Hello! I've been reading over a lot of the variant flavors of sorcerers and wizards on the PFSRD and there are many! A lot of these I had never really thought about like exploiter wizard and tattooed sorcerer. I'm curious to see what the consensus is in how the classes stack up against each other as a whole when all of their various archetypes are considered as I've always thought wizards got the better deal overall.
The Wizard is the stronger of the two overall, but they're both some of the most powerful classes in the game so it's not really that big of a deal. The difference is very notable at odd-numbered levels (other than the 1st) but they're more equitable at even-numbered levels.
While a lot of new options have been introduced, the only one that has substantially changed the Wizard vs Sorcerer comparison is the addition of the Human Sorcerer favored class bonus from the APG. One extra spell known per level alleviates the Sorcerer's primary downside and really helped close the gap with the Wizard. (If you're into cheese, there's also Paragon Surge for Half-Elves)
Everything else has served to give you more options, but hasn't dramatically changed the comparison between Wizard and Sorcerer. The Exploiter Wizard is an excellent archetype, but it only applies to Generalist Wizards (which were the weakest variety of wizards) so it's really just added new options and hasn't increased the power of the class overall.
Hello! I've been reading over a lot of the variant flavors of sorcerers and wizards on the PFSRD and there are many! A lot of these I had never really thought about like exploiter wizard and tattooed sorcerer. I'm curious to see what the consensus is in how the classes stack up against each other as a whole when all of their various archetypes are considered as I've always thought wizards got the better deal overall.
Generally speaking, Wizards remain the stronger of the two classes even with FCB and archetypes simply do to how much more versatility they have. Mnemonic Vestments and Extra Spells Known FCB definitely help to bring the Sorcerer up, but even those pale compared to just how many spells a Wizard can know.
The only real Archetype that even brings that into contention is the Razmiran Priest Sorcerer Archetype. It's more costly to acquire "spells known", but it effectively gives you potentially every divine spell in the game at the low price of +1 spell level. If you use this ability to it's fullest (ie. use Adept/Inquisitor/Paladin/Ranger scrolls) I'd argue that the Razmiran Priest Sorcerer overtakes the Wizard despite being a whole a spell level behind at odd levels past 1.
Finally, at the highest levels of optimization a Half-Elf (or counts as) Sylvan Razmiran Priest Sorcerer (with a one level dip in Nature Dual Cursed Oracle) is hands down the strongest class in the game.
For a touch of OP, consider the Arcanist with the Fast Study exploit. They get the wizard's day to day versatility and the sorcerer's spam powers.