Evoker Wizard: D&D 2024 Subclass Optimisation Guide

Maximise destruction with this high damage, elemental wizard subclass.

Evokers harness elemental powers to supercharge their spell power. Of all the wizard subclasses, they tend to be the biggest damage dealers, which also makes them particularly desirable for militaries and other combat-focused groups.

If you want to maximise spell damage and use lots of AoE spells, then an evoker is an excellent option.

The evoker subclass has been revised and updated for D&D 2024. Below I’ll take you through tactics and optimisations you can use for this elemental, wizard subclass.

At a glance

A wider range of spells than any other class
Capable of casting more spells than any other class
Deal more damage than other wizards
Cast particularly powerful AoE spells and protect allies from their effects

5/5 – The highest damage wizard subclass in the game and a hugely reliable source of damage, evokers are consistently going to cause problems for enemies.

What’s changed in D&D 2024?

Not a lot has changed for the evoker. Potent cantrip swaps places with sculpt spells bringing potent cantrip forward to level 3 and sculpt spells to level 6. Potent cantrip also now works on a spell attack roll that misses as well as successful saving throws.

Related articles

Evoker features

Wizard fighting spiders — Wizard: Wizards of the Coast

Evocation savant – Lv3

How it works

Gain an evocation spell from the Wizard’s spell list for every level of wizard spell slots you have and gain another evocation spell each time you gain a new level of wizard spells. These spells go into your spellbook.

Tactics

The big thing here is picking effective spells. Some of your best options include; firebolt, thunderclap, chromatic orb, darkness, shatter, fireball, Bigby’s hand, chain lightning and forcecage.

Potent cantrip – Lv3

How it works

If your cantrip misses the target or the target passes it’s saving throw, it takes half damage instead (and no other effects).

Tactics

Reliable cantrips is pretty nice. I’d focus more on higher damage cantrips than those with extra effects like mind sliver for an evoker.
Toll the dead is your highest damage dealer that isn’t poison damage (which is often resisted). True strike works quite nicely with a boost from your intelligence modifier to the damage. I’d use it with a light crossbow. Just be aware that at level 10, you’ll gain extra damage from evocation spells. None of those cantrips just mentioned are evocation spells so by the time you reach level 10, you’ll want to ensure you have evocation cantrips like firebolt in your arsenal.
Alternatively, grab acid splash or thunderclap for some small AoE damage. Thunderclap can normally hit more enemies, but acid splash works better for a wizard as you can deal damage at range.

Sculpt spells – Lv6

How it works

Protect a few creatures from the effects of your AoE spells.

Tactics

Often, Spellcasters with nasty AoE spells are hamstrung by martial allies getting in the way of their best spells. This way, you can cast a fireball in the middle of the fray and keep your party members safe at the same time.

Empowered evocation – Lv10

How it works

Add your intelligence modifier to the damage of one roll of an evocation spell.

Tactics

You’ll want to focus on evocation spells from this point forward. Fortunately, there are plenty of good ones.
This also works alongside your other features so your evocation cantrips will do even more damage even when they miss.
AoE spells will multiply this extra damage so an evoker with 20 intelligence will deal +5 damage to everyone caught in the effects of the fireball, multiplying it’s impact. The same can’t be said for subsequent bounces of something like chromatic orb which would require separate damage rolls (though it’s still a small boost in damage to chromatic orb).
And if you weren’t already doing this, upgrading your intelligence modifier as much as possible will increase your damage output.

Overchannel – Lv14

How it works

Deal maximum damage with a level 1-5 spell. If you do this more than once per long rest, you’ll suffer increasing amounts of damage each time.

Tactics

This is really powerful, and the most powerful on AoE spells. As you can only use this once without incurring damage, I’d focus it on your highest damage AoE spells.
You can upcast spells this way too so you can upcast a fireball to level 5 for something like this.
You could also cast this on a chromatic orb for guaranteed bounces (it applies to all damage that turn, not just for the initial die roll). It doesn’t guarantee hitting though so you may want to boost this somehow. Faerie fire is a good option for this.
If you want to use this more often, consider having a healer on standby or using this when you think you can stay fairly safe from follow up attacks after you hurt yourself.

How good is the evoker subclass?

Evokers make an already high damage class even more damaging. If you’re all about pure damage and care little for buffs and debuffs, then this is a really strong subclass!

Between highly reliable damage, the ability to hurl AoE spells around no matter who’s in the way, and elevated damage across many of your spells, you’ve got a subclass that will always be effective and always able to cause problems for enemies.

5/5

Building an optimised evoker

Wizard diviner 2024 — Wizard: Wizards of the Coast

Evokers are big on damage dealing, but there are other aspects of your build to consider like becoming more durable and having out of combat utility. Much will also come down to the spells you choose, though I’ll tackle this in a separate article.

In this section I’ve put together advice on building a well-optimised evoker:

Ability scores

Recommended options

Intelligence: This will not only affect your spellcasting and your knowledge skills, but will also increase your evocation spell damage too.
Dexterity: You’ll need this to have any kind of decent AC. You should grab the mage armor spell or the lightly armored feat to complement this and enhance your AC further.
Constitution: wizards have the smallest hit die in the game making them highly susceptible to damage. Upping this where you can will help make your character a bit more durable.

Options to avoid

Strength: You’ve got almost no use for strength.
Wisdom: Only useful for some skills and saving throws, otherwise, not worth investing in.
Charisma: This is mostly for face skills which wizards aren’t that great at.

Ability score	Point Buy	Standard Array
Strength	8	8
Dexterity	15	14
Constitution	15	13
Intelligence	15	15
Wisdom	8	12
Charisma	8	10

Skills

Recommended options

Arcana: Common knowledge skill and you have the intelligence to back it up.
History: Another common intelligence skill.
Investigation: Investigation comes up a fair bit and as one of the few intelligence based classes, you’re in a good place to help here.
Nature: This feels like the domain of rangers and druids, but as an intelligence skill, this is another that a wizard is well placed to focus on.
Religion: Unless you have a cleric in the party, religion proficiency can be useful for all that religious lore you need to know.

Options to avoid

Insight: Not a bad skill, but it’s based around wisdom and works alongside face skills, both of which, you’re poor at. So I wouldn’t bother with this on a wizard.
Medicine: Another wisdom based skill and tends to be inferior to a healing spell. I’d prefer either taking a species with light healing like an Aasimar, grabbing some potions or taking the magic initiate cleric origin feat to grab healing word (or just leave healing to others).

Species/race

I’d look for species with the following qualities:

Resilience: You could use your species to make you more durable. Things like extra HP, damage resistances, flight and teleportation will all help you either survive more damage, or get away from danger. If you intend to use overchannel a lot you may need this to survive your own, overwhelming power!
Innate spellcasting: The more spells you have in your repertoire, the more situations you can aid your party with. Innate spellcasting will help you fulfill that role more and often give you free castings of spells too. If you can grab evocation spells too, these will be enhanced by your subclass features.

Recommended options

Aasimar (2024): Damage resistances make you more durable, but sadly, necrotic resistance won’t protect you from overchannel. Some bonus action healing helps you play backup healer (an area of spellcasting wizards happen to be quite poor at). But you’re mainly here for temporary flight which will keep you a lot safer in nasty battles (especially useful if you’ve been losing hit points from overchannel).
Elf (2024): An extra skill and darkvision are both helpful but innate spellcasting is the most useful aspect for a wizard. High Elf is a good option for misty step and an extra cantrip (firebolt and acid splash are both evocation cantrips that will be enhanced by your features). Drow are good for buffs and debuffs with the likes of faerie fire (which works well with an upcast chromatic using overchannel) and darkness. Wood Elves are more about speed and stealth which aren’t particularly important for an evoker.
Gnome (2024): Gnomish cunning is great against magical effects. Minor illusion and speak with animals are good utility options for a utility caster.
Human (2024): If you need to boost your skill proficiencies to take full advantage of all those knowledge skills, then Human’s a good option. The consistent supply of heroic inspiration is useful too. I’d use the extra origin feat on the kinds of feats that can be difficult to grab through a compatible background. Things like tough are good for this.
Tiefling (2024): 4 extra spells known is mainly what you’re after here. I’d favour the infernal legacy as all their spells are evocation spells allowing you to enhance their damage.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds are much more important now with D&D 2024 with ability score increases, origin feats and skills all now linked to your background.

For a wizard, I’d prioritise intelligence and then one of dexterity or constitution with the below being your best options:

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Artisan	Strength, dexterity, intelligence	Crafter	Investigation, persuasion	One kind of artisan’s tools
Criminal	Dexterity, constitution, intelligence	Alert	Sleight of hand, stealth	Thieves’ tools
Merchant	Constitution, intelligence, charisma	Lucky	Animal handling, persuasion	Navigator’s tools
Sage	Constitution, intelligence, wisdom	Magic initiate (wizard)	Arcana, history	Calligrapher’s tools
Scribe	Dexterity, intelligence, wisdom	Skilled	Investigation, perception	Calligrapher’s tools

I’d say that sage and scribe are probably your best options. I might have preferred magic initiate from another class for a better range of spells, but more spells from the plentiful wizard’s spell list is not bad thing.

Feats

Origin feats

I’d say the below are your best origin feats for an evoker:

Lucky: Invoking advantage and disadvantage is always handy. Consider using this for something like an upcast chromatic orb to increase the accuracy while overchannel increases the damage and bounce likelihood.
Magic initiate: Grab some extra spells known from another spell list (or from your own). Wizards need a good range of spells and grabbing them from a other class list can help you fill any spellcasting gaps in the party (like becoming a backup healer with healing word for instance). It’s also worth noting that spells like starry wisps, thunderwave, word of radiance and guiding bolt are all evocation spells from the cleric and druid spells lists.
Musician: A generally excellent origin feat for helping your allies out with some heroic inspiration (kind of like a slightly better lucky, you give to your friends).
Skilled: If the party needs a bit more proficiency in knowledge skills, you’re a good candidate for that. This can bump up your number of skill proficiencies a decent bit.
Tough: Really valuable extra hit points if you want a bit more durability, especially if you plan on using overchannel a lot.

General feats

At level 4, you can start picking up general feats. These are some of the better options for a wizard:

Fey touched: Misty step is great for staying safe. Plus you get more spells known. You can read my fey-touched guide for more advice.
Lightly armored: If you don’t want to keep spending spell slots on mage armor, then you could invest in this, especially as studded leather and a shield will give you better AC than mage armor.
Mage slayer: Great for disrupting spellcasters and gives you something similar to legendary resistance. You should expect to be dealing damage most turns which gives you regular opportunities to disrupt concentration spells.
Resilient: You don’t naturally have proficiency in constitution saving throws, but these are important for maintaining your concentration. You could grab the constitution increase to help here.
Ritual caster: If you feel like you’re struggling to have enough of the spells you want available to you, then this is the best way to boost your utility with more spells gained through this feat than any other. You can check out my full guide to ritual casting for more tips.
Shadow touched: Invisibility and an illusion or necromancy spell are great for a caster class.
Spell sniper: Great for bypassing cover and getting some extra range on your spells. Pretty good for a subclass that will often be making ranged spell attacks.
War caster: Mainly great for better concentration, but there’s a few other benefits here too.

Weapons

Between cantrips that get stronger by level 5+, potent cantrip for half damage on a miss with cantrips and empowered evocation, it’s almost always going to be better to use a spell than a weapon.

I’d grab a light crossbow and a dagger in case you get caught in an anti-magic field, a silence spell or something similar. Otherwise, you should be wholly focused on magical damage.

Armor

Wizards don’t naturally have proficiency in any armor, which makes them even more vulnerable to attacks. Increasing your dexterity and grabbing the mage armor spell is the easiest way to enhance your AC.

Alternatively, you could grab the lightly armored feat for light armor and shield training. The best setup for this (studded leather and a shield) will grant you 1 extra AC than mage armor and won’t require spell slots.