Sleep is the most worthless spell

[Stalker0]

The base powers are roughly inline with other powers at the same level that don't have any "build riders." The riders are additive - they add something to the power..

Ah, this is where we differ. I believe most of the powers with a rider are not as good as the baseline powers when the rider is not applied.

 

[Stalker0]

If only they were as able to be good (via class feature / build choice) at their secondary role - striker.

Then you sir have not seen a striker wizard in action!

My party's wizard did the most damage overall in the entire group. Big point to remember, multiple attacks means multiple chance to crit. The wizard was getting the most crits, and took feats and implements to try and maximize that advantage.

 

[mneme]

Then you sir have not seen a striker wizard in action!

Oh, yeah. At least at low levels, my Genasi blaster mage really brings on the pain -- using wizard and Genasi features for striker mobility, Flaming Sphere (at 5th level, twice per day using a Tome of Replenishing Flame unless I -need- my other daily) to simply win encounters (and to let me get serious single-target damage; for when big, sometimes party friendly huge damage area spells aren't enough), and even the occasional control effect. The nice thing about blaster wizards is that you don't -have- to avoid actual control to be a blaster (and, in fact, true wizard control in the at will slots is fairly weak, but that's ok because you control with your dailies); you can still take the top-of-tier lockdown spells when they show up and use your at wills to drop enlarged Scorching (now Freezing) Burst on piles of the enemy, which huge effective accuracy (because when you're targetting 5 monters, your "I got a bad roll" is still outdamaging Twin Strike).

For that matter, -every- wizard can, starting at first level, dip a secondary striker roll just by taking Flaming Sphere--which is still the top-of-grade spell at that level. For one encounter per day, your single target DPR becomes 1d4+int+implement+bonuses+hit%(2d6+int+implement+bonuses) (so at level 1, with a +1 implement and a 55% hit chance (low), 15.65) -- what are you complaining about again?

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Oh, yeah. At least at low levels, my Genasi blaster mage really brings on the pain -- using wizard and Genasi features for striker mobility, Flaming Sphere (at 5th level, twice per day using a Tome of Replenishing Flame unless I -need- my other daily) to simply win encounters (and to let me get serious single-target damage; for when big, sometimes party friendly huge damage area spells aren't enough), and even the occasional control effect. The nice thing about blaster wizards is that you don't -have- to avoid actual control to be a blaster (and, in fact, true wizard control in the at will slots is fairly weak, but that's ok because you control with your dailies); you can still take the top-of-tier lockdown spells when they show up and use your at wills to drop enlarged Scorching (now Freezing) Burst on piles of the enemy, which huge effective accuracy (because when you're targetting 5 monters, your "I got a bad roll" is still outdamaging Twin Strike).

For that matter, -every- wizard can, starting at first level, dip a secondary striker roll just by taking Flaming Sphere--which is still the top-of-grade spell at that level. For one encounter per day, your single target DPR becomes 1d4+int+implement+bonuses+hit%(2d6+int+implement+bonuses) (so at level 1, with a +1 implement and a 55% hit chance (low), 15.65) -- what are you complaining about again?

I guess it's far too easy to just look at their typically low-damage at-wills and lack of striker mechanic, and go, "meh."

The only 4e wizard experience I have personally is with one built mostly for control. I didn't look much at damage when selecting powers (not the point of this character at all).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It depends on which spells you're looking at. Wizards have some quite nice damage potential in their daily slots, but in the encounter slots not so much. I've seen many combats where the wizard did things like lock down several enemies for many rounds with at-wills (OK, I shove all the ghouls back into the pond with T-Wave AGAIN...). Going the Genasi route you can definitely blast away with any and all types of powers, but otherwise you really are better off going with the more controllery encounter powers, especially at low levels. I've seen several players make the mistake of taking the pure damage encounter powers like Force Orb and it never really works well.

 

[gjnave]

Just to throw in the mix - the Wizard can also bring very good RPG advantages to the game as well, thats others cant - ie. scaring monsters before battle with Ghost Sound, etc...