Ray of Frost and Cloud of Daggers; Red Headed Stepchildren of Wizard At-Wills?

[NMcCoy]

I've got a second-level Staff of Defense Eladrin Wizard with Thunderwave and Cloud of Daggers as his at-wills. (Shoving someone through the Cloud with Thunderwave is indeed as fun as it sounds.) His first level feat was Leather Armor Proficiency, so he's currently got an AC of 18 (which can be boosted to 24 with the staff + Shield spell once per encounter). Level 2 feat is Raging Storm, which cemented his concept as a weather mage.
Had a great deal of fun when he got himself into trouble by sneaking around at night, Fey Stepping through keyholes. At one point, there were a couple guards shooting at me from a trapdoor in the ceiling. I Mage Handed the trapdoor closed, and then one of them found out the hard way what happens when you get pushed two squares upward. (hint: you get smacked with the trapdoor that got blasted off its hinges, bounce off the ceiling, fall, take 1d10 falling damage, fail your edge-save and fall through the trapdoor taking another 1d10, and then the ladder falls over on you. Good times.)

He's really going to hit his stride at Paragon tier as a Spellstorm Mage (which keys several path abilities off of Wisdom), with the Resounding Thunder and Solid Sound feats, some Gauntlets of the Ram and a Thunderwave Staff, and the Thunderlance spell. Using a Staff of the War Mage and Resounding Thunder to turn Storm Cage into a Burst 4 also sounds delicious. And then shoving people through the lightning wall with Thunderlance, of course...

 

[N0Man]

Can't Magic Missile be used for opportunity attacks?

It was stated to be true in the Penny Arcade/PvP Podcast, however, I've tried to find any reference to this in the rules, and I'm convinced that the DM made a mistake.

 

[Saitou]

Thanks to Wintertouch and Lasting Frost, Ray of Frost can rock your socks off. Cloud of Daggers is also exceptionally useful against Swarm enemies, and is outright nasty if you have a few Rogues or Fighters pushing people around, Minions especially.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Magic Missile is a must if you have a warlord in the party. Otherwise you can live without.

Ray of Frost is the most powerful as an opening gambit ; slow down a brute on the first round and make him lose an entire round! Wee!

Scorching burst is the closest thing to a must have unless your DM hates minions. As long as they are a regular sight at your gaming table, this power is invaluable.

Thunderwave is a lifesaver. As a crowd control tool it's mediocre at best; it forces the wizard to spend a move going to the front, attack, and stay there! Awful. But if it's the monsters who came to the wizard... then he can blast them, hopefully pushes away the monster and spend a move moving away. This may save your Wizard's life many time and if you opt to go without, make sure you are VERY careful about your positioning. In a large group, doable. In a small group, probably suicide.

Daggers deals much damage and if you decide that widom is you going to rise paralel to intelligence, that spell will outsrip the others at-will in damage dealing. In conjonction with pusing people around, it is great.

Tough choice, you say? That's why I consider the humans to be the best wizards and even then they need to make tough calls.

 

[Incenjucar]

Thanks to Wintertouch and Lasting Frost, Ray of Frost can rock your socks off.

This.

A few feats and items and a party can horribly abuse Cold-based powers.

Having an At-Will chance of planting the Killer Cold Combo is, even without the slow, -awesome-. Just make sure everyone has a cold-based thrown weapon on hand. The wizard included, if you have a warlord in the party.

 

[Diirk]

. I Mage Handed the trapdoor closed, and then one of them found out the hard way what happens when you get pushed two squares upward.

Good idea, but I'm not convinced you can force move people upwards... particularly when you start getting powers moving people 10+ squares, the damage might be a bit more than intended.

 

[NMcCoy]

From the context of the game, it was clearly a situational one-time thing, not standard procedure for the power - I was pretty much directly below him (so all the valid "push" directions were upward), I got a natural 20 on the attack roll, and it wasn't a particularly tough enemy.

 

[Graf]

Speaking purely about low heroic levels

Cloud does WIS Damage. That's like 2 points -if- you've pumped wis. If you're a wizard and you're trying to pick off minions once at a time... either the fight isn't very serious or you should always be using another power.

I really wanted it [cloud] to be good, but, it's really just a weak weak power. They'll put out a decent version in the PhB2 and no-one will ever take it again.

Ray of Frost is OK if you're attacking. But it's still #4 out of 5. It's wretched if you're on the defense.

Thunderwave is MVP hands down the best power. You don't want to use it every round, but when you're in trouble thunderwave is the only power that can get you out of it. [sblock=Thunderwave's awesomeness]Thunderwave is...
... The only close at-will (no OA, you can use your move action to run away after you've blasted your attackers back; otherwise you either eat the OA or you shift and get mauled again next rond)
... The only area fort at-will (wizards do lots vs ref; fort's rarer)
... The only thunder at-will (historically nothing resists sonic)
... The only power that moves foes around. PERIOD. (just the battlefield control aspect is good but if you think about pushing monsters over cliffs or into hazards? It's un-freaking-believably good. ) - YOUR ENCOUNTERS WILL NOT DO THIS. YOUR DAILIES WILL NOT DO THIS.
... One of the only area powers that knocks foes prone (fantastic if you've got rogues... but it still eats their move next round.)this wasn't true... oops... [/sblock]
Seriously, thunderwave strictly dominates all other wizard choices.

Other than that I don't think you have much choice at first level.
Scotching burst is necessary to fulfill your role.

If you're human you get to have mm.

Taking the other two powers is really taking a massive drop in power for no reason.

Which is a shame, because the orb power had so much cool promise; but it's a waste for a 1st level character to take it.

 

[NMcCoy]

Cloud does WIS Damage.

...On a miss. On a hit, it's 1d6+int+wis, the most damaging at-will possible for a wizard with at least a 14 wis.

[Thunderwave is] One of the only area powers that knocks foes prone...

Er, no it doesn't. Not unless you push them off a cliff and they make their save, which is awfully situational.

 

[Mezzer]

Good idea, but I'm not convinced you can force move people upwards... particularly when you start getting powers moving people 10+ squares, the damage might be a bit more than intended.

As per the PHB pg285, you can't forcibly move a target vertically. But since his idea was fairly creative and the situation was what it was, I'd allow it that one time, it's not game breaking and it's cool.