Wizard & Sorcerer

[CrashGoblin]

The vanilla classes Wizard and Sorcerer have IMO fallen way behind when compared to all the power creep that took place in recent years. Sorcerer has the upper hand in that it can multiclass into paladin or BG and has more uses of IGMS + other useful spells. Many reworked/new spells were added over the years but they were either not good enough or nerfed to the point of uselessness.

I welcome more people to say their piece as I doubt I have the eloquence or precision to address every point.

I'll start with what was mentioned in another thread by changes wizards get, and why they are good or bad.

8 distinct SF/ESF perks
Arelith specific summons and -streams
wild mage path
shadow mage path
8 distinct specialist subclasses
arcane flux
custom and updated spells
spellmaggedon

Spell Focuses

Abjuration: Really good and doesn't need to be maxed out to get usefulness against force spells (IGMS, Bigby etc), its epic spell is one of the more useful things a spell focus grants in terms of sheer utility, being able to block scrying, grant area denial and block teleportation. It also boosts your Dispel power.

Conjuration: Conjuration is an excellent PvE tool early on to boost your Summon Creature by +1, the boosts it gives to summons is also great, and it boosts useful spells. -yoink is one other great utility spell that can ease the life of the caster severely if used correctly. The greatest downside of Conjuration is that its power in the form of boosting summons is rendered null the moment someone casts WoF.

Divination: The DCs of spells boosted by Divination are not good, Power Words are Underpowered Words in terms of power compared to spells of the same level. The investigation and aura bonuses are neat. All of its usefulness is concentraded on -scry, which is a spell so great people are constantly calling it to be removed or reworked. Divination is primarily a RP spell focus.

Enchantment: Neat roleplay passives in the skill boosts, useful empowering of some spells, the dominate two creatures at a time is niche. The spells that are boosted by enchantment are typically good, but they all fall flat vs mind immune enemies, be it PvP or PvE. While Mind Blank can be breached, Clarity is greater of an issue even with its cooldown.

Evocation: Necessary component for Hellball, some of the Bigby spells are REALLY good, the boosts to some summons are a big whatever. That it enables the casting of Hellball without taking damage is the winner here, and part of one of the few spell combos a wizard or sorcerer can do that is threatening.

Illusion: Worse Enchantment with all of its weaknesses, its DC spells are typically a worse version of another enchantment spell with the exception of Weird. -project_image is really good but its been made weaker with the implementation of parrot bottles and wisp bottles. Summon Shades is an interesting niche spell but only works vs certain unprepared targets.

Necromancy: I don't play necromancers, but this spell focus looks so bad in comparison to Conjuration. The spells are not necessarily bad, the death spells are blocked by a death ward which can't be breached, many others are denied by NEP. If nothing else, if their undead minions get a WoF the caster can pump out more easier than Conjuration.

Transmutation: Very much an utility school, not a lot of DC spells and the custom effects of boosting Zoo spells is only useful for builds that need 4 stats or more to function, a lot of the empowered spells are divine casters only. The greater focus -teleport is okay but portal lenses are not that expensive, ditto for the epic portal it can create.

From the above, Abjuration and Evocation are the only POWERFUL spell focuses to take, Enchantment and Illusion fall behind if made near useless by mind immunity. The others are either too gimped or do not offer nearly enough to warrant taking focuses in them.

Streams

Honestly? The concept is amazing, most of the summons are good. Some are not.

Summon Creature I-IX: Good for what they do.

Planar Conduit: Excellent for PvE, a joke in PvP since they cannot be recast, I do not like this duality as its one of the only ways to do PvE content as a wizard or sorcerer while eating up a feat thats purely for PvE. Dedicating ESF Conjuration to make PConduit useful and then getting PConduit itself is not really appealing unless all you want to do is PvE and otherwise be a WoF away from having four feats denied. The worst part is that you can't actually make use of streams with this, it's a huge metagame tool, if you play a good guy trying to pretend to be a bad guy, you can't ever use PConduit, and vice versa.

Mummy Dust: Same as the above. Great variety though, good work there.

EDK: Its been a while since I last had a proper look at EDK, I witnessed an EDK Dracolich which I assume to be the strongest variant be bodied without much issue in a few scenarios. For a short lasting one time use summon, it should be far more devastating than a Gate. Another problem is that the dragons are big and struggle with pathing/attacking, nerfing them indirectly.

Wild Mage Path

I have no comment to give here as I do not like wild mages and do not play them. I welcome those that would speak more on it.

Shadow Mage

Shadow Mage has huge flaws, one is that the only way to reliably be deadly in PvP involves Evocation (with the use of Hellball), the other is that DC spells are not good in a server where you can easily obtain +40 saves. Having tried a shadowmage that gets 42 INT (an unoptimal number that requires +1 Great Int), 41-43 DCs really do not matter in PvP or PvE when epic mobs are often immune or have +40 saves.

Shadow Mage is an awesome concept that I would wish was better defined, right now its giving up on one of the most powerful schools (and transmutation DCs but those don't matter) in exchange of just +2 DC on Illusion/Enchantment/Necromancy, that's 10 spellcraft points worth. Boosting the DCs to a point they actually matter and making Shadow Weave harder to dispel by non Shadow Weave (while making normal Weave casters harder to dispel) would be an interesting addition too. Perhaps unique spells/mechanics that normal Weave casters do not have.

Specializations

Here I'll say which specializations are good, and which are bad, and maybe how to make them better.

Abjuration(prohibited Conjuration): BAD. Do able if necromancer, otherwise PvE suffers greatly and you will rely on other people. +1 resistance vs dispels is not bad, the 28 level effect while good is not worth missing discipline, +2 vs spells is redundant since you can get +40 saves vs spells as is, +2 breached effects is the only good thing to take from Abjuration spec, and it won't always apply vs enemies without sufficient breachable wards.
Given the sacrifice of conjuration, any summon presence are unothordox summons (that typically aren't good) or necromancy, an epic unorthodox summon with its own perks and progression could alleviate this. Besides that, the boons are not enough to warrant a specialization, I would reduce the level 28 effect to 27, and increase the resistance vs dispel by another +1.

Conjuration(prohibited Transmutation): BAD. Even if your summons have SR, they are not invulnerable to scrolls much less WoF casters. It both is and isn't a QoL specialization for better summons as they get perma haste but at the same time you are locked out from buffing them with Mass Zoo spells. What really makes this a terrible specialization? NO HASTE SPELLS. Auto quicken is mandatory, you take a specialization that requires potions, someone hasting you or three epic feats for very little benefit.
Honestly, the only way I see this specialization becoming good is if its boosts to summon so powerful (while being very resistant to WoF) or changing the prohibited school(which I don't know if its possible, I believe it is), at least the former actually defines them as the defacto summoner expert who doesn't become the joker upon a WoF.

Divination(prohibited school Illusion): ACTUALLY ALMOST GOOD? Better True Seeing on demand, harder to detect 4 minute scry, +7 DR premonition, turns/level Clairaudience/clairvoyance. Wow, this is actually, not bad. You still will get breached from Premonition on most times but you can catch +5 weapon friends off guard. You lose Improved Invisibility which kind of sucks but it can be patched with consumables even if they're clunky. It is not a bad school for someone who wants to KNOW things.
Yet, I still feel it could use something more in the ways of PvE/PvP, perhaps DC or extra mechanics to Power Words to make them more useful as it stands they are really not good spells.

Enchantment(prohibited school Illusion): GOOD. The one specialization that makes Wizard almost as good as a bard for a support role, exclusively because it gives +2 damage/AB and about +4 to skills. You are a worse bard capable of spewing IGMS, be proud of yourself, it's all downhill from here otherwise. Coupled with Enchantment focuses, you can get very high Bluff values too. Missing out on Illusion is not a huge deal much like Divination.
A way to make their offensive spells better would not be unwelcome, as they still suffer from people with high DC and immunities.

Evocation(prohibtied school Evocation): CIRCUMSTANCIALLY GOOD. It is only good if you use necromancy summons in place of conjuration, it is otherwise in the same trap as of Abjuration regarding PvE. It boosts two of the best spells the wizard has, the DC of Clenched Fist and 1 more 2d6 for IGMS, thus making the go to's of a wizard even better.
Same as abjuration, if given more alternatives to summons, it would be good, boring but good.

Illusion(prohibtied school Enchantment): BAD. If you don't plan on taking Enchantment, this is Generalist but better. It has neat disguise mechanics but otherwise it really does not do a lot, +54% ish concealment for a level 27 wizard? At least all it misses out on is Mind Fog.
Similarly to Enchantment, empowering their offensive illusion spells would go a long way, or new/enhanced spells that go around mind-affecting wards in the sense that they propose an outside illusion similar to Shadow Conjuration spells. A more unique RP gimmick would also be fantastic, since -project_image lost much of its value and the clone is niche at best. Perhaps a Mirror Image spell that functions as if giving concealment and spell mantle?

Necromancy(prohibited school Divination): BAD. Its a lot of boosts to summoning undead similar to Conjuration, if you take this you are likely not making ample use of other summons as is. Again, similarly to Conjuration, these boosts all fall flat when a WoF caster steps into the scene, this specialization at least has the edge they can spam passable summons with more ease than Conjuration, and they all have SR, thus making WoF scrolls a lot less reliable. Loss of True Seeing is painful if you want to detect invisible/stealthy people.
Like Conjuration spec, this puts all their eggs into one basket and it's not that great of a basket. Giving their other necromancy spells more use and power would go a long way to make this a cool specialization.

Transmutation(prohibited school Conjuration): MEGA BAD. Oh man, making this specialization focus entirely on Tenser's Transformation is not a good idea, honestly the boosts this gives Tenser's should be vanilla. The +1 to Zoo spells is a token gesture at best to boost your summons- oh wait you don't get Conjuration, nevermind. There's not much else to be said, it's the single worst specialization.

Generalist: BAD. Its only perk is that you get to use Mind Fog for illusion spells(illusion is just worse enchantment anyway), a slightly better chance with Arcane Flux(purely a PvE gimmick), and get to cast Invisibility.
Honestly, if the other specializations are made good, Generalist could get the +1 slot per level they typically miss out on and call it a day. Probably.

Arcane Flux

Speaking of Arcane Flux, it's a PvE exclusive feature that rewards the wizard for spamming cantrips. When I was leveling this as a lowbie, I procced it so few times it was worthless, on epics I proc it maybe once per dungeon and it's still worthless because our offensive spells suck lmao.

custom and updated spells
spellmaggedon

Two in one. Many spells were buffed over the time, but any time they were "good" they were considered too good and nerfed into uselessness again. Most of the new spells are either not good enough or flat out bad. I could go at length about every spell but honestly I don't have the patience to write up that much (I already wrote so much as is) when there's a chance developers won't agree and will just toss it into the trash.

FINAL WORDS

Wizard and sorcerer have no killing power outside of summons(that can get WoF'd easily) or a carefully laid out Hellball Time Stop IGMS combo. Most of their features are very basic lowpowered QOLs, miss the mark or are ineffective at what they do. I have seen people spam Healing Draughts/Shield potions to keep themselves alive against IGMS and the caster ran out of IGMS before they died.

DC spells are meaningless, there are too many ways to boost saves and get immunities. The mechanic that increases DC on a spell upon repeated casts is interesting but you have very little time to try that before you're cut down or run out of spells. Save or die spells suck for the other party, perhaps making them powerful in ways that are not "die" would make them more acceptable while being significant.

Low AC and survivability, unless you do a Palemaster or Divine Shield build or some gimmick with monk(which will no longer work after the monk rework goes in?). Mages are in theory glassy support casters that have the potential to apply very powerful bursts within their vancian limitations, right now they're just glassy bad supports that pale in comparison to bard and the likes. Being granted more interesting means of survivability that are mutually exclusive to PM and Divine Shield without diverting to other classes could be interesting as a feat investment (besides EMA, which on its own is not enough and PM/Div still benefits from it).

Spell bloat, there are LOTS of spells but too many are not good. If there's an interest from a dev I could list the ones that IMO are not good.

[chris a gogo]

Quick note on necromancer as ive played one recently.

They lose divination but you can still use items that have see invis and true seeing on them, they can level up fairly safely without use of undead summons as the conjuration summons are fine for most content.
So for PVE they are absolutely fine, and for PvP the only trick they are missing is TS which they can use from an item, there are also some very nice necromancy damage spells that do entropic damage, rather than missile storms that pretty much everyone blocks with abjuration focuses and a 50gp scroll/potion.

Cantrips.
They are in fact pretty good hasted twice a round i do 80 damage on average from a cantrip at CL 27, that's better than alot of higher level damage spells and it's infinite, 5% chance to proc a flux and blast a death spell means you get to keep the big hitter spells for boss fights and you still get to use them 4 or 5 times per dungeon more if your not just hiding behind summons.

Peace out.

[Edens_Fall]

I would enjoy seeing sorcerers getting more casts of thier spells per day as they are so limited in feats and spellbook. Most the time you hold most your casting to hide behind a summon until the final boss where you let loose.

Maybe a cool down timer on lower level spells such as the warlock paths have? Would allow greater spell us in PvE while not effecting PvP. Martial Shotgun builds still rule the PvP scene.

Or something along those lines.

[Whosdis]

Vancian spellcasters will have a caveat where they will always be very, very ehh in PVE without the right summons. However, they should be competitive in PVP if the person playing the class knows what they're doing.

I don't really like this "DC spells are useless" argument. Not all of the server has Divine Grace/Dark Blessing, and of those who do it's only going to be the DivSorc builds that are going to be practically immune because of them: A caveat that makes a lot of people say that it's a good reason why Sorcerer has not been majorly reworked. Has anyone found an invisible blade build that doesn't end up with will saves in the mid-teens? Of course you're going to be able to Mind Fog through that, doubly so if you line it up with another mind-affecting spell such as Grim Terror.

Although on the other hand, since WoF has an immense quality in not only auto-deleting summons without SR but also having a saveless blind, there should probably be some Arcane spells that are capable of that.

If you have Planar Conduit, summons are SO GOOD and arguably out-DPS even the Invokers in clearing out content that I really wouldn't feel bad about it. If you're going the EMD route, sadly the Abomination and Vampires(which are more self-sufficient since you want regen summons) lag behind the AntFrogs in terms of damage, but if you switch over to PVP the utility in summoning say, 4 abyssal ghouls with sneak attack and which move as if they were hasted should not be understated.

Now, for Cantrips. Ugh.

Cantrips are great for the first couple of levels, but anyone who thinks doing 15 average damage at level 15 or 30 average damage at level 30 is even worth the effort, I think might be a little insane. How many consecutive times do you need to hit an enemy to reduce the amount of times your martial needs to hit it? At best it's a tiny bit min-maxing for damage that won't even speed up the fight by any amount 95% of the time, unless you're hitting fire creatures with ray of frost. The Daze one is okay, otherwise if you really care about that sort of thing, I would look forward to the monk rework where Mental Overloard scales off intelligence and you can do an average of 60+ damage.

Bububut Waswar, what about the Arcane Flux?

It might mean something if it actually procced more than once a dungeon!

As for AC, you should be able to hit 50 easily (49 if you choose greensteel small shield over 15 points in parry) with most cookie-cutter builds, which is mediocre. The 70 AC wisdom gimmick builds are going to be nerfed but make up for it by dipping into whatever else they want with monk side (on top of 1/2 CL progression to boot). Still spell -> Auto Still I lets you improve it by another 3 by going parrying buckler, then slap 4 on top with your lovely-lovely haste.

I think with these classes, you have to be smart. Don't run in with an acid sheath, bait the enemy into coming in and -then- cast it. They're hurting themselves whilst chewing through your vampiric touch temp HP(you do vampiric touch your fairy, right?!) and premonition, and because acid sheath works whilst you're just standing there, you can, well, do things.

[Ork]

You ought be autocasting your cantrips to proc your arcane flux more often. For every 20 cantrips, you should get 1 flux charge.

[CrashGoblin]

I would not be so certain of people having low saves, I made this build in a few minutes and its not even optimized to maximize spellcraft(it gets 32 spellcraft):

Using potions of bull, endurance, constitution and wisdom, a skleen of dexterity

With 2x Magic Circle vs Alignment scrolls, you get between +2 to +4 vs all saves, and +2 to +8 will (they cannot be breached), this boosts, add Good Hope scroll for +2 saves, add Illithid's boon for +2 will, +6 from spellcraft and we're looking at saves that range between 43-46 fortitude, 37-40 reflex and 34-42 will on a build that is known for having subpar saves.

You could do loremaster instead and get full value on SC to boost it to 48, something you could also do is hard 5% an adamantine helmet and master rune it for +2 spellcraft to make it 50, adding +4 to saves vs magic making it a total of 47-50/41-44/38-46 saves.

Most of the above can be applied to most melee builds.

[Paint]

My current wizard has a base dex of 8 and a base wisdom of 8, and she still hits 54 AC. Parry, tumble, EMA, Spellthief's. Is 54 AC impressive? No, not really, but honestly if you want good AC on a wizard you just dip monk. I've theorycrafted around it a lot, and the only other thing that gets close is taking auto-still 3 and doing something with platemail and an enchanted shield(9+6), or having a base dex of 18 capped at 30, and taking auto-still 1 to use the greensteel large shield.(10+5) Meanwhile, in order to get returns on a monk dip -- right now, before the MONKPOCALYPSE, since that's just what we're calling everything now -- you need like, base wis and dex equal averaged out to be 10 each to beat the average(6+6+1; 13), and 12(7+7+1; 15) to be on par with a wizard in plate with an enchanted shield. Granted, you have to be able to CAP both your wis and your dex, which is a pretty hefty gear price, but hey. And I realize the phrase "A wizard in plate with an enchanted shield," is an absurd thing to say, but I said it. You read it. It happened.

Anyways, I think that maybe some of the points made here are a smidge dramatic. Illu spec definitely isn't bad; it's just default wizard for people who don't plan on taking the enchantment school. Enchantment is probably the best school right now, just because it's the best buffer, which is weird, considering you'd expect conjuration specs to be the best summoners. But they just, you know, aren't.

The thing is, I can't really keep saying 'wizards could use some love,' because they've consistently been getting incremental updates for years. Sorc, however, could probably use some love. It's been mostly untouched during my time on Arelith.

As for DCs, I agree. Someone mentioned Dark Blessing and Divine Grace and insisted that not everyone has those, but as it turns out, Dark Blessing and Divine Grace aren't all that impactful for the serious builds that take it anyways. They help with gearing considerably, but the builds that get Dark Blessing and Divine Grace outside of Div Sorcs typically don't gear their CHA more than they absolutely have to, especially not when trying to boost their saves. Basining unisave provides literally twice the return as putting CHA on every piece of gear. The people who -don't- have good saves are people who:
-Aren't level 30.
-Haven't finished their gearing.
-Have some insane class combo, or some really unfortunate one, like Battle Shaman, which has hilariously bad Reflex, even after gearing.
-Don't know how to gear.

So yes. As a Wizard, you can smack people around with your DC spells a lot if you don't mind only winning fights in which you're punching down.

Finally, you people need to stop complaining about the rate of arcane flux. Everyone melodramatically complains that it only procs like once per dungeon for them. Either I have astronomically good luck, or y'all have really, really terrible luck, because I average 5-7 fluxes per dungeon solo, and 3-4 in a group. That usually tends to be enough.

I'm going to beat my drum I usually do. Until summons are weak enough to justify making the casters themselves actually stronger, wizard and sorcerer are always going to feel terrible and be easy to thwart. FvS, Shaman, and Cleric all have other tricks they can pull pretty reliably, meatier healthpools, and the ability to pivot into battle builds if they really want to. Elementalist and Hemomancer can spont-cast resummon a distraction whenever they want to, and effectively do not run out of juice in any given fight. So really, it's just wizard and sorcerer who are in an awkward place. Shrug.

Edit:
TL;DR -- Gut summons, buff wizard and sorcerer. Idk, give them d6 HP or something.

[Whosdis]

You ought be autocasting your cantrips to proc your arcane flux more often. For every 20 cantrips, you should get 1 flux charge.

Yes, the autocasting allows one to continue alt-tabbing whilst following a main group, which is about all I would recommend someone doing when playing a seasoned Wizard with a well-geared party do until they get to a boss/other stuff which actually uses their spells.

Finally, you people need to stop complaining about the rate of arcane flux. Everyone melodramatically complains that it only procs like once per dungeon for them. Either I have astronomically good luck, or y'all have really, really terrible luck, because I average 5-7 fluxes per dungeon solo, and 3-4 in a group. That usually tends to be enough.

Edit:

Someone brought the cantrips up as "viable" or something, again the damage is so positively miserly that it won't reduce the amount of flurries needed to kill an opponent, and the Arcane flux is easily as miserly that one may as well kite their enemies to an exterior with a lightning storm and wait them to be struck by lightning.

Anyway, I almost forgot about the autocasting though again, I still advise looking away rather than enduring your cantrip being unable to be cast before the WM's kill your target in a single flurry.

[-XXX-]

The vancian model just doesn't work that well in general. It represents an archaic resource management concept that just doesn't fit into the contemporary PW dungeon design. On top of that we have spell components for whatver reason.
All that put together strongly incentivizes dungeon speedrunning - vancian spellcasters are perpetually on the clock where they need to quickly wrap things up before their wards expire.

1) let's just look at warlocks and sorcerer 2.0 (invokers) - they have a curated infinicasting spell list that's just cherrypicking the arcanist one for spells that have not been rendered completely obsolete by the PvP meta and PvE design.
(also invokers get eschew because spell components suck)

2) we've seen some direct damage spell rework done (which is awsome and really needed), but... it was probably insufficient.
Why do single target spells that deal less than MaV 80 damage on max CL that require a spell slot even exist anymore?
By all accounts most lvl 1-3 spells of the arcane spell list could probably have infinite spell castings with a bigger oomph.
If we're to rely on cantrips here, they should probably be upgraded to a ballpark of 20d6 damage.

3) NWN combat is a round-based mechanic and every spellcasting represents the tempo expenditure of at least 1/2 of a round (assuming the caster is hasted or has auto quicken) that also ROOTS THE CHARACTER (just a note for whirlwind enjoyers).
That's the equivalent of a single flurry of attacks (conservative estimate for most melee/ranged builds would be approx 150-200 dmg).
Sure, melee builds need to cross the distance, but between hp bloat and instant sprint (which mages get 0 advantage from), they can usually do it. Furthermore, there's AA who doesn't really care.

4) Survivability - both the Wizard and the Sorcerer get 1d4 HD (for comparison, invokers get 1d6 HD). I'm going to assume that this accounts for the fact that they are getting defensive DR spells, which in the burst damage PvP meta do not help too much, are highly unreliable since they can get dispeled and... well... a 700hp Barbarian can use premonition too, so there's that.

5) Discipline - it seems like CL is being used as a design check for caster classes, but at the same time Discipline skilldump is absolutely mandatory for any build. That basically forces sorcerers and wizards to multiclass only for the sake of discipline and locks them in a 27/3 split. More CL synergy would've been nice, is what I'm saying here.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Finally, you people need to stop complaining about the rate of arcane flux. Everyone melodramatically complains that it only procs like once per dungeon for them. Either I have astronomically good luck, or y'all have really, really terrible luck, because I average 5-7 fluxes per dungeon solo, and 3-4 in a group. That usually tends to be enough.

I think people just don't use 'em when they get 'em, instead saving them for that optimal moment. But they are missing the point. You are saving the spells you have slotted for that moment, not the free uses of them >_>.

[chris a gogo]

I was thinking of suggesting that all attack spells could cause Arcane Flux, with increasing percentage dependent on the level of the spell.

So level 1 is 10% 2 20% etc.
Still limits castings but if a wizard or sorc could do that it would open up the roles allowing mages to hurl more damage out while still being limited by the number of attack spells they have taken/slotted.
After all one meteor storm is meh but 7+ is impressive.

As an added side effect it would also cost mages more gold as burning spell components would become an issue, unlike now when no one ever runs out.

Thoughts?

[tessimon]

I'm not sure you'd want it to scale that way, where a caster could for example chain cast Weird b/c it has a 90% refresh rate. Especially for group PvP where you're fishing for 1s on 8 people a cast every cast where the chance of one person not having the right wards and rolling a 1 increase.

I think from a design perspective it can be hard to strike a fun and fair balance as boosting sustain would mean lowering potential nova capabilities. It's easier to do on something like an Invoker as that's not a stock class. Too much modification and you'll get negative feedback like we see with the current monk rework.

[Eyeliner]

What if wizards were better at scrolls so reading one would cast the spell at the same level and power as if it was cast from your spell book? Or something, but I wonder if a solution for wizards might be found in magic items.

[CrashGoblin]

What if wizards were better at scrolls so reading one would cast the spell at the same level and power as if it was cast from your spell book? Or something, but I wonder if a solution for wizards might be found in magic items.

That's more the role of Loremaster. Kind of wish Loremaster gave full CL or some such, it feels like it should be a natural PRC for wizard but its more of a nerf, misses out on feats and CL.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

What if wizards were better at scrolls so reading one would cast the spell at the same level and power as if it was cast from your spell book? Or something, but I wonder if a solution for wizards might be found in magic items.

Wasn't this a thing for like a week? I seem to recall this happening, and it being reversed rather swiftly. Either way, it would be way too good. I haven't messed around with them yet, they are relatively new to my play time this past year, but I think the new wands were supposed to fill this sort of role.

[chris a gogo]

The wands are okay but they only go to level 3.
So yes you can now throw out 30 fireballs or flame arrows etc. but they are limited like the greater focus spells so you can't target anything neutral.
I used a greater one enchanted with frigid darkness (level 2 spell)but that doesn't out damage chill touch that is infinite.
Then made a master one of flame arrow which sounds nice and sees occasional use against enemies that have ghostly visage on but that is about it, plus it can't target objects so can't be used to mine gem nodes which I didn't realize when I bought it and enchanted it.

The minor one .... Who wants another 30 castings of a level 1 spell when every wizard has at least 1 greater spell focus anyway.

[perseid]

Since the thread has sort of transitioned to discussing things that would be helpful for Wizards I'd personally like to chime in that one of the elephants in the room in my opinion is that Wizards and Sorcerers have identical spell lists which means any spells introduced for wizards have to be considered with regard to their balance impact on Sorcerers as well. But in 3rd edition DnD this wasn't actually the full story even if it was the overwhelming trend. On the side of Sorcerers you had unique spells like Arcane Fusion and its Greater variant with Wizards gaining things like Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer. Not that I have any particular spells in mind when I say this but I think introducing a few keystone Wizard exclusive spells would be an easy way to dial them up in specific areas without overhauling the class too much.

[Rei_Jin]

Even just bringing back Weave Master and making it a path for Sorcerors again (I mean, we have so many other infini-casters, would this even be an issue now?) and giving wizard specialists all their bonuses WITHOUT a banned school, would be a solid fix I feel.

Transmuter but with access to Conjuration, is hardly going to break anything, as an example.

And, it would encourage people to build different kinds of wizards, without having to sacrifice further. Just playing a wizard is sacrifice enough.

Also, for the love of god please do something thematic for Shadowmage, like some Shadowmage specific spells.

[msterswrdsmn]

One thing to touch on:

Transmutation is weird

It is a pretty poor choice for a wizard and sorcerer, but is anywhere from "better" to "great" for other classes. Bards/rangers benefit from the buff to buffing spells, though it might not be worth two feats for some builds. Druids and certain warlock builds get -fantastic- benefits from transmutation focuses. Off the top of my head, entangle, spike growth and drown are fantastic spells that are almost exclusively druid spells. This always created wierdness with the early transmutation bonus of golemcrafting, as mechnically druids were in a far better position to make golems than wizards, which is absolutely going against traditional druid rp.

[-XXX-]

Even just bringing back Weave Master and making it a path for Sorcerors again (I mean, we have so many other infini-casters, would this even be an issue now?)

The Weave Master is one of the most fun classes that's been ever introduced to Arelith and axing it was an unfortunate decision IMO, especially after seeing the class direction that the server took since:

• PVE: the way it plays out is more akin to a standard sorcerer with a "per encounter" kind of spell list, which is awsome and more in line with Arelith's contemporary dungeon design. It was representative of the post-vancian magic systems embraced in later editions of D&D.
• PvP: this is where the path really really sucks as you're basically limited to using lvl 1-3 spells and scrolls as higher lvl spells proc a cooldown on all spellcasting (we're talking up to 30 seconds, which is quite unmanagable in PvP)

The common complaints and reasons why the path was discontinued were:

• access to infinite haste and mass haste (this one's on a cooldown) - which the Elementalist and the Warlock have gotten later anyway, so it's clearly not an issue
• access to infinite true seeing (this one's on a cooldown too) - which Divination specialists get, so clearly not an issue either
• access to infinite invisibility spells - sure, this one can be a bit iffy, but nothing overpowered. Could have simply disabled them instead.
• the discrepancy between the path's performance in PvE and PvP - that's true, but the path was one elemental overcharge-like ability away from being fixed in this regard

TBH, this is how I'd see the way of fixing the Sorcerer - by bringing back the Weave Master mode and giving them the ability to turn it off back to the vancian mode 1x/day to swich between the respecive playstyles.

[MissEvelyn]

Even just bringing back Weave Master and making it a path for Sorcerors again (I mean, we have so many other infini-casters, would this even be an issue now?)

The Weave Master is one of the most fun classes that's been ever introduced to Arelith and axing it was an unfortunate decision IMO, especially after seeing the class direction that the server took since:

• PVE: the way it plays out is more akin to a standard sorcerer with a "per encounter" kind of spell list, which is awsome and more in line with Arelith's contemporary dungeon design. It was representative of the post-vancian magic systems embraced in later editions of D&D.
• PvP: this is where the path really really sucks as you're basically limited to using lvl 1-3 spells and scrolls as higher lvl spells proc a cooldown on all spellcasting (we're talking up to 30 seconds, which is quite unmanagable in PvP)

The common complaints and reasons why the path was discontinued were:

• access to infinite haste and mass haste (this one's on a cooldown) - which the Elementalist and the Warlock have gotten later anyway, so it's clearly not an issue
• access to infinite true seeing (this one's on a cooldown too) - which Divination specialists get, so clearly not an issue either
• access to infinite invisibility spells - sure, this one can be a bit iffy, but nothing overpowered. Could have simply disabled them instead.
• the discrepancy between the path's performance in PvE and PvP - that's true, but the path was one elemental overcharge-like ability away from being fixed in this regard

TBH, this is how I'd see the way of fixing the Sorcerer - by bringing back the Weave Master mode and giving them the ability to turn it off back to the vancian mode 1x/day to swich between the respecive playstyles.

Goodness, I wish! I never had as fun playing a caster as I did with a Weave Master. I was sad to see that path go, but even more so because we were supposed to feel like the devs were doing us a favor by removing the path. Everyone seems to forget those who made a Weave Master chose the path ourselves. We "cripple" ourselves intentionally to enjoy the game in a certain way. A min-maxer might call it crippling, but I found it only interesting and challenging in unique ways.

My thoughts on this extend to Kensai, which was also a fun, challenging path.

[AstralUniverse]

If we roll back to the days weave master and old fs were disabled, it was because they 1) really suck in pvp and 2) break pve entirely and force dungeon design with 1k hp mobs with absurd saves, while being really awful in pvp and interactive mechanical conflict resolution.

Since then we've introduced other, much more powerful inficasters both in pve and pvp and the existence of Weave Master and old favoured soul would really change so little right now in this era except arcane archer or pale master shenanigans I guess but that's probably fine because they are really that awful.

[-XXX-]

except arcane archer or pale master shenanigans

If there's a way of breaking the Weave Master with the new AA, I've not found it - Arcane Archer synergises poorly with spontaneous casters and is fairly level hungry (i.e.: most good AA builds still want the bulk of their levels be taken as AA).

Weave Masters existed in the era of pre-nerf Pale Masters (vanilla Bone Skin, only 10 PM for Deathless Mastery). It used to be a build, but even back then it wasn't a very good one.

[Scylon]

From a PvE DPS perspective, I think wands are a good idea. The issue is they are far too expensive for far to little gain. The leveling experience for a Wizard/Sorc is just not fun.

I'd like to see wands when in the hands of a majority Wizard or Sorcerer it can hold higher level spells. Also I'd like to see them cheaper. Hell, even allow level 5-7 wands that are wizard/sorc only.

[magistrasa]

Hell, even allow level 5-7 wands that are wizard/sorc only.

Please, no more arbitrary and unintuitive exceptions to established norms as a replacement for actual meaningful class improvements. Rogue grenades and their unassailable feat tax + level restrictions are already silly enough.