stunning with a level 7 encounter is above power-level, dazing until start of your next turn would not be.
I think the reason controllers got AE in their tool-kit came down to:
1.They wanted wizards to be controllers
2.Wizards get AE spells
3.They could never really nail down what made a controller a controller anywhere near as precisely as they did in the other three roles
So since no one could say AE wasn't control, and the poster child of controllers had damage only AE, AE became control. And I can say from experience, it worked. It worked best when some status effects were tacked on to the AE along with respectable damage. It worked less well when it was just damage and they chickened out of giving it enough damage to make it a good spell (like fireball) because that was striking, but even then it still worked. The worst actually seemed to be little to no damage even when paired with darn good control, people just got a little sad not to do damage in my experience.
Is AE damage really control? Hard to say, but AE status effects is control gold, and not having damage with it is psychologically detrimental to the power. It's not bad for the classes that have it, but I don't think it weakens control for other roles to get some as well.
I think the reason controllers got AE in their tool-kit came down to:
1.They wanted wizards to be controllers
2.Wizards get AE spells
3.They could never really nail down what made a controller a controller anywhere near as precisely as they did in the other three roles
So since no one could say AE wasn't control, and the poster child of controllers had damage only AE, AE became control. And I can say from experience, it worked. It worked best when some status effects were tacked on to the AE along with respectable damage. It worked less well when it was just damage and they chickened out of giving it enough damage to make it a good spell (like fireball) because that was striking, but even then it still worked. The worst actually seemed to be little to no damage even when paired with darn good control, people just got a little sad not to do damage in my experience.
Is AE damage really control? Hard to say, but AE status effects is control gold, and not having damage with it is psychologically detrimental to the power. It's not bad for the classes that have it, but I don't think it weakens control for other roles to get some as well.
