Enervation: Suck Harder, Not Smarter

Usable By: Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

Spell Level: 5

School: Necromancy

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 60 feet

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

Components: V, S

A tendril of inky darkness reaches out from you, touching a creature you can see within range to drain life from it. The target must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a successful save, the target takes 2d8 necrotic damage, and the spell ends. On a failed save, the target takes 4d8 necrotic damage, and until the spell ends, you can use your action on each of your turns to automatically deal 4d8 necrotic damage to the target. The spell ends if you use your action to do anything else, if the target is ever outside the spell’s range, or if the target has total cover from you. Whenever the spell deals damage to a target, you regain hit points equal to half the amount of necrotic damage the target takes.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, the damage increases by 1d8 for each slot level above 5th.

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

Witch Bolt is a joke of a spell. It deals a cantrip's worth of damage, costs you actions to use (Like a cantrip would do!), and costs you a spell slot. Enemies can end the spell by simply moving a few inches further away from you, smashing you until you break concentration, or just simply dealing with the 1d10 damage a round because it's probably better for them that you waste your actions just dealing 1d10 damage. Beyond all of these reasons, the worst part about Witch Bolt is my god is it boring to use.

Enter Enervation. The words here are nearly identical to Witch Bolt, they’ve just upped the numbers. At minimum, you’re getting 2d8 damage for a 5th level spell slot (YIKES). Best case scenario you can spend an action each turn to deal 4d8 damage to a target, and regain half the damage dealt as hit points. The spell still eats your actions, still ends if a target walks to a point where there’s a wall between you and them, and you still could be spending actions to do way more damage than this.

Enervation takes Vampiric Touch, a spell that is flustered and feels difficult to get anything meaningful out of, combines it with Witch Bolt, one of the most boring and terrible spells in the game, and the result is exactly what you’d expect. Using this as a means to regain hit points while it eats your concentration is just as difficult to navigate as Vampiric Touch is; if you’re actively in the market to regain hit points, you’re likely actively losing hit points. Losing hit points is how you lose concentration, making the spell less likely to give you what you want. If you want to deal damage round after round to a single entity, 4d8 each round is a single d8 damage better than d8 cantrips deal. D10 cantrips, like Fire Bolt, are only 5ish damage less per hit. The moment they upgrade again, Enervation is dealing LESS damage than a cantrip and still costs you a 5th level slot.

There are so few realistic use cases for these kinds of effects that they need a MASSIVE change to function. Its wild to me that despite rampant complaints about both Vampiric Touch and Witch Bolt they were willing to make a spell that was just those two spells combined. The designers didn’t fix any of the issues those spells have. They just released a 5th level version that feels just as bad as the other two to use.

If you’re the kind of player who’s at a table with long fights against small quantities of enemies that is willing to burn a 5th level slot on a single one of those encounters and value a d8 damage improvement over just spamming cantrips, I guess Enervation may work for you. With how easy it is to end, how easy hit points are to regain in 5th edition, and how boring the spell is to use, I can’t recommend it to most. The draining life fantasy still eludes 5e, I guess.

5e Spells

Enervation: Suck Harder, Not Smarter