# Mearls on Controller design and At-Will balance



## Rechan (Dec 16, 2008)

In the General forum, when discussing the potency of the Invoker's At-Wills, Mearls stopped by and made this interesting comment:


mearls said:


> When comparing at-wills for controllers, the wizard has some issues. His at-wills focus more on damage than control. The consensus is that controllers need a little more, well, control in their at-wills than we've handed out so far.
> 
> Vanguard's lightning is what I'd see as a baseline controller at-will, with scorching burst slightly *below* baseline. That little extra bit on vanguard's lightning is precisely the kind of thing that makes controllers go - they limit/mess up the enemy's plans.
> 
> ...


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## Nahat Anoj (Dec 16, 2008)

I thought this offered a lot of insights.  Now, the key point is, how should the wizard at-wills be "powered up?"  For Scorching Burst, I could see something like a lingering effect.  So the wizard casts SB, rolling Int vs Ref as normal.  However, until the beginning/end of the wizard's next turn, the SBs area is filled with little flame bursts and the like.  If a creature tries to move to a new square, maybe the wizard makes another Int vs Ref attack, doing Int of half Int mod damage on a hit?  For Magic Missile, maybe the creature hit takes a -1 to its next attack roll, until the end/beginning of the wizard's next turn?  Anyway, I think it would be interesting to hear some ways to beef up the wizard at-wills.

EDIT - I just realized that my "fixes" for SB make it about as good or better than Cloud of Daggers!    But I think the basic effort at trying to think up "rider effects" is still a worthwhile one.


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## mach1.9pants (Dec 16, 2008)

Hopefully that will see, if not errata (I don't want my lovely shiny books with writing in them) then much better at wills in Arcane Power that any Wiz can swap out for....as soon as they get the book IMC.


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## Tony Vargas (Dec 16, 2008)

You could just up Scorching Burst to a d8.


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## chronoplasm (Dec 16, 2008)

Hopefully this insight makes it easier for them to give us our martial controller.


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## Mistwell (Dec 16, 2008)

Tony Vargas said:


> You could just up Scorching Burst to a d8.




He seems to be saying it's about more than just damage.

For example, if you gave it a secondary attack vs. reflex, hit = target is pushed 1 away from the center of the burst, that would be more "controllery" than merely doing damage.


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## Mal Malenkirk (Dec 16, 2008)

As the only ranged area effect at-will, scorching burst is pretty darn strong.  

It may not be the epitome of the 'controller' power the designer hoped for, but I'm pretty damn sure scorching burst will not get an upgrade.  We'll just see more 'disruptive' power in the upcoming offerings.  And swcorching burst will still be a popular choice.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Dec 16, 2008)

Mal Malenkirk said:


> As the only ranged area effect at-will, scorching burst is pretty darn strong.
> 
> It may not be the epitome of the 'controller' power the designer hoped for, but I'm pretty damn sure scorching burst will not get an upgrade.  We'll just see more 'disruptive' power in the upcoming offerings.  And swcorching burst will still be a popular choice.



I think the reason for this post was the fact that Invokers get an at will that is identical to Scorching Burst except that it also has another effect on top.  So people were complaining that it was way too powerful.  To which Mike posted, "It's not too powerful, it's that Scorching Burst(and in fact, ALL the Wizard at-wills) are underpowered.


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## brehobit (Dec 16, 2008)

The wizard at-wills are amazing, at least at low level.   I don't know that these need an upgrade.

Mark


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## Zsig (Dec 16, 2008)

I'll give it a shot:

"1d6+ Int fire damage. Whenever the target shifts before the end of your next turn, the target takes fire damage equal to your Dexterity modifier."

Highly situational (like the Invoker power) and it also gives some love for wand/blaster wizards out there (providing there are any).


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## Rechan (Dec 16, 2008)

Actually, this discussion makes me scratch my head. So, if scorching burst is weak, and Vanguard Lightning is strong, what does that make Flame Seed?

It does 1d6 (no +int) damage to a single target that you Must hit. Then, all adjacent squares to the target do Wisdom damage to enemies that start their turn in the square (or enter it). 

That's certainly kinda powerful compared to Scorching Burst (effects enemies, does auto damage), but it's also requiring a hit on the original target, and only does 1d6 dmg to the initial target.


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## Nahat Anoj (Dec 16, 2008)

Zsig said:


> I'll give it a shot:
> 
> "1d6+ Int fire damage. Whenever the target shifts before the end of your next turn, the target takes fire damage equal to your Dexterity modifier."
> 
> Highly situational (like the Invoker power) and it also gives some love for wand/blaster wizards out there (providing there are any).



Hmm ... change "shift" to "moves without shifting" (shift represents careful, cautious movement) and I think this works great.


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## RigaMortus2 (Dec 16, 2008)

Jonathan Moyer said:


> I thought this offered a lot of insights.  Now, the key point is, how should the wizard at-wills be "powered up?"  For Scorching Burst, I could see something like a lingering effect.  So the wizard casts SB, rolling Int vs Ref as normal.  However, until the beginning/end of the wizard's next turn, the SBs area is filled with little flame bursts and the like.  If a creature tries to move to a new square, maybe the wizard makes another Int vs Ref attack, doing Int of half Int mod damage on a hit?  For Magic Missile, maybe the creature hit takes a -1 to its next attack roll, until the end/beginning of the wizard's next turn?  Anyway, I think it would be interesting to hear some ways to beef up the wizard at-wills.
> 
> EDIT - I just realized that my "fixes" for SB make it about as good or better than Cloud of Daggers!    But I think the basic effort at trying to think up "rider effects" is still a worthwhile one.




The other thing to consider is if/when Arcane Power splat book comes out, I am sure that will have more controllerish At-Wills in it for the Wizard to pick up.  That's the point of splat books after all, more options...


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## Nahat Anoj (Dec 16, 2008)

RigaMortus2 said:


> The other thing to consider is if/when Arcane Power splat book comes out, I am sure that will have more controllerish At-Wills in it for the Wizard to pick up.  That's the point of splat books after all, more options...



Indeed, but what about the old options?  Should they just be forgotten?  Martial Power didn't obviate the existing at-wills, so shouldn't the wizard's existing at-wills get an update?


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## MyISPHatesENWorld (Dec 16, 2008)

Something else to consider is an article with feats that modify arcane at-wills in the same way the gladiator feats modified martial at-wills. Plenty of names of metamagic, general and reserve feats that apply to spellcasting that haven't been used to name stuff in 4e. 

Another possibility is adding  2 or 3 more cantrips to to the wizards set of cantrips - with the bonus cantrips tied to which at-wills a character has. Either add another class feature all wizards get or make it a feat to enable the additional cantrips and add something like Cantrip Casting to the Ritual Casting and Alchemical Casting options. One cantrip assigned to each at-will and maybe a third cantrip based upon having a certain pair of at-wills.


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## WalterKovacs (Dec 16, 2008)

There are also the various mastery wands that improve things various ways.

Magic missle's range is something it is unique. Thunderwave and Ray of Frost are solid controller type powers. Cloud of Daggers and Scorching Burst are probably the ones that are most in need of some sort of change, and Cloud of Daggers is probably ok, although it's mostly just extra damage ... having it be a "extra damage ... unless" type situation (i.e. anyone entering or leaving the square takes the damage).

For scorching burst, I could see it being "explosive" ... i.e. everyone is pushed/slid "out" of the blast radius although that might step on thunderwaves toes. Another option could be that the area hit by the scorching burst can do residual damage if someone moves through it without shifting (i.e. "kick up hot ash as they move through the blasted area before it's cooled").


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## evilgenius8000 (Dec 16, 2008)

Cloud of daggers would be fine, except that it is basically the druid's _flame seed_ with a smaller radius.


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## Ahglock (Dec 16, 2008)

what is weird for me is I found the wizard at wills(at least in the context of the PH classes) solid to some of the best.  But I found the per encounters which are apparently fine kind of weak.  I rarely would see the need to use the encounter powers over the at will at low levels at least.   The party has not got to high levels, so maybe it changes. 

 But take icy terrain, it what does basically flame burst damage, for flame burst area of effect, and barely hinders those in the area as an added bonus.  The controllery side effects of wizard powers should hinder enemies as much as the leaders side effects help the party.  And from what I've seen so far they don't.  I skimmed the higher level stuff but never really looked at it, when the party levles up I'll read it closer but our wizard is a part time player so I probably ownt look to closely.


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## Rechan (Dec 16, 2008)

Jonathan Moyer said:


> Indeed, but what about the old options?  Should they just be forgotten?  Martial Power didn't obviate the existing at-wills, so shouldn't the wizard's existing at-wills get an update?



As Mearls pointed out, the PHB at wills are less controller focused, instead focusing on damage.

Thus, new At-Wills would be more controller focused, but not be as damage focused.

So if the wizard wants to do more damage, then go for it.


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## Rechan (Dec 16, 2008)

Ahglock said:


> But take icy terrain, it what does basically flame burst damage, for flame burst area of effect, and barely hinders those in the area as an added bonus.



The knocked prone is potent, at least. Prone is a nice condition that wastes a move, and gives CA.


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## Ahglock (Dec 16, 2008)

Rechan said:


> The knocked prone is potent, at least. Prone is a nice condition that wastes a move, and gives CA.




It can be potent.  But we have found it not to be in almost every fight so far.  So far all it has really done is well nothing, they fall down, there up and charge the party.  The range of 10(especially since the wizard is usually not in the front ranks) makes it so the targets need to be in the perfect spot for this to disrupt a round of attacks.  Also for combat advantage to pan out initiative has to work out well for you so you can take advantage of it.


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## MrBeens (Dec 16, 2008)

Ahglock said:


> It can be potent.  But we have found it not to be in almost every fight so far.  So far all it has really done is well nothing, they fall down, there up and charge the party.  The range of 10(especially since the wizard is usually not in the front ranks) makes it so the targets need to be in the perfect spot for this to disrupt a round of attacks.  Also for combat advantage to pan out initiative has to work out well for you so you can take advantage of it.




You can manipulate initiative by having people (or the wizard) delay.


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## Eldorian (Dec 16, 2008)

evilgenius8000 said:


> Cloud of daggers would be fine, except that it is basically the druid's _flame seed_ with a smaller radius.




Cloud of daggers does more damage to the target, and does auto damage to the target.  Flame seed can miss.   They are both good.


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## Justin D. Jacobson (Dec 16, 2008)

I don't think I'm telling any tales out of school to recount a very nice conversation I and the other Eggheads had at Gen Con with Mearls on this very topic. If you're interested in seeing another take on the controller role--playing with conditions and saving throws--you should check out the free heroic-tier playtest doc of Rob Donoghue's Witch Doctor class.


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## Enaloindir (Dec 16, 2008)

Our resident wizard found that Magic Missile was kind of bland. However, coupled with its master's wand (push 1 on a hit), he suddenly felt a lot better about it...

- Enaloindir


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## eamon (Dec 16, 2008)

To those that say the wizard at will are already strong, consider that the wizard has terrible AC, hitpoints and healing surges, and that his at wills hit allies in addition to enemies.  He has fewer options to avoid or mitigate OA's, and he doesn't have the defenses to risk many.  In other words, more powerful at-wills may be a means of compensating; they're better compensation than more powerful encounters or dailies since they're useful more often, but also since they're less easy to obtain via multiclassing.  After all, you want to avoid the situation where the best "wizard" is actually a different class multiclassed into wizard.

Balancing offense and defense isn't easy, but it's necessary if the game isn't to become monotonous.  4e already errs rather heavily towards same-ness between classes (compared to 3.5), and while this is good for balance, it's bad for diversity, so I don't think the appropriate response is to balance the at-wills of every class.

So, while such overall class and role balance might not be easy to find when crucial aspects such as at-wills diverge, it's important they try.


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## Zsig (Dec 16, 2008)

Jonathan Moyer said:
			
		

> Hmm ... change "shift" to "moves without shifting"



Yeah, that probably would work even better.
The idea, I guess, is to punish them for trying to get off the clump, and that way you could explain that the spell leaves ember on the ground or something like that, and if they want to leave they'll have to do so carefully.


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## brehobit (Dec 16, 2008)

eamon said:


> To those that say the wizard at will are already strong, consider that the wizard has terrible AC, hitpoints and healing surges, and that his at wills hit allies in addition to enemies.  He has fewer options to avoid or mitigate OA's, and he doesn't have the defenses to risk many.




I agree with the broad idea: wizards are generically weaker (and frankly have fewer class features than many).  But AC is generally top notch. AC17 at first level is darn good (doesn't everyone take leather at 1st level?)  Only defenders and archer-rangers will have a better AC at 1st level.  And IME that continues all the way up to 30th.  

I still feel the wizard at-wills don't need any help.  I think the invoker at will is only a very very small delta (generally less than slow or prone) so not a big deal...

4e really undervalues area attacks.  Sure they are weak against solos.  But they are huge the rest of the time.  I'm playing a cleric in one game, and "divine glow" has been unbelievably useful.  My fighter in another game finds his encounter (passing attack) to be "eh".   But my cleric's encounter is a big deal.


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## Minigiant (Dec 16, 2008)

I think feats and items will keep the wizard in favor. The dual nature of druids and the heal/buff focus of invokers will mean ther will be a limited amount of feats and items available to them that would increase their controller aspect. 

The crazy rereqs of the damage type feats (Dex/Cha, Int/Wis, Con,Wis, Con/Dex) help. Wizards benefit from most of those crazy combos because of Implement Mastery.  Combine that with the paragon damage type feats, wizards can do a LOT more. I doubt druid and invokers will hit so many damage types.


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## Cadfan (Dec 16, 2008)

brehobit said:


> 4e really undervalues area attacks.



_4e fans on the internet_ undervalue area attacks.


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## Lizard (Dec 16, 2008)

The wizard in our 4e game is stunningly ineffectual. I think the "Nerf wizards!" meme went way too far. We have a melee-heavy party (rogue, ranger, paladin, wizard, bard) and we are in an urban campaign, which means a lot of tight alleys, small rooms, and interior spaces. Slowing enemies doesn't work because the melee is rushing into range with them. Hindering terrain screws us up at well. Area spells catch us in the bargain. So, pretty much, he's limited to magic missile, or "Magic Missing", as it has become known.

Definitely needs a buff. 

I think it's interesting that the "Controller" in 4e is supposed to be what most would call a Debuffer in an MMORPG. This is a very useful role in a group (my ranger Daily which weakens a foe is extremely effective), but the wizard, currently, doesn't cut it. Since they seem to know this, it will be interesting to see if it's "fixed" in Arcane Power. (Is that before or after PHB2?)


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## Evilhalfling (Dec 16, 2008)

I don't particually like vanguards lighting.   Fire seed has plus and minuses to scorching burst, as the power has to be centered on a target, this has a lot less flexability in targeting than Scorching burst.  The abilty to hit a bunch of minions, or to inflict a resonable damage on a group does not need any more bells and whistles. 

Magic missle (with the bracers of perfect shot) and Scorching burst were favored in my game.   Cloud of daggers was talked about as the best at will, because you can continually push monster back into it.  In practice why bother? Push powers are better held for pushing people into lingering dalies, avoiding swarm aura's or exploiting terrain.  

The at-will that really lags is ray of frost.  Slow is nearly useless, and its poor damage.  the twin element feats are hard to use as the twin 13 requirement is counter productive to the SAD wizard.  

Not every power needs an upgrade.


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## Mr. Teapot (Dec 16, 2008)

Enaloindir said:


> Our resident wizard found that Magic Missile was kind of bland. However, coupled with its master's wand (push 1 on a hit), he suddenly felt a lot better about it...




If people wanted to boost the power and controller-ness of wizard at-wills, they could do a lot worse than just giving the wizard the benefits of Master's Wands automatically.  So any wizard using Magic Missile gets to push 1, regardless of implement.



And it took Mearls this long to realize that the Controller was the anti-Leader role?  I've known that since before _Races and Classes_ was published.  (You can see a similar dichotomy between Strikers and Defenders.)


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## Danzauker (Dec 16, 2008)

Lizard said:


> The wizard in our 4e game is stunningly ineffectual. I think the "Nerf wizards!" meme went way too far. We have a melee-heavy party (rogue, ranger, paladin, wizard, bard) and we are in an urban campaign, which means a lot of tight alleys, small rooms, and interior spaces.




Playing a 4e wizard in this kind of setting is like playing a 3e mounted paladin on a barge.

Wrong character in wrong place.


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## Obryn (Dec 16, 2008)

Lizard said:


> Since they seem to know this, it will be interesting to see if it's "fixed" in Arcane Power. (Is that before or after PHB2?)



It's gotta be after.

I think they're waiting until they have 4 classes in a single power source before they release "X Power."  So, we get Martial Power now because there were 4 Martial characters in the PHB.

Arcane Power will have Wizards (PHB), Swordmages (FRPG), Bards (PHB2), and ... Sorceror, I want to say? (PHB2)  So, we need those last 2 classes before we get the Power book.

I think PHB2 will also clear the way for the Divine Power book.

-O


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## keterys (Dec 16, 2008)

One thing that's important to realize is that the wizard barely has controller class features. From a balance perspective, his spellbook and cantrips are practically flavor. Other than orb broken-ness, his implement mastery is also almost a non-issue (and often not to do with actually controlling)

It's almost all about the at-wills. If controllers are defined by at-wills then their at-wills need to be better than other people's (and not 'more damage than twin strike' but actually controlling would be good). Vanguard Strike and Chill Wind are examples of interesting controller at-wills. Magic Missile is not. Magic Missile with push 1? Absolutely.


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## keterys (Dec 16, 2008)

PHB2 is ~March, Arcane Power is ~April. It has 5 classes - bard, sorcerer, warlock, wizard, swordmage.


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## Dinkeldog (Dec 16, 2008)

My view is that the role of controllers should be area (mobility) denial and imposing conditions on the opponents.  I don't want my wizard to fill the same damage-dealing role that my party's rogue and warlock fill.  I want to limit what the enemy does and allow the strikers to be more effective in their role.  Icy Terrain is great for my 2nd level wizard because I can knock things prone and let the rogue go nuts.


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## Milambus (Dec 16, 2008)

keterys said:


> PHB2 is ~March, Arcane Power is ~April. It has 5 classes - bard, sorcerer, warlock, wizard, swordmage.




PHB2 is March 17th
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Players-Handbook-Core-Rulebook-Bk-2/dp/0786950161/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1229450300&sr=8-2]Amazon.com: Player's Handbook 2: A 4th Edition D&D Core Rulebook (Bk.2): Wizards RPG Team: Books[/ame]

Arcane Power is April 21st
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Arcane-Power-4th-D-Supplement/dp/0786949570/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1229450300&sr=8-1]Amazon.com: Arcane Power: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement: Logan Bonner, Eytan Bernstein, Peter Lee: Books[/ame]

Divine Power is July 21st
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Divine-Power-4th-D-Supplement/dp/0786949821/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1229450300&sr=8-3]Amazon.com: Divine Power: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement: Wizards RPG Team: Books[/ame]


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## brehobit (Dec 16, 2008)

Cadfan said:


> _4e fans on the internet_ undervalue area attacks.




Let me clarify.  When designing powers, adding something to an attack (say slow) means you will have it deal less damage to keep it balanced.  The bigger the bonus the more the damage is cut or level raised.  

4e doesn't cut damage enough for area attacks.   So in general area attacks are some of the best powers in the game IMO.  Certainly hitting one person for 2X damage is generally better than hitting 2 people for X damage.  But it seems with area attacks (especially those that don't hurt allies) the debate is 1.1X against 1 person or X vs. 4.  It's an easy call 90% of the time.  The other 10% is when you really need to kill _that_ baddy or you have a solo.

So I agree, the internet fans undervalue area attacks, but so did the designers.


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## keterys (Dec 16, 2008)

Areas have their own limitations (at least the ones that are not 'enemies only') - if they're not close to competitive otherwise they just won't see use.


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## Mort_Q (Dec 16, 2008)

keterys said:


> Other than orb broken-ness...




Not to go off topic, but is it really that bad?  I have found (only a Wiz 4 mind you) the Orb to be mostly useless.


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## DracoSuave (Dec 16, 2008)

True, but such an analysis also undervalues coordinated fire, and the fact that n monsters consume (n^2-n)/2 times as many resources as a single monster does.


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## keterys (Dec 16, 2008)

Mort_Q said:


> Not to go off topic, but is it really that bad?  I have found (only a Wiz 4 mind you) the Orb to be mostly useless.




It requires attempting to break it to a certain extent, but it's fairly trivial to break it at higher level, especially when combined with almost anything else that imposes save penalties. At 11th or so you can make it impossible for a normal creature to save out of a condition, for example. That's... poor, but really it doesn't come up that often so it's not a big factor and why I felt reasonable excluding it.


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## brehobit (Dec 16, 2008)

keterys said:


> Areas have their own limitations (at least the ones that are not 'enemies only') - if they're not close to competitive otherwise they just won't see use.




Sure, no doubt.  But the limitation is generally has been very minor for us. Our wizard has always had a way to hit at least one person with the burst and not target any allies.  But I'd say 80% of the time he's hitting 2+ and 20% of the time 4+.  We do move a bit to help him out, but that's teamwork.  

And the ones that do target only enemies are just huge.  That level 3 close burst 3 for wizards that hits only enemies is just crazy powerful.  Divine glow for clerics (level 1 encounter) is also very very nice. 

The ones auto-hit everyone in 1 square or a zone are also grossly powerful.  Auto-hit generally needs to be treated as about 2x damage...


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## Nahat Anoj (Dec 16, 2008)

Mr. Teapot said:


> If people wanted to boost the power and controller-ness of wizard at-wills, they could do a lot worse than just giving the wizard the benefits of Master's Wands automatically.  So any wizard using Magic Missile gets to push 1, regardless of implement.



I think that's what I'm going to do in my games, actually.



> And it took Mearls this long to realize that the Controller was the anti-Leader role?  I've known that since before _Races and Classes_ was published.  (You can see a similar dichotomy between Strikers and Defenders.)



I think this is the first time he's mentioned it.  I'm pretty sure he was aware of it before the PHB hit the shelves in June, either as a design guideline or, at least, had some kind of dialogue going on in house about it.  It probably just happened too late in the book's writing cycle to really emphasize.

Indeed, take a look at the Master's Wands you just mentioned.  These could be viewed as equipment based fixes for wizard at-wills, so on some level Wizards was aware of what was going on well before AV was published.


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## Nahat Anoj (Dec 16, 2008)

brehobit said:


> I still feel the wizard at-wills don't need any help.  I think the invoker at will is only a very very small delta (generally less than slow or prone) so not a big deal...
> 
> 4e really undervalues area attacks.  Sure they are weak against solos.  But they are huge the rest of the time.



I don't think 4e is undervaluing anything.  Vanguard's Lightning has the same AoE, the same range, and the same damage as Scorching Burst, in addition to the extra effect of hindering OAs.  Thus, it has some use against minions, standards, elites, *and* solos.

EDIT - I just saw your post where you say you think the 4e developers also overvalue area attacks.  I understand what you mean now.  I still think that if Mearls thinks Vanguard's Lightning is the baseline for controllers, then Scorching Burst should be augmented, however.


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## eprieur (Dec 16, 2008)

We had a wizard initially but we found it pretty weak overall. He was doing ok vs minions but we had a few cases of AE hitting the party that turned out to be pretty bad overall. 

When he used flaming sphere at a start of a big fight he ruled that fight, but that was probably more having to do with the fact that if any lvl 1 daily is broken it's that one.  

As soon as he started using at-wills mostly he sucked. Bad hit rate, low damage, slow that barely matters past round 1-2 of a combat, etc. Imo that's the sad truth of wizards.  

Let's look at some numbers. Assuming a 20 int (60% hit rate) wizard with +1 damage bonus due to feat (either from staff focus or some other feat), you have the following dpr numbers for at-wills at lvl 1:  

Magic Missile: 6.75. 
Ray of frost = 5.8 
Cloud of dagger with wisdom attack (14 wis) = 7.8  
Scorching burst, assuming 2 targets which have to be pretty close and ideally in a position to not hit a friend with the spell: 11.65. And I want to stress the fact it's not trivial to always hit 2 good targets with the burst as far as I'm concerned. Monsters will want to melee you and get close to you.  

Now let's look at the invoker: Avenging Light: 7.1 dpr off the bat, 8.9 dpr with the constitution bonus (16 consti, say a dwarf invoker).   

Divine Bolts is basically a garanteed 2 targets which mean you are pretty much doing 11.65 dpr as long as you have 2 monsters within 10 range of you. This seem overall much better then scorching burst. Not counting the fact that Vanguard's Lightning is a direct upgrade and that the best controller spells they gave to controllers that I saw yet is Grasping Shards. I mean just better then ray of frost imo. Same range, same controlling effect but you get to clear the minions.  

Playing an invoker tomorrow I would take grasping hands and probably divine bolts with a 20 wisdom built. As a human maybe I would add in avenging light with maybe 14 con or something similar. In those instances basically your at will are simply better then wizards and as for grasping hands it's probably better at control then even wizard's encounter at least for low level.  

Just for comparaison as a striker you are looking at doing 12dpr or so with good builts minimum so doing 11.65 with divine bolts is nearly striker damage. I think wizards have decent encounters and good dailies (at least for doing damage, probably not for control though) at least early on but their at wills are very bad and since you rely on them a lot in the early levels that a major problem that the invoker doesn't seem to have (at least not as much).


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## RigaMortus2 (Dec 16, 2008)

Dinkeldog said:


> My view is that the role of controllers should be area (mobility) denial and imposing conditions on the opponents.  I don't want my wizard to fill the same damage-dealing role that my party's rogue and warlock fill.  I want to limit what the enemy does and allow the strikers to be more effective in their role.  Icy Terrain is great for my 2nd level wizard because I can knock things prone and let the rogue go nuts.




I don't think WotC should have pigeon-holed classes into certain roles.  Rather, I think they should have their specific builds fit a role.  A Wizard should have the option to be a controller or a striker (imo) based on the build and selection of powers.  In fact, I sort of see Wizards more as strikers than controllers.  I see them as nuking everything, with "controlling" as a minor aspect (if only held out from previous editions based on their spell list).


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## Rechan (Dec 16, 2008)

brehobit said:


> Let me clarify.  When designing powers, adding something to an attack (say slow) means you will have it deal less damage to keep it balanced.  The bigger the bonus the more the damage is cut or level raised.
> 
> 4e doesn't cut damage enough for area attacks.



Whatwhatwhat?

The Area attacks in the PHB are _weak_. Look at Icy Terrain. 1d6 damage over a small burst (same as Scorching burst). The knocked prone is nice, but still, that's _weak_. 

Doing penny damage to several people is nice in theory. But in play, it's hard to get more than 2 foes in an attack, unless it's a Burst2.

I firmly disagree; I think the area effects are some of the _weakest_ powers.


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## brehobit (Dec 16, 2008)

Rechan said:


> Whatwhatwhat?
> 
> The Area attacks in the PHB are _weak_. Look at Icy Terrain. 1d6 damage over a small burst (same as Scorching burst). The knocked prone is nice, but still, that's _weak_.
> 
> ...




Wow.  Maybe it's a DM thing.  Maybe it's a party thing.  But in our group the wizard does more total damage than the striker _every_ fight.  The striker does more damage _where it's needed_, but the wizard does more total damage.  Rarely is getting more baddies in the affect hard.  

And things that don't hit allies _rock_.  Divine glow, the close burst fighter attacks, etc.


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## Rechan (Dec 16, 2008)

brehobit said:


> Wow.  Maybe it's a DM thing.  Maybe it's a party thing.  But in our group the wizard does more total damage than the striker _every_ fight.



Wow. Maybe it's just an experience thing. But I've played in several games with a wizard, and the wizard misses more often than not, or just can't get people in the attacks, or... 

Hell, I playtested a druid and had the same problem; a situation where the biggest burst I had was a Burst 1, there were 2 hobgoblin archers next to one another, and 3 squares over was an ogre. So it's 'Do I hit those two, or do I hit the ogre, because the ogre is a bigger threat? I can't get them all in the burst'.

The only time I have ever seen a Wizard make a difference was a Sleep spell where the Sleep took out a controller enemy and then he was promptly CoD'd to death. 

I just can't imagine the wizard rocking at _all_.



> And things that don't hit allies _rock_.  Divine glow, the close burst fighter attacks, etc.



A power that targets only enemies, or buffs allies while hitting enemies, is far superior to just 'all creatures in burst', which all the Wizard's powers. I agree that those are definitely better AoE effects.


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## keterys (Dec 16, 2008)

It may be a DM thing - some DMs don't position targets that close to each other, as a general rule. So - if your only option that hits more than 1 target _has_ to include an ally that they're flanking, that's a serious detriment to area effects.


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## Victim (Dec 16, 2008)

keterys said:


> It may be a DM thing - some DMs don't position targets that close to each other, as a general rule. So - if your only option that hits more than 1 target _has_ to include an ally that they're flanking, that's a serious detriment to area effects.




Coordination is a huge plus for wizards.  Two enemies flanking an ally is a bad position for a burst.  But if you can get your ally to step back before you attack, then it's a perfect shot.


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## brehobit (Dec 16, 2008)

Rechan said:


> Wow. Maybe it's just an experience thing. But I've played in several games with a wizard, and the wizard misses more often than not, or just can't get people in the attacks, or...
> 
> I just can't imagine the wizard rocking at _all_.
> 
> ...




I can see that, but I don't see how a wizard misses all that often.  He almost has to have a 20 int (both attack and def stat), so at 1st level you are +5 to attack vs. reflex.  That's about the same as +8 vs. AC, which is about as good as anyone other than a rogue gets (+9 with 20 dex, fighters are MAD enough that they can't generally get the 20 str).  If you take a tiefling you've got +6 to hit with flaming burst which _is_ as good as it gets.  

Then it's just a matter of being able to target folks.  In KoSF we found that the large numbers of baddies were always available for flaming burst.  Mix and match that with flaming sphere (which may be the best daily in the game) and the wizard cleans house.  Toss in a fighter to keep people where you want them and you've got a LOT of damage.

Mark


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## Mistwell (Dec 17, 2008)

Lizard said:


> The wizard in our 4e game is stunningly ineffectual. I think the "Nerf wizards!" meme went way too far. We have a melee-heavy party (rogue, ranger, paladin, wizard, bard) and we are in an urban campaign, which means a lot of tight alleys, small rooms, and interior spaces. Slowing enemies doesn't work because the melee is rushing into range with them. Hindering terrain screws us up at well. Area spells catch us in the bargain. So, pretty much, he's limited to magic missile, or "Magic Missing", as it has become known.
> 
> Definitely needs a buff.
> 
> I think it's interesting that the "Controller" in 4e is supposed to be what most would call a Debuffer in an MMORPG. This is a very useful role in a group (my ranger Daily which weakens a foe is extremely effective), but the wizard, currently, doesn't cut it. Since they seem to know this, it will be interesting to see if it's "fixed" in Arcane Power. (Is that before or after PHB2?)




Sounds like your wizard chose his powers poorly for that kind of setting.  Thunderwave is good for close combat (as long as he learns the rules for what shape the wave can be, and where the starting spaces can be, he should miss the rest of the party), and Illusory Ambush is good for single targets, as is Cloud of Daggers.  Magic missile is only good when it's essentially your only choice due to the extended range of the foe.  If your wizard is sitting up close constantly using magic missile, he needs to change out his powers for something more appropriate to that campaign setting.


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## Mistwell (Dec 17, 2008)

Rechan said:


> Wow. Maybe it's just an experience thing. But I've played in several games with a wizard, and the wizard misses more often than not, or just can't get people in the attacks, or...




Wizards suffers very little from multiple attribute dependency, so their attacks should hit more often than most people in the party.  In addition, their powers tend to target more than one creature, so again they should hit more often than most people the part.  If the wizard is always missing, then either he's gone drastically against the odds, or is doing something wrong.


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## Doctor Proctor (Dec 17, 2008)

brehobit said:


> Toss in a fighter to keep people where you want them and you've got a LOT of damage.
> 
> Mark




That last part there is key.  Sure, in the above example of the 2 Hobgoblins and the Orc, you couldn't get all three in the burst.  However, the players can try and work together to set things up.  See below:

(1,2,3 are enemies, F is Fighter, W is Wizard, x is unoccupied)
x12x3x
xxxxFx
xxWxxx

Say the Wizard wants to drop Scorching Burst, but he can't hit all three guys.  There's a simple solution here...  Have the Wizard hold an action to cast Scorching Burst until after the Fighter attacks #3.  On the Fighter's turn, he can shift up and to the right and then attack #3 with Tide of Iron.  Whether he hits or misses doesn't matter, Scorching Burst will go off since the trigger was "when he attacks #3".  If it hits, it will push #3 to the left so that he's adjacent to #2 and all three enemies will be caught in the burst.

Using teamwork like this, you can manipulate the enemies into closer formations to allow your Wizard to fire off his AoE's.  Just sending him in alone and expecting him to figure it all out isn't going to work.  The party needs to work as a unit, with the Defenders protecting the squishing and setting up CA and moving enemies to more advantageous spots if they have the abilities, the Strikers focusing their damage to bring targets down faster, the Leaders keep everyone alive and give them buffs to help them fight better and then the Controller does his best to find the best situations to use his powers in.

One of the other things that I think people miss about the Controllers is that you have _options_.  Going back to the example above, let's say the Fighter couldn't get around to the #3 monster.  Rather than just casting Scorching Burst or Magic Missile, the Wizard should look at his options.  Perhaps he could hit #3 with Grasping Shadows to help out the Fighter, or maybe hit #1 or #2 with Ray of Frost to slow them down and keep them off the party's back?  This Wizard should always keep a good mix of multi-target powers and single-target powers (or at least, non-AoE powers, like Acid Arrow, that work on smaller groups).  Yeah, the big AoE's are flashier, but sometimes it's better to just make one or two guys' lives a living hell, than to waste an AoE on just two enemies.


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## Zsig (Dec 17, 2008)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Doing penny damage to several people is nice in theory. But in play, it's hard to get more than 2 foes in an attack, unless it's a Burst2.




That's rather curious, and I sorta agree.

On Martial Power they gave Rangers some powers that have the ability to hit more than one target but they give you a boost if you choose to hit only a single one (Rapid Volley, Scattering Volley, to name two).

I wonder if that wouldn't be a good idea to bring for Wizards AoE attacks.


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## Lizard (Dec 17, 2008)

Mistwell said:


> Wizards suffers very little from multiple attribute dependency, so their attacks should hit more often than most people in the party.  In addition, their powers tend to target more than one creature, so again they should hit more often than most people the part.  If the wizard is always missing, then either he's gone drastically against the odds, or is doing something wrong.




Party wizard's magic missile +4 vs. Reflex, 2d4+4 damage.
My twin strike: +7 vs AC, twice, 1d10 damage.

I usually hit at least once, and while my average damage is lower, it's a lot more consistent. +4 vs. +7 is a really big difference at low levels, and Ref. defense isn't usually THAT much lower than Armor.

Thunderwave is pretty useless when his Wisdom is 10. 

The Slow effect of Ray of Frost has not once come into play in 18 hours of gaming, encompassing 8 encounters.


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## Leatherhead (Dec 17, 2008)

Am I the only one that thinks that class roles should be upheld primarily by class features instead of the classes powers? Putting them on the powers leads to all kinds of multiclassing problems.


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## Tony Vargas (Dec 17, 2008)

Having slept on this topic, I'm a little taken aback at the idea that scorching burst is a sub-par controller at-will.

When I first looked throught the PH, scorching burst stood out.  Only area at will.  Period.  Twin Strike was often pointed out as being clearly superior to Sure Strike - but it only hit twice for 1[w] - Scorching burst might hit up to 9 targets, and still gets a primary stat bonus to damage.  The other wizard at-wills are also unique in the PH.   Cloud of Daggers creates a barrier, however minor (and inflicts auto damage that can kill a minion, even Reaping Strike doesn't do that).  Thunderwave is the only close at-will in the PH, and pushes multiple targets multiple squares - Tide of Iron is recognized as a great fighter at will and it only pushes 1 target 1 square.  Ray of Frost is the only at-will that inflicts the slowed condition.  Magic Missle is useable as a basic attack, and has a very long range.  

They're /all/ very strong at wills.  Scorching Burst is the kind of thing you'd take as an encounter via dilitante or multiclassing and be happy with, because other classes don't even get a burst 1 among thier level 1 encounter attacks.   And it's sub-par?


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## Scholar & Brutalman (Dec 17, 2008)

brehobit said:


> Then it's just a matter of being able to target folks.  In KoSF we found that the large numbers of baddies were always available for flaming burst.  Mix and match that with flaming sphere (which may be the best daily in the game) and the wizard cleans house.  Toss in a fighter to keep people where you want them and you've got a LOT of damage.
> 
> Mark




My Int 20 wizard did great in KotS. Then we moved on to Thunderspire Labyrinth where:

- there are no minions, anywhere. At least that I've seen.

- Duergar are the main enemies for a lot of it. The designer who updated duergar to 4e decided it'd be a great idea to give them most of the resistances and immunities that the 3e version had. So they're immune to illusion ("Goodbye, Illusory Ambush!") and had 10 points of resistance to fire (Scorching Burst, Flaming Sphere) and poison ("I get stinking cloud! Isn't it great that the majority of our enemies are effectively immune to it?") There was a reason why they moved away from giving monsters whole lists of immunities and high resistances. A good reason.


There's also a strong DM input into how effective a wizard is. Our DM plays most monsters fairly intelligently, so once they realize we have a controller they only bunch up when they have to. A lot of the time I can hit maybe two enemies for 1d6+Int with Scorching Burst, and it really only starts to be very effective when I can get three.


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## Mal Malenkirk (Dec 17, 2008)

Lizard said:


> Party wizard's magic missile +4 vs. Reflex, 2d4+4 damage.
> My twin strike: +7 vs AC, twice, 1d10 damage.
> 
> I usually hit at least once, and while my average damage is lower, it's a lot more consistent. +4 vs. +7 is a really big difference at low levels, and Ref. defense isn't usually THAT much lower than Armor.




Yes it usually is 2 or 3 points lower 90% of the time which put it on par with your +7.  On average it is 2.75 point lower than AC if you check every monster in the MM.  We know that thanks to a very dedicated stat cruncher.   

It is even more glaring when you use an attack that targets will since it is on average 3.31 points lower than AC.

My combat mage has 5 level of experience at this point; he has dealt the most total damage in every single encounter.  I bothered to keep count a few time but it's not even close and rather annoying to the other player (''Look, I did twice as much damage as you!'').

The only times it won'be true is when we are facing solos or maybe a very small number of elite.

If the wizard in your party is useless, it's because a lot of poor decisions are being made, from character creation to tactics.  And tactic wise, some of the poor decisions being made are bound to also be the responsibility of his team mates.  Normally, allies play a vital role in setting up good kill zone.  You can't just ignore your wizards in your decision making and hope he'll get a good clear shot at the melee when his turn come.

For example, my rogue ally always use that power that slide victims in way that position them in an area where I can blast as many BGs at the same time as possible.  I return the favor by then blasting these people with effects that will allow the rogue to sneak attack on his turn.  The fighter routinely joins the fun with Tide of iron and using covering attack to help me withdraw when I move in for a close blast.  I usually get over 3 target with burning hand that way.


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## Cryptos (Dec 17, 2008)

Lizard said:


> I think it's interesting that the "Controller" in 4e is supposed to be what most would call a Debuffer in an MMORPG. This is a very useful role in a group (my ranger Daily which weakens a foe is extremely effective), but the wizard, currently, doesn't cut it. Since they seem to know this, it will be interesting to see if it's "fixed" in Arcane Power. (Is that before or after PHB2?)




My initial impression, pre-release, of what they meant by controller was probably colored by the EQ / EQ2 Enchanter - Stuns, Mesmerize, Debuffs, Buffs, Aggro Control (directing monsters to attack different targets instead of the one p***ing them off) and Damage over Time.  The EQ enchanter, for a player on the ball, was the traffic cop of combat: Stop, Go, Go faster, Go slower, Yield, Spin around and fall on your ass, etc.

I was a little surprised then to see what the Wizard became in the 1st PHB.

I was a little more surprised with the durations nerf (there aren't any durations, really, just a duration roll that has a 50-50 chance of ending an effect every six seconds.)  Which is going to have an impact on any attempt to control anything.

I'm a lot more surprised that, more than 10 years after millions upon millions of gamers identified what a 'controller' should do in combat, Wizards of the Coast was toying with the idea that it meant "do damage to several targets at once."  Aggro, or AI aggression, was the MMO's way of simulating what a DM would do if something kept wailing on a monster: have the monster prioritize targets according to who it sees as the biggest threat.  Doing area damage when you're controlling is often a big no-no... you don't want to make combat harder to control by having everything p***ed off at the controller.  Objectively, if you're a goblin, who do you want to hit:  the heavily armored, hard to hit guy that took a swipe at your friend with a sword or the guy in a bathrobe that just hit you and five of your friends by making fire shoot up out of the ground?  The existence of the Defender, to get targets off of people in bathrobes, suggested to me even more that controllers would be more "controlling" and less damaging.

I feel a little bit better that they acknowledge that their first attempt at the Controller role wasn't really very... controlling... although shockingly, controllers still don't seem to have as broad a range of effects as even the ancient (by today's standards) Enchanter in an early MMO from 10 years ago.  Sure, there are lots of powers out there... doing very similar things.

I hope that they provide updated versions of the old At-Wills in Arcane Power (and the Wands that boost/emulate them.)  It seems only fair that if they're going to change things up, it should be published in something a Wizard player is likely to own.


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## Rechan (Dec 17, 2008)

Leatherhead said:


> Am I the only one that thinks that class roles should be upheld primarily by class features instead of the classes powers? Putting them on the powers leads to all kinds of multiclassing problems.



So what if multi-classing causes you to muddle your role? You don't _have_ to be fully defined by your role.

Besides, all builds have a sub-role. Paladins are defender/leaders. Several fighter builds are Defender/striker. Swordmages are Defender/Controller. So multi-classing only helps strengthen this a little bit.


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## Rechan (Dec 17, 2008)

Mal Malenkirk said:


> If the wizard in your party is useless, it's because a lot of poor decisions are being made, from character creation to tactics.  And tactic wise, some of the poor decisions being made are bound to also be the responsibility of his team mates.  Normally, allies play a vital role in setting up good kill zone.  You can't just ignore your wizards in your decision making and hope he'll get a good clear shot at the melee when his turn come.



Or, you know, he's fighting against a monster that his abilities attack the wrong defense. 

He has Scorching Burst and Magic Missile? Well, we're fighting skirmishers and lurkers, who have fat Ref defenses. Sorry, wizard. Same with Ray of Frost or Thunderwave vs. Brutes (Fort is oft higher than AC). Unless the wizard has a 'paper rock scissors' choice for his powers, and is willing to just use the same powers over and over, picking the right enemy, he's not going to deliver. 

Aside from one Dragon article, the Wizard has no early spells that go after Will. 

If the argument is "Well the wizard is strong _if you're built and played right_", well then one could argue any class is strong when they're built and played right.


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## Rechan (Dec 17, 2008)

It also saddens me that they aren't sticking with the notion that a Controller is a "battlefield morpher", as someone else put it. Being able to summon up persistent zone effects, or sustainable zones, or anything else that says "Hey, if anyone walks over here, you are screwed" really jazzes me. I like being able to change the very field. I felt the Wiz didn't have enough of these, and now the designers are saying "That's not even their purpose any more" makes me a sad panda.


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## brehobit (Dec 17, 2008)

Lizard said:


> Party wizard's magic missile +4 vs. Reflex, 2d4+4 damage.
> My twin strike: +7 vs AC, twice, 1d10 damage.




#1 a striker better be doing more damage to a single target.
#2 You have a 20 Dex, and the wiz has an 18 int? Ick.

If you both have the same attack stat, the wizard will be hitting with a single attack slightly more often than you (as someone else said, reflex is generally about 2.5 lower than AC).  

Assume you both hit 50% of the time.  He'll average 5 points of damage (2d4+5) and you will have 5.5 points. But with hunter's quarry you'll be doing a lot more.

When you toss in area attacks the wizard will rock.  If your wiz has ray of frost and magic missile, they are going to be a sub-par striker.  But MM, a burst and a blast (human) they will do quite well.

20 int, 13 wis, 13 con staff implement human works very well indeed.


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## Rechan (Dec 17, 2008)

brehobit said:


> I can see that, but I don't see how a wizard misses all that often.  He almost has to have a 20 int (both attack and def stat), so at 1st level you are +5 to attack vs. reflex.  That's about the same as +8 vs. AC, which is about as good as anyone other than a rogue gets (+9 with 20 dex, fighters are MAD enough that they can't generally get the 20 str).  If you take a tiefling you've got +6 to hit with flaming burst which _is_ as good as it gets.



For one thing, it's _wrong_ to say "Oh, in order to be worth it, you have to have a 20 right off the bat." That's just bad design, considering you have to min-max immediately.

Secondly, that means that a standard array wizard (16, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10) sucks, because he doesn't have 20; he can only has 18 with a racial.

I personally feel _dirty_ if I start a game with 20 in a stat. I often prefer to pick a race with a +2 in my secondary stat, put the 14 in the secondary, and thus have 2 16s, rather than an 18 in the primary and a 14 in the secondary.


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## brehobit (Dec 17, 2008)

Rechan said:


> So what if multi-classing causes you to muddle your role? You don't _have_ to be fully defined by your role.
> 
> Besides, all builds have a sub-role. Paladins are defender/leaders. Several fighter builds are Defender/striker. Swordmages are Defender/Controller. So multi-classing only helps strengthen this a little bit.




Interestingly, I think you can build a reasonable defender/controller out of a fighter starting around 10th level.  A defender already has a good amount of control.  Toss in area attacks (and fighters have a bunch of encounter/daily powers that are) and you can really dish out significant damage to lots of people and mess with them (marking, opportunity attacks, etc.)


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## Rechan (Dec 17, 2008)

brehobit said:


> Interestingly, I think you can build a reasonable defender/controller out of a fighter starting around 10th level.  A defender already has a good amount of control.  Toss in area attacks (and fighters have a bunch of encounter/daily powers that are) and you can really dish out significant damage to lots of people and mess with them (marking, opportunity attacks, etc.)



Natch. I meant the striker when it comes to the Two-weapon build; many of the powers that might favor that are more damage intensive. I get a similar vibe from the Bloodrage Vigor fighter.


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## Cam Banks (Dec 17, 2008)

Milambus said:


> PHB2 is March 17th
> Arcane Power is April 21st
> Amazon.com: Arcane Power: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement: Logan Bonner, Eytan Bernstein, Peter Lee: Books
> 
> ...




Wow. Arcane Power's being released on my youngest son's birthday, and Divine Power's being released on my birthday. What are the odds?

Cheers,
Cam


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## Cryptos (Dec 17, 2008)

brehobbit said:
			
		

> Interestingly, I think you can build a reasonable defender/controller out of a fighter starting around 10th level. A defender already has a good amount of control. Toss in area attacks (and fighters have a bunch of encounter/daily powers that are) and you can really dish out significant damage to lots of people and mess with them (marking, opportunity attacks, etc.)




It's not just that you can build a better "controller" out of other classes.  Honestly, I feel like a lot of classes have as much or more "control" than the Wizard without any tweaking on the player's part, now that they're finally going with the "control flow, pace and direction of the battle" definition rather than "control things by killing them."

Warlock's at-will either discourages a target from moving closer, makes the caster invisible to the target (so, ultimately, they will most likely choose another target) or discourages damage to the caster.  Then, at that same level, their encounters either: slide, cause a penalty to a defense, a penalty to attack rolls, or give temporary hit points.  Then, at that same level again, their dailies do even more sliding, immobilize, or cause damage over time.

And... when you do kill something, you can: modify a roll, teleport around the battlefield, or gain temporary hit points.  And when you move, you're "fuzzy".

That's from the Striker, the role that is "kill things."

The Wizard, by comparison at the same level: does damage, does damage, does damage to several targets, does damage and pushes, punishes movement to one square, effectively, or slows.  Then, at the same level, does damage in a blast, does damage and dazes, does damage in a what is effectively a burst, knocks prone, or weakens.  Then, for dailies, does damage, does damage with a conjuration, does damage with a cloud, or makes things a little sleepy.

And... when you do kill something after doing all that damage, you get... nothing.  When you move, your arcane power does... nothing.  But you can make lights and little noises which aren't allowed to have combat effects, and once per encounter boost your attack, defense, or make it harder to resist what will most likely be an ongoing damage effect.

That's the "controller."  

Weird.  

I think I always understood that the arcane classes seemed bass ackwards in the PHB on some level.  In most editions, they'd be my favorite class and almost every character would have some sort of arcane power.  Suddenly, with 4e (when all we had was the core), all I was making were martial characters.


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## Hambot (Dec 17, 2008)

Wizards do need to be patched.  They do have great at wills, but they care too much about damage and less about changing the rules of the battlefield.

Their at wills should make up for the fact that they are constantly squishy when they are hit, making them more vulnerable than other PC's when monsters get through the front line.

I think a better solution would be to give all wizards 1-2 extra at-wills, at their current power level with a big selection to choose from so all wizards don't feel the same.

This allows them to control battles by picking the perfect tool for the job.  And give them an at will that punishes monsters for being too far apart - so monsters are never sure whether to bunch up or spread out.  This recaptures the feel of "options" from previous editions, while still having far less baggage like the massive spell compendium.

Also feats should be available that really augment different wizard builds - at the moment their lack of arcane themed choices really sticks out.  

Like for example a paragon feat that decreases casting time for all rituals by 1 step so 
8hrs -> 1hr -> 30mins -> 10mins -> standard action, once ritual requirements are met (like getting mage hand to draw portal circles on the ground).

Being able to bust out funky portals and random stuff mid-combat that other PC's can shove bad guys through would make the wizard feel like a wizard again.  

An example using the current rules:  Making a sturdy airtight coffin that shuts and locks itself when slammed shut, then summoning it mid combat with leomunds secret chest, pushing a bad guy in, slamming the lid shut and teleporting it away back to its secret 20ft under the ground burial location is the kind of stuff that makes for a memorable fight.  As long as it isn't save or die, and the bad guys have defences that have to be overcome for big ideas like this to work, the class would get its mojo back.

And people who love straight blaster wizards should have feats to make them more of an arcane striker too.  The best thing is that feats allow the whole class to be patched with more options - more at wills, more control riders on at wills, whatever.


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## Mal Malenkirk (Dec 17, 2008)

Rechan said:


> Aside from one Dragon article, the Wizard has no early spells that go after Will.




No monster I know of has both great reflex and fortitude so you are all right just with the starting powers, just switching between the two.  Just make sure to grab something that targets will in your other powers.

That being said, guilty as charged, I do recommend taking a rock-paper-scissor approach to my at-will.  Scorching Burts (reflex), Thunderwave (fort) and Illusory ambush (will). 



> If the argument is "Well the wizard is strong _if you're built and played right_", well then one could argue any class is strong when they're built and played right.




Whi isn't a counterargument, isn't it?  People are saying that wizards suck and all I'm saying is they are top earners in a solid party.


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## Rechan (Dec 17, 2008)

Mal Malenkirk said:


> Whi isn't a counterargument, isn't it?  People are saying that wizards suck and all I'm saying is they are top earners in a solid party.



What you're saying is that in your anecdotal experience, wizards rock, and others are saying in their anecdotal experience, wizards blow.

Unless something can be provided that's more 'well what I've seen', nothing's gunna get done. 

Hell, back in the 3e days, you could say 'Bards suck' and I could counter 'yeah well you've just never built a good bard'. Which means that it is POSSIBLE the bard might not suck, if one jumped through all the hoops and bothered to do their homework. But to easily fudge a class doesn't speak well for the class. If it takes someone to build it excellently, then it's really only a class for excellent builders, then isn't it? That's not good design.


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## Mal Malenkirk (Dec 17, 2008)

brehobit said:


> #2 You have a 20 Dex, and the wiz has an 18 int? Ick.




I disagree with that.  18 int is plenty at level 1.  You can go for 20 and it pays off in offense but there is a cost.  For example; your suggested build won't qualify for spell penetration which is a biggie.


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## Mal Malenkirk (Dec 17, 2008)

Rechan said:


> What you're saying is that in your anecdotal experience, wizards rock, and others are saying in their anecdotal experience, wizards blow.
> 
> Unless something can be provided that's more 'well what I've seen', nothing's gunna get done.




Hardly. 

The proposition is that wizard sucks.

The fact that several players have made their wizards the king of damage proves that they can be made to work and suggest that when they don't it's because of factor external to the class; the players.

It's like having a bunch of drivers saying that a car sucks.  When other drivers come along and win races with that car, it proves that it's not the car that has performance problems, it is the previous drivers.



> Hell, back in the 3e days, you could say 'Bards suck' and I could counter 'yeah well you've just never built a good bard'. Which means that it is POSSIBLE the bard might not suck, if one jumped through all the hoops and bothered to do their homework. But to easily fudge a class doesn't speak well for the class. If it takes someone to build it excellently, then it's really only a class for excellent builders, then isn't it? That's not good design.




It is a hell of a lot less hassle making a top notch wizard in 4e then it was in 3e.  Took me a good 15 minute for the first level.   For the most part, a monkey can spot the really bad choices and for the rest you can swap out something each level as you tweak yourself to greatness.

As I keep saying, most of it is team work anyway.  If the team works well, the synergy is great. 

4e isn't really about maxing the character, it's about maxing the team.  It's the tactics that are a bit more challenging.  Which is why it's fun.

And it's a constant evolution.  You see a fight going on and you realize that it would be nice if you could have stunned that damn acrher for just one round and if you could have pushed that brute two squares back so he was caught in the fireball that torched 5 other monsters.  And as you think about those things, some players will realize that they could do this that if they switch power x for power y next level.  And the team becomes even better.

My party has a bunch of these tactics down pat by now and each level opens new option.  Weee!


----------



## Rechan (Dec 17, 2008)

Mal Malenkirk said:


> Hardly.
> 
> The proposition is that wizard sucks.
> 
> ...



It doesn't prove anything. Just because the driver won with the car doesn't mean that the car performs well. IT could mean that the _other_ racers suck. It could mean that the driver of the car was lucky. 

The only thing it proves is that doesn't happen 100% of the time. 

I also put mroe stock in the designers than I do random people on the internet.


----------



## Stalker0 (Dec 17, 2008)

Cam Banks said:


> Wow. Arcane Power's being released on my youngest son's birthday, and Divine Power's being released on my birthday. What are the odds?
> 
> Cheers,
> Cam




Technically, .000751% for random chance of two things happening on specific days of the year....but hey whose counting


----------



## Cryptos (Dec 17, 2008)

Mal Malenkirk said:


> Hardly.
> 
> The proposition is that wizard sucks.
> 
> ...




I almost regret jumping in here, but the proposition here isn't simply that "wizards suck."  It's that accordingly to role, they aren't all that great at controlling.

And that any definition of controlling, for almost anyone outside of WotC for a certain (bizarre) period of time, did not mean "king of damage."

"King of damage", by role, should mean "Striker."


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## Leatherhead (Dec 17, 2008)

Rechan said:


> So what if multi-classing causes you to muddle your role? You don't _have_ to be fully defined by your role.
> 
> Besides, all builds have a sub-role. Paladins are defender/leaders. Several fighter builds are Defender/striker. Swordmages are Defender/Controller. So multi-classing only helps strengthen this a little bit.




I said problems, it is more than just smudging roles.

Lets say a Ranger takes a "striker power" He is now doing double dipping and getting the bonus from both his class feature (hunters quarry) and the improved damage that the "Striker power" has. That is a balance issue.

It is also a balance issue the other way, if a controller trades out their "Controller power" for a power assumes the player has a class feature to fill the role, they take more of a penalty than they should.

It might have worked if all the classes were designed from the beginning with the idea that the powers should fill their roles. But things like hunters quarry and combat challenge create a disparity if the newer classes don't have them.


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## Rechan (Dec 17, 2008)

Leatherhead said:


> Lets say a Ranger takes a "striker power" He is now doing double dipping and getting the bonus from both his class feature (hunters quarry) and the improved damage that the "Striker power" has. That is a balance issue.



No it's not. Because he 1) Has to spend feats, and 2) he can only use that power once per encounter (or day), and 3) he is giving up one of his own striker powers for the other power. That's the balance. He's not Double the Striker, he's just swapped One Striker Power for Another Striker power. 



> It is also a balance issue the other way, if a controller trades out their "Controller power" for a power assumes the player has a class feature to fill the role, they take more of a penalty than they should.



Which is like saying "A tactical warlord with a 10 Charisma chooses a Charisma based power. Therefore, the warlord gets nothing from the power. That's a balance issue."


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## Mal Malenkirk (Dec 17, 2008)

Rechan said:


> I also put mroe stock in the designers than I do random people on the internet.




All Mearls said is that the at-will of the wizard aren't 'controlly' enough.

Whatever modification they do, it won't upgrade the damage and it won't quell the critics seen earlier in the thread about weak wizard who misses often and don't do enough damage.  

If anything, the new 'at-will'  (which I will welcome with open arms!) will just add more tactical complexity.  The strong players of wizards will be stronger, the weak ones will be just as frustrated about low damage and whatnot.


----------



## Mal Malenkirk (Dec 17, 2008)

Cryptos said:


> I almost regret jumping in here, but the proposition here isn't simply that "wizards suck."  It's that accordingly to role, they aren't all that great at controlling.




That's the problem the designers see and I somewhat agree.  As a wizard player I relish more opportunity to be an 'anti-leader'.  

But what the average posters complains about has more to do with low damage, not hitting enough, feeling they don’t contribute enough etc.

Whatever your definition of controller is, wizard are extremely powerful and any fight with 4 or more enemies tend to be a lot easier with a wizard.


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## MwaO (Dec 17, 2008)

Tony Vargas said:


> They're /all/ very strong at wills.  Scorching Burst is the kind of thing you'd take as an encounter via dilitante or multiclassing and be happy with, because other classes don't even get a burst 1 among thier level 1 encounter attacks.   And it's sub-par?




It isn't subpar as something you'd use once per combat. It is subpar when it is either you use Scorching Burst or X and your opponents are spread out. Something that opponents tend to do for fear of encounter powers.

The single target Wizard at-wills are reasonably solid, but they don't really exert a lot of control nor do they do great damage - and Wizards don't have a class feature that lets them boost the damage.

I think that's the big issue.


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## Lizard (Dec 17, 2008)

brehobit said:


> #1 a striker better be doing more damage to a single target.
> #2 You have a 20 Dex, and the wiz has an 18 int? Ick.




No, I have an 18 Str and he has an 18 int. I have twin bastard swords (+3 proficiency bonus). +4 Str +3 weapon prof==+7. +8 when we 'ding'. 



> When you toss in area attacks the wizard will rock.  If your wiz has ray of frost and magic missile, they are going to be a sub-par striker.  But MM, a burst and a blast (human) they will do quite well.
> 
> 20 int, 13 wis, 13 con staff implement human works very well indeed.




That's nice, he's an 18 int, 10 Wis Half-elf, pumped Charisma to be the party diplomat. (I pumped mine for Intimidate, I'm a bad ass mofo). I think he's staff implement. At-wills are MM and Frost, Daily is Sleep/Acid Arrow, not sure about encounter. 

Area spells are a problem due to close quarters/heavy melee party. Direct damage spells miss a lot. I can tell the player is getting frustrated.


----------



## firesnakearies (Dec 17, 2008)

What if one were to alter Scorching Burst as follows:



*Damage:* 1d6 fire damage (plus see effect)

*Effect: * Target takes additional fire damage equal to the caster's Intelligence modifier at the end of its next turn, unless it spends a move action to extinguish the flames, which is automatically successful with no saving throw needed.  This damage persists indefinitely until the target spends the required move action to end it.  Additional applications of this effect from multiple castings of Scorching Burst do not stack.



So, it does less damage than normal, IF the target chooses to sacrifice a move action on its next turn.  Which makes it more controller-y.  But if the target ignores it, and uses its actions normally, then it ends up doing the same damage as usual if it goes for one round, or more damage if the enemy continues to ignore it for several rounds.

Or the secondary fire damage could be based on Wisdom, or Dexterity, or a flat amount, or another 1D6, or whatever.  I'm not sure what would be best.

Or maybe return the hit damage to 1D6+Int and just make the secondary damage 1 point per round.  I dunno.

And should the effect happen only to those hit, or to everyone in the area?  I'd think the latter would make it very potent, but maybe too powerful.

I'd like to see the wizard powers do less damage and more control stuff.  This is the best thing I could think of to modify Scorching Burst with that goal in mind.

Any comments?



*$*


----------



## Leatherhead (Dec 17, 2008)

Rechan said:


> No it's not. Because he 1) Has to spend feats, and 2) he can only use that power once per encounter (or day), and 3) he is giving up one of his own striker powers for the other power. That's the balance. He's not Double the Striker, he's just swapped One Striker Power for Another Striker power.



 I disagree. Feats aren't that costly, and a character can only acquire so many useful feats anyway. For clarity, the Ranger is just giving up a power, not a "striker power" that has the "striker bonus" incorporated into the power, so there is a net gain.




> Which is like saying "A tactical warlord with a 10 Charisma chooses a Charisma based power. Therefore, the warlord gets nothing from the power. That's a balance issue."



 Not at all.  The Warlord has class features that let her act like a leader. There is a baseline that she cannot drop below thanks to the safety net that class features provide. If  that was not the case, then swapping out a to a power they cannot make use of would prevent them from doing their job completely, which _is_ a balance issue, and the problem with relying on powers to perform roles instead of class features.


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## Enaloindir (Dec 17, 2008)

firesnakearies said:


> *Damage:* 1d6 fire damage (plus see effect)
> *Effect: * Target takes additional fire damage equal to the caster's Intelligence modifier at the end of its next turn, unless it spends a move action to extinguish the flames, which is automatically successful with no saving throw needed.  This damage persists indefinitely until the target spends the required move action to end it.  Additional applications of this effect from multiple castings of Scorching Burst do not stack.




Me like!

- Enaloindir


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## DracoSuave (Dec 17, 2008)

Leatherhead said:


> I disagree. Feats aren't that costly, and a character can only acquire so many useful feats anyway. For clarity, the Ranger is just giving up a power, not a "striker power" that has the "striker bonus" incorporated into the power, so there is a net gain.
> 
> 
> Not at all.  The Warlord has class features that let her act like a leader. There is a baseline that she cannot drop below thanks to the safety net that class features provide. If  that was not the case, then swapping out a to a power they cannot make use of would prevent them from doing their job completely, which _is_ a balance issue, and the problem with relying on powers to perform roles instead of class features.




However, a Warlord does not have -only- class features that make him able to lead.  The Warlord's leadery potential is decided by his power selection, his class features simply round that out. 

Wizards have to be able to affect the challenge ahead of them.  As a result, they get -their- class feature which is their versatility, the ability to swap dailies.   Compare to Druids, whose class feature is the extra at-will and the ability to swap in and out of melee pretty much whenever they want.

The Controller class features are geared around -versatility- which is the best compliment to controlling abilities.


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## Plane Sailing (Dec 17, 2008)

Danzauker said:


> Playing a 4e wizard in this kind of setting is like playing a 3e mounted paladin on a barge.
> 
> Wrong character in wrong place.




Are you really saying that wizards have no place in an urban campaign?

That one of the most classic FRP roles doesn't have any place in a classic FRP situation?


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## Obryn (Dec 17, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:


> Are you really saying that wizards have no place in an urban campaign?
> 
> That one of the most classic FRP roles doesn't have any place in a classic FRP situation?



FWIW, I arched my eyebrow at that, too.

Wizards are just fine in an urban setting.

-O


----------



## ThirdWizard (Dec 17, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:


> Are you really saying that wizards have no place in an urban campaign?
> 
> That one of the most classic FRP roles doesn't have any place in a classic FRP situation?




FWIW, it was an urban setting with small, tight spaces and little room for maneuverability.


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## Lizard (Dec 17, 2008)

ThirdWizard said:


> FWIW, it was an urban setting with small, tight spaces and little room for maneuverability.




Which is most of them.  

I admit, we do need to work on tacticals. In our last game, in a mansion, we spread out to look for a room and so triggered several encounters, and we had people running around from room to room instead of focus firing. In most cases, though, if the wizard had a clear shot at the target, someone else was also nearby. There was a lot of opening, closing, and locking doors, and while there was a nice open area for a fight, it was being covered by a (regenerating) archer on a balcony we couldn't reach. The two ranged characters were both "squishy" and didn't want to expose themselves to artillery fire, and the rest of us were fighting in narrow hallways and small rooms. The large, open, rooms had no monsters in them. 

Other fights have been in crowded bars, narrow alleys, and sewers. In most cases, it takes a round to close the distance and then it's melee-on-melee, with magic missile being the only spell the wizard can bring to bear with any effectiveness. We should be "dinging" next game, and we'll see if additional feats/utility help.


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## Charwoman Gene (Dec 17, 2008)

cam banks said:


> wow. Arcane power's being released on my youngest son's birthday, and divine power's being released on my birthday. What are the odds?




1/133225.


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## Plane Sailing (Dec 17, 2008)

My observation of the games that I've been DMing is that fighters have far and away the biggest effect in terms of controlling the battlefield (players currently level 5). It is the fighters that dominate where things move and whether or not they can move. Mobility of most of the foes to date has been primarily affected by the fighters, via their "stop you on an OA" rule and their "free smack if you are marked and attempt to shift or hit someone else".

Wizards haven't had any effect on controlling the battlefield at all. They typically just do a little bit of damage to 1 or 2 people each round.

Cheers


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## monboesen (Dec 17, 2008)

Lizard said:


> There was a lot of opening, closing, and locking doors




And did the Wizard remember to use his Mage Hand cantrip for opening and closing doors, drawing and withdrawning curtains and shutters on windows, move furniture out of the way of friends and into the way of enemies etc. etc.

That would have been controllery


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## Danzauker (Dec 17, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:


> Are you really saying that wizards have no place in an urban campaign?
> 
> That one of the most classic FRP roles doesn't have any place in a classic FRP situation?




If the classic FRP situation is only made of 30x30ft rooms and 5ft alleyways, probably it does not. If you're careful enough to design some encounters in larger rooms, halls and palaces, probably it does.

Just the mounted paladin, another of the big fantasy archetypes, is fairly restricted in dungeons, which is another classic FRP situation.


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## Lizard (Dec 17, 2008)

monboesen said:


> And did the Wizard remember to use his Mage Hand cantrip for opening and closing doors, drawing and withdrawning curtains and shutters on windows, move furniture out of the way of friends and into the way of enemies etc. etc.




No. You can do that as a minor action, can't you? Hmmm...


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## Cadfan (Dec 17, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:


> Wizards haven't had any effect on controlling the battlefield at all. They typically just do a little bit of damage to 1 or 2 people each round.



What amount of damage would stop being a "little bit?"


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## eprieur (Dec 17, 2008)

Magic Missile is about half striker damage (6.75dpr vs 12-15dpr for strikers).
You need to constantly hit 2 targets with something like scorching burst to do "near" what a ranger would do with a twin strike + quarry attack or what a rogue would do with a sneak attack.

Each 1d6 + 6 damage is around 5.8 dpr. You need to be consistantly hitting 2 targets to be able to stay competitive versus strikers and at least 3 targets for each time you only hit 1. And note that at 3 targets you are barely over striker damage in the low levels. You really need 4 targets to get out of pact a bit. If you are constantly hitting 4 targets+ and are "rocking your campaign" then congratulation but I don't think it's representative of the long run. At least it wasn't certainly the case in my campaign when we had a wizard.

Example of something that would help wizard a ton would be to increase versatility on scorching burst so they can target either a burst 1 within 10 or (1 or 2 targets).  That would make it more on part with the invokers stuff.


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## Lacyon (Dec 17, 2008)

To be honest, I'm having trouble imagining a campaign set in tight spaces where AoE powers don't shine on a semi-regular basis.

I mean, in a wide open world, two bad guys charge the front-line dudes like so:

------
--BB--
--FF--
------

and the wizard can AoE them like this until one shifts like so:

------
---B--
-BFF--
------

at which point something has to change before wizzy can get any good action.

But if there's walls in the way:

|--|
|BB|
|FF|
|--|

I'm not sure why the wizard isn't regularly hitting multiple foes.

I mean, I can sure think of a lot of _specific_ situations where he wouldn't be able to, I'm just not sure why they're happening more often than the basic ones.


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## Mistwell (Dec 17, 2008)

Mal Malenkirk said:


> That being said, guilty as charged, I do recommend taking a rock-paper-scissor approach to my at-will.  Scorching Burts (reflex), Thunderwave (fort) and Illusory ambush (will).




I concur.  And that is the set I went with.  I suspect I will need to use skills that let me know the weaknesses of various foes to know which one to use, and they don't all apply all the time, but it's a really good set of at-wills in my opinion.


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## Mistwell (Dec 17, 2008)

firesnakearies said:


> NEW SCORCHING BURST
> *Damage:* 1d6 fire damage (plus see effect)
> 
> *Effect: * Target takes additional fire damage equal to the caster's Intelligence modifier at the end of its next turn, unless it spends a move action to extinguish the flames, which is automatically successful with no saving throw needed.  This damage persists indefinitely until the target spends the required move action to end it.  Additional applications of this effect from multiple castings of Scorching Burst do not stack.




I like it a lot.


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## Mistwell (Dec 17, 2008)

Lizard said:


> that's nice, he's an 18 int, 10 Wis Half-elf, pumped Charisma to be the party diplomat. (I pumped mine for Intimidate, I'm a bad ass mofo). I think he's staff implement. At-wills are MM and Frost, Daily is Sleep/Acid Arrow, not sure about encounter.




He picked the two weakest at-wills. It's not surprising he isn't doing well.  

Scorching bust tends to hit the most number of targets, even in confined quarters, provided you know how to center it.

Thunderwave hits the second most number of targets, and is good for close quarters, again assuming you know how to target and manipulate where it will go.

And even Cloud of Daggers is a better single-target at-will than either of the other two you mentioned, since it does more damage, and can block a smaller corridor in confined spaces.

And with a Staff and Leather Armor, your wizard can withstand some attacks at or near the front line to use those at-wills and targeting requirements.

So really, it's not the wizard who is bad in that situation, it's the poor choices your player made.  He picked two weak at-wills intended for use on an open field.  Magic Missile is for distant enemies (to hit them far away), and ray of frost is as well. (to slow them while they are at maximum range).  Neither are good for close range fighting, neither are good for cramped conditions, and neither should be your "standard" attack as they only hit one target and you are not a striker.


----------



## DracoSuave (Dec 17, 2008)

Not to mention he bumped Charisma rather than simply take Skill Training in Diplomacy.

Also, Staff+Leather+18 Int = Scale Mail armor.  Buddy's sporting Fighter-sized AC here.


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## Scholar & Brutalman (Dec 17, 2008)

Mistwell said:


> He picked the two weakest at-wills. It's not surprising he isn't doing well.
> 
> Scorching bust tends to hit the most number of targets, even in confined quarters, provided you know how to center it.
> 
> ...




Thunderwave and Cloud of Daggers aren't so hot when you've only got 10 Wisdom. It's IMO poor design that none of the wizard powers use Con or Dex for  secondary modifiers. Hopefully they'll fix this as well when they make the wizard more controllery.


----------



## Tony Vargas (Dec 17, 2008)

apearlma said:


> It isn't subpar as something you'd use once per combat. It is subpar when it is either you use Scorching Burst or X and your opponents are spread out.



 I don't see how having the ability to toss a burst 1 once/encounter can be /better/ than being able to toss a burst 1 every round.  That's just absurd on the face of it.  Are you trying to say that there just isn't much call for area spells?  Area spells don't just do damage (or put effects) on multiple enemies, they also bypass concealment and cover, and they act as area interdiction - that is, they keep enemies from staying in formation or bunching up to concetrate melee power on your front line.   If you assume you always succeed at that, whether you actually have an AE or not, I suppose the value of area attacks isn't that great, anymore.  

I don't think that's a safe assumption, though.  A lot of monsters benefit from being adjacent to thier allies or ganging up on the same PC (over and above the usual advantage of concentrating damage on one victim).  If monsters stay spread out, they're giving up those advantages - so well-played ones won't disperse unless forced to by the controller.  After dispersing the enemy, the controller no longer dishes striker+ damage, but he's succeeded at his role.  



firesnakearies said:


> What if one were to alter Scorching Burst as follows:
> *Damage:* 1d6 fire damage (plus see effect)
> *Effect: * Target takes additional fire damage equal to the caster's Intelligence modifier at the end of its next turn, unless it spends a move action to extinguish the flames, which is automatically successful with no saving throw needed.  This damage persists indefinitely until the target spends the required move action to end it.  Additional applications of this effect from multiple castings of Scorching Burst do not stack.



Interesting idea.

The more conventional way to write it up would be:

Hit: 1d6 fire damage, plus continuing fire damage equal to your INT modifier (target my use a move action to end).  

The problem with the conventional mode is that continuing damage happens at the start of the victim's turn, so they'd almost always take the damage once. Actually, that's not so much a 'problem' if you want to upgrade Scorching Burst.  Re-writing continuing damage rules for a specific power is always an option in an exception-based system, but IMHO, the game runs smoother if you try to avoid such things.




> Or the secondary fire damage could be based on Wisdom, or Dexterity, or a flat amount, or another 1D6, or whatever.  I'm not sure what would be best.



 Basing it on DEX would make it a 'wand wizard power' - basing it on WIS would make it an 'orb wizard power' (and they already have /two/).  A flat amount - 5 is most common, 2 is apropriate for a 'weaker' power - wouldn't be out of line.  You might want to let INT add to the base damage, though, if you go for a flat amount, like 1d4+INT +2/continuing, OR:







> Or maybe return the hit damage to 1D6+Int and just make the secondary damage 1 point per round.  I dunno.






> And should the effect happen only to those hit, or to everyone in the area?  I'd think the latter would make it very potent, but maybe too powerful.



Only those hit, so it doesn't step on Cloud of Daggers.


----------



## MwaO (Dec 18, 2008)

Tony Vargas said:


> I don't see how having the ability to toss a burst 1 once/encounter can be /better/ than being able to toss a burst 1 every round.  That's just absurd on the face of it.




Once per encounter at the cost of a feat(with possible free skill) vs. every round at the cost of an at-will. Given non-human wizards only get one additional at-will, that's a high cost if there's no moment where Scorching Burst represents the best possible action.

This is also in the context that Wizards, if anything, should find it difficult to pick Encounter/Daily powers that don't target areas. Non-Wizards getting it once a day often have problems picking up area damage.


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## Lizard (Dec 18, 2008)

Mistwell said:


> He picked the two weakest at-wills. It's not surprising he isn't doing well.




I was wrong; he took MM and Thunderwave, which is where his 10 Wis really shines.  I think his Encounter must be the icy one.


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## Jack99 (Dec 18, 2008)

Lizard said:


> The wizard in our 4e game is stunningly ineffectual. I think the "Nerf wizards!" meme went way too far. We have a melee-heavy party (rogue, ranger, paladin, wizard, bard) and we are in an urban campaign, which means a lot of tight alleys, small rooms, and interior spaces. Slowing enemies doesn't work because the melee is rushing into range with them. Hindering terrain screws us up at well. Area spells catch us in the bargain. So, pretty much, he's limited to magic missile, or "Magic Missing", as it has become known.
> 
> Definitely needs a buff.






Lizard said:


> Which is most of them.
> 
> I admit, we do need to work on tacticals. In our last game, in a mansion, we spread out to look for a room and so triggered several encounters, and we had people running around from room to room instead of focus firing. In most cases, though, if the wizard had a clear shot at the target, someone else was also nearby. There was a lot of opening, closing, and locking doors, and while there was a nice open area for a fight, it was being covered by a (regenerating) archer on a balcony we couldn't reach. The two ranged characters were both "squishy" and didn't want to expose themselves to artillery fire, and the rest of us were fighting in narrow hallways and small rooms. The large, open, rooms had no monsters in them.
> 
> Other fights have been in crowded bars, narrow alleys, and sewers. In most cases, it takes a round to close the distance and then it's melee-on-melee, with magic missile being the only spell the wizard can bring to bear with any effectiveness. We should be "dinging" next game, and we'll see if additional feats/utility help.




My campaign has been going on for a while now, and players are approaching level 10 (will ding next time, if they survive their first dragon-encounter). One thing I have noticed is how the wizard has become much better over time. Not due to getting more encounters and dailies, and thus using his at-wills more, but instead because the party has embraced the whole cooperative spirit of 4e instead of playing me, myself and I, which they had a tendency to do in the previous editions. That cooperation has helped our wizard immensely, because he can use his area attacks a lot more often, when other players help position the monsters so that the party can benefit from having a wizard. Also, he has himself become better using the push effect of thunderwave coupled with action points and area of effects to achieve a great synergy.

Sure, he does not feel so hot against solo monsters, but on the other hand, no one can touch him when the battlefield is flooded with minions. But that's okay, as he says, he doesn't expect the wizard to be the best in every circumstance, as he was in the previous editions (especially 2e, which is what we have played the most).

Anyway, to sum up, I do not feel there is anything underpowered about the wizard. I would wish however, that all of his spells did less damage, but impaired the monsters more instead. But that's for another thread.

Cheers


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## Budalic (Dec 18, 2008)

eprieur said:


> Magic Missile is about half striker damage (6.75dpr vs 12-15dpr for strikers).
> You need to constantly hit 2 targets with something like scorching burst to do "near" what a ranger would do with a twin strike + quarry attack or what a rogue would do with a sneak attack.




Assume that monster's ref defense is 2 points below AC. At first level, ranger with twin strike will do, assuming 50% chance of hitting, quarry, 18 dex and longbow, 0.5 * 5.5 + 0.5 * 5.5 + 0.75 * 3.5 = 8.125 damage. Wizard with 18 int and scorching burst will do 0.5 * 7.5 + 0.5 * 7.5 = 7.5 damage against 2 targets. That's 0.625 damage difference - enough to account sometimes catching 3 targets. I didn't count feats, because effect of astral fire and weapon focus / ex. weapon prof. is equal for this comparision. 
And if party cooperates with you (delay/ready), it's easier to set up 2 or 3 tragets for attack.


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## James McMurray (Dec 18, 2008)

Lizard said:


> I was wrong; he took MM and Thunderwave, which is where his 10 Wis really shines.  I think his Encounter must be the icy one.




This isn't a case of the wizard being too weak, it's a case of one person making a very sub par build for RP reasons. There's nothing wrong with it if he enjoys himself, but it doesn't work as evidence of the wizard's usefulness in a normal game.


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## Lizard (Dec 18, 2008)

James McMurray said:


> This isn't a case of the wizard being too weak, it's a case of one person making a very sub par build for RP reasons. There's nothing wrong with it if he enjoys himself, but it doesn't work as evidence of the wizard's usefulness in a normal game.




Wasn't 4e supposed to free us from the terrors of the character optimization board and the need for "system mastery"? 

Seriously, I hope he takes advantage of the ability to respec at every level. His Wisdom won't be at +1 until, what, 8th level?

My own character is also "sub par" according to the number crunchers on RPG.net, but he's still very effective. (I have a 2WF ranger with a 14 Cha, 12 con, 12 dex, 12 wis, 18 Str, 10 int.) I plan on spending a lot of his feats on skill training and skill focus to round out the character concept I couldn't build at 1st level -- he needs Streetwise, bad. Indeed, none of the characters in our group are "optimized" -- we all start with a concept and then make the numbers fit as closely as possible to the character we want to play.


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## James McMurray (Dec 18, 2008)

You don't need a char op board to know that minimizing your wisdom and then picking a power that relies on wisdom is going to make you less effective in combat. Like I said, if it's fun, that's good. I'm not disparaging people who don't go for the bang at every point on their sheet, I rarely do that these days myself. I'm just saying that it isn't a good starting point for making the case that a certain class is underpowered just because someone can make a build that's underpowered.


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## jorwland (Dec 18, 2008)

*Re: Wizard At-Wills*

Playtest these changes:

1) Ray of Frost. Targets one or _TWO_ creatures in range. (choose targets near the rogue if you got one it since a slowed creature grants combat advantage and therefore sneak attack from rogue)

2) Cloud of Daggers. Sustain Minor. (Allowing wizards to keep this single square as an obstacle without re-casting is a good thing. It wold be possible to have 3 up at the same time at the expense of other actions)

3) Magic Missile. Add push 1, Push 2 at paragon, push 3 at epic.


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## Mengu (Dec 18, 2008)

Lizard said:


> Wasn't 4e supposed to free us from the terrors of the character optimization board and the need for "system mastery"?




I don't know if it's supposed eliminate mastery requirement or not, but it doesn't remove stupidity from the equation. There is nothing stopping someone from building a fighter with 8 strength and 20 intelligence. But the book does have suggestions and guidelines for each class, which will help you toward a playable character, as opposed to a gimped character.

However it can't be denied that mastery of the system does open more doors and leads to more educated decissions (optimized or not).


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## infocynic (Dec 18, 2008)

[B said:
			
		

> firesnakearies[/b]]
> _NEW SCORCHING BURST
> *Damage:* 1d6 fire damage (plus see effect)
> 
> *Effect: * Target takes additional fire damage equal to the caster's Intelligence modifier at the end of its next turn, unless it spends a move action to extinguish the flames, which is automatically successful with no saving throw needed. This damage persists indefinitely until the target spends the required move action to end it. Additional applications of this effect from multiple castings of Scorching Burst do not stack._




How about:

*Scorching Burst*
Arcane, Fire, Implement, Zone
Standard Action   Area Burst 1 within 10
Int vs Reflex
Target: All creatures in burst
Hit: 1d6 fire damage
Effect: The burst creates a zone of flames. Any creature that *ends* its turn in the zone or that enters the zone takes additional damage equal to your CON, DEX, or WIS modifier. Overlapping applications of this zone do not stack. The zone persists until the end of your next turn.
Special: When you gain this power, choose CON, DEX, or WIS for the secondary damage. Once you make this choice, it cannot be changed, even by retraining.

[I really don't know why you need that clause about 'cannot be changed' but all the other powers like this have it.]

The zone effect is nice -- you get a little battlefield control, and the end of turn instead of start of turn makes it non auto-kill vs minions, and still gives monsters the chance to get out... and if they're up against defenders near the front line they may be taking OAs to move.


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## Mengu (Dec 18, 2008)

jorwland said:


> 1) Ray of Frost. Targets one or _TWO_ creatures in range. (choose targets near the rogue if you got one it since a slowed creature grants combat advantage and therefore sneak attack from rogue)




Slowed creatures do not grant combat advantage.


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## Milambus (Dec 18, 2008)

DracoSuave said:


> Not to mention he bumped Charisma rather than simply take Skill Training in Diplomacy.
> 
> Also, Staff+Leather+18 Int = Scale Mail armor.  Buddy's sporting Fighter-sized AC here.




You can also add in the Staff Fighting feat from the Gladiator article in dragon. Which makes Quarterstaves a double weapon, and double weapons are defensive.  So you can gain another +1AC* .

* Note: This is only applicable if your DM believes that a Staff Implement and a Quarterstaff are in fact the same thing.


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## infocynic (Dec 18, 2008)

jorwland said:


> Playtest these changes:
> 
> 1) Ray of Frost. Targets one or _TWO_ creatures in range. (choose targets near the rogue if you got one it since a slowed creature grants combat advantage and therefore sneak attack from rogue)
> 
> ...



Slowed does not grant CA. PHB 280.


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## eprieur (Dec 18, 2008)

infocynic said:


> Slowed does not grant CA. PHB 280.




Even if it doesn't his idea is still good. In fact I was thinking about that lately. Possibly in another thread but here is a quick rundown of the "problem".

In short the whole system is balanced between roles. Everyone is able to do a base attack that use their stats and they all have something. 

-Strikers have their 1D6 they add to damage.
-Healers have their heals twice per encounter as minor actions.
-Defenders have their mark with their own flavor.

To be of that "role", you need to do have these features. So what do controllers have? Nothing really special at least for the ones I saw (didn't check the druid yet).

I'm sure the dev toyed with the ideas but overall, if you think striker you could have something like a minor status effect each time you connect with a spell at least one per round. Say a wizard could "knock" someone over once per round.

So basically in this version a controller would replace the 1d6 striker effect once per round with a "control" effect. It could be a push. It could have more flavor, be more detailed, etc. 

Another option would be to have a "strong" status effect as a minor action, twice per encounter (similar to heals). So a controller could try to immobilize (root) or stun a target twice per encounter with a minor action. 

You can combine the 2, have the minor knock back on hit with any spell once per round and twice per encounter you can "upgrade" that effect to a stun or immobilize, etc.

If controller had something like that they would probably at least feel a bit like that they are actually controlling something.

I think it's a problem in class design that they don't have anything special while all the other roles do. And that was why the dev originally touched on in his posts I think.


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## Milambus (Dec 18, 2008)

jorwland said:


> Playtest these changes:
> 
> 1) Ray of Frost. Targets one or _TWO_ creatures in range. (choose targets near the rogue if you got one it since a slowed creature grants combat advantage and therefore sneak attack from rogue)




Compared to Twin Strike or Dual Strike this seems overpowered to me.  Both of those powers target two creatures as well, but they only deal [w] damage, no modifier and no effect.

Solution, make the base damage for the attack 1d6 with no modifier addition.  But add "Special: If you target one creature with this attack, then it deals Int modifier extra damage."

So you can target 2 creatures to deal 1d6 damage and slow them both, or you can target one to deal 1d6 + Int modifier damage and slow that one.


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## Nail (Dec 18, 2008)

eprieur said:


> In short the whole system is balanced between roles. Everyone is able to do a base attack that use their stats and they all have something.
> 
> -Strikers have their 1D6 they add to damage.
> -Healers have their heals twice per encounter as minor actions.
> -Defenders have their mark with their own flavor.



That's an interesting summary.  

Wizards -- our controler class (discounting the unpublished classes) -- have their cantrips as their "extra something".  So potentially instead of "controller", a wizard should be called a "toolbox".

Or a "tool".  Take your pick.


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## DracoSuave (Dec 18, 2008)

No, wizard's special something is the spell book, allowing them to choose their power based on what impact they expect it to have.  Druids have their flexibility a different way.

The cantrips are just handy bonuses.  But you don't need class features to do your job well, if you're a power-based role like a Controller.


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## eprieur (Dec 18, 2008)

DracoSuave said:


> No, wizard's special something is the spell book, allowing them to choose their power based on what impact they expect it to have.  Druids have their flexibility a different way.
> 
> The cantrips are just handy bonuses.  But you don't need class features to do your job well, if you're a power-based role like a Controller.




I didn't exactly say that wizard in particular don't have anything special but that controllers don't.

If you look at the invokers they don't seem to have any flexibilty or spellbook or anything that would lead us to believe it's a "feature" of controllers. But honestly if we have to look for it it's because it's simply not there. Compare that to the strikers, healers and defenders and they each have a power very clearly defined for their roles while the controllers have none.

As for the double ray of frost, minus the slow effect that's exactly what the new invoker power is:

*Divine Bolts
**Target:* One or two creatures
*Hit:* 1d6 + Wisdom modifier lightning damage.

This spell alone will make sure that invokers will outdamage wizards are long as there are 2 targets within range (10). And not even counting the fact the invokers got the best "control" at will yet with grasping hands. I mean the whole point of this thread is not that wizards "sucks" in general but more that the at-wills of wizards are crap compared to the at-wills invokers have to the point that you can ask yourself why do wizards have suck bad at wills compared to them?


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## DracoSuave (Dec 18, 2008)

I thought that reason was covered by the designer saying they were erring on the side of damage.  I mean, if you have to ask why in a thread that's started by the answer as to why...

I'm just saying, Arcane Power will probably either fix that, or solidify wizards as the damage arcane controller, while putting sorcerers as the control controller, neither of which is a bad solution.

But then what 'control' is can't be as easily disected into class features as Striker, Leader, and Defender can.  Not to mention, Barbarians are -very- capable strikers and they don't have a 'Striker Bonus Damage' feature either.  Controller just happens to be a concept that isn't easily encapsulated into class features;  That's not a bad thing or a flaw with the implementation, but just a challenge inherent in the role itself.  But that doesn't make the -role- bad, but merely means that design has to take that into account.


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## Nail (Dec 18, 2008)

DracoSuave said:


> But then what 'control' is can't be as easily disected into class features as Striker, Leader, and Defender can.



I disagree.  

A "Controller" was supposed to control the battlefield --> and yet the Fighter class features fill this function better.  How simple would it be to give the Wizard a class feature that gave battlefield control?  Currently, it's not there.

Currently, the Wizard class freature says "Toolbox".  Cantrips (and - as you rightly point out - the spellbook for daily powers) scream "utility", not "battlefield control"!


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## keterys (Dec 18, 2008)

Things like 
Exclude 1 or more targets from your area/close attacks
Targets take a -1/-2/-3 penalty to saves against your attacks
Auras that slow or weaken enemies
Ability to sustain zones/conjurations more easily

Having powers that exert more control only if you're a wizard (in the same way that a striker power and a non-striker power often deal the same damage, but the striker gets extra dice of damage - this helps with multiclassing), for instance turning slow to immobilize. This would be particularly interesting to do with implement mastery.


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## Nail (Dec 18, 2008)

Going further:

Brainstorming a class feature for a wizard that fills the "controller" role:
Wizard may swap damage for slides in his powers,
Wizard may swap damage for slow or immobilized conditions,
Ranged Bursts gain +1 Atk if no ally is adjacent to burst,
Wizard may swap out his Daily power (minor action) if he "uses" his spellbook,
Class Feature Power: a minor action ranged power (encounter) that slides enemies +1/2 Int squares,
Class Feature Power: a minor action close burst 5 power (encounter) that switches two adjacent allies (or self),
Class Feature Power: a minor action ranged power that creates difficult terrain in up to +Int squares,
etc

This ain't hard.


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## LostSoul (Dec 18, 2008)

jorwland said:


> Playtest these changes:
> 
> 1) Ray of Frost. Targets one or _TWO_ creatures in range. (choose targets near the rogue if you got one it since a slowed creature grants combat advantage and therefore sneak attack from rogue)
> 
> ...




Those seem like really good changes at first glance!  I like.



infocynic said:


> How about:




I like this one too.  It's cool.


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## eprieur (Dec 18, 2008)

DracoSuave said:


> I thought that reason was covered by the designer saying they were erring on the side of damage.  I mean, if you have to ask why in a thread that's started by the answer as to why...
> 
> I'm just saying, Arcane Power will probably either fix that, or solidify wizards as the damage arcane controller, while putting sorcerers as the control controller, neither of which is a bad solution.
> 
> But then what 'control' is can't be as easily disected into class features as Striker, Leader, and Defender can.  Not to mention, Barbarians are -very- capable strikers and they don't have a 'Striker Bonus Damage' feature either.  Controller just happens to be a concept that isn't easily encapsulated into class features;  That's not a bad thing or a flaw with the implementation, but just a challenge inherent in the role itself.  But that doesn't make the -role- bad, but merely means that design has to take that into account.




Barbarians "striker" bonus is kinda built in Howling Strike and the rage mechanism but it's pretty much there. The concept is essentially you deal weapon damage + stats + 1d6.

As for what would define a controller. Nothing really prevent some kind of unified mechanic to work for controllers also even though I tend to agree that it could be "harder" to do then with strikers and healers and marks.

But just something like 2-3 times per encounter the hability to dish out a stun, or an immobilized, or something else would probably be enough to "define" controllers a lot more then how  they are currently defined.


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## WhatGravitas (Dec 18, 2008)

Milambus said:


> Solution, make the base damage for the attack 1d6 with no modifier addition.  But add "Special: If you target one creature with this attack, then it deals Int modifier extra damage."
> 
> So you can target 2 creatures to deal 1d6 damage and slow them both, or you can target one to deal 1d6 + Int modifier damage and slow that one.



Another idea - make it target two targets but without any effect and add "Special: If you target only one creature with this attack, then the target is slowed."

Instead of increasing its raw power, you add a lot of versatility to it. Cripple one or blast two. It's also a nice counter point to scorching burst - fire kills concentrated minions, ice pinpoints two precisely.

Cheers, LT.


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## Doctor Proctor (Dec 18, 2008)

Nail said:


> I disagree.
> 
> A "Controller" was supposed to control the battlefield --> and yet the Fighter class features fill this function better.  How simple would it be to give the Wizard a class feature that gave battlefield control?  Currently, it's not there.
> 
> Currently, the Wizard class freature says "Toolbox".  Cantrips (and - as you rightly point out - the spellbook for daily powers) scream "utility", not "battlefield control"!




I don't really agree with that.  The Fighter exercises "control" only in a limited definition of it.  You can just as easily call this "stickiness" or "defending".  

As a Fighter, I can't make a guy squares away from me move towards me (as in "forced movement", not just getting his attention) or slow down a group of enemies.  Most of my powers deal with locking down or manipulating one target at a time, and then sometimes getting the ability to attack everyone in a burst 1.

The Wizard, with the appropriate powers, can move multiple opponents across the battlefield, slow people at-will or in groups, hand out many status effects, throw powers out with things like burst 3 radii and create hampering terrain in any number of ways.

In short, Marking =/= Wall of Fire when it comes to control.


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## Sir Brennen (Dec 18, 2008)

I think part of the problem is there's still a lot of mental baggage surrounding what defines a wizard from previous editions. Magic Missile and Fireball are still signature spells for the class, but don't necessarily lend themselves to the 4E Wizard's new role of controller. Looking through the power list it seems to me that more focus was given to simply converting a lot of the core Wizard spells of previous editions, and the actual controller concept was squeezed in where it could be.

Also, something that's been a bit overlooked in this thread is the fact that there are _two_ Wizard builds in the PHB - a Control Wizard and a War Wizard.

The War Wizard is defined as the damage guy, much more of an old school blaster. So perhaps we don't need to redo the at wills like Scorching Ray or Magic Missile, as they support this build just fine.

There just seems to be need for more powers which support the Control build, on par with the new Invoker abilities we've seen.

Also, a quick glance through the Wizard's powers, I don't see any which gain a benefit for selecting one build over the other, unlike some other classes. Perhaps making the builds based on a class feature (like Rogue Tactics. Of course, then we'd have to give a name to this feature. Something, like... I dunno... "schools".  ).  Then add a slight damage kicker to certain spells for the War Wizard build, while push/pull or ongoing conditions kickers could be added to some for the Controller build.

Heck, you could even just have War Wizards add a flat +1 damage to damage spells and Control Wizards get a +1 push on damage spells.

This way, you could have the Wizard with a Controller role, and secondaries of either Striker or Defender depending on build/power selection.


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## DracoSuave (Dec 18, 2008)

Agreed with Doc Proc.  A fighter can 'control' in that he forces enemies to stay near him, and controls the area in his immediate vacinity.  The wizard does that as well, but is not limited to the square beside him.  He can do a lot more to lock down monsters than a fighter.

Sure, they both have powers that knock a guy prone, but knocking an adjacent enemy prone is a totally different thing than knocking an enemy across the battlefield prone.  One keeps the monster attacking the closest foe, the other keeps the monster from attacking at all.


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## eprieur (Dec 18, 2008)

DracoSuave said:


> Agreed with Doc Proc.  A fighter can 'control' in that he forces enemies to stay near him, and controls the area in his immediate vacinity.  The wizard does that as well, but is not limited to the square beside him.  He can do a lot more to lock down monsters than a fighter.
> 
> Sure, they both have powers that knock a guy prone, but knocking an adjacent enemy prone is a totally different thing than knocking an enemy across the battlefield prone.  One keeps the monster attacking the closest foe, the other keeps the monster from attacking at all.




 As a war wizard their at-will do really bad damage though. They don't have enough feats they can take compared to other classes and they do less then half of the damage strikers do unless they manage to get 2-3 targets. Not exactly great dpr material.


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## DracoSuave (Dec 18, 2008)

2d4 isn't that far off from 1d10.  And while they can't add that single point here and there from feats, they CAN add it in from items and such.

And 1d6+int is good enough when multi targets DO apply.  War wizards take Cloud of Daggers and Scorching Burst, thus giving them single and multi-target capability in their at-wills.  Let's face it, Cloud of Daggers is a as damaging a power as Sly Flourish.


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## 77IM (Dec 19, 2008)

Nail said:


> Brainstorming a class feature for a wizard that fills the "controller" role:
> Wizard may swap damage for slides in his powers,
> Wizard may swap damage for slow or immobilized conditions,
> Ranged Bursts gain +1 Atk if no ally is adjacent to burst,
> ...



But it _is_ fun!

Wizards area and close attacks get +1 to their size (area burst 2 becomes area burst 3)
Wizards can exclude a certain number of allies (Wis mod?) from an area attack (limit the number of times per encounter?)
Enemies get a -2 penalty on saves against wizard effects that "(save ends)" (like orb mastery, but not as cheese-prone)
Once per round, a wizard can sustain a power with "Sustain Minor" as a free action.
+1 (or +2?) distance on all pushes/pulls/slides
Once per encounter, "upgrade" a status effect on a victim of one of your powers:  slowed -> immobilized, immobilized -> restrained, dazed -> stunned, stunned -> dominated, etc.

 -- 77IM


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## Leatherhead (Dec 19, 2008)

DracoSuave said:


> No, wizard's special something is the spell book, allowing them to choose their power based on what impact they expect it to have.  Druids have their flexibility a different way.
> 
> The cantrips are just handy bonuses.  But you don't need class features to do your job well, if you're a power-based role like a Controller.





Spellbooks are kind of a hold-over from previous editions, and not exclusive to the Wizard or controller role at any rate (see Swordmage). Orb of Imposition and Wand of Accuracy are the closest things to a controller class feature that 
Wizards have.


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## BarkingDeathSquirrel (Dec 19, 2008)

My personal tweaks I made based on the recent controller powers:

*Magic Missiles* - renamed "Magic Missiles". Range 20, targets one or two creatures no more than 3 squares apart. Int vs. Ref, 1d6+Int damage. At 21st, targets one, two, or three creatures no more than 3 squares apart, 2d4+Int damage. No longer counts as a ranged basic attack.
_Reasoning:_ Kinda reminiscent of the 3.5 version of the spell. Divine Lightning still has a better chance of being able to strike maximum number of creatures (since Magic Missile is, more or less, targeting a burst 3 area), but Magic Missile can strike from a longer range. At epic levels, Divine Lightning does more damage, but Magic Missile targets more creatures.

*Ray of Frost* - On a critical hit, the target is immobilized instead of slowed. Can be used as a Ranged Basic Attack.
_Reasoning:_ Difference between being immobilized and slowed is somewhat fairly minor (to a certain extent, anyway), but making it occur only on crits limits the effect it will have. Being able to use it as a Ranged Basic Attacks just seems like a natural choice, especially with the changes I made to Magic Missile.

*Scorching Burst* - Damage upped to 2d4+Int (4d4+Int at 21st).
_Reasoning:_ With dealing Int damage every time the target makes a opportunity attack, it has the potential to deal a lot more damage than Scorching Burst, even with the damage as it now (especially if the Invoker has a high Int). Upping the damage goes with the theme of the current Wizard at-wills supposedly focusing more on damage than control... I might lower (well sort of...) than damage to 1d8... but I like having reasons to use the d4's 

*Cloud of Daggers* - Can be used as a Ranged Basic Attack. I might rewrite this to just target a single creature to avoid any weirdness resulting from that...
_Reasoning:_ Don't really have a good reason, just kinda liked the idea.

*Illusionary Ambush* - On a critical hit, the target grants combat advantage to the next attack made against it before the end of its next turn.
_Reasoning:_ There are probably enough ways to get combat advantage that one more that occurs semi-rarely won't affect much. Also kinda meshes nicely with the flavor text.

I also added one new at-will power, based off a power the gnome illusionist in the MM has:

Startling Glamor
*At-Will* * *Arcane, Implement, Illusion, Psychic*
*Standard Action  Ranged* 10
*Target:* One Creature
*Attack:* Int vs Will
*Hit:* 1d8 + Int psychic damage, slide target 1 square.
*Special:* Can be used as a ranged basic attack.
_Reasoning:_ I've had this power in my Wizard house rules for a while now (though the damage was only 1d6+Int... and it wasn't a ranged basic attack), and with the Invoker having a similar (basically the same...) power, I guess it wasn't a bad idea, after all.  I'm kinda thinking of removing the damage and making it take a Minor Action to use... even more like the power the Gnome in the MM has...

These changes are probably a bit more than are needed, but, meh... I think they mesh nicely with the At-Wills the Druid and Invoker are getting... *shrugs*


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## Scholar & Brutalman (Dec 19, 2008)

I think it'd be nice to replace all the implement mastery effects with something more "controllery." Only Orb of Imposition has a control effect now, and it's very weak at low levels and very broken at high. Also, I'd like the masteries to be in constant use during an encounter, more like the defender's marking and striker's extra damage, rather than just once an encounter.

Something like these:

Staff of Immobility: When you hit with a Wizard power that targets Fortitude, the target takes a penalty to speed equal to your Con mod until the end of your next turn. If their speed is reduced to zero, they are immobilized.

Wand of Accuracy: When you hit with a Wizard power that targets Reflex, the target gets a penalty to AC and Ref Defense equal to your Dex mod until the end of your next turn.

Orb of Imposition: When you hit with a Wizard power that targets Will, the target takes a penalty to all attacks equal to your Wis mod until the end of your next turn.


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## Tony Vargas (Dec 19, 2008)

apearlma said:


> Once per encounter at the cost of a feat(with possible free skill) vs. every round at the cost of an at-will.



Ah, I see your point.  SB is better as an at-will, just not as much better, in your estimation, as the 'cost' of "one of two at-wills" vs "one of upto 16 feats."  Of course, there are a /lot/ more feats to choose from than at-wills, too.  But that's very much a value judgement, and one that's hard to quantify or argue.

I'll stand by the assertion that a power that's worth having 1/encounter is well worth having on tap every round.




			
				infocynic said:
			
		

> Effect: The burst creates a zone of flames. Any creature that ends its turn in the zone or that enters the zone takes additional damage equal to your CON, DEX, or WIS modifier. Overlapping applications of this zone do not stack. The zone persists until the end of your next turn.



Well, it's an upgrade.  Kinda stomps all over Cloud of Daggers, though.



> I mean the whole point of this thread is not that wizards "sucks" in general but more that the at-wills of wizards are crap compared to the at-wills invokers have to the point that you can ask yourself why do wizards have suck bad at wills compared to them?



I suppose you could possit that the design team first over-compensated for casters being too powerful in prior editions by 'nerfing' them a little too hard, including the wiz, then overcompensated in the other direction with the Invoker, when they heard complaints that the wizard wasn't powerful or controllery enough.

Classic 'pendulum' stuff.


Hmmm... Orb is too weak at 1st, too broken at high level, and not controllery enough?  How 'bout:

Orb:  1/encounter you can choose 1 enemy who is affected by one of your wizard powers /cast through your orb implement/ that a save can end.  That enemy takes a -2 penalties to his saves against that power until that power ends.  If you have a wisdom bonus, the number of enemies you can affect this way is increased by your Wisdom bonus.  You must have line of effect to each enemy to be affected.


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## eprieur (Dec 19, 2008)

DracoSuave said:


> 2d4 isn't that far off from 1d10.  And while they can't add that single point here and there from feats, they CAN add it in from items and such.
> 
> And 1d6+int is good enough when multi targets DO apply.  War wizards take Cloud of Daggers and Scorching Burst, thus giving them single and multi-target capability in their at-wills.  Let's face it, Cloud of Daggers is a as damaging a power as Sly Flourish.




Actually let's do more then just face it, let's give actual numbers.

Strangely due to the way cloud of daggers work it will do the most damage with the highest wisdom, not the highest hit. Since "auto hit" damage is worth nearly double normal damage each point of wisdom is worth double each point of int which make the best cloud of dagger wizard someone with 20 wisdom and 14 int. Incidentally as a wizard you will suck even more with those stats. 

Lvl 1 wizard with cloud of daggers against a target with 15 def (50% base hit), counting a +1 bonus damage from feat either staff weapon focus or something else:
-20 int, 14 wisdom = 6.875 dpr.
-18 int, 16 wisdom = 6.95 dpr.
-16 int, 18 wisdom = 7.125 dpr.
-14 int, 20 wisdom = 7.4 dpr.

A human battle rager fighter with weapon focus, 20 str, using an execution axe will hit for 9.9 dpr vs a target with 17 def and 11.1 dpr while "Raging". 

2-h weapon fighter will do around that too with reaping strike or cleave.

Human Ranger, WF, 2WF, Twin Strike Waraxe: 11.925dpr. (4 feats but still, at least the feats are there to increase damage while the wizard doesn't have any he can take).

Elf Ranger, WF + Primeshot, Twin Strike Great bow: 10.45 dpr.

Rogues:

Dodger Halfling Rogue, WF + 2WF, Nimble Blade,Piercing strike , Rapier
 (5 feats): 14.525 counting sneak attack but not the flanking +2 bonus. With the flanking bonus it's even more disgusting at 16.575 dpr.

Brutal Human Rogue, WF + 2WF, Nimble Blade,Basic Attack Rapier (his defense is very bad though with only 14 dex): 15.475 dpr, 18 dpr with the flanking bonus (remember that range attackers cannot flank).

Those are pretty much the highest dpr that I checked. I don't have any numbers on the barbarians or the warlock, maybe I'll do them when I have more time.

But note the following things. A rogue can easily take 4-5 feats in the heroic tier and they each add something like 0.5 to nearly 1 dpr to a built while the wizard cannot really take more then 1 feat for "damage".

Also the superior weapon feats are huge and add a minimum of 1dpr per "w" at least.

So basically, my retarded wizard with 20 wisdom and his 7.4 dpr with daggers is basically not even in the same league as the strikers in term of damage. Each time a wizard use an at-will to do damage he's basically showing everyone how much he's sucking unless he hit 3 targets with a scorching burst. At 2 targets you can at least mention it but even with 2 targets you are only in the 10 dpr range. 3 targets you fall in the 14.5 dpr range.

Wizards will scale at best like a ranger but again unless you are hitting on average more then 2 targets you are never close.


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## Mengu (Dec 19, 2008)

I think "Controller" was an unfortunate label for the wizard. AoE master would have been a more apt role name. Cloud of Daggers is about as small as they could have an AoE feel for an at-will power. Scorching Burst and Thunderwave are it's kin that do more collateral damage. I think all these powers came from the the "blow 'em up" mage concept.

In this context, the at-will powers don't look so bad. But add in all the new mobility that mixes up the battle field, and all manner of roles that can target multiple opponents from twin strike to dragonborn breath to a variety of magical items, the wizard's role as the AoE master begins to yield diminishing returns as other roles can do their share of AoE's.

From a design stand point, it would have been better to shift the warlocks more toward damage, and wizards more toward debuffs. This would define roles much clearer. Unfortunately, some debuffing abilities would have to be removed from the rogue and warlock as part of the clean up.

Leader - buffer/healer
Controller - debuffer/AoE master
Striker - damage dealer
Defender - tank

Inevitably, as more classes are added on, roles will blur a bit. As it turns out, they started out pretty blurred with clerics, rogues, warlocks, and fighters doing a good bit of battlefield control, and tossing around AoE's. Warlocks, Fighters, and Paladins can do their own sort of healing with temporary hit points, regeneration, and the like. With MP, fighters can become decent pseudo strikers, with PHB2, we will see the striker barbarian playing a pseudo defender role.

There will be more wizard at-will powers in AP, and we won't even remember this conversation at that point, because we'll be drooling over all the new and cool controller stuff that beats the pants of an Invoker or Druid's at-wills.

One more note, currently Humans make very good controllers because of the 3rd at-will. Perhaps with PHB2 there will be another good controller race or two that will spice up the wizard builds.


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## shmoo2 (Dec 19, 2008)

Mengu said:


> There will be more wizard at-will powers in AP, and we won't even remember this conversation at that point, because we'll be drooling over all the new and cool controller stuff that beats the pants of an Invoker or Druid's at-wills.




Indeed we already saw this with the Class Acts: Wizards article. I don't know if the Illusionist powers are excerpted from AP, power but they ALL impose conditions (slowed, immobilized, prone, penalties to attack rolls) apply ongoing damage, or create zones which hinder enemies' movement & LOS or create flanking opportunities for the party.

Has it been mentioned if we'll see more illusion spells up to level 30 in AP?


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## infocynic (Dec 19, 2008)

I'll also point out that my S. Burst doesn't completely trump Cloud of Daggers (which is only an OK power anyway)... CoD will still autokill a minion unless the minion somehow slides... but my S. Burst auto-damage is at end of turn, so the minion could move out of the zone.

With no feats to improve damage (but assuming a +1 weapon/implement), assuming an 18 stat, the PHB sburst deals near striker-level damage if you have 2 or more targets, even handicapping the wizard to a 55% chance to hit vs ranger 60% [using longsword, and we know that reflex is roughly equal to AC - 2.5, so we'll give the ranger an edge here] vs rogue 75% (dagger, combat advantage from stealth + deft strike).

I got SBurst at 9.35 for 2 targets, and approximately 14.0 for 3 targets. 
Twin Strike with longsword is 9.54 [assuming both swings against your quarry]
Deft Strike 10.875

For comparison, a fighter's melee basic attack (again with a longsword, 60% to hit) is 5.7.

So I'm not nuts about adding damage to SBurst without taking some away, although I have talked to players who say they'd rather have 1d6+int and no control effect and just deal a lot of damage. (Personally I think they just want to be strikers. ) Another comment was that the enemies could easily avoid the extra damge, to which my reply is that you at least force the enemies to move, and if you're lucky/smart/teamwork, you make them take an OA or waste their entire move shifting.


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## Aenghus (Dec 19, 2008)

I do think the designers were reluctant to add a lot of controller effects to the initial wizard at-wills. They were still getting use to the design space that 4e provides, and definitely wanted to nerf the wizard.

The at-wills need to be tweaked I think, rather than completely rewritten, with added controller-type flavour.

Personally, I'm ok with magic missile being a single-target basic attack. It's a very iconic wizard attack, and personally, reskinning it to hit a single target works for me. It does need something extra as a single target attack though, not sure exactly what . A one square push may be enough, along with the 2d4 and range 20.

I think ray of frost should also a basic attack.

Thunderwave is perhaps the best controlling of the at-wills, and it keys off Wis, but is difficult to use for softer-skinned wizards. Staff wizards like close spells, but don't get as much benefit from the pushing.


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## eprieur (Dec 19, 2008)

infocynic said:


> I'll also point out that my S. Burst doesn't completely trump Cloud of Daggers (which is only an OK power anyway)... CoD will still autokill a minion unless the minion somehow slides... but my S. Burst auto-damage is at end of turn, so the minion could move out of the zone.
> 
> With no feats to improve damage (but assuming a +1 weapon/implement), assuming an 18 stat, the PHB sburst deals near striker-level damage if you have 2 or more targets, even handicapping the wizard to a 55% chance to hit vs ranger 60% [using longsword, and we know that reflex is roughly equal to AC - 2.5, so we'll give the ranger an edge here] vs rogue 75% (dagger, combat advantage from stealth + deft strike).
> 
> ...




Your calculations seems off.

9.35 is the number you get if you don't take account the critical damage. The number you really are looking for is 9.6dpr.

I could try to check all your numbers but here is the main thing you have to see with this. Wizards have a grand total of 1 feat they can choose in the heroic tier that add damage. Rogues, Rangers, Fighters, etc, all have 3, 4 and 5 feats they can choose. Each of those feat add 0.5 to 1dpr. You do the calculation.

For rangers, just going from using a longsword to a bastard sword is a 1.3 DPR increase with twin shots once you factor everything else.

Hunter quarry to D8 is nearly 0.9 dpr increase with twin shots.
Weapon focus = 1.2 dpr increase with twin shots.
Two Weapon Fighting = 0.6 dpr increase.

The same is true for rogues, etc.

The wizard got only 1 feat, weapon focus with staff or one of the thing that add to damage with a type of damage and those 2 don't stack anyway.

That feat will add 1.1 dpr with 2 targets, 0.55 dpr with one. But that's it.

I mean let's say we have something like a "GreatStaff of Whatever" that requires 1 feat, that staff is a weapon that increase all spells die by 1 category. D6 become D8, etc. That's 1.2 dpr increase with 2 targets, 0.6 with one, etc. 

We could probably create tons of feat to give choices to wizard equivalent to the other classes but somehow the creators of the game decided that in the player's handbook wizard feats should be sparse and far between. Unless they count each individual feat like Raging Storm, Astral Fire, etc, to be "different" but none of them stack anyway.

That's one of the main reason wizards cannot hope to touch striker dpr atm.


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## Tony Vargas (Dec 19, 2008)

You know, it occurs to me that warlocks also lack a die-type boosting feat for thier curse - oh, sure, they do get a feat that boost the pact boon.

But, you /could/, if you wanted to enable some munchkin-pleasing stacking-bonus action, add another set of elemental feats that increase die size "when you use an arcane power with the _____ keyword."

That would give warlocks the 'missing striker feat' and give wizards a way to boost thier damage potential, to a degree very similar to a martial character taking a superior weapon.

Of course, it's not like martial characters have quite the range of power effects that arcane ones do, so it'd only be fair to let walrods start creating something along the lines martial blade barriers, too....


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## infocynic (Dec 19, 2008)

In general, I figure there should be some sort of implement focus / implement mastery that works like weapon focus / weapon mastery ... we'll see what kind of love arcane power gives.

The warlock doesn't need as much help as people think, since a lot of his spells are 1d6+mod+1d6 curse+[1d6+mod (if X happens)]. The trick is making it so that X happens, or making the enemy waste a turn by not letting X happen. 

The wizard... well, get your teammates to clump the enemies and let hell break loose.

And yes, my above calculations did omit criticals for simplicity, but in general, this helps the strikers a little more than the wizard, but the wizard has (at level 1-10 anyway) a better chance of critical, for hitting 2-3 targets.


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## eprieur (Dec 19, 2008)

I had never really looked into warlock before but yeah, strangely warlocks have a much much better control spell with Dire Radiance then what wizards have. With a +1 damage feat and 20 consti you would do only 7.2 dpr with it if the target doesn't move toward you but if it does, you would do 13.5 dpr, or 14.59 with prime shot which is more then respectable for a lvl 1-2 striker. 

Does the monster know it's cursed? Will it fall into the "trap" most of the time or no?


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## Mengu (Dec 19, 2008)

eprieur said:


> Does the monster know it's cursed? Will it fall into the "trap" most of the time or no?




The monster does know it's cursed, but it's easy enough to draw most melee monsters toward you. One Tide of Iron push can force the enemy to choose between taking damage the extra dire radiance damage, and attacking.


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## DracoSuave (Dec 19, 2008)

All this proves is that Wizards aren't strikers and don't have sneak attack or hunter's quarry.

Missing the point, really.


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## Mal Malenkirk (Dec 19, 2008)

A lot of these pure DPR stats seem non-sense to me.

Pure numbers that don't reflect what I experience on the battle field.

Many flaws exist.

First of all, if you focus on at-will, you can't claim you are comparing the DPR of characters.  Just the DPR of some at-will.  In practice, most fights last about 5 rounds and typically my 5th level wizard only do at-wills for two or three of these rounds.  Only in extremely long sluggathon does the DPR of the at-will approximate the average DPR of the character.  For my 5fth level wizard, about 50% of the time my attack isn't an at-will.  This will keep increasing.  

Last session, first fight, first round I caught 3 guys in a burning hands.  Then the opposition spread around us, but who cares, fire shroud caught four of them.  Then the rogue used his positioning strike, the fighter used tide of Iron, and what do you know, three more guys with scorching burst.  Fight was over by round four.  Next fight includes flames shpere so your DPR calculation would need to include that, wouldn't they?

And it's not nearly the record.  So far it is hitting 4 guys out of 5 thanks to action surge and inflicted 12D6+20 (thanks to shadowfell glove combined with bruning hand).  Actually, one of these was a critical and I hit two more with the scorching burst that same round.  Can't rememeber the total damage, but it was quite satisfying for level 3.  An hindsight calculation tells me the average would be 90 which seems close enough.

It doesn't alway work, of course, but it's what a wizard strives for.  It's what tactics should be geared to set up. 

---

Another flaw in typical DPR analysis is that a lot of theses characters used for comparisons are monkeys.  Take the DPR output of a 4th level ranger with 20 STR who is using two waraxes with weapon focus, improved quarry and two weapon fighting focus.  Does his impressive DPR includes the fact that he's gonna get KILLED?

All offense and no defense means johnny will get slaughtered.

When I am DM I have no qualm in ganging on the frontline warrior with top damage and low defense.  

Typically, a real TWF ranger, one who sees action in a campaign where the DM doesn't play favorite or fudge extensively, will do a few of the following;

Sacrifice a more extreme STR to get a good DEX
Sacrifice some offense to get a weapon that has defensive bonus
Sacrifice some offensive feats to get feats that improves defense (Armor feat if he has low dex, TWD etc.).

I don't care about the DPR of the monkey TWF ranger that exists only to prove a point and is never seen on the battlefield...

That was an extreme case, of course, but most of the DPR kings presented for analysis are more fragile than their standard counterpart.  You should duck them a 10% to 20% penalty to DPR on the basis that they will almost never be the last man standing in tough fights.  High offense and middling defense is a bad mix; it makes them targets.  You can expect to waste more rounds making death saving throw than most other builds.  DPR is nice, but DPF (Damage per fight) is much better.  Real DPR would be the total damage dealt in the fight divided by the number of rounds.  If you systematically computed real fight value, I bet you'd be surprised of the result.  Getting knocked out or forced to withdraw really hurts your numbers.

---

In practice, most rogues will forego a sneak attack rather than put themselves in an untenable position that will see them be torn apart in just one round.  Most DM not affraid to hurt a players feeling will routinely have monsters grabbing the archer.  Most defenders that opted for the executioner axe instead of a shield will drop below zero much more often than their shield and board counterpart over their career etc.  Typical DPR analysis do not reflect the reality of the combat.    

Same is true for wizard, of course.  My wizard gets attacked a lot in my campaign due to his love of close blast and burst.  He just happens to be built to take it.  He doesn't have 20 int, he doesn't even have (or can qualify) for the fire damage spell feat but hey, he has never dropped below 0 and his defenses are the best in the team overall.  The rogue can't say as much.


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## Nail (Dec 19, 2008)

Doctor Proctor said:


> In short, Marking =/= Wall of Fire when it comes to control.



You may have missed my point.

Marking is a class ability.

Wall of Fire is a Daily attack 9.


...there's clearly a difference there that's not related to "controll".   

So let me try making my point again:

_What is the Wizard class ability that defines her as a "controller"?_


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## Hambot (Dec 19, 2008)

That was a good post Mal.  Pays to remember context rather than simplifying things to easy math.  I think the assumption that wizards were deliberately "nerfed" is wrong.

I remember the preview implements article where they stated different implements would really change a wizards abilities.  Only orbs really ended up doing this in the end.  I believe the wizards powers were changed the most leading up to publication, so they erred on the side of caution knowing that things could be patched easily later in AP or even with equipment.

I mean seriously, the wand of accuracy power smells heavily of something that was depowered last minute.

I expect to see optional implement mastery features in AP that can be taken instead of those in the PHB which have been designed carefully over the last few months.  This is a far safer approach than cranking existing at-will powers due to multiclassing complications.  New at-will powers better than the existing ones have the danger of increasing at-will power levels without offering a big range of equal options, because people would only pick the new powers.


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## MwaO (Dec 20, 2008)

Tony Vargas said:


> Ah, I see your point.  SB is better as an at-will, just not as much better, in your estimation, as the 'cost' of "one of two at-wills" vs "one of upto 16 feats."  Of course, there are a /lot/ more feats to choose from than at-wills, too.  But that's very much a value judgement, and one that's hard to quantify or argue.
> 
> I'll stand by the assertion that a power that's worth having 1/encounter is well worth having on tap every round.




Sure. But you don't need SB as an at-will to accomplish that. What does SB actually do? It does low damage in a burst. You don't need to do damage in a burst, it isn't even an option. You need to do damage in a burst, odds are that there are better choices due to encounter/daily powers.

There are situations where Thunderwave or Cloud of Daggers might be your best choice even if you have similar encounter powers - a close blast to shove your opponents together for an AP burst could rate more highly than a close blast with a strong effect. Ditto for Cloud of Daggers and swarms or when you want to create a choke point to block off minions.

The only reason to use Scorching Burst in that kind of situation is that your other burst powers are too good and you don't want to risk wasting them for some reason. Having a Scorching Burst once per encounter would be useful. Having more than one is icing on the cake, but cake without icing is still cake...


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## Ahglock (Dec 20, 2008)

apearlma said:


> but cake without icing is still cake...




I was totally with you up to this point, and then you went and lost all of your credibility.


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## Nail (Dec 20, 2008)

Mal Malenkirk said:


> Most DM not affraid to hurt a players feeling will routinely have monsters grabbing the archer....



Okay...see, I hadn't thought of that tactic.  That's a keeper.


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## ObsidianCrane (Dec 21, 2008)

Folks dps calculations are empty. The maths for the classes is pretty much on track (there are exceptions). The problem as Mearls noted is the wizard is a poor tactical controller.

This is caused by two things which are highlighted by looking at the Invoker and Druid.
1) The wizard's at-will and encounter powers produce limited or no control effects in heroic tier in particular. 

2) The wizard's attacks are generally not party friendly, in any tier.

The combination of these leads to the wizard being about damage and that damage output being controlled by tactics/situation. Hence rampant disparities in experience with the Class.

The situation changes once the wizard can access daily powers reliably each encounter, which should be around 5th level for LFR style games with Veteran's Armour. (Note Barbarian's have the same issue atm with the need to access Rages.)

This is why Grasping Shadows from Dragon Magazine is the best Wizard Encounter 1 power. Its a duration burst with reasonable damage, and a status effect, which with tactics can be triggered 2 times.


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## Doctor Proctor (Dec 22, 2008)

Nail said:


> You may have missed my point.
> 
> Marking is a class ability.
> 
> ...




Who says it has to be a class ability?  I don't recall the PHB saying that roles were defined by class abilities, just that certain classes filled certain rolls.

To better illustrate the point, look at the Multiclass feats.  What do they give you?  Cleric and Warlord MC feats give you a once a day heal spell, which allows you to tap into that aspect of being a "leader".  The Rogue MC feat gives you access to Sneak Attack once per encounter, and the Ranger does the same with Hunter's Quarry.  With the Fighter MC feat you can get his Weapon Talent bonus once per encounter.  Notice, all of these are class abilities, as you pointed out.

Then, of course, we get to the Wizard...  What do you get there?  One of their At-Wills as an encounter power....  If that doesn't tell you that the "controller" roll is defined by the powers, then I don't know what will.


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## Nail (Dec 22, 2008)

Doctor Proctor said:


> Who says it has to be a class ability?



No one.

But give me one "thing" that defines the Fighter....you'll probably say "Combat Challenge".

How about Cleric? ...you'll probably say "Healing Word".

The Rogue? "Sneak attack".

Etc.

All I'm sayin' is: A class can be strongly defined by just one class feature.  IMO, that's best.  The wizard should be like that too.


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## Doctor Proctor (Dec 22, 2008)

Nail said:


> No one.
> 
> But give me one "thing" that defines the Fighter....you'll probably say "Combat Challenge".
> 
> ...




How about "At-Wills that attack every NAD"? (if you include the illusion ones)  Or how about "The ability to throw out large AoE effects, large burst power, status inducing effects and big multi-square forced movement effects.  Or any combination thereof."

Or to break it down further, think of it from the literature perspective.  When you think of a classic "Fighter" hero, you think of someone that take on many opponents at once and protect his allies.  This is exemplified in the Marking, Combat Challenge and Combat Superiority class abilities (and further so in his powers such as the ones that allow him to mark for a whole encounter, or things like Interposing Shield and the powers that grant AC bonuses to allies).

When you think of a "Cleric"-type hero, you probably think of a magical hero.  Again, this is exemplified in the Healing Word class ability (and further in other healing powers...) and perhaps the Channel Divinity feature (Essentially, Divine Intervention on demand).

When you think of a "Wizard" in fantasy literature, what do you think of?  Usually something like Merlin calling forth the Dragon's Breath for Uther, or his ability to Scry.  Perhaps you think of Gandalf battling Saruman, or the Balrog on the bridge.  These are *powers*, not things that can be distilled down into class abilities like the others.  Even those others have powers within their builds that accentuate the class abilities, as I stated above.  The Wizard, to an extent, has that as well if you consider his spells as an extension of the cantrips...but I think that's stretching it a bit far (not to mention that you don't pick those up when you multiclass).

Basically, when I think Wizard I think someone casting powerful spells, and that's exactly what multiclassing gives me.  Their other "class feature" that goes along with this is their free rituals.  The things I mentioned before, like Scrying, can be accessed through the appropriate rituals, which the Wizard gets for free.  I don't see a problem with this, other than the fact that you're just trying to fit the Wizard into a neat little box in line with the rest of the classes.  I just don't see how that's going to happen, nor how it makes sense with fantasy characters in general.


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## Diirk (Dec 23, 2008)

Mal Malenkirk said:


> Another flaw in typical DPR analysis is that a lot of theses characters used for comparisons are monkeys.  Take the DPR output of a 4th level ranger with 20 STR who is using two waraxes with weapon focus, improved quarry and two weapon fighting focus.  Does his impressive DPR includes the fact that he's gonna get KILLED?
> 
> All offense and no defense means johnny will get slaughtered.



It depends. Rogues and rangers both get quite a few escape tools that boost their survivability alot, even if they charge into what looks like dangerous situations. Also striker damage can end a fight very quickly. I find the rogue in my group seldom forgoes his extra sneak attack damage, and I certainly don't go easy on him !



Mal Malenkirk said:


> Most DM not affraid to hurt a players feeling will routinely have monsters grabbing the archer.




This is actually of somewhat limited usefulness; grab is a str attack (ignoring weapon mods) vs reflex. A 5th level ranger, for example, will have +1 class, +5 dex, +1 amulet, +2 level = 19 reflex defense. Its not quite clear on how monsters should make a grab roll (weapon attack - weapon mod from ph ? use str skill check? Those should be equivalent for players but are vastly different for monsters.), however whichever method you choose you'll probably end up with about a 40-50% chance that you'll successfully grab them. An orc eye of gruumsh for example, is +10 spear attack, or +7 str check.

Then once you have grabbed them, keep in mind its just acrobatics vs reflex save as a move action to escape. Again with an eye of gruumsh, you're looking at +12 acrobatics (trained, +5 dex, +2 level) vs a reflex defense of 14. Well gee, I wonder if that will work. Then they can just use a power that lets them shift before their attack, and you accomplished pretty much nothing.

Sure a wizard or warlock might have trouble with grabs, but rogues and rangers you can pretty much forget about.


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## Nail (Dec 23, 2008)

Doctor Proctor said:


> These are *powers*, not things that can be distilled down into class abilities like the others.



You might be over thinking this.

Cleric has a class feature that easily defines the class: Healing Word.  ...and this class feature is a power.  So it's definitely possible for a class feature to be a power, if that's the way you like it.

Looking at Wizard class features, we have:
Arcane Implement Mastery,
Cantrips,
Ritual casting, and
Spellbook.
Looks like a great list!  ...and yet Wizard has problems as a poorly defined class, which - by the designer's own admission - doesn't fit into the "controlled" role very well.

So....it might be nifty to add a class feature which better defines and deliniates the class.

That's all I'm sayin'.  Nothing earth-shattering. YMMV, and all o' that.


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## Nail (Dec 23, 2008)

Diirk said:


> Then once you have grabbed them, keep in mind its just acrobatics vs reflex save as a move action to escape. Again with an eye of gruumsh, you're looking at +12 acrobatics (trained, +5 dex, +2 level) vs a reflex defense of 14. Well gee, I wonder if that will work. Then they can just use a power that lets them shift before their attack, and you accomplished pretty much nothing.



It turns out the "escape" action allows a shift as part of the escape.  So no need to use a power to shift.


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## Nail (Dec 23, 2008)

...now, that said: If two orcs grab the archer, he'll have to escape both of them.  And that chance is lower, over-all.


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## Mistwell (Dec 23, 2008)

The class ability I wish I had seen for Wizards is that they automatically know the name and type of creature and it's resistances, vulnerabilities, and weakest defense.  

Knowledge is a key archetype of wizards, and knowing which defense to target, which vulnerability to target, and which resistance to avoid, would make sense for the Wizard.  

That way, other Wizard powers become more powerful because they become more efficient.

This doesn't address the control aspect issue, but it does address the perception of weakness issue.


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## Mal Malenkirk (Dec 23, 2008)

Mistwell said:


> The class ability I wish I had seen for Wizards is that they automatically know the name and type of creature and it's resistances, vulnerabilities, and weakest defense.
> 
> Knowledge is a key archetype of wizards, and knowing which defense to target, which vulnerability to target, and which resistance to avoid, would make sense for the Wizard.
> 
> ...





Wizard have more knowledge skill then any other class.

My human wizard is trained in Religion, Arcana and Nature.   That cover most Monster knowledge check.  And all these skill key off intelligence so these are good scores.


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## Diirk (Dec 23, 2008)

Nail said:


> It turns out the "escape" action allows a shift as part of the escape.  So no need to use a power to shift.




Oh yeah, I forgot about that. 

Yeah, you can throw multiple mobs at the ranger, but the chances of both orcs even hitting in the first place is pretty remote, and for every monster you try to peg the ranger down with, thats 1 less to keep the rest of the party busy. Assuming you can even get that many close to the ranger to begin with, they enjoy a high range and very good mobility.


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## Charwoman Gene (Dec 23, 2008)

Ahglock said:


> I was totally with you up to this point, and then you went and lost all of your credibility.




Icing sucks, dude.  I love a good icingless cake.


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## 77IM (Dec 23, 2008)

Can I have your icing, then?  Just scrape it onto my plate here.  Mmmm!


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## keterys (Dec 23, 2008)

Well, they easily could have given wizards a bonus area or close at-will as their feature. In fact, if that was their only time to get one it could have been interesting.

Now... make it so you can use mage hand to do a minor action 1/round slide at Int vs Fort. That's pretty controllery 

Technically, I think the wizard _feats_ Spell Focus and Spell Accuracy, are great examples of what could have been control class features. If controllers got the ability to do more shaped area effects and gave a -1/-2/-3 (by tier) penalty to saves, I'd nod and say that was a good comparison to striker damage or combat challenge or word.


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## Nail (Dec 23, 2008)

Diirk said:


> Yeah, you can throw multiple mobs at the ranger, but the chances of both orcs even hitting in the first place is pretty remote, and for every monster you try to peg the ranger down with, thats 1 less to keep the rest of the party busy.



That's what minions are for: to chase down and hold the ranger.


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## Mistwell (Dec 23, 2008)

Mal Malenkirk said:


> Wizard have more knowledge skill then any other class.
> 
> My human wizard is trained in Religion, Arcana and Nature.   That cover most Monster knowledge check.  And all these skill key off intelligence so these are good scores.




Yes, but most DMs do not appreciate the time it takes to roll before every combat and then compare your result to the chart and then determine what parts you know and what parts you do not know.  It would be a lot easier if Wizards just automatically knew, so the DM could prep a card to hand the Wizard's player in advance or something like that.  It would be thematically good, and it will be an appropriate "boost" to power without actually tinkering with any other powers.


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## DracoSuave (Dec 23, 2008)

Prep just cause someone picked 'Wizard'?  This is some meaning of the word 'easier' I'm not aware of.

Rolling dice can be fun, when there's a benefit to doing so.   Wizards have enough identity, but you have to start reading the powers to get it.  Unlike other classes you don't learn about this class by stopping reading at the heading 'Level 1 Encounter Spells'


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## Lizard (Dec 24, 2008)

Mistwell said:


> Yes, but most DMs do not appreciate the time it takes to roll before every combat and then compare your result to the chart and then determine what parts you know and what parts you do not know.  It would be a lot easier if Wizards just automatically knew, so the DM could prep a card to hand the Wizard's player in advance or something like that.  It would be thematically good, and it will be an appropriate "boost" to power without actually tinkering with any other powers.




That sounds like WAY more work than is needed. Prep a card? Sheesh. 

"You see a Squamous Thing."
"I roll 25 on my Arcana check."
"OK, the Squamous Thing is vulnerable to acid and can eat your spleen from 20 feet away."
"Cool."

I can't imagine it being a difficult or complex process. Hell, 4e -- the game under discussion -- even tells you EXACTLY what you know with each level of knowledge check.


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## Mistwell (Dec 24, 2008)

Lizard said:


> That sounds like WAY more work than is needed. Prep a card? Sheesh.
> 
> "You see a Squamous Thing."
> "I roll 25 on my Arcana check."
> ...




I said prep because not all players should know the info.
Its VERY little time to make a card of that info in 4e. But if its not your thing, its still faster to say that info every time than role and look it up on a chart each encounter.


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## DracoSuave (Dec 24, 2008)

Funny, I find that chart to be just as easy (if not easier) to look up as such information as Initiative, AC, the damage and attack rolls, and the rest of the statblock.  I find by looking in the same area of the book, I find it.

But then, different strokes for different folks.


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## Lizard (Dec 24, 2008)

Mistwell said:


> I said prep because not all players should know the info.




All of them don't, just the one you tell it to. 

The way our games work:
Player: I roll arcana!
DM: OK, it's blah.
Player (in character): Guys, be careful. That thing can eat your spleen at 20 paces!

If, for some reason, the player who makes the check chooses NOT to tell the other characters in context, the other players play their characters without that knowledge.


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## Ahrimon (Dec 27, 2008)

Hmm,  How about this for class features.  (very rough because I'm very tired)

War wizards get a +1 to hit and +2 to damage to go with thier blastery-ness 

Controller wizards impose a -2 to all saves.  Then introduce a lot more status efffects that have save ends (say, in arcane power) in the form of at-wills, encounters, daily's etc.


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## Oldtimer (Dec 27, 2008)

Mal Malenkirk said:


> My human wizard is trained in Religion, Arcana and Nature.   That cover most Monster knowledge check.  And all these skill key off intelligence so these are good scores.



Sorry, but Nature is keyed off Wisdom, not Intelligence.


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## DracoSuave (Dec 27, 2008)

Wizards don't get wisdom?

Oh wait.  They do.

Move along.


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## Ahglock (Dec 27, 2008)

DracoSuave said:


> Wizards don't get wisdom?
> 
> Oh wait.  They do.
> 
> Move along.





Before being a smart alack you might want to read the entire post.  You know the line oldtimer quoted where the person said all those skills keyed off intelligence.  And then oldtimer was polite enough to correct him.


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## DracoSuave (Dec 27, 2008)

Feh.  His point about them being good scores still stands.

Debunk the point, not just the premise.


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## DracoSuave (Dec 27, 2008)

And no, Wizards don't -need- +1 to hit/+2 damage or -2 to saves.  That's just... no.

Mearls said that wizards at-wills are not controlling enough, so they'll be pushing the envelope on that.  What does that mean?  It means expect to see controlling wizard at-wills in the future.  How does -2 to saves make their at-wills more controlling?  It doesn't.  Really.  No.  And wizards already have the ability to push a defense, offense, or saving throw once per encounter.  They -already have- those abilities.

Use them.  Jeeze.

He also said the encounter and daily abilities are fine.  So if the only problem is the amount of control in at-wills (he said the damaging ones are fine), then the answer is more controlling at-wills.  Nothing else.


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## Mal Malenkirk (Dec 27, 2008)

Oldtimer said:


> Sorry, but Nature is keyed off Wisdom, not Intelligence.




Oh well.  Everything crumbles to dust then...  

I didn't recheck the character sheet before posting, but the point still stand.



			
				Ahrimon said:
			
		

> Hmm, How about this for class features. (very rough because I'm very tired)
> 
> War wizards get a +1 to hit and +2 to damage to go with thier blastery-ness
> 
> Controller wizards impose a -2 to all saves. Then introduce a lot more status efffects that have save ends (say, in arcane power) in the form of at-wills, encounters, daily's etc.




Yes, brother!  Let's preach the truth until the wizards once again rule the world!  Power to the wizards!  Power to the wizards!  Magic is Might!  

Ahem.  

That being said, I'd prefer orb wizards to have a flat -1 to all saves in place of an occasional overpowering - WIS.


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## Phaezen (Dec 28, 2008)

Slightly out of left field here,

I was rereading the Gladiator article, specifically the Arena Fighting Feats (Marital class feats which modify specific at wills).  Surely it would be possible to write up a series of "Guild Trained" feats which modify Wizard at wills to give them a bit more of a controller aspect?

I am going to give this a bit more thought for some ideas, but here is a start:  
_*
Golden Wyvern Initiate [Guild Trained]
*_*Prerequisite:* Wis 13, Wizard
You may choose to exclude your allies from your ranged burst atwill powers.

Phaezen


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## Ahglock (Dec 28, 2008)

Mal Malenkirk said:


> That being said, I'd prefer orb wizards to have a flat -1 to all saves in place of an occasional overpowering - WIS.




While I think it should be a flat amount to avoid certain absurd builds, -1 seems weak when a feat can give -2.  A class ability should at least equal to a feat, in fact it should be feat+.  I really don't know what the orb wizard should get, if it stacks with the feat it can quickly get nasty.  Heck maybe they get the feat for free even if they don't have the Chr for it and its provides -3 instead of -2.


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## DracoSuave (Dec 28, 2008)

But a class feature giving -1 to saves doesn't address the -only- stated problem with the wizard class, which is the at-wills not controlling enough.

If it does, could you please explain it?


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## Oldtimer (Dec 28, 2008)

DracoSuave said:


> Wizards don't get wisdom?
> 
> Oh wait.  They do.
> 
> Move along.



Huh? Of course they "get wisdom". Everybody gets wisdom. But not automatically a good score in it.

I don't really understand what you're saying. What was wrong with me correcting the original statement?


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## Ahglock (Dec 29, 2008)

DracoSuave said:


> But a class feature giving -1 to saves doesn't address the -only- stated problem with the wizard class, which is the at-wills not controlling enough.
> 
> If it does, could you please explain it?




Its the only stated problem from the designer.  Others seem to think there are other porblems, like there is no decent core controller feature in the class abilities.


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## DracoSuave (Dec 29, 2008)

Yeah, but that 'problem' doesn't make them less effective at dealing their role, which is to control.  In terms of their role, they do a half-decent job of it, but they'd do a better job with a few more controlling at-wills to choose from.  A class feature doesn't address that problem, and addressing that problem will establish the wizard as a solid controller.

I mean this is the same community that once thought thunderwave was weak, enfeebling strike was terrible, that wizards can't deal AoE damage, and that staff of defense was a terrible implement.  I don't consider this community a good authority on what is best for class design compared to a designer who has been playing and tweaking the game for a lot longer.


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## Nail (Dec 29, 2008)

Ahglock said:


> Its the only stated problem from the designer.



Consider, from the designer's standpoint, how you might address the problem that "_wizards aren't controller-y enough_".
You could add a class feature: IMO, this is best but it would require publishing new "builds" of the wizard that make the old builds weak (like the battlerager fighter),
You could add new At-Wills: this seems weaker to me, but it does have the advantage of being accessible by any wizard build, using the existing retraining rules.


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## Mal Malenkirk (Dec 29, 2008)

Ahglock said:


> While I think it should be a flat amount to avoid certain absurd builds, -1 seems weak when a feat can give -2.  A class ability should at least equal to a feat, in fact it should be feat+.  I really don't know what the orb wizard should get, if it stacks with the feat it can quickly get nasty.  Heck maybe they get the feat for free even if they don't have the Chr for it and its provides -3 instead of -2.




Well, it's a lot stronger than any heroic tier feat the wizard has access to.  It's not as good as a paragon level feat, but by then I think you'll find feats are much stronger.

What I'm thinking is maybe having the orb wizard getting -1 to all save (stacks with the feat) plus, once per encounter, they can slide an enemy suffering from a condition inflicted by a power a number of square equal to their WIS bonus.  That's pretty sweet for setting up better AoE.



			
				Dracosuave said:
			
		

> But a class feature giving -1 to saves doesn't address the -only- stated problem with the wizard class, which is the at-wills not controlling enough.
> 
> If it does, could you please explain it?




Oh, it doesn't.  It was just an aside brought on by the post I was quoting.


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## Plane Sailing (Dec 29, 2008)

Phaezen said:


> Slightly out of left field here,
> 
> I was rereading the Gladiator article, specifically the Arena Fighting Feats (Marital class feats which modify specific at wills).  Surely it would be possible to write up a series of "Guild Trained" feats which modify Wizard at wills to give them a bit more of a controller aspect?
> 
> ...




Don't you think it treads on the toes of an epic feat?

*Spell Accuracy [Wizard]*
Prerequisite: Wizard
Benefit: You can omit a number of squares from the area of effect of any of your area or close wizard powers. This number can’t exceed your Wisdom modifier.

(and ranged burst at-wills basically just means Scorching Burst, which is a bit specific for a feat, surely?)

Cheers


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## Phaezen (Dec 29, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:


> Don't you think it treads on the toes of an epic feat?
> 
> *Spell Accuracy [Wizard]*
> Prerequisite: Wizard
> ...




Both valid critisms as I said it is an idea I am playing with to see how it works.

The _Arena Fighting_ feats I am basing this off each modify one at-will from 3 or 4 martial classes so mechanically they each modify one at-will for the character, half-elf dilettante notwithstanding.

Just trying to brainstorm a way to give wizards more controller options with thier at-wills without changing core.

Phaezen


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## keterys (Dec 29, 2008)

Ahglock said:


> While I think it should be a flat amount to avoid certain absurd builds, -1 seems weak when a feat can give -2.  A class ability should at least equal to a feat, in fact it should be feat+.  I really don't know what the orb wizard should get, if it stacks with the feat it can quickly get nasty.  Heck maybe they get the feat for free even if they don't have the Chr for it and its provides -3 instead of -2.




It's probably worth noting that a feat that gave -1 to all saves would be a great feat. Spell Focus is... almost a reward for having a high enough Charisma. Or possibly comes with an iron shackle forcing the wizard to have a high enough Charisma, depending how you think about it.


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## Mistwell (Dec 29, 2008)

Plane Sailing said:


> Don't you think it treads on the toes of an epic feat?
> 
> *Spell Accuracy [Wizard]*
> Prerequisite: Wizard
> Benefit: You can omit a number of squares from the area of effect of any of your area or close wizard powers. This number can’t exceed your Wisdom modifier.




Love that feat idea.

I'd also like to see a pull or slide at-will power for Wizards.


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## TwoSix (Dec 29, 2008)

Cam Banks said:


> Wow. Arcane Power's being released on my youngest son's birthday, and Divine Power's being released on my birthday. What are the odds?
> 
> Cheers,
> Cam



Well, since your son's birthday is exactly 9 months after yours...I'd say the odds were slightly stacked in your favor...you got lucky, as it were.


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## timbannock (Jan 14, 2009)

TwoSix said:


> Well, since your son's birthday is exactly 9 months after yours...I'd say the odds were slightly stacked in your favor...you got lucky, as it were.




Yeah, Happy Birthday indeed


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## Mournblade94 (Jan 14, 2009)

I ran a few months of 4th edition with friends of mine  whom I have not gamed with since first edition D&D.  They were VERY enthusiastic about 4th.  SO I agreed to run 4th edition.

We did not make it through Keep on the Shadowfell, because it was a GRIND, and a very bad start for 4e which I was enthusiastic about but skeptical.

So I ran soe scenarios.  My enthusiastic Players soon got bored with 4e.  They never played 3.5 and did not want to learn the system so I started running Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.  I continue to run that and 3.5 now.

We found 4th edition to be a great tournament game but that is about all.

I play with a very high roleplay intensive group.  4th edition just did not work for us.  

THe beauty of 4th edition:  There are 3 other editions to play in if you do not like it.

I do however use the skill challenge system from 4th edition for 3.5.  I ahve always used skill chalenges, it is just nice to now have a designed set.  They do it better than my house rules.


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## jbear (Jan 14, 2009)

How about this for Magic Missile (keeping in mind Magic Missile used to have multiple targets as the wizard grew in power):

Atk: Int vs Ref  Dmg: 2d4+Int
Special: If the first atk hits, make a secondary attack against a second target 5 from the target
Secondary Atk: Int vs Ref   Dmg:1d4+Int
If the secondary attack is successful make a third attack against a third target 2 from secondary target
Third Atack: Int vs Ref  Dmg: Int Modifier

Or if this is too focused on damage then the secndary target is pushed 2 and the third target pushed 1.

Haven't read the whole thread but just my 2 cents.I'm really enjoying 4e. But. The Wizard needs a buff or something to make it cooler and more attractive. Of all of the classes out so far the Wizard is the last class I would want to play myself.

If this has been taken into account by WotC Staff and being addressed, I think that will be awesome! Either way it is done, either errata or new At Wills in the Arcane Power Book, I'll be happy. 

I think he is correct in that the problem lies in the At Wills. I have read on many posts that the wizard is underpowered in general. The Wizard in our game was responsable for taking down the White Dragon Szarthax (forgive the spelling) from the DMG Adventure  after pinning it between a wall, the Fighter and his Flaming Sphere. IMO, maybe  the most powerful daily available to any class at Level 1.


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## Plane Sailing (Jan 15, 2009)

Mournblade94 said:


> I ran a few months of 4th edition with friends of mine  whom I have not gamed with since first edition D&D.  They were VERY enthusiastic about 4th.  SO I agreed to run 4th edition.
> 
> We did not make it through Keep on the Shadowfell, because it was a GRIND, and a very bad start for 4e which I was enthusiastic about but skeptical.
> 
> ...




I think you have accidentally posted this here rather than in the "why I don't play 4e any more" thread. Please make sure you post things in the correct thread, and keep things on topic.

Thanks


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## Kraydak (Jan 15, 2009)

Plane Sailing said:


> Don't you think it treads on the toes of an epic feat?
> 
> *Spell Accuracy [Wizard]*
> Prerequisite: Wizard
> ...




The problem is that Spell Accuracy should be a wizard class feature, the same way it is with *every other* AoEing class (implicitly, in the individual power descriptions, rather than explicitly in the class feature section).

If only one controller has to deal with hitting friendlies, then they need a lot more base power to make up for the logistical difficulties.  The wizard's powers aren't that strong (weaker than similar cleric powers when the comparison can be made), so further weakening the wizard by making him deal with hitting friendlies fails once more controllers get implemented.

If you *must* keep the feat, and *must* keep it Epic tier, then don't give the individual wizard AoE powers auto-targeting, do give the wizard an auto-targeting class feature and leave the feat for wizard MCing.


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## Kitirat (Jan 15, 2009)

*Wizard Alterations*

Here is what we did in my group and it has worked out awesomely.

It has greatly enhanced the game and made him feel like a controller.

a. Thunderwave knocks prone on a critical.

b. Ray of Frost is a maximum of 2 squares movement, period (the way we originally played slow) and the target grants combat advantage if it moves.

c. Magic Missile can hit 2 targets if they are within 3 squares of each other. If it targets 1, it pushes 1. (if a control wizard, pushes both targets).

d. Cloud of Daggers gains: Sustain Minor

e. Scorching Burst goes to base 2d4 damage (brutal 1 if war wizard).

f. The Illusionist one allows a slide one when it hits.

I talk more about it in this thread:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/248454-difference.html

It has greatly increased the wizards enjoyment of the game and others have noted it makes him feel a lot more controllery.

See ya,
Ken


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## RandomChance (Feb 21, 2009)

*"Teamwork" and wizard powers*

A common idea that keeps being suggested is that players/DM's who think there is something a little week about the wizard at-wills are "doing it wrong" and that they should be using more team work or working harder arrange opponents into tight groups for AOEs.

The problem there is that it _not_ good team work to ask your party to use their less damaging powers, encounter powers, etc to control the battle field so the wizard can hit the bad guys with a weak AOE.   Either the AOE's need to do enough damage/effect that its obviously beneficial to reduce the damage output of 2 or 3 other characters in exchange for the wizard having a moment of glory, or the AOE's need to be more generally useful without cooperation.

The other idea being suggested is that getting a AOE cluster should be "easy" using things like Thunderwave, or other "channeling" powers- unfortunatly unless you want to spend an action point just to get off your 1d6 aoe, the critters you herd are probably going to get right back out of the spot you picked for them on their turn.

Side note on Thunderwave - If your DM follows the small note that says that any spell that targets a creature can also target an object, thunderwave is one if the best utilitiy/RP powers in the game. You basically get a hamfisted Telekenesis that allows you to bust down doors, blow open gates, move furniture, clear boulders, and possibly knock down small structures - It doesn't have  a weight or size limit!  If it can push a gargantuan creature weighing several tons and occuping 8 squares around, that locked door is just kindling.  Now if only when you blew something across the room into a wall or furniture it would take damage


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