Which Wizard specialty is best?

Remove all ads!

I'm most interested in not missing out on some good spells, more than the bonus spells you actually get.

I remember in the Baldur's Gate games liking Conjurors the best, because they only missed out on Divination spells, but now they miss out on Evocation spells, and I'm a bit more hesitant to go that way.

This character will take at least 20 levels of some Wizard class, and will be working in the same party as a Sorcerer.

TIA

 

Klorox, first of all, I'd suggest deciding exactly what role you want this secondary arcane spellcaster to fill. Do you want him to be just another nuker to work side by side with the sorceror? Or do you want him to fill in the blanks, so to speak, to be able to cast the spells that your nuking sorc may not have in his arsenal?

I know that some will look at it from more of a power gaming/efficiency viewpoint in their answer. I'm suggesting that you also consider how you envision this secondary mage working with the primary mage, i.e. the sorceror.

I once had a conjurer as a secondary mage behind my nuking sorc. Sure, the conjurer had to give up evocation spells, but those spells were the Sorc's job. My conjurer's job was to cast non-evocation spells to support the sorc and the party. And I couldn't complain about the results. Sure, not having the big, nasty, evocation nuking spells meant that my conjurer wasn't the biggest bada$$ mage, but she was surprisingly effective as a secondary mage without casting a single evocation spell. I tended to have her focus more on buffing and summoning spells, as well as those attack spells that weren't evocation. She ended up liking a lot of those gaseous attack spells that can work so well in combination with immobilizing spells like web, entangle, hold, symbol of hopelessness, and so on.

When you already have a sorc to handle the big, nasty nuking spells, it's not the end of the world to have a wizard who is focusing on the non-evocation spells that often don't end up in a sorc's mental spellbook.

 

That's a great answer. I'm definitely leaning towards a Conjuror. I want him as my supporter, he'll always be a level or two behind my Sorcerer so I'm definitely leaning towards a "fill in the blanks" type character.

This is a Drow Rogue 2 (maybe 3)/Specialist Wizard X. My main caster is an Aasimar Paladin 2/Sorcerer X, and finished the Prologue before adding this supporter as a level 3 Sorcerer (I'll add the Paladin levels after getting the Fireball spell ).

 

I tried an enchanter (completely interchangeable with conjurer, so everything here also applies to conjurer) with the assumption that a sorcerer, a druid, and a cleric are more than enough for my needs of spells of mass destruction. That was a mistake. You are missing out on Chromatic Orb--a great spell with which to disable spellcasters, since it uses reflex save for stun. You are missing Magic Missile, which the best way to knock out mirror images, since you can't resist or save against your own Dispel. Using your sorcerer to cast these wastes precious rounds that could be used to damage enemies. You are missing Aganazzar's Scorcher and Snilac's Snowstorm, which are excellent AoE damage spells before your sorcerer learns Fireball. You are missing Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, which you don't want to learn with a sorcerer due to the plethora of great L4 arcane spells available that are more versatile. Probably most importantly though, you are missing Mordekain's Sword. Because a lot of what a wizard should cast are in battle debuff spells, he's the most likely to run out of spells first. In this case, Mordekain's Sword is by far the best alternative job for the wizard--it easily outdamages any projectile weapon without the need to sink a feat into Rapid Shot and allows you to use Expertise. If you can't cast evocation spells, there is a significant period of time between when the wizard uses up his spell inventory and when the sorcerer and cleric do, during which the wizard is more or less useless.

For a wizard who is going to be foil to a sorcerer, I'd place the specialists in the following order: diviner, transmuter/illusionist, enchanter/conjurer, abjurer, necromancer.

 

If you take a specialist mage and take a level of another casting class (like cleric for the bonusses based on deity, you don't even need enough wisdom to cast the spells) you can scribe any scroll.

Therefore I'd take transmuter, they'll gain the opportunity to get permanent extra HP. Even if you don't add a cleric level it's worth considering. The opposing schools aren't that bad either, your sorc can cast stoneskin and for the necromancy spells (skull trap, FoD, WotB) you can memorize other spells of the same level which are better, it's enough if the sorc takes those spells.

Diviner is probably the best choice if you don't want to add a level of another casting class, there are many conjuration spells but only "web" and "power word: blind" are very useful.

 

It's been posted in another thread but the classes that work are Monk, Paladin, Druid, Cleric and Sorcerer.

Monk gives Evasion, bonus to saves and speed; Paladin gives divine grace (CHA bonus to saves); Cleric bonuses depend on the deity.

 

Mokona, your reply is kind of what I expected. You seem to think that a secondary mage behind a nuking sorc cannot succeed unless he can match the sorc, nuke for nuke. I do not believe that is an absolute fact.

You list evocation spell after evocation spell and seem to imply that you think that it's impossible for a mage to get by without evocation spells. That's simply untrue. As I said in my previous post, I played a conjurer as a secondary mage and she didn't have a single evocation spell, and yet she managed to be a very interesting and successful secondary mage to my primary nuking sorceror. And it was very interesting to have a mage that made really THINK about what spells to use. We all get so sucked into the destructive glory of the nuking evocation spells that we forget that there are other useful spells available. It was a very interesting challenge to try to make use of a secondary mage who didn't use the nuking spells.

There are plenty of very useful spells out there that are not big, nasty, nuking evocation spells. Spells like web, stinking cloud, cloudkill, acid fog, and firey cloud. Or the various monster and elemental summoning spells.

It's simply not necessary for a secondary mage to be a mirror image (pardon the pun) of the nuking sorceror to be a useful and productive member of a party.


BTW, I'm not, per se, saying that Klorox should take Conjurer. Only that he should a) consider the role he wants this secondary mage to play and b) not not automatically dismiss a specialty wizard class simply because it cannot cast evocation spells.

 

Take diviner! Evocation spells aren't crucial for the wiz to be good, but they are usually a lot better than the conjuration ones. There are many good spells that aren't evocation spells but they are usually good to fill out the spell lvls.
As kmonster said there aren't too many good conjuration spells (Mage armor, ghost armor, web). They can all be taken by the sorc or you could just live without them.

 

While I wouldn't call conjuration spells the most destructively potent spells, there are quite a few useful conjuring spells.

This (below) is (to the best of my knowledge) the complete list of conjuration spells. I see quite a few useful spells in this list that might not be in the first cut of primary nuking sorceror's spell selection, but could be quite useful for a secondary support wizzy.

Let me tell ya, you can slaughter a LOT of nasty monsters, both in normal and HOF, with a good combo of web, grease, stinking cloud, cloudkill, acid fog, and/or firey cloud. This can create a horrifically nasty death trap, particularly in HOF when your enemies are nastier and more numerous and this level of nastiness comes in handy.


L1:
Grease (Conjuration)
Mage Armor (Conjuration)
Summon Monster I (Conjuration)


L2:
Melf's Acid Arrow (Conjuration)
Power Word: Sleep (Conjuration)
Summon Monster II (Conjuration)
Web (Conjuration)

L3:
Flame Arrow (Conjuration)
Ghost Armor (Conjuration)
Stinking Cloud (Conjuration)
Summon Monster III (Conjuration)

L4:
Spider Spawn (Conjuration)
Summon Monster IV (Conjuration)
Vitriolic Sphere (Conjuration)


L5:
Cloudkill (Conjuration)
Lesser Planar Binding: Air Elemental (Conjuration)
Lesser Planar Binding: Earth Elemental (Conjuration)
Lesser Planar Binding: Fire Elemental (Conjuration)
Lesser Planar Binding: Water Elemental (Conjuration)
Summon Monster V (Conjuration)

L6:
Acid Fog (Conjuration)
Carrion Summons (Conjuration)
Planar Binding: Air Elemental (Conjuration)
Planar Binding: Fire Elemental (Conjuration)
Planar Binding: Water Elemental (Conjuration)
Power Word: Silence (Conjuration)
Summon Invisible Stalker (Conjuration)
Summon Monster VI (Conjuration)
Wyvern Call (Conjuration)


L7:
Cacofiend (Conjuration)
Power Word: Stun (Conjuration)
Summon Djinni (Conjuration)
Summon Efreeti (Conjuration)
Summon Monster VII (Conjuration)
Vipergout (Conjuration)


L8:
Fiery Cloud (Conjuration)
Power Word: Blind (Conjuration)
Summon Fiend (Conjuration)
Summon Monster VIII (Conjuration)


L9:
Black Blade of Disaster (Conjuration)
Gate (Conjuration)
Power Word: Kill (Conjuration)
Summon Monster IX (Conjuration)

 

kmonster said:

Whoa!

kmonster said:

Can multiple Transmuters gain this bonus, or is it only for one person?

Caradhras said:

It's strange that Monk works, but Ranger and Bard doesn't.

 

You lose the required item for this bonus, so you can only get it once per playthrough, and only for one person.

 

I like necromancer and abjurer. I also once used the cheesy take one level of sorcerer trick, but I decided in this game to just take a wizard. High intelligence gives lots of spells anyway, and one of the nice things about a wizard as opposed to a sorc is the versatility.

Off topic: I've been craving Diablo 2 recently, but I lost my cds and the shops only have the expansion, not the original. Damn.

 

Crucis, you pretty much just listed every conjuration spell, but most of them are irrelevant. The only ones I would miss are:

L1: Mage Armor
L3: Ghost Armor
L9: Gate (so have the cleric cast it)

Web, Acid Fog, and Fiery Cloud are good also, though they don't fit my play style.

The summons are pretty much all junk, though you can do OK with Spider Spawn and the Planar Bindings. Personally I prefer Animate Dead (not a conjuration spell).

 

You can always buy the Ring of Mage Armour from the Elf Sorceress in Targos (Elyrathra iirc).

 

JT, it was, to the best of my knowledge, the complete list of conjuration spells. It wasn't my intention to list only the useful or semi-useful spells. My point was that from the complete list, there are quite a few useful spells that may not actually be spells that a nuking sorceror would prefer taking.

Also, my original point that if you want to try a secondary mage who is a specialist mage who compliments your primary nuking sorceror mage, rather than merely mirroring him, there are quite a few useful conjuring spells that actually do a good job of complimenting rather than mirroring.

Also, I understand that people have different styles. I have my own style of play and I've rarely had a secondary wizard-mage in my party. But one time that I did take one, I played her as a conjurer to compliment my nuking sorc for a change of pace. Trying to play a party that doesn't perfectly fit your (or my) standard idea of a good party can be a really good change of pace and a challenge. I learned how to succeed with a different formula success and learned how to use a different mix of spells. And the learning process was quite interesting too.


BTW, here's my list of useful conjuration spells. Mind you, "useful" doesn't equate to the first cut of spells that I'd take with my nuking sorceror.

L1:
Grease (Conjuration)

L2:
Melf's Acid Arrow (Conjuration)
Web (Conjuration)

L3:
Flame Arrow (Conjuration)
Stinking Cloud (Conjuration)

L5:
Cloudkill (Conjuration)

L6:
Acid Fog (Conjuration)
Planar Binding: Air Elemental (Conjuration)
Planar Binding: Fire Elemental (Conjuration)
Planar Binding: Water Elemental (Conjuration)

L7:
Cacofiend (Conjuration)

L8:
Fiery Cloud (Conjuration)
Summon Fiend (Conjuration)

L9:
Gate (Conjuration)

Plus all of the summon monster spells starting at level 2.

I admit that I have a fondness for the demon summoning spells for their value as nasty rear area havoc causers, particularly in HOF.

And I'm rather fond of the Flame Arrow spell. It's actually a rather potent level 3 single-target attack spell. Each "arrow" does 4d6 flame damage and you get an extra flame arrow every 4th level (i.e. 1 at 4th level, 2 at 8th, 3 at 12th, etc.), which ends up being effectively 1d6 per level. Not bad for a single-target attack spell.