I finished the game and Wizards are definitely not garbage,  in fact my Wizard was my most powerful character and was WAY ahead in damage, enemies killed critical hits etc, i advice to read what pi2repsion said to me when he aided me.

 

Just wanted to put this here so anyone who wonders this same knows it.

 

Im TC if you havent noticed it.

The most powerful wizard spells are in fact, those who doesn't do damage. Slicken is very useful through the entire game (think that a high PER wizard can prone for 2x time (12s+-) for a level one spell. Miasma and blind(level 2 spells) are awesome debuffs.  Damage spells are useful sometimes to abuse debuffs (slicken + fb + fb + fb). Also, the wizard is the best tank of the game for a small period of time (veil + lot's of deflection spells). Later on the game you have disables like Adragan or Call to slumber that makes POTD a cakewalk. Just down a bit mob's resistances with theo ther party members. My opinion is that if you want to AOE nuke, pick a druid because that class suit better that role.

Wizards have the best selection and overall repertoire of spells. Concaulhaults hammer (or whatever it's called)l petrify, the stunning frost fireball spell, slicked, chill fog, haste, blights, fireball ( very fast cast speed), ........lots os stun, dominate, charm spells ...............

 

The cipher has the most powerful spell in the game: amplified wave. The ciphers ectosychic echo, the chain reduce attack speed and the chain confusion are also extremely powerful

 

The druid has the second most powerful spell in the game: relentless storm. The other powerful spell the druid has is the petrify claw spell. The rest of the Druids spells are quite balanced.

 

Priests I feel are not necessary and have no over powered spells compared to the above casters

Priests I feel are not necessary and have no over powered spells compared to the above casters

Repulsing Seal is sliken on steroids.

The accuracy on seals is insane. That is really overpowered.

 

BTW, why everybody wants dangerous implements ?

+25% damage of 9-14 is 2.2 - 3.5 more damage.

Or is it for blight ?

I think it doesn't affect the blast damage, only the initial dmg.

Maybe also because the duplicates (Essential and Substantial Phantom) have this skill if you took it. That's two times +25% - and their wands also have more base damage.

I am interested in soloing with Wizard. Any of you did it? Isnt it difficult? In party, I never used wizard`s defensive spells, only CC. So I dont know if he has any "stoneskin" or "mirror image" - which were mandatory for solo wizard in IE games.

There were people in this forum who did a Triple Crown Solo run with a wizard and said it's good.

Edited December 16, 201510 yr by Boeroer

You can solo just fine, but it's probably quite difficult if you want a robe-wearing, low-strength/con, paperweight magician. 

Wizards wasnt garbage.

The perception: Cipher good, Wizard bad, comes from two sources:

1) Early mind blade and mental binding

2) Cipher cant run out of spells

Wizards (or other full casters) have early problem of lack of spell slots. It is easy to run out of it. So player is more conservative with use of it, resulting in less dmg and casting, since there is always waiting for better time. This problem disapear on second playthough when players knows which fight is important. And also is less important as levels progress (more spell slots) and disapear after level 9 ( slicken all the fight).

^

Yep.

 

I believe it would help a lot if L1 Vancian casters had four casts of L1 spells to start with instead of just two. It'd make the spells feel less hoardable.

For me the coolest thing about Wizards is finding great spell/ability combinations. You got to look at everything the wizard is doing. Things like Combusting Wounds add up a ton when cast near a barbarian or a chanter with dragon's phrase going(or both!). If you take a cerebral approach and have fun experimenting you might enjoy them way more too.

Some idea:

- remove free per encounter cast after level 9

- Add talents (for Priest/Druid/Wizard) "Spell Like Ability 1...2...3..." (set of talent from level 1 to 7 and beyond)

Each this talent allows to pick spell from our class and have extra cast of it per encounter (on top of what we get from levels/items or other talents)

1st SLA talent is avaiable at level 3 for spells for level 1, the next unlocks at level 5 and ever odd level.

Reason for that is character needs time to master each spell level (role play reason) and player needs time to see which spell is the coolest or fit the style/concept.

 

Such aproach would have several benefits:

- Would buff casters at low levels, and most important would remove annoying "Should i use now my limitet spell resources or maybe wait for next encounter" (always waiting, never use)

- Would balance casters at high levels ( being able to cast 20 spells from level 1-4 per encounter is quite strong)

- Would remove doubts if it is ok to give casters spells per encounter. Since every class have talents "some effect" 1/encounter.

- Would provide talent sink for caster, some people complain that casters have no useful talents.

 

It could be even run futher, and make this SLA talents avaiable for all. So everyone can pick his favorite spell as 1/encounter. So for example rogue could take "Blades Fan" and stuff like that. That is pushing immersion to the limits, but could results with some fun builds.

Edited December 20, 201510 yr by evilcat

^ Those would be must-have talents that overshadow every other talent for any Wizard build, though.

 

Imo, Josh's solution to have one spell as 1/encounter on top of the per-rest uses is better in that it leaves your talent slots untouched (I've never had issues finding talents for my Druids and Wizards.)

Edited December 20, 201510 yr by AndreaColombo

I'd just prefer a more tuned resting system on higher levels, parse out some of the per-encounter elements, and leave the lower difficulties without the restrictions. This no-mans land they currently design the game in makes it rough for them to do a good job.