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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6509460" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't think your paraphrase is very accurate.The passage you quote to says "controllers deal with large numbers of enemies at the same time". "Deal with" is not synonymous with "damage", and this is spelled out by the next sentence, which refers to "powers that deal damage to multiple foes at once, as well as subtler powers that weaken, confuse or delay their foes".If you actually look at a 4e PHB wizard, it is not terribly good at dealing significant amounts of damage to multiple foes at once; the PHB 2 sorcerer (labelled a striker) does a better job of this (though there is later, Essentials and post-Essentials stuff that can make a wizard a stronger AoE damage-dealer). What distinguishes the wizard is the ability to exercise battlefield control (which is where the phrase "controller" comes from, I think - it's certainly how it's understood at my table). The wizard in my game rebuilt as an invoker at level 15, so I can't comment on upper-paragon powers, but the encounter powers that I still remember clearly are Colour Spray (blast 5 daze, level 3) and Twist of Space (AoE hostile teleport, level 7). The at-will I remember is Thunderwave (blast 3 with a strong push effect). In each case these powers also deal damage (at a guess I would say 1d6 + INT for each of them) but it is not the damage that is important unless you are minion-clearing. It's the fact that you daze all your enemies, or put them wherever you want them, or push them all over a cliff, that makes these powers effective.The invoker that the wizard was rebuilt as still has Thunderwave as an encounter power (wizard multi-class) but has as encounter powers Compel Obedience (blast 6 domination), Glyph of Radiance (AoE blindness) and Tide of the First Storm (AoE slow plus free movement for all your friends). The damage is, again, pretty minimal (maybe none for Compel Obedience). It is the effect imposition that marks out the character as a controller, rather than a weak AoE damage-dealer.It is also very common to talk about single-target control (eg the warlock is quite good at this) which - of necessity - has little to do with handling multiple enemies.I think the 5e wizard has a better range of damage-dealing options than the 4e one. I would expect most wizard builds to be (in 4e terms) either strikers, or controllers (both single target - eg charm spells - and multi-target - eg Web), or both (the latter would probably most closely resemble well-built 4e sorcerers, but with even better control).</blockquote>

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