Saving the Wizard Class

[Osvir]

You mean Black Isle?

Yes >.>

[PrimeJunta]

Three wizards is certainly an interesting number, since they almost cover all spells available at spell level 1 and 2, and if you indeed customize your wizards to have spells that fit their different roles, you get a mean magic machine. It was pretty easy for me to slip into this way of thinking since I'm playing two quite different wizards in DA:I on Nightmare difficulty. It entails a lot of pausing and alternating spells, so they support the party and themselves, while dealing various types of damage ever so often. It requires combined arms sequences that work and that you can rinse and repeat (including combined defences that you need to keep up during each encounter). I reckon, it's a pretty rewarding way to play. If anything, I assume that two wizards will be much more than the sum of their parts, as it were, as opposed to a single wizard in PoE.

Wizard spells also synergize really well with druid spells. A wiz + druid team works even better IMO, plus it's much broader.

[Stun]

Dead Horse beat'n time.

 

Another example of the Wizard castration process in PoE.

 

HASTE. The perfect spell that can be used to accurately measure how things have become. In BG1, Haste was admittedly overpowered. It was a 3rd level spell. It was an AOE spell that doubled the attacks and movement speed of the entire party for 1 round/level (ie. 30 seconds for a 5th level caster)

 

Then came IWD1's version, which had the exact same effect, except the party was stricken with fatigue once the spell expired.

 

Then BG2 came, and Haste was dialed down. It was still 3rd level, it still doubled the movement speed of the party, and still lasted 1/round per level (maxed out at 20'th level IIRC, which = 2 minutes in duration) but instead of doubling everyone's attacks, it simply gave everyone 1 extra attack per round. IMO this was perfect.

 

Then IWD2... Haste doubled movement speed, gave an extra attack per round and lasted 1 round per caster level... but now only affects 1 target. Yuck.

 

 

Fast forward (pardon the pun) to Pillars of Eternity. Haste (Deleterious Alacrity of Motion) Is still a 3rd level spell. BUT:

1)the caster can only target himself with it

2)it lasts a whopping 12.5 seconds

3) it increases movement rate and decreases recovery by...er.... decimal point values....which can be easily negated by what you're wearing.

4) it drains your friggin Endurance.

 

Give me a break.

[archangel979]

That sounds pretty bad.

[Sensuki]

Yeah, it's a pretty horrible spell.

[Luckmann]

Dead Horse beat'n time.

 

Another example of the Wizard castration process in PoE.

 

HASTE. The perfect spell that can be used to accurately measure how things have become. In BG1, Haste was admittedly overpowered. It was a 3rd level spell. It was an AOE spell that doubled the attacks and movement speed of the entire party for 1 round/level (ie. 30 seconds for a 5th level caster)

 

Then came IWD1's version, which had the exact same effect, except the party was stricken with fatigue once the spell expired.

 

Then BG2 came, and Haste was dialed down. It was still 3rd level, it still doubled the movement speed of the party, and still lasted 1/round per level (maxed out at 20'th level IIRC, which = 2 minutes in duration) but instead of doubling everyone's attacks, it simply gave everyone 1 extra attack per round. IMO this was perfect.

 

Then IWD2... Haste doubled movement speed, gave an extra attack per round and lasted 1 round per caster level... but now only affects 1 target. Yuck.

 

 

Fast forward (pardon the pun) to Pillars of Eternity. Haste (Deleterious Alacrity of Motion) Is still a 3rd level spell. BUT:

1)the caster can only target himself with it

2)it lasts a whopping 12.5 seconds

3) it increases movement rate and decreases recovery by...er.... decimal point values....which can be easily negated by what you're wearing.

4) it drains your friggin Endurance.

 

Give me a break.

 

It should probably be underlined as well that movement rate is actually pretty useless, in-combat (and why would you use movement speed for a single character outside of combat?).

[nipsen]

Once upon a time, movement speed would have been very useful for positioning yourself without being attacked or interrupted too much.

 

But alas, we collectively do not care about subtleties like that. So they patched it out.

 

So now it's also not good enough, and there has to be additional spells and additional mechanics.

 

Sounds familiar? As if somebody told you so, literally, ahead of time?

[DigitalCrack]

Something that would be cool (and has nothing to do with compare PoE to BG concerning wizards) is utilizing the grimoire a lot more for the utility and vatiety that is "missing" in the spell selection. So as opposed to adding spells add more grimoire centric abilities that make up for the lack of variety in spells.

[Sensuki]

They've actually updated the Deleterious Alacrity of Motion spell, and now it seems like it only Drains 5 Endurance, which isn't that bad for x1.5 attack speed increase.