!SPOILER! Wizard is not viable but extremely cheesy

[Bugged Wolf Companion]

Before start reading: this whole thread will be a spoiler regarding the master of caed Nua so stop reading here if you dont wanna get spoiled or havent beaten the master yet.

 

 

 

Let me start with my opinion about Wizards in Pillars of Eternity and my backround, i loved playing Wizard in baldursgate 2 in fact they were the strongest characters in the game as they could solo anything without taking damage if played correctly.

 

However in this game Wizard is extremely weak because it feels like the developers ripped all the good spells and gave it to druid and cypher

dont get me wrong i love cypher a lot i have the grieving mother in my party and she got great utility with good single tagrte and decent AOE

whereas Druids got a lot of AOE's which are flat out better in terms of damage than what Wizard have. Those points combined with the resting mechanic is what makes wizard extremely supbar to cypher who always have enough focus to cast until there is no tomorrow without resting after each fight.

 

But this weakness regarding wizards in this game is just one side of the coin the other side is the extremely cheesy spells for instance Slicken and Gaze of the Adragan.

 

I have tried the adra dragon with my melee oriented team first which is supposed to be the toughest encounter in the game and while i have almost beaten him I simply thought about *this could be ridiculous if Slicken works on him* as slicken tend to make every bigger or halfway challenging fight into cheesy cake walk. And guess what ... that lvl 1 spells downs the dragon on the floor. I mean cool now wizard finally have a use making the most difficult enemy into stomp fest but why doesnt the dragon have any magic imunities like it should be?

 

But to top the Slicken cheese i thought "hey if Slicken works then Gaze of the Adragan might work too" and well.... yea it worked it turns the dragons defense into zero, nada after that i critted him for like 160 damage with my rogue the deathblow even did 262 damage which is kind of unreal that this works

 

 

 

 

TL;DR

 

Mage is outperformed in AoE and Singletarget by Druid and is outperformed by Controle spells and general usability by Cypher

it seems that Wizard use is limited to cheese because of those two spells Slicken and Gaze of the Adragan which seem to be extremely broken while the other spells are weak to the point where wizard will be replaced by druid or cypher.

 

My suggestion:

 

give Wizards some general utility like Contingency spell from Baldursgate 2 or fire power like skull trap used to be and take the cheese away, the cheesiness and otherwise weak spells killed the fun for me,

 

Please dont see this post as rage or flame i meant it to be honest feedback.

 

 

BUG REPORT:

 

My last point is a little Bug report in the treasure room behind the dragon if you loot the boxes save and load the game the loot is back in there infinite money can be made.. not sure if this is intended.

[Matuse]

So your examples of how wizards aren't viable is to show how they curbstomp stuff...

 

Wow, ok.

[Khrysophylax]

I feel that you have a point. In terms of options, AOE, crowd control, direct DPS, the Druid is flat out superior to the Wizard in every possible way.

I refer to this post by Stun from another topic:

 

 

 

Are we seriously having a discussion about which of the two classes has the better CC spells? Have you looked at even the lower level druid spell list? Druids have AoE paralyze spells. They have Mass Charm spells. If you're using your spell casters for CC, none will be more effective than a druid.

And druids have the best Ally friendly AoE nuke in the game: Returning Storm. Not only does it do huge damage every second, but it stuns every second.


So lets sum up: Summon Spells, Charm Spells, healing spells, the best CC spells. They can shape shift, and augment their shapeshifts with wild strikes. They have party buffs, and AoE enemy debuffs.

They're what Wizards should have been, and would be, had someone other than Josh "I-hate-IE-wizards" Sawyer been in charge of class design for this game.

 

 

 

The only thing Wizards have going for them is spamming some extremely cheesy spells, mainly Slicken, at higher levels, because that's really all you can do and because even the adra dragon apparently can't resist them. In D&D, this would be no problem--higher level enemies should save against these spells easily, forcing you to use other options.

 

Meanwhile, the Druid's offensive AOE absolutely laughs at Fireball or Corrosive Cloud or any other direct damage spells you can use as a Wizard. Not to mention they get summons, healing, great CC, shapeshifting, and etc. The list just goes on.

[gkathellar]

... yes, wizards have their own niche now, instead of being able to do absolutely everything better than anyone.

 

This was a design goal.

 

That said, if wizard is your go-to class from other games, you should strongly consider druid, because wizards are not the AoE kings anymore.

Edited April 1, 2015 by gkathellar

[Bazy]

Level 9 Wizard = 4 slickens PER ENCOUNTER

[Fezvez]

I do believe that I disagree. Just for level 1 spells, I make massive use of Cone of Flame (which deals crazy high amount of damage, especially early game) and the chill spell with Foe AoE blind, alongside Slicken of course.

 

You should rename your thread : "Wizard is totally viable, but only because of some specific OP spells". In my party, my wiz is my #1 damage dealer (slightly above my rogue) despite the fact that it's one of my 2 main CCers.

[Cantousent]

So your examples of how wizards aren't viable is to show how they curbstomp stuff...

Okay, play nice guys. ...But I have to admit I actually laughed out loud at this. In the early game at least, that fan of flames is a real beat down and, if you want, it's not that hard to rest up to get more spells. I'm playing on normal with an RPG rather than optimal build, and my mage still puts the smack down on things. I haven't even paid attention to who does the most damage as, since it's an RPG run, all that matters is that we get the job done. Now, I do have to say that I don't think having two mages is optimal, but I just had the other mage concentrate on a different path.

[Bugged Wolf Companion]

... yes, wizards have their own niche now, instead of being able to do absolutely everything better than anyone.

 

This was a design goal.

 

That said, if wizard is your go-to class from other games, you should strongly consider druid, because wizards are not the AoE kings anymore.

I'd say a design goal that makes a whole class obsolete except for 1-2 cheese spells is not an effective design.

[Arctic]

Riped al the good spells ... 

 

Confusion :Foe area (base 2.5m) confuse all enemies for 10 seconds ... lvl 5

sliken : area for 8 seconds ... enemies in the area phrone for 2 seconds .. lvl 1

fan of flames : 40-55 base fire damage ...... in a huge area ..  lvl 1 ... (just put there a 20 might 20 int char ... omg  and the 20% extra fire damage talent ... omg)

 

i dont want to read more .. that enought i think ...

Edited April 2, 2015 by Arctic

[Odd Hermit]

Slicken, Chill Fog, Confusion. The rest is fairly subpar and the base stats are inferior to other casters.

 

I'd say I agree with the sentiment. I found Aloth utterly useless until I picked up a few key "cheese" spells and changed his grimoire.

 

 

The class needs a redesign IMO. 

 

Too many IE style spells that don't work with PoE's style of combat(very limited pre-buffs and lots of small encounters not worth spending spells/rest on).

[DCParry]

Umm, expose vulnerabilities? In my opinion, the best Wiz biz there is. 

[Arctic]

I do miss the 8 hours duration mage armor xDDD

[Katarack21]

SPOILER: I prefer Aloth in my party over the druid because Aloth has better selection, though the spells themselves are not always as powerful.

[pi2repsion]

I love the level 2 bowling ball of flame. Angling it just right so it bounces off walls and hits the chosen targets two or three times is fun when it is doable.

 

In general, though, with the wizard getting a huge selection of CC and debuffing spells, he's often more gainfully employed taking control of the situation to work as a force multiplier on the party than blasting.

 

I do find the short-time buffs combined with a lack of pre-combat buffing to be rather annoying, though.

Edited April 2, 2015 by pi2repsion