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Ok so i know that I am about to open a can of opinion worms here and that my opinion is colored as well.
But out of all the schools a wizard can specialize in which is seen as the most useless? For me I think that illusion is because I dont like doing crafty well thought out plans. I play magic alot so I go with the go in screaming lightning bolt and burn everything to the ground. Which means I love evokers. Necromancy is my next favorite but its more for story fluff then actual effectiveness.
Please take off the gloves and tell me your two cents.
Eh, illusion is one of the more powerful schools. It doesn't take much imagination to use invisibility or mirror image.
I rate it as this:
Conjuration
Illusion
Transmutation
Evocation
Abjuration
Enchantment
Divination
Necromancy
Divination is really hard to rate, not many flashy spells in it, but they are generally game changers depending on sitiuation and/or campaign. Necro is so low because limited number of spells, and honestly you can do without nearly all of them. Transmutation and Evo are tied IMHO, but I dislike blasting enough to keep it out of the top 3. Abjuration has key defensive spells, and key dispel spells. Conjuration is top because it does nearly everything you need in one school: damage, summons, crowd control, travel magic, camping spells. Enchantment is so low because its filled with save or suck that also have issues with GM/player iterations and expectations. Potentially really good, depending on DC you can force, the enemies you fight, and the GMs interpretations of charm/domination effects (and in game legal issues with mind control).
Everyone rating Divination low forgets that detect magic is divination, and without it you cannot determine the purpose of magical items. Might be painful at low levels to have one less cantrip.
And then it depends on if you use scrolls and your DM's interpretation on read magic and how it interacts with casting from them.
Water magic. It's worthless. Yes, I know you are talking the more traditional schools, but that's another area you are wrong. The five elements are where it's at. Wood, Earth, Water, Fire, Metal.
I would not dump(not ever use) any school, but if you are trying to pick a school to specialize in the I would go with conjuration.
I'd probably take Conjuration as my specialization school. I'll always drop Enchantment and Necromancy, as both mostly contain spells which I find don't fit a good adventurer ( yeah, I think robbing another person of her/his free will is not that good of an act ).
As a Wizard you can always get back those schools with the Opposition Research arcane discovery at 9th+ level.
Conjuration
Transmutation
Abjuration
Illusion
Evocation
Enchantment
Divination
Necromancy
That said, I'm still a sucker for the uber one trick pony blaster builds.
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See with this subject I know that preference and exp. in the class are going to color there opinions. Like for me I have never got to play a campaign past lvl 8 so for those low level games Evoker is awesome but is it still as awesome 9+ well I dont know.
But I am suprised by your guys civility this is a awesome forum. I expected more "trolling".
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Evocation is dropped first with each wizard I make.
Each time I think, "Wow, but I'll need to attract all sorts of attention to my frail buttocks with some showy fireball", I remember that I am entering combat in something akin to the protective qualities of a wedding dress.
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Evocation is dropped first with each wizard I make.
Each time I think, "Wow, but I'll need to attract all sorts of attention to my frail buttocks with some showy fireball", I remember that I am entering combat in something akin to the protective qualities of a wedding dress.
Really? Because Wizards continue to be one of those really hard to kill classes in the game, at least it's how it always is in the games I run. Mage Armor, Shield, Mirror Image, Invisibility, Greater Invisibility, Fly... the list goes on.
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I suppose the best answer is "it depends on how you use them".
Different schools of magic not only require different techniques and tactics to use effectively, but some schools (particularly illusion and divination) require close agreement between the GM and the player on how the spells actually work, and without that agreement the schools can be not only entirely ineffective, but can result in arguments and bad feelings between the GM and player. For this reason alone I tend to shy away from illusion and divination.
In the end it really becomes a personal preference. I personally find conjuration to be an extremely powerful school of magic with perhaps the most diverse collection of spells and effects of any school. Evocation is probably best for the flashy blaster types who just like to blow stuff up. It's a lot of fun. I created a blaster elemental sorcerer who was so destructive that the rest of the party felt practically useless in a fight.
I personally find necromancy distasteful, but I recognize that a clever caster could create armies of undead to be at their beck and call.
If I had to pick a school that I believe is the least effective, assuming all schools are utilized as effectively as possible by experienced, clever casters, I'd say that enchantment has the most difficulties with monsters who are simply immune to enchantment effects, particularly at higher levels. So that's one I'd probably avoid in a long-term game.
Evocation got brutalized by the transition to 3.x. Other than mookslaying blast is a trap. Conjuration often does everything that evocation does but better.
This is really unfortunate but outside of some really specialist builds most evocation spells simply aren't worth specializing in.
Other than invisibility i've always hated the illusion school and with the evocation school being both boring and relatively weaker than it ever used to be it's been off my list for a long time. I've always a big fan of transmutation and conjuration.
It the old rules when you chose an opposition school you specifically couldnt choose divination at all but I was happy to see that rule changed as divination was second in line to illusion as the school to dump for me.
The only illusion spells i really enjoyed were the one's that subverted their tropes...
1: make an illusion that you wish were true and as long as people fail their saving throws it becomes real. I think this used to be called solipsism or false reality or something. It was like a low level wish sometimes... Make an illusion of a bridge and as long as everyone believes its real, they can use it!
2: disbelief: the opposite of the above. you could convince yourself that the enemy or a brick wall wasn't real and if successful it couldn't affect you. basically a wizard plugging his ears and saying 'I don't belive you're real.' and poof! You weren't! (at least to the wizard)
I'm not sure if either of those spells even exist in pathfinder... but they were fun in 2e
Evocation got brutalized by the transition to 3.x. Other than mookslaying blast is a trap. Conjuration often does everything that evocation does but better.
This is really unfortunate but outside of some really specialist builds most evocation spells simply aren't worth specializing in.
While true, you do eventually get all the fun force effects from Evocation, including the Bigby's (Mage's) Middle Finger line-up. Highly useful.
The only thing I particularly like about Necromancy, on the other hand, is Lipstitch. False Life is handy, as well, but Lipstitch is the only spell I'd really miss from that school.
1: make an illusion that you wish were true and as long as people fail their saving throws it becomes real. I think this used to be called solipsism or false reality or something. It was like a low level wish sometimes... Make an illusion of a bridge and as long as everyone believes its real, they can use it!
See the shadow line of illusion spells.
Illusion is either incredibly powerful or incredibly weak depending on how the DM adjudicates illusions. It's one of the ones I typically will avoid specializing in unless I really know the DM's playstyle.
Ooh I forgot my favorite third trope subversion illusion spell.
Gives a real dangerous creature the effect of being a poorly built illusion. When you see the creature it looks somehow off in a way that makes you think its an illusion. If you succeed at your saving throw then you say oh, hey, its an illusion i dont have to worry about it... Or a wizard tries to dispel it... Which only dispels the fake looking haze you put around the actual beastie... Then you womp them. ^_^
Most to least effective:
Conjuration, transmutation, necromancy, abjuration, divination, illusion, evocation,enchantment
Illusion has some of the more powerful attack and defense spells. Now true seeing effects can really screw over an illusionist, but it isn't as common as some people make it out to be even at high levels (well, many outsiders have it, but many don't and most non outsiders don't).
1: Color spray ~ one of the most powerful low level spells. Party killer and bread and butter of low level wizards
2: Invisibility ~ pretty good buff both offensively (for ambushes) and defensively (hard to fight the invisible wizard)
Mirror Image ~ makes it very hard for weapon based damage to ever effect you
Blur ~ 20% might sound kind of lame, but its effectively +4 to your AC (20 percent of a d20 is 4) and makes rogues cry.
3: Displacement ~ Blurs older brother
4: Greater invisibility ~ so good its not even funny
Phantasmal killer ~ a bit rough for it to work but its an early entry save or die spell
Phantasmal conjuration ~ having all 3rd and lower spells from the most flexible school of magic available in one spell slot is nice, even with the semi real nature of it.
5: Shadow evocation ~ same as shadow conjuration in usefulness
6: Mislead ~ a bit high for an invisibility spell, but the trickiness is pretty nice if you know how to make best use of it
Shadow walk ~ a solid group travel spell
7: Greater shadow conjuration ~ see above
Simulacrum ~ not as broken as it used to be, but making a Mini-Me is useful at times and can have impressive RP ability.
8: Greater shadow evocation ~ see above
9: not much here other than improved shadow conjuration (shades) and mass phantasmal killer (weird).
Ilusion has some good spells that make it worth keeping in your arsenal but it's rarely worth specializing in. If you can use the actual illusion spells effectively then it definitely becomes more potent but it still struggles to equal conjuration in terms of sheer might.
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Evocation is my immediate, don't-have-to-think-it-over, dump school.
Damage is why I have minions >ahem< I mean adventuring companions. :)
While I LIKE many Enchantment spells, it's usually the school I dump after Evocation: too many immune targets, etc., as mentioned above.
And it's a slightly-weighted toss-up (in favor of the former) between Conjuration and Necromancy for my specialty school. If I'm not going to multiclass (which is rare for me) Necromancy gets more attractive.
But the typical wizard is Conjuror, with Enchantment and Evocation as opposition schools.
YMMV, quite obviously...
Really? Because Wizards continue to be one of those really hard to kill classes in the game, at least it's how it always is in the games I run. Mage Armor, Shield, Mirror Image, Invisibility, Greater Invisibility, Fly... the list goes on.
Intelligent foes, with tactics in mind, target the finger wigglers in my games.
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Should we also be taking school abilities into account?
Divination(Foresight) has borderline illegal good abilities. Although occasionally you may get into an argument about how to use the abilities outside of combat.
Conjuration(Teleportation)'s Shift power gets you away from grappling/grabbing and out of threatened areas without a fuss. If you can convince the GM that Dimensional Agility works with Shift, it's even better.
Evocation(Admixture) helps bypass bothersome resistances, which is precisely what a blaster mage needs to remain effective. Arguably, it also helps to turn (for example) Fireball into a [Cold] spell for Rime Spell, in that case it helps overcome blasting being less good than battlefield control, by just folding battlefield control into blasting.
Notice that all these three are:
1) subschool abilities
2) slightly hinky in their rules interpretation...
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Going purely by spells, some schools have "problems":
Enchantment is very much hit/miss; if you fail to charm an indifferent creature, you probably trigger combat. It also depends extremely on how the GM handles charmed creatures, whether doing so is worth it. Not a good school if you have friction with the GM about that sort of thing.
Illusion: classical illusions have the same problems as Enchantment: will the GM give it a fair shot? But spells like Color Spray and Invisibility/Mirror Image are just really good, I think they alone make the school good enough not to Prohibit.
Necromancy: often GMs have some aversion to it, thinking it's somehow evil. You'll get a lot of flak for using Enervation, more than for burning people to death with a Fireball. It's got good spells, but not many things you can't somehow achieve with spells from a different school. So while it's nice to have, you can do without it, especially if that's easier with the GM.
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Then there's the good schools:
Divination: few spells here, and playing a straight diviner is annoying because it's hard to find a spell from every level you want to use every day. But a couple of them are just essential. I'll probably prepare Detect Magic every day, and cantrip preparation slots are very limited; that alone keeps me from Prohibiting it.
Conjuration: this school does it all. Defense (Mage Armor), battlefield control (Grease, Sleet Storm, Create Pit), offense (Summon Monster), travel (Dimension Door, Teleport). I think every wizard will want to prepare spells from this school every day, so Prohibiting it is terrible.
Evocation: blasts are limited usefulness, but not useless. I think a fireball to clean up the mooks and give the martials a clear charging lane towards the BBEG is useful. Magic missile is wonderful for killing wounded monsters trying to flee the battlefield.
Alteration: so many spells. Including Fly.
Abjuration: a couple of spells for special occasions, but when you need them, they can be real game-changers. I'm quite impressed with Communal Resist Energy; quickly adapt the whole party to the encounter. Dispel Magic and its successors, also good stuff.
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I rate the power of spell schools by versatility, since that's a mage's chief virtue.
Top Tier: Conjuration, Transmutation
Middle Tier: Illusion, Abjuration, Enchantment
Bottom Rung: Necromancy, Evocation, Divination
The top tier ones are schools that have the best versatility whilst still having good power. Notably, they both have very good buffs, control, direct damage, utility, indirect damage AND debuffs. If you had to pick any one school to the complete exclusion of all others, you'd be doing fairly well with one of these.
The middle tier is still very powerful, but is lacking versatility in some key area. Abjuration and Enchantment have a very hard time dealing damage, while illusion only has a handful of buffs (though admittedly good ones) and can sometimes suffer from paranoid-DM syndrome. Of the middle tier, Illusion is definitely the best, and is second tier based only on the assumption of unknown DM (that is to say, the chances of a paranoid DM are high enough that if you don't know your DM is cool with illusion shenanigans it isn't worth it).
The bottom rung are the schools that are barely more than one-trick ponies. You might be able to squeeze out some versatility, but you'll be working very hard to do so. Divination is the worst school of the bunch for specializing in, and is notable for only having 1 9th level spell, and it's very bad for a 9th level spell. I should say, however, that Divination would be the hardest school to go completely without because although it has very few effects, a handful of the ones it has are of utmost importance (true seeing, arcane sight, detect magic, tongues).
Necromancy is bottom tier not because it cannot do a wide variety of things, but because the spells that can do those things are often saddled with extremely odd pre-conditions or the "evil" descriptor, either one of which can potentially take the spell off the table altogether. It also has the highest rate of resistance and immunity of all schools, with nearly all effects being completely ignored by two entire creature categories (undead and construct), giving it a sort of faux-versatility (lots of effects, but highly conditional targets/usage).
Evocation and evokers are rubbish.
Flame away. (ZING!)
That troll would have worked a few years ago.
Most of the criticism of evocation was its pure damage focus. With feats evocation gets some critical crowd control on top of damage, so even the critics are saying that its good if used correctly.
That being said I'm betting that most players who play evokers just do so because of the damage and such. The average player I come across don't have the rules mastery to really make good use of the evocation spells and the best feats to use with them.
Illusion is too dependent on dm interpretation.
Enchantment is too situational.
Necromancy is full of flavor, but most parties are good aligned, so it becomes difficult to use well.
Though all have some use those are my bottom three in no particular order.
Yeah I think people need to go back and actually read through the necromancy school, there is a lot of good debuff, buff , critter, damage, andx miscellaneous spells there.
None. In the right hands with the right build they are all useful. Versatility is one of the reasons I love the class. But in all honesty I have no experience with (or desire to play) Elemental wizards. The existing schools have yet to disappoint.
I may be somewhat jaundiced by the evokers I've seen played...
Q: Got Haste, or Dispel Magic prepared?
A: Nah, but I've got loads of fireballs etc.:-)
I love evocation, but for me it's about having a blast or a wind spell ready in a slot. Those spells are just likely to get used, in my experience.
If you're the only one who can cast Haste, etc., you'll get more done with those sorts of spells. Save the blasts for helping with the mook cleanup, or preventing massive arrow damage, etc.
I generally drop Enchantment and Necromancy, but they're not crappy schools at all. Specializing in either of them can really work well for a wizard with the right build.
Universalist! For a pure wizard, it's a comparatively weak option. That said, I like universalist for an eldritch knight type. Hand of the apprentice is cool at low level. Metamagic mastery is good but it takes forever to get.
I'm thinking divination, since it would be so annoying to take one of your two spells per level on that school, especially at higher levels. Buuut, you're so fast. I'm pretty sure they're the fastest PC you can make in pathfinder. I kind of wanted to make one just for that.
I'm thinking divination, since it would be so annoying to take one of your two spells per level on that school, especially at higher levels. Buuut, you're so fast. I'm pretty sure they're the fastest PC you can make in pathfinder. I kind of wanted to make one just for that.
They had to make it attractive, somehow. I wouldn't specialize, but those spells are great when you have the time and levels to scry.
It all depends on splatbooks.
If all you have is the CORE RULEBOOK, Divination is hard to spec in and Conjuration is a no brainer.
That said, every school has at least 3 spells in the CRB that are hard to go without. Making the compromise is part of specializing a wizard. This is or was a nice balance. Unfortunately the balance of spells has flown out the window. It's easy to see the bias of designers in splats. This is not a new problem, it plagued 3.0 and 3.5.
So far everyone (almost) has picked Conjuration as the top pick. But would that be true if the spells in that school that really belong in another weren't there?
No MageArmor. (abjuration)
No Glitterdust. (evocation)
No Phantom spells (which may or may not be an illusion)
Just wondering?
Several people have said that they feel like Necromancy is somehow distasteful. Yet the possibility that summoning a sentient creature to fight for you in a painful if not lethal scenario is morally sound while reanimating a corpse for the same purpose is inherently evil.
It all depends on splatbooks.
If all you have is the CORE RULEBOOK, Divination is hard to spec in and Conjuration is a no brainer.That said, every school has at least 3 spells in the CRB that are hard to go without. Making the compromise is part of specializing a wizard. This is or was a nice balance. Unfortunately the balance of spells has flown out the window. It's easy to see the bias of designers in splats. This is not a new problem, it plagued 3.0 and 3.5.
So far everyone (almost) has picked Conjuration as the top pick. But would that be true if the spells in that school that really belong in another weren't there?
No MageArmor. (abjuration)
No Glitterdust. (evocation)
No Phantom spells (which may or may not be an illusion)Just wondering?
Several people have said that they feel like Necromancy is somehow distasteful. Yet the possibility that summoning a sentient creature to fight for you in a painful if not lethal scenario is morally sound while reanimating a corpse for the same purpose is inherently evil.
You've brought up things that are worthy of another thread.
The problem is, it's all codifed in core, and whatever we may think about it, there's no turning back, except in home games.
I don't even want to talk about the orb spells from 3x. Conjurors ruled. Evokers were weak, by comparison, for direct damage spells.
Ditto on necromancy. It's not all about evil, though some spells are decidedly so.
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Lemme, I'd rate them this way.
Conjuration
Illusion
Transmutation
Divination
Enchantment
Abjuration
Necromancy
Evocation
Conjuration's height on this list is due to the incredible effectiveness of summoning spells, and also because my favorite spells are in the conjuration school (spiked pit, stinking cloud, glitterdust, grease, mage armor, etc.). Illusion is rated highly because incredibly useful utility spells such as invisibility, mirror image, and silent image are among them, and the shadow-based spells allow you to improvise weaker versions of other spells (thereby making them incredibly versatile). Transmutation is just plain fun (baleful polymorph is among my favorite spells, as is shapechange). Divination is just plain necessary, but its becoming more situational now. Enchantment is fun, but it depends too highly on will saves. Its great against fighters and such, since they have low will saves and are great to exploit with spells that turn them on their allies. I never much liked abjuration, but I suppose that it does have some useful, necessary spells in there. Necromancy is rated so low because wizards don't make good necromancers, in my opinion. The spells they get access to come later than for clerics, arcane spells are slightly less useful at buffing your undead minions, and while enervation and bestow curse are all fun spells, they come too late to be useful.
And while evocation spells are great, evoker wizards are...well, terrible. For sorcerers, this school goes way, way up (then again, as does necromancy, since you can wait to take necromancy spells until they get good, sticking with evocation and conjuration until then), but for wizards, its much better to use what few spells per day they get for flexible, utility-based spells than for blasting.
Dot.
Conjuration
Transmutation
Evocation
Illusion
Abjuration
Necromancy
Enchantment
Divination
i rate illusion a little lower than most because a skilled illusionist heavily slows down combat, and most of it requires you to either be skilled with creating elaborate descriptions on the fly or have mastery of the evocation and conjuration schools to utilize them.
divination is low because it is a school that is completely reliant on DM fiat, it can be effective in the right circumstances, but knowing which divination to use and which time you need it requires some level of player foresight or some means of spontaneously casting them
Enchantment is also dependant on DM interpretation, and most creatures can completely ignore the entire school. especially outsiders, fey, dragons, constructs, and undead.
Even discounting the dazing spell combo, evocation is a fairly sweet school that is generally under appreciated. yes, it is a pretty flashy school of blast, but it also has plenty of decent battlefield control effects.
necromancy's limited options make it a candidate for dumping, and most of it's options don't look fitting for a hero. there are some quality spells, but a lot of DMs ban the better portions of this school.
abjuration offers dispel and a few defensive buffs, like resist energy. i don't recommend specializing in it, but i don't recommend abandoning the spells it offers either. it also offers dispel magic.
Transmutation mostly has spells that enhance modifiers, but there are plenty of potential lifesavers, even if they aren't standard game changers. it also holds flesh to stone, the first true save or die to actually kill, and ignore ressurection.
conjuration is seen as the god school because of it's versatility, but most conjurers usually slow combat down by messing up the action economy. effective? yes, party friendly? not always. a lot of conjuration's game changers disregard friend or foe. such as Evard's Black Tentacles.
I remember Abjurors being the redheaded step child of 3.5.
Then I saw one done right, he was a Bad Azz. It's not for a mook heavy game but as an anti caster unit it's top notch. It's amazing in a military themed campaign as well.
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So for all of you guys rating evocation low your telling me you dont use magic missle,ever,no miss chance? or wall of flame? or rays cause most are evocation? Now I may be rating it higher then it should be cause I favor the spells (maybe residue from 3.5 love) but I think that the evoker is more versital now with the spells and crowd control they can do.
an interesting branch of magic that sounds bad on paper to me but I have heard alot of good review on is shadow I dont really understand that school very well.
Really? Because Wizards continue to be one of those really hard to kill classes in the game, at least it's how it always is in the games I run. Mage Armor, Shield, Mirror Image, Invisibility, Greater Invisibility, Fly... the list goes on.Intelligent foes, with tactics in mind, target the finger wigglers in my games.
And players who know tactics, like they do in my game after 13 years of playing together, know how to position their characters so that only cloth wearing people can't get targeted that easily. And if the opponents get through, they have to deal with the spells I mentioned.
So, yeah, sure, if you play your Wizard stupidly reckless, wearing no armor is kind of a drag.
So for all of you guys rating evocation low your telling me you dont use magic missle,ever,no miss chance? or wall of flame? or rays cause most are evocation? Now I may be rating it higher then it should be cause I favor the spells (maybe residue from 3.5 love) but I think that the evoker is more versital now with the spells and crowd control they can do.
an interesting branch of magic that sounds bad on paper to me but I have heard alot of good review on is shadow I dont really understand that school very well.
Very true... I seem to get by just fine without magic missiles and rays and all that...