My playtest of new Mage (Essentials) spells

[Tony Vargas]

i consider it to be the most woefully awful wizard daily. For the classic fireball to fall behind the once laughable 2nd level spell stinking cloud is a travesty, a travesty I tell you!

Hey, Stinking Cloud has always been very effective. It used to debilitate targets for a minimum of two rounds, no save.

Having it do damge in 4e was probably taking it too far. It's barely discernable from Cloudkill, now.


To the OP: Did you get to try out any Mage utilities? (I'm assuming it has some). Also, what did school specialization finally turn out to do for you?

 

[Zaran]

I, too, lament Fireball's loss of grandeur. I wouldn't want it to be overpowered compared to other dailies, but I think the various Fireball variants that knock creatures prone and/or push creatures are fun and might give back a bit of the crazy, encounter-changing feel that older versions of Fireball had.

EDIT: I should say, the older versions of fireball also were just pure damage spells over a large area. So the current version really doesn't deviate from that legacy. It's just that when an older version of the spell was used I felt that it was a truly amazing, game-changing moment, one that would devastate enemies but could potentially backfire by either catching allies in the blast or result in the dreaded "blowback." (I've heard many stories of hapless mages incinerated by their own, ill-placed fireballs!) I don't get quite that same feeling with the current version of the spell.

That's why having an Area 3 blast effect isn't such a great thing. It's very hard to place a fireball without the wizard getting a high initiative. Sure it can get rid of alot of minions. But there is a first level at will that can do that without hitting allies . I'm glad they added an extra d6 but it still doesn't make it a good spell.

How does the Wizard spellbook work now?

 

[Roland55]

i consider it to be the most woefully awful wizard daily. For the classic fireball to fall behind the once laughable 2nd level spell stinking cloud is a travesty, a travesty I tell you!

I bet any encounter which fireball 'won because of its burst 3' would have been also won by the burst 2, sustainable, minion slaughtering stinking cloud.

The big problem is that it doesn't kill minions. Put stinking cloud on minions and they are all dead. End of story. launch a fireball at them and eh, any you hit you kill but any you miss are still live and kicking. Fails on the minion killing front. How about damage? You'll do 3d6+int to all your targets, and that is it (first time I saw one used the wizard rolled 4 on his 3d6 and got into a huff). Stinking cloud you do 1d10+int on the first turn, and then on every other turn after that, and you don't even have to hit them to get the damage.

My solution to fireball would be to keep it 3d6 damage but give it an effect: ongoing 5 fire. That means that a fireball will kill all minions in its area, and do an average of 10 extra damage against those in its area whether it hits or misses.

I'm still lamenting the "death" of fireball ... after all this time.

 

[Aegeri]

I would make fireball a burning zone actually. At an area burst 3, a zone that lasts until the end of your next turn that deals Int fire damage when a creature starts its turn or enters it would be very useful and provide a pretty strong area of control.

 

[nookiemonster]

I seem to recall something about "delayed blast fireball" in HotFL, so maybe they've beefed up the 'ball some. I also recall reading that feats will no longer be separated by tier, that you can take any feat at any tier if you have the prereqs, so that feat which lets you exclude certain squares from blasts/bursts would be very useful for Fireball users, effectively turning it into a "targets enemies" effect.

 

[Nork]

I seem to recall something about "delayed blast fireball" in HotFL, so maybe they've beefed up the 'ball some. I also recall reading that feats will no longer be separated by tier, that you can take any feat at any tier if you have the prereqs, so that feat which lets you exclude certain squares from blasts/bursts would be very useful for Fireball users, effectively turning it into a "targets enemies" effect.

Delayed Blast Fireball
Wizard 25 daily
Minor action
You create an orb that can be used as a standard action
Sustain Minor: The orb lasts until the end of your next turn

Standard action
Area burst 2
int vs reflex
hit: 5d8 + int damage, plus 1d8 for every round you sustained the orb (max 3d8)
miss: half damage

That seems like a pretty bad spell considering the other options available at that level.

 

[Nightfly]

To the OP: Did you get to try out any Mage utilities? (I'm assuming it has some). Also, what did school specialization finally turn out to do for you?

All of the level 2 utility spells in HotFL are ones already in 4e except for Instant Friends, the new out-of-combat Charm Person which is kind of insanely strong. There's a very long thread at rpg.net bitching about how broken it is, since it can arguably circumvent entire skill challenges. I decided not to take it, since it seemed like a poor fit for an RPGA game: it would probably either be useless, or something the rest of my party would resent.

My school was Evocation, which grants the ability to reroll one die that originally rolled a 1 each time I hit with an Evocation power, sort of Brutal 1 for spells. Very nice.

EDIT: Was just getting ready to post Delayed Blast Fireball, but Nork beat me to it by one minute. Curses!

 

[alastersan]

I am new on this forums, but i read them long time ago, i would kill for info about the mechanic of the new spell-book and how works the master evokator power.
Pleaseee xD /beg

PS: Nice forum and web.
PS2: I did a pdf with all the rituals, alchemy, and martial techniques sorted, except dark sun rituals. Is legal to post it here? I attached the first page. In my character i put the name of the ritual and the page on my book.

Mod Edit: Attachment removed.

 

[Nightfly]

How does the Wizard spellbook work now?

It seems to be about the same, although you now can put encounter powers in your spellbook too.

If you take the Paragon Path presented in this book, you get a utility power at level 16 that's almost the same as the Tome of Readiness feature but slightly better, since you can switch from any encounter power to any other encounter power in your spellbook of the same level or lower.

 

[Nork]

The spell book is exactly the same, except it applies to encounter spells too, and you never 'lose' a lower level spell when you gain a higher level spell.

As for the master Evoker ability, when you cast an evocation power you ignore resistances. Which is actually pretty solid.