The real issue is HP bloat and changing the way AC works, it along with the way they've gamed likelihood to hit for attack rolls based on various controllable variables the player can plan for (i.e. high ground), makes fire bolt worse than it should be under normal 5e rules and it makes non-attack roll cantrips like sacred flame significantly worse because they have the same lower 5e hit percentage BUT the same lower damage, despite Larian buffing enemy health to compensate for higher hit percentages. If the enemies had more normal HPs like we would expect to see in DnD5e, then there wouldn't be a problem, fire bolt would be fine, sacred flame would be fine, etc. As it is now, all damage cantrips are underpowered, and you need the more hard hitting stuff as bread and butter and the game basically incentivizes you to take a lot more rests so that when you run into enemies with health bloat you just unleash your most powerful arsenal. What this does is by design drags us further away from core DnD balancing and rest dynamics. It's a fundamental problem that I, and many people (HP bloat primarily) have been complaining about for months and for some reason Larian keeps ignoring it.
And this also wraps right back into to the original argument that lowering AC/encouraging HP bloat also discourages the use of buff spells, because enemy AC being lower to begin with means there's few situations where you'll need that extra boost to overcome it. And again, the only practical tool to fight HP bloat is to increase damage values or stress indirect environmental factors further - but there is a certain point where people start noticing that the latter is emphasized to a level where it is clear that it's to the detriment to the practicality of every other possible tactic, and it puts a stranglehold on the strategic potential of the game as a result.
Reversing course on that would mean saving throw spells and buffs would become more desirable to use, and good strategic use of those means you can take down an enemy faster than the current situation. You can still make use of those environmental factors as you wish, but the game would not be balanced entirely around them. Hence, more tactical options.
It's a cyclical balancing problem.
