In BG3, Wizards as a class are underpowered relative to multiclasses that dip Wizard due to the ability to scribe scrolls of any level into your spell book — as opposed to just the levels your levels in Wizard gives you access to.

This makes the Wiz 1/Sorc 11 etc. builds super strong as you effectively just give up the Wizard school abilities for Metamagic, which is much more powerful.

In these builds, you often still want to be an Int caster as you’ll be casting your offensive spells via your Wizard slots.

If you’re ignoring this ‘feature’ the big 3 Wizard subclasses are Divination, Abjuration, and Evocation.

Evocation is especially good for a Magic Missile build due to its level 10 ability. Its early ability, Sculpt Spells, is also nice to let you freely throw AoEs around.

It works fine if you pile up buffs and debuff, but it's a bit annoying to play.

Necromancy is…okay. You get a lot of undead minions and you can buff them, but having to babysit them is a lot of busy work and not worth it for some, myself included.

Don’t bring any of your minions into town and hope you don’t need them while you’re there.

Evocation wizard is nice in lower levels, due to sculpt spells. Around lvl 6, abjuration wizard gets good, but sorcerer might be better at that level due metamagic. At lvl 10, evocation wizard gets a big boost to magic missile. You want to multiclass as tempest cleric after lvl 11.

At Act 3, getting Markoheshkir is honestly more important than any build.

Cleric 2 (tempest) wizard 10, magic missile synergies for single target and lightning spells for aoe

Lv 1 wizard, 11 sorc

(But if you are asking for subclass, I love divinition most for messing with dice rolls)

I think if you are going to go mostly wizard divination is the best, but being able to use whatever evocation spells whenever you want is fun too.

In terms of raw power, Sorcerers come out on top because metamagic is busted in BG3. Wizards get spell scribing, but unlike the tabletop you can scribe any spell you have slots for, so a 1 level wizard dip is often enough. The strength of wizards mostly comes from the subclass features. Evocation is handy, being able to cast AoE's without hitting allies, but its real strength is as a magic missile build, since at level 10 you can add your int modifier to each missile. But yeah, it's weaker than sorcerer until then. Abjuration wizard does something that sorcerer can't though. You can build it to be functionally immortal, which is cool.

With spellsparkler, phalar aluve, the psychic spark and the gloves of belligerant skies it actually is far more powerful than eldritch blast builds before you even throw in evocation level 10. A level 1 mm kitted out like that is 40 guaranteed damage AND guaranteed prone. That is pretty powerful for a level 1 wizard spell slot and it isn't really something eldritch blast can ever do.

When you throw in evocation and upcast people can do hundreds of unmissable damage.

Wizards are supposed to be more versatile than Sorcerers, so you can prepare better against certain encounters.

So if you're fighting against Demons that are immune or resistant to fire you can just change your dmg spells to other elements, like Ice or Lighting, something that sorcerers can't do because they can only change 1 spell and only when they lvl up.

But because of Scrolls and because Metamagic is busted Sorcerers don't have to worry about not having a certain spell. It's irrelevant that sorcerers don't have Planar Binding since you can have 10 scroll on your inventory at any time.

Divination is annoying but it’s the most powerful wizard archetype as you can guarantee CC on enemies, which essentially makes them useless. Predictability is excellent in honor mode.

Arcane ward. Every time you cast an abjuration spell you get charges of it, which you can use to reduce damage. The Armor of Agathys Abjuration Wizard build is basically unkillable.

It’s similar, has more individual targets, so it triggers damage riders at a higher rate, but it also uses spell slots instead of sorcery point. I think it ends up being slightly better than EB builds when optimized properly.

I don't have access to patch 8, crying inside. But that sounds pretty intersting, cause I did 2pali 10 bard on my last run. 2pali 10 wizard sounds like a lot of fun.

I didn't make this build myself, you can find a couple variants on YouTube. I won't get into the nitty gritty of the gear and stuff bc I'm not on the game, but the BEST build I've ever used was a 10 abjuration wizard, 1 white cold draconic bloodline sorcerer and 1 tempest cleric for the create water spell. Build is based around armor of agathys from sorc. Charge abjuration arcade ward stacks with glyph of warding, stoneflesh and upcasted armor of agathys. You also use fire shield cold in combat. Works best if you have another cleric cast warding bond on you. Damage then gets cut in half twice before it applies to your arcane ward shield. Not even counting the resistance from warding bond. Cleric never takes damage from warding bond bc you don't take damage. Armor of agathys temporary health never goes away bc you never take enough damage to drop your shields.

Wake up and cast stoneflesh and armor of agathys. In combat, you cast blade ward, create water, and fire shield cold. Wet enemies touching you will take 90 damage. All this without bonuses from gear. I've seen the ray of frost CANTRIP hit for 50

I've used Wizards a lot. Nerfed compared to tabletop but I still think they're one of the stronger classes. It's a hot take around here to say wizards are a top class, but I've had no problem soloing act 3 bosses like Raphael with my Evoker Gale. And these solos are usually without relying on consumables like elixirs or potions of speed.

Every wizard can (should) have its primary role in a party be support and CC. I personally don't bother with instantaneous, one-off damage spells besides either magic missile or chromatic orb before getting fireball at level 5. I can elaborate if you'd like, but this comment is already getting long.

Here are some subclasses I like:

• Evoker for magic missile/artistry of war setups.
• Abjuration for tanking with blade ward (or other resistance effects) and armor of agathys obtained through either a white draconic sorcerer or warlock dip. A warlock invocation will let you get mage armor at will (an abjuration spell) so you can always have max ward stacks.
• Necromancer for summons.
• Divination for Portent is fantastic, but really fucking annoying with how its implemented in the game. You'll be asked every time something happens...
• Enchanter becomes really good once you add in difficulty mods but as it stands, the game is too easy for it to really shine above other options.

inferior to lore bards or sorcs with heightened metamagic. also inferior to druids just casting a bunch of extra control spells through their summons or warlocks/lore bards having access to the best control spell in the game. the list above is about listing a wizard where it's competitively #1-2 in something. control is not their forte. abjurers are arguably the best tanks. necros are competitive with druids (#2 overall) in summoning. evokers are the best MM casters which is a top 3-4 blast spell and are the best AOE blast casters.

This right here. Divination is incredible. Three portents in a short rest is so powerful. Controlling the battlefield and choosing who hits and who fails saves that often is huge.

If wizard, probably a magic missile evocation build. At level 10, you can add your int to each missile. Pretty broken single target

And you're an evocation wizard so can also fireball and what not.

there are 3 good wizards. the others are meh. the abjurer, evoker and necro. here's how i build my wizard:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1652bj7/abjurer\_of\_agathys\_build/

There’s different types of Wizards and each have their own niches so it’s a matter of “What do I prefer.” 

Also if your thinking about it, there’s no “I want the absolute best wizard class.” Because there is no answer to that, it’s too subjective. 

Each Wizard sub-class is a brief description of what each specialize with their magic. 

Evocation - Big damage wizard, can’t hurt friends

Conjuration - Teleportation 

Enchantment - Mind control enemies 

Transmutation - Create potions and turn things in other things. Like yourself into a bird. 

Necromancer - Raise an army of undead 

Abjuration - Big defense, comparable to heavily armored warriors. 

Illusion - Deceive enemies and see invisible enemies.

I like Abjuration wizards for the Arcane Ward.

I like Longstrider, Enhance Leap, and Feather Fall because they make it much easier to move around early in the game. I also pick Disguise Self because being able to make myself smaller comes in very handy (Disguise Self: Gnome).

I prefer to pick up utility and evasion spells like Misty Step, Invisibility, Knock, and Detect Thoughts.

I like Find Familiar for luring groups to a location (seems to be easier to control than Minor Illusion).

I always snag Fog Cloud because it's useful for crime.

If you're looking for simple, you can't go wrong with any spell that happens to be an Evocation and going with the School of Evocation as your subclass. Evocations are, for the most part, very simple, as they focus on dealing damage to enemies, don't have to worry about managing your Concentration slot, and with the School of Evocation you'll be able to fire them into a crowd of your allies and not hurt them at all. Simple and straight forward.

You should also consider Mage Armor, it'll give you a bit of a defensive boost for a First level spell slot, and Longstrider, a First level ritual that's free to cast outside of combat and just makes everyone move a little bit further in a fight. It's really handy.

For cantrips, you'd want Firebolt or Ray of Frost and Shocking Grasp from the start, the former two being very acceptable ranged damage with some useful effects (lighting things on fire or slowing enemies and putting out fires,) while the latter is more of a "just in case" for when things get in your face. Follow this up with Light if you lack Darkvision (good to throw on Lae'zel) or Friends if you've some talky skills and aren't playing on Tactician or Honor mode.

Mid-Low strength high intelligence is usually a good simple stat start. Also don’t worry about spells as you can learn them from scrolls but it gets kind of expensive

You can learn every spell as a wizard and swap out of combat, depends on your group comp or if you want to go fully damage

Tbh it really depends on your play style, so you should experiment on your own and find your sweet spot but for me I think the vampirism enchantment found in ruby is the most useful one.

Agate's furious onslaught is also pretty neat(first strike ALWAYS deals 50% more damage to enemies) considering potential to deal combo of 150% (base DMG + critical hit)

I don't really bother with enchantments like extra mana or HP. but important thing to note, I pretty much maxed out my stats, so if you're new to the game it might be helpful

Wizard has a huge advantage over hordes of enemies especially with lightning attack which might kill multiple opponents in one hit. That's why I prioritize damage overall in enchanting, to push that one blow kill chance.

ain't fan of the books items even tho you can enchant them. Nevertheless, concentrated staff which is the best for this class imo is significantly faster dual-handed so personally I rarely play with them equipped

I’m in act 3 with my solo tactician abjuration wizard. I took a first level dip into sorc for the con saving throws and armor of agathys, then I took a level in tempest cleric for the heavy armor proficiency. The rest into abjuration wizard.

Early levels were tough, be sure to rely on sanctuary from cleric as needed to heal up mid fight and bring along scrolls to attack when you run out of spell slots. Also, as opposed to what many online might say, don’t let the enemy hit you if you can help it! Use abjuration + armor of agathys as protection that does damage, but especially for tougher enemies you’ll want to attack them at range to get them down on health asap.

Arm yourself with dual hand crossbows for ranged bonus attacks, and even primary attacks in the beginning if you’re low on spell slots.

Once you’re solidly in act 2 and around level 7 this build comes online in a huge way. You’ll feel invincible. I laughed at the gith monks at the end of act 2, they couldn’t hurt me. It really becomes godlike in act 3 with the staff of cherished necromancy, throwing around blights and circle of death to kill everything around you while all enemies (including steel watchers) are afraid to hit you cause it’ll hurt them much more!

Wizards in BG3 get 2 things from taking more Wizard levels that are unique to Wizards:

1. More arcane recovery (frankly, not that big a deal).
2. Subclass abilities at level 2, 6, and 10.

The nice thing about the BG3 Wizard is that they can learn high-level spells from scrolls (if they have the slots) and they have the best spell list (meaning, you get the best high-level spells with very few Wizard levels.

Wizards also get spell slot progression, which can be advanced via multiclassing. They also get the standard feats at 4, 8, and 12, and lose Int as their spellcasting stat for items if they multiclass out.

Basically, the only reason to continue to take Wizard levels after L2 is for those level 6 and 10 features (or to progress Abjurer's ward on a specialized build). Necromancy and Divination have a good L6 feature and Evocation and Enchantment have a good L10 feature. That said, Evocation is overshadowed by Dragon Sorc (except for the Magic Missile build) and Enchantment is overshadowed by Swords Bard.

Feel like someone just asked this.

I’ll always go for magic missle builds. They’re easy and can be really powerful. Likely more powerful than other magic builds. It’s all about using equipment to stack damage.

And lv 10 wizard gets to add int modifier to each magic missle. Late game damage is insane. That said, even early and mid game damage is really good.

For pure wizard I think the conventional wisdom is either abjuration wizard to be invulnerable, or evocation wizard to spam magic missiles.

For minor multiclassing, I’ve heard a warlock dip for the frost armor pairs really well with abjuration.

For me if I was going to multiclass I would love to figure out a way to get twin spell for twin haste, which imho is the strongest combo in the game. I don’t think there is a good way to do that though 3 lvls in sorc sounds terrible…

Eh, to each their own I guess. It’s hard for me to think of a skill that’s more powerful than:

• doubles the dmg of your martials
• longstrider on steroids
• shield of faith

Any arcane caster I build will incorporate haste as a major staple of the build.

Enchanter wizards can "twin" enchantment spells (hold person/hold monster). Works well with a crit optimized martial build (half orc+ savage attacker).

You like bard. You want to play a caster. Bard is a full caster.

Just play bard?

https://preview.redd.it/bd3mlqx3hnff1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e84addeeadb621a6277cb3b53c4ac23aaf84fc02

A level 7 character with 3 levels in one class, three in another and a single wizard level is always going to feel weak. You have no feats, so your stats are (barring gear buffs) exactly the same as when you started the game and you have only second level spells in bard, and first level in ranger with probably 2 wizard spells available. All three classes cast on a different stat meaning it's likely impossible to get good stats for each one, and aside from the warped headband of intellect it's not easy to get artificial buffs to mental stats in the early game.

My suggestion is if you like bard, pick that lane and stick with it. Run a bard, or if you like a bardzard (6/6 split with wizard). I've found a bardzard works really nicely if you use the gloves of DEX to evade the need to buff dexterity, so you can have good stats in both CHA and INT, and if you go lore bard and divination wiz then you can become a really nasty roadblocking character with portent, cuttting words, and counterspell.

I always have my tav as a sorcerer and just fully respec my companions into whatever build is actually interesting me at the moment. Maybe make gale a barbarian idk whatever seems funny in the moment tbh.

But sorcerer is the single best build enabler in the gane with twin haste or cc spells.

It's also nice to make tav the face for obvious reasons.

He'll sometimes I'll have two boring haste sorcerers in the party for extra haste spell slots if I don't want to rest.

Save the interesting builds for the companions

Eh , the thing with Sorcerer is that outside of being a big damage nuke class like most casters, the one thing that stands the most about it, are the metamagics , which you can most notably use to support your party with things like Twinned Haste. 

It's kind of valuable to have one in the party , similarly to Cleric , for the support.

Speaking of which I seen a build on this very sub where , they did something like 6 Cleric, 2 bard, 2 Wizard, 2 Sorcerer.

Which I know sounds horrible at first glance, but it was actually Genius, because that Person's goal was to just stack all the best utility stuff onto 1 character, rituals and Song of rest from Bard,  Globe of Invulnerability and Haste from Scribed Wizard spells, Metamagics from Sorcerer (Twinned Haste) and healing from Cleric ( Mass healing word, Ring of whispering promise, Reviving hands etc)

Basically a God tier support character.

If you want to play a bard focused on casting, taking 2 levels in warlock for Eldritch Blast can be an absolute game changer. I ran 10 lore bard/2 GOO lock and felt it was quite strong. Not as much damage as a sorcerer or fighter, but the fear debuff and crowd control make up for it.

Another full caster build that did amazing in my last honor mode run is 9 storm sorc/2 tempest cleric/1 wizard. You start with storm sorc but a wizard stat spread, then take 1 level in cleric and then 1 in wizard. The leveling order is important. Then you take the 2nd cleric level and afterwards go full into storm sorc. The idea is learning your damaging spells via scrolls and only taking utility spells on sorcerer so you basically end up with a wizard able to utilize meta magic points. Tempest cleric is for heavy armor proficiency and channel divinity to maximize damage. Cephalopocalypse has a detailed guide for the build on YouTube, too.

KNW/AGI/VIG
Spell Cast/Move Speed
True Magic/Magic Damage Bonus
Spell Overload/Quick Chant/Sage/Ice Mastery or Mana Surge

10 Spell into your usual suspects, clear npcs with rondel, switch to book when its time to smash

Or...

KNW/Will

Spell Cast

Magic Damage Bonus%/Additional Magic Damage/True Magic Damage/Magical Power

Spell Overload/Quick Chant/Sage/Mana Surge

10 Spell Again

Bring a bard for movement speed and etc of course but this is obviously the harder hitting team build as opposed to the former which is more of a soloist flex build

Since the change to meditate I’ve been having a lot of fun and success running overload, knowledge, arcane mastery, ice mastery

With haste, mm, zap, fireball, icebolt.

It’s got a shit ton of damage and meditate regenerates 100% of your spells in one sitting so you spend a lot less time on the ground even compared to campfire spam. It’s been an actual wizard like experience

I’ve actually never tried the bonk wizard, what do you take to be a bonk wizard?

I mained wizard since playtests. All the way up until the 1st season with ranks.
That is when I decided to drop solo wiz. It's definitely doable, but fk me I don't wanna do a bunch of headaching calculations just because there might be a rogue around every corner I wander in, new space I enter, or behind a door I open.

The most fun is with a team, but I haven't had any of my buddies play for some time now. So wizard isn't worth playing anymore sadly.
Am excited to try out sorcerer though. I wonder how it'll play.

The one where if I'm not playing with other people I don't bother playing wizard, because solo sucks balls.

Pure Wizard will never compete in raw strength. You make up for it in versatility. They are Batman vs. Superman. Unfortunately, in BG3, this advantage is offset by the ability to learn all scrolls with just one level in wizard, something that shouldn't be possible, and makes full wizard less appealing.

Githyanki necromancer 12

The mobility and medium armor of the gith, plus the summons will get you through most fights. After the summons, you're still a full wizard so the damage is there. The reaper passive will help your healing as well, especially in act 2/3.

You got no damage soak so just be prepared to kite.

Not sure how you measure “strongest.” If it means being able to take direct hits and keep going, then Abjuration has a lot going for it.

It's too bad too. The stereotypical dnd wizard is OP and the rest are meh. I was so excited to make a conjurer but all he can to is water the lawn once per long rest (or was it short rest?). Was hoping for 2e style monster summoning, sadly disappointed that the necromancer is the summoning main. Conjurer was the classic summoner build.

Can take that up a notch with a 6 Lore Bard multiclass - you can also lower enemy saves 20 times per long rest (and also can now set the dice 11 times).

Fighter 1 / Wizard X is a go to build of mine in game and in the tabletop. Heavy armor, defense fighting style, Con Save proficiency, second wind, and nearly full caster progression. If you fancy it, you can take a second level in fighter for action surge and double on spells in an opening salvo to better manage the battle field.

The alternative build is Cleric 1 / Wizard X. The advantage is cleric (with a domain that gives heavy armor) gets full spell casting progression and some low level cleric spells but gives up Con saves and defense fighting style.

Either way, you’ll likely want to take alert as a feat at some point because, as a caster, winning initiative is half the battle.

Abjuration is basically mandatory then. Get sorc white Draconic

I’m in act 3 with my solo tactician abjuration wizard. I took a first level dip into sorc for the con saving throws and armor of agathys, then I took a level in tempest cleric for the heavy armor proficiency and the damaging reaction. The rest into abjuration wizard.

Early levels were tough, be sure to rely on sanctuary from cleric as needed to heal up mid fight and bring along scrolls to attack when you run out of spell slots. Also, as opposed to what many online might say, don’t let the enemy hit you if you can help it! Use abjuration + armor of agathys as protection that does damage, but especially for tougher enemies you’ll want to attack them at range to get them down on health asap.

Arm yourself with dual hand crossbows for ranged bonus attacks, and even primary attacks in the beginning if you’re low on spell slots.

Once you’re solidly in act 2 and around level 7 this build comes online in a huge way. You’ll feel invincible. I laughed at the gith monks at the end of act 2, they couldn’t hurt me. It really becomes godlike in act 3 with the staff of cherished necromancy, throwing around blight and circle of death to kill everything around you while all enemies (including steel watchers) are afraid to hit you cause it’ll hurt them much more!