Wizard: Ranged minion clearage

[busterswd]

Level 2 Wizard with

At Will: Phantasmal Assault, Beguiling Strands
Encounter: Grasping Shadows
Daily: Fountain of Flame/Phantom Chasm
Utility: Shield/Mystical Debris

Orb Mastery/+1 to Orb Hit feats
No Enlarge Spell (I know, I know)


Reason for this query spoilered, skip to the end for the question.
The other party consists of a cleric, swordmage, and a barbarian. We also have a warlock and another swordmage who drop in occasionally, but the primary party is us 4.

The latest encounter absolutely trashed us though; glass scorpions, small and large, all with ranged attacks, that hurt melee every turn while alive and once while dying. The swordmage went down twice, the barb once, and it ended up being me and the cleric trying to burn down the last guy. We didn't TPK but the one fight burned a ton of our healing surges and a couple dailies.


I'm aware that my build is weak in ranged AoE but didn't even consider the existence of ranged minion type monsters, which this encounter had in spades, on top of very sparse cover. I LOVE forced movement, it tickles me pink, but don't seem to have the arsenal to effectively use it on ranged just yet.

Was this just a really bad encounter for our makeup, or would a better build on my part have made this not as much of a nightmare?



Anyway, here's the question: how much investment should I make into ranged minion clearage, given that I'm the primary ranged?

I'm considering swapping out Grasping Shadows for Orbmaster's ID to make as little changes to my build as possible, but will a better encounter be enough? Should I bite the bullet, swap in Enlarge Spell and something like Freezing Burst so I have a more ranged reliable minion clearage at will? (Our DM is aware we're new to 4.0 so he's pretty lax on swapping out at wills in town, at least for now).

And a side question: has there been any official ruling on Enlarge Spell increasing the range of a spell? The way it's worded to me seems to indicate only 1 range increase regardless of damage dice, but most people online I've seen treat it as 1 range per dice.

[Surrealistik]

Enlarge Spell
Heroic Tier
Prerequisite: Wis 13, wizard
Benefit: Before using a wizard at-will or encounter attack power, you can choose to take a -2 penalty to each die of damage rolled with the power to increase the size of its blast or its burst by 1.
You can’t use this feat on a power that doesn’t roll dice for damage.

You increase the size by 1, regardless of how many die are penalized; the penalty is for each die, the increase in size is +1 not +1 for each die penalized. Regardless, it is a must have feat unless you're going for mostly single target spells, or spells that don't have damage die (as per most Enchanter builds).

Also, I'd consider taking Stone Blood over Phantasmal Assault.

[Drglenn]

Cloud of Daggers or Storm Pillar.

[Kurald Galain]

I don't think you have a reason to feel guilty, your build looks solid. I think you just had a tough encounter - and you did survive it, yes? Grasping Shadows and Incendiary Detonation are both solid (although yes, the latter absolutely eradicates minions).



Should I bite the bullet, swap in Enlarge Spell and something like Freezing Burst so I have a more ranged reliable minion clearage at will?
This is your best bet. Seriously, Enlarge Spell is the best wizard feat by a long shot. Personally I prefer Freezing Burst over Stone Blood, but they're both good.



And a side question: has there been any official ruling on Enlarge Spell increasing the range of a spell?
Yes, it doesn't increase range at all. It increases area of effect by one step, regardless of dice. I've never seen anyone rule it otherwise, either.


Cloud of Daggers or Storm Pillar.
I'd advise against that; they're not particularly effective against minions. Although if your DM likes maps with small passages, SP can be used to block them off. I've found this is only rarely useful, myself, but it depends on your DM.

[Surrealistik]

Storm Pillar can be exceptionally, even brokenly powerful if you have at least one other person in your party with a reliable and repeatable source of forced movement, especially slides, given that it damages for _every_ movement into a square adjacent to it, forced or otherwise. If you do pick Storm Pillar though, keep in mind that in order to work, the forced movement must apply on the target's turn.

With respect to minions though, it's only good for area denial.

Not a fan of Cloud of Daggers.


On Stone Blood vs Freezing Burst, they're both great, though I like Stone Blood due to its synergy with Vicious Advantage and World Serpent's Grasp, two feats which will work superbly with nearly all of your best spells. Stone Blood tends to get better the more ranged your party is, and the less ranged your enemies are. Freezing Burst's value took a bit of a hit lately, given that Wizard zone powers were recently nerfed.

[busterswd]

Yes, it doesn't increase range at all. It increases area of effect by one step, regardless of dice. I've never seen anyone rule it otherwise, either.


Yeah, mistype on my part. Most of the threads I've seen though treat it as an area boost PER die, which didn't seem right to me. After input from this thread I'm going to treat it as +1 but probably get it anyway.


On Stone Blood vs Freezing Burst, they're both great, though I like Stone Blood due to its synergy with Vicious Advantage and World Serpent's Grasp, two feats which will work superbly with nearly all of your best spells. Stone Blood tends to get better the more ranged your party is, and the less ranged your enemies are. Freezing Burst's value took a bit of a hit lately, given that Wizard zone powers were recently nerfed.

We're extraordinarily melee heavy on most occasions, which is why exploding glass scorpions demolished us. I really hate to give up PA, which is a fun little spell and which the other 3 players really love, but I'd probably replace that one; forced movement is what drove me to a wizard in the first place.

[Surrealistik]

Keep in mind that once you have World Serpent's Grasp, the at-will proning Stone Blood provides is great for meleers; it just happens to be even better if it enables your party to kite the enemy.

And yes, I definitely recommend dropping PA (though it is a great single target spell) as opposed to Beguiling Strands.

Honestly, I really feel there should be a feat that allows you to take a penalty to damage with ranged/melee spells that deal damage in order to have them hit an additional target.

[Kurald Galain]

Yeah, mistype on my part. Most of the threads I've seen though treat it as an area boost PER die, which didn't seem right to me. After input from this thread I'm going to treat it as +1 but probably get it anyway.
Put it like this: most area wizard spells are a burst-1, or nine squares. Enlarged, that makes it a burts-2, or twenty-five squares. Yes, you're almost tripling the effect of your spells.


I really hate to give up PA, which is a fun little spell and which the other 3 players really love, but I'd probably replace that one;
What do they love about PA, though? The combat advantage? The lack of opportunity attacks? Because when you gain in level a bit, you'll be picking up more encounter spells and won't be casting your at-wills as much. You can always give your allies CA by proning, dazing, or blinding enemies, and they can also gain CA with their own utility powers, or by flanking.

[The_Ditto]

Enlarge Spell
Heroic Tier
Prerequisite: Wis 13, wizard
Benefit: Before using a wizard at-will or encounter attack power, you can choose to take a -2 penalty to each die of damage rolled with the power to increase the size of its blast or its burst by 1.
You can’t use this feat on a power that doesn’t roll dice for damage.

You increase the size by 1, regardless of how many die are penalized; the penalty is for each die, the increase in size is +1 not +1 for each die penalized. Regardless, it is a must have feat unless you're going for mostly single target spells, or spells that don't have damage die (as per most Enchanter builds).


The way I read the text, it seems like the only other way of (mis?-)interpreting it would be, "can you take the -2 penalty multiple times" ?

So 2d6 : Area burst 1
2(d6-2) : Area burst 2
2(d6-4) : Area burst 3 ??
.. etc ??

Obviously it starts becoming less useful with smaller dice :)
And no, I don't think it can be done .. just stating that's the way I saw the option asked, not the Area + 1 per die ...

[tcrudisi]

Storm Pillar can be exceptionally, even brokenly powerful if you have at least one other person in your party with a reliable and repeatable source of forced movement, especially slides, given that it damages for _every_ movement into a square adjacent to it, forced or otherwise. If you do pick Storm Pillar though, keep in mind that in order to work, the forced movement must apply on the target's turn.

Curses! I was going to prove you wrong and cite the Rules Updates to prove it, but it seems that WotC has fixed their error and added Storm Pillar back in. Dang it! I knew I should have played my wizard yesterday when it was still legal!

v There was a few days where it wasn't in the rules update. I was 100% sure it was accidental though I was wanting to abuse it while it wasn't officially errata'ed. Even worse, I made the mistake of saving the new one over the old one, so I can't even use the argument that the errata is less than a month old so that I'm going to play with the old errata instead. :smalltongue:

[Surrealistik]

Curses! I was going to prove you wrong and cite the Rules Updates to prove it, but it seems that WotC has fixed their error and added Storm Pillar back in. Dang it! I knew I should have played my wizard yesterday when it was still legal!

Owned. :smalltongue: 10char.