Are single/multi Wizards worth it at this pt?

[Verde]

Let me clarify-

 

1. Are they fun? Judging by 20 hours with Aloth they are severely hamstringed compared to their PoE1 counterparts with less spells and ineditable grimoires.

 

2. Are they powerful? Compared to other classes? Compared to PoE1?

 

I don't want to start one and get 5-10 hrs in and throw it away. Any thoughts on single and multi (+sub classes) are appreciated.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Verde

[Clerith]

I personally greatly enjoy playing my missile god wizard (the new spell effects are amazing), and once they get some levels, wizards are definitely one of the strongest classes, at least single classes.

[Odd Hermit]

Yes., but you have to know and use the good spells and avoid the bad. I could easily someone picking and using all the wrong spells and getting frustrated.

 

Also, Aloth has low perception and I think early in the game, especially if on Path of the Damned difficulty, it can be an issue for people that may put them off early on because without accuracy buffs of some sort he probably just misses too much.

 

Using an Arcane Knight main right now with high Perception/Int/Might and it works very well as a tanky support/CC character that can still nuke.

[Yenkaz]

I'm playing a pure CC/mass nuke wizard and my answer is yeah, it's good. I'm not a huge fan of how grimoires work, but 2-3 spells selected from each level plus 2 works out well.

 

The power levels mean that I'm still sometimes casting fan of flames, chill fog and good old fashioned fireballs at high levels. The debuffs are still devastating and set up my two part time rogues (Edér and Maia) to start murdering.

 

Edér has everything optimised in my case to be a striker and focus on damage and he's still not up to my MC in terms of pure damage, even if I'm a bit lazy on spells on easier fights and cast as many debuffs as nukes.

 

Also, watching your blinded and confused enemies scatter before you never gets old.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Yenkaz

[Verde]

Ok thanks guys. I'll create an Adventurer to test out a Transmuter. Anyone have experience with that subclass?

[Clerith]

Ok thanks guys. I'll create an Adventurer to test out a Transmuter. Anyone have experience with that subclass?

The only wizard subclass I can recommend is evoker, wizard subclasses are just way too prohibitive.

[Phyriel]

I wouldn't touch Evoker even unless you want to build Rng wizard based on fire spells completely and use sun and shadow for 33% chance to recast fire spell after 0.5 sec after cast, magran fire axe for extra fire power levels etc. That could potentially work as a multiclass assassin wizard to open up from stealth and when rng god is on your side drop like 3 fireballs or sth like that. 

 

For solo loosing chillfog and arcane veil because they are in schools of magic you can't use is a massive hit.

[Tosho]

Yeah I prefer no subclass for solo. Love chill fog.

 

But at 16 you basically rofl everything anyway since you can cast Wall of Many Color(SingleClass) while stealthed. Illusion skill.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Tosho

[Verde]

Yeah I wish it was one prohibited school. That would make them more bearable. Or +2 power levels.

 

So Transmuter is eh?

[Skazz]

Yeah I wish it was one prohibited school. That would make them more bearable. Or +2 power levels.

 

So Transmuter is eh?

 

Pretty much any specialist wizard at the moment is eh. Go generalist.

[evilcat]

Wizards are good. On hardest combat could use that Empower to gain spells back.

Just have rought start, before getting fireball all acid burst.

Could use abalasters or rods, This have interesting passives They could also be some good sceptres (anything ranged)

 

Generalist is better for experiments.

Evoker, at least have good spells, and useful passives, so you can work just with missiles. And you still have enchantment/ilussion for defense.

Transmuter, has some fun spells, but passives is meh, do not recommend.

Rest has not enought good spells to benefit from PL.

 

Wizards are not powerful with MC. Maybe some Helwakers combos. But could be fun, if you want arcane knighr or necromancer.

Wizard/Lifegiver Nature Godlike Sorcerer is option for massive spells. However need some thought on stat distribution, to be able to cast all the spells.

Also probably focusing more on quckcast spells.

Edited May 23, 2018 by evilcat

[Shadenuat]

Aloth just kinda sucks. Make your own massive STR/PER/INT wizard. Get that Perception buff from somewhere. Invest in Alchemy & get some drugs if you feel you're missing too often. Combo with other casters, like shoving enemies into your AOEs.

 

And don't run specialist. The amount of spells is so low you'll cry. Some levels have like, 1 spell of your school. So you get to cast one spell faster, and the expense of all the options. The transmuter's ogre is also weak. Although Evoker/Transmuter are the better of the bunch. What I like more about transmuter is that you get both damage & cc and some things like heals & teleport. And Chaotic orb spam.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Shadenuat

[knownastherat]

I suspect "Josh" does not like Wizards

 

Uneditable Grimories are encouraging to respec, which is something I am not a fan of. They are also limiting and time-consuming.

Sub-classes pay too much for getting too little back.

Empower makes certain spells more cheesy than Time Stop in BG2. gg

I also do not like the idea that instead of being able to cast more low-level spells with increasing level of character, now the low-level spells scale allegedly to keep them useful, while being limited to two cast. Take Fireball and Delayed Fireball. Both have two casts, both scale, but 2 casts of Fireball do around 35% less damage than Delayed Fireball. Well, can I cast 3 Fireballs then? Apparently not. Apparently, I am to use Empower to refresh.

 

I always play Mages in every game but PoE2 is the first game making me to reconsider. It's not that they are not powerful, they are just not as fun to me as I would want.  

[Revanroi]

I feel the 2 spells per level too weak. If I dont kill all the enemy group with the first casts im ****ed.

 

Really considering Multiclass as a stronger alternative for this reason

[dejarik]

If any of you played Aloth as a pure Wizard on PotD - how did you increase his accuracy? Potions/food/drugs? Any special abilities or items? I know of the ring that gives +10 Accuracy on Fire attacks (had it on my Fanatic with FoD in my last save).

[Shadenuat]

Strangely enough from all vancian casters, Druid was affected the least. Great versatility, creat cc, damage, best heals, ability to spiritshift, lift half a dozen giants with tornado in the air during endgame, destroy packs of enemies with insect plague & later 9th level storm just obliterates everything.

 

Hope Josh doesn't read this. Everything is fine with druids. No change required.

 

 

If any of you played Aloth as a pure Wizard on PotD - how did you increase his accuracy

- per/acc items

- weapon modals (harder to pull off and requires some micro)

- Insightful buff

- spell combos (debuffs, followed by nukes)

- target lowest saving throw. turning off Expert will show you which is lowest

- Alchemy>Deadeye drug

- just cast more spells (grimoire of volatile wizardry)

 

I mean, basically, stacking. It's the basics of understanding rpg systems - look at everything that matters and stack until you get results.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Shadenuat

[Revanroi]

Anyone beat the game as a solo wizard? Its reliable to tank with the deflection buff spells?

[Yenkaz]

I suspect "Josh" does not like Wizards

 

Uneditable Grimories are encouraging to respec, which is something I am not a fan of. They are also limiting and time-consuming.

Sub-classes pay too much for getting too little back.

Empower makes certain spells more cheesy than Time Stop in BG2. gg

I also do not like the idea that instead of being able to cast more low-level spells with increasing level of character, now the low-level spells scale allegedly to keep them useful, while being limited to two cast. Take Fireball and Delayed Fireball. Both have two casts, both scale, but 2 casts of Fireball do around 35% less damage than Delayed Fireball. Well, can I cast 3 Fireballs then? Apparently not. Apparently, I am to use Empower to refresh.

 

I always play Mages in every game but PoE2 is the first game making me to reconsider. It's not that they are not powerful, they are just not as fun to me as I would want.  

 

I'm still just sticking with the one standard grimoire until Ninagauth's, then I never bother switching because it's sort of pointless (I'll have picked the best 2-3 choices at each level for myself).

 

Does *anyone* habitually switch them out?

[Shadenuat]

Single class wizard ends up with more spell picks than there are good spells, but I heard that yes, some people change grimoires and concider there is some point to this. Mysterious creatures, I avoid them and just use +1 all spells/ninagauths/whatever fits specialist (like Arkemyr's has only illusions so you can use that, and never pick any illusion spells).

 

The moment I realised I had to respec cause I found new grimoire I just concidered whole new grimoire system an odd, annoying micromanagement gimmick and avoided this **** from there on.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Shadenuat

[Takolin]

On my veteran play through, I actually respecced Aloth out of most of the spells half way through the game and into nearly all the passives as grimoires give you all the spells anyway. 

 

But so far my MC (nature Godlike shattered pillar) is leading the damage done as I'm too lazy to fully abuse empower on Aloth.

[Shadenuat]

Beginning combat with Empower feels too cheap, like using Wand of Cloudkill in BG2.

[eschu101]

MC is vanilla wiz and aloth is battlemage. Both are very good and really fun. I really enjoy wizard in POE2, definitly my fav class. The grimoire system could definitly use some tweaks and more diverse unique effects, but if you choose one (like ninagauth or vaporous) and pick your skills around it is really nice. 

[evilcat]

It would interesting if there was more themed grimoires like:

Dedicated to each element or two elements.

Dedicated to CC

Dedicated to Battle Mage

Absolutly grimoires dedicated to each specialization.

 

Example: Novice Grimoir: Allows to cast +1 spell on level 1-3, but does not contain spells from level 4+. Could be find in noobcave. Spells: ChillFog, Missiles, NecroLance, Veil, Fireball, AcidBlast.

 

Some named grimoires had some passive bonus. Like Fire and Spar grimoir gives bonus for fire and spark tag attacks.

So if we already picked up spells from book with levels, we can still benefit from themed grimoir.

 

There is also situacion that with 28 level points, we can pick x2 per tier spells for variety, and there is not much we can pick more from passives, other than collecting save bonuses. Or arms bearer for acquebuser alpha strike. But that is not way of magic.

There could be some crazy passives like "Your attack with wands are better" or "Your fire tag deals more dmg"

Or completly generic "+2 to acc with spells" so if we have spare level points could dump them on something which is not total waste.

 

But overall Wizards are not bad solo class, and have some potencial with MC.

Edited May 23, 2018 by evilcat

[Shadenuat]

Would be amazing if many grimoires had unique powerful versions of spells/bonus effects but would penalize you in some ways - like reducing your defences, hell maybe even reducing your reputation. There's only one such grimoire in the game now afaik but penalty is not very strong (sure you can fail spells I think with it, but you get +9 spells so you fail 1 in combat, you're still getting good trade by having +8 casts).

 

Problem with grimoires and magic is that it's wizardysh magic, and wizardry is not the main magic system in the game which everyone's using (like, PoE2 bards do not use wizard spells). So their whole magic, and really even archmages, look like a cartoon caricature of wizards from more magic oriented settings like FR.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Shadenuat

[KringeFiesta]

I am actually considering wizard from what I saw Aloth could do in late game. Just empower the 9th level missile spell = everything dead. If Aloth can do that imagine what MC can do...

 

As for grimoires and respeccing. I wouldn't have a problem with that, money is not an issue anyway in this game, but respec is totally bugged, at least in my game. I tried respeccing my MC to make a better build and I lost all of the teachings I had acquired in my travels(the ones that cost 3k).