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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mneme" data-source="post: 5425508" data-attributes="member: 59248">Your math is off here.The chance of a -2 (assuming you're looking at to-hits of 3+ to 18+) turning a hit into a miss isn't "60% of 10%".  It's 10% -- period.This is trivial -- just look at the d20, and count how many success numbers are turned into miss numbers over the number of possiblities on the d20.Alternatively, if you have to do things the hard way...  60% chance to hit (9-20).  Of those, 2 numbers (9 and 10) are turned into misses by a -2.  So that's 60% * 1/6 (chance of one of the twelve "hit" numbers actually being now a miss number) = (drumroll, please) 10%.I don't like Ray of Frost much for the PH wizard, but there are plenty of situations where it's hard control.  Drop it on a melee brute at the beginning of a fight, and it's not -that- hard to either gimp their damage for a round or two or even kill it entirely.  The problem with RoF is really that it's situational, and the wizard -needs- to have a good area power and a good power that works when an area power won't  -- which usually means Thunderwave and an area burst (as Thunderwave is very effective as the "get out of being pinned against the wall" power).  Human wizards may take Ray of Frost (or Storm Pillar), but others won't, typically.  If anything, mages are much more likely to take the hard control powers, as Magic Missile gives them some breathing room and covers the long range aspect (thus builds like MM/Thunderwave/RoF are reasonable).FWIW, I agree with you specifically that the ability of the Mage to have Magic Missile for free is exceedingly powerful (also, it means that parties with ranged leaders -- Eagle Shaman, ranged warlords gain a significant bump, even if primarly in the damage output of the "everyone attack this guy right here" powers); it's not the mage should MM all the time (1/3 is a little much, given that I can set up bursts with 2+ enemies in them about half the time at minimum; Enlarge Spell helps a lot here), but that the presence of MM in their repetoire changes what other at wills they can and will take.  That said, it's somewhat balanced by the lack of ritual casting (although that can be partially bought back with a feat).</blockquote>

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