[4e] Low-level control wizard underpowered?

[Aahz]

My group is three sessions into a 1st-level 4e game. When we brought characters to the first session, two of us had rolled human control wizards. For the second session I brought a halfling rogue instead, which I've been much happier with. Both playing (1 session) and observing the other wizard player, I have to say I've been very underwhelmed by 1st-level wizard powers.

He has thunderwave, cloud of daggers, and ray of frost. Cloud of daggers does a little damage when it's cast, and then a few points more the next round if something is still there. Meh. Ray of frost doesn't hit very often, and when it does, it does a little damage and slows the creature, which rarely matters. Thunderwave does some good damage, and affects multiple targets, and pushes them back. OK, except he's rarely in a situation where it's useful.

Part of the problem may be that we haven't seen any minions yet. Mostly we've fought giant rats (30-40 hp?) and a few 'miniboss' creatures. Rarely has there been enough monsters to warrant any AoE effects like thunderwave, but even if there were, I can't see our wizard wading up into the fray to use it. IMO, scorching burst seems more useful, but he wants to follow the control path.

Is there something I can suggest to him? His stats seems reasonably optimal (I know he has an 18 Int), I don't know about his feats. Are low-level control wizards just gimped? Can he expect more usefulness at higher levels?

[Kurald Galain]

They're absolutely gimped compared to the previous edition, but that was to be expected

Seriously though, "control" in 4E is defined as "area effect damage". Whereas a striker does large amounts of damage to a single monster, the controller does low to medium amounts of damage to multiple monsters. Use your area spells to best effect - replace ray of frost with scorching burst and see how that works for you.

Thunderwave is excellent IF you have a high wisdom (16+ recommended) and IF the DM uses nasty terrain so you can shove enemies into fires or off cliffs.

However, with your low to-hit modifier, you really need an 18+ int at level 1, and a magical implement ASAP.

Oh and yeah, if you're generally fighting a small group of strong monsters, your DM is stuck in 3E mode, and wizards aren't going to be as useful. On the other hand, if you're fighting a large group of mooks, you can sweep the board.

[ColdSepp]

Oh, yeah. It's all about the style of the game. Our wizard used the Dragon powers, mainly grasping at shadows, and in dungeons they can be nasty. They are not direct damagers, but if they shape the battle field (ours does it by forcing the monsters to go a specific way, right into the defenders) they can be a great asset.

This really is only true if the game uses terrain and lots of minions/weak monsters. Small groups really don't give them a chance to shine, and plain rooms make their powers easily negated.

[Mauril Everleaf]

Hopefully he is using an Orb and chose Orb of Imposition Mastery. To do anything else would make that 18 INT a bit suspect...

Keep in mind that the At-Wills aren't supposed to be very powerful. They are supposed to be just one step above basic attacks as far as usefulness goes, and about the same as far as damage. Ray of Frost is actually a rather good, as far as early controls go. Cloud of Daggers is good to cast on the creature that the Defender has locked down.

More important to ask would be which encounter and daily powers has he taken?

[Tadanori Oyama]

Thunder Wave becomes a very different spell when you get access to Feats and Path tricks that let you "throw" your Close spells. Our Wizard uses it as a backup to keep nasty monsters away from her.

I've found that Readying and Delaying are a much bigger part of the game for me in 4E, especially in a Leader or Controller role where you might not have a powerful opinion on your turn.

Having the Wizard ready Thunder Wave to repell charging attackers or readying Cloud of Daggers when somebody is set to take after the suddenly unprotected Striker is valuable in a level encounter.

If your playing a supportive class role, you have to be willing to support and not try to solo. So as an answer, no the wizard is not underpowered.

[Aahz]

More important to ask would be which encounter and daily powers has he taken?

I believe he has the Force Shard encounter power (or whatever it's called, the one which damages nearby enemies on a hit) and Sleep as a daily.

[Tadanori Oyama]

Force Orb. Excellent encounter power because it uses the "Enemies" keyword. It can be thrown into melee without risking the Fighter or Rogue.

Sleep I've had mixed results with, just like alot of Saving Throw based powers. When they work, they work great and when they don't they crash. I'd call that the risk built into the power and part of the Wizard's consideration in selection.

What's the alt-Daily?

[Douglas]

A controller's job is debuffing and area damage. However, the best debuff a wizard can do with at-wills is just slowing. If you are always facing small groups of tough monsters that never run, then yes, a level 1 wizard sucks. All your enemies are big single targets, and the one status effect you can inflict never matters.

Things get very different if you face large groups, especially of minions, want to prevent someone from escaping, or talk your party into using strike and run tactics (especially ranged) on solo monsters. I have encountered all 3 situations in my gaming group, and my wizard truly shines there.

Whenever we face minions, my scorching burst is what takes them out fastest. Multiple times, ray of frost has been the primary or even only reason an enemy failed to escape. It has yet to happen with a whole party vs single monster situation, but I have dealt with individual foes that attacked me while everyone else on both sides was occupied by simply backing up and using ray of frost - the monster just couldn't reach me with its speed of 2.

To sum up, it seems to me that you just haven't encountered the situations where the limited control available from the at-will powers is useful yet. The debuffs that really matter in a straight brawl kind of fight are reserved for encounter and daily powers, and you only get 1 of each of those at level 1.

[Douglas]

Force Orb. Excellent encounter power because it uses the "Enemies" keyword. It can be thrown into melee without risking the Fighter or Rogue.

I disagree. Yes, it is area damage, but not that much more than scorching burst. Yes, it hits enemies only, but it shouldn't be hard to get the melee party members to cooperate in getting out of the way. However, it requires enemies that are directly adjacent to each other - no centering it between two enemies that are 10' apart - and it does not cause any debuff. I would much prefer Chill Strike, Icy Terrain, or Ray of Enfeeblement. Personally, I think Dazed is the best of the debuffs available for level 1 encounter powers, so Chill Strike is my top pick there.

[TheEmerged]

The following is my opinion based on my experience -- nothing more, nothing less, YMMV and all that.

First, Cloud of Daggers stinks. In all but a few narrow circumstances (the wizard has initiative advantage over the monsters, there's a single-space gap the monsters have to cross, and the monsters lack range powers) it's the worst of the at-wills for wizard.

Second, Ray of Frost is not a good choice except in combination with Orb Mastery. It's not a *bad* choice (reference: Cloud of Daggers), but probably not the best. With Orb Mastery it's a good choice. Without it though, Scorching Burst and Thunderwave are each better choices (although you probably shouldn't taken both).

Force Orb is a good encounter power, although Chill Strike or Icy Terrain may be a better choice if your party has a rogue (dazed/prone = combat advantage).

Sleep is a little odd (which doesn't mean I don't like it). Most daily powers scream "Save me for the boss!". Sleep leaves the wizard trying to decide if this is an important enough fight to blow it.

Part of the problem may be that we haven't seen any minions yet.

I figured. Minions are where wizards shine, IMO.

Wizards can feel gimped if you're comparing their damage to a striker. As someone mentioned earlier, what they do best is damage to groups and setting other players up to do more damage (the rogue in our group keeps trying to decide for the wizard who gets chill struck).

[Mando Knight]

I disagree. Yes, it is area damage, but not that much more than scorching burst.

2d8 vs. 1d6 for the initial attack is pretty significant IMO... it's 9.5 vs. 3.5... and the 1d10 secondary target damage is another +2 on average... it's better than the Astral Fire feat in that respect. The gap only closes in Epic levels, but then you're better off switching Force Orb for a newer Encounter power anyway.

A level 1 Wizard needs to have 18+ Int, 20 if he can manage it, same as a level 1 Swordmage. He also needs to pack a 12 or higher in his secondary score (Dex, Wis, Con) in order to make use of his class feature. A control wizard should have at least 13 Wis to qualify for Burning Blizzard (If you do so, remember, Acid Arrow can be a nasty spell...), with a 14 or higher recommended. If you roll for stats and have 3 13s, you might as well put the other two in Dex and Cha, if you're going to use fire powers or multiclass into Cleric (they're needed for Astral Fire, which will boost most Cleric powers).

[FoE]

Though the wizard is pretty gimped, the problem lies with your DM. He needs to start throwing some challenges at you that allow the wizard to shine.

[Kurald Galain]

First, Cloud of Daggers stinks.

Yeah, I agree. It's too easy for people to simply walk around. It is a guaranteed minion kill, but then Scorching two or three minions is usually a better deal.

Force Orb is a good encounter power, although Chill Strike or Icy Terrain may be a better choice

I prefer Icy Terrain, because a patch of difficult terrain can really slow down people.

Sleep is a little odd (which doesn't mean I don't like it).

Sleep is awesome, especially combined with the Orb of Imposition. Take out the boss and his minions, lock down the biggie.

A control wizard should have at least 13 Wis to qualify for Burning Blizzard

Heck no. If you're getting into the damage race, you'll lose to the striker by default. A control wizard should pick spells for status effects and terrain mods, not a piddling +1 to damage.

[greenknight]

The thing about Wizards is that they're a bit different to the other classes in the PHB, in that they have a lot of utility from 1st level. That comes from their cantrips and rituals. And Wizards are the only class in the PHB with a true at-will area attack. What Wizards need in order to really shine is an opportunity to use those abilities.

Personally, I think the best two at-will powers for a 1st level Wizard are Scorching Burst and Ray of Frost (or Illusory Ambush, if you have Dragon #364 available). That gives you a nice area attack you can use from a safe distance, and something to attack a single boss with (or use once the foes get mixed in with your allies). If you're a Human, Thunderwave makes an excellent 3rd at-will attack. Once you get to Paragon level, it might be worthwhile for non-Humans to retrain Ray of Frost to get Thunderwave anyway, if they can also qualify for the Arcane Reach feat. If you do that, be sure to get Spell Accuracy in Epic.

For the Encounter power, I recommend Icy Terrain (although those with Dragon #364 will probably find Grasping Shadows to be a better choice). In addition to causing damage, this will give your ranged attacking party members a chance to deal with retreating foes. For your daily, I personally like Flaming Sphere (it's a good minion killer which lasts for the entire encounter, and you can continue attacking with it), although both Sleep and Phantom Chasm are also very good.

[tbarrie]

First, Cloud of Daggers stinks. In all but a few narrow circumstances (the wizard has initiative advantage over the monsters, there's a single-space gap the monsters have to cross, and the monsters lack range powers) it's the worst of the at-wills for wizard.

Cloud of Daggers is pretty close to being strictly better than Magic Missile (assuming Wisdom 12 or higher, which should be easily doable). Missile's only advantages are range, basic status, and, if your Wisdom is 12 or 13, marginally higher expected damage against unusually easy-to-hit opponents. My experience with 4e so far (which, to be fair, consists of only DMing one run through Keep on the Shadowfell) suggests that needing to hit targets more than 10 squares out is pretty rare, and the other two advantages hardly seem worth mentioning.

[Draz74]

and the other two advantages hardly seem worth mentioning.

Depends on your party. Magic Missile's "basic" status is gold if you have a Warlord who specializes in giving the rest of the party additional basic attacks.

[Edea]

Cloud of Daggers is pretty close to being strictly better than Magic Missile (assuming Wisdom 12 or higher, which should be easily doable). Missile's only advantages are range, basic status, and, if your Wisdom is 12 or 13, marginally higher expected damage against unusually easy-to-hit opponents. My experience with 4e so far (which, to be fair, consists of only DMing one run through Keep on the Shadowfell) suggests that needing to hit targets more than 10 squares out is pretty rare, and the other two advantages hardly seem worth mentioning.

For me, it's been the exact opposite (and I've played a lot of 4e Wizards, sadly). Range 20 > a couple extra points of damage, most of which is mitigated by the fact that it's a ranged basic attack (so it benefits from Bracers of the Perfect Shot, amongst other things). Also, many enemies have an annoying habit of leaving the cloud before their turn starts, due to other enemies using extra move-granting powers to get them out (or worse, those same enemies will start using similar powers to push/pull your allies through it).

[tbarrie]

Depends on your party. Magic Missile's "basic" status is gold if you have a Warlord who specializes in giving the rest of the party additional basic attacks.

I don't have my PHB handy; what fraction of Warlord attack-granting powers specify melee-only? I thought it was a pretty clear majority.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I don't have my PHB handy; what fraction of Warlord attack-granting powers specify melee-only? I thought it was a pretty clear majority.

Most. Many people miss the fact that Warlord's Strike specifies melee base attacks. I think there are two, Paragon/Epic level powers that grant non-melee basic attacks.

No, Magic Missile is good because it is a high damage, reflex-targeting, long range attack. It's good for tagging runners (who are too far away for Ray of Frost) and for cramped fights where it may not be possible to use Scorching Burst without getting a little friendly fire (pun intended ).

So, in terms of at-wills I'd say Scorching Burst & Thunderwave are the two, general bests. Have a Warlord Wolf-Pack you into position and then juggle your foes into a handy line for your allies' next attack. Or play a Dwarven Staff Mage and hang out in the front line

Now, for control I do like Cloud of Daggers. It's a minion-killer, and it can help fill gaps between your meat shields Defenders. Plus it's fun to be able to make dangerous terrain at will

Ray of Frost... well, Slow is a pretty terrible status. As a Readied Action, it's great, since you can fire it off when the opposing Brute gets within 2 squares of your Striker, forcing him to waste his attack, and leaving him within easy counter-attacking distance.

But if you want a good control daily, may I humbly suggest Flaming Sphere? Nothing says "control" like making bad guys run away from your great ball of fire. And Icy Terrain is the best 1st level control Encounter, particularly if you Orb it for another turn.

[LiteYear]

Well, you'll need a house-rule to use Orb of Imposition to extend Icy Terrain, because as written, the extend portion only can be used on your at-will powers. But, I still find it a good control power.

[Colmarr]

Ray of Frost... well, Slow is a pretty terrible status.

While Slow clearly isn't the best condition in the PHB, it's by no means useless.

The Eladrin wand wizard in our party has +7 initiative. She pretty much always goes before the monsters. Having ray of frost means that she can prevent one of them joining the combat in any meaningful way before round 2.

And while targetting Fort makes the spell iffy against bruisers (soldiers and brutes), it's perfectly viable against lurkers, skirmishers and artillery.

[TMZ_Cinoros]

Note: My comments completely ignore Dungeon and Dragon magazines. I think that releasing lots of material with little testing and development time is bad for the game, and that the material is either craptastic or unbalancingly good. I ignore the content, just as my entire group does.

They're absolutely gimped compared to the previous edition, but that was to be expected

To be honest, I think wizards are the best class in the game. I'd hardly call them gimped. Yes, they aren't the gods of 3.5, but they are very good. They are by far the most subtle class, as they don't have the big numbers of other classes. But in my experience, a well-built wizard will completely rock the majority of encounters, because they are almost always hitting two or more monsters at once. Yes, their numbers against a single target are usually smaller (except for some important exceptions that I will get to later), they are doing massively more damage than any single party member as it is usually against lots of guys at once.

Thunderwave is excellent IF you have a high wisdom (16+ recommended) and IF the DM uses nasty terrain so you can shove enemies into fires or off cliffs.

You don't need nasty terrain at all. Thunderwave is great for positioning enemies. Enemies flanking the tank? Thuderwave them. Got an enemy on you? Thunderwave him to the tank so he can mark it. Enemies spread out? Thunderwave them into a group and hit them with an AoE. Thunderwave is amazing because pushing is amazing. You just need to think tactically. It gets better with Arcane Reach in Paragon tier. It gets down-right goofy when you realize that burse are a CUBE. The game really starts to break down when you think in 3 dimensions. You can pull off the weirdest pushes and attacks when height is involved.

Hopefully he is using an Orb and chose Orb of Imposition Mastery. To do anything else would make that 18 INT a bit suspect...

The boards have fallen in love with Orb. It is way overhyped. It is meh. There are very few GOOD spells with save ends effects (Fireburst is perhaps the best one in the early levels). To be honest, Staff of Defense is WAY undervalued. With Staff of Defense and the Shield utility power, you are almost never hit. If you get the item Staff of Defense (I think that's its name, I don't have Adventurer's Vault on me), and are a human, you will have AC and defenses close to the tank (assuming you take Leather Armor proficiency). Barring a TPK or sheer stupidity, you will not die.

I figured. Minions are where wizards shine, IMO.

Actually, my DM usually has the minions seperate, so minions are where the ranger shines, IMO. The wizard shines when there are 3 or more enemies and when he uses a conjuration. Note that will probably be virtually all battles with a well built wizard. (More on conjurations later)

I prefer Icy Terrain, because a patch of difficult terrain can really slow down people.

Unless the monster is stupid, the patch of difficult terrain will do NOTHING. If you center it on the monster, it will move through one square of difficult terrain (you pay the cost to ENTER the square, but not leave it). You are better of using Ray of Frost than Icy Terrain. Everything else that isn't in the center can avoid the difficult terrain entirely (unless there is a bottleneck) as 4th edition's retarded 5-ft diagonals means they can usually go around it without even slowing down. And the fact that it lasts one turn makes it far too ephemeral to do something interesting like standing in the middle of the terrain.

In short, this is only good as a bottleneck. Move and charge usually are more than enough to overcome one or two squares of rough terrain.

To sum up, it seems to me that you just haven't encountered the situations where the limited control available from the at-will powers is useful yet. The debuffs that really matter in a straight brawl kind of fight are reserved for encounter and daily powers, and you only get 1 of each of those at level 1.

Wizard debuffs suck, with few exceptions. Chill Strike is decidedly meh in my book. Dazing a monster once it is in position is not very helpful (unless you have a rogue in the party, or someone who can do more with combat advantage than get a +2 to attack for one turn). Dazing is much better against PC-like creatures (arena combat, ect.) where they use their minors, or if they are a far ways away. Sadly, the extreme short distances of spells as compared to the speed of monsters just cripples this power. Chill Strike has a range of 10. Chances are the monster can charge 6 squares and attack with their standard action.

Of course, the alternative Force Orb isn't much better, but I like it because enemy-only AoE is hard to come by. I think Chill Strike is better when you have a rogue, and Force Orb is better if you don't.

Sleep is awesome, especially combined with the Orb of Imposition. Take out the boss and his minions, lock down the biggie.

I don't know how your games go, but I have always been disappointed by Sleep. Sleep has only delivered once, when there was a wave of incomming baddies. As a mass slow effect, it is great. As an incapacitating move, not so much. Lets say you have a 50% chance of hitting. Then, a monster has a 55% chance of making the first save. If you hit a group of four monsters, statistically speaking you will sleep 1 monster. Very meh for a daily.

Also, you can't "Take Out" the boss, even with orb of the imposition. The "biggie" (assuming your definition of a "biggie" is a solo) has a massive buff on saves. Orb will at best negate that buff, leaving you with a 45% chance of "taking him down." That is ASSSUMING you hit his will defense.

For your daily, I personally like Flaming Sphere (it's a good minion killer which lasts for the entire encounter, and you can continue attacking with it), although both Sleep and Phantom Chasm are also very good.

Flaming Sphere is AMAZING. By far the best level 1 daily yet. Basically, as a minor action, you are doing a flaming burst every turn. Auto-hit. AND you get to do 2d6+Int+stuff damage a turn. It turns you into a striker! A striker who does large swaths of damage throughout the entire battle field!

1d4 + 2d6 + 2 x Int + stuff damage against one dude! Thats including the auto-hit damage if you miss! Plus all the damage you do to surrounding enemies.

Flaming sphere turns you into a super striker for the ENTIRE COMBAT. And you are still kicking ass even if you always miss!

In fact, all of the conjurations are amazingly powerful. I'd say that conjurations alone make Wizards the best class. Some conjurations are meh, but nearly all of them drastically increase your damage output for the entire battle! Bigby's Icy Grasp and Grasping hands lock down an enemy (or two) every time you hit. No save required, just hitting against reflex. Plus, higher levels give you more conjurations, so you can keep the conjurations going all day (and make your striker cry because you are doing his job better than he is). Or you can let your allies have their fun, and save the "big guns" for hard fights, and be your party's savior time and time again.

I don't know about you guys, but for me the worst feeling in the world is using a daily and missing. Conjurations get around that. If you miss, it keeps going! And you are doing more damage than a striker!

I can't believe that people aren't absolutely in love with conjurations. Yet the boards swoon over sleep and want to have its children, when you have about a 25% chance of actually putting an individual guy to sleep. Personally, I prefer to reduce my reliance on randomness, rather than increase it.

For me, it's been the exact opposite (and I've played a lot of 4e Wizards, sadly). Range 20 > a couple extra points of damage, most of which is mitigated by the fact that it's a ranged basic attack (so it benefits from Bracers of the Perfect Shot, amongst other things). Also, many enemies have an annoying habit of leaving the cloud before their turn starts, due to other enemies using extra move-granting powers to get them out (or worse, those same enemies will start using similar powers to push/pull your allies through it).

Agreed. The range of Magic Missle is amazing, assuming your DM doesn't always put you through dungeon crawls. Of course, if your DM puts you on an open plain and the enemies start out 5 squares away without an element of surprise, he is doing something wrong. Not to mention that there are some awesome paragon feats that trigger off force effects (like solid sound, assuming you aren't using the cheesy force weapon combo).

Ray of Frost... well, Slow is a pretty terrible status. As a Readied Action, it's great, since you can fire it off when the opposing Brute gets within 2 squares of your Striker, forcing him to waste his attack, and leaving him within easy counter-attacking distance.

If you frost them when they are 2 squares from the striker, they can use their standard action to charge rather than wasting a second movement to close the distance. Slowing is only good if you go before the enemy. If they are running away, who cares? You already got their experience. If you fight them again, you get more experience.

But if you want a good control daily, may I humbly suggest Flaming Sphere? Nothing says "control" like making bad guys run away from your great ball of fire. And Icy Terrain is the best 1st level control Encounter, particularly if you Orb it for another turn.

I agree on Flaming sphere. I disagree on Icy terrain, as the 5-ft diagonals means that moving around the terrain is no problem, while monsters in the AoE only need to move through zero or one square of rough terrain to get out.

[TheEmerged]

RE: Icy Terrain. The one reason I can't unilaterally say it's the better 1st level encounter power is that about half the time that difficult terrain has ended up hurting the party as much as it does the NPC's.

I did mention having a rogue in the group, yes? Prone + Rogue = good chance of dead monster at first level.

RE: Magic Missile vs Cloud of Daggers. Nevermind this point, realized what I was missing... and as others pointed out, I think you're discounting those two advantages far too quickly.

[Ellisthion]

I find Thunderwave incredibly useful for arranging monsters for a followup area attack, either by me, the other wizard in the party, or the Ranger or Fighter with attacks which target multiple adjacent foes.

[Edea]

For me, Thunderwave normally gets pulled out to prevent enemy flanking attempts, or to push the targets into something hazardous (such as a pit or a trap), or if a monster gets up in my grill (last resort power of sorts, and since it's Close Blast it doesn't provoke). If it catches an ally instead (always unintended; I really despise the 'all creatures' schtik Wizards seem to be stuck on), I push them into flanking positions as compensation.

[BardicDuelist]

For Cloud of Daggers: It is something that I would call situationally useful. Luckily, that situation comes up often.

Your buddy's flanked. Throw up CoD on one of the enemies and they are forced to shift or keep getting hurt (because you have orb mastery).

Other uses: Throw it up to create a small choke point in tunnel like areas, throw it between your ranged buddy (rogue, ranger, warlock, or artificer) and some nasty baddie to limit that baddie's options while your friend keeps filling them with pointy sticks. That type of stuff. Still, with my druthers, my at-wills are:
Thunderwave, a great defensive spell (Fort)
Illusory Ambush, because it debuffs and targets will (Will)
Scorching burst, because it's an at-will, ranged burst (Ref)

Notice how not only can I choose to target any defense I want (aside from AC, which is usually the highest defense), have both defensive, offensive, and debuffing at-wills, and do different types of damage?

Remember how the spell list you picked in 3e was versatile because you never knew what you'd run into? Same here.

I know, you said control wizard. That's what my encounters and dailies are for. At-will, I want to be able to always add something (like making an enemy worse, protecting myself from enemies that get too close, and burning mooks).

[Conjurer]

In my experience, Thunderwave is the best at-wills for a wizard. I continually use it to push opponents into my Stinking Clouds and Flaming Spheres. Even pushing just two squares, the spell has helped immensly.

Cloud of daggers is fine as well, it deals about the same amount of damage as MM on a hit, and actually deals some damage on a miss too.

Of the other at wills the one I don't really like is Magic Missile... the only thing it's got going for it is the long range, something that, so far, hasn't been an issue. I retrained it and never looked back.

[Yakk]

Cloud of Daggers is useful in more than 1 way.

First, if you have decent wisdom, it does better damage than magic missile per attack.

Second, if anyone else has push/pull powers, they can turn each use of a push/pull into extra damage from the cloud!

[Kurald Galain]

To be honest, I think wizards are the best class in the game. I'd hardly call them gimped. Yes, they aren't the gods of 3.5, but they are very good.

That's the definition of "gimped", though On a scale of one to ten, they're still an eight or nine in my opinion, it's just that the previous edition was a 500.

You don't need nasty terrain at all. Thunderwave is great for positioning enemies.

It's still good for positioning, but it's excellent with nasty terrain!

The boards have fallen in love with Orb. It is way overhyped. It is meh. There are very few GOOD spells with save ends effects (Fireburst is perhaps the best one in the early levels).

I disagree. You claim that Sleep is a bad spell because 50% of enemies will make their saving throw - but what if only 10% of them do? A high AC is nice, but you can be in the back ranks most of the time anyway.

Unless the monster is stupid, the patch of difficult terrain will do NOTHING.

On the other hand, many monsters are stupid, plus people can be moved in there, e.g. with Thunderwave, and corridors of 3 or less spaces wide are far more common than one-space-wide passages (for the dagger cloud). But yeah, it gets better when you play on hexes. And the better spell is really Grasping Shadows.

Lets say you have a 50% chance of hitting. Then, a monster has a 55% chance of making the first save.

Let's not say that. It's on will, the generally lowest defense, and a massive area effect, so your chances of hitting multiple things are good. It combines well with, say, Spell Focus.

Also, you can't "Take Out" the boss, even with orb of the imposition. The "biggie" (assuming your definition of a "biggie" is a solo)

Another incorrect assumption. A boss surrounded by minions is not a solo.

Flaming Sphere is AMAZING. By far the best level 1 daily yet.

I agree, it's awesome, but you do generally need to spend a move action each turn in order for it to do something useful. I like rolling it next to someone and spending my standard action on, say, thunderwave again.

In fact, all of the conjurations are amazingly powerful.

Yep. Also, great fun. Last session an ally was surrounded by six minions, and I readied a flaming sphere contigent on him moving out of there. Wham, insta-wipe six opponents, no save.

[quillbreaker]

I enjoy moving wizards with thunderwave around with tactical warlords.