Did wizards get nerfed?

[Ravingdork]

Yeah, those "speedbumps" are amazing for reducing maneuverability options, or for helping the big bad bruisers get their crits more often with setups like flanking.

The faster our casters can wipe them off the map, the more options and less enemy crits we're going to have.

[Hbitte]

Henro wrote:

Hbitte wrote:

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

Casters are very strong in this game.

because they are good at killing weak enemies.

You mean enemies that are the same level as the party? That are as powerful as each individual in the party? Do you truly believe that a party of 4 at-level enemies is a trivial encounter that will be cleared with little risk?

Same level 4x4 are NOT easy to fireball frenzy. Is very situacional to get a good fireball in a 4x4 fight.

If the wizard do everything right and fighter being mediocry, the fighters is better in most fighters and utilits spell now are only money save, if is all that. 1 char 5 min fly is not that great and absoluty is not save a party. The nerf is all around.

[Temperans]

Variety of damage type goes against themed casters which are very much iconic. Snow caster, Pyromancers, and Electric casters, etc. are all about using said element. Normally, those casters are greatly affected by resistances, which is fine when it comes to power balance.
The problem of needing to have the perfect spell every time makes it hard for them to work.

Prepared casters have this problem made specially severe because of how hard it is to actually know what you will fight. You can't prepare the right spell if you dont know what you will fight. While even if you do know, there is no telling whether the GM will give you the needed information (even if you roll recall knowledge).

So we have Spontaneous casters who cant change their spells easily, hit on level enemies, or fight resistant enemies. While Prepared casters cant pick the right spells easily, hit easily, and have a decent chance to have prepared only a single effective spell. In either case they are unable to properly use their spells without either getting 0 effect (spell attack) or reduced effect (saves). Things need to be perfectly lined up for a caster to really excell at which point, which is rare and unsatisfying to spend multiple hours being meh to get just 1 good encounter.

[Squiggit]

Temperans wrote:

Variety of damage type goes against themed casters which are very much iconic.

To be fair, Pathfinder and D&D were always disastrously bad at allowing people to play themed casters. Everyone's a generalist, even the specialists.

I feel like the Kineticist was the first time an actual specific-element 'caster' was ever really a functional concept.

Not saying that's a good thing, but it's pretty much a convention at this point that there's no such thing as a specialist wizard.

Quote:

Prepared casters have this problem made specially severe because of how hard it is to actually know what you will fight.

This is a serious consideration though. PF1 wizards could get around their limitations by leaving slots open, judiciously using overpowered divinations and relying on spells that were so strong they could just brute force it.

Those aren't really options in PF2, though and as a result prepared casters kind of struggle to pick the right options unless the GM is very generous with the amount of intelligence they provide.

[Ed Reppert]

Perhaps it would be wiser to have a team of casters, each with a different specialty. Of course, that might require a bigger party...

[Deadmanwalking]

Squiggit wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

But 'damage' is hardly the only aspect of the game, or even of combat, that's important, and spellcasters are somewhat better at a wide range of those non-damage things.

How much does that matter though if the player in question is looking to play a blaster and prepares damage dealing spells in most or all of their spell slots?

I mean, obviously it matters less in that case. Just as being 'better at damage' matters less for a martial build that focuses on other things. A Scoundrel Rogue with Str 10 focusing mostly on Skills is not fully taking advantage of 'better at damage', though they may well still be quite effective.

But you'll note that my post uses phrases like 'a bit' in terms of who's better at what. Which is to say the differences are, IMO, relatively small and a dedicated character can be solid at a particular thing their character type isn't necessarily known for (ie: a caster can be good at damage, or a martial at debuff effects). They probably won't be quite as optimal at that specific thing as the other character type, but they'll do fine and probably have some advantages the other type lacks as well.

[Captain Morgan]

One thing to keep in mind is spells are maybe the most symmetrical thing shared between NPCs, monsters, and PCs. A dragon, a BBEG, and the party wizard have the same spell list to choose from. The stronger you make spells out the box, the more dangerous they are to your players in a way that a powerful feat would not be.

So we may see feats that help shore up things like single target damage spells. We already have a sorcerer bloodline that largely solves the one element problem.

[Mabtik]

Evocation based blasting wizard was so consistently disappointing that I switched to a party buffing Bard.(Evocation wizard through book one of AoA; switched the character to be a bard ~25% of the way through book 2 as I wasn't having fun anymore.) Not only am I having far more fun than I was before, but my entire party is more successful and several of the other players are now excited to play each week as their characters have more of an impact on play. If I do try a wizard again it'll probably be a CC focused build, and only if there's already a Bard in the party. One action 60' party buff cantrips? Insanely powerful.

[TSRodriguez]

I think is just a thing for those who already played a lot of PF1. Casters had a reputation in my game group to be the problem-solvers of everything. In PF2 they still kinda are, no one can control the situation like the caster. I Have a blaster druid (Storm), and I just cannot understand what these guys are talking about, she destroys everything with her spells. Of course, she is behind the average damage of the ranger but has massive spikes that turn the battles around. I believe there is too much theorycraft here and not actual play.

A spell attack at level 1 is going to hit on an 8 or 9 against a regular level 1 enemy... And with an 11 or 12 against a level 3 enemy, I really don't see the issue, unless you want to hit like touch attacks on PF1, always.

I have a gunslinger homebrewed in my game, he does more damage than everyone, and hits better. But he still thinks he doesn't hit enough, because, in PF1, he would hit every single time.

[Unicore]

I have a theory about the Evoker Blaster wizard. But before I share it, I wanted to say that I am generally in favor of players making characters that are fun, and that only you get to decide what that means.

My theory about strikers in PF2:

four preliminary observations

1. Most characters require support from their allies to be maximumly efficient in their action usage, but what kind of support they require varies significantly.

2. Traditional D&D-like games have had casters who can support and casters who can damage, but not usually much in the way of martial characters who provide advanced levels of party support (4e was an exception that will get talked about later).

3. Party's tend to have at least one character that wants to get into melee combat as quickly as possible and this often shapes the team tactics of the entire party.

4. Traditional Dungeon design encourages melee combat in confined quarters.

Because of these 4 factors, it is very difficult to build a damage centric wizard that will be supported well by the party and not often getting in the way of how most parties expect to play.
This is too bad because blasting casters (and ranged martials to a much lesser extent) end up looking bad in many games, when they can easily be the most powerful characters in the game if the party composition was built around supporting them instead of supporting effective melee martial combat.

Mobility, tactical awareness and un-returnable firepower are how modern warfare is fought, and it can only be accomplished with casters in PF2, with Wizards being competent at doing all three and being the best at the game at combining tactical awareness and un-returnable firepower. However, none of that matters if the entire party is not built to take advantage of the advantages given by the wizard.

It is the same as trying to build a sniper sneaky rogue in a party with a plate wearing Paladin that begins every combat charging in with a massive battle cry while you are still trying to move into a position where you can fire and then move and hide.

Certain builds fit more cleanly into the traditional party structure and play expectations of the genre. And will have a lot more applicable power in those situations than characters who's maximum efficiency comes from avoiding traditional battlefield situations.

4e is the one version of the game that I have seen that tried to define roles outside of power sources and make sure that there were casters who could tank, control, support or serve as strikers, but the attempt to balance around role instead of thematic power source made it difficult to feel like the power source mattered all that much. An arcane striker felt pretty much the same as a martial one or a primal one or a divine one.

A good wizard evoker, probably needs to be 30% focused on accomplishing tactical awareness superiority to maximize their effectiveness. This is difficult if the party chooses to kick in the next door/ want to move quickly into encounter mode/not invest downtime resources into research/divination and tactical planing instead of just earning income to buy better toys for the battle line.

On these boards in particular, it is clear to me that the 4 observations above minimize the strengths of wizard's combat styles and maximize their limitations in many parties. I don't really see a way to change that without make wizards obscenely powerful when the party builds to their strengths instead of their weaknesses. Or balancing everything in a way that will cause a lot of frustration and pointing back towards 4e.

[Mabtik]

Unicore wrote:

I have a theory about the Evoker Blaster wizard. But before I share it, I wanted to say that I am generally in favor of players making characters that are fun, and that only you get to decide what that means.

My theory about strikers in PF2:

four preliminary observations

1. Most characters require support from their allies to be maximumly efficient in their action usage, but what kind of support they require varies significantly.

2. Traditional D&D-like games have had casters who can support and casters who can damage, but not usually much in the way of martial characters who provide advanced levels of party support (4e was an exception that will get talked about later).

3. Party's tend to have at least one character that wants to get into melee combat as quickly as possible and this often shapes the team tactics of the entire party.

4. Traditional Dungeon design encourages melee combat in confined quarters.

Because of these 4 factors, it is very difficult to build a damage centric wizard that will be supported well by the party and not often getting in the way of how most parties expect to play.
This is too bad because blasting casters (and ranged martials to a much lesser extent) end up looking bad in many games, when they can easily be the most powerful characters in the game if the party composition was built around supporting them instead of supporting effective melee martial combat.

Mobility, tactical awareness and un-returnable firepower are how modern warfare is fought, and it can only be accomplished with casters in PF2, with Wizards being competent at doing all three and being the best at the game at combining tactical awareness and un-returnable firepower. However, none of that matters if the entire party is not built to take advantage of the advantages given by the wizard.

It is the same as trying to build a sniper sneaky rogue in a party with a plate wearing Paladin that begins every combat charging in with a massive battle cry while you are still trying to move into...

Five man party: Dragon Barbarian,Champion of Cayden, Combat Cleric(bow), Rogue, and Evocation Wizard.

With a Champion, Rogue, and Barbarian in the party the wave of melee characters charging in was an issue in round one, but it normally meant that I could throw electric arcs and move for position to throw out Burning Hands and Grim Tendrils in following rounds. The biggest problem was actually that I couldn't land spells for the life of the character. Acid Arrow consistently missed, including on occasions that I used True Strike, and on spell saves I had zero crit fails on non-cantrips during the entire life of the character and several crit successes. It didn't help that enemy casters were higher level than the party so their offensive spells landed effortlessly and hit like a truck. Throwing around limited resources for half and zero effect as the default assumption just isn't fun and there's nothing I can do -in my build- to change that for the character. In an adventure based around a life and death struggle it just isn't fun to me to have an expected 50% success rate.

Changing to a Bard allows me to focus on actions that help my party and once I have my Inspirations up and running (things that can't miss) I can focus on reshaping the battlefield and attempting to debuff the enemy where the marginal returns are at least useful if still somewhat disappointing to be the expected result.

Interestingly enough the Cleric decided she wasn't having fun playing a support character and switched to Ranger so while our party lost some important divine support my Bard's impact is even higher than expected - when she remembers to add my buffs anyway.

[Unicore]

This is exactly what I am saying. Everyone else in your party wanted to focus on getting into melee range and focus on their own attacks, not on setting you up to land powerful spells. Which is fine...for everyone except an evoker. Any party with three melee focused characters is going to absolutely love a bard, far more than any other possible character you could make. The advantage you are providing affects 3-10 attack rolls a round which is massive. An evoker needs other characters debuffing the enemy or else it is absolutely an exercise in futility to cast spells at higher level enemies.

[TSRodriguez]

Mabtik wrote:

The biggest problem was actually that I couldn't land spells for the life of the character. Acid Arrow consistently missed, including on occasions that I used True Strike, and on spell saves I had zero crit fails on non-cantrips during the entire life of the character and several crit successes. It didn't help that enemy casters were higher level than the party so their offensive spells landed effortlessly and hit like a truck. Throwing around limited resources for half and zero effect as the default assumption just isn't fun and there's nothing I can do -in my build- to change that for the character. In an adventure based around a life and death struggle it just isn't fun to me to have an expected 50% success rate.

50% chance? Against same level enemies? With true Strike? A 7 level Wizard has +15 Spell attack against AC 24 (Level 7 enemy) 60% chance - IF you do True Strike is 84% chance of hit. This is without taking into account any effects on the enemy's AC (Clumsy, Flat-footed, Frightened, Sickened, etc) Or Buffs from the party (Bless, Inspire courage, etc)

A Barbarian of the same level has 65% Hit chance against the same enemy and from melee.

[The Raven Black]

Higher-level casters are mentioned and would be consistent with higher-level opponents being hard to damage with spells.

Maybe the crux here becomes that martials would be better than casters at enduring higher-level opponents and feel that they can achieve something.

[Hbitte]

Unicore wrote:

This is exactly what I am saying. Everyone else in your party wanted to focus on getting into melee range and focus on their own attacks, not on setting you up to land powerful spells. Which is fine...for everyone except an evoker. Any party with three melee focused characters is going to absolutely love a bard, far more than any other possible character you could make. The advantage you are providing affects 3-10 attack rolls a round which is massive. An evoker needs other characters debuffing the enemy or else it is absolutely an exercise in futility to cast spells at higher level enemies.

The acurancy of wizards are low, why would a party set a strategy around low acurancy? even if land normaly is not even that strong.

[Mabtik]

TSRodriguez wrote:

Mabtik wrote:

The biggest problem was actually that I couldn't land spells for the life of the character. Acid Arrow consistently missed, including on occasions that I used True Strike, and on spell saves I had zero crit fails on non-cantrips during the entire life of the character and several crit successes. It didn't help that enemy casters were higher level than the party so their offensive spells landed effortlessly and hit like a truck. Throwing around limited resources for half and zero effect as the default assumption just isn't fun and there's nothing I can do -in my build- to change that for the character. In an adventure based around a life and death struggle it just isn't fun to me to have an expected 50% success rate.

50% chance? Against same level enemies? With true Strike? A 7 level Wizard has +15 Spell attack against AC 24 (Level 7 enemy) 60% chance - IF you do True Strike is 84% chance of hit. This is without taking into account any effects on the enemy's AC (Clumsy, Flat-footed, Frightened, Sickened, etc)

I can also crunch the numbers, and I tracked at the table to see how effective I was being - my default character is wizard for a reason after all. I missed well over 50% of spell attacks made from level 1-5 (I switched to Bard at the level up to six), and as previously stated enemies frequently made their saves against my spells with an almost expected critical success in any given group that I managed to land an AoE on. This was particularly frustrating in boss encounters where I might as well have been chucking paper airplanes at the boss for all the effect it normally had unless I just prepared all magic missiles for the day.

However, in this case I'm referring to spells with saves and the fact that the variable result mechanic seems to expect that roughly half your targets will be succeeding against your spells and I don't find that mechanic/expectation fun. I'm sorry if my wording mislead you. Thank you for verifying the math I had already done though.

[Mabtik]

Unicore wrote:

This is exactly what I am saying. Everyone else in your party wanted to focus on getting into melee range and focus on their own attacks, not on setting you up to land powerful spells. Which is fine...for everyone except an evoker. Any party with three melee focused characters is going to absolutely love a bard, far more than any other possible character you could make. The advantage you are providing affects 3-10 attack rolls a round which is massive. An evoker needs other characters debuffing the enemy or else it is absolutely an exercise in futility to cast spells at higher level enemies.

I mean sure, but an evocation wizard in an adventuring party isn't uncommon. Granted I normally play an Enchantment/Illusionist or Universalist Wizard but I decided to play a character build I'd wanted to explore and it seemed like a good time to do something new with the new edition. It didn't work, and in the previous edition it would have been doable -enough so that there are several guides out there showing that it's a non-trivial contribution to the party to do so. In this game I was just taking up space and adding time to combat relative to the effectiveness of the other characters. In my opinion that shows pretty clearly that Wizards were nerfed.

[TSRodriguez]

Mabtik wrote:

However, in this case I'm referring to spells with saves and the fact that the variable result mechanic seems to expect that roughly half your targets will be succeeding against your spells and I don't find that mechanic/expectation fun. I'm sorry if my wording mislead you. Thank you for verifying the math I had...

It's ok, are you playing an AP, Society or Homebrew?

I agree with Unicore here, your party comp is horrible for an Evocation Wizard. Sadly the damage of the Casters is on average, lower than the Melees, to balance their versatility and safety.

And yeah, of course magic was nerfed, but mostly on the mid to late game. Early level casters were horrible if not using the classic overperformer spells.

[Mabtik]

TSRodriguez wrote:

Mabtik wrote:

However, in this case I'm referring to spells with saves and the fact that the variable result mechanic seems to expect that roughly half your targets will be succeeding against your spells and I don't find that mechanic/expectation fun. I'm sorry if my wording mislead you. Thank you for verifying the math I had...

It's ok, are you playing an AP, Society or Homebrew?

I agree with Unicore here, your party comp is horrible for an Evocation Wizard. Sadly the damage of the Casters is on average, lower than the Melees, to balance their versatility and safety.

Age of Ashes AP at home, relatively by-the-book group. I understand the theory of being more versatile and safe than martials but of the party the only person that has run into more trouble than my wizard was the rogue who kept rolling natural 1's on his saves versus the spell traps you run into (trying to avoid spoilers). My wizard his dying 1 regularly, dying 2 on several occasions, and on one memorable fight hit dying 3. From what I can tell looking at the table and talking it over with the DM, only on the Dying 3 occasion was my placement poor for staying safe. Unfortunately at low levels most of the spells available to my wizard had a range of 30' which mean being inside range of stride and strike on things that could easily drop my wizard in a hurry, or using my entire turn to cast a single spell with Extension on...and still being close enough for most enemies to reach if they really wanted to. If it wasn't for the Champion holding his reactions to get me out of trouble my wizard would have died several times more than he already came close to.

Versatility would have been higher if I'd had either more access to magic item consumables or just not so few spell slots. I was consistently struggling to squeeze in non-damaging spells after the first few encounters where my spells had such a lackluster impact and the only way I could see to get more damage out was to prepare more damage spells. Not ideal, but there aren't any feats or items that I could find to increase the output of an individual spell. We did find several caches of scrolls but most of them turned out to be divine which is to be expected given that we were in a former Hell Knight stronghold.

I don't mean to come across as overly negative or combative, I'm just trying to relay my in-play experience which has so far been directly counter to what these forums, and my own predictions, seem to expect. At least for a Wizard, as a Bard I'm having an absolute blast.

[Themetricsystem]

/intro snarky reply

-BODY- Heh, people are really mad they can't roll a Wizard and consistently deal more damage than every other party members combined in most combats for up to 5 combats every day huh?

Shame, it's almost like they actually fixed the basic math behind damage and encounter levels. Fact is, if you felt weak as a Blaster Wizard it is because you're used to being the undisputed king-of-the-hill in terms of damage output and you should probably learn how to coordinate your blasting with the rest of your party instead of hoping for easy opportunities to be handed to you on a silver platter. Work with your other players to try to go get some Conditions and Debuffs on enemies on the first few rounds of combat and then watch as your 2 or 3 action spell quickly mops up 2-4 creatures at once, I promise you, blasting is still effective, you're just trying to shoot the opponent through an iron door without opening it first.

/snark off

Really, the message you should take from this is that this is TEAM game more than every before, and if you're failing to coordinate with the Party it doesn't matter what class you play, you're going to have a bad time.

[Mabtik]

Themetricsystem wrote:

/intro snarky reply

-BODY- Heh, people are really mad they can't roll a Wizard and consistently deal more damage than every other party members combined in most combats for up to 5 combats every day huh?

Shame, it's almost like they actually fixed the basic math behind damage and encounter levels. Fact is, if you felt weak as a Blaster Wizard it is because you're used to being the undisputed king-of-the-hill in terms of damage output and you should probably learn how to coordinate your blasting with the rest of your party instead of hoping for easy opportunities to be handed to you on a silver platter. Work with your other players to try to go get some Conditions and Debuffs on enemies on the first few rounds of combat and then watch as your 2 or 3 action spell quickly mops up 2-4 creatures at once, I promise you, blasting is still effective, you're just trying to shoot the opponent through an iron door without opening it first.

/snark off

Really, the message you should take from this is that this is TEAM game more than every before, and if you're failing to coordinate with the Party it doesn't matter what class you play, you're going to have a bad time.

Yeah, thanks for that. I'm glad that wanting to match my friends damage output and being a contributing member of the party is such a selfish goal. I'll remember that when I make my next character. It's also good to know that the battlefield control and buff/debuff wizards are normally play in a party support role never taught me how to be a team player.

I hope you're able to make a positive contribution to the next threat you post in instead of just putting people down. Best of luck.

[Squiggit]

Themetricsystem wrote:

Heh, people are really mad they can't roll a Wizard and consistently deal more damage than every other party members combined in most combats for up to 5 combats every day huh?

Yep. That's exactly what everyone in this thread has been asking for, specifically. Absolutely and 100%.

[Themetricsystem]

My point wasn't directly aimed at you but I'll bite!

If you want to succeed at targeting higher level foes the problem has nothing to do with the Wizard class or the spells, it has to do with you failing to seek advantage over your foes before wasting your resources.

Also, let me be clear - Damage is no longer the game-winning-secret ingredient in PF2 that it has been for the last 25 years. Applying debuffs and conditions is STILL something you should be doing as an Evoker. If you're preparing almost exclusively damage-dealing spells in your slots then that is your first mistake because doing so actively hurts your functionality and reduces your usefulness.

Attempting to be a pure DPR machine instead of contributing to battlefield control, applying conditions, disabling or otherwise distracting creatures IS a selfish endeavor in PF2. Expecting to be able to just blast through a higher level creature without doing anything at all to lower their defenses or provide yourself with advantage is something even a raging Barbarian will have a similar failure chance with.

[TSRodriguez]

Themetricsystem wrote:

Expecting to be able to just blast through a higher level creature without doing anything at all to lower their defenses or provide yourself with advantage is something even a raging Barbarian will have a similar failure chance with.

I Agree... It is not like the other classes are THAT ahead of the casters in hit chance... Wizard Level 4 (+10) Barbarian Level 4 (+11)

[Ubertron_X]

The thing is, many spells automatically debuff your enemies because of failure effects. On the other hand missed melee strikes do usually not debuff enemies. Which means that the wizard can be a teamplayer by default, i.e. he helps his team land their attacks, however the same is not true for most martials. So the wizard will help the barbarian land his big attacks, whereas if the barbarian does not actively spend skill/feats/actions on it the wizard will not have his spells supported, widening the felt gap.

[Garretmander]

Unicore wrote:

This is exactly what I am saying. Everyone else in your party wanted to focus on getting into melee range and focus on their own attacks, not on setting you up to land powerful spells. Which is fine...for everyone except an evoker. Any party with three melee focused characters is going to absolutely love a bard, far more than any other possible character you could make. The advantage you are providing affects 3-10 attack rolls a round which is massive. An evoker needs other characters debuffing the enemy or else it is absolutely an exercise in futility to cast spells at higher level enemies.

I think this is a good point. The blaster isn't the mindless to play caster anymore.

It needs set up and coordination with a party whose tactics aren't the opposite of the blaster, where a buffer/debuffer does not.

Which does make it an unattractive option with the wrong party (and therefore unattractive in PFS).

I'm seeing the storm druid in my party at level 4 work quite well, hitting one target like a truck early in combat, then having a flaming sphere out if the fight looks difficult/has a lot of enemies, then finishing off weaker enemies with electric arc and ray of frost.

They also have a crossbow they tend to use when they've run out of useful actions.

That's with two melee martials closing in early, but also with a bow ranger that they tend to tag team with against targets not in melee.

They aren't doing ridiculous damage like the barbarian or TWF ranger, but they are constantly contributing, and are always doing some damage. Something the other three in the party managed not to do for two rounds in a row last session.

[Mabtik]

Themetricsystem wrote:

My point wasn't directly aimed at you but I'll bite!

If you want to succeed at targeting higher level foes the problem has nothing to do with the Wizard class or the spells, it has to do with you failing to seek advantage over your foes before wasting your resources.

Also, let me be clear - Damage is no longer the game-winning-secret ingredient in PF2 that it has been for the last 25 years. Applying debuffs and conditions is STILL something you should be doing as an Evoker. If you're preparing almost exclusively damage-dealing spells in your slots then that is your first mistake because doing so actively hurts your functionality and reduces your usefulness.

Attempting to be a pure DPR machine instead of contributing to battlefield control, applying conditions, disabling or otherwise distracting creatures IS a selfish endeavor in PF2. Expecting to be able to just blast through a higher level creature without doing anything at all to lower their defenses or provide yourself with advantage is something even a raging Barbarian will have a similar failure chance with.

And all of those other things have a roughly 50% success rate built in with the way that the variable saves work out, and, in my experience, the Barbarian in my party has zero problem putting out the damage. She frequently solos 1-3 enemies per encounter depending on their relative level while the Rogue/Champion tag team the rest. In fact, she was so successful at it that most of my blast spells were aimed at the things she wasn't engaged with because she was more likely to kill them without assistance than she was to need the help.

The problem *is* the class. There are fewer built in modifiers for offensive spell casters (no runes, flanking only works on spell attack rolls and you don't want to be in melee, the status effects that help you are better used to help people with higher hit chances get assured hits, etc.) than there are for martial classes and there are even fewer feats, at least for wizards, that really change or add options to what the caster is capable of. The wizard feats are so lacking for an evocationist that most of my planning involved just taking rogue dedication feats so that I could get more skill advances and skill feats to expand my options than in taking wizard feats to do more magic stuff.

Furthermore, it would appear that the problem is doubled by the way that spell school specializations are presented as "The Thing You Do" instead of, "The Thing You Get An Extra Use Of." If I follow the general outline provided in the wizard class section I focus around building up my specialization. If what people are saying about how wizard is fine if you just use all these other non-wizard things to help you is true then...Why am I playing a wizard again? I can do all of those things as a non-wizard. Magic is supposed to be what makes the wizard special, not the tag-along ability the wizard happens to have.

[Henro]

Mabtik wrote:

Furthermore, it would appear that the problem is doubled by the way that spell school specializations are presented as "The Thing You Do" instead of, "The Thing You Get An Extra Use Of." If I follow the general outline provided in the wizard class section I focus around building up my specialization.

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying evocation wizards should only cast evocation spells? maybe I'm misunderstanding. That wasn't my impression reading the book anyway as there really aren't many reasons not to diversify your spells. Only 1 slot per level has to be evocation.

Mabtik wrote:

Why am I playing a wizard again? I can do all of those things as a non-wizard. Magic is supposed to be what makes the wizard special, not the tag-along ability the wizard happens to have.

I'm still not sure I understand. What are these non-wizard things people are suggesting?

[Narxiso]

Not a wizard, but primal sorcerer who uses evocation (read: fireball) mainly, in my party has not had any problems being as effective in the group, if not being the linchpin in most cases. This was especially true after we hit level 7 and the rogue got evasion. The rogue would run in and usually evade the damage of the fireball, while holding a creature in place (the creatures just would rather use three actions on the rogue than moving to the back lines). This became even better after we hit 13 when the rogue got improved evasion, allowing the wizard to blast fireball with impunity, as the rogue usually acts first and attracts all the attention; while the rogue gets damaged quite a bit and requires healing, it's a strategy that has been working for my group to allow the melee rogue to do his thing while the AOE specialist sorcerer can cast and blast. The real game changer, though, was chain lightning. That spell makes evocation great even in the messiest combats.

I do admit that there are some problems with attack spells, especially at levels 5 and 6, but I think the choice between between reflex and attack as well as the ability to target weaknesses makes up for that minor weakness. If anything, I think spell attacks can be increased by one or two by sacrificing the spell DCs in equal measure.

[TSRodriguez]

Mabtik wrote:

And all of those other things have a roughly 50% success rate built in with the way that the variable saves work out, and, in my experience, the Barbarian in my party has zero problem putting out the damage.

Cmon man, that's a huge anecdotal fallacy, mathematically, at level 4, the barbarian has 5% more hit chance, with no failure effect, and the enemies at that level have 65-40% chance to save against DC20, with almost always failure effect.

[Mabtik]

Henro wrote:

Mabtik wrote:

Furthermore, it would appear that the problem is doubled by the way that spell school specializations are presented as "The Thing You Do" instead of, "The Thing You Get An Extra Use Of." If I follow the general outline provided in the wizard class section I focus around building up my specialization.

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying evocation wizards should only cast evocation spells? maybe I'm misunderstanding. That wasn't my impression reading the book anyway as there really aren't many reasons not to diversify your spells. Only 1 slot per level has to be evocation.

Mabtik wrote:

Why am I playing a wizard again? I can do all of those things as a non-wizard. Magic is supposed to be what makes the wizard special, not the tag-along ability the wizard happens to have.

I'm still not sure I understand. What are these non-wizard things people are suggesting?

Sample builds in the CRB tend to focus around the theme they're going for. School Specializations are the themes for wizard. If you're focused on a theme you're likely not using just one spell slot per level on the theme.

Non-magic options: All of the options being used to paper over the weaknesses inherent in the relatively high failure rate of spells to stick combined with the fact that spells are limited per day.

I'm not in this game to go river boat gambling. I like reliable, impactful results that I can plan around. Currently I haven't been able to get that out of the Wizard class.

[Mabtik]

TSRodriguez wrote:

Mabtik wrote:

And all of those other things have a roughly 50% success rate built in with the way that the variable saves work out, and, in my experience, the Barbarian in my party has zero problem putting out the damage.

Cmon man, that's a huge anecdotal fallacy, mathematically, at level 4, the barbarian has 5% more hit chance, with no failure effect, and the enemies at that level have 65-40% chance to save against DC20, with almost always failure effect.

Hence why I've emphasized that these are my in-play experiences and that they're atypical from the expectations.

[TSRodriguez]

Narxiso wrote:

Not a wizard, but primal sorcerer who uses evocation (read: fireball) mainly, in my party has not had any problems being as effective in the group, if not being the linchpin in most cases.

The Storm Druid of my players is the same, almost always the game changer, and its pure blasting (Burning Hands, Flaming Sphere, Fireball on almost all slots) plus Tempest Surge. And when everything else runes out, just pepper them with Produce Flame, which is an amazing cantrip

[Mabtik]

Narxiso wrote:

Not a wizard, but primal sorcerer who uses evocation (read: fireball) mainly, in my party has not had any problems being as effective in the group, if not being the linchpin in most cases. This was especially true after we hit level 7 and the rogue got evasion. The rogue would run in and usually evade the damage of the fireball, while holding a creature in place (the creatures just would rather use three actions on the rogue than moving to the back lines). This became even better after we hit 13 when the rogue got improved evasion, allowing the wizard to blast fireball with impunity, as the rogue usually acts first and attracts all the attention; while the rogue gets damaged quite a bit and requires healing, it's a strategy that has been working for my group to allow the melee rogue to do his thing while the AOE specialist sorcerer can cast and blast. The real game changer, though, was chain lightning. That spell makes evocation great even in the messiest combats.

I do admit that there are some problems with attack spells, especially at levels 5 and 6, but I think the choice between between reflex and attack as well as the ability to target weaknesses makes up for that minor weakness. If anything, I think spell attacks can be increased by one or two by sacrificing the spell DCs in equal measure.

Which might be my problem. I got tired of not being effective before we got to 7+.

[Narxiso]

Mabtik wrote:

Narxiso wrote:

Not a wizard, but primal sorcerer who uses evocation (read: fireball) mainly, in my party has not had any problems being as effective in the group, if not being the linchpin in most cases. This was especially true after we hit level 7 and the rogue got evasion. The rogue would run in and usually evade the damage of the fireball, while holding a creature in place (the creatures just would rather use three actions on the rogue than moving to the back lines). This became even better after we hit 13 when the rogue got improved evasion, allowing the wizard to blast fireball with impunity, as the rogue usually acts first and attracts all the attention; while the rogue gets damaged quite a bit and requires healing, it's a strategy that has been working for my group to allow the melee rogue to do his thing while the AOE specialist sorcerer can cast and blast. The real game changer, though, was chain lightning. That spell makes evocation great even in the messiest combats.

I do admit that there are some problems with attack spells, especially at levels 5 and 6, but I think the choice between between reflex and attack as well as the ability to target weaknesses makes up for that minor weakness. If anything, I think spell attacks can be increased by one or two by sacrificing the spell DCs in equal measure.

Which might be my problem. I got tired of not being effective before we got to 7+.

Yeah, but until then there are other things that can be done to enhance the play style. From 1-4, the wizard has the same spell attack bonus as all martials (sans fighter) without magic weapons. And 1-4, as far as I've seen, is a prime time to use cantrips. Two or three evocation ones can really vary up how an evocator (spelling?) can perform even without a team that focuses on making the the evocator shine. Personally, I love telekinetic projectile (bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage), electric arc, and produce flame. And since I wouldn't want to waste a spell slot on a miss, I would go with burning hands in the first level slot (primarily) and flaming sphere in the second level (cast reach on the spell for a 60 ft range and sustain each round for a minute sounds like the best use of a spell slot at low levels). Third level slots would be filled with fireball and lightning bolt (for more fine tuned damage) or a heightened flaming sphere.

[The-Magic-Sword]

Mabtik wrote:

TSRodriguez wrote:

Mabtik wrote:

And all of those other things have a roughly 50% success rate built in with the way that the variable saves work out, and, in my experience, the Barbarian in my party has zero problem putting out the damage.

Cmon man, that's a huge anecdotal fallacy, mathematically, at level 4, the barbarian has 5% more hit chance, with no failure effect, and the enemies at that level have 65-40% chance to save against DC20, with almost always failure effect.

Hence why I've emphasized that these are my in-play experiences and that they're atypical from the expectations.

Right, but that disqualifies their utility if we know that it's just bad luck- If I roll all natural ones in some godawful twist of fate, that doesn't make the options I took useless, or in any way the cause of my 0% hit rate.

Hbitte wrote:

Henro wrote:

Hbitte wrote:

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

Casters are very strong in this game.

because they are good at killing weak enemies.

You mean enemies that are the same level as the party? That are as powerful as each individual in the party? Do you truly believe that a party of 4 at-level enemies is a trivial encounter that will be cleared with little risk?

Same level 4x4 are NOT easy to fireball frenzy. Is very situacional to get a good fireball in a 4x4 fight.

If the wizard do everything right and fighter being mediocry, the fighters is better in most fighters and utilits spell now are only money save, if is all that. 1 char 5 min fly is not that great and absoluty is not save a party. The nerf is all around.

I disagree with your premise that its hard to get off a fireball in a 4x4 same level fight- between large monsters, and the simple fact that you can just win initiative and drop a ball, or ask your friends to delay until after your turn, or even just drop it on a square that puts your allies in melee just outside of the blast zone, its actually very easy, and my experience with my players as a GM backs that up.

[Unicore]

If you are an evoker, and not in it to gamble, your focus spell plus magic missile are the most reliable damage dealers in the game. Spell attack roll spells are gambler’s spells and require work to set up reliably.

If there is any argument against the wizard in PF2 it is that the spell list is too broad and it is too easy to pick spells that don’t work well together/fit your team’s needs.

[Relic123]

Why should the party set their strategy around the blaster if that does less damage or costs more resources than setting their strategy around the martial? That's the question that I haven't seen answered.

Edit: Obviously maximizing effectiveness isn't everyone's play style. Talking about those who do!

[TSRodriguez]

Relic123 wrote:

Why should the party set their strategy around the blaster if that does less damage or costs more resources than setting their strategy around the martial? That's the question that I haven't seen answered.

Edit: Obviously maximizing effectiveness isn't everyone's play style. Talking about those who do!

A Fireball (At his level) has the damage potential of dwarfing every martial of the party (10-42 damage in Area) Not counting weaknesses.

A Melee of the same level is doing 25 average to 1 guy?

[Temperans]

How often can the Wizard use that fireball vs the Fighter striking 1 guy at a time?

[The-Magic-Sword]

Relic123 wrote:

Why should the party set their strategy around the blaster if that does less damage or costs more resources than setting their strategy around the martial? That's the question that I haven't seen answered.

Edit: Obviously maximizing effectiveness isn't everyone's play style. Talking about those who do!

It doesn't do less damage than "setting their strategy around the martial" delaying until right after the blaster's turn can be a massive benefit, if a fireball does, lets say 30 damage on a success, and there's three foes, like my encounter last week, that's easily between 45 and 90 damage (only using success and failure, but its higher factoring critical fails to saving throws) this goes up with every enemy caught in the fireball. That's much more than the martials are dealing with their actions.

Actually, even if delaying means the martials won't get to move before monsters (my original proposal was doing it in situations where the blaster is fairly high in initiative) it means that monsters would have to waste actions on their turn moving up to the martials who are holding back, who then get all three actions to do their thing with when they do stop delaying, honestly, waiting might be optimal for many encounters.

In general, I'd really appreciate seeing DPR numbers for casters in AOE situations and how they stack up against martial damage at the same level, average ones based on the degrees of success.

If you're going to assert the damage is lower, we need proof to accept that premise.

[The-Magic-Sword]

Temperans wrote:

How often can the Wizard use that fireball vs the Fighter striking 1 guy at a time?

Quite a lot, though it depends on the class, and whether the player playing the caster is acquiring the wands and staves they should be to perform the role of blaster they're after- which I'll argue we have to consider if the Fighter's + weapon is being factored into the math (which it should be)

[Ravingdork]

Temperans wrote:

How often can the Wizard use that fireball vs the Fighter striking 1 guy at a time?

How often does the Wizard NEED to use that fireball vs the Fighter striking 1 guy at a time?

[TSRodriguez]

Temperans wrote:

How often can the Wizard use that fireball vs the Fighter striking 1 guy at a time?

Such a disingenuous way of responding. Quite a lot though, 3/day plus wands, staves, scrolls, etc. Whatever man, if you are going just to mock everything I'm trying to explain, then good, have fun.

[Squiggit]

TSRodriguez wrote:

Whatever man, if you are going just to mock everything I'm trying to explain, then good, have fun.

Disagreeing with you doesn't mean they're mocking you. It's pretty rude to just attack someone like this for asking a question you don't like.

Whether or not you agree with Temperans' point, resource expenditure is absolutely that needs to be weighed here.

Earlier you were discussing accuracy and came to the conclusion that at a specific level, a Wizard had a 60% chance to succeed and a Barbarian a 65% chance and concluded those numbers were close enough and so it didn't matter. While true, neglecting to mention that the Wizard can only attempt that action a few times a day and failing eats up most of their turn, while the Barbarian loses comparatively much less, is a significant omission.

[TSRodriguez]

Squiggit wrote:

TSRodriguez wrote:

Whatever man, if you are going just to mock everything I'm trying to explain, then good, have fun.

Disagreeing with you doesn't mean they're mocking you. It's pretty rude to just attack someone like this for asking a question you don't like.

Whether or not you agree with Temperans' point, resource expenditure is absolutely that needs to be weighed here.

Is not that I don't like the question, wtf? It is the way he is responding, for me It came off as snarky and trying to be clever. Of course, you cannot do it all the time, cmon man, we know the basic rules. It is like you guys are putting no effort in trying to understand. 60% chance of succeeding with a cantrip you can do all the time. Or with a powerful effect that can change the battle, but you can do it just 2-5 times. I think is fair. Maybe you think is not.

I'm not arguing that. I only did the math calculations to clarify the misguided idea that the wizard is massively behind in chance to effect.

[Temperans]

Well sorry it sounded snarky but I was being honest.

An 6th lv evocation wizard has at most 4 uses of Fireball. Meaning that he has 4 chances to get the fireball to stick, spending 2 actions in each try.

The barbarian has infinite uses of strike. Meaning they get up to three chances to stick a strike, spending 1 action each try.

The limited nature of spells makes it so that every failure to have an effect feels worse the longer the game runs. Even if there is a chance for Crit failures, there is also a chance for crit successes.

***************
Spell attacks spells have it worse. Unlike AoE spells where there is a 60% chance per target; Spell attack spells are often 50%-55% chance vs 1 target. But they take the same number of actions and spell slots.

Imagine how the barbarian would feel if his best attack was usable 4 times a day at only 50% hit chance and took 2 action in which he cant move. And in some cases the enemy gets a save to lower the damage.

People have done the math and Cantrips dont even compare. They scale so slow that by high level damaging cantrips are more of an action waster compared to a Martial's regular unbuffed (besides weapon) strike.

*******************
* * P.S. Remember that most spells take 2 actions to cast and casters have few action efficiency feats, so that also needs to be factored in. Casters cant exactly use Sudden Charge to get both a spell and still move.

[Cyouni]

Temperans wrote:

Well sorry it sounded snarky but I was being honest.

An 6th lv evocation wizard has at most 4 uses of Fireball. Meaning that he has 4 chances to get the fireball to stick, spending 2 actions in each try.

The barbarian has infinite uses of strike. Meaning they get up to three chances to stick a strike, spending 1 action each try.

The limited nature of spells makes it so that every failure to have an effect feels worse the longer the game runs. Even if there is a chance for Crit failures, there is also a chance for crit successes.

***************
Spell attacks spells have it worse. Unlike AoE spells where there is a 60% chance per target; Spell attack spells are often 50%-55% chance vs 1 target. But they take the same number of actions and spell slots.

Imagine how the barbarian would feel if his best attack was usable 4 times a day at only 50% hit chance and took 2 action in which he cant move. And in some cases the enemy gets a save to lower the damage.

People have done the math and Cantrips dont even compare. They scale so slow that by high level damaging cantrips are more of an action waster compared to a Martial's regular unbuffed (besides weapon) strike.

*******************
* * P.S. Remember that most spells take 2 actions to cast and casters have few action efficiency feats, so that also needs to be factored in. Casters cant exactly use Sudden Charge to get both a spell and still move.

So let's give a quick example.

An evocation wizard hitting targets with a fireball. Assuming level 6 enemy, averages a Ref save of +14. Wizard level 6 has DC of 10+6 level+4 Int+2 trained for 22, enemy passes on 8+, crits on 18+. Fireball for 6d6 averages 21 damage, averaging 13.65/enemy after saves.

Barbarian has 6 level+4 Int+4 expert+1 weapon for +15 to hit. Average AC of a level 6 enemy is 23. Barb hits on 8+, crits on 18+. Let's assume a d12 weapon for best sampling, giving 2d12+8 damage with dragon rage, average 21 damage. After hits/misses, first swing is 16.8 average damage, second is 9.45.

Assume the barbarian needs to move, rage, attack r1, and following turns does 2 attacks. After 3 turns, the barb outputs 69.3 damage.

The wizard casts fireball on r1, hitting 3 targets. Outputs 40.95 damage, then casts Force Bolt because why not for an additional 7 average. If they so choose to, they can do the exact same thing the next turn 1/day thanks to Linked Focus. So if they choose to, they can output 95.9 damage in two turns.
I think the elemental sorcerer can do better on an average combat thanks to Dangerous Sorcery upping it to 24 average fireball damage, and has Elemental Toss as their 1-action shot.

And this is probably one of the worse times for the wizard because of how they're limited on both spells and proficiency.

[Jader7777]

All magic in general was limited a fair amount. I like some of the changes but others I'm no so thrilled about. One thing I do like is that the really really terrible effects that were basically save or die still exist, but only as critical failures.

Another thing I feel that casters always forget to factor into their casting is their Focus Spells. These are always cast at the highest slot and come back with a 10 minute refocus. Basically casters now have their big feature/trump card ability available to them every single combat encounter.

Wizards have always been a very technical class with a lot of their 'over powered problems' coming from particular players. While martial characters have definitely been improved I still can see the invisible, flying wizard fireballing things with broken impunity.

[Cyder]

Cyouni wrote:

So let's give a quick example.

An evocation wizard hitting targets with a fireball. Assuming level 6 enemy, averages a Ref save of +14. Wizard level 6 has DC of 10+6 level+4 Int+2 trained for 22, enemy passes on 8+, crits on 18+. Fireball for 6d6 averages 21 damage, averaging 13.65/enemy after saves.

Barbarian has 6 level+4 Int+4 expert+1 weapon for +15 to hit. Average AC of a level 6 enemy is 23. Barb hits on 8+, crits on 18+. Let's assume a d12 weapon for best sampling, giving 2d12+8 damage with dragon rage, average 21 damage. After hits/misses, first swing is...

Except Barbarian has access to swipe which will increase his hit chance, if we are assuming great conditions for the wizard being able to hit 3 foes without hitting an ally we should factor in 2 foes in melee for the barbarian.

We should also look at other feats like cleave (reaction but wizards get nothing like it) or Dragon's rage breath (can do that every hour rather than just 4 times per day for the same damage with a better chance of not hitting allies in the aoe and the same save DC as fireball for the barb at that level).

Wizard can toss 4 fireballs a day, lucky if they can toss more than 1 per combat given allies will likely get caught in the AoE.

I don't think its fair to add every possible feat that ups the Wizards 4 use per day ability while ignoring all the feats Barbs have that can do similar.