Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5416700" data-attributes="member: 82106">If you are running a pure PHB1 Wizard then you have a bit of a tricky task. Focusing on damage output using just PHB1 is going to lead to frustration. Staff of Defense is a good solid implement choice. You will definitely want to have 18 or even 20 INT and probably a WIS secondary, and maybe decent CON. One of the best uses for staff wizards being 'in your face' tactics. You could for instance use Thunderwave for one at-will and maybe CoD or Scorching Burst for the other. MM is OK, but the damage is anemic and 20 range doesn't really compensate. CoD actually has excellent overall damage output, kills minions automatically, and deters the enemy from entering the square it targets.Level 1 encounter powers that can work well would include Chill Strike (awesome control effect), Icy Terrain (nice control effect and the difficult terrain can be pretty handy). Ray of Enfeeblement isn't bad either, weakness is not super strong, but damage reduction is always nice and the damage is not bad (worthless against undead though).Basically in general Flaming Sphere is far and away the best choice for level 1 daily powers in PHB1. Sleep is a great power, but usually requires a bit of support to take best advantage of, though in the right situation it can be awesome.Basically level 2 Utility power choice is Shield. Expeditious Retreat is not bad, but with Fey Step you don't really need it.Going on to level 3 you have 2 solid choices, Color Spray, and Icy Rays. If you don't mind getting right in the enemy's face CS is probably better, but Icy Rays is pretty solid. Level 5 is pretty much Stinking Cloud. Web is pretty solid but Big Stinky can usually accomplish the same task plus nasty damage output. Bigby's can do nice single-target damage over time, but the grabbing effect is easy to escape and overall it is a bit weak compared to the other good choices. Fireball is totally worthless.What you really want to accomplish is dropping effects on the enemy. Concentrate on that. Just say no to stuff like Force Orb and Fire Shroud that do just raw damage. Let the ranger take care of that, he's got it handled. Your job is to slow down the enemy, improve your team's chances of hitting, and to reshape the battlefield so that the party can gain the advantage. You won't get lots of kills and your direct contribution to winning can seem a bit limited at times, but the DM will learn to hate you.</blockquote>

Verification