Mage Blaster Dilemma

[blue_penguin]

I cringe when I see blaster wizards. They're much better as controllers.

That's how I play mine, but I won't say that throwing Fire Arrows and Fireballs isn't fun

[Kronides]

How do you guys define a controller in this version of the game? Wizards are the ultimate controller in 4E but I can't see the possibility for that at all in earlier versions of the game or in NWN2. Curses, blinding, even slowing don't do much to take out the enemy and even when they do work, quickly expire leaving you with less spells and a fresh opponent. From years and years of 2nd Ed and earlier versions I learnt that the best form of control is death. Are there other workable options here? What did I miss?

[Valefort]

Hold spells, bigby spells, solipsism, good old grease, cloudkill, dominate spells, ray of enfeeblement, energy drain, enervation, cloud of bewilderment, feeble mind, touch of idiocy, greater shout, hiss of sleep, mass blindness/deafness, sunburst.

Granted these spells don't take out one enemy, they're disablers. After one or several of those spells the target is a cooked sheep and you enjoy the meal, either through a summon or your party destroying the target.

[blue_penguin]

What Valefort said. I suppose it would be more accurate to say my character is played as support: weaking enemies, strengtening allies and making sure the target can't fight back. I think that's a lot more fun than just healing.

[dzidek1983]

well a wizard has anadvantage that he can play what he wants at that time.. blaster sure, controller sure, full team teleport elevator? sure...

the sorcerer that chooses a path has no return

as for blasting power a sorc should always be a bit stronger, but then i realize how much wizard spell slot items we have and how much sorcerer ones

what does a high INT give you and what does a high CHA give you

and it turns out a wizard can be on par with the sorcerer without any trouble

the blaster in my eyes needs couple of things to be perfect (or some of them if you dont like particular ones)

1) 10 levels on Archmage
2) 10 levels of ASOC

those are mandatory, asoc allows to spread your spells around and archamge allows to adjust them to the situation, create a backup blasting ability of arcane fire (really fun ability as it turned out recently), and have spell like abilites with buff or PvP spells

3) reserve feat or even two

i am a fan of reserve feats, i know some say they are useless in epic levels and watching the dmg scale i would have to agree, but its just so damn good in lower levles, i prefer acidic splatter and the rune of fire, with those two i didnt memorize any dmg spell (besides the fueling ones) for several levels, they scale really nicely

4) daggerspell mage

if you dont like Archamge (some dont on a wizard) then this is a perfect pick for a blaster
it allows you to add 2d4+10 to your reserve feat dmg so the acidic splatter will make eventually 7d6+2d4+10 dmg

so the builds i would propose for blaster would be

sorcerer 10 / asoc 10 / archmage 10
or
wizard 7 / rogue 3 / daggerspell 10 / asoc 10

some would advise bloodmage and it a good pick to with scars, especially for a sorcerer, but i just dont like the class RP wise...