Best opposition schools for wizards

[Helaman]

Normally I tend towards necromancy as one of the schools but what are your recommendations?

[moon glum]

If specialized in conjuration or evocation, then necromancy and enchantment is a good opposition school combo. Those schools provide mostly good debuff, or control spells, and you have got that covered. You don't want o lose illusions (invisibility), or abjurations (resist energy, protection from evil, etc), or transmutations (fly)

[NeoSeraphi]

If you don't care about being invisible, then there's no reason not to dump the illusion school. Other than the annoyingly good invisibility, mirror image and greater invisibility spells, the school is as repetitive as you level as the enchantment school.

I would personally restrict abjuration and illusion, as you won't need to prepare more than one or two of each schools' spells per day and you can easily accomplish that with double spell slots.

[moon glum]

You want abjurations for dispel magic, greater dispel magic, shield, prismatic sphere, disjunction, mind blank, etc. there really is no substitute. Illusion is mostly about invisibility, and you can use a wand for that, but illusions in general are good, flexible spells.

[Ubercroz]

I guess it depends on what you want to do.

I have a conjurer that I took necromancy and evocation as opposed schools. I am really going for a battlefield control and breaking my opponents mentally, so I have spell focus/greater spell focus in enchantment to give me great DC's on dominate and suggestion.

That being said it just depends on what you want to do with your character- and remember scrolls can make a big difference in still being able to use those opposition schools when you need to.

[Axebeard]

Take Evocation as an opposed school.

Gust of Wind is a useful spell in the odd circumstance, but makes a great scroll. It's a once- or twice-in-a-campaign spell, though, so it's best carried around as a scroll.

Wall of Force is the first evocation spell I really miss, and guess what you can take with your bonus feat at 10, right after you get access to it? Opposition research! So if you really want to cast a lot of Wall of Force, there's your answer.

That having been said, I'm playing a conjuration wizard who took evocation and enchantment as opposition schools, because the first Evocation he really wanted to cast was a 5th level spell. Necromancy is also a good choice, but there are some spells that can really come in handy. (False Life and Control Undead come to mind.)

[Ravingdork]

Play an elementalist fire wizard with water as your opposition school, then use the Opposition Research Arcane Discovery to be able to cast all opposed spells as if they were normal spells. You gain all the benefits of being a specialist with none of the drawbacks with a bunch of cool fire powers to boot.

[Helaman]

Ok - is there a website somewhere that lists the spell lists by elementalists and opposition schools?

[Ravingdork]

Helaman wrote:

Ok - is there a website somewhere that lists the spell lists by elementalists and opposition schools?

Try the Pathfinder Reference Document (PRD), it's Paizo's official site where Pathfinder rules are concerned.

Here is the relevant section on Elementalist Wizards. (Also found in the Advanced Player's Guide.)

Here are updated rules that add the Wood and Metal elementalist schools (from Ultimate Magic).

The official Pathfinder Reference Document has all the rules for all the main hardback books of Pathfinder. If you want some of the game mechanics from modules, adventure paths, and Golarion gaming supplaments, you may also want to check out the Pathfinder System Reference Document (PFSRD), which is wholly unofficial and inaccurate at times, but it is nicely organized and much more comprehensive than the PRD.

I always use the PRD first, than the PFSRD as needed. I hope that helps!