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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Goumindong" data-source="post: 4719937" data-attributes="member: 70874">The utility of both your orb and your staff mastery bonuses are increased exponentially as your bonus increases. If you take second mastery and spread your secondary points between con and wis then neither of them will be very valuable. Your staff mastery is essentially a "turn a hit into a miss power" very similar to what halfings get(but halfings can stop a crit and you cannot though you get a guarantee). The quality of hit it can turn into a miss is a function of your bonus. The more con you have the more ability you have to stop an important attack(like some stun that would hit you otherwise). It works the same for your orb, at low values the penalty does not significantly increases the time you keep a single enemy under a save ends effect. If you're going orb you've pretty much got to punch it. You also have to be able to use a staff(2 handed) and orb at the same time.That isn't to say that second implement isn't valuable, but its much more for Orb wizards who have some dex and want to make sure that their precious save ends power hits the enemy that they want it to by grabbing a wand mastery. Wand mastery is also nice because the orb doesn't require you to attack with it to you and so you can worry about an orb with a good special ability and then wield a high + wand in the other hand. But in that situation you're pretty much just buying a situational + bonus to attack.The key is that not only does thunderwave have more control in the majority of the game, tie in with your strogest powers better, but as you advance into paragon tier the feats that allow you to maximize its potential make scorching burst terrible in comparison.Thunderwave ends up(assume Wisdom of 18 by paragon tier) as a ranged 2 Close burst 4, push 5 that gives you 2 to any defense every time you use it. Yea its 3 feats, but it makes your at will stronger control than many of the push encounter powers.The only problem with it is that "push" is defined from where you are and not from the origin of the power.(if that was the case then Thunderwave would become nearly a slide 4 power)Now, your personal choice not withstanding does not make it not the best at will. My argument is "its the best at will but utilizing it requires the player to hamper their build in order to get that use out of it". I.E. "Strong Thunderwave should not be the perview of Orb wizards with decent dex only"No, the edge of the cloud can see out, nothing can see in. -5 on all attacks going in, no penalty if you're on the edge of the cloud going out. Makes it a tad bit harder to use(sticking it next to an ally does not block that enemies LoS to your friend, giving them an advantage). Just as if you're looking out from under any other concealment.Yes, but only once per day. I am highlighting that you still get a lot of benefit out of these powers during other times. You can't have stinking cloud up every encounter, only once.Only if the other options have just as much power, and they really do not. To make use of thunderwave you really need a 4+ wisdom mod, preferably higher.Viable =/= optimal. Just as you would expect any large AOE character to dominate some encounters(encounters with low enemy levels means that the large AoE character gets more hits in, especially when coupled with high enemy counts typicaly for those encounters)</blockquote>

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