It just seems SO lacking compared to the Draconic Sorcerer. I don't understand the draw. There is a Wild Magic Sorcerer in one of the groups I play with and we are almost level 7 and he has NEVER had to roll from his Wild surge chart or whatever it's called. What's the point? Am I missing something?
The class pivots indirectly on the wild magic surge table, if you don't use it then you are not using the class features and you'll find it lacking compared to other classes or subclasses.
For fights when people has more hit points the table is good, you should not be afraid of it, there are more opportunities to get good things and at level 14 you have more control. From 50 options there are 4-5 really bad things, 3-4 are damage to nearby creatures which can be good or bad depending on the situation, the rest is fluff or good things. It can also be funny for some people, personally I don't find it funny to roll on a table, after some point you'll get the same things.
Now the cons, the biggest problem is that if you roll in a social situation things can go very wrong, for example you may want to charm a person in the court using the subtle metamagic and you kill the guy with a fireball. This problem can limit the way you play if you don't want to take risks and it can be important depending on your campaign style.
The wild magic table also depends on the GM and it is not easy to see how much times a player should roll, if it helps I have my own numbers:
- Dragon bloodline gets 1hp per lvl (=1/2 feat), permanent mage armor (~1 feat or <1/3 of magic initiate feat x3 times) and a language (~1/9 feat).
- Wild mage, 3 advantages +2 rolls (mostly positive things) ~ 1 feat (Luck)
I think the wild mage should use Tides of Chaos around 5 times/day to be comparable to the Draconic bloodline, but it depends on the situations, with less fights or no fights where HP or AC means nothing the wild mage would be far better, around 3-5 times per day.
For reference as a DM I try to allow 1 Tide of Chaos per combat encounter and 1 more out of fights (2 if no fights) to a maximum of 5 Tides of Chaos and the player always gets the 5% chance after a spell. I think that way the wild sorcerer is balanced with the draconic bloodline. I find the rest of things more or less balanced, guaranteed extra damage for one type of damage vs non guaranteed extra damage for all magic (and this comes at higher lvls when more dice are usually thrown). Fly vs controlled chaos, I prefer fly. Bend luck vs draconic presence, I prefer bend luck and it comes sooner.
Hope this helps.