I guess my main point was, wizards have to be specialized to compete. A high-con blood mage with staff mastery and some staff feats is going to be able to do some amazing things, of course. But that's a super-specialized type of wizard. But he'll be doing even better once the miss effect rules come into play.
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Essential Mage: The return of schools
- Thread starter fanboy2000
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I guess my main point was, wizards have to be specialized to compete. A high-con blood mage with staff mastery and some staff feats is going to be able to do some amazing things, of course. But that's a super-specialized type of wizard. But he'll be doing even better once the miss effect rules come into play.
I may be the odd-man-out here, but I don't think that miss effects on all wizard encounter powers are something necessary or desirable. Some occasional option where it's balanced in, sure. Every one as already is, plus miss benefits? No, thank you. That sort of thing irked me nearly as much as save-or-die effects in unbalancing comparative classes in previous editions.
-Dan'L
Compete at what...damage?
To me, the fact that my players wizard can do very striker like damage shows the power of the class. I didn't mention that he can also daze and stun people for rounds on end.
The wizards power is in his dailies in 4th. Wizard's encounter powers aren't that good because when a wizard chooses to flex his muscle and uses a daily the game changes. Wizard dailies often last the whole fight and are very very powerful. I don't see a reason to give them better encounter powers.
lol, no they don't. Bloodmage automatically makes any wizard good just by taking it and they have fantastic powers at almost every level now. They're one of the most versatile controllers and can play striker very easily when they want to (Genasi with Elemental Empowerment for example). Wizards have some of the best paragon paths that actually aid them in being a controller such as Bloodmage, Academy Master, Arcane Wayfarer, Bonded Summoner, Master of Flame, Phiarlan Phantasmist, Planeshifter, Spellstorm Mage and War Wizard of Cormyr as a short list. I can give a few more if that's insufficient for you. They have the single best epic destiny in 4E IMO in Archmage. When you can cast Destructive Salutation 3x a day or even turn it into an encounter power for use every encounter that is not "bad".
I mean, I've seen a wizard in every single one of my games just about in 4E and it is very VERY hard to make a terrible wizard.
I'll have to disagree. Wizard currently is one of the most powerful classes in game (Right behind Fighter and Warlord, IMO), but paragon paths aren't anything special. Most wizards will want cross-class paths, like Divine Oracle, Life Singer, Whatever-was-the-name of Invoker PP that gives -2 to saves, etc.
I'm was actually worried that having REAL class features will make Wizards overpowered - currently the best wizards are hybrids with 2/3 of wizard powers - but I saw that they gain just magic missile and a school specialisation. I hope it will be just enough of incentive to make a singe-classed wizard, but not enough to make a wizard new pre-errata Marked Scourge fighter.
There is a thread on it here
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What? Have you ever seen a Bloodmage in play? Did you get to see a bloodmage before errata (which it definitely needed)? Bloodmage could put strikers to shame in the damage it pulls out and its control is the best of any paragon path in 4E. With Archmage you get 3 uses of Destructive Salutation, a party friendly area burst 3 within 10 that stuns on a hit OR a miss. It's frankly an amazing power, combined with all the stuff that goes with it and its even better.
Many of the other PPs I listed are easily blue or skyblue by CharOp standards and extremely good.
Victim
First Post
No. Most other controllers are worse than wizards. Invokers often have weaker conditions, smaller areas, and weaker zone dailies - they do have more party friendly powers and some good buffs, so they're the second best controller class. Druids are roughly at the warlock level of control, without even warlock damage. Seekers are slightly better off, since they benefit even more from basic attack optimization, but they're still generally limited in targets. Psions are a badly designed class built around two level 1 at wills.
Damage focused wizards are brutal because of all the various damage boosting options wizards have, not because of powers like Meteor Swarm. Which even damage wizards don't take. With sufficient damage bonuses, the base damage on the powers isn't a great contributor to the total output.
There's a reason why Orbs, save penalties, Legion's Hold, the wizard's many condition inflicting zone dailies, Blood Mage, etc have been hit with the nerf stick.
Rolling twice vs. will is better benefit than Salutation for control-oriented wizards. And there are powers that work very well with archmage besides Salutation - Prismatic beams, Visions of Ruin, Prismatic Spray, even the good old Visions of Avarice.
As for damage oriented wizards, the Academy Master (any arcane path) is probably better than Bloodmage.
That being said, the Bloodmage is excellent paragon path, one of the best for wizard. But others are fairly weak. Look at the fighters and number of good PPs they had since the day one - Pit fighter (until the nerf), Kensei and Swordmaster. The Fighters PPs should be the standard for PPs in Essentials.
That being said, there are classes with not a single excellent PP, like Sorcerers and Barbarians. I feel sorry for them.
Salutation stuns on a hit or a miss. In fact you deliberately miss with destructive salutation, because you can lock down every single creature in the game - even the most powerful solos like Lolth for three turns guaranteed. You don't want to hit with it and many good powers that aren't actually vs. will also.
Um, no. No they aren't. Bloodpulse used to be infinitely better, before they errata'ed it and you can still cut yourself to do considerably more damage with your spells. Chain lightning + cutting yourself + bloodmage can be a devastating combination.
Fighters are also equally amazing. On the other hand there are many classes with hordes of absolutely terrible PPs and very little good ones. As I pointed out, none of the PPs I mentioned are bad and all are good for Wizards. It's a bigger list than "Just Bloodmage" you realize.
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