Making and Playing a Badass Wizard: How?

[Mal Malenkirk]

My favorite and currently top notch combat wizard is a staff human wizard.

18 int, 14 con and 14 wis 13 charisma 10 dex and 8 str (I actually went 8 dex which is not the best choice but I liked imagining my wzard as reasonably fit but clumsy).

Pick Thunderwave, Illusory ambush and scorchingv burst.

Pick toughness and armor proficiency leather. 17 AC at level 1 is decent. Defensive staff for AV is what you really want but otherwise knock yourself out. Of course you want action surge.

Take a lot of close blast and burst. Level 1 burning hand is impressive at blast 5. Fire shroud is very cool because it's close burst 3 and only target enemies. Color spray is great if you have a rogue in the party. If you take
both fire shroud and burning hand make sure your daily 5 isn't a fire spell.

For level 7, assuming you took burning hand and fire shroud (the best IMO), you must stay away from fire burst. I can recommend lightning bolt simply because it's nice sometimes to be able to hit 3 guys without working for hit. But Winter's wrath is better IMO.

Take the shield utility. Between that, the marking of the fighter and the staff encounter power, you can easily stay on the frontline for a few rounds as long as you stick close to the defender. Take Dimension door at level 6 to move back in a hurry.

You'll see, it's easy to target a lot of enemies with burning hand, color spray or Fire shroud if you stay at the front for a while. Unless you are fighting tons of archer, they have to close for melee with you at some point. And it ain't that hard to avoid catching your allies. Just stick together and coordinate. Make sure the rogue wait until after you've had your shot before flanking, for example!

 

[unan oranis]

In my experience, its more the company you keep than the particular wizard build.

Hang out with rogues, and make sure they get CA every round. Use crowd control so your pals can kill one guy at a time without breaking a sweat. Thats the key to mega wizard power.


Also, bulk up on rituals whenever possible. All the old school is in there, and you will be the man everyone turns to for everything.

 

[Plane Sailing]

A number of people are recommending 'Illusory Ambush' as an at-will, but since that is from Dragon, it is excluded from available spells.

I wouldn't recommend Fireball at all, as a daily spell it does weak damage to a big area. Whoopy do.

Bigbys Icy Grasp is much better as a 5th level daily - it is similar to Flaming Sphere in that once you've cast it you can keep on using it - grab someone and keep damaging them as a minor action. Move to other people and grab them. I don't recall whether grabbed people grant CA, but if it does your rogue colleagues will love you.

Shield sounds like a good 2nd utility, although the main wizard in my campaign has expeditious retreat, and the ability to shift 12 as a move action has saved his bacon a number of times!

As others have mentioned, Flaming Shroud is an excellent 3rd level encounter attack power, because it is one of the few wizard 'enemies only' attacks, and the ongoing damage can add up nicely.

Selection of Rituals can be very significant for a wizard. I'd certainly recommend "Magic Circle" and it would be worth seeing whether the DM would allow other rituals from other sources (e.g. Dragon) as the choice is pretty poor otherwise.

 

[Rechan]

I personally think that Flame Shroud is a bunch of bollucks. Targets Fort, is a close burst effect. Much rather go with Color spray; Target's will, and dazes.

 

[CapnZapp]

Second, are there gnome feats yet? If not you will be at a bit of a disadvantage. Human gets the extra at-will and good feats, while Tiefling gets a great wizard feat, elf gets elven accuracy, eladrin have some bonuses and feats, etc..

That would be true of all non-standard races. Not just Gnome but Goblin too etc.

The DM would be wise to look at which racial feats he's allowing for the other races; then cook up at least one for the Gnome/Goblin/Whatever too along the same lines...

Here's two suggestions, inspired by the standard MM entries:
Shadow Skulk Feat [Gnome]
Prerequisite: Gnome
Benefit: When you make a melee or a ranged attack from hiding and you miss, you are still considered to be hiding.

Fey Step Feat [Gnome]
Prerequisite: Gnome
Benefit: You gain the Fey Step Eladrin racial power.

I'm sure we could come up with more...

 

[themilkman]

Although this stuff is basic wizard optimization stuff, here are a few ideas that suggest "badass" to me:

1.) The staff & leather idea suggested earlier. Wizards can be very squishy, and this minimizes a bitof the squish. It's hard to feel like a badass when you're bleeding.

2.) I forget if this feat will be legit for you or not, but 2nd Implement Mastery is good at Paragon. Staff and orb make a good combo.

3.) Grab Cleric multi-class. An extra heal 1/day will help your compatriots (or yourself!), and it will let you...

4.) Take Divine Oracle (cleric) paragon path. Focus on spells that target Will, and this path will allow you to land your big dalies with increased effectiveness. It also provides some other great bonuses for your party. Works well with some high-ish Wis builds.

That should give you a tough, effective controller who hits reliably. Seems pretty badass to me. Experiment with the stats until you get something you like.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I personally think that Flame Shroud is a bunch of bollucks. Targets Fort, is a close burst effect. Much rather go with Color spray; Target's will, and dazes.

Both are really good.

Flame Shroud is great when there are a lot of enemies mixed in with the party in melee as the wizard gets few area spells which affect enemies only (and as a close burst it can be cast in combat easily). In at least two encounters to date it has really swayed the combat towards the party. It wasn't quite so good when I checked and the player had 'misread' something and was using it as close burst 5 rather than close burst 3 though

Color Spray is also really great - because it is one of the few Radiant spells which wizards get; it is the wizards best anti-undead spell for a long, long while.

Shame you have to choose one or the other really!

Cheers

 

[babinro]

Our wizard focuses on conditions to hinder the foe while the rest of the party deals the bigger damage. As the DM, I find the wizard is by far the most threatening character in terms of ruining strategies and winning combat. I can't say that this is the best build for a wizard, but from a DM's standpoint it is the most difficult build I have to deal with by far.

Level 10:
He uses Ray of Frost (slow) and Thunderwave (push) at wills:
Chill Strike (dazed), Icy Rays (immobile), Spectral Ram (knock down) as encounters.
Sleep (slow/unconscious), Web (Immobile), Ice Storm (Immobile/slowed) as dailies.
Expeditious Retreat, Dimension Door, Blur as utilities.

He makes a point of staying at range, and continued to do so easily with his utility powers. He focuses on high initiative to get in a web/sleep a group at the start of an encounter if they are grouped. From there, anyone trying to get away or surround the party he'll typically slow/immobilize. About the only potential room for improvement would likely be one big area damage encounter power for minions, but in our party, the warlock has those as he multiclasses into a Wizard.

 

[Obryn]

So, this may be a lame question, but I wasn't aware that Small PCs could use staves as weapons, since they aren't one-handed non-versatile.

(Now, if it were a PC in my games, I'd work things out with my player and just let it happen - but if your DM is going strictly core-only, it might be a concern.)

-O

 

[Plane Sailing]

So, this may be a lame question, but I wasn't aware that Small PCs could use staves as weapons, since they aren't one-handed non-versatile.

(Now, if it were a PC in my games, I'd work things out with my player and just let it happen - but if your DM is going strictly core-only, it might be a concern.)

There has been another long thread about that particular discussion before - if anyone wants to address it

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/245474-halfling-staff-wizard-impossible.html

and

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/235825-staff-implement-one-handed.html

Cheers