Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Which wizard subclass do you think will be the strongest in-game? (Poll)

Hi,
Just wondering what the community thinks about how much potential the wizard subclasses will have in Baldur´s Gate 3.

This may differ from PnP, so just your though on this game

Which wizard subclass do you will be the strongest in Baldur´s Gate 3? single choice
	Abjuration
	Evocation
	Divination
	Enchantment
	Transmutation
	Illusion
	Necromancy
	Conjuration
Votes accepted starting: 05/07/23 07:53 AM You must vote before you can view the results of this poll.

Can't say no to a fireball, so evocation for me.

Hahaha, well you can fireball with any subclass :P

http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/wizard:evocation

This alone surfice me to pick Evocation over others.
I wonder how it will work for Magic Missiles ... twitter and reddit seems to be a little inconsistent in how it should apply.

It's pretty difficult to say, since most of them will have to be changed significantly from the PnP versions. The two that are in at the moment are the two that needed least changing. Divination is strongest in PnP, but my suspicion is Enchantment will turn out to be most useful in BG3. On the other hand, Larian being Larian, I expect some pro-necromancy bias.

According to the PhB, when you roll the dice for the damage a certain spell will make you just add the INT modifier in that case.

Example: Firebolt can do from 1 to 10 Damage -> If you get a damage roll of 3 and your INT modifier is +4, you´ll end up making 7 points of damage.

This means that your maximun INT modifier, depending if you can´t go higher that 20 for the stats with extra objects, will be +5 damage, which at 10th level seems pretty miserable to be honest :S

Evocation, hands down.

Larian have systematically nerfed all control type effects so good luck enjoying that archetype. (AoE restraints are instantly burned away, Sleep duration nerfed and enemy HP increased, enemies jump out of AoE's or simply over them with the buffed jump distance etc etc.)

At this point they might as well stop pretending other Wizards besides blasters exist, because it's so clearly the "correct" style of play.

Evocation is usually the best in CRPGs anyway since they are much more combat focused than tabletop. Just based on that, the other "control" or "rp" focused schools deserve a buff, not a nerf.

Well, from a tabletop standpoint it should be either Divination or Necromancy. Seeing how they have destroyed the core of Necro (animate dead), I'd say Divination. Moreover, Wizard played as damage dealer is (and always be) subpar and, regardless, Evocation school was never that good anyway.

That's irrelevant here though.

Larian let you double Fireball with Haste (or "surprise attack") which alone sweeps all balance out the window and makes that the most powerful thing by far that you can do. One-hitting enemies with damage before they even get a turn is a thing in BG3.

They also let you do double damage with Lightning and Cold spells just by making enemies "Wet" first. Again, ridiculously OP in favor of blasting away.

They also crafted an amulet that pushes Magic Missile damage to be OP. I don't see an amulet that increases your Enchantment spell DC's by +2 or increases your Sleep potency. What I do see is Sleep getting nerfed hard, and Minotaurs completely ignoring my Sleet Storm by making 60ft. jumps over it.

They nerfed all forms of battlefield control magic, as I described in my previous post. See a pattern here by this developer how they (not so subtly) encourage you to play?

So, Evocation is in fact by far the most powerful and nothing else comes even close. I can only hope they pay attention to these forums and see how they're ruining their own game pushing a certain playstyle so hard and eliminating others in the process.

Oh yes, i understand this ...

Question is how will the game handle it, since in PnP version ... you roll your Fireball damage just once and then all enemies get that (or half if they are resistant, or sucess on saving throw ... or quarter i think if they have both).
BUT!
In BG-3 damage roll is counted for each target his separately ... wich makes no difference, if that Int bonus will be counted for each, as it should be ... but makes it so weak, it would be basicaly nothing if only one gets it, since the description says "one damage roll".

And i quite honestly dont understand how it works with Magic Missiles, or Scorching Ray works ...
How do you pick wich missile/ray gets the boost? Or every gets one?
Bcs if that is so, then this is huge since it basicaly double dmg of Magic Missiles. O_o

The PhB implementation should be a single roll plus the INT modifier for each spell individually, no matter the number of objetives (magic missiles/scorching rays). But, if it´s implemented in a way that the dice is rolled for every objetive, then the INT modifier i understand that should be applied for each one of those rolls, which i don´t see it a bad implementation either, as each enemy can be more or less aware of their surroundings during combat and/or worse positioned between each other, to have more or less "protection" which makes sense.

It depends on whether 'strongest' is only a matter of dishing out as much damage as possible. An Abjurer sure isn't ahead in that race, but if the raging barbarian gets an extra turn of being alive thanks to arcane ward, is that powerful? I'd say yes. But I'm thinking in tabletop terms here. With double-tripple fireballs and disintegrates per turn being a thing, no amount of teamwork will beat a surprise nuke.

If Larian doesn't impose the 1 spell per turn limit, a hasted Evoker is going to have some insane blasting power. That said, they'll still be behind draconic sorcerers with the same setup casting up to 3 fireballs per turn, and only a bit ahead of other wizards with up to 5 damage per spell.

I think it's worth looking at other things than squeezing out the biggest theoretical damage number too. Imo Diviner's Portent is the most broken ability available to a wizards. It may not be as flashy as melting a whole patrol of githyanki soldiers in one turn, but the ability to just decide the biggest threat on the battlefield autofails their saving throw against Banishment or your Disintegrate 100% connects with no checks is incredible and possibly stronger than an extra 5 points of damage as it stands.

Couple of things.

Couple of things.

First of all thank you for updating me on the current state of the game, I didn't realise that Larian had moved even further away from PBH than I previouly knew/imagined. I'm almost disappointed but eh, this is the way the game is going to be, apparently.

Having said that, with reference to the matter at hand, almost everything you stated does not really matter with the Evocation school; you can do everything you listed as AnySubclass-Wizard.

The +5 damage "capstone" (since it's the last perk an Evocation Wizard is going to obtain) is, while not negligible with some spells (e.g. scorching ray), not really impactful (unless they changed more). I'd rather secure an hit with Disintegrate or save any of my char from a save or suck spell (potentially causing you to lose the battle) than having my spell do +5 damage flat.

Well, you can argue that the best perks an Evocation Wizard can offer is Sculpt Spells but i learned from experience that it rarely comes handy. Again, unless there are even more changes that I am not aware of, I'd pick Divination over Evocation all day every day (for the above mentioned reasons, and more).

Unless your post was just to explain that Wizard can be treated as a proper damage dealer in BG3, in which case, again, thank for the update (unironically).

Probably enchantment, even after 5E nerfed disables a lot.
Yes, evocation can do damage, but so can a raging barbarian or sniper rogue.

But completely disabling an enemy, even for one round, will be much more useful against high value targets.

Did Larian give us the "Sculpt Spells" effect for Evokers? That allows you to cast fireballs without damaging your own party, which was always my biggest limitation in prior BG games.

we have no idea what their different class skills are yet

Well that's true. And the specializations aren't very strong in 5e to begin with.

E.g. Enchanters have to go all the way up to 10th level before they get an ability that actually has anything to do with their Enchantment spells. You could easily be an "Enchanter" and cast nothing but Fireballs. Not the best subclass design if you ask me. The relevant ability of any Wizard subclass should encourage them to cast spells from that particular school over others, starting at level 2. I hope Larian have taken that into consideration when implementing the subclasses for BG3.

To be fair, the enchanter may not get direct benefit over other enchanting spells until level 10, but he does get 2 very powerful, and infinite, enchanting abilities like "Hipnotic Gaze", leaving any enemy near you "disabled" for the rest of the battle if you want, or "Instintive Enchantment" that compels any attack directed to you to be redirected to other combatant at range of the attack, which is crazy to avoid damage.

Also, did I mention those spells doesn´t use a spell slot? They can be used as many times as you want while also not requiring any concentration whatsoever. This is absurdly OP or at least can be depending on the implementation in BG3.

That was my point. The Enchanter abilities are completely detached from their spellcasting, which is bad design imo. You pick Enchanter for their abilities, and then cast nothing but Necromancy spells. It's a huge flavor fail. One that Larian could help improve since they have to homebrew anyway. I'm not holding my breath though.

I'd say Necromancy if you want to be a real bad Ash.

Occupying enemies with waves of undead gives you the freedom to use single target spells.

If they target you, then mage tank with Blur and mirror image and let your minions and companions "sally forth".


Evocation's no friendly fire policy is really hard to match though.