This is a response to Haen’s “2wiz2lock” article where he suggests an optimal party based on 4 builds. While I think these builds are good; I think there are both better builds available and ones that cover the partys overall weaknesses more.

Peace Cleric 1/Chronurgy Wizard X: Earth Genasi

Peace1/ChronX has been a staple of 5e optimization for a long time; the levels themselves are fine. Earth Genasi is good; but i think our next wizard is a better candidate for our PWT caster. Blade ward isn’t bad; but as the support wizard, we should actually be the one being targeted the least. Moreover; “the ability to ignore difficult terrain” is far less useful than something like flight or dhampir’s climbing speed. Especially when you consider we should all be on mounts by level 6

Meanwhile, this particular build has standard wizard hitting power; which isn’t ‘low’ but ‘having good hitting power’ is a theme that is continued through all party members except this one.

My suggestion for this first build is to change it to Peace 1 / ChronX, but to swap their race to mark of handling. Assuming we’re not using spell backgrounds like Gruul Anarch, Mark of handling is the best way to put conjure animals onto our list as a wizard. This gives our only holdout on damage potential a way to deal lots of damage to single targets. Flying snakes and some form of obscuring will do wonders versus any single target that isn’t immune to poison or constantly belching AOE’s. Wolves and Raptors are also solid contenders to fight off most enemies in the game. This also allows our familiar or other planar bound subject to use conjure animals. This is great for ‘Damage Solves’ encounters.

If we did use spell backgrounds; we can either take something generally useful and keep mark of handling or we can use another race and go with gruul anarch. If we still want PWT we can grab it from the dimir operative background and swap our race to something else. I would suggest winged tiefling for flight or yuan-ti for poison resistance/immunity and magic resistance.

Final build: Peace1/Chronurge X Mark of Handling human

Life Cleric 1/Necromancy Wizard X

This one feels all over the place. If we want to put PWT on our wizard, it’d go here instead of our chronurge.

Necromancy wizard’s ability to ‘hit harder’ is more up for debate than i’d like. A small army of skeletons sounds really nice and useful; but is rapidly depleted in most games unless you have an incredibly solid defense for them.

The biggest blunder with this particular build is that we have two warlocks with level 1 cleric dips and neither of them have lifeberry, so instead of getting short-rest berries we make the wizard spend potential long rest slots on them. This is rather sub-optimal.

This is where I’d recommend Twi1/ConjurerX if conj tech were on the table; but this is generally above the tech level of Haen’s original article.

Twi1/ChronX is a powerful alternative, even if we do end up going earth genasi; but is repetitive and fails to secure any new niche besides PWT.

Twi1/Scribes X Earth Genasi gets PWT, can afford to drop conc on it in fights if need be, can use remote viewing, use awakened spellbook for more defense at level 15, and can scribe a free level 2 scroll every long rest at level 11 onward. With 10 days of downtime we can even unprep PWT; and while it’s not a large increase, extra scrolls will give us more potential blasting. We can also get free uses of knock, mirror image, rope trick, and more.

Scribes gives us an incredible ritual caster and ability to make extra back-ups of spells; giving our downtime even more use; using a race with only 4 hour sleep times also gives us a lot more room for downtime activity; and this is why our twi1/scribes X will go mark of shadow, which nets us both our downtime and pass without trace

Final Build: Twi1/Scribes X Mark of Shadow Elf

Twilight Cleric 1/Undead Warlock X/Divine Soul Sorcerer 1

Moving over our lifeberry to this warlock gives us more total berries we can make over short rests.

The suggested race here was dhampir, but this will be our mark of hospitality halfling. Eventually we want to eliminate our need to sleep so we can stay up all night making more goodberries and crafting.

If we were using spell backgrounds, we could also take golgari agent to get animate dead, which allows us to make a ton of skeletons overnight as well.

Final build: Life1/Undead Warlock X / DSS 1

Twilight Cleric 1/Genie (Dao) Warlock X/Divine Soul Sorcerer 1

A lot of the choice on this PC comes down to short rest vs long rest resources. Only in short rest heavy games are we going to get more use out of a warlock than other classes. This brings up a fatal flaw with warlock; being so short-rest dependent leaves them open to ambushes and more encounters; a single unplanned encounter leaves them eblasting and using their last few defensive spells. This flaw is often over-stated in casual settings; but the flaw is real, and our party should work to mitigate flaws. Having half the party down to cantrip spam in the event we have one or two too many encounters between rests is an event that might lead to our deaths.

the level split here is good, but i’m going to say they should also go mark of handling; having two CA users and two E-blasters should damage-solve anything we can’t beat with phantom steeds and control spells.

To get everything on our list for goodies to double up on we can take hexblade 2 and clockwork sorcerer X

Clockwork sorcerer gives us access to aid, defensive spells, planar bind, wall of force, and with warlock we can eblast. We take mark of handling so we can double up on our conjured animals again.

The choice of sorcerer over bard is maybe a touch controversial as well; bards have access to healing word and magical secrets, and hexlore could take conjure animals without dedicating their race to it. However, Hexclock is better earlier and has metamagic. Subtle spell can often save you from enemy counterspellers and such; and quickening spells, while not always the best option, provides another source of nova potential to the party.

Hex2/Clockwork Soul X mark of handling human

The Swaps

Peace Cleric 1/Chronurgy Wizard X: Earth Genasi > Peace1/Chronurge X Mark of Handling human

Life Cleric 1/Necromancy Wizard X > Twi1/Scribes X Mark of Shadow Elf

Twilight Cleric 1/Undead Warlock X/Divine Soul Sorcerer 1 > Life1/Undead Warlock X / DSS 1

Twilight Cleric 1/Genie (Dao) Warlock X/Divine Soul Sorcerer 1 > Hex2/Clockwork Soul X mark of handling human


This new team has all the fundamentals of the old team while hitting harder, having more summons, having better access to control spells, has less awkward leveling points due to their builds, and has roughly the same defensive power.

I think the weakest member of this new team is the scribes mark of shadows; but scribes isn’t there for immediate power but to maximize downtime efficiency and to keep the party stocked with scrolls. I would accept replacing them with an illusion wizard