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What are people's thoughts on the best 3rd level encounter power?
Try to tailor your responses for a non summoning, High Wisdom Tome of Readiness Wizard
My favorites include:
Color Spray for the Dazed Condition
Fire Shroud for the fact it only effects enemies (rare for a Wizard) and is a burst.
Maze of Mirrors...being able to Immobilize targets in a burst 1 and apply a penalty to the attack rolls of those effected to the end of the casters next turn....pretty tasty. The downside is it can not be effected the the Enlarge feat.
Hypnotic Pattern seems like it might be a fun Tome of Readiness choice to combine with Grease...strikes me as a good way to get people into the area of effect. Of course that is very specific and situational.
I am leaning towards Color Spray for the Dazed effect, but the chances of hitting fellow players can be high.
What do other people think the best power is?
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Ultimately it depends on your party setup, what foes you tend to fight, your party's tactics and tendencies, and your own playstyle.
If you have a Rogue in the party, Color Spray is probably a great way of giving him CA, and if you're worried about hitting allies, go for War Wizardry or Arcane Reach once you hit Paragon tier (and have the Rogue delay till right after your turn and use Cloud of Steel - works particularly well if he also has Whirlwind Sneak Attack, although by then there might be better options than Color Spray and Cloud of Steel).
If you have characters with plenty ranged combat capability in your party, go for Maze of Mirrors or Hypnotic Pattern as that can lock down a lot of melee mobs, leaving you plenty opportunity to soften them up with ranged attacks.
If combat tends to get chaotic or you want to go for pure damage, go for the safe bet: Fire Shroud.
So, yeah, see what would work best for your party and go for that.
Last edited by Thundershield; 16th July 2009 at 05:09 PM..
I think Icy Rays is a contender, too. Compared to Maze of Mirrors -- two independent targets is more effective than a burst 1 IME, and it does some damage.
For our group, I really like our wizard's Color Spray. Our rogue and archer ranger get great bang out of it, and it lets the rest of us take more defensive positions instead of trying to push our way into flanks. It's especially potent when he combines it with an action point icy terrain for knocked down dazed opponents that can't even stand up and charge us.
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The wizard in my face-to-face group has gotten a lot of mileage out of Icy Ray, more than the wizard in my online group gets out of Color Spray.
Color Spray is a big close burst, which makes it hard to target amongst a large, mixed up melee. The damage is low. Dazed in a great condition, but... Color Spray is just hard to set up.
Icy Rays gets 1-2 individual targets and immobilizes them. In our melee heavy party, that's been a great boon - pinning down that pesky blue dragon while the Warden and Warlord hit him a bunch. The larger damage is also nice, though I wouldn't choose a power for damage.
I've gone Color Spray and never regretted it. The big blast size is a feature, not a bug, the daze effect is excellent (both for CA and restricting their OA while we reposition) and, most unusually for a wizard, it is Radiant damage - and being able to get the bonus damage against undead is most wonderful.
So much so, that I'm likely to hang onto Color Spray long past the time when I probably should let it go!
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Just had another thought - although Icy Rays doesn't seem so good in many ways, there is one position that it absolutely shines in. I saw a wizard use it to immobilise two fliers, who proceeded to crash to the ground.
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
I've seen it used to great effect numerous times. There are way too many monsters in heroic tier who simply do nothing for their turns if no one is within melee range. As such, Icy Rays is often the equivalent of the stun condition. At least, this was the case for much of my campaign. It is further improved if one of your melee characters has the ability to push 2+ squares with one of their attacks in order to keep them away.
I've seen it used to great effect numerous times. There are way too many monsters in heroic tier who simply do nothing for their turns if no one is within melee range. As such, Icy Rays is often the equivalent of the stun condition. At least, this was the case for much of my campaign. It is further improved if one of your melee characters has the ability to push 2+ squares with one of their attacks in order to keep them away.
Color spray and fire shroud are the ones I see most often in LFR. However, like Babinro, I like the look of icy rays. It also combine very nicely with the various wizard zone powers. First you immoblize the target. Then you put him in the stinking cloud. So, not only does he not have line of sight to anything and probably loses a turn, but he also is guaranteed to take the start of his turn damage twice.
hmm....I need to take a second look at Icy Rays.
As a Tome of Readiness Wizard I can take both Color Spray....(radiant damage is too tempting to pass up especially coupled w/ the dazed condition)..and one other encounter power.
As a side question, why would people feel Icy Rays is better than Maze of Mirrors?
Sure Maze of Mirrors does no damage, but the burst and penalty to attack rolls can sure save your party from some damage.
So many great contenders. I wish more levels in 4e had less obvious choices and more contention like this one!
For my money, it really depends on your party and what you fight to answer this one. Personally I'm a big fan of color spray or maze of mirrors.
The wizard in my game uses MoM, and its pretty devastating. Daze is nice, but immobilize + attack penalty pretty much screws everyone. Melee guys can't move to kill you, ranged guys taking a big penalty are likely to miss anyway.
My Illusionist Wiz uses Maze of Mirrors. It is my favorite power. Recently became 6th level, and I have once used the Visions of Avarice attack and then Maze of Mirrors to shut down an encounter.
Of course, were I not an illusionist, I might lean towards Fire Shroud. Minion killing potential, ally avoidance, and ongoing damage are all big IMO.
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