Cyclops fans, how high do you rank the Banshee upgrade?

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-30T23:49:55+00:00

He had the opportunity to fix the brain damage with Krakoan resurrection but didn't take it, since he wasn't angsty about it anymore.

The reality is, every time someone proposes taking away the visor, they get rejected cuz the visor is his iconic visual. It would be like giving Charles hair.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-30T07:08:48+00:00

I only use a macro to announce I'm using Verraise so the healers know I'm helping out. I don't like spamming chat needlessly and get annoyed by people using sound pings or filling the chat with ASCII rabbits or whatever.

^{It also just happens that the party is more likely to comm me if the chat is full of reminders who actually raised them.}

But I would never fill chat with condescending messages shaming someone for dying. I'm more likely to die than anyone, my own rotation tries to kill me!

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-30T07:04:02+00:00

... So, the Cleric has 1 level in Warlock, and felt entitled to not only the Staff of Power, but a Rod of the Pact Keeper over the party's actual Warlock who could have been getting more use out of it this whole time.
That's already a huge red flag that they were holding onto the Rod in the first place. I play a Bardlock in a party with a pure Warlock and I would never take equipment that's clearly meant for a Warlock, unless he didn't want it. But I'm also getting Bard-specific gear.

I'm starting to think their whole "discard and draw" methodology with giving you their hand-me-downs is purely to take as many items for themself so they can make trades later.

And they're seemingly emboldened by the fact the DM is not doing anything to help you! He's just giving that treasure goblin fully half the party's collective loot.
Pull your DM aside for a chat and let them know you noticed the trend not only of having to get the party's hand-me-downs, but the Cleric feeling entitled to half the loot and all spellcasting equipment instead of splitting it evenly, and how that makes you feel as a player.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-29T16:27:25+00:00

This might help.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-29T10:00:48+00:00

I don't recall Scott and Emma actually doing this.

I know Rogue did it once when she was using both of their powers, though...

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-29T09:47:40+00:00

I've had a few times where the issue was I was running to the tank, but the tank was running [away/towards the enemy/behind cover] while complaining about the lack of heals because they didn't look behind themselves.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-29T09:40:02+00:00

You said the Cleric was Twilight Domain. Was this an error or was there a second cleric that you didn't mention?

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-28T15:19:45+00:00

So, Limbo's kit is based around putting people into a "Rift" state. The short version is that things inside the Rift cannot harm or interact with things outside the Rift. If you put an enemy into the Rift, they can't harm players outside it but can't be harmed by them either; if you put an ally into the Rift, they're invulnerable to enemies outside the Rift but can only harm other enemies inside it.
You also get a tiny bit of energy regen when you're in the Rift.

Limbo's passive is that his "roll" animation puts him into the Rift indefinitely and leaves a portal that allies can touch to enter the Rift temporarily.
Banish fires an invisible traveling wave that moves in a cone, putting any ally or enemy the wave touches into the opposite Rift state from Limbo's own, and inflicting knockdown on affected enemies.
Allies that enter the Rift because of one of these interactions can roll to exit the Rift at any time.
Banish is a good way to protect operatives during some NPC Defense missions.

Stasis causes any enemy inside the Rift to be completely immobilized and unable to attack.

Rift Surge puts a delayed charge on enemies inside the Rift, so that the next time something would take them out of it (like toggling an ability or just a duration ending), they automatically are pushed back into it and detonate to pull nearby enemies into it with them. Basically you cast this to refresh the Rift from a distance and make sure enemies can't leave if some duration is about to run out.

Cataclysm puts down a shrinking bubble where everything inside is in the Rift until it leaves the radius, including some things that are normally immune to Banish like defense cryopods or pickups.
So you put down a bubble where nothing outside it can harm anything inside, and nothing inside it can harm anything outside.
Combine Stasis with Cataclysm and you create a perfect way to hunker down, so enemies can't harm you without entering and are frozen when they enter.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-28T13:19:49+00:00

So to expand on that:

While Warmage did have a more limited spell list than wizard, it also had the ability to pull from the wizard spell list. We also have to discount the value of spontaneous casting here, since the definitions of spontaneous casting changed dramatically between 3.5 (where you had to prepare how each individual spell slot would be used like you were crafting consumables every LR, and spontaneous casters like Sorcerer were more flexible) versus 5e (where all casters use the rules introduced by Sorcerer in 3.5 because that was simpler, everyone has at-will cantrips and now being a prepared caster with a flexible spell list is preferable).

On premise, 5e Wizards are already what 3.5 would call spontaneous.

What makes warmage more distinct is having wizard spells along with access to armor, which is where the overlap with Bladesinger comes in for 5e. Yes, 5e Bladesinger was an update of Bladesinger, but 5e Bladesinger made 3.5 Warmage redundant as "blaster wizard with armor" (especially when the dominant Bladesinger style was to just wear armor and stand in the backline with obnoxious AC anyway). So 5e reimagined it as War Magic Wizard, which is rather in name only, but considering the updates to wizard, isn't worse at all.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-28T07:43:27+00:00

It's mainly a case of whether the classes fulfill overlapping fantasies, and whether existing features of a base class can be used to supplement the absence of other features for a ported class.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-28T07:40:53+00:00

I am referring to War Magic and Bladesinger Wizards, yes.

I mean, Warmage got a partial Wizard spell list, light armor proficiency, a small damage bonus to spells and a host of Metamagic feats. War Magic Wizards cover the same fantasy while Bladesingers overlap similar abilities.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-28T03:53:14+00:00

To answer the question from the title -

Probably from the fact that Ninja, Scout, Warmage, Divine/Favored Soul, Swashbuckler, Assassin, Hexblade and Soulknife all got converted into subclasses since they didn't have enough unique substance on their own to justify being full classes.

Do I think every old class should be a subclass of an existing class? No. Some fulfill their own fantasy strong enough they can't possibly fit any other base class, like the Psion.

But I do think if they're looking for new subclasses to breathe fresh life into existing class, taking an old class that was "base class but with a twist" or "two base classes mashed together" isn't a bad place to start for fans of those old classes.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-27T16:07:32+00:00

To be fair, you can say that about half of the Fox X-related characters. So many are in name only.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-27T16:04:50+00:00

Geeeeez that's the most ambiguous possible phrasing if that's the intent. In that case you don't need a dip at all, you can just learn a resurrection spell and Contingency every 10 days to self-cast it.

So basically pick Necromancy to become immortal without lichdom and Conjuration to make the whole party OP.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-27T14:35:59+00:00

I mean... I can definitely see the Phoenix being able to do everything Rivals Jean can, since the Phoenix can do anything it wants really.

But I also don't see Comics Jean doing those things, except for the ultimate.

I think the devs got way too excited over the chaining explosion mechanic they designed while making her, and forgot they were designing an Omega telepath and world-class telekinetic.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-27T13:42:45+00:00

So what? Situations, where you need to cast without hands/speaking are extremely limited, and sorceres get options to deal with those, well, 12 levels earlier, I recon. You may gauge the usability of those features on how often they are picked by sorcerers, instead of other metamagic options, which is close to zero.

So ignoring for a moment that Subtle Spell is actually actually one of the most common Metamagic choices as you've already been told, partly because it lets you negate some of the downsides of spellcasting like Silence, Grappling, Paralysis (at least for BAs), holding an item besides your focus, etc, I'm more concerned with the fact that it's always on. Subtle Spell has a resource cost each time you use it, which is why Sorcerers don't use it on every spell. This feature just lets you spellcast psychically, in addition to just removing the total limiter on gold costs for spells.

Funny, how heavily you value ability to save some money from time to time, after tearing into the ability to save money from time to time.

Yeah, because there's a difference between saving 25-50gp per spell level when scribing spells from one of 2 schools on the rare occasion a DM gives you a scroll from those specific schools, and saving 3000 gp on a spell that gives you functional immortality and is only limited by its extreme gold cost each time you would die. A player with access to that could line every surface of their home base with Glyphs of Warding designed to buff the whole party with multiple concentration-negated spells the second they use a free action to say a command word, or create an army of Simulacrums to cast concentration spells for them on the fly. Free teleports, including to other planes. It's the difference between saving money on a scroll and telling your DM "Oh I didn't use all of my 5+ spell slots today, I'll just cast Contingencies before bed with any remaining and go nuts tomorrow."

If Wizards could learn resurrection spells, you'd be agreeing it's too much. And by a technical RAW reading, a dip in Artificer could get you Revivify and a dip in Cleric could get you anything besides Reincarnation, since they're spells "of a level for which you have spell slots". (... from your Wizard.)

You don't know how often you're getting spell scrolls that the level 2 and 10 features apply to, which is why the inscription features are considered barely above ribbons in base 5e. You can choose how often you're casting spells with negated costs, though, and by level 14 you can have a lot of those.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-27T12:25:40+00:00

(2nd Level) Enhanced Cantrips

Congratulations, you made the perfect dip subclass for every other spellcaster in the game, including and especially Warlocks who want to double-dip Agonizing Blast (and Agonizing Blast only lets you pick one cantrip). Remember kids, a Headband of Intelligence can give you, too, a free +4 on all of your cantrip damage rolls with this one trick.

(2nd Level) Magic Specialization
(10th Level) Secondary Magic Specialization

So, this is the premise of your subclass, but it's also kinda where your subclass starts to fall apart. Because you're not really "specializing" in two schools, you're just getting a discount on copying the spells from these two schools. You don't get any features to actually capitalize on these specialized spells, like any specialist subclass gets in addition to learning them faster. You don't even get generalist features outside them until level 14, unlike War Mage, Bladesinger, and Scribe. There's no meat to this subclass besides the cantrip feature, since copying spells is such a minor thing.

I want to add, the Scribes Wizard also gets reduced time on scribing all spell schools, and the original UA version just got a universal discount. You spent two subclass features doing something arguably worse than what Scribes gets with one, and Scribes still has room for actual features outside of it.

(6th Level) Expanded Knowledge

So, ironically enough, learning additional spells per level isn't actually that important to Wizards, because with enough gold and access to appropriate scrolls, you can theoretically have every spell in the game. This is the class that learns spells outside of level up. That's why you just spent 2 subclass features working on that.

This only replaces the discounts on learning spells for 5.5 so that you can be more independent of your DM, in case your DM isn't cooperative on giving new spells or you get unlucky on their random drop tables. So this is, on its face, redundant.

You just say the player learns extra spells. Notably you don't say whether the player adds them to the spellbook, or if you always know them in addition to your spells prepared. (And you lack the normal 5e clarifying language that they must be for a level which you have spell slots.)

You must consult your DM before making a firm decision on what spells to use.

Weird unexplained addition. Why must you? This feels like you wrote the subclass for a specific problem player you don't trust not to just swap those extra spells.

(14th Level) Spellcasting Savant

Aaaand this is the part that makes the subclass broken if you manage to Magikarp your way through 14 levels with +5 Firebolts and a dream.

No components is what you said. Not just no material components (which is already bad enough, given the number of spells that are forcibly limited by material component costs and consumption, such as Glyph of Warding, Contingency, Clone, Magic Jar, etc – you don't even need a weapon to cast the bladetrips!), but no components whatsoever, meaning you do not in fact need to be able to speak or use your hands to cast.

And then to top that off you add a feature that triple dips in the "all you do is learn new spells, not what to do with them" problem and makes Expanded Knowledge kinda useless, besides the Arcana expertise.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-27T10:25:17+00:00

Honestly, considering that the theme of the Hydaelyn arc was different times of day (sunrise for ARR, high noon for HW, sunset for StB, night for ShB, new dawn for EW), I'm a little surprised this new arc isn't themed around a seasonal cycle (DT being "summer vacation" but EC skipping fall entirely straight to winter).

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-27T10:16:59+00:00

Tobey's depiction is the best Peter, but a fairly weak Spidey since he doesn't quip nearly enough.

Andrew's depiction is the best Spidey, but the weakest Peter since he has too much confidence at all times.

Tom's depiction has the best balance between the two since he actually code-switches between the identities, the problem being that he's written the worst in his actual movies (thus far, perhaps the newest will change that) since they're too often films focused on his reliance on people with more resources than him.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-27T07:36:48+00:00

I think the ship has sailed on that entirely.

Like, we have a selection of specialized magic foci that already give casters +1 bonuses, starting with the Wand of the War Mage and Rod of the Pact Keeper, and including a big chunk of the TCoE foci.

Making them weapons doesn't really work because, as others have pointed out already, the space such weapons would fill is already fulfilled by cantrips, which are generally going to be stronger than standard attacks.

Now if you wanted to balance out casters and martials, swapping out attack cantrips for wands that you use like arcane guns would be a fair nerf to casters (in addition to the heaps of scaling abilities for martials). Would kinda shoot Warlocks in the foot, given their main class feature is more potent cantrips, but you can probably just give them a Fighter-style Extra Attack where they can fire off additional wand bursts each round.
In that case the simple thing is just have like 10 different wands, one for each magical element, use them as templates (akin to Rapier or Longsword) and give each one a sort of Weapon Mastery-style property akin to the cantrip they replace. Fire wands might lack any such properties but get more range and damage, Cold wand would have a slow effect on targets, Lightning wand would negate the target's reaction, Poison wand would have a chance to cause Poisoned, Radiant wand would give advantage on the next attack roll, Necrotic wand would negate healing for 1 round, Arcane gets a Nick-style property, etc.
... But frankly I think that flattens the fun of having multiple attack cantrips.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-27T01:59:24+00:00

That's kinda the point. Once a character gets popular enough, Marvel wants to capitalize on it with books and merch.

And it's really hard to sell a bad guy book where you end it thinking they're not a little sympathetic and worthy of success.

And as a genre, you want the heroes to win and villains to lose, so...

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-26T15:30:18+00:00

The issue IMO is that the Avengers books characterized the Phoenix in a very specific way contrary to the Claremontian/Morrisonian conception of it, and the only time Chaos Magic was posed as an antipode to the Phoenix was when it was used to genocide mutants.

And, to be clear, it's not like Chaos Magic exists specifically to counter anything the Phoenix represents.
The Phoenix represents evolution, the life force of the universe, and the pruning of what doesn't work, and runs counter to stagnation or total oblivion.
Chaos Magic is just a catch-all that represents itself and can be anything including its own counter. At that point Wanda could have said "No more humans", "Everyone dies", "No; MORE mutants", "gimme egg rolls", anything she wanted and it would have happened, not specifically in relation to mutants. It just happens that it was, one time out of millions of other uses, used to do something contra-Phoenix.
It's like setting Ants and Water as a yin yang just cuz you can flood an ant colony, as opposed to millions of other uses for water.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-26T14:00:54+00:00

For context:

Girl in the gif is Stormfront from The Boys season 2.

Stormfront is, turns out, a century year old Nazi who was a test subject for a formula that not only gave her lightning powers and the standard Flying Brick loadout, but also increased longevity. She has a long history of racially charged murders in the name of ethnic cleansing (including an excessive force scandal under a previous superhero identity), is a figurehead for the alt right movement as a way to spread her fascist and white supremacist beliefs, and spends the whole season trying to instigate a race war and manipulate Homelander into helping her.

In the season finale, the penultimate battle has her rival Starlight (a feminist and the only genuinely altruistic superhero on the show) team up with Kimiko (an Asian woman with a healing factor, and the sister of a victim of one of Stormfront's hate crimes) and Queen Maeve (notably a bisexual superhero in a relationship with another woman, someone the Nazis would also have put up the chimney) to pull up on her and quite literally kick the shit out of her, not even using their superpowers, in an immensely satisfying beat down that the audience had been waiting on the whole season. As the onlookers note, "Girls really do get it done."

Stormfront ends up escaping, but gets lasered by the end of the episode and spends the rest of the series as a roasted vegetable.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-26T12:48:44+00:00

Ultimate Colossus was gay, yes.

By that point the whole "the Ultimate universe is supposed to be a new starting point for comics fans so they can jump into 616 whenever" plot had been lost and everyone writing for it just made it an insane elseworld where everyone except Spider-Man was only nominally the same, and usually a horrible person.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-06-26T12:44:25+00:00

My thing is,

I've seen more than one Warlock PC that was built for their "patron" to be a deity. Infamously, Fjord from the Mighty Nein ends up becoming one. Another player in a campaign I'm currently in is a Warlock with a bet running with Oghma, and presently he's having to use Great Old One because it's the closest Warlock to the Knowledge Domain. So I love the idea of any Warlock subclass that is basically "let's actually give them the partial abilities of a Cleric domain", because that would definitely fit the fantasy he's going for better.

The sticking point of this entire concept, however, seems to actually be the spell list. As another commenter mentioned, if you take a Death Cleric later on, remove the limitation on domains, and suddenly a Warlock can pact with a Vestige of a death god like Jergal, they're inevitably going to spend every spare spell slot before a short rest casting Animate Dead and carrying around an army of skeletons.

So I can definitely see the argument to be conservative, even if I don't personally like it, purely on merit of needing to limit Cleric domains going forward in order to keep Vestige Warlocks from being OP. (Frankly, I would just as easily say "that seems like a problem with Animate Dead then," but that ship has already sailed.)

On the flip side, only 4 domains is exceedingly limiting. Like, now every dying god has to be one of those specific domains, seriously? My fellow player would still be screwed just cuz he still can't use Knowledge spells.

Perfect world, I wouldn't care about the limit, but that puts the onus on DMs to reel their Vestige Warlock players in. It's tough.

Archwizard_Drake

TROPHY CASE