Better blaster: evoker or sorcerer?

[Thurbane]

In your experience, who makes for a better arcane blaster-type caster: an Evoker with his bonus spells, bonus metamagic feats and alternate class features, or a Sorcerer with his greater number spells per day and flexibility of not having to memorize?

 

[Felix]

Sorcerer. Only really needs one attack spell per spell level and can metamagic as needs must to get the most out of his spells. And at the very least, the Sorcerer can always fall back to Magic Missile which he'll be able to cast umpteen times per day.

 

[Vorput]

Evoker.

They gain the benefit of being able to learn a much larger variety of spells, and tailor them to the situation. The Sorcerer having fireball and lightning bolt more times per day is nice, but if the casters know they're going to go up agianst something particularly weak against cold- being able to pick up a cold spell is nice too.

Granted, sorcerers could learn the energy sub metamagic feat, but that full round casting time is a killer (and the same goes for all metamagic feats, including empower and maximize which are a neccesity for a good blaster).

And it could be that I've run casters in odd campaigns, but usually I end up having spell slots left over at the end of the day (past 5th-ish level at least). Those extra big damage spell slots aren't useful if you eventually run out of enemies to use them on!

Also, Wizards with ther scribe scroll ability can easily make up for their lack of spell slots if they're expecting a big upcoming battle (they'll be lower DCs, but with things like magic missile- or fireball against rampaging 1st level orcs- that doesn't matter much).

 

[kenobi65]

None of the above. Psion (kineticist).

 

[WhatGravitas]

None of the above. Psion (kineticist).

Indeed.

The warmage is also pretty nice and better than the sorcerer.

Between sorcerer and evoker, though, I say Evoker:

The evoker is only one daily spell behind, and gets the following goodies:

1) Better use of metamagic (incl. the rods).
2) Gets the big spells faster (fireball on 5th, not 6th!).
3) Can craft his own stuff OR get more metamagic going (bonus feats).
4) Can fall back on a huge arsenal, if "More fire!" doesn't work once in a lifetime.

Concerning the flexibility of a sorcerer: If you're going to concentrate on blasting, then the spell selection of the evoker should be a no-brainer!
Or you may get the runestaffs from the MIC... they add a lot of flexibility (for the sorcerer, too).

 

[Cameron]

None of the above. Psion (kineticist).

Seconded (or was it Thirded?). Failing that, Warmage.

 

[Nifft]

In your experience, who makes for a better arcane blaster-type caster: an Evoker with his bonus spells, bonus metamagic feats and alternate class features, or a Sorcerer with his greater number spells per day and flexibility of not having to memorize?

Long term? Evoker.

Why? Quicken.

The Psion would be more fun (IMHO) and more flexible, but for raw power, you want the cheese-sticks (Rods of metamagic).

Cheers, -- N

 

[Felix]

1) Better use of metamagic (incl. the rods).

The wizard has better use of Metamagic than the Sorcerer? Who can add metamagic at his whim? My dear fellow, the ability to use metamagic without preparing it ahead of time is one of the reasons Sorcerers' spells per day progression lags one character level behind.

 

[Nifft]

The wizard has better use of Metamagic than the Sorcerer? Who can add metamagic at his whim? My dear fellow, the ability to use metamagic without preparing it ahead of time is one of the reasons Sorcerers' spells per day progression lags one character level behind.

One word: Quicken.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Hammerhead]

One word: Quicken.

Cheers, -- N

There are numerous ways to use Quicken as a Sorcerer, like the feat or the alternate class feature in PHB2 (who wants a familiar anyway?).