Vicious Mockery

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"You unleash a string of insults laced with subtle enchantments at a creature you can see within range. If the target can hear you (though it need not understand you), it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or take 1d4 psychic damage and have disadvantage on the next Attack roll it makes before the end of its next turn."

– The spell's description in the 5E PHB

Vicious Mockery is a Bard Cantrip from Dungeons & Dragons that's tied with the class itself just because of how priceless it is. It's widely loved for its incredibly memeable fluff, so much so that nobody seems to realize that the crunch offers questionable value at times.

4E

Of course it's here as an at-will power. It's a pretty basic ranged attack, dependent on an implement and obviously reliant on Charisma to hit against an enemy's Will. Its damage is also respectable at a fixed 1d6+Cha damage and makes the target take -2 to attack rolls until the end of your next turn.

5E

It's awesome because it gives you an excuse to make a character who's just a nonstop fountain of schlocky one-liners, and the ability to kill the BBEG by insulting their mother. Even better, the clause about the target not needing to understand your language means that, if a bard is nearby, people in this world can suddenly have an emotion breakdown without even understanding why. Lastly the cantrip also gives the target disadvantage on its next attack roll.

You could also slightly reflavor it into your character telling a joke that's so bad it literally causes some of the victim's brain cells to Ragequit.

However, it's only 1d4 of damage, the lowest die of damage you can use in 5e. For comparison, Toll the Dead from Xanathar's uses a d8, but upgrades to a freaking d12 if the target is missing even a single hit point. And to add insult to injury, the Frostbite Cantrip, also from Xanathar's, functions nearly identically to Vicious Mockery, save that it uses a d6 instead of a d4. The advantages Vicious Mockery has over Frostbite is that the former doesn't have a somatic component and uses a damage type that isn't commonly resisted, but such things are rarely a consideration in normal gameplay anyway. The lack of a somatic component means that in theory the bard could hold weapons at the same time they cast, helping some bard Gish Builds, but most GM's don't pay hard core attention to spell components anyway so it's not a real distinction.

A somewhat more serious advantage is the saving throw being wis rather then con, so that if your fighting something with a lot of hit points but is stupid the Mockery would do better, in fact Vicious mockery is one of only two cantrips that call on a save from a mental stat, the other being the above-mentioned Toll the Dead. This gives mockery a niche against people too dumb to understand your insulting them, but are tanky or dodgy enough that other cantrips could bounce off them and do no damage. Now is that a broad enough category to make Mockery worth it? While it will of course vary's form game to game of course, many low level undead, trolls and some beasts fit into that category. Against higher level 'bosses', espically those with magical abilities, it will struggle but they tend to have high enough stats that any cantrip, which does no damage on a passed save, will struggle.

Overall Vicious Mockery has a niche, and an arguably fairly common use scenario, however it is also inarguable used more often then likely should simply for the meme's. Take it, use it, have fun with it, but remember where it's strength's lie and play into them. Insult the dumb muscle and use other stuff on the bosses.

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