this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
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Read the spell description.
Sure, 4d8 in itself is not much, of course. 4d8 per round as a bonus action for 10 rounds with a single spell slot, however, is a lot, especially at a level where a paladin only has second level smite slots. Which is why upcasting heat metal can be extremely powerful. (And it gives disadvantage for those 10 rounds, and there's no saving throw or attack roll involved. If you're wearing metal armor, it will fuck you up. And if you happen to be resistant or immune to fire, well, that bard 3 / sorc 4 might have transmuted spell.)
I know the spell. I told you. Two attacks with a longsword from one hand will do more damage than that. I'm talking about a bland longsword and no ability whatsoever on top.
On average, an ability modifier of +4 is about a d8, and +5 is about a d10. 2 longsword attacks make 4d8. 2 2hander attacks make about 5d8. That's without any resource invested.
You're telling me that your awesome spell requires a lvl4 spell slot that you have 2 in the day to do less than any lvl5 martial would do without expanding any resources. And you need your enemy specifically to wear a metal armor, or your spell does about nothing.
4d8 for ten turns is on average 180 damage. For one bonus action, total. Two one-handed longsword attacks even at +5 assuming you never miss is 19 damage average. If they want to keep doing that they will have to expend their action every single turn. I have no clue why you assume the wizard is going to just take a coffee break after applying heat metal instead of using their actions to deal further damage every turn it's active. The wizard wins out massively.
I have no idea what you're smoking but I want some too.
(Minor correction, wizards have no access to heat metal. It's only available to druids, rangers, and bards. But at level 7 wizards have access to Conjure Minor Elementals, which can summon 4 magma mephits and they each have one daily casting of heat metal.)
Yep. While the bard-sorcerer maintains that level 4 heat metal, they can also do 2d10/turn with fire bolts if they don't want to expend additional spell slots. Also assuming that all of those hit, that's 110 additional damage beyond the 180 from the heat metal.
If your enemy lives through 10 turns under heat metal you're not really fighting it... Your assumptions are so delusional it's hilarious.
4d8 + cantrip, other spell or even melee attack every turn is still considerably more damage than 1d8+5 per turn, whether they do that for one, two, three, ..., or ten turns. We are comparing damage per turn, the number of turns is irrelevant.
At this point you have yet to make one cogent claim on the subject so I'm going to assume you're trolling on purpose and will not engage you further. Have a good day, sir.
What the fuck is this comparison? You compare a level 7 character to a lvl4 now? How crazy are you?