No good reason? Hardly. The +Con Mod boost to Defense for a Staff Wizard once per encounter is extremely weak unless one has a really good Con. There are many other good reasons to boost other stats instead, especially for a 20 Int Wizard that has few other decent stats.
You are mistaken here. One does not need to boost a secondary stat every single time. There are builds where that works well, but not all good builds are that restricted.
Man what? You just said you weren't putting points into Con. It doesn't get better if you don't put points into it. What are you putting the points into, strength and charisma? Yea, putting points into anything other than your secondary stat is foolish. Each stat up, you get two to spend. Put them into the same two every single time.
There is no such thing as "leading" in the game system. Apparently, you made that term up out of whole cloth.
The four basic functions in combat are (PHB page 15):
Semantics, Shemantics. Buffs, and Debuffs are part of Support. That is what leaders do. Clerics are leaders, so i called it by the role that does it best.
The trick here is at range. Thunderwave and Thunderlance cannot be used at decent range and affect allies (a big downside to this tactic because it will seriously harm any allies in the blast). Bigby's Grasping hand does not push, so does not have good synergy here. It also cannot be done until level 15. Elemental Maw is great for this, but cannot be used until level 25 (instead of 11). By level 25, it makes sense to use Elemental Maw and to retrain the second feat. Confusion is level 27, the movement does not occur until the next round (which means the Wizard may or may not be able to do it). By then, there are many other good options.
Thunderwave has a reach of 6 squares, Thunderlance a reach of 7(if you are spending two feats, might as well make them enhance the majority of your repertoire). Bigbys indeed does not push. But it does move them. Which cues the blood mage synergy.
Confusion does not occur in the next round, it occurs on the enemies next turn. That may or may not be the next round.
A Bolstering Blood Pulse and a Blood Action Action Point Cause Fear causing one enemy in the area that gets hit with both attacks taking (8+Cha)D6 + (6+Cha)*2D10 + Int + 10 + damage and the rest that get hit taking 2D6+2D10+Int damage. So, ~109 to maybe ~128 (Cha depending) on one target (plus potential opportunity attacks and other issues like marked) and ~23 on the rest. The idea is to seriously damage one stronger target and damage a bunch of others and the one that is seriously damaged is at least 6+Cha squares away.
1: To start with, you are interpreting blood pulse incorrectly, you do not get 2d10 damage for each square it leaves, you get 1d6 and then 2d10 on top of all the damage you do.
2: You do not necessarily get 6 squares of movement out of the target. This is because they may be obstacles in the way they cannot pass. Obstacles that can be pushed over. Movement hinges on having a clear path to run and does not ignore any kind of difficult terrain. You cannot force an enemy over a ledge as you can with a push.
3. Its a wisdom attack with a charisma rider. That means it works for only one type of wizard(an orb wizard, I.E. someone starting with high wisdom and enhancing it each level) who will be getting better mileage out of thunderwave(an at will) anyway, being able to do that same trick, except on multiple targets for roughly the same movement. Except that with thunderwave he gets damage on his AoE, can position friendlies(if they are willing to take the pulse damage which they probably won't be, but if its necessary you can move them out of the way in order to create a path that the enemy can be pushed through, anyway better to not bolster the pulse, then damage is very low on small pushes), ignores difficult terrain, and can push enemies into things like pits.
I do not think that a player of a Blood Mage using two feats to acquire this ability plus the ability to do Healing Word once per day plus the Religion Skill is necessarily "out of his mind".
Wizards get religion as a class skill, and its one of their better ones.
All in all, a viable option. It just means that this particular tactic of doing this type of attack at range is delayed 11 levels. I do not think that a player who does not want to delay 11 levels (25 to 30 or more gaming sessions for many groups) is necessarily "out of his mind".
No, doing it without an attack roll against multiple enemies to a level equal to your intelligence modifier(Typically more than wis or enemies speed + Cha) takes 11 more levels. Doing it with an attack roll takes thunderwave.
One might prevent attacks on a miss. It won't prevent ranged attacks within range. It might not prevent attacks if an opponent is at near edge and can charge out of it. It might not prevent attacks if enemies can Teleport (of which there are a fair number in the MM). And, it will prevent PC melee attackers from getting to enemies as much as it prevents enemies from getting to PCs.
One of the issues with difficult terrain is that it sometimes hinders PCs as much as it does NPCs.
Plus, you are thinking two dimensionally. There are many flying foes at 17th level who might be able to fly over it.
O.K. So Enthrall doesn't prevent ranged attacks(they just coordinate on your friends), and doesn't prevent melee enemies from getting into melee if you miss. So it really doesn't do anything.
Here is a tip. If you keep the enemies melee from getting into melee it means your strikers/defenders get to gang up on their artillery, the things that are weak and squishy and do lots of damage while the enemy melee ties up your melee.
See, you don't actually care if your guys can't get to their melee, because their melee isn't doing anything valuable. What you do care about is that their melee isn't doing anything valuable while your melee is doing something valuable(killing their artillery/skirmishers)
Immobilized flying foes fall to the ground(usually). So the powers are in the same region when dealing with flying foes. Ranged foes still attack, hit melee foes fall, not hit ones can move and attack. I don't see how this makes enthrall better in anyway.
Pushing allies might be more beneficial in some rare circumstances than sliding them, but that means that the allies also took 4D6 plus Int damage as well and they cannot be slided towards the caster. The Cleric power is huge compared to the Wizard one because it pushes enemies a further distance, it slides allies, and it does not damage allies.
It does not slide allies. It lets allies shift 1. A push 4 can be much more beneficial than a shift 1. Neither provoke, but the push 4 allows for further movement as well as movement through allies. Which is impossible on a shift because they can't end where an ally is.
And, your explanation is incomplete and hence incorrect yet again.
Validity and Cogency have nothing to do with "completeness". How about you explain why its wrong instead of fallaciously calling logical fallacies(note: Not just calling a logical fallacy, but also fallaciously attributing the truth value of the conclusion to the validity of the argument)
Compared to multiple enemies potentially being damaged and unable to move and unable to attack the caster and possibly unable to attack anyone else.
I am sorry, why are you comparing Ice Tomb to Enthrall? Crushing Titans Fist is the Enthrall equivalent. Didn't we already go over this?
Now, its important to note here, that "different" does not mean "worse" or "better". What do you do if a brute and skirmisher have gotten cozy with your striker? Do you immobilize them and make them not attack the leader? Well, you sure did a whole lot! And by a whole lot i mean "bupkis".
You see, sometimes, different powers are needed. And, as you advance in levels with your group, you will grow to know what type of powers you need more of and which type you need less of.
Many potentially damaged and partially controlled versus one potentially damaged and fully controlled (and typically not able to be damaged by most allies). Sure, you might stop one guy with Ice Tomb for a round. You also protect that one guy from most further damage if you do for a round.
I am sorry, what version of the PHB are you reading where Enthrall has a "miss" and/or "effect" entry? If enemies are next to your friends. Enthrall does nothing, nada, zilch, zippo, useless. Just as Crushing Titan's Fist does the same. If enemies are next to your friends then you need something that prevents them from acting and not just moving. Because at that point they don't care about moving they care about beating the living tar out of your friends.
You are looking at this too much in black and white, and assuming that attacks always hit or always affect combat.
Back to your old games again. It was me who brought up the fact that Crushing Titan's Fist actually does something if you miss the attack roll.
Look, i don't think you understand what a controller does and what control powers do. They are not there because status effects look pretty and AoE damage is like totally cool. They are there to perform specific actions for the party.
1. They are there to kill minions fast. This means volume of AoE.(I.E. lots of AoE encounter and at-wills)
2. They are there to separate the part of the enemy force dedicated to keeping it and others alive(by either interposition, or by healing) away from the other part of the enemy force dedicate to killing you.
Lets do a little exercise. Lets look at the DPR of an enemy force when you do not control versus when you do control.
Now, soldiers and brutes are running about twice as many hit points as skirmishers and artillery and Skirmishers and Artillery are doing about 50% more DPR. Now, lets say you do 1 unit hit points of DPR/Round.
When the Soldiers and Brutes are not controlled. Your attack order will be
Soldier/brute
Soldier/brute
Soldier/brute
Artillery
Artillery
Total incoming damage will be
(1.5x13)+5+3+1= 28.5 (plus 4.5 if you lose init)
Now lets assume you can get those brutes out of the fight long enough to get your damage to their damage. Now your attack order looks like this
Artillery
Artillery
Soldier/brute
Soldier/brute
Soldier/brute
And incoming damage will be 1.5+3+5+7 =16.5 (+4.5 if you lose init)
If you're not allowing your damage to get to their damage unmolested(or unmolested enough to get there) you aren't controlling.
Crushing Titan's Fist? Loads better control than Enthrall. It prevents movement on a miss, which means it allows your friends to not be engaged by those enemies.
Ice Tomb? Loads better control than Enthrall. It either directly takes out damage form the fight that is not being engaged(I.E. one of the arties that isn't being attacked), or allows your friends to get around a brute/soldier that has closed and is now disrupting your damage from making it to the strikers.
Something else to note: Readied actions on the part of your friends get around that damage restriction, since they can ready an action for when they come out of the tomb if they really want to do damage. And you don't even lose and significant init since you reset to "just before" the action that trigged it. Ironically you could even use this trick to jump init if the creature and wizard were acting on the same init.
