Ray of Frost or Magic Missile?

[domino]

Between the two listed, I prefer MM just for the range. I've had people say it's not that much of an issue, right up until you face an enemy at 11-20 squares away, and then boy do you want MM.

 

[DracoSuave]

Between the two listed, I prefer MM just for the range. I've had people say it's not that much of an issue, right up until you face an enemy at 11-20 squares away, and then boy do you want MM.

I prefer cover and concealment myself. Let them spend -their- actions to close. If they're forced to get out of position, you win. Magic Missile isn't very good and doing that.

 

[Tony Vargas]

But after playing two sessions and more careful reading, I fail to see the MM's advantage over Ray of Frost save range. The slowed ailment more than makes up for that in my eyes.

Slowed is a pretty marginal condition. If there's an enemy 5 or more squares from any ally, and no ally moves up to it after it's slowed, you've saved the party an attack. It's handy for slowing down a fleeing enemy at the end of a fight. It /should/ be good against skirmishers, but too many of them have movement powers that aren't based on their speed...
Against that, Magic Missle has:

double the range
1.5 more average damage (5 vs 3.5) (and more consistent damage since it rolls two dice rather than 1).
Force damage instead of Cold (both Force and Cold have some feat support that's pretty good - but Cold is resisted more than Force)
Target REF rather than FORT - this is a slight advantage, but FORT tends to be a good non-AC defense more often than REF, and, when it is, as in Brutes, particularly, it can be quite high.
Useable as a Ranged Basic Attack (not as important as an MBA-equivalent, but there are times when you may be restricted by a condition to making a basic attack, or when you're granted a bonus basic attack, or gain a bonus /just/ to basic attacks).
Specific feat/item/power support that expands it's usefulness (some very specificallly /just/ from MM).

 

[Emka]

And here I thought I had made a decision..
I guess we'll stick with MM for now, and see if he wants to retrain when he levels.
Cloud of Daggers would be awesome, but this particular Wizard isn't all to wise (WIS 10). He does have 20 INT tho so Int dmg is where it's at for him.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I always found slow to be a weak condition on its own.

I agree with this. Unless your monsters are running all over the place, slowing them really won't help much. In actuality, it may be a bad idea in forcing them to stay and whomp on the tanking healer because they can't reach anyone else.

There are cases where it may be useful, however, such as if you have a rogue with the feat that they gain CA against anyone who is slowed.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree with this. Unless your monsters are running all over the place, slowing them really won't help much. In actuality, it may be a bad idea in forcing them to stay and whomp on the tanking healer because they can't reach anyone else.

There are cases where it may be useful, however, such as if you have a rogue with the feat that they gain CA against anyone who is slowed.

It isn't a super useful condition. OTOH the more different options you have, the better your control is going to be. You may find slowed is useless in some fights, and marginally useful in others, and once in a great while really good. I think you'll find the same is true of most low-level effects though. Immobilized for instance is nice (and plainly stronger than slowed) but fairly useless if there's a PC in range of the immobilized creature when its turn comes up. All you can really do is pick up a range of control effects and see what will work in a specific situation.

As for a 20 INT low WIS wizard... Yeah, you have less options. You're really playing more for damage at that point. My advice with that type of character build would be to crank accuracy any way you can and concentrate on zones that have INT damage boosts and area attacks that you can pick up a lot of hit rolls with. MM may be a good choice. Freezing Burst might be one decent choice for instance. Its effect isn't stunning, but push is often a good bit better than slow.

 

[Evilhalfling]

My list in order:
Beguiling strands (Heroes of Forgotten kingdom, ie Essentials Book #1)
Freezing Burst (Ibid)
Arch Lighting (Ibid)
Magic Missile (with errata) pg 13 of 23
Phantom Bolt (dragon #380)
Illusionary Ambush (Dragon # 380)
Scorching Burst
Thunderwave
Winged Horde (Dragon #381)
Nightmare Eruption (#380)
Cloud of Daggers (if i could change the description)

the remaining choices are just bad.