the system, all the rules are available online for free.
yeah pathfinder 2 would be great for this style of channel. it's also something I do need help with, whereas 5e starts to feel like a "solved game"
I feel there is missing data in this video, like dealing with situational awareness. I have definitely had issues with bonus action management as a person who regularly plays clerics, like how Order domain can make that command spell into a bonus action eventually at lvl 6. Definitely better than a 2nd level SW when in tier 2. In tier one though? Healing word still beats it because of Order domain's 1st level ability of giving melee pcs an extra attack as a reaction. So Order domain is a bad example for SW.
Still had it though because sometimes using a saving throw spell just wasn't worth the risk being often a save or suck. Saving throws are extremely easy to pass at times for enemies when you get deeper into the tiers, and there are those low level creatures with low AC that can't actually understand common or are undead for Command to fizzle. Tier one has plenty of ways to make SW the more optimal option, especially with an effective tank to mitigate the effectiveness of healing word being the better option. Even when Spirit Guardians comes online at lvl 5, turn 2 SW can do plenty for a melee based cleric, or one that has a channel divinity that benefits from being used up close to the enemies, both cases not interacting with the spell casting limitation.
I will say the subclasses that benefit the most from it outside of Death domain are Light and Trickery domain, and partially War domain after they have used/are saving the uses of their first level ability. Light definitely wants to be up close and personal before level 6 to make the most of it's Warding Flare ability, then use its channel divinity to blast everything within 30 feet without worrying about allies. 6th and after they still want to be at least within 30 to spread the love of Warding Flare. For Trickery, they get advantage on melee attack rolls after using their channel divinity, only suffering if the creature is super mobile. Then there's the debate for later stages in the game where wisdom saves for creatures can get astronomically high to make certain spells just not feasible in a lot of situations, having to rely on attack rolls to get things done. A cleric may be versatile, but dex saves, which deal the majority of effective leveled spell damage, are not super prevalent in their spell choices. It's mostly constitution and wisdom saves. But then for effective damage when you aren't wanting to be in melee, wisdom and constitution saves are bad to use, and no one needs healing, Guiding Bolt is definitely a better go to if you don't have a channel divinity you want to pair with a bonus action spell. Surprised that spell wasn't brought up.
Even though I do bring up situational moments, they do happen. SW isn't ever a bad choice as a melee cleric. And it only gets better if there other melee pcs in the party able to lock down enemies in one place.
I’ve tried out solo encounters using a forge cleric, and this spell as the bonus action plus the dodging as an action worked really well, namely at Lv 3&4
or you could have spirit guardians, dodged, telekinetic for 6d8 damage /round
@@FallenFromGlory how are you using spirit guardians at Lv 3&4? Also, I wasn’t rolling Variant Human or Custom Lineage, so no telekinetic at Lv3 either.
@@purpleniumowlbear2952 Wrong comment, your sentences began similarly so I assumed it was this one. My bad.
@@FallenFromGlory No worries!
But because spiritual weapon is a bonus action it means you can still cast a cantrip with your action so if you're directly comparing it to an action spell like command you need to take that into account. At 3rd level, before most characters have feats, most clerics don't have anything else to do with their bonus action so the appeal of a 2nd level command vs a spiritual weapon + toll the dead or sacred flame is a more fair comparison.
"Yeah we gotta talk about that lordship later" 🤣
We not gonna talk about how it has no requirement of seeing the target, and it can act as an invulnerable summon with no monetary cost like other summons, and almost no way for enemies to un-summon it?
Also, since it's a spell attack coming from you, there's technically no reason why you can't be getting advantage by ganging up on an enemy that you or another ally is fighting
It does not have the requirrment in the text because it works as if your PC have made that attack. If you dont see the enemy SW has disasvantage. Same if you are prone, restrained and so on.
@@MrDrakian if you choose to interpret it that way as subjective RAI but you can't prove it as RAW
@@Calebgoblin excuse me, but what? 😂 it’s melee spell attack, it says it right in the spell description. It works exactly the same as weapon attack or other spell attacks such as firebolt or inflict wounds. It obeys the same rules and Its RAW
@@Calebgoblin spiritual weapon is neither an object nor a creature. Its just a point of reference for your attacks.
??? you dont know the rules at all
So new OGL makes D&D content(all editions) WotC's and they've already commented on including video content. Whatever you decide to do man, you are always a rock star.
I play as Mr Clean. The spiritual weapon is the shape of a mop or other cleaning apparatus.
Command is not significantly better. Command requires an action, so you can only attack an enemy with a bonus action, like a spiritual weapon that has already been summoned, cast shillelagh/magic stones if you took a level in artificer or druid/took a feat that gives you druid cantrips, use a cunning action if you took at least 2 levels of rogue, use nimble escape if you're a goblin, use a quickened cantrip if you have at least 3 levels in sorcerer or the metamagic adept feat (for the latter you can only do it once), or attack with an eldritch cannon/steel guardian if you took at least 3 levels in artificer. It also requires a save, and in my experience, enemies save more often than the spell goes through.
In other words, you have a minute's worth of combat against two beefy targets. You cast spiritual weapon and hit the target dealing let's say, 7 damage, then you cast toll the dead, dealing another 6, then move back 10 ft. Your friends the paladin and fighter walk in between you and your enemies. Your enemies moves to engage your friends. Next turn, you cast spirit guardians, and move your spiritual weapon attacking your enemy dealing another 7 damage. This goes on, and between you and the rest of your party, you wind up killing them. You can move on, as you've dispatched your enemies quickly, minimizing your need for spell slots and healing. Even when you miss with your spiritual weapon, you could attack with a cantrip, your spirit guardians do consistent damage, and you can cast cure wounds whenever healing is needed, which heals significantly more than healing word.
In the other scenario, you cast command at level 2 to try and get your enemies to attack each other, and you move back 30ft. Since no one's hurt, you don't use your bonus action. Command fails and you've wasted a turn. Your fighter and pally do what they did in the previous one. You try command again. It fails on one of them, but succeeds on the other. You can't use your bonus action. One enemy attacks the other, while the other enemy attacks the paladin. This goes on, you keep using your action and casting a leveled spell, so you cannot use a bonus action. Command mostly fails. Some rounds you and your pally need to spend your action/bonus action healing, and actually, the ones where you spend your bonus action using healing word, then cast toll the dead are the most productive rounds you have. And, while your party likely succeeds, they take heavy damage, and you all need a long rest after the encounter as you're all out of spell slots, lay on hands points, and down by a bunch of hit points.
At best, command is a wash. Yes, when it works it's useful for making an enemy lose a turn or making multiple enemies hurt each other, but in my experience it rarely works. Plus, it takes an action and only lasts for one round. Meanwhile, spiritual weapon take a bonus action, allowing you to do an attack, a dash/disengage/hide, or cast a cantrip, and it lasts a minute without concentration, so you can cast a good concentration spell the next round like spirit guardians.
I mean spiritual weapon scales really well with your spellcasting modifier, so if you start the game with 20 in your primary stat (Tasha’s custom lineage), the spell becomes significantly better. Spiritual weapon is also effective in conserving spell slots in longer fights, as it only requires a spell slot on cast.
For another examination of the damage, just as an amount of damage and less as an absolute effect on combat (which is a good way to look at it).
Spiritual weapon, assuming 3 swings, and ignoring saves/AC/ect as very few effects ignore enemy defenses, and it will ease things significantly.
1d4+5 (so, we're assuming a mid level cleric with a 20 wis). 9.5 damage a round. 28.5 for a single 2nd level spell. 42 if cast at 4th.
Spirit Guardians: Spirit Guardians for 3 rounds at 13.5 per round already out does it 40.5 dmg), and it lasts longer, and is an AoE that ignores friendlies, and screws with movement. If the fight has multiple enemies, spirit guardians damage will double or triple. So this will outdamage Spiritual Weapon, lvl for lvl in most combats without needing to be cast at a matching level (which would raise it to 54 damage to a single target).
If the enemy targets are few in number, spamming Command to prevent actions has a much higher upside, completely preventing an enemy from going is HUGE. However, this will burn 4 lvl 1 spells. If your whole point is spell conservation, spamming command will burn you out far faster.
I DO disagree with the 'the enemy could just move' downside. We're already assuming round 2. This fight is likely a melee at this point. If you casting Spiritual Weapon makes the enemy RUN AWAY FROM MELEE then this spell is far, FAR stronger than command. It's like Fear on steroids. The dragon flying also screws over a Greatsword, but you wouldn't call Greatsword Mastery bad.
Something I think is missing from these videos is any attempt to 'fix' the problematic spell. I think there's a very simple one, if you feel Spiritual Weapon is weak. 10 minute duration. It can now easily be cast out of combat, will last through multiple combats in a standard dungeon run, and is far more tempting to upcast since you'll get more swings out of it. It now competes better with Spirit Guardians (Which is a flat busted spell but then this game is a bit of a mess since they really haven't balanced disabling vs damage well).
Makes sense, though I would challenge your best case scenario. You mention that the later in combat you cast it the worse it is, of course, but don't cover the pre-cast scenario which is truly what best cast would be. This obviously can be niche as not every encounter can be predicted ahead of time with a preparation period, and for those that can the distance/movement limitation might be enough to cause it to not engage in combat until later rounds. Either way, my question is: would the math come out more favorably should this case arise?
This also doesn't take into consideration that killing a key target sooner might prevent one of it's more deadly abilities. Killing a dragon one turn before it can use it's breath weapon a second time is much stronger than a level 2 healing word, and this is pretty realistic if a low level party goes up against a wyrmling (then it flies away lol).
Overall I do agree that it's math isn't worth it's praise, but every spell has its use cases.
You don't need to see your target to attack with the spiritual weapon. If you cannot see your target, or be seen by them, attack rolls are normal. Fighting around corners without even exposing yourself to enemy fire is easy.
The casting rules also make way for shenanigans. The spell you cast is within range of 60ft. The spell does not have to stay in that range. Feel free to put more distance between you and the front line.
Spiritual Guardians has a 10 minute time on it, you can cast that well before you are in combat, or better, when you the sides still have to advance to one another. The spiritual weapon will still allow an attack on top of dodge tanking to pile on the damage.
The spell does not go away when you fall. Go down, get brought back by a potion, and the weapon can still attack.
It follows the rules for melee attacks. Their cover is useless.
You say that a single target is the optimal opponent, but I've found that group combats tend to prevent enemies from running. In addition there is always the idea of using it to corner your foes, chasing them into the spiritual weapon.
The movement thing is what kills the spell for me. The sheer number of times I've seen a player summon it and just never do a bloody thing because it just tails behind the fight the whole time. Not to mention that when it finally does catch up, I swear it always misses.
My Players have joked about that lots of times, "Oh man, here it comes, is the Spiritual Weapon going to finally get to do something! Nope, fights already over."
Excellent video!
My Dm allows me to use my action to attack with spiritual weapon too.
It essentially allows me to roll 3d8+7 Force damage twice per turn.
Its nice.
There’s at least another circumstance where spiritual weapon is not only convenient, but arguably broken.
And that’s if you’re an oath of conquest paladin, not only it allows you an extra range attack in addition to your two action, but since it counts as a melee damage it can apply divine smite, making its potential damage, skyrocketing trough the roof, despite paladins having less powerful spellslots than clerics.
I played a life clerig until level 5 for a short cangpain
He had shallillegh as well.
He was outdamaging the barbarian (we rolled stats and at level 4 he had 20 wis)
Barbarians are weak anyway
I agree that spiritual weapon mathematically is bad, but that's mathematically. Math often ignores several other things, like utility. Spiritual weapon effectively allows you to create an additional melee fighter that has very few ways to be countered. It does force damage (which last time I check doesn't have anything resistant to it), it's a floating weapon (which means it's 20ft of flying & swimming movement), and once it's cast it is there no questions asked.
(Also prevention is arguably more valuable then healing. Prevention can be done when the party if full of hp, while healing can't.)
A more fair comparison would be heat metal (both 2nd level damage spells that cost bonus actions most of the time).
2d8 (9)/turn vs 1d8+3 (7.5)/turn.
Heat metal requires concentration, targets only one creature, scales better, costs an action to cast, and causes disadvantage if done right. Spiritual weapon only does 1.5 damage less but can be used to target multiple creatures. They are about equal strength but just work mechanically slightly different.
Spiritual weapon is just a way for the cleric to control an additional 30ft by 30ft (20ft range + 5ft of reach) area of the battlefield.
It doesn't need to be a staple, but it still has it's uses (like dealing with flying enemies while you and your party are scaling a cliff side)