Setting aside their ability to learn scrolls over their level I feel pure wizards aren't in a great place. There are too many scrolls, buffs and clickies taking away their best advantages. The School bonuses are pretty powerful but struggle to compete with the increased effectiveness of Heighten and Quicken spell. Still to be fair their spell flexibility does retain some uses.
Level 1: Shield, Longstrider, Enhance Leap, Magic Missile (very useful in conjunction with
Cull the Weak, letting a level 1 slot with the necklace of missiles kill 4 enemies with 27 or fewer hp.
Level 2: Hold Person, Invisibility, Misty Step(there's a lot of ways to get this but more misty step is never bad), See Invisibility (except for
), Mirror Image (though really dependant on the AI being scared to target them)
Level 3: Animate Dead, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Glyph of Warding, Haste, Hypnotic Pattern, Counterspell, Blink
Level 4: Confusion, Polymorph, Wall of Fire
Level 5: Dominate Person, Hold Monster, Cloudkill, Conjure Elemental
Level 6: Create Undead, Ottos Irresistable Dance (though stacking save DC buffs makes this somewhat redundant), Globe of Invulnerability
That's more than a sorcerer can access and involves some very very powerful unique spells in Conjure Elemental and Animate Dead. If you go deep into
the illithid tree AND get bonus action mind flayer powers
it's enough to make them feel competitive with Sorcerer (setting aside infinite metamagic) but otherwise it's tough to compete with metamagic. Necromancy and Divination kind of do it. A level 6 hold monster that's guaranteed to remove two enemies wrecks most boss encounters and there's items to make animate dead very appealing.
