HiPs wizards are awful lackluster in PvE. Becoming an SD costs a lot of feats, a lot of ability points. Assassin costs Cl.
Being HiPS wizard eats your DCs, your spell focus feats, other PrCs.
HiPS wizards rock PvP due to the fact that HiPS, no matter the detection of the opponent, will ALWAYS break target lock. That's it.
Does the above matter in PvE? Nope. PvP? It can give you the adventage if you know how to use it. Sneaking around won't matter much in PvP, especially as a wizard as you can survive getting whacked on if you're warded. If you're not, HiPS and quicken a bigby at the target and buff up in front of them just to mock them.
Do we want to balance for PvP?
As for avoiding being slapped with "BUT WHY YOU PLAY HIPS WIZARD THEN?! BIAS!!!!"
- HiPSing is a hell lot of fun. Works perfectly with characters than lean towards Erevan Ilestre for pranks and being a general annoyance to dwarves.
- Mechanically, HiPS is what allows me to land attacks at higher levels without Tenser's. Invoker, you can now manually dispel Tenser's on the fly without repercussions. This is only true because I'm using a Strength-based weapon on a high dex character who uses intelligence for auto attack damage, resulting in a low AB.
- Sneaking around is fun.
- Character learned it ICly to impress a she-elf.
