Wizard vs. Sorcerer

[André Soares]

Where Portent shines is when an ally needs a very high roll to succeed, or when an enemy needs a very bad roll to fail. That doesn't happen too often, but when it does, you can nail it--if you have a suitable Portent roll to give out. Like I said, if you roll a 10 or 11, it's not going to do much for you that day. (Which is a nice bit of flavor for the diviner, incidentally. If you get mediocre results on your Portent dice, you can announce that you have seen leaves falling from the tree still green, and smelled smoke on the wind at dawn, and therefore today is an inauspicious day for your quest and it would be better to wait until tomorrow.)

It's also worth noting that there are things which can counteract Portent. Legendary Resistance is the biggie. Even if you force a natural 1 on the save, a shot of LR will turn that failure into a success.

Portent is a very, very good ability. It was absolutely my reason for picking diviner last time I played a wizard, and I do not regret that choice one bit. Effectiveness aside, it's just fun to point at the DM and say "You roll a 2." But I would not call it earth-shattering.

10 or 11 are great for death saving throws.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

To move it away from comparing "the best builds" for each class into comparing the classes themselves overall, try these limitations.

Both Sorcerer and Wizard: You can't use whatever you feel is the best subclass for each from the PHB, and you also can't use whatever you feel is the best subclass for each from non-PHB official sources.
Sorcerer: You can't use whatever you feel is the best Metamagic option.
Wizard: You can't use whatever you feel are the 4 best spells.

 

[Dausuul]

Bit off topic, but a question since you played a diviner:

How useful was Expert Divination for your wizard (the one that lets you recover a lower level slot when you cast a divination spell)? Did it come up a lot, rarely?

Rarely.

The thing about divination is that it tends to be very situational. When you need a divination spell, it is generally worth the spell slot to cast it... but for most divinations, you don't need them often enough to justify preparing them. And if you don't have the spell prepared, you can't cast it and ED does not help. (Unless the spell is a ritual, in which case it wouldn't cost you any slots anyway.)

Moreover, ED is only useful for spells cast during the adventuring day. Spells like scrying are often cast for information to guide the next day's adventuring; so you either cast it right before bed or right after you get up. In the former case, the recovered slot won't matter unless you get ambushed in the night. In the latter case, you can't recover a slot you haven't spent.

If I were redesigning the diviner subclass, I would replace ED with the ability to prepare 1 extra divination spell at each level you can cast. Or just say that you can cast any divination spell in your spellbook without having to prepare it. That would guarantee that when the situation does come up that the party could really use a divination spell, the diviner has it ready to go.

 

[Yunru]

Sorcery Points make up for the Wizard's Arcane Recover XOR spell selection (both list and known), but not both. Unfortunately, it has to try and make up for both.
Throw in some of the Sorcerer subclasses deciding to have to use SP too, and you've Sorcery Points trying to make up for Arcane Recovery, a larger spell list and spells known, and subclass features, when it only balances against one of those.

 

[Leatherhead]

That's not at all what the post I was responding to said

As the person who wrote the post in question, I can assure you of the meaning of what I said more than anyone else.

That's not what I've seen. I've seen several 'what are wizards even good at' questions in this thread and on the character optimization board, there's a long running 'low level wizards suck in 5e' thread, a 'wizards don't feel magical anymore because they use magic instead of crossbows' thread, and pretty much no 'wizards are the best evar'.

Oh, I see now. You lack context. If you reread those threads, you will notice a significant number of people scoffing at them. For further reading, this is the most popular (or perhaps infamous) guide about wizards.

And that's not even covering the decades of built up bias, and that weird subsection of sorcerer players who think wizards are out to bully them for some reason. Nobody has time to go over all that.

Some arguments just aren't about you, man.

 

[Dausuul]

Sorcery Points make up for the Wizard's Arcane Recover XOR spell selection (both list and known), but not both.

XP for using XOR.

 

[Yunru]

XP for using XOR.

Yeah but then I had to tack on ", but not both" for those who don't know what XOR is

EDIT: To reinforce my point on Arcane Recovery (etc.) and Font of Magic, here's a table of the Wizard's Arcane Recover:

Lvl	Most Slots	SP Cost	Highest Slots	SP Cost	Highest Two	SP Cost
2	1 1st	2	1 1st	2	1 1st	2
3	2 1st	4	1 2nd	3	2 1st	4
4	2 1st	4	1 2nd	3	2 1st	4
5	3 1st	6	1 3rd	5	1 1st, 1 2nd	5
6	3 1st	6	1 3rd	5	1 1st, 1 2nd	5
7	4 1st	8	1 4th	6	2 2nd	6
8	4 1st	8	1 4th	6	2 2nd	6
9	3 1st, 1 2nd	9	1 5th	7	1 2nd, 1 3rd	8
10	3 1st, 1 2nd	9	1 5th	7	1 2nd, 1 3rd	8
11	4 1st, 1 2nd	11	1 1st, 1 5th	9	2 3rd	10
12	4 1st, 1 2nd	11	1 1st, 1 5th	9	2 3rd	10
13	3 1st, 2 2nd	12	1 2nd, 1 5th	10	1 3rd, 1 4th	11
14	3 1st, 2 2nd	12	1 2nd, 1 5th	10	1 3rd, 1 4th	11
15	4 1st, 2 2nd	14	1 3rd, 1 5th	12	2 4th	12
16	4 1st, 2 2nd	14	1 3rd, 1 5th	12	2 4th	12
17	3 1st, 3 2nd	15	1 4th, 1 5th	13	1 4th, 1 5th	13
18	3 1st, 3 2nd	15	1 4th, 1 5th	13	1 4th, 1 5th	13
19	4 1st, 3 2nd	17	2 5th	14	2 5th	14
20	4 1st, 3 2nd	17	2 5th	14	2 5th	14

As you can see, the Wizard is ahead with just one feature until tier 3, only slightly falling behind at tier 4.
So basically, metamagic? Not worth the consideration, because all the SP is spent pulling equal to the Wizard's Arcane Recovery alone.

 

[Dausuul]

As you can see, the Wizard is ahead with just one feature until tier 3, only slightly falling behind at tier 4.
So basically, metamagic? Not worth the consideration, because all the SP is spent pulling equal to the Wizard's Arcane Recovery alone.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that you are comparing the least effective way to use sorcery points with the only way to use Arcane Recovery. If you only ever use your sports car to commute to work at 25 miles an hour, you won't see any advantage over a cheap sedan. But that's because you're not using the sports car for the thing it was built to do.

Creating spell slots is generally a poor use of sorcery points. You can do it if you have to, but you rarely will. In most cases, it will go the other way: You burn low-level spell slots to generate extra sorcery points and power-up your big spells with metamagic.

 

[TwoSix]

The problem with this line of reasoning is that you are comparing the least effective way to use sorcery points with the only way to use Arcane Recovery. If you only ever use your sports car to commute to work at 25 miles an hour, you won't see any advantage over a cheap sedan. But that's because you're not using the sports car for the thing it was built to do.

Creating spell slots is generally a poor use of sorcery points. You can do it if you have to, but you rarely will. In most cases, it will go the other way: You burn low-level spell slots to generate extra sorcery points and power-up your big spells with metamagic.

Yea, I agree it's kind of a facile analysis. If I gave someone a choice between an 8 charge wand that cast magic missile or a 6 charge wand that casts magic missile, shield, and find familiar, most people are going to take the latter. Having X, Y, and Z is usually better than just more X.

 

[Yunru]

Yes but that's not the point. The point is either the argument can be that Sorcery Points are on par with Arcane Recovery, or on par with the Wizard's larger spells known, but not with both.
Sorry if that was unclear.