So give it to me straight about 'classic' single-class Wizards

[JerekKruger]

I gotta say, fireball is pretty underwhelming.

 

Yeah, if you're used to Baldur's Gate's fireballs this is true.

[Boeroer]

In PoE this was balanced with the fast casting speed of Fireballs. If you could stack a lot of Fireballs uses per rest you could spam them all the time in quick succession which made them somewhat powerful. But the damage alone is nothing to write home about. In Deadfire an empowered Fireball is ouchy though. Also did an empowered Fireball from stealth with an Assassin/Wizard - ouchy as well.

Edited April 3, 2018 by Boeroer

[dunehunter]

Cleave > fireballs

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

I haven't seen this discussed upthread, so apologies if I missed it, but:

 

Practically speaking, the AI scripting improvements are a huge wizard buff for me at least, because they make micromanaging wizard self-buffs and casting much easier. I'd previously found a great number of wizard abilities not worthwhile because I hated micromanaging them every fight, or else because i'd just forget about them, or "save" them for later fights if per-rest.

 

Now though, I can set up a little script, cast eldritch aim if that is lacking, cast Tattered Veils at enemy casters, Arcane Veil if engaged in melee, expose vulnerabilities/ combusting wounds, etc. It makes using them for utility a LOT easier and time-efficient. Technically all that stuff was already in place but I never used it before because it was too bothersome.

 

There are still some problems though -- for example, the AI doesn't do well with using spells that have friendly fire, so an AI driven caster wants to focus on "foe aoe" powers -- but it's a huge increase in playability.

[JerekKruger]

What is the general thinking about specialist wizards by the way. I still can't see picking one for a single class wizard with the current penalties. Losing two schools and increasing the already long recoveries of the spells from two more just seems so steep for +1 PL in your specialised school and a special ability of dubious worth.

 

For multiclass characters I can see them being used, since you can focus entirely on your main school more easily.

[The Sharmat]

Yeah the AI scripting is why I hope the summoned weapons are still good. It's really fun playing a melee wizard in PoE 1 but casting the same buffs at the start of every fight manually becomes a pain.

[dunehunter]

I just pick non-subclass wizards, subclass ones are trash...

[Phyriel]

What was the solo play opening thing in poe 1 for wizard was a lot of fast cast self buffs that you pretty much had to put on yourself each fight, majority of the difficulty in hard encounters was actually getting to buff yourself up in time and surviving before getting 1 shoted by 10 enemies using their alpha strikes on you. Killing stuff wasn't hard, pretty much all of early game on my potd solo wiz was dominated by chillfog, combusting wounds and rest was just a filler, buffing up, debuffing when needed etc, once I had my fight placed with buffs up, enemies sitting in places i want them in chillfog etc I felt I had enough to overkill them three times over. 

 

Was this fun? Certainly at times, especially for the first time after struggling with full party (messing up micro leading to some synergies party was based on to collapse etc) but I can easily see how this is broken design, who finished a potd wizard solo run know what I'm talking about. The were absolute powerhouse, bordering cheating as soon as in mid act 2. But design was the only thing working facing enemies we were given, alpha striking torn bannerman or the likes. Maybe in PoE 2 we will have less encounters that pretty much 1 shot you in a split second so maybe having less casting speed is still viable by overhauling encounters... because these things are pretty much tied together in my eyes. I really don't require being dragon ball level fast caster pausing game each 0.2 second to cast another spell if enemies actually allow me to make things slower, heck, more time to enjoy animations and effects as far as I'm concerned. I just hope it ends up being possible one way or another because I always was a fan of soloing with caster. 

[SaruNi]

For most damaging spells, power level corresponds to at least +10% damage (or +5% for projectiles and jumps, but you get more projectiles and jumps). For most levels the power level difference between single and multi-class is 2, so the +25% from Barbarian Blooded is barely worth multiclassing for, especially since single-class can get +1 Penetration. However, Blood Frenzy and Spirit Frenzy do work with spells (whereas similar effects like Deep Wounds do not, if the description is accurate)....