Warmage vs Evoker [3.5]

[kulosle]

So a group member once said that Evocation specialized wizard is just a water downed Warmage. Is there any truth to that? This is in a group that uses things like heal bot clerics and blaster wizards. So the more accurate question: Is a low OP blaster wizard less powerful than a Warmage? I think this might be true, because it's hard to mess up a warmage, you get all of their spells so you can't screw up spell choice too much. Regardless of what you do to a Warmage he's pretty much going to be a high tier 4. What does the playground think?

[Psyren]

So a group member once said that Evocation specialized wizard is just a water downed Warmage.

Other way around really.

[MesiDoomstalker]

What Psyren said. An Evoker Wizard still gets bonus Metamagic Feats which give out more damage boosts than Warmage Edge. Plus cool things like a Familiar and access to most other magic schools. Even at low OP, versatility is huge.

[SaintRidley]

Your evoker will still have more spells at his or her disposal, overall. A warmage who isn't throwing spells out that hurt isn't doing anything. An evoker who isn't throwing out spells that hurt has other things to fall back on, depending on what schools are barred.

One fun thing that I found by analyzing the Warmage list is that it does qualify for Archmage as early as any other full caster (as do Dread Necromancer and Beguiler). That doesn't really help any with this question, but it is worth knowing.

[Corlindale]

As someone who has played a Warmage from 1-20, I'm going to say: Not really. Not even in a low-op game. It's easy to play, certainly, it's got that going for it, but it suffers from a lot of redundancy in its spell list.

A warmage has a ton of different spells that all do basically the same thing - and you don't really need that. I was so intrigued by having free access to that huge spell list at first, but ultimately there were tons and tons of spells on my list that never, ever got used. And then, of course, you're lacking all the other nice stuff.

And Evoker, by contrast, can be just as good at blasting as the Warmage (if not better, with bonus feats and access to a greater variety of blasting spells) and still have crucial, life-saving spells like Mirror Image, Dimension Door, Overland Flight and the like. The Warmage can do nothing but blast (and a bit of battlefield control).

Another issue with Warmage is the lack of good class features. Warmage Edge is powerful at the first levels, but a complete joke later on. Most of the Sudden Metamagic feats are greatly underpowered. The only really good one - Sudden Quicken - is the one you don't get for free. And Sudden Maximize as a capstone ability is just silly, when anyone could just take it at level 1 or 3.


One fun thing that I found by analyzing the Warmage list is that it does qualify for Archmage as early as any other full caster (as do Dread Necromancer and Beguiler). That doesn't really help any with this question, but it is worth knowing.

Are you sure about that? Because I cross-examined that list several times, and I'm pretty sure they don't qualify until level 16, as they don't fulfill that requirement of 5th+ level spells of five different schools before then.

[kulosle]

Yeah this is what I thought. I didn't feel like getting into an argument with her about it so I thought I'd just ask the playground.

[Xander_Phoenix]

Are you sure about that? Because I cross-examined that list several times, and I'm pretty sure they don't qualify until level 16, as they don't fulfill that requirement of 5th+ level spells of five different schools before then.
That is true. Warmage gets only Evocation and Conjuration as 5th level spells, one Necromancy and two Transmutation spells as 6th, nothing new as 7th, and finally one Abjuration and Illusion each as 8th level spells at level 16.
Though, some clever (ab)use of Eclectic Learning ACF from PH2 may get you required versatility as soon as ECL 12. So at ECL 14 you can get 7th level spells and qualify for the Archmage.

[Chronos]

Yeah, even if the evoker is foolish enough to ban, say, Conjuration and Transmutation (probably the two best schools), that still leaves them illusions, and necromancy, and enchantment, all of which have some nice useful tricks in them, which are mostly unavailable to the warmage.

[eggs]

The Warmage lacks the blasting-support options that the Wizard has.

Even disregarding the Wizard's better blasting spell selection (or the Sorcerer's way better blasting spell selection), the Warmage lacks the support spells that allow the Wizard to twist the action economy and blast well. Things like Foresight, Nerveskitter/Moment of Prescience, Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability, Contingency, Celerity, Spell Matrices, Timestop and Arcane Spellsurge, which give the Wizard enough actions to do many times the damage of the Warmage - even before factoring in the Warmage's metamagic difficulties.