Wand Wizards

[Mengu]

Why do most people consider wand wizards to be the weakest of the lot?

A +2 or +3 bonus (+4 or +5 at higher levels), once per encounter essentially turns one miss into a hit per encounter. At paragon levels and higher, as more encounter and daily powers are flying around (and the bonus gets larger), this bonus is even more valuable.

In addition, I feel there are some great wands for wizards. A wand of scorching burst adds a 1d6 to the center target. That's striker-like damage right there, not much different than what the warlock gets. And most other wands add some nice controllery effect or at worst, provide an additional encounter or daily power broadening the wizard's options.

Also a high dexterity allows you to go fast on the initiative order which is important for a wizard, and if you choose to spend a feat on Warrior of the Wild (which thanks to good dex you qulify for), gives you stealth to occasionally gain CA (again making use of good dex for a higher skill), and the once or twice per encounter hunter's quarry damage. Or as an eladrin you can just get stealth for free.

Yes, one of the wand wizard's defenses may suffer a bit, but that's why you have other party members. I think Eladrin or Tiefling wand wizards can be quite strong. Another interesting (if not as optimal) build would be an elf (or deva) wand wizard with a wand of cloud of daggers, again dishing out striker-like damage to a single target when he needs to with an at-will power. And both the elf and the deva have encounter powers to boost their hit chance, in addition to the wand of accuracy.

I'm not trying to say staff wizard is bad. And orb wizard is obviously quite good. But I don't feel the wand wizard is worse than the staff wizard.

 

[Ryujin]

Apart from initiative, which can be upped by a feat, why would a Wizard pop for a high DEX? AC comes from INT or DEX, just as does REF defence.

I do agree with respect to attack bonuses though. Every +1 can be important, even if it's only usable once per encounter.

 

[Mengu]

Apart from initiative, which can be upped by a feat, why would a Wizard pop for a high DEX? AC comes from INT or DEX, just as does REF defence.

Improved Initiative is available to the high dexterity wizard as well, and it actually makes a bigger difference to make sure they frequently go first.

The fact that Int/Dex boost the same defenses is irrelevant. The relevant part is that you will end up with lower fortitude. The assumption here is that while the wand wizard should try to pull some of his own weight in defenses (like with leather armor), he is hopefully not going to be up front fighting next to the defenders. The lower fortitude defense should not be debilitating to the wand wizard. Yes it's a disadvantage, but not terrible considering the wizard's role, and other gains I've touched upon for being a wand wizard.

I do agree with respect to attack bonuses though. Every +1 can be important, even if it's only usable once per encounter.

That's mostly where I'm coming from. I've seen the staff wizard miss numerous times with encounter powers, some of which could have turned into hits if he had opted for a wand wizard build.

 

[Goumindong]

Why do most people consider wand wizards to be the weakest of the lot?

A lot of it had to do with the mistaken notion that a wand wizard must apply their bonus to the roll before they knew whether or not it hit. (In fact that they had to apply their bonus to the roll before they rolled)

This greatly diminished the utility of the bonus when it was otherwise very strong.

Secondary issues are/were:

Loss of secondary NAD: Int stacks with dex
No thunderwave: Similar to above, Thunderwave with a high wisdom gets very powerful and continues throughout the game. This favors orb wizards
Mistaken reliance on (save ends) powers: Zones are much more powerful and only a handful of those have (save ends) abilities and those that do can re-apply when they fail.
Weak Items: Wands had terrible items compared to items compared to staves and orbs. They still do to a point(but have gotten better)

 

[Ryujin]

Improved Initiative is available to the high dexterity wizard as well, and it actually makes a bigger difference to make sure they frequently go first.

The fact that Int/Dex boost the same defenses is irrelevant. The relevant part is that you will end up with lower fortitude. The assumption here is that while the wand wizard should try to pull some of his own weight in defenses (like with leather armor), he is hopefully not going to be up front fighting next to the defenders. The lower fortitude defense should not be debilitating to the wand wizard. Yes it's a disadvantage, but not terrible considering the wizard's role, and other gains I've touched upon for being a wand wizard.

When you're trying to create a viable character, wherever possible you should avoid bumping stats that have much the same effect. As a low FORT Warlock I'm taking a beating and should have tossed that minimal +1 that I have in DEX into CON, after having played the character for 8 levels.

I agree that it's important to be able to go before your party and set the stage as a controller, but there are other ways to achieve this. The two that I can think of off the top of my head are (as stated) Improved Initiative and various magic items that add a bonus to the roll. The Casque of Tactics looks particularly useful in that regard.

That's mostly where I'm coming from. I've seen the staff wizard miss numerous times with encounter powers, some of which could have turned into hits if he had opted for a wand wizard build.

You certainly don't have to spell that out for me. My most effective attack is Witchfire. I can't count how many times I've missed with it. I finally realized that in the tougher fights I should be using a combat Bluff to potentially gain a +2 hit bonus and last session it was the difference between a hit or miss with a daily, against the big badda-boom bad guy.

 

[evilbob]

After several levels with my wizard, I can tell you why I would consider wands to be the weakest of the three PHB "builds": because frankly, I don't usually care whether or not I hit. This is especially true of dailies. Most of my spells have effects that happen regardless (which are more important than the damage) or they create zones or something that completely reshape the battlefield, and so miss/hit usually doesn't matter as much. In my opinion all single-target wizard spells are particularly weak, and those are really the main things that would benefit from this build.

If the bonus was +dex to all attack rolls with a single attack, it could come close. But as it stands, choosing one guy out of the 8 you just attacked to be sure you hit? Who cares? They're all going to take damage when they start their turn anyway.

Frankly, if you're a human and take Action Surge you're going to have a better ability than wand wizards get, and it's not even 1/enc.

It's much better to take staff, and get some needed AC (it's like Hide for free, since you took leather anyway) and a mini-shield spell, OR take orbs and do the orb thing (or both, once you're paragon). Plus, as other have said, wands themselves are horrible. Orbs and staffs have much better abilities, even with AV.

 

[robsenworldaccount]

I gotta say,
I haven't played with wands. Seeing as Orbs were new and different and wycked concept that just wasnt around 3.5.

They should have made it so that you got the dex to hit on every target for that spell. Its not much > than being stealthed unless you spec specifically for it. Than you would see some people using wands. +dex vs one target = / = wands or orbs
+dex vs all targets 1/ encounter = win.

Not being a mathemetican I cant say if it would be OP, but I can safetly say that most people play with the other implements because they have more OVERT strengths.

 

[Mengu]

Frankly, if you're a human and take Action Surge you're going to have a better ability than wand wizards get, and it's not even 1/enc.

You have no control over when that +3 from action surge will have an effect. You might be wasting it on rolls that would have hit anyway, or rolls that had no chance of hitting. However you know when wand of accuracy will turn a near miss into a hit. Plus by paragon tier, you can have a dexterity much better than a +3.

With few exceptions, encounter powers do absolutely nothing on a miss. And once per encounter, you get a chance to make one of those misses count.

It's true that AoE's are typically better than single target powers for the wizard, but that's all the more reason there is a chance you'll get to turn a near miss into a hit on an encounter power, because you're possibly making more attack rolls than everyone else.

 

[evilbob]

You have no control over when that +3 from action surge will have an effect. You might be wasting it on rolls that would have hit anyway, or rolls that had no chance of hitting. However you know when wand of accuracy will turn a near miss into a hit. Plus by paragon tier, you can have a dexterity much better than a +3.

True, but you also control which power you use and when you use your action surge with that power. While +3 before the fact is definitely worth less than +3 after the fact, +3 before the fact to multiple attack rolls can be more valuable than +3 after the fact to a single attack roll, depending on how many targets you're talking about: and since you can control when you use your action point to gain an advantage over multiple targets, I still think it's more valuable.

Math may prove me wrong, though.

 

[Ryujin]

Appologies. I thought that Wand use had a fixed bonus, but now that I've been able to check the Players it's DEX bonus. Now I understand why you were saying what you were Mengu.