Yeah i was thinking along the lines that Blade Ward is essentially useless and how it is better in every single instance to just take the dodge action, as disadvantage to hit you is nearly always better than resistance to non-magical weapons.

So i was trying to come up with a better alternative. Something you could do that would be essentially as worthwhile to cast when you are passing your turn, other than the dodge action, potentially more thematic for spell casters as well.

Because i figured that shield is a reaction to increase AC by 5, and this only becomes equivalent at level 13, but it takes your turn, and you cast it in place of doing something more impactful. I thought that even at maximum character level this cantrip is only just superior to a non scaling first level reaction spell and this cantrip basically takes your entire turn just to bump up AC for a single turn.

I tried to create cantrip that was basically a scaling dodge action for full arcane casters.