How does one beef up damage dealt by 2nd lvl Wizard?

[Aulirophile]

Play like an idiot.

Die.

Reroll a striker, let someone else take over being the controller (which can be a pretty important job depending on your DM and how good you are at it). Even optimized Genasi Blaster Wizards and Tiefling Fire Wizards don't really compete with Rangers at the same level of optimization (no one competes with Rangers, though). If you want to do damage, you are basically playing the wrong class. That difference is very normal.

@Mad: TS gives you two chances to trigger quarry and two chances to crit, TS is much further ahead then that analysis suggests. Now Careful Attack (+2 to hit) is competitive.... at first level, barely.

10.84 for Twin Strike (including misses, crits, and quarry triggering) vs 11.60 for careful attack. With a longbow and 20 dex. 12.40 vs 12.24 with a Greatbow. At level 2 if you take Expertise and have a magic weapon it is 16.06 for TS vs 14.80 for Careful Attack. So assuming 20 Dex and and a Longbow, Careful Attack is a tiny bit ahead at level 1. And only at level 1. Reasonably speaking though, Greatbow proficiency is going to be right up there for feats at level 1 for a pure-class ranged Ranger. That is at-will DPR against an even level monster, and again includes crits, misses, quarry triggering, and assumes both attacks have the same stats, feat support, and magic items backing them up. But really anything will make TS pull ahead. The feat to make Quarry d8s is better for TS then it is for Careful Attack. Ditto Weapon Focus, etc.

It goes without saying that Nimble Strike is garbage for damage by comparison, since Careful Attack has +2 to attack on it and is barely competitive at level 1 and only if you use a sub-optimal weapon. Whoever thought it was even close was.... very wrong.

 

[Nork]

I'll echo what has been stated many times: Rangers are strikers, wizards are controllers. Strikers do damage, controllers make the DM angry.


Some Wizard tips:

-Minions. They can be really nasty flanking, opportunity attacking, movement blocking pests. Someone has to kill the minions, and wizards can get it done with fewer actions than strikers.

Minions have 1 hp, so it does not matter how hard you hit them, only that you hit them. If you have a 100% hit rate against them with magic missile, you are better at killing them than a striker that does a lot of damage but has to make an attack roll.

Single actions that can hit more than one target > single actions that hit a single target for a lot of damage when minions are involved.


-Turn Stealing. This is what controllers want to do, they want to steal a monsters turn to make it 'effectively dead'. Low level wizards don't really get many hard control 'bang, you're stunned/banished/dominated' powers at early heroic. However, you can still do it.

Readied slide. "I ready an action to slide any monster that ends its movement action adjacent to a party member".

Daze. Daze is a tricky status condition, as sometimes it really doesn't hinder monsters, but other times it does. Knowing when to slap a mob with daze will let your wizard be a turn stealer.

Dazed monsters can still charge, so they can still move and attack. However, if the monster has a bad charge attack but a really horrible nasty attack, then slap it with a daze to force it to use its pitiful attack.

Dazed monsters MUST charge if they want to move and attack. Chargers MUST move at least 2 squares to charge. If a PC is one square away from the monster, then the monster can not charge them. Turn stolen.

Dazed monsters may not make immediate actions. Sometimes those actions are REALLY nasty, nasty to the point that they are as potent as the attack made during its turn. If you daze it before someone does something that you know will provoke the immediate action, then it can't act. Turn stolen.

Artillery monsters. Artillery likes to make ranged attacks, and ranged attacks provoke opportunity attacks. If a striker can manage to get next to one, artillery often likes to shift one square as a move action and then make a ranged attack. If you daze one, it either has to make a dinky melee attack and effectively lose its turn, or it has to eat an opportunity attack from a striker which effectively gives the striker an extra turn.


-Surge evening. 4E is based around a 5 encounter work day. 4 combat encounters and 1 skill challenge before you get an extended rest. If one party member gets beat up and runs out of healing surges, that causes real problems, even if the rest of the party is fine.

Slides. If someone is getting picked on, slide one of the monsters away from them and next to the defender or a party member with a lot of surges remaining. Odds are the monster won't eat an opportunity attack to go back to its previous target and will attack the new target.


-Environmental Hazards. Bottomless pits + slide = awesome damage. When you force movement into a hazard they get a saving throw against the movement, but still, if the hazard is sufficiently nasty a 45% chance to "THIS IS SPARTA" something is still great.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

assuming a 50% chance to hit and ignoring crits and assuming 20 dex
twin strike average damage = 0.25 * (2 * 5.5) + 0.5 * (5.5) + .75 * 3.5
= 11/4 + 2.75 + 2.525
= 2.75 + 2.75 + 2.525
= 8.075


nimble strike average damage = 0.5 * (5.5 + 5 + 3.5)
= 7

so it's over 10% more damage per round at first level

Sorry, mixed up nimble strike and careful attack...

rest: see aulirophiles analysis


edit:
However, you should keep in mind, that:

1. You could want careful attack, because you use lighter weapons because you are a halfling or so. This will make the advantage of careful attack compared to twin strike last a bit longer. (You know, you can retrain at-wills)
And it can be useful if you prefer only using one good magic weapon in your main hand, and whatever weapon you can find in your offhand (like a heavy thrown weapon or something)

2. Nimble attack and hit and run can be tactically better choices than doing more damage.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There are three tricks to beefing wizard damage.

The first is simple: Hit Moar Guyz, kthx. Basically, the wizard excells at the at-wills that hit multiple targets.

The second is: Don't use items, powers, or feats that aren't geared towards Moar Damage and expect to deal Moar Damage. Magic Missile sucked, and it sucks now as a damaging power.

The third is: Wizard dailies are game-changers. Use them to make your turns more efficient and potent.

All very true. He's sitting in PHB1-land though, kinda limits the choices, sadly. Being eladrin doesn't really help in the feat department either. Honestly PHB1 provided practically nothing compelling in the heroic feat department for wizards. What does exist has such nasty ability score prereqs that you're actually worse off if you juggle your stats to meet them.

Astral Fire - +1 damage with Fire. Marginal damage type and you need CHA 13 to qualify, Actually worse than useless, put the stat points into INT.

Burning Blizzard - +1 damage with Acid or Cold. This one is actually worthwhile, you probably already meet the prereqs and the damage types both have decent powers you may want anyway. Synergy with Frost Cheese, which will be your only real PHB1 only optimization route anyhow.

Defensive Mobility - +2 AC vs OAs? Not bad. Worth it if you like getting in the face of the enemy.

Durable - Toughness is generally considered better.

Eladrin Soldier - Not useful at heroic. Maybe handy later with weapliment shennanigans at WotST.

Expanded Spellbook - Hmmmm, really depends on the campaign.

Improved Initiative - May be one of the best choices for a PHB1 Wizard. Speed casting can save your hide.

Raging Storm - Pretty marginal, you really don't have these damage types much.

Wintertouched - Not really much use on its own. Take at level 10 to combine with Lasting Frost.

Beyond that Leather Armor Proficiency isn't bad, you can use the AC. Your other better choices are probably multiclass feats. Warrior of the Wild for the once per encounter HQ is viable. Initiate of the Faith is useful, but won't help damage output.

Truth is for damage output you have Warrior of the Wild that will get you an extra d6 per encounter and Burning Blizzard from heroic tier PHB1 feat choices. It is rather a vast wasteland for Wizards.

 

[DracoSuave]

Not to burst your bubble on damage-type feats... but you don't need a lot of powers that match it. Just one qualifier per level you get powers, and that's enough. It doesn't matter if you can take 4 fire powers at level 3... only one of them actually makes it to the dungeon.

Honestly tho, wizards should really focus on control effects. Go Sorcerer if you want to AoE stuff down like a powerhungry megalomaniac. That class is REALLY good at it.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Yes, sorcerers in PHBII (if you can talk your DM into it) sounds like what you are looking for.

 

[DracoSuave]

All very true. He's sitting in PHB1-land though, kinda limits the choices, sadly.

True, but the principles I described still apply.

Principle 1:

Don't use Magic Missile as the benchmark for anything. Your main options you should look at first are Scorching Burst or Thunderwave. Notice how they do multiple attacks? And Thunderwave's 'Disadvantage' is moot, it doesn't trigger CCs, and whatever you're smacking with is knocked away from you. One of the better wizard spells, period.

Principle 2:

You take Wand mastery, because being able to turn a miss into a hit is more damage no matter HOW you look at it. So what if it's one hit per encounter? If you're rolling 20 attacks per encounter, changing one miss to a hit is equivalent to a +1 bonus. Not to mention, that's often the attack you needed to hit.

You take Staff mastery, but you don't take a Staff of Defense. Seriously. What. As an example, Staff of Thunderwave allows you to take that Thunderwave above, and turn it into an xd6 KABLAM where x is your wisdom. It's like getting an extra heavy hitting daily power.

Principle 3:

Magic Missile sucks. It's not even the best single target force damage power in the PHB1. That honour goes to Cloud of Knives--it ignores cover and concealment (It's an Area attack, not Ranged), it applies some of its damage automatically at the start of their turn and more over, if you're being swarmed by minions, that square is a square that they simply cannot enter. It is closed off to them. They die upon entering it. So they won't.

 

[jbear]

Yes, your only real solution is to convince your DM to relinquish the PHB1 only restrictions and allow you to dive into the sea of options that is 4e two years down the track.

 

[Zaran]

I like the Destructive Wizardry feat. You hit two or more opponents with a single spell and you do 2 more damage to every one you hit. Duel Implement Expertise might work except at second level you should only have one magic item.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

True, but the principles I described still apply.

Principle 1:

Don't use Magic Missile as the benchmark for anything. Your main options you should look at first are Scorching Burst or Thunderwave. Notice how they do multiple attacks? And Thunderwave's 'Disadvantage' is moot, it doesn't trigger CCs, and whatever you're smacking with is knocked away from you. One of the better wizard spells, period.

Oh, no argument about T-Wave from me, I recommended it. You DO have the potential issue of getting in the face of the enemy though. You won't always hit and even when you do you're not pushing the enemy far enough away that they won't be right back again. Sometimes you can let loose with it and then go duck behind the defender, or drop it in a way that doesn't expose you. I would just advise players that are going to get the most out of it not to neglect their AC too much is all, and picking up Staff of Defense is not a bad idea because it is one more round every fight the defender doesn't have to worry about you.

Principle 2:

You take Wand mastery, because being able to turn a miss into a hit is more damage no matter HOW you look at it. So what if it's one hit per encounter? If you're rolling 20 attacks per encounter, changing one miss to a hit is equivalent to a +1 bonus. Not to mention, that's often the attack you needed to hit.

Eh, except of course you can't use it that way anymore as it is now definitively NOT an interrupt speed effect, unless the word on that has changed again recently. If you can drop that bonus onto your attack roll after seeing it, then yes I agree Wand of Accuracy is great. Even so the cost is high, you're basically tanking 2 NADs, which means in the long run WoA is costing you a feat AND some defense. The question is whether or not that feat slot could accomplish the same thing in a better way. Common wisdom these days is you're better off with a different implement mastery.

You take Staff mastery, but you don't take a Staff of Defense. Seriously. What. As an example, Staff of Thunderwave allows you to take that Thunderwave above, and turn it into an xd6 KABLAM where x is your wisdom. It's like getting an extra heavy hitting daily power.

Sure, there are many ways to buff T-Wave. Again, an excellent spell choice that I fully endorse.

Principle 3:

Magic Missile sucks. It's not even the best single target force damage power in the PHB1. That honour goes to Cloud of Knives--it ignores cover and concealment (It's an Area attack, not Ranged), it applies some of its damage automatically at the start of their turn and more over, if you're being swarmed by minions, that square is a square that they simply cannot enter. It is closed off to them. They die upon entering it. So they won't.

MM bites. Cloud of Daggers is actually a pretty darn good spell. IMHO it is kind of a tossup with Scorching Burst out of the PHB1 Wizard at-wills. SB is nice as it gives you minion clearing and at least one decent way to do some AoE damage. CoD OTOH is nice area denial and high single-target damage output in one package. You could go either way and do well. The one flaw with CoD really is that there's about zip you can do to buff it. Still, it fits the bill and can always be swapped out later, which is why I usually favor it over SB.