[4e D&D] the big grimoire wizard (build)

[Townopolis]

Half as a thought exercise, and half because I'd like to play this character sometime, I've decided to try and build an incredibly dynamic control wizard in 4e. Of course he will never be as dynamic in his spell selection as a 3e wizard, or a GURPS syntactic magic caster, but I'm going to see what I can get. The point here isn't power, although I wouldn't mind some, the point here is to build for the following elements in order.


A large, dynamic spell selection (through abilities such as spellbook and tome of readiness)
A mastery of rituals
combat control & utility (viability in standard D&D combat)
Being interesting
being a knowledge monkey
... everything else


So I am assembling his elements, but there are a few areas I could use help with, specifically feat and power selection (everything else is pretty darn easy).

Race, Class, Features, Abilities, & Skills

Race: Human - Bonus feat, bonus at-will.
Class: Wizard - The centerpiece of the build
Features: Tome of Readiness - Bonus encounter power that I can sub in during combat? Sure!
Abilities: Str: 8, Con: 14, Int: 18, Dex: 10, Wis: 14, Cha: 13
Skills: Arcana, Dungeoneering, History, Nature, Religion - Sadly, Heal is not on the wizard list.

If I can get a background, I might use it to add Heal to the skill list (mostly for ritual purposes) and pick that instead of Dungeoneering.
Feats

Feats are divided into tiers, but not any particular order, PCs get 6 feats of each tier with humans getting a 7th heroic feat. Feat retraining can change these numbers, but I prefer to avoid it.

First, the Bard decision

Multiclassing into Bard is the only way to unlock the potential to completely master rituals as there are some rituals that only bards can cast. Thus, it is something I must consider. If I am to do this, I have a few options.
1: Bardic Dilletante gives me training in 1 bard skill (heal), and a mediocre heal (I won't be buffing charisma much).
2: Bardic Ritualist gives me the ability to use a bard ritual for free 1/2/3 times a day depending on my tier. However, I get no bonus skill and it also gives Ritual Casting. I could swap the ritual casting out for Alchemist. However, the consensus on that feat is that alchemical items are simply not worth the money.

Whichever one I take, it would open up Bardic Knowledge as a feat, which is the single best skill-booster for this character.

Should I take one? Which one? Or, are bard-only rituals not worth the feat and cost of an instrument?
Heroic

With any luck, I can find a DM who, like myself, gives players expertise for free. However, it's not guaranteed. Here are the feats I'm looking at right now.

Arcane Familar
Expanded Spellbook
Implement Expertise: Tome? (If DM doesn't give it for free)
Bardic Multiclass? (See the Bard decision)
Bardic Knowledge? (See the Bard decision)
Melee Training (See below)

-Expanded Spellbook fits right in with my primary goal of having the biggest spell list around. It isn't particularly powerful and is a bit tricky to use, but as that's going to be the character's shtick, it's worth it.
-Arcane Familiar is there for the interesting value. A book imp gives a bonus to Arcana, History, and a bonus language. He can also serve as a short range scout with his invisibility. In short, it's a bonuses to some ritual rolls and being a knowledge monkey, but mostly is interesting.
-Melee Training seems like an odd choice, and it is. There are a few ideas here, primary among them being that it sort of/kind of gives me a 4th at-will. Using intelligence for attack/damage with a quarterstaff actually gives me a prayer for hitting things and maybe even hurting something with it. Many people suggest people take Thunderwave as it's the wizard's only close/melee option if they're backed into a corner. This gives me another option. However, it does suffer a major weakness in that I would have to have a magical quarterstaff for the attack to remain viable at higher levels

As you can see, I don't have a 6th feat. I can easily fill extra feat slots with Action Surge and other power-booster feats, but I'd like to make sure I'm not missing any utility-bonus feats first.
Paragon


Improved Tome of Readiness (naturally)
Reserve Maneuver (naturally)
Second Implement (Orb of Imposition might be nice)
Spell Focus (enhanced combat control)

I've noticed that feats get a little less interesting on average as you go up in tiers. Improved Tome and Reserve Maneuver are really exciting for the build, as they play to its major point. However, after that, I quickly run out of exciting options.
Epic


Spell Accuracy (combat control finesse)
Arcane Mastery (sounds fun)
Focused Wizardry (makes area spells more flexible)

Again, running out of exciting options. I could fill this out with a bunch of defense boosters like Epic Fortitude and Robust Defenses, but I'd like to listen for more interesting options first.
Powers

As a wizard, I am a controller. My primary concerns in combat are subjecting the party's foes to lockdown and handicap. Being able to take out groups of minions is also nice, but minions are pretty hard for the DM to use anyway, becoming an A-bomb wizard will just make minions scarcer than bears on the Oregon trail. Actually, I've found area spells' ability to **** swarms to be much more useful than their power against minions, and considering how swarms prefer to operate it's usually best to slap a dagger cloud on them anyway. Plus, control is more interesting.

When choosing daily powers, I have often chosen multiple powers that fulfill the same basic role (area control). The minor differences in these powers mean they are more or less advantageous in some situations, however. For example. Sleep would be my default spell, while I would prepare Grease if I was adventuring in an area with significant terrain (especially precipitous drops).

My basic strategy with Tome of Readiness is to stick a spell that will usually be useful in all situations in the tome, then try and select my regular encounter spells with a little more specialization such that, in any given fight, most of my encounter spells will be useful but there will be 1 that I want to swap out for the tome spell.

Heroic
At-Will Phantom Bolt – Targets Will, useful for breaking grab & other things.
At-Will Cloud of Daggers – Targets Ref, double-whammy on swarms. (actually, can anyone confirm that it does work that way?)
At-Will Ray of Frost/Thunderwave – Targets Fort. Slow or a close-range area push.
Encounter 1 Ray of Enfeeblement
Daily 1 Sleep
Spellbook 1 Grease
Expanded 1 Summon Fire Warrior

utility 2 Phantasmal Terrain
Spellbook 2 Summon Shadow Serpent
Utility 3 Maze of Mirrors
Daily 5 Visions of Avarice
Spellbook 5 Glitterdust
Expanded 5 Stinking Cloud
Utility 6 Dispel Magic
Spellbook 6 Invisibility
Encounter 7 Spectral Ram
Daily 9 Face of Death
Spellbook 9 Mordenkainen's Guardian Hound
Expanded 9 Taunting Phantoms
Utility 10 Illusory Wall
Spellbook 10 Mass Resistance

Tome of Readiness Horrid Whispers @ 1, Hypnotic Pattern @ 3.
I'll be working on the next tiers of spells and hopefully have them up tomorrow.

Items
I haven't yet, but I'm planning on seeking out the thread on batman's utility belt and drawing inspiration from that. Spending lots of money on rituals is planned, but would depend on how the campaign plays out.

-This is what I have so far, but of course I have my own prejudices and blind spots. I doubt what I have so far is the best build for my purposes, and I'm hoping some of you have some good suggestions to make it that much better at what it does.

[Kurald Galain]

Some thoughts,

You are rather spread out in your stat selection, investing in con and wis and cha all at the same time (aside from int, which is obvious). It is generally more effective to pick just two stats to focus on.

Based on this: charisma isn't really useful for wizards, except that you may want a 13 cha by paragon to qualify for the Spell Focus feat (note that this feat is only worth it if you use a lot of save-ends spells, which is not at all a given). Certainly the bard multiclass feat isn't worth investing in charisma for.

Speaking of multiclassing, I would recommend against bard, because of lack of synergy. MC feats are generally very good choices, but it'd be better to get one from a class that also uses int (or your secondary stat, be it wis or con) so that you can use power swap feats, and can use the extra power the MC feat gives you. Bard doesn't do that. If you want to heal, even cleric MC is probably a better pick.

Human isn't as great a pick for wizards as people think: by the time you reach level 6 or 7, you'll have so many standard action powers that having a non-standard action racial power (like Fey Step or Fade Away or Dwarven Resilience) will be useful far more often than a third at-will. That said, humans do have a few very good feats.

Alchemy is, indeed, not worth the money. Almost without exception, alchemy feats are inferior to actual powers, and wizards get very good powers.

Regarding your feats. Arcane Familiar is both very useful and a lot of fun. Expanded Spellbook is a really, really bad feat that I would recommend against (to get more spells, you can buy Tome items instead). IE:Tome is a must, of course, but it need not be your primary concern yet, as long as you take it before level 15. As I said above, there are better MC feats than bardic, and bardic knowledge isn't all that great for a wizard (most of your best skills are int based and already excellent; take Jack Of All Trades to boost the rest). Melee training is not something a wizard will need, ever: it will add an option to the bottom of your list of priorities, meaning you won't use it much, and whenever you're whacking things with a stick you're doing so little damage that you might as well not bother. You're a wizard, so blast them with arcane power!

You forgot Enlarge Spell. It's probably the best wizard feat printed. Also, for the sake of versatility, Quick Draw is simply amazing (check the guide in my sig for details).
For paragon, consider War Wizardry. Also, Improved Initiative and/or Danger Sense are always nice.

Regarding powers. Cloud of daggers is obsoleted by Storm Pillar. Ray of Frost is a pretty bad power, whereas Thunderwave is one of the best at-wills printed for any class.

Overall, the best encounter powers are area effects that impose a status condition (and stack with enlarge spell). The best daily powers are zones or walls, anything that you can keep up for the rest of the combat. A highly effective strategy is to drop a zone in turn one (e.g. wall of fire or stinking cloud) then spend the rest of the combat Thunderwaving things into there.

Ray of Enfeeblement is okay but not great, you'd be better off with an area effect like Grasping Shadows.
Sleep is, of course, excellent. Grease is very funny, and highly effective in the right terrain. Summon fire warrior, however, sucks. If you need a third daily, take flaming sphere (which, incidentally, is available in a 520-gp tome without the feat).
Phantasmal terrain frequently doesn't do much; as level-2 utilities go, I recommend Shield or Jump. Likewise, you won't need Shadow Serpent because your familiar already does that.
Maze of Mirrors is surprisingly ineffective if you do the math. Color Spray does it much better, with added damage and twice the area.
Visions of Avaraice and Stinking Cloud are both amazing. Glitterdust is okay but less amazing.
For L6 utilities, consider Wizard's Escape. You'll be glad you did.
L7 Spectral Ram lets you move one enemy away from you... compare it to Twist Of Space, which lets you move four our five enemies wherever you like.
Face of Death is great. MGH is not, and taunting phantoms isn't either.

[HMS Invincible]

Expanded Spellbook is only useful with the Quintessential Wizard from Mongoose publishing. It grants you access to metamagic, more sleep type spells, Sleep as an encounter power, and the super awesome linked item feat. Linked item is like weapon expertise, except it boosts you +1 at the start of every tier instead of later like expertise.

There is a whole chain of feats requiring expanded spellbook as a prereq, but it's almost worth it since you can cast sleep more often.

Edit: Try to get your DM to let you roll stats, it's worth a try to get boosted stats you need for this quirky build

[Dimers]

One additional reason to multiclass as bard is the paragon path Student of the Seven. At 11th level, you can substitute daily powers after each extended rest. The 12th-level utility power is also a great example of versatility. Sadly, taking the path means that you'll be getting daily and encounter attack powers based on Cha ...

[Townopolis]

Aha, that's the utility belt post I was looking for, Kurald. Also, I avoided Enlarge Spell because I remembered it doesn't work with spells that don't do damage (sleep, grease, face of death), but you're right, there are enough damaging area control spells that it'll be worth it.

I disagree that cloud of daggers is obsoleted by storm pillar. The primary reason to take the former in my mind is that (I believe) swarm vulnerability applies to it twice (once on hit, once on ping). Storm pillar also relies on enemies approaching it. It's a nice power, but they're different enough that neither renders the other obsolete.

I will definitely pick up quick draw for use with the utility belt.

Ray of enfeeblement, at least at levels 1-3, would spend most encounters being replaced with the tome of readiness spell, but would be there for solos and elites.

Thanks for the input all. Unfortunately, I'm likely not going to be using anything from a 3rd party (mongoose) publisher. Still teetering from side to side on the multiclass. I don't really intend to use any power swap feats, and am planning on sticking with a wizard PP.