Arelith

I recently joined, and decided to make a basic good aligned wizard. But I'm kinda struggling to find some nice toys to play with.

Anyone got any advice on something that would work nicely in that frame of character?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... dit#gid=0
A bit out of date, I'd swap dragon knight for planar conduit nowadays, but otherwise pretty solid.

Very modifiable, too, so if there's a different angle you wanted to come from, let us know what you're looking for and we can probably rejig it to suit.

As far as spell schools go, most generally pick one of Necro/Conjuration for summons. The rest, it's worth looking at the different things you get from the wiki. Personally I'm a transmutation guy because I love the slow spell, and teleporting is nice QoL.

Look up on wiki, there are lots of changes. A generalist wizard is most flexible, specialist wizards now has some really nice perks. They have 2 good spells to be cast on CD.

A Duerger wizard is significantly easier than other races due to immunities.

Waldo52 wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 13, 2022 6:11 am

Wizarding.

We should call it Arcane Treachery as gods turn their backs on mortals who utilize such a foul craft over their own strength.

On a more serious note making wizardry fun:

1) As others mentioned spell focii abilities especially epic spell focii abilities are the most special stuff you have access to. As a student of wizardly ways you'll have access to a lot of feats so you can choose fun spell focii over more "optimal" ones and still be perfectly fine.

2) As a wizardly person you can use wands and very easily afford the feat "craft wand". There are quite a lot of spells that are just as good on a wand (like lesser breach or zoo buffs) so having some wands around can greatly increase flexibility of your spell book.

3) Experimentation and collection are also a lot of fun. Developing spell combos to use in specific circumstances and using them is fun! Of course more complete spell book you have more combinations you can try.

These are the main fun points IMO. I hope you find them enjoyable as well!

Waldo52 wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 13, 2022 6:11 am

Wizarding.

Yes you are completely right. Mea Culpa.. I blame said movies for putting the word in my head.

Just some random wizard thoughts ...

-Get some summons, conjuration or necromancy. Planar Conduit and Mommy Dust.
-Craft Wand and a shop = money maker
-Extended Mass Haste makes friends for ever.
-Take 1 art for glass, and then enough alchemy or art to make your own spell components.
-Arcane Flux is amazing. Prep a few different damage cantrips because you never know when you will lose the spell from a whole bunch of possible thing.

Wands, potions and scrolls being a massive moneymaker is kind of an urban legend. You'll get a trickle of gold from it at best, because the market for wands is so hypersaturated. Brew potion is marginally better, but the overheads (combined with tax rates) are so high that you're also only going to be making a trickle from that.

Honestly, just get ready to hide behind buffs until epic and then hide behind Planar Conduit until they nerf PC into the ground, then prepare yourself for being a glorified Mass Haste bot who is overshadowed in almost every capacity by sorcerers (who can throw out even more mass haste than you can while also being substantially more capable offensively.)

Wizards really aren't in a great spot.

I think a lot of having fun in a group with a wizard comes down to knowing the playstyle/capabilities of your group members and the type of critters you're hunting and then selecting an appropriate spell loadout. You might have a few things that you're specialized in doing, but don't focus on them if the group/enemy setup isn't a good match.

For example I've had a duo with a rogue a few times and was happy to use acid sheath + shapechange + guard them and let them murder everything we came across with sneak attacks while I play a "tank".

Playing with a group that has more coordination, grab the entire zone of critters and lead them into an AoE death trap.

Bunch of low will save mobs, confusion bombs.

I've even had instances of using tenser's while under guard of the tanky bodyguard type against low AC bags of HP with higher saves/immunities.

A spontaneous caster could do a better job in each of these situations, but couldn't just rest once and switch to any other situation with equal ability. For me half the fun of grouping up as a wizard with random people is being able to use a different loadout/playstyle than the one before.

Now obviously if you have a group that's going up against content that's trivial to them combat is not going to be very engaging, but for me at least that would be true regardless of what I'm playing.

I'm not going to say this is the most optimal/right way to play one, just my own take of enjoying one in PvE when with others.

the mind is a weapon

Since you want to be good aligned, you can't pick Abjurer, Transmuter, or Evoker. Necromancer is also probably a bad pick since it's so heavily focused around undead. That leaves you with a choice between Generalist, Enchanter, Illusionist, Conjurer, and Diviner.

Right now, as wizard stands, the best picks overall are Enchanter or Illusionist. Enchanter is better than Illusionist overall due to superior team and summon support, but Illusionist is a bit more flexible. Diviner is very fun for RP but mechanically doesn't receive much of a benefit. Losing Illusion isn't too bad, though there are a lot of good illusion spells. You can take a pixie familiar to cast improved invisibility on yourself, and sequencers take care of buffing up summons.

There's not much to say about Generalist. It's there, but 5% extra flux isn't worth losing one spell per day, I think. Better to pick illusionist and play like a Generalist in that case.

Conjurer is missing essential spells for fighting (or escaping from) other players - greater sanctuary and time stop. I wouldn't recommend Conjurer because of that and because the benefits it receives are very marginal, but if you never want to fight other people you can go for it.

Your class split will generally be 27 wizard/3 something. Typically ranger or specialist for the extra epic feat. You can also go monk for AC or bard for easy access to instruments.

Make sure you take Planar Conduit as soon as you can in Epics, and take GSF conjuration early so you can solo more easily.