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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Veep" data-source="post: 6708066" data-attributes="member: 6793297">The Beginnings of Power: Heroic Tier Spells (Part 2: Levels 6-10) Level 6 Utility: Emerald Eye is a good choice, especially for Enchanters and Illusionists. Otherwise, Fire Shield, Summon Iron Cohort and Insightful Warning (Arcana Skill Utility) all have their uses.Level 6 Utility:[sblock]Able Companion:(D380) Conjuration. Would be great, if it wasn't daily. Handy for repeatedly proning solo fights, but that's it.Conjure Fortification:(HoEC) Conjuration. Generally, I expect my fortifications to be higher than a patheticly easy jump check. 5 squares isn't even enough to bridge some of the gaps you'll come across. Avoid.Darklight:(HoS) Shadow, Zone. Honestly, just bring a torch. Being limited to a small static zone limits this power's usefulness in combat, although it could handy in the right sort of sneaky or Underdark campaign for non-combat use.Dimension Door:(PHB-HoFL) Teleportation. Like Expiditious Retreat before it, it's just a lot of movement, for a daily. Pass. If this interested you, look at Wizard's Escape instead.Disguise Self:(PHB) Illusion. Even with the bonus, you'll need a bit of an investment to get your bluff to the point of really being able to use. If you're willing to make that investment for the RP purposes, consider it. If not, pass.Dispel Magic:(PHB-HoFL) Some enemies have very nasty conjuration or zone powers. However, they're few and far between enough that I can't recommened you keep this power around just for them. Your DM might allow it to work on force-fields and stuff, so it could be useful out of combat.Emerald Eye:(AP) Ignore the insight bonus. This is an every encounter bonus to hit a defense you often target. Enchanters and Illusionists should not do without this power. Blasters can probably pass it by due to largely attacking Fort and Ref.Evanesce:(HoFW) Zone. Being a reaction, it won't save you from the inital attack. It will prevent any further attacks, but you can't always predict whether they would have been aimed at you anyway. Wizard's Escape is far better than this.Familiar's Call:(D382) Teleportation. If you have a familiar, this can be a lot of extra movement. Well worth considering in that case. Obviously useless to everyone else.Fire Shield:(AP) Fire. It's daily, but it gives you resist to two common damage types, and since the trigger for the punishment is attack roll, it can kill the enemy before they damage you. Very good defensive power.Force Ladder:(D383) Conjuration. Technically, it does have a combat use, but doing so will get you a PHB-slap from your DM and a lot of encounters with flying monsters. A very handy power for exploration and breaking into castles.Glowering Wrath:(D381) Useful, but there are easier ways to get forced movement increasers, a lot of which are always on. Does stack with those though.Invisibility:(PHB-HoFL) Illusion. The horrible range, sustain standard and being daily ruin this power.Levitate: (PHB) Put yourself out of melee reach for one encounter. Decent, but the horizontal movement restrictions limit it quite a bit.Oracular Maneuver:(HoFW) More a leader's power than your's, but like Insightful Warning, it's something to do with your immediate. IW's better though.Refocus:(PHH 2) As useful as the unprepared spell in your spellbook for the given encounter. That is to say, hard to predict.Revatilizing Charm: (HoFW) A no-questions asked condition remover. Decent, but leaders will generally do this better than you. Still, there are enough nasty Save Ends conditions out there, especially at higher levels. Some players strongly prefer having defensive tricks like this for those situations, if you're one of them, I have no real objections to you taking this.Shadow Investiture:(HoS) Maybe if it was minor action. As it is, too situational, and keyed to an off-stat not all of you will have a decent mod in, to waste your valuable early round standard action on.Spectral Hound:(AP) Illusion. Reasonable for a daily. +1 to all defenses and a flanking buddy for Team PC. Pity about the action type.Summon Iron Cohort:(AP) Summoning. Effectively an extra pool of HP for you. Gets even better if you take Bonded Summoner or Rimetongue Caller as your PP. Plus, having a little armoured knight follow you around defending sounds very cute.Wall of Fog.(PHB) Conjuration. Decent, but needs to be sustained and blocks Team PC's line of sight too.Watery Double: (HoEC) Conjuration. Being able to fire around corners, or used forced movement from a different direction has tactical advantages. You could do a lot worse than this.Wizard's Escape:(AP-HoFL) Teleportation. Negates an attack on you. Pity it got changed to daily.Skill Powers:Conceal Psyche:(DSH) Insight. +4 to Will and two okay saves and the ability to say "No, actually, I'm NOT dominated, thank you." is a good deal in my book.Deliverance of Faith:(D385) Religion. Use a surge pre-emptively to buffer yourself against focus fire or heavy damage. Good for going into BBEG fights with. Better for those who are Con-secondary and have a higher surge count. Experienced Arcana:(PHB3) Arcana. Halve the cost of nearly any ritual, and reroll a poor roll? That's a pretty good deal for those who do use rituals often.Insightful Warning:(PHB3) Arcana. Once per encounter, increase the odds of you and your allies not suffering some nasty AoE. Wizards are relatively light on immediate actions, so this can be worth a look. (I managed to put it to use on a Swordmage, who are very immediate-intensive. A good power.)Theologian's Shield:(PHB3) Religion. Decent resistance to a common damage type (and a not so common one). Good for those venturing into Ravenloft, or any other undead heavy campaign.Warp in the Weave:(D385) Arcana. A bit of a heavy activation cost, but it does completely negate the attack on you. This could be worth the price in higher levels once enemies start doing more damage and bestowing nastier conditions.[/sblock]Level 7 Encounter: Controllers: Charm of the Defender, Phantom Foes or Twist of Space. Blasters: Corrosive Mist, Lightning Bolt or Winter's Wrath.Level 7 Encounter:[sblock]Charm of the Defender:(D381) Will, Charm, Enchantment. Slide one enemy into the middle of his friends and watch the carnage. Even if there's only one target it's still slide and immobilise for people to charge the target. A miss effect is just icing on a delicious cake.Concussive Echo:(AP) Will, Charm, Evocation, Thunder. Charm and Thunder is an odd combo. A good minion popper, but 5 damage is unlikely to stop it attacking and this power does nothing to lower its odds of success. Pass.Corrosive Mist:(D383) Fortitude, Evocation, Acid, Zone, E. Large area, reasonably damaging and comes with an auto-damage zone. A good choice for blasters.Enemies Abound: (AP) Will, Illusion, Psychic, E. Good if your enemies and allies are already clumped together, but slightly outshined by other choices at this level.Fire Burst: (PHB) Reflex, Fire, Evocation, E. Fireball: The encounter power. I almost wish the names were reversed, so a Blaster could shout "FIREBALL!" every encounter. What? You know you want to. Corrosive Mist is probably a bit better overall, but if you don't have a lot of forced movement, or just want point-and-shoot destruction, take this.Fire Sea Travel:(D388) Reflex, Fire, Evocation, Teleportation, E. Close burst isn't really the range you want to use, but it does also get you out of there. The effect is handy, since it will impose an attack penalty on ranged attacks. More so if your DM RPs dumb monsters as dumb.Ghoul Strike:(HoS) Fortitude, Necromancy, Necrotic, Shadow, Zone. Pretty average, but saved by the miss effect and chooseable range for an odd kind of utility. Better for Necromancers, but still kind of average.Lightning Bolt:(PHB-HoFL) Reflex, Lightning, Evocation. Okay damage, half on a miss, good targeting, but nothing else. Blasters have better options for damage at this level, but precision is nice.Murderous Twin:(HoS) Will, Nethermancy, Psychic, Conjuration, Shadow. A decent effect, but you do have to hit twice for the daze to go off, and it won't apply until the creature's next turn. The attack penalty does at least stack with Psychic Lock, and that feat will be reapplied on the second hit, so better if you have that feat in Paragon.Phantom Foes:(HoFL) Will, Fear, Illusion. Autoslowing, and a reasonable chance the enemy will have to hit an ally at extra damage or even themselves. Unfriendly, but it only slows your allies so long as you don't apply the rest of the effect to them. Fear immunity will ruin this power, sadly.Puckish Sprite:(HoFW) Will, Conjuration, Radiant. I prefer Charm of the Defender for forcing attacks, but this does come with an AoE attack penalty, and some damage of a good type on the initial attack. Pity it's not a charm/enchantment power.Repelling Sphere:(D382) Fortitude, Evocation, Force, E. Again, close burst isn't your ideal range, but it could be worth considering if you have a familiar.Spectral Ram:(PHB) Fortitude, Force, Evocation. I might have considered this worth a look at level 1. Here, it's just plain weak.Thunder Cage: (D375) Fortitude, Thunder. Unlikely to really stop the enemy moving unless they're low on health, but this can be a decent double-hitter if you get your static mods up a bit. Pity it's only single-target.Tomebound Ooze:(AP) Reflex, Acid, Evocation, Conjuration. Okay single target damage, a lot nastier if used on an enemy with multi-attacks, preferably an elite or solo that will AP to use them. The Tome of Bindingrider actually weakens the power against those enemies, since it ends the damage on the first attack, and solo/elite fights are likely to have less enemies for it to blow up on.Twist of Space: (AP) Will, Evocation, Teleportation. Okay damage, but the drawcard is the ability to group enemies up for you or someone else to drop further AoEs on. Remember that enemies get a save against this if you try to teleport them upwards to drop them, but there are less effects to resist or reduce teleportation compared to forced movement.Winter's Wrath:(PHB) Fortitude, Evocation, Cold, Zone, E. Large area of a decent type of damage and adds a damage zone. Good with forced movement, but it's unfriendly. Corrosive Mist is a little better overall for Blasters, but this is decent, especially if going for cold support.Worms of Minaurous:(AP) Fortitude, Evocation, Conjuration. Are you sure this isn't a Warlock power? Really? Okay then. Single target power for mediocre damage and a completely ignorable soft control effect. Ignore it.[/sblock]Level 9 Daily: Controllers: Several good options; Face of Death, Mirage Arcana, Symphony of the Dark Court, Visions of Ruin (Circle of Death for Necromancers). Blasters: Melf's Minute Meteors, possibly Summon Hell Hound. Summoners: Succubus (Also a very good option for any controller).Level 9 Daily:[sblock]Animate Dead:(D372) Summoning, Necrotic, AC. So you have to use a daily in a fight where you've already killed something, to do a fairly pathetic amount of a bad damage type? No. Not even Necromancers should consider this one, even if it screams thematic appropriateness (They should take Circle of Death instead). I would call this the Wizard's worst power, if Arcane Bolt and its ilk didn't exist. I take that back, since I just noticed it targets AC. This is now the Wizard's worst power.Circle of Death: (HoS) Fortitude, Necromancy, Necrotic, Shadow. The damage is piddly (piddly necrotic too), but the effect is vicious, especially couple with some save penalties. Necromancerscan definately consider this one.Death Smoke: (HoEC) Fortitude, Necromancy, Necrotic, Poison, Shadow, Zone. Low damage and an unfriendly zone of two bad damage types, that moves randomly? Definitely one to avoid.Earthen Grasp: (HoEC) Reflex, Conjuration. The attack is okay, but enemies will just move out of it at first opportunity. Has far too strong competition at this level to recommend it.Face of Death:(AP) Will, Illusion, Fear. Helpless means Coup de Grace-able, remember? Needs some investment in save penalties, but with that, or OoI this power becomes amazing. The miss effect is pretty nice too. Pity about fear-immunity.Firescythe:(D383) Reflex, Evocation, Fire. Allowing your allies to avoid the damage sounds good on paper, but this power isn't damaging enough that it's going to kill every enemy your allies are now granting CA to (and taking an attack penalty against) for being prone.Fool's Charm:(HoFW) Will, Charm, Enchantment, Psychic. At this level, I expect more from a single target wizard daily than ongoing damage and forced movement (Not even that if you're low on wisdom), especially one relying on failed saves.Hex of Madness:(HoFW) Will, Enchantment, Psychic, Zone. Thankfully it's not Wis-keyed like many of the HoFW powers so far. It's friendly, and the zone does okay damage, but this is a very competitive level and it doesn't quite hold up to its opposition.Ice Storm:(PHB-HoFL) Fortitude, Cold, Evocation, Zone. A good pick for blasters, offering them a large area of damage and a smidgen of control. Like Fireball, just be careful with the aim.Lightning Serpent:(PHB) Reflex, Evocation, Lightning, Poison. Single target for okay damage and a weak condition. Maybe as an encounter power, but far too weak at this level of dailies.Melf's Minute Meteors:(HoEC) Reflex, Evocation, Fire. One of the few old-edition spells to come back to 4e and actually be worth taking. (Must be something to do with how good it was in 2e). The premier pick for Blasters at this level. Even with the standard action to start it up, the secondary attacks are minor, and pretty good, and you get a defensive effect out of it. Brilliant.Mirage Arcana:(HoS) Will, Illusion, Nethermancy, Psychic, Shadow, Zone. Possibly the single greatest thing to come out of Heroes of Shadow. Target it right and your enemies are left with basically no options. Being both Illusion and Nethermancy gives this power some good support too. Simply amazing.Mordenkainen's Guardian Hound:(AP) Reflex, Evocation, Conjuration. Pretty much no control, but it grants you minor action attacks. Blasters can consider this one, but Melf's is better. Pity about the standard action to summon it.Mordenkainen's Sword:(PHB) Reflex, Conjuration, Force, Evocation. Completely overshadowed by the Hound above, even with the slightly better movement potential.Phantasmal Killer:(HoFL) WIll, Fear, Illusion. It sounds good on paper, but it has issues: The effect can be broken by auto-damage such as auras and zones and the secondary attack, while decent, eats up your standard actions just for single target damage. Some synergy with Psychic Lock saves it from the absolute pits, but again, this is a competitive level.Summon Arrowhawk:(AP) Summoning. It can mark, but not punish, does nowhere near the damage of the Hell Hound or the control of the Succubus. Avoid.Summon Hell Hound: (D385) Summoning, Fire. Another nicely damaging summon with a relatively minor Intrinsic penalty. Get yourself some fire resist, be careful where you position it and watch the fires burn. Autodamage aura is a decent add-on. Blasters should give this one some serious consideration, especially for the damage buff of its Symbiosis effect.Summon Succubus.(D385) Charm, Summoning. She dominates with her attacks. She can even do outside your turn if you're willing to take being dazed (Hint, Superior Will). Her Symbiosis effect is nice, but nothing special, although it does help to counter the CA you grant from being dazed. A fantastic power.Symphony of the Dark Court:(HoFL) Will, Enchantment. A friendly power that dazes, hit or miss, immobilises if it hits, and your allies get to move into attack formation AND get a damage buff? What a combo.Taunting Phantoms:(AP) Will, Illusion. A decent attack forcer, that also allows your allies to attack, if they're willing to suffer the penalty of the Effect line. Lacking the Enchantment/Charm keywords weakens it quite a bit. Betterif you've got, say, a super-accurate Thief/Slayer/MBA-opped Avenger willing to make a save or two. Symphony, above, does the Leader-Wizard thing much better though.Tome of Transposition:(D380) Enchantment, Reflex, Psychic. Okay single target damage and control, but really pales in comparison with the rest of the level. The miss effect is a lot weaker than it sounds, as a 'ranged daily power' excludes all area burst and close burst/blast powers, which most of your best dailies are. It also means this will generally want to be the first daily you use, limiting your tactics and versatility a bit. A poor choice overall.Visions of Ruin:(AP) Fear, Illusion, Psychic, Zone. Lock your enemies into a small space and happily burn them down with ranged powers. The zone only affects those initally caught by the power, so your melee are free to wander in if they need to. Watch out for fear immunity.Wall of Fire:(PHB) Conjuration, Evocation, Fire. Nasty if combined with some forced movement effects. Blocks line of sight for both teams so it might be hard to get enemies on the other side into the wall. You could consider it if you're willing to take the effort to make it work.[/sblock]Level 10 Utility: Illusory Wall is a great option, but see my note on Wall powers, otherwise Mass Resistance, Blur or Repelling Shield.Level 10 Utility:[sblock]Arcane Gate:(PHB-HoFL) You can use this power in combat, but so can your enemies. Good exploration or break-and-enter type power though.Blur: (PHB-HoFL) A great defensive power for those nasty encounters with walls of archers, or if you just feel like staying out of the solo's reach, sight and mind.Circle of Protection:(D382) Zone. It might give damage resistance, but it also encourages Team PC to clump up and get AoEed. Possibly worth it if you have other party members handing out bonuses for adjacency, but overall not brilliant.Dig:(HoEC) Tunnel your way down into some caves, or have somewhere to hide the bodies bury your treasure. Could be useful.Energy Devourer:(HoFL) A lot of enemies that deal large amounts of typed damage resist their own damage, and you can't predict that they'll be doing the same type as you. A bit better for Pyromancers or Evokers who ignore resistance, but not enough to salvage it, especially being daily.Familiar Shape:(D382) Polymorph. Change yourself into something small and go sneakily scouting. Decent.Feywild Spell Surge:(DMA 2009) A once per day do-over of a missed attack. Would be better as an encounter power. Eladrin can consider it, because of the bonus.Flowing Evasion: (HoEC) An escape method for you, or enable an ally into a flank. Pretty decent.Gale Wall:(HoEC) Conjuration. It's a wall. There's a better wall at this level. Even ignoring that, it's not that great, as the cover bonus is very specific and will probably hinder Team PC more than Team Monster.Illusory Wall:(AP) Illusion. Another 'box the enemy in and burn them down with ranged attacks' power. This can really wreck an encounter with the right tactical usage, although do see my above note about wall powers.Mass Resistance:(AP) Buffs like this aren't often CB10, and in the right encounters, this will prevent a lot of damage. I'm not normally fond of playing Leader-Wizard, but I've seen this sort of power completely neuter encounters. Not having to trigger it while Team PC is clumped up is great.Mirror Image:(PHB) Illusion. One of the few buffs in the game that lasts more than one encounter, but it's fairly weak. It only benefits AC, while the nastier attacks against you at range target NADs, and the bonus drops whether a miss targetted an NAD or not. Blur and Shield are better defensive options.Phoenix Step: (D388) Reducing damage of a fairly common type to zero is pretty nice, but it only works on that type. Worth considering if you're gonna take a trip through Fernia, the Elemental Plane of Fire, I guess. Note that you can trigger it off including yourself in a Fire power, or if you have a trigger happy Fire-Sorcerer in the party.Repelling Shield:(PHH 1) Like Shield, but only works on melee powers. Lives up to its name with the forced movement.Resistance:(PHB) Completely outclassed by Mass Resistance.Summon Hammerfist Crusher:(AP) Summoning. Door in your way? Some REALLY ugly statues lying around? Summon this guy, problem solved.True Seeing:(AP) A bit too situational for a daily utility at this level.Umbral Leap: (HoS) Teleportation. Minor action teleportation is nice, and it has a decent range, but the light requirements weaken it a bit.Wall of Gloom:(HoS) Nethermancy, Shadow, Zone. It would be decent, but it's in direct competition with Illusory Wall.Witch Thorns:(HoFW) Transmutation, Zone. See above. Even without that, Wall 3 is fairly small, even if it can be expanded. The 'Special' box is interesting, but 25 HP is pretty piddly for something that gets hit automatically.Witch's Reversal:(D382) Doesn't help when you miss that one key target, but does let you reroll any number of misses. The value of this power goes up the more large blasts/burst you have. Blasterscould consider it for accuracy reasons, but lobbing fireballs at enemies trapped behind Illusory Wall is probably better.Words of Deceit:(D381) Pretty much worthless to everyone except Enchanters, but even they should retrain it out once they get Entrancing Mystic's L16 feature.Skill Powers: None.[/sblock]</blockquote>

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