What to do as a low-level wizard?

[DANTEIL]

So I just recently started playing a wizard (see my thread about not knowing how to select spells! lol) and I know that caster classes become more powerful at high levels, but right now, at a measly 3rd level, I feel like I'm pretty much useless to most groups that I've been in. I've died repeatedly, almost always have the fewest kills, and my role seems to be mostly staying out of the way while *maybe* softening up some of the baddies with my finger of fire wand or acid spray.

Any advice on what I should expect to be doing in parties at my current level? Are there party buffs that I should be applying? Mob control? Better ways of actually contributing? Or do I just tag along trying not to die until I get high enough level to actually get spells that are meaningful?

[Shoal]

While it's true that you don't start to shine until about lvl 7, there's plenty to do at lvl 3, at which time you have lvl 2 spells. As a wizard, you might find that the smoothest quests are the ones where you have 0 kills. This usually means that you didn't pull much aggro and you were using crowd-control rather than damage spells. Some well-placed hypnotisms and webs are great for crowds of mobs; hypno followed by otto's dance is great on big ogres. Resists and blur for party members might be more useful in elite quests if you're not landing your CC spells effectively.

Edit: In full groups, charm is best used as diversion and to aggregate crowds on a dispensable ally before others have aggro. Making shamans focus on their own kind will keep your damage dealers from getting held or scorching rayed etc.

[Cedwin]

Charm person and hypno are your best friends in lower levels. If you charm one or two mobs in a group, the rest of the group will all agro on them, which means you kill those mobs only using 10 spell points each. It's great for soloing as well. If any of the mobs get agro on you, just hypno them.

[DANTEIL]

Thanks for the suggestions... since my only previous experiences have been melee-based, I always think in terms of damage first. But I'll start to play around with hypnotism/web/charm and see how that goes!

[Shoal]

I should have emphasized one other thing about charm: Do not charm things that are already engaged by party members... unless you really want to be annoying :). Also, put the "dismiss charm" feat on your hotbar.

PS -- Glitterdust can be nice, too. On a failed will save, it will blind those enemies within the dust cloud, giving them a 50% miss chance and allowing automatic sneak attacks. It also works on undead (the miss chance; not the sneak attack damage).

[Wyrmnax]

Crowd Control.

Charm person, Hipnotism, Glitterdust. These are your best bets.

Also, you can memorize Bulls Strenght and give it to fighting types. At these levels, its fairly hard for someone to be bringing their own potions or have a +4 atribute item. And giving bulls to a fighter or rogue is fairly nice.

[Arianrhod]

Web...why isn't anyone mentioning web? It's a persistent AOE crowd control, that stops them dead - they can't move, attack, cast....just stand there and get beat on. Like any spell with a save, it works better on some things than others, but except for giants and spiders, it's often a great choice. Just don't cast a flaming sphere or some such on it - fire will burn the webs away.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I kinda enjoy watching young nuker wizards die, then casting a single Hypnotism and walking over to get their soul stone....but I'm sadistic like that. :)

If it hurts me, I charm it.

Nukers can be very powerful, but not at low lvl IMO.
It takes awhile to beef up your damage spells.

But you can stop an army with good CC spells at lvl 1.

[Superspeed_Hi5]

If you are in a group and feeling left out - cast masters touch on yourself, mage armor, grab a greataxe and start hacking.

[Shoal]

Web...why isn't anyone mentioning web?

I did mention web in my first post.

[Arianrhod]

I did mention web in my first post.

Sorry, finally spotted it after reading it a third time...just couldn't find it in there for some reason :)

[sigtrent]

Nukers can be very powerful, but not at low lvl IMO.
It takes awhile to beef up your damage spells.


You can do good damage fairly quickly, but you need to take maximize and save your damage spells for the right moments. By level 3 you should be able to do very good damage with niacs cold ray, but you want to use it on select targets with low reflexes and lots of hit points like ogres and trolls.

A low level nukers job is to help the part take down bosses and really hard hitting foes. Just ignore most of the trash monsters or for very large groups throw a hypnotism or web.

Solo... really hard to do with a low level nuker. I like to give my wizards 14 str if I can just so I can plow through lower levels. But I have made it through with heavy crossbows and a lot of patience.

[kafrielveddicus]

So I just recently started playing a wizard (see my thread about not knowing how to select spells! lol) and I know that caster classes become more powerful at high levels, but right now, at a measly 3rd level, I feel like I'm pretty much useless to most groups that I've been in. I've died repeatedly, almost always have the fewest kills, and my role seems to be mostly staying out of the way while *maybe* softening up some of the baddies with my finger of fire wand or acid spray.

Any advice on what I should expect to be doing in parties at my current level? Are there party buffs that I should be applying? Mob control? Better ways of actually contributing? Or do I just tag along trying not to die until I get high enough level to actually get spells that are meaningful?

Try Master's Touch with Mage Armor and Shield with a Great Axe at low levels and you can get right into the mix with the best of fast moving melee groups, add in your bracers of assistance and an engraved ring, slap in Ray of enfeeble to weaken targets in harder quests, when you get access to second level try bulls strength and blur to add to your melee prowess, as you get higher and hit house P buffs then you can start to use your spells for attack damage!!!

Happy Hunting, try out permadeath it will teach you things!!!

[DANTEIL]

More great ideas! Now I have lots of things that I want to try out.. I might do it during solo first just in case it all goes embarrassingly wrong :)

[Shoal]

Sorry, finally spotted it after reading it a third time...just couldn't find it in there for some reason :)

:) Yeah, admittedly, it didn't have the exposure in my post that such a great spell should have. I actually buried it among others, because it sounded like the OP might have an aggro management issue, too; and if you throw web before your fighter-types are swinging, the spell can bring a quite a bit of aggro onto the caster. I notice this more on my ultra-squishie non-WF-no-toughness wizards than my fortified higher-hp WF casters.

[Taurnish]

At low level you can use CC (crowd control) such as hypno and web which both still work great at high level when heightened. Don't have a rogue and need to get in a door use knock. A good damage spell is always magic missle and scorching ray is level 2. These dont miss. Niac's is good but the reflex save gets you a lot. Glitterdust is a favorite of mine too.

Suggestion is a level 3 spell but now the mobs wont follow you out of a room anymore. I suggest sticking to crowd control for now and as Talon said I believe, the best quest may be one where you have zero kills. Kill counts mean nothing anyway.

You can play with other spells like ray of enfeeblement and otto's resistable dance, Use Otto's on things with a low will save (tanks or fighter types). Also blindness can be effective. Touch of idiocy on caster types can help a little as well.

Just some advice. Have fun in the game. Decide on a damage path to take, such as acid/electric, fire/cold, or force. The new spell electric loop is pretty handy. Finally, melfs acid arrow is a gift that keeps on giving. I use this on my shadowmage (Ghoste ) build, extend empower and maximize it and the other thing is if the creature turns invisible you can follow it since it is burning with acid (good trick for those guys who like to dissapear on you).

No matter what anyone says grease is not a party buff. Buy secret door detection wands also. The lvl 1 one is all you will ever need.

As far as buffs, blur is a great low level spell as well as rage ...most tanks will ask for this one :).

[Arianrhod]

Buy secret door detection wands also. The lvl 1 one is all you will ever need.

If you pick up collectibles, the Khyber Prayer pamphlets (2 per turnin) often give Detect Secret Doors wands. I get a lot of those and Charm Person wands playing the lottery for Cure Light Wounds wands ;)