My first 4e character I played in any real capacity was a human wizard. Honestly, I didn't love it at first, but I quickly found myself the most potent member of the party.
A quick question: how high is your Wisdom? It seems that since your initiative is so low, your Dexterity must be too, leaving me to believe you must have put some points into it. If your modifier is +2 or higher, then I really can't recommend Thunderwave enough. The ability to push is both incredibly useful and incredibly fun, and it saved my ass countless times.
If you're not a human picking at wills with a mage is pretty tough. I'm currently running ray of frost and scorching burst. I think it's a mistake for any wizard to not have either scorching or thunderwave. I have frequently longed for thunderwave in encounters where I get multiple melee types close to me but our DM has a habit of having the leader of the villains retreat when the battle goes against them. This is both realistic and very annoying
because it's hard to chase them down in 4e and sometimes that guy who is fleeing is taking the best loot with him or taking the piece of the puzzle we need to solve the current mission/quest. This made me opt for ray of frost as it gives me a pretty solid chance to prevent bad guys from escaping as well as possibly affording me the opportunity to escape if that need arises. The game is better if you have to weigh the pro's and cons when picking a power and no matter what you choose you'll sometimes feel regret you didn't choose differently.
I liked Cloud of Daggers, too, but you'll get varying opinions on that.
Your dailies and encounters, while important, are not as important as your at-wills. Especially at such a low level, your at-wills and how you use them define your character.
Also, Flaming Sphere is incredible.
I like all the wizard at wills for various reasons which is something you can't say about many classes. Flaming sphere is definitely an encounter defining power, probably the best level 1 daily in the game. Not taking it is a grievous error if there are dangerous (i.e. possible TPK) encounters in your campaign.
*Bring up teamwork with the party. (I think that seems like one of the most promising fixes.)
*Take Imp. Init. (While I didn't really want Imp. Init. because it doesn't fit with the character-- an elderly Galdalf-ish sage, maybe I'll take it just to make the character more fun.)
*Switch around my At-Wills to take an area attack to see if that improves anything.
*Stick with the character because battlefield control is on the horizon. (This is another good suggestion and one that I had considered as well because so far my 4th Ed. Wizardly experience is made of two encounters for level 1 characters.)
I appreciate the help and if there are any other suggestions, keep them coming!!
Wizards pretty much rock. They can't put out the big damage numbers consistently like a striker but they do get to grind down the bad guys quite a bit. It's very satisfying when your fireshroud gets lucky and you put 5-6 bad guys into an ongoing 5 condition. Make sure with wizards you think about having an escape plan for situations where you're in grave danger with melee types. I play an eladrin so once per encounter I can escape the prospect of having 2 ghouls on me or a bugbear strangler flanking me, or having three goblin warriors pin me in a corner. If you don't have thunderwave then you need to make sure you have a couple of actions you can use when you're adjacent to bad guys because giving up opportunity attacks is really bad for the long term survival of the party. Burning hands, teleport, 2nd wind, fireshroud, and a magic item that lets me use a psychic wave power similar to thunderwave are my actions I can use when in melee range and I try to be careful that I don't use them up too soon in an encounter. The teleport especially for an eladrin should never be used without serious consideration. Humans make up for this by being able to add the 3rd power (I would always take thunderwave with a human mage).
I still think using Intelligence modifier to initiative makes sense. Which would make the most difference in how quickly and effectively a character reacts to a combat starting up. A sharp, attentive mind or the ability to flip a coin over your knuckles.
So my 3 houserules would be:
1. Use highest of dex/int for initiative modifier.
2. Allow wizards to cast burst/blast spells smaller than the standard size.
3. (Wizard Ommition) Ommit one square from a spell's effects.
1) my argument here would be mike tyson always won initiative.
more importantly, it's a game that needs to have mechanics and part of the beauty of these mechanics are the trade offs you have to make when developing a particular character. You're watering down the differences in the game when you keep expanding the stats that can be applied to an ability. 2) this seems prett reasonable. 3) there is a high level feat that covers this and it makes sense that you should need to be very practiced to achieve it. That said making this a feat (which then has an opportunity cost of the feat you don't take) is not over balanced.
My Wisdom has a +2 modifier (I can't remember the exact number though). I steered away from Thunderwave because I thought I wouldn't be close enough to the front line to get to use it much. But I'm going to work it into the mix for next session to try it out.
I definitely like Cloud of Daggers. It wasn't much but in one of our battles I was able to bottle up a passageway so the enemies who were coming to join the fight took a little damage on their way to us.
And it kills all minions that try to move through which is pretty significant. once again, choosing a particular wizard at will has a benefit and a trade off and that is the beauty of the game even if it's a little frustrating at times.
I get your point in stats being used for everything everywhere, but I'm not suggesting that at all. I had that feeling at first, but just because something has always been done a certain way does not mean it is right. I don't mind it happening here and there if there is a logic to it.
The thing is, why should a wizard be considered slow for having a low dexterity, when everything he does has absolutely nothing to do with being physically fast. You could sit him in a deck chair and it wouldn't slow him down because he is using his mind and intelligence, not prancing about like a rogue. My logic for using intelligence makes sense, I'm not just trying to get special benefits by cheating.
Besides, Intelligence has lost more than it's gained. If you are worried that dexterity is being given a rough rap in all this then I partly agree. I can't understand why dexterity doesn't adjust a character's movement - it would make more sense for the dexterity based strikers like the rogue and ranger for nipping about, but I suppose their nippiness comes in the form of the powers they use.
I can't think of a good reason why Strength, Constitution, Charisma or Wisdom would apply to initiative. Wisdom is the closest - but no - I still wouldn't even allow wisdom as it just wouldn't be logical 'enough'.
To be honest I would rather all the skills didn't have a particular ability tied to it, but rather have the ability chosen on a case for case basis based on how that skill is being used at any given instance, but this is all off topic so I'll leave that there.
The big problem here is massive increased game complexity for a relatively low gain. There needs to be differences in the stats, it makes the game better not worse. I play a low dex wizard without improved init and in my 5 levels of playing I have frequently been frustrated by the changes in the playing field before I get to act. Both the monsters and my own team making moves that greatly inhibit my ability to be effective. This is another example of a trade off i'm forced to make when I skip improved init to gain leather armor proficiency and make my guy tougher to hit. I've sacrificed my ability to get off as many early battle heavy hitters for 3 higher AC(I found +1 leather armor). I once walked around a corner into a horde of goblins and was able to unleash burning hands on 7-8 targets. Lucky rolling gave me 6 hits if i remember correctly and I burned an action point to run back to the last room and get behind the fighter
I would love to get more opportunities to unleash burning hands on so many targets (I average 3 targets I would guess) but I made a trade off and chose defense over offensive opportunities. My other feats are +1 dmg with fire based powers (my wizard is thematically a fire mage) and multiclass cleric beause I like the idea of having a healing word to keep me or one of my party members standing in that critical fight of the day. I'll probably take improved init at 6th level but skill training in stealth, toughness, and fast runner all appeal to me for numerous reasons.
Dnd is about choices and that's one of it's best features. One of my biggest disappointments at any level is when the choice is too obvious and thus branching opportunities are lost. Flaming sphere is a bit like this. I've been in 4-5 parties with a wizard. In both parties where we had no flaming sphere we regretted it greatly and lost characters because of it.
