D&D 5E (2024) The Great Wizard Extinction.

[Mistwell]

Wasn't intending to mock you but multiclassing changes things a lot. Do you dispute that the charisma based MC characters have more options than the wizard? Theres to many variables as well once MCing enters the mix.



New Paladin and Ranger offers some interesting possibilities though. Great dip levels.

Some other things.
You're aware Treantmonk kinda gets mocked elsewhere along with Colby at d4? I know you like them and reference them a lot.

I am mocking whoever is mocking them. I suspect it's d-bags at Reddit. Treatmonk like's wizards for control. That's his whole thing. He literally doesn't even like fireball, or most direct damage wizard spells. Even a passing familiarity with his takes on wizards would tell you that.

As for Colby, I enjoy his videos but I don't like a lot of his builds and never referenced them for wizards.

Treantmonk builds also kinda suck. He's decent for guidelines fir say strikers and he's not even that goid at building them.

I disagree. Also, I think your builds usually suck. But then we've had this debate before. Your table seems meaningfully different from any of the dozens of tables I've played at before. You guys have weird assumptions built into your game which very few have. It skews your perspective.

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Latest video he's using only 2024 material. He wanted to add hex to his build but wasn't using 2014 material. Much like Treantmonk he doesn't know you can 2024 phb. Yet another bad build. Much like Treantmonk. I mock those guys because theyre bad@game or at least not as good as they think they are.

I have no idea why you're quoting d4, but Treantmonk's builds tend to be pretty good, particularly for wizards. And I find your builds tend to be terrible and unrealistic for most tables. I guess everyone's preferences are different.

 

[Zardnaar]

I am mocking whoever is mocking them. I suspect it's d-bags at Reddit. Treatmonk like's wizards for control. That's his whole thing. He literally doesn't even like fireball, or most direct damage wizard spells. Even a passing familiarity with his takes on wizards would tell you that.

As for Colby, I enjoy his videos but I don't like a lot of his builds and never referenced them for wizards.



I disagree. Also, I think your builds usually suck. But then we've had this debate before. Your table seems meaningfully different from any of the dozens of tables I've played at before. You guys have weird assumptions built into your game which very few have. It skews your perspective.



I have no idea why you're quoting d4, but Treantmonk's builds tend to be pretty good, particularly for wizards. And I find your builds tend to be terrible and unrealistic for most tables. I guess everyone's preferences are different.

I haven't watched his wizard videos. Its not hard to build a good one. And I agree with him about what wizards should be doing.

Well he did his sorcerer rating built around scorching ray. You know when he was tier listing all the strikers. He missed hex via fae touched.

Then compared it to berzerker barbarian with great weapon. We both agree the Berzerkers a very good striker espicially early on. He gave it one of the best feats for striker damage.

And then built a crap Sorcerer where he was explicitly comparing DPS. He missed a 50% boost pretty much to damage with a somewhat obvious combo that's been known about since Tashas. Bit more context you often see newer players referencing him elsewhere.

He also ignores magic items despite 5.5 explicitly including them and crafting rules. Theres very few that boost caster damage that much. Hell you could use his exact build swapping out 1 feat and ramp those numbers up.

CO we crunched out the math. Same as treantmonk. Except carried it a bit further with elemental adept, empower and seeking spell number crunching.

 

[kigmatzomat]

For example, an elaborate trap closes the doors of the room while water pours in! If the wizard didn't prepare water breathing, that is a dramatic exploration encounter we would typically resolve via rounds and checks. If the wizard has water breathing prepared, that spell is certainly very useful, but now the encounter is over, and it barely registered with the players. At the end of the night, no one remembers, no one talks about it, and the player doesn't feel good about the experience.

Water Breathing lasts 24 hours and is a ritual. It should be cast daily on the whole party. Doesn't even need to be prepared, just in their spellbook.

And the wizard should make aggressive eye contact with the GM as they describe the water trap, then say "Calm down you big babies, I cast water breathing on you and the horses every night while you moan about my 'book club'. You're welcome. Now get that door open."

And people will talk about that and feel good about it.

Or when the wizard decides to jump in a lake as a way to take cover from enemy archers. They will definitely talk about that.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Are we talking an armor feat?

If your talking multiclassing, then no....stats have shown multi-classing is pretty rare among most builds...its the thing we internet optimizers like to do, not the common folk.

Funny. The 5e game we wrapped up was 15% multiclass at tier1 (monk/rogue), 50% multiclass at tier 2 (warlock/bard, fighter/wizard) , 65% multiclass at tier3 (cleric/paladin) and 100% multiclass at tier 4 (bard/cleric, paladin/warlock).

 

[kigmatzomat]

Bless for example has alwaways been overrated. It eats up concentration and an action. So it better turns a few misses into hits or helps keeping up a concentration. On average, bless turns every 8th miss/failure into a hit/success.
This has to make up spending an action doing nothing and doing no direct damage with your concentration slot.

Depends on the make up and level of the party. At tier1 all the buffs are meh so it is more of a defensive boost with a one-fight duration. At tier 2 it isn't super impactful.

But Bless is awesome when you have a tier3 warlock, an archer, and a dual-wielder. That's 9 attacks/round, so every round it saves at last one hit, at the cost of a single action. At tier4 it gets better when it saves 1.5 attacks/round. It is a very efficient spell, especially when you factor in the boost to saves (including the concentration check to maintain the spell).

It was a go-to of our cleric when he was saving "good" spell slots for bosses. We made a point of calling out "holy light guides you" when the d4 was the reason for a hit or save. Total feel good spell. Would cast again.

 

[ECMO3]

I don't think you see fewer Wizards because they are boring, or because they are weak. I think the reason you see few Wizards is the reliance on Intelligence. Being a Wizard forces you to take a high Intelligence and that is not very attractive for three reasons:

1. Intelligence is the least mechanically valuable ability overall. In a point buy game it is universally dumped by everyone not playing a Wizard or Artificer. Even most Eldritch Knights dump Intelligence. It is the weakest of the four saves and the skills tied to it are mediocre.

2. Intelligence is not fun in RP. Charisma is king of the Roleplay abilities. Then Dex, Wisdom and Strength. Intelligence only beats Constitution.

3. It is a very difficult multiclass and this is even more so when you look at mechanical synergies in 2024. The class that has the most mechanical synergy with Wizard is Paladin, but this is a very difficult multiclass unless you roll at least one 15 and 2 more scores of 14+ and even if you do manage that; if Paladin is your main class Bard, Sorcerer or Warlock is still going to work better. Ranger is the second best in terms of mechanical synergy and that is a little easier than Paladin but not a lot easier. On the other hand Charisma and Wisdom are great stats with a wide range of multiclass options, making classes that use these stats more desirable.

 

[ECMO3]

Exactly. Fireball is at its best in 5e in the low-mid Tier 2 range, when encountering CR1-2s as fodder in fights is still pretty common, and fireball has a decent chance at one-shotting several of them, or at least putting them into "next hit drops".

Not really because it is a high cost for those type enemies. In tier 2 you have limited high level spell slots and you can defeat low CR creatures without using lots of resources.

Fireball is situationally useful, but it is not a great spell IMO.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

I think Divination Wizard alone is capable of power-creeping enough to make other classes irrelevant, so is Bladesinger. I think the main reason why wizards are now rare is that Intelligence is just not as good stat as Wisdom and Charisma - if you put the class features aside, you just get more things to do with these two than with INT. Artificer is not exactly that common either.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Funny. The 5e game we wrapped up was 15% multiclass at tier1 (monk/rogue), 50% multiclass at tier 2 (warlock/bard, fighter/wizard) , 65% multiclass at tier3 (cleric/paladin) and 100% multiclass at tier 4 (bard/cleric, paladin/warlock).

My game, before we put it on hiauts to play Mage: the Ascension, was three multiclassed characters and one single-class. And that last one was player who really doesn't like complexity.