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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Veep" data-source="post: 6708071" data-attributes="member: 6793297">The Epitome of Power: Epic Tier Spells As before, same comments apply here.Level 22 Utility: Mass Fly, Time Stop, Wraithform.Level 22 Utility:[sblock]Acererak's Apotheosis:(HoS) Necromancy, Shadow. Say that ten times fast. Overall, a mediocre power. The main benefit is the THP, and there's a heroic tier skill power that does the same thing as an encounter power. Better if you need the necrotic resist, and more so if fighting enemies that do heavy poison damage. Or Lolth.Arcane Recall:(HoFL) Like Refocus before it, its usefulness is hard to predict. It could either be just what you need, or go days without use.Command Water:(HoEC) A bit specific, but you get to be Moses crossing the Red Sea. Can't really complain about that, especially since you are supposed to be an Epic Level WizardTM at this point.Dimensional Journey:(D380) Teleportation. Long range, but a daily power, and your allies may not be able to easily follow, depending on their own teleport capabilities.Dire Familiar Incantation:(D382) Polymorph. Turn your familiar into a meatshield and flank buddy for team PC that prones or applies forced movement. Decent, although obviously useless to those without a familiar.Fire Sigil:(D388) "Until you leave your square". Sigh, what a waste of potential.Globe of Invulnerability:(AP) Conjuration, Force. You can't take damage, but you can't deal it. The situations where this power would be useful are too few and far between to recommend it.Living Iron:(HoEC) Polymorph. Pretty decent combination of buffs, but slowed all encounter long, along with vuln 10 lightning (after the resist all) is a pretty big penalty to slap on an ally. Unless that ally is a 23rd level+ Slayer, in which case, they'll probably love you for it.Mass Fly:(PHB-HoFL) Does exactly what you'd expect. And that's a very useful thing for it to do. Like Fly, try not to get stunned.Mordenkainen's Lucubration:(AP) How useful this is to you depends on how many of your powers have sustain lines. If the answer is 'a few' 'several' or even 'the majority', it's well worth considering for how many actions it can save you, or how many powers it can allow you to use at once. Otherwise, pass it by.Mordenkainen's Mansion:(PHB) Better than sleeping out in the rough. There are wondrous items and rituals that can do this for you, but if they're not an option, give it some thought.Phantom Legion:(AP) Illusion. Unless, for some gods-only-know-exactly-why reason, your life depends on your ability to stage The Phantom of the Opera at a moment's notice, you'll probably be hard pressed to really use this power in combat. Out of combat though, stage a false banquet as a trap, have your own hecklers at a tyrant's speech without risking your own neck... there could be a use for this.Preserving Sleep:(HoFW) Leaders have better powers for this and many PCs will soon have their anti-death feature from their ED.Time Stop:(PHB) Not being able to attack is less of a limitation than you'd think. Cast buffs, conjurations, summons... there's plenty to do with extra actions.Umbral Stride:(HoFW) Decent extra movement, but Mass Fly is probably the more useful power of that type overall.Wall of Force: (AP-HoFL) Conjuration, Force. Another wall with punishment for attacking it. If your DM rules that a burst hitting multiple squares deals several instances of damage to the wall, it will drop fast though.Wraithform:(HoS) Nethermancy, Shadow. Take half damage and go where you please, all encounter long if you sustain it, and you even get to hover. Great.[/sblock]Level 23 Encounter: Controllers: Animate Shadows, Charm of False Heroism, Deceptive Shadows or Horde of Puckish Sprites. Blasters: Chain Lightning.Level 23 Encounter:[sblock]Acid Storm: (PHB) Fortitude, Acid, Evocation, Zone, E. Huge area, especially if enlarged. Has some of Stinking Clouds problems, but at least it's a better damage type. A bit better for Blasters, if only for the area of damage. Deceptive Shadows blocks enemy sight so much better than this though.Animate Shadows:(HoS) Will, Nethermancy, Shadow, Necrotic, E. Damage isn't what this power is for (Bad type, and the secondary damage is so minor it may as well not exist). A few forced movement increasers and you can really mess up an enemy's turn when they find themselves well out from where they started. The effect line is probably superfluous at this level, but at least it's something.Arcane Volley:(D381) Force. Another one in this line, and just as bad as the ones before it. The single target damage increasers do not increase its worth.Astral Claw:(AP) Fortitude, Conjuration, Evocation. This might have been impressive in heroic, maybe early paragon. Here, it's just weak, and the secondary effect will be ignored.Brutish Construct: (HoFW) AC, Conjuration. Yes, Implement vs AC, which puts a crimp in your accuracy. And that's not the worst part. It's ranged 5, but the auto damage requires that both the enemy and you be adjacent to the construct, which puts you easy attack range of all those nasty epic tier beasties. A truely bad power.Chain Lightning:(PHB) Reflex, Evocation, Lightning. Odds are, you're going to hit the entire board with this one. Even controllers can consider this, since it renders minions near pointless. Gets really powerful with Mark of Storm.Charm of False Heroism:(HoFL) Will, Charm, Enchantment. A solid upgrade to Charm of the Defender. Pity it's only single target at this level and you can't make the target attack itself, but it's still fairly powerful.Crushing Necrotism:(D382) Reflex, Necromancy, Necrotic. Piddly damage and pathetic effects for this level. The familiar rider does not improve it.Deceptive Shadows:(AP-HoFL) Will, Illusion, Implement, Psychic, E. Unfriendly but it's pyschic, and has a great effect line for ruining ranged enemies or those with threatening reach.Flaming Rebuke:(D388) Reflex, Fire, Evocation. An IR attack, but the damage is pretty low. The stun is nice, but too specific to be relied on and has timing issues.Freezing Bolts:(AP) Reflex, Cold, Evocation. Fairly weak for an encounter power of this level. The Wand rider improves it, but a blaster shouldn't really be using a wand.Horde of Puckish Sprites:(HoFW) Will, Radiant, Zone, E. The opening attack's a bit mediocre at this level, but the effect's the real power here. Have one of your strikers wander into the zone and grant him or her several attacks against your enemies. I'd rate this higher, but being unfriendly means it's a bit finicky to use, and relies on timing to get the most benefit from if you want to involve an ally. You can happily have your enemies beat each other up of course. Also lacks the Enchantment keyword, sadly.Orbmaster's Insuperable Lethargy:(AP) Fortitude, Nethermancy, E. AoE weakening is a decent effect, but Deceptive Shadows will most likely negate more damage. Better with the OoI rider.Staffstrike:(AP) Fortitude, Evocation, Lightning. Mediocre single target damage and no control. The SoD rider will allow you to negate an attack, but that mean using a valuable early encounter standard action on this fairly worthless power. A bad choice.Thunderclap:(PHB) Fortitude, Evocation, Thunder. Single target stun that does some damage. Those are always useful. Dazes on a miss too. You can do worse.Vampiric Strike:(HoS) Fortitude, Healing, Necromancy, Psychic, Shadow. This feels like a heroic tier leader power. Which makes it fairly weak for one of your epic encounter powers. If you really need a self-heal, consider some of the skill utilities, or item powers.[/sblock]Level 25 Daily: Controllers: Bewitching Gaze, Mind of Rage, Phantom Reality, or Prismatic Spray. Blasters: Prismatic Spray, Rime Beasts or Summon Marilith. Summoners: Abyssal Horde or Marilith.Level 25 Daily:[sblock]Bewitching Gaze:(HoFW) Will, Charm, Enchantment, Psychic. Probably one of HoFW's best offerings for the Wizard. Dominate the enemy and they still get to take a full set of actions? Why not. March them past Team PC to provoke OAs and then have them attack themselves. Or just keep 'em marching so they pass more PCs. Even better if you catch one of those nasty enemies with at-will minor action attacks. Sustain standard keeps it from the top spot, but remember that EonT is better than Save Ends against some enemies. The miss effect is really nice, although Charm Vs Will rarely misses.Bubbling Acid:(AP) Reflex, Fortitude, Acid, Zone, Evocation. Unfriendly damage with a mediocre zone, and the blind requires you to hit again and has timing issues. Not a good choice.Cinder Storm:(AP) Reflex, Fire, Evocation, Zone. A bit better damage and conditions than Bubbling Acid, once you count in the secondary attacks, but to really get those attacks you need to be invested in save penalties, and there are better options at this level if you are.Delayed Blast Fireball:(HoFL) Reflex, Evocation, Fire. Oh how the mighty have fallen between editions. Two actions to do less damage than other options here, or do 8d8 four turns into combat? A truely bad power.Dooming Darkness:(HoS) Fortitude, Nethermancy, Necrotic, Psychic, Shadow, Zone. The zone is good at stopping enemy attacks and the secondary attack will help to keem them in it, but Team PC will have a hard time attack into it without AoE, and if the enemy goes out the other side you probably won't hit with the OA. A bit weaker than it really could be.Elemental Maw:(PHB) Reflex, Evocation, Cold, Acid, Fire, Lightning, Zone, Teleportation. Needs more keywords. Large area of very hard to resist damage, but it's unfriendly. Dazed and prone is a decent combination, but remember the whole save-vs-teleport-into-midair thing. Not bad overall, but there are better.Finger of Death:(HoS) Fortitude, Necromancy, Necrotic, Shadow. Well, I guess it can keep Delayed Blast Fireball company. It's a lot of damage, but only single target, and you're very unlikely to get both the 20 extra damage and the effect line on an enemy worth using a 25th level daily on.Maze:(PHB) Will, Psychic, Enchantment. You'll get at least one round of banishment out of this, two, maybe three if your Will is fairly and the monster fairly dumb. But that's all it really does.Moonlight and Darkness:(HoFW) Will, Necrotic, Radiant, Evocation, Zone. Friendly damage of a relatively hard to resist combo, with an okay but not brilliant zone effect. This would be rated higher, but you can do better for damage at this level. An Avenger with Painful Oath will love the extra 20 damage, but that's about it.Mind of Rage:(HoFL) Charm, Enchantment, Fear. Turn one enemy into your own pocket charger. A great power, and a lot of fun to use, but let down slightly by the fragility of the effect.Necrotic Web:(PHB) Reflex, Necrotic, Necromancy, Zone. It's Web Mk II with a damage element. Unfriendly and fairly easy to have used against you. Pass.Orbmaster's Prismatic Sphere: (AP) All NADs, Evocation, Fire, Poison. Very similar to Prismatic Spray, but Stun > Daze, so that power wins out. This one does have range, and the OoI kicker, but it's unfriendly.Phantom Reality:(AP) Will, Illusion. Control the target's movement, and they must save vs you deciding where their attacks go. And it's not even a save ends effect. Brilliant. Pity about the 'can't attack themself' restriction, but that really doesn't weaken the power much.Prismatic Spray:(PHB) All NADS, Fear, Fire, Poison, Evocation. Two hits of damage, and a third that stuns, and it's friendly. Pity one of them's poison, but you can't have everything. A great power.Reverse Gravity:(HoEC) Fortitude, Evocation. An amusing power, but not that effective. If there's enough room for the enemy to accumulate a decent falling distance, you're probably denying your melee allies a chance to do damage, and flying or teleporting enemies (Which a lot of epic enemies are) will just laugh it off.Rime Beasts:(HoEC) Conjuration, Fortitude, Cold. Minor, conjure them around one enemy, standard to attack, AP, standard to attack again. Congratulations, you just attacked 8 times in one turn. Even if they probably will die horribly before you get to use them again, that's still a great use of your actions. A great spell for a Blaster.Summon Abyssal Horde:(AP) Summoning, Reflex. Summon 3 defender-lites for large control and area denial, or just send all 3 of against one target for a multi-hitting beatdown. Really nasty to pack them around your defender's targets for lose-lose situations.Summon Earthwind Ravager:(D385) Summoning, Fortitude. The symbiosis effect is decent and relatively easily triggered auto-damage, but its standard attack is mediocre and the intrinsic power is somewhat risky. It would be decent, but the other two summons at this level outshine it massively.Summon Marilith:(D385) Summoning. Reflex. A triple-attacker that also lets you punish those who attack you. It doesn't get much better than that. The intrinsic effect is a bit painful, but not insurmountable (And fairly neglible if you use say, Stoneskin, on yourself).[/sblock]Level 27 Encounter: Controllers: Charm of Puppet Strings, Impenetrable Gloom, or Steal Time. Blasters: Black Fire or Impenetrable Gloom.Level 27 Encounter:[sblock]Black Fire:(PHB) Reflex, Necrotic, Necromancy, Fire, E. Friendly damage and lots of it in a large area. No control, but probably the best bet for a Blaster at this level.Blazing Death Storm:(HoS) Fortitude, Necromancy, Necrotic, Fire, E. A minor damage zone is somewhat unimpressive at this level. A Blaster could take this if they want a ranged option, but I'd recommend either Impenetrable Gloom or Sequestering Force, which do similar damage with better effects.Charm of Puppet Strings:(D381) Will, Charm, Implement. The 'Charm of' line offers up its final model, and does so with style. Domination, forced movement and potentially multiple forced attacks all in one easy to use package. Brilliant.Confusion:(PHB) Will, Charm, Enchantment, Psychic. Charm of Puppet Strings is completely superior to this.Forcecage:(PHB) Reflex, Force, Evocation. If there's no-one adjacent to the target, it's kind of a stun, but not really, since it can still use some defensive powers, or teleport. Take Steal Time instead.Impenetrable Gloom:(HoS) Will, Nethermancy, Psychic, Shadow, Zone, E. Party friendly, decent damage, dazing with a potential to stun, and an obscuring zone done right. A good power, which even blasters should look at, as it compares favourably to the rest of the level for damage, while still being a strong control power.Lost in the Mists:(AP) Will, Charm, Illusion. Again, Charm of Puppet Strings is the superior option.Mind-Numbing Presence:(D382) Will, Enchantment, Psychic, Zone. Impenetrable Gloom dazes the same area more reliably and does more damage. Take that instead. The familiar line is pretty minor.Phantasmal Dread:(HoFL) Will, Fear, Illusion, Psychic. This feels more like the Warlock's psuedo-conditions powers. Here, it's a bit underwhelming. -4 (-6 with psychic lock) is decent, but if the enemy backs up and uses a ranged attack or charges, they probably won't have to worry about it. Too situational to really be decent.Sequestering Force:(AP) Fortitude, Evocation, Force, E. Unfriendly, but decent damage, and the effect can have it's uses in an AoE-heavy party about to unleash a nova or two. Not a top pick, but it could be useful to the right group.Soul Fire:(AP) Will, Necromancy, Necrotic, Fire, E. Outshined somewhat for both control and damage options by it's competition.Steal Time:(AP) Will. Single target stun, AND get the action back? It doesn't get much better than that. This power helps make up for spending your APs on Arcane Mastery. One of the best controller powers in the game.Supreme Dread Presence: (HoFW) Will, Fear, Necrotic, Nethermancy, Zone, E. This isn't impressive at this tier, even less so with Black Fire on the table. Take that instead.Supreme Glorious Presence:(HoFW) Will, Charm, Enchantment, Radiant, E. The area and damage have gone up since its paragon counterpart, but that's it. Once again, you could consider it in a radiant party, but at this level, with Radiant One as an option, or the likelyhood of you having a damage converter, you could use one of the other blaster options instead.Tomebound Bloodbeast:(D382) Fortitude, Evocation, Conjuration. Single target damage and give yourself THP. Potentially a lot of THP, but that's all, no control or extra damage. A summoner using a lot of the self damaging summons like the Marilith can consider it to counter their durability issues. Please note that the Tome of Binding rider does not function, as that feature boosts damage rolls on summoning powers, where this is static damage on a conjuration power.[/sblock]Level 29 Daily: Controllers: False Reality or Visions of Wrath. Blasters: Maybe Flash Freeze, or one of the summons from L25. Summoners: Take the other option from level 25.Level 29 Daily:[sblock]Crack the World:(HoEC) Evocation, Reflex. I'm not fond of banishing powers as they tend to just delay the inevitable, but the combination of banish and ongoing, plus a grounding even flyers can't avoid is decent enough. The miss effect and the 'chasm' are a bit of a joke at this level though.Devastating Whirlwind:(HoEC) Fortitude, Zone. A bit fiddly to use but you can sweep up most to all of the battlefield with this. Unfriendly though.Energy Drain:(HoS) Fortitude, Nethermancy, Shadow, Necrotic. Single target stun, but you have encounter powers that do that. The aftereffect is decent, but if you're getting the failed saves effect from it, why did the target make the save vs stun in the first place? Okay effect line and awful miss line round out what would be a decent-ish power, if it wasn't competing with False Reality. Take that instead.False Reality:(HoFL) Will, Illusion, Psychic. Speaking of which, meet the best single target control spell in all 4e. Stunned, Helpless, CDG-able. Like I said to Nausicaa when we were first rating these powers, good luck living to take the 4d10 from the aftereffect.Flash Freeze:(HoEC) Fortitude, Cold, Zone. Pity it lacks Evocation. Blasters can consider this one, again for a large area of okay damage, but remember that while petrification allows CDGs, it also gives Resist All 20. The zone effect is pretty minor overall.Greater Ice Storm:(PHB) Fortitude, Evocation, Cold, Zone. Immobilisation and DT aren't much in the way of control at this level, and otherwise it's just unfriendly damage.Incendiary Cloud:(HoEC) Reflex, Fire, Zone. And once again, a mighty old spell falls from grace. Single target for fairly sad damage and a bad, unfriendly effect line. Also, note that as the power is not a burst, but measured as squares, increasing the size by 1 can be interpreted as just one additional square. The intent is fairly obvious, but the RAW is a bit vague. Do not take this power.Legion's Hold:(PHB-HoFL) Will, Enchantment, Charm, Psychic. Oh how the mighty have fallen. It's still an enormous area to attack, but overall there are better options for your capstone daily for control.Meteor Swarm:(PHB-HoFL) Reflex, Evocation, Fire. Like many of its earlier edition counterparts up the level chain, this one fails to impress. Decent damage and a large area, but depending on the size of your battlefield, you'll probably have a hard time not hitting an ally or two.Miasma of Enfeeblement:(AP) Fortitude, Necromancy, Necrotic, Zone. Okay opening attack and decent effect line, but outshined by this level's other control offerings.Moilian Flames:(HoS) Reflex, Necromancy, Cold, Necrotic, Shadow. Contagious OGD, with a penalty for the original target, but only single target to start with, and middling damage on the opening hit. Requires a bit too much fiddling around with forced movement and delayed damage to really be worth it.Prismatic Wall:(AP) All NADs, Conjuration, Evocation, Poison, Fire. Orbmaster's Prismatic Sphere, the Wall version. Potentially a lot of damage and control, but it's a wall, and blocks both team's LoS. You can do better with simpler powers.Summon Balor:(D385) Summoning, Reflex, Fire. Fairly damaging, but the Marilith does far more, and is a lot less risky to use. Avoid this one.Summon Djinn Stormcaller:(D385) Summoning, Reflex, Lighting, Thunder. Decent symbiosis effect, but its attack is mediocre and the intrinsic effect is very unfriendly.Summon Living Mountain:(AP) Summoning, Fortitude. If you have to take a 29th summon for whatever reason, at least this guy has some positives. Large area denial and a huge AoE prone attack. Pity he doesn't have threatening reach on his OAs.Visions of Wrath:(AP) Will, Illusion. AoE domination, and the power doesn't go to waste if you or they miss. Brilliant.[/sblock]</blockquote>

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