Are Wizards that useful?

[Dark Sidious]

Hi all,
Since it was my first game in BG (but i did play the divinity games quite a lot), i tried a party with different classes, to test things out. And i have an issue with the spells-based classes.
I kinda like the fact that you can't spam spells in combat. But I struggle with the fact that you need a long rest to recharge your spellslots. Since you can miss quests with the long rests, i end up nearly never using spells (only for big battles) but doing weapon attacks instead, which make my wizard basically useless :/

[ACS36]

Sure, if you have them take fighter at first level so they can wear shields and heavy armor.

Other wise, no, not really. Game showers you with scrolls and potions. Wizards have situational uses, but all around fairly weak because of how concentration mechanics work in the game.

[Kyutaru]

Wizards are plenty useful, it just depends on what you want to use them for. If you wanted to go basic Evoker, you can literally use all your spell slots for Fireballs. That alone is more than enough utility in this game and you don't need to spam AOEs since enemies aren't always clumped together. You get so many 3+ lvl spell slots that you can chuck a LOT of fireballs before resting. Going with the Feat that gives you Fire Resistance negation works too with this strat.

Or you can pick any other school too and just abuse the things you find to be the best. Haste is the only spell your wizard needs to cast the entire battle to make the Fighter solo the rest of it on his own. One spell per battle means you can go 17+ battles before resting.

Counterspell is another great use. Stops all those pesky mages from casting spells just by having a wizard on the team. It's all about what you choose to do with it. Spell scrolls are nice but you can't get the sculpt spell ability without being a wizard, and that lets your caster ignore friendlies when he uses spells OR scrolls.

[wendigo211]

Wizards aren't that useful in BG3. If you want an arcane caster, play a Sorcerer instead. Even ignoring that power discrepancy, the items for melee characters are just too good in this game and pushes the balance heavily in favor of martial casters. It doesn't help that they're only class that uses Int and have no synergy with other classes for multiclassing.

[Mad Marduk]

Originally posted by Kyutaru:

Wizards are plenty useful, it just depends on what you want to use them for. If you wanted to go basic Evoker, you can literally use all your spell slots for Fireballs. That alone is more than enough utility in this game and you don't need to spam AOEs since enemies aren't always clumped together. You get so many 3+ lvl spell slots that you can chuck a LOT of fireballs before resting. Going with the Feat that gives you Fire Resistance negation works too with this strat.

Or you can pick any other school too and just abuse the things you find to be the best. Haste is the only spell your wizard needs to cast the entire battle to make the Fighter solo the rest of it on his own. One spell per battle means you can go 17+ battles before resting.

Counterspell is another great use. Stops all those pesky mages from casting spells just by having a wizard on the team. It's all about what you choose to do with it. Spell scrolls are nice but you can't get the sculpt spell ability without being a wizard, and that lets your caster ignore friendlies when he uses spells OR scrolls.

At one point 17% of all player deaths were from Gale. Which is kinda funny to me because his default subclass is evoker so they'd have to change it for his spells to hurt ally's.

[Elmdor]

I made my MC a wizard and I just hit act 3 now while being lvl 10.

My experience so far has been meh.

Enemies have either insane resistance to CC or non existent resistance. When they are resistant you will never CC them and when they are non resistant they are trash mobs that you don't really need to CC them. Enemies have tons of free stats that make any decision to CC them unreliable. Enemies getting a free +2 from tactician makes this worse than it needed to be.

Damage wise they are ok once you finally get some of the few spells that actually work. There are items you can get to make them really good DPS, but the same can be said of most other classes. At the end of the day they aren't going to be limited by spell slots while you will be which is odd because you easily can get enough camp supplies to long rest probably every battle.

A lot of the spells are down right bad and useless. Concentration is currently a very flawed system that could be easily remedied. ~90% of your spells will required it and there's no rhyme or reason why some spells have that tag.

But I will say even with all it's flaws a when a Wizard works it works extremely well. I'm not unhappy with my choice at the end of the day I just feel it could have been a much better experience.

[mutantspicy]

Divination Wizard is my team shot blocker. My personal Tayshaun Prince if you will.

[talemore]

Originally posted by Recjawjind:

Originally posted by talemore:

The two worst classes combined

What worst 2 classes? xd

paladin + fighter

[Blackalie Portman]

As a wizard main, yes. They are the most versatile spellcaster.

Long rest are an issue only at the very start of the game, when you have few spellslots and not that many supplies. Act 2 and 3, you have so many supplies and gold you stop picking things up. You can even get some items that can charge a spellslot per day, your highest spellslot ideally.

As to their versatility, they can learn spells from every scroll they find. Meaning that you always have the option to slot them in when you need them.

Longstrider to give your whole party +3 meters of movement.

Long jump and feather fall AND fly to move around.

Invisibility to sneak, or the better version to straight up steal a whole shop.

Literally every damage spell to try them out, or change them around (take off cloudkill against undead for example)

Recharge spellslots.

[Black Hammer]

Wizard suffers from the game punishing most attempts at utility.

On tactician, most CC spells are a waste of time due to your ground spells having bugged DCs, enemy saving throws being high, and combats starting with enemies spread out and in position to pelt you with ranged attacks. Almost every fight is going to have an archer offscreen waddle up and pelt you with an special arrow immediately to break concentration even on a miss.

If you want a blaster caster, just go Sorcerer. Druid has more utility in terms of buffs, Cleric has more in healing, and Bard is just an OP swiss army knife that does whatever you want it to.

Wizard's "thing" is supposed to be utility and versatility, but with clerics and druids having access to their entire spell list and the ability to swap prepared spells between fights, there's very little extra a Wizard brings to the table compared to any other caster.

Wizard also suffers because it's 5e, and 5e made STR and INT dump stats. Sorc, Warlock, and Bard all get frequent use of social skills with their big Charisma, while Cleric and Druid benefit from their Wisdom to a lot of saves. Wizard gets to use INT for a handful of skills that come up infrequently and rarely matter. It also means they can't multiclass well.

Throw in the weird short/long rest economy of the game, and you're stuck with a character who can, in theory, be versatile, but in reality will just run out of gas before any other caster in the game.

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by Recjawjind:

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

I've got a second playthrough planned with 4 Wizards. Should be fun. Thinking of 1 or 2 level dips of Fighter though for heavy armour and action surge. Will make them less powerful wizards, especially if a 2 level dip, but a lot less squishy and less dependent on DEX.

If you want wizards to not be squishy, don't take a dip in fighter.
Instead, make them abjuration wizards, which are the best tanks in this game, by an unfathomable margin.

I've looked at them, but its all rather situational, dependent on keeping the charge up, and it only reduces damage, whereas higher AC means you get hit less.

I mean, you could do heavy armour abjuration wizard as well i suppose.

[zpc]

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

I mean, you could do heavy armour abjuration wizard as well i suppose.

Yep, that works well - my Gale is a abjuration wizard eldritch knight tank =)

Pure wizards [like Roland ^^] though ... well, my barbarian has the proper line for them:

https://ibb.co/hM6NBp4

[Ackranome]

Literally the best class in this game. 4x Wizard = best group.

[⇧⇨⇩⇩⇩]

Originally posted by Ackranome:

Literally the best class in this game. 4x Wizard = best group.

Thats how I liked playing the original BG as well. Invisible party and simultaneous fireball opener. :)

[Myth Alric]

If your wizard is hanging back and being useless, because you don't need them that battle, that is fine. You have them because of the cases where you do them and they unload powerful spells.

[Ackranome]

Originally posted by morrganstain:

Originally posted by Ackranome:

Literally the best class in this game. 4x Wizard = best group.

Thats how I liked playing the original BG as well. Invisible party and simultaneous fireball opener. :)

It is literally insane.

You just destroy everyone. The game is a joke with this group.