Getting Started: Eladrin Wizard – Part 2

Further, taking a closer look at the list of wizard illusion powers, at least until the end of Heroic, there are no benefits for Charisma on any of them!

That’s not to say that a Wizard gains no benefit from Charisma at all; at Paragon it opens up Spell Focus, for a -2 penalty on Wizard spell saves. Further, the Phantom Echoes Feat grants you combat advantage against the targets of your illusion spells.

And finally, there’s this Feat:

Improved Orb of Deception
Tier: Paragon
Prerequisites: 11^th level, Cha 15, wizard, Orb of Deception class feature

While you wield an orb, any creature you hit with an arcane illusion power grants combat advantage to your next ally who attacks it before the start of your next turn.

Granting combat advantage is never bad, but waiting until Paragon to grant it to a single ally seems a bit lackluster. Alright, so what does a high Dexterity have to offer?

First up, we have Destructive Wizardry, which increases the damage you deal with any power that hits two or more creatures. Improved Wand of Accuracy lets your arcane powers ignore cover (but not superior cover), which, again, isn’t amazing, but not bad.

There’s also a gem for Eladrin here, with Eladrin Sword Wizardry, which lets them use a longsword as an implement, and count as a wand. Available at Heroic for only a Dex 13, which is pretty decent, considering Wizard of the Spiral Tower doesn’t grant this benefit until Paragon!

This may not seem like a big deal (I mean, after all, who wants to bring their squishy Wizard into melee?) until you take a closer look at the rules for implements that are also weapons.

• Rules Compendium sidebar, page 275; “when an adventurer uses a magic version of a weapon as an implement, he or she can use the weapon’s enhancement bonus, critical hit effects, properties, and powers. However, some magic weapons have properties and powers that only work with weapon powers.”

So what does that mean, exactly? As long as the power/property doesn’t require a weapon keyword power use, melee attack, or obviously have some mechanical limitation inherent, then it will work with implement powers.

Let’s take a closer look.

Jagged Weapon
Critical: Ongoing 10 damage (save ends).
Property: This weapon scores critical hits on a 19 or 20.

So basically, if you cast a spell with your Jagged Longsword, you crit on a 19-20, and that critical deals 10 ongoing damage!

Weapon of Summer +3
Critical: +3d8 damage
Property: you gain a +3 item bonus to damage rolls made with this weapon. This bonus damage is fire damage.*

*which, by the way, since it adds fire damage, adds the Fire keyword to any Power used with the sword, which can lead to other shenanigans…
So, as you can see, having a Weapon-Implement can be pretty handy! With all this in mind, I’m going to choose Wand of Accuracy.

We already know our race, so let’s move onto ability scores. We can give our Eladrin +2 to both Intelligence and Dexterity, so we could, for example, go with 20 Int and 16 Dex. However, there are other considerations.

Even though I’ve decided the Wand of Accuracy is a better choice than Orb of Deception, I still plan on using illusion spells. Phantom Echoes is a good Feat, especially at low-level, where that +2 bonus to hit can really shine. And Spell Focus can come in handy later as well. So a 13 Charisma is a solid investment.

Not to be outdone, a Wisdom of 13 unlocks both Expanded Spellbook, and, perhaps more importantly, Enlarge Spell. As a controller, it’s not the damage that you dish out, but how effectively you command the battlefield. Increasing the size of a blast or burst by 1 can be well worth a -2 penalty to each die of damage!

Here we need to look ahead at what Powers we’ll be selecting. There’s a good mix of single-target and area powers here, many with an ‘Area burst 1 within 10 squares’. Making that into an Area burst 2 dramatically increases the amount of targets we can hit with these powers. However, some illusion powers deal no damage at all, and cannot benefit from this Feat! Still, it’s a solid choice, and worth a 13 Wisdom.

For the moment, this is the stat array I’m thinking about:

Str-8, Con-10, Dex-17*, Int-18*, Wis-13, Cha-13

*after racial modifiers.

The pros: good initiative, Wand of Accuracy bonus, slightly higher Will and good Feat selection.

The cons: lousy Fort save, average hit points.

While we can stay out of combat, there are ranged attackers out there as well. While I really wanted to fit Enlarge Spell into this build, we can survive without it. So now we have:

Str-8, Con-14, Dex-16*, Int-18*, Wis-10, Cha-13

That looks a lot more serviceable. Since we do plan to carry a long sword around, I’ll switch the Strength and Wisdom; our perception and insight takes a hit, but it doesn’t hurt our defenses in the slightest.

Skills is next. Wizards don’t have a very good choice, but Eladrin give us free training in any skill of our choice. We get Arcana for free, which is good. Given our high Intelligence, we should probably focus on other ‘knowledge’ skills, so that when the party needs to know something, we can be the Answer Man. Unfortunately, the 8 Wisdom puts us at a penalty to Dungeoneering and Nature, making those choices a bit lackluster.

Even though there’s likely going to be a better party face, we do have a 13 Charisma, so let’s go with Diplomacy. We’re not the best at it, but having someone else in the party who doesn’t trip over their own tongue can’t hurt! We get to choose another Skill now, and our best choices are Acrobatics and Stealth.

Stealth is in theme, especially as the master of illusions we hope to become. But in order to hide, we need some sort of concealment readily available, and casting spells will reveal our presence pretty quickly. Acrobatics is used for walking on narrow surfaces, escaping a grab, and reducing damage from a fall; all fairly common occurrences, as DM’s love to make players interact with the environment. Also, it allows you to perform the occasional acrobatic stunt that DM’s hate with a passion, since it’s usually not what they are expecting!

So Acrobatics it is!

Powers are fairly straightforward; we like illusions!

• Illusory Ambush: single-target, imposes a -2 to enemy attack rolls until the end of your next turn. At higher levels this won’t be as good, but right now, a -2 is pretty nice.
• Nightmare Eruption: single-target, slightly higher damage, and all enemies adjacent to the target take a little damage. Nice for taking out clumped groups of minions.
• Phantom Bolt: single-target, same damage as Nightmare Eruption, and you slide the target one square. Pretty meh; forced movement can be useful, but only if you have someplace to move them!

For now, we’ll go with Illusory Ambush and Nightmare Eruption. Later on, when we start dropping zones on the table, we can always retrain into Phantom Bolt if we need a little forced movement.

We only have one Encounter Illusion Power: Grasping Shadows. Which does, as it happens, create an area of grasping shadows that slows and does a little damage. But only until the end of your next turn; while you could slide someone trying to escape the zone back into it on your next turn with Phantom Bolt, that’s pretty situational.

On the Daily front, we get Horrid Whispers and Phantom Chasm. We’ll put both into our spellbook; Horrid Whispers places a (save ends) condition on it’s targets, while Phantom Chasm creates a zone that lasts until the end of the encounter. This is a good use for Phantom Bolt, but only for a single encounter. So we wait.

For our Feat, I’m looking at Phantom Echoes. Eladrin Sword Wizardry can wait; we want to have our pick of weapon enchantments before we take it, and there will be actual melee characters who need the weapons more than we do.

And that’s pretty much it for level 1!

I won’t go into too many details for the higher levels, but as your enemies get higher to-hit bonuses, and you pick up more powers that drop zones into play, retraining Illusory Ambush for Phantom Bolt will start looking better. But this is pretty much dependent on the forced movement your party has available to it. If forced movement seems common, I wouldn’t bother.

Versatile Expertise should be a high priority; at low levels, you want to hit, and often. Take it for both longswords and wands; you never know, a good magical wand might show up at some point. Also, with your high Dexterity, you do qualify for Dual Implement Spellcaster, which is a hefty source of bonus damage, if you can afford keeping a second implement around.

While Weapon Focus doesn’t add to the damage of weapon-implements, Eladrin Soldier does, and is a very nice boost at Heroic, even if it doesn’t scale at higher levels.

Armor Proficiency: Leather is always a good choice. Sadly, you lack the Strength for Hide, but it’s better than nothing. Or if you prefer the idea of fighting in your pajamas, there’s always Unarmored Agility as well.

Later on in your career, if you find yourself with a fiery or radiant weapon, you may want to consider Astral Fire, which is a scaling damage (feat) bonus for fire and radiant Powers. Ditto for similar feats, like Student of Moil.

You have a decent initiative modifier, but if you find yourself with a feat slot and you don’t know what to take, Improved Initiative can’t hurt!

The White Lotus Feats can add a little spice to your at-wills. Since you aren’t a big fan of close combat, White Lotus Hindrance is likely the best choice here. You can stack this with Antipathy Gloves later, to further deter your enemies.

There are other options you can get into, like Arcane Fire + Wintertouched, but you already have a good source of combat advantage, so this shouldn’t be necessary.

And there you have it, one Eladrin Illusionist. Until next time!

Related articles

• Character Optimization Part 2: Heroic Low (weebeegamers.com)
• Character Optimization Part 3: Heroic Medium (weebeegamers.com)
• Emirikol the Chaotic for 4e from The Other Side blog (timbrannan.blogspot.com)