I think having too many sources to abuse shove can actually be an oversight in this case. Anyone who thinks buffing cantrips even more is a good idea clearly doesn't know anything about balance in videogames. I'm more on the side that they should go easy on the million barrels, throwables and arrows instead of removing the surface effect entirely. There are MANY spells that can get this surface effects too. Hell, even Dragonborn has multiflavored breath in 5e so it's gonna be the Lizards all over again but with different damage types.
I like the surface effects
to a point. I don't think they should be removed entirely because they do add a certain flair and more tactical choices to combat, but they need to be toned down quite a bit. Like making cantrips not cause surfaces effects, save that for higher level spells or have cantrips only create a surface if they are cast directly at the ground instead of targeting a person. Cantrips are OP at the moment even without surface effects included (seriously, a cantrip that reduces AC by 2? WTF Larian?) so removing or altering it should be fine. The thing about having so many surface effects is that they don't work with D&D's action economy the way they did in DOS2, and Larian needs to realize that. In DOS2 they weren't a problem because melee characters had abilities that let them teleport and skills were all on cooldown timers instead of limited slots. But that isn't the case here, so they need to be adjusted accordingly. I can't put out a massive area of fire with a Create Water spell if I'm out of spell slots Larian, and nobody wants to waste all of their spell slots using Create Water just to get past a stupid amount of fire anyway.
A quick side note here, the shove ability needs to be toned down a bit as well, while it is hilarious watching someone get shoved 50 feet off a cliff, it's also stupid. I shouldn't be able to beat an entire encounter just by Sparta kicking people off cliffs.
