Ah, the old lets classify and pidgeon hole all char classes to certain assigned roles thread.

What I see most often in DDO is a movie star approach to dungeons. With the star usually being a barbarian or sorceror. Or co-stars.....usually of the melee variety.

All expecting the other classes to be their supporting cast.

Wizards? Bah..you guys are just supposed to buff me and make my kill count look good. And stand back until I call for you.

Well, sry..I have trouble playing that way.

I created all my chars for me to have fun with. Not buff you and watch you have fun.

Don't get me totally wrong here. I do buff. I do whatever is needed for success.

But at low lvl IMO Wizards do not have the SP to be buffing everyone.

My 3rd lvl Wiz is not going to be casting blur on six people every 3 min.....sry.

What I will be doing is charging ahead, dropping to sneak mode, and charming one guy (that's right...one!) in a mob.
This gets agro off the party right away.
If needed I charm more, but I prefer Hypno and Web.

Wizards can be nukers too, but I find nuking draws too much agro.
Hypno and Web and Charm make quests easy and keep my squishy butt intact.

High lvl Wizards are slightly different.
Here I buff more (at first).
In a 6man group you can expect Blur, GH, Stoneskin, and Haste when we zone in and at shrines.
You can expect a Displacement if I see you are about to die. maybe an Invisibility on a cleric, but I know they will break it and not appreciate it's benefits.

I'll Haste again at times, and throw out whatever is asked for.

I'll have myself super-buffed so when I run out of SP, I'll be jumping into melee as soon as someone bigger than me gets agro.
But even with agro, all those great buffs means I'm not squishy despite a lack of AC/HP.

Amazes me when other casters die in quests like the reaver.
As soon as I take damage, I am displaced and taking action to survive.

I find a quick hold or Otto's will solve my agro problems much faster than fireballs.
But that's just my preference.

What is a Wizard's purpose?
Wizards are versitile enough to fill many roles.
Mine carry weapons for when I run low on SP....or sometimes when the party is killing things so fast I feel it's a waste to cast spells.

I prefer CC, but with Max/Empower and appropriate items I can pour on the nuking when needed.

I choose "D" All the above.