Wizard buff spells - what's the point?

[Vadász]

I don't really see what's wrong with wizards. They're a pretty cool class, and I enjoy seeing the silly hijinks my more creative friends get into.

 

 

The spellcaster anwser whenever a non spellcaster gains a class feature: "I have a spell for that"

[Epsilon Rose]

 

 

 

"To be fair. D&D wizards do represent many, many, things wrong with class design."

 

D&D wizards represent the awesomesauce of class design. They are perfect the way they are.

I'm just going to assume you're trolling.

 

I don't really see what's wrong with wizards. They're a pretty cool class, and I enjoy seeing the silly hijinks my more creative friends get into.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"To be fair. D&D wizards do represent many, many, things wrong with class design."

 

D&D wizards represent the awesomesauce of class design. They are perfect the way they are.

I'm just going to assume you're trolling.

 

I don't really see what's wrong with wizards. They're a pretty cool class, and I enjoy seeing the silly hijinks my more creative friends get into.

 

They are a class whose theme is MAGIC! and MAGIC! is do all the things.

 

Of course that is powerful. But being ridiculously powerful is not great design. Any 13 year old can make an overpoweringly awesome class.

 

 

 

 

I don't really see what's wrong with wizards. They're a pretty cool class, and I enjoy seeing the silly hijinks my more creative friends get into.

 

 

The spellcaster anwser whenever a non spellcaster gains a class feature: "I have a spell for that"

 

What they said. More specifically, Wizards are built on a completely different paradigm than mundane classes and they're really good at using that paradigm, so they break the game. Here's a sample of some of the problems they cause:

 

1. A well built wizard can fill the role of any class better than that class, with the possible exceptions of druids and clerics who are on the same tier.
2. A wizard can completely change their powers every day.
3. Mundane characters deal with enemies by doing HP damage, which has no effect until you get them down to 0. Wizards have save or [die/suck/lose] and even no save, just die spells that cause horific consequences immediatly.
4. Mundane characters need to use a full round to use their full abilities and have little use for swifts. Wizards can use their full abilities with swifts and standards.
5. Wizards can dictate the terms of the game and generally make themselves incuvulnerable.
6. Wizards can remove their own weaknesses through tricks like rope-trick.
7. Wizards only need 1 stat to do all of this.
8. If, by some miracle, you manage to sperate a wizard from their spells, the class has litterally no other features. This is espesially problematic at low levels where they atleast pretend to be balanced.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Epsilon Rose

[basketofseals]

If you're finding a wizard consistently overtaking your non-magical classes, then that's simply a problem with your DM. Your campaign is either lasting too long, your starting level is too high, or you're not having enough encounters per day. Perhaps you need more non-combat problems within your campaign too.

 

Of course a wizard will be broken if you have two or three fights per day and they're at the level where they can drop twice as many fireballs, but the strength of your non-magical classes is that they don't quickly run out of steam. Save or die spells in particular were quite high level the last edition I played.

 

What DnD boils down to is having fun though. If you don't enjoy wizards in your party, that's fine, but a lot of people do find them fun. I'm a cleric/druid person, and I love having wizards in my party, and none of my friends who prefer warriors/rangers/barbarians ever have any complaint.

 

I also don't see why this means wizards have to be not so great in this game. The truly ridiculous stuff I've seen come from wizards is stuff that has to go through the DM. The caster classes in this game, although DnD inspired, fit more typical RPG roles. There's nothing to stop them from giving wizards in this game a balanced tool kit.

[Epsilon Rose]

If you're finding a wizard consistently overtaking your non-magical classes, then that's simply a problem with your DM. Your campaign is either lasting too long, your starting level is too high, or you're not having enough encounters per day. Perhaps you need more non-combat problems within your campaign too.

 

Of course a wizard will be broken if you have two or three fights per day and they're at the level where they can drop twice as many fireballs, but the strength of your non-magical classes is that they don't quickly run out of steam. Save or die spells in particular were quite high level the last edition I played.

 

What DnD boils down to is having fun though. If you don't enjoy wizards in your party, that's fine, but a lot of people do find them fun. I'm a cleric/druid person, and I love having wizards in my party, and none of my friends who prefer warriors/rangers/barbarians ever have any complaint.

 

I also don't see why this means wizards have to be not so great in this game. The truly ridiculous stuff I've seen come from wizards is stuff that has to go through the DM. The caster classes in this game, although DnD inspired, fit more typical RPG roles. There's nothing to stop them from giving wizards in this game a balanced tool kit.

Are you beggining by declaring the upper half of the game unplayable because of wizard scaling? That really doesn't help your argument. Neither do appeals to enough fights. Wizards have spells that let them control how many fights they get into, assuming they're even bothering to attack from the same plain of existence. Also, Fire ball is one of their more balanced spells, it is not the problem. The problem is there SoDs and SoSs, because they don't need to play the damage game.

 

Your second paragraph has nothing to do with the mechanics of the game. It's completely irrelevant to how well the class is designed.

 

The wizard in D&D being terribly designed doesn't mean that the wizard in this game has to be to, but if you base the wizard in this game on that wizard it's going to be, because you're basing it on something that's poorly designed.

[basketofseals]

 

If you're finding a wizard consistently overtaking your non-magical classes, then that's simply a problem with your DM. Your campaign is either lasting too long, your starting level is too high, or you're not having enough encounters per day. Perhaps you need more non-combat problems within your campaign too.

 

Of course a wizard will be broken if you have two or three fights per day and they're at the level where they can drop twice as many fireballs, but the strength of your non-magical classes is that they don't quickly run out of steam. Save or die spells in particular were quite high level the last edition I played.

 

What DnD boils down to is having fun though. If you don't enjoy wizards in your party, that's fine, but a lot of people do find them fun. I'm a cleric/druid person, and I love having wizards in my party, and none of my friends who prefer warriors/rangers/barbarians ever have any complaint.

 

I also don't see why this means wizards have to be not so great in this game. The truly ridiculous stuff I've seen come from wizards is stuff that has to go through the DM. The caster classes in this game, although DnD inspired, fit more typical RPG roles. There's nothing to stop them from giving wizards in this game a balanced tool kit.

Are you beggining by declaring the upper half of the game unplayable because of wizard scaling? That really doesn't help your argument. Neither do appeals to enough fights. Wizards have spells that let them control how many fights they get into, assuming they're even bothering to attack from the same plain of existence. Also, Fire ball is one of their more balanced spells, it is not the problem. The problem is there SoDs and SoSs, because they don't need to play the damage game.

 

Your second paragraph has nothing to do with the mechanics of the game. It's completely irrelevant to how well the class is designed.

 

The wizard in D&D being terribly designed doesn't mean that the wizard in this game has to be to, but if you base the wizard in this game on that wizard it's going to be, because you're basing it on something that's poorly designed.

 

There is no "upper half of the game" in Dungeons and Dragons because the players decide the scope of the game. You don't need be saving the world every campaign. If you don't like save or die spells, then you should play in a campaign where you won't get to them. I don't believe there are any low level save or die spells, but if there are, please tell me. My knowledge of DnD is most likely out of date. If you really hate them, you could always just ban them, or choose not to use them yourself. If your party members are making  the game that unfun for you, perhaps you should seek a different group?

 

Wizards can indeed escape from fights at their leisure, but the campaign should have some fights that you CAN get away from, but shouldn't. If your party is on the defense, such as defending a town from a bandit raid, then  escaping means failing your objective. Same for assaulting a location in order to kill/rescue a certain person or to obtain a certain object. Escaping from one of those means your objective will likely not be there when you return.

 

I would say what I said about them being fun IS relevant to how well its designed. Some people DO like wizards how they are, and DnD isn't a competitive game, so I see no harm in them being unbalanced. My experience with DnD is improved with wizards simply existing, so I believe them to be well designed. Is there any reason I shouldn't think of it that way?

 

Wizards don't need to be underpowered in this game because they're based on DnD wizards. Your main problem seems to be their ridiculous spells that simply bypass mechanics completely, but this game doesn't need to have those. Wizards in PoE are just simply filled with too much junk spells. Almost every buff spell is unusably bad either by undertuning or just bad design. Plenty of damage spells are horribly undertuned as well. Wizards have the traditional fantastically bad early game without the carrot on a stick that is their usual higher level repetoir. This is especially noticable by everyone because the first companion you get is a wizard with one usuable spell. I'm convinced at this point that wizards are just bad druids.

[Blovski]

Can't disagree. Unlike the classic IE games the defensive wizard spells aren't overpowered and weird enough to break the game by being applied to allies and I think there's a good argument to be made that things like Endure Elements are just not worthwhile picks atm because a wizard isn't ever going to use that cold resist on themselves.

[Epsilon Rose]

 

Wizards can indeed escape from fights at their leisure, but the campaign should have some fights that you CAN get away from, but shouldn't. If your party is on the defense, such as defending a town from a bandit raid, then  escaping means failing your objective. Same for assaulting a location in order to kill/rescue a certain person or to obtain a certain object. Escaping from one of those means your objective will likely not be there when you return.

 

I would say what I said about them being fun IS relevant to how well its designed. Some people DO like wizards how they are, and DnD isn't a competitive game, so I see no harm in them being unbalanced. My experience with DnD is improved with wizards simply existing, so I believe them to be well designed. Is there any reason I shouldn't think of it that way?

 

Wizards don't need to be underpowered in this game because they're based on DnD wizards. Your main problem seems to be their ridiculous spells that simply bypass mechanics completely, but this game doesn't need to have those. Wizards in PoE are just simply filled with too much junk spells. Almost every buff spell is unusably bad either by undertuning or just bad design. Plenty of damage spells are horribly undertuned as well. Wizards have the traditional fantastically bad early game without the carrot on a stick that is their usual higher level repetoir. This is especially noticable by everyone because the first companion you get is a wizard with one usuable spell. I'm convinced at this point that wizards are just bad druids.

 

First, the game is designed to be spread over 20 levels. If it doesn't work over 10 of those, it is poorly designed, regardless of whether or not you, personally, like to play at those levels. The game comes with a list of spells, if you have to gut that list to make it balanced, the list was poorly designed. That you can choose to not play at certain levels or with certain aspects of a game does not reflect on it's balance, it reflects on the patch job you can do after the fact.

 

Also, quick notes: There may or may not be SoDs at low level, without cheese, but there are Save or Suck spells that will do just as good of a job at invalidating encounters. Also, I don't have these problems with my group, but we don't play D&D either: it's a rather poorly designed game.

 

You're thinking too narrowly about a wizard's capabilities as well. They don't need to escape from fights, they can just use a nightmare to astral project into the material plane to fight with impunity. Look up some of the discussions on breaking wizards, I don't think you have a good grasp on just what the class is capable of.

 

How fun a game is to play with your group of friends isn't relevant when discussing how well designed the game is, because you aren't actually discussing the game: you're discussing your friends. Nearly any game can be fun to play with a good group. If you use that as your standard, you'll never be able to say anything meaningful about game design, because you won't even be talking about it. Tell me what 3.5 and it's wizards let your group do that a more balanced system or a system that's more focused on wizardry, rather than trying to balance it with more restricted mundane combat, can't do better. Where do the mechanics stop being a hindrance and start helping?

 

I never said wizards need to be underpowerd, but the chassis they're using is poorly designed and it will continue to cause problems. Spells that are balanced per day, by necessity, need to be stronger than abilities that are balanced per encounter. However, there's no real way to predict how those spells will be spent, so if a player can hold off using them, they'll just curbstop any relevant fights by dumping a full days worth of power into them. At the same time, because a wizard has all these really powerful abilities, they don't have any other powers; so they're really boring to play when you're not using your crazy powers. The fact that resting is basically unlimited and at will in PoE just exacerbates this. One of the things devs can try to do to limit this is reduce the power and/or the scope of the spells wizards have available, but this tends to result in the truck loads of useless spells you commented on. 

 

In this game, you can't act on a per day scale, so abilities shouldn't be balanced on that scale, but that's exactly what the wizard is trying too do and there is no good reason for it.

[basketofseals]

First, the game is designed to be spread over 20 levels. If it doesn't work over 10 of those, it is poorly designed, regardless of whether or not you, personally, like to play at those levels. The game comes with a list of spells, if you have to gut that list to make it balanced, the list was poorly designed. That you can choose to not play at certain levels or with certain aspects of a game does not reflect on it's balance, it reflects on the patch job you can do after the fact.

Also, quick notes: There may or may not be SoDs at low level, without cheese, but there are Save or Suck spells that will do just as good of a job at invalidating encounters. Also, I don't have these problems with my group, but we don't play D&D either: it's a rather poorly designed game.

 

You're thinking too narrowly about a wizard's capabilities as well. They don't need to escape from fights, they can just use a nightmare to astral project into the material plane to fight with impunity. Look up some of the discussions on breaking wizards, I don't think you have a good grasp on just what the class is capable of.

 

How fun a game is to play with your group of friends isn't relevant when discussing how well designed the game is, because you aren't actually discussing the game: you're discussing your friends. Nearly any game can be fun to play with a good group. If you use that as your standard, you'll never be able to say anything meaningful about game design, because you won't even be talking about it. Tell me what 3.5 and it's wizards let your group do that a more balanced system or a system that's more focused on wizardry, rather than trying to balance it with more restricted mundane combat, can't do better. Where do the mechanics stop being a hindrance and start helping?

 

I never said wizards need to be underpowerd, but the chassis they're using is poorly designed and it will continue to cause problems. Spells that are balanced per day, by necessity, need to be stronger than abilities that are balanced per encounter. However, there's no real way to predict how those spells will be spent, so if a player can hold off using them, they'll just curbstop any relevant fights by dumping a full days worth of power into them. At the same time, because a wizard has all these really powerful abilities, they don't have any other powers; so they're really boring to play when you're not using your crazy powers. The fact that resting is basically unlimited and at will in PoE just exacerbates this. One of the things devs can try to do to limit this is reduce the power and/or the scope of the spells wizards have available, but this tends to result in the truck loads of useless spells you commented on. 

 

In this game, you can't act on a per day scale, so abilities shouldn't be balanced on that scale, but that's exactly what the wizard is trying too do and there is no good reason for it.

 

The game is not designed to be spread over 20 levels. The framework for those levels, monsters, and encounters are there, but never even in my longest campaigns have I ever gone from level 1-20. If you want to argue that's poor design, that's fine, but that's a difference of opinion. I see it as just another playground. I'm sure there's plenty of people who have fun with their all wizard duels at levels 15-20, but I'm fine in my 3-10 sandbox. That's offering a variety of experience and catering to different crowds. I feel like that's good game design. If you're basing whether it's good design or not based on the highest of levels with the most broken of strategies, then we simply don't look at DnD the same way. For me, DnD is a framework that my friends and I can play pretend with. It is NOT a game to be beaten.

 

If that doesn't convince you of anything, then let's simply agree to disagree.

 

Now you say that wizards are problematic based on their per day spell casting system. What do you think about every other class? Druids use the same system, but they do far more damage than a wizard can pull out early game, and I would argue are more useful all game. Not to mention they are unstoppably strong in the early levels with their spiritshift, and naturally higher survivalability. Ciphers can cast repeatedly and are resource based. Is that better designed? Personally I find ciphers too strong.

 

Druids and clerics can access their entire spell repetoir while the wizard is limited to 4 spells per level AND he needs to find access to these spells. Shouldn't a wizard's limited palette mean he should have stronger tools?

[Volourn]

"I'm just going to assume you're trolling."

 

The only one trolling is you, little boy.  Can't handle different opinion I see. D&D mages are awesome and are the perfect way to do mages. The best thing about PE wizards is  th similaerities they have with D&D. Too bad their actual spells are lacklustre and one dimensional with very little creativity.

[Mungri]

Its funny that the priest has a level 1 spell that's better than every wizard buff in the game, and it can be cast on others.

 

Withdraw.

[illathid]

A relevant link to this wizard discussion:

Being Batman: the Logic Ninja's Guide to Wizards

 

Wizards in vancian magic systems are ridiculous....

[Epsilon Rose]

 

First, the game is designed to be spread over 20 levels. If it doesn't work over 10 of those, it is poorly designed, regardless of whether or not you, personally, like to play at those levels. The game comes with a list of spells, if you have to gut that list to make it balanced, the list was poorly designed. That you can choose to not play at certain levels or with certain aspects of a game does not reflect on it's balance, it reflects on the patch job you can do after the fact.

Also, quick notes: There may or may not be SoDs at low level, without cheese, but there are Save or Suck spells that will do just as good of a job at invalidating encounters. Also, I don't have these problems with my group, but we don't play D&D either: it's a rather poorly designed game.

 

You're thinking too narrowly about a wizard's capabilities as well. They don't need to escape from fights, they can just use a nightmare to astral project into the material plane to fight with impunity. Look up some of the discussions on breaking wizards, I don't think you have a good grasp on just what the class is capable of.

 

How fun a game is to play with your group of friends isn't relevant when discussing how well designed the game is, because you aren't actually discussing the game: you're discussing your friends. Nearly any game can be fun to play with a good group. If you use that as your standard, you'll never be able to say anything meaningful about game design, because you won't even be talking about it. Tell me what 3.5 and it's wizards let your group do that a more balanced system or a system that's more focused on wizardry, rather than trying to balance it with more restricted mundane combat, can't do better. Where do the mechanics stop being a hindrance and start helping?

 

I never said wizards need to be underpowerd, but the chassis they're using is poorly designed and it will continue to cause problems. Spells that are balanced per day, by necessity, need to be stronger than abilities that are balanced per encounter. However, there's no real way to predict how those spells will be spent, so if a player can hold off using them, they'll just curbstop any relevant fights by dumping a full days worth of power into them. At the same time, because a wizard has all these really powerful abilities, they don't have any other powers; so they're really boring to play when you're not using your crazy powers. The fact that resting is basically unlimited and at will in PoE just exacerbates this. One of the things devs can try to do to limit this is reduce the power and/or the scope of the spells wizards have available, but this tends to result in the truck loads of useless spells you commented on. 

 

In this game, you can't act on a per day scale, so abilities shouldn't be balanced on that scale, but that's exactly what the wizard is trying too do and there is no good reason for it.

 

The game is not designed to be spread over 20 levels. The framework for those levels, monsters, and encounters are there, but never even in my longest campaigns have I ever gone from level 1-20. If you want to argue that's poor design, that's fine, but that's a difference of opinion. I see it as just another playground. I'm sure there's plenty of people who have fun with their all wizard duels at levels 15-20, but I'm fine in my 3-10 sandbox. That's offering a variety of experience and catering to different crowds. I feel like that's good game design. If you're basing whether it's good design or not based on the highest of levels with the most broken of strategies, then we simply don't look at DnD the same way. For me, DnD is a framework that my friends and I can play pretend with. It is NOT a game to be beaten.

 

If that doesn't convince you of anything, then let's simply agree to disagree.

 

Now you say that wizards are problematic based on their per day spell casting system. What do you think about every other class? Druids use the same system, but they do far more damage than a wizard can pull out early game, and I would argue are more useful all game. Not to mention they are unstoppably strong in the early levels with their spiritshift, and naturally higher survivalability. Ciphers can cast repeatedly and are resource based. Is that better designed? Personally I find ciphers too strong.

 

Druids and clerics can access their entire spell repetoir while the wizard is limited to 4 spells per level AND he needs to find access to these spells. Shouldn't a wizard's limited palette mean he should have stronger tools?

 

Again, even if you're games don't cover the entire spectrum of rules, when discussing the design of the game you need to take that entire spectrum into acount. Wizards break things at higher levels. This is bad design. Some groups fix this by simply ommiting everything above level 6 (this is a varriant called E6), while others try to fix the wizard itself. Either way, some form of fix is required, because there is something flawed with the original material.

 

Druid and Cleric are also problematic for the same reasons. Ciphers represent a much better system. Their current ability set might be too strong, but it's much easier to predict what they'll be able to do in any given fight (they can't, for example, burn a whole days worth of resources in a single fight) and they'll always be able to use their powers, so they should be much easier to balance properly.

 

A wizard's limited pallate looks limiting, but it really isn't. Since a wizard can buy access to any of the spells they want, the fact that they don't start with all the spells is less relevant than how many good spells exist on each list. Similarly, Having to have spells stored in a spellbook is limiting, but you can simply carry multiple spellbooks and switch between them on the fly (not that you're likely to need more than 4 different spells of each level for any given situation). It is worth noting that this is more of a limitation in PoE, where classes don't need to prepare spells in advance and the selection of spells is much more limited, but it's still not much of a factor.

[Darg]

I would like to point out that levels in dnd represent an exponentially rarer population. The vast majority of the population in the world wouldn't even be past level 1. A well trained experienced soldier would probably be only a few levels in. Getting to level 10 would denote many extremely difficult incounters and possibly decades of experience accumulation. The point is that it is designed as an RPG with a DM to control the flow, set limits, and direct. Video games do not have that luxury, well except neverwinter nights (game with a good direction). The reason BG wizards were so strong was the fact that there were no reagents, loss of experience for even casting a spell (thinking twice about casting those high level spells now aren't we), smart AI or a Human brain to say, "Hey, you can't just take 10 8 hour naps in a castle of armed men trying to find and kill you."

[Heijoushin]

So... getting back to PoE...

 

I think arcane veil and mirror image are just fine. With hardened veil, you get like a +50 deflection to defense, making your wizard just as tough as a fighter.

 

The problem is, as the OP said, it sucks having to use valuable time within the fight to cast these buffs. If only we could buff a little before going in...

[MadDemiurg]

On a side note, infuse with vital essence can actually permanently restore your health (probably a bug). So basically once you hit level 11 you can restore 200-250 health per fight provided you don't take more damage. It's probably the only thing in the game that does it. I wonder if that makes a case for a tank(y) wizard at high levels.

[Ichthyic]

Yeah, The defensive and melee ones suck though.  They are counter-intuitive.

 

-You can't really build for melee since they are per-rest and low hp wiz, so why did they bother putting in all these melee abilities? (Touch/Staff/Defenses)

 

-As caster, your party Tanks are too good, you never get hit anyways.

 

 

If a mob somehow makes it to your casters, like a teleporter, then you just use CC and move.  Casting a +20 deflect is suicide.

This game suffers from taditionitis

 

what I mean by that, is that they wanted to capture what made games like baldur's gate great, and use a similar system of combat to give nostalgia to vets like myself, but at the same time, they both didn't have the rights to use the actual DnD systems and names, and they also wanted to introduce some new aspects to combat.

 

the result is a mishmash of old and new, and some of it is entirely useless except as a nod to traditional DnD play.

 

that said, they DID manage to tweak some new character styles enough to at least make them interesting.  while a chanter is kinda like a bard, it also kinda isn't.  bards never got the chance to put together their own battle symphonies, though they  did have wizard spells.  so, like I said, you have the chanter being a throwback to the old bard, but with a new way of generating spell abilities.

 

anywho, this is all in answer to your question of "why is it this way?"

 

 

[tenfrith'ssavourypie]

Out of curiosity, arcane veil seems to be a 2 per rest 10-20 second buff. That seems really weak, espesially for a tallent. Am I missing something?

 

I actually think veil is a very strong wizard talent and at this point would probably always take it on a custom wizard. It does have two main problems. First, it commits you to spending two talent points. Veil is alright if you take it as your first talent at level 2, but mid-to-late game you need to also grab hardened veil or you may as well not bother. That's impossible to know ahead of time without metagaming. Second, in some sense it's a bad pick for Aloth because he already has blast and it's probably not a great use of points to get both. So without a custom wizard you're not going to see much point in getting veil.

 

That said, after playing a wizard twice I personally believe veil beats all the other wizard-specific talents hands down.

 

* The bonus spells which I took on my first playthrough are not very compelling in retrospect: there's easily obtainable rings of wizardry, strategic planning (ie when to blow your spells and when to rest) is a lot more straightforward once you're used to the game/have played through it before, and the talents come at an awkward time between being really powerful when you first unlock the spell level and being less powerful when the spell level becomes per encounter. I don't think it would break the game to open these up earlier, which would make them slightly harder to turn down.

 

* Grimoire slam, which many people seem to like, is probably the worst option in my opinion. A per encounter damage spell is nice, particularly early game, but the melee range and pushback/disengagement mechanic make it as much a defensive ability as an offensive one. And it's terrible as a defensive ability: it's single target, it has a cast time and can be interrupted, it attacks deflection meaning it fails all the time, and unless you have everything else set up the way you want the enemy will just re-engage.

 

* Blast is actually quite good, particularly with the blights combo, but it's a win more or win faster ability. If damage is actually important you'll be using a spell, not an autoattack. It doesn't help you win a difficult fight or turn a bad situation around; veil can.

 

As a minor note veil complements Crucible of the Soul nicely if the wizard happens to be your main.

 

So... getting back to PoE...

 

I think arcane veil and mirror image are just fine. With hardened veil, you get like a +50 deflection to defense, making your wizard just as tough as a fighter.

 

The problem is, as the OP said, it sucks having to use valuable time within the fight to cast these buffs. If only we could buff a little before going in...

 

Veil has no cast or recovery time. (Side note, it's also the only buff I can think of that can be cast out of combat, which is funny because no cast or recovery time means it's also one of the only buffs that doesn't benefit from being castable outside of combat).

[Ichthyic]

 

. D&D mages are awesome and are the perfect way to do mages

earlier someone noted that the problem with wizards is not that they are flexible, but that when they change roles, they are often BETTER at that role than a pure class of the same role.

 

perfect example:

 

mirror image, plus stoneskin, plus tensers.

 

now you have a fighter that is much better than a fighter....

 

THIS is what people have always objected to about the classic wizard design in DnD.

 

frankly, I believe this game has taken pains to actually avoid the "tensers" situation.  even with fighter like protection spells, the durations are short enough, and checks fierce enough, that trying to use them to make yur wizard into a fighter is problematic at best.  check out the build threads where people are trying to plan out their "melee wizards" to see the difficulties.

 

stoneskin doesn't last long and degrades rapidly in this game, mirror image is really just a deflection bonus, and you lose it as soon as you get hit... etc.

 

so, kudos to whoever decided to actually force wizards into not being better fighters than fighters.

 

 

Edited April 7, 2015 by Ichthyic

[Epsilon Rose]

 

Out of curiosity, arcane veil seems to be a 2 per rest 10-20 second buff. That seems really weak, espesially for a tallent. Am I missing something?

 

I actually think veil is a very strong wizard talent and at this point would probably always take it on a custom wizard. It does have two main problems. First, it commits you to spending two talent points. Veil is alright if you take it as your first talent at level 2, but mid-to-late game you need to also grab hardened veil or you may as well not bother. That's impossible to know ahead of time without metagaming. Second, in some sense it's a bad pick for Aloth because he already has blast and it's probably not a great use of points to get both. So without a custom wizard you're not going to see much point in getting veil.

 

That said, after playing a wizard twice I personally believe veil beats all the other wizard-specific talents hands down.

 

* The bonus spells which I took on my first playthrough are not very compelling in retrospect: there's easily obtainable rings of wizardry, strategic planning (ie when to blow your spells and when to rest) is a lot more straightforward once you're used to the game/have played through it before, and the talents come at an awkward time between being really powerful when you first unlock the spell level and being less powerful when the spell level becomes per encounter. I don't think it would break the game to open these up earlier, which would make them slightly harder to turn down.

 

* Grimoire slam, which many people seem to like, is probably the worst option in my opinion. A per encounter damage spell is nice, particularly early game, but the melee range and pushback/disengagement mechanic make it as much a defensive ability as an offensive one. And it's terrible as a defensive ability: it's single target, it has a cast time and can be interrupted, it attacks deflection meaning it fails all the time, and unless you have everything else set up the way you want the enemy will just re-engage.

 

* Blast is actually quite good, particularly with the blights combo, but it's a win more or win faster ability. If damage is actually important you'll be using a spell, not an autoattack. It doesn't help you win a difficult fight or turn a bad situation around; veil can.

 

As a minor note veil complements Crucible of the Soul nicely if the wizard happens to be your main.

 

So... getting back to PoE...

 

I think arcane veil and mirror image are just fine. With hardened veil, you get like a +50 deflection to defense, making your wizard just as tough as a fighter.

 

The problem is, as the OP said, it sucks having to use valuable time within the fight to cast these buffs. If only we could buff a little before going in...

 

Veil has no cast or recovery time. (Side note, it's also the only buff I can think of that can be cast out of combat, which is funny because no cast or recovery time means it's also one of the only buffs that doesn't benefit from being castable outside of combat).

 

I wouldn't argue against veil being extremely potent, but I still think it's limited uses and durration are a problem. Most wizards are going to be back line, meaning you don't really need a dedicated defensive tallent, and front line wizards are going to want a more reliable defense, or you'll be resting every two fights. While the other wizard tallents may be less than useful, there are other tallents, in general, that are; for example, the +elemental damage or +acc tallents would both help a wizard and the +defense tallents would give a more consistent, if much smaller, buff to defense than veil.

[Wompoo]

Well I know that my Wizard gets focused quite a lot, especially after I lay down one or 2 high damage spells (buffs are my friend)... or they just ignore the fighter completely run around him, and head straight for me (again buffs are my friend)... or I get chain charmed (love that one not :D ).  At the moment trying a fighter wizard (just had to try and recreate one of my BG2 favourites) based around Concelhaut's Parasitic staff, this weapon is an exceptional quality gives +8 to hit and drains endurance (heavy armour and buffs are my life line with front line spell spams) early days, but fun, which is what games are about. Fast cast buffs, chaining them using shift and pause when needed.

[Lohi]

I'm wondering how you get your tank to target everything.  My wizard dies more than my rogue.  Mostly from spirits and phantoms that just teleport past the tank and start slamming the wizard.  Even for melee enemies it's not uncommon for the tank to be unable to block everything (on hard).

[Anthony Stark]

* Grimoire slam, which many people seem to like, is probably the worst option in my opinion. A per encounter damage spell is nice, particularly early game, but the melee range and pushback/disengagement mechanic make it as much a defensive ability as an offensive one. And it's terrible as a defensive ability: it's single target, it has a cast time and can be interrupted, it attacks deflection meaning it fails all the time, and unless you have everything else set up the way you want the enemy will just re-engage.

 

It's not really that it targets Deflection so much, but that it (somewhat bizarrely for a "panic button" ability) lacks the inherent spell accuracy that all of the other Wizard abilities get. It's only using the base accuracy that Wizards get, which makes it miss a hefty amount of the time.

[b0rsuk]

 

Out of curiosity, arcane veil seems to be a 2 per rest 10-20 second buff. That seems really weak, espesially for a tallent. Am I missing something?

 

The lead designer of PoE does not like Wizards. They represent everything wrong about class design (according to his opinion).

Right now even my fighter/tank is using more abilities per combat then my PC Wizard on auto-attack...Its really ironic...

 

 

Good. Nice to play a system which doesn't dramatically favor wizards. For a change.

[Dongom]

 

 

Out of curiosity, arcane veil seems to be a 2 per rest 10-20 second buff. That seems really weak, espesially for a tallent. Am I missing something?

 

The lead designer of PoE does not like Wizards. They represent everything wrong about class design (according to his opinion).

Right now even my fighter/tank is using more abilities per combat then my PC Wizard on auto-attack...Its really ironic...

 

 

Good. Nice to play a system which doesn't dramatically favor wizards. For a change.

 

 

 

That is no excuse for poorly balanced abilities or talents....

 

On my second PoTD play-through I'm fairly confident that bringing a (or another) Druid, Cipher, or a Retaliation Barb with a few CC scrolls is far superior to bringing a Wizard.  But tbh, those classes might be OP via bugs and make most classes seem like junk (not just Wizzy).

Edited April 7, 2015 by Dongom

[IrithylStarym]

The problem with wizard in pillars of eternity is the lack of spell slots... We can only have 4 active spells for each level? that's very low.