Problem with high level wizards....

[TheSleepyKing]

There is most definitely an extent to which wizard damaging spells become less useful over time, and status effects become much more important. Meteor Swarm, a level 29 daily, is probably going to do somewhere between 40 and 45 damage (admittedly over a very wide area).

Given a level 28 or 29 soldier (not even elite) has in the region of 260 HP, mostly you're just going to annoy them with that spell. It's really only good for killing minions -- but you probably could have used burning hands or fireball for that -- with the same probability of success.

Given that, your best options as wizard are going to be spells that inflict status effects on enemies, which gives your allies a better chance to beat them to a pulp.

 

[Aria Silverhands]

/laughs

I am astounded at the people that whined and cried about 3rd edition fighters being boring to play... and thinking that 4e was going to be their salvation. Guess what... now every class is somewhat in the same boat. You'll be reduced to using "full attack" basically, with a few options like sunder, trip, bull rush, cleave, etc. Except in 4th edition, it'll be one of your few at-wills and most likely always be the same at-will in extended combats. Yeah, 4th edition is SOOOOOO much better in that regard. I guess all the whiners should have learned to roleplay their attacks in combat to spice up their fun. Especially since trip / sunder / disarm aren't combat options anymore.

 

[Plane Sailing]

/laughs

I am astounded at the people that whined and cried about 3rd edition fighters being boring to play... and thinking that 4e was going to be their salvation. Guess what... now every class is somewhat in the same boat. You'll be reduced to using "full attack" basically, with a few options like sunder, trip, bull rush, cleave, etc. Except in 4th edition, it'll be one of your few at-wills and most likely always be the same at-will in extended combats. Yeah, 4th edition is SOOOOOO much better in that regard. I guess all the whiners should have learned to roleplay their attacks in combat to spice up their fun. Especially since trip / sunder / disarm aren't combat options anymore.

If your point is worth saying, you can say it without being rude and dismissive of other people.

You've been suspended before for being rude to other people on ENworld, and yet here you are at it again.

Please desist otherwise you'll face more (and longer) suspensions.

If you've got any problems with this, please feel free to email me.

 

[Andur]

To the OP,

First and foremost combats are going to last more than 4 rounds. At ANY level.

A wizard will never have to worry about running out of spells and having to resort to something like a crossbow or staff.

Now let's take a little closer look at your level 23 wizard:

1) Multiple daily spells which "grant" a reuse of an encounter power.

2) Depending on party size they will have between 4-8 magic items, most of which will have a daily or encounter power (or sometimes both) which the wizrd can draw upon.

3) Class abilities...

4) Utility spells

If an encounter is one that any single character "blows" all their dailies (beyond when you only have 1 daily), then it was too hard. If an encounter has more than one character blow all their dailies, most likely it is looking at a near or total TPK.

For Aria, you of course are entitled to your opinion, but it makes it far from fact. Each class has plenty of options, spell casters have fewer choices (since there isn't 2000 spells for divine and another 4000 for arcane to choose from at the moment, but give the splatbooks time) than they did in previous editions, but they are also able to last much longer between rests. Using up all of one characters dailies isn't an "auto-rest" like it is when the Wiz/Sor uses his last fireball or the cleric uses his last Righteous Might or Heal spell.

4e will take a little getting use to, but in the playtests I've done, it is a much more fluid exciting game for combat, and roleplaying still exists in spades.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Don't get me wrong, i've been loving 4e so far. But I did have this 23rd lvl wizzie in 3.5 that i'm trying to convert over. Wizards basically have 4 encounter powers, 4 dailys, and then their at wills. Seems like any fight that goes more than 4 rounds and you're eating into your precious dailys or reduced to using your at-wills which aren't that great. And honestly, I'm not that impressed with some of the encounter powers. Doing 5d6+int is high for a lot of them, many are even less, and you only get one of them then you have to use a completely different encounter power. The monsters seem to have A LOT of HP. I mean my lvl 23 wizards will run out of spells against a lvl 4 black dragon for crying out loud. These spells will take a long time to drop even lvl 10 mobs, much less lvl 23 ones that I will likely be fighting. What am I missing here?

First, it has been said pretty clearly by WotC that the simple and direct conversion of 3e characters to 4e is not part of their design.

Second, as others have said, you seem to imply that as a 23rd level wizard you should be able to handle these situations pretty much all by yourself, but the design of 4e is centered on team play between 4 or 5 characters.

Third, just as save or die has been removed from the game, the damage inflicted by PCs appears to have been brought down to make fights that will last more than one or two combat rounds the standard.

 

[Kishin]

Wizards got the nerf stick very, very bad. Its understandable in intent, but the execution went way beyond expectations. At least, upon first glance.

ANyhow, this thing about 'controllers' is getting very annoying. All the other classes too have roles but they still basically do what they did in earlier editions and in many cases do it even better (i.e. the fighter fights on the front lines and now thanbks to his dailies and encounter exploits can dish tons of damage, far more than 3e). But the wizard...now players are being forced to play this 'controller' guy who only slows enemies down/confuses them just so the rest of the party can defeat them.

Fireball now, is a sad, sad joke. I can already see a ton of fixes being put out in supplements. Furthermore, this now invalidates actions of key npc's. I mean, how exactly did elminster survive alone in hell given that his powers are so mcuh weak; how did raistlin take on half the dragon queens army, etc.

Yes, Wizards are forced to actually play a contributing member of a party, instead of calling the shots in every single possible encounter.

Fireball was a sad sad joke in 3E, too.

It also doesn't invalidate anything. novels didn't translate into game mechanics before, let alone now. Writing a novel and trying to conform to a set of 'game rules' is not the best idea.

 

[Slife]

Well, it looks like it will be impossible to play my illusionist in 4e. No way to have a trickster illusionist when any decent illusion takes ten minutes to cast.

 

[Blackeagle]

Well, it looks like it will be impossible to play my illusionist in 4e. No way to have a trickster illusionist when any decent illusion takes ten minutes to cast.

I believe they've said Illusionist is going to be a separate class in 4e. So they can't make the basic wizard too good at illusions without stepping on the illusionist's shtick.

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

I love wizards, I am a DM 99% of the time, thus...
I like the changes
Wizards were totally broken because at higher level, melee folk = gimp shields for the wizard (or cleric).

Noone player is now "the star", folk aren't meant to solo encounters. It's a team effort.
The Wizards at will AOEs are great for clearing out minions.
And as I tried pointing out to folk, since AOEs can crit, wizards can do enormous damage...
For example, say the party's fighter used an AOE trip, stun, stagger or such like power, the wizard followsup with AOE...
THink things like that.

4th ed is more about party's playing together as smart folk, linking their abilities and positioning to maximize effect and survivability.
If you cna't play as a group player...go play a computer game!

 

[Slife]

I guess it's just that the default time of 10 minutes really gets on my nerves. That, and the "everything costs money" aspect of it. I'd rather be able to do neat things for free and pay for generic scorch and shift with cash.

Meh, I suppose I'll just avoid picking up any of the other 4e books. Dresden's coming out soon anyway.